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Mage-Part-III
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Гарри Поттер
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Одиссея мага часть 3
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mootjeman7
Часть III Одиссеи Мага. Эпоха после Грин-де-Вальда. Аттикус Сейр,
перевоплощенная душа, решила нести судьбу всего Магического
рода на своих плечах. Бремя, которое тяготит его душу за все, что
должно быть сделано. И это бремя он намерен нести до самых звезд.
Беспощадный, решительный SI-OC. Fem Riddle. Кроссовер Pre-Halo.
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Художественная литература M
- Английский - Фантастика/Фэнтези - Том Р. младший, OC, Николас
Ф., Перенель Ф. - Главы: 39 - Слов: 655 808 - Отзывов:
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01.01.2024, 01:46:57
- Опубликовано:
17.09.2022, 21:18:31
- Статус: Завершено - id: 14137715
21. Chapter 81
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
3rd of February, 1971 – Illos
His arms were behind his back, taking in the familiar magic of the Main
Tower as he walked with a sedate pace, his steps near silent as he moved
through the somewhat busy main walkway.
And, as he walked under the soft glow from aglow symbols intricately
etched on pillars that seemed to heave the Tower to its height, the
gleaming walls that shimmered like liquid silver under the heavy glare of
the sun, something that made it as if he was walking through the halls of
Valhalla, such was the presence of the otherworldliness that the Main
Tower had begun to exude over the past half decade.
With the way the Main Tower was infused with magic, heavily aided by
the tonnes of Mithril that flowed underneath it and around it, the Main
Tower was almost alive with its faint presence, its faint personality that
breathed and hummed with magic through its silver like pillars and walls
and steps and stairs, much like Hogwarts or the Pandrosion Institute do.
Though unlike those institutions, the Main Tower was far more…
purposeful in its desires by nature of what it was meant to be. Its magic,
while welcoming, was more…demanding of him…of all of those who
worked within it, amusingly enough.
It was built with a certain mind frame, an enablement of governance and
innovation and debate, and as such it fostered such focus within all its
halls and rooms and walkways almost like an eager and slightly pushy
parent that wished for the best of its children in comparison to the
Pandrosion or Hogwarts where it was meant to be a home and a
welcoming place to be comfortable and at ease.
A commotion nearby distracted him from his appreciation of his
surroundings and his musings and his gaze fell on a child that excitably
chattered away to her parents who wore Rosi with markings that
belonged to the Office of Environment.
He waved at the little girl – who waved back – before he twitched his
fingers and a small bundle of apple blossoms made of paradoxically
warm ice flew towards her.
The little girl practically snatched the small token from the air before she
excitably showed it to her parents whose gratitude he could feel tinging
their magic.
A similar feeling that he felt from others observing the scene, some
wearing smiles.
A small act that was without personal cost that meant much to others,
even to those who personally benefitted not – who he could See regaling
their families about his latest act of kindness when they got home.
It was a thought that decades ago would have left him uneasy and later
simply resigned to receive this affection and near devotion that many of
his people held for him, affection and devotion he had always thought,
within the recesses of his mind, was only there because he'd manipulated
it into them.
Yet as he begun to sense more than the idle thoughts and emotions of his
people, he had learned to appreciate and welcome the affection that was
built over decades and reinforced with acts, great and small alike, with
great humility even if undeserved…
True humility that came from his increased understanding and
attunement of how life and people were linked through Living Time. And
from that increased understanding, it truly dawned on him with intimate
understanding of how much his choices and acts have impacted the lives
of his people for the better…impacts that had spiritual, conscious
consequences that were beyond mere material things.
With his increased sensitivity to the membrane of consciousness that
permeated throughout the universe, he had received one of his greatest
gift imaginable.
…Peace of mind
A peace of mind that stemmed from the belief of his people that echoed
through the universal membrane of consciousness, an echo that he could
sense, however faint it was, an echo that tied itself, that revolved around
him in thousands of tangled unseen threads that vibrated with a kind of
pureness that was hard to express let alone fathom.
How could he be anything but humble in the face of what he sensed from
his people?
When he could see and sense how much people treasured this connection
they held with him, how much they treasured this journey they were on
that many were giving their lives, their time and much of their
dedication to?
As much as they were given safety and prosperity, as much as they were
given hope, they were given purpose that he knew many would never have
manifested some form of it themselves. The unseen threads that
connected him to them made that clear.
And from within themselves, whether they knew it or not, having such a
meaning of existence made them vibrate and emit something akin to
metaphysical strings of music that were as strong as cords of steel.
And from that understanding, he knew that he was devaluing their own
choices, their own emotions by considering them to be products of his
manipulations, that it wasn't their choice to believe in him, to believe
they mattered to him and in that came the final release to simply…accept
who he was to them.
An acceptance that made him at ease with what was to come knowing
that at the end, after all that he has done and will do, it would be worth it
as they close the first chapter of their journey…no matter how
tumultuous and secretively monstrous it had been.
He and his guards veered off towards the restricted section of the Main
Tower that was separate from the way to the Offices of Responsibility, his
mind drifting towards the penultimate stage they were at as he walked
into the portal entry that connected the more security intensive floors to
each other before he exited at the top floor.
The fourteen years since the eradication of the Men of Symbols had been
good for Illos…and for him and Emily. Now, without an enemy that
could counter the future in any meaningful way, there was little that
could stand against their goals.
Illos continued to develop techno-magically aided by the knowledge of
the salvaged scout ship, advancements in biology, chemistry and physics
has improved almost every facet of Illos, from the eradication all
afflictions, magical or mundane to the creation of Magicom, a network
that connected more and more of the magical world with year that
passed, to the creation of new magicks like technopathy that he would
See become almost as flexible a branch of magic like transfiguration with
time.
Space was a frontier that his people considered merely as challenging as
travelling the Seas though only a small percentage of his people knew of
faster-than-light travel and had taken upon themselves to study every
body within the solar system to detail.
Much of South America was aligned with Illos now after the assistance
the Illosian Guards provided in dealing with their hives of dark wizards
unwilling to bend to Ministry governance and laws along with the
economic incentives and trade deals that Illos fostered with the
Ministries of the continent.
South East Asian communities were approached and tied to Illos through
different kinds of assistances, mostly in assisting them with magical
means like building them well protected enclaves and offering free
tuition to their children at the Pandrosion.
Mongolia, Turkmenistan and the various other small communities in
central Asia also were in good standing with Illos whilst Benin and their
allies in time were granted their own country-ship once they accepted a
place in the Grand Alliance alongside Illos and Magical Japan.
The Dwarves accepted his offers of knowledge, equality and opportunity
to rise beyond their historic heights and now they resided within Illos as
the fourth sentient magical race within the Council of Magical Races.
The Grecian Centaurs that made Lonis Forest their temporary home, as
prickly as they were, and would become the next magical race to join the
Council once their brethren deemed the stars from Dexirus and Celestis.
There were other such achievements that inched them forward towards
their destiny and it all started with their first great achievement in the
creation of Avalon and reveal of Emily's hidden 'royal heritage', an act
made possible by a splash of necromancy and powerful computer systems
as they extracted DNA from a long dead former Dark Lady.
They infused Morgana's DNA strands, particularly the ones that belonged
to the muggle Uthred Pendragon, into Emily replacing a substantial
amount of the Riddle DNA with that of royalty, enough to ensure any
heritage test testing her claim would come up as positive.
The claim of blood along with the sword Excalibur – with a collaborative
Ministry headed by Ouroboros that were all but directly sworn to Emily –
made the initial seize of the British Isles almost bloodless and politically
seamless.
Of course, not everyone was happy with the dramatic change.
Most of the resistance and discontent had come from the Progressives
who still held sizable presence and influence within the Ministry and
within the public itself.
Charlus Potter was amongst the loudest detractors.
Of course once information of muggle culpability with the express
permission by the muggle royal house was made public, culpability in
their sponsorship of the violence perpetrated by the Isonomian
Movement and the Order of the Phoenix, even supplying them with
weapons that culminated in the decimation of the nobility in the
infamous Bombing of the Wizengamot, such discontent amongst a
significant proportion of the Progressives withered away.
And the rest were made silent once further evidence was made clear of
the muggles' near success in the destruction of the Ministry and the plans
they had with regards to subjugation of Magical Britain.
From there, it had been relatively easy to gain near universal acceptance
for total secession from the muggle world under the guidance of their
Pendragon Queen.
Despise and fear of muggles mixed with the lure of returning to a time of
legend that had been romanticised throughout the ages and even more so
in the preceding decade were the main contributing factors, though
moving every magical centre and village and abodes into the Highlands of
Scotland had been far less as easy but nonetheless they succeeded as
power, politics and public admiration eased away opposition.
And as much as he disliked it, favours did the same as he and Emily
relinquished substantial lands on Illos to Emily's followers like the
Malfoys, the Lestranges and so on. Others like the McKinnons who
proved to be less confrontational with the death of their deceased former
Heads of Houses and keen to bury the hatchet with House Sayre, were
also granted this privilege in exchange of their support of all of their
initiatives.
Initiatives such as the mirroring of Illos' method of governance was
adopted in piecemeal as the Ministry fell by the wayside and a Council of
Representatives took its place that functioned much like its predecessors
only far more streamlined.
There had also been some…unsavoury initiatives that needed to happen
such as forcing families who had one foot in either world to choose, a
choice that either stripped them of access to magic and the knowledge of
it or the choice of severing their connections to the muggle world and
become part of the magical world.
As much as he regretted it, more than a few families were cut off of their
own magic, their magic bound and made to live as muggles as they
refused to make the choice.
It was offensive to him, this act of sacrilege to Mother Magic but he had
done and let happen worse in sacrilege of Mother Magic, this much was
true.
Besides, there was little choice, not with the goals they had in mind nor
the necessity of ensuring that they were serious about the intent to break
away from the muggle world to the rest of Avalon…and the rest of the
magical world.
Much of the acceptance of squibborns and the liberalisation of rights by
the darker families and the more conservative elements of society had
come from the fact that it came from one of their own advocating for it in
the form of Slytherin's heir.
That alongside the banishment of muggle traditions and religious
practices in favour of native traditions and practices had made centuries
old reversals of opinions possible. They were, for all intents and
purposes, champions of the magical world.
And everything they did and supported, even by his own words all those
years ago when he'd been little more than an heir to House Sayre, would
have been under risk if they did not commit to dealing out the harshest
penalties available to those who could not make the choice to choose the
magical world.
'If you prefer the muggle world to our own, you may go and live amongst
them…as one of them'
It was a harsh penalty and it was one that many feared enough to make
the right choice presented to them. And as harsh as it was, especially to
families with one muggle parent, they weren't heartless.
Adolescent squibborns and their immediate family were permitted to
move into the magical world where they would find their place as
citizens. Children were not separated unless it was clear the child did not
want to give up magic or if the child was in danger from their family.
Children who wanted to remain with their parents who refused the
chance were also left with their magic bound though thankfully it was
not something that happened too frequently.
Muggles married to a wizard or witch were allowed to make the
migration as much as it had made some amongst the populace
uncomfortable but with time, such concerns were alleviated – even if
some had to be expelled – as they were hardly any different from the last
generation of squibs.
As much as it was...insensitive, it was still by far the better solution to
difficult sets of circumstances as a result of a flawed and weak system of
secrecy.
And it was something most people – thanks to keen reporting of the
muggle world by a number of papers worldwide – recognised as the
muggle Cold War grew in intensity and the world stood at sixty minutes
to midnight with bated breaths as nuclear war remained a likely
eventuality.
That shift in understanding – along with plenty of elder squibs and
muggles fairly knowledgeable in science working in tandem with
graduates of SIMS or Illosians – has made Morfay the second most
scientifically literate centre of the magical world almost by necessity and
it was a capital as much as Illos, Asahi, Makaa and Alexandria were,
with it being only smaller in size to Illos and Alexandria.
And within the next ten years, it would only grow further and it would
stand as a worthy second city when the time came for their union to be
completed wholly, a step that was considered by all to be too soon, too
fast.
A sentiment he agreed with after having Seen what hastened integration
would yield.
Time was not a concern and Avalon serving as a separate Kingdom
within the union of nations had its own benefits…especially as more and
more people marched across Europe escaping the brutality by the
Ravenites.
A full quarter of the forty thousand wizarding population in Avalon were
refugees from mainland Europe, people who had to escape for fear of
their remaining families and their resistance to the regimes that sprouted
under the beady eyes of the Raven.
Blood purist and fascist regimes that brook no tolerance for anything
other than pure wizarding stock and even then, most people were hardly
safe as feudalistic tendencies has returned in much greater force…noble
Houses of dark persuasion ruling like despots in their own personal fiefs
with half of the populations as little more than serfs serving at the whims
of their overlords and another quarter being trained as Ravenites for their
next stage of expansion.
The secretary and the guards by Emily's door bowed to him before he
walked through the twin doors and he banished his thoughts away as he
reached out through their bond with deep affection and he felt her
pleased reciprocation through their bond as he veered into her place of
work within the spatially enlarged apartment.
An unconscious smile fell upon his face as he saw her working at her
desk, and she was a sight to behold.
She looked up from the holo-tablet and her beauty drew him into her
much like how absolute blackness absorbed nearly all light into itself, his
eyes falling onto her porcelain face that looked too perfect to mar and
blemish yet the instinct within desired him to seize it with both of his
hands and press his own to her blood red lips.
Her expression softened and that desire grew from within as her dark
blue eyes lightened in ocean blue, as if her eyes were the physical
representation of her approach towards the light.
Nothing was said between them as he walked over before leaning down
and she angled her face towards him and he brushed her hair aside as he
pressed a loving kiss on her blood red lips, the smell of winter roses
invading his nose that blazed feelings of welcome and home within the
depths of his brain.
There was nothing like being home to the one you belonged to, the one
who enhanced existence in an indescribable way.
"My love." Atticus said as he leaned back and met her loving gaze on a
face that split in a faint half smile. "I've missed you."
"You've only been gone a few days." She said with a hint of mild
indulgence in her voice though no less pleased that she was missed as
much as he was showing her.
"A few days too long." Atticus said to her as he motioned to sit down just
as a chair much like her own materialised beneath him with less than a
fraction of exertion of will. "Though it was quite fun, I have to admit."
"The road trip with a pretty young woman young enough to be your
granddaughter was fun?" She inquired with a straight face though she
raised an eyebrow.
"Yes." He said with an equally straight face "Camping in the wild lands of
America, dining together in quaint restaurants and diners. We had quite
the time."
She rolled her eyes before her hand swept towards him gently, her hand
falling onto his cheek whilst her thumb trailed across his lips.
"Has Comanche agreed as expected?"
"He has." Atticus said with a light smile, enjoying the gentle ministration
of his wife's hand and fingers. As much as the trip was to show Pandora
of the anomaly, it was also meant to barter support from Comanche.
"Four of their people will join Gaius when they journey back to Celestis."
Comanche's people's ability to connection to nature was almost
unparalleled in the magical world and certainly was unparalleled if you
considered only sentient beings.
They could communicate with nature…with the rivers, with the earth,
with the forests and even with the rocks, the voice of nature different
each time yet it answered back to them all the same though not in words
but through the Native Americans' senses and through magic.
They held a deep understanding of the natural world, of how life and
magic entwined to create these spirits of nature, these voices that were
manifested as a consequence of life and magic, and it was this special
trait of their people that he coveted.
"And how did he react when you took him to Europa?" Emily asked with
mild amusement and he knew why she was looking at him like that.
"Better than Dembe Habe and the Volun Triarchy." Atticus said with a
smile before his eyes showed unhidden mirth "And infinitely better than
the Avalonians"
Emily lips upturned in equal mirth.
"I doubt there'll be many who will have that bad of a reaction."
She had a point, he thought to himself. For all of the strength that Avalon
had with its high concentration of ancient families that had chronicles of
ancestors supposedly performing impressive magical feats, they were
incredibly…
Unimaginative to what actually was possible. Even Abraxas Malfoy, when
he and the others who could be trusted – like his former comrades
Harfang and so on – with the secret of their eventual departure from
Earth were told and shown of their capabilities, had succumbed to near
hysterics.
Despite having been witness to the creation of Illos which was as
impressive a feat as their faster than light travel capabilities.
Still, hard acceptance of what was possible and what they were going to
propose once the Statute failed – another point many found hard to
swallow despite knowing his prodigious Seeing abilities – had come
anyway and had brought on board much needed unwavering support for
their initiatives for Avalon as they now knew what the end goal was.
He nodded at her before he smiled a little ponderously "In any case, as
much as Comanche was impressed, it hasn't changed anything to their
future reticence."
The Native Americans along with the many other smaller enclaves of
communities around the world very much had a symbiotic relationship
with Earth's nature magic.
These peoples…were always going to be the hardest to convince that it
was time to move. Even once Exposure happened.
So when Comanche's people foster nature magic to bloom on their
worlds, to bring spirits of nature to a hastened state of existence, it served
doubly to bring back experiences of these worlds to the Native
Americans.
Of virgin lands that were at least twice or thrice as magical as any place
within America, lands unmolested by muggles and their pollution. They'd
learn of the symbiotic way his people were planning magical settlement
on those worlds, ways that would leave them with an impression that
would be hardwired in their minds.
And Comanche will listen to his people and Comanche will be listened to
the other tribes of Native Americans and they…they would be listened to
other such kinds of magical peoples around the world who know of them
such as the Samoans, the Polynesian communities and so on.
That was the best future available to them that he'd Seen.
"We will adjust if need be." Emily merely said as she removed her hand
from his face. "We always have the last option."
Atticus' smile fell away before he nodded slightly.
"We do." He said with acceptance.
Force was undesirable but if need be…
All traces of magic would leave Earth when the time came.
Willingly…or not. It didn't matter.
Emily smiled at him fondly whilst she squeezed his hand gently before
she leaned back in her chair, a more serious but curious expression on
her face
"And the…anomaly?"
"No closer to determining if our theories about the extent of the
anomalies are a hundred percent correct." Atticus said to her. In their
explorations of consciousness, they found certain individuals that were
more than others.
And it was only because of his own meta-knowledge that he formulated a
reason as to why that was…why these people had threads within the
membrane of consciousness that extended beyond to what he or Emily
could sense.
Emily was positively fascinated with the multi-verse theorem…that there
existed other versions of themselves in worlds far beyond simple
alternative timelines.
Of course, she wasn't enthused when he remarked that in some alt-Emily
might have been born muggle or a reptilian but it brought interesting
discussions about whether or not there was finite permutations of how
one's opposites would be born.
They already begun to formulate that there was a story written within the
membrane of consciousness, a rough story, a rough plan that drifted
infinite choices towards a certain bandwidth of paths that culminated
towards a certain end goal and they thought that each universe might
have a similar but different end goal.
The universe was attempted to be made deterministic but it was so vague
– perhaps done on purpose – that it appeared not to be deterministic.
In that sense, it was possible that everyone was a variation of a theme of
themselves.
No matter how strange the universe might be.
Mr Lee in this universe was a conduit of all that was experienced by his
alternates in universes far more…interesting than his own yet those same
alternates were quite possibly in a similar realm of profession or station
in life.
It was a curious theory that Emily mostly championed to be likely but it
was one that he was reluctant to accept, for a single reason…his own
existence in this universe.
He was far more an anomaly than Mr Lee or others like him were.
He was a breach in the code of the universe that seemed as if it should be
impossible…and yet paradoxically, he could see it being as something
entirely possible given the existence of infinite alternate realities and
multiverses that are saturated with Gods and manifestations of certain
states of being like Death or Destiny or War…and of course those like
The One Above All.
Once that was understood to truly exist…being reborn in this version of
the magical world wasn't really impossible…not when souls existed
beyond death.
He didn't know why he was here despite knowing that Moira and her
daughter facilitated the path that lead him to exist here. It should be
beyond them to pull a soul from the tunnels of consciousness that existed
between one universe to another and that only meant that there was a
Higher Being involved in the matter.
Higher Beings like the Precursors.
After all…
The Precursors were the closest things to Gods in this universe and were
beings that might well have existed since the dawn of the universe,
entwined to magic and consciousness in a way that was far beyond him
or Emily, possibly beyond anything his race could evolve to become.
And with the assault to his mind he endured from whatever resided in
the Domain decades ago, he knew that at least there was some kind of
presence of their handiwork still extant in the non-physical realities of
consciousness and magic.
It was not unreasonable to think that the Precursors had not died out, not
even slightly, especially considering how the Ancient Humans had
considered the Precursors to be masters of neurophysical energy, of magic.
Despite all that, the why still evaded him. It was a worry troubled him
deeply for he couldn't understand why they might help Moira in bringing
him into existence.
Especially as both he and Emily grew in understanding about the endless
cycles that the universe underwent through over the course of billions
and billions of years planning to utterly wreck this perpetual and
monstrous cycle of destruction and recreation at the whims of those same
Higher Beings.
Neither he or Emily were going to allow their world, their people, present
or future, to fall to their whims…no matter how Godlike they were.
He shook away those thoughts and met her gaze "Still, our theories about
them so far seems to be likely." Emily hummed for a moment before she
spoke up again
"We'll have to keep an eye out on the man and the others. It is doubtful
that we'll be able to formulate much other use of this phenomena at the
present time." Emily conceded though she paused for a moment.
"Still…" Emily continued "We could always pose the challenge to Walter
Bishop?" she asked with a mild knowing smile and Atticus grimaced.
"He might actually break the universe." Atticus said with a deadpan.
Bishop was undeniably brilliant, in some ways more than he was, but
over the years…he'd developed a bit of a…lackadaisical attitude to safety
and reason.
Atticus blamed Bishop's penchant to consume LSD like they were mints.
Unfortunately, they also seemed to help. The man discovered another
dimension, the Astral Plane and was making significant headway in
charting out how it worked, what could be done within it and what its
limitations were.
He even would have achieved limited success with something that Atticus
had thought only possible through the Domain…retro-cognition…had
Atticus not obliterated any further attempts by the man to look into it.
At least for now. It was the ability to have knowledge of a past event that
one couldn't possibly know and Atticus had no desire to allow such things
to be possible.
Not now…possibly not ever.
To give that man the idea of people being in existence that were in
contact in some fashion or another was a terrible one. The man would
somehow figure out a way to see those universes…and perhaps even cross
over into one.
Regardless of what the consequences of such actions might be.
Emily laughed melodiously and she looked at him with amusement
though he could see enough in her expression that she didn't think he
was that far off in his assessment. "We'll broach the topic with him at a
later date then." She saw the look on his face and her smile widened in
mirth "much later then." She said with a laugh in her voice.
Hopefully maybe not ever at all. He could glean enough from other
possible timelines to learn whatever Bishop would come up and wrinkle
out any unintended disasters that Bishop would most certainly not think
of removing.
That does remind him…he should probably facilitate a meeting between
Walter and Elizabeth Hawkins sooner than later. Much of Walter's
penchant for chaos without care of consequences get…lessened after he
gets married and has a son.
Emily's mirth fell away and began to eye him curiously. "And Pandora?"
she inquired with a more serious tone despite knowing the answer he'd
given ages ago.
He smiled at her before confirming "Pandora can see the connections the
man holds to his alternate selfs."
Emily's eyes sharpened as a few moments passed before she nodded
slowly "Good to know how far her talents lie." Emily pursed her lips. "The
Agoralos bloodline is truly special. It's a shame Hypatia has no desire to
have more children." Emily shook her head "Perhaps that's for the best
anyway if you have Seen will come to pass."
She was referring to her granddaughter who prove to be as powerful a
Seer as he was…with a little training. Hypatia and Pandora were both
prodigious Seers but Pandora's daughter…He was looking forward to
seeing her to come to her own in about three decades.
Still, at this point in time, it was probably best there be as few as truly
talented Seers such as those from the Agoralos bloodline. The Men of
Symbols' purge of many such bloodlines worked in their favour as grim
as it was.
It left them the opportunity to cement the Office of Far-Sight as the
authority of visions and prophecy for the entire magical world and to
ensure that a schism like that happened to spawn the Men of Symbols
was left no chance to happen.
And with Hypatia setting the tone as the first Overseer of the department
with her excellence, compassion, duty and loyalty, it was on course to
establish exactly what he wished the organisation to become.
Emily's hand drifted towards his crotch bringing his mind to a screeching
halt as he refocused onto her "We have a few hours before our briefing
meeting." She said, her eyelids drooping low. Atticus' expression broke
into a half smile as he grabbed her hand and he pulled her up as he stood
up.
His hands drifted towards her soft curves that lay beneath the layers of
clothing, curves that were as hard as muscle could get underneath the
surface of lavender soft skin that he wanted to feel tremble under his
teeth.
He brushed her silky black hair away from her face as he cupped her face
lovingly "I could think of no greater way to spend time" he murmured
softly before he brought his face down and captured her irresistible lips.
Hours Later…
"Took the League long enough to bend to our demands." Emily mused as
she looked over the copy of the proposal that Malfoy brought back.
"There has been increased activity by the Ottoman border, your Grace."
Parelius explained in his monotone voice before he expanded "Thrace has
seen no less than fourteen excursions." He said before he looked to
Atticus and he inclined his head.
"In some futures it is a prelude to an incident that the Ravenites will use
as justification for a campaign against the Ottomans. A campaign that
would expand to most of North Africa and the fall of Alexandria only two
years later." Atticus said calmly to the people in the briefing room.
Silence fell for a short few moments before he spoke up again "A future
that is doubtlessly undone when we agree to this proposal." Atticus said.
Eldric Carson spoke up "The terms of the proposal are less than what we
have demanded from the Benelux nations, sir." He stated curiously.
"Yes it is." Emily stated as she leaned in, her eyes set on Carson.
"However the League is a different opponent than the Benelux nations
which are weaker and less populated. The League represents just under
half of the total magical population of Asia with significant influence
over the rest of the Asian communities."
"It does set a precedent away from how we have dealt with other
communities." Silas Merek commented. Atticus nodded to the former
Director of State who now worked as an advisor to him and Emily.
He was referring to the friendship treaties they had signed with most
Ministries around the world that they worked into their sphere of
influence.
Treaties that more or less made them dependent on Illos as they 'uplifted'
communities and nations with generous gifts, magical advancements and
economic incentives…to the point that their economies were reliant on
Illos and the other two country-ships.
This proposal was more or less a defensive treaty with international
political alignment when it came to positions against the Ravenites
though the wording left for…room for greater cooperation. It was far
from ideal especially as he wanted to tie them closer economically and
politically but they have been quite standoffish with them through the
years so it wasn't unexpected.
Still, they were on good terms overall especially since the Ottomans and
Persians did in fact do more to integrate 'new bloods' into their society
along with adopting a more liberal viewpoint on muggle ideas.
So generally speaking, the treaty wasn't ideal but it was preferable to the
alternative.
"It does however the Ravenites must not be allowed to spread into the
Near East as they will soon into China." Atticus explained as he placed his
hands onto the table, his expression hard as he swept his gaze across the
meeting room. "This delays such action for years to come and I do not
have to expand on why that is preferred."
Sober nods of acknowledgement were given to him.
The people present in this briefing meeting were amongst the highest
ranked in Illos, some still functioning as part of the High Council. And
each of them were in his and Emily's confidence about their plans to use
the Ravenite threat as the catalyst to leave Earth to Celestis.
"Have they started to move towards the Chinese border?" Paul Doyle, the
recently elected Chief Representative, asked with a concerned look on his
face.
"They have." Parelius spoke up as a light at the centre of the desk lit up
and a holographic representation of Russia and China flared up. "They
have not yet tested the defensive ward schemes the Chinese have around
their fortress enclaves as far as I can tell but the number of magicals in
that region has steadily been increasing over the past three months."
"With as weak as the Chinese are since the muggles' extermination
campaign" Silas Merek said with disdain before he continued, this time
with a sober expression "I can't imagine they can last as long despite their
huge population."
"The will of their people is weak as a consequence of the trauma they
suffered." Emily agreed with irritation. "It is after all why they are
moving against them."
Atticus couldn't really feel much sympathy for the Chinese. Almost every
overture they made to them was rejected, preferring reclusion over
everything else.
It would be their undoing.
…and to their advantage.
The Chinese had a huge population that were ranked in the top three and
along with that, they also had a proud history that was, in all honesty,
something to be actually proud of.
He admired the Chinese but unfortunately, that pride needed to be
broken if their people would fall in line by the time of Exodus. A decade
or two under the rule of the Ravenites would ensure that.
"It is why we're also ensuring to secure any artefacts they might possess
before they fall." Atticus explained to the room before his gaze met with
Parelius who inclined his head slightly. The Chinese had a number of
artefacts they used to great effects during their conflict with the
communists and it was one of those artefacts that allowed them to appear
exterminated to the communists long enough for assistance to arrive and
carry out the mass Obliviation of millions of Chinese people.
"In any case" Atticus continued "The treaties we'll sign with the Aryan
League" Atticus paused for a moment, his voice unchanged despite the
unfortunate name choice the League voted upon "are only a stopgap for
now." He said to them concluding this point of the briefing.
The meeting then went forwards towards other matters like the
affirmative message they received back from their people in Celestis who
by now should be on their way to Earth.
The progress they were making in Celestis was still a secret that a small
percentage of Illosians were aware of…only those in the High Council,
some select Representatives, those who working on the projects related to
the Scout-ship were in the know and a few of the leadership within Aziza
and Ame-No-Ukihashi were aware of it.
With only some forty years until Exodus happened, the secrecy had to
be…lessened, especially when it came to ensuring compliance from their
allies.
Of course, that didn't mean most of the people involved weren't Illosian
born and bred nor that nearly all of the technology was kept tightly
under their control and secrecy maintained through binding oaths.
Soon the conversation turned towards MACUSA's attempts to reach the
moon in a vain attempt to prove themselves equal to the American
muggles and Illos.
The American muggles reaching the moon was a notable news story in
the magical world but only as a side story as a way to…not so lightly
prop up magical superiority given that he was the first human to ever to
set foot on the moon with Illos the first nation from either world to reach
the moon and beyond.
And as a consequence, MACUSA wanted to prove them to be as capable
as their muggle cousins…something they were fairly succeeding at. They
managed to get into high orbit of Earth and soon they would try and
reach further away.
He was quite disdainful of their attempts to try and match Illos in every
way. The years since the peace he'd won the with ICW had not been
as...fruitful as he wished and American and Illosian relations were not as
good as they could have been.
Partially that was his fault by deciding to pursue a closer relationship
with other parts of the world despite knowing that it would set their
relations back.
Things were improving but that was mostly because it was always going
to improve. Illos was powerful and the Grand Alliance was the way of the
future and even they could see it which was why they were at least
partially making themselves seem as equals to those in the Alliance.
Finally, after they talked about opportunities to support rebels within
Ravenite held countries and other things like instituting cooperative
events across the magical world like the Omniwizard Tournament, they
got the final part of their meeting.
"And now onto the latest poll results from Avalon." Parelius intoned.
"Have the Secessionists gained any further traction?" Paul Doyle asked
with a frown, the question that was on most people's mind.
"No." Parelius said with mild irritation flaring in his eyes before he lost it
within a moment "However they have a strong base within the
electorate."
"I would hardly call less than ten percent a strong base, Parelius." Emily
said with a raised eyebrow "Not only that, most of that ten percent are
naturalised squibborns and squib citizens who are unduly resentful."
Emily said displeased with her lips thinning, her eyes glinting with an
anger that was rare these days.
And it was an anger that he understood very well. They went through
great troubles to find a solution that was…heavily in their favour for
almost nothing in return. Yet they balked at claiming Emily as their
Queen, a point that he found as aggravating as she did considering
everything they were doing for their people and yet…
Some of them were dead set in refusing her. Of course, it wasn't just that
they held loyalties to a muggle Queen. People never liked being uprooted
never mind being given harsh choices but they weren't the only ones who
were uprooted from their homes.
All magicals who called England and Wales home had to leave for the
Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides and yet they got over it and were
thriving in Avalon.
They made the choice to be in the magical world yet they were the
backbone of the Secessionist Party whose only goal was for Avalon return
to Magical Britain under the authority of the Crown with the Statute of
Secrecy still in place.
No matter how unpalatable that seemed to the wider public.
Unfortunately, they were smart enough to work under the law and none
of them tried to inform anyone in the muggle world so they had to be
contained as much as possible until time did the work for them.
And one of those ways was to ensure that the polling results for them
remained poor for them. After all, polling not only reported opinion but
also shaped it. People bandwagon on the opinion of the average general
public and they had to ensure the general opinion never deviated from
what they wanted.
As distasteful as it was, there was a necessity of skewing things just
enough – without being corrupt – to ensure that polling would get the
general results they wished.
After all, polling can be used as a tool by the enemy not only to learn but
also to manipulate and channel public opinion. As much as he wanted
polling to be egalitarian, he was cynical enough even without Sight to
know the pitfalls of relying on the honesty of opponents.
With a look across the room he knew that all of them agreed with that
philosophy.
"Ten percent can easily become thirty percent, your Grace." Parelius said
with a pointed look referencing towards the few still discontent former
Progressives Houses who were effectively steamrolled by the Traditional
and Neutral Houses when Emily came into her throne in 1958 and seized
control over Avalon.
They were the 'secret' financiers of the Secessionist Party and those who
wielded enough political capital to make things…a little more difficult.
They didn't truly want to return to being under the authority of the
muggle Crown it was simply that they detested the changes – and him
and Emily – more than anything else.
Despite the fact that some of them, like the Prewetts and Abbotts,
suffered at the hands of the Order of the Phoenix that were infamously
funded by the muggles.
"Unless you know something other than the muggle-lovers slowly killing
their own political power, I doubt they muster such support from the
people." Emily countered back. "There is no poverty, there is no
subjugation nor any substantial corruption within the government. Why
sacrifice that for creatures that wanted to destroy our then-government
and subjugate our people and who sponsored the murder of our people?"
"Plus the tales of the refugees of what is happening across the channel
past France have spread high and wide across Avalon. Upheaval at a time
when it can't be afforded will also be on everyone's mind before they ever
reach the critical mass of support to pose a problem." Atticus added to
which Emily nodded with a faint smile before she lost it and continued.
"The threat of the Ravenites is so severe to the public that anyone with
even a little sense knows that they have it good. Too good according to
the migrant Houses."
Throughout the late fifties and all of the sixties, the Ravenites had gone
from strength to strength all across Europe. Maligned Houses that were
already weakened with their resistance against Grindelwald and his
followers, could see the writings on the wall and left for pastures green…
pastures Avalonian and French.
It was amongst those Houses that support for their rule was amongst the
highest, only the common public and Houses who supported Emily
throughout her rise being able to contend with her popularity with them.
It made Morfay a centre of multi-culturalism much like Alexandria was
and still is.
"Overseer Parkinson is perhaps referring to the…inquiry we have
received, Your Majesties." the Goblin Gobchoke said with bow of the
head.
"As we expected." Atticus nodded to the Goblin.
"We have refused as you have ordered" Gobchoke revealed a full set of
sharpened teeth as he spoke again "And gave them no impression that
their probing would remain anything but secret. It was…profitable."
Which garnered more a snort from Carson and other knowing looks from
the others in the briefing room. No doubt they attempted to bribe for the
goblins for their silence regardless if they were successful.
Atticus inclined his head to the Goblin.
There was little point in subterfuge or an over-elaborate plot. Not when
he, and they, knew all there was to know of their scheming. "They will
try again." He said as he looked to Parelius who bowed his head.
At the moment there were not enough to charge them with treason. But
he knew that soon enough there will be enough to hang a few of them
with treason when they get careless with whom they'd trust with
information.
They would be made examples of.
There wasn't much else to discuss after that as the polling results were
briefly discussed and soon enough both he and Emily retired back to
their Manor on the slopes of Mount Celestis and it wasn't long before
Emily was laying naked by the side of the inside pool with environment
altered to function as a steam room.
She moaned with a hum in her voice as his firm hands stretched out the
knots in her shoulders. His hands travelled down her oily back that had
globules of water and her skin was as smooth as dolphin skin and as soft
as silken pillows. And as he laced his fingers with magic he learned from
an Indian sex magic book, he was pleased when he felt her shiver
beneath him whilst he sat on lower end of her delectable arse.
She began to arch her arse and began to move it along the length of his
hard member that almost nested in between her cheeks and, in return, he
massaged the bottom of her back, just above her rump, a little harder and
with a lot stronger magic and it garnered him a deeper, more sensual
moan but she didn't stop to grind herself into his member.
It was then that his hands travelled back up her back and his large hands
parted and each of them seized her by the top of her arms as he leaned
forward, his chest to her back and his lips by her ear.
"Careful…" he said seductively, his voice trailing off into parseltongue
and the tip of his tongue vibrating against her earlobe and she shivered
with her entire body as his tongue made contact with her ear.
She began to sway her hips in response and he grunted with pleasure as
his member was now trapped between her thighs and her could feel the
warmth of her slits with his member. "I have no intention of being
careful…" she returned as she turned her head towards him, her eyes
filled with a heavy lust to match his own and within a second, she flipped
herself onto her back, breaking free from his grip and grabbed his arms
before she wrapped her legs around his mid rift and they began to float in
the steamy air.
Atticus exhaled with pleasure as she descended her down onto his length,
her arms still holding him with a tight grip and he could feel her working
her magic as steam twisted around them before they formed into ropes
made of water that wrapped themselves around his ankles and his lower
legs.
He eyed her with lustful amusement and she smiled almost innocently at
him as she stopped grabbing his arms in a death grip and instead traced
her fingertips along his arms in a gentle and arousing way and he could
feel his lust grow in strength as she returned the favour of enhancing her
touches with sex magic.
His member throbbed inside of her despite the fact that she hadn't moved
an inch and as he felt ropes form around his wrists that began to pull his
arms backwards, she moved her hands towards his face as she leaned
forward, slowly, sensually, kissing his chest before she moved to the
crook of his neck where her teeth raked onto his skin before she bit down
and he winced slightly before a contented grunt left his throat with the
way she imbued pleasure into her skin with her bit.
It was then that she began to move up and down, the warmth and the
tightness of her tunnel enhanced by the pleasure she bit into him, and the
ropes tightened as she took complete control of his body and his arousal.
Her pace quickened, quicker and quicker and he felt her bite grow in
strength and her side of the bond opened up and he gasped as he felt her
climb to orgasm. He reciprocated and he heard her almost squeal in
pleasure as she felt his own climb that was enhanced by all that she was
doing to her and it sent her into overdrive as she moved with near
inhuman speed, her hands snaking around him, her fingers digging into
his skin as much as her teeth dug into his neck.
They lost themselves to their bond, to their pleasure, to their lovemaking
and he wasn't sure how long had passed before he tipped over the edge
when she had her third consecutive orgasm and he came inside her with
almost a blinding roaring explosion that reverberated through their bond.
He could feel her heartbeat as she wrapped her arms around him and the
ropes fell away and they remained afloat and he traced his fingers on her
back as she fell into his arms. She looked up to him and he could see the
love in her eyes, a love as deep as he felt for her and he brought his head
down and captured her lips with a tender kiss before they descended
down and simply held each other.
It was some time later when they siting in the shallow end of the pool.
She was nested into his arms, her back flush with his chest and his arms
were around her whilst his thumbs traced circles on top of her sensitive
rose nipples.
She sighed contentedly and she twisted her face slightly sideways and he
leaned down and captured the side of her lips with his own. It was a soft
kiss, a gentle kiss, a loving kiss and both of them exuded deep
contentment as she gently squeezed his legs. They parted and her head
fell back onto his chest.
They stayed like that a little while as Emily fashioned a makeshift
waterfall that trickled down hot water down onto them as they sat in the
low end of the pool.
It was some time afterwards, when she stopped her caressing of his legs,
that she spoke up "I dislike that you're leaving for Celestis for so long."
"As am I" he said to her. It wasn't the first nor the last time they'd talk
about it.
"But I need to place the Mithril veins onto Celestis sooner than later and
begin the process of feeding solar energy to our Mithril seeds." He said
gently before he kissed the top of her hair. He wasn't ecstatic about
leaving for more than a year either.
It would be the longest time they'd be away from either since they met.
Even during the Grindelwald war they were at most a few months away
from each other.
Thirty years of companionship, love and destiny.
The noise that came out of her was incredibly displeased but she
remained silent for a few minutes before sighed almost resigned. "As
much as I dislike it, I know it has to be done." She said in a way that it
seemed like it was great effort for her to admit.
"We can't trust anyone else with this. Not even Gaius."
Atticus hummed in agreement as he rested his head on top of her head.
Over the past decade and a half, they built up a huge reservoir of Mithril
as they converted energy from the Vacuum Energy Reactor into liquid
magic and then into Mithril. All for the purpose of inlaying Celestis with
the Mithril that would imbue the planet with a level of magic-ness that
would be unheard of, a planet that was already more magical than Earth
was.
Along with of course magically tying the planet to his and Emily's blood
and magic.
They would have a connection to the planet itself, one that was deeper
than their connection to Illos with its limited nature magic.
In Illos, if they concentrated, they would be able to pinpoint anyone they
wanted to find. They could influence the wards that crisscrossed every
inch of Illos and they could feel the magic that coursed through Illos like
dipping a hand into a fast running stream of water.
Once they connected to Celestis…all of it would be several orders of
magnitude greater than what they felt from Illos. It would make them
practically control Celestis' very own spirits of magic.
No one was to know what he'd to on Celestis other than Emily and Alice.
His people who were either worked on Celestis or knew of the planetary
system would think he'd be going to inspect Celestis for the first time
ever…and to transplant most of the dangerous magical creatures such as
the majority of dragons from the Sayre Reserves that resided on Illos in
either ecologies or in stasis.
"One of us must go." Atticus agreed quietly and wrapped his arms around
her. She melted into his embrace. Celestis won't be the only thing he'd be
going away for.
He'd be planting Mithril Seeds around thirteen stars in the local star
cluster to Celestis. Thirteen stars that were amongst the most massive
stars in the local star cluster and that would generate the most amount of
energy due their higher core temperature and greater rate of hydrogen
fusion.
He would be placing massive indestructible mirrors – three times the
circumference of the Earth – around these stars from the most optimum
distance from the sun which would concentrate huge amounts of solar
energy to a narrowed beam of energy deflected towards an energy-magic
convertor connected to Mithril Seeds that would absorb the huge amounts
of magic and grow for the next forty to sixty years.
By the time he collected the Seeds, they would be the size of planetoids.
For the past decade, he and Emily had a lot of time to come up with a use
for Mithril and some of those ideas…he was very eager to start working
on them.
He just hated that it would be started without her.
Emily sighed as she sank deeper into the water and in the process pulling
him in.
"And if I go, it would give our enemies in Avalon a perception of an
opportunity to cause more problems." Emily said with irritation.
"However much they would fail."
As the sole reason why they had a claim to ruling Avalon, Emily had less
latitude to be absent. Illos' loyalty to him and Emily was absolute and as
much as people of Avalon were loyal to him – mostly because of his
actions during the Grindelwald war – he was only the King consort and
she was the Queen.
Most of them were completely loyal to Emily alone as the heir to the
fabled throne of the Pendragon kingdom. It was easier for him to be
away than it was for her.
It didn't mean there wouldn't be other problems. "The Ravenites…" Atticus
trailed off and Emily turned her around and he could her eyes almost
gleaming with anticipation and despite himself, he felt himself smile.
The Ravenites would notice his absence. He was too public, too involved
in Illos and in Avalon for them not to know nearly immediately that he
was not around.
"With the treaty that we will sign with the Aryan League." Emily said and
he sense she did so with a roll of the eyes "They will be reluctant to move
against us despite your noted absence." She paused for a moment
"At least in the immediate short term."
It was one of the reasons why they were not so bothered about accepting
the limited proposal from the League. With his absence, the Ravenites
would move against China and begin incursions against the Ottomans
whilst also attacking and subjugating Italy.
It served their purposes in turning what was practically the calm before
the storm, the deadliest of storms in the history of magical-kind, into a
small tempest.
He often wondered about the parallels with the muggle world. World
War I had been a cause of nationalism, World War II a cause of fascism
and vengeance and ideology and the Cold War a war of ideology and
domination.
After their show of force against the ICW, the notion of another war
being inevitable had been almost unilateral across the world.
The peace hadn't been won, it wasn't allowed to be won after the defeat
of Grindelwald. The Men of Symbols had seen to that and they had only
inflamed it further for their own goals just as much as the Raven had in
his own twisted way.
Of course, as the years passed and the ICW became directionless without
the Symbols steering the vehicle, the thoughts of the next war changed to
one with the Ravenites as Ministry after Ministry toppled under their
strikes from the shadows.
There was a sense of irony in a way…of how history adjusted itself to fit a
resemblance of what once might have been only this time across Europe
instead of Britain.
That the hunger and intolerance for anything different was always meant
to flare up in the magical world just as in the muggle world the
ideological war between communism and capitalistic democracy was
meant to have a facedown.
A pendulum that hadn't stopped swinging until it was made to stop to
swing after another, however different, climactic end was written, that
would always be written.
"You will not involve yourself personally?" Atticus asked quietly as he
drifted his mind back to the conversation at hand.
Emily fell silent for a few moments and he spoke up again "We both
know that the Raven and Cullaica are weaker than either of us but even
the strongest can be toppled with the infinity of magic. I have not Seen it
happen in any timeline" he paused for a moment, smiling sardonically "in
thousands of timelines but I cannot be certain that I am not being blinded
by anyone…or anything."
In more than a few timelines in his absence, he'd Seen her battle with
Cullaica, killing him, before later fighting with the Raven who would be
allowed to escape.
In all of those timelines, the Plan was not in too much jeopardy but it
always left fewer survivors from Ravenite dominated nations. Not only
that, the fallout from the Raven's cruelty also extends to the muggle
world which pulls forward the time of Exodus by nearly two decades.
International pressure for the moment to intervene was sufficiently low
as no one wanted to be involved what would promise to be a devastating
world magical world but in those timelines, it was very, very high.
"I can't promise that." Emily said as she turned towards him, her
expression genuinely remorseful as her hand went up "I know…I know
what you have Seen and I will try my best to avoid such outcomes but we
both know that the timeline will change between now and then by the
simple fact that we make minor adjustments as we chart our way to our
destiny." She said delicately knowing that neither of them would be
pleased if one of them got into a battle without the other.
He knew her argument was true. He was no longer the only one who
traverse Living Time with any skill. Hypatia and the four other under her
tutelage were all capable of altering the timeline and did so under strict
conditions.
Even a minor change can snowball into a course change that can affect
other paths and soon all previous knowledge where things were going
was meaningless.
He could order them not to change anything. The Office of Far-Sight
directly reported to him and Emily alone. It would be that simple and the
course that they set prior to his departure should be as close to fixed as
possible.
And yet, it would be something that they both knew would not guarantee
the timeline would remain the same. They knew better than to think that
the timeline was anything but the string of the most likely possibility in
many that were subject to akin to winds of change.
Winds that were subtly influenced by something other.
He and Hypatia and her underlings were those who could counter said
influence, just as Moira's daughter and her organisation and the Men of
Symbols were able to do, but that was something that had to be actively
done.
And he would be hamstringing them if he commanded them to do
nothing.
Ultimately, he would have to trust in Emily's judgment. "Then you will
promise me that you won't endanger yourself?" It was pointless to ask, he
knew, but he still wanted her to say it. She smiled at him, knowing the
same thing he did.
"I promise" she said as she grabbed his hand and kissed the back of his
hand, a coy glint in her eyes. "Does that make you happy, husband?" she
said demurely.
Atticus cracked a fond smile. "It will suffice for now, wife." He said as he
rolled his hand and cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the right side of
her nose. Mother Magic…he loved this woman more than life itself.
He would ensure he made any need for her intervention to be as close to
null as possible by the time he left around autumn. Not only because he
would be concerned for her but also because the pragmatic in him that
wanted the Ravenites to be successful to a certain degree…for as long as
possible.
Once the people were broken in spirit, first by the Ravenites and later by
the horrors of war, people would search for meaning in their private lives
once ideology has lost its appeal and there would be a desire for peace.
A peace that would be denied when Exposure happened and after all that
has happened, there would be little appetite for further war and that was
when they would present the alternative, an alternative that people
would look forward to and embrace the chance to build a new world and
gain a new lease on life free from their past.
Emily hummed indulgently before she closed her eyes and tucked into his
chest, the sounds of soft dripping water the only thing they could hear
and soon enough, he also closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, his
overworked mind getting much needed reprieve.
-Break-
Belogradchik Fortress, Bulgaria
Otto ÆlvissonPOV
He exited the floo in a flash of green fire with a seamless transition and
as he looked up he could see a host of Ravenites waiting for him and he
hardened himself in the face of their cool and hard expressions.
"You are late, Chief Wizard of Denmark." One of the Ravenites said in a
cold tone to match his cold, hard expression.
Otto snarled "Mind how you speak to me, disciple." His face twisted into a
furious snarl "Lest I have your tongue ripped out of your mouth." He said
with a furious tone that lessened as he calmed himself though not
without sending one last a hateful glare at the insignificant rat "I was
delayed at customs despite having diplomatic clearance…something I will
raise with Cullaica."
The Ravenite narrowed his eyes "Go. They will lead to him" He said and
the path was cleared before him and Otto scowled at the man before he
raised his head and simply began walking after the Ravenites.
Inwardly he let of that bout of tension. Weakness could never be shown.
Never.
Even one as him with power in the Empire.
He followed silently through the labyrinthine ancient castle, the
dampness of the castle could practically be felt on one's skin and he hated
it. He never knew why Dark Lords liked these kinds of places. That was a
lie, he morbidly though to himself.
It was uncomfortable, it was visually dark and it was intimidating.
What Dark Lord wouldn't want such a place as his throne?
He sighed internally as he reflected on the past decade and some years.
The Raven had delivered as promised.
The nobility lay supreme across most of Europe, those of weak and
impure blood either put in their place, in the ground or working the
ground, and the rest either allowed to remain relatively intact or
otherwise scattered to the winds leaving their lands and wealth to those
who it always should have belonged to.
The ICW had turned a blind eye as Ministry after Ministry fell to the
Raven thanks to their agents that rotted the organisation from within and
the reluctance from the rest of the world to get involved in another
European war.
Something he was sure they were regretting deeply now that their power
was left a shadow of itself and its political influence in the gutter as most
members at most paid lip service to the weak authority of the
organisation.
The few members of ancient families that managed to survive the purges
– those who were helped to survive, he thought to himself silently – had
their assets taken and redistributed to the families that were part of the
Conspiracy and it allowed them to regain, if not greatly expand their
wealth to levels before Grindelwald's defeat.
Their hereditary rights were restored and expanded, the Ministries were
abolished and a return to the traditional Noble Folkmoot was re-
established. The common folk served at the leisure of the nobility with
little change to their circumstances – if they behaved – and all economic
power rested back in their hands as it always should have been. This was
a similar story that repeated itself throughout Europe.
His eyes flickered for a brief second before he returned his expression to
a blank state. Yet…it was far from ideal. He eyed his escorts that bore
indistinct black robes and walked with the same gait that only spoke of
years of training and for a moment he let himself feel grim at the thought
of tens of thousands of these men willing to die at the Raven's command.
He once though they were getting a younger, more malleable
Grindelwald, one that wouldn't be able to make demands or have the
strength of magic that seemed unsurpassable…how foolish were they.
In a way, they got what they wanted…and in others, he was far worse.
If Grindelwald had ever been as smart as the Raven and less insane,
Europe would have been his well before Sayre had grown old enough to
pose a threat.
And, he thought grimly, he thought that perhaps that was the greatest
tragedy about it all, as he eyed the Ravenites with a wary and disdain
glint before he squashed it.
The Raven and his personal attack dog had a cult that had grown and
continued to grow at an alarming rate. Fanatics, zealous fanatics that
worshiped the Raven as if he were a god and it wasn't simply the rabble
that were falling under their spell…
Not that it was a spell, he thought as he resisted the urge to swallow.
There were only rumours but it was enough to terrify even the proudest
ones amongst them.
Those who committed themselves to the Raven would within the space of
a year become unrecognisable, their entire world revolving around the
Raven's whim.
Not even family mattered to them. Only the Raven did.
He resisted the urge to swallow as he remembered the extermination of
the Zandorf family when its Head of House dared to stand up against the
Raven for placing himself as the de facto leader of Germany rather than
be voted for leadership as was tradition. Bastian Zandorf's own nephew
watched with uncaring eyes as the Raven murdered his entire family…
including his parents.
It was the first – and only time – that the notion of anything other than
subordination was entertained. Flashes of memories of the darkest kinds
of magic being employed in the killing of the Zandorf were at the
forefront of his mind, kinds of magic that he hoped never to see again
after the death of Grindelwald.
The worst thing about it all was that no one knew if that was the full
depths of his abilities. No one even knew the man's name even after all
these years.
And it wasn't the only thing that people, that he, didn't know about him.
The man seemed as if he was simply spawned into existence from the
depths of purgatory.
Despite his lack of political agenda, beyond the relatively simple desire to
make all of the magical world obey, some had taken to come up with wild
theories and attributions to the man, even suggesting that the Raven was
behind the near zero birth of mudbloods in Raven held lands, that the
Raven had cursed mudbloods, denying them the gift of magic they were
unworthy to receive.
He would have scoffed if he did not fear that such a feat may not be out
of the Raven's capabilities, he thought to himself with a shudder as he
remembered the necromancy he'd seen the man perform. The only reason
he doubted the man had done that is the simple fact that Otto didn't
think the man even cared about purity.
The Raven was inhuman in that regard...in his disregard of all things but
his desire to have the entire magical world under his rule.
He shook his head, banishing away about the mysteries about the man's
origins.
Despite the Raven allowing the conservative families to regain their
positions of power throughout the magical world and purification of the
magical world, he made no comments about what his beliefs were…only
that he be obeyed in totality.
And obey they did, he thought to himself, the concern swelling within
the pits of his stomach. The Raven was as dark as Grindelwald had
been…without the veneer of civility and charm. Cullaica was worse.
He shook his head and eyed his escorts another time before he faced
forward, the deep trepidation that he felt roaring back from within. He
made it a point of fact to never seek the presence of the Raven directly
ever since…the purges.
So to be called to his seat of power…
He cursed himself for the ambitious nature that he possessed. He was the
most powerful Dane in his country and the Chief Wizard appointed by
the Raven himself to oversee Denmark.
Finally, he walked through the heavy doors and his escorts remained
behind leaving him alone. His gaze flittered around the massive hall, a
hall that reached at least five floors in height and about two thirds that
wide, rings of candles lining the walls that dimly lit up the hall and he
almost stopped in his steps when he saw the Raven sitting in a rickety
stool by the small fire that was kept going in the fireplace.
He took a deep breath and clenched and unclenched his hand before he
made his way towards the Dark Lord, a Dark Lord so unlike any he'd ever
heard about.
The Raven cared nothing about comfort. Neither did he care about what
he ate or what he drank. His Ravenites were the same, he thought with a
scowl.
Odin-damned fanatics.
The worst thing about it is that people actually believed that the Raven
was the Morrigan's chosen, her vessel on Earth to purify the magical
world and that it was because of that blessing, that Gods given mission,
that the Raven was the way he is.
Otto thought it was little more than idiotic ramblings by simple minded
fools.
"Otto." The Raven said, his gaze never faltering away from the weak
flickering fires and his voice was soft, as always, yet it left him resisting
from letting a shiver go down his spine. As soft as it was, it was also like
a flake of ice being carried away in arctic, frigid breeze, such was how
his words seemed to be devoid any warmth.
Otto went to his knees and bowed low before the man. "My Lord…"
"How long as it been…? A year? Two?"
Otto swallowed as he looked up and somehow managed to keep the
Raven's gaze, a gaze that contained two black orbs that seemed darker
than the man's black locks, and on a face as pale as snow, they looked far
from human.
"It has been four years, my Lord." Otto said humbly. "Far too long."
A raven's croaking call suddenly rang and a flittering of wings dominated
the silent hall before the raven landed and perched itself onto his Lord's
shoulder.
"You should know it is bad luck to lie before a Raven." His Lord said
before he tilted his head slightly and scratched the back of the raven's
head. The pet seemed to almost trill under the Raven's fingers.
His Lord turned towards him, his expression indifferent, devoid of any
kind of emotion. The only expression Otto had ever seen on the man,
even as he killed, even as he gained victory after victory and peoples
after peoples came bowed before him.
"Nothing can be hidden before a raven's insight."
Otto swallowed and bowed his head, his head almost touching the floor.
"I…" The creaking sound of the rickety halted anything from what he
going to say and his Lord's feet walked passed him, Otto keeping his head
bowed as his Lord's feet disappeared from his periphery vision.
Otto tilted his head slightly and he tracked his Lord's movement and
watched him go to the table that had a flat representation of the world
etched onto its surface. Otto knew enough of the man's idiosyncrasies to
stand up and go to the table.
The raven on his Lord's shoulder croaked again and flew away before
landing, much to his dismay, on Denmark. The infernal raven pecked its
beak on Copenhagen and ice replaced the blood running down his back.
"My Lor-" Otto began to choke, his body shivering as if he were naked in
an ice storm in the midst of deadly winter night. His vision began to be
clouded, black spots began to flicker in his field of vision but he saw
enough, much to his horror, tendrils made out of black nightmare
rippling from the Raven.
The Raven tilted his head slightly towards him, the same blank
emotionless face that wouldn't look out of place on the face of the
deceased. A blazing fire began to roar from behind him as the candle
lights were snuffed out one by one and the light of the blazing fire cast a
heavy shadow over the Raven's indifferent face.
"Your control is slipping." The Raven said, the ice in his voice echoing
through the pitch black magic he was exuding and he was brought to his
knees.
"M-my…my L-Lord!" Otto's voice was frantic, his body fighting as hard as
it could as he tried to get words out from his mouth. "T-tell m-me wh-
what is w-wrong, I will remove ev-vvery tr-trace of it!" he choked out
with desperation.
The Raven tilted his head away from Otto and it felt like an age, as if
time itself had stopped under the weight of the Raven's magic yet,
mercifully, it stopped before he thought he would lose all consciousness.
Otto heaved as he sucked in deep breath after deep breath and, after
managing to feel his legs again, he shakily got back onto his feet though
he kept his head low and bowed. The silence felt stifling and Otto had
trouble stopping from trembling.
He'd seen the Raven disintegrate men, powerful sorcerers that were far
from unworthy, like they were nothing, without even appearing to do
anything.
The man was a magical force of nature and it was all he could think of
and it couldn't come more as a relief when the Raven spoke again, ending
the stifling silence.
"There are those amongst your people in contact with the ICW." The
Raven said without inflection his voice, his voice as calm as a still spring
day and Otto gulped as he realised the severity of the situation…of what
he had let happen.
He knew full well how close they were to expanding outward again
towards Italy and the Far East and the last thing they needed is for
traitors to let the enemy through the backdoor. It was the last thing he
needed.
"Who, my Lord?" Otto said with urgency and the Raven raised his hand
and the pet raven croaked before he landed onto his Lord's hand.
"That will be for you to find out." The Raven said as he tilted his head
slightly before he turned away and made to walk away but not without
adding. "Hjalmar Stolpe was unable to find out who was responsible."
Otto fought to remain calm under the confirmation of what probably
happened to Stolpe.
The man had disappeared just under a month ago and now he knew why.
"I will not fail you." Otto said with a bow from the hips, meaning every
single word of it. He would not fail. He could not fail.
The Raven said nothing and the light of the fire was snuffed out and
within less than half a second, all the candles were relit and…and there
was no sight of the Raven.
Otto closed his eyes and stood there for some time, his breathing quiet.
When he reopened his eyes, he regained a measure of his composure and
twisted on his heels as he made way towards the doors. He knew exactly
who to question.
A silent snarl made way on his face. This was how they would repay
him?!
He who ensured the blood traitors a chance to bow or to leave after the
fighting was over?! This was how they would repay him?!
A glaze of hate fell over him. Fine. If he must go the route of Germany…
of Austria…of Russia…
So be it
22. Chapter 82
Visual Bliss: Not Grindelwald :)
HughJasz: Haha, can't say you're exactly wrong ;p
Mastersgtjames: They will all go. The habitats have already begun
the work decades ago. Magical Plants will be taken though
obviously there will quite a few that remain though they will be
dismissed mostly by the muggles I imagine.
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
23rd of April, 1971 – Illos, Celestis City
Amelie Cantona POV
She heard Lyra descend down the steps and when she entered, she heard
her mumble in a yawning voice "smells snice" and Amelie turned around
with a raised eyebrow as perched herself down onto the kitchen table
stand, her face looking tired and in need of a long soak.
"snice?" Amelie said with a quirk of her lips, her left incisor showing
through her lopsided smile. Lyra unapologetically shrugged.
"Snice." Lyra only repeated and Amelie laughed as she flipped the pan and
the eggs turned over, her eyes still on her wife that looked at her with
fond exasperation.
"Too tired for saying super nice properly?"
Lyra's little sway of the head was answer enough and Amelie smiled
before she turned away to put the eggs on the three plates by the stove
that already had bacon on the side. She liked the act of cooking. It was
very calming. Just as she finished plating the food, she heard the
lackadaisical little steps descending down the stairs.
Amelie picked up all three plates and set them onto the kitchen table
stand. "Good morning Nino" Amelie said as she smiled at their little boy.
"Morning mum, mama" Nino mumbled as he took the stool next to Lyra
who decided to give their son a little wet kiss on the forehead and Nino
was too sleep addled to give his usual protestations as she put the plate
of food in front of him before handing over a plate to Lyra and sat down
opposite Nino.
Nino tapped on the kitchen table dial and selected his condiment and
with a flash, a little cup of brown sauce appeared from the delivery.
Nino picked it up and poured on the side of his breakfast before he
tucked in. Amelie smiled before she turned to Lyra who was bit off a
piece of bacon and she remembered something. "It'll be a late day for you
won't it?" she asked
Lyra swallowed the piece of bacon and nodded a little displeased "Old
Parkie wants go in detail about the security detail…as if we haven't done
so numerous times over the past few weeks." She rolled her eyes
"And will do so again a day before it all begins."
"It'll be a huge turnout. Larger than four years ago when we had about
twenty thousand visitors." Amelia said with a frown "Not surprised he's
dialled up security readiness to the nth degree." Amelie touched the dial
and a red drink materialised which she picked up. "And you should stop
calling him that" Amelie said as she tilted her blood filled glass towards
Lyra.
"You mean Old Parkie?" Lyra said a little mischievously before she threw
the last piece of bacon into her mouth.
"Whose gonna tell? You" Lyra questioned challengingly with a smile on
her face before she swivelled her head towards Nino who was definitely
listening to their conversation as subtly as he could and Lyra's eyes
sparkled with mischievous intent, her hands primed
"Or our little Spy who is doing such a good job eavesdropping?!" Lyra
demurred loudly as she pounced onto Nino with her hands, tickling him
everywhere she could, his giggles and laughing pleas of 'stop' and 'mercy'
a joyful music that rang in their home.
She looked on fondly at the scene over the rim of her drink, her
happiness blooming from within like a new born star seconds after
sparking into existence from its stellar nursery.
This was their little heaven on Earth.
She thought she'd been happy when it had been her and Lyra but after
Nino was born…she was so so wrong. A piece of herself and Lyra was in
their little boy and watching him grow, watching him go through life
every day with them there every step of the way…
She was silent as she drank her blood, her eyes still fixed on the two
people she loved more than anything else in life.
To think she had been doubtful at first. She could not conceive nor could
she carry a child to term, not with her hybrid dhampire nature, but
thanks to this treatment, she was nevertheless able to become a mother.
They had many arguments, most of it about her own…unsuitability to be
a mother and she was ashamed to say that she almost lost Lyra over her
own self-hatred – not that Lyra ever said so but Amelie knew Lyra
despaired about her self-hatred – and she was never gladder to have been
so so wrong. Nino meant everything to them and she would not change
anything…not even her own dhampire nature, not any more, if it meant
Nino wouldn't be.
Her life…had not been easy after…Belgium.
The nightmares had long ago gone away but she still had many years of
trauma. She'd worked through it as best as she could, working to protect
Illos in any way she could, through blood and protection, but there was
still something that had always stuck with her…no matter how Lyra
helped with it. No matter how much His Majesty had done to restore her
mind. And when she held Nino in her arms…
She'd never felt more at peace than she did at that moment, that knot in
her heart finally coming undone and she felt like she could breathe again.
Nino…meant everything to her.
He was her little Prince.
"Okay." Lyra said as she finally let their son go "Go upstairs and get
ready." She said as she gently pushed Nino off the seat and Nino took that
as a cue to run up the stairs. Lyra turned to Amelie with a raised eyebrow
"How much do you want to bet he'll be on the Magicom in…" she trailed
off sing-songy as she counted down with her fingers "now?"
"No bet." Amelie said with a bored pointed look that lasted a good few
seconds because the pair of them broke out in smiles. Lyra placed her
hands on the table using it as leverage as she got up "Right. I will go for a
shower." Lyra said with a curious smile on her face and Amelie's lips
twitched. In amusement and disappointment.
"I've already showered." Amelie said and she broke out in a smile again
"and nooo" she said as she walked towards Lyra and seized her by the
shoulders and turned her around "I won't shower again, you minx" she
said before she slapped on Lyra's arse who yelped slightly.
She turned around, a lustful look on her face and she winked saucily.
"Your loss." Lyra said with a very very put on sway of the hips and
annoyingly very seductive too. Lyra caught her trailing look and laughed
in delight as she went up the stairs.
Amelie shook her head and took a few calming breaths "That woman is
going to be the death of me" she muttered though it was with a fond
smile.
About an hour later, they were all dressed and ready to go. Nino looked
adorable in his little Rosi uniform with the little Loki themed satchel that
contained all of his school stuff. Though she looked on disapprovingly at
the Magi-Gram, the small hand held game console that also functioned as
a com, in his tiny hands and she took it from him. "What did I say about
using this on morning school days?"
"Not to." Nino mumbled as he looked forlornly at the device when Lyra
took it upon herself to floated it away from her hands towards the living
room table.
"Honestly, what could a bunch of eight year olds discuss that is so
important it can't wait until school." Lyra said more to herself than to
anyone else with a hint of exasperated perplexity.
Soon enough they were out of the home and onto the smooth pavement
stone. Their home was on the 'beach front' of the first ring of water facing
Mount Celestis and it was nearby the school and the Main Tower so they
always opted to walk Nino to school and then to work afterwards.
A lot had changed over the past decade or so.
The skies were often filled with hundreds of skymobiles though it was
very organised after the hard-light lanes were introduced to the skyline
that zoned traffic in across the city and across the other more rural
regions.
She was glad for it even if she knew accidents barely did any kind of
damage or injuries thanks the wards that surrounded the city but when
there were sixty thousand people in the city itself and a third of that in
the rural regions, it was a necessity really for there to be official 'laws of
the skies' like there were now.
She nodded politely at a neighbour who smiled at them before they
crossed the street and turned left. Sixty thousand people. She could
scarcely believe how much they'd grown over the years and even less so
when she thought that it was barely noticeable.
Well, that was a lie really. The streets were busier. There were more
shades of skin than before and there were far many more adults now than
at the beginnings.
The first generation born on Illos were adults now and growing to be the
best of them all. The squibs-turned-magical were as much Illosians as
born Illosians were and the immigrant magicals, both human and near
human, were fully integrated and their own culture enriching that of Illos
in their own ways.
Especially their food, she thought with a smile as the taste of the
Sardinian cuisine she had the previous night lingered in her mind.
And she knew…the city had room for many more people.
Her faint smile fell off as she looked over to Nino and Lyra who were
happily chatting away about something a friend of Nino had shared.
Room, she thought with a grim determination, that may be needed. She
thought the secondary objectives of her mission had greater success than
the primary objectives and in all honesty…from what she knew about the
culpability about a lot of the Union's populace, she didn't think they were
worth fighting for.
Before too long, they made it to the school and Amelie kissed the top of
Nino's head before she let go of him and he ran off.
They watched Nino run into school and soon enough they were alone and
on the way to work. Nino's school was only a twenty minute walk away
from the Main Tower.
They had a chance to move to somewhere in the rural districts but they
liked the place they called home for many years and the short walk was
something both liked a lot and it allowed them a little alone time in an
otherwise normally busy day.
"So it's for definite then?" Lyra asked out of the blue as they walked.
Amelie glanced at Lyra who didn't look at her. She knew what she was
asking about…they'd discussed it plenty of times.
"Yes." Amelie said quietly. "After the Beltane Festival."
Lyra grabbed her hand and Amelie squeezed her hand, both of them
turning towards each other. Lyra had a tremulous smile on her face, one
that Amelie tried to wipe away with an assuring smile. It didn't really
seem to work.
"I will come back to you…to Nino" Amelie promised. It wasn't a wise
thing to promise, she knew, but she didn't want to worry Lyra more than
she already was.
"I'm just…" Lyra trailed off, her concern practically radiating out from
her.
Amelie squeezed Lyra's hand again. "I know." She said a little quieter.
The mission to Greece would be one of her longest assignments since
Chile six years ago and she had a feeling that it might take upward of a
year until she might be recalled.
She was part of the Investigatory Branch of the Office of Intelligence
which was effectively the branch that neutralised threats to Illos or
stability within the magical world. Her work was often dangerous and…
dirty.
Colombia, Norway and Jamaica were proof of that.
Which meant that while she was not necessarily privy to top secret
information, she was privy to the majority of it and so she knew more
than just a little about the happenings across Ravenite occupied Europe.
It wasn't pretty. Not at all. Nothing as bad as…De Galle…but enough
people had died and would die and this was an opportunity to assist the
insurgency and grow a movement across the Union.
If she and her team were successful…they could prevent many more
deaths…especially Illosian deaths. War…war was all but inevitable and
the more they did now, the more she did now, the more lives she could
save.
The last thing she wanted was for war to break out when Nino was old
enough. 'No, I cannot think about that even being a possibility!' she thought
furiously.
"It will all work out, you'll see" Amelie said with a hundred percent
sincerity as they reached the Main Tower. Lyra gave her a weak smile,
the same kind of smile that Amelie knew meant that she was doubtful
about her statement.
"I will see you later" Lyra said as she leaned in and captured Amelie's lips
and moments turning on her heel and walking away. Amelie watched her
go for a few moments before she shook her head. It would be fine. Lyra
always got like this in the days running up to her missions and she'd
always return. This time…
This time would be no different.
-Break-
26th of April, 1971 – Circum Domum Council Chambers, Morfay
Fleamont Potter POV
"I ask the Minister of Agriculture, what consideration she has given to the
protocols of sugar, fruits and alcoholic beverages from the Caribbean
communities that depend on low tariffs from Avalon and its neighbours?"
Mobius Enright, the Councillor for Nomus District asked.
The Minister of Agriculture stood up and Fleamont tuned out the answer
provided by the Minister, instead opting to gaze around the Council
Chambers.
The old Wizengamot Chambers had been preserved during the move
towards Morfay – then Hogsmeade – though it was still markedly
different. The Council had the Wizengamot domed circular form though
its tiered sections were removed and instead replaced with ornate
benches several tiers high that grouped Parties together.
At present there were six different parties within the Council of Avalon.
The Secessionists, the Progressives, the Collectives Party, the Economists
Party, the Traditionalists and of course Ouroboros.
The Collectives Party and the Economist Party were the Avalonian
versions of the same parties that dominated in Illos. Though, of course,
they were hardly able to do so here in Avalon. Not with Ouroboros, what
he considered to be the Queen's own personal party, having retained
much of the goodwill and the public trust because of their… 'righting of
the ship' as some say in the years before Magical Britain became Avalon.
Of course, it helped that they had the historical – and current – ties to
Queen Emily.
As it was, Ouroboros retained just under seventy-five percent of the
electoral votes in the last election allowing Ouroboros to effectively steer
the nation unimpeded and unfortunately it seemed that they would face
little danger of losing their obscene majority any time soon based on the
latest polling even if they were down from the eight-six percent of the
vote they had won in the first election.
His own party, the Progressives, had made significant gains in the latest
round of election though that was mostly because they had a reality
check in the first election when much of their mandate proved incredibly
unpopular.
He'd thought he'd have been out of the filthy business years ago but
against his better judgment returned to politics to take charge of the
Progressives, he thought with a grimace. Fleamont blamed his ancestors
for instilling within him and all Potters such a sense of duty.
In any case, as much as things had changed, the tediousness of
government had not. Not even that could be 'blended' away as they had
blended in the old with the new.
'The old with the new…' Fleamont mused on that phrasing, a phrasing that
had almost become a slogan of sorts. It was a slogan and belief that none
of his fellow party members had answers to who'd been to fixated on
reversing a lot of the popular reforms. Well, not until he led the party
with a different mandate mostly acceptable to the public in this new,
strange and dangerous era.
'The old with the new…'. How innocent it seemed.
Fleamont would have snorted if it didn't hide the danger within itself.
The Wizengamot might have been replaced by a democratically elected
'Council' with the people becoming the source of legitimate power and
the Ministry itself by a small army of 'civil' workers but it was far from
where power truly lied
From a glancing look, it seemed like nothing was amiss.
The Council of Avalon did and worked as it was supposed to and was
represented by the electorate who would vote for their party of choice.
One hundred and forty-three seats would be split based on the votes won
by each party and thirty days after the general election, the electorate in
each district would vote to select their favoured individual they wanted
to represent them in the Council of Avalon from the party that had
gained majority in that particular district.
But it was from then on that things became…clouded.
The Party who won the majority of electoral districts would then form a
government in the name of Her Majesty before swearing a binding oath
of office that was similar in kind to that which had to be sworn amongst
the Councillors though the obvious exemption was the lack of swearing
to be faithful to the Queen as required by the government and was
instead centred around being faithful to the Constitution.
The government ruled in Queen Emily's name and by her leave would a
government be allowed to form. People had noticed and when she had
been asked about this, about whether or not it should be up to her to
have the power to refuse a government to form, she only responded with
'What is to stop another Lowe or worse collaborators like those that have sold
out their country to the Ravenites from doing the same here? I am the final
defender at the gates and you can trust me not to abuse my authority just as
my ancestor Arthur Pendragon never did'
Fleamont understood his brother's hatred of the woman very well –
though he thought it was only half due – for she was as conniving as her
ancestor Salazar was purported to be…before this new legacy of his that
the woman twisted into existence decades ago. In actuality, there was
only a mirage of choice.
From the moment her heritage – as much as he wanted to deny it, having
her heritage confirmed by the Goblins themselves before their
subjugation was a deathly blow to them – was revealed, she played on
the emotions of the wider public masterfully.
She tapped into their history, into their pride of their heritage and the
allure of a mythical homeland like Avalon and Camelot – and that he
reflected back on it, he now knew she must have known about her
heritage decades when the plays about Avalon and Excalibur were
released in theatres preparing for the day that she would rise to the
throne – into their fear of the muggles and into the trust they had in her.
He wondered…had they planned all of this that far back?
It was a question that he often asked himself and it was a question he
wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to…not when he, for certain,
knew doing anything about it was about to be as successful as a flea
defeating a dragon, he thought mirthlessly.
'A Thousand and One Eyes'…
Fleamont suspected there was likely a few thousand more to the Seeing
eyes of Atticus Sayre, he thought grimly before he mentally shook away
those thoughts.
Combined with her grip on formerly Traditionalist Houses and on
Ouroboros itself, it all allowed her move mountain and earth that would
never have been conceivable in any era before. Merlin had never
commanded such authority over their people.
It was doubtful even Arthur Pendragon did.
And when the public were told their homes of centuries would need to be
moved to Scotland…they simply accepted it because it came from the
Queen. The public were told that all contact with the muggle world
needed to end. They accepted it because it came from the Queen.
Any significant protests from most of the nobility had been quelled when
their lands were physically moved to Scotland itself – just as his own
ancestral home had been moved – and had their lands enchanted to
replicate as much of their former abode's climate. Fleamont, just as many
others had, were given a stark reminder of what they were capable of.
And for him…well…it made him realise that they were more helpless
than he could have imagined.
Others were placated and 'honoured' through other means and through
the House of Lords, the spiritual successor to the Wizengamot though in
reality it was a mere shadow of even the previous iteration after the
Bombing, was successful in quelling most of the remaining unrest
amongst the Nobility even further.
The Old Nobility, which any House with 'noble heritage' was now called
and could campaign for a seat in the Chamber of Lords – as much as
Fleamont hated it, he was co-opted back into nobility and its politics he'd
previously was glad to be shot of – selected amongst themselves on who'd
sit within the Chamber of Lords, a function of parliament that assisted
the Council of Avalon in making and shaping laws.
It also functioned as a medium to check the Council's power and it ran
for a period of twenty-eight years before another round of election was
made to 'refresh' the Chamber though in reality, Houses like the Blacks,
the Malfoys, the McKinnons, the Longbottoms and so on would rarely not
be selected to be amongst the Lordly Peers by simple nature of their
extensive alliances and debts they were owed by the lesser nobility.
Fleamont glanced at the current addressor before he sank deeper in his
chair, his gaze turning towards the ceiling, beyond the ceiling as his
expression gained a faraway look.
On and on it went, this exertion of power and sweeping changes in the
British Isles and over its peoples and the majority of people simply…
lapped it up with few people even wanting to protest any of it.
And those that did call for rebellion against the Sayres were silenced
under the weight of the public opinion, common and noble alike, and
those that continued where at best marginalised.
If that didn't work…
Exile or imprisonment and if even that wasn't enough…
Well, the Goblins, who had personally felt the fury of the Sayres, could
attest to what could happen if you proved to be without compromise.
Charlus was so wroth with the 'tyrants' and he had to resort to pleading
to get him to step away from the proverbial ledge that he intent on
jumping from.
This was not a fight that could be won at a wand's tip.
It was one of politics, of public opinion. And it was a war they had lost
before it could even begin, Fleamont thought with a kind of resigned
defeatism.
It was honestly frightening to see how little of the country he'd been born
to remained and how people simply…adapted to it all. Even centuries old
wizards and witches, those who had been the most steadfast against any
kind of modernisation like his father had proposed, were now eating out
of the palms of the Pendragon Queen like voracious wolves that hadn't
fed for weeks.
A grim smile threatened to come across his face. Not even the darkest of
families protested as their political power was culled dramatically.
Did they know that once their current Heads of Houses like Abraxas
Malfoy or Rasmussen Lestrange died, all of the power they wielded
would not be inherited?
That their power was merely granted by the King and Queen only to be
taken away when they saw fit?
There was a great sense of irony that their former form of governance
ruled by the nobility for the nobility replaced by a democratically elected
Council had left them closer to tyranny than the Wizengamot and the
Ministry ever did.
But then…wasn't there a sense of truth in the notion of 'the tyranny of the
majority'?
The Monarchs' actions and morally bankrupt directives did not come in a
vacuum; it came with tacit and in many cases avid support from the
public itself.
'No one has a right to endanger the magical world, not even I or my husband.
In a world where muggles are remorseless in their pursuit of victory, where
muggles are without moral rightness and able to inflict deaths to entire cities
filled with hundreds of thousands of their kind – a number of deaths that
would lead us perilously close to extinction – what right do any of us have to
freely endanger the Statute of Secrecy by continuing to mix with the muggles
whose fears would lead to our exploitation at best and extermination as most
likely as they have done to many other muggle peoples?
Whose fears would lead them to wish to exterminate us as a threat to their
supposed superiority and mastery of this Earth?
No right, my fellow magicals. None of us have that right and that is why we
must separate our worlds fully from theirs so that both our peoples can live in
peace and that means we must make difficult choices to secure a brighter and
safe future.'
There was a bitter respect for the woman's astuteness with the way she
twists genuine concern into outcries of support and demand for action.
She and her husband and all of their sycophants crafted obedience into
the hearts and minds of the people like a serpent whispering sweet
lullabies into the ears of babes, crafting and shaping them into their
supporting pillars.
He'd seen the unwavering loyalty the Illosians held to the monarchs and
he knew that Avalon was well on its way to having that same blind
obedience of those people.
He feared what they would do with the blind obedience.
He'd already seen people accepting immoral acts and crimes that should
have been abhorrent to good people. How many steps were they really
away from the same atrocities happening that had and was still
happening in Europe?
Even the Weasleys thought little about the separation of children from
their parents or the pressuring of squib families to make the unnecessary
choice between either the magical world and magic or the muggle world
and the rest of their families.
After all…
Who wouldn't prefer the magical world to the barbaric muggles?
That was the crux of the matter.
None of the initiatives she had enforced were considered to be morally
wrong for the public to protest about nor did it affect them in their
pockets, their bellies or their safety. In actuality, it fitted nicely in their
worldview…in the superiority of the magical world.
Even family like the Weasleys that were known to be muggle
sympathisers were not immune to this sense of superiority and it was a
bias that the monarchs wielded like an expert swordsman.
With the public opinion shaped by papers like the Daily Prophet and the
IMP, there was no hope of getting people to see the wrongness of what
had been done.
Acceptance of even muggles in the magical world, those who decided to
remain with their spouses and their children with their memories intact,
was another argument that swayed towards the moral righteousness of
what was being done pulling any teeth from the opposition to their other
measures of total separation.
And if that wasn't enough...
The anger that horror stories from orphaned or saved squibborns shared
about the intolerance by muggles was. There was a truly cruel genius in
the way they had pulled the teeth of the opposition so much so that even
he had no winning rebuttal.
And in truth…they were always going to be fighting up-hill. Who ever
wanted to be wrong? To be told 'you're wrong'? That all of you have been
misled and co-opted into agreeing to things that anyone else asking you
would have been refused flatly?
No one would wish to think what they were agreeing with was wrong, no
one wanted to even consider what was being done was an injustice on a
grand scale that almost comparable to the crimes of yesteryears. Not by a
minority that were already somewhat distrusted for their previous
remarks.
No…this was not a problem that could be solved easily…or perhaps ever.
Fleamont shook his head, his gaze sweeping across the chambers as the
words of the current addressor fell mutely into his ears. And the
frustrating thing – and silver lining he supposed – was...
They were doing a lot of good too.
A traitorous thought entered his mind, one that was along the lines that
the good far outweighed the bad but he banished it away knowing that
the thought was tainted with personal benefit.
Poverty was non-existent.
Everyone was employed in some fashion or another.
Every child was in formal education be they poor or limited in magical
strength. Families were able now to have more than just one or two
children, some electing to have as many as six now that it was possible
and without economic difficulty.
Food was abundant and varied. Entertainment, magi-tech even travelling
across the magical world was open to anyone and everyone at affordable
prices.
Advancements were made in both magic and science at a startling pace,
even the Void was not a barrier with the way the Illosians – and soon
Avalon – explored it, set foot on other planets and moons, nothing seemed
to be out of reach.
Impossible was made possible and they never let it be forgotten by whose
grace it was achieved. Even the impossibility of achieving true equality
among blood statuses and those with creature blood or entirely different
species.
Muggleborns…or squibborns, whatever you wanted to call them, were
equal and accepted under the law and society. Even the few muggles
were treated as normally as they could be treated. Squibs if young
enough could be treated and their magic activated and so casting out
from the family of squibs of shame became a thing of the past. Species
like the Goblins, Veela, even the altered werewolves, Lycans as they are
called now, were living peacefully amongst them.
Fleamont sighed. It would have been easy if they were simply tyrants.
Instead, they were as close to benevolent as tyrants and dictators could
get.
And the tragedy of it all…if Fleamont had the option to simply…remove
them…he knew that he would elect not to. Not because he cared for
them, not because he thought he owed them his allegiance but because
like a house made from a deck of Chocolate Frog Cards, everything would
come crashing down if they vanished.
The Ravenites at the other side of the Channel were a stark reminder of
how good things were in Avalon even if they under the rule of the Sayres.
And he knew…knew that despite how much he disagreed with much that
was done, there was no one else capable of ensuring the levels of fairness
and wealth that Avalon now boasted. His father's dreams of co-existence
with muggles might be dead but acceptance was not. Even if it only
extended to those few in Avalon.
And that…at the very least was worth preserving.
"I call Radley Brown to speak" the Chief Witch Madame Marchbanks
called out from her seat at the top of the Council Chambers and Fleamont
refocused away from the dour thoughts he was having and he gazed
towards his fellow party member.
The aged wizard whose hair were as white as pearls rose up from his
seat, parchment in hand "I thank you, Chief Witch Marchbanks" the aged
man who represented the district of Boothy-by-the-Sea said before he
began to read from his parchments.
Despite the fact that almost everyone used holo-magic for everything and
anything, including corresponding with one another, by sight, by speech
and by writing, parchments and quills were still perquisites to be used in
any official governmental procedures. He would have found it humorous
if it wasn't so tedious.
"I ask the distinguished Chief Minister whether, in view of the so called
Union of Magical Europe's treatment of political opposition within its
governments, Her Majesty's Government will confer with its allies to
pressure the Union to cease its aggressive actions against its own citizens"
"Hear Hear" rang around the Chambers which Fleamont had grimly joined
in.
The reports from the half dozen Danish families of refugees had been
horrifying.
The Danish Folkmoot under Otto Ælvisson was totalitarian but compared
to the others, they had been relatively tolerable amongst the intolerable.
No more, Fleamont grimly thought.
And with the heavy border restrictions the Union enforced across its
territory, there would be little they could do to help those people short of
war. Not even the muggle world was free from the Ravenite's monitoring
after they plugged that security problem in 1968 though how effective it
was, Fleamont didn't know.
Not when there were still refugees incoming nearly every month.
The Minister of Avalon rose from his seat and approached the dais "I
thank the venerable Mr Brown for his question." The Minister, Percival
Prince, a distant cousin of Lord Prince, placed his folder onto the dais
and continued
"The recent plight of the beleaguered citizenry of Denmark shall be
discussed amongst many such other analogous acts of aggression by the
Union of Magical Europe when I sit with my counterparts in the
upcoming conference with the Grand Alliance" Minister Prince said with
stoic forbearance.
The questions to the Chief Minister on the Union continued apace by
Councillors from nearly all of the Parties voted into their seats.
"Will the Chief Minister and his government advise the Council on what
actions it will petition to take against the Union?" David Brooke, the
leader of the Secessionist Party questioned, the room quietly muttering
under their breath the moment he began to speak. Brooke was a
squibborn in his fifties that was forcefully moved back from the muggle
world that he'd lived in since graduating Hogwarts, a resentment and
similar experience that he shared with most of his fellows in the
Secessionist Party.
"This government" Brooke said with a disdainful note in his voice as he
took a moment's pause before continuing "Has turned a blind eye against
the grave crimes that are committed against the good people of Europe
for the sake of a false peace." Brooke gesticulated with his hand, his index
finger swaying from one side to the other with fury laden motion.
"I beseech this government to at the very least impose harsher economic
sanctions on the Union if action beyond that is deemed a bridge too far."
The Chief Minister rose up from his seat "I reject any claim that this
government or its allies have turned a blind eye to the sufferings of
Europe." Prince said with a glint of challenge in his voice.
"We have taken in more refugees than any other magical nation on Earth,
often coming with nothing but the clothes on their back and their wands
in their hands.
We have nursed them. We have housed and fed them. We even granted
them citizenship of this nation, an act that hardly any other nation has
followed through with. To say we have turned a blind eye to their
sufferings is not only offense to us but to our newest citizens as well."
Brooke stood up, his body language clear that he wanted to press on and
spoke when bid to by the Chief Witch Marchbanks "Yet no further action
is taken against the Dark Lords that have exiled them from their homes.
Yet this government is silent to the abhorrence that is still committed
against the native peoples of Europe, especially against those they deem
impure" Brooke said with an ugly look on his face.
Fleamont felt some sympathy for Brooke knowing this was a deeply
personal issue.
Brooke's wife was a second generation squibborn from Austria that with
the luck of the leprechauns managed to escape to Avalon by sea. From
what he'd read about her accounting of what was happening in Austria to
people like herself, it brought horrifying parallels to what Grindelwald
had done in the Belgian camps.
Still…as much sympathy he had for his wife and the others like her,
unfortunately any action against the Union had to be carefully measured
and taken.
The time of declaring war against the Union and hope for it to be a quick
victory had long past. The ICW's ineptitude and blatantly feigned
ignorance to the happenings of Europe had caused this situation to spiral
out without control.
It was an open secret amongst the Council that the Grand Alliance would
have to bring Europe back into the world of moral civilisation and even a
decapitation strike against the Raven and Cullaica was not going to solve
the institutional evils nor would the zealous Ravenites easily give in. It
would take years to put Europe right.
Perhaps even decades, Fleamont thought with an internal wince.
And with everyone knowing that this time there would be no leniency for
the families that aided and allied with the Ravenites as they had done
with Grindelwald, it was a certainty that this was to be a devastating war
that was going to claim many many more lives than the Grindelwald war
did.
He would at least give credit to Prince and his government to avoid that
for as long as possible…regardless of how much it was looming over the
horizon.
Prince was far more preoccupied with ensuring the independence of the
French and the other free Western European Ministries and as reluctant
as he was in saying it, he agreed with this course of action.
And it wasn't as if they were completely without action against the Union.
There were significant economic sanctions against the Union and magi-
tech companies were forbidden of any kind of business with the Union
and Union influenced Ministries. The fact that even to this day they were
receiving refugees, however few they are in comparison to the early
years, spoke of hidden action.
Angry murmurs filled the chambers before the Chief Minister stood up.
"You demand more action but are dangerously obtuse to the
consequences of such actions." The Chief Minister said in a rebuking tone
that caused Brooke to redden in anger.
The Chief Minister continued though this time, his expression reduced
into a serene calmness yet his voice as he spoke carried stoic finality "My
government is dedicated to solving the challenges that we face as a
community. I will not be able to say any further than that."
The rest of the Council session turned painfully uneventful and after
speaking to a few of his party members, he made his way home.
Fleamont exited the floo "Euphie? James? Effie?" he called out whilst he
dusted off the ash from his robes before he made his way through the
Manor.
"Father!" Fleamont heard from the top of the stairs and he smiled as he
heard tiny little footsteps descend the stairs rapidly. He turned around
and waited for his youngest to come down.
She came running towards him, her long brown hair swaying from one
side to the other and he swept her into his arms.
"Oof" Fleamont said with a groan whilst he shook dramatically, as if he
was struggling to hold her up and it caused his five year old daughter to
giggle freely.
He and Euphie had been resigned to be childless despite their attempts
over the decades and after Dorea had Henry, he had been content enough
with his lot in life.
Until James came along completely unexpected though it was much to
their joy.
Once Assisted Conception was proven to be successful, he and Euphie
had held long conversations about whether they wanted to add to their
little family. Euphie had always wanted a large family and it had
weighed on her for many years and now they had a chance to add to
their family without being too risky to her health.
And so, in 1965, at the ripe age of sixty-eight, Euphie became pregnant
with their daughter Elizabeth 'Effie' Euphemia Potter born in February
1966.
"What were you doing upstairs?" he asked his daughter as he balanced
her in his arms.
"Watching Matilda the Explorer!" Effie chirped happily before she flushed
and the smile turned into a displeased pout "Mom and Jamie wouldn't let
me fly with them so I didn't want to watch them anymore. Matilda is
much more fun anyway!"
Fleamont chuckled slightly at the cheek of his daughter. "I see. Well let's
go find your mother and your brother, shall we?" Fleamont asked as he
made a big show of carrying her, as if she was as heavy as a bag of
stones.
"Daaaaadd" Effie whined adorably as she hit him with her little fists.
"Stop. I'm not that heavy!"
"But you didn't want to be called little pea anymore" Fleamont said with
a frown "You said you were a big girl and big girls are big peas"
Fleamont nodded very sagely "And big peas are very heavy!"
"That doesn't make any sense!" Effie said a little indignantly and
Fleamont fought hard to keep up his frown. "I'm not any kind of pea, big
or little! I'm just Effie!"
Fleamont nodded agreeably and he could see the little hopefulness in her
tiny adorable face "I see" he paused for a moment as he began to walk
with his little girl in his arms, a mischievous smile on his face "Well then,
Just Effie, let's be off then."
Her indignant cry of 'Daaaaaad' was music to his ears, his chest vibrating
with his hearty laughter as he led them towards the backyard.
He spotted Euphie playing pick-up Quaffle with James a little higher up
than usual. Instead of opting to call them down, he decided to simply
continue to speak with his daughter whilst keeping a watchful eye on the
pair in the air.
He listened as she chattered away about whatever came to mind, only
stopping her to ask questions about this or that, and it was a quarter of
an hour afterwards that his wife and son finally spotted them.
James came down with tremendous speed, only pulling up his broom at
the last second. Fleamont looked fondly but exasperatedly at his son
"Really?"
James only flashed him a mischievous grin "What?" he said in a not-at-all
innocent tone. Fleamont rolled his eyes at his son. The boy had a
confidence that put even the most famous actors to shame and he had no
idea where it came from.
That wasn't quite true, he supposed.
James was a prodigy in the air and was scouted by the youth scouts of
numerous Quidditch teams at school where he was on the Primary School
team from the age of seven, the earliest one could be in the Avalonian
Junior-Division 2 league.
James had not been immune to the kinds of fawning he'd hoped James
wouldn't get until he was well in his teens. Fleamont blamed Euphie
really. She encouraged James far too much.
James hopped off of his broom as Euphie floated her way down and he
caught her gaze, a gaze that was accompanied with a bright smile.
Still…he supposed things could be much worse, he thought as he smiled
back at his wife.
-Break-
27th of April, 1971 – Illos, Main Tower
The door to his office opened and Atticus turned away from the window
that overlooked the city, his eyes falling on the Chief Representative that
was being escorted in.
"Your Majesty" Paul Doyle said with a deep bow as he entered the room.
"Chief Representative" he acknowledged before he gestured the man in
towards a seat. Doyle looked appreciatively as he moved towards the
seat.
Doyle was a half-blood Irishman who joined Illos not long after he
graduated from SIMS. Doyle was a thin and tall brown haired man,
almost too thin but it worked to give him a considerable presence that
was neither weak nor overly overbearing.
His youthful bearded face added to that presence, a sophistication that
made it seem as if he were an academic, a professor and Atticus knew
that the man leaned into that perception a lot…and he did it very well.
Doyle joined the Collective's Party about sixteen years ago and was
elected to a Representative seat in the second primary elections after
managing to win over the various ethnicities of his district with his wit
and his dry and quick witted humour.
Underneath that wit and humour however, there was a keen mind geared
towards proactive politics and that was quite refreshing. Smith-Rowe had
been dutiful and more than willing to do what is necessary but it wasn't
hard to see that the man preferred to exhaust all other options before
arriving to the inevitable.
In any case, after having served as one of Smith-Rowe's advisors, Doyle
was quickly identified as his successor despite being younger and others
more 'due' for leadership.
Atticus had known he was going to become his Chief Representative and
he wasn't disappointed with what he'd physically seen from the man.
After they got settled in and drinks were poured, Atticus, before drinking
from his glass of wine asked "How are our guests settling in?"
Whilst Emily and Atticus were Heads of State, Doyle was the head of
government in the most basic terms and equal to the visiting foreign
heads of state like the Persian First Minister and chairman of the Aryan
League Teispes Sina and so it fell to him to 'entertain' the visitors after he
and Emily had done finished the tiresome handshake and smile routine.
The itinerary for the visitors for the next few days until Beltane was
extensive and he didn't envy Doyle even for single moment.
Doyle inclined his head, settling his glass of brandy in his lap before he
spoke "About as well as it could be expected." Doyle allowed a faint smile
to break out.
"They're quite enamoured with the selection available through the dial"
Atticus smiled before he drank of his wine. After he brought his glass
down he nodded slightly "Understandable. I could grow several sizes in
waist size quite easily if I'm not careful" he said with a thin smile.
The 'shopping dial' was amongst the most popular of his inventions…by
far and to be honest, he quite appreciated being able to press a button
and order anything he wanted without having to wait...even if that wait
was pretty short in the first place.
The Ancient Humans had molecular synthesizers – much of Illos' core had
utilised the molecular synthesizers from the Facility – but they had not
considered using their technology for synthesizing food. Or if they did,
they long since abandoned it.
Feasibility of food synthesizing, converting energy to matter, was more
than possible with the level of technology the Ancient Humans had and
with a bit thinking and assistance from Moira and Alice, he'd figured out
a way to combine the principles of energy-to-matter synthesizers and
magic to solve the problem of magical food creation rather than
duplication which was the most that could be achieved until now
And so they did with the 'Shopping Dial', an installed device in every
home in Illos and most homes in Aziza, Ame-No-Ukihashi, Avalon and
Ireland, when he created Ambrosia, a factory some ten kilometres away
from the city and monitored by Elves and the Seelie, that ran on a
complex array of Illosian Runes that was connected to every home with a
Dial via the Magicom.
The factory would transport the requested food or drink pattern through
slightly modified portkeys that ran on sympathetic magic on a similar
basis that his Mirror-Phones had worked on.
This way ensured that the Dials themselves weren't able to convert
energy to matter. In time, once they were on Celestis, he would release
such magic into the magical world after the wards were put in place to
stop any of the thousands of misuses he can think of.
Doyle looked amused but didn't comment, instead deciding to sidestep
his comment "A few of them have requested to meet with you personally
however." He said, his expression more serious. "Including the Croatian
Minister."
"The refugees?" Atticus questioned.
Whilst most of refugees have made their way into France, Avalon and
elsewhere, there are a sizeable lot in Croatia and Slovenia. More so after
it became clear that the Ravenites did not chase them into their
territories.
Doyle shook his head.
"No, the aid we give them is more than enough and it isn't like they don't
have the space to take care of their needs. Plus, I'm fairly sure that
they're actually pretty happy with them given that most of them have
tended to be quite skilled people."
Most of the refugees that escaped the Raven's grasp tended to be skilled.
You had to be, really, in the first place.
He let the feeling of guilt pass through him without any attempt to shield
himself from it, guilt that he felt for the more vulnerable people…the few
vulnerable people still alive.
Forty eight thousand six hundred and ninety eight…
That was how many had died in the last decade at the hands of the
Ravenites. Many of them died with their families. All of them he could
have saved. He chose not to.
And more…
More would die.
And…
Their deaths were important, he thought with a tiredness that weighed
heavy.
Important in the lesson that it would impart many years from now.
Important for accountability, for the dangers of blind intolerance and
hatred. Important to help break all of these cultures and grant Illos the
opportunity to piece them together.
In the way Illos saw fit.
Dark Lords and rhetoric were cyclical in the magical world, not a century
for the past fifteen hundred years was untouched by it and it was an ever
more issue for the past five hundred where heritage and power and
entitlement had grown rampant.
It was callous and even more so when they acted – assassination of
opposing individuals, investigators, powerful Heads and so on… – to
pave the way for the Raven to become akin to an avalanche down the
slopes of the Himalayas when the time had been right.
"No…Minister Subasic would want to speak about our…commitments."
Doyle added, drawing Atticus back into the present.
Atticus was silent for a few moments until he spoke again. "Assurances?"
he merely asked and Doyle nodded slightly.
"It wasn't hard to see that the man was, very poorly, hiding his nerves. He
quite heavily drew towards the sustained activity at their borders despite
the warnings we have given to the Ravenites." Doyle paused for second,
his gaze falling onto his whiskey, his hand slowly motioning the drink in
a circular pattern, indicative of his long train of thought.
Atticus hummed as he looked past the man, his eyes going unseeing and
his mind All-Seeing. His inner gaze fell towards Croatia and Slovenia and
time and timelines flashed by, watching and filing away information and
details in his mind-palace.
He drew himself out again and eyes latched onto Doyle's own. "Nothing
much has changed. They don't intend to strike…not until they believe we
won't defend them."
"…Will we?" Doyle asked tentatively, the thought troubling him very
clearly. Not the thought of defending their allies, their very first ally in
the case of Slovenia – and a people that spoke up for him before he was
exiled from Magical Britain – but rather at the thought of what it would
lead to.
Atticus smiled at the man before he looked away towards the window,
his smile faltering as he caught the glancing glare of the sun hitting the
rim of the metallic shell. The Orbs never did compare to the real thing…
did they?
They'd moved Illos to over the Atlantic – and hadn't once reactivated the
outer shell regardless of what season it was – once the Symbols were and
peace was won with the ICW. Ever since then, there was a little bit more
vibrancy in Illos…as if the year long daily touch of the sun was a
nurturing balm onto their skin, onto their environment.
"We will." Atticus said, his voice quiet but his words spoken with
authority.
He turned to Doyle. "It wouldn't do to for us to abandon our allies to
whom we have commitments with. Especially those who were amongst
the very first to pass the social reforms."
Croatia, and Slovenia, passed laws in 1959 that protected all sentient
magicals under the law. An act that slowly but surely was followed by
the magical world as the Grand Alliance's influence grew in strength.
An act in part that emboldened purists in Europe to ally with the
Ravenites to do away with the more moderate elements of their societies
that might have followed suit if given the opportunity.
Whilst they were in treaty with a large number of magical nations and
communities, there were still many more that were not formally under
treaty outside of general trade agreements. Slovenia and Croatia were
amongst the second group of magical nations and communities.
But that didn't mean they didn't have 'unofficial' commitments outside of
formalised treaty. Their word and their assurances were given that they
would be protected against naked aggression by belligerents which made
it as good as any treaty signed since it was known internationally.
Not that he regretted it.
Even if it had inconvenienced him at any point, even if he hadn't given
commitments, he'd still have come to their aid had they asked. He hadn't
forgotten their support for him when most of Europe had turned against
him and his family.
Nor their support for Illos when most others were fine to take the wait
and see approach.
Loyalty mattered.
"Tell him I will see him tomorrow." Atticus said before he drank of his
wine, Doyle dutifully nodding and after he drank, Atticus looked at
Doyle, his gaze carrying a glint of curiosity. "Out of curiosity…how ready
do you believe we would be if we needed to absorb their populations?"
Doyle was surprised by the question and he began to frown "Croatia and
Slovenia? I'd say…" Doyle trailed off, his mind making mental
calculations.
Atticus thought they'd be able to absorb them whole now if they needed
to. With even the slightest of issues. Celestis City had grown over the past
decade and a half.
Eighty four thousand called it home, about half of them having being
born and raised here and half of the rest brought in at a young age. The
city was filling out and buildings had been added to give a feel in some
districts as if you were walking in a polis in ancient Greece or Rome
itself.
Others…others were still a little too bare, in his opinion anyway.
Whilst more families were electing to stay in the city, there were still
sizeable families in the rural hilly regions by Mount Celestis, families that
were starting outpace Clan families in numbers – though not in size.
So in his estimation, he thought they could easily house the twenty-five
or so thousand Croats and Slovaks. "The infrastructure is of course there."
Doyle said, a brief pause in his voice before he continued
"But I'd say that it's a lot of people to absorb in one go." Doyle said a little
concerned. "We've never taken in that many in one go before, Your
Majesty."
His preference not to do so was as obvious as his concern was.
"We haven't. And we won't." Atticus assured the man. Not for some time
anyway.
Atticus stood up and Doyle followed. "It was more of a thought than it
was inquiry." A thought that he'd entertained more than a few times but
never wanted to. Their peoples, between the choice of the Raven's and
that of Illos, would of course always choose Illos. From what he could
see, their people would easily mingle with his own.
But the political ramifications of instead choosing to absorb them instead
of defending would only have a cascading effect later on. Especially if
Illos' word would prove to mean nothing.
Doyle left not long afterwards and he turned to towards the wide
windows in his office, his gaze peering out towards a particular spot by
the Lonis Forests.
He hated this day.
He'd hated this day for many many years.
With but a merest flicker of intent, a pin sized bulb formed just left of his
face, a pin sized bulb that begun to grow and grow until it was half the
size of a golf ball and began to flower, its rose white petals a brilliant hue
of colour and his hand rose as the peduncle grew, his hand grabbing hold
of it and bringing the flower to his nose.
There were many times he could have told her where she was…where
their family was. With his grandmother dying so many years ago and his
cousins from the Provydetsi distancing, not by desire but merely because
of how different everything is, she could have used this then more than
she needed it now.
But…
He also Seen that it wouldn't have led to reconciliation as it would do
now.
When her youngest granddaughter, a granddaughter who looked and was
much like her own sister, would go to Hogwarts at an age she herself was
cast out…
She deserved happiness and resolution and this would lead to both. He
was very glad she wouldn't take too long to forgive him for it.
Atticus let go from the stem of the flower, the flower falling down
towards the ground but evaporating away before it could reach it. A blue-
orange hued portal formed in front of him and he stepped through it and
as he arrived on the other side by a cottage surrounded by an outcrop of
forests and golden reeds and a stone throw's away from a small lake, he
let off a small sigh before he began walking towards his destination.
He sent an annoyed feeling through his bond with Emily and he only got
a sense of schadenfreide in return. "Coward" he muttered lowly to
himself. He knew that she rather glad to avoid the scolding and look of
betrayal he was sure to be subjected to.
The visit to Avalon was an excuse in his very unbiased opinion.
As he approached the door, he felt the wards feeling him out and then
letting him pass once they recognised him and he walked through the
door after he opened it.
He heard someone get up from the living room and a young face peered
out into the hallway "Uncle?" Marie asked a little confused. Marie had
come along for the Beltane Festival this year after missing out on the last
five in favour of staying at school or with friends. "Do we need to be
somewhere?"
Atticus smiled at the young adult, his head shaking.
"No. I've come to speak to mother."
Marie's eyes widened. "Oh. She's out back with Moira." Marie said and
Atticus withheld a wince, enough to give Marie a small smile.
"Thanks." Atticus said though he tilted his head as he began to walk
further into the head, stopping as he stood by the entrance of the living
room, his eyes catching the paused holo screen of one game or another.
He turned his eyes to Marie with a raised eyebrow "You could be in the
city you know." Atticus merely said with mild amusement. Marie flushed
a little.
"I'm almost finished with it." Marie said a little defensively. "I've finally
passed the Cthulhu level and there is only two more to go." Atticus
looked at her a little judgementally and her face reddened even further
and he couldn't hold it any longer, his mouth parting and a deep laugh
erupted from him before he walked away.
Though…he couldn't resist. He turned over his shoulder and saw her still
looking in his direction and he mouthed off 'Nerd' and the reaction got
from her was enough to increase his pace a little. She had Sophia's
feistiness.
His expression fell away and a serious one took hold.
He saw his mother and Moira chatting away, a small tick of annoyance
flashing across his face before he forced himself to remember why he was
here. His mother's…love life was none of his business, he kept telling
himself.
Even if it is with a quarter of a million year old advanced human that is also
my ancestor.
"Atticus" His mother said with a hint of surprise in her voice. "I wasn't
expecting you." Atticus' expression broke into a half smile.
"Do I need to inform you ahead of time when I want to visit my mother?"
he said to her with a lopsided smile before he leaned down and kissed
her on the cheek. Most of the time she alternated between Illos and
MACUSA though she spent much more time in MACUSA than in Illos.
"No but your guards should be." His mother returned to him, her eyes
squinting. "You did tell them, didn't you? You know they can get into a
snit when you or Emily go missing." Atticus, despite himself, rolled his
eyes slightly. Trust his mother to be more concerned about the hurt
feelings of overbearing guards.
"They'll be fine." Atticus dismissed when he took a seat opposite his
mother before he looked to Moira neutrally. "Moira."
Moira gave him a shadow of a smile as she inclined her head in greetings.
He returned his gaze to his mother, all levity fleeing his face. His mother
immediately noticed and drew herself straighter, her eyes tinted with
concern "Is everything alright?"
"Yes…but it won't be once I'm through explaining." Atticus said with a
sigh. Atticus looked to Moira again and she understood, standing up
within moments.
"I will give you two a moment." Moira said serenely before she walked
back into the house, leaving Atticus and his mother alone.
"Mother…I have news." Atticus began tenderly, his voice as serious as he
could get.
His mother looked at him in concern though that paled in comparison to
the expression she bore when he said "It's about your sister."
-Break-
28th of April, 1971 – Hogwarts, Slytherin Common Room
Lucius Malfoy POV
The fire crackled softly as he sat by the fireplace, his fingers holding the
corner of the page before he swept it across and read the next passage in
the Charms book.
He looked up from his book with a fleeting glance when the doors to the
Common Room opened and his acquaintances walked through.
He sighed inaudibly as he placed the bookmark in between the pages. He
knew there was little chance they'd let him be. Carrow, Fenwick, Higgs,
Rosier and Shafiq made their way towards him. All of them were walking
a little gingerly with Fenwick clearly protecting his left arm. He felt a
dark amusement at that.
"Carrow, Fenwick, Higgs, Rosier, Shafiq" Lucius said with a tilted head.
He'd known them from a very early age having been tutored alongside
them.
"Malfoy" Higgs grunted out as he sat down whilst Fenwick, Shafiq and
Rosier offered a polite nod before he did. Amycus Carrow simply threw
himself into the seat opposite Lucius like an uncouth savage as he was
ought to do.
He knew that Carrow did it partially to annoy others but he'd also known
the boy long enough to know that it was also an act to unbalance people.
There was a reason why Carrow was on the Hierarchy just as Lucius was
even if he had trouble controlling the more…sudden impulses that came
over him.
Lucius eyed Rosier with mild curiosity "How was duelling practice?"
"Gruelling." Rosier said with a grimace "Painful. Bulstrode's a slave
driver."
Fenwick scoffed "That's offensive to slavers. They're kinder than he is."
Fenwick said darkly before he winced and rotated his left arm slightly.
Manfred Bulstrode, a cousin to Lord Bulstrode was a two-time national
duelling champion and a third-placed international duellist who taught
the Duelling Class. He was also a former Slytherin and tended to, once in
a while, tutor Slytherins after classes if he thought you were worth his
time. Though most of that tutoring tended to be Bulstrode brutally taking
apart one's duelling techniques and prowess.
"I don't care as long as I get good enough to take down that Bones chit."
Shafiq said with a growl. Lucius withheld a smirk. He doubted that even
if he had his final maturity and taught by the best teachers that he'd ever
have an inkling of a chance to best Amelia Bones.
Only two people could and he was one of them he thought matter-of-
factly.
The conversation then turned idle as they discussed the upcoming
duelling competition in May, a competition that would lead them to
qualify for the inter-school duelling competition that Illos would host
next spring.
That, he was looking forward to. He might be hard pressed to defeat
Bellatrix, at least on fair terms, but there was a little bit of luck involved
in any competition.
He still expected to go through to the inter-school competition but to win
that…
If he was lucky, Bellatrix would get eliminated by one of those freakish
students at the Pandrosion who Bellatrix wouldn't know how to counter
as well as he could.
The conversation turned towards the upcoming major event and it was
then that Amycus Carrow got into a mood "My father still refused to
budge on bringing me along." Amycus Carrow said with a scowl as he
folded his arms across his chest.
"Despite the fact that I have been a model student for months now! I
haven't even once cursed someone this whole time and I tell you there
were plenty that would have deserved it" Carrow said with a dark look in
his gaze, a look that Lucius had seen more than a few times on the boy's
father in their youth. Of course Amycus paled in comparison to Alard
Carrow but it was a reminder of the kind of stock the boy came from…if
one needed a reminder at all.
Lucius calmly turned his gaze towards Shafiq who looked irritated "He's
been like this all day, has he?"
"Yes." Shafiq bluntly said as he leaned back unbothered by the glare from
Carrow "Even by his standards, he's been unbearable. Even a beating by
Bulstrode hasn't shut him up."
Carrow glare turned scathing "You would be too if your father was
invited but decided not to bring you along despite being free to do so."
Shafiq's face turned cold as he met Carrow's heated gaze.
"Barely anyone from Hogwarts is going." Rosier pointed out as he
intervened quick enough from the retort that they all knew was dancing
Shafiq's tongue. "Even the Longbottom boy isn't going despite his father
and grandfather easily being allowed to bring him along."
It seemed to be enough for Carrow as he turned his eyes towards Rosier.
"True enough I suppose." Carrow said with a scowl before he turned his
gaze towards Lucius. "It seems like the Blacks and Lucius will be the only
ones to go to the event."
They all turned their gazes to him and the envious looks he was receiving
was delicious despite how well they were trying to hide it. The Carrows
and the other Houses loyal to their Queen were all invited though none
of them possessed the honour his father held within the court of their
King and Queen.
His father was amongst the most powerful men in the magical world, the
highest ranked ambassador for the Kingdoms of Avalon and Illos, and as
such, his House was far beyond their own no matter how much history
they claim behind their names.
A point that was becoming weaker and weaker as competence and
strength of magic was not proving be as nearly as reflective of familial
history as they would prefer to believe. None of them despite their
centuries older heritage could compare to him in terms of power and they
all knew it too.
In any case, both Lucius and Lucia were raised with such prestige and
power in mind by their father. From an early age, they had known of the
duties of their House that would be on their shoulders and it was because
of that, that he would rub shoulders at the Ball that would follow after
the Beltane festivities with the most powerful and wealthy people in the
entire magical world.
Carrow and many of the rest would only make a fool of themselves – and
of the King and Queen – so naturally he was not surprised that none of
them were going.
"You can watch the highlights of the Beltane festivities over the comms"
Lucius drawled "It won't give you the…experience but I am sure that it'd
be as if you were there yourself." Lucius said blithely, a feigned smile on
his lips that would irk them.
The Beltane Festivities that would be shown would be that of the
commoners, those rabble would rub shoulders with the other rabble. Not
the Festivities that would be catered to the truly important people.
Carrow scowled, his eyes narrowing in annoyance but he kept his tongue
before he looked away, his expression souring.
Rosier eyed him knowingly and spoke up next "I have no doubt about
that" Rosier said, a hint of sarcasm creeping into his voice before he
turned serious, his gaze pinning "Apparently this year even dignitaries
from the Aryan League are meant to go to the Ball."
The way he said it, the unhidden curiosity within his words, made it
clear that he wanted to know what Lucius wanted to know given that his
father had orchestrated a treaty between the Kingdoms of Illos and
Avalon and the Aryan League, a treaty that the Grand Alliance were
rumoured to be likely to signed as well.
"Really?" Fenwick asked surprised. "Do they even celebrate Beltane?" he
asked a little confused and Shafiq snorted.
"As if that even matters." Shafiq said a little derisively as he scornfully
looked at Fenwick "It's a political event, not a religious one. At least
mostly."
"Not that surprising really" Higgs murmured, drawing attention to
himself.
"And why is that?" Lucius prodded lightly. Higgs shrugged.
"With the treaty and with the Ravenites pretty much on their doorsteps, it
make sense they turn up and play nice." Higgs said and Carrow guffawed.
"Observant. I didn't think you had it in you!" Carrow exclaimed and Higgs
sneered, the sound escaping his throat resembling a growl.
"Do you want to hurt?" Higgs asked darkly and Carrow flashed his arms
up in a mock-innocent way.
"Peace, peace" Carrow said with a cheeky smile that didn't reach his eyes
and it was enough for Higgs to back down with a grunt.
"I do read you know." Higgs said in a murmur and despite himself Lucius
allowed a small smirk to form on his face. Higgs was pretty big for their
age and he wasn't much of a talker, so much so that he got teased for
having troll blood in his bloodline in their youth despite that not being
the case. At least as far Lucius could tell. It was quite doubtless that some
families had shameful…coupling with creatures.
Anyway…Higgins would get defensive when people mocked him either
for his size or his intelligence – which was not completely insignificant –
and even though he wasn't powerful, he was definitely one of the
quickest at casting despite his large size.
"You'd think the treaty would be enough though. Why would they bother
with Beltane?" Fenwick questioned with a frown adorned on his face "The
Ravenites might be strong but Illos…" he trailed off though it was
obvious what he meant.
"No one expected the Ravenites to conquer pretty much nearly all of
Europe piecemeal by piecemeal so quickly." Rosier answered whilst
tugging at the edges of his robes "It's pretty obvious that there will be
conflict, sooner than later with the way the remaining Ministries in
Europe are being protected by the Grand Alliance in one way or another."
Rosier looked to Lucius with a knowing look on his face.
"Why forego forming closer bonds with those who you would need to
protect you?" Rosier rhetorically posed to them and it was something that
no one bothered to respond to. Not when it was what anyone with the
slightest bit of intelligence knew that was exactly what you were meant
to do.
The conversation after that had more or less petered out in importance
and it was long after that he made his excuses and made his way towards
the Library to return some of the books he'd finished though his mind
was occupied with that of the Ravenites.
In truth, he held some sympathies for the cause of the Ravenites.
Purebloods were the master race no matter how much was blathered on
about equality.
His father believed so too but if Malfoys were anything, they were
pragmatic. The way things were in Avalon with the countless fingers of
the King and Queen touching every corner of the realm, it was a kind of
sympathy that was best kept to himself. Not when he'd seen plenty of his
father's memory vials in their Pensieve that he'd collected over the
decades about their power.
The sheer power they had…
Lucius fought to keep the shudder down.
It was inhuman really. He could scarcely believe such pinnacle of power
and he could understand why they rose to where they were. And why
there would be nothing capable of dislodging them. Not even Dark Lords
like the Raven and Cullaica.
House Slytherin-Sayre had his family's loyalty for as long as those two
lived.
For better or worse.
Plus…it wasn't as if things were all that bad.
From what his father told him about his youth, their traditions and
culture had been on the decline and in the years since the monarchs had
come to power had come to power, nearly all muggle influence were
removed from their world. Science never belonged to the muggles any
more than the very air did so he didn't consider the writings from their
kind as influence.
He returned the books and before he left, he caught her walking towards
him with a bunch of books pressed between her arm and her chest. His
expression softened from the blank expression that he was known for
when she stopped in front of him, her books vanishing into her bag with
a twirl of her wand.
"Narcissa" Lucius' voice was soft as velvet when he spoke her name and
stared into her gray blue eyes. She was beautiful, a spark of divinity
amongst a sea of painful dullness.
The streaks of white and black hair that hugged her beautiful face, a face
without a single imperfection, a face that bore a soft aquiline nose and a
delicate jawline that he wanted trace gently with the back of his finger.
She was perfection made form.
She had given him leave to call her by her first name last year when he'd
gotten to her know a little better outside of social functions or in the
common room. A favour that he never sought to reduce in any capacity.
"May I walk you back?" Lucius offered as he extended out his arm and
after a few moments, she nodded slightly before she wrapped her arm
around his own.
They walked in silence for a few minutes and he wondered if she was
content as he was by simply being in the other's presence. Less
wondering and more hoping, he thought to himself as he glanced at her
before refocusing on the path before them.
His father had not…disapproved of his intentions to pursue a match with
the Black daughter. Her pedigree was outstanding and they were more
than three generations removed from kinship.
Of course, it helped that House Black had made a resurgence in influence
over the past decade. Orion Black's heavy investments in Avalon-native
Magi-tech companies that were now sold worldwide and the ruthless
calling-in of debts amongst the nobility that were exchanged for
following House Black politically, were all key in all of this resurgence.
Cygnus Black, Narcissa's father, had been just as critical in rebuilding
House Black as Orion had been…perhaps even more so. All of that, along
with their unwavering support of the Queen, had seen them become
almost as influential as they been at the turn of the century.
So marrying a Black was as good as he could achieve, at least with the
present matches possible. And of course, the fact that he was already…
fond of her helped, not that it would have mattered to father.
She was also quite fortunately going the Beltane Festival on Illos.
Unfortunately, so were her eldest sisters who had been irritatingly a
barrier to him fostering a closer…understanding with Narcissa. Though…
now after Andromeda graduated, it was only one of them. The one that
he truly disliked…despised even. Bellatrix.
The current leader of the Hierarchy – the hierarchy that ruled Slytherin,
and Hogwarts, as tradition dictated – and an utter nutcase of a bitch to
deal with.
She'd opposed his induction into the Hierarchy and if she'd been the
leader then, he knew that she would have succeeding in preventing him
from rising up.
This kind of…vendetta she seemed to have against him had also filtered
through to his attempts with Narcissa and he had to work cleverly to
engineer more than a few occasions to get Narcissa alone.
Fortunately, the nutcase would graduate this year and no longer darken
the halls of Hogwarts. He looked forward to it…not only would he
ascend to the leadership next year, he would also finally be able to win
her over by his own merits instead of relying on the betrothal contract
that his father would begin talks with Lord Black by Yule of this year.
"Are you looking forward to the Ball?" Lucius asked with a smooth tone.
Narcissa glanced at him and offered him a small smile.
"I am." She said before she paused to flick an errant lock of her hair
behind her ear "My family has been talking about it for weeks now. Even
my sisters are excited to go." She said with a soft smile.
Lucius wanted to scoff. Bellatrix…excited to go a Ball?
Narcissa saw his expression and smiled beautifully even though the edges
of her lips only slightly ticked up. It was quite obvious she knew very
well about the…discourse between him and Bellatrix.
"She'll behave." Narcissa and Lucius raised one of his white blond
eyebrows in response and Narcissa's amusement at his disbelief.
"She idolises the Queen." Narcissa said before she continued "Mother
raised us on stories about the Queen and her rise to the top by right of
blood and power." Narcissa's smile deepened and he thought it
wonderful.
"Of course, she did sour somewhat on mother's stories when Andromeda
pointed out it was almost alike to a witches' story."
Lucius tilted his head in mild confusion and Narcissa bit back a laugh and
she explained "Orphaned girl of seemingly little importance is told she's
magical and goes to a magical castle where she meets others like her. She
is then marginalised because of her…" Narcissa trailed off before
delicately saying "common status."
Lucius quirked his lips up in amusement. Slurs like mudblood were not to
be tolerated in polite society and it was thought only the uncultured
would use such improper language. Rabble was more appropriate.
"But she wins the support of her House by her merits alone despite the
challenges she faces. She is hailed a prodigy not seen in centuries with
only one other as their equal, the Prince of Magical Britain." Lucius could
see that the tale was something that Narcissa quite obviously enamoured
with this fairy tale-esque story.
"She doesn't think much of him at first and he not of her but slowly, over
time, things begin to change as they became friends. She, an orphaned
girl with seemingly common status and he, a dashing Prince with
immense wealth, found common ground in their love for magic.
"She then learns of her true heritage as the heir of Slytherin, of her
Hogwarts House no less, and begins her rise secure in knowing who she
really is. Her Prince defeats the evil Grindelwald who plotted to destroy
our world and she uncovers the dastardly" Narcissa's eyes sparkled
playfully and Lucius chuckled softly as they descended down the stairs
"plans of the Dark Lord Dumbledore who hid in plain sight causing him
to flee in the dark of night, his reputation and plans scuppered. She and
her Prince stand triumphantly with the cheering crowd."
"The story doesn't end there of course but you know the ending." Narcissa
said with a knowing smirk. One he reciprocated. Of course he did. His
father was there along the way for nearly everything. Even for the very
creation of Illos itself.
"I understand" Lucius said with amusement "Bellatrix must have been
wroth with Andromeda." Reducing a tale of triumph into such a…
common sappy story would have triggered the unbalanced witch.
Narcissa laughed before a fond look took hold of her "Andromeda had
handled her well." Narcissa lightly shook her head "It's a good thing
Andromeda is more than capable of matching her."
"How is your eldest sister?" Lucius asked after a moment. Narcissa smiled.
"She's doing well. She looks like she might graduate a year early from her
Law apprenticeship." Lucius was a little impressed by that. Law Masteries
were no easy feat and it took five years to be qualified as law-wizard – or
in Andromeda's case law-witch.
They arrived at the Slytherin Common room door and Narcissa unfurled
her arm from his own, their gazes meeting. "If I may so boldly ask…will
you save a dance at the Ball?" Lucius asked, his voice as smooth as he
could manage.
Narcissa's smile was warm and he could warmness spread throughout
every pore of his body "I will…Lucius." She said with a slight bow of the
head, her fringe almost covering her eyes and he smiled genuinely at her.
"Shadows." Narcissa said and the door to the Common Room opened.
"Good night." Lucius said and she returned it before she walked into the
Slytherin common room. He stayed a few minutes behind, not only to
treasure the slight victory he gained but also to dissuade any rumours
and soon enough, his face returned to a blank slate. "Shadows." He said
and he walked into the room.
Days Later…
Lucius walked through the Gate and within less than a fraction of a
moment, he arrived at Belva Hallos Port Terminal. The port was busy,
busier than the times he'd been before, and he could see that the different
kinds of people that were arriving not only through their appearance but
through the way they walked.
That thought fell by the wayside however when Lucius felt magic
crawling up his skin, the warm welcome the magic oozed dripping
through his flesh and he could feel himself more at ease, more calm and
even energised the longer he was in the environment.
It was a feeling that always felt unwelcome despite its intent. It was too
personal, invasive. Hogwarts was similar though it was lesser and less…
direct.
He turned towards the side and saw his father speaking with the guards
before he came back towards him. "Come, Lucius. Our skymobile is
waiting for us."
They made it to their black skymobile, the guards nodding to his father
as they opened the door to the skymobile and he followed his father into
the flying vehicle.
Soon enough, they were in the air and on their way towards the gleaming
capital that stood looming in the distance. Lucius looked out of the
window as the skymobile moved quickly through the air.
He'd been to Illos a number of times – they owned land and a Manor
north from the Lonis Forests – though he couldn't really say he enjoyed it
all that much.
Even if he appreciated the…architecture, he thought as his gaze watched
the growing details of the jewel that was a city.
Illos and its people were…peculiar. There were perhaps more choice
words he could use but it would be uncouth. These people who had the
entire world at their mercy if they so desired, were driven by other
things, non-material things that ruled the rest of the magical world for
centuries.
Galleons meant little to them and social status even less. At least social
status in the conventional way. They placed more value on what one
achieved than they did any material thing they had or accumulated.
Wealth through business paled in comparison to creating a masterful
product or a theorem that answered questions, universal or magical.
In a way…he did respect it, he thought as he glanced at his father who
was looking down at a holo-tablet. All of his life, he'd been exposed to
the power and influence his father wielded, power and influence that no
Malfoy before him had and could only dare to dream to obtain. Lucius
Malfoy was Abraxas Malfoy's son.
All that he had, came from his father. All that he was known for was
being his father's son. He looked back towards the gleaming city. Perhaps
that was why he didn't enjoy Illos all that much, he mused silently and
secretively to himself.
In time though…
In time, they would know him for his own merits. That…that was a
promise.
It was less than ten minutes later when they landed and were escorted
through the pearly gates to their temporary residence by the Main Tower
and Lucius glanced around. This part of the city, districts by the Main
Tower, was more built up than the rest of the city.
Was this what the rest of the city…what the rest of Illos was going to
look decades from now? Immigration to Illos was still very restricted
from what he knew.
They were picky, very picky and he'd heard enough from a number of
scions from lesser families complaining how hard it was to buy a
property in Illos, let alone getting citizenship. His family, along with
those early founders of Ouroboros were dual nationals of Avalon and
Illos so they didn't have that issue but he also knew that this was because
they were being rewarded for their loyalty.
Though as picky as they were, he wondered if it'd remain as restricted as
it was now. If Illos opened the floodgates so to speak, he was fairly
thousands would move from Avalon and even Ireland within a heartbeat.
Everything here was just…so much grander and even Aziza or Ame-No-
Ukihashi were not even close. At least not yet.
They entered a luxurious looking building, one paved with pristine
marble from top to bottom. Lucia would have liked this place, he thought
dryly to himself.
Father wanted her to remain at Beauxbatons to participate in the local
Beltane festivities that would be held at her school. Lucia was
disappointed but she understood the importance that father placed on her
shoulders.
No Malfoy had been to Beauxbatons for many generations and after his
father's ascent in international politics, he'd decided it was time to take
away as much power from the remnants of the ignoble stain of exile their
family had suffered from. Lucia had done her part well, having
befriending a number of powerful French heiresses though he wasn't
happy with Lucia's continued friendship with some half Veela chit.
"I expect much from you Lucius." His father said after they got settled
into their suite, a glass of wine in his hand, his gaze stern. "You know
what to do."
Lucius bowed his head. "Yes father. I do." He was to familiarise himself
with the people and the families that would be coming. To listen. Speak
when spoken to but never more than a few words a sentence.
The Beltane Festivities and the Ball a few days later were not events.
They were political chess matches and Lucius was not to play, only to
watch and learn.
His father looked at him for a long few seconds before his expression
softened slightly "Good." He said with a slight, barely unnoticeable tender
tone. "I know you will do well, my son." He placed a hand on his
shoulder "This will only be the start of your rise and just as I rose above
my own father…you will rise above me"
Lucius met his father's gaze as he spoke firmly and only trusted himself to
nod which garnered a faint smile from his father before he lost it and a
cool expression took hold. "Get ready. We leave in two hours."
Hours Later…
Lucius' gaze sweeping across the horizon. The light of the sun had long
been snuffed out though one would never know. Bright orbs, countless
numbers of them in countless variety of colour, floated in the air and it
was almost as if the very stars descended down on this very night.
And below those floating stars, there were thousands, tens of thousands, in
that field, the noise even this high up on the secluded hill top. He had
never seen so many people in one single place before. But it didn't
surprise him. Not truly.
The Beltane Festival was one of the oldest and most common festival
within the magical community with records claiming it was started as far
back as Ancient Egypt some five thousand years ago by Egyptian Mage
Priests.
Nearly all magical communities held variations of Beltane, the ritual of
renewal and rebirth, with Samhain hold equally similar variations.
And with the Illosian Beltane festival rising to fame across the Magical
World over the course of a decade, a festival that was a blend of the Old
ways and the New, it had soon enough become the festival to be at no
matter where you were from.
Much like anything else Illos, Lucius silently mused to himself.
Lucius tore his gaze away from the site before him and looked upon the
crowd of people that hovered around the King and Queen. This was the
first time in years that he'd seen them though he never spoken to them
before.
In truth…he wasn't sure if he wanted to. Those memories he'd seen years
ago were seared in his mind and no polite smiles like the smiles they
wore now could make him forget that they were only human in
appearance.
The fact that they looked no older than twenty five despite in their forties
like his father was only cemented this in his mind. Magicals could live up
to a quarter of millennium and the more powerful even more than that
but he didn't think it was normal to still look so young.
He moved away from the edge and looked for his father, his gaze
sweeping across all the time, his eyes putting names to faces from the
pictures and descriptions he'd seen. He saw Dembe Habe, the famous
Benin Archmage conversing with Credence Aurilius and the Flamels.
He turned his gaze in another direction and saw the Persian leader, Sina,
conversing with the Ottoman Ambassador Cihan Aslan, the Indian
Minister Singh and the Brazilian Minister Perreira. Despite it being
Beltane, it seemed like the rest of the dignitaries, leaders and their
families had the same thought as he did.
Subdued colourings like the warmer shade of blue his formal dress was
were worn. He did see a few crowns of flowers though they were mostly
on young girls.
All he looked, he saw clusters of powerful people talking, the King and
Queen moving around from conversation to conversation with seemingly
effortless ease. He participated in a few conversations, though he was
mostly interested in something else at present.
His eyes swept across looking for a particular person and he found her
amongst her sisters. All the sisters, including Bellatrix unfortunately,
looked beautiful in their spring dresses but Narcissa was a Queen
amongst them. Like she always was.
He caught her look and he smiled faintly, his head bowed slightly and he
could see her face alight though in a subtle manner once she saw him.
Bellatrix's scowl was only the icing of a cake.
Hours went by and he'd forgotten more names than he cared to
remember as he participated in a few idle conversations by his father's
side and alone though most of it fell away when the magic of Beltane
grew stronger and stronger.
It was intoxicating. Illos already was a haven of converging magic and
now…it was overwhelming. He wasn't the only one affected, he thought
amusedly, his pupils dilated. He could see more than a few dignitaries
sitting down with their eyes closed.
The magic was soothing, embracing and on the precipice.
"May I have this dance Heir Malfoy?" he heard the familiar voice, the
voice of his greatest desires and he turned around and saw her stand in
front of him, her arms behind that pretty spring dress.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed and he could see her pupils dilated as
she stared at him expectantly. He bowed before her, his head dipping. "Of
course, Lady Black" he said as he, with a gentle flourish, extended his
hand to her.
She kept up eye contact even when her dainty hand, as fluidic as whip of
water, moved to placed itself into his hand. He stood back up and slowly,
smoothly moved his other hand on her waist, the gentle music that filled
the night drowning out everything else out until…as he brought her
closely and they began to dance, even that music fell away.
"I thought we were to dance at the Ball." Lucius commented idly as they
danced slowly, the floor more or less only occupied with a scattered
number of people dancing to the lively but slow music.
"We will be." Narcissa said with lightness in her voice. "You will ask me
to dance then." She said in a prim voice and Lucius chuckled softly, the
corners of his mouth threatened to blossom into a smile.
"How Slytherin of you." Lucius said fondly and Narcissa looked with
herself. A few moments passed, the music increasing in tempo and they
matched their dance to suit it. Lucius tore away his gaze from her face
and looked around. He could see his father with the Blacks – Orion Black
was certainly looking this way – conversing with the King and Queen
though he didn't see her sisters.
"Your sisters…" Lucius trailed off before he looked down and met her
gaze again. "Have they left?" Narcissa shook her head.
"No." Narcissa gained a glint in her eyes "Andromeda is speaking with
Bellatrix"
So it seemed like Bellatrix did not want her to come to him. He'd send
Andromeda a gift at some point, he thought to himself.
Lucius' lips twitched. "I see." He said lightly before he stepped back and
took her right hand and twirled her around before drawing her closer to
him. His breathing was a little heavier and he could feel the unheard
beat, the rhythm beyond the music that was ensnaring his magic, all of
their magic, the beat that rose and rose ever so steadily that his heart was
beginning to magic.
"And your parents? Do they approve?" Lucius asked, his voice low and
tender as he drew her even closer, so much so their faces were only a few
inches from the other's.
Her flushed cheeks reddened "They approve" she murmured, her head
dipping as she looked to their feet. That they approve…
Lucius allowed a soft smile to blossom on his face, uncaring how it
appeared to anyone else. It seemed like miscalculated. He did not need
next year to win her over. He placed a finger under her chin and gently
raised it up. She looked nervous. She had no reason to be. "I am glad. My
father approves too."
He saw happiness in her eyes and he wanted to capture it, he wanted to
frame it permanently in her eyes, in her very being. She deserved no less
than this state of bliss. They fell into an enchantment, the beat
deepening, his magic singing, their bodies moving as if they were
attached to strings guiding them through motions and steps and twists.
The world fell away and in the end, there were only two.
And he wouldn't want it any other way.
23. Chapter 83
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
2nd of May, 1971 – Temple of Celestis, Beltane Ball
He stared at the great sculpture that stood before him, enjoying the brief
silence that came from being alone in this part of the temple after
extricating himself from the Ball. The sculpture was in honour of Lady
Magic in the form of Gaia, the mother Earth…the mother of all.
This part of the temple, this floor, was largely devoted to magic and its
role in nature, the symbiotic relationship that existed between them that
fostered a greater synergy that was unrivalled in all of existence.
It felt…apt, to find reprieve here.
And in that reprieve, he allowed himself to consider Beltane and
contemplated the symbolism of what the Ball truly meant, was meant to
mean, and the far-reaching links that would stem from it, links that were
akin to rebar in concrete foundation.
Beltane, as much as Samhain did, espoused the essence of Gaia in its
rituals and its celebrations, though on a brighter and happier note.
Renewal and rebirth, an awakening that would bloom into fertility and
strength.
An awakening that he and Emily were replicating in their own little way
that would yield the greatest of harvests, he thought to himself with
silent solemnity, his eyes set on the sculpture before him as he took in
every last little detail of the Mother.
The female sculpture was elegance and dignity personified. A circlet of
tweed woven on a head with a face that bore perfect symmetry, perfect
feminine softness and yet never frail looking.
A great scale hung from her right hand, a hand that bore fingers
encrusted with dried earth, and one end of the scale had a blooming tree
and a tri-horned giraffe eating its leaves whilst on the other end there
was a nundu feasting on the carcass of a gazelle with a sapling shown by
the side of the carcass.
The great protector and the great destroyer, the balance that existed in
nature that cared for them all and loved them all but nevertheless
maintained the order of life to ensure it is flourishing. A collection of
ideas that ran deep in many cultures of man.
Muggle or magical.
It was a beautiful symmetry that defined death and life as it ought to be,
of rebirth and renewal, uninfected by the corruptive and hungering reach
of them, he thought grimly before he returned his mind towards his
earlier contemplation, his gaze refocusing on the sculpture.
And, as he stared at the sculpture, knowing that it was the beginning of
the end of their future on Earth, their plans towards the Celestis system
moving apace, he couldn't help but contemplate silently how much
humanity's need for answers – and that it entailed – and inability to
simply accept as things as they were would prove to be the final spark
that would see him and Emily steal the magical world away.
Humanity's insatiable drive would see it split into two.
A few moments passed as he fell into a kind of reverie, his eyes looking
up at the symbolic sculpture. Humanity…humanity had always looked
for answers.
Answers that seemed impossible to answer but were answered anyway
for unanswered questions were almost as if it were heretical,
unimaginably so.
Even those uncountable distant pinpricks of light that shone in seas of
blackness, lights that were always there without fail at night even if the
clouds had decided to hide them away for a period of time. Humanity
had come to know them as permanent, as fixed in their lives as the
hunger they would feel if they had not eaten.
No matter how far they walked. No matter how much they aged and
their parents died. No matter how old the songs were. The pinpricks of
light were always there.
Why...?
They began to wonder.
Stories were crafted, imagination made to run wild…
Must be the seat of Gods, they began to believe.
For all things died, they had observed but not these lights. Like the sun
and the moon, these were permanent. Like the sun and moon, for whom
stories and songs were written for by ancestors of yesteryears and given
purpose, surely there was a reason for them being so permanent, for
being unchanging even if they moved sometimes.
And so, humanity made their own answers, their own reality of how
things worked and why things worked as they did. Always shifting and
changing, moving forward.
For unanswerable answers could not exist, were not permitted to exist for
humanity…humanity must always have its answers. Even after humanity
settled in fertile lands that seemed scarcely believable, even more so
when humanity learned to change the world to suit their needs but had
begun to offer new questions it needed answers for, new considerations
that needed explanation.
Fortune and tragedy that seemed to be random, that seemed to be
unknowable and without answers were made to have answers and so
fortune and tragedy were made to be of the whims of gods and terrible
consequences due to actions committed by their leaders who must have
displeased their Gods so. Why else…
Rituals and sacrifice and prayers for forgiveness were given and when the
tragedy, disease or famine or war, had passed, the depth of answers they
had grew.
Of course your farm did poor this harvest. You did not sacrifice enough
goats…
Of course we needed to replace the King…he was not favoured by the Gods!
Humanity must always have its answers.
Answers and tales grew in depth as time moved forward, heroic and
tragic stories of men were forged around the fires of hearths and homes
and temples to showcase folly, bravery or other such virtues capturing
the soul and hearts of man exemplifying the conquering of the impossible
because man always found the answer it needed. That it wanted.
Humanity must always have its answers.
Time moved forward and humanity moved forward, entire systems of
beliefs and reasons of existence created for there must always be answers,
there must always be something to reach and understand. Why, why,
why…
It was in their nature to reach up and build towards greater
understanding, towards the very seats of the Gods. Priests, holy men and
leaders had tried to suppress this aspect of their make-up, denying and
decrying this need that made up the core of their existence as
blasphemous but they never succeeded despite their efforts.
Humanity must always have its answers.
Even if they were told they were not to seek it. Even if they agreed it was
wrong.
After all, he mused to himself…
Had they not likened the Gods in the image of man?
And the Gods knew everything, could see everything.
Didn't that mean humanity must also know everything, must also see
everything?
This ancestral desire of man, this need to have all the answers was what
made their family great yet it also made them terrible for man's obsessive
need to have answers had its own darkness.
For what would be wrought when answers were given that were not
liked, if not hated? That cast doubt about their own self worth and
provided a target for their ills, perceived and actual, one that threatened
their worldview, an ordered worldview, where they were the masters of
the Earth, God's favourite and most powerful?
History had plenty examples of such disliked answers, such breaches of
worldviews.
Humanity must have its answers…and once it received answers that it
could not bear, answers were made to change to fit in their ordered
worldview like humanity had always done time and again…
He and Emily were no different from the rest of humanity. They had
answers, some answers and they could not bear it, would not bear it and
would do all they could to change the worldview as much as they
could…no matter the pain caused or cost.
And in the instance of Exposure…they knew the muggles wouldn't be
able to bear it either. And…and that meant only one thing.
Would always mean the same thing.
Paranoia and fear, backed by trickles of truth, would work together to
find an answer, to a solution to magic when the magical world refused to
bend the knee to their demands fueled by paranoia and fear about
magicals, beings who did not fit in the reality they thought they knew.
They would not succeed.
But instead of outcompeting the muggles for dominance and supremacy,
they would simply leave.
And humanity, he thought as he stared at the sculpture, would be split
into two, this time greater and more absolute than ever before, free to
grow in their own ways.
Until they met again in the distant future. He could not see that far, not
yet, but he could sense it in his bones that humanity one day would meet
again.
Perhaps by chance, likely by necessity.
The Covenant were but a stone's throw away from Earth's region of space
and the regions around Celestis were not well mapped at all. Both
civilisations of humanity would one day meet other civilisations and
space was not a place of peace.
It was a dark forest with predators both large and small.
His eyes shifted towards the balanced scale. Chances were, they would
need each other. As different as they were, the other was more alien…
nonhuman.
In truth, he didn't think they would need the muggles' assistance if his
people met other alien civilisations, no, he doubted that very much. After
all, the summation of magic and technology equalled to a thousand on a
scale of one to a hundred.
Even the Covenant with its reported thousands of worlds did not greatly
concern him. Especially not if the greatest threat, these Sangheili, were as
prone to magic as the muggles were as his mother found out.
But he did believe he needed the muggles' help – and their numbers – for
when they came. His expression darkened. When they would come for
them all.
Atticus sighed and just like that, his mind went back into rare idleness,
his attentions focused on the sculpture for a good few minutes. It didn't
last nearly long enough.
He could sense her coming and he decided to get on with it. Little had
changed over the past few years when it came to the likeliest timeline
that would come to pass.
The matter of knowing the timeline along with his Seers at the Office of
Far-Sight who peered into the lens of Living Time was enough to, at
times, to slightly pull and push possibilities.
And now with the Ball nearing its end, he wanted, needed to see if it was
still as monumental as he had foreseen.
With a silent sigh, reality around him began to fade away almost akin to
a man on his deathbed falling into blissful and final sleep, a final breath
equal to a final fall.
Colours grew in might and glory, their hues made physical as they
formed into cloudy mists that hummed in sync with him. Time
dissociated itself from him and the world around him whilst a fraction of
its possibilities flooded into his perception.
Immediate futures of greatest likelihood poured into him, his
consciousness exploring and reading threads of timelines with the kind of
gentleness and fervour as that of a devout priest reading ancient text of
long lost scripture.
Years flew by like how pages flew by for those engrossed and captured by
the writings of those who crafted worlds in ink though for him, he lived
those years.
He felt the burgeoning nature magic of Celestis, he could smell the
perfume of the wife of the Irish Minister of Magic in eighteen months, he
could feel Emily's soft lips on his neck and the warm caress of the sun's
rays on his skin three years from now just as easily as if it was happening
in the present and he could feel the anger and guilt he would feel in six
years' time.
Ten, thirty, fifty years passed, were lived as he pulled along the axis of
Time.
He Saw and he Felt as if he was seeing and feeling in the now, future and
present were only concepts in this state of his, concepts that the others
felt and knew were nothing but akin to unproven theorems made to make
sense of the universe.
Like flowing roots deep below the depths of earth, he was tapped into the
interconnectivity of Living Time, choices and events and life itself echoed
into the past, the present and the future at all once, looping and ending
and starting again without ever being able to tell what was a True Start
and what was a True End.
Like energy, nothing about time or consciousness could be destroyed.
Only transformed.
Renewal and Rebirth.
And transformation…
Transformation was sought in this Ball, a rebirth of interests into interests
that were in alignment of that of Illos' own. Like crabs moulting as they
outgrew their carapace, little by little the magical world was
transforming even as the dark cloud over Europe threatened to subsume
the rest of the world because of the Raven's pain.
Growing and changing, old and seemingly immovable pillars of society
were no more immune to the tides of change and growth and progress as
a spec of sand was to the gentle but encroaching tide.
This was a changing world, he Saw and he Felt.
A world sparked into rebirth and renewal.
A spark that he could Sense beginning to alter the path, the story that
written within the membrane of consciousness that guided infinite
choices towards an unchanging end goal, a path that reaching hands and
cold consciousness had always planned.
It was a change that he could feel within the structures of Living Time
itself, a change that saw the slightest, near infinitesimally small vibration
on the surface of Time whose surface was unchanging since Time
Immemorial even as below its surface, life and power raged and thrashed
against the sweeping cycles that yet washed over them easily and
snuffing the fight out of them before absorbing it all into itself along the
sounds of marching drums of inevitability, never once affecting the still
surface.
Yet, the spark, his and Emily's spark, was like a stone, a boulder thrown in
the face of this faceless and infinite surface, the hopeful first of many, and
he Saw and Felt and Sensed the beginnings of a ripple growing, a hopeful
beginning of the end of the sweeping cycle that turned this universe
unending in perpetuity, fixed in cruel cycles.
A ripple he feared and rejoiced at, a ripple that needed them to stay the
course and a ripple that forewarned those Shapeless Ones who lie in the
dark and waited for Life to grow ripe and tested before consuming it
whole, no matter what form they took, satiating and enriching themselves
before starting over again and again and again…
Now that the gears were moving, gears built over millions of years by those
who once were more than simple echoes within the Domain and later
pieced together by Ancient Humanity, it was only a matter of time before
a confrontation was to happen.
The shards of uncountable beings – tiny fractional nuggets of experiences
of those that had the fortune of escaping the abominable endless torture –
of civilisations that had fallen to them made that clear through the few
times he'd reached out into the Domain over the past few years, a
consequence had them feverishly working on solidifying the foundations
of a singular magical world before the journey through the stars was
made.
He pulled himself out of the depths of Time, his gaze swimming in a
misty explosion of magic and echoes made of filaments of Time before it
settled away, his eyes and his mind clearing and like a saviour, Lady
Magic stood central in his sight.
He let the heavy thoughts of distant terrible confrontations and near
impossible missions eke out from him, the magic that coursed through
Illos profoundly assisting in settling his nerve, magic that bore the
remnants of Beltane still in its essence.
He let of a breathless sigh, grateful for the lift that Illos had given him
and a small wistful smile struck away at a face had been wracked with an
expression of gloom.
It was easy to be stuck in the Truths of the Universe once you were at the
fringes of understanding it and end up consumed by it. Even Emily, in
their explorations of consciousness and the nature of existence in this
universe, was afraid by it all.
He stared at the sculpture of Lady Magic that was in the form of Gaia
before looking past Her.
But…they had magic.
And…and they had each other.
Perhaps that would be answer enough…
"Perenelle." Atticus greeted quietly, his gaze still fixed on the sculpture
before him, the soft paddling sounds of her steps coming to a half when
she stood by his side.
"Taking a breather?" she questioned lightly, her voice akin to the sounds
of chimes carried through the air by the soft breeze of evening autumn.
It was refreshing.
Atticus allowed a small smile to form on his face, his gaze still on the
sculpture.
"You could say that."
He finally broke his gaze away and glanced at her for a half a second
before returning in to the sculpture. "There is only so much politicking I
can endure in a day."
That at least was true.
It was like a little United Nations in the main hall of the Temple with
more dignitaries arriving after Beltane. There were even dignitaries from
ICW Protectorates who he knew were pressured into seeking out an
invitation so that the ICW were at least kept abreast of what was going
on…who was here.
Conversation was never idle with any of them…save those few
conversations he had with Credence or other non-political people who
he'd ensured were invited.
Invitations to visit their communities, comments about investments or
trade agreements or vague hints towards 'doing something' about this or
that – more than a few times referencing the Raven and his cabal – could
only be endured so much after a little while even if it was the reason for
having the Ball in the first place.
An informal place where power mixed and where agendas could be
furthered, Illos' own agenda towering over all of theirs. Wealth and
influence mixed, deals and marriages were made by families half a world
away from each other when interests were found to be aligned, at least in
the short term with scope for it to be longer term.
Much of it being hardly clean but nevertheless it was necessary to
facilitate it if only for the knock on effect it had, a knock on effect that
would persist and grow for decades to come changing the fabric of the
magical world even more than it was changing now and the truth was…
With how interconnected the magical world was, more than had ever
been and yet only a fraction of what it will be later, there was very little
that he or Emily would have to do beyond staying the course and
facilitating people to meet.
Both common and powerful alike.
They had done most of the work already – bar the final hammer that
would be brought down on the Raven and his followers – and Magicom
did the rest.
Under the slight influence of Alice.
Magicom made communication across the magical world seem as easy as
sticking your head in the floo generations ago with less than a fraction of
the cost incurred and more comfortable too. Friends and societies were
linked with ease and flow of information and interests was made easy.
Where the 'West' in his old world were bound by history, ideals, economic
ties and ethnicity, here…magic was the great commonality that
transcended it all.
Where communication may have opened the flow of information, trips
across the magical world made easier by Gates allowed people to
experience the magical communities around the world with at most
requiring one trip through the Floo before making it to a Gate since the
Gate network had at least one Gate on every continent.
Schools had international competitions where students could experience
cultures, ideas about magic and other students frequently – in some
instances yearly – increasing tolerance and acceptance of others
gradually as time went by.
Nobles and wealthy families saw that there was little difference between
other noble and wealthy families and connected their family lines – and
in time would notice stronger scions from those unions, unions that had
not happened since the times of antiquities or perhaps even since the
days of Atlantis, causing other families to follow suit – and would come
to have sympathies in the 'Pan-Magi' move that was set to grow.
Still, as much as every small detail that happened in that hall served a
greater purpose, he didn't feel guilty at all to at least have a few moments
to himself. He could lean on Emily to grab their attentions at least for a
little while.
Perenelle's laugh was tickling, drawing him back in.
"I can understand. Poor Nicky even more so."
Perenelle's laugh died off and he sensed the frown that made its way on
her face, a frown he could feel emanate from her magic despite how
subdued and under controlled her magic was. There was little he could
not sense if he wished to.
"He might start cursing in a hundred different languages soon if his
buttons get pushed a few too many times." Perenelle peered at him, a coy
smile on her face.
"He might curse you too for inviting him."
Atticus smile was wry "He does that every other day anyway"
When the situation with the ICW had come to an end, Atticus had been
more free to be involved with SIMS and with the Flamels as a whole.
It made the school even better than it was after he'd worked with the
Irish Ministry to institute SIMS as Ireland's foremost secondary and
tertiary school.
It also meant that SIMS was much much larger now, almost equal to the
Pandrosion in enrolled secondary school students with Nicolas serving as
the Headmaster practically full time.
Nicolas often decried having so much responsibility and blamed Atticus
for 'forcing' him into becoming a glorified childminder but his complaints
were little more than stale air.
He could resign if he wanted to but anyone who knew him at least
somewhat knew that he did enjoy being Headmaster, particularly when it
came to being part of the research that was being conducted by those in
tertiary education or conducting research.
Above many other things, Nicolas was a man of science and magic and
SIMS was almost perfect for him…the only downer he truly had was that
Perenelle had resigned from a teaching position at SIMS instead electing
to take an ambassadorial position between Illos and Ireland – the real
reason was to be part of her many times great-grandchildren who had
children of their own now – which meant they weren't in each other's
company as much as before.
Atticus had little sympathy for the man in that regard.
Perenelle and Nicolas saw each other practically every day still,
something that was far too much of a luxury for him and Emily.
Perenelle's coy smile bloomed into a fond one. "That's true" she
acknowledged "It's from a place of care really" she said a little airily and
Atticus for the first time in the evening laughed as he raised one of his
eyebrows in amusement.
Perenelle good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "A very, very deep place" she
said wryly, both of them smiling at each other. Both he and Nicolas did
still consider each other friends but it was a little distant friendship in
truth.
A lot of his and Emily's actions did disturb him – doubtlessly horrified if
Nicolas truly knew the scope of their crimes – even if he saw the logic
behind it and the reasons they had for it.
Both Flamels knew of his goals to take the magical world off to Celestis
and as the muggle world grew ever more dangerous, especially after how
dangerous the Cuban Missile Crisis had been, most of Nicolas' resistance
had fallen away even if he disagreed the way he and Emily went about
'fostering' relationships with the weaker magical communities and the
subsuming of Avalon into their control.
Not to mention his disapproval of letting 'The Raven problem' go on as it
was at present. Even if it didn't serve their purpose, he would have been
reticent to help dig out the nobility of Europe out of the hole they would
soon find themselves in…
The same hole they had condemned everyone else in Europe to.
In any case, it couldn't be helped, he merely thought with an internal
shrug. He had long ago let go of trying to win people over completely.
There was always kernels of doubt, of disagreement, even in his most
loyal let alone someone like Nicolas who would always have his own way
of seeing things.
It was simply human nature, he thought to himself quietly and it would
not be something he would see suppressed or removed in the magical
world if he could help it.
Atticus tilted his head at the sculpture, a fleeting thought took hold of his
mind. "Do you think if Gaia could speak, she would ask us not to go?" he
posed to Perenelle.
Three quarters of a millennium of life experiences, likely even forgotten
more magic than she had learnt, had her prepared well for the kind of
abstract question he was asking. "As much as I'd like to say no, I believe
she would yes." Perenelle admitted.
She paused for a few seconds before she continued on "Magic would live
on, on Earth, nothing could ever change that, but I imagine it would feel
like an injury." She said and he mulled it over whilst she continued
"In my many years of life, I have found that the natural world is stronger
with the presence of magicals, be they sentient or not, and I have found
that a belief reinforced more so once the Statute went up. Forests and
Jungles that once bore many magical creatures were moved or hunted
down for fear of breaking the Statute seemed to have lost lot of their
essence over time and disappeared within two muggle lifetimes…partly
because of muggles but also because of the loss of its native magical
beings and creatures." She paused briefly, a small sigh escaping her
delicate lips before she looked up at the sculpture.
"I fear such collapse of the natural world would only hasten once we
leave." She said a little quietly "Perhaps it would have been inevitable
anyway, the muggles are destructive in their way of progress, but I would
have liked to think we would make a great deal of difference in
preserving her and her nature."
"And…" she continued, this time a little nostalgic "Even without
considering what we would have done for her, I would like think of her
as a mother and no mother would want their children to leave home and
no mother could bear never seeing her children again."
"I doubt it will be forever." Atticus added though it was without much
belief.
Perenelle looked at him, a sad look on her face, one that he wouldn't
have needed his Sight or magic to decipher. "It won't be home then. We'll
be guests."
If the muggles progressed at the rate they were, it was doubtful they
could call Earth home ever again once they left.
No magical would want to live under a muggle government, there was
too much history and fear between them, and they all knew the muggles
well enough that it was simply an impossibility that they would
peacefully allow any magical government to take root on the homeworld.
There was a comfortable silence, one that both allowed to sit for a while.
"I believe it is at this point I say something philosophical." Atticus said,
breaking the silence after he felt enough time had passed.
Perenelle laughed loudly, almost giggling before she spoke, her bare and
elegant neck craning, her head tilted like a cat attempting to figure out
something unknown bearing a lady like Cheshire grin "You could do what
Nicky does."
Atticus looked at her with a faint smile as he turned towards her "Oh?"
"Wishy-washy sentences that make no sense but are accepted as wise
words." She eyed him with mischief "Normally it takes a couple of
centuries to get to that point where people don't question it but given
your position, it could work."
Atticus chuckled softly. "Who says I don't do that anyway?" he said with a
smile.
And technically, he supposed, he had the experiences of centuries in a
way, especially since his Sight improved to the point it was pretty much
like he was there in the first place.
That along with the amount of time he spent using Time-Turners, he was
a fair bit older than his near forty-seven years of age despite his body
being in effective frozen at age twenty-seven.
"Now come, you've spent long enough recovering." Perenelle coaxed and
he stuck out an arm which she elegantly took. She would hear no
complaints from him, the orchestra was playing at this moment in time
reducing the number of people who'd demand his time.
She eyed him curiously, hints of mischief but certainly mostly curiosity.
"How did you get the guards to stay away?"
He smiled wryly at her as they moved towards the stairs that would lead
them down towards the main hall of the Temple "I threatened them with
disappearing for a week without saying where I was going" he said in a
dry tone, a tone that had a kind of exasperation latched on it.
"There are many things that make me regret agreeing to be King but the
guards are very much near the top of my list of complaints" he said in a
morose tone, one that Perenelle did not seem to sympathise with at all.
"Poor you" she said sarcastically, her eyebrows raised in disbelief.
"and also 'Agreeing to be King' is downplaying it a lot, don't you think?"
she questioned sceptically and with squinted eyes.
"I don't know what you mean" he said innocently as he looked away from
her gaze in very suspect-like way and she snorted very unladylike.
"Right." Perenelle muttered "You have very little complain about, Atticus."
She said as she tapped his arm. "Even those guards do it more from a
place of love than they do it in duty and complaining about it is very
unbefitting of you." Perenelle said and it was clear she was quite enjoying
telling him off. Probably because she hadn't told off a King or two in a
few centuries, he mused to himself.
"Everyone kisses your arse, even that abominable Raven doesn't dare
offending you too much, and you know it too." She raised her nose very
dramatically.
"Everyone kisses my lovely tush too and you don't hear me complaining
about it."
Atticus' lips twitched "Well, you had a long time to get used to it"
Perenelle craned her neck, faux outraged "Are you making fun of my age?
How ungallant of you" she said in a playful scowl.
The banter went on for a little while longer until they returned to the
main hall…much to the relief of the guards. Atticus suspected they
probably asked Perenelle's help in getting him back under their eyes.
Pesky little buggers.
A light orchestra was playing and he saw quite a number of people
dancing at the centre of the hall. Sandra and Derek were there as were
Harfang and his wife and many others. Even Lucius Malfoy and his wife-
to-be Narcissa Black.
It was rather curious, he mused to himself.
He did next to nothing when it came to people's romantic lives yet pairs
that he knew from fiction happened nonetheless. It meant very little in
the grand scheme of things when it came to the path the Shapeless Ones
wanted, after all, it was not completely deterministic, so he believed this
match was completely done with free will and chance.
In a way, he found that to be endearing.
Despite Lucia who, instead of being cast out or worse killed for being a
squib at birth but instead was treated and fully magical and a firm fixture
in Lucius' life, along with a host of other changes to the magical world
done that affected the teenager, it still seemed that Lucius and Narcissa
were meant to be.
Nicolas came over once he'd seen them enter the hall looking far too
eager to escape the small crowd that had been around him "Perry" he said
with a faint note of relief and Perenelle smiled indulgingly at her
husband.
Perenelle unwrapped her arm around Atticus' and took Nicolas' offered
one.
Nicolas turned towards him "Your wife might need a bit of rescue
herself." Nicolas informed him. Atticus nodded to the man before he
made his way towards her.
A few people tried to speak to him but he brushed them off politely as he
made his way to Emily who was conversing with a few people, including
Lord Malfoy, Lord Delacour and other such notables, and a faint uptick of
his lips made its way onto his otherwise neutral face.
Her hair was free flowing like fine silken threads dipped in a bath made
of shadows and atop her head there was a thin diadem made of Mithril
that flowed like running water with its jewels moving in a Ouroboros
pattern.
She was dressed in a long dark green dress that was split allowing her
greater free movement if she needed it and tastefully hugged her
exquisite form. Her exposed neck adorned Slytherin, Pendragon and
Sayre styled jewellery.
She looked every bit a Queen. His Queen. He sent deep affectionate love
through their bond and she turned towards his direction as he
approached.
She smiled at him as she returned the love through their bond, a similar
faint barely noticeable smile on her face despite the depth of her love
that shone through the bond they shared.
"My love" Atticus said as he gently placed his hand on her back and
leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek. She angled her head slightly
towards him as her right hand was placed onto his forearm and he kissed
her gently before standing by her.
She sent him a minor Legillimency probe 'Fatiman wants to meet tomorrow
as expected. I agreed.' Atticus sent a feeling of affirmativeness through
their bond as he set his gaze upon those Emily was speaking to without
particularly focusing on anyone, all of this happening within less than a
second.
"Husband" she said with a trickle of affection before she pulled him in a
little closer.
Atticus smiled at her before he turned his gaze towards the men that
she'd been conversing and inclined his head in greeting to them, all of
them reciprocating it with polite decorum.
"Your Majesty." The Dutch lord Van der Schoen said respectfully with a
dip of the head after Atticus turned towards the blonde haired middle
aged man "We were just speaking about the artistic merits of Gallardo."
"Robert here believes he might be able to dislodge Mrs Fisbililah from her
perch" Lord Delacour, Jean said before he placed the rim of the glass of
champagne on his lips. Atticus raised an eyebrow in response, his eyes
sweeping across faces of the crowd before fixing them onto Van der
Schoen.
"Quite the belief to have. It's wrong but it's quite something." Atticus
lightly said to the man with a faint smile and soft chuckles rang around
before a dull debate about art and what style was more reflective of
magical culture took hold.
Thankfully it hadn't lasted too long and after speaking briefly to Jean
Delacour about his heir, his grandson – his wild son had foolishly killed
himself in the Pyrenees mountains – he and Emily did final rounds of
conversation at the Ball before they retired for the evening.
"Fatiman will be brought to us early in the morning. I've asked Sandra to
join us" Emily said whilst she began to remove her jewellery from her
neck. Atticus threw his over-embroidered royal jacket to the side before
he made his way to her.
He stood behind her and gently clutched her hands that were on the back
of her neck attempting to unclip the small chain. Jewellery like this were
finicky to remove, even with magic. The kinds of charms that Emily had
placed on them made it all but impossible for it to be removed but by her
own – or his – hands.
She stopped and moved her hands aside letting him remove the chains
for her. "I prefer her away from this side of things." Atticus said to her.
Sandra, after resigning from Chancellorship to focus more on her family,
had instead became one of three Chief Judges that presided over supreme
court cases.
"I know." Emily said with a sigh "But she was involved in the original
terms." She peered at him with a side glance "And it's not as if it changes
anything" she half stated, half asked. Atticus shook his head as he
unclipped the first of the three chains.
He shared with her his visions quite often.
Not always, that would be impractical and unnecessary but enough times
for her to know the general trend of how things would go.
"No, it doesn't change anything." And Sandra wouldn't know the dirtier
side of what they would do afterwards anyway. Sandra was a smart
woman but she would try to refuse understand and he'd rather not put
that kind of weight on her shoulders.
"Still believe we need to cut their numbers down?" Atticus posed to her as
he unclipped the second of three chains. "To at most two clans if not
one?"
"Of course." Emily merely stated. "The Haitians and the other Afro-
Haitian magical communities are too much of a problem otherwise. No
matter how unfortunate the loss of most of their magic would be."
That was true. Normally they tended to be as magnanimous as they could
be when they wanted to foster relations with more disconnected magical
communities.
The Haitians however…
Well, there was a reason why the ICW had taken great pains during the
Statute Wars to wipe out as many of them and the African tribes that
they had originally hailed from.
Their expertise in certain kind of magic was practically supreme, magicks
like animancy, blessing magic, effigy dark arts, necromancy and other
such obscure magicks made them a magical group difficult to deal with
and it was no little surprise that most of their tribal magicks were made
illegal under international law.
Not that it helped in ridding the world of those kinds of magic. Still, he
had to admit, he was a little relieved that the necessity of 'borrowing'
from nature and needing samples was there. It limited their threat level to
something far more manageable.
And the fact that while the ICW hadn't been completely successful in
wiping out those tribes, they did however set the conditions for most of
voodoo magic to be constricted to about seventeen clans.
Seventeen clans that soon would become two clans indebted to Emily and
Atticus.
"Do you still want even those two? Despite what we'll have to do to
manage them?" Emily asked in a light moan when he unclipped the last of
the chains, his hands now beginning to kneading her neck and shoulders.
The Haitians were a difficult problem. Their magic was unique and it
would be a shame to see it gone from the universe even if it was as dark
as it was. But the Haitians were also far from easy people to control.
The ICW provided enough historical evidence about that. Even amongst
themselves, they were difficult especially now given the current situation.
As of right now, there was a power struggle between all of the clans that
effectively ruled like warlords over large swathes of territory in both
worlds.
Funnily enough, this time they had little to do with it. At least directly.
He hummed silently.
He was tempted to do away with them just as they had done with other
dark enclaves of magicals that the ICW had conveniently ignored since
they hadn't been a threat to the Statute of Secrecy but his Sight did
provide a solution.
It was also a level of control that he greatly disliked, the same kind of
control they'd used to subjugate the Goblins, methods that'd provide the
foundation to transition them into inclusivity within magical society.
"Yes." Atticus said to her after a few moments had passed "I would like to
preserve as many distinct magical cultures and unique talents as
possible…even if we have to make the chains as tight as possible." Atticus
said to Emily in a distracted way.
The Fatiman and Salikoko clans were allied and at present, they were
close to losing against one of the larger alliances. Their numbers had
already been cut down by more than half and it wouldn't be long until
they lost the struggle.
With the underworld of the magical world outside of Europe now
effectively gutted into non-existence as agreeable dark wizards fell under
Illos' control and backing in return for wealth and monopolisation, the
market for Haitian services was rendered close to nil making the existing
more legal business ventures far more priceless.
Which kick-started the Haitian civil war in the first place.
The Fatiman clan had links to Gutierrez, the Mexican dark wizard turned
legal businessman who once had been a hitman-for-hire, and it was
through him they learned enough of the need to pull the pieces together.
They'd tried to extract the information from Gutierrez and his men but he
was not able to tell them anything because he physically could not.
With the use of Osteomancy, a method of reading the future and the past
using bones as a focus – they managed to get a hold of bones of targets
the Illosian Guards eliminated – they found out about the Geas that
existed.
A Geas that prohibited anyone not keyed in from learning who exactly
was responsible for the sweeping changes that were and had happened in
the underworld.
It was then that the Head of Fatiman clan, Pierre Fatiman, was
approached and made an offer. An offer that had been rejected but will be
accepted soon.
Their situation was dire enough to necessitate it.
Had they been like the other clans or families like those in South America
who were reasonable when it came to accepting the new status quo, that
agreement would have been enough. But they wouldn't be. The
conditions in which the Haitians were born into created a group of
magicals that were relentless. Even these two weaker clans.
The Fatiman and Salikoko clans had not been the most powerful of the
clans but they were most certainly equal to the rest of the clans when it
came to ruthlessness.
Magicals and muggles alike were almost akin to pets to these clans, used
to further their abilities in their branches of magic and used as weapons
against the other clans.
The Haitians had unofficial status of pariahs – partly because of historical
fear left over from the Statute Wars which yielded severe casualties on
the side of the ICW and Europe – and it wasn't undeserved even if you
moved past history.
They held little compunction of taking away free will from others and
they would see this agreement indebting them to Illos as a similar kind of
free will removal.
They would never stop seeking to loosen the so-called chains that Emily
and him placed onto them. They would be relentless in this pursuit.
In the end, they came to conclude 'Fine then. Have it your way.'
How ironic that in their inevitable ruthless drive towards their so-called
independence they would actually find themselves tighter bound to the
point that they could do little without his and Emily's say.
Emily made a noise before she turned around, the jewellery floating
away once it was off of her neck. Her hands moved across his arms, her
dark blue eyes gazing up at him. "You looked handsome in that Rosi"
Emily said in a sensual tone, her hands gradually moving towards his
crotch.
"Hmm" Atticus made out as he brushed the back of his hand against her
cheek, his eyes roving towards her figure that her dress tastefully hid and
he contemplated if he wanted her in or out of the dress. She made to
move to remove the dress but Atticus placed his hand on her arm.
"Leave it on." Atticus said seductively and her eyes grew a hungry and
pleased glint as his hands moved to her hips. She yielded into his control
and he twisted her around with her back against his chest.
His hands moved towards the split section of her dress and onto her legs,
his hands slowly moving upwards and hiking up the dress.
He moved his head towards the back of her neck and trailed a string of
kisses from top to bottom. Pleased moans escaped from her lips as she
backed into his crotch and all the worries about distant evils and ruthless
actions fell away as two became one.
-Break-
9th of May, 1971 – Avalon, Avalon Heights
Anne POV
The temperature of the morning breeze was chilling, the light of dawn a
sleepy presence at this time of morning. She let of a shuddering breath,
less because of the chill and more because of the frigid nervousness she
felt, and sucked in a deep breath of the salty sea-air, her eyes set on the
detached cottage at the end of the road.
It looked warm, the home – she hoped it felt like home – surrounded by a
well-kept front garden and an old oak tree that had a swing hanging from
a thick branch.
She felt a comforting hand on her arm. "Mother…" Sophia began and
Anne placed her hand on top of her daughter's hand before she turned
her head towards her daughter, an affectionate and reassuring smile on
her face.
"I'm alright." Anne said a little quietly but Sophia's concern didn't abate
so Anne only squeezed her daughter's hand a little as it rested on top of
it.
Sophia's expression softened slightly, the concern reduced to a pittance
but it was still there and Anne was heartened by it.
Sophia, now a woman of fifty-three years and perhaps the most powerful
woman in MACUSA, was still the caring daughter she had always been.
"Anne" her brother called gently and she turned towards him.
Short salt and pepper hair crowned his head, more pepper than salt, and
wore a firm but caring expression on his face. He looked much like their
father had in their youth. He was older than father had been too she
thought to herself before she shook her head. He stood a little further
ahead and there was impatience in his body language.
Her brother was a saint, truly, she thought guiltily. This…reunion was
taking longer than he had wanted once she told him and the rest of their
family about their sister.
Had they not made a pact to go see her together, he'd have already met
with her.
"I need to do this." Anne said with a breathless exhale, more to herself
than to Sophia. "I've waited long enough."
Though it couldn't really be said it was waiting.
She lost count how many times, she retracted on her commitment to
meet her sister, even so far as arriving in Morfay intent on making the
trip here only for her to simply leave, never able to find the bravery she
needed.
Even now, she was perilously close to leaving.
"Alright mother." Sophia acquiesced "But I don't have to wait here. I can
come with you" Sophia added quietly.
Anne smiled sadly at Sophia before she shook her head.
"No…Lukasz and I need to do this alone." Anne didn't want Lucille and
her family to feel crowded or worse feel threatened by them. She didn't
know how much Lucille had told her family about her past. If she told
them about her past.
It was why she wouldn't want even hear of Atticus or her nieces and
nephews coming with her and Lukasz today.
Only her children's argument about at least Sophia going with her and
keeping her company from afar had won out from her coming alone with
Lukasz today.
"Alright" Sophia said with a sigh and Anne closed her eyes briefly when
she felt Sophia putting her other hand on top of hers. Anne reopened
them and met her daughter's bright emerald eyes.
"Time is too swift for those who fear but for those who love, time is eternity"
Sophia quoted gently to her, her hand tapping on top of Anne's.
It was enough for her to scrounge up every speck of courage and Anne
took in one deep shuddering breath before she extracted her hands from
Sophia's and walked, a walk that seemed as daunting as a perilous trek
on frozen mountain paths with one slip being enough to tumble down
towards jagged rocks.
Her mind veered back to when Atticus told her about her sister.
She'd never felt so angry, never so furious with him. She felt betrayed.
She'd not even been this angry when Atticus had hidden her and Sophia
against their will during the war. Because she had understood. Markus
had died and Grindelwald was sure to never rest until either they were
all dead or under his control.
But this…
This was nothing like that.
Lukasz locked step with her before he placed his hand on her shoulder, a
gentle squeeze in support and she turned to him, a grateful look on her
face before she looked to the cottage, frightful as it was as it drew ever
closer.
Neither of them said anything.
All that had could have been said about today, about meeting Lucille,
had been already been fretfully said to exhaustion.
'Was she happy?' 'Would she remember us?' '..Will she forgive us?'
They arrived at the small wooden gate that was fenced by old mossy
stone walls, her gaze peering towards the unassuming burgundy door,
her hand moving towards the small metal lever that would let her pass
but her hand stilled on the cold lever.
'This was meant to be, mother. Not sooner. Not later. I would have told you
sooner if I could have.'
Those words played into her mind, again and again ever since. She didn't
think he was telling here the whole truth. She knew that his Sight
allowed him to see far more.
But she hadn't question it further.
The sincere look on his face, the slightly pained glint in his eyes when
she'd raged at him and broken down more than a few times in front of
him told her enough that Atticus hadn't wished to keep this from her.
She lifted up the lever, her heart pounding, and they walked through the
gate and inched closer to the burgundy door, her hands, now cold,
shaking, trembling, each step felt heavy and tired as if she had run
thirteen marathons consecutively.
The wards washed over her and she could feel it was judging her intent.
Briefly, she wondered if she would be ejected out but it was a concern
that seemed to pass by her just as the intent ward passed her through.
She glanced at the rows of flowers that were by the front of the home and
she could see Penstemons, Goldsturm, Jacob's Ladder and a host of other
types of flowers.
Even what had been Lucille's favourite "Petunias" she whispered as she
stared at the large purple blooming flowers. Lucille had been so fond of
flowers as a child.
Later in her childhood, when she still hadn't performed accidental magic,
she had only grown more interested in their small greenhouse. She often
smelled so earthy.
Lukasz made a noise before he spoke quietly "This is so her". There was a
note in his voice, a note that felt tight. She only nodded silently as they
arrived at the door.
Lukasz knocked on the door and she felt like time had ceased to move
much like how her body resisted to move, her muscles tightly coiled into
stillness.
The door opened slightly and Anne felt like she was hit in her chest.
Bright emerald wide eyes darted between Anne and Lukasz, bright
emerald eyes that belonged to a young girl no older than ten, perhaps
eleven, crowned by a mane of bright red hair that made it seem as if it
was the only thing in the vicinity that had colour.
"Um…hello" the young girl said awkwardly as she looked a little
confused and quite a bit more tentative "…who are you?"
"Who's at the door, Lily?!" an older male called out and the young girl
swivelled her head around and shouted
"I don't know! There is a man and a woman at the door!" before she
turned back around to face Anne and Lukasz.
"We're here to see Lucille, Ms…?" Lukasz thankfully stepped up to speak.
She doubted she could at this moment in time given the way she was
staring at the young.
She could see Lucille in the young girl's face. Her nose, her lashes. Her
eyes…
"Lily Evans." The young girl said warily before the door opened
completely, an older taller gentleman with brown eyes and brown hair
standing by the young girl.
Both she and Lukasz recognised the man's build and his facial features.
He was fairly stocky and his jawline was that of the Provydetsi family.
"There is no Lucille here." The young girl piped up before she looked at
the older gentleman who certainly recognised the name judging by the
gradual shift in his expression "Dad, is there is a Lucille in the
neighbourhood?"
"Who are you?" the man – her nephew, Jack – asked calmly but with a
hint of steel in his voice. The sounds of footsteps in the background grew
louder.
"I am Lukasz Provydetsi and this is my sister, Anne." Lukasz gestured
towards himself and Anne as a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes
arrived by the door.
"I see." The man said slowly, his eyes darting between Anne and Lukasz
and it was obvious he knew exactly who they were. "She goes by Lily."
He said after a few moments and that was enough for their niece-in-law,
Rosaline, to realise what was happening. Lily the younger still looked
confused but she was corralled away by their nephew's wife who was
protesting slightly.
Their nephew stepped out of the house, the door slightly closed and his
expression couldn't hide the concern he was feeling. "We're not here to
cause trouble" Anne blurted out, finally able to find her voice. Their
nephew still looked doubtful.
"We only want to see her. To speak with her. Please believe us." Anne
said quietly and she cast her eyes towards their nephew with all the
sincerity she could muster.
Neither she or Lukasz wanted to push.
They wanted to meet with Lucille – Lily – only if she wanted to. The
doubt faded away from Jack's face and his expression softened but there
was still a hardness there.
"You know…" Jack began in a way that seemed as if he was chewing on
his words to make them softer. "She never liked to talk about her side of
the family." Jack's eyes hardened slightly.
"Even after she had to talk when the magical world came for us, she gave
us the bare minimum information." Anne winced slightly, a feeling of
guilt washing over her. Did they know that it was her son that helped
begin it all? That it was her daughter-in-law that the one responsible for
taking them away?
She hadn't thought about it then and now…now she wanted to run away
again.
It was bad enough that they'd abandoned her to the muggles but after
this? She clearly found herself a family and settled in a world she
probably came to love…only for it to be ripped away by the magical
world and the family that abandoned her?
"It was a different time." Lukasz said with note of regret and she wanted
to strangle him for even saying it. It seemed it wasn't the right thing to
say to Jack either.
"It's never any time to abandon one's children." Jack said firmly.
"No it isn't" Anne hastily said "And nothing excuses it. But it wasn't our
decision back then." Anne said sincerely.
Jack stared at her for a moment before he nodded lightly "I know it
wasn't. We wouldn't be talking if that had been the case." Jack said with
a shake of the head before he eyed them both.
"I make no promises." Jack said warningly and Anne felt her heart race.
"It will be her decision and her decision alone if she wants to speak with
you."
"We accept." Lukasz said with a dip of the head and once Jack's eyes were
on her she only bowed her head in acceptance.
"Wait here." Jack said before he retreated back into the house and closed
the door.
Anne let out a shuddering breath.
"She raised him well." Lukasz said after a few seconds of deathly silence.
She turned to him and saw him simply gazing at the door.
"Even knowing he could do little against us, he is firm." Lukasz said
before he spared her a glance and she smiled slightly at him.
"And he seems like a good man." She said to Lukasz who returned a smile
of his own.
The wait seemed almost unbearable and it was wrecking her nerves.
Finally, the door opened and Anne felt like she was on the precipice of
fainting.
Emerald eyes saturated with emotion stared at them and Anne's eyes
were shining with tears. "Lucille…" Anne whispered.
She had more grey hairs than she had brown, her face wrinkled and
loose. Her little sister looked so old but it was still her little sister.
Once Anne whispered her name it seemed to have made the moment real
and a choking sound escaped from Lucille's throat. "Anne…Luka…?" her
voice was broken with soulful emotion and Anne chokingly laughed and
bobbed her head like a little girl and Lucille whimpered.
"It's really you…" Lucille's eyes were shedding tears and Anne couldn't
help it anymore. She slowly approached Lucille, her arms slightly wide
"It's us…it's really us…"
And that was enough for Lucille's resistance to break away and the hug
that they both fell into, had latched onto…
Well, it felt like home.
-Break-
Emily POV
They descended down the hill that overlooked the forbidden forest and
continued on their way towards the depths of the forest on this misty late
morning.
"Brings back memories." Atticus mused as they made through way
towards the dark forest. Emily hummed slightly. It did bring back
memories.
It was along this path that they first ventured out to Beltane and begun
their journey together in earnest. It was near here that they first managed
their animagus transformation. The forest been the sight of many
momentous moments…and many forgettable ones. She wasn't quite sure
which kind of moment today would be.
"Did you ever venture into these woods during your days at Hogwarts,
Jacobius?" Atticus asked one of their two guards. Said guard shook his
head.
"No, Your Majesty. I did not." Jacobius said dutifully before he hesitated
for a moment, seemingly deciding whether or not to say anything further.
He decided to continued "I was too afraid at the time of the dark beasts
that were rumoured to roam in the forest." Jacobius said with slight
embarrassment.
Atticus smiled at Jacobius "Most animals here are harmless." He said as
they followed a trickling river that snaked downhill through an opening
of trees.
"Though werewolves did roam this forest during a full moon even during
my time at Hogwarts and probably quite a bit after that." The two guards
startled at that.
Yes…that was irritatingly true. She'd almost lost a student to their own
stupidity during her reign as deputy headmistress.
To say she wasn't pleased that it made some students brave enough to go
alone into the forest during the dark of night after she'd opened up a
significant proportion of the forest to the students of Hogwarts in her
later years of being deputy headmistress would be understating it.
It seemed she didn't account for the idiocy of the student body at the
time.
She wanted to expose students to the ingredients as they grew in nature
outside of greenhouses. She established a small amendment to Potions –
and COMC – that made students pick and identify ingredients suitable all
kinds of potions.
It would help them learn how and what to look out for and in the end it
was almost making them better wizards and witches practically as a by-
product as they learned more of the intricacies of reactions and control.
"Not anymore of course." Emily interjected, drawing attention to herself.
"The Lycans have their own lands to roam in their transformed state if
they wished to."
Eileen's final cure, with her help naturally, changed the werewolf curse
drastically to the point it was no longer a curse and more akin to what
the Veela were.
A near-human race of beings.
They could no longer infect other beings – which was the greatest
contribution to the tentative acceptance of werewolves in general society
– and they retained their minds in their transformed state which they
could more or less control.
Nearly all of the werewolf population of Britain, France and the South
Americas had taken the cure and other smaller magical societies made it
a mandatory requirement or face expulsion.
The North American werewolves were refusing the cure on the ridiculous
basis that it was 'genocide' and had the support of a number of influential
Native American tribes resulting in the issue being practically postponed
within MACUSA.
It was pathetic.
Even the staunchest defenders of werewolf rights had come on board
with the cure and these people were catering to the hysterics of yowling
wolves?
In any case, she did not care a whit in truth.
She got what she wanted with the cure anyway. She had her fingers in
the newly Lycan community with her words being valued above all
others…
With the exception of Eileen perhaps.
Killing an alpha like Greyback as brutally as she had of course made an
impression.
Once they arrived at the designated meeting spot, they simply stood and
waited.
The guards were slightly tense though they didn't draw their wands.
Their coming guests wouldn't have appreciated that. Speaking of guests…
She could hear them coming long before the sounds of broken branches
in the distance was audible to normal human ears. Hooves pattering on
wet earth grew louder and louder and the sounds of rustling leaves drew
near and it wasn't long before a tall four legged figure breached out and
through the bushes.
Her magic coiled around her, stirring but tightly coiled ready at a
moment's notice.
Having met and talked to the Grecian Centaurs, her opinion on the race
of beings had more or less been solidified. They were a prideful cranky
sort with long memories and even longer grudges. It took near certain
total destruction at the hands of the Ravenites for the Grecian centaurs to
ask for asylum.
These centaurs were the same and if it wasn't for their divination abilities
letting them know what was going to happen, she doubted they would
have been as respectful as they were to her that one time she'd met with
them years ago when one of the centaurs guided her to the wayward
student.
Instead of xenophobic overly prideful beings she received respectful
centaurs that called her Herald. A name that they'd also used for Atticus.
Then another centaur broke through and another and another. Their
movement was languid but it was fluid, almost graceful in the way they
moved, their braided hair – silver, blonde and black as midnight – were
flowing in sync with each step they took.
Their skins were equally as varied, some soft hew green and others
earthy dark green but all had a kind of glow, a vibrancy of magic that
normally would only be seen in those that were practically magic made
manifest like phoenixes, unicorns or threstrals. But then, weren't centaurs
closer to those magical creatures, at least when it came to vibrancy, than
any other sentient magical being?
Their very human faces held bright and silvery eyes, eyes that boasted a
dim luminosity that almost seemed unseeing with the way they slightly
looked past them, and one by one they slapped their tails against their
bodies before the one with silver hair stepped forward.
"Heralds." The centaur rumbled and his silvery eyes lost their unseeing
qualities and the centaur craned its head towards their directions.
"Why are you come? It is not yet time to board the Ark."
She felt a flash of irritation at the presumptuousness.
But then, it wasn't presumptuousness if it was going to happen regardless
if they helped or not, was it? Not that the centaurs were able to do
anything they wouldn't be able to do anyway.
Even the request they'd ask today could be done without them but
Atticus was determined to bring these centaurs into the fold in the same
way Grecian centaurs were being enticed into greater interaction in Illos.
"You know why we have come." Atticus said calmly, his arms behind his
back as he slowly moved toward which caused one of the younger
seeming centaurs to stamp their front leg in agitation.
The leading centaur, the one with the silver hair gestured the younger
centaur which seemed to calm it down but the centaur still looked
uneasy.
She let the reigns of her magic loose ever so slightly, so much so that it
was barely noticeable in the magically rich forest and she began to probe
towards the younger centaur who she suspected wasn't quite as attuned
to sensing magic. Not yet.
She was right and she could feel emanating from him feelings of
resentment and wariness. Curious…she thought to herself.
Atticus stopped in front of the centaur, his head inclined as he met the
centaur's gaze.
"Jupiter shines." The silver haired centaur seemed to reluctantly admit,
agreeing to Atticus' observation. The centaur's tail was twitching and it
was clear that the being wasn't enthused by the idea.
Jupiter was associated with philosophy but also wanderlust. To say
Jupiter shines meant that meaningful journey was on the cards.
"It does." Atticus agreed before he tilted his head.
"You have thus far refused entreaties to associate with the rest of
magical-kind beyond the living beings of this forest" he said as he waved
nodded towards the forests before he eyed the centaur with stern gaze.
"Even so far to refuse to meet with your Grecian kin." This seemed to
agitate the centaurs even further. Apparently there was quite a bit of bad
blood between the two groups of centaurs that dated back to the
Olympian age.
"No more." Atticus said firmly.
This seemed to be taken very badly by the youngest centaur who
stampeded forward, a look of fury on its face. She could see the
pronounced musculature of the being, a musculature that bore cords of
muscle as strong as steel.
The guards raised their wands but both she and Atticus remained at ease.
Not because they weren't prepared if it turned south but because they
knew the centaurs would intervene.
The silver haired centaur rose to its hind legs "YOUNGLING" the shout
was thunderous and it echoed through the forest. The young centaur
came to a stop and lost the look of fury and instead looked chastised.
One of the other centaurs dragged the young centaur away and the
centaurs seemed to communicate for a few moments before one of the
centaurs took the young ill-tempered centaur away.
The silver haired centaur returned to Atticus who remained in the same
position as he was and began to speak as if nothing had happened. "You
would ask payment?"
"When you hunt, do you hunt alone?" Atticus returned to the centaur
before he shook his head "Would you ask for the labours of others
without once labouring yourself?"
The silver haired centaur seemed almost offended by the comment but it
didn't respond for a few moments. "Very well. Ask."
"I will soon journey to our home to foster the spirits in the forests, in the
jungles and in the oceans. Your people have an attunement to these
things greater than even the Skinwalkers. I request you allow a few of
your elders to come with me. The Grecian centaurs have already agreed
to our request."
The silver haired centaur slapped its tail against the back of its legs, a
contemplative look on its face. "It is not all you seek. You speak of Mercury
rising but you also seek to brighten Neptune."
Atticus allowed a faint smile to grow on his face. "Yes." Atticus confirmed
before a more serious expression grew on his face. "This is an opportunity
for there be the beginnings of greater harmony. What better way for it to
begin when we nurture the essence of sleepy spirits?"
The contemplative look on the silver haired centaur lessened and the
brightness of its silver eyes grew sharper, as if it was seeing Atticus for
the first time.
The centaur turned its gaze towards the sky, as if seeking reassurances
from the stars hidden by the clouds and the midday sun. Finally, the
centaur looked back at Atticus.
"I will take this request to my people, Ark Builder." The centaur rumbled.
Atticus merely nodded. "Thank you." And soon enough the remaining two
centaurs vanished silently into the black of night.
"You never said if it will make a difference." Emily commented as they
made out of the forest, her eyes curious. Atticus smiled at her before he
looked passed her and up towards the skies.
"It won't make a great difference. Not at the beginning. There is centuries
of bad blood between the centaurs and wizarding-kind." Atticus said with
a sigh.
The Romans had hunted the British centaurs for centuries with wizard
accomplices.
So much so the centaurs had to seek refuge this far north in Scotland.
When the Romans left, there was practically no centaur-wizarding
relations, each side shooting or cursing first.
According to her ancestor Salazar's journals, it took years for the
Founders to reach an accord with the centaurs. An accord that was tested
over and over again by wizarding-kind. She understood the centaurs
immense dislike for wizarding-kind.
What the wizards did to them was similar to what the muggles had done
to the wizards but they were making overtures that would see them as
part of the greater magical community as they should have been part of.
Hmm, she thought to herself. Atticus had thoroughly infected her with
his ambitions to bind the magical world tightly together.
Atticus turned his gaze towards her, his emerald violet eyes almost
gleaming with anticipation. "But it's a start and a start is all we need."
-Break-
15th of May, 1971 – Norway, Grønlotter Island
Cullaica POV
Cullaica hummed a fun little tune, his feet tapping lightly against the
boat as the charmed boat begun to paddle at a slower speed as they
neared the docks.
He was having a swell old time, he mused blissfully as fairly decent
wards washed over them before receding away moments after it was
confirmed they had the requisite permission to the abodes of their soon-
to-be hosts.
They rarely did anything like this anymore.
The boat came to a stop and the Raven jumped out of the boat a few
metres away from the dock in one swift motion and Cullaica sighed
dramatically.
He wanted to tie the boat to the pole and finish the whole experience!
He followed suit and jumped onto the docks "So impatient" Cullaica
tutted to the Raven who didn't deign him a response choosing instead to
start walking.
Cullaica chuckled before a sharp grin slashed across his face and begun to
walk.
He placed his hands behind his head and continuing the fun little tune,
this time a little more fast paced, his shoulders dancing and swaying to
the tune.
Slabs of thick square metre stones fashioned as steps as they made their
way uphill on this tiny island. Well, tiny being relative. It was large
enough to host half a dozen mansions, he mused as he glanced at the
towering red stoned manor surrounded by a wide terrace and pinch of
trees.
The manor seemed to gleam in a crimson hue under the light of the
morning sun. How opulent, Cullaica thought to himself as the tune grew
in volume, the sounds deeper, more animalistic.
Nobles, he thought with hungry amusement. Like peacocks, they couldn't
help but show off, strutting and flashing their colourful plumage as if it
made them important.
His fingers itched.
"Do you have to hum that?" the Raven asked him without any inflection
in his voice and Cullaica turned to see him looking at Cullaica with a
cocked head, his expression as blank as always, his black eyes that
seemed soulless boring into him.
Cullaica bobbed his head slightly as he added a more complex twist to
the little tune.
Cullaica only got slight pressed lips in return before the Raven turned
away from him and Cullaica came to a sudden stop, his smile dropping
into downward frown – and never a pout – and the Raven stopped a little
ahead of him and gave him a side glance before his head forward and
started to walk again.
"It's been a while since I hummed that tune." Cullaica said a little
defensively before he sighed long-sufferingly "Reminds me of better
days."
His tone was wistful as he began to walk again and caught up to the
Raven.
The Raven didn't respond though there was a little twitch of his fingers
on his right hand as it hung by his body and Cullaica's expression grew
into a face splitting grin.
Yes, my friend…I know you miss those days too before…everything, he
thought as his grin turned less of a grin and more into a manic
bloodthirsty smile.
The fact that they were here was proof enough that they might actually
start what they promised each other all those decades ago.
The door to the manor opened and a stern faced man stood by the door,
his wand aglow and raised in their direction. The sternness of the man's
expression fell away as fast as trees falling moments after they were
pushed to fall and the colour of his expression turned ghostly white.
The light at the tip of his wand petered out into nothingness and it
reminded him very vividly of the sound a balloon makes as air escapes
from its lips and it made him restrain the fit of laughter with clenched
teeth.
Curiously, it made Bjorn Otterdahl even paler if that was possible but it
seemed to jolt him into full awareness and the wand swiftly went back
into its holster.
"My Lords." Otterdahl said as he bowed deeply and tensely, his voice stiff
with undertones of fear. "I…I apologise for pointing my wand at My
Lords. I believed it may have been a ruse by my enemies for I did not
think you would honour me with a visit."
"That's quite alright" Cullaica dismissed sunnily before he clasped his
hands and rubbed them together, a manic grin on his face "Do you
happen to have any chicken? Or duck?"
Otterdahl looked startled before he recovered. "We do. We also have
pheasant."
His grin now threatened to split his face. "Excellent. I'm positively
famished"
Juices dripped onto the plate as he bit into the leg and he strangely
moaned in ecstasy. The taste was rich, savoury, somewhat earthy and the
meat simply melted in his mouth. It was heavenly.
His next few bites were even more slobbery when he moved onto the
breast slices before he finished with the last leg. "Ah…" Cullaica sighed
satiated breaking the deafening silence as he leaned back in his chair, his
hand gripping the pint of milk before he swept his gaze across the dining
table.
The five Otterdahl adults stiffened under his gaze and Cullaica blinked
slowly "Is there anything wrong?" he asked curiously before he moved
the pint of milk towards his lips though he sniffed it first which yielded a
giggle from one of the children.
Cullaica winked at the darked haired girl that sat by the elderly Otterdahl
woman.
"Nothing is wrong" Bjorn Otterdahl said with a smile that looked
accommodating. He seemed eager to draw attentions to himself instead
to the youngest little girl at the table "Just…surprised at how hungry you
were."
"You shouldn't have been surprised." Cullaica said with a careless shrug
before he turned to the Raven who looked at him with a faint uptick in
the corners of his lips.
Cullaica eyes glinted in anticipation before he smothered it when he
turned away from the Raven and back at Bjorn Otterdahl. "I did say I was
hungry"
"Did you think I was lying?" he asked innocently though the smile on his
face was apparently not-so-innocent with the way his lady-wife sharply
scraped against the plate.
"I did not, My Lord. Forgive me if it seemed that way" Otterdahl said
humbly, his head bowed like the submissive little pheasant that he was.
Cullaica's smile sharpened. Disgusting. His fingers curled around the glass
of milk and it took effort to restrain his strength.
They were all disgusting.
Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting.
All of them.
The adults, the children.
All of them and their disgustingly perfect little safe lives.
He wanted to peel their perfect scented skin off with agonising slowness.
He ached to see them bathe in a pool of acid, to watch their flesh melt off
like candlewax does under a lighted wick. He wante-
"Fathe-" a smack sung into the room and his eyes darted to the source of
the smack and saw the lady-wife grip the youngest Otterdahl male, about
eight years of age, by the jaw, her eyes filled with terror and the
frustrated entitled boy seemed to finally understand the precariousness
they found themselves in.
There was a beautiful deathly silence which was broken when Cullaica
hummed a bright little tune. "You wouldn't happen to have cake, would
you?"
The adults looked relieved at the question and Bjorn Otterdahl almost
seemed to jump out of his seat when he made to speak.
"Molsie!" *POP*
"Master" the elf dressed in tattered clothes addressed after it bowed.
"Fetch the cake. The fancy one."
"Ah!" Cullaica raised his index finger and it stilled the elf and Otterdahl
alike.
The elf looked uncertain as Cullaica smiled at the little creature. It should
be illegal for a creature to have such big lovely eyes. It was adorable.
"My Lord?" Otterdahl hesitantly questioned, stiffening when Cullaica
turned his gaze towards the tense man.
"I'd like to visit the kitchens myself, if that is quite all right" Cullaica said
with a whistle. Bjorn Otterdahl looked hesitant, his eyes darting between
Cullaica and the Raven and to the other Otterdahls and Cullaica's grin
grew in response.
Bjorn Otterdahl lost his hesitancy and he dipped his head "Of course, My
Lord. Molsie, take the Lord with you to the kitchens."
"Of course Master" the elf bowed but before they could move, a feeling of
nothingness sunk into the dining room, an absence that drew instinctive
terror to the forefront in their hosts.
"Let the boy speak." The Raven spoke, his words said calmly but his voice
was remindful of nothingness and Cullaica almost shivered in delight as
the game was afoot!
He glanced at the Raven and saw him seated there looking away from all
of them, his pitch black hair obscuring most of his face.
His plate of finely cut meat was untouched, and Cullaica idly wondered if
he wouldn't mind if he ate it in his stead. 'Probably best to ask later' he
thought.
The elderly Otterdahl male, likely some uncle of Bjorn or some such,
made to speak in protest but a blur of a line flashed through his neck and
the elderly Otterdahl looked momentarily confused before his eyes turned
glassy and blood began to trickle from a fine perfectly horizontal line
across his neck.
Strangled and pained noises escaped from elderly woman who moved
swiftly and clasped onto the mouths of the two little girls who sat on
either side of her and moved their heads into her sides.
Cullaica pouted.
The good part was just happening when the old man's eyes rolled towards
the back of his head and it was less than a second later that the trickle of
blood became a fountain of blood as it spurted onto the table soiling the
barely touched breakfast.
The head thudded to the ground and Cullaica curiously watched Bjorn's
expression who seemed deathly still, his gaze fixed at the headless corpse
before he very mechanically turned his gaze towards his wife who was
terror struck.
Cullaica smiled before he took the glass of milk on the table and brought
the glass of milk to his lips and he savoured the taste of it. It wasn't bad
at all. Slightly better tasting than Bulgarian milk which was a little odd
but then, he supposed, the taste all depended on what you fed the cows.
"Olga." Bjorn managed to say in a tight voice and it was enough to bring
a hint of life in the woman's eyes who richly understood but was
incredibly hesitant.
Cullaica placed his hand on top of the elf's head and the elf flinched out
of the horror that it seemed stuck in "Come on, little elf." He said in a
delighted tone as he swivelled the elf's head towards the exits "There's
cake waiting!" he began to hum and whistle a happy little tune as he
followed the elf towards the kitchens.
He hoped the fancy cake was chocolate!
Fifteen or so minutes later…
He was still whistling when he left the kitchen with half a cake in one
hand and his companions in the other. He made his way towards where
he could feel the magic after finding the dining room abandoned. Well,
except for Headless Otterdahl.
It was a little rude. They could have waited. Anyway…
When he entered the spacious living room, he sighed in blissful
exultation.
The air was thick, restrictive, suffocating, as if the large living room was
saturated with burning ash that could spark into an all consuming black
inferno at any moment.
And if the air was suffocating, the darkness that filled the room was
murderously strangling. He peered lazily at the source of the darkness that
exuded a kind of haunting dread that would see muggles push themselves
into suicide.
His old friend was in the mood.
He looked away and made a beeline towards the comfortable seat by the
table that was in the furthest corner of the living room to where their
hosts were and entertained his old friend though the distress and
pleading were but a distant hymn.
He sat down in the seat that practically had his name etched into it and
he made himself comfortable seat before munching down slice after slice
of cake.
"You should be proud of yourselves" Cullaica said with a full mouth
before he shoved another slice into his mouth. He moved his hand
towards one of the elven heads and picked it up and stared at it with his
mouth full.
He swallowed the mouthful and said "Are you proud?" the elf head
bobbed eagerly, its large eyes glassy and tearful. "I'm glad you're proud."
Cullaica said pleased before he set the elf's head back on to the table with
the four elven heads.
The sounds of distress grew into whimpers and Cullaica turned in mild
interest towards the source of today's entertainment.
He was sat there across the room in a drooping posture on a wooden
chair, his hands hanging loose in between his thighs, surrounded in an
ominous haze of magic that distorted reality around him like a lens
would only…only it seemed as if it was a lens made from crystals
harvested from the depths of hell, the hopelessness he exuded strong
enough to despair even those who physically could not feel emotions.
On the other side of that haze the Otterdahls were kneeling before the
Raven, their terror filled whimpers filling the room, breaking frightful
whimpers, tantalising whimpers that were on the precipice of shattering
into pitiful cries for mercy.
Cullaica leaned back into his chair wishing he had more of the cake and
he scraped his finger across the plate, a plate that once bore quite a few
slices of cherry chocolate cake that had been absolutely divine,
accumulating the last bit of runny cherry flavoured syrup on it and he
devilishly stuck it in his mouth, savouring it like it was his last bit of food
on Earth. "Delicious" he muttered after he smacked his lips.
"Should've gotten the recipe from the elves" he muttered disappointedly
to himself as he removed his boots from on top of the table and sat back
up from his inclined slouching position in the chair and placed his feet on
the ground.
This was the last bit of cake their hosts had left after having eaten half of
the cake in the kitchens and now that the elves were dead, he doubted he
would have it ever again. He sighed aggrieved as he eyed the elven heads
remorsefully.
"Better to have had than not to have had, I suppose" he muttered before
he began to walk, a soft hum breaking out of him.
He glanced to the wall on his right, his eyes lazily trailing across the
horrified looks of the portraits of pompous long dead ancestors, the smirk
on his face, the smirk that was sharp and intimidating as a ravenous
shark, never once lessening.
Pride…
These people…
Pathetic…
These parasites were sat for centuries perched high above the rest, counting
their coins, drinking their spiced wines, weaving their webs across the
magical world that fucking catered to them because they were wealthy,
because they had the right blood?
A low rasping chuckle that sounded like nails manically scraped along a
blackboard escaped from his lips.
CRRRACK
The sound of his index finger snapping under the pressure of his thumb,
the dull pain electrifying him into a kind of wicked arousal, his chuckles
descending down in pitch – down the stairs to the pits of hell – until it
settled into a sinister deep echo that drew terrified subdued wails from
the children.
He came to stand by the Raven whose gaze was pointed towards his
hands, hands that were no longer masked by enchantment. The scars on
his hands were old, so very old. They were grizzly, jagged scars that left
no part of the skin unmarked.
Cullaica massaged his broken finger, pushing and pulling, the ache a
welcome addition to what was proving to be a splendid night and he
turned his gaze to the Otterdahls who were bowed and practically kissing
the marble floors.
"You may speak." The Raven said, his voice toneless, emotionless, bereft
of warmth and coldness. Bjorn Otterdahl raised his head, his skin pale
and sweaty, his eyes shining with terror and confusion and loathing.
"What have we done to offend you, My Lord?" Bjorn Otterdahl's question
was desperate, his words said with a pleading wheeze that sounded like a
cat in its dying throngs.
"Nothing." The Raven merely answered.
"You have done nothing wrong. You did as asked every time without
fail."
"Then why?"
The Raven clenched his hands slightly before he turned it over and stared
at his hand for a good long minute and Cullaica broke into an
anticipatory grin.
The Raven's hand began to transform into a swirling mass of wispy
strands, the density of magic growing even more stifling, the dread
exuded reached a crescendo of awfulness. The swirling mass of wispy
strands travelled up his arms, the dread gaining a hungry essence to it
and the darkness began to feel ravenous.
The women were as bad as the children now, their panic threatened to
overwhelm them. "Ple-" the swirling mass of shadowy and grainy wisps
shot forward with blinding speed and gripped around the neck of the
lady-wife of Otterdahl.
Grandmother or grandaunt Otterdahl fainted moments after Lady-wife
Otterdahl began to choke and the children began to wail in earnest, the
magic that subdued them all this time no longer able to counter the sheer
terror they felt for their mother.
She was pulled up from the ground by her neck until her tippy toes
dangled just above the marvellously polished marble floor. She began to
swing her feet and he thought it was as if she was dancing. Cullaica
brought his arms up and began to sway slightly in line with the way she
was dangling her feet.
After all, no one should dance alone. They weren't monsters.
"Choose" the word was said with gentle deadness of tone by the Raven.
The Raven picked up his head and his pale snow-white face bore eyes
with grey-white irises that seemed to swim in pitch black seas.
"Choose one of your children to die."
The wails of the children grew in volume and Cullaica sighed fondly as
his eyes drooped low. It reminded him of home…sweet, sweet home.
Well…at least at the beginning anyway. Everyone stopped making noises
within the first few days of arriving. Towards the end, those noises were
all that was there to remind them that they were all still alive.
Bjorn had been engrossed in helplessly staring at his wife, his agonising
helplessness had been written across his face but that soon disappeared
as he snapped his head towards the Raven in abyssal fear. "Y-You can't!
No, no, no, no, no, no!"
The man seemed to lose himself in his despair but he was brought out of
it when the sound of a shattering crack echoed in the living room before
the body crashed with a thud. It stopped the wails and the man's denials
cold.
"Let the next word be a name or all three die."
The shadowy and grainy wisps of manifested pain slithered across the
marble floor and split into three tentacles, slowly but surely making their
ways towards the children.
The face Bjorn was making was delicious. Oh so delicious.
The despair, the misery, the guilt, the pain.
The hate…
Yes…oh this man hated them.
Good…
Otterdahl now knew a sliver of the hate they bore for the world.
The pain that was their reality.
"Hanna." The name was said with a thick voice, a name said in a way that
tortured souls would love to channel into a painting. It would be a
masterpiece.
The said girl, the dark haired girl that Cullaica had previously winked at
began to wail as her older sister began to move away from her and
Cullaica broke out in a gasping laughter that sounded like the stuttering
laughter of that of a hyena.
"Papa, please! I don't want to die, please papa, please!" she begged and cried
and begged but her father was silent, shamefaced with tears running
down his face.
Bjorn Otterdahl did not look to his daughter who called for him instead
electing to look away from her like the coward that he was.
The Raven's grainy wisps of magic slithered across towards the dark-
haired girl whose wails ran out when she began to understand that no
one would come to her defence. Not her siblings, not her father.
"Heir Otterdahl." The Raven called out as the strand of magic began to
lick at the face of the youngest girl, the second strand moving over
towards the boy of eight and lifted the boy's chin up. "I will spare her if
you take her place."
The boy of eight still had his eyes closed and the boy lost control of his
bowels. The boy only shook his head fervently as he whimpered, with his
eyes still closed, "No…I don't want to die"
Cullaica looked at the dark haired girl who looked at the ground, her
hands clenched and sniffling all the while. She stopped making any
sounds. She accepted her fate.
Within a blink of an eye, two strands of grainy wisps of magic raced
forward and pierced through the hearts of the two older children and
Bjorn Otterdahl wailed in agony and attempted to stand.
Cullaica sauntered in a mildly quick pace and swept his foot and tripped
up the man who temporarily managed to overcome the constrictive
magic that terrorised the family.
"You promised! You monster, you abominable monster!" Bjorn brokenly
cried out, his face hugging the cold marble floor. His cries died out in
only a few minutes, his near silent mutterings of his children and wife's
names were all that remained.
The dark-haired girl was deathly still, her eyes focused on the blood that
seeped out from her now-dead siblings.
The Raven stood up from his chair, the soft creak that emanated from the
chair akin to the sound of an exploding shell in the midst of a near silent
living room.
The Raven placed his finger underneath the six year old child's chin.
Cullaica saw her eyes were hazy, almost as glassy as the eyes of her
mother and her siblings.
"They never cared for you, child. Your siblings. Your father." The Raven's
voice was hypnotic and it sent a shiver down Cullaica's spine, the distant
memories of similar hypnotisms pulled to the forefront of his mind.
"You see that now, don't you?" the Raven's voice was enticing, like a cold
shower after a steaming hot day under the desert sun.
"Y-y-yes…" the dark-haired girl croaked. "T-t-they w-w-wanted m-me t-to
d-die."
"They did." The Raven said soothingly, the back of his scarred hand
caressing her cheek. "It's only fair they all die instead, don't you think?"
the Raven said gently to her, his other hand going inside his pocket and
brought out a knife.
The Raven stood up and brought the dark-haired girl to her feet. He took
her hand and gently guided her towards her broken father.
The Raven presented the knife to her. "Let him join the children he loved
more than he ever loved you, Hanna." The dark-haired girl mechanically
took the knife and stared at her father with glassy eyes.
The Raven turned to Cullaica. "We've waited long enough." The words
were like gospel to Cullaica and the grin that grew on his face was
terrifying enough that it would make even the most muggle-hating
pureblood praying to the Christian god.
"Don't take too long. We have much to accomplish."
Cullaica nodded eagerly much like a child would. He began to walk
around and passed the Raven and his little Ravenite and towards the
unconscious old woman.
CCRRACK
Another finger broke as he stared hungrily at the collapsed form of the
old woman dressed in fine Acromantula silk robes.
He was going to have fun peeling it off of her.
24. Chapter 84
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
29th of May, 1971 – Hogwarts, Avalon
Emily POV
"Welcome to this year's Hogwarts Duelling Competition!" the seventh year
Hufflepuff announced with cheer, a cheer returned tenfold by the packed
crowd in the stands. Row after row was filled by students, by parents and
by those fortunate enough to be favoured by Slughorn.
The Quidditch pitch was transformed into a duelling arena about a
hundred square metres in area with twice as large an area around it
containing rocks, bushes and a small pond.
The students would find themselves able to use whatever they wanted
from their surroundings in order to win. It was markedly different to the
duelling competitions she'd participated all those years ago and she
thought it was for the better.
After all, the best wizards and witches used their surroundings to the best
of their abilities.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaand, for the first time in almost five years, Her Majesty the
Queen, His Majesty the King have come to watch this year's competitors!" the
cheer they received was near riotous and they dutifully waved to the
adoring crowd.
It was useful to show themselves once in a while to the public at events
like this.
It reminded them of their existence, it reminded them of safety and
security they provided amidst the darkness that strangled most of Europe,
a darkness that was ravaging the European nobility who supported the
Ravenites.
"They love you, Your Graces." Slughorn said with a beaming smile as he
clapped just as the others did. "The heart grows fonder with absence as
they say" Slughorn chuckled.
Emily eyed the man for a moment as the cheers and claps died down.
The past few years had gone well for the man. You could see it physically
too. The man had grown larger since her days at Hogwarts and she could
see that he was too indulgent in the prestige and benefits that came with
the title 'Headmaster of Hogwarts'.
Still, she couldn't say that the man wasn't still capable. Hogwarts was
only third to the Pandrosion and SIMS now, the other eleven Great
Schools trailed behind them.
"Then it is best that we stay as absent as possible." Atticus said with a
polite smile to Slughorn as they took their seats in their sectioned off area
in the top row of the stands.
Emily tapped Atticus leg, a light smile on her face before she turned to
address Slughorn "Don't mind my husband, he's grown a humorous side
over the years."
Slughorn chuckled before his eyes flittered across the faces of both her
and Atticus "Age will do that to you." Slughorn commented with a
trailing chuckle though his subtle curiosity was not unhidden. To neither
her or Atticus.
They knew full well that their youthfulness was getting more and more
noticed. Still looking like they were in their mid to late twenties whilst
they were approaching their fiftieth birthdays tended to do that.
"You learn to take things a lot more lighter." Slughorn said as he folded
his hands across his large belly, a mild look of fond exasperation on his
face.
"Kids these days. They tend to think they're the centre of the world and
feel so strongly about everything." Slughorn shook his head.
Atticus smiled before he veered his gaze towards the competitors who
would be first up. "That has always been the case" Atticus said to
Slughorn. "And it is a good thing too for it is the younger generations to
provide the greatest impetus for change."
Slughorn eyed her husband with surprise on his face before he smiled
gently, a throaty sound escaping from his mouth "Quite." Slughorn said
with a serious nod.
There was a lull for a few moments before she spoke up "Who do you
think will qualify for the final rounds?"
Slughorn's eyes lit up and began to enthusiastically detail the
competitors.
There were thirty-two students competing for the five spots reserved for
Hogwarts students. It wasn't a straight out knockout kind of competition.
Not completely.
The scoring criteria looked at creativity and at ingenuity as well.
Those who progressed to the semi-finals would all be automatically
through to the inter-school duelling competition where they would be
competing against studetns from SIMS, the Pandrosion, Mahoutokoro,
Uagadou and a select few others from Ilvermony or Castelobruxo invited
to take part of the inter-school competition.
Those who knocked out of the previous rounds today would have a
chance to earn the final spot in a straight knockout…the best of the rest.
Slughorn was enthusiastic about a number of students, many of whom
were Slytherins and the offspring of her most loyal. Carrow, Shafiq,
Malfoy and Ms Black were the best of the Slytherins with only a few
challengers from the other Houses.
Amelia Bones of Hufflepuff, Gideon and Fabian Prewett of Gryffindor,
Frank Longbottom of Gryffindor and surprisingly Xenophilius Lovegood
of Ravenclaw were the best of the other Houses.
Atticus' eyes showed glimmer of interest when Slughorn described
Lovegood's strengths in charms and unconventional unpredictabilityand
she sent a note of amusement through their bond and she got back what
she could only describe as 'So what' from him that also rang of
excitement.
He had a strange fascination with the family and it wasn't hard to notice
that he was clearly excited when Pandora begun dating the year-younger
boy.
Well it wasn't completely strange.
It wasn't hard to notice that there was something about them that was
unique. The Quibbler was startling accurate in many things they wrote
about, even foreseeing Illos once you stopped and actually read between
the lines of they wrote about.
The family were a family of Seers, that was quite apparent.
…and extremely eccentric. She wondered if it was their eccentricity that
enhanced their strange Sight or if it was the other way 'round. Likely it
was the other way around. They were all in a way touched by whatever it
was.
Every single one of them.
She remembered all too well of that singular truth when she met her first
Lovegood decades ago at her first Beltane.
Soon enough the first duels went apace. Most accounted themselves quite
well, especially the fourth year – James Ricard – a squibborn orphan who
faced Shafiq and lasted nearly ten minutes before he was swept aside.
Given that the competition was to be completed today, round after
round, the duellists were cautious and preserved their magic as much as
they could.
Of course, this was a risky gambit since all of the duellists were the best
amongst the student body. There were some early rounds duels that
definitely sapped some after they weren't able to knock them out quickly.
Most of the duellists were capable of at least some wandless magic –
there was a Hogwarts class to teach it – and they didn't disappoint as
they used it in their duels, often banishing or summoning or even
disillusioning themselves or their conjurations.
Though the stand outs through the first and second round were certainly
Black, Malfoy and Bones. Longbottom was capable but he was unlucky to
face Malfoy in the second round and exited after giving himself a good
accounting despite his youth.
Bones had the strength of magic and skill to become a very formidable
witch if she honed her magic and her aptitude in battle magicks.
Black, Emily mused to herself as the girl began to walk up to her position
in the arena, however…well she was quite something.
Ruthless, fast and efficient, she was a marvel with a wand. It seemed like
she has indeed improved over the past few years and the power boost she
got from her fourth magical maturity certainly helped.
"And now, in the first match of the Quarter Finals, please give it up for Ms
Bellatrix Black and Mr Fabian Prewett!" the young announcer called out
and the crowd roared in cheers, feeling that they were soon to witness a
fascinating spectacle.
Her eyes fell towards the area in the stands where the Black family were
congregated.
The Prewett twins were powerful – probably Sorcerer level once they
matured out – but they were disappointing in their scope of magic
despite their talent.
Slughorn had said that they were more focused on entertaining and
finding new ways of using common – especially prank – spells in their
casting.
Which they both certainly did in the previous two rounds.
"It looks like Mr Prewett will take this more seriously." Atticus
commented as he watched with interest. Slughorn hummed with a
serious nod.
"The Prewett twins have a bit of history with Ms Black." Slughorn said
with a grimace. Slughorn noticed her curious look and expanded
"She retaliated quite harshly after one of their pranks in their third years
and got worse after Ms Black put Gideon Prewett in the hospital wing
after badly harming the boy in a duel in their fourth years. Since then
we've avoided pairing them as much as we could." Slughorn said with
distaste.
"In truth, I'm quite glad all three are graduating this year…for different
reasons of course." Slughorn added before going quiet.
Emily sat back in her chair, mulling over the Headmaster's words whilst
the two duellists were priming to start the duel. Her eyes observed the
pair below and she could see the agitation in the magic of both though
they were different significantly.
Prewett was all agitation, excitement and grim anger whilst Black was
significantly darker in her emotions. All fury, all sadistic glee and all
excitement stormed within her. It reminded Emily of her younger self.
As soon as the referee commenced the battle to begin, a flurry of spells
rippled out of their wands, spells that raced and tore away at the arena in
a way that hadn't been done in the previous rounds. Neither were holding
back.
Black danced around the spells that could incapacitate her and it was
clear to see she loved it. She moved like a viper, her returns sharp and
fast, faster than the spells that Prewett flung at her but his defence was
still solid enough. For now.
"She's definitely talented." Atticus commented with curiosity.
"She is." Emily agreed. This is the first time that Atticus was physically
seeing her fight in any detail. She'd seen her in the junior divisions a few
times.
"But she lacks control." Emily added. Whilst she's markedly improved her
technique and grown more powerful, she let herself consumed by the
battle.
This was something that was apparent even from a young age and…
unfortunately…it seemed like it was getting worse, she mused as she
watched Black cast progressively darker and darker spells.
There was, not so much as rules against dark magic as there was rules
against spells that caused permanent injury.
Over the years, she's gotten most magicks previously classified as dark
downgraded in illegalness though there were of course heavy penalties
attached to the use of such magicks against civilians or against the police
force.
With unwilling blood magic, sacrificial necromancy and other such
magicks affecting form, function and free will carrying death sentences.
It also, of course, necessitated having a police force capable of such
magicks and understanding it which wasn't a huge problem given that
many over the years studied at SIMS before becoming an Auror where it
was a requisite to study at least two semesters of the Dark Arts.
Under the watchful gaze of under the Director of the MLE, one of her
most loyal and competent people.
In any case, she refocused and lost herself to the haze of the battle as
Prewett continued to offer resistance to her barrages.
"Which she will be." Atticus idly stated, looking completely unconcerned.
The referee shouted out warnings to Black who seemed to heed enough
of it that she stopped casting the more dangerous spells.
"The Illosian Guard will demand it from her."
"That's right" Slughorn perked up, excitement once more filtering through
the deep look of concern he previously had as he watched the duel. He'd
always been a soft man at heart and duels of this kind unsettled the man.
"The first Avalonian to be accepted into the Illosian Guard." Slughorn
remarked before continuing "A prestigious honour. I hear her family was
very satisfied with that."
Emily doubted they were satisfied with her choice and her admittance to
the Guard. It meant that Bellatrix Black was out of their control…not that
she was much in their control anyway.
But she was powerful and promised to be High Sorcerer level which they
could have used to project their family's power. And now…well, as an
Illosian Guard, her first and foremost duty will be to her and Atticus and
Illos.
A factor that was not done without good reason. Atticus had Seen Black
in his visions and in the most likely timelines, she was a steadfast and
loyal subject to Atticus but mostly to her specifically.
And in the timelines where she was kept at a distance, she grew more
and more of a problem that necessitated in her being put away to prison
which further broke her down into severe mental imbalance.
A large crash echoed from the arena and turned their attentions once
more to the field.
Black had created uprooted one of the larger rocks and crashed it
towards Prewett who was now on the back foot after having scrambled
out of the way and now was pinned by the vicious barrage of spells Black
sent his way.
Yes...she thought.
It would be a waste for Black to go into the dark without blooming to her
full potential. Even if she thought it was curious that Black had such a
deep…fascination with her.
Which was amusing considering all of the opportunities Black had to
speak with her directly, the events and so on, Black never once spoke
with her let alone approached her.
Black finally broke Prewett's defences and after launching the boy off of
his feet and summoning his wand, the referee declared her as the winner.
The cheers were riotous and Black lapped up as she heaved in and out.
Prewett did give her a good challenge. Black clearly turned her gaze
towards the top of the stands, to where Emily and Atticus was sitting and
bowed deeply towards them.
Atticus stood up and clapped his hands, an act that delighted the young
Black. Emily stood up and did the same, an act that made the young
Black daughter visibly flush in delighted embarrassment.
"Do I need to be concerned wife?" Atticus said with a mild smile and his
words caused Slughorn to choke on air.
Emily raised an eyebrow, a smile dancing on her lips. "Maybe" she said
airily with notes of dismissiveness in her tone and Atticus chuckled at it.
She would be lying if she didn't think that Black's magic and her skill
wasn't unappealing. There was something magnificent about her dark
and chaotic magic. The look on Atticus' face said as much that he knew
what she was thinking.
The rest of the duels proved to be not as entertaining as Prewett v. Black
had been but nonetheless they were good duels, certainly for their age.
Black, Bones, Malfoy and Gideon Prewett all progressed towards the
semifinals, automatically qualifying for the inter-school competition and
the final between Bones and Black was another highlight though a little
more controlled, and Black ended up winning the Hogwarts competition.
She and Atticus made their way towards the podium where the teachers
and the four finalists stood with Black at the front. Both her and Atticus
held four medallions in their hands, one gold, one silver and two copper
and Atticus, after handing his medallions to Prewett and Bones, began
speaking with the two students.
"Congratulations, Heir Malfoy" Emily said as she handed over the
medallion to the young Malfoy. The boy bowed deeply from the hips.
"Thank you, Your Grace." The boy said with calm respect before he eyed
his medallion, a slight look of displeasure creeping on his face. Becoming
third clearly dissatisfied him and it should. Knowing how much his father
has invested in the boy's education, he should have been able to beat
Bones.
Granted, Bones and Malfoy had been well matched but the young
Hufflepuff should not have been able to trick Lucius at the end as well as
she did.
His father would likely point that out anyway later today.
Emily turned her gaze towards the young Black girl who seemed to be
tense whilst staring at a spot on the ground, unwilling to pick up her
gaze.
She had a mane of striking black hair, an angular face – half obscured –
with prominent cheekbones that bore all the aristocratic traces of Druella
Rosier and that of Cygnus Black. She was a beautiful young woman,
worthy of the magic she possessed.
She walked a few steps towards her, the medallion in hand. "Ms Black."
Emily said and the girl seemed to stiffen before she, almost mechanically,
picked up her head.
Her violet eyes were almost storming and it bore similarities to a cyclone
over the Pacific she once watched rage from high above the Earth.
Excitement, trepidation, fear, yearning for approval. Emily almost winced
from the assault of powerful emotions. She'd met thousands of people
over the decades.
People who hated her. People who loved her. People who feared her.
People who trusted her. People who were jealous of her. People who
wanted to impress her.
But never someone like Bellatrix Black who seemed to yearn with her
entire being for Emily's approval. She was quite sure she did nothing for
Black to earn from her such…need.
It was…new.
Useful though, she supposed with an idle thought.
"Your Grace." Bellatrix Black managed to say with a strange quietness in
her voice, so different from the imperious and ruthless young woman
she'd been throughout the competition.
Emily smiled at the young woman "You have impressed me, Ms Black.
You have greatly improved since the last time I saw you." Emily said as
she handed over the medallion to Black.
Emily felt Black explode with relief and delight through her magic, it was
almost suffocating to feel how much the young girl felt…and how deeply.
"You remember?" Black said with a kind of innocent awe that made Emily
feel somewhat uncomfortable.
"I do." Emily said with a smile as she pushed away the discomfort "I am
gladdened to see that you've maintained your passion for duelling and
magic. It will suit you well once you're at the academy."
Black's smile could have lit up the Great Hall and from what she sensed
from Malfoy, incredulousness and confusion, it seemed like it wasn't
something normal to see.
"Of course!" Black said quickly before continuing "I do nothing else but to
improve! Not after watching your duels countless times and seeing
memories of you and the King using magic like no one else!" The cycling
emotions emanating from her was disorientating, even more so when a
deep sense of mortification took hold of her.
"Your Grace." Black nearly snapped her head down into a bow, her voice
nearly quivering as shame began to fill her likely because she thought she
spoke wrongly.
"Ms Black." Emily began and the young unstable woman was still tight as
a rope under tension "Bellatrix." Emily said, this time gentler and it did
the trick as Bellatrix raised her head and stared at Emily with wide eyes.
"I appreciate your candour." Emily said with a faint smile and she felt
Bellatrix's tremendous relief as much as she could see it on her face.
The girl's comment about watching memories of her and Atticus did not
surprise her one bit. In fact, she preferred it. People had short memories.
Even magicals once enough time had passed. Storing memories of their
capabilities and passed down generations would do well to make people
pause in their plots.
And Emily supposed it would inspire others to try and reach the pinnacle
they have set.
"And my husband and I appreciate those talented ones who value self-
improvement and it is clear that you will fit into the Illosian Guard well."
Bellatrix smiled once more, her smile struggling to be contained in her
face.
"I knew that it was the only real option for me!" Bellatrix enthused. Emily
silently thought to herself that Bellatrix could do nearly anything she
wanted. Smart, capable and a knack for magic that a fraction of the
magical population possessed.
Emily smiled at Bellatrix. Well, who was she to refuse someone who
clearly wanted to serve her. "Good." Emily said as she reached out with
the medallion and Bellatrix gingerly took the medallion out of Emily's
hand before holding it with both her hands as if it was the most precious
thing she owned, could ever own.
"The Illosian Guard are the best of the best when it comes to combat
magicks." Emily pinned the young woman with a firm but not ungentle
look "Learn from them, listen to them and you will find yourself reach
heights you did not think possible."
Bellatrix once more cycled through an array of emotions before she
settled on fierce determination "I will not let you down, my Queen." She
said with her head bowed, her voice laced with reverence and a kind of
possessiveness.
It wasn't long after that the guests departed and the students returned to
the school leaving behind only a select few teachers, Slughorn, Atticus
and a couple of their guards to restore the Quidditch pitch after Atticus
had offered to assist.
Too bad one of the teachers was Charlus Potter. He was the Defence
Professor, her old teaching position, for the past twelve years. She had to
work to keep the disdain off of her face. Disdain that was certainly not all
that hidden from his face.
Even after all of these years of peace wasn't enough for the man to get
over all that has happened. It was almost as if he was a jilted lover.
Only…if anyone had the right to feel that way, it was certainly Atticus
whom the man had consistently betrayed over the decades because of his
inability to separate away his so-called morality over what was clearly
needed to be done.
It was men like Charlus who were the most infuriating to deal with…men
of so called principles who would let the world burn away as long as they
kept their hands clean. Men who would rather see her and Atticus dead
for pushing the magical world to heights hitherto never seen before
simply because he didn't like them personally.
Soon enough, with hers and Atticus' help, the Quidditch pitch was
restored.
"Headmaster." Charlus called out and Slughorn turned the man curiously.
"I'm going to head back inside." The man said gruffly before he turned on
his heel and walked away without once acknowledging her or Atticus.
The two other professors were appalled at the rudeness of Potter and
Slughorn looked equally appalled but also concerned. "I apologise about
Mr Pott-"
"Don't be Horace." Atticus assured Slughorn with a kind smile
"People are free to their opinions."
'As long as they were opinions' Emily thought, a dark look flashing briefly.
That seemed to settle the man and it wasn't long before Slughorn was
escorting them towards the gates. They bid Slughorn goodbye before they
walked towards the skymobile which was descending down and that
would take them to Morfay station.
The station was heavily warded against any kind of transportation with
only a few floo terminals. They could take a portal home but they were
in no rush to return.
As the skymobile rose in the air, she turned to Atticus. He was gazing out
of the window as his head lay against the back of the seat, a considering
look on his face.
"They'll be here in two days." Atticus said suddenly without taking his
gaze away from the outside as they travelled over Morfay towards the
station.
She knew immediately it was Gaius and the others coming back to Earth
from Celestis. They were slated to return this week based on when they
departed.
"They're pushing the ship." Atticus turned to her, a warm smile on his
face. "They're keen to get home and see their families."
She hummed noncommittally, her finger tapping against her thigh, a
tapping that stopped when Atticus placed his hand on top of hers.
She sighed slightly as she felt him caress the back of her hand, care and
affection from their bond soothing her soul even more so than his hand
did.
A year and longer he would be away.
Tens of thousands of light years where even magic had difficulty
reaching.
She regretted not pressing for Quantum Entanglement Communication
stations to be created along the path to Celestis, concerns about the
Covenant or other aliens discovering them be damned.
"I'll have Pierce notify the families when we return." Emily stated,
choosing to reign in her unhappiness about his leaving in three months'
time.
Atticus nodded affirmatively and there were a few minutes of silence as
the station drew nearer.
"Bellatrix is unbalanced." She commented. Very unbalanced to the point
that it was probable she was never going to last a month with the
academy.
The girl was all emotion, seesawing emotion that was disturbing in its
intensity and how quickly it changed. Atticus hummed before he sighed
"She is."
He met her gaze "If she isn't treated, she will continue to get worse."
Emily was silent for a few moments as she eyed him intensely. "You have
a cure." She merely stated already knowing that he had it from the way
he spoke.
"I do." Atticus confirmed before his hand went into his pocket and a small
vial emerged. "She has a severe case of bipolar disorder, one that is made
worse by her strong attunement to the Black family magic which is
volatile to say the least."
He floated the vial towards her and she grabbed from the air. "That will
permanently cure the chemical imbalance in her brain. It won't affect her
personality nor her impressions" Atticus paused for a moment as he shot
her a look of pleased amusement and she knew that he was hinting
towards Bellatrix's irrational devotion.
"But it will stabilise her."
Emily looked at the vial intently before she pocketed it away and Atticus
spoke again. "She will be your Parelius, Emily." And she turned to him.
His hand rose from atop hers and gently stroked her cheek with the back
of his hand.
"Your most devoted…" Atticus smiled wryly "My competition." Before he
lost the smile and looked at the vial "And that will secure that devotion
forevermore."
She took his hand from her cheek and brought it to her face before she
kissed it tenderly. It was a marvellous gift. There were plenty who were
loyal to her, devoted even. The Illosian Guards were all but practically
willing to die for them.
But Parelius was special. He was absolute in his loyalty to Atticus and his
moral compass was virtually non-existent when it came achieving Atticus'
and Illos' goals.
Highly capable, powerful and unbreakably loyal of their free will was
difficult to find. Not even Rasmussen Lestrange could be trusted with the
lion share of their secrets like Parelius could be and was entrusted with.
Even Gaius, Atticus' own former apprentice, raised in Illos, would doubt
them if he ever knew the extents of which they were going to secure the
magical world.
And now after properly speaking with Bellatrix, she believed Atticus was
right. She was going to be her confidante. Her own Parelius.
"Thank you." She said sincerely and affectionately with a fond smile after
as she stopped kissing his hand.
-Break-
29th of May, 1971 – New Norgrost, Illos
Netmuk Forgeback POV
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! TSHHISSSS! CLANG! CLANG! TSHHISSS!
A hungry smile bloomed on his bearded and aged face as they walked
down the Street of the Fourteen Forges, the sounds of hammers striking
metal akin to the music of the Gods amidst the dewy morning air and he
could hear his people sing that music with their sweet and blood.
It roused the drum of his heart's beat into an electric storm that long ago
he thought permanently extinguished.
Smoke billowed from atop of the buildings from chimneys, thick grey and
black smoke that churned and blew out before being vanished away mere
seconds afterwards by the array of runes on tall spokes that ensured the
mountain air remained clean.
Regulations and health concerns!
Their ancestors had been strong and hale working in the heat and in the
smoke of the forge. He shook his head. The Illosians were a strange
bunch.
He'd happily suck in the smells and taste of burning oak that flamed the
forges much like how their ancestors did so long ago. Bah!
In time, they would line entire city streets with forges, craft-houses and
factories!
Fotrac chuckled gravelly, his rumbling sound mixing with the clangs and
the chimes of metal. Fotrac knew him well and long enough to know
what he was yearning for.
Perhaps that was because he too yearned for the same.
"You're too old for that, old maðr. You'd sooner dislocate a disc than be
able to beat metal into shape." Fotrac descended in a coarse laugh.
Netmuk eyed his companion.
Fotrac was an old dwarf, almost as old as he. His famous red mane he
used skilfully to seduce dwarven maidens was now mostly a scraggly and
shallow grey.
There were hints of his former glory, of course, a few orange hairs here
and there, traces like there were traces of his old strength and his vigour
of life, but they were old dwarves now and did as all old dwarves do.
They bickered and they lectured.
"You speak as if you'd fare any better." Netmuk said with a fearsome
scowl though there was little bite in it. Fotrac let off a harsh bark of a
laugh.
"Aye, aye." Fotrac agreed as his gaze swept across the street, traces of a
lingering look of longing apparent on his face. "Lucky rascals." Fotrac
grunted.
Yes, Netmuk agreed as he glanced at a young dwarf hammering what
seemed to be steel, likely folded several times already and he could feel
the yearning within him strengthened.
There was a competition to see who could achieve twelve hundred layers
first as Dvalin claimed was the only recognisable True Damascus Steel.
They'd found some deposits in Lebanon of the rare magically conducive
iron deposits, the same kind of iron ore their ancestors used to create
True Damascus Steel. He rarely wished to be younger, but on days like
these…
He wanted to ignore his aching joints and his weary bones and join in
with his brethren in striking metal, to forge and craft in the ways of their
ancestors.
Fortunately, he was wiser than to do that despite the sight of burning
fumes which had an invigorating quality. He quite liked being able to
walk without difficulty.
When he reached Valhalla, he'd have all the billets and ingots to strike at.
"Come, you old goat. We're already late."
They'd come back from a trip to Aziza to discuss an Orichalcum bridge
with interwoven Baobab branches in its structures. An interesting project.
Expensive too.
"What did I tell you about calling me a goat?" Fotrac scowled, his face
contorting into a disgusted look as he followed Netmuk's steps. Back in
the day, when they were but young dwarven fond of Gaint's ale, they'd
been a wild bunch.
There were many a stories and one of them included an eventful night for
Netmuk as he slept with a nanny naked.
For the life of him, he still couldn't remember what had happened and
ever since then, jokes about him being a goat fucker had stuck through
the ages. It might even be true, Netmuk mused with an internal shrug.
The nanny did have some delectable buns.
Of course, none of them liked it when he started to include goats in his
insults.
There were many a fights and Netmuk was no weakling. He won them
all. Without them being able to defeat him every time he turned the jokes
and insults around on them, the jokes lost their appeal to them after that,
he darkly chuckled.
Of course, now and again he still made sure to poke at them.
"Ya fucking goat fu…." Fotrac raised his fist angrily as he stopped his
retort midway. Fortrac looked comical.
"I'm not too old to beat your bony body black and blue!"
Netmuk barked a laugh. "You couldn't do it back in the day and you sure
as Niflheim can't do it now!" Their angry banter continued for a little
while, the working young dwarves chuckling and laughing as they
overheard chunks of their conversation.
Ah, these were good times indeed and he hoped he'd live long enough to
see it grow on their new home.
A new home with cities and towns and villages in virgin lands that would
be wholly Dwarven with little restriction on how to tend to the lands, a
new Nidavellir, a greater Nidavellir, he thought with delighted glee.
They would become the greatest industrial hub of all of Celestis!
Netmuk caught a sight down the bowels of the merry street and it made
his heart warble and his blood that sung cool into fond warmness and
pride.
Dozens of little dwarven childes were huddled over by a group of female
Dwarves, their minders, entertained and awed as they played with the
products of the newly Master Blacksmiths.
He could not remember seeing a Dwarven childe that happy in his entire
eighty six years of life. He could not remember seeing so many in one place,
at all.
"Ya soft bastard." Fotrac muttered though it was said with a faint smile.
Aye, even for old bastards such as them, the sight of their bright future
was a warming thing.
How it could not be, after they'd lived such a half-life for centuries?
They'd lived a half-life, one without the warmth and licking fires of the
forge, without the runes and enchantments their ancestors mastered and
used to craft the greatest works in the whole of the magical world.
A weak people who lost the forge and with it lost the fires of life within
their souls.
Childes were born only to replace those who had died merely to ensure
they continued their half-lifes and their purposeless roles as bankers.
They were a broken people without a true hearth and home, without the
teachings and labour of their ancestors, saved only from extinction by the
grace of the great Grerr, the Saviour King.
A people who hid behind their great fortress Bank and followed the path
of their most hated enemies, an enemy to whom they lost their homes to,
their treasures, their arts and their honour and pride.
They gave it all up for the sake of survival, even the quest to regain their
sacred writings by master Crafts-Dwarves from the hands of the thieving
Goblins, and instead made do to protect the coins of Wizards within the
bowels of their fortress Old Norgrost in Switzerland.
Where they were once envied, feared and respected for their works and
their prowess in battle, they became pitied and forgotten, a hollow
people with hollow lives with only gold coins to live for.
"Reikdrack, fetch me that bar of Orichalcum!" Netmuk heard bellowed from
within one of the Blacksmith shops and his hungry smile deepened to the
point that it was akin to a wolf's snarl.
"Never again…" Netmuk growled to himself, his beard flaked with whites
and greys shaking as his mouth twisted in angry resolve.
Never again would they allow themselves to be those wretched not-
Dwarves who had lost what they were meant to be.
They had no excuse or reason to abandon the forges now or ever.
"Aye…never again." Fotrac agreed with a growl of his own, a youthful
fire returning to his old face.
They left the Street of the Fourteen Forges and made their way up-hill
towards the towering fortress etched into the side of Norgrost Mountain,
the third largest mountain some thirty kilometres away from Celestis
Mount along the southern curve of Illos.
The lands around Norgrost Mountain was alike the rest of the Illosian
lands near the mountains. Hilly rocky lands with rich green valleys with
river streams cutting through them and it was one such river stream New
Norgrost town was built by.
It was a worthy home, temporary as it may be.
They passed the Street of Dvalin, the street where the artisans and the
Crafts-Dwarves enchanted their works and mastered their craft.
Shops of all kinds inhabited this street, from homeware to braces
empowered with one thing or another, and weapons and armour that
were improving in quality and power with every passing year as his
people feverishly improved their skill.
The shops were few but in time, he knew the street would grow in size as
their population grew.
The street was busier than the Street of the Fourteen Forges and it wasn't
just Dwarves that dwelled the street. Wizards, witches, Veela, even a few
Lycans that he could smell and sense, looked at and purchased goods
from the Crafts-Dwarves.
Most of them were Illosian citizens though there were a few that made
the trip from abroad or from the other countryships.
"Councillor" a few of his people greeted him, even a few of the Illosian
who recognised him from the media, and he returned the greeting gruffly
but politely.
A quarter of an hour later, they made it passed the Great Gates of
Hammerbeard, gates carved out of mountain rock and that protected the
entrance of Norgrost, and his gaze latched onto the curving grey silver
metal that towered over the towering gates and fortress.
Norgrost Mountain hugged the grey silver metal like a babe hanging off
of a mother's teat and his heart felt like it was going through a
complicated somersault.
It was a great reminder, every day, of who they owed their fortunes too.
Netmuk grumbled moodily. That wizard made Netmuk and a great many
of his people feel many conflicting things.
If it was the great Dwarven King Grerr who saved them, it was the
Wizard King Sayre who helped to revitalised them, the wizard who gifted
them what was theirs, the priceless works of Dvalin the great…
The only works that survived the burning of the Goblins once they
butchered their ancestor's works and writings before twisting it all for
their own.
Fotrac parted from him once they made it inside the fortress and he
continued on his way towards his destination, his mind flung back into
the past.
He remembered that day eight years ago as if it just happened yesterday,
the day that King Sayre had come to their fortress.
The Ravenites and their sycophants had grown brave and dangerous over
the years.
Demands of turning over the wealth of their enemies had grown difficult
to resist and news of the butchering of magical races in Greece and
elsewhere had reached the halls of Norgrost. Their threats could no
longer be considered idle.
Even if Norgrost's defensive wards and their defensive mechanisms were
second to none. In the end, no fortress could hold against a horde of
enemies without allies to call upon. Their history had taught them well to
guard against such arrogance.
It was during that turbulent time that King Sayre had come to them with
an offer that seemed too good to be true. They'd kept abreast of the
situation in the magical world – never would they have allowed
themselves to be blindsided by anyone or anything – and they knew the
man was dangerous. Beyond dangerous.
His prowess in magic was reminiscent of the great Norse Mages that once
roamed the earth and his defeat of Grindelwald was truly worthy of song.
The years afterwards only proved that he was far from simply just an
Archmage with too much magical power.
His butchering of the magical world economy was calculated – and it did
hurt them very much when he left with his family's gold – and what came
afterwards only proved that the man wielded his Sight much like a Dwarf
wielded his battle axe.
They were not keen to enter business with such a ruthless wizard,
especially when it became known the King and Queen of the wizards had
utterly and totally subdued the British Goblins. They had feared the same
fate.
They had partied like they had never done before but nevertheless, they
feared he would do the same if they agreed to his offers of safety.
Wizards were never known to keep to their word. The last honourable
wizards were long dead.
Bah!
It was a refusal that they had to reconsider when even those families who
were even slightly rumoured to have creature blood were leaving to
France or Iberia lest they be exterminated like the Sirens of Macedonia or
the Satyrs of Greece.
And when the light Swiss families of so called pristine pureblood heritage
were emptying out their gold from the banks, theirs included, and began
to flee like rats from a sinking ship, that was when they knew they had to
begin talks again.
As the Manager of the Central Bank of the Dwarves, that honour fell to
him.
He grumbled, his long beard that touched the bottom of his belly swayed
under the act. King Sayre knew how to appeal to him and he had to
remind himself during the negotiations that King Sayre was no Dwarf
even if he could speak like one.
The wizard offered the Dwarves safety and equality on Illos, to make
them citizens equal to mages and the other races, an offer that he'd
known would not be offered to them by any of the other Ministries and it
was an honest offer made under blood oath in the ancient Dwarven ways.
Whilst he did not know then how the wizard knew of the ancient way,
what he did know, then, was that the wizard King had no foul desires to
make them submit as he had done to the goblins. He wanted their
alliance.
An unbalanced alliance, true, but it was an honest one.
Their steps clanked around them as they walked through the massive hall
of Norgrost where dozens of twenty metre tall statues of Dwarven Kings
and Princes adorned in brilliant golden armour greeted him. And
towering above them all, was the statue of Grerr, the king that saved his
people from the brink of extinction.
He spent many days speaking to his advisors, other elder Dwarves who
knew the precariousness of their situation and they came to the simple
conclusion that it was simply a matter of time that the Ravenites would
cast their gaze to their mountain.
Grungotts of Germany had already been destroyed a year prior and the
wealth of the bank split amongst the wizards and the Ravenites. Their
satisfaction had been grim.
Other banks in Ravenite territory were appeasing them as much as they
could…for all the good that it did for any of the non-wizard banks.
And so…
They agreed.
He withheld a laugh.
It was the best investment they have done in centuries!
The Central Bank had never been wholly independent and been tied to
the Swiss Wizards for protection for centuries, a fact that continued now
in this deal he'd negotiated with the Wizard King but the one thing that
had not changed was that his people were only answerable to themselves
in Old Norgrost nor would they be forced to accept the wizard King and
Queen as their monarchs.
They gained the protection of the most powerful nation and wizard in
return for their near permanent alliance with the country-ship and its
people.
An innovative people who made more advancement in magic than the
rest of the magical world had in decades the previous century. His people
could only stand to gain and they had gained in that respect. They gained
much.
Ha!
It would be less than a decade before they would see the first dwarves
produce new Dwarven magicks.
That alone had been worth tying themselves to the dangerous Wizard
King.
Yet that was not what made this agreement the deal of the century, no,
that had come after the wizard King brought to their attentions the
greatest news they have heard in nearly a millennium.
He had the works of the great Dvalin himself!
A master Crafts-Dwarf whose name was still remembered in children's
stories, one of the last great Crafts-Dwarf and blacksmith.
The wizarding King, instead of offering it for their fealty as he expected
the wizard to do, had instead offered Dvalin's works to them without any
cost or requirement!
'This was always yours. Your legacy and your way home to the forges. I could
not demand of you of anything. You are my citizens, my people. I can only
ask you rebuild your people as you ought to be' the wizard King said to
them.
The cynical part of his mind considered that the wizard must have had it
for years and that he had only gifted it to them now that it worth doing
so but he also knew that the wizard could have kept it all to himself with
them none the wiser.
Bah!
The wizard King was a wily calculated one with the wisdom and cunning
of Odin himself and any anger he might have felt had gone away when
he held the works of Dvalin in his hands, written in the ancient Dwarven
tongue.
Any Dwarf worth his axe would have sacrificed fifty mountains full of
gold for what he had held in his hands that day.
"Councillor" the guard by the gleaming silver gate acknowledged with
reverence before he tapped the gate three times with the side of his fist.
The silver gate creaked open and he walked through it. It wasn't long
before he made it through the chasm of a tunnel towards the hollowed
out part of the mountain where a maze of low buildings was revealed
within the chasm of the mountain.
From the rocky ceilings, crystalline rocks gleamed and shone illuminating
Old Norgrost, the light of the sun reflecting down at the town via their
enchantments.
This was where the bulk of their people were. Two thousand strong. And
growing.
The town of New Norgrost held about five hundred of their numbers and
it was their compromise with the wizard King.
Old Norgrost was hallowed ground and it was too soon for their people to
interact completely freely with the peoples of Illos even if they were
tolerable.
But, he mused to himself, he doubted it would take very long for his
people to grow more comfortable with the wizards of Illos. They were as
strange as the wizard King.
Easily accepting of the Dwarves and the other magical races that
inhabited the lands and the waters of Illos when so many of their wizard
kin would not.
Even their children's books were not immune to such acceptance and
adventures of multi-racial children were amongst the most popular
stories of the wizard children.
Stories that he knew were also being consumed the little Dwarven
childes.
He made it to the Central Hall that stood at the centre of Old Norgrost,
where once upon a time would have served as the Bank Management
Offices, and passed through the building and its offices where Dwarves
were working on a number of projects that they were commissioned to
build or create.
With Dvalin's works now in the hands of every Dwarf, his people had
gone through an unbelievable metamorphosis, a revitalisation that would
be sung by futures generations as eagerly as the songs of Grerr or Helgotir.
They worked feverishly to learn Dvalin's works like the back of their
hands, learning and applying the works and even creating new teachings,
and as a consequence, their labour and works was highly sought after in
the magical world beyond Ravenite Europe.
The Rail Network of Avalon, the Bridge of Heaven in Ame-No-Ukihashi
and the Praying Statues of the Vodun in Aziza were amongst the best of
their works thus far.
He made it to his office and sat down with a few of his staff.
He was no longer Bank Manager of the Central Bank but he was the
Governor of Norgrost, a Councillor of the Council of Magical Races and a
sometimes advisor attached to the High Council.
His duties were more stressful than they had been during the latter years
as Bank Manager but he liked it despite having much more to do. It all
had great purpose.
Projects left right and centre, potential and current, occupied his time
along with acting as the representative of his people whilst also
governing Norgrost.
The next few hours he spent discussing with his staff about the potential
project in Aziza whilst also covering everything from the new homes that
would be built to encourage young dwarven to inhabit and create
families to discussing political agendas that was on the cards in the
Council of Magical Races.
After all of that was finished, he spent another few hours reading through
some amendments to old laws that were no longer necessary or were
needlessly complicated and by the time he was done, it was already late
evening.
He spent the late afternoon with his granddaughter and his great
grandchildren, his most preferred way to spend his time. Nagholir, the
youngest great grandchild, was already shaping up to be a prodigy in
enchantments!
He of course favoured that child though he did not show it. Not too
overly.
It was in the middle of dinner with his family that he received an
unwelcome message via the magi-com.
What could he want at this hour? He thought with a tired sigh.
"It's late. You can tell the wizard to call on you in the morning
tomorrow." Thirim, his fool of an in-law said dismissively. Even the
children knew it was a foolish thing to speak so cavalier about the wizard
King who had a thousand and one eyes.
His granddaughter Yardesli pinned the fool with a hard look and the fool
shut his errant mouth shut. Netmuk did not know why his granddaughter
had decided to accept the fool's courtship years ago and he still hated it
as much as he did then.
Yardesli turned her gaze to Netmuk "Do you need a ride to the gate?" she
asked him, referring to the skymobile parked outside of her home.
Yardesli favoured much of Illosian magi-tech, so much so that she was
creating versions suited for dwarves.
The skymobile she owned was specifically created for dwarves funded by
the gold she'd made herself from her business ventures. Ha!
He did know now why she favoured the fool. The fool was quite adept in
running the business side of things and knowing how clever his
granddaughter was, she likely thought of that from the moment the fool
desperately sought her courtship.
Plus, Netmuk grudgingly thought, it wasn't as if the union was entirely
fruitless. He did like his great grandchildren despite their fool of a father.
Netmuk shook his head as he rose from his chair. "No, I will stretch my
old bones. I've been sat for too long anyways." He liked to walk. It made
him feel less old.
He said his goodbyes to his family and ignored the fool and made his way
to the gate that would lead him to a gate nearby the Main Tower.
It was about forty five minutes later that he arrived to the High Council
doors and he was let in by the guards that stood post by the doors.
His expression soured and his already irritated mood worsened as he took
sight of who was amongst the wizards.
Though…his mood brightened when he thought about the goblin's title
and a grin grew on his face which got him an angry sneer from the
Goblin Prince.
The ugly rat, Ragnok Gringott. Prince of the Goblin Peoples.
A Prince who no longer held a title to a nation but instead, in all reality,
an honorary title that was given in pity than it was out of respect. Bah!
And the creatures knew it too, no matter how loyal and happy they
appeared to the world.
Netmuk knew that it was only superficial and likely as a result of some
kind of binding the wizard King had done to the goblins much like how
Merlin had done many centuries ago.
Netmuk would have preferred them all dead.
The goblins were more beast than they were a branch of people.
Even if Merlin went to great pains to humanise them.
They would sell their own mothers for coin if it proved to be more
profitable than not to and one day, if they were ever freed as Netmuk
thought they might be many years from now, Netmuk knew that the
goblins would try to betray the Wizard King who could have easily sent
them to extinction.
He would pray to mighty Odin for the opportunity to see it happen with
his two eyes.
As foolhardy the Wizard King and his Queen were with trying to civilise
the beasts, they were anything but weak should they need to be ruthless.
"Councillor Netmuk" the Wizard King greeted and his attentions returned
to the matter at hand. The Wizard King stood with his arms behind his
back by his throne with the Queen by his side.
"Wizard King. Witch Queen." Netmuk grunted politely before his gaze
veered to the other mages in the room. Chief Representative Doyle, the
Spymaster Parkinson and High Councillor Silas Merek were also here.
Curious.
Not everyone of the High Council was here, like those crafters Bell and
Bishop but the most important ones were.
'Well, at least it is probably not for nothing that I came' Netmuk thought
grudgingly as he moved towards a seat at the far end of the table.
Thankfully they got right into it and Wizard King Sayre began to explain
about the returning mages from Celestis and his departure in autumn.
Netmuk had listened with rapt attention once the wizard King mentioned
Celestis.
Netmuk had been made aware of Celestis system a few years after they
arrived on Illos. That the Illosians had the ability to sail the Void as if it
were an ocean.
He doubted the wizard's words and it was doubt that fled from him like
the putrid smells of rot from a Draugar when he'd set foot on the world of
Mars through a gate.
He could never forget the feeling of that world nor could he forget the
awe he felt when a huge ship, Gradus, descended down towards them.
The magic in the environment of Mars was so much lesser than that of
Earth, and he had thought that the world had earned its associations with
war and death for it was as dead as a Draugar.
He knew the treacherous goblins were just as reluctant to leave the Earth
but the promise of the Wizard King that the new worlds were or would
be richer in magic than even Earth was what made both of their kinds
agree.
Not that they had much room to really disagree.
For all of the wizard King's charisma and fairness, no one was under the
illusion that he and his wife could not make them agree.
The binds the wizard had on the monstrous goblins and the Geas that
were in place to prevent anyone speaking out about Celestis were proof
enough of that.
Netmuk grunted. At least the Folóï Centaurs confirmed, in their own
wishy washy ways, that it was to be a place that magicals could have
only dreamed about before.
"The Merpeople have agreed to accompany me to our future home. As
have the Centaurs. The Grecians and the British." The wizard King
informed them once he finished explaining and Netmuk immediately
knew what this meeting was about.
And the wizard King said as much "I would like both of your peoples to
send a few, perhaps half a dozen to a dozen, with me to see the progress
we are making."
Netmuk narrowed his eyes whilst the rat spoke up "King Sayre…whilst
my people would be honoured to join this expedition" the rat paused in
his words momentarily before he spoke again
"I do not see the reason why we should go"
Netmuk grunted annoyed and it drew the attentions of the rat – along
with everyone else's. "You do not see the reason? I knew you goblins we-"
Netmuk stopped before he threw in an insult and took a deep breath.
Foul goblins! He let go of the breath.
The wizard King and Queen had shown their displeasure once when he
got into a spat with the rat or that Gobchoke. They did not like the
animosity to creep into their halls at all. That one time was enough for
him to resist the near impossible.
"The reason" Netmuk ground out with forced calm as he addressed the rat
"Is straightforward." Netmuk turned to the wizard King who had an
expectant look on his face.
"You want us there for more than just to see progress. You want us there
for political reasons."
The wizard King and Queen did not need them at all and he doubted they
truly needed the Illosians either. There was nothing the Illosians created
that wouldn't have had the touch of the King or Queen.
No…Netmuk believed the wizard King and Queen were driven by desires.
Desires for a unified magical world, desires of a unified people of
multiple races and beings.
That had been his measure of the wizard King when he'd met with the
wizard again before agreeing and it was his measure now.
The wizard King and the witch Queen wanted a strong unified magical
world and worked towards it even so far as going against their own kind
for the sake of those that, for generations, were considered to be lesser by
their kind.
"We do." The wizard King said with a faint smile as he leaned back
slightly against his throne. "When we move to Celestis, I want it to be
more than just wizards moving the magical world to Celestis."
"A cooperation of peoples." The rat muttered.
Netmuk was highly amused by the choice words of the rat and the irony
of it all. A cooperation of peoples except for the goblins who were very
much acting at the whims of the wizards. A fitting sentence to a race of
uncivilised monsters.
Of course he did not voice such truths. "I see." Netmuk said with a slight
nod. It was at least a noble sentiment. The wizards had explained – and
the Folóï Centaurs alluded to it – that Exposure of the magical world to
the humans was inevitable.
He had difficulty believing it at first but he'd seen enough of the human
world to know that it was grudgingly possible. They'd even set a human
on the moon only a few years before. They were catching up to the
wizards and with their numbers…
Yes, conflict was perhaps inevitable given how similar the humans were
to wizards.
"What of the Veela and the others?" There were after all another three
magical races on the Council of Magical Races beyond the centaurs,
merpeople, dwarves and the rats in the form of the Sirens, the illusive
Drow and the long thought extinct Wood Nymphs.
Both the Drow and Nymphs were few in numbers, fewer than even his
people. The Drow had found sanctuary in the far reaches of Siberia after
being chased out of their forests in Anatolia many centuries ago. The
Wood Nymphs had a similar story.
"The Veela have integrated within Illosian society, just as the Sirens
have. Their representatives know of Celestis and have waived any
distinction between themselves and the wizards of Illos." The witch
Queen said before she continued
"And the other races are only here to assess Illos for the present and until
they decide to join completely, they will be kept at arm's length."
"Very well." Netmuk said after a few moments of silence before he eyed
the wizard King with a sharp look. He had not had an opportunity to
broach the topic but this was as good as any.
"And should my representatives find one of the Moons to be most suitable
for my people?"
The planetary system they'd be moving to had a number of worlds and
moons that were being terra-formed, and from what he understood, a
kind of magic that could transform worlds like one would encourage
growth of a garden.
The main one, Celestis, would be where Illos would settle and where most
of the magical world would eventually move to with the exception of
perhaps Aziza and Ame-No-Ukihashi.
But that still left a number of moons and worlds that could be settled and
Netmuk wanted one of those worlds for his people.
And after seeing the greedy goblin's eyes, it was obvious they wanted one
for themselves too. Good. At least then the magical world could confine
them to hopefully a cold and dreary desert of a world. Out of sight, out of
mind.
"Then you will have the opportunity to settle it." The Queen stated easily
though her gaze pinned Netmuk "There will be a price however."
Netmuk suppressed a scowl before he sharply nodded and his back
straightened.
"Of course." He said with a blank expression, the decades long experience
of being a Bank Manager coming to the forefront.
-Break-
Slipspace
Gaiu Volusenus Hardy POV
The changing patterns of the complex magnetic fields flowed like the
ebbing and flowing of water by the shores, and Gaius could imagine the
rush of water, the rolls land crashing of water as he looked at these
projections that represented the health of slipspace.
There was a parallel between the vast distances of space to that of the
vastness that the oceans seemed like…once upon a time.
Would their people one day think nothing of it?
As something common and merely a part of life like travelling on the sea
or through the air was? He knew the answer was yes, Gaius thought to
himself as he leaned back against the backless bench in the observation
wing of the ship.
People had the greatest capacity to accept change over time. To not even
consider it as unusual once enough time had passed. He'd seen it enough
over his lifetime…a lifetime where he'd seen so much already.
"Here again?" he heard the familiar voice of the man who commanded
the ship.
"As always." Gaius answered easily without turning around. Tirtayasa
walked around and sat next to him. For a good while, neither of them
said anything.
They had an understanding of sorts, an understanding granted to them by
way of their responsibilities. Tirtayasa, of this ship and their people, and
Gaius of the mission to prime Celestis granted by their King and his
mentor.
There was a kind of loneliness in command, one that was alleviated by
having capable people – as they both had – that could be trusted – which
they also both had - but even so, the hard choices fell on them, the
weight of responsibility, a weight that consisted of the hopes and future
of their people and magic as a whole, was not something that could
easily be spread across the shoulders of their subordinates and in truth…
They would have been unsuited for the positions they were in had they
been so easily willing to do so. They sat in silence for quite some time
before either one of them spoke, both simply watching the flowing
curtains of magnetic fields that ebbed and flowed and ebbed and flowed.
It was peaceful.
And it was also coming to an end soon now that they were only days
from home to their people. Gaius was looking forward to seeing his
mother and his siblings.
And his mentor.
"Do you know why I accepted this position despite it taking away from
my family for years at a time?" Tirtayasa spoke up and Gaius looked at
him curiously prompting Tirtayasa to continue.
A small smile crept on his face as he stared at the beautiful undulating
curtains.
"My ancestors, and the ancestors of all Indonesians, have a rich history of
seafaring. Sturdy ships that navigated through storms and weathered the
fury of the seas, hardy people who explored deep oceans with bravery
and curiosity in their hearts."
Tirtayasa stopped and hummed softly "In a way, I am connecting to my
ancestors by being out here." Both allowed his words to settle in before
Gaius spoke up.
"You were orphaned young weren't you?" The story of the Fisbililah
family was well known by nature of their remarkable rise in influence,
not only magically or techno-magically but also culturally.
Them being squibs at birth added to the meritorious appeal of the couple,
one that was already enhanced by their orphan status. Two sides of the
same coin of the 'ideal Illosian couple' the media had taken to call them.
Science and culture going hand in hand. Knowing the man as Gaius did,
he didn't think the man would have appreciated the celebrity status he
and his wife gained.
"I was. My parents died in the revolution back in Indonesia." Tirtayasa
confirmed before he smiled with a pained grimace "I doubt I would have
remembered them as well as I do without Occlumency and my
children…" Tirtayasa shook his head.
Knowing how close they were back to their families, it was natural for
anyone to think of their families…even a stoic man like Tirtayasa. "Do
you regret it?"
Tirtayasa seemed to mull the words over. "Yes and no. Leaning mostly
towards yes." He finally said and Gaius eyed him curiously and Tirtayasa
expanded "I'm missing much of my children's childhood. Time we will
never get back. When I left, they were only four years old." There was
note of regret in his voice.
They were ten now and already enrolled at the Pandrosion most likely.
"No because of much this means to me and how much it will mean to my
family many years from now." Tirtayasa continued and Gaius understood.
Anyone working in the Celestis system would have their family names
etched into history.
The Fisbillilah family name even more so as the first captain of the first
interstellar ship. "I know how it sounds…that I am willing to stay away
most of my children's childhood for things as vague as residual ancestral
calling and prestige for my children and their descendants but…"
"I understand" Gaius said assuredly and truly, he did understand.
Well, not the ancestral calling bit but a calling…yes.
He hadn't known it at the time of his youth, before his apprenticeship
with His Majesty, but there was always that call in the back of his mind.
A call to make something of himself, become noteworthy, to change the
world in a way that is defined by his own contributions, his own hands
and mind and sweat.
To become great.
His indecision to take a direction had stemmed from this unknown
calling, this drive to become great as so many others were becoming in
their own way.
William Bell, Walter Bishop, Ben Woodman, Coby Slynt and other dozens
of pioneers who were paving the way in their fields. He wanted to be like
them, better than them, he wanted to leave a greater legacy than them.
"A venture into the nothingness to light the way forward for others
following in your footsteps." Gaius said quietly remembering some of the
things his mentor once told him. 'The scope of greatness is as vast as the
universe itself' echoed in his mind.
Tirtayasa hummed agreeably "Quite."
They remained silent for the next hour or so, silently watching the
flowing curtains that laid behind a panel of transparent aluminium until
he was once more left alone physically and with his thoughts.
Atticus had taught him that the scope of greatness was as vast as the
universe itself.
Could a man or woman who raised their children in such a way that led
them, later in life, to change the world be constituted as great in their
own way?
'I also believe one ought to differentiate between greatness of achievement and
greatness of personality' Atticus had quoted Freud's words to lead him
towards a certain line of thinking, a line of thinking that had stuck with
him years after.
Atticus had wanted him to understand that there were different ways to
leave behind a legacy. That to leave a mark did not have to mean to slave
away trying to invent the next great miraculous finding in the fields of
magic or science.
In a way, he understood his mentor more now after six years in Celestis.
Atticus achieved a great many things, more than anyone else has done in
history save perhaps Merlin but even Merlin paled in comparison to his
mentor.
And yet, it was not because of his inventions or his research that would
leave the greater legacy, no, it would be his leadership, his creation of
Illos that paved the way for the magical world to rush forward into the
future that would prove to be the single greatest legacy any magical
would or could leave behind.
And Gaius' work in Celestis was the same.
More than his own contributions, it would be his leadership to make the
planets habitable that would be his legacy for the magical world.
And Gaius was satisfied with that.
He left the observatory hours later and proceeded to walk through the
ship in a sedate pace onto the walkway that would lead him to his
quarters, deciding not to take advantage from the Hub-Ports that would
teleport him straight to the quarters-deck.
Gradus was a marvel of a ship, the first of a line of ship class.
Completed in 1962 after two years of construction within the fifteen
kilometres long Moeniae Assembly Complex in the underground aft
section of Illos, it was the perfect fusion of magi-tech and Ancient Human
technology.
It fashioned as a command station, a mobile factory that could churn out
mining drones and replacement parts all at the same time as functioning
as a military ship.
Its crystalline computer system was highly magical and intuitively
attuned to magicals, so much so that experienced officers could work in a
synergetic way with their stations allowing them to work closer at the
speed of thought than not.
And he expected such efficiency and speed to only improve once neural
and magical interface control systems like the captain's chair became
standardised in later generation of Gradus class ships and other classes.
Perhaps there would be a new Algorithm like the Mahameru PA too,
though more along the lines of artificial magical intelligence, to assist in
further improving automation and reaction speed.
Though as much as Gradus incorporated the best and newest magi-tech –
at the time of launch anyway – it was the technological that Gaius thought
won out.
The hull and interior was made from Adamantite-Nickel alloy A-N-C and
it was by far the hardest, the most shear resistant and most heat resistant
metal alloy created.
Only Mithril or enchanted alchemic metal could rival it but unlike them,
the alloy could be created non-magically and in huge quantities.
The A-N-C alloy had subatomic particles made up of forty-four protons
and fifty-six neutrons within the atomic nucleus and the atomic structure
of the alloy was such that it was twice as dense as Osmium.
It was also molecularly strengthened even further via heat treatment and
gravitic manipulation – which super-hardened the alloy – to produce a
near unrivalled non-magical metal with mechanical properties that
surpassed the stated properties of Neutronium that they discovered
within the data files of the Ancient Human Scout-ship.
He eyes glanced at the walls of the ship.
The gravitic manipulation was done at fifteen hundred g's during the age
hardening process and it induced extreme internal tension in the
crystalline matrix and it made it near impossible to damage even with
hours of exposure to plasma at over eight thousand degrees Celsius and
lasting for minutes when subjected to weaponised cold plasma could run
into the tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.
And despite the density of the alloy, the A-N-C plates only weighed a
fraction of what should weigh based on the density of the elements.
Beneath the skin of the interior and beneath the skin of the outer layers
of the hull, there were tens of thousands of runic schemes that made this
half-a-kilometre long ship, an already near indestructible ship, into an
actual practically indestructible fortress that could fly like a fighter if it
needed to.
So much so that it was quite likely that it could potentially shrug off
Forerunner and Ancient Human Heavy Cruisers weapon's fire long
enough to escape to safety.
Gaius wasn't as confident as the Magineers were about their chances
against those two ancient peoples.
They successfully tested the en-runed hull plating against antimatter
infused streams of concentrated explosive particles, one of the more
commonly used type of particle weapon the Ancient Humans and the
Forerunners used on their cruiser and destroyer class ships, but they did
not know the thickness nor the rate of anti-mass flow of the anti-matter
streams, a factor that was shown to exponentially increase the damage
from the weapons.
Even runes would eventually wear off under the assault and even this
alloy would wilt and be annihilated against such weaponry.
Still, it was doubtful they would face such weaponry anyway given that
both races were dead and in time they would improve especially given
the kinds of projects and research that being conducted as they
deciphered and began to understand more of the science and technology
of the Ancient Humans – with the help of the Seelie and Alice.
And if energy field science improved as much as material science was
expected to improve, it would be quite possible that hull plating wouldn't
even be necessary.
The Gradus employed Hard Light technology, also known as boson-
photon field, as its primary source of shielding that surrounded the ship
in a perfect bubble once activated through an interplay of coherent high-
energy light and gas particles.
In the Void, this would have been impossible to generate if it had not
been for Magnus', his brother, brilliant runic scheme that transported
highly structured and perfectly arranged gas molecules around the ship
that the hard light shield would interact with within eighteen
picoseconds and it ensured the gas molecules didn't have time to disperse
from the required arrangement.
With a large scale cold fusion reactor, one of three Antiox cold fusion
reactors on board, specifically just powering the shield matrix, the shields
were resilient to all kinds of weapons fire, including annihilating
weaponry.
For a time.
Still, the Gradus was a mighty ship that used everything they had been
able to reverse-engineer and understand from the Scout-ship and Gaius
had little doubt the ships that succeeded the Gradus would be truly be
marvels.
He made it to his quarters and hardly left it over the course of the next
few days as anticipation became palpable amongst the crew though once
they were out of slipspace and by Jupiter, he'd chosen to be on the bridge
next to Tirtayasa.
They'd already sent back communication to Illos about ten hours ago that
they were returning and did so again once they dropped out of slipspace.
"Is it unfair to think that Gibridis pales in comparison to Jupiter?"
Tirtayasa commented idly. Gibridis was the gas giant in the Celestis
system, a gas giant that was about two thirds the size of Jupiter with
similar colourings as that of Saturn only its blues overpowered the
yellows in its atmosphere.
"Yes" Gaius said with a small smile as Tirtayasa turned to him with a
raised eyebrow
"Gibridis has its appeals. It's smaller yes but it is also vibrant in its
colours. It does not host as many moons as Jupiter does but it does boast
eight moons larger than Ganymede with some nearing or at the size of
Mars."
"Jupiter may be more impressive, in both role and in appearance, but it is
Gibridis that bears the true treasure in its bosom." Tirtayasa wasn't the
only person keenly listening to his words as he could feel the rest of the
crew's gaze on him from all directions.
"The intense gravitational interactions between Gibridis and the moons
has allowed five of the eight moons to have liquid cores and
consequently enough atmosphere to make terraforming them easier and
less of hassle to make them sustain life. At best only one or two moons
could be said to be terraformed anywhere near as successfully or easily."
Gaius turned to Jupiter.
"In that, Gibridis is a nurturer, a saint that watered the earth waiting for
us to plant the seeds for beautiful gardens and for those reasons Gibridis
will be loved more than Jupiter ever was by the magical community."
A minute of silence reigned before Tirtayasa broke it by chuckling, an
impressed albeit curious smile on his face. "I stand corrected."
The next hour and minutes after that was more quiet once they deployed
their refractive shields that functioned much like an invisibility charm.
The mundanes were getting improving with technology and the last thing
they wanted was for them to sight of their ship however improbable it
was.
The mundanes were already violently off-tilt anyway with the cold-war
in its full throes and seeing what they might come to conclude as extra-
terrestrials would not create an environment that the Earth needed even
slightly.
That was the same reason why they were heading towards the dark side
of the Moon instead of making their way towards the Earth.
Surprisingly it took a significant magical energy to maintain an
invisibility bubble wide enough to encapsulate Gradus which was also a
research topic as they tried to veer away from utilising magical batteries
and instead developing ultra-efficient harvesters of ambient magic from
the Void.
They made to the dark side of the Moon and moved to an incredibly slow
approach, less than 5 metres per second in a direct vector to the surface
though it concerned none of the bridge crew.
Moments before they looked to crash into the surface, they passed
through an illusion which revealed a deep crater, one and a half
kilometres deep, with a giant ring a kilometre wide at the very basin of
the crater.
The pilot sent a signal to the gate and the runes on the gate sprang alive
before the inside diameter of the ring changed from showing them the
bottom of the crater to a complex on the other side.
The Docking Complex was huge, some twenty kilometres in radius, and
was adjacent to where the Moeniae Assembly Complex was. It boasted
sprawling mechanical arms and, from the look of things, new ships with
one in particular that seemed even larger than the Gradus.
It took less than five minutes for them to clear through to the other side
and once they were through, Tirtayasa spoke up "Well done everyone.
We've made it home."
The bridge crew descended into a raucous cheer as the ship paired with
the automated docking computer system as they moved through the
docking complex and Gaius couldn't help but also smile happily.
The welcome from the engineers working in the Docking Complex was
warm and triumphant when they disembarked off of the ship and
Woodman, the Operations Director of both Complexes and typically surly
and particularly foul-mouthed, was there personally too and was very
uncharacteristically polite and even…happy.
"Your families and friends are waiting on you at the Port." Woodman
explained to the crew as they walked towards the direction of the only
gate in and out.
Their families and friends – except those who directly worked on projects
related to Celestis and the Scout-ship or those in high political places –
were ignorant of their mission in the Void and thus as far as they knew
they were on a multi-year long expedition to find Atlantis and other
rumoured sister cities in the seas.
The reason for their multi-year absence – and limited communication –
was because of the threat of the Ravenites and the ICW and with the
memory of the almost-war with the ICW still fresh in the minds of their
people, it was a cover that most accepted.
"And Their Graces?" Tirtayasa questioned.
"They decided to speak to you, the crew and the other personnel after
you've seen your families." Woodman explained and Gaius could see a
look of relief on Tirtayasa's face. He didn't blame him. He also wanted to
simply see his family and spend some time with them after so many years
of absence.
They passed through the gate to Belva Hallos and he could see hundreds
of people who cheered and cried as they came out of the gate one by one.
The stoic and professional crew wilted with the sight of their families and
the crew almost ran into the arms of their families, tears and laughs of
joy were not spared.
And for him…
Well, he just about spotted his mother running towards him before she
engulfed into a bone-crushing hug "Oh Gaius, my boy, oh Gaius" she
cried again and again as her hands roved across his upper body as if she
was trying to see if he was real.
He did not mind one single bit as he melted into his mother's embrace.
"Mother." Gaius said with a warm and emotional sigh which made
mother only cry ever so more.
"Should be ashamed of yourself, brother of mine. Making mother cry." He
heard the familiar voice of his brother and Gaius couldn't help but let a
happy laugh rip from his mouth as his mother finally ceased in trying to
hug him to death.
He looked up from the crook of his mother's neck and saw Fortie grinning
madly at him, a grin that was wiped away when his sister Emilia
smacked Fortie's head.
"He's barely back and you're already making jokes" Emilia said with a
growl before she turned to Gaius, her scowl fading away and a happy
beaming smile making an appearance instead "Welcome back, Gaius" she
said warmly.
"Thank you Lia." Gaius said just as warmly before his gaze looked around
and saw the rest of his siblings. Livia, Magnus, everyone was here and it
wasn't long before he was engulfed by a swarm of bodies into a great big
hug.
And he didn't mind.
Not one single bit.
After all…
He was home.
25. Chapter 85
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
23rd of August, 1971 – Celestis City, Illos
Gaius POV
"Good Afternoon.
This is the midday IBC One World Service News and I am Lara O'Hara.
The finalising of the Western Pact between France, Spain, Portugal and the
Benelux countries at the Paris Conference yesterday was well received by
members of the Grand Alliance.
Minister Prince of Avalon called it 'A welcome and much needed treaty that
would go a long way in securing global world peace'.
A statement echoed by officials from Aziza and Illos.
The Pact – an historic alliance with a mandate to share economic, intelligence
and defensive resources in unbound scope and detail – was signed in Paris
yesterday after a week of late round negotiations that many had feared would
result in breakdown of talks.
A French official named Oliver Chiraq had commented to the press that 'The
Pact was a necessity as fundamental as food' and that he was relieved that it
was signed.
However, critics claim that the Pact was signed far too late. The former
Mugwump for Portugal, De Souza claimed that it would take years until the
new organisations that would spring from the Pact were anywhere near
ready…"
Gaius heard the door to the house open, breaking him from watching and
listening to the news, the sounds of running water once more filling his
ears.
He closed the running water and waved his finger at the wet basil leaves
instantly vanishing the water before he sent a pulse of magic to see who
exactly it was.
He recognised his mother's magical signature and turned towards the
kitchen stand where there was an assortment of cut vegetables and a
bowl of spices and oils marinating several cuts of salmon.
"Ah!" His mother exclaimed somewhat surprised "You've started without
me." She remarked as she made beeline towards the sink.
"Figured you might be running late." Gaius remarked as his mother made
her way to the kitchen stand. He eyed her "Was it Zacharias again?"
His mother's smile was brittle as she took hold of one of the knives and
started cutting. With all of her children adults and moved out, she'd
taken cookery as a hobby to pass the time, specifically cooking without
using magic.
She'd been inspired to do so by the hit show Cookery's Coven – apparently
many in her friend circle had taken to it as well – and she loved it.
"Yes." She sighed. "I worry for that boy. He's very emotional and doesn't
seem to be able to take to Occlumency at all." She said as she placed the
cut slices into a large bowl.
"His foster parents don't know how to reach him and he doesn't open up
to me – besides shouting at me – so I'm really at an impasse." She said
with disappointment.
Gaius placed his hand on his mother's shoulder with tenderness before he
squeezed gently. "You're doing what you can, mother." He said gently
"And the only thing you can do is be there for him if he ever decides to
open up." He knew his mother wouldn't give it up until she was made to.
He was tempted to pull a few strings but he respected his mother too
much to interfere in her work like that. She smiled at him gratefully
before she straightened up a little. "Enough about work!" she said
cheerfully before she peered at the onions he'd cut.
She tutted "That's too coarse." She flicked a finger and the onions
reformed. "It needs to be finer" she said. She took an onion and started
cutting "Like this."
It was a thin membrane of onion and Gaius looked at her with a wry
smile on his face "I'm not going to be able to do that without magic."
"Nonsense!" his mother huffed. She checked the time on the magi-com on
her wrist "We've got plenty of time for you to learn." She said with a
beaming smile.
Gaius smiled weakly at his mother "Alright." He said mentally consigning
himself to it. About an hour later, after they'd cooked lunch and were
finishing up lunch, the news cycled back to the Western Alliance which
they'd let play in the background.
"I'm glad they finally agreed to it." His mother said happily as the Holo
Screen that was on low volume continued to speak in the background.
The news had moved away from the Western Alliance topic, briefly
covering the return mission to Atlantis – the news of the King leaving for
more than year hadn't quite made it out to the public yet – before once
more returning to the topic of the Pact as 'analysts' discussed what it
would mean for the magical world.
His mother's pleased expression turned into a frown "Though it would
have not been needed if they just set aside their pride and joined us in
our own alliance." She shook her head "But you know how the French
are." She said flippantly before she continued to stab at her baked
aubergines.
"The French have their reasons." Gaius commented absentmindedly, his
gaze set on the Holo Screen. It was showing a highlight reel of French
and Dutch reports about the crimes committed by the Ravenites in
Northern Europe.
Crimes that in no certain terms captured the full scale of the evil that the
Ravenites were committing. He had top level security clearance and he
was allowed access to some information so he knew some of the evil the
Ravenites were committing.
Mass executions were common place and blood and nobility protected no
one. Children were kidnapped and indoctrinated. Thousands of wizards
were being trained for war with activities around the Ottoman, Persian
and Chinese borders at an all-time high. And that wasn't the worst of it
either. Several high profile opponents in Italy, Switzerland, China and the
Netherlands were assassinated.
They were gearing up for war and bringing an end to this façade of a
peace.
The Dutch were the main drivers in getting the Western Alliance over the
line, forcing the French to get over their apprehension of this Pact lest
they go to the Grand Alliance and request protection like the Slovenians
and the Croatians had done.
The ICW unsurprisingly supported the Western Alliance according to
Parkinson even if it was through unofficial channels. Diplomatic ties were
still strained with most nations.
The ICW, however inconsequential it was now when it came to fostering
and enforcing international cooperation, especially after nearly every
powerful nation had withdrawn from the organisation save for the
Chinese and Italians, was still a powerful player with thousands of
battlemages drawn from the ICW Protectorate states and other dependant
Ministries like those in Northern Africa.
Such a large army, an army led by Commander General Li Lei, the
Chinese Archmage, was not to be taken lightly, even if they were
substantially weaker than they were years ago.
A power that even the Ravenites were careful not to provoke into war
before they were ready even if they held enormous sway of the Swiss
Ministry and the remaining Swiss nationals, people who were not
sensible enough to leave when the others did.
The ICW base there, once meant to be another supposed bastion of
international magical cooperation, was heavily defended. A foothold for
when the war started.
For there was little doubt…it was coming. Perhaps within the year.
Once lunch was over, Gaius went to the groceries to replenish his
mother's stores of vegetables and fruits. He'd be running late but only
slightly.
He disapparated with a quiet pop at the dis/apparation point and Gaius
strolled quietly through the Augury borough, one of the more bustling
second ring boroughs that neighboured the physical bridge connecting it
to the inner city.
The Augury borough was one of the few boroughs that didn't have a hard
light skylane to connect to so travel was mostly done through the Gate
network or via apparation points which were on every city block.
It supposedly gave the borough a 'cool air' according to his sister and
caused it to be a popular place for a certain demographic. It was known
as a hub for artists and many of the buildings distinctly reflected that,
like the house in front of him. It resembled much like a Hexagonal prism
in shape with windows that were of the same theme.
Years ago, before he left, the Council of Representatives approved a bill
that relaxed building codes with some parts of Celestis City more or less
granting major creative freedom to do what people wanted. Like this
outlandish home though it was extreme even if there were a number of
other homes around these parts that caught the eye.
Fortunately, most of Illos were moderate in their choice of building and
home styles, electing on variations of a theme more alike to the oldest
homes and apartments in the city. Of course that was only on the outside.
Inside…well…he'd been to enough of his childhood friends' homes to
know that some people really could take it a little too far.
Still, he mused as he looked around the buildings and towards the busy
market teeming with people as he neared his destination. Fascinating
works of paintings and moving sculptures that could interact with people
lined the market.
Clothing, enchanted jewellery and other such artisan products were also
sold here. Some native, most inspired by magical cultures of all around
the world. People all over Illos, even people from Aziza, Ame-No-
Ukihashi and Avalon, came here according to his sister and he could that
rang true.
It all was quite something.
To see and note all of the changes that has happened in only the six and
some years that he'd left Illos. Not just the buildings or the cultural
diffusion either.
Over the past three months, he had seen how much the city had grown
over the six years, even surpassing the growth rate it enjoyed in his youth
and early adulthood.
Refugee communities and migrants that had come from the wider
magical world had brought many new ideas, styles and food – the
delicious Mahi-Mahi dish from the Polynesian restaurant Gaius took him
to came to mind – all of which had brought about a kind of renaissance
of Illosian magical culture, a renaissance he now realised he saw
beginning to stir before he left and taken off like an enchanted
frictionless spaceship since. And it wasn't just magical culture that was
racing away.
And all of it showed little sign that it was ever going to slow down.
He walked into The Noble Clarke, a bar named after a war hero, and
searched for his siblings. The place was busy for a Tuesday afternoon. He
found his siblings when Magnus shouted out for him from the second
floor and he made his way to them.
"The prodigal son has finally arrived!" Magnus said in a pompous – and
loud – voice. It drew a few looks from the people inside the bar but other
than a lingering look, they didn't really pay much attention to Gaius.
Gaius gave Magnus a look which only amused his brother even further
and he could exactly see what Magnus was thinking.
Magnus was one of only three in their family to really know what he was
doing for the past six years. Magnus delighted in that fact and he also
found it highly amusing that their return from the 'Atlantis' mission was
practically forgotten by the media and people within a month of his
return.
He rarely got stopped in the street now three months later.
"Took you long enough" Livia said in tongue-in-cheek as she handed over
a pint of lager to him after he sat down. He tasted and let off a pleased
sigh. It was his favourite brand. He wouldn't forget to bring a case or four
with him this time.
"Had a few errands to run for mother." Gaius explained after taking a sip
of his lager.
Livia groaned "Did she ask you to go to the groceries?" she asked
knowingly. "She just refuses to get a shopping dial!" she said with a
weary sigh.
Gaius shrugged and gave his sister a half smile.
"She did but it was fine. It was nice speaking with Mrs Merrystone
anyway." She was the hedge-witch that ran the local grocery shop in their
neighbourhood. She often gave them sweets whenever they came by to
do the shopping with or for mother when they'd been younger.
Besides, he was pretty sure the reason why she refuses to get a shopping
dial was because it gave her the excuse – not that she needed it – to see
people she'd known for decades. The shopping dial did remove much of
that interaction with people.
"Anyway" Gaius said with a dismissive wave of the hand "Let's talk about
something else." He said before leaning forward, a childlike
conspiratorial look on his face "I read a post on Questing Direct about a
sequel to a certain game. A sequel to game we painstakingly but enjoyably
spent many hours to overcome."
"Oh?" Livia mused in a quizzical way but she couldn't hide the teasing
smile on her face. Livia was a senior technical developer at Disguised
Reality, one of the foremost game publishers in the magical world – and
was the publisher of Missions for Tara.
"No…" Magnus said trailed off excitably as an equally childlike glee took
hold of him. "Oh Liv, you've got to spill the magic beans!"
"I have no idea what you mean." Livia said with an infuriating smile that
made Gaius chuckle and Magnus to groan.
"Oh come on, Liv. You owe me for that favour I did for you with the
apartment." Magnus pressed "You don't have to say it out loud, just a wink
will do if it's true!"
Livia reared back as if she was struck "favour?" she parroted almost
offended before she squinted her eyes "What favour?" she asked
suspiciously.
"Are you talking about that time you helped me install the holo-screen
replacement? A replacement for the screen you broke?" Livia asked with a
disbelieving note in her voice.
"I wondered when you replaced your old screen. You were proud to buy
it with your first pay check." Gaius commented. Livia hardly ever really
replaced anything. She was quite utilitarian when it came to her stuff.
She even still owned their old gaming console.
"I wouldn't have if I didn't have to." Livia said sourly before she turned
that sour look to Magnus "This clumsy flobberworm somehow spilled
magical wine onto the screen!" she exclaimed. "And it was four feet off
the ground!"
"I did not break that screen." Magnus said defensively "That was entirely
Agustin's fault." Livia laughed as Magnus threw their brother under the
bus.
From the way Livia turned to look at Magnus with a 'pull the other one'
look, it was clear that Livia held Magnus entirely responsible. It was
probable that it was entirely Magnus' fault. Magnus might be a whiz
when it came to anything magi-tech but he had two left feet and could
crash into anything.
Mother had once said that it was Lady Magic's way of balancing things –
giving him hands that could create the most awe-inspiring things but in
return he had to live with feet and balance that were hopeless. Funnily
enough, mother may have said it teasingly but Gaius knew that there was
probably an element of truth there.
"Anyway" Magnus said in a hasty tone, his finger waggling at Livia "I
know what you're doing with your changing of the subject!"
Livia laughed "You're the one who forced the subject change!" Livia said
with a devilish smile and before they knew it, the conversation flowed for
hours after that and well into the evening. Livia left around eight leaving
him and Magnus behind.
He and Magnus left the bar an hour or so after Livia left and it was about
the right time too as the bar began to feel crowded, a feeling that he was
still not used to even after being back for months now.
"So" Magnus began as they walked towards the Gate station, his eyes
studiously washing over Gaius "Less than a few weeks now before you
leave again."
Gaius nodded with an apologetic smile. "Yes. We leave on the 13th of
September."
Their mother wasn't exactly ecstatic about that and even more so as the
time drew nearer. Especially since two of her children were now going
away for years at a time. It was why he stayed at their childhood home
instead of staying with one of his siblings. Although he wasn't sure if it
helped or if it made it worse for her.
Magnus only hummed as they walked in silence, the noise of the bustling
street a welcome distraction. His siblings weren't happy about it either
though they were mostly fine in truth. They had their own lives and
careers and some of them had their own little families now.
Eusebius, Augustin, Titus, Adriana and Clara were all married now with
children, his little nephews and nieces he had the pleasure of finally
meeting, whilst their other siblings were in long term relationships that
would probably see them married in the coming years.
Even Livia and Magnus were in relationships that looked to be a good
match for them, their significant others working in the same industry as
they did. Gaius gave of a mental sigh. He'd missed much of his family's
lives in the years away.
He hadn't really let it be known but at times…at times he felt like a
stranger looking in. Of course it never lasted long. His siblings still knew
him well enough to know his moods – Marissa especially – and made sure
to make time for him. But the cloud of his coming departure hung like a
grey cloud over them. It was unavoidable.
"What's it like?" Magnus finally asked after a few minutes.
"What's what like?" Gaius asked after being welcomingly broken from his
thoughts.
"There." Magnus said meaningfully as he looked around, his voice a slight
hush as they walked by a group of people. There were secrecy oaths that
made it impossible for people to divulge state secrets – Celestis most
certainly was a state secret – but there were a few ways around it.
Speaking without context was one of them.
"You still want to go there despite knowing that it might be another six
years until you return" Magnus continued. Gaius looked at his brother
surprised which prompted Magnus to continue again. "You know what I
mean. It's just…even Fisbilillah decided to stay rather than opt to go
again."
Gaius grimaced at the mention of his somewhat of a friend.
Fisbilillah's decision to request from the High Council a reassignment to
Illos was not one that was well received from what he'd heard from the
man himself.
It was a decision that Tirtayasa took with a heavy decision. His children
barely recognised him and his marriage had suffered from his absence
too.
It was also a decision that opened the floodgates in truth as well. More
than a few of the crew of the Gradus had put in a request to transfer to
something closer to home.
Requests, every request, that his mentor had made the High Council agree
with and it would be an offer to be given to those who'd remained in the
Celestis system too.
Gaius understood. He did. He truly did but he also felt like Tirtayasa was
being derelict in his duty. And he felt slightly betrayed by his decision.
They were the pioneers, the ones who would pave the road for their
people to safely walk to, the ones who would build homes for their
people!
Tirtayasa's words during the journey back, words that he thought were
said by a kindred spirit, were meaningless now.
"It's…" Gaius began, forcefully removing his mind from what he'd never
spoken to anyone about, and took a few seconds to figure out a way to
articulate to his brother why he hadn't opted to remain either.
"Do you remember that spot by the creek an hour or so away from
mother's?" Gaius asked Magnus who was surprised by the question but
nodded anyway.
Their summer holidays were often spent by the creek with their siblings
and the other children in their neighbourhood. They'd swim and they'd
use their magic in games they'd invented including float-fishing after fish
were introduced.
They always looked forward to going there. It was idyllic and it was
without worry.
"It's like that only…only there is also a sense of purpose in what I am
doing." Gaius said with another apologetic smile.
He continued "Every day, I see the work that we're doing, the
collaborative effort we're all putting in – like that boat out of stone we
made when we were nine" Gaius said with laughing eyes, an expression
that Magnus matched with one of his own.
"And time just seems to pass me by in peace with the full knowledge that
what I'm doing is for a greater purpose, greater than myself." Gaius
paused for a moment before he looked away from Magnus' look and it
was a half a minute later as they walked that he spoke again. "It's
something that I cannot walk away from."
'Not even for family' he left unsaid. He knew that going away again was
going to add to the distance that existed between himself and his family.
A distance no one wanted but was there anyway. He wouldn't be there
when his nieces and his nephews would go to the Pandrosion, he
wouldn't be there at the weddings of his siblings – having already missed
five – and he wouldn't be there for the births of other nieces and nephews
who would only know him through stories and pictures.
Magnus sighed before he smiled weakly at Gaius. "You were always the
dreamer out of all of us." Magnus paused for a moment before his smile
widened slightly.
"You and Fortie." Magnus said with a knowing smile.
"In a way, it's kind of fitting really. You and Fortie always did have a
closer bond of brotherhood than you guys did with the rest of us. Both of
you going on an adventure together as you guys were so oft to do in
childhood is fitting"
Gaius looked at Magnus a little surprised "What? Magnus, w-" Magnus
interrupted him with a noise that escaped his throat before he continued
with a dismissive wave.
"Don't deny it." Magnus said with a softer, kinder smile.
"I used to be jealous and upset that you guys would so often leave me
behind." Magnus shook his head as Gaius remained silent as troubling
doubt filtered in.
Had he really been so neglectful as a brother? Looking back, he could see
why Magnus would think that Gaius and Fortie would scamper off to do
their own thing but he never thought he was abandoning his siblings?
Did the others think that as well?
"I can see what you're thinking." Magnus' voice drew him out of his
troubled thoughts and Magnus placed his hand on his shoulder. "You
weren't a bad brother Gaius. Not even close." Magnus assured him but he
still felt that knot of doubt deep within his mind.
Magnus looked at Gaius with a penetrating look "It's just that you and
Fortie are two peas in a pod – in your own ways. You guys fed off of each
other when we were children. Fortie with his bravery and confidence that
you lacked when we were younger and you with your ingenuity and will
that Fortie depended on."
Magnus removed his hand from Gaius' shoulder but not without tapping
his shoulder. "I understood long ago that there wasn't any malice or
neglect in your actions, it is simply who you guys were." Magnus looked
away from Gaius as they approached the station. "Adventurers destined
to win the game."
Gaius wasn't sure what to say. "Anyway" Magnus stretched out with a
long strung out exhale as he shook his head and turned to Gaius, a
teasing smile on his face now.
"So, I hear you went to go see Clarissa the other day?" Magnus asked,
exaggeratingly wriggling his eyebrows in the process.
"Eusebius has a big mouth." Gaius muttered though it was with a smile.
He did go see Clarissa, his old girlfriend, a few days ago. She'd been part
of the group of students that the King took off world and they'd gotten a
lot closer after that and dated for seven years.
He'd loved her. He still did but they were both wedded to their jobs at
the times. They both still were. Maybe afterwards…
Magnus laughed before he spoke up "Don't worry, he only told me. The
others wouldn't have been discreet." That…that was true. Their sisters
would tease him ceaselessly in the hopes of getting information out of
him.
Their brothers in all honesty would the same…only cruder.
The conversation flowed a little easier after Magnus' confessions about
their childhood but it was still a little stiff. Thankfully, it wasn't long
before they parted and said goodbye knowing that they'd see each other
again at Emilia's, their sister, party which was tomorrow.
Neither of them mentioned that evening' s conversation again at Emilia's
party or in the week afterwards. All that was said, was said.
A week later – Moeniae Assembly Complex
Gaius raised his hand towards the Scanner as he reached the last set of
door.
A green vertical beam of light scanned every surface of his hand – and
every cell underneath his skin. The green beam of light blinked away and
a dark screen appeared from the screen. "Please Alight Your Hand to one
Lux" the monotone voice of the Complex's security system requested.
He channelled his magic to his hand and his hand began to light up to
the requested intensity. The Guardian Array did not extend this far down
below the surface of Illos and the King and Queen decided against
extending downwards and instead opting for creating a new security and
low-level intelligent system that was magi-technological in nature instead
of purely magical.
The system was based on smart programs brought to function through the
Illosian computer language that was based on symbols from a number of
ancient magical scripts practically butchered and spliced together into
forming a coherent language.
There was an idea of using runes to create a computer language, like the
Illosian Runes but so far it seemed a little too dangerous. Whilst the
Illosian Runes were the most expansive runic language in existence, it
was still subject to the will and desires of the magical and coding needed
to be run on logic first and foremost.
…the last thing anyone wanted was for a code to behave contrary to its
function.
"Gaius Volusenus Hardy confirmed." The monotone voice acknowledged
and the doors opened. He felt a low thrum as he walked out into the
Complex until he stood at the edges of the entrance platform, a low
thrum that vibrated in the air as mechanical arms bearing entire sections
of decks, some moving towards the half finished ship, the others
stationary and waiting until their time was due.
The Assembly Complex was not as huge as Docking Complex was – after
all, the Docking Complex was intended to hold five to ten ships in time –
but it was as equally as impressive as the Docking Complex, if not more
so.
At the centre of the Complex stood a half finished ship held in the air by
connecting arms that ascended from the bed of the chasm. Small drone
vessels manned by Seelie raced around the half finished ship connecting
the sections of decks to one another through long but nimble enchanted
arms that fused the matter of the sections without seams.
At the far side of the chasm, sections of decks were arranged like towels
racks within a closet and where he knew dozens, likely hundreds, of
Seelies were working with the thousands of mages.
Gaius tapped on his wristband before he gestured towards the chasm
before him. A Hard Light Bridge materialised before him and he walked
across it towards the platform beside the half finished ship.
Below, at the base of the Assembly Complex, was the automated
manufacturing hub that took nearly all of the ten square kilometre
foundation of the chasm.
It housed, amongst other things, the Runic Matter Re-Assembler Array,
an array that permanently transfigured Nickel into Adamantite and other
elements like Ilmendus which was needed to house the crystals that
mitigated reconciliation effects, the Materials and Treatment Centres
which produced the A-N-C alloy amongst others, and the Fabrication Hub
which permanently transfigured materials into shape.
Gaius eyed the engines of the half finished ship. The impulse drive and
thrusters were built by the Institute of Energy and Propulsion, a
subdivision within the Office of Technology and Magic located at the
edge of Celestis City with massive spatially expanded complexes
dedicated to research, testing and production.
The impulse engine system was a more advanced form of plasma
thrusters though the difference was that the plasma created was through
fusion reaction which was then guided through a vectored thrust nozzle.
A huge improvement from the ion thrusters that the Gradus had boasted
and just as the ion thrusters were an Illosian technology, so was the
impulse engine system.
Mostly out of necessity given that they still didn't understand the 'dark
matter' propulsion system of the scout-ship.
Gaius turned his gaze towards the stacks of decks at the far side.
Once the frame of the sections made of hundreds if not thousands of
components and assemblies, they were fitted with crystalline computer
systems and superconductive crystals, crystals that channelled power
through the internal structure, it was at that point the sections would be
layered with enchantments and runes before full integration of magi-tech
and technology happened.
At present, there were about three thousand people who worked within
the Complex – Magnus and Eusebius both worked in this department
early in their careers – and the majority of them enchant, en-rune or
integrate systems.
Matter assemblers were only really at a relatively rudimentary stage, at
the stage of converting one form of element to another, and it was
unlikely full automation of magical processes would be achieved until
they were able to figure out a way generate magic like power stations.
He arrived at the end of the Hard Light Bridge and stepped onto the
platform that it was connected to and made his way towards his mentor
who'd been unmoved from his place throughout his entire walk on the
Bridge.
Simply…gazing at the work being conducted on the ship with his arms
behind his back. Waiting and watching. Always knowing what would
happen. Gaius turned his gaze towards the ship as he continued his way
to his mentor.
The ship that was being built would be the fourth ship that was Slipspace
capable and it was the first ship of its class, the Gallimimus class.
It would boast the most advanced cloaking system they were capable of.
Energy suppression field and a black hull mesh that absorbed 99.99998%
of light along with zero electromagnetic radiation leakage made it a near
impossible to detect.
At three hundred and fifty metres long, it was also the smallest class of
ships but size was never its purpose. No, size didn't matter for the mission
the Gallimimus had.
"Gaius." Atticus acknowledged with a faint smile, his gaze never leaving
the construction arm that was placing a section of one of the lower decks
onto the growing main body.
"Sir." Gaius said with a bow of the head. His mentor long dissuaded him
from calling him anything other than 'Atticus' or 'sir' in his presence.
Gaius eyed his mentor curiously. There was an intensity in his emerald
green and violet eyes that he recognised very well. It was the look of
impatient excitement.
When Gaius was told of his command, Atticus had told him that he was
envious of the opportunity he was afforded but at the time he'd thought
Atticus had said it to flatter him.
Now, he knew better.
There was hardly a time he didn't see Atticus heavily involved in the
mission to Celestis. From joining the Hecate to Alpha Centauri to test its
engines and slipspace drive that it hadn't used in over a year, to the
selection of individuals that would join the mission.
He wasn't sure how the man found the time, especially Gaius knew that
the King was actively involved in almost every facet of Illos, but it did
give the men and women who were joining the mission a lift in morale
with how much the King was involved.
And when Gallimimus was complete and successfully completed its cruise
shakedown, that was when they would leave for the Celestis system.
All four of interstellar capable ships.
"I half expected Fortie to be here as well." Gaius remarked before he
returned his gaze to the ship. He hadn't seen Fortie for the past three
days.
This wasn't the first time that Fortie wasn't found for days at a time.
"He was here. You actually just missed him. I sent him home." Atticus
told him and Gaius could hear the smile in Atticus' voice.
"It's as if he thinks his presence will speed things along quicker. But, then,
I can't really blame his eagerness or impatience."
Fortie had always been like that.
He operated at a hundred miles an hour every day, every hour. It was
what made him so successful as a Guard – becoming the youngest to
graduate the academy – and what drove him to succeed at the Naval
Academy to the point that he was going to be captaining the first
exploration ship on the first exploration mission.
Gaius glanced at his mentor. "He is a lot like you in that regard. Sir."
The corners of Atticus' lips stretched upwards and he turned to Gaius.
"And he shares that with you as well, Gaius. You just hide it better."
Gaius smiled before he bowed his head slowly to his King and mentor.
"There is truth in that statement." He said with a light-hearted tone.
Atticus' gaze bored into him for a long moment before he looked away.
"You don't have to be concerned about him, Gaius. He is ready."
Before Gaius could respond Atticus added "He's not the recklessly bold
boy he used to be. He'll do all of Illos proud." Gaius stared at his mentor.
"You've seen this?" Gaius questioned. It was a redundant question. He
knew that his mentor had seen this probably years ago. His Sight was that
powerful. He knew from first-hand experience of that simple fact.
But…
He worried.
Fortie was a natural leader and had honed that side of him even more so
after he'd spent half a decade in the Guards. He was a commanding man
that had a natural sense of charisma and authority. He was bold and
unfearful and determined, a combination that made for a great
commander but Fortie also had fierce pride and dangerous stubbornness
that made him unyielding even if it might be better to yield.
It was what got them both into a lot of trouble when they were younger.
He didn't want Fortie to find himself in a situation where he would
jeopardise, not only himself and his crew but also the rest of Celestis.
"Yes. I once told your brother that I expected many great things from
him." Atticus glanced at Gaius, a knowing smile on his face. Gaius' eyes
widened at that comment.
He remembered Fortie boasting about that for a very, very long time. It
was also part of what drove Fortie to learn as much magic as he could.
Not even learning that Gaius was a potential Archmage had fazed him
and after Gaius had become an apprentice to the King, Fortie had only
stepped up his own education to the point that he graduated in the top
five in their year group, a year group that had the majority of its
members contributing heavily in Illos' interstellar ventures.
"That was a truth then and even more so now. He will leave a legacy of
his own."
"I see." Gaius said slowly before he nodding firmly, the last of his doubts
leaving him. He felt slight guilt at doubting Fortie but he knew that
sentimentality and feelings had little place when it came to the success of
their mission.
Atticus smiled at Gaius with a slight incline of the head before a hint of
curiosity leaked out of him. "What is it that you need, Gaius? You didn't
come to seek me out to speak of your brother. Speak freely." There was
an intensity mixed with the curiosity as he spoke. It was as if he was
looking into Gaius' very being.
Knowing him, it was likely actually happening. Plus, it was a certainty
anyway given the King knew exactly what he was going to say, exactly
why he was saying it and how he would say it.
Gaius hesitated for a moment but steeled himself. "Sir…you shouldn't go"
he said staring directly at his mentor's eyes.
"The magical world is on a knife's edge and once the Ravenites note your
absence, it would throw the magical world into chaos." Gaius said with as
much respect as he could muster before he released the tension of air that
he'd held in and his expression turned imploring.
"You're needed here. Whatever you'll do there can wait until after the war
is done."
A large part of him was horrified that he was speaking in this manner
with his mentor, his KING. But…at any time, the Ravenites could launch
their ideological war against the magical world and he feared for when it
became known that the King was absent.
A possibility many had long seen coming well over a decade ago. But no
one had the appetite for war back then so as long as the Ravenites
adhered to the Statute of Secrecy. Not after the stand-off the ICW had
with the Illos.
Not when there had been an absence of international leadership after the
subsequent erosion of the ICW's power and authority as nation after
nation broke away once it was determined the ICW didn't have the will to
force membership or place sanctions as long as the Statute of Secrecy was
adhered to.
And Illos was more than happy to simply ignore those parts of the
magical world in favour of building its own coalition.
A mistake that would come to haunt them devastatingly. Gaius stared at
his mentor, a complex and troubled feeling swimming in his stomach.
Gaius hadn't confronted him about it at all, hoping that his mentor would
act. Like he did when war with the ICW seemed inevitable. It would
make the King's absence far less important. But he hadn't, at least as far
as he knew, and their time of departure was fast approaching.
There was no chance his mentor hadn't Seen what was happening.
What would happen.
"You believe we'll be at war soon?" Atticus questioned with a raised
eyebrow and a considering look, ignoring Gaius' plea for him to remain
behind.
"You don't have to be a Seer to know where the winds were blowing."
Gaius answered with a meaningful look. He'd only been back for three
months and he'd been able to tell that motions of events were going to
spiral into another magical war very soon in his first few weeks back! The
reports he'd read since and the latest events only accelerated his belief
what timescale they were working on.
The ICW's closer relationship with China, the various Middle Eastern
magical communities and its fortress territory in Switzerland and the
guarantees it was giving to the remaining free western magical nations –
albeit unofficially – in the face of reports about the brutality of the
Ravenites made it clear that they also readying themselves for war.
Atticus nodded slightly, his considering look fading away and grimness
set in. "You don't. Once again…a major war is set to ravage the magical
world." Atticus turned his gaze back at the half built ship "Only months
after we leave."
"And Illos?" Gaius asked, only just about managing to keep his tone from
seeming pressing. "Will we be dragged into it?" Gaius had noticed the
differences in his sister Marisa when he returned.
All of his siblings had changed, had grown but Marisa…she was quiet and
morose, as if she was weighed down by a chain that hung from her
ankles, dragging her down into the crushing depths of the oceans. It
could only have something do to with her Sight which she likely used
daily as part of the Office of Far-Sight.
She never told him what her problem was – his siblings didn't know
either though Livia did tell him that Marisa's Sight was levels above what
it used to be, so much so that Marisa had warned Livia about something
almost a year before it happened.
Would his family be dragged into war? His home?
Atticus turned to Gaius, his gaze piercing. "If we were, what would you
do? Ask for yourself to stay, to defend Illos? Abandon our mission?"
"Yes!" Gaius said strongly. He took a step forward to the King "Isn't it our
duty to protect our home? Especially us, those who are Archmages and
have greater duty?"
Atticus' eyes softened before he nodded slightly. "We do have a duty to
our people, to our home. Our families." Atticus said with a faint smile
before his very presence shifted when he dropped his smile and his
expression hardened.
His presence seemed to grow to be as tall as Celestis Mount despite there
not being even slightest perturbation in his magic. "Illos and the Grand
Alliance will not join in the war to come. Not while I am away. Not when
I'm back either. In that, you can be rest assured."
Gaius startled at that declaration. "We won't join the war?"
He'd always just assumed that they'd fight with the rest of the magical
world like they did with Grindelwald.
The mountainous presence that Atticus bore relented though it was still
heavy after he'd looked away from Gaius and towards the half built ship.
There was a lull, a bleak silence that made Gaius' breathing somewhat
stilted.
"Do you remember what I asked you right before you left? That Sunday
morning?"
The question took Gaius off guard before as he frowned and dove into his
bank of memories, and he remembered. Gaius remained silent for a few
moments after playing the memory a few times in his mind.
Finally, after a minute or so he answered "You asked me if it is enough to
survive. If all that we do to ensure we survive is enough."
Atticus had asked him this question right before telling him that he
wasn't looking for answer, only for him to think on it. And Gaius had.
He knew moments after Atticus had asked what the answer was. At least,
he thought so at the time. Now…he believed he was mistaken. It wasn't
as simple as yes or no.
Instead, he'd asked himself many questions.
Atticus hummed, his head raising slightly as one of the upper most decks
was being moved into position. "And?"
"It's not enough to survive" Gaius said after a moment, as everything
began to click in his mind, and it felt like a noxious and putrid odour
invaded through his nose and scrambled his mind into ugly but profound
clarity.
The words that escaped his mouth tasted like ash.
"One has to be worthy of surviving."
Gaius closed his eyes as he realised why his mentor hadn't acted. Why
he'd let the Raven and his sycophants run roughshod over Europe when it
was clear that no one would oppose him and Illos if they decided to
utterly destroy the nascent Dark Lord.
Large parts of the magical world as it had been for centuries didn't
deserve to survive.
It was mired with the same, repeating problems it had for centuries, the
same kind of people who supported or joined variations of the same
theme of Dark Lords. Supporting and enforcing bigotry and hate and
naked self interest which repeatedly destroyed people and families and
communities ran roughshod of everything that Illos valued. Gaius
reopened his eyes and saw Atticus looking at him with a sympathetic but
firm expression.
Not all magical communities or nations were like this, of course not, but
many of the powerful Ministries of the magical world not affiliated with
Illos were and that was always the problem.
Even now, there were still many things that Gaius didn't like to see. Even
amongst those who were friendly with Illos.
He'd travelled through South America, Europe and Asia for months at a
time, years before he left. He'd seen communities so in tune with magic
and nature only for him to merely apparate a few hundred miles away
and come across societies with institutionalised abhorrent treatment of
people, magical beings and creatures.
It was maddening to see such stark contrast and even more maddening to
see and hear the 'It's not of our business' attitude of those same otherwise
praiseworthy communities. The tribal fragmentation of the magical world
was a problem.
It was the same attitude that led the magical world to where it was now.
"Change, the kind they need, cannot come from the outside." Atticus said
quietly, the emerald flecks in his eyes as bright as the stars he'd seen
above Celestis.
"It needs to come from within for it last. And it needs to come before we
leave."
'Lest we inherit the same kind of problems fifty thousand light years away?'
Gaius broke eye contact and turned to the half built ship.
In cold, hard logic, he saw the value and even the necessity of it. After
the war with Grindelwald, the goodwill and the gratitude, the debt the
King was owed, evaporated away like it never existed when he'd started to
preach for basic rights and equality.
The same would happen and everything might just repeat once more.
"It's callous." Gaius said quietly. But he understood. When Exposure
happened, whenever it happened, Exodus to Celestis needed to be a fresh
start for their world.
"Is it really callous?" Atticus mused aloud and Gaius turned to him.
Atticus' expression was weary.
"Can we really hold ourselves responsible for the actions of others?"
"If we can do something about it…" Gaius trailed off uncertainly. Atticus
turned to him with a sympathetic look on his face.
"It is a slippery slope, that line of thinking. It leads to tyranny. People
must be free to make their choices. Even if they come to regret it. Even if
ends up killing them."
"And only when they've come to the realisation of how much their ways
is destroying them, only when they've made the first genuine step in
changing their ways, can we be truly assured that our efforts wouldn't be
wasted. After they ask and express their willingness to change. Then, and
only then will we intervene."
"And if the Ravenites don't allow us to sit back long enough for that to
happen?" Gaius posed to the King. Croatia and Slovenia and even the
Western Alliance could be attacked when the Ravenites made their play
to spread their evil.
Atticus' expression turned cold and Gaius felt a shiver run down his
spine. He'd seen that look before when an Illosian family on holiday in
Greece disappeared.
It was a look of brutal consequences.
Gaius only grimly nodded in understanding and the Atticus' cold
expression melted away and a gentler expression made its way onto his
face with such smoothness that one could doubt the terrifying look had
ever been there at all.
"When will the public know of your departure?" Gaius asked with grim
acceptance.
"A few weeks before we leave." Atticus answered, the gentle expression
leaving his face. Gaius took in his expression. It was slightly weary with
hints of a grimace.
No doubt Atticus considered not informing the public at all but that
would be impossible. He was the King. Their symbol. More than Queen
Emily was…likely would be. There would be questions asked within days
about his absence and it would cause riotous havoc if the public didn't
get their answers.
It would not have surprised Gaius if that is what Atticus saw.
Gaius only hoped the King knew what he was doing.
"Enough of all this" Atticus said in a dismissive tone and instead bore an
excited face.
His arms fell by his sides before they appeared in front of him and he
placed his hands together. He rubbed them together in an anticipatory
way.
"Tell me more about Dexirus. Seraya is looking forward to hunting in the
vast grass plains there." Atticus shook his head exasperated "She wants
me to tell her every little detail when I go to pick her up."
Gaius smiled a little weakly at the drastic change in the King.
It wasn't just people and sentient races that were going to the Celestis
System, no, it was also the first major migration of magical – and
mundane herbivores – creatures.
Dragons, magical serpents, krakens, griffins, unicorns, any and all kinds
of magical creatures were being transported to Dexirus and to Celestis
itself.
Though for now, the transportation was largely centred on magical
creatures that were under heavy regulations with limited freedom of
movement.
Gaius began his vivid explanation of everything he could recall and only
when he was midway through his descriptions did he realised that the
King had requested this of him to set him at ease.
-Break-
29th of August, 1971 – Illos
Atticus listened as Zoran Buća, the Director of the Treasury, started off
the High Council meeting with the status of the economy.
The economy was doing exceptionally well and they were the largest
economy in the magical world by a country mile. They were the largest
exporters of potions ingredients, alchemic metals, artisan enchanted
products and the hub of nearly all magical advancements. Including of
course magi-tech.
Seven out of the nine – with one of the two non-Illosian companies
belonging to his sister – of the largest magi-tech companies were started
in Illos with significant backing from the Councils, Illosian investors and
from himself.
Utopian Dynamics, started by Mischa Lensherr – who'd attended Atticus'
Hogsmeade meeting in 1940 – dominated the magical world market in a
range of magi-tech products but most notably they dominated magical
communication and computers. Lensherr had been granted a load of
licences to use his original work like other entrepreneurs had but he'd
made a product that was as simple to use as a smartphone was in his old
life.
As the High Council meeting went on Atticus listened with half an ear,
enough to show that he was paying attention to what his Councillors
were talking about and discussing, interjecting once or twice to ask or to
decide when Emily did not.
It was more akin to acting than it was a genuine response. He had worn
masks before, for years, but now…he was an actor that who knew his
words, the words of others and the exact timing of when to say it or
make a gesture.
He knew it all like the back of his hands.
Was it any wonder why he was losing much of the need – and want – to
give anything or most anyone his full attention even if it was not on
purpose?
Only a few people mustered full attention out of him, those few who he
avoided in his observations of timelines and his experiences in those
timelines. An avoidance that was becoming more difficult than he
expected.
He glanced at Miles Garrick, the Director of State, the tight control over
his magic slackening by less than a percent. Where before there was a
solid man, now his form was not that of a single man, no, it was a form
that consisted of a hundred shades of mists that occupied the same space,
ghosts of timelines that could made to take solid shape if he spoke a
certain sentence, did a certain thing.
In his conscious state, anything less than perfect control would open him
up to the immediate future and hundreds of its possibilities.
For now, it wasn't an issue, this deepening of his ability since his control
never waded. But fifty years from now? A hundred? A thousand?
Would he lose touch with the physical world by that time as a
consequence of his growing magic and his understanding of
Consciousness and Living Time?
He considered addressing at least one part – the only part since he
needed every advantage against the Shapeless Ones – of that possible
problem…limiting the growth of his magic.
Of course, the yearly growth was a pittance compared to his final magical
maturity at twenty-one. As it should be. As people aged, their magical
growth past the age of twenty-one was near zero but not zero. The
Flamels were a lot more powerful now than they were when they were
twenty-one thanks to the many centuries they'd lived.
But it shouldn't be growing as much as it was still growing now. The
Flamels agreed that he was showing a kind of growth a decade that
they'd seen only after centuries.
The only conclusion they'd reached that made sense was it was a
consequence being in such a magically rich environment like Illos.
Atticus realised that when he found out he wasn't the only one who was
growing magically. The rich magical environment was facilitating his
magical growth and that of his people.
Emily too had shown this growth. Hypatia, Fortencho, and the other
people who spent their twenties and/or formative years in Illos showed
the similar high growth.
The only way to limit his growth would be to extract himself away from
magically rich environments like Illos and the Celestis system. A choice
he couldn't make.
None of his future-selves seemed to have a solution to this problem
either. He'd peered down many timelines to see if he could address the
issue.
So for now, the best he could do, he mused to himself as he re-
established full control over his magic, was to exercise complete control
over his magic.
The meeting continued for another hour or so as they moved passed
legislation and political agendas that Chief Representative Doyle briefed
the High Council on and towards the sciences and magicks.
William Bell began first and reported on his Office's projects and their
statuses.
When he indicated limited progress in the research of scientifically
halting cell death despite the mountain of data they collected and have
on animals like phoenixes or Turritopsis Dohrnii – an immortal jellyfish,
Atticus commented and suggested something that would lead Bell onto a
fruitful path.
A path where, in eight years, Bell would find a way to reduce the
shortening of telomeres each time cells divided.
It would lead to an estimated increase of the average lifespans of average
wizards and witches from one hundred eighty to three hundred fifty. In
time, that lifespan would be increased even further, there was little doubt
about that as people moved away from rituals and black magic to
increase their lifespans.
Atticus did a similar thing for Walter Bishop whose research projects in
Legillimency and magical frequencies would spawn new development in
neuro-magical interfaces that would make technology as tied to people's
magic as perfectly matched wands were.
It was only when Parelius spoke of the one mission that the High Council
was fully aware off that he paid full attention again. Parelius informed
them of the situation in Europe hampering the success of the mission and
that they were getting to the point that they were extracting less and less
people from Europe as the weeks rolled by.
Last week they only got out a single family. Four months ago they were
able to get on average six families a week. It wasn't the only problem
either.
"Our agents are finding it difficult to move deeper into the interior of
Europe." Parelius stated emotionlessly to them all. "As you know, the
magical net the Ravenites have deployed across their territory is difficult
to circumvent."
The Ravenites managed to tie all of their territory into one huge one with
a single magical net encapsulated it all. But that wasn't them most
impressive and troubling feat.
The additional ward scheme the Ravenites invented and added to magical
net was ingenious. For a long time now, the Ravenites went out of their
way to record every citizen's magical signature and the places they had
right to be in.
Signatures they'd used to compile practically the magical equivalent of a
database that let them know exactly who is who.
With the new ward scheme that worked similarly to accidental magic
monitoring ward schemes, they could pinpoint the general area of where
someone was and with the historical data that they had on the people,
anyone not even close to where they meant to be was to be questioned.
IO agents were not completely constrained by this ward scheme but it
made cooperation and trust with the native populations difficult.
Not only did it isolate communities from each other and inclining them
to reject any kind of risk including escaping if it meant they'd be hunted
as soon as they were a few miles from their homes and communities, it
also heightened the fear people had with regards to rebelling.
Magical signatures could be scrubbed but that took time, skill and
knowledge. And that knowledge was not something the vast majority of
people had.
In Greece and in other places like Romania or Russia where rebellion
previously was burbling under the surface, was now lukewarm after the
nobility purges and the news of the ward scheme reached far and wide.
"Wasn't the magical suppression bands meant to assist in that regard?"
Walter Bishop questioned with a concerned note.
"They help." Parelius confirmed "And it is used judiciously when they're
undercover. However, there is a lethargy in their magic when they switch
it off. It takes at least a few minutes for them to be able to use their
magic effectively."
Parelius took a moment as he glanced around the table before meeting
Bishop's gaze again. "I do not have to explain why that is not…desirable
in risky environments when we have reasonable doubt in the
trustworthiness of many rebel cells."
Murmurs rang around the Council table and Atticus could see a few of
them resisting the urge to send him nervous glances. The knock on effect
of having a well-connected magical civilisation was that news travelled
very fast.
The news of his departure was released only two days ago and the
reaction from his people in Illos alone was…intense, he thought with a
weary thought.
He'd manage to move along a timeline where the public's unhappiness
about his departure for over a year was limited but it was still there and
there was a tension that was tangible.
In the rest of the magical world, the news was surprising – to all
interested parties. Other than the great interest that enemies and allies –
who weren't in the know – had in their supposed finding of Atlantis, his
departure affected global geopolitics like a stone would affect the surface
in a still pond. Ripples were being made.
Even the ICW – who'd deigned to communicate with Illos only twice in
fourteen years – reached out to them 'requesting' a meeting to discuss
Atlantis. There was a kernel of truth in their interest in Atlantis but they
were far more interested in dissuading him from leaving for so long.
There was an irony in the symbolism that he was perceived to be. As if he
were Atlas, the only person who was preventing the world from crashing
down. An irony that was quite true given that Illos was the linchpin that
would decide everything.
Should the war begin in his absence, they would be right to think that
Illos would not join and it would allow the Ravenites the breathing room
to focus on the ICW and its allies.
"Inform our people to pull back." Emily said after a little while as she
shared a glance with him. He sent her a feeling of agreement through
their bond and she turned her gaze to Parelius who waited on her to
continue.
"We will assist the Grecians and the other rebels from our base in the
Ionian Islands but we won't risk our people's capture." Emily's lips pursed.
"At this point escorting families to safety is no longer viable without…
greater intervention."
Parelius bowed his head "As you will it, Your Grace."
The meeting after that was more or less wrapped up and he was left
alone with Emily and Parelius in their apartment home in the Main
Tower.
"Parelius." Atticus intoned as he looked at the man.
"Your grace." Parelius said understandingly as bowed his head.
He tapped on his arm as he spoke "Operation Wear and Tear is on
schedule. We have our agents in place lying in wait." Parelius informed
them as his arm brace began to emit a two dimensional holograph.
A map of Italy appeared on the Holo with red dots demarcating the areas
of interest. Most of them centred around the regions of Rome.
Atticus' hand rose in the air and a holographic globe appeared from the
centre of the room. It blew up the southern region of Europe and centred
on Italy. Certain areas on the map began to flash whilst arrows showed
where the troop movements would be.
Atticus tapped on his arm brace and moved Parelius' Holo onto the map,
overlaying the red dots with troop movements and Ravenite
assassinations.
"Good." Emily said as she glided over towards the map at the centre of
the room, her eyes deathly fixed on the arrows that moved towards
Rome.
"Are the numbers still the same?" Emily asked, knowing that every time
he or the Far-Seers made a change to the timeline, however distant or
immediate it may be, would result in having a knock on effect in the
present in some small way.
"Yes." Atticus confirmed. "Over eight hundred mages led by Cullaica will
attack the Italians on the 20th of October." He said to her and she took
her eyes off of the map and met his gaze. "A tenth of their active forces."
The Ravenites had a deep pool of wizards and witches to call upon. There
were still hundreds of thousands of magicals in their territories and many
of them were being convinced of the Ravenite ideology.
"The ICW will come to their defences on the 23rd of October." Parelius
mused aloud.
"Led by Li Lei." Atticus said with an incline of the head.
"Twelve hundred Ravenites will attack the Chinese on the 27th of
October" Emily continued, her hand sweeping across the globe towards
the Suguniang Mountains.
The Chinese had twice that number in Aurors and other combat trained
mages but they would be caught unaware. Belief in the impenetrability in
their fortress towns amongst the mountains would cost them dearly. Far
too dearly.
"Friction within the ICW as they refuse Li Lei to relieve the Chinese."
Parelius added as he stared at the map as he returned it towards the
Western European view.
Both Parelius and Emily knew all what he knew about the upcoming war
and the ways it could go…and the subterfuge the Ravenites would play
with the Vampires that would begin to plague the Western Alliance…and
Croatia and Slovenia.
Hypatia will aid Emily should things spiral out of the likely timeline.
Emily turned towards him. "Quite the effect you'll have, dear husband."
Emily said with a humorous tone but they both knew that she was
anything but pleased with it all. Of course, this war was inevitable,
whether or not it was him or her that left.
They were only speaking in terms of months, in truth. The Raven seemed
to consider just one of them being present as an opening to exploit.
"Jealously doesn't become, wife." Atticus said with a curling smile and
Emily rolled her eyes. Atticus dropped his smile and turned to Parelius
with a long stare on his face.
"Our agents, our people, Parelius…prioritise them over the missions."
Atticus said in a hard voice. Parelius met his gaze with a silent and blank
expression.
"We can always retrieve the artefacts and texts at a later date or at worst
destroy them if we have to. Our people however…"
Atticus trusted Parelius with his life but he did think that Parelius was a
little loose with lives. Atticus couldn't claim to be better but when it
came to their people, he'd rather not see a single one die to save a
hundred others, let alone for some trinket that they didn't want the
Ravenites to have.
After this conversation, Parelius would not even think to consider it.
Parelius bowed his head. "You have my word."
Soon enough it was just him and Emily.
"Was it necessary?" Emily questioned with a raised eyebrow as she
undressed from her Rosi and into her silk nightgown.
"Yes." Atticus said flatly. "I saw an incident that caused him to sacrifice
eight of our men for the Olyndicus' Lance." Atticus looked at her. "It
seems like he didn't know that the matter was already in hand." Atticus
had transmitted as much as he could of the year he'd be away to her
mind.
Emily frowned "He acted without my knowledge." She stated displeased.
"Not to excuse him but he was acting on critical information that needed
to be dealt with within hours. You were in Morfay." Atticus told her and
it placated her a little.
"I will sit down with him." Emily said with a sigh and Atticus smiled
gratefully at her. "It is a powerful weapon to let fall into our enemies
hands." She conceded.
"I know." Atticus grimaced. Thankfully it wasn't even close of a
possibility.
The lance had been crafted, supposedly, by the mage that went by the
name Hephaestus for the warmage Olyndicus around the fifth century
BC. The lance had the capability to 'drink' the blood of sacrifices and
absorb a good fraction of their magic into itself before triggered into one
single but awesomely devastating burst of magic.
According to the myths, the weapon had been responsible for separating
Sicily from the rest of Italy after it was fired during a battle with
Carthaginian invaders.
A battle that killed everyone. Well…obviously not everyone otherwise
the weapon would have been lost and the story left untold.
"Anyway" Atticus said with a shake of the head as he approached his wife
who looked as beautiful as ever. She smiled wryly at his look and soon
enough, they'd forgotten whatever it was that they were discussing as
they fell into each other's embrace.
5th of September, 1971 – Slitharsa, India
Seraya purred as he scratched away at a scale that looked like it was in
need of some medical attention `You have some scale rot, Seraya' Atticus
said a little concerned as he looked over the rest of the underside of her
belly.
It looked like there were a few other such scales that definitely needed a
course of healing elixirs. He'd have some choice words with the
caretakers.
Seraya hissed `I will heal. It happens when I have been active for too long. It
goes away when I sleep`. Basilisks had a strong healing factor especially
after they entered a hibernation state turning their huge reservoirs of
magic inward onto their bodies. That, along with the properties of their
blood, was part of why they were so long living, why they were
effectively ageless.
`I will have it treated today` Atticus promised her whilst he caressed her
belly.
She gave off another purr `I will not object' she said with a pleased note in
her hissing before she brought down the bulk of her body down and
Atticus stepped aside whilst she laid down. She brought her huge
serpentine face to him and her forked tongue licked at his face `I will be
strong for our journey. Will I be awake? `
Atticus smiled at her as turned his face slightly so that the tongue licked
at the side of his face `If you wish to be. The younglings will be asleep for the
journey so you will only have myself and the other Speakers for company'
`You'll stay with me?`
Atticus smiled at her longing question. Despite not being his familiar,
Seraya held an affection for him that was almost as strong as the
affection Fila had for him.
An affection he returned even if he was more absent than he should be.
He caressed her scales underneath her lips, not that far above the small
notch from which her tongue is stuck through.
`Yes. We can even sleep in the same nest on our journey` he suggested to
her. It didn't matter to him where he'd stay on the ship.
Seraya's temporary habitat was as good a place as any.
`I want to be awake` Seraya hissed happily. `You'll be all I need, master`
Seraya hissed as she set down her head and closed her eyes as she angled
her head towards the direction of the hot Indian sun. Before long she
drifted off to sleep.
She was tiring far too easily even with a magical battery in her gut, he
thought to himself with a sense of sadness as he listened to her restful
magic and her heartbeat. She had grown since he first met her all those
years ago by ten to fifteen percent.
When basilisks were in their hibernating state, all of their magic was
focused to maintaining their bodies. They stayed the same and never
hungered, theirs and ambient magic being enough to sustain them.
They could sleep for ten thousand years without ever dying once they
were old enough. There was a reason why basilisks held a similar status
as phoenixes did.
Beings of magic unlike most others.
Unfortunately, it also meant that it had its own issues. Whilst basilisks in
theory were ageless thanks to their regenerative blood and their magic,
in practice, they were not.
For a basilisk the age of Seraya, to stay awake required immense magical
energy requirements. Part of the reason of the immense energy
requirements was because basilisks had an unfixable condition that
caused them to grow without limits. In theory, a basilisk could grow long
enough to wraps itself across the entire surface of the Earth. Of course,
they'd long die of unable to sustain the energy requirements they need to
live.
As it was, there were only a few places with enough ambient magic to
make sure she wouldn't fall into another cycle of hibernation and even it
wouldn't be enough to make sure she was comfortable in staying awake
for longer periods time. Even Illos' ridiculous magical density didn't seem
like it was enough for her.
Which was why he gifted her a dense but compact magical battery that
would feed her with twice the magical energy she'd get from Illos'
environment. It would last for decades. Somehow though, it didn't look
like it was enough.
Atticus turned to the old man beside him who held a shepherd's crook
with both hands. His wrinkled skin was leathery brown and his hair more
white than grey though the brown eyes he bore were youthful and
sharper than his age suggested.
`She's been up for longer than usual` the elderly man noted after he closed
the gap, a kindly smile on his face. `She rarely rouses from her slumber for
the others in the Village`
`She's in the final decades of her life. It is expected` And her death…her
death was coming sooner than he liked. He'd Seen that on Dexirus she'd
live a lot longer than if she stayed behind. The Moon's intense magical
saturation rivalled that of Illos as well. He hoped the new environment
where she'd be free to roam with plenty of prey available would prove to
be enough to lessen the toll she'd taken for being as awake as she'd been
over of the decades.
With caretakers coming to take care of her and the other serpents, she'd
live long enough to see the magical world move into the Celestis system.
The elderly man scrutinised him before he placed a hand on Atticus'
shoulder `Time will come for us all` the old man paused for a second, a
mischievous and knowing smile on his face as he inspected Atticus' face.
`For some… it will come later than others' Atticus turned to Adarsh, a faint
and slightly amused smile on his face.
Adarsh' expression grew a little sombre when he glanced at the sleeping
serpent.
`She will be happy to spend it with the one she cherishes the most'
Atticus and Adarsh walked out of Seraya's den after Atticus had some
words with the caretakers about her scales and let them know that he'd
already sent an order to his people to deliver a vat of healing elixir best
suited for injuries like this.
They walked onto the path that would take them out of the small valley
ravine where Seraya and other serpents like her were cared for. For the
past eight years, she'd lived here after it was clear that she was lonely. He
could only spare her so much time and neither Sophia or Marie were
interested in caring for Seraya long term.
He'd offered the Slitharsans to care for the ancient serpent which they
were all too delighted to do. Not only because ancient serpents like
Seraya were venerated but also because he was asking as an Elder of the
tribe after he – and Emily – had earned that title when they gifted magic
to the squibs of the village. The entire village was now capable of
speaking or at least understanding parseltongue.
From there, Slitharsa had become a sanctuary for serpents that he and
Emily had searched out from around the world, many of which were
legendary serpents long thought to have gone extinct like the Bašhe, a
python-like giant snake forty feet long whose primary prey was
elephants, or the Hoyau that dwelled nearby volcanoes.
The village nestled in between forested mountains and a crystal clear
river stream was picturesque as ever.
There was a peace here that was addictive, like time's touch slid off of the
valley unable to ravage it like it did everything else in existence. Perhaps
that was why he didn't visit the village too often. He'd always stay longer
than he ought to.
After about twenty minutes walking down the sloped path, they
approached the village. Docked by the river there was a large caravel
being with crates large enough to fit Seraya's head. There was a reason
for that. Many of those crates, if not all of them, were spatially expanded
to suit the larger serpents that were within the ravine.
Within the next few days, the serpents would be put to sleep before being
loaded into the crates for transport to Illos. It was slow, especially since
the ship later on be transported onto Illos but the Slitharsans were
adamant of not allowing strangers in the village.
As they entered the village, the changes over the past twenty years were
transparent. There were more homes now and if you looked closely,
you'd see the touch that Illos had on the village with plenty of magi-tech
products around.
Slitharsa was a special place for him but especially for Emily. They were
a connection to her ancestors and a culture that she accepted and in her
own way cherished. They wanted the people close to them and to agree
to move of their free will before the chaos began and so they made to
entice the people slowly and gently.
A culture as old and as resistance to change as the Slitharsans couldn't be
approached in any other way.
Children played football in the streets – the game was introduced a few
years ago after a group of friends travelled to the muggle side of India
and fell in love with the game – with serpents, most likely their familiars,
lounging by the sides on cushions or baskets.
Some of the children noticed his approach and waved at him whilst one
of them, a young girl with short hair he recognised sped towards them.
`Elder Atticus` the young girl hissed excitably, the dimples in her cheeks
shining through as she beamed at him. The young girl, Samira, was one
of the youngest children in the village at the time of his offer to turn all
of the people younger than forty into magicals. Another young child,
probably Raell her younger brother, came to her side looking equally
excited to see him.
Both of the children had bright futures ahead of them. Samira would
become a promising magi-zoologist whilst Raell would become of Bell's
researchers.
`Samira. Raell. How are you? You've both grown since the last time I've seen
you` he hissed with a smile. The last time he'd set foot in the village was
about three years ago.
`I'm almost ten now!` `I'm eight now!` they said at the same time causing
Adarsh to smile warmly whilst Atticus chuckled before smiling at them
again.
`I see` he hissed out in a considering note before he glanced at Adarsh
`Have they been good?' he asked in a serious tone accompanied by a
serious look.
Adarsh looked at the children who had wide eyes and bursting to speak
but they were well behaved. All of the children here were taught to
respect their Elders and to listen. To interrupt one Elder speaking to
another was considering to be a terrible thing.
`They have been good` Adarsh said with a smile and it seemed to relieve
the children.
`I am glad to hear` Atticus said with a smile. They parted away from
children and made it to the central building within the village where the
Elders convened.
It was an hour later when the entire village gathered in front of the
central building.
The Slitharsans were heavily ritualistic when it came to 'leaving
ceremonies'. Ceremonies that were being held for the sixty men, women
and their families that chose to come with him and the serpents to the
Celestis system.
Only the Chief Elder amongst the other Elders knew where they were
going whilst the others believed that he was taking them to another part
of the world.
The Chief Elder gave her blessings to each and every individual, her
prayers of Naga joined in parseltongue song that seemed to enrapture
everyone, human and serpent alike. Atticus merely watched on in silence.
The days leading up to departure went quicker than he thought despite
not sleeping once for over a week. The news of his departure dominated
Illos and for the first time ever, he could feel the disappointment from his
own people.
Emily had a lovely sense of schadenfreide about that.
Still, it did little to douse his excitement. He knew that in all of the
timelines, Illos would remain safe under her care. Their people would be
safe and that was all he needed to remain excited for the Celestis
system…and his future homeworld.
The thought of finally being there after so many years knowing and
seeing the world through his traversing of Time could do nothing less.
Especially since he'd finally be able to visit that one spot that seemed to
draw him in like honey does to a bear.
During the last few days, the final loading was completed. Habitats
containing hundreds of magical creatures and thousands of mundane
animals in stasis pods were moved to onto the Hecate. Tens of thousands
of golems that were to shape surfaces of moons and planets for future
settlements were loaded like terracotta armies in massive containers.
Manufacturing equipment and other technologies were loaded in the
second to last day whilst on the final day, hundreds of people of different
races and species boarded the ship.
Centaurs, merpeople in specially designed suits, dwarves, goblins, all
boarded the ship that would make them the first to their new home
system.
A momentous day indeed.
Still…
"Emily." Atticus said softly as he caressed her cheek as he stood by the
tunnel that would lead him onto the ship. He could feel her displeasure,
her anxiety but also acceptance through their bond.
"I will be back sooner than you think." He said with a gentle look as he
took her hand and kissed it gentle. Despite being less than a decade away
from being half a century old, their need for each other did not waver.
She hummed but said nothing in response to his words. She only stared
at him for a little before he could feel her relent in her displeasure and its
stead, longing rose.
"Don't take too long." She said with a soft whisper before she stood on her
tip toes and kissed him on the cheek with the speed of a serpentine strike
and before he could say anything, he felt her squeeze his other hand
before she turned and left, back into the bowels of the Docking Complex.
Atticus sighed before he smiled at the closed doors. "I promise."
-Break-
1971 – Warsaw, Poland
Jason M. Lafides POV
The Polish guard held the open passport up against his face, his eyes
darting from the passport to his face. After the guard was satisfied, he
shoved the passport into his chest before dismissively barking out 'next' in
Polish.
Jason made his way to the booth behind the guard where another set of
guards scrutinised his passport and his travelling documents before
stamping away in his passport almost disgruntled, as if Jason had ruined
their day by being anything other than simply a traveller instead of a
'capitalist dog'.
He made out of the Warsaw International Airport and flashed his hand up
to one of the cabs that stood waiting like carrions waiting on dying
animals croak and decay.
"Take me to Old Town Square." Jason said in fluent Polish and the gruff
scraggly looking cabdriver told him the price which Jason agreed with
before they left off.
The twenty minute journey to the city centre was quiet, neither he or the
cabdriver had much to say to each other and Jason preferred to look at
the city anyway.
The city still bore the scars from the decimation the Nazis had wrought
against the city and its people under the Order of Warsaw, a villainous
act, a vile crime that rendered the city into a desolate wasteland of
rubble and ruin amidst the bodies and blood of tens of thousands of
Poles.
The soviets were little better, the opportunistic devils that they were.
Grey bricks that were mockeries of architecture and decent taste lined
the outer parts of Warsaw.
He let off a mental sigh and let go of the intense dislike that he felt for
the soviets and the Russians. He was not here on a mission against the
Communists.
No, his purpose was greater than that. A mission for humanity.
His grandfather had been Polish, Krakow born and raised he'd say in his
thick accent, so he'd been the best choice to come and investigate the
woman's claims about them.
After paying and tipping the cabdriver he made his way towards the
Grand Hotel Orbis which was about a twenty-minute walk. As much as
he was here for a purpose, he did want to see the capital of his
grandfather's homeland. At least the parts worth seeing anyway.
The parts that the proud people of Poland strove hard to rebuilt from the
shattered remnants of the ancient city that had been broken into a billion
pieces of stone and brick.
And as he looked around, he could see the 18th century style buildings
that Warsaw had once been famous for, building that the Poles rebuilt
brick by brick, stone by stone and these parts of the city that had in their
very bones the souls of the Old city stood like a rising phoenix from the
ashes it had been reduced to.
And it couldn't have happened if not for a few fortunate surviving pieces
of captured history in the form of Bernado Bellotto's ultra realistic
paintings of Warsaw, the salvaged photographs and the students'
paintings. Otherwise the Nazis would have succeeded in their quest to
wipe Warsaw of the maps.
It was a proud monument to the efforts and will of the Poles though he
wished that they extended their efforts across all of Warsaw.
But it was a tall task for any nation, to rebuild eighty five percent of a
city that had been reduced to rubble and dust, let alone a nation that had
no support like the Germans had with the Marshall plan and instead had
the Reds chaining them down.
He walked passed the worn doors of Grand Hotel Orbis and placed his
luggage on the ground as he arrived at the desk where a secretary was
seated.
"Good morning." Jason said with easy charm and it earned him a smile
from the dotty but pretty blonde. "I have a booking under Alex Ankwicz."
"Ah!" the blonde enthused "Yes, the Canadian." She peered at him with a
curious smile. "You speak very good Polish."
Jason chuckled "I should hope so. My mother would be very unhappy if I
could not speak her mother tongue well."
The blonde was a little amused before she took a pair of glasses from
besides her and placed it on the bridge of her nose, her pen dancing
across the paper in quick fashion. She peered up from the document
"You're staying for ten days?"
Jason nodded and she added a final scribble before taking a stamp and
pressing it against the document. She ripped the document from the pad
and handed it over.
"Your room is Room 16. It is on the first floor on your right."
Jason smiled at the woman before taking out his wallet and paid for his
ten days.
The room itself wasn't the greatest. The paint was old and there was a
smell of staleness and bleach that seemed to linger in the bedding. The
mattress was worn and creaked but thankfully it was free of bedbugs and
other insects which was enough. He opened the blinds and was at least
somewhat pleased that he had sight of the street below.
Once he took his clothes out of his suitcase, he sat down in the
unbalanced rickety chair at the bedside table and brought out papers that
were hidden in a compartment in his suitcase and began to read it for the
twentieth time.
They kept a close eye out for the unnatural, ever since the 1926 event
that reinvigorated their flagging organisation, though they hadn't found
much luck...until they came across Maria Bielinski who immigrated to
New York in the late 1960s.
She'd been a medical examiner at a mortuary in Bialystok and in 1959,
she'd come across more than a dozen corpses drained entirely of blood
with jugular bite marks.
It had been a major story – or at least it would have been if there had
been any free press – and the police were scouring all of Bialystok
searching for what they believed was a 'deviant'.
And, from what she told Kyle, a member of their organisation she'd told
the story to after a year of dating, the bodies disappeared and the police
simply stopped looking, denying there ever had been such a search for
the deviant.
The police hadn't been the only ones either. The funeral director, the
chief examiner, all of them denied ever seeing corpses drained of blood.
Maria had thought that it was the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, that
shut it all down in the week she'd been visiting her mother under the
threat of being sent to the gulags or worse.
Kyle knew better and informed them of this incident, their first real
breadcrumb to follow since 1926. Maria didn't know anything more after
that but the organisation took the crumb and followed it religiously.
Through their connections in government, they got a hold of the records
of immigrants and visas.
They found other Polish immigrants and questioned them. It was those
from further south, from the countryside, that they found the pot of gold
with similar stories as that of Maria's but…it wasn't just bloodless corpses
they found rumours of.
Jason stayed in Warsaw for another two days, mostly to arrange
transport once he arrived in Przemyslo, before he made his way down
south to Przemyslo via the train.
There had been a young woman from a village nearby Przemyslo that
offered the greatest chance of success. According to the young woman,
Krzeczkowa was a village fifty miles from her hometown locally famous
for 'wild animal' attacks that happened every few years. A trait that it
shared with other nearby villages.
The young woman said that people believed it to be cursed and that it
was a ghost town now save for a few elderly people too stubborn and old
to want to move away.
Jason and his peers hoped he'd be able to finagle some information from
these people about what they knew. One of the things their records
showed was these creatures rarely ever bothered with the stragglers, only
putting in the effort to erase their existence once it became problematic.
If they could find a way to detect the spawns of Satan…
The next day, he took a rented car to Krzeczkowa. It was a desolate
farming village that felt and looked like a place haunted by ghosts…and
other beings.
He spoke to a few of the locals by the local bar that functioned also as a
hotel and carefully probed at what they knew. Most of them had no clue
what he was talking about and laughed it off. He was a little confused
and thought maybe the young woman had been wrong. Or lied to him.
That was until he was told that most of these people moved back to this
village after 'bad gas' killed most of the population. Except for a few
people like the old 'babcia'.
He stopped by a home with a large wooden cross that was bolted to the
front of the house when he saw an elderly woman sitting at the front of
her home, the woman he was searching for. He hoped that she had more
for him otherwise…
"Hello!" Jason greeted in Polish. A greeting the old woman returned. Not
warmly but also not coldly either. Likely curious about him. There were
only thirty homes that he could see that were connected to the road on
his way here. The rest of the village consisted precisely of four shops, a
gas station and of course a bar.
It was unlikely this was a place that hosted strangers often. Well,
strangers that weren't moved here.
He opened the latch to the garden, a garden overflowing with weeds, and
made his way to the elderly woman who was in a rocking chair,
studiously watching him near.
"Who are you? What do you want?" she bluntly asked him as she looked
him over. He was in fairly decent clothing, clothing that he made sure
would 'fit in' with the Polish. "I have nothing to sell." She eyed him
closer.
"I have also nothing buy anything with if that is what you are after."
He smiled politely at the old woman before he bowed his head. "I am
Alex Ankwicz. I am not here to sell or buy anything." Jason paused for a
moment as he met the older woman's gaze who seemed a little perplexed.
"But I am here for questions."
"Questions?"
Jason nodded slowly as he watched her carefully. "Yes…about the animal
attacks."
The old woman stiffened up before she hid herself away in a cold blank
mask. "Ah, the bear attacks. What is there to ask? Bear attacks are bear
attacks."
Jason knew then that there was more to the story. "Bears maul, Mrs…"
"…Wojciechowski."
"Mrs Wojciechowksi." Jason added before he continued "Bears maul, they
do not leave two small pin sized holes in the neck." Jason said with a
look.
The old woman stood up, faster than he thought a woman her age ought
to be able to move "I have nothing else to say. You are crazy. Go." She
said with a wave as she moved towards her open door. "I am done with
this."
Jason cursed silently. "Wait!" She didn't stop so he tried again "I can pay!
A thousand American dollars!" she stopped. She turned, a look of surprise
on her face.
"You pay me a thousand dollars for what?" she asked incredulously
though there was a suspicion and deep apprehension in her eyes. And
what he thought looked like fear too.
"For the truth." Jason said honestly. She looked even more surprised at
that.
"Mr Ankwicz…"
"Please." Jason held up his hand. "Hear me out before you say no?" he
said beseechingly. A war seemed to rage within her mind considering the
uncertainty that displayed on her face.
Mercifully she nodded and she led him into her home. Jason let off a
breath of relieve. A few minutes later she brought out a cup of tea for
him and he thanked for it.
"Why does the truth matter to you?" the old woman finally asked.
Jason sighed after he placed the cup of tea down on the very old and
very worn table.
Jason met her gaze. "This world…there are many dark things hidden in
the shadows. Almost everyone does not know of it. The government, the
church, no one really knows. Except for a few." Jason sent her a piercing
gaze. "Like you." He stated.
She didn't deny it. Jason continued "Like me and my fellow peers." Jason
learned forward, his gaze intense "You see…we know that there are beings
around us…beings that hunt us in the dark…evil beings that eat us and
steal our children." At the mention of children, the old woman's eyes
widened.
"It happened in America too?" she asked surprised – and scared.
"The stealing?" she nodded hesitantly and Jason smiled grimly.
"Yes. It happens even now."
The old woman remained silent for a moment, her eyes set on her cooling
tea. "There was a family, maybe forty years ago, with a strange child that
could do…unnatural things." She looked up from the tea and met his gaze.
"Some of the villagers thought she was a witch but she was a sweet girl
really." The old woman said defensively and Jason smiled to ease her
despite thinking that it was unlikely the girl was anything sweet. They
were the spawn of the devil.
In time, the little girl would have shown her true colours.
"One day, she was attacked by a few boys and something strange
happened, according to the boys." Her voice was quiet now. "The boys
were thrown over twenty metres away from her. Two of them broke their
arms from the fall. Their parents were so mad, I thought that they were
going to hurt the sweet girl." The old woman shook her head.
"But before anything could happen…" she turned slightly pale. "The
family was found dead in their beds." She said in a disbelieving tone.
"Still underneath their bed covers, looking they were still asleep. But they
were dead. Like death simply came in the middle of the night and took
their souls but left their bodies untouched."
Jason considered her words. He hadn't seen evidence of anything like this
before.
He'd seen many kinds of wounds that looked to be unnatural but nothing
quite like this. The old woman continued "But the child…the child was
gone." She said in a whisper. "The people thought it was proof of her
evilness but I think she was taken. Her bedroom was ransacked and her
stuffy toys were taken."
"It is possible." Jason said with a serious nod slightly impressed by her
reasoning. The spawn of the devil would want to ensure more of its kind
were in their hands to teach them in their ways. "I think you're quite
right." The old woman looked vindicated in her beliefs. It was a shame
that she was only half right.
"And the bodies?" Jason asked as he leaned forward now that he's
established a relationship with the woman.
The woman turned deathly pale, paler than before. "You do not
understand."
"If you're concerned if I'm going to tell that it was you who told me, I
won't."
The old woman shook her head. "You don't understand. They can affect
the brain." She said whilst tapping her head. Jason's eyes widened. This
was the real deal.
"What do you mean?"
"The villagers? You met them?" Jason nodded
"Most of them moved back after a large accident happened." Jason said.
The old woman smiled with a kind of brittleness. "They never left. They
have always been in this village. Even during the accident."
Jason sat back in his chair and he stared at her. This…this was new.
"You're saying all of their minds were affected?" He knew that the spawn
had the ability to wipe memories but he hadn't heard them changing this
much.
"Yes." The old woman said firmly before she sighed and shakily reached
out to her tea. She seemed to find a sense of peace from drinking the cold
beverage.
"You must understand…I was away that week. Visiting my sister you
see." She shook her head. "When I returned, I found many of friends and
their families missing and no one knew what happened. And when I
questioned the people you met in town, they said they didn't even really
know the people they grew up!" she said in an angry whisper before she
closed her eyes, seemingly trying to steady herself.
"I saw the bodies, Mr Ankwicz. I saw what happened to them. It was
vampires." She whispered in a frightened tone. "The police from the city…
they don't care. Saying its bears is easy. But I know better." She declared.
Jason listened to her for a while and it was an hour later, with a wallet
missing a thousand dollars, that he left to go back to the city.
Jason was convinced that the woman was telling the truth.
It would be easy to dismiss it as fanciful lies and tall tales.
But their organisation had known since the 17th century of them and
their cabal of evil. Yes…he needed to relay the truth to his peers.
They had the spawn of the devil to hunt.
26. Chapter 86
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
20th of October, 1971 – Cherkasy, Russia
Amelie Cantona POV
The hangar bay of the hovership was as silent and not unlike a graveyard
during the sleeping hours before dawn, the sounds of breathing of the
waiting men and women akin to the eerie rustling of leaves of the trees
that stood vigil over tombstones.
Their faces had that in common with those silent, vigilant trees.
Hard and unmoving, solemn and determined, watchful and self-assured.
Looks on faces that knew full well of the importance that this mission
had to be nothing less than a total success.
Her gaze fell on the armour her team wore.
They were all adorned in Adamantite armour, silver grey in hue, en-
runed armour that could withstand even Fiendfyre for at least ten
minutes, the magic-eating cursed fire that could eat through everything
and anything including magical artefacts and people that it fed from to
sustain its endless hunger.
She hoped that they wouldn't need the full breadth of the armour's
protections.
The intelligence they received from home-base suggested that it should
be unnecessary but then she knew well enough that things didn't always
go exactly as planned, even if they had the Far-Seers watching their
backs.
"T-Minus seven minutes." The pilot communicated through the Comms.
Amelie pressed her right palm into the arm brace on her left hand. A
faint sloshing sound emitted from her armour, liquid metal rising from
the upper parts of the armour and crept up towards her head. Her neck
and then the bottom of her jaw were submerged until moments later her
entire head was surrounded by the metal.
The metal formed away from her head, creating a cavity, a gush of air hit
her in the face and she breathed in slowly. The metal in front of her
began to turn opaque before it turned crystal clear and a HUD system
overlaid the screen.
The others in her team had also activated their helmets and the HUD
showed three green lights above their heads that indicated that their
comms, their armour integrity and enchantments were all functioning at
optimum levels.
"T-Minus four minute thirty seconds" the pilot communicated and the doors
to the hangar opened and violent and loud air rushed into the hangar
bay.
Three of her twenty-eight man team stepped forward and saluted her
before they ran out of the still flying hovership and dove into the
darkness of the night three kilometres above the forested grounds.
They would set the nullification wardstones the eggheads created that
would prevent escape through magical means. Be it through portkey,
apparation or through the floo. That and it would also prevent any
discernible magic from being registered or escaping the nullification
bubble, including any magical communication.
Nearly all magi-com or sympathetically linked magicks worked in the
same magical frequency bands so it could be nullified much like travel
could be.
The Ravenites within the castle would be akin to a fish in a barrel.
A signal appeared on her HUD, a signal that would have shown up on all
of their HUDs, that indicated that they were directly above the castle
grounds.
Her magic, steady as it was for the entire duration of their flight, was
steady no more.
Not when the familiar hunger welled from within her, a hunger that
yearned for the hunt and the blood of her prey. Her magic fed from that
hunger with wildness, with eagerness, and it was burbling underneath
her skin like burning sugar water in a pan, thickening and tightening
much like the coils of her muscles were wound into a tightly wound
spring waiting to be let unleashed into action.
It was on occasions that she felt most in-tune with her more beastly side,
that side of hers that could gluttonously devour entire villages in her
hunger.
Amelie unsheathed her bastard sword from her back whilst the rest of her
team had mag-coil guns or daggers forming from their arm braces and
placed into their hands.
Had it not been for the necessity to leave as little traces of magic behind,
she knew they would have much rather preferred to use their wands than
any weaponry.
To this day, nearly all of the Illosian Guards and the IO Agents preferred
to use hold their wands for combat instead of channelling their magic
through their armour like it was possible to do like she did with her
bastard sword and her gauntlets.
Of course, wands were far more flexible, nearly infinitely so, but when it
came to combat, she believed that flexibility was a hindrance. Combat
needed to be short and final, and with training and practice, the armour
and weaponry would be able to do that far quicker and simpler than
wands and spells did. Magicals had a tendency to be flash and overly
elaborate with their magic and it reflected in their fighting. The amount
of times she'd seen duels that looked more like dances…
In any case, none of them would be using their wands in this mission.
Whilst the nullification bubble would prevent their magical signatures
from flaring up on the magical net cast across Central and Western
Europe and much of Eurasia preventing them being not unlike prey
caught in a web sending vibrations back to the spider to come scurrying
their way, their magical signatures within the nullification bubble would
still remain and unfortunately scrubbed magical signatures still left a
lingering trace even if none could tell whom it belonged to.
Now once their mission was over, the only signatures remaining would
be that of their enemies, they would need an element of that confusion
should their actions be caught sooner than Seen.
Especially given that every day, even hour, was necessary for the other
missions and rescues they practically committed on a daily basis before
they retreated permanently out of Ravenite territory.
Shock and stealth was their ally and best friend.
She led them towards the edge of the hangar, the large castle in the
middle of the forest coming into sight through their night vision. It had
six battlements with no one standing guard on any of the battlements or
anywhere else on the walls.
"T-Minus zero. Plasma bolt has been fired" the pilot told them and they
watched a mass of white streak down from the ship towards the castle
and her night vision turned itself off as the sensors measured enough
light from the environment.
The deadly wards that protected the castle would not be able to
withstand the force, the temperature nor the consistency of the plasma
bolt and would buckle and strain in the attempt until it broke.
"Remember." Amelie voiced out into their broad comm network, her
hand gripping the bastard sword with creaking tightness as she stared at
the plasma bolt hit the domed magical energy barrier. The wards flashed
into brilliance as it tried to resist, but it would be to no avail.
"No prisoners."
"HA!" her team voiced out fervently through the comms in unison, the
clunking sound of gauntlets hitting their armoured chest briefly
overpowered the sound of the rushing air and it was at that point that
she dove head forward out of the hangar bay.
She fell like a stone cast down from the very top of a mountain, crashing
downward at high speeds and she loved every second of it. It reminded
her of the stories of Valkyries streaking down the sky on Pegasi with
righteous Fury and she felt every sense of that similarity as she free fell
with a hunger they so deserved to receive.
The wards broke, bursting like balloons under the sharp bite of needles
and holes opened up within the wards before they dissipated away. The
plasma bolt had not lost all of its energy in dealing with the wards,
merely a fraction of it, and it crashed right in front of the front gates of
the castle. The sound of the plasma bolt hitting wet earth was deafening,
sick sounds of sizzling, cracking and explosion echoed eerily through the
wilderness.
That would have woken them up if the wards being torn asunder hadn't.
She adjusted her falling towards bottom left battlement of the castle and
only when she was ten seconds from hitting the hard stone did she slow
her descend to near zero. She jerked in the air as if she had a fishing hook
caught in her mouth, her momentum slashed into near zero and she
twisted around, her left hand moving and her magic responding, and
soon she, and the others floated down towards the battlements like
dandelion seeds caught in a gust of wind.
She made her way towards the farthest battlement and it wasn't long
before she landed with total silence, the runes on her armour already
stifling any sounds that she or her armour could make.
She looked around and saw that the rest of her team were still floating
down towards their designated places. Her team would be split in five
teams of five and they would make their way through the bowels of the
castle together.
Amelie angled her sword sharply and the sword sang beautifully as the
air was cut with inhuman speed whilst she made her way towards the
door that would lead her inside. She worked at her best alone.
Her HUD pulsed and showed her a map of the castle. There were
hundreds within this compound and hundreds more concentrated in the
lower floors of the castles.
The thick wooden door was smashed apart, the audible sound stilling the
fourteen men at the far side of the hallway before they turned around
towards her direction.
The hunger that she dulled ninety-nine percent of the time was finally
allowed to be felt and her canines sharpened as her face twisted in a
deranged and hungry snarl.
That hunger, that gnawing hunger always felt like it scratched at the inner
linings of her stomach and at the grey mass of her brain with claws made
out of broken glass and infectious nails, once upon a time threatened to
drive her mad with yearning she felt for the blood of her prey. Now
though, she thought as she crouched down closer to the ground, that
hunger was her fuel, her hatred made unwound in righteous cause. It was
her weapon she wielded with deathly perfection and precision.
Moments before she would have been able to physically see them, the
tightly wound coils of her muscles were let loose and she, with a speed
that make her appear nothing more than a blur to the human sight,
crossed that distance in less than half a second.
Men adorned in Ravenite clothing moved in tight formation, little gaps
and maximum overlap, their wand tips fizzling with a spell on their
tongues but it would not matter. By the time their eyes noticed that she
was in front of them, her sword was swinging upwards toward the first
man on her left side and it cleaved through the man like a hot knife
through butter.
She wasn't done and neither was the man she cleaved into two pieces
dead either for within fractions of a second, she moved on towards the
next man, her upward swing bearing down in a forty five degree cut and
it cut through the neck and parts of the shoulder of the second man.
By now, the now twelve strong company had barely seen her rip through
their comrades and moved to attack her. By the time the first spell was
fired at her, another three men had died by her sword.
Gouging, cutting, explosive and destructive spells were flung towards her,
the narrow corridor was broken into pieces by the panic stricken spellfire
from the Ravenites but she danced out of the way for most of them, the
narrow corridors allowed her greater mobility to stay out of the direct
path of the spells as she danced and weaved her way through the enemy.
Arms were severed and flung, some still holding their wands, whilst
heads were cleaved off whole or in half, their screams and panicky shouts
did not to dissuade her from murdering her way through them all.
By the time she was done, all fourteen were dead and the corridor in
rubble was splashed painted maroon with pieces and bodies lying in
pools of blood and guts.
She had no time to appreciate her work for there was an explosion
rocked underneath her that crumbled the floor into nothingness.
Her only reaction as she fell down was a widening of her bloody thirsty
smile.
An hour later…
A herd of hateful eyes stared at Amelie and her team, a kind of that hate
felt made her feel sick to her stomach. It looked so, so wrong, the way
youthful and baby faces bore those eyes…and so, so familiar, so familiar
that felt like it hurt physically.
The way their faces snarled as they shouted out expletives, the promises
of pain and suffering made through rabid and unhinged speech…
To see such wrongness on the faces of children the age of her Nino…
She felt her stomach somersault into complex feelings. Fury, loathing,
pity and guilt dominated but above all of those feelings, there was one
emotion that triumphed above them all…fear. After all…
She'd seen those eyes before gazing back at her in her nightmares.
Her gaze broke away from the children and instead her gaze swept across
at this last room. It was the same as the other two dozen and more
bunkrooms she'd seen. The Ravenites had them bunked together in
groups of ten in each bunkroom. The beds were little more than wet
paper across a stone surface and there was no privacy.
She returned her gaze to the children and sighed inaudibly as she raised
her hand towards them. One day they would understand.
There was little they could do for these children right now and not
wishing to bear it any longer, she waved her left hand and darts flew
from her arm brace that sought out the jugular vein in the children's neck
flying much like evasive Snitches.
One by one, the children fell asleep. Andreas and Lyman stepped forward
with the crate and began to carefully load each child into the crate where
another of their team would place them in temporary stasis pods until
they could have the mental damage undone. She never thought she'd see
that kind of evil again in her lifetime…
"You OK boss?" Andreas asked concerned through the private comms as
she stood unmoving for some time.
"Yes, Andy." Amelie said after a few moments as she turned towards the
figure clad in grey-silver armour. Andreas was taller than she was but
almost a head and a half.
He looked like a giant in the armour that he wore. Lyman took the crate
and made towards the courtyard where the hovership was waiting on
them.
As she watched Lyman disappear past the corridor she commented dryly
and somewhat stiffly "I was merely thinking that there are no depths our
enemy will sink to."
Andreas grunted through comms as his helmet nodded jerkily. "I wish I
could say that I am surprised but really, I'm not." Andreas said with a
sigh. "It seems like its standard Dark Lord modus operandi to force people
into loyalty and their ideology. Even the young." he said with a dry tone
though it wasn't hard to sense the angry undertones.
Amelie said nothing when she nodded to her subordinate before she
made her way out of the room. By the time she arrived at the courtyard,
the crates were being floated into the hangar bay of the ship one by one.
She saw Lillian and the other two having arrived in the interim and she
made her way towards the woman. Lillian and the other two placed the
nullification bubble around the castle.
"Ma'am" Lillian saluted and Amelie waved her away.
"Any signals or communications escape?" Amelia questioned. They
wouldn't know for certain but the fact that an hour or so later they
weren't beset by enemies from all sides boded well that their mission was
successful and that the nullification bubbles weren't circumvented.
The problem was, she saw a few communication mirrors that concerned
her. No magic was ever fool proof or unbreakable, as much as the
eggheads would like to profess and she wanted to make sure the Far-
Seers didn't miss anything.
Lillian tapped on her arm brace and a holo popped up "I do not believe
so." She enthused as she scrolled through the logs of the wardstones. The
nullification bubble not only prevented travel, magical communication or
magical signatures from escaping the confines of the bubble but it also
kept a record of the frequencies that it prevented from passing through
on the wardstones themselves which were paired to their magi-coms.
"There are attempts to communicate through paired mirrors, and even an
ancient messenger spell – you know those folded paper bird charms – but
as far as I can tell, we are OK." Lillian said with a relieved smile in her
voice.
Amelie internally sighed with relief and she felt her resolve harden as
hateful eyes flashed in her mind. At least she now knew that the
assurances by the Far-Seers that the nullification wardstones would work
in keeping the mission contained were fine.
And now that it is confirmed, she knew that the next few weeks, they
would be hitting every camp like this with brutal efficiency.
It wasn't long before they were all back on the hovership with a cargo of
thirty two crates. "Well done everyone." Amelie said as she stared out at
the faces of every man and woman in her team. She'd lost no one in her
team today – she hadn't lost anyone for well over a decade and a half
now – and she was proud of them for making sure they all made it out
alive with perfect execution of the mission.
She tapped her arm brace. "We're good to go" she told the pilot and soon
enough, they were bound to forward base in Greece.
-Break-
Parelius Parkinson POV
He flicked his finger, the page on the holo turning, and continued read
the report on the latest stirrings of the Ravenites. There was a knock on
his door and Parelius looked up briefly from his holo and saw who it was,
who it could only be at this hour. A look was enough for Parelius to give
the man permission to enter before he continued to read the report.
"Cato." Parelius acknowledged without looking up from his holo.
"Sir." The black-haired man greeted as he approached Parelius' desk
before taking a seat across from him. Parelius took a few more moments
before he looked from his holo having finished reading to a satisfactory
point. "The mission?"
Cato gave a thin smile. "Complete success" he said before leaning back in
his chair relaxed. "No fatalities of the prizes and we still maintain a wide
window."
Parelius hummed "As expected of course."
"Of course." Cato said with a nod but even though he didn't show any
negative emotion, Parelius knew the man he spent years training better
than the man knew himself. Cato disliked the ease with which the Far-
Seers directed the IO with. Still, it was a dislike that Cato didn't let
interfere with his responsibilities.
As expected.
Cato continued, his hands arched against one another as his posture took
a more rigid, more controlled stance "Does our timetable change with
this?"
Parelius eyed the dark-haired man. "It does. I will see it accelerated."
"They won't like that." Cato said with a piercing gaze.
Parelius smiled and it was a smile that could chill the blood of the most
hot-tempered fool. "And yet it will happen." Parelius said as he slid the
holo towards Cato.
Besides, Parelius had access to intelligence that spanned over a dozen
timelines, timelines that the Far-Seers assigned to them weren't yet
capable of seeing with the exception of Hypatia and one other. This path
he favoured was one of them and it bore little consequence to the
immediate and distant future.
Cato eyed it speculatively for a few moments before taking it.
Parelius watched the dark-haired man read through the report with an
ever watchful gaze. Cato was one of his more successful protégés. A son
of a Clan family, the Trest family, Cato was given and taught the best of
both magical and muggle worlds allowing him the kind of flexible mind
that Parelius shaped into what it was now.
An excellent intelligence agent who was shaping up well to be his
successor.
"It's ambitious." Cato finally said after a moment and Parelius could hear
the interested surprise and calculation measuredly leak out of Cato's
voice.
Parelius only offered a shadow of a smile.
"They will not be able to prove it but they will know it is us. It could only
be us."
"They already would know it is us from Cherkasy alone." Parelius
commented without inflection in his voice. Cato nodded, understanding
his point.
Illos was already known as the inheritor to the Atlantean legacy and with
the King believed to having left with the expedition, any and all
unexplainable happenings would fall on the shoulders of Illos.
Amusingly, something that had already been happening years before
news of 'Atlantis' was made public.
Even more amusingly, there were a few that certainly was their doing.
And whilst they would rightly believe it was Illos, they wouldn't know
how. With their gambits in Asia and Southern, free Europe and North
Africa, the Raven would be disinclined to wage open war with Illos and
the Grand Alliance until he was in a better position.
"I'm all for it." Cato said calmly but Parelius knew that he was interested
in taking lead in the more fruitful missions. Parelius understood. Cato, for
nearly the whole of his career, had been on Illos as non-active duty
intelligence agent, an agent who worked with information and could spot
a still Snitch from a mile away.
And it was time for Cato to lead missions to quell the thinking that he
was only an analyst instead of the Overseer that Parelius expected him to
grow into becoming.
"Good. Then you can take point of the Moscow and the Bulgaria
missions."
At this, Cato smiled widely and Parelius visibly saw Cato's mind run a
mile a minute.
"You spoil me. Sir." Cato added the 'sir' part almost in an afterthought
manner.
Parelius let it pass. It would enhance Cato's reputation in the IO and
within the High Council which he would need if he wanted to be elected
as Overseer of IO, especially if Moscow's haul was total without any loss.
Which should be unlikely given that the hoard were in centralised
locations in Moscow however well they might be defended.
With the Russian nobility having been gutted by Grindelwald and then
later by the quasi-communist regime, more and more of Russia's wealth
and knowledge had become centralised…including the loot they obtained
from the other neighbouring Ministries and communities. Complacency
and arrogance…
And once the Ravenites conquered the quasi-communist regime and
imposed their rule on the Russians by taking over the old Russian feudal
system – a system the communists had taken eager pleasure in replicating
– the Ravenites kept the same places as the former ruling elite had kept
their hoard beyond the few artefacts and texts they'd absconded with to
Czechoslovakia which was their command centre.
A hoard that would soon fall in Illos' hands. They had little need for
nearly all of it and most of its value was in denying their enemy
resources whilst at the same time furthering their later goals of becoming
the central place of knowledge of any kind.
"What do you want me to do with the locals?" Cato asked curiously
before he turned serious. "There will be blowback. The Ravenites are fans
of making examples."
Hmm…there would be significant blowback of course with the stitch up
they'd be committing against the Russian people even if the Ravenite
leadership would suspect Illos' fingers in it. But Parelius believed such
things were irrelevant to Illos.
It wasn't as if there wasn't much of a population to punish. The
influential families and nobility that survived the initial Ravenite
conquest were all but dead now excepting of course the hundreds of
scions that were now in Illos' hands.
Russia, it seemed, was served up to be an example to the rest of Ravenite
controlled Europe in those days of wasteful massacres…and a warning to
those who were spared the knife.
Which wasn't something the Raven or Cullaica would have to worry
about insurgents any time soon. Their handiwork did enough to wither
and crush bravery along with any initiative from within the hearts of
most rebel cells in Europe.
Including amongst the Russians.
Not that it would have been likely given that without the nobility or the
opportunistic bourgeoisie families the Russian people lacked much
agency to do anything anyway.
The Russians that remained were lacking in both magic and in potential
as a consequence of Russian societal structure. They had little value to
Illos as it was and it would take far too much time and resources to
rehabilitate them into something other than what they were. There were
enough of that ilk in the magical world.
Should the Ravenites punish the inconsequential Russians for made up
reasons such as treachery, as they are so keen and likely to do, it didn't
matter to Parelius.
"Nothing." Parelius answered as he met Cato's gaze who, after a few
moments, nodded his understanding behind a careful expression.
There was another reason why Parelius wanted Cato to take lead in
Russia. He wanted to see if Cato had the heartlessness to condemn an
entire people for the sake of their mission. To see if Cato could commit
actions that would tar the soul of any ordinary person and if he'd come
out of it stronger…or weaker.
"Bulgaria is another case however." Parelius said as he traced his finger
across the table. Bulgaria, like in other regions like Germany, Austria or
Denmark, there were a privileged few Houses that were exempted from
total destruction.
But even those Houses didn't come out of the purges unscathed as
branches had their scions taken to the same re-education camps as the
other scions of destroyed Houses.
Cato glanced at the holo "The Krums." Cato stated before looking up
again towards Parelius. "I didn't think we'd work with the Krums given
their hand in our King's exile."
"I wouldn't call it work with." Parelius said with a thin smile before he
returned to an emotionless expression which appeared as suddenly as the
thin smile did.
"There will be a price to be paid for our assistance."
The Ministries and communities that bordered the Danube had little
value in either artefacts or magical knowledge but what they did have
was unique abilities that were passed down orally throughout the
centuries in high secrecy, particularly certain kinds of animancy, the
ability to manipulate the forces of life, which made them competitors to
the shamans of West Africa when it came to that kind of magic.
Of course, it had little practical value, in combat, but in of itself, it was
useful. Which was how the Krums had managed to leverage the survival
of many of these communities even if a large of them were press ganged
into servicing the Ravenites.
Whilst the Ravenites were comparatively mild in their treatment of these
communities, these communities were also the most likely to join in
causes they thought would get them somewhere other than dead.
Cato grimaced having understood at least somewhat where he was going
with this.
"They'll want assurances." Cato remarked.
"And they will receive it." In so much that they'll be told whatever they
wanted to hear. Of course Parelius would make an effort to address the
fear they have of the Ravenites discovering their duplicity but in the
grand scheme of things, ensuring the majority of them survived didn't
matter to Parelius.
As long as enough survived that it ensured their magicks wouldn't die out
along with not impeding the greater mission of magical unity, well…
The King and Queen wouldn't chastise him as long as he met their
expectations.
Too much.
Cato didn't respond to that point and the meeting after that became more
or less routine and soon enough he was left alone with his musings,
musings that turned thoughtful as he skimmed over plans for the
upcoming rescue missions again.
Parelius slid the Holo slightly away from himself as he leaned back from
his seat and stared out into the dark cityscape of Celestis City.
A long while passed as he simply stared out at the sleepy, ever changing
city.
He had to admit, when he first heard about the re-education camps, he'd
thought it as devious as it was practical. It also furthered Parelius'
thinking that the Raven was most certainly a former Grindelwald
prisoner.
He even considered that the Raven was Grindelwald's final revenge
beyond the grave should his attempt to re-form the world to his will and
vision failed but he ultimately discarded that if only for the fact that the
Raven was far more ruled by emotions in his actions than if he had been
Grindelwald's intended weapon.
What he did think however, was that Grindelwald would find some sense
of joy in his final legacy. The Raven was as tied to Grindelwald in a way
that made it seem as if he were the deceased Dark Lord's own son, a son
that bore heavy hatred towards the nobility and the power structures that
facilitated Grindelwald's rise and subsequently led to whatever made the
Raven the man he was.
It was a brutal vengeance too, one that ironically reminded Parelius of
the classic tales of sons eager to tear down the legacy of their hated
fathers, the way that the Raven reduced complicit Houses of storied and
powerful bloodlines to nothing more than tools of war for the Ravenites.
Incredibly practical too.
It was a fact that wizards and witches from ancient bloodlines spawned
the most powerful magicals frequently. Through centuries of breeding and
crafting of family magic, wizards and witches of ancient bloodlines were
more attuned to magic and they were, simply said, more magical beings
than squibborns were who had their magic diffused by muggle blood or
younger bloodlines who had neither time or talent to bind traits and
affinities to their bloodlines that would improve the quality of their
bloodline.
In any Empire or nation, to leave powerful players in position of
authority and strength unhindered would spell doom for those newly in
power.
After all, that was exactly what happened in Germany and Austria and
the other Ministries that invited a devouring beast to their home and
hearth in return of sitting atop a seat made out of the bones of their
countrymen and other unworthies.
Just as it happened before with Grindelwald.
Getting rid of these families who were magically strong, wealthy and had
historical entitlement to power was practical as was indoctrinating the
surviving scions into tools of the Raven.
Most of the Ravenites were of insignificant lineage, those who needed
something and someone to believe in. Parelius, in the privacy of his own
company, allowed shades of ironic amusement to pass through him.
It was if the Raven was the shadow to the King's light.
Parelius shook his head.
Most of the Ravenites were insignificant strength of magic and as a
collective they were unimpressive. There was a reason why the Ravenites
attacked in groups like a murder of crows. Strength in numbers could and
would overwhelm anyone.
History proved that well enough.
As much as he preferred the other option, dealing with the potential
Sorcerer level scions as soon as possible was something he agreed with.
Still, if he had his way, he'd write them off as lost causes however. Even
if he had assurances that eventually it would be worth it like their
missions scouring Europe of any and all magicks, powerful artefacts and
priceless texts alike, was certain to be.
Parelius tapped his finger on the arm of his chair before he stapled
together as he stared out at the sleeping City. Fortunately, he supposed,
he had enough evidence from the healers to indicate that the
indoctrination process wouldn't become practically irreversible if they
acted within a certain window.
Not that it mattered given that the window they were operating in, the
window before the Ravenites would catch on and move to counter, was
far shorter than that possibility. A window they would have no problem
in working to.
Irritatingly, after that, it would be years before anything happened with
the scions.
The method of indoctrination – the same mental manipulation techniques
employed by Grindelwald only deeper and more entwined with the
subconscious – made untangling the manipulation virtually
unmanageable in the immediate term for a group that ranged in the
thousands.
It took the King months to untangle the mental manipulations and
instructions from Ms Cantona's mind and she had been an adult with
matured magic and mind and the King a master of the Mind Arts.
Their best Mind healers and Mind Arts masters indicated that, it would
take years to rehabilitate younger people with flexible but fragile minds
should they have the same depth of subversion as Ms Cantona once had.
Parelius sighed. Yet the King and Queen wanted what they wanted, he
mused to himself. The benefits, beyond simply having a significant
number of powerful wizards and witches indebted to Illos, were of course
obvious.
To the rest of the magical world, it would be an act of compassion and
great morality in the face of evil and monstrosity. Illos would win a
moral victory and held in greater esteem by the wider magical world.
Every magical culture and society considered magical children as
treasures after all.
It would also make Illos an even greater power to the rest of the more
sceptical and wary magical nations. If Illos has the capability to undo
mental manipulations of such degree, did they also not have the ability to
make such mental manipulations?
At times, when dealing with recalcitrant people or societies unwilling to
even consider the alternative, fear was a necessary tool to wield. No
powerful individual feared anything more than the loss of free will and
agency.
The King and Queen believed they would hit two birds with one stone…
preserving powerful bloodlines indebted to Illos and the Monarchy that
could never be paid off and of course the slow crawl towards Illos
occupying the central moral and spiritual leadership before Exodus is set
to happen.
Of course, the news of the rescue wouldn't be made public until after
Illos joined the war and after the indoctrination was removed which
wouldn't be any time soon.
At present, the hovership carrying the cargo and the team was enroute
towards their base in the Ionian islands before taking the cargo to a
facility in the Marshal Islands, a facility on some long ago abandoned
island warded from muggles eyes centuries ago, where there were some
sixty trained Mind healers waiting to treat them.
They were adept enough to reverse the mental manipulation and
subversion but it would take them years to reverse even a few hundred
patients.
It was why when they acquired the rest of the indoctrinated scions in the
next few weeks they would be put into a stasis sleep that would
effectively put them in limbo until the time arose for them to be
awakened and treated.
Parelius returned his attentions to the holo and sat there staring at it for
a few seconds before he picked it up once more. With a wave of the
hand, an inkless quill flew from the cabinet and placed its tip onto his
desk.
With a few motions of his fingers, the quill was linked to his magic and
his mind and with a momentary flickering of his eyelids, he separated his
mind into two different streams of thought as he leaned back into his
chair, his Holo in hand.
He would read with one stream and in another mind-stream he would
dictate the quill to put down his thoughts. The next few months had
many, many things happen that Illos needed to take advantage of.
Another series of opportunities like this would not happen again in the
coming years.
It would make the Ravenites cautious, akin to a wounded predator not
yet backed into a corner, and it would move them nicely along towards
the future of a ravaged magical world eager to fall into Illos' hands.
Warm and gentle hands that would beckon and harken these desperate
peoples into their bosom.
It was hours later before he flicked his fingers.
Numbers formed in the air, thirteen past two.
It was twenty minutes later that he walked out of the Main Tower and it
wasn't long before he was walking down Tower Street towards the bridge
that connected the residential rings and the rest of Illos.
In this late hour, streets that were as busy as Alexandria or the muggle
cities were, were bare and hardly traversed by people. It was also his
favourite hour to walk down the city that was growing ever more into its
bones as the years turned over.
Over time, the inner parts of the city began to host more of the affluent
members of society as house prices skyrocketed when the population of
Illos began to grow as more and more people arrived at the city.
The wealthy merchants, business owners and researchers who got rich off
of their ideas bought up homes close to the Main Tower, the Pandrosion
and the National Museum from the first settlers who'd came with the
King.
The money had been too good to pass up for those people and with the
assistance provided by the High Council, they were able to purchase
cheaper homes further from the centres of power. It was an inevitability,
this outcome.
However much the King espoused equality and meritocracy,
accumulation of power and wealth were an inevitability. It was a human
condition, one that transcended magic and blood. Parelius shook his
head. The King knew this anyway, despite his idealistic musings. A
pragmatic realist that held onto his idealisms.
When he made it home to his detached home by the bridge, he made
straight towards the drink cabinet before sitting down in his living room,
his right leg crossing over his left before he leaned back. He took a swill
of his single malt whiskey, before he lazily waved towards the Holo
screen which turned it on.
"Play Astrixus and Oberon Episode Fourteen" he said to the Holo screen and
soon enough, a faint smile crept on his face as the show began its intro,
the sight of a stupid brawling quasi-viking giant with his oversized battle
axe and his more refined competent though shorter companion a
welcome sight in this late hour.
-Break-
29th of October, 1971 – Monte Barrio, nearby Monte Pelpi, Italy
Cullaica POV
His hands rose, slowly, his wrists bending delicately as he hummed in the
back of his throat, his eyes falling like white cloaks over the bodies of the
enviable dead.
"Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ets…" he
muttered, his hands moving in intricate sways and motions like he was
performing an orchestra and the crackling sounds of the burning houses
behind him was soothing, a melody that danced to his music and that
momentarily flamed the chaotic fires of his soul, even if the dead music
of the cries of the momentary blips of existence was a shame and a loss
he felt.
"My Lord…they have activated the anti-portkey and apparation wards."
His hands fell down, back beside his body as he turned to glance at the
disciple before returning his gaze, his eyes sharpening to that of a hawk,
towards the array of over a thousand enemies, the momentary blips that
would soon join the other blips into the ether.
A shark-like grin formed and plastered across his leather face, his hum
once discontinued continued once more. The intro, the debut, had ended
but the chorus was about to follow.
The Italians and the ICW were prepared, standing ready, adorned in
carmine dragonhide robes layered and spelled with charms that he could
see even from this distance away, their arrogance shining through as they
stood to intimidate him with their inaction safe in the belief that they had
him cornered.
Cullaica's grin widened even further, threatening to spread out from his
face like a plague as he listened to the songs of their magic.
They were eager for blood and gore, their magic vibrating with eager and
brave anticipation to cast him down into the abyss of the Lost and it was
delightful. Their magic sung so determined, so loudly, with a righteous
chord infected with hope that made him shiver in revulsion as he felt its
touch into the ether of magic.
How beautiful it will be for that chord to be thrown into disharmony,
Cullaica thought as his eyes began to shine with bottomless depths of
malevolence.
For days, they've been chased by their lovely hosts across the Italian
North as they butchered their ways through the few magical villages in
these parts of Italy.
And for days, they'd gotten away again and again as they drew further
inland all while whittling down their forces before hitting them again in
smaller task forces, keeping off-centre and to draw out their most
effective men.
The fact that he lost eight task forces was insignificant given that it has
led to this very moment, this moment that he would savour with every
inch of his body.
Front and centre of the battalion of ICW and Italian forces was Li Lei, the
only one who would make all of this interesting until the rest of their
peers came to play. Cullaica breathed in deeply with a shiver traversing
the length of his body. The mere thought of ripping apart Li Lei into small
itty bitty chunks was exciting him.
And Li Lei did not disappoint.
Even this far away, Cullaica sensed that Li Lei was different, that he was
worthy, a future symbolic trophy that would hang proudly over his cold
and wet abode.
He was alike Mars in the night sky compared to his compatriots who
shone like insignificant specks of dusts that hung dully in the sky and
Cullaica drank it all in, Li Lei's appearance and the tune of his music, like
a parched man drinking water from a miraculous oasis in the heart of the
desert.
Everything about Lei was a stark contrast to his fellows.
Instead of the carmine robes his fellows wore, Li Lei on the other hand…
His dress was loose and flimsy looking with richly ornamented and
embroidered designs on a backdrop of a regal yellow. His hands were
covered in finger bracelets that gleamed under the light of the sleepy sun,
bracelets that acted as a focus just as a wand would.
Li Lei looked every bit a legendary Chinaman of ancient times gone.
And every bit a champion of the parasites that sought to prevent the
inevitable, the sweet blissful inevitability of the reality they were
destined to spark into existence.
And with another army of Ravenite disciples attacking Lei's own people,
Cullaica confirmed with intel from his informants still within the ICW
that Li Lei was under heavy pressure from both the ICW and his people to
deal with Cullaica and his men as quickly as possible before being
allowed leave to defend his homeland.
The grin on Cullaica's face diminished, his pale leather-like face
slackening.
It was amusing, infuriatingly amusing, like watching a fool fail time again
at simple and mundane tasks, that Li Lei allowed himself to be so weak
against those who could not stand a candle to his power and his ability,
that he allowed himself to be made to bend to the whims of those who
were insignificant.
Li Lei allowed himself to be bound to order, to the order of their lessers.
But then…Lei did not understand, would not understand even if it stared
him in the face and Cullaica would see Lei break instead before he
snuffed out Lei's wasteful life.
The corners of his mouth rose minutely as he considered why he chose
this magical village, this site for this confrontation. This was the site that
Hannibal, Carthage's greatest hero, had lost his last elephant of his army,
a death that symbolised the futility and disastrous outcome of his defeat
on his march to Rome.
Where Hannibal failed, he would succeed and where else but here would
it be fitting for their giant, their last giant, their only giant to be slain at
this historical site?
Cullaica's wand slid into his hand, the thorny edges of his wand sinking
into his scarred palm with familiar sting as the wood creaked under the
pressure of his hand.
Just as blood dripped out of his wounds, his magic began to eke out of its
chaotic cage like toxic fumes from the caldera of a volcano.
"Rex…Rex…Rex…" Cullaica muttered before he glanced over his
shoulder.
"Activate the Seal of Solomon" Cullaica commanded, his semi-permanent
grin fading as away and the skin of his face formed into pale
faultlessness, his mauve eyes aglow with chaotic power.
Once upon a time, two thousand years ago, the Seal of Solomon would be
used to against the marauding Nabataean magical tribes in Petra, Jordan,
in a victory that would eventual lead to their submission to the warmages
of Rome.
Today, it would hail the end of the last remnants of proud, proud Rome.
"As you command." The disciple bowed before retreating away into the
faceless masses of the other disciples whose music of obedience was a
vibrato to his rising orchestra.
Cullaica turned back towards the waiting blips, their patience wearing
thinner as endless time ticked away despite their beliefs that they had
him cornered and at their mercy with twice the forces and equal numbers
of Archmages.
The music that ticked at the back of his mind grew louder, the Latin
words of wailing women more desperate, more haunting and forever
more beautiful and he stepped forward of his men, his hum stretching the
note of the masterpiece as he raised his arms high and wide, as if to
beckon them forth, to him and finally, finally, they began to move
towards him like stampeding bison.
A quarter of his disciples moved as well, running passed him with a silent
battle cry willingly to their deaths and the very sight shook his heart with
quaking delight.
"Lacrimosa dies illa, Qua resurget ex favilla" he muttered in a sing song
voice, all levity gone from his voice as reality began to shriek in beautiful
agony, waves of power began to turmoil around him, waves of power
that scythed through reality around him as if were wheat and barley in a
golden field.
As cyan tendrils of magic began to boil off of him, his finger played with
the signet ring on his hand, the ancient ring that worked in tandem with
the long thought destroyed Seal of Solomon artefact that could lock an
entire city of magicals from escaping its confines, the same magic that
inspired modern confinement wards.
CRACKKKKK
His finger broke as he pressed down on it, the brief but sharp ache made
his magic quiver in tremulous glee and just as the first spells were fired,
beautiful in their flashes of light and murderous intent, he intoned
"Confinio", the word of power pulsing into the ether of magic and he felt
the very structures of the ether shift.
An ethereal hexagram encircled the battlefield, a hexagram of cerulean
hue that gonged with an awful clang that sent a beautiful discordant note
into the ether of magic, a note that elicited shudders within the very core
of one's being.
Their enemies realised the trap that was sprung on them and the men on
brooms that hovered about like pesky flies raced towards his disciples,
towards him, and Cullaica's hum rose in volume, his hum vibrating much
like his magic quivered with chaotic frequency as Li Lei flew into the sky
riding a spiralling ball made out of air and darted towards him with
magic rippling out of him with increasing power.
'Not yet, my trophy, not yet' Cullaica thought with a bright gleam in his
eyes as he sensed the furnace of power emanating from Li Lei grow with
each passing moment.
His wand arm, slack and loose, rose with lazy motion yet burned with
intent as the tendrils of his magic began to rise into the sky before it was
stood akin to a lighthouse at the top of jagged cliff with murderous
waters roiling and crashing below.
Cullaica spared a symbolic glance to the sky, his mauve eyes gleaming
with hungry provocation. 'I hope you're watching, Heirs to Atlantis' he
thought to himself as he prepared himself for modified spell that took
him and the Raven years to alter so that it was speedier at the cost of
power.
He raised his thorny blood soaked wand above him, the tip of his wand
glowing an ethereal silver glow, an unwanted light that chased away the
beautiful and seductive abyss.
As Li Lei increased his speed with frantic desperation as he recognised
the very spell that was forming, Cullaica's magic rose in crescendo, the
density of the air increasing as magic soaked into it, his chaotic magic,
his destructive magic, and a familiar silver circlet of hell formed above
him.
As his disciples behind him ran forwards towards Li Lei, acid green spells
springing forth from their wands, the very earth around him began to
writhe into pained starvation, the once lush green grass around him
turning brown before blackening as cyan tendrils of his magic lanced into
it whilst he whirled his wand above his head in a wide unending loop
that widened with each pass, with each completed circuit.
Wisps of ethereal silver exuded from his wand and latched onto the
circlet in a spiral form, empowering it, feeding it and it grew and grew
until it formed into an oblong disk of silver white, its radiant glow
casting a massive light onto the world below before it twisted and stood
vertically, its long surface angled towards his enemies.
Enemies who realised with terrified horror of what he was about to cast,
but it was too late, just as Lei was too late as his disciples delayed him
just long enough and Cullaica began to sing the song of the army killer
"wishuea I o meniayashi luosh fasha cindiok FUIIIE"
Li Lei's horrified face was stuck on his face as he stopped in the air as if
he met a sudden and unstoppable wall when the very world shifted
around the words of power, words that enacted something that could not
be stopped, that would not be stopped, and Lei realized it moments before
he twisted a golden violet shield around him and darted away with
blistering speed when the ethereal disk that had been emitting waves
upon waves of silver white energy stopped.
Cullaica's eyes darkened just as the disk's surface warped into a void of
absolute blackness, a void that was bereft of warmth and light, a vessel of
the abyss just as Cullaica was a vessel of the chaos that belonged within
that bottomless darkness.
The whine that cracked through the air, through reality, was deafening in
its jagged gluttonous disharmony and the terrified terror that soaked
through the ICW and Italian forces palpable cracked through the screen
of disharmony like honey leaking out of its honeycomb confines.
"Ioshi yelmanush, gartush" the world shifted once more, the whining
sounds that emanated from the pitch black disk stilled the very air, a
chasm of desolate un-wind hung in the air and it was akin to poisonous
paralysing fumes and in that half moment, thousands of silver black rocks
spewed from the disk in dizzying speeds blotting out the shy sun with
their sheer number and Cullaica's plasticine face melted in a
contemptuous grin made out of delight when they smashed into the
opposing army and his men with uncaring lack of prejudice.
The very earth shook, rumbling, ebbing and flowing as if it was a
turbulent sea with each single strike, the howling screams and broken
shouts a choir to the orchestra of destruction that sliced through earth
and rock as easily as hot knives through flesh.
When the spell petered out, the dust settled and small craters painted the
torn apart earth, and he saw that only half of the thousand plus strong
army were still alive with none of the men on brooms still bothering the
skies as they had done before.
"Go." Cullaica commanded of his disciples to deal with the remnants of
the ICW and Italian forces all while his eyes searched out in the orange
and brown hued skies filled with dust and debris and his mauve glowing
eyes began to gleam with unkindness when he felt the twitch of Li Lei's
magic.
Cullaica form below his waist began to twist and contort into an
undulating black smoke before he jetted off into the sky towards Li Lei, a
hungry, ravenous grin adorned on his face as he split the dust clouds with
his speed.
Li Lei was unharmed, his loose dress fluttered in the wind, and he shone
like a vengeful angel with the way his serene magic furiously ebbed out
of him, an ebbing that slackened the control which with Lei had before
strummed with and in its stead, when Lei saw Cullaica, an organ blazed
out in full volume, his magic whipping around him with the furious
power of a tsunami.
A tsunami of magic that seemed to double in intensity with each passing
second, the very air crackling with the amount of magic that exuded out
of Li Lei. Li Lei's face was stony, an unfailing mask, but his glowing dark
eyes could not hide the malice and hatred he felt for Culliaca.
For a moment, time seemed to pause as their gaze met, cold glowing
mauve eyes meeting contempt-filled dark ones, and an understanding
passed between them, an understanding that seeped within the cracks of
their souls, an understanding that made it clear only one of them would
survive this encounter.
The moment passed, time resumed and Li Lei's arms were a blur as the
very air around him altered, air that began to glimmer and howl as it
formed into half arc blades.
Hundreds of blades began to circle around Lei as Cullaica closed the
distance and snapped his wand forward, ahead of him, the tip of his
wand crackling with sickly yellow magic waiting obediently to spring
free and unleash an intro of spells.
The spiral of blades streamed forward towards Cullaica, the very air
whistled around the pressurised blades, and Cullaica unleashed the sickly
spell, Cume Thoden, a dark super-heated whirlwind spell that could melt
skin as easily as it could shear it off.
A brilliant explosion painted the space between them, licks of hot air
touched his skin as he flew forward towards Li Lei who'd also moved
with vengeful speed.
Li Lei lanced his arm forward, the palm of his hand perpendicular to his
arm and a wave a hundred meters wide and tall of cursed ice surged from
the centre of Lei's palm towards Cullaica, a surge that tore through the
air with the power and force of torrential rivers during the height of
monsoon.
Cullaica knew he couldn't twist out of it in time and didn't try to as he
slashed his wand around him with blinding speed, arcs of glowing,
crackling cyan strands of magic formed around him like steel wires of a
bird's cage, the smell of burning ozone and the sensation of bone burning
heat flashed over him before he drew back his wand, the cyan strands
latching onto his wand like iron dust to a magnet.
As the wave of cursed ice approached him, mere seconds away from
crashing into him, he swept his wand forward and unleashed the
crackling free-form magic towards the cursed ice, the burning electric
strands of magic sizzling through the air until it crashed into the
torrential ice, steam erupting as two streams of magic met.
Chunks of cursed ice broke free as the two spells battled for dominance,
Cullaica's wand arm shaking as he poured in more power into his free
form magic, chunks the size of horse-carriages rained down towards the
battle that roared below.
With a snarl, Cullaica pushed more magic into his wand, his wand
vibrating with the sheer volume of magic that it was channelling, and
four, eight, sixteen, two hundred and fifty six additional strands poured
out of his wand and veered beyond the titanic clash of magic that hung
in the space between himself and Lei.
Lei wasn't idle either, the cursed ice broke into a million pieces,
thousands of shrapnel were sent careening into his direction but Cullaica
drew back his wand and shoved it forward, dozens of cyan strands
weaving through the air to strike down each cursed shrapnel.
The strands were only partially successful and Cullaica was forced to
shield against the shrapnel made out of cursed ice which peppered his
shield with violent speed. He could feel his shield strain against the
cursed ice, ice that he now sensed could eat through his skin and burn
bone. 'How delightfully violent' he mused for a second.
Whilst Cullaica shielded against the shrapnel, Lei evaded the eviscerating
strands of magic he'd sent to the Chinaman before Lei stopped and
unleashed an explosion of pressurised air that tore through the strands
like flesh would under the jaws of sharks.
Lei's arms swept in front of him, his arms moving in intricate motions
and Cullaica's hairs stood roughshod upward as he felt the pressure of the
air around him drop rapidly. Cullaica didn't stand still to wait for Lei and
the battle began in earnest as both of them unleashed a hail of spells,
violent and furious spells.
Cullaica's wand was a blur in motion, the tip of his wand sizzling and
crackling with spells that could tear and rip and melt away even
enchanted goblin silver whilst Li Lei churned out elemental spell after
elemental spell in their dance of death.
As they battled in beautiful, gloriously chaotic battle, they rose and rose
further into the sky, the clouds and atmosphere shifting ever so slowly as
their furious magic began to alter the composition of the environment
around them.
The clouds darkened, light from the shy sun was filtered out from all
sight as the magic both Archmages cast turned more violent, more
primal, instincts set loose from the cages of restraint, and the air chilled
to arctic temperatures as Li Lei turned into the very symbol of nature's
fury.
Veins of lightning formed in the dark, almost black clouds and Li Lei
swept and weaved his arms like a snake charmer before he made moves
to direct the shower of lightning towards Cullaica.
Cullaica cut his wand across above his head, blocks of impervious stone
was conjured out of thin air and he was peppered with shards of stone as
streams of lightning struck down at him and when the lightning stopped,
Cullaica circled his wand around in small tight loops, the shards of stone
thinning, sharpening after which Cullaica twisted his wand and
enchanting the daggers of stone with a flesh eating curse before Cullaica
jabbed his wand forward, the hundreds of daggers hurdling forward with
blistering speed.
Cullaica wasn't done however, and he widened his arms, the depths of his
chaotic magic unfurling in totality as he shone like a cyan star amidst the
black clouds, his magic humming with the march of lamenting music.
Li Lei wasn't idle either and shifted into another stance, his arms wide
and motioned into forming a round circle in front of him. Thick,
monstrously large chains of metal began to be conjured around him,
chains that bore magma-esque thorns that steamed under the presence of
the wet air, circling around him like two great predators circling around
each other in the few moments before a fight of dominance ensued.
As the daggers neared Li Lei, he brought his hands close to each other
and after a half a second passed, he clapped his hands together, the
sound of his clap impossibly reverberating through the air with the
strength of a hawk's cry, and the chains of yellow silver metal shot
forward, the sounds of its clanging metal a haunting sound of death.
The chains ripped through Cullaica's daggers, not that Cullaica expected
any different, and Cullaica languidly drew his wand perpendicular to his
body, the maelstrom of magic that raged around him rising in crescendo,
higher and higher, until he simply uttered one phrase "Ardeo Atrum".
For a moment, his cyan magic dimmed, the world around him matched
the same hue as the dark clouds above him, as if colour and warmth was
sucked out of existence, until he flared with sickening brilliance and a
blue black spell in conical shape of massive proportions shot of the tip of
his wand.
The air crackled and popped and sizzled, a roaring blaze echoed with
unimaginable fierceness as hell fire howled towards the fast approaching
deathly chains, chains that were subsumed as the two forms of magic
met.
The chains continued on their path as it was subsumed by the hell fire
yet its speed slowed, more and more, and the roaring blaze deepened in
volume as Cullaica increased the temperature of his spell with a biting
snarl.
It was enough as the solidity of the chains began to fade and drops of
molten metal began to drip towards the battlefield below until a few of
those drops stopped falling and hovered into the air. Ten, a hundred, a
thousand, ten thousand drops of metals hovered before they shot towards
him with maddened speed.
Cullaica stopped the hell fire and moved to defend himself with Recutio, a
shield that could deflect anything save for the Unforgivables and the
molten drops of cursed metal clanged against his shield, veering off into
every vector though Cullaica wasn't satisfied with that and he raised his
left hand in a claw like gesture and invisible tendrils of magic latched
onto to a few of the molten pieces before he, with a vicious snarl, jabbed
his claw-like hands forward and sent them careening towards Li Lei who
was conjuring a hail storm of ice around him.
The assault of the molten droplets of metal stopped and the few pieces
Cullaica sent forward did nothing to stop Li Lei's next move.
The dark clouds turned abyssal black, resembling a night sky without
there ever being hints of stars with only a few streaks of lightening
rippling through the black clouds breaking the beautiful monotony of
darkness, of nothingness, and eerie thunder boomed and clapped with
deafening strength, torrential rain began to pour down in non-linear
fashion as howls of winds sheared in every and any direction.
Cullaica's grin was ugly in delight.
Li Lei stood serene even as his magic was thrown into a frenzy of chaos,
fist sized blocks of ice danced around his form like a swarm of fruit flies.
Cullaica flashed a hungry smile as he slowly brought his wand to bear,
his robes fluttering in the chaotic atmosphere and Li Lei took that as a
foolish confirmation that the battle was to continue and that it did.
Cullaica's laughter was an abhorrent, wretched sound as terrifying salvos
of magic were thrown around in careless and unceasing abandon. The
very world shook with each spell and every free form magic that was
made to flash into existence, reality itself was being torn asunder as
streaks of magic lingered longer than they ought to, otherworldly streaks
that opened momentary windows into the great ether of magic.
He lived for this, all the pain, the suffering he endured and enticed others
endure with him, all of it was worth it for just this moment, this moment
of pure magic.
The sky shimmered in agony as the world was made into an ode of their
battle, of their duet, great and terrible magic that wreaked and tore with
awe inspiring power and the world shook with every note of their
brilliance and in his appreciation of the madness, he was caught off
guard and was hit on his right side, his arm slashed off as he was cast
down in a blast of ice and he fell violently, aimlessly like a vulture with a
torn wing.
Cullaica summoned his wand from his torn arm and managed to catch it
with his remaining hand as he tumbled downward and as the ground
approached, blood spewing from the stub just under his shoulder, the
pain that throbbed nothing but a dull ache that could never compare to
the pain he felt daily in their old sweet home, he somersaulted moments
before he crashed into the ground and met the ground with both of his
feet with a heavy thud before he created a swirling golden shield that
whined and whizzed with furious power.
It was a good thing too as spears made out of solid fire smacked into his
shield within moments of erecting it and Cullacia grinned like a madman,
his magic vibrating with an impatient thrum. Yes…there would be no
mercy, no surrender, he thought with delirious joy, his face tightening as
tumorous growth burbled from the stub, a blob of pale mass rippling out
of the open wound before the mass slightly lengthened, undulating all the
while, before a brand new arm splashed out from the blob of mass.
Cullaica didn't have a moment to enjoy the new arm when he sensed
magic emanating from below him and it was moments after he dashed
away that the ground where he once stood melted away like candlewax
before burbling like boiling water.
Cullaica slashed his wand and a violent stream of water spewed forward
towards to the massive hand made of magma that surged out from the
liquid pool of molten earth.
Water and magma smashed into each other and steam smoked out and it
was then that he saw Li Lei racing towards him with serpents made out
of stone spiralling around his form, his hands aglow with violet orange
hues and Cullaica's grin widened ever more greatly when he noted Li
Lei's look of surprise at his regrown arm.
Cullaica twisted his wand with blinding speed before he jabbed his wand
forward as he came to a stop, the ground terribly quaking before a
mountain sized boulder ripped from the ground towards Li Lei who
stopped and landed, his hands rising just as his magic rose in strength,
his dark eyes aglow with power as the boulder raced towards to the
Chinaman.
Li Lei raised his hands, his fingers bending before he dashed them
forward and the boulder stopped and it hung in the air for a fraction of a
second before it was transfigured into millions of petals of flowers yet Li
Lei was not done, no, his hands moved with inhuman speed and the
petals of flowers creaked as they were turned into ice that began to glow
a poisonous green.
Cullaica didn't wait for the spell to finish and flew forward, his body
almost hugging the ruined terrain as he closed the distance between
himself and Li Lei.
With an almost lazy gesture, the shards of ice were sent flying towards
Cullaica and Cullaica twisted around in mid air, his wand moving quickly
in tight circles and strips of earth ripped out from the ground and began
to twist around Cullaica.
With another set of incredibly fast wand movements, the strips of earth
formed into a crystal clear dome with impenetrable strength against
anything but fire. His physical shield was bombarded with the shards of
ice yet as he approached Li Lei, the shards of ice, instead of bombarding
his dome began to envelop it.
Cullaica's eyes widened at the sound of his shield beginning to creak
under the weight of the ice shards that now formed a blanket over his
shield before he felt his momentum stop, as if something had gripped the
dome with immense strength, and now he was a prisoner encased in
poisonously green ice.
Cullaica gritted his teeth as he twirled his wand around him,
strengthening the dome with more magic yet he could feel the outside
layer of his dome cracking and breaking, the poisonous ice seeping into
his dome more and more, and he was forced to shrink the walls of his
dome to a smaller size to conserve the strength of the dome.
He knew was in trouble, deep trouble, and the thought of dying at the
hands of his trophy enraged him and he raged out, his voice turning
demonic as his cyan hued magic turned darker, more corrosive before he
exploded with unrestrained fury, the well of magic that was within him
shattering his dome and the prison made of ice with blind, breathless
power.
The very world around him was corroded with his power and as Li Lei
rushed forward towards with disgust and contempt etched on his face,
Cullaica's mad unravelling shattered even further, the trill of his corrosive
magic a song of lunacy.
Lances ripped out from the ground around him yet as soon as they
entered the sphere of corrosive magic, they shattered into specks of dust
and Cullaica, as he began to walk slowly, deliberately, towards the
incoming Li Lei, flashed his wand with blurring speed as a torrent of
spells crackled from the tip of his wand, each spell cast with such power
that created an aftershock as it ripped out from his wand.
Li Lei was a blur in motion, skirting and dashing out of the way all while
elemental magic of unforeseen power was strewn around, defensive and
offensive, and he matched Cullaica with stride with stride, with spell
with element, each of them hurling village destroying levels of magic at
each other until Li Lei managed to find a moment, the very eye of the
needle.
Cullaica had to spin around, his body moving without thought as he
danced his way out of the slashes made of out impossibly dense air that
could cut through any known materials.
The slashes gouged through the earth behind him for an untold distance
and Cullaica brought his wand to bear, the world dulled into nothingness
as deafening crackling spun out of the tip of his wand, Mortalitia Caliga, a
spell that shot out a mist of acid with no counter curse, which caught Li
Lei in surprise as he hadn't expected Cullaica to evade his spell nor the
fraction of a second later spell that was racing towards him.
Cullaica didn't stop there, his wand moving from once more, the tip of his
wand jerking upward as vines grew out of the area surrounding Li Lei
though he left them buried. Li Lei clapped and generated a shield made
out of euphorically blue water which sizzled as it shielded him from the
acid before twisted his hands around and the shield that protected him
formed into a hail storm, the uniform shield breaking into rain drops that
glowed an ethereal below before Li Lei jabbed his hands forward and the
drops raced forward like bullets that seemed to burn the air.
Cullaica drew back his wand and with a roar swept his wand diagonally,
webs of otherworldly glowing lines streamed forward from his wand
before linking up to form into a solid cage and with a flourishing twist of
the wrist, he cast it forward.
The bullet fast drops of ethereal water hit the cage yet it could do
nothing as it splashed harmlessly against the cage and it continued onto
its path towards Li Lei whose face was etched in surprise before he got
into another stance and kicked forward, the ground rumbling before a
column of black stone shot towards the cage.
And as the black column met the cage, it broke apart in a gruelling
explosion, the cage continuing onto its path towards Li Lei.
Li Lei darted to the left with blinding speed, his elemental powers
helping him to move past human speeds, yet the cage followed him
everywhere he went and Cullaica turned the palm of his left hand
upward, his mauve eyes hard in concentration as a javelin was
wandlessly conjured above his head.
Li Lei's expression twisted into a snarl as he released he would need to
stop and act and that's what he did before he contorted his body and
jumped into the air, his left hand clenching at his right wrist and a beam
of magic exploded from the centre of his palm, a violet orange lancing
beam that shook the very ground they stood on.
It smashed into the cage and its movement was stopped as it struggled
against the pure violent stream of magic and it wasn't long before cracks
began to appear on the surface of the cage. Cullaica scowled before he
jerked his left hand and sent the javelin flying. The spell for that cage,
Cavea, was meant to be immune to nearly all forms of magic excepting
magic-eating spells like Fiendfyre yet he watched on as that beam of
magic finally tore through the cage.
Li Lei moved his head to the left and the javelin moved past his head and
the magic around Li Lei grew thicker, denser, more violent, winds of
crackling magic danced around him as Li Lei seem to distorted before he
moved.
Cullaica's eyes widened dramatically as Li Lei closed the distance
between in the space of a second and Cullaica was forced to churn out
spell after spell to stop Li Lei from closing the distance yet it was proving
to be more difficult than he anticipated as Li Lei continued to approach
him.
Li Lei was spinning, twisting, jumping, his body seemed to move free
from the ground at will, as if gravity could hold no command over him,
his dexterity and nimbleness made him akin to an eel, slippery, far too
slippery and it was when Li Lei was less than ten paces away that Li Lei's
eyes flashed with a blinding glow, the world shifting as ropes made of
iridescent violet magic was thrown towards Cullaica and he just about
managed to fire away a whip of cursed fire that smacked into the violet
ropes.
An explosion rippled through the distance between them and Cullaica
was thrown off of his feet though he spun himself upright and just in time
too as the same beam of violet orange light raced towards him.
Cullaica snarled and whipped around him a golden shield, Fortis Aegis,
and his shield clang as the whizzing beam smacked into his shield.
His eyes widened when cracks formed in his shield and he dropped it and
twisted around all while side stepping the beam before he snapped of his
wand and a sickly brown spell fizzed out of his wand, Exosso, a bone
eating curse, that Li Lei evaded with ease before the Chinaman once
more closed the gap.
Cullaica's mauve eyes glowed murderously as he snarled, his arms raising
upward, and hundreds of stone arms rose from the ground to seize Li Lei.
Li Lei darted around, evading the grasping stone hands before he swept
his arm across and a blade of super-condensed air cut the stone arms to
pieces.
Cullaica hadn't stopped when he raised the stone arms, his magic rising
as cyan tendrils began to turmoil around him and he snarled viciously as
thousands of points of lights began to surround both of them in a dome
like encirclement and with a jab, the points of lights shot down towards
Li Lei with a maddening wiring sound.
Li Lei knew he couldn't evade this time and instead, once more smacked
his hands together to create a massive pressure differential that warped
even light, the knives made of out light bending around the font of air
that Li Lei made and a gap formed that Li Lei sprinted out from towards
Cullaica.
Spell after spell was fired at the zig-zagging form of Li Lei, spells that
gouged and burnt and melted the ground from where Li Lei had stood
moments before and Cullaica felt a trickle of uncertainty as Li Lei began
to blur around Cullaica with a speed that he could only faintly see.
Cullaica barely managed to evade the lance made out of solidified fire yet
Lei's follow up strike as he jabbed his wand into Cullaica's mid rift was
unavoidable.
Cullaica was shot across the battlefield and he crashed into the ground
with a massive thud yet as he got back to his feet, he found Li Lei less
than three metres away from him with his hand outstretched, his thumb
and middle finger pressed against each other.
Li Lei's expression was cold, and he snapped his fingers and a deadly
shockwave rippled from his snap. Cullaica couldn't evade the ripple or
throw up a shield, he was too close.
He burst out into a haunting scream as deafening sound invaded his ears
and his magic grew uncontrollable, cyan tendrils of magic burst out of
him like a geyser that tore the immediate area around him asunder and
Li Lei was almost caught into before he jumped away in safety. The area
around Cullaica distorted, reality to seem to bend around his form as his
corrosive magic bled through the seams of reality.
Cullaica's strange bark made Li Lei, who was about to cast once more,
pause, a bark that turned into a depraved, unhinged laugher, a laughter
bereft of joy and warmth and had to shield himself as lances of pure
magic began to spew from Cullaica.
CRAACKKKKK
Cullaica's finger broke under his thumb.
"That…hurt." Cullaica's muttered as he looked at Li Lei with drooping
eyes. Nothing had hurt him like that in many, many years, he thought
darkly before his hands rose like a conductor about to move into the next
piece and his wand moved like a conductor's wand as he wrought
horrifying music onto the world.
Li Lei moving as he had always moved yet Cullaica could see that he was
having trouble dealing with the volume, speed and the wideness of the
spells that Cullaica was casting and it was at that moment that Cullaica
jerked his wand upward, vines that lay buried just below the surface
sprang forward and grabbed Li Lei's ankles a moment faster than he
realised and pulled him off balance.
It was at that moment that Cullaica whirled his wand faster than he'd
ever done before and twisted his wand around in an arc with blinding
speed, blobs of flesh pulling from his skin like spores from the hearts of
flowers under the gust of a strong wind, before he sent those spores,
those blobs forward in a maddening frenzy.
Cullaica's eyes gleamed as Li Lei freed himself from the vines, his once
untouched garments no longer blemish free, yet it was too late for him
now as his flesh blobs sunk into Li Lei's clothing and flesh, his desperation
tangible as he conjured blue flames to burn it off of him yet it wouldn't
work, not while Cullaica was feeding the blobs of flesh with magic and
conviction.
Li Lei finally made a sound and it was music to Cullaica's eyes, the sounds
of the pained gasp that rose into a desperate shriek as his flesh dug into
the Chinaman's flesh like moles dug into wet and soft earth.
Li Lei clawed at his body, his dress was torn off as his fingers desperately
tried to pull away his parasitic flesh but it was to no avail, his shrieks a
beautiful hook that he painstakingly fought hard to win.
Cullaica glanced around and realised that they were far from where they
started, and saw a farmhouse in the distance that very clearly had people
looking through their blinds. Cullaica sighed before he shook his head
and made his way towards Li Lei who was on his knees scratching at his
bare chest that was bleeding from the scratch marks that his fingers had
dug in.
He'd give the muggles a visit once he was done here. He'd need a bit of
time to unwind once he was done with his trophy. He hummed a jolly
song as he approached the archmage that admittedly gave him a better
fight than he thought he'd get.
Had the Chinaman been a bit smarter, Cullaica didn't think he'd win, not
with how fast Li Lei was. "Ah, Li-Li-Lay, you look a little ill, are you a-o-
kay?" he sing-songed in English as he crouched down to Li Lei's breaking
form.
Li Lei didn't respond, his entire being occupied by the pain that his flesh
was wreaking onto Li Lei's body. Cullaica stared at Li Lei, his mauve eyes
gleaming with contempt. When he designed and created that spell, it had
been meant to emulate the treatment they put him under. A treatment he
had to suffer every morning from six till eight. Not only did it turn one's
body against itself, it also turned very magic against you.
"Pitiful." Cullaica spat out as he stared hatefully at Li Lei who was
breaking right before his eyes and it hadn't even been five minutes since
he was put under the spell.
With a lazy slash, his spell decapitated Li Lei and blood spewed from
Chinaman's neck. He raised his hand and the head with a face fixed in
agony fell into his hand and Cullaica turned his gaze towards the body
and watched until the blood petered out into nothing when Li Lei's heart
stopped pumping.
With a bored jab a stream of dragon-fire spewed from his wand until it
burnt the body into ash. He turned his attentions towards Li Lei's head
and angled the head towards him. "Did you have fun?" he asked Li Lei
and he made the head bob.
"Good, good" Cullaica cooed before he brought the head to his face and
pressed a warm kiss on Li Lei's forehead. A grin plastered itself onto his
face.
"Thank you for the fight. You've shown me that I have much to do."
He'd thought that lasting as long as he did against his friend was
impressive enough but he realised now that he'd have to improve a hell
of a lot more if he wished to be able to make more trophies. "Anywho…"
Cullaica stretched out as he cast his gaze towards the muggle house, a
grin returning on his face. "Let's go visit our muggle voyeurs, shall we?"
he asked his trophy with excitement tinging his voice.
The disciples could spare him for an hour or two, he'd decided. He began
to whistle a jaunty tune as he threw Li Lei's head up and down as he
made his way towards the muggles.
-Break-
Slipspace
He was adrift, lost to the turbulent eddies of his surroundings, his being
akin to stardust amidst clouds of gasses on the precipice of igniting into
new born stars.
A kaleidoscope of magic tumbled and wreaked and sheared around him
in this gestalt of magic, currents of magic that bore infinite depth and
infinite range roared past him, through him, with him, slivers of its touch
influencing entire star clusters as easily as the warmth of the sun
influenced the weather system of planets.
He was insignificant, a fraction of a fraction of a millionth yet he was as
important as the whole infinite gestalt of magic that swam throughout
the cosmos with infinite scope and infinite speed. The whole was never a
whole without its infinite pieces of stardust, its seedlings that carried its
fire and its starlight to distant and dark corners.
His magic, unfurled and unbound in totality, flickered and shimmered
like the strung string of a tightly spin instrument as he rode through the
dense nebulae cluster of magic, his magic remaining diffused and
connected with the rivers of magic despite the jarring harmony that was
enshrined into existence.
It was different, this chaotic harmony that he had grown accustomed to
in these months of travel. Where before, on Earth, it felt as if there was
peace pouring into porous bones when he connected to the magic of the
universe, to the currents of neurophysical energy that permeated the
universe, here, in this in-between-space, this thin dimensional film of
physical reality, it was akin to be being a seedling, a spore unfortunate
enough to be caught in the fury of a Cat 5 hurricane that could shear skin
and flesh from bone.
The first time had been a shock, as if he had been doused in gasoline and
set on fire.
In slipspace, magic, neurophysical energy, felt more potent, more wild, as
if there were layers to magic itself that were undefined and unseen in
conventional space.
He'd pondered on it for the past few months, meditating sometimes days
on end, and he thought he was arriving to a solid conclusion.
Slipspace was a bundle of non-dimensions above the plane of
conventional space, a thin film of reality much like Natal Void and Shun-
space were, but it was still part of the physical reality only physics
behaved differently.
Neurophysical energy, magic, was constant in the physical reality but
there were pockets of regions where it was stronger.
Like intersections of universal leylines or planets, where life was
abundant causing a feedback loop of strengthening both life and magic,
and Atticus was beginning to believe that there was a tangible link
between slipspace and universal leylines.
Why did multiple universal leylines intersect at the Celestis system and in
other places in the galaxy? Why was there such disparity in universal
leylines in the first place? There were some universal leylines that were
significantly stronger than others whilst there were others that were
practically non-existent with how weak they were – they'd found that out
when they had been trying, years ago, to find a way to send messages to
and fro Earth.
They had many such questions because they knew that leylines could
move.
At least on planetary scale.
On Earth, the first wizarding communities post-Atlantis found themselves
capable of altering the path of leylines, an ability that was more or less
lost over time, often because of hubris but nonetheless, they had been
capable of it. The Celtic tribes, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the proto-
Chinese and a host of other ancient magical tribes all dabbled in the
kinds of magicks that could affect leylines.
The end of the Ice Age through an obscenely powerful ritual, the
destruction of the leylines of Thebes and the realigned leylines of the
ruins of Old Babylon were all such proof that leylines, in the right
circumstances, could be altered…or destroyed.
…why wouldn't that be possible for universal leylines?
His current thinking was that slipspace topographical features had an
influence on the potency of magic and universal leylines. Distance
between point A to point B could not be measured by distance when
traveling through slipspace, no, it was far more complicated than that.
The dimensional plane of slipspace was uneven, with peaks and valleys
that resembled the surface of metals under microscope, and that was why
travel between point A to point C could be quicker than A to B despite
the distance being greater in conventional space.
Topographical features may well explain the path of leylines through a
link in this phenomenon but he doubted he'd figure out the full answer
any time soon.
For now
His mind went back into inaction as he let himself sail across the potent
streams of magic that traversed this region of slipspace, his body only
moving in line with his slow but rhythmic breathing as he sat in a lotus
potion.
As chaotic as it was, he could never tire from being part of the whole.
His magic, unfurled and unbound as it was, swirled around him in
volumes that defied belief, ebbing and flowing like tides on coasts that
stretched for thousands miles, even as he was connected to the magic of
the universe.
At the back of his mind, at the edges of his consciousness, at the edges of
his field of perception, the immediate futures of countless timelines
scratched at him, mists, shades of people and events and places collapsed
into indiscernibility yet he paid it no mind, letting it flow past him as he
lost himself to the flowing tides of magic.
He wasn't sure how long it had been but he felt something stirring from
below him and something lick at his face. He dialled his mind back into
focus.
`Master, there is someone coming. Your youngling` Seraya's soft sibilant hiss
remarked and Atticus realised that it was likely hours, perhaps days since
he last left Seraya's den. He drew back from his connection to the magic
that permeated all throughout slipspace and began to draw back more of
his unbound magic into himself, an act that caused Seraya to hiss out in a
displeased and petulant tone.
Atticus reopened his two white glowing orbs that accompanied the swirls
of profound magic that radiated out from him like a solar furnace. He
could see and touch the currents of magics that were like glowing laces of
silks, silk laces that licked and sewn and penetrated every inch of
existence.
It took a little while longer for him to pull back all of his magic, back into
his cage of control and when he did, the strands and wisps of magic were
reduced back into a faint ethereal state in his field of perception, a state
that let him perceive but unable to directly affect it all.
`Are you sure I cannot harm him with my gaze` Seraya asked irritated.
Atticus smiled, his hands that were sat on his knees moving to either side
of him and he caressed the smooth but hard scales of Seraya, an act that
seemed to reduce the swelling irritation she'd felt. `I am sure. Please keep
your eyes closed, Seraya. I am quite fond of my protégé`
Seraya's hiss sounded agitated `This one interrupts too often. Your mate
should give you better younglings. At least their rudeness I could tolerate`
Atticus' eyebrows rose `You'd tolerate my younglings interrupting us?` he
asked sceptically. Seraya's noncommittal hiss was all the answer he
needed.
Atticus flicked his hand and the stopwatch that he'd made flew towards
him. His eyes widened slightly…ah, of course Gaius would come. He'd
been away for the last two days. Longer than usual, he mused to himself
before he shook his head clear.
Whenever he was in a meditative state, his lack of need to sleep for
weeks at a time made him far more susceptible to simple drift off days at
a time. Without Emily or any of his typical responsibilities on Illos
needing him, he was quite content to let it happen too. The journey to
Celestis was long and there was little to do after all.
Gaius arrived wearing black sun glasses, refractory glasses that shielded
people from the direct gaze of basilisks. Atticus smiled a little amused at
Gaius. He looked ridiculous but to be fair, it was probably for the best.
Seraya wouldn't disobey him but he also knew she was far from a tame
being. She had apex instincts after all.
"Gaius" Atticus greeted curiously as he leapt off of Seraya's back with
effortless smoothness and made his way towards his protégé. Gaius had
largely stayed on his ship after the last break in their journey, the longest
they'd been around each other since before he'd left for the Celestis
system. In truth, Atticus was quite glad for it.
Gaius was as close to a son he'd had.
Seraya's head rose and she hissed slightly which caused Gaius step back a
little.
"Are you sure she isn't your familiar?" Gaius asked sceptically as he
opened up his body slightly, an act that made it clear that he was
readying himself to defend himself if he had to.
"Quite." Atticus said with a faint smile. "She's just a little possessive of
me."
And he didn't mind it all that much. It was true that Fila wasn't that
possessive in comparison to Seraya but then he attributed that mostly to
Seraya's need for human companionship after centuries of loneliness. And
of course Fila showing any kind of possessiveness was beneath her,
Atticus thought with deep sense of amusement.
"Sure…a little." Gaius muttered and Atticus laughed before he gestured
Gaius to follow him. Seraya's habitat was more or less bare excepting for
a rocky hill with small flat outcrop of plains that she could use to stretch
herself out. The weather was about thirty-five degrees Celsius and rarely
hovered below it.
Atticus, with almost no effort, thought strands of leather into existence
around his feet and wrapped themselves around his feet before melding
into boots.
His loose fitting Losi was transfigured into the formal navy attire for the
burgeoning Illosian navy, a black outfit with lines of purple and dark
green on his sides.
After they made it out of the huge doors of Seraya's habitat, they made it
to the cavernous bay, a bay that stretched for miles and was at least a
mile in height.
Habitats, equipment and disassembled machinery, vehicles and facilities
were all located in this spatially expanded cargo bay.
The Hecate was only two kilometres in length but they certainly made
plenty of use of spatial charms and runes to make full use of the ship.
"Everything running smoothly?" Atticus asked as they walked towards
one of the Hub-Ports that would allow them to travel to different decks
or areas of the ship.
"Yes." Gaius commented "Everything is the same as it was two days ago,
sir." Gaius glanced at Atticus "I just thought you might have been..."
"'Lost to whimsy of magic?'" Atticus quoted with the corners of his mouth
curling upward. Gaius winced, a look of regret but also abashment
splashed across his face.
Gaius had uttered those words during an argument they had a number of
weeks ago. It had mortified Gaius. Teasing the young man, who rarely
allowed much opportunity for teasing, with those words was quite fun…
and there was also a point to it. Gaius' reverence for him was, in Atticus'
opinion, far too strong.
He wanted the young man to know and see his flaws, that he wasn't
perfect nor incapable of mistakes. Even the supposedly greatest of men
and women were flawed beings. He was most certainly no exception.
"Well" Atticus continued, deciding to move past Gaius' unfiltered words
that he'd thrown back to his protégé. "It's been a while since we reviewed
the schematics for the star-base." Atticus paused for a moment, his mind
whirling towards the star-base that would start construction.
"I have some ideas of improvements." Atticus eyed his protégé as they
neared the Hub-Port. Gaius' eyes lit up in excitement and Atticus resisted
the urge to smile.
"Great" Gaius enthused before he spoke again quickly "I have a few ideas
myself…"
For the next hours both he and Gaius reviewed the schematics of the star-
base and spent a chunk of that time discussing Atticus' idea of Energetic
Amplification, a methodology that would take energy and run it through
a matrix field that would amplify the subatomic resonance of energy that
reactors would generate which would cause a chain reaction multiplying
energy output exponentially if they were able to prove his theory out.
The idea seemed to excite Gaius who began to think of controlled
experiment setups and from there, their conversation turned to ideas and
they simply bounced off of each other, two eager minds that were very
much alike.
Time on the ship flew by as days became weeks, time marched on in its
ceaseless march and yet, before long, it was time as they finally neared
Celestis and Atticus sat in the captain's of the Hecate, the command ship
of the small fleet of four, with an almost child-like anticipation. They
were less than an hour away from Celestis.
Outwardly, of course, his expression was calm and authoritative but
inwardly?
He'd see the very world, worlds, with his own two eyes, he'd feel and
taste and smell the air of the worlds that were being crafted into
perfection, worlds that he'd only seen and felt in all too real dreams and
in visions that made him experiences those moments as if he was there.
But they were no substitute for physically being there.
To experience it with his body instead of just with his mind and his
magic.
For over thirty years, he dreamed of a spacefaring magical civilisation and
now that he was almost here, at their new home where his people would
leave a legacy that would span millions if not billions of years if he could
help it, it felt somehow somewhat surreal. It sounded odd, even to
himself, but it was what it felt like to him.
When they were minutes away from dropping out of slipspace Atticus
turned his gaze to the men and women operating their stations.
"Mr Caudex, open up the coms to the rest of the fleet." Atticus instructed.
"Aye, aye, your Grace." Caudex, the pilot of the Hecate when Atticus
wasn't taking control of the ship's movement, said. Gaius looked to him
with an understanding expression on his face.
Soon enough, they dropped out of slipspace in an area between Gribridis
and the Celestis version of the Kuiper Belt. The corners of his lips curled
upwards as he stared at the distant image of Gribidis, the blue-yellow gas
giant that looked like a marble ball.
A holo popped up that showed his connection to the rest of the fleet.
Atticus tapped on the holo and opened up the connection to the fleet so
that his announcement could be heard from every deck, quarter and
rooms.
"Ladies, gentlemen and magical beings" Atticus began as his words
permeated every deck and room of every ship within the fleet. His gaze
remained affixed on Gribidis, the largest gas giant of the two that resided
within Celestis.
"We have arrived at our final destination." Excited murmurs and muted
cheers rang around on the bridge and he knew that similar cheers were
being had.
"Our journey has not been easy." Atticus continued, the murmurs and
cheers dying away as people listened to him. The journey towards
Celestis had been fairly easy and generally speaking it had been more or
less problem free except for a few incidents like the Gallimimus dropping
out of slipspace suddenly a third way into their journey.
It was a little embarrassing that he never paid any attention to the
journey itself, only the outcome of it so they had to investigate the cause
of it all.
Granted, it was quickly resolved within a few days after he'd cycled
through time and timelines ending up finding the cause of the
intermittent power failure that tripped up the hard fail-safe protocols but
it was an error on his part that reminded him that he was not infallible.
A reminder he needed in the wake of his excitement over his lifelong
dream.
It took over two weeks to make sure that power system gap was fixed
and closed in all of the ships though it was clear that only the Phorcys,
the second Gradus class ship, was affected with the same issue as that of
the the Gallimimus.
But of course, he had to play up the difficulty and struggles they faced.
"Our ships broke down when we least expected them too and our journey
lengthened by a fifth as we reduced our speed for safety's sake." Atticus
turned his gaze towards the crew who were watching him and he offered
them a small smile.
"And despite all of the difficulties we have faced. Despite having to see
the same faces months on end" Atticus said with a light chuckle, a
chuckle that prompted others on the Bridge to join in "We have arrived
safely and whole! Congratulations!" Atticus said before he started off the
clapping and that sent the crew in loud cheers.
After his brief speech, Atticus instructed his crew to send communication
to their people still in the system. He had to smile at the eagerness of the
messages that they received back from their people.
Without the Gradus, travel between the worlds was lengthy, even for
fighter ships or the four man ships that they left behind.
Thankfully, most of their people were situated in the inner core of
Celestis, on the planets Yethea, Sentanis, Dagolia and of course Celestis,
where the worlds were either already comfortable for human habitation
or close to it.
The fleet cruised along the solar plane taking a scenic approach as they
vectored towards Gribidis and the two moons, Thinavis and Ibronides,
whose topographies were being altered through Emily's Terra-Alchemic
stones.
Atticus was silent as they flew by the gas giant and by Thinavis, Ibronides
and Drelater, another moon that would soon begin the Terra-Alchemy
process.
Gaius must have noticed his solemnity as he began to speak up amidst
the quietness atop the Bridge. "On Thinavis, the moon the size of Mars,
we found out some curious geological formations." Atticus turned his
gaze towards Gaius.
Gaius continued "Formations that were eerily similar to the Giant's
Causeway in Ireland." Atticus hummed for a moment. He'd read every
single report when the Gradus had returned, including the geological
reports on all of the prospective moons which added to the data he
already had from Moira.
Though he had to admit, he'd not paid too much attention to this
geological formation. It seemed unimportant, in the grand scheme of
things. He was more interested in the alteration of Sentanis, the rocky
savannah world with a natural gravity of twice that of Earth than he was
about geological formations of cold moons.
Still, it did peak his interest. The Giant's Causeway was an interesting
occurrence and a testament to nature's tendency towards stable
geometries despite violent origins. After all, the Causeway's formation
happened as a result of volcanic fissure eruptions and its lava rapidly
cooling resulting in contraction of the cooling basalt.
The horizontal contraction fractured and the cracks propagated
downward as the mass continued to cool and it left pillar like structures
behind that fascinated ancient and modern peoples alike.
"The size of the columns?" Atticus questioned intrigued.
Gaius smiled knowingly and waved his hand towards the space in front of
the captain's chair. A holo formed and Atticus leaned forward. He
whistled before he spoke "That is fascinating" he admitted.
The Giant's Causeway, as interesting as it was, was relatively small. Only
forty thousand interlocked basalt columns were all that remained.
The Causeway of Thinavis however…
Well for one thing it stretched for over three hundred miles and models
showed that it would remain above sea level by over two hundred metres
once the area was flooded due to warming.
"Will they be preserved through the alteration?" Atticus questioned as he
returned his gaze towards the moon that they were flying past.
"Yes." Gaius said with a smile before he shrugged "Some of the
researchers thought it would be wasteful to get rid of such unique
geological history and I agreed."
"Good." Atticus said before he leaned back and glanced at the basalt
columns. "I think it will be prudent to make it a doctrine…a doctrine of
preservation of as many unique features of our new worlds."
"Yes sir." Gaius said with a nod, a soft smile on his face as he also turned
towards the basalt columns "I quite agree with that. It is a fine honour to
give our new homes"
It was not long after that they made it past Gribidis and its many moon
though the Phorcys stayed behind whilst the rest of the ships moved
towards the inner planets.
Most of the people that were on the Phorcys were those specifically
assigned to making the moons of Gribidis – and later the moons of the
gas giant Eos – habitable.
The Phorcys would remain around Gibridis for most of the duration of the
trip and function as a mobile command post until the Starbase is built
and travel between the worlds was reduced to fractions of what it was
now.
It was only a few hours later that they arrived at Celestis and the world
did not disappoint. A beautiful, startling green world with mountainous
peaks that seemed to reach out from the atmosphere greeted him.
Thick blue river streams observable from orbit snaked through the
valleys of the mountains all the way down to seas of tall grass plains and
forests that stretched for thousands of miles out until the coastlines.
Atticus stood up from his chair and walked towards the bridge view
screen. He didn't need to stand up, he didn't need to move closer. Yet he
was still moved to do so.
In his past life, he'd seen a picture of Earth when he'd been about seven
years old. He'd seen a globe in class before but he hadn't seen a proper
picture of Earth until he'd seen it on the desk of the old lady that had
lived six doors down.
That picture, that high resolution picture of Earth, had been what
sparked his fascination with space. When he'd been reborn into this
world and all its wonder, what he had thought impossible became
nothing more than an obstacle to conquer.
He had the tools, the desire and the dreams to see it through and he had
achieved reaching space with only his mind, his magic and knowledge in
hand. He was the first modern human, muggle or magical, to reach space
at only age fifteen.
He remembered that feeling of awe, pride and reverence as if it happened
yesterday and as he gazed down at Celestis, those same feelings surged
within him with a tenfold strength.
"Your Grace?" Gaius' voice broke him out of his reverie. Atticus glanced
over his shoulder and saw the Bridge crew staring at him whilst Gaius
wore a concerned look on his face. Atticus let a genuine warm smile form
on his face.
Yet this instance was different. His achievement was not his own
achievement. This journey, all of this work, was not done solely with his
own hands.
No…he mused, as he stared at the faces of the committed and loyal crew,
his people, this was their achievement and that, Atticus thought, was what
made the feeling of awe, pride and reverence all that much stronger than
had been when he'd achieved spaceflight all on his own.
Days Later…
Atticus climbed up the last few hundred of metres of the mountain, his
hands gripping the ice cold jagged rocks, his feet pushing him forward.
He glanced upward and saw the pass that would lead him to the very top
of the mountain and he preserved as he pushed himself onward.
He could fly, of course but he had no desire to do so. As he aged, he
realised that there was a value in taking your time, to enjoy the journey
as much as reaching the destination itself would be enjoyable.
Finally, after about half an hour later, he reached the very peak of one of
the greatest mountain of Celestis, a mountain that stood even higher than
Mount Olympus of Mars at 26 kilometres high. There were a few other
mountains with peaks nearby that also were higher than the largest
mountain on Mars, including the one he was standing upon yet this one
was special.
He looked around, the ice touched peaks of the mountains gleamed under
the light of Celestis' sun and the curvature of Celestis was clear to see just
as the startling blue rivers that ran in the green valleys far below. And he
stared out into the distance, he could see far and wide that the greenery
of Celestis was unending from this spot, from this sight.
A lush, fertile world that was untouched and unbroken throughout the
ages.
This world was truly beautiful and it sang with magic, it truly did, and it
almost felt like home, as if there was a critical piece missing and the
feeling he got from Celestis itself was that the planet knew something was
missing. Celestis was alive, more so than Earth was, yet it was also less
alive than Earth for it was in a kind of sleep that it needed to wake from.
A sleep that it would soon be made to awaken from.
Atticus breathed in the frigid thin air, an act that was ornamental in truth
given that he was not breathing in the true air around this mountain as it
was too thin to breathe without assistance.
He dreamt of this place, of this spot.
He stared at the specific spot. It drew him in like a sailor to a Siren's call.
It was subtle, barely noticeable – in fact he'd only noticed as time neared
closer to his departure – a feeling that seemed heavily entwined with his
magic. He didn't understand it, in truth, and that was something that
shocked him more than anything else. More than the surprising discovery
he made about slipspace and magic.
Not even his visions could explain why this was so important. He knew
that he'd be here for the next few days locked in meditation but
afterwards? It was as if something changed, as if his entire perspective
changed. His future-self's actions remained as he'd always seen yet there
was something about him that fundamentally changed.
The feelings his future-self felt were strong, stronger than anything he'd
ever felt before. A determination that would put anything he ever strove
to fight for to shame.
Atticus grimaced as he turned his gaze away, the pull of the call growing
stronger as the time approached.
He had no idea what his future-Self had Seen to warrant such a change,
such fundamental change. Whilst he could see and feel what his future-
self would see and feel, he couldn't actually know what his future-self saw
in his visions.
And his future-self never spoke to anyone about it, not even Emily and it
made him wary about what he would See if he decided to go through
with what seemed to be a critical point in time.
Atticus sighed before smiling wryly and looked upward towards Dexirus.
There was no chance that he wouldn't traverse through Living Time as his
future-self had done.
He'd always wonder what if, he'd always think that he had missed
something far too important and he was certain that he would come to
regret it immediately if he did not do what he was almost meant to do. It
had the touch of a self-fulfilling prophecy and he allowed his wry smile
to twist in an ironic one before he shook his head and made his way
towards the spot.
For a moment, he simply stood before he crouched down and sat in a
lotus position.
Atticus closed his eyes and reality around him began to fade away like
paint washing away from a canvas as the portrait fell deeper into the
abyss of the deep blue sea.
Mists that bore a kaleidoscope of colour formed around his perception,
mists that hummed in sync with him as time dissociated itself from him.
Slowly, thousands of threads of Time began to take form within his
perception.
His conscious was unbound, free from Time itself as he stood as an
Observer amongst streams of timelines that he See and Experience.
He latched onto Celestis' frame of reference, his Sight and magic fixing
him onto the planet instead of experiencing his personal forays through
Living Time through his perspective or that of future-selves or those near
to him or his future-selves.
Streams of immediate futures flew past him, simultaneously, and his
consciousness began to explore and read and experience these threads of
timelines with eagerness.
The timelines were all the same for years to come, a few timelines
veering away from the most likely timeline as ships and vessels streamed
Celestis' sky in ever so slightly different paths or timeframes and he
watched as he felt the burgeoning nature magic of Celestis grow over
time, its sleepiness haze falling away as it rose awake with utter and total
magnificence.
He could feel the planet grow a kind of sentience over the years, the few
people that remained on Celestis never looked happier when they
stepped foot on the planet after being in space. Years passed as nothing
substantial changed for Celestis, save for its deepening of its nature
magic.
And he continued to watch the peaceful Celestis remain unchanged until
decades past and a great silver-great egg shaped ship descended down
from the heavens before settling down near the base of this very
mountain.
Atticus was riveted as he watched Illos bury itself into the very earth of
Celestis, the great shells that protected it from everything slid away into
slumber and as years passed, he watched with complete engrossment as
towns, as villages began to sprout around Illos. Massive structures of blue-
silver materials also seemed to sprout from the very ground, structures
that stretched high up beyond the atmosphere and Atticus knew that it
was his Mithril that he was seeing.
A sense of deep pride welled up within him. A pride that was quickly
gone.
He realised that what he was seeing was too much, too far, and he finally
felt something wrong, something he hadn't been feeling before. His pull
along the axis of Time seemed to speed up, as if he was being pulled along
the axis of Time instead of pulling it himself. Atticus' alarm deepened
even further when he realised he couldn't pull away, as if his feet and
hands were bound, chained, to something he didn't, couldn't understand
and his magic offered no solution, no way out.
Fear began to condense within the pit of his stomach as thoughts of the
Shapeless Ones began to darken his mind and yet he held out hope that it
wasn't the case as his future-selfs had still been him even if something
had elicited a change.
Time marched on even quicker, quicker than it has ever moved before
and he watched those same towns and villages combine into cities with
towering buildings.
Decades turned into centuries and he watched as industry grew beyond he
could have ever imagined. Celestis bore the look of a grandiose capital
world, towering buildings and ships that swam in its skies, magic seemed
to lace everything and anything yet as Time continued to pull along its
axis, he could sense a shift, a change, within the very bones of Celestis, a
grim darkening, as if a huge shadow was cast over it.
It was only then that Atticus noticed that there were no stars in Celestis'
night sky even though he could see Dexirus and another moon in Celestis'
sky.
The other planets were still there – he'd familiarise himself enough with
Celestis' night sky to know where they were in this hemisphere – but
there were no stars, no nebulae and he felt fear travel through his spine.
'What was happening, what could happen?'
It was only then that Time seemed to come to a crawl, no longer was he
seeing blurs and snippets of the future and he was back to the spot that
beckoned him in his dreams, the same spot that his physical body was
and Time…it was…static, as if he reached a dead end.
No longer did the timelines invert or expand or shrink, the threads of
time, the streams of timelines simply came to an end, a possibility he
never thought possible.
The endless tesseract was no more.
His mind was hard at work, every theory he thought he knew was fitted
and soon after discarded as his mind worked overtime trying to come up
with a reason for all of this. He didn't understand how this was possible,
let alone what this actually was.
Was this an attack? Unlikely. He was vulnerable as he was and if what he
knew about them, they could have attacked him already and there would
be little he could do. He was able to defend himself from the creature
that dwelled within the Domain but that was all he could do and he was
certain that the creature was merely their creation.
Atticus' consciousness, which took his form, rose from the lotus position
and he stopped staring at the starless sky and instead turned his gaze
towards Illos and the cities that were beyond it far into the horizon an-…
Atticus stilled as he caught something from the corner of his gaze and he
turned his head towards that direction and his eyes widened. There was a
man standing, his back to Atticus, adorned in a silver gold armour with
his arms behind his back.
The man was standing at the other edge of the mountain peak, the peak
that overlooked the other mountains that neighboured the tallest
mountain of all of Celestis. Atticus recognised the posture, the way he
stood, his height and he swallowed thickly before he slowly made his
way towards the man.
He noticed that the man was rigid, as if he was just as static as the rest of
this…what this was…situation and it was a kind of assurance as he circled
around to the man's front.
Atticus' breath hitched when he saw who he thought it was only…the
man's face, his face, was older, much older, somewhere in his forties in
muggle terms, with scars that ran from the edge of his right bro down to
his right cheek. There was a sense of regal-ness about him that was
beyond anything Atticus had felt before.
Atticus glanced at the hair. His hair bore strands of whites, just as his
beard did, with vibrant violet eyes with startling emerald flecks staring
out towards the mountains.
Atticus stared long and hard, an expression of contemplation etched onto
his face.
What could have led him to age like this? Was it truly two thousand
years into the future already? As far as he knew, nothing save for the
term of the ritual he put himself through ending could make him age.
Co-
Atticus once more was caught by surprised and he stepped back several
steps as the same eyes he bore directly latched onto him. The man –
himself – turned towards Atticus with smooth motion and it was only then
that Atticus could feel the depthless magic that exuded from within the
man, a depthless magic that uncomfortably resonated with his own
magic, magic that was pitiful in comparison to the man before him.
Atticus wanted to think that this wasn't possible yet he knew better than
anyone else that anything truly was possible. Atticus swallowed as he
instead began to think on why this ma – why he would do this. Why he
would reach out through space and time to speak to his younger version
and Atticus did not like any of the conclusions that he reached,
conclusions that he unfortunately began to realise was almost certain.
It was horrifying to think that even their Sight, and that of his Far-Seers,
was not enough to prevent the necessity of his Older-Self to reach out to
him.
From the look of his Older-Self, it was apparent that he knew exactly
what Atticus was thinking and Atticus swallowed. Was this a closed loop?
Was a critical point that had to happen? Didn't that also mean that his
Older-Self was actually his future-self?
Older-Self's face turned warm, yet tired, and a faint smile crept on his
worn regal face. "Welcome, Atticus." His familiar voice crept out of Older-
Him yet it was also different, older and more commanding, centuries
perhaps millennia of time adding that great amount of authority that
seemed to leak out of his Older-Self.
Atticus met the gaze of his Older-Self whose expression turned grim.
"We have much to discuss."
27. Chapter 87
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
14th of November, 1971 – Senate of Magical France
Jean Delacour POV
There was a nervous energy in the senate, a nervous energy that within
its very seams bore stitches made out of fear, doom and gloom. Jean
resisted the urge to grimace.
For the first time in a long time, he felt similar stirrings of deep concern.
France…as ready as it was, was not prepared for a protracted war against
the likes of two Dark Lords. Neither were the rest of the Western Alliance.
They were isolated in Europe, surrounded by a wall of zealous monsters
that struck deep fear in the minds of their Alliance. Especially once it
became known what exactly the Ravenites had done to the nobility. Jean
grimaced.
He held no love for many of the German or Austrian nobility but it was
pure evil about what happened to their families, so much so that for once
since France's political reformation, there was a unanimous agreement
amongst them that seemed unbreakable.
This was a war of a survival and there could be no discourse.
With Italy having fallen, China setting to follow despite their valiant
efforts to bleed the Ravenites, and the ICW falling back to Alexandria and
towards the Southern and Eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean
defeated and demoralised, it was only a matter of time before they'd set
their gazes on the Western Alliance.
Jean shook his head as the session opened and he sat back, silently
watching the arguments fly. They might be in unanimous agreement
about needing to do and pay whatever it took to secure their country and
their allies but that didn't mean there was a complete lack of discourse.
Arguments flew about forcing conscription on the masses once again – an
idea that Jean thought completely foolish since that would only
destabilise France even further – and heated arguments and accusations
were let loose when the topic of seeking out further protection from the
Grand Alliance.
Jean tuned out the bickering of his fellows, his mind fixed on the Grand
Alliance. With the death of Li Lei, the Grand Alliance held a concentration
of Archmages.
Dembe Habe, Fiji Seki, Credence Aurilius and of course the Sayres.
And yet the silence from the Grand Alliance on the topic of the war was
utterly deafening. Jean's expression tightened. The only news that came
from them on the topic of the war was only to reiterate their
commitments to their alliances to Slovenia, Croatia and the Aryan League
along with empty comments for all involved to find 'a peaceful solution to
discourse instead of using the crutch of violence'.
It was laughable.
And as long as the Ravenites veered clear from those who had
independence and defence agreements with the Grand Alliance,
specifically Illos, Jean feared that they would never get militarily
involved if they turned their gaze towards the West of Europe. Oh, they'd
support them, as they have done with the admittedly powerful ward
schemes that were active across France and the rest of the countries in
the Western Alliance, but militarily?
Illos had deepened its economic and cultural ties across the magical
world, France included, but one thing they absolutely did not do was
show a hint of interest to nations who backed the ICW during the Crisis
of the late 50s.
They were as silent now as they were back then when European Ministry
after Ministry fell and he doubted that would change unless it directly
affected them or their allies.
If only he could see Atticus, Jean thought darkly.
His departure to this supposed expedition to Atlantis was ill-timed,
incredibly so. Jean shook his head before he leaned back in his chair, his
eyes trailing towards Lord Rosier who watched intently with keen eyes.
The French Rosiers still had deep ties to their English kin, as did a
number of other French Houses, and it was these ties that gave them a
hope, a humiliating hope but one they needed.
Avalon could press Illos to intervene should the Ravenites peer their gaze
West. Minister Prince was dedicated to France's independence and with
the blood ties the French nobility had with England, that dedication
would only be pushed harder.
Jean refocused and listened as Lord Guyenne spoke of the latest atrocity
committed in Calabria, his face falling into a dire expression. The Italian
Ministry had capitulated only eight days after the Battle of Monte Barrio
but that didn't mean resistance was gone.
Knowing what fate the nobility and much of the wealthy Houses was
waiting for them now that the Ravenites had a more or less free hand in
the nation, dozens of resistance cells had sprung up in Italy, cells that
were causing the Ravenites huge amount of issues.
Italy was an ancient land, one that still bore many ancient and storied
family lines.
Proud histories that would shame storied ancestors if they surrendered.
Unfortunately, it made the Ravenites more brutal, burning down an
entire magical village of Pentedattilo, a village that once bore a
population of three hundred.
The senate silenced into a hush as Minister Galtier stood up.
Antonine Galtier was a burly tall man with a head full of long black curls
that seems to bounce with each motion of the head. He bore pale green
eyes that seemed to shimmer with animalistic ferocity when he was
displeased and one could not be remiss in thinking that he was not alike
those ancient Gaulic warrior mages the Romans seemed to despise in the
early chronicles of their Empire.
An image that Galtier had channelled and built upon as he won the
French Minister of Magic position with a landslide after an emergency
election took place in the wake of the Ravenite invasion of Italy.
The public demanded assurances and what better assurance than a tough
looking man who had also been part of the Resistance in the woods and
fields of France in the Grindelwald war?
It also helped that he was from a relatively unimportant and inoffensive
family that both the nobility, the wealthy Houses and the common people
could get behind with.
"Have we learnt anything we didn't already know?" Galtier posed to the
senate as he veered his head around imperiously, his stare lingering on
several belligerent and near hysterical Senators. Galtier had not once
spoken when the session began, electing to listen instead. Until now.
"Did we already not know the kind of monsters that lead the Ravenites?
The strength they possess or the savage danger they posed to France?"
Galtier asked with a riveting and deep voice, his posture tall and straight
as he stood before the senate like Napoleon himself.
Murmurs rang around the Senate, murmurs that rang with uncertain
agreement.
"We did." Galtier agreed with a nod, his voice even, his presence
unbothered by the quiet agreement to his words. "So why must we discuss
their atrocities within these chambers when we know the kind of evil we
are faced with?"
Galtier shook his head "My heart swells with sympathy for our Italian
friends and the French people are with them but their detailed struggles
against evil serves no purpose and only seeks to foment unrest within this
hallowed chambers."
"Minister." The Senator of Beauvais rose from his seat. "Are you saying
that we should not discuss events that affect us?" the Senator posed to the
Minister.
"Have I stated such a thing?" the Minister asked harshly, continuing
before the Senator could interrupt "How does discussing Pentedattilo
serve to protect France and its allies? What can we do for those who
have, unfortunately and sadly, died in an act of evil?"
The Senator for Beauvais had little to say to that and took his seat as
Galtier pinned the man down with a hard glare. Galtier continued "Let us
return to what matters. Such as continuing to build up our forces and
discuss new ways to ensure our country remains free from the Ravenites."
Galtier's gaze swept across the chambers.
The session after that became more subdued but nevertheless far more
productive than it had been earlier.
After the session was over, Jean found himself sitting with the Minister
and several other Senators and Lords. "I have spoken with the Minister of
Avalon and with the President of MACUSA." Galtier began candidly, his
eyes boring into each and every one of them. "The President has agreed
to a joint Unspeakables team dedicated to magical defence, from ward
schemes to developing counters to Atlantean magicks."
Galtier waved his hand in an almost curt way and a glass jug and glass
flew towards him, his attentions once more towards the rest of them.
"The British are keen to continue to support our Alliance with intel and
finances but will offer no more than that. At least for now."
"No offers of volunteers?" Matthieu Blaugrad asked with narrowed eyes.
Galtier smiled grimly "They avoided that topic as much as they were able
to but in the end they all but said that without coordination with Illos,
they could not make such offers."
Lord Marche scoffed "More like without their express permission."
Murmurs of agreement rang around the room.
Avalon was intrinsically tied to Illos, no matter what was claimed by
their leaders. They were as independent as Corsica was.
"And the Americans?" Jean questioned. The Americans were still
isolationists but they were opening more now with the atrocities the
Ravenites were committing.
Unfortunately, they were still without an Archmage amongst their
population though they did have the next best thing. Atticus Sayre's sister
and his Provydetsi family.
Should MACUSA join in the war, chances were the bonds of blood could
be enough to force Illos to war.
"The Americans share an equal concern with us that the Raven and
Cullaica have Grindelwald's hoard of Atlantean magicks."
"Not surprising." The Senator for Burgundy muttered darkly before he
spied across the room. "That was a horrible shock that none of us could
have prepared for."
Murmurs of morose agreement rang around the room.
"Do they have any idea who the Raven actually is?" Jean questioned.
No pictures with a clear image of the man's face existed and now that his
right hand used one of Grindelwald's infamous spells, fears that it was
actually him was rising amongst the public.
The more ridiculous rumours claimed Cullaica was Albus Dumbledore in
disguise!
"They don't." the Minister confirmed, a twitch of annoyance creeping in
his face before he grabbed the full glass of water before waving his hand
to dismiss the jug.
"They do have memories of him fighting in the Vault from some of the
refugees that made it to the States." The Minister told them. "The images
are not clear but we can see enough that his face was far too different
and too young to be that of Grindelwald."
"It would be prudent to disclose that to the press." Lord Marche
suggested.
"I will speak with Claude" Matthieu Blaugrad offered. Claude De Barre
was the Director of the French Daily media company, a company that
owned the two of the four most popular papers and the most watched M-
TV channel.
Galtier nodded to Matthieu before he turned his gaze towards Jean. It
was speculative. "Any news from our friends up on high?" Galtier
questioned sharply.
Jean shook his head "My old comrades wouldn't budge" he said with a
touch of bitterness before he sighed. "They do maintain that Atticus Sayre
has gone onto an expedition. One even swore an oath that they knew
nothing different."
Galtier's eyes widened with surprise. "Truly?" he asked with a heavy
frown.
"Surely they would have asked him to return by now?" Matthieu
reasoned.
"Unless they literally cannot." The Senator of Burgundy suggested. "We
don't even know where Atlantis was supposedly found, only that is found.
Could be that the place preventing any easy access or exit." The Senator
shrugged lightly.
"We all have heard the myths and stories surrounding Atlantis, many of
which were often only stories that scare even adults with how
treacherous it has become. It would surprise me if there was measure of
truth in old children's tales."
Jean mulled over those words. "Perhaps" Jean conceded. He did
remember the first expedition and Atticus' protégé, the young man Gaius
Hardy that Atticus had often brought with him in meetings of State, had
been gone for many years.
"So we must rely on the Queen for support." Galtier stated, his eyes
intently on Jean.
"Should what we fear come to pass"
Jean grimaced before he nodded. "How successful we will be, I don't
know. I unfortunately do not know her as well as I know King Atticus."
Galtier seemed to consider that before he turned to Matthieu "I want
Claude to praise the Queen of Illos and Avalon to the high hilts. Run
everything we know about her, her acts against the Vampires that
plagued France during the war, her formidability as an orphan and so
on."
Jean's eyes rose to his hairline.
Matthieu chuckled as he shook his head before he eyed Galtier
calculatingly "Devious."
Galtier smiled thinly "The Sayres love to look like unparalleled paragons
of virtue. The trade deals they hook on communities and Ministries are
an example of that – even if we know better." Trade deals that often led
mass migration of many peoples across the Magical World to Illos, often
the very best and the very worst of those nations though always sharing
the same gratitude and eventual devotion to Illos.
"It is a rare weakness that I believe we can exploit." Galtier thinned his
lips.
"I do not like the indignity of it however for France…"
"For France." They all chorused soberly.
Soon enough, Jean was back home with Matthieu in tow and made
headway towards the living room. Antoinette was there watching the M-
TV with a book in her lap.
After Francois…After Francois died, he had pleaded with Antoinette to
remain in the Delacour Manor with little Jean, even offering to take up
one of his family homes so that she could have the ancestral Manor to
herself and little Jean.
She agreed to stay and also wanted him to remain, to help her raise Jean
into becoming a man now that Francois was unable to. He was only
happy to agree and to this day, he was grateful to have had the
opportunity to raise his grandson into a fine young man.
"Grandpapa." Antoinette exclaimed a little surprised.
Matthieu smiled as Antoinette rose to greet her Head of House and her
grandfather.
"Antoinette" Matthieu said warmly as they hugged and kissed.
Jean left them to catch up and went towards the cellar to pick out a few
bottles of wine. After an hour, Jean and Matthieu were the only ones
remaining.
"Marrying my Francois to Antoinette remains one of my finest decisions."
Jean said after he drank of his wine. Francois did not love Antoinette, an
issue that had strained their marriage a lot – to the point that she even
blamed herself for his death, a blame he harshly dissuaded her from – but
she was a perfect mother and a perfect daughter.
Matthieu chuckled before he smiled.
"She is my favourite grandchild for a reason" Matthieu shook his head.
"How my son Lucas managed to sire such a child, I do not know."
Jean fought a grimace and elected to drink of his wine once more,
staying silent on the familiar disapproval that rung from Matthieu about
his heir.
In truth, he did not think Lucas was anywhere near as incompetent as
Matthieu often despaired. It was just that Lucas was not Christopher, a
crime Lucas knew very well he was charged with.
Christopher's ghost would always follow Lucas in the eyes of Matthieu,
and Lucas', no matter how unfair or how unreasonable it was.
"Have you had any luck with the Algerians?" Jean asked seriously,
changing the subject. Matthieu's expression darkened.
"No, the damn Béni-oui-oui consider this a European problem" Matthieu
scoffed.
"As always, the damn fools are too blind to see what's right in front of
their faces."
"I hope you didn't call them that." Jean grumbled as he took a sip of his
drink. The Algerians had a long memory and they hadn't forgotten the
French Ministry's interference into Algerian affairs during the French
muggle occupation of the lands.
"Of course not." Matthieu dismissed with a dismissive wave of the hand
before he sighed wearily, his form slumping into the chair, the soft fires
of the hearth crackling as both of them fell silent.
Matthieu broke the silence several minutes later. "How they cannot see
that they and their neighbours are on the target list, I do not know."
"It is likely they know but seek to appease instead." Jean stated quietly.
"Bah!" Matthieu exclaimed, a bout of anger showing on his face "Do they
not know that these kinds of people cannot be reasoned with? They're
fanatics following insane men! Did you know that the Chinese sent the
ICW memories of their interrogations of some of the prisoners they
captured?"
"I didn't." Jean admitted, eying the man. Matthieu had been Minister for a
while in the sixties, just a single term, and as such managed to develop a
number of key relationships with people, powerful people. Including
those in the ICW.
Matthieu shook his head. "They genuinely believe in the Raven's
ideology. Utterly."
The depths of the Raven's insanity had only become recently known after
they slaughtered and extinguished many of the noble families of Europe.
His ideology was one of chaos, one that claimed that magical world was
infected with poisonous order that sought to snuff out the beauty of
magic out of its people.
That magic was chaos incarnate, the physical vessel of what the universe
represented, and that it was being butchered by the order imposed by
those who profited from the labours of the common people.
It was laughable, incredibly hypocritical considering that it was the
nobility that the Ravenites had allied with to take control of most of
Europe. The same people who they approved of when they subjugated the
common people enmasse before betraying their loyalty with horrifying
acts.
It was a lie, a blatant lie but no one didn't know what the Raven was
truly after.
Was it power? World domination? Poodles?
"Problematic." Jean said with a grimace before drinking of his wine once
more.
"Zealots are always a problem" even once their leaders were gone. It took
years to hunt down the last of the Grindelwald zealots, some of the last of
them given up by a 'remorseful' and wealthy 'former' Grindelwald
follower.
Matthieu's grumbled noises had the bell of approval before he shook his
head. "It is what it is." Matthieu said tiredly before he looked at Jean.
"We survived Grindelwald. We will survive this." He said and that was
the last they spoke of it that night, instead deciding to discuss the new
symphony by France's most successful composer in centuries.
-Break-
17th of November, 1971 – Aziza
Emily POV
They were all sat down across each other, around a wide and large oval
table. The Grand Alliance met with each other at least once every
quarter, mostly to discuss trade or status on collaborative efforts but this
time, it was to discuss the war and their response.
It was also why she was here today instead of simply Chief
Representative Doyle.
Legba, the Chief Minister of Aziza, Dembe Habe who accompanied the
Azizan leader, Hayate Seiwa Genio, the Acting Lord Protector of Ame-
No-Ukihashi accompanied by Shinji Hirahito and of course herself and
Paul Doyle.
Her eyes swept across the room, taking in the architecture of the spacious
meeting room. It had distinctive Benin qualities though there were plenty
of Ugandan influences. She had the pleasure of visiting a few notable
families during her travels with Atticus across Africa and she could see
some traces similar to that of those homes.
"Welcome." Legba said with a boisterous tone. Emily turned her
attentions to the man. Legba was a large man, not quite rotund like
Slughorn but certainly well past his physical prime despite being only
eighty years of age.
He looked affable, the creases around his lips and eyes gave him an
appearance that made him always look friendly and it made him a
popular figure to the Azizan public.
Of course, that was only half the story behind the man. He was a cunning
man who was careful with his words yet masterful with getting away
with saying much yet nothing at all.
"It has been some time we have all met up like this, it is good to see you
old friends." Legba said with a warm smile as he opened up his arms in a
warm gesture.
"It is good to see you too, Chief Minister. The hospitality of your people
never fails to impress." Hayate Seiwa Genio said with a light bow of the
head.
Hayate, the sixty four year old grandson of Iyasu, for the past six months
had filled for the venerable man whose health had taken a slight turn.
She'd met the man a few times during her visits to Ame-No-Ukihashi –
Hayate was often in the company of Ieyasu – but she had not interacted
with the man much.
She did know, of course, that the man was as shrewd as Ieyasu was and
talented magically too. Ieyasu skipped over his own son in favour of his
grandson, a slight controversy when it happened but Katashi's own
support for his son had removed much of that controversy anyway.
"I quite agree with the Lord Protector. I am pleased to say that seeing the
Praying Statues is quite the experience." Emily said with a faint smile.
Legba chuckled heartedly. "Yes, yes, it is a fabulous sight, isn't it? It has
become an instant hit with our people. Especially with the younger
generation who see it as a romantic place." Legba said with a smile before
that slowly filtered away and in its place a more serious expression took
hold.
"Now" Legba began, his tone instantly shifting. "To business." Legba
glanced across the room as he wriggled his fingers and parchment began
to fly in and with another gesture, the parchment duplicated towards
every single person.
Emily took hold of the paper and began skim reading it.
"The ICW collapse in Italy has sent the organisation into crisis."
"They quite like being in that state, don't they?" Dembe said with a roll of
his eyes, a faint mocking smile on his face. Legba looked at Habe with a
slightly exasperated look before he turned his gaze back onto them.
"They sent us a missive requesting a meeting in Alexandria. Post haste."
Legba said seriously, and Emily caught Hayate sharing a look with
Hirahito.
"They also sent us a missive." Hirahito said calmly before bringing out a
parchment himself, duplicating it too before sending them to each and
everyone one of them.
"Now I feel left out." Emily said thinly as she shared a look with Doyle
before looking towards the Japanese delegation "I'm surprised they
reached out to you."
Hayate nodded slightly "So were we." The Japanese largely stayed out of
international politics, mostly carrying out strict trading agreement with
the rest of the magical world, most of it with the Asian part of the world.
"We will have to meet with them." Legba said seriously and Emily
inclined her head.
"Of course" she said smoothly before her eyes sharpened. "They can only
ask for one thing however." Legba nodded soberly.
"We know." Legba said before glancing at Habe who sat a little straighter.
Legba turned back towards the rest of them, particularly looking at
Emily.
"And we remain committed to the Grand Alliance and the laws that bind
it." Legba assured needlessly. Neither Aziza and Ame-no-ukihashi could
act militarily in a major way without the agreement of Illos and it was
bound by magic itself.
They were junior partners in this Grand Alliance, one that bound them
tightly to Illos – and Illos to them though in a lesser scale – and that
would not change.
"However" Dembe Habe interjected "The crimes of the Ravenites is
offensive to magic itself." Dembe Habe said critically. "They cannot be
allowed to act so freely as they have done."
Emily sighed explicitly before she met Habe's gaze. "I am aware of their
crimes, believe me, but we cannot actively interfere."
Hayate spoke up next "My government agrees." He looked to Habe and it
was somewhat sympathetic "Our people do not wish to wage war for a
people that it holds no ties to, magic or otherwise. Even if against an
enemy that commits shameful acts." Dembe Habe looked displeased with
that though Legba's expression was unreadable.
She wasn't surprised with that statement, and she wouldn't have been
either had she not already known that this was going to be the Japanese
position on this matter.
The scars of the dismissal of the Japanese Emperor ran deep, especially
considering the taint their society had carried for their loyalty. They
turned inward,
Hayate turned to Emily.
"You said cannot actively interfere." Hayate asked inquisitively.
Emily smiled lightly at Hayate before speaking "We are assisting the
resistance in a number of nations, with gold, supplies and food." Emily
turned her attentions towards Habe "And to the nations that border the
Ravenites who are using that support to hire mages from South America."
Problematic mages imprisoned for life during the upheavals over a
decade ago were being offered this opportunity.
Under heavy and immensely tight oaths on their life and magic of course.
"Mages from South America." Legba repeated shrewdly. "How fortuitous."
Emily smiled slightly before lightly shrugging "South America is an era of
peace but there are always those who seek glory and what greater glory
is there than winning a war?" Emily rhetorically posed to the group
though it was pointed largely at Habe.
Habe narrowed his eyes, knowing that Emily directed it largely at him.
She liked Dembe Habe, he was a powerful archmage with a unique set of
skills that she found refreshing and indicative to the wonders of magic
but she also knew that Dembe was an ambitious man, eager to prove
himself to be a worthy Archmage to carry the mantle of his forbearers.
Unfortunately, he wasn't too interested in the more peaceful renown
Archmages of his clan. Eventually, Dembe would join the ICW with a
fairly decently sized contingent of Azizan Sorcerers and face the Raven
himself.
A conflict he would lose.
Emily didn't want that loss for Sassa but Dembe would make his choice.
"Such a measure is something Ame-No-Ukihashi can support." Hayate
said after a few moments.
"Aziza can too." Legba agreed as well.
"Though we will largely direct our funds towards the ICW." Emily nodded
to that. She didn't really care about where they'd waste their money.
The meeting went on a little while longer, mostly to discuss the overtures
the Spanish Ministry made to any more improvements they were willing
to sell to the Western Alliance, particularly the Iberian Ministries, and
they ended up agreeing to fund another collaboration to look into smaller
versions of the ward schemes that protected Aziza and Ame-no-ukihashi
– far inferior version of the Guardian Array – and soon enough she was
back on her way towards Illos.
It wasn't long before she was settled back into her office, reading through
the OI reports regarding the success of their retrieval missions. Both
kinds.
The doors to her office opened, the quick light steps echoed throughout
the room and Emily looked up from her reports a little surprised, the
surprise wearing off as she realised who it was. Hypatia looked haggard
and shocked, her face so pale that it looked like there was not a drop of
blood running in her face.
"Hypatia." Emily welcomed in, belatedly, her eyes calculatingly sweeping
across the woman's face. She did not expect the woman today and
everything about the Seer was instantly concerning. "What is wrong?" she
asked sharply as she stood up.
"It's changed." Hypatia said breathlessly as she came to a stop only for her
to start pacing again, back and forth, low mutterings barely
understandable even to her ears.
"I don't understand how it could change so much" Hypatia said with a
hysterical laugh, one that bordered on mania. She jerked her head to the
side as if to ponder something "But not terrible" she muttered to herself as
she came to a stop.
"No, no, far from terrible."
"Hypatia." Emily's voice was sharp and stern, and it crackled like a whip
which made Hypatia jump in surprise, her baleful eyes incomprehensibly
staring at Emily.
"Hypatia." Emily said again, this time gentler but still sternly "Tell. Me.
What. Has. Happened." She said slowly and understandingly filtered
through Hypatia's eyes.
"Oh, yes, yes." Hypatia muttered before she cleared her through,
glimmers of delight showing in her soulful eyes. "Everything has changed,
everything, Your Grace."
Emily narrowed her eyes as Hypatia continued. "From the war, to Illos,
everything."
"Start from the very beginning." Emily ordered and Hypatia did as she
bid.
Emily's surprise grew and grew as Hypatia told her about what would
likely happen as soon as Atticus returned, a likelihood that seemed to be
across several timelines.
Both her and Atticus would join the war against the Ravenites, leading
the Illosian Guards against the Ravenites in full, drastically ending the
war far sooner than they had planned for years, decades.
It seemed as if something happened to Atticus in the Celestis system and it
worried Emily deeply. She did not believe Atticus had lied to her about
the plans, she'd even seen the memories of the timeline and what should
happen and yet all of that would change.
"Thank you Hypatia. You may go." Emily said distractedly as Hypatia
finished her tale. She had much to think on and for the time in a long
time, she was unsure of it all meant. A frustration welled up inside of her,
one borne of concern for her husband
Hypatia blinked. "Oh." Hypatia turned to leave before hesitating and
glanced at Emily. "What do you want me to do?"
Emily broke out of her thoughts and looked at Hypatia, realising that was
a good question. "Does anything change right now?" Hypatia shook her
head.
"So Atticus' return is the point of divergence." Emily reasoned and
Hypatia confirmed it. Emily considered it all for a long moment. So little
has changed on what she could or must do. Right now, she still had a
working blueprint as to what will happen without any interference.
"Do nothing. Continue as if nothing has changed." Emily told Hypatia.
"Make sure your students do not veer away either" she warned lightly and
Hypatia bowed her head in confirmation before leaving, leaving Emily to
her thoughts.
She glanced towards the window, her eyes gazing upward, her expression
released from the calm and measured look she always bore.
"What happened, my love" she said quietly to herself in the privacy of her
lone self.
Atticus was still set to return in October next year, that hadn't changed
but after he'd come back? Whatever happened, maybe to him, had
changed things that she had not seen before, not since the Monks
themselves yet this bore far graver tidings.
"Elsie"
*POP*
"My Queen." The elf bowed deeply from the hip.
"Inform the Observatory that I want to send a tight beam to Illos."
"As you command, my Queen." *POP*
Emily returned her gaze towards the window. Hopefully she'd get an
answer from him. Hypatia said that he was alright, looking as healthy as
he left but she wanted to hear it from him – and about what had
happened to cause all of this.
After a long while passed, Emily closed her eyes momentarily before
opening them again, her default expression once more falling into place
before she twisted on her heels and made towards the doors, towards
Parelius.
There was little to be done at this moment in time and there was still
much to be done.
-Break-
"We have much to discuss."
Atticus met his Older-Self's gaze, his eyes scouring every inch of
information from the Older-Self's expression. Atticus, after several
moments passed, broke off his gaze and turned them towards the starless
sky, his mind overclocking now that he was allowing himself some time
to think everything over again and again.
There was no give in his Older-Self's expression, the grim but patient look
on his face was unreadable beyond much else. For the first time in over
three decades, Atticus was well and truly blind going into a dangerous
situation…and no doubt exactly what his Older-Self wants.
Any version of himself would never want to yield any advantage, and if
this was in fact a version, or his future self, he expected that only to have
increased with time.
Whatever caused his Older-Self to reach out into Space and Time – the
call he'd been feeling to this place could only have been an act of his
Older-Self and he was already beginning to formulate an idea as to how
that was possible – it meant that he had need of him, a need to change
things at a point where it could matter.
He saw only two reasons why he, even centuries, perhaps millennia, in
the future would reach out into the past. Regardless if it was to help or
not to help his present and future. And the fact that he still had choice in
the matter when it is clear that his Older-Self had abilities to influence
him beyond merely calling him here suggests that his Older-Self needs his
cooperation to deal with whatever he is dealing with.
And the one thing he could think of, the one thing that he hoped was
true, that would necessitate this risk, this desperation, could only be
related to their defeat at the hands of an enemy that was far beyond
technological or numerical superiority.
But the answer he needed to come up with, beyond whatever his Older-
Self had to tell him or the usefulness of going back however far he was
going, was whether or not this was his future-self or not.
Because that would change everything.
Given that he'd sensed the near uniformity of determination across the
timelines he'd Seen after this consciousness' sojourn through Space and
Time, he had to come up with the expectation, the relief, that this was
not in fact his future-self.
Otherwise that would mean that this was a closed loop, something that
had to happen. Experiencing different timelines was one thing, but
reaching out into the past in order to directly speak to your past-self?
He was not at all sure if Time and causality was flexible enough to be able
to cope with such a breach in paradox. As Atticus began to think on it
further, the angrier he was becoming as the ramifications were becoming
clearer as his mind began to process how tied his hands would become
even if he was told absolutely nothing by this Older-Self.
There was the possibility that Time would steer him towards this path,
every choice he'd make, every path that he'd see, would be stained,
tainted by this act of sabotage if this was truly his future-self. And the
worst thing about it, he couldn't blame his Older-Self for it since he'd be
just as tied as he was to this loop.
Then there was also the simple fact that if his Older-Self was capable of
this, blinding Atticus' Sight throughout his Older-Self's past must be
something that had to be considered as a very real possibility. At the very
least his visions and experiences of himself right after this trip must be
considered a doubt.
If…what he believed was true.
About this being his Older-Self. Which was by no means concrete. For all
he knew, this could simply be a manifestation engineered by them and
he'd come out of it determined after having come to grip the level of
threat they posed to him.
…Or it could have been merely false timelines designed to keep him
unknowing of the trap they'd successfully lured him into where they'd end
up ripping apart his consciousness. Or worse, lead him astray much like
he'd done to the Symbols.
Atticus' mind came to a crawl, having already reached an end to his
ruminations. He knew too little, he had little control, now, and all he
could do was see this out.
And wasn't that a strange feeling after decades of being in control of
everything?
His mind refocused and his gaze were firmly set on the starless sky. It
was kind of surreal, even for him who was acclimatised to the weird and
wonderful, to the strange and awful. He figured that this was, in fact, a
real static capture of a moment centuries perhaps millennia from now if
this was truly his Older-Self.
Atticus turned back towards his Older-Self with a stern gaze on his face.
But first…
He had to know
"Are you my future-self or an alternate version?" Atticus asked, his voice
even and calm under the weight of his iron yet accepting composure, his
eyes staring directly at this Older image of himself.
His Older-Self did not respond immediately, instead choosing to meet
Atticus' gaze without even a single facial muscle moving. It was clear that
his Older-Self understood why he was asking, why this was the first
question he'd ask. Perhaps he already knew.
Finally, after almost a minute, his Older-Self spoke. "If you're wondering
if this is a paradoxical loop, then no." His Older-Self paused for a second,
as if he was considering the implication of his words before he continued.
"I am an alternate self, now."
Relief did not come to Atticus. His Older-Self's words had the ring of truth,
spoken exactly as he'd speak when he'd answer honestly yet it brought
him no solace. And if this was his Older-Self, he'd know it too.
After a few more moments passed, Atticus only silently nodded before he
spoke.
"Talk." Atticus only said as he met his own eyes, however older and
foreign they seemed. He'd never really know, he'd decided, about this
Older-Self and if he was truly an alternative-self. That was of course if
this was indeed any version of Atticus.
But he was making peace about that and he had little patience for
whatever this was, himself or otherwise, especially if it was otherwise.
This might be his last moments if it was them and he knew that he'd done
what he could for his people and he had faith in Emily, and in Gaius,
Parelius, Hypatia and Alice to see it through.
His Older-Self looked at Atticus with an indiscernible look before he
spoke up "No questions? Even about me?"
Obviously he had questions but that hardly mattered right now.
"Either you're me, a version of me, or you're something else entirely."
Atticus stated to his Older-Self. Letting him know that he didn't trust this
Older-Self didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. His Older-Self
should be expecting it if it was truly his Older-Self anyway. Atticus
continued "Does it really matter what you are?"
It does, of course, but he was helpless at this moment in time.
His Older-Self smiled at Atticus. It was an amiable, one that he'd made
plenty of times whenever he was meeting politicians or nobles.
"It doesn't, not really." His Older-Self agreed before he eyed him with a
curious glaze "But if I was not you, you would already be dead in this
pocket of consciousness. And no," his Older-Self had the temerity to roll
his eyes at Atticus.
"That is not exactly what the Precursors would say."
They disappeared in a flux of light, and moments later, after he'd
adjusted to the sudden bright light, he saw that they standing in space, on
space, in orbit above Celestis and his gaze was toward the planet.
Pinpricks of light were arranged in the shape of snowflakes under the
darkness of night and several towering spires that touched the very edges
of the stratosphere were easily seen.
And then there were the broken shell like structures made Mithril that
seem to warp around the planet like the arms of a loving mother, the
reflections of the sun surprisingly dull despite the glare that should be
reflecting off of the surface. He realised then that the sun was feeding the
Mithril structures with energy, energy that likely was being converted
within the structures of the Mithril arms.
"Pocket of Consciousness?" Atticus asked distractedly as he took the
opportunity to look around, towards the starless surroundings. He could
see now a slight sheen.
Atticus smiled inwardly as he realised what it was. It had only been a
mad thought of his, to fuel a Mithril Seed so much that it could
eventually grow to encompass the entire Solar System.
Once he'd done the math, he'd grimaced – he did not pout at that point,
no he didn't – about how much energy it would take to convert into
liquid magic, Mithril.
Over nine stars of M-Class stars would have to be consumed whole to
create this defence. He'd almost wanted to believe right out of the bat
that he'd actually do it…
And once that thought floated away, a grimmer one took hold. It was
only meant to be a last line of defence against the Precursors.
"Your separation of mind within Living Time is far from simply a self-
contained act." His Older-Self explained. Atticus turned towards him as
he continued.
"The universe is entwined with consciousness in a way that electrons
orbit nuclei. It is fundamental, intrinsic, and Living Time is as much a
product, a part, of consciousness as reality is. When you wade through
Living Time, you are also exposed to the realm of Consciousness at a
fundamental level, a transcendent plane of existence, more so as your
ability has grown. Enough that you're able to manifest yourself physically
into the said plane."
And all of this, Atticus noted, was what he had, potentially, to look
forward to?
Experiencing futures and pasts with his consciousness in a way that was
almost limitless in depth? Even being able to pull a different
consciousness through Space and Time, however the same they were,
into a pocket of Consciousness that was as real as reality?
In truth, he'd considered much about Consciousness, in both in scale and
permeation through reality but nothing like this. The comprehension
magic was guiding him towards was still far from him being able to
understand how this was possible.
"Let me just get this out of the way." His Older-Self said, drawing Atticus'
attentions once more. His Older-Self simply looked at him though it felt
like he was an amoeba under the microscope of a monstrously giant
being, the sternness in his gaze was scorching.
"We got our revenge on our father through making sure he was well and
truly neutered." His Older-Self stated matter-of-factly, his voice as calm
and steady like atoms in near absolute zero conditions.
"We clawed our way out of the socio-economic destitution we were born
in by being brilliant and charming eventually earning ourselves a
scholarship to a place and wealthy students we loathed with every fibre
of our being. We had plans to found our own robotics company through
Seed money obtained via blackmail or favours but we died from cancer
before we got far and instead found ourselves reincarnated in this
universe, a Harry Potter universe that should have been nothing but
fiction."
His Older-Self paused for but a moment and gave him a knowing look
under that stern gaze "But that won't convince you, nothing would. Not
entirely."
"No." Atticus stated after a moment as he met his Older-Self's stare
impassively.
He was inclined to believe in truth it was in fact his Older-Self but
ultimately there would always be doubt. After all, they were here, now,
were they not?
His eyes darted towards his surroundings, towards this space.
If his consciousness was pulled into this pocket of consciousness, then that
also stood to reason that his very essence could be an open book. After all,
he could barely feel his magic here yet he felt it in droves from his Older-
Self who ran this show.
His Older-Self nodded calmly "And that doesn't matter."
His Older-Self's expression changed once more, and it was imperious and
grave.
"What does matter however, is that you heed at least this one warning
above all others. Do not rely solely on your ability to traverse Living
Time." His Older-Self warned gravely.
"As you have doubtlessly worked out in some small way." His Older-Self
noted.
Atticus stared at his Older-Self for a long second because he spoke up.
"Why."
"There is a race of beings who have unrivalled control over Living Time."
His Older-Self explained, the space around beginning to warp, the dark
vacuum around them shifting away like fine sands through a filter.
The being before him was gaunt, its skin reminded him that of a shark,
streamlined and smooth, as if a water drop could retain itself shape even
if it rested hours on the blue skin. Its build was slight, thin, and equally
its two arms and legs looked fragile just as its four long thin fingers on
each hand did.
Its black eyes were wide and large, reminiscent of lemurs in terms of
proportion, and it was likely its depth of perception along with its sight
was orders of magnitude greater than that of humans. Its face was
narrow, its head hairless, and it had no nostrils and only a narrow thin
lipped mouth surrounded with flipper like tentacles.
This was not a race built for power, no. But then, neither was humanity.
"This" His Older-Self began, his bearded face darkening as he stared at
the being, his eyes ablaze with furious hatred and it took Atticus aback
with the depth of emotion his Older-Self let show. "Is the Xalanyn. An
ancient race as old as the Forerunners. Perhaps older." His Older-Self
turned towards Atticus who met his gaze, a gaze that lost its bottomless
pools of hate and instead now showed a cold abyss devoid of emotion.
"And our greatest enemy."
Atticus narrowed his eyes towards his Older-Self.
"Greater than even the Precursors?" Atticus asked, unwilling to control
the dubious note in his voice. Or even the Flood? His Older-Self smiled
grimly.
"Can one ever truly consider a fundamental aspect of reality an enemy?"
His Older-Self posed to Atticus with dark undertones.
'Fundamental Aspect of reality…'
"They simply are." His Older-Self ominously warned him "They are not a
problem you will face, not even in my immediate future."
His Older-Self continued "And you should be grateful of that Truth."
Atticus decided to shelf his curiosity about what his Older-Self knew
about the one thing that he honestly feared above all others.
"So these Xalanyn" Atticus began, returning to the subject at hand.
Questions about intrinsic beings like the Precursors shelved away to be
asked later.
"Are they magical?" He thought they likely were if they were supposedly
the great threat his Older-Self was making them out to be but the
possibility existed that they weren't. The Forerunners were able to access
the Domain and capable of feeling Living Time and they weren't magical.
Neither were the Ancient Humans.
"Yes although not in the way our kind and other Earth-born species are."
His Older-Self stated. "Their powers centred onto one singular facet of
magic."
"And they wield it to perfection."
The space around them warped once more. This time, Atticus could not
stop his surprise from showing as his eyes widened at the site of
hundreds of ships, massive ships, locked in battle. There were two
distinctive kinds of fleets that Atticus could make out despite the variety
of the ship both fleets possessed.
One bore mulberry hues of hull colour surrounded by golden shields
whilst the other fleet bore familiar grey, white and blue colours and
shields.
Yet what disturbed him the most was that the ships he knew were likely
that of his people were losing.
"They surprised us." His Older-Self spoke solemnly as he began to walk on
space, his arms behind his back, the robes beneath his armour flowing
despite the absence of everything in this memory.
Atticus followed silently.
"We long ignored events of the galaxy in favour of seclusion." His Older-
Self began as the ships began to play in real-time. Massive lances of
energy bellowed out of the bellies of ships, electric arcs of green and
silver of colour struck ships that rippled shields, missiles that looked like
silver rain drops through hulls like piranhas through decaying flesh.
"As our cousins waged a war of survival, we turned a blind eye to them."
His Older-Self looked at him with a side glance. "We destroyed remnants
of Forerunner technology, the weapons in particular, wherever we found
them, including their last refuge beyond the galaxy, but once any threat
to our people was neutralised, we did not lift a finger to assist them." His
Older-Self shook his head before his gaze was directed towards one of the
larger ships that was on the precipice of destruction.
'So the weapons still exist but they do succeed in destroying the weapons of the
Forerunners…'. Good, he thought grimly. He still remembered the pain
that he'd experienced decades ago from that event.
Magic had been torn asunder with those weapons and life within the
galaxy was always in danger of extinction and sterility with their
existence.
He drew back towards his Older-Self "You abandoned the mundanes?"
Atticus questioned sharply. Atticus had no desire to involve himself or his
people in the affairs of their cousins but to abandon them in their plight,
in their hour of need?
It was callous, wrong.
And completely surprising. He knew that they were coming, eventually,
so for him to abandon a potential ally that was also kin was greatly
surprising…troubling.
"It was our greatest mistake. My mistake." His Older-Self said as the
capital ship was destroyed by one of those green arcs of destructive
energy.
The battle once more froze.
His Older-Self turned to him "Our people have a predisposition to
seclusion, to avoiding others unlike them. This tendency, one brought on
by the Legacy of the Statute of Secrecy and Exodus, only grows with
time." His Older-Self smiled tiredly.
"And I, after decades of manipulation and monstrous crimes, let it go." His
Older-Self stared away at the frozen battle. "Emily had then too tired of
our involvement."
"I saw no more reason to involve myself in the development of our people
beyond nudges towards certain scientific or magical research and
development. Our involvement in the politics of the Federation crawls to
near nothing" His Older-Self took a moment to glance at Atticus.
"Just as we had always hoped." His Older-Self stated before looking back
at the battle, a wry yet almost mournful look on his face was apparent.
Atticus always had the kernel of hope, that he would have the chance to
breathe. Something he'd not allowed himself, had not been allowed, for so
long.
It did not surprise him that after they'd settle Celestis that he'd let go
almost completely once everything was stable. But to this extent?
To the point that he'd facilitate the conditions so much that his people
would turn their back on the mundanes completely? That…that was
unrecognisable.
"Our people grow wonderfully, Atticus. In time, the values we treasure
only become staples of how a Celestial should conduct itself. Personal
growth, growth of our civilization's pool of knowledge and much, much
more. Yet…"
"This also fostered a belief of what our role in the universe should be. We
saw ourselves as quiet paragons who made strides in seclusion from all
other life in the galaxy, or in the universe. Once the full breadth of this
galaxy's history became known to our people, this had only grown in
severity. The Forerunner's folly, the Ancient Humans' irresponsibility, and
in the end, it was agreed that our people were not to fall in to the same
pitfalls as those civilisations had fallen into."
His Older-Self's expression crinkled with tangs of self-abasement.
"Fate likes its ironies."
Atticus long noted his Older-Self wasn't giving too much detail about the
future.
Especially about what allowed his complacency to be let run astray.
"Did you even try to convince our people?" Atticus questioned.
"I did." His Older-Self said with a soulful incline of the head. "It wasn't
enough to convince the whole of the Federation to make an exception."
"And you chose not to act anyway. Personally." Atticus stated instead of
asked, his frustration kept out of his voice but it still welled inside of
him.
"Yes." His Older-Self stated as he met Atticus' judgemental eyes. "To have
acted would have caused immense damage to the political stability of the
Federation."
Ah…
So he did turn over more of his executive powers to the Councils by that
stage.
It was an idea that he had considered, distantly. One that he'd happily do
if it meant their techno-magical civilisation would mature even more. But
even so…
"You must have Seen this war." Atticus accused. "You chose to not act
decades, perhaps centuries ahead of time."
His Older-Self was unfazed under the accusation. "I did not see the war
until decades after I'd given up key parts of my authority but I did not
move to regain it." he answered simply yet it was weary. Atticus didn't
like what he was hearing at all.
"What about the Mantle of Responsibility?" Atticus asked with a heavy
frown, shifting his tactic slightly.
"You must have disclosed this, our people must have known this."
"Over time, it was dismissed." His Older-Self stated. "It was called
'Arrogance of Emipres', this notion that it is our duty to tend to all life in
the galaxy, a notion hardened by evidence of older and now extinct
civilisations. Fostering life into eventual sentience, yes, this was
something that was universally agreed something we could do in time
but more than that?" His Older-Self slightly shook his head.
Atticus remained silent for a moment. Arrogance of Empires…
From a certain viewpoint he could understand why his people would
come to that conclusion. "And that ties into our inactions to the
mundanes." Atticus stated instead of asked. His Older-Self turned to him.
"Yes." He simply stated. His Older-Self continued "Our cousins lost. They
were technologically outclassed, numerically outnumbered and faced
against an enemy that was unrelenting and without mercy. Earth was
destroyed and the remnants of this branch of humanity were hunted
mercilessly throughout that sector of space once the leaders of the
Covenant blamed them for the loss of their Great Journey."
His Older-Self stated without any inflection in his voice.
His Older-Self said all of that with utter calmness, without any emotion,
as he spoke of the extinction of the other branch of humankind and their
shared cradle.
It was discombobulating.
"The Covenant." Atticus zeroed in on. The zealots who deified the
Forerunners. Considering how close they were to Sol, he wasn't surprised
that it was them would wage war on the mundane branch of humanity.
"The Covenant." His Older-Self said with an incline of the head.
"They possess a vast hoard of Forerunner technology they can barely
understand or use yet what they have was enough to destroy a vastly
inferior humanity. They were a threat, however minimal, even to us once
you consider the size of their empire and their fleets." His Older-Self's
expression shifted and it turned dark.
"Yet it was not their numbers or their technology that would threaten
everything we have worked for but rather their obsession with the
Forerunners which led to the release of the Xalanyn." His Older-Self
turned towards frozen battle once more.
"By the time we realised that something was amiss when the Covenant
were practically destroyed, it was too late and our colonies at the edges
of this star cluster were attacked."
Atticus shook his head before he looked harshly at his Older-Self. "You
must be able to See hundreds of years into the future."
"And it mattered not." His Older-Self easily answered, his voice firm. "I
am not omniscient, we will never be omniscient. Even at my strongest, I
can only actively See within ten light years around Celestis. They built up
their strength tens of thousands of light years from Celestis in a sector that
we did not monitor through technology so we never knew about it."
He was beginning to understand. Atticus' gaze was piercing as he looked
at his Older-Self face. "And the attack…the only way something like that
could be missed by me, us, and the Far-Seers…"
His Older-Self didn't turn towards Atticus but his bearded face did
crinkle. "Yes, if they were able to manipulate the very strings of Living
Time."
"They unravelled Time from the structures of the universe itself around
us and made it play to their tune, made us see what we would have seen
without their release. Even I, had not noticed the manipulation until
moments before the first colonies were attacked."
"How? How could they manipulate Living Time like this?" Atticus asked.
He knew it was possible, to blind people. He'd done to the Symbols and
the Monks had done it too centuries ago. But the scale…the sheer scale
and the ability it would take…
It was monumental.
"We still don't know." His Older-Self admitted before he turned around to
face Atticus. "Their biology gives them something we have been unable to
zero in on." His Older-Self stated. "We have theories, good theories but
they are unsubstantiated and ultimately they do not matter." His Older-
Self's gaze turned harder, colder.
"What does matter is that you change your future from this point onwards
knowing all of this" His Older-Self said with a piercing gaze. "Begin to
change the future. Exodus cannot be as damaging as we have planned it
to be. It leaves a scar that would haunt generations to come. Our people's
lifespans compound it even further."
His Older-Self paused for a moment, a strange hesitation crept up in his
body language but it seemed to flicker away in less than half a second
"And re-evaluate the necessity to rid Earth of all magic. It might offer an
opportunity to ensure bonds are kept with our cousins."
Atticus' eyes hardened though internally his mind was going a mile a
minute. He could see where he was going with this. But eventually the
mundanes would develop faster-than-light capabilities and inevitably
settle other worlds. To develop such a monitoring system planet-by-
planet is going to be a massive undertaking.
In truth…it would also be a massive weight off of his shoulders. The
temptation to consider this a boon from Magic herself was great yet he
knew that it would only be indulging his conscience. Atticus met his
Older-Self's gaze once more who seemed satisfied with his quietness. He
had a suspicion that his Older-Self regretted the act.
Perhaps that was why his Older-Self reached out this far instead of
reaching closer to his own time instead of here and now before they left
Earth.
That his Older-Self's timeline would be untouched must've contributed to
the decision. Yes…Atticus would think about it.
His Older-Self's expression turned hard once more. "I cannot tell you
where the majority of their kind are imprisoned, nor can I even tell you
what event led to their eventual release, only that you must not turn a
blind eye to the Human-Covenant war, whatever you decide to do with
Earth. Our isolation made us blind to the events of the galaxy and it has
costed us greatly."
Atticus met the piercing gaze of his older self for a long while before he
spoke. "Answer me truthfully this one question." Atticus said as he met
his Older-Self's gaze unblinkingly. His Older-Self didn't react for a long
few seconds before he nodded regally.
"I have not lied to you once nor will I lie to you" 'But you will keep things
from me'.
"Have you been manipulating my future?" Atticus asked harshly as he
searched every micro-inch of his Older-Self's expression. The look of
confusion on his Older-Self was not what he expected. It looked genuine.
"No." His Older-Self stated with the bell of truth in his voice "I have not
manipulated your future." His Older-Self looked slightly amused "We do
not develop the ability to manipulate Living Time around people in the
physical past."
He already knew that his chosen path would be altered slightly yet before
this sojourn, he'd never seen any timelines that matched what he'd
change once he was back on Earth. Either he'd learn something in the
interim from his Older-Self that would change his choice to alter his path,
or there was something off.
In any case, for now, he accepted the statement of his Older-Self.
Atticus glanced at the frozen battle before turning back to his Older-Self.
"How many years are we in the future?"
"Seven hundred and fifty years."
Atticus eyed the man and his Older-Self smiled.
"The ritual holds." His Older-Self smiled ruefully "It does more than hold
up." He met Atticus' gaze "This is a choice. You understand."
Atticus mulled it over for a second before he nodded. Looking in his
twenties as he did whilst almost being half a century old was getting a
little tiresome. Especially once…Atticus inwardly dismissed those
thoughts. Yes, it was doubtless that he'd make the choice to appear older
like he felt sooner or later. And 'More than hold up…' He had an idea
about what he meant by that…
"Has Celestis truly been everything we hoped it'd be? Other than these
problems?" He could see up until the beginnings of the settlement but not
much further than that.
"More." Atticus could hear the smile in his Older-Self's voice. And the
sadness.
"There are hiccups along the way. Hiccups that have had consequences."
Atticus glanced at his Older-Self who was smiling ruefully as he stared at
the world below "But generally speaking, it's been quite the journey."
Atticus let that settle in.
"Yet not good enough." Atticus said as he turned to face the frozen battle
again.
"No, it wasn't."
They were engulfed by a flash again and they were once more back in
orbit of Celestis though at a different point. He could see now a gigantic
station hanging just beyond the exosphere. It had eight arms that looked
like a combination of docking arms and weapons array.
"Why should I act drastically?" Atticus finally said as he latched onto his
Older-Self's eyes. Atticus gestured in a wide arc with his arm, never
breaking eye contact.
"The war with the Xalanyn seems to be going poorly, yes, but it is not
hopeless." Atticus challenged. His Older-Self's expression was impassive as
he spoke. They both knew that by simply pulling him into this pocket of
consciousness, by telling him about the Xalanyn in the first place, the
future was irrevocably changed.
And from the way his Older-Self seemed to age nearly a decade, it was
clear that his Older-Self understood what Atticus wanted to know.
"The war is hopeless." His Older-Self stated matter-of-factly. "In the first
three weeks, we lost eight systems out of twelve and in the past nine
decades, we have been pressed all the way back to Celestis. Our lone
system." His Older-Self shook his head before he looked up and towards
the shell that protected the system.
"As we speak, the Xalanyn have more than a dozen fleets camped outside
the shell. For now, they are unable to penetrate it but it is only a matter
of time." His Older-Self's expression turned tight when he turned towards
Atticus.
"We missed one of the weapons, one that belonged to an older
generation."
Atticus froze for a millisecond.
Atticus knew then and there why he'd do this. "You must be able to
destroy it!"
"There is a chance." His Older-Self said with an incline of the head before
he smiled ruefully "But it is not much of one. We are blind, we are
outnumbered and more importantly we are weary."
"Weary?" Atticus this time let his anger show.
"You're talking about our extinction!"
"And we have been fighting for nine decades." His Older-Self calmly
stated though his expression was stern. "You do not know war Atticus.
Not one like this one has been. Our best armies have been reduced to
near nothing by an enemy that has counters to our magic and possesses
technology equal to our own. It is a small mercy they cannot see the
future but with their ability in manipulating Living Time and the threads
connecting individuals, entire regions of space, it makes little difference."
His expression softened slightly "But…we will not die out. We have learnt
the lessons of the Forerunners and the Ancient Humans."
Atticus realised what his Older-Self meant. "You've got an ark
somewhere."
His Older-Self only smiled and didn't answer.
Probably wouldn't ever answer, Atticus thought to himself. No matter
how hard he pressed. Still, it was comforting that all was not lost, even in
this alternate timeline.
Even by a complacent version of himself that Atticus could hardly believe
was him.
Would three quarters of a millennium truly turn him into…this?
"My plans failed." Older-Self explained, drawing Atticus' attentions, and
he looked pained as he looked at Atticus. "I failed. But you have the
opportunity to right many wrongs that have come from our mistakes."
'Mistakes largely borne out of complacency' Atticus thought to himself
silently. Atticus gazed upon his Older-Self with a long look. He still
looked regal, composed, in control yet there was a taint on him now that
Atticus disdained heavily.
Mostly because he understood. Oh, he understood it well. His Older-Self
let it all go, just as he hoped to do one day. Yet, it was that very desire of
his that has contributed to this near hopeless future.
And Atticus feared, knew, it was also the decisions he'd taken, decisions
that weighed so heavily on him that led him to this path.
Atticus turned his gaze around, towards Celestis. He could see buildings
upon buildings yet nature was not destroyed. The valleys and the rivers
were somehow even more vibrant than they were when he'd first seen
them.
No…
He would not allow it all to come to an end like this…he would not see
Celestis destroyed because of his hubris, because he was too worn down
by the weight he'd put on himself. Atticus turned back towards his Older-
Self, his posture rising in furious determination.
To think his people were losing, would lose to a race of beings that should
have been inferior in comparison to the Magical Races. Because of choices
he'd made, because of the choices his people made. That ember of fury
within grew to an inferno.
He would not allow them to just slink away into the night.
"Tell me about the theories you have about the Xalanyn and their ability
to do what they can to Living Time" Atticus' voice was sharp and
demanding, his emerald embers in his violet eyes aglow like flames
swaying in the rowdy winds of change.
His Older-Self smiled though it was far from joyful and so for the next
few hours his Older-Self talked and talked about the Xalanyn and what
they knew.
Which wasn't much at all despite nearly being at war with them for a
century.
Their biology was alien, too alien, and had an inherent ability to shield
themselves against nearly all forms of magic…including destructive ones
like the Unforgivables. Information had been painstakingly gathered out
of their prisoners but most of it had been useless for his Older-Self.
But the most surprising thing he'd heard was that there was evidence that
Atticus could scarcely believe. "You mean to say we share genetic
information with them?" Atticus asked with a light frown, his mind
already coming up with ideas of how that could be possible.
His Older-Self inclined his head affirmatively. "Yes…we do. The most
important part of our DNA." Atticus' eyes widened slightly before he
frowned once more.
"They share the neurophysical energy genetic markers." Atticus stated
before he continued quickly, realising the implication.
"They are also creations of the Precursors."
"They are." His Older-Self confirmed. "That is something we are most sure
about."
Atticus' expression tightened as his gaze bored into his Older-Self.
"And you're sure that they have no involvement in all of this?" Atticus
asked sharply, his unrelentingly searching out his Older-Self's expression.
"No." His Older-Self shook his head. "On the contrary, I'm quite certain
that they are involved in some way or another." His Older-Self spied at
Atticus.
"I never said that they weren't, only that one could not consider a
fundamental aspect of reality an enemy. I have felt traces of their touch
through Living Time throughout the centuries, not unlike what you have
felt throughout the structures of Living Time for the past few decades."
Atticus let that settle in for a moment. He felt the vibration, the stir in
Living Time, that sweeping cycle that raged beneath the calm waters of
Living Time.
And he'd felt the spark that he and Emily had brought to life that
disrupted the frequency of that vibration, however infinitesimal it was.
A spark that seemed to have died out before it could even grow into an
inferno.
"I do not believe the Xalanyn themselves know that they are being
helped."
Atticus looked at his Older-Self "You believe that they have been
chosen?"
'For harvest?'
His Older-Self smiled and it was one of cruel satisfaction. Perhaps it
would not come to pass for millennia, perhaps even longer, but
eventually…
Atticus looked away from his Older-Self and back towards Celestis,
towards the lands that were beginning to feel the first morning rays of
the sun.
Long moments passed before Atticus spoke.
"I know you have kept much from me. Much that can assist me." Atticus
said with a side glance. The status of the Shaping Sickness, Emily's
surprising agreement to roll back their involvement in shaping society,
whether or not Forerunners still existed, and the true depth behind the
hubris to not monitor the galaxy to avoid the very instances that led to
his Older-Self's timeline into this mess.
His Older-Self didn't react to his words and Atticus turned back to the
planet.
Unfortunately, he was more sure that this was himself than a
manifestation of something and he honestly hated his Older-Self for what
he'd shown and told him.
The veil was ripped off and all of his hopes of reducing his influence in
the coming Magical civilisation was shattered to pieces.
"But you have done your duty to Us." Atticus stated without any
inflection in his voice. He knew that there were countless of timelines
that were unaffected by this act of his Older-Self, time after all, could not
be wiped clean in such a way.
Not in this part of the Multiverse at least.
But this act also created countless of timelines that would have a chance
now to do things better, versions of himself that would apply what they
learnt today and do better.
"Thank you." Atticus said as he turned around, his arms behind his back
as he met the same but older, wearier violet eyes with emerald flecks.
"Take me back."
His Older-Self didn't speak for a long moment before he inclined his
head, glimmer of gratefulness showing in his eyes and the world around
him began to distort, shift, before he was engulfed into a bright light and
moments afterwards, Atticus' eyes snapped open, the sight of clear blue
sky greeted him and the hum of his magic in his veins, in his core was a
delightful comfort.
Atticus released a deep breath before he cast his gaze downwards.
Virgin lands untouched by civilisation greeted him and Atticus, after a
few moments of recollecting himself, closed his eyes.
Reality around him began to fade away, his consciousness once more
unbound from Time and threads of timelines, of possibilities sailed by his
field of perception, a breathless shudder vibrated through this dimension
of consciousness.
What he'd Seen before, was no more. Dozens upon dozens of likely
timelines, were now different, no more did they follow the timelines he'd
Seen before.
He watched himself through himself into expanding the number of
Mithril Seeds he'd implant, now well over six dozen, and watched as the
scale of work within Celestis tripled with every viable world and moon
marked for terra-alchemy.
Celestis was not the only major change in the years to come.
Plans made years ago, decades ago, were upended and the Ravenite
threat ended decades before they originally planned. Europe, China and
North Africa were given aid, the scars of the war was deep but nowhere
near as long lasting as it once could have been.
He watched as the Grand Alliance grow much sooner in size in the wake
of the ashes of the ICW, his and Emily's defeat of Cullaica and the Raven
brought them immense goodwill on the magical world stage beyond the
levels he'd originally Seen, and the Magical world followed Illos' lead
more and more as the years flew by and the new millennium arose. New
country-ships were made sooner and union of communities happened to
inhabit these country-ships as the mundane world around them changed.
Eventually Exposure still happened and Exodus was still the eventuality
though more did it willingly as a consequence of his new drive to
diplomatically win over every community and concession were given to
those who still resisted but eventually everyone agreed without the
necessity of force.
As the newly christened Federation of Magical Peoples departed Earth
enmasse in country-ships, one last act of Magic was invoked onto their
mundane cousins.
Illos still settled Celestis, their new homeworld, though there were far
more country-ships that settled across the solar systems as more worlds
were crafted for habitation.
That spark, that spark that he'd felt him and Emily beginning to rouse
into existence was now stronger than ever, and the ripple across the
faceless and infinite surface of Time was deeper, stronger, and it was
marvellous.
Atticus drew out of Living Time, a breathless sigh escaped him as a fierce
grip of pride seized his heart, a reinvigoration he had not felt for many,
many years.
He rose from his lotus position and rounded his gaze towards the stars,
towards the area of space where he knew Earth was.
He had many questions, such as how it was possible that everything
changed so drastically – perhaps there was some kind of Living Time
disconnect between the physical and the metaphysical realms, one that
allowed him to see his immediate determination but not the sight of all
the differences that were wrought, he wasn't sure – but for now, he was
far more resolved than he remembered ever being.
Atticus' magic roiled off of him, thick cords of violet and green energy
swirled around him with bone crushing density.
He had much to do, much to learn, much to accomplish.
In truth, it did not matter if what he'd experience was real or not. If it
was an older version of himself or not.
He only knew he could not rest even in times of peace centuries long nor
could he allow complacency and hubris seep into the minds of his people.
The Covenant, the Xalanyn, the Precursors.
Enemies that he'd have to prepare his people for and doubtlessly many
more others in the dark forest of this galaxy and beyond.
"So be it." Atticus voiced out, his eyes burning with an inferno of resolve
that could burn out the very stars under its intensity.
-Break-
Undetermined Distant Future…
The soft distant hum of the ship invaded his ears as his consciousness
returned back into present. His eyes snapped open and the sight of the
shimmering curtains of slipspace was welcome knowing that he came out
of it at the right moment.
He let his control of his magic slip, just enough for it to touch the threads
and streams of Living Time, and he could feel the consequences of his
action already reverberate. Living Time was connected beyond simply the
present and the future, beyond simply this timeline and those that branch
away from this present.
He let a feeling of satisfaction creep into his centre, uncaring that he
twisted the Truth to that version of himself. Finally, he managed to
succeed in achieving both of his purposes. That version of himself, in that
moment in time, was just before the point where it all started to collapse.
Seeing a weak, older version accepting his failures would rouse him out
of the mind set he was unknowingly falling into and retain that hunger,
that desire, that had served them well prior to his ascension to Lord and
King of Illos.
"It is done." Atticus stated authoritatively and with heavy gravitas as he
turned towards the other companion in the room. He met her dark blue
eyes, ancient eyes, as she walked over to him, her long black silky black
hair swaying with every clinking step she took.
Atticus rose from his position and turned towards her.
Emily inclined her head slightly, the deep well of magic that was
comparable to his, reached out into the plane layered onto reality. "They
feel it."
She tilted her head slightly away from him, her eyes flickering as she
continued to reach out and beyond the membrane of Consciousness. She
pulled away and turned towards him, a hateful gleam in her eyes. "We
have our chance."
Atticus nodded silently before he raised his hands slightly and within a
flash they were back onto the bridge, a cavernous oval deck that was well
over four hundred metres wide at its longest manned by a thirty-two man
bridge crew.
The noise within the bridge died out completely once they arrived.
"Take us out of slipspace." Atticus commanded.
They dropped out of slipspace and immediately, the oppressive power
wafted into the ship, a kind of power that could inspire the sanest men
into insanity.
The neurophysical field of energy, magic, in this system was warped and
undulated, as if it was space warping around a black hole, bending and
twisting at the will of beings of immense power.
Atticus and Emily unleashed the chains of their magic, volumes of their
magic streamed out, so much so that they were akin to stars in the way
and rate they were expelling magic, and it did the job, the unwanted
oppressive power pushed away by their might alone.
"Your Graces." One of the crew spoke out, visible relief on his face before
he recomposed himself though there was a glint of worry in his
expression.
"I have a fix on their location." The view screen changed and a gas giant
filled most of the view yet unmistakably, they were also there in their
monstrous sizes, sizes that saw them taller than the moons they were
nearby.
The hues of his magic began to darken at the sight of them, violet turned
dark red and green turned poisonous, as they often did when he thought
or saw them.
Emily fared little better as her magic darkened into abyssal black and was
moment of shearing away at their ship. "Leave this system and return to
the fleet. Do not come back." Atticus saw the pained expressions of the
crew, his crew, his people, but he also saw their acceptance and their
resolve.
Atticus took himself and Emily away in an orange blue flash of light,
right above one of the frozen moons of the gas giant, and they both flared
their magic like miniature stars sparked into existence. The flow of
neurophysical energy in the system trembled, shook, under the weight of
their collective power, disrupting and shattering the total command the
Beings had on it in this system.
Their gigantic insectoid heads, heads that were size of moons, turned
towards him and Emily, their huge beady black compound eyes latching
onto him and Emily.
They were cold eyes, uncaring and emotionless, bereft of any markers
that made them out to be anything other than Horrors made manifest.
All of the twenty three Beings' arms were aglow with magic that ripped
the space around it like wet paper, each of the Beings' four arms were
miniature black holes that were so powerful that the Moons around them
were being affected by their pull.
Atticus raised his hand and a portal to a dimension opened before
spitting out a gleaming blue silver sword that rippled with power a
hundred fold more than either he or Emily could ever generate on their
own and Atticus let a fraction of its power stream into him as he took
hold of it.
Emily brought out her own trident of equal power though darker and
more ominous than his was. They crafted their weapons out of the
wrecks of their civilisation, borne out of pain and hatred and grief, all of
their spite and singlemindedness poured into the singular purpose of
their weapons.
Her magic grew wild, like a star a microsecond before it was to
supernova, violent jagged tendrils surrounded her form. His own was
little better.
Atticus' grip onto his sword tightened, crackles of white lightning that
could scorch entire planets surrounded him, ready to be unleashed at a
moment's notice.
Emily raised her trident, black energy with streaks of dark blue danced
around the weapon, the depths of magic growing to unimaginable
proportions and within a single moment, she disappeared and re-emerged
above one of the Beings, a massive lance of energy akin to the plasma jets
and gamma rays ejected out of the poles of black holes lashed into the
Being.
The Being's pained cries reverberated into the plane of Consciousness and
the field of magic trembled by the depth of its pain and Atticus felt
hateful satisfaction before he too joined the battle, a battle that was
meaningless for they had already lost the war.
28. Chapter 88
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
Fortie POV
He stared at himself in the mirror, his eyes scrutinising each and every
inch of his uniform just to make sure that it was without crinkle. Without
imperfection.
It was a habit of his, a bad one, that he couldn't kick and cropped up
whenever he felt nervous. He'd done this when he'd been moments away
from going to his graduation from the Illosian Guard cadet school, his
graduation from the navy officer school and when he was pulled into a
meeting with the King that somehow landed him this captaincy.
"For goodness' sake" his brother said exasperated as he walked into his
quarters startling Fortie. He hadn't even heard his brother get in.
He turned around and whilst he began to move out of his brother's reach
as his arm went up, he was still too late to evade the mild whack across
the back of the head.
"Marisa sends her regards." Gaius said with a grin that grew on his face.
Ah…of course. Their sister, really, their sisters, always hated when he got
into this mood. Claiming that it was unnatural. He snorted as he
scratched the back of his head. "She told you?" Fortie asked.
"That and then some. I agree." Gaius said flatly as he looked up and down
at Fortie, a small smile forming on his face. It looked proud. Prouder than
the first time that Fortie disclosed the news that he was coming with him
to Celestis.
As much as his brother had grown very capable in hiding his emotions
from their family, that news had caught Gaius off guard and Fortie hadn't
failed to see the surprise and concern he had felt. At the time, it pissed
Fortie off.
Six years was a very long time to be away, especially since they were still
so young. They'd barely even moved past their final maturity when Gaius
departed and even before then, Gaius has been long busy apprenticing
under the King.
Fortie was not the 'reckless but lovingly cheeky' boy he used to be. The
cadet school had trained that out of him and the navy polished him even
further.
It had hurt to see his brother think so lowly of him.
"It's the sign of the end of days to see you so low on confidence." Gaius
said with a smile before he gripped him on the shoulder, an intense look
in his eyes.
The months of slipspace travel had done wonders in easing away the
small amount of resentment that Fortie had felt even if most of that was
spent on different ships.
Gaius had changed in the six years he'd been away, that much had been
clear the moment he'd returned home but seeing him command and lead
had opened his eyes to where Gaius' concerns came from. Gaius had
always been a deep thinker, someone who always considered every little
facet before moving to act.
It made him as successful as he was.
As successful a leader that Fortie knew Gaius had in him.
Fortie…was not that. He wasn't reckless but he wasn't cautious either. He
knew that he was an aggressive person, driven to succeed at all costs and
Gaius knew that. Fortie also knew that he was charismatic. Even as a
child, people flocked to him – except Mrs Kovac – and that had only
continued as he grew up. However, Gaius' concerns that he'd let that side
of him triumph over the wellbeing of his crew was unfounded and Fortie
took measures to ensure that his brother would see it.
"You have earned this post, Fortie. You alone. I know you will succeed in
the mission. You will be the first to see black holes, pulsars and neutron
stars. You will be the first to detail and report the strange and wonderful
things that exist in this galaxy of ours." Gaius' hand gripped tighter onto
Fortie's shoulder as Fortie felt a swell of emotion stirring within him.
All of his life, Fortie wanted to do something remarkable.
Achieve something remarkable.
'Fortie, you are so promising…you will do great things'
'Fortie, how did you do that?! You're so cool!'
"I expected as much, Mr Fortencho. I expect many great things from you."
On and on it went. His friends, his family, his teachers. His idol. All of
them had great expectations of Fortie. And yet…he always felt as if he
wasn't living up to their expectations. He wasn't a dormant Archmage like
Gaius was. He wasn't a runic genius like Magnus was or a Seer like
Marisa.
He was just…the best of the rest.
Graduating in the top ten of his class from the Pandrosion, graduating
top of his class from the cadet school, and all he felt was that he was…
lacking.
It was why he signed up for the navy officer school as soon as he heard
about it and why he'd thrown himself at it with everything he had. And
now, for the first time in years, he finally felt like he was living up to the
promise, to the potential, he had.
He wouldn't be a famous inventor like Magnus was cracking up to be or a
top business woman like Livia or truly special like Marisa was but he
would be a pioneer, the man who would inspire the next generation with
his adventures.
Fortie cracked a smile, a heartened smile, to his brother that let him
know how much his words meant to Fortie. Gaius smiled warmly at
Fortie before his eyes took a mischievous glint, the same kind of glint
that Gaius always had in his locker.
"You will the first to meet alien life" Gais' tone lowered into a
conspiratorial one.
"Though I do hope you won't be the first to sleep with one. Mother would
be disappointed." At that, Fortie laughed loudly before pushing Gaius
away.
"Only mother?" Fortie said with a grin. Gaius' lips twitched.
"Perhaps our sisters too."
For a moment no one said anything until both of them cracked into a fit
of laughter.
Fortie wrapped his arm around Gaius before he led them out towards the
door when they calmed down a little. "Thanks Gaius. Appreciate it."
Gaius smiled warmly at Fortie before he wrapped his arm around Fortie.
"Don't sweat it."
After that, the walk towards the hanger bay was quiet. When they
arrived, it seemed like every man and woman was there. And at the
centre of the hangar bay was the King himself, patiently standing there
with a mild smile on his face, the same smile he remembered so vividly
when he'd met the man that night.
Fortie stood by his crew, the crew he'd gotten know well for the past few
years and the crew he'd spent every waking hour with for the next seven
years.
The hangar bay was as silent as a grave, the distant hum of the power
conduits felt like it was a suffocating noise as every eye fell on the King
who stood unfazed despite the long silence. It seemed as if the King was
waiting on something, on something to give him the go ahead to speak.
The King smiled slightly as his gaze fell on Fortie before looking to the
rest of the crew. "I've always been obsessed with stories." The King began,
his voice traveling through the hangar bay with ease.
"Stories about great heroes and terrible villains. Stories about struggle.
Stories about triumph. Stories with lessons in the crooks and crannies of
the tale. Lessons that would leave me to think and consider longer than it
took me to finish the tale." The King paused for a moment, letting his
words sink in.
"Yet there is one kind of story that had a kind of magic that I could never
get enough of." The King smiled at him, at the crew before veering off
towards the rest of the assembled people. "the story about the journey."
"Life will never go exactly the way you expect it to." The King said gently
to them all though Fortie felt as if the King was speaking directly to
Fortie.
"Life is unpredictable, even for someone like me who was gifted Sight to
see echoes of possible futures. It will throw challenges your way. It will
place mountains in front of you to climb over." The King placed his arms
behind his back before he bowed his head slightly.
"Sometimes you fail to climb the mountain and are made to tumble all
the way back to the base. But that is alright." The King said as he drew
himself up again.
"That was never the challenge. No, the challenge was to get back up
again and to climb again. Again and again if you must until you have
risen to rise to the challenge and reached all the way to the top of the
mountain." The King allowed a faint smile to show on his face.
"And then you reach even further towards the heavens."
This received a low level of chuckles.
"Those are the stories that I have always cherished. Stories that felt real,
that felt human. Journeys that were harrowing, terrible and yet…journeys
that characters, that people, completed despite the difficulties, despite
the impossibility they had felt at times during the journey itself but
hadn't let themselves give in, never gave up.
People who grew up to rise to the challenge and became better for it.
Those were the kind of people that I felt were heroes." The King gestured
towards him and the rest of the crew.
"And these people who stand before you are of that same calibre of
heroes who are rising to the challenge that is set before them." The King
smiled warmly at them.
"Each and every one of them has come far in their own personal journeys.
Each and every one of them has spent years and years to become the best
at what they do, striving and struggling, and each and every one of them
knows that the journey they are to set upon will only be harder than
anything they have faced thus far."
The King's voice turned grave, more solemn. "They will be away for seven
years. Seven. Years. The journey to get here felt long enough and I
cannot begin to imagine how long it will feel to be away from home for
seven years."
"And yet…it has not fazed them at all. It will not faze them at all." The
King spoke gently yet the words felt like it had the power of thunder, a
thunder that shook his very bones with how confidently, how assuredly
he'd spoken.
"These people…our people, will find and see and report great and
wonderful and strange sights. They will push the boundaries of our
understanding of this galaxy beyond what we would have thought
possible." The King continued his gaze now trailing towards the rest of
the people in the hangar bay.
"I do not need to be a Seer to know that for I know the hearts and minds
of this crew." The King said as he turned back to him and his crew.
"I know that these people, our people, our crew, will rise to the challenge
with the same vigour and passion and heart as the Argonauts did when
they completed their arduous journey." The King smiled. "And just as the
Argo returned home after the arduous but worthwhile journey, the
Gallimimus will bring you all home, safe and whole."
The King stared directly into Fortie's eyes. "Just as I know that this
captain will bring back the crew home safe and whole for I know that he
is the man whose character will not allow anything less." The King
finished.
Fortie swallowed dryly as he stepped forward. It felt like he was walking
on jelly legs. He bowed deeply towards the King and spoke directly from
the heart.
"I will bring my crew back. Safe and whole. Just as I know that they will
do the same for me and the rest of our shipmates. Just as I know that my
crew is devoted to furthering Illos' knowledge of the universe. On this,
you have my solemn vow."
"And Mine!" his crew behind shouted out before they grew into a single
voice chanting out the same thing over and over again.
The King smiled warmly at the sight before he bid Fortie to rise.
"I never had any doubts." The King said and the feeling that Fortie felt
was indescribable. For he knew that the King meant every single word of
it.
The next forty eight hours went by quick as they resupplied the
Gallimimus with enough stock of supplies to last them two decades and
before long, he was on the bridge with his bridge crew standing by whilst
the rest of the ship crew were watching him on the holo.
"Men and women of Illos." Fortie began before pausing for a few
moments, a frown coming across his face as he stilled in reciting the
speech he'd written so long ago and intended to use in his address to his
crew. Yet…as the moment arrived, the words felt…lacking. As if they
bore nothing of significance, nothing of substance.
Fortie looked up and traced across the bridge, meeting every set of eyes
of his bridge crew, and it was in that moment a spark of inspiration
struck him.
"'Hope' is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all…
And sweetest in the gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me"
Fortie finished reciting the poem of the mundane poet Emily Dickinson. A
trace of a smile formed on his face as he broke the silence that had
followed.
"Those words are not mine but that of a mundane poet from the
nineteenth century yet I find those words to be the most perfect set of
words to mark our departure into the unknown." Fortie said with a slight
incline of his head.
"We are departing with food and supplies to last us decades. We have
trained for this mission of seeking out the unknown around our future
home for years. We have worked hard to become the very best at what
each and every one of us do."
"Yet above all else, I believe hope is the most potent and powerful thing
that we must carry." Fortie swept his gaze across the bridge and towards
the holo.
"Hope that we will succeed in our mission. Hope that we will endure
should we face troubles and challenges. Hope in ourselves to rise to the
challenge. Hope in others, in your fellows, that they will rise to exceed
your expectations, that they will be there for you when you need them
to." Fortie's words ran out of him, his
"Hope give us reasons to continue on even when it is easier not to. It will
give us feathers to help us fly despite the weight of despair that could
weigh us down in our most challenging time." Fortie smile grew as he
placed his arms behind his back.
"Hope…hope is a powerful thing. It is not rational. But it is a music that
our souls and our hearts need and I hope you listen that tune and ensure
it is never quieted. For when you do, I know that we will succeed beyond
our wildest expectations. That, my crew, is my belief and my hope."
For a moment nothing happened before one of the bridge clapped and
then the others slowly joined in, grateful smiles and determined faces
nodding towards Fortie.
Fortie silently released that breath that he'd held in and turned towards
his captain's chair before he sat down. Fortie spared a single moment for
Celestis which they orbited before he turned towards the pilot who was
waiting on the command.
"Pilot. Take us away."
"Aye-aye sir."
-Break-
The stone crushed under his feet, crumbling away to either side of his
feet, a feat that kept on happening whilst he treads on the slowly
changing landscape of this moon that orbited Eos, a dull beige gas giant
that was about the size of Neptune.
For now, this early in the Terra-alchemic process, hard rock was being
alchemically softened before changing more permanently into something
resembling earth.
It was amongst the quickest processes but even that took months and was
only the first step in Emily's Terra-Alchemic topographical
transformation.
Complex proteins, minerals, bacteria were the next steps in the
transformation and each one of those steps all took years to build. Atticus
turned his gaze upwards, beyond the Spiros towers that were being built
by drones and heavy-duty golems.
He could see why his people hadn't focused too much on changing the
three moons around Eos. Compared to Gribidis, there was a kind of lack
of something, a something that was accompanied a lack of awe and
beauty that Gribidis so naturally exuded.
Eos simply was a gas giant without any distinctive quality beyond that it
existed, beyond the point that it dominated the night sky in day and
night.
"This will a hard world." Halona commented next to him. He turned
towards the venerable Iroquois man. White of hair that contrasted starkly
to his rich honey skin that bore far less wrinkles than a man hundred
ninety years of age had any right to.
"Yes." Atticus agreed with a faint smile.
Atticus turned forward again, his gaze trailing across the grey and barren
landscape. It wasn't a particularly interesting moon, in truth. At least on
the surface. It was a startlingly flat moon barely untouched by asteroids
or geological movements – the moon orbited Eos from a wide orbit that
didn't cause to assist to create any gravitational effects that other moons
around Gibridis had benefitted from thus making this a world that would
need continuous support to be life-bearing – and the most interesting
about it was that it was the largest moon around Eos, about three-fifths
the size of Mars.
Still…memories flashed across Atticus' mind as he overlaid the landscape
with what he'd seen over the past few weeks. The vast sea of grey rock
was replaced by an unending sea of green grass, only broken by the few
but eventually growing small homes occupied by small people.
"But it will be a home nonetheless." Atticus felt Halona's gaze on his back
and he turned around to face the old man. Ancient eyes stared at him.
A small wry smile cracked through the old man's expression before he
glanced back. "A hard home for a hard people." The old man mused
aloud. Atticus followed the man's gaze. Glelk, the goblin in charge of the
goblin expedition, a nephew of the Goblin crown prince, was heavily in
conversation with two other goblins.
Likely already talking about where to build their capital. They would
eventually settle on building north east from here near a vein of a rich
platinum vein.
Atticus' gaze fell beyond the goblins towards the others who were trailing
behind the goblins. Kimeak Silverbrow, one of the dwarves, was talking
with Owennokon, another Iroquois elder, Feodilus of the Grecian Centaur
tribe and Firenze of the British tribe. The rest of the expedition was
behind on Yethea at present, a burgeoning waterworld. The others
weren't interested in wearing the suits they'd have to wear to come to the
barren moons of the gas giants.
"Oh, I wouldn't say it would be a hard home." Atticus said mildly,
regaining the man's attentions. Atticus smiled slightly the old man.
"Hmm." Halona nodded sagely. "Quite. Different peoples value different
things." A flicker of something entered the man's eyes. "Even if it is
strange."
Atticus didn't respond to that. There was little to say after all. The
Iroquois, the Native American peoples in general, held nature and
balance in very high esteem. To take from the land but also to give back
in an equal and substantive way.
That wouldn't happen to this world.
Atticus and Halona waited on the others to join in silence, and soon
enough Atticus discussed every little detail about the world with the
mixed group such as about the platinum and other rare metal deposits
that were the richest in the solar system.
The Goblins had already done their tests on several locations to confirm
the reports and it matched a hundred percent with what his people had
reported about the moon.
Minus a few unimportant details like how Gaius and his team believed
that the moon was an exoplanet that drifted into the system millions of
years ago, a planet that was kicked out of its system of origin by losing a
planetary dance, and found its place here around Eos.
Atticus thought it was probably quite likely given how different the
composition of the moon was relative to the moons around Eos which
were mostly nickel-iron rocks whilst this moon had a geological make up
closer to that of inner world planets which would have formed from
stellar dust clouds left behind during the birth of the star.
Glelk was ecstatic, for a Goblin, and was giving hints about claiming this
moon for the Goblin nation once the terraforming process was complete.
No one would contest it.
The Dwarves were more interested in Ibronides, a moon around Gribidis
whilst the merpeople were keen on co-habiting Yethea which was closely
turning into a semi water world.
He told Glelk that they would be given first priority though that the
details would have to be discussed with the races and peoples of the
Grand Alliance. Atticus would address the Celestis system with whole
Alliance once he'd dealt with the Ravenites.
They soon arrived back onto the ship and made their way towards Yethea
where the rest of the expedition was, a few hours long journey.
Atticus was in his room reviewing the progress reports of the first large
manufacturing hub which would be stationed around Dexirus, nicknamed
Hephaestus' Forge, when his door bell chimed.
"Come in" he said, his eyes still looked towards the reports.
The H.F. Hub would be the first manufacturing hub that would be
capable producing some of the more advanced Ancient Human
technologies, things like synthesising Neutronium or producing rare
crystals used for producing particle energy beams and lances that the
hubs on Illos weren't exactly geared towards producing.
A high scale manufacturing hub that would consist of massive assembly
arrays that would be predominantly be manned by advanced golems
working in tandem with nanite constructors. Whilst the Fabrication Hubs
could permanently transfigure materials into shape, he wanted the
flexibility of nanite construction as reprogramming nanites was
significantly quicker than it was to reprogram to create new fabrication
templates.
By the time H.F. was complete, it would be capable of building every
section of the Citadel class Starbase that he'd seen in the other future.
And capital ships quarter the size of Illos.
It would also include the next generation of Runic Matter Re-Assembler
Arrays, an array that could permanently transfigure materials into
another material though in this instance, it would contain a memory
bank contained decades of his experimentations of permanent
transfiguration…including his experimentations of permanent
transfiguration of magical materials.
The Energy and Propulsion facility within the H.F. Hub would build the
reactors and engines of future ships and defence stations and in time, he
expected it to be capable of also building Vacuum Energy Reactors
though he expected that to happen only after a few centuries when the
Federation was stable.
For now, the layering of enchantments and runes had to be done by a
magical person but he was already working on the problem. He'd already
solved the issue of producing magical metals like Oralchum perfectly
without the need of alchemic transmutation circles and in time
enchantments and runes would be printed or weaved as easily as spiders
weaved their webs.
Whilst for now it would focus on replication and production of non-
magically created materials, later on it would be capable of producing
metals like Oralchum perfectly without the need of intensive alchemic
transmutation circles.
"Herald." Firenze greeted with the familiar and distinct cadence that he
had long ago associated with the centaurs. Atticus turned around after
flicking his fingers towards the Holo which blinked out of existence.
"Firenze." Atticus greeted back before gesturing the centaur to come in
deeper into his temporary abode which the centaur was only just about
able to get into. He hadn't spoken to Firenze much during this trip. Or
really any of the centaurs. The three centaurs, the British ones at least,
were not particularly talkative and preferred silent contemplation as they
travelled through slipspace.
He knew that they had some kind of connection to Living Time but what
extent…he knew not. He was curious to know what they felt from magic
through slipspace, if they felt like what he'd felt. Funnily enough he'd
even checked and experienced through hundreds of timelines where he'd
questioned them…with and without force.
They never broke and never gave him an answer he could trust.
Their lack of dialogue continued – especially once he'd emerged out of
his sojourn – when they arrived in the Celestis system though he could
see they were more and more engaged with the mission as they travelled
through the savannahs of Sentanis, through the valleys of Celestis and
through the rocky arctic forests of Yethea…at least at the beginning…
before they simply refused set foot on Celestis again.
It was the first time he'd seen their magic at play.
It was tender, the way they reached out to nature and even more
fascinating was the slight stirring that he'd felt from those worlds, as if
they were turning in their sleep from the warm hand on their shoulders.
The Iroquois were less subtle to their approach, less graceful than the
centaurs and…less effective. But…it was also something he could
replicate compared to how to the more soothing way the centaurs evoked
nature magic into stirring, into reaching the precipice of existing.
A way that had allowed them to feel the history of Celestis and Sentanis,
especially Celestis, which nearly caused them to be paralysed out of
horror.
Honestly, Atticus was incredibly impressed with the centaurs. To feel
traces of magic hundreds of thousands of years old to that extent, to the
point they were getting an idea of the grim history of this galaxy…
Unfortunately, whatever made the centaurs special had made them
special enough that it was rather impossible, at least for now, to learn
their way of magic sensing. Still, in the end, Celestis would be bent to his
desires using what he'd Seen from the Iroquois and that was enough.
Celestis would come alive even if it was not as it once was.
"Have you decided which world you will work on first?" Atticus broke the
silence for them. The centaurs hadn't said what world they would like to
work on first after they've visited each and every inner world.
He knew which one it would be however.
"Dexirus." Firenze answered simply before his silver eyes latched onto
Atticus'.
Atticus nodded. "I understand." He searched the centaurs' eyes a little
vaguely. He'd seen enough to know that the beings knew what he
planned for Celestis. Perhaps that factored into their reasoning as to why
they chose Dexirus…in more ways than one.
"You may observe if you wish." Firenze stated, a flicker of interest
showing in his expression. "It may aid you in your trial to come."
Atticus smiled faintly. "Trial?" he asked mildly with a curious expression.
Firenze tapped the deck with his hooves as if to physically express
murmurings.
"A trial is still a trial even if the chance of succeeding is certain."
Atticus looked at the centaur a little amused before he folded his hands
in his lap. "I see." Atticus only said for a long while whilst keeping eye
contact with the centaur. There were a few things that he had to say, that
the centaurs had to know.
Words that needed to exist.
"And you're not against my…forceful act?" Atticus asked curiously,
already knowing the answer.
Firenze tilted his head slightly, as if confused by the question. "Would it
matter?"
"It might." Atticus answered easily despite the fact that it really didn't.
Inlaying Celestis with Mithril would grant him and Emily with a
connection that was several of orders of magnitude greater than the
connection they held to Illos but that wouldn't give him the same
connection, the same control, over the rivers, the land, the seas, and the
forests.
This way however, once he'd took control and dispersed traces of his
magic within the magical system of Celestis, he'd begin the alignment of
the world's magic to his own in a more…natural way and wouldn't fight
him so much as he'd estimated it would otherwise.
Firenze's tail whipped around quickly for a few seconds before it stopped.
"It would not." The centaur answered calmly. "You are as unswayable as
Death itself."
The centaur looked away from Atticus, towards the ceiling, as if he was
in the midst of a vision. "Death for a world that should remain dead for the
loss it suffered." the centaur said lowly before returning his gaze back to
Atticus.
Atticus didn't respond to the opinion of the centaur. To them, it would be
better for Celestis to be a world laid at rest instead of disturbing the
resting place of many, many species. He disagreed. Fervently.
A few moments passed before he spoke.
"When we leave Yethea, I will have you and your fellow centaurs sent to
Dexirus to begin the transformation." Atticus raised his hand and a holo
image of the moon popped up. "You will focus on these regions, will you
not?"
Areas around the equator were alight where most of the forests were
located.
"Yes." Firenze simply answered.
Atticus nodded. "Very well. The bulk of the animals can be brought out of
stasis in a moment's notice" he paused for a moment as he chose to meet
the silver eyes of the centaur "Though I would prefer if you told them
when you are expecting to be done in those regions."
The centaur met his gaze though said nothing for a few short moments.
"We will."
Atticus smiled faintly. Small steps he supposed. They both knew that
Atticus knew exactly when they'd be done but this was more a case of
coaxing the centaurs into developing a working relationship with
magicals.
The centaur turned around and made to leave before pausing and stood
half turned away from Atticus. Atticus looked on expectantly. "You now
outshine Mars itself."
"I do because I must." Atticus answered calmly before he looked away
from the centaur. The centaur's tail wagged uncertainly. Atticus felt a
bout of sympathy, just the smallest amount. He could certainly
understand how strange it must be to experience such a dramatic change
to the events of the future.
"Just as I must outshine Jupiter, just as I must outshine Saturn and just as
I must incorporate the brightness of Uranus into my being." Atticus
leaned forward as he spoke honestly. He believed all of that.
He would be as merciless as the Roman god of War, he would show
strength and energy and ambition to such degree that he would dominate
all those who would come to cross him. Just as he would act as the
guardian and father of the magical world, facilitating growth, expansion,
prosperity, nobility, focus and civility for those who would come to rely
on him, those who he'd entice to his bosom.
"I see." The centaur said with a frown.
"Does that scare you?"
"Yes." Firenze answered blatantly though no such fear emanated from the
centaur. Atticus wasn't sure if the being felt fear in the same way humans
did.
"Once, we were certain you would not go to extreme lengths."
The words unsaid were clear enough.
"For the magical world…for your people. For my own people. Even for
the boggarts. I will do what I must. Lady Magic may judge my soul for it
at the end of my time."
Firenze met his gaze and said nothing when he turned around and
walked out of the room. Atticus sighed when the door closed and for a
long moment simply sat there, considering what the centaurs could have
seen.
In the end, Atticus simply shook his head and returned his attentions
towards the reports of the H.F. Hub.
They arrived at Yethea with little fanfare and it wasn't long before
Atticus departed with the centaurs in tow towards Dexirus whilst the
others stayed behind as most Iroquois worked to nurture nature magic
into flourishing on Yethea.
After dropping off the centaurs, he took a slipspace capable shuttle with a
few of his guards in tow, guards who were sworn to secrecy, and made
his way towards a cluster of stars around two hundred light years away
where there were a bunch of red giants all within a fifty light year radius.
The ship exited slipspace a few days later at the rim of the system before
Atticus directed the ship to approach the red giant. The shuttle was
specially made to get as close as possible to the photosphere.
By the time they were as close as they could get, Atticus was in the
expanded hangar deck where he was unlocking one of the large
containers. "Sir, we've arrived."
"Thank you Lionel." Atticus said as he threw open the doors to the
container and an iridescent blue glow beamed out of the container and
into the hangar deck.
With a delicate flicker of the fingers, the glowing globule moved towards
Atticus as he stepped a little backwards. The surface of the globe was
undulating, like a spherical ball of the sea moving at tide and the globe
was about three meters in diameter and within it, one could see faint
outlines of some metallic structures.
"I will be opening the hangar now to space, Lionel." Atticus called out as
he gentle guided the orb towards the port-hatch.
"Yes sir." Lionel quickly said before disappearing through hatch.
Atticus waved his hand towards the port-hatch, pressing the buttons that
would expel all air out of the hangar deck whilst at the same time closing
it off. Atticus' suit automatically raised a bubble of air around his head
before darkening to nearly pitch black to protect his eyes from the
radiation and light from the star.
Soon enough the port-hatch opened and he was floating out into space
with the globe floating just before his outstretched hand.
He could feel the heat emanating from the red giant that looked like it
had no end this close to it. Thankfully his suit would protect from the
radiation as much as it would protect him from the heat. The surface of
the red giant was a maelstrom of activity, turbulent solar storms wracked
across its surface, sunspots the size of hundreds of Celestis' was clear to
see, flares that were taller than any structure he could think of creating
lashed out from the surface of the star. It was beautiful.
As soon as he was far away from the shuttle, Atticus waved his free hand
behind him and he began to increase his speed. It was fifteen minutes
later that he felt comfortable enough in the distance that he'd put himself
from the shuttle and with a slightest of pushes, he released the globe
away from himself though it was still within his control.
By now, the globe was as far away from him as he was from the shuttle.
Over the decades, he'd made significant strides when it came to
dimensional manipulation. Rowena's Time Room, the Vanishing Cabinets
and the immense library of content the Ancient Humans had on
dimensions that overlaid onto reality was enough for him to make
significant strides into creating pockets of dimensions that were near
infinite in size.
That was what the globe was, a pocket dimension, and now it was time
to invert the globe and release its content. Atticus raised his hands, his
eyes were glowing as his magic unfurled itself from the bottom of his
core and weaved his hands in intricate motions. First, he re-orientated
the globe to the exact position it needed to be in before his hands began
to glow a blue orange hue.
Runes, Illosian runes, flashed into existence before he sent them towards
the globe and encircled it. The runes began to move, rotate, as they sunk
into the surface of the globe and though he could hear nothing in the
emptiness of space, he imagined he could hear the sound of a latch
unlocking.
The globe began to glow as bright as the star itself before it had burst
with the same kind of superheated explosion as that of a nuclear bomb
but instead of a mushroom cloud rising to the top, a massive round mirror
burst through, so large that it cast him into the shadows.
The mirror was three times the circumference of Earth and it was
indestructible to conventional means. Atticus waved his hands around
himself and strings of enchantments wrapped around him, enchantments
that would fortify his suit several orders of magnitudes greater than
needed but nonetheless, it added an illusion of safety as he began to
move towards the other side of the mirror.
The front of the mirror was as hot as the surface of the sun itself though
that paled in comparison to the beams of energy that was being directed
to the tiny cross section that was at a distance of half the radius away
and parallel with the centre point of the mirror. The entire mirror was
angled towards this cross section and with the same clever runic arrays at
the back of each mirror pane, there was zero loss of energy as they
reflected energy towards this tiny cross section.
Atticus stayed clear from the beams and went towards the back of the
Feeder. With a wave of the hand, Atticus' magic crept up into the
'keyhole' of the Feeder and he felt the Feeder unlock. It was keyed to his
magic and a particular feed rate of his magic as an added protection so
without those two combinations, it couldn't unlock.
Inside of the device, glowing orange white light faintly shone through
and at the very centre of it, there was a large triangular symbol that
contained several triangles.
Manifestation. Revelation. A Higher Perspective
These were the meanings that this runic symbol was ascribed to, and it
was this that, along with years of high level physics studies that earned
him the ability to ascribe conversion of other forms of energy into
neurophysical energy…magic.
With another wave of the hand, a small globule of Mithril flew from the
capsule that had hung from his mid rift. A few flickers of his fingers
towards the Feeder brought out a number of thin wires that he made to
sink into the small ball of Mithril.
Atticus' hairs stood up as he felt a trickle of the magical energy the
Mithril began to emit as it fed on the magic that was now feeding it. It
was potent, he mused to himself. The magical power per second that was
being fed into the Mithril was akin to half the magical power he
possessed.
He couldn't even really imagine the amount of power that this Mithril
Seed would contain when it had fully devoured this red giant.
Atticus closed the Feeder and raised his hand towards the Mithril sphere
before waving his wand away towards the star. The Mithril sphere jetted
away and after a few minutes had passed, Atticus forced it to stop.
It would grow to the size of a planetoid in forty to sixty years and once
that was done, Atticus' eyes darkened, he would see the Mithril Seed sink
into the red giant once it was implanted with mobile Feeder and consume
the star inside out.
He'd done the calculations once he'd had a bit of time after his
conversation with his alternative-self. They'd already realised long ago
that there was a hard limit to the conversion rate, a conversion rate that
transformed about 1/20th of energy into magical energy. However…
there was also a way that would convert massive amounts of energy at
1/120th to magical energy at a much faster rate.
At the time, he and Alice had dismissed that option because it was
wasteful in comparison to this method and they didn't want to waste so
much of the energy produced by the Vacuum Energy Reactor. A thinking
that continued with his plans with the thirteen stars. But…he had no
reason to be so conservative especially since time was not a friend of his
and his people.
Atticus turned his gaze towards the red giant. By the time the Mithril
Seed was the size of a planetoid, he'd place the Seed into the star and
would grow large enough to be three times larger than Jupiter itself.
Brimming with magical energy that would sustain his civilisation for
untold amount of generations. Brimming with energy waiting to be
wielded against their enemies.
Yes…
It would be wasteful but he had no time to waste.
Atticus turned around and darted back towards the shuttle. As he entered
the hanger and re-pressurised the hangar, the door to the inner ship
opened and Lionel and Aldrin walked out. "Mission was a success, boys."
Atticus said to his trusty guards.
"Aldrin, take us to the next stop." Atticus said as he transfigured his suit
into something a little more comfortable. The next trip would take about
ten hours and he wasn't so keen to remain in his suit whilst he was
meditating.
"Yes sir." Aldrin said and soon enough, they were on the way towards the
next red giant.
-Break-
Celestis, Arion Continent (Northern Celestis)
Minnehaha POV
She tilted her head slightly, her ear angled towards the sky as she waded
through the forest. The wind rustled the leaves, sounds of plants and
trees made to sway by the wind were all that filled her ears. But…no
sounds of life outside of the vegetation.
There was no music of the birds, no buzzing of insects.
There was no hum and song of the Spirits.
It was…odd, she mused to herself. There were signs that this world once
upon a time bore life. There were echoes of it. She felt it through her
magic. Traces. Very small traces and it was like one day…it just seemed
to cease to exist.
All gone within a blip of time.
And it left this world strangely sterile of life itself. Almost to the same
extent as those worlds that the Illosians were changing to suit life. She'd
seen enough of this world's ecosystem to know that it was very close to
death for a long time before the hardest of flora managed to fill in the
gaps.
But magically? This world was rich, richer than even her homeland. The
magic here felt like a thick blanket that covered her from head to toe.
Yet…it was lacking in warmth…of substance. And…it was also scarred.
She shuddered slightly as she remembered that first trace of magic. She
had felt horror as she felt echoes of dead spirits of nature, echoes of their
cries as they made to die within a blip of time, the same blip of time that
killed off this world's children.
The others had felt it too.
The centaurs especially. They were horror struck by what had happened
to this world…and to Sentanis and to a much lesser extent the other two
inner worlds.
But this world…this world haunted them. So much so that they did not
want to set foot again once they understood the deaths that occurred on
this world.
Owennokon had also refused in the end and Halona was far from eager
himself to involve himself on this world. Oddly, the Sayre King did not
seem to mind one bit.
She sighed as she made her way towards the edges of the forest, out of
the forest, her mind wandering off to the tales of her people in context to
this world.
Her people believed that long before the world was created, there was an
island floating in the sky where the Sky People lived, living quiet and
happy lives where no one died and no one was born and no one
experienced sadness.
It was a blissful existence.
One day, one of the Sky Women realised she was pregnant and gave birth
to twins, an occurrence that never had happened before and it enraged
her husband who ripped out the Tree of Light in his anger which had
illuminated the island as the sun had not yet been created before pushing
his wife through the hole he created.
The Sky Woman tumbled and tumbled towards the waters below but two
birds saw her and caught her before she could fall and carried her on
their backs and brought her to the other animals, the animals that lived
in the waters.
The animals realised that she was not a water animal and one by one
they tried to pick up mud from the bottom of the waters but they kept on
failing. Until, Little Toad tried and when he reappeared, his mouth was
full of mud which the animals took and spread it on the back of Big
Turtle. The mud began to grow and grow and grow until became the size
of North America.
The Sky Woman then stepped onto the land and sprinkled dust into the
air and created the stars. Then she created the moon and the sun. She
then brought her hands to her mouth and blew a sharp whistle and notes
of music began to fly throughout the world until one of the notes took
root into the maple trees, and another into the rivers, and another into
the earth and another into the rocks and seas.
The notes of music began to change and turned into voices of their own
and when the Sky Woman gave birth to twin sons, the sons added notes
after notes to each voice making them come alive like the Sky Woman
was or the twins were.
The Spirits were born from these notes, from these voices.
For a time, things were as perfect as they were on the floating island
except Flint, one of the twins began to destroy much of the work Sapling,
his brother, had done and in the end, they fought to conquer one another
and in the end Sapling had won.
As she glanced around, she couldn't help but wonder if Owennokon
superstitious beliefs had a hint of merit, that Flint had won on this world.
She wasn't a Literalist like a few of the Elders were, those few who
ascribed much value to ancient tales and creation stories like Owennokon
was prone to do but it was a tale that was stuck into her mind.
She smiled a little wryly as she continued to walk. She found herself
often stuck with ancient tales in her mind, more than she'd wished to.
Especially since the subject of her concerns was very troublesomely
involved in those ancient tales.
Flashes of the symbol of Hinon and its links to the prophecy, the floating
island and the man's connection to the Thunderbird dominated the
forefront of her mind. She sighed as she continued to walk, her mind
once again drifting to the subject at hand.
She did not know what to think of the Sayre King.
Even more so now that she'd had the chance to speak with him a number
of occasions. It was very clear that the man was uncomfortably aligned to
a few of the stories but she also got the feeling that there was a pit of
darkness in him.
Comanche had advocated for him, having met him as a boy, and a few of
their people who worked with MACUSA did the same. She'd almost
refused to even learn what they were set to go even though she already
knew of rumours that the Illosians had found Atlantis. The oaths were
almost offensive with how restrictive it was.
In the end, Comanche had convinced her and the other elders and to say
she was surprised was putting it lightly. They'd already heard of Illos
sailing through the Void, a feat that most had come round to accepting
since the No-Majs had done the same feat with their machinery.
But worlds around another sun?
That was another thing entirely and in the end, the Sayre King swore a
blood oath in the way of the Iroquois and that was enough for them to
realise he was speaking the truth. Atlantis was a ruse to hide what the
Illosians had achieved and they wanted their help to rouse these worlds
into full awareness.
Much like how their world was awake and aware.
She took the time to learn more about the Sayre King before deciding
anything.
A war hero, a genius and a leader of men.
Those were things ascribed to the man but another description fitted the
man well as well she'd decided. A killer, a manipulator and someone with
far too much power than anyone should have. Magically and politically.
She shook her head. Despite that, the earth, the wind, and the sun all told
her things that seemed contrary to what she thought of the man. 'Herald'.
'Ark Builder'.
She didn't understand why the Spirits would always return those two
words to her, no matter what method she used to seek an answer. Always
those two words accompanied with the symbol of Hinon, the thunder
spirit of her people.
In the end, those cryptic answers from the Spirits – at that point – along
with the temptation of seeing and feeling and touching new worlds that
was different to their own little Turtle Island had proven too much for her
to resist.
To understand if these worlds had the same origin as their own world
had.
"Perhaps once upon a time…" she said to herself quietly as she stepped
over a thick root. This world was so very similar to that of their own, it
was scarcely believable.
Her hand traced across the bark of the tree she walked by before she
looked down at her hand. She'd seen a number of tree species that
wouldn't go amiss in eastern and central North America. It was almost
scary to see how similar it all was.
It was partly the reason why Owennokon and Halona were reluctant to
coax the dead spirits of this world to live again. Beyond the simple
superstition. They felt as if they were disturbing the graves of the kin of
their own spirits of nature.
She made it out of the forest a few hours later and made her towards the
camp that was about a ten minute walk away. When she realised that she
didn't tire as much as she did back home, she'd made an effort to exercise
her old bones.
A twinkle shone in her brown eyes. She'd already lost half a stone since
she'd been.
She saw the young man Gaius there conversing with a few of his people.
One thing she most certainly noticed was that there were many, many,
young people here. People who were about a century and a few decades
shy of even being considered to be an elder. She knew that they were
only in their third decade, for the most part, unlike the Sayre King who
was very clearly older in his magic even if he looked like a man barely
out of his final maturity.
She'd asked the Sayre King once and he'd told her that these people were
all more or less raised on Illos and were picked for this as they were the
generation that were the ones who knew technology and magic like it
was the back of their hands.
"Ah, Minnehaha." The young man said with a smile. She returned it
kindly.
"Are we ready to go?" There was a camp by the valley northwest from
here where most of the people were located.
Gaius shook his head. "No. I've just been in contact with the King. He
wants you to come to him at the Trident stream." The young man said
sympathetically.
She nodded amiably.
"That is fine. I think I have a few hours left in me." She said with a smile.
Soon enough they were in one of the sky-boats the Illosians liked to use.
It certainly was preferable than the broomsticks the Europeans long used.
Although in her opinion she much preferred the carpets. Especially the
very large ones.
She smiled to herself as she lost herself to her memories. She and her
husband had many great out of that carpet. It was a shame she never got
another one.
The trip didn't take long at all and she saw him in the middle of the
shallow stream that was upstream to the river before it split into three
streams.
Gaius didn't stick around as he flew off moments after she was dropped
off and she made her way towards the Sayre King. A frown formed on her
face.
When she heard the centaurs call this man Herald, it was then she
understood that the centaurs knew far, far more than she did. Even to her
people, the centaurs were known to be reclusive and hostile to magicals.
A shame as her people venerated the race of beings when they'd learnt of
them and what they possible represented.
It also concerned her that the symbolism to Hinon held deeper
connotations as some of the elders thought possible. She'd dismissed it
then but now…now she was confronted with an unwanted consideration.
As she neared him, she could feel his magic emanating from him. It was
gentle, tender and she realised that he was feeling the river much like she
and her people did. Or at least attempting to. It was a very good attempt,
she conceded.
The Sayre King turned around and offered her a slight smile.
"How am I doing thus far?"
She tilted her head as she zeroed in on his magic. It was coarse, his
attempt, but there was promise there. "Good for someone not of my
people" she answered.
For her and her people, their relationship with nature was symbiotic.
Like a glass of water, one would not be able to separate out the water
droplets, that is how in tune elders of her people are with the Spirits.
His attempt…it was like a drop of sugary water. It was clear, it was of the
same hue but it was changing the water itself rather than being
inseparable to the water.
"High praise." The Sayre King said with an amused lilt to his voice before
he closed his eyes and her breath hitched as the volume of his magic
grew orders of magnitude greater than what it had been before. She did
have to admit, that his ability in magic was astonishing and even more so
his level of control. She had little trouble imagining that this man, even
as young as he would have been at the time, had defeated the European
who'd nearly broke the Statue of Secrecy in New York.
Her eyes widened as she felt him change the magic around this river. She
could feel, the music, the tone of the very river shift. Where before it was
water, it was now akin to a glass full of sugary water and for a moment,
she felt the ancient trace of the dead spirits around these parts grow
stronger, as if they were being resurrected, no, that wasn't the right
word…it was as if pieces of broken vases were being gathered and used
to make something else.
But wh-
A gasp escaped her as she realised what exactly he was doing.
"Owennokon and the centaurs are right." The Sayre King spoke as he
reopened his eyes. White glowing eyes were cast towards her, his arms
rising slowly.
"The spirits of this world are dead. They have been for many, many years.
I can respect their desires to let the world rest in peace but Celestis itself
does not want remain dead." The Sayre King smiled gently at her as his
magic began to retreat into him, his eyes no longer aglow as they
dimmed as the seconds ticked away.
"You mean to use their corpses to create new spirits." She accused
harshly.
It was an abominable act.
The Sayre King made his way towards her, his head shaking. "Is this
world in balance without its spirits?" the Sayre King asked her but left
her no time to answer as he exited the stream of water.
"It is not. You have felt the wounds on this world. The life it once bore
and the majesty of this world once upon a time. So much so that even
now we can feel traces of this world's history echo through time. Does
this world not deserve to awaken from the near fatal wound it was made
to suffer? Why should I not heal this world and at the same time use the
ashes of its Spirits to bring forth new Spirits that would, for all intents
and purposes, be the legacies of those ancient Spirits?"
"If that was what you were doing, if that was all that you were doing, it
would have been one thing. But it is not, is it?" she returned with
narrowed eyes though the Sayre King's reaction surprised her as he
seemed to deflate as he approached her.
"No, it is not." The Sayre King gave her a weary smile before he waved
his hand and chairs came into existence. "Please take a seat." The Sayre
King gestured towards the seat. When he saw her resolutely standing he
only offered her a kinder smile. "I will explain my reasoning." He assured
her.
She sat down.
"The reason why I am doing this is related to why this world has lost all
of its life and all of its Spirits at the same time." The Sayre King stated
calmly.
"You know what happened?" she asked sceptically. Not even the centaurs
knew, of that she was fairly certain. How could the Sayre King know
when the centaurs were far beyond him when it came to interpreting
nature and its memories?
"Only because of my ancestor." The Sayre King explained and then
proceeded to tell her an unbelievable story that she could scarcely
believe.
A story of horror and death and unforgivable crimes.
A story of ancient humans, their ancestors, who fought for life and in the
midst of it all lost their ways and were cruelly punished for their erring
ways and yet it was that same punishment that allowed them to survive
as the race of beings who defeated them wiped the galaxy clean of the
infection that sought to devour it.
She would have thought it a lie had the Sayre King swore an oath to the
truth of his tale. Yet what disturbed her even more was the fact that the
Sayre King believed that the galaxy was still very far from a safe place for
he did not believe the infection was eradicated nor did he believe beings
like these Forerunners were gone from the galaxy.
"Celestis needs to live. This system needs to live. Our future depends on
it." The Sayre King said solemnly as he bowed his head "I know that this
method is not…ideal but I will do what I must to ensure we have a safe
haven."
'Ark builder…'
That word rang in her mind.
"You intend to take the magical world here." She simply stated, her eyes
boring into the man. She'd already suspected it really. It was hard not to
after seeing how the Dwarves and the Goblins and even the centaurs had
looked at each world like they were at a market shopping for goods. The
Sayre King smiled slightly before nodding, his expression falling into
seriousness as his smile wiped itself away from his face.
The intensity in his strange eyes captured her into stillness.
"I have Seen far enough into the future to know that our time on Earth is
coming to an end." the man raised his arm, forestalling her response.
"You may disagree, you may deny but before you do that, you should
speak to the centaurs who have seen the same futures. The only way I see
us remaining on Earth is if we subjugate the mundanes." The Sayre King's
eyes darkened.
"I have no desire to do that to our cousins nor am I willing to subject
Earth to a war that could potentially see much of its life annihilated in
the conflict." The Sayre King leaned forward. "And you also know that co-
existence is nearly impossible. Especially now that your own mundane
cousins are numbered in the hundreds of thousands compared to the
hundreds of millions that have taken their place."
She thinned her lips at the mention of the destruction of the Native No-
Majs. She and the other elders of the tribes of America were long of the
belief that had they not been made to adhere to the Statute of Secrecy,
they could have prevented the collapse of the ancient civilisations that
her people once upon a time belonged to.
Whilst the diseases the No-Maj Europeans brought with them to America
decimated and depopulated America, there still had been millions of
Natives still around to stabilise the Native American civilisations before
the trickle became a flood.
Civilisations that long had relied on their magical counterparts for
spiritual advice, for healing and even leading them. But they had lost the
Statute Wars and had been forced to agree to the Statute of Secrecy lest
they be wiped out like the Coalition had done to other magical
communities.
"And you would swear on this?" she asked him sharply. "You would swear
that only two options exist? Subjugation or leaving?"
"No." the Sayre King smiled apologetically before his expression turned
grim. "There are more options than just those two. There are many
shades of choices available. Peace however, never is an option. That, I
can swear by if I must."
The Sayre King leaned back, his gaze turning towards the stars as evening
was beginning to fall. "There are too many things the mundanes can fear
from us. There are many things our own kind can fear from them. We are
simply too different." The Sayre King turned back towards her, his eyes
falling onto hers. "You know this too. As do your people otherwise you
would have done more to help the Native Americans instead of staying in
the magical world even centuries after the Statute Wars."
She looked away from his gaze. That was hardly ever discussed amongst
her people. She was old enough to have been born only decades after the
Americans had won their independence, an era that still had many
opportunities of covertly assisting the Native Americans in their
struggles. And at the time…they never went for it.
Neither did the other communities like the Mohicans, the Seneca or the
Cherokee, Creeks or the Apache. Each of the tribes had their reasons but
ultimately it came down to the fact that this way was easier. For
generations, magicals were dragged into their spats and rarely could
magicals in one clan meet with other clans of the same tribe. And often,
magicals were the first that warriors set out to kill.
Even the young.
"My people will never agree to move." She answered instead.
The Sayre King nodded. "Yes. You would not abandon your Spirits. Which
is why I will work to find a way to transport the essences of your Spirits
to a world of your choosing." The Sayre King said seriously, startling her.
"Impossible." The Spirits inhabited the earth, the sky, the very rivers.
They were never fixed in one place. "And even if it was possible, the
Spirits would never agree."
"Really?" the Sayre King said in a way as if he knew some grand secret as
he leaned forward and she could see the flecks in his eyes aglow like
emerald stars.
"The Spirits are irrevocably linked to life. To magical life especially." He
stressed out before continuing "Generations of your people communing
with the spirits has given them a voice to speak to you with. To share
with you with what you need to know, what you should know. It is a
symbiotic relationship built upon generations of magicals interacting
with the environment." The Sayre King gestured towards the
surroundings.
"It is why I am able to use ancient traces to rebuild that link to life that
this world has so long and so sorely missed." The Sayre King turned back
towards her, his intense gaze fixed upon her.
"Do you think that this is not the future of Earth?" the words spoken felt
like a hammer blow. The Sayre King pressed on. "You have lived the best
part of two centuries now. Do not tell me that the Spirits are as
widespread as they'd once been."
"The Spirits are still vocal." She said with narrowed eyes.
"In areas where you have marked out as your own. Places the mundanes
are not able to see or touch despite the fact that less than two hundred
miles from your settlements there are countless number of towns and
cities." Most of their settlements were centred around the Chequamegon
and Ottawa forests where MACUSA had influenced the No-Majs to leave
untouched after an alliance of elders threatened to burn down town after
town until the No-Majs considered the area as cursed.
The Sayre King gestured towards the lands around them. "In lands like
these, like on Sentanis or Dagolia or Yethea, these Spirits will have the
chance to once again inhabit every corner of the world instead of
withering away as they promise to now."
She stared at him for a long while. The Sayre King was repeating things
that the most extreme of her people believed. Things had settled down in
the past half century but there was a growing anger amongst the youth.
Towards MACUSA, towards the No-Majs, towards the tribe and the other
tribes too.
All because they felt as if they were doing nothing, had done nothing,
about 'the loss of voices' but they were young. Young and stupid as all
youths were.
Change was always happening. It was a fact of life and she and the rest of
the elders believed that this was merely a cycle, just as the cycle of the
Always-Winter had come to an end many, many generations ago.
Unfortunately, the young weren't keen on being told such a thing and it
was partially why there was a resurgence in interest of the ancient tales,
tales that once upon a time would have been left as children's story to be
sung and revelled in communion. It was dangerous what he was saying
and she feared it for she knew that he would resonate much with those
angry youths.
"Why do you care?" she only asked, deflecting away from words.
The Sayre King met her gaze "Why do I care about what?" he returned to
her but his eyes were knowing with what she was speaking of yet he was
making her speak it.
"You're trying to win me over for a purpose I do not understand." She said
firmly.
He was trying to win her over by trying to instil fear and uncertainty of
the future before making out as if he cared about the Spirits. Spirits he
did not revere nor respect given what he would do the deceased Spirits
here.
'Why this man?' she wondered to herself with a troubled consideration.
"Because I am her Herald and it is my duty to care for her creations and I
will do as I am commanded." The Sayre King answered, his expression set
in utter belief.
She feared those words. It was one thing if he was just another power
hungry idiot that crept up in Europe and other parts of the world so often
but this belief felt different. Was different. It was unavoidable now, the
coincidences couldn't be considered simply to be coincidences. It must
have been written on her expression as his expression softened.
"Just as you have a connection to the Spirits, I have a connection with
Lady Magic. One that I have had since I was a boy." His expression
seemed to collapse into tiredness before it took on a melancholic quality.
"I was told by a centaur before I'd even hit my third maturity that I was
to build Arks for her children. That I was her Herald and that the duty of
saving everyone would fall to my shoulders." The Sayre King shrugged
lightly, a rueful smile on his face.
"At the time, I considered it to be wonderful. After all, not just anyone
can be her Herald." The Sayre King chuckled softly as he shook his head
before he sighed.
"A heavy responsibility to shoulder." She said quietly as she stared at the
Sayre King. 'Herald'. 'Ark Builder'. Whether or not it was true if he was
truly the reborn Hinon as prophesised mattered not. To think this man
had been that young to be told of such a heavy thing was
unconscionable. It made more sense now, those newspaper clippings of
the boy's speeches before the elders of his culture.
Words of duty, responsibility and references to Lady Magic…
She felt a bout of sympathy for Atticus.
If it was true, if he truly was the rebirth of Hinon himself as the prophecy
suggested
Atticus turned his head upward and peered at her with a light smile.
"And it is a responsibility I will gladly burden if it means that at the end I
am alive to see many generations beyond my own have families of their
own. If I can see magic, the spirits and the animals themselves flourish
instead of being made to live in reserves and zoos for fear of them being
discovered and hunted into extinction by the mundanes."
Atticus rose from his seat. "I will not force any peoples to move with me.
That is my promise and I will swear by it when we return to Earth." He
said sincerely.
"But you will advocate for it." She surmised and he inclined his head
slowly.
"I will. Just as I will work to find solutions that the peoples of our world
can accept."
"And if they don't?" She posed to him "If people, if communities, do not
wish to leave despite your efforts?" she posed to him, her eyes searching
his expression.
"Then I will desist." Atticus told her and it felt truthful.
"I am her Herald but I am not one to force people do what they do not
wish to do. Our greatest gift is choice and I will not take that from
anyone. Even if I think it unwise." Atticus admitted to her. For a long
moment she only stared at him before she nodded. For now, she believed
his sincerity.
Really, she had little option but to do so. Having seen the capabilities of
the Illosians, she knew that they were a people that could conquer the
magical world if they ever desired. Perhaps she should listen more to the
wisdom of the Spirits, she thought with a sigh. She peered at him one
more time, giving him a long look before she decided. Very well. There
were many, however uncomfortable, signals that this man was sent by
the Sky Woman herself. Ark builder. Herald. Hinon.
She got up and she winced slightly as she felt the tightness in her body.
She waved off the look of concern on Atticus' face and made her way
towards the stream.
She stopped for a moment and looked over her shoulder. She saw him
looking at her curiously. "Come. I will show you what you are missing."
She told him. She wasn't sure if it was the right choice but ultimately she
owed to the deceased spirits of this world that much of their essence was
preserved.
-Break-
Gaius POV
The deck was silent. None moved. Every set of eyes stood watch. Brown.
Blue. Green. Grey. Silver. Amber. All watching. All mesmerised as clumps
of white grew and twisted and joined up with larger twisted clumps.
Slowly. Nonetheless inevitable
It was as if all that stood witness were a piece of lint, adrift on a string of
music cast away by the serenating melody of a heart capturing spirit of
nature, whose melody, whose voice, touched every corner of the soul,
whose voice to which they were bent to, utterly and totally, swaying in
their non-motion as the voice commanded them to simply…
Watch.
Two. Four. Ten. Twenty white swirls twisted into a single storm and the
moment came, a moment of the first spark, so sudden and so very brief,
like the fleeting but sharp sensation of an surprising pinprick, a spark
that grew to become a hundred, far from random, far from without
rhythm as it sparked into existence to that same melodious music, and
Gaius imagined this how the dawn of existence itself to be, to a music
that grew from nothing into a rapturous orchestra, and just as the
collection of stars grew to uncountable numbers within a fraction of time
after the moment, after the height of blazing organs, so did the sparks
grow to such numbers as form streaks of un-breaking lightning that
engulfed large parts of the northern hemisphere.
Yet…that was not what had Gaius in awe. Not entirely.
No…that came from the magic that he saw. He saw his mentor's magic,
that distinctive violet and emerald magic, reach beyond the storm,
through the storm, even beyond very fringes of the stratosphere.
His mentor was transcending the bounds what Gaius thought possible.
"Hinon…" he heard whispered from beside him.
He turned and saw that Minnehaha, the elder Iroquois woman was
staring at the planet with a hidden awe within a complicated expression.
"Hinon?" Gaius couldn't help but ask moments before his attentions were
once more recaptured by the intensity of the lightning that raged below.
The very world was now becoming subsumed by the storm, the fury, the
range of the storm slowly extending further and further south. The very
world was alight with white blue streaks of lightning that resembled
cracks in window panes as the King sought to reforge Celestis into a
world of his own.
"My people…" he heard the respected elderly woman continue though he
couldn't keep his eyes away from the world in front of them, as if the
shortest blink was enough to make him miss something he ought never.
"My people have long worshipped spirits of nature, often as sons and
daughters and grandchildren of Sky Woman, Lady Magic herself, with
magical creatures of power such as the Thunderbirds and the Phoenixes
as her great grandchildren." She paused in her explanation and Gaius
could see that her words were being listened to by everyone on the
bridge.
"Hinon is amongst the most powerful of Lady Magic's children as the
physical representation of lightning and thunder." Her expression cycled
through a complex twist of feelings that Gaius wasn't sure how to
interpret.
"To think it is true…" he faintly heard her whisper.
Gaius waited for her say something, anything but she remained quiet, her
eyes set on the sights before them and Gaius turned his gaze towards the
view as well.
He saw his mentor's magic, that distinctive magic dispersed, no merged,
into the very world system of Celestis, a world system that so long had
been dormant, to the point where one could not determine where the
King started and Celestis ended.
The white blue streaks began to change, their aglow hues of startling
white and blue seemed to break, split, as other shades of the colour
spectrum began to branch out from the lightning streaks.
Until…
Until they began to normalise, began to shift into spectrums of emerald
green and violet and Gaius' breath hitched as he watched the entire
world system bending to Atticus' will, to his desires, to his magic, his
simmering, broiling, sweeping magic that cast Celestis into a glow of
vibrant greens and emeralds.
A chill descended down Gaius' back as he watched on unable to tear his
gaze away from the planet, his eyes seeing every tendril, every strand,
every fibre of his mentor's magic twist and wrack around the world that
was captured into a storm of his mentor's making.
Somehow he imagined hearing the deafening sounds of howling and
whistling air, he imagined feeling the denseness of magic on his skin as if
he was standing there on Celestis.
The world was now aglow with streaks of unending violet and emerald
lightning, the world was so submerged in Atticus' magic that he could
never even see where it began and where it ended.
Gaius felt like laughing at the absurdity of it all. He knew his mentor was
special, he knew that he was likely the most powerful wizard to have
existed but this…this was beyond the pale. Utterly and truly. He never
imagined he was capable of this.
There were limits, Gaius had believed, to what Archmages were capable
of and this…this was beyond what Archmage should be able to do. Even
tales of legendary wizards like Zeus or Odin, Sky Fathers, never even
closely touched to what they were seeing today.
"Minnehaha…if you tell me that the King is a Spirit…I will believe you."
Gaius only said as massive jagged structures of blue silver metal began to
peak through the storms and beyond the stratosphere before diving back
into the ground.
Atticus POV
The world around him had disappeared in blinding violet and emerald
light, liquid power that coursed through his veins was flowing out of him
in volumes he'd never allowed to flow out of him and it was akin to like
blood pouring out of slashed wrists.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Thunder rumbled with the consistency of a machinegun, each rumble
shaking the world with the force of a life-ending asteroid striking the
world.
Lightning sizzled and burnt the wet air. He could taste burnt ozone on his
tongue even through the haze of suffocating magic. It was apocalyptic,
this monstrous uni-storm that he'd conjured and for the first time in
decades, he felt close to Death.
His body felt like it was tearing itself apart, the howls, the screams, the
sharp agonising whistling of the wind were like physical sounds that
wanted to escape through his throat as his magic submerged into Celestis'
proverbial soul, a soul that was shaking, shook, tearing itself apart just as
Atticus' own body was tearing itself apart as the interacted with the
dormant, near dead, magic of Celestis.
The lightning that he was generating felt like miniature cracks into the
fabric of the universe itself, his channelling of nature magic, his bending
of and simultaneous submersion into Celestis' world magic was altering
and shattering in a way he'd never physically experienced before.
This was akin to a reboot, a hard reboot, that would see nature magic of
the forests, of the seas, of the plains and the valleys awaken and grow
into a kind of sentience like he knew Illos or Hogwarts, or the Forbidden
Forest had, a sentience that would be nothing but a middling seed at first
but eventually it would sprout as Celestis was filled with mundane
animals and magical creatures alike but that would, could, only come to
be once he rebooted Celestis with his coaxing – forceful – magic.
It was not the soothing ways of the centaurs, or the probing ways of the
Iroquois but it would work. It. Would. Work.
A mantra that filled his mind again and again as he stood there with his
body slowly falling apart even as he felt his magic touching every corner
of the world and it was moments – or was it hours – later that he felt
something, something akin to a heartbeat, a weak heartbeat, a fleeting
heartbeat but a heartbeat nonetheless, one that was growing in strength,
and in turn his hopes grew in strength, but it soon turned too fast, too
hard, too demanding and he could feel himself losing grip onto Celestis.
Calm…
CALM…
CALM!
That word repeated itself in his mind, a word that was shouted,
whispered, screamed, begged, allured, all attempts made to guide the
sleepy world back into awareness, into awakening, and he was failing to
wake Celestis up peacefully and calmly.
The very ground that he stood one was shaking apart, the maelstrom of
his magic entwined with nature magic was slowly disintegrating the
entire region he was located and all he could do is hang on, to keep
gripping onto nature with fierce and unbreakable will until he felt it fully
awaken.
Even at the cost of his body.
Time passed, the vortices of flesh ripping scythes of cyclones surrounded
him, just waiting, almost menacingly, for him to lose control and let
Celestis fall into an uncontrollable rage that he feared would forever cast
the shattered remnants of long dead traces of nature magic into the abyss
and a swell of agonising fury rose within him like a kilometre high
tsunami as he firmed his grip onto Celestis.
CALM!
His magic rose and rose, his magic surrounded him like the accretion disk
of a black hole, the cyclones that had surrounded him were cast away as
his magic grew in density, in range, in strength, and had he been able to
see himself, he would have seen himself aglow in white light with streaks
of violet and emerald in a way that made it seem as if he was intangible,
as if he was lightning made alive, and Atticus raised his shaking his arms.
He felt her 'heartbeat' slow down but nevertheless continue on as he
worked his magic with the delicateness of a heart surgeon wielding a
scalp.
Spells and words were not needed, could never be needed, would never
work, for this was magic that came from the soul, that came from
understanding, that came from intimate empathy where expressional and
spiritual meanings could only work.
Atticus' unclenched his fists that were high up in the sky, loosening his
grip that he had onto Celestis and he felt her heartbeat rise, he felt her
breathing in, he felt the corpses of her 'spirits' wither away as new
seedlings took their place.
Atticus' eyes gleamed as he turned his palms upward, a small wave of
intent sent towards the skyscraper sized Mithril spheres that were in
several locations and he felt them rise high up into the sky before they
dove back towards the ground and into the ground, breaking apart into
dozens, into hundreds of cords with the diameter of beach balls and he
felt Celestis' metaphysical gasp as the planet was infused with
unimaginable amounts of magical power.
He felt Celestis change even further, almost as if she was awakening with
one eye open as her pulse changed to the same frequency, to the same
rate as that of the pulse of the Mithril cords, the Mithril leylines and he
felt Celestis' scarred and broken leylines shift towards the Mithril leylines
and Atticus' breath hitched as he felt it finally happen, the moment, the
very instance and it was beautiful.
Celestis was awake.
Her magic was awake.
Atticus almost lost control over his magic as waves upon waves of
knowledge, Celestis' feelings sunk into him, knowledge of the violently
shaking trees, knowledge of the loosened rocks in the rivers and the seas,
knowledge of the crashing and foaming seas.
And…
He felt her gratitude, her almost cooing mutterings as she calmed down
and let Atticus have full control over Celestis and he began to dial down
the storm, his merge with Celestis, slowly but surely, and the howling
storm and the whistling winds began to lessen in their deafening rage.
It felt like an age but soon enough, the storm ceased and a pattering of
rainfall was all that remained of the terrible storm he'd conjured.
As Atticus gazed upon the ruined landscape, a landscape with untold
uprooted trees, a feeling of regret filled him yet…that feeling of regret
was muted down by the warm touch he felt from Celestis herself, a touch
that gave him sights of restored nature, stronger than ever as she
communicated to him that nature was change, chaos and that it was long
due for much of her to change.
Atticus stumbled weakly as his foot gave way to the slipper half broken
rock. A tired smile came across his face as he sent a wave of gratitude to
Celestis, something that the planet seemed to rejoice at and Atticus began
to laugh…uncontrollably.
He'd known that Celestis would become alive but he hadn't felt the
almost conscious nature of Celestis as he had now. He'd felt her through
his experiences but not her desires and man, wasn't that a mind twister to
know that a planet could have desires.
Atticus closed his eyes and sent a feeling of unity to her and she sent the
same feeling, albeit slightly different, back to him. It had traces of deeper
meaning behind it, as if she meant unity beyond just him and her.
"Yes…" Atticus whispered as he turned his gaze towards the hazy sky that
was fast clearing up. "There will be more, Celestis." He spoke aloud, not
really to her and not really to himself. "Many, many more." Atticus said,
his eyes alight with victory.
Yes…
There was far more to come.
That was a promise.
29. Chapter 89
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
24th of September, 1972 - Illos
Emily POV
As she woke, she felt his soft breathing, laying as she did on his bare
chest. Her eyes flittered open, her sight blurred through a haze made out
of strands of her black hair.
He was still asleep, deeply asleep, a rarity for the both of them.
It would not surprise her if he had, in the year he'd been away, only slept
when his body made him sleep like it did her, months after uninterrupted
awake-ness, likely even longer than their rituals allowed given the
allowance that meditation gave him.
Her hand rose and her fingers traced along his bare chest, the thin black
carpet at the centre of his chest was as smooth as silk strands, her mind
mostly absent as she simply took pleasure of touching him and feeling
him in contentedness. Her eyes closed as she continued to trace her
fingers on his chest, slowly bringing him awake.
She rarely felt as grateful and relieved when she felt him through their
bond. There had been a thick sliver of doubt but it disappeared and put
to rest by the evening.
For there to have been such drastic change to how they'd progress with
this war and their plans, especially as Atticus advocated for it the most,
she had feared that something had happened to him. This was beyond
unlikely timelines being pushed to the forefront, no, this was akin to what
had been done to the Symbols and what the Monks had done for
centuries as well.
And she knew Atticus' capabilities as much and as well as she knew her
own. He could not have achieved what had happened, not now, perhaps
not even if they lived for a century more. That meant there was an
outside influence that had done this.
She'd even thought that maybe it had been a similar group as the Monks
but had dismissed that when she'd ran through every single motivation
she could think of…that Hypatia could think of.
So, no, and that had left that maybe that it was an other, the other.
The Shapeless Ones…the Precursors and it admittedly cast her into an
awful pit of concern and fear that she was unused to. They'd already
known that the Precursors were likely the ones that were able to affect
the timeline from afar with their magic.
She'd feared that Atticus had been led to a trap and the messages from
Atticus did little to reduce her fears until only recently when she felt
their bond grow stronger, the last tendrils of doubt not leaving her when
she felt him through their bond wholly.
It was him and he was nothing else but only her husband.
"Hmm…" Atticus groaned out slightly as he shook awake, bleary eyes
showing themselves. A faint, barely conscious smile grew on his face as
he raised his hands and stroked away errant locks from her face.
"Morning"
"Morning."
The faint smile grew in strength as he stroked her cheek gently, his eyes
taking in every detail of her as the last shackles of sleep snapped off.
"It's a shame we can't stay like this all morning."
"No." she said agreed. They had too much to talk about. Everything had
still gone the same way as Atticus' visions had Seen but all that was now
coming to an end.
As it was now, the magical world was holding its breath as the Chinese
were subjugated, violently, and were closing in on putting the final nails
onto the coffin that was the ICW as its influence and reach was confined
to Alexandria whilst the rest of North Africa were being cowed into
submission by the Ravenites.
And were it not for Dembe Habe, the ICW would have been done for
already.
Many of the ICW Protectorates had already approached the Grand
Alliance for protection similar to the kinds of treaties that they'd since
with the likes of the Aryan League as a number of the bordering
Protectorates were joining forces and resources.
Ironically, many of the now former ICW Protectorate Ministries were
being led by former ICW officials, often towards the halls of the Grand
Alliance, as the organisation continued to leak personnel after the close
call that Alexandria suffered.
The ICW Unspeakables had already left mostly by that time and she
doubted she'd have known where exactly they'd gone had it not been for
the visions Atticus had given her. At least the ICW was wise enough to
recognise that the invaluable artefacts and tomes it possessed – often
pilfered from destroyed civilisations like the ones that once occupied
central and south America – couldn't fall into the hands of the Ravenites.
It was unfortunate they also took steps to ensure it wouldn't fall into Illos'
hands either.
In any case, fortunately, the flight of many…noncritical staff and peoples
was allowing the ICW to hold out in a smaller area, a heavily fortified
area, even more so now that they'd managed to successfully press
MACUSA to send volunteers by appealing to their better natures.
An appeal that was only accepted in the end by handing over critical ICW
research and loaning researchers for the purpose of creating their own
country-ship and Illos inspired magi-tech in the wake of the aftermath of
the dangers of the mundane cold war since the ICW was substantially
further ahead in the research and development than the Americans were.
The Americans would have eventually intervened fully causing the war to
stretch out for years than months without the Americans. With the
Americans, would come the Ottomans, who were not part of the Aryan
League, and the Western Alliance who would decide being part of a
coalition was the only way to survive long term.
Of course none of that mattered any more and more importantly, she
needed to know what had actually happened to cause all of this change.
Atticus gently began to sit up and she followed suit until they were both
sitting on the bed opposing one another. She met his gaze before he
closed his eyes, his hand slowly moving towards his head until he placed
a finger at the centre of his head.
The tip of his index finger began to glow with a ghostly white hue and
Atticus pulled away from his forward with a glowing liquid-like globule.
Transferring memories directly, mind to mind, was not a skill that was
hard to learn, not after knowing the principles of how pensieves worked
and creating the memory crystals that was just a step removed from what
Atticus would do now.
He reopened his eyes and she turned her eyes to his. She felt a tender
push against her mind and she creaked ajar the proverbial front door to
her mind. 'We must communicate with our minds from now'
Her eyes narrowed slightly before she nodded.
Atticus paused in his movement with a slight hesitancy before he pushed
his thoughts into her mind 'I will omit one memory from the conversation'
She narrowed her eyes 'Why?' she asked not so bitingly but not kind
either.
Atticus sighed. 'It is one of only two secrets that I hold – one of which I will
share with you today – and it means nothing to anyone but to myself. It is not
about you, or my family or even the magical or the mundane world. It is
simply inherent to me from before I even went to Hogwarts.' Atticus' voice in
her mind was soft as his eyes searched her own.
'Can you trust me enough to keep it to myself?'
'If I ask, would you tell me?" she responded, searching his eyes now.
'I swear it on the love we hold for one another' Atticus intoned easily, never
once breaking his gaze and she felt the sincerity and truth in their bond
A few moments passed before she slightly tightened and nodded.
Atticus smiled gratefully before he moved his index finger towards her
head and placed his finger tip onto the front of her forehead, the globule
sinking into her skin.
She let off a silent gasp as memories filled her mind.
She'd seen Celestis and the other planets and moons before, in his visions
and in the memories of the Illosians that had returned permanently –
which they shared to document for future generations – so she was not
mesmerised by them.
What she was mesmerised by – and shocked by – was the surprise and
shock she felt from Atticus when he'd been pulled against his will far into
the future, a shock she similarly felt and deepened when she saw the
sight of her husband only…older.
The thought gave her trouble and she watched as the eyes of her older-
husband flickered towards Atticus. She reeled at the action but she had
little time to process as she was pulled into their interactions, interactions
that supposedly explained the how of this meeting. She watched as
Atticus remained cold and distant towards his supposedly older-self.
The memory then skipped, the clear signs of something being omitted
from his memories, something that Atticus didn't want her to know but
she had no time to think on it as Atticus' supposed older-self explained on
what had happened in that older-self's future. How Atticus had 'let go' of
the reins of their world, how they both had let go and the subsequent
return to isolationist mentality.
The muggle extinction at the hands of the Covenant and the release of
the Xelanyn and the obscene ability the creatures had with Living Time.
She felt Atticus' disgust with his older-self and the self-guilt and
subsequent fury that welled in him, a fury that she more than felt as well
by the time the memory ended. She watched him get out from that
meeting and felt the determination that had filled within. Memories now
became faster and faster, Atticus bringing Celestis under their control, the
Mithril Seeds, the H.F. and more.
She thought the memories came to an end but there was one set of
memories…memories of Atticus and Alice working together on Post-
Exodus plans.
And when that set of memories ended, she took a few moments to
integrate the memories into her mind. She ran through them, though
much quicker, one more time before she reopened her eyes and set them
towards Atticus.
The last set of memories, were older. Decades older.
And not related at all to what happened on Celestis but now it made a lot
of sense why they never quite touched on the matter of squibborns after
they left Earth. She never truly considered it either given how busy they
were with everything else. She had little reason to given that it was
decades away and more important matters needed to be dealt with. She
should have known that he'd leave no stone unintended.
'I wondered why you never seemed concerned with the inevitable new magicals
of this world once we left.' She thought and sent to his mind with a neutral
tone despite the disappointment she felt. She'd felt the guilt and shame
that he'd felt for what he considered to be an act of evil, almost mass
genocide, and she'd seen enough that he wanted to burden this horror
alone with no one except him and Alice – who she was certain he would
have had her memories erased once the deed was done – the wiser.
It was actually a pretty humane way of eliminating the danger of
allowing the muggles access to individuals with the magical genes, active
or otherwise.
Cataloguing the entire muggle world genetically speaking and then
identifying which ones possessed the magical genes before sterilising
them was a humane solution that admittedly she had not considered.
The squibborns in the muggle world would be at most in the twenty to
forty million range by the time of Exodus, all scattered across the world
with rarely more than a few millions in nations, and it was a mere drop
compared to the muggles.
Their infertility would be of interest of course, especially in the more
advanced muggle nations but they could potentially link the magical
genes to infertility and that would be that. She thought it was a humane
way to avoid complications.
But it seemed like that older version of Atticus had carried out with it
and regretted it immensely. But then, that man had become weak with
age and if they had lost so much of their civilisation, she could see her
husband wracking himself apart with guilt for things that should not
even be granted a second consideration.
Still, she was not happy he kept this from her. 'You kept this from me?
After all of this time?' Emily asked him with hints of fury laden in her
tone.
Atticus smiled a little tightly, weariness creeping into his eyes.
'I should have worked the problem out with you in the first place and not
consider this.' Atticus admitted with a tilt of the head, a faint regretful
smile on his face.
'It is an elegant solution that I hated and I did not want to stain your hands
with the same kind of blackness that would have coated my soul' Atticus
confessed to her.
'You know I would not have cared' Emily pointed out critically before she
narrowed her eyes with hints of disappointment shining out 'This was for
your own benefit.'
'You're right…you would not have cared. But it was not for my own benefit to
keep this a secret' Atticus returned strongly as he sent a piercing gaze at
her.
'This is a crime that is sacrilegious to everything I believe. A burden I believed
only I should have carried and that I should not spread its weight across to
another shoulder.' Atticus told her and she knew that he believed it
wholeheartedly.
She bit her tongue to prevent herself from responding. Ever the noble
King, she thought to herself irritated. She took a breath 'But you have
changed your mind now.'
Atticus hesitated slightly before he inclined his head slightly. 'I have. In
truth, I don't know any workable solution to the problem that I alone can
reasonably come up that does justice to everyone. To us, to our people. To the
left behind squibborns and their future offspring. You have seen the memories
of what would have happened in that future." Atticus' expression contorted
into a flash of rare frustration.
'Mistake after mistake was ma-'
'Stop' she sent forcefully through to his mind, cutting off his trail of
thoughts.
For a moment she closed her eyes before she reopened them.
She'd seen the broken man – he was absolutely broken, she knew this
from the depths of her heart – that he'd become and she couldn't fathom
why her supposedly future-self had allowed for her husband to turn into
that…defeatist remnant.
'You were not the only one to make mistakes apparently given that I let myself
become complacent as well. If that apparition is even a future version of
yourself.'
Atticus nodded slightly.
She felt his doubts about the apparition's words. Atticus didn't believe
completely if that thing was truly him or not. They likely would never
really know. For now, both of them would act as if it was real whilst
being far more vigilant in future.
'Maybe.' Atticus agreed before he continued 'But doubtlessly, my
stubbornness in certain ways has let us down a path of failure.'
'Like your decision to hide something of this magnitude from me.' She pointed
out a little more acidly. Atticus grimaced slightly before inclining his
head affirmatively.
She sighed before she raised her hand and stroked his cheek lovingly.
She knew him inside and out. He trusted her implicitly, she knew this,
but there were parts of him that were noble in origin. A kind of nobility
that in some instances irresistibly pulled him towards 'protection' towards
those he cared for.
Whether it was physically or emotionally or otherwise, it mattered not.
Even if it would damage his relationships with people. Even his
relationship with her.
This was a part of him that would stand the test of time.
A flaw, she supposed that she'd learnt to accept.
Though…she couldn't help but wonder what this last secret truly was. He
could have kept this solution to himself as well but decided not to. She
could only think that it had to be worse than what he'd just shared with
her, especially since she knew that his penchant of protecting her
irrationally made him make choices that suited neither of them.
She shook her head slightly. She'd think about it later about whether or
not she should press him to tell her this great secret of his.
'We can discuss this later…and the alternate solutions you're thinking of'
Emily remarked, thinking back on the problem of squibborns. For him
not to have Seen solutions that didn't work as perfectly as humane mass
sterilisation did meant that either he'd not devoted much time in actually
searching for an answer, which she doubted, or it meant that there was
no real good solution in comparison to his original idea.
Which was going to be a major problem.
The mundanes could not be allowed to learn of magic or the genes that
activated it.
Whilst the Ancient Humans couldn't integrate it into their genomes in
their time despite their advanced technologies, it was unimaginably
easier to specifically target sets of genes…including the magical genes.
Whilst they'd ensure there was no hints of the magical world remaining
by the time they left, things did and would go wrong…
All of what she'd Seen from that potential future could attest to that.
She pushed away those thoughts.
It was a problem that could be addressed at a later date.
'The Xalanyn.' Atticus said with an incline of the head, accepting the
deferment of that particular problem for now. Atticus' eyes hardened. 'I
do not know where to start when it comes to ending their species before they
can pose a problem.'
She nodded slightly before she brushed her hair behind her ears. There
was little else but to eliminate the species outright given the sheer danger
they represented.
A race that could blind every Seer to that degree and likely able to
influence countless of other divination techniques was not a species that
could be allowed to roam the universe. Especially given that they'd
attacked unprovoked.
Given how much their supposedly alternate selves had allowed the
magical civilisation to isolate themselves from the galaxy, it was entirely
doubtful that there was justification for their attacks.
Nor could it even be an accident. Especially considering the Magical
Territories would be tens of thousands of light years away from Sol
Quadrant and supposedly extremely isolationist.
No…it was no mere accident that they were found and attacked.
'Still, the whereabouts of the species are not so important in the long term. Or
who imprisoned given that it might not have been the Forerunners themselves.
What is important is the societal regression that allowed us to be caught so off
guard.'
'Yes' she agreed as a light frown came across her face. 'I can't say I'm
surprised.' The tendency for isolation was almost genetic at this point. The
magical world for centuries, perhaps even over a millennium, could have
interlinked with the rest of the magical world much more than what it
had been…prior to their influence.
There were many, many reasons for that but ultimately, it could be boiled
down that self-sufficiency was utterly easy to accomplish with just a bit
of magic along with the stigmatism and distrust that magicals had faced
for millennia, along with an unhealthy amount of infighting amongst
clans, made small communities become endemic across the magical
world. Smaller communities that had need of nothing.
The Celestis system and the surrounding systems would have everything
anyone could ever need and there was little benefit to interacting with
the galaxy at large.
It also validated, in her opinion, of the necessity of retaining as much
power as they could. Their plans with the Federation must have changed
drastically for them not to have the political power to bend it to their
will. Possibly by 'giving' magical societies too different from their own
one too many voices that mattered far too much
Clearly, that was a mistake.
'Letting go' as that apparition called it might have involved in also ceding
political power to the other societies whilst also drawing back their own
influence from Celestis and Dexirus as a whole which were going to be
their main strongholds.
'Neither am I…in hindsight. I expected more' Atticus said with a tightening
of the jaws. She knew that he was highly disappointed about what he'd
heard of their people in the face of granting away responsibility to the
wider magical public.
Atticus released the tension and sighed, shaking his head in the process
before meeting her gaze again 'With the changes that I want to make in the
coming decades, we can work to reducing the number of independent peoples
binding them much closer politically.'
She remained silent for a long few moments before she answered 'We will
modify our old plans for a greater magical empire' she voiced out into his
mind, more a statement than a question. Atticus nodded slightly, a harder
look in his eyes.
Their plans consisted of holding Celestis and Dexirus along with the
Dwarven and Goblin worlds as specific Empire worlds. The rest of the
worlds in Celestis, and later beyond Celestis, would be members of the
Federation with Aziza, Takamagahara and New America as almost equal
senior members of the Federation.
It was their way of lessening the burden of ruling and rise of instability
by granting worlds a voice to shape the path and direction of the magical
world.
At least in appearance. Or so had been the plan.
Of course, the plan was always for Celestis to be the centre of the magical
world. Most of the magical beings would be located on Celestis or
Dexirus, by design, and it would also be the most techno-magically
advanced world by unimaginable stretch.
It would be a hub of activity for the magical world and they'd built the
tiers of Governance with that in mind. The Council of Representatives,
the Council of Magical Lords, the Council of Magical Races and the High
Council would form the most powerful institutions of any world within
the magical civilisation and with it would ensure a level of attraction,
either for power or progression, that would prove to be irresistible.
Economic migrants and ambitious powerful individuals would consistently
move to Celestis ensuring population density would grow at a higher rate
than the rest of the worlds in the system. Celestis, simply put, would be a
jewel that would turn every magical into a caricature of a greedy goblin
in their bid to have a piece of it.
But obviously, it seems like they had not skewed enough of the system.
Not after the way it seemed to collapse on them in the future. However
willingly that collapse was didn't matter since it started at their hands.
'Yes. It will mean that we will have to work a lot harder in the coming decades
in setting the groundwork for effectively vassalisation of more than a three
quarters of the magical world.' Atticus stated to her before explaining what
his ideas were and her mind was active throughout it all as she finessed
some of his points and ideas.
Aggressive campaigns of dangling gold, resources and the promise and
delivery of a country-ship would see them bind blocks of communities in
a singular, more manageable nation entities whilst they fell into an
arrangement of agreements with Illos in a vaguely similar way like the
agreements that had bound tributary or satellite states to ancient Empires
albeit with the subtle economic and cultural domination of the present
United States.
The Grand Alliance would grow but in reality it would be consist of
mostly politically aligned nations that were beholden specifically to Illos,
a fact that would be carried over to the Federation once they were settled
into the Celestis System.
Suggestions went back and forth, even if she knew that Atticus had
already Seen what they would do. He accepted her decision of more
aggressive absorption of magical communities, specifically vulnerable
communities in the path of the Ravenites, so that they'd disappear into
the greater and loyal population of Illos.
More mind-healers would be trained over the coming years with an
accelerated training plan to 'reset' the indoctrinated scions of ancient
families across Europe.
They'd also increase the rate of adoption of squibborn infants who were
being born more and more as the mundanes became less primitive. An
adoption rate increase by a factor of four would not impact their society
greatly especially now that the first generation of Clan children were
adults and having children of their own.
Atticus told her that these endeavours would likely increase Illos'
population to finally breach the hundred thousand mark by the end of
this decade and after Avalon was integrated into Illos in the eighties,
they'd reach a hundred and fifty thousand making them second
marginally only to MACUSA.
As their discussions wound down, she frowned as she eyed him critically
'Any problems?' she questioned knowing that it is never easy nor would it
ever be easy.
Atticus' expression turned colder, harsher, as if his face was made out of
granite.
'We'll have to far more active clandestinely. There are a number of interested
parties that will survive thanks to our sooner than intended intervention'
Every action had an equal and opposite reaction. It was poetic the way
this rule in classical physics fitted well in sociological behaviours. At least
from a very top-view perspective. 'Like who' Emily asked and Atticus
listed off a number of names.
Many of the names she was vaguely aware of, some European nobility
and others Atticus had to tell her who they were. From American
politicians and Unspeakables to Arabic nomadic tribal leaders to Ottoman
nobility, these mages had differing reasons and motivations for becoming
a problem.
'They are not a threat' Atticus remarked dismissively 'Not when we'll deal
with them before they can grow into one. In most instances, rewriting their
memories and subtly shifting away their mind set from action into inaction
will be enough.'
And in other instances…
Emily tilted her head slightly, a faint smile on her face, one that Atticus
matched albeit a little more strained. The Ravenites, the political games
they'll have to play...
Shaping a new Exposure and Exodus in a significantly different post-war
world…
For the past five or six years, they'd scaled back some of their active
interference as they'd more or less automated the path to the timeline
they'd selected. Everything and everyone had been accounted for,
judiciously and absolutely.
A timeline that was nothing but mist in the wind now.
Of course, over time, they'd adjusted when and where they needed but it
was clear to her, to both of them, that there couldn't be the same kind of
reliance on Atticus' Sight and those like him as they'd mistakenly fallen
into in this supposed future.
'We can no longer reasonably rely on Sight alone' Emily voiced out the
elephant in the room. Atticus smiled grimly as he bowed his head
slightly.
'I know. We'll have to rework the Office of Far-Sight.' Atticus stated before
continuing with an inaudible sigh, complex emotions warring on his face
and she tangentially realised there was a real crack of confidence Atticus
held in his Sight.
Atticus drew her back in as he continued 'We'll have to work with Parelius
and Hypatia to combine their Offices or at least share much more in terms of
resources and intelligence than simply have both of them operate on their
own.'
Yes…that was a good start, she thought to herself. It wasn't difficult to
infer that the whole intelligence apparatus had failed in this alternate
timeline because of the over-reliance on Sight and traversing Living Time.
'Why would they need intelligence when they could see the future?' was a
thought that would need to be strangled in the crib and they were well-
positioned to do so as Emily knew that many of the currently training
Seers were shaken by the revelations that the future could change so
easily so fast without them even knowing it.
Atticus eyed her closely 'I have changed Fortencho Hardy's mission scope
with that in mind. He will now search a radius of ten thousand light years
around Celestis and I have Seen that he will find Forerunner relics and several
other civilisations and some of them are spacefaring'
Her eyes sharpened at that and Atticus understood what was behind
them.
Atticus placed his finger once more on his forehead, his eyes closing and
the tip of his finger glowing, and soon enough another globule of glowing
mist surrounding his finger. Without gesture and only the slightest
exertion of will, a glass vial materialised and Atticus placed the memories
into the vial.
'They are not a threat, at least not yet nor have I seen us interacting with
them' Atticus voiced out as the vial floated towards her. 'In that vial, there
are multiple timelines worth of memories that gives us more or less the nature
of the three main spacefaring civilisations. Two of them have had significant
Forerunner influence having had access to abandoned relic Forerunner ships.'
'Dangerous.' She surmised as she grabbed the vial, her eyes lingering long
on the vial before she returned her gaze to Atticus.
'An opportunity.' Atticus suggested with a gleam in his eyes.
'You want to use this as an opportunity to foster a culture of intelligence
gathering.' Emily realised before also realising that it went deeper than
that which Atticus picked up on.
'Yes and also to instil a sense of quiet vigilance in our people.'
'A quiet vigilance' she pondered before she shrewdly answered 'A quiet
vigilance that would never set the hearts and minds at ease' Atticus smiled
grimly.
'Whether or not there will be instances that we will war with these species, I do
not know. One of them I can see that happening easily enough given how
disturbingly similar they are to us in terms of violence and competition but
ultimately it doesn't matter if we do and if we don't' Atticus stated with a
stoic expression.
'Simply the threat of a hostile entity at our borders, however exaggerated, will
ensure the same level of complacency that 'doomed' that timeline would never
happen'. Emily calculatingly finished with an arctic coldness in her
thoughts, her mind continuing on rampantly thinking over how it could
cascade onwards.
Paranoia was a powerful tool and with Exposure and Exodus likely still
fresh in the minds of the magical peoples even centuries afterwards
thanks to their long lifespans that was likely set to increase substantially
in the century to come, the idea of 'never again' would be something that
would be hard-wired into their people making sure that the long peace
wouldn't dull their sensibilities in the face of this new threat.
'Not with us making sure it will not' Atticus agreed before continuing with a
lopsided smile 'We'll have nothing but only a little moment of peace'. Even as
he said that, she could see the hardness in his eyes. The tale of his
alternate Older-Self, regardless of how real it was, was enough to forsake
his hopeful dreams of a magical world that didn't need significant input
from them in the centuries to come.
She placed her hand on his cheek, her eyes searching his own 'Better this
than that future' she said quietly but firmly 'I know you had your heart set
on quietly fading away into the background but you know now that isn't an
option for us. Not if we want what we have built and will build to last until the
death of the universe'
'Not now or ever' Atticus agreed with a sigh before he snorted and eyed
her intently.
'I'm surprised that you haven't pushed for us to simply do away with the
Federation.' Emily hummed as removed her hand from his cheek though
Atticus took hold of it before she could place it in her lap.
'Would you agree to it if I suggested it?' Emily posed instead of answering.
Atticus squeezed her hand for a moment, a moment that stretched in the
wake of his silent musings. She watched him closely. His expression
hadn't changed all that much, only showing a kind of determination that
surprised her.
'There are merits to it.' Atticus conceded and she showed her surprise at his
words. Atticus smiled faintly as he continued 'It would be a bloody affair,
one that would see us spending many decades into stabilising the magical
world, but ultimately, it could work with enough time and will'
She eyed him calculatingly for a long few seconds. 'You're not just saying
that.'
'I'm not.' Atticus admitted 'More than anything, I have Seen the potential of
what my stubbornness can cause for our people.' Atticus met her gaze.
'And the loss of all of the efforts we have expended into building the future of
our people.' Atticus circled his thumb over the back of her hand 'My way
should not be the only way.' Atticus stated as his head bowed slightly 'I
have forgotten that.'
His faith in his Sight was truly shaken with the events that had
transpired.
Or perhaps it was better to say that his faith in directing them towards
the best possible future was shaken. In a way, it was almost akin to a
priest coming to terms with the fact that the God that he'd dedicated his
entire life to didn't exist. That there was no God that cared or loved for
him.
She didn't like this kind of doubt plaguing him.
Emily shook her head. 'Have you ever forced me into agreeing with you?' she
asked rhetorically. Atticus looked at her curiously whilst he sent a feeling
of 'no' through their bond 'Then your way has never been only yours. It has
been mine and mine has been yours.' Emily voiced out as she placed her
hand on top of his causing him to stop his ministrations.
'What we will do now is the next best thing to an empire and that will be
enough for now. We can always change our decision of going with the
Federation at a later date.' They at least had a number of centuries,
perhaps close to a millennium before action could be taken to take
greater power in the magical civilisation.
Emily eyed him meaningfully 'I agree that this is a major setback, this lack
of certainty your Sight brings us but ultimately our strength has never come
from simply your sight. Our strength has been our magic. Our insurmountable
will, our genius and the people we have trusted to support us. And most
importantly each other.' Fate might have brought them together at the
beginning but now…
Now, they bent Fate in whichever way they desired.
Neither these Xalanyn or the Shapeless Ones would stand in their way.
Even in their most hopeless circumstances, versions of themselves had
come back into the past to see them rise against insurmountable odds.
Their enemies might be able to bend Time to their will but she and
Atticus could bend the very strings of Fate itself to their will.
Atticus' face twisted into a fond expression as he untangled their hands
and stroked her cheek. 'I agree.' He communicated with his mind after a
long minute. The words were said with utmost affection and she couldn't
help but smile back, even as an odd thought entered her mind, a thought
on what it meant to be husband and wife.
The strange thought or the pleasant feeling neither lasted as her feelings
and thoughts turned and her expression grew cold. 'But first we must deal
with the Ravenites.'
And the beasts that allied with them.
The Vampires had fallen in line with the Ravenites and had plagued
much of France and the Netherlands for months. The Western Alliance
had done admirably in defending their lands but the host of Vampires
were too large for them to deal with adequately, especially given that the
Vampires were breeding disposable beasts to overwhelm the Western
Alliance.
She'd sent the Illosian Guards along with a contingent of Aurors from
Avalon to assist the French and the Dutch, as planned, and at this
moment in time, they were out of the Western Alliance though it
wouldn't be for long.
Fortunately, now with the changes that were set to happen in the war,
they'd be killed off sooner than planned and she couldn't wait to rid the
beasts into extinction.
Atticus sobered up, his eyes hard as diamond. 'Yes…it is time we deal with
the inconvenience.' He waved his hand and conjured a pair of Losi around
himself and her before he got off the bed, his hand extended out to her –
which she took, and she met his gaze. A gaze that held eyes with
glimmers of excitement that none could fail to see. The kind of
excitement that he always had when he invented new things.
'I have a few ideas that you're going to absolutely love' Atticus stated with a
slow curl of his lips and she narrowed her eyes at it. Atticus only gave
her a sharper amused smile. 'It won't be a factor in how quickly we deal with
them…and it will give us the opportunity to play around with some truly
fascinating magic'
She arched an eyebrow in questioned and Atticus' grin widened as his
eyes turned white, the same white as that of his Thestral animagus. She
understood then what he meant, her lips curled upwards as her eyes
gleamed with interest.
-Break-
6th of October, 1972 – Azkaban Prison
The cold felt like wet ash with the way it clung onto him.
The very walls and the floor and the ceiling, the very rock that the black-
stoned prison was built out of, seemed to exude such coldness in a way
that rivalled the arctic breezes that escaped from the cold embrace of the
poles of the planet.
Atticus' boots clunk onto the floor with a metronomic quality as he eyed
the prison with unhidden disdain though with a glimmer of morbid
appreciation as he flared his magic slightly, the coldness that hid within
its centre a haunting dread that seemed as if it was just around the
corner, waiting and hunting for the opportunity to stick onto you like
steaming hot tar, forced away from him.
Ezkridis understood magic like very few would ever understand, he
mused to himself as he walked the cold dark halls of the abandoned
prison with only one other with him trailing at his back.
He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze latched onto the man.
"I see that little has changed over the past five years."
"Yes, your Grace." Rockwood answered as the man increased his pace and
locked step with Atticus, his eyes curious as he held the amulet that
protected the man from the negative effects of the Dementors and the
prison itself.
Rockwood had aged more than the rest of his year group, looking like he
was in his forties than the mid-thirties most of their generation looked
like. The man's experiments with Time Magic had taken its fair toll on
him.
And, according to what he'd Seen, he hadn't had enough just yet.
Given that he'd eventually discover a way to increase Time-Turner's
range to forty-nine days into the past, Atticus supposed it was a worthy
legacy to leave behind even if you had to sacrifice a good couple of
decades of your lifespan to achieve it.
"As you know, the Unspeakables archive holds very little on what
Ezkridis had done to create this prison." Rockwood explained and Atticus
waved his hand lazily in affirmation. The principle Ezkridis had used to
create the prison stones was of course simple…the difficulty was mostly
deciphering how he'd applied the principle.
The principle was no different than what was used today or centuries
before. He'd felt the principle all of his life in Sayre Manor and he'd seen
a different way of doing it in the form of the rubble stones they'd came
across in the ancient Indian ruins decades ago.
"But it is thought that the Dementors are directly tied to the prison itself
which many have taken to mean that as long as the Dementors exist, so
will the prison in its state."
"A feedback loop, so to speak." Atticus commented and Rockwood
nodded keenly.
The idea was one he'd come across a number of times in his readings on
the Dementors and the prison itself. Unfortunately, it was very wrong. He
never saw any of the familiar tendrils that connected individuals, or
rather in this instance beings, to a particular place. No, the prison was
something entirely different.
"And what do you think?" Atticus asked of Rockwood. The man had risen
quite highly over the decades. Especially once Magical Britain was turned
into Avalon. He was now only second to Sidwell as the highest ranking
Unspeakable.
Rockwood pondered this as they ventured deeper and deeper to the
bowels of the prison. "I think that it is unquestionable that he'd used
some sort of sacrifice to generate this…effect" Rockwood said delicately
as he glanced at Atticus for a moment before continuing "Unfortunately, I
think it'll likely be impossible to truly know what ritual he'd conducted to
create" Rockwood waved around towards the walls "all of this."
Rockwood grimaced "Probably for the best anyway"
"Very un-Unspeakable thing to admit." Atticus said with a questioning
tone.
Rockwood shrugged lightly. "I think studying the mysteries of magic is a
noble endeavour, regardless if they are considered dark or light, evil or
good." Rockwood took especial care to look intently at the door they
were fast approaching.
"But I will make exceptions for this place and those that dwell in it. There
are some abominations that should be lost to time." Rockwood finished
darkly.
Atticus said nothing to that. It was a belief that many held in agreement,
including nearly every single 'dark' families. He most definitely agreed
with the assertion…as did Emily. For centuries, countless wizards and
witches have tried to destroy the prison and those who guarded it.
And for centuries, they have failed.
Rockwood stepped ahead of Atticus as they closed down towards the
heavy set doors. They were at the lowest point in the fortress, the lowest
dungeon that was also below sea-level. Rockwood fished out a set of
ornate keys, keys crafted by Ezkridis himself, and put one of them into
the slot before turning it and stepping back.
He'd never actually been this far down in Azkaban, not after he and
Emily had finished what they'd set out to do in 1967, when they'd shut
down Azkaban and instead turned it into a prison for the Dementors, so
this was a first for him. Emily was busy meeting with the Avalonian
Council about the state of war that would soon exist between them and
the Ravenites so he came here alone today for this…test.
"Your Grace, the stench is pretty bad." Rockwood warned as Rockwood
hastily cast a bubblehead over his head. Dementors didn't actually smell
of anything.
They were odourless entities but the dungeon itself…well, the smell of
whatever atrocities happened in this dungeon had lingered on much like
the cold and the dread clung onto the walls of the prison.
A hiss escaped from the edges of the door as the door clicked and clacked
open as the locking mechanisms unravelled and the waft of stale, acrid
stench was stomach turning. Atticus face twisted, irritated as he was at
the smell, and it was some effort to prevent himself from…reacting from
the stench especially given his abnormally powerful sense of smell. With
an exertion of will, he dulled his sense of smell as much as he could and it
proved to be enough to make it tolerable.
Rockwood looked at him surprised and was startled when Atticus began
to walk towards the nearly fully open door and hastily followed suit.
A ball of light flashed into existence right in front of him, level with his
heart, and it chased away the pit of blackness that this dungeon was
within though that was not what was taking his attentions, nor was it the
frantic pulls of chains that seemed to be as loud as an air raid siren as
chains whined and thrashed, no, it was the extended skeleton hands that
seemed to claw at the very air as they tried to reach them.
"Merlin" Rockwood choked out in a muttering tone before he recomposed
himself, clutching tightly onto the amulet as waves upon waves of
despairing, joy-sucking dread pressured against them from all directions.
The Dementors were arrayed in a series of rows that seemed to stretch on
infinitely, their haunting breathing that entwined with a chilling rasping,
grating screech was an awful melody that danced with the sounds of
whining and thrashing chains.
Atticus' eyes hardened to violet gems as he slowly extended out his arms,
his magic rising with the power of floodwater and he latched onto a
specific exertion of magic as he bellowed
'SSSSSSSILLLLLLLLLEEEENNNNNNNNCEEEEEEEE' with a furious and
menacing howl that almost shook the very foundations of the dungeon.
A detonation of magic rippled out of him, blinding light that spread out
from him like a never ending mist descending down the slope of a dewy
hill though it was not the light, nor the immense power that ripped out of
them that caused the dementors to screech out in pain and horror, no, it
was the very nature of the magic itself as the mist formed into a horde of
gigantic glowing white Basilisks that wrapped themselves around nearly
every single dementor, their cries of pain and horror turning into
screeches of what seemed to be the very embodiment of agony itself.
Atticus began to walk forward, his eyes aglow, magic crackling around
him as reality bent around him, the pressures of his magic seeming to
weight down on the world itself, and the Dementors began to lean away
from him even as they stood wrapped bounded by his Patronuses.
He gave them a visceral look of hatred as his gaze swept from side to
side.
He truly hated these…things. They were creatures worse than anything on
this world and only the Flood themselves could rival the abominable
creatures.
It took great effort to imprison every single one of the creatures, both he
and Emily had practically herded the creatures into a tight space before
their people remotely placed specifically designed chains on the
creatures, chains that prevented them from hovering or floating away,
forcing them to be little better than rocks at the bottom of the ocean.
The ones at the front must have sensed his hatred that he intentionally let
seep into his magic as they begun to quiet down despite the pain they
were being subjected to.
Atticus set his gaze towards the nearest dementor, his gaze fixed onto the
faceless abyss that seemed impossibly black despite the radiating light of
the Basilisk Patronus. Atticus gaze dropped to the creature's stomach, the
roiling essences, essences that contain at the very least life and soul and
possibly even consciousness, of all kinds of hues swirling in the belly of
the foul beast and it turned his stomach much like it did the first time
he'd set his eyes on the foul creatures.
His hatred deepened and he raised his left hand, the creature recoiled at
the action but it would be to no avail, and a ring of blue orange magic
formed out of his palm before racing forward and hovering about the
dementor.
The diameter of the ring grew and grew until it was large enough to
encircle the Dementor and he tightened the ring around the foul beast, his
satisfaction rising at the panic he caused in the dementor and the others
near it, and with a jerk of the other hand, he unclasped the chains that
bolted the creature to the base of the dungeon.
With a flick of his finger, he pulled the Dementor forward towards him
and then past them towards the doors and Atticus simply swivelled
around towards the door. "We're done here, Augustus." Atticus remarked
as he continued on but not without leaving a little device within the
dungeon that would monitor their reactions.
Rockwood followed quickly though not without curiously glancing at the
still active Patronuses. "Are you not going to cancel your Patronuses?" he
asked as they stepped out of the dungeon and into the hallway.
Rockwood quickly closed the door and locked the door afterwards.
"No." Atticus answered firmly, his gaze still set on the bound dementor.
"I've charged each Patronus to last a day."
"But that's…" Rockwood fumbled with his words for a moment and
Atticus finally turned to glanced over to him, curious as why he stopped.
It was then that Atticus realised that he was calculating how much magic
he'd exerted in the effort and it was a mere moment afterwards that
Rockwood came to an answer given his startled expression before a wry,
dry smile came across his face, a smile that Atticus understood well and
clear. It was only that meant 'It's not really fair, is it?'
Atticus turned away from Rockwood's gaze and back towards the
dementor. No…he mused, it wasn't fair but then, nothing truly was, he
thought as he turned his gaze towards the belly of the dementor.
They returned back towards the top of floors of the prison, towards the
open courtyard where a few people, mostly Aurors and a couple of
Illosian Guards were waiting. With a wave of the hand, Atticus dispersed
the ring that had held the Dementor, content with the chains that bound
it in place in the middle of the ritual circle.
"Move and I will torture you for weeks." Atticus stated simply with a
menace in his voice. The dementor seemed to understand as it jerked his
head slightly, the haunting breathing dulling to nearly nothing.
A noise around him made him veer his gaze towards the ensemble of
people who were staring at him a little strangely before they realised
they were staring and quickly turned their gaze away from him.
He was a little confused as he frowned towards Rockwood who looked a
little amused, as if knowing what the great secret was. Atticus changed
his expression into an expectant look and Rockwood quickly lost his
amusement and answered.
"The Aurors here today have all served Azkaban duty at one point or
another and they've never seen a dementor quiver in fear of…well,
anything."
"The dementor wasn't quivering in fear." Atticus dismissively.
"They only know pain and hunger." And the creatures did everything they
could to avoid the former whilst doing everything they could to sate the
latter.
"It doesn't look like it." Rockwood responded and Atticus flashed him an
annoyed look which the man raised his hand in surrender. "Your Grace."
Rockwood added quickly.
Atticus almost rolled his eyes before turning towards the ritual circle.
"Make sure no one comes within twenty metres when the ritual is active."
Atticus warned as he momentarily glanced at Rockwood. He couldn't
guarantee that others wouldn't be caught in the ritual otherwise.
"Yes your Grace." Rockwood said with a bow before turning towards the
others.
His eyes moved downward towards the belly of the dementor, his eyes
turning aglow as he deepened and honed into his innate connection to
his Threstral animagus.
Behind a haze of grey black smudge at the centre of the Dementor, he
could see the Essences of hundreds of mages. Hundreds of dead wizards
and witches made to languish for all of this time as Dementors fed from
their connection to the Consciousness that permeated the universe.
It wasn't just them either, no, beyond the hundreds of mages, there was
also thousands of muggles, fainter, dimmer, but nonetheless there,
suffering just as much as the mages were.
A deep well of pity formed within him.
No one deserved such a fate.
They were in literally in living hell. He'd known and developed several
different ways to destroy the foul creatures but he was not sure at all if
he'd also destroy them in the process or if they'd be released into the
universal Consciousness.
He knew at the very least that the Essences were little bundles of life and
soul but he didn't know if consciousness remained intact during the
Dementor's Kiss.
It had made him hesitate as he couldn't bring himself to inadvertently
destroy their souls. Even if did not he know if the Essences had even the
slightly semblance of sentience or if they were rendered as nothing but
traumatised spectres of souls that lost all humanity and sanity and
awareness.
Atticus sighed at the utter callousness of those who came up with the
bright idea of using the Dementors in any capacity…not that he truly
thought they even understood what they were doing. It was an inhumane
punishment few truly had understanding of what they were confining
people to, even if they were the worst of the worst.
He would not even sentence Grindelwald to such an existence.
But…if this didn't work then he would have to sentence these poor souls
to non-existence, a fate they never deserved and a fate they'd share with
Grindelwald.
"Ezkridis was a mad genius." Atticus said quietly with an odd sort of
respect as he turned his gaze to the abyssal blackness covered by the
ghostly hood.
Madness often could create the most astounding insights humanity could
make. Genius, non-linear thinking, obsession and an imagination that
could scale from delusional to hyper intuitive, made a potent mixture…
that was certain.
Atticus raised his hand slowly, the sounds of clinking chains that
imprisoned the Dementor echoed in the dark courtyard as he tightened
the chains, bringing the dementor closer to the ground, and blue-orange
hued runes began to eke out of the centre of his palm and slowly they
moved around in a circle around the dementor.
More and more runes formed out of his palm, many more runes than it
usually took him to alter reality to his desires. Some of the runes, the
runes that were hovering in front of him, would act as an 'anchoring'
feature in concert with the ritual circle that was almost perfectly an
opposite to the runes that now circled the dementor.
With the change to their plans now, he'd spend a lot of time refining his
plans in dealing with the Ravenites. Many of the Ravenites were utterly
indoctrinated and this was a number that reached well into the
thousands.
The few options they had available were neither satisfactory nor would
some of the few other options be comprehensive enough. A significant
portion of the indoctrinated had been altered through years of mental
manipulation and at this point, it was embedded deep into their minds
and psyche.
Death or life imprisonment were the only real options and he'd favoured
the former simply out of practical reasoning. That was until this idea had
come to him.
Rather, it had come to him at a point in the future months after he'd
arrived back on Earth, the likeliest timeline which he'd erased from this
universe's path as he'd pulled the idea forward into his current present.
He'd figured out a way to use the abilities of the Dementor as his own, to
take out the Essences and contain them outside of the body, outside of the
vessel, and into a pocket of the Astral Plane, the dimension that Walter
Bishop had discovered.
The Astral Plane was a semi-physical, semi-Consciousness reality, an in-
between of sorts, that was layered onto the physical world, and it was the
same kind of odd nature that allowed ghosts to manifest themselves into
the physical world.
Ghosts were manifestations of extreme will to persevere and to survive
beyond the death of their bodies, their Essences that remained were as
real as the Essences of living beings…just without all of their constituents
remaining on the earthly plane.
What they were doing however, with this pocket within Astral Plane,
made after a long week worth of effort between him and Emily, would
instead provide an almost pseudo afterlife until they could be released…
or perhaps given new life.
A brand new start.
He'd Seen the success, finally, of clones made from the extracted DNA
from the criminals during the purging era of the criminal world. Success
that would see magical clones that could finally be able to utilise
neurophysical energy…magic, unlike the failure upon failure he'd
encountered with the previous iterations.
Iterations that missed the critical combination of the mind –
consciousness, body – life, and the soul – spirituality, but the
combination of the body with these Essences, cleaned of memory and
experiences within the Astral Plane, would finally provide success
without the need of a mother's life fuelling the growth of a new life and
connection to magic…and a brand new start for many souls.
He felt her through the bond moments before she arrived. He took a
glance at her and saw her standing there with a few of the other Illosian
Guards and she gave an affectionate feeling through their bond, one that
was tinged with excited anticipation even as her expression was blank.
It wasn't surprising after all as this alone would see them on the same
levels as the greatest of necromancers in recorded history. Atticus turned
back towards the dementor, his white glowing eyes latching to the
abyssal hood.
Atticus raised both of his hands, both glowing a dull off-white hue and
moments later all of the runes that surrounded the dementor flickered
and twisted from the blue orange glow into the same off-white hue and
the runic ritual circle did the same half a second later.
The dementor must have realised something was off as it began to
screech inhumanly and trashed against the chains but it would do it no
good.
The world around Atticus turned into a uniform grey as the connection to
his Thestral form deepened, and the distinctive hue of the Essences
provided the only colour in his gaze.
The screech of the dementor rose even further in pitch, its shrieks and its
thrashing were desperate now as Atticus saw the very form of the
dementor begin to vibrate, trembling but it would only get worse as the
magic of the ritual grew in strength and virility, the taste of magic in the
air tangible, and it wasn't long before the form of the dementor was akin
to the surface of water subjected to the frequency of sound waves emitted
from music speakers playing a bass heavy song.
Atticus could feel the very strings of magic at play, the magic that was
tearing apart the dementor down to its very core constituents,
unravelling all that Ezkridis had poured into its creation, and Atticus
flashed a hungry smile as he slowly brought his hands together until they
were only a few inches apart, the glowing magic that his hands emitted
tied to the anchoring runes that still floated in the air touching and rising
in crescendo until…
He brought his hands together, the sound of the clap was deafening and
even more remarkable was the effect the act had to the seas of complex
strands of magic, strands of magic that were of all kinds of differing
frequencies though at their core heavily tied with the frequency in which
soul magic operated, an effect that pulled at the very seams of the
dementor and within half a second, the dementor was unravelled and the
black smudge that caged the Essences was torn asunder and Atticus acted
quickly as his hands parted and he gestured with his hands.
Gestures that created a hole in the fabric of the physical reality, a hole
into a white golden plane that he was certain everyone was able to see,
and with blinding speed, he pushed the Essences within less than a second
into the Astral Plane before closing it.
The runes that circled around the once-been dementor began to die out
just as the runes in the runic ritual circle began to die out and the thick
magic that permeated around him began to fade away though it left still
a lingering effect that he didn't think would fade away for at least a few
days.
He felt her approach and he breathed out, his magic once more closely
bound within him as he lessened the connection to his Thestral form. It
wasn't needed, not specifically, in order to accomplish what he'd
accomplished but it did help.
He turned around and he could see the absolute fascination in her eyes as
her gaze trailed in the spot of where the dementor had once been, a spot
that left no trace or indication that there once had been a foul creature,
before she turned them to him.
Now that she'd seen the magic that was in play, she would be able to
replicate it just fine without him which was excellent. There were
nuances at play, even with a fully defined ritual circle. Soul magic was
not simple nor straightforward and it required a state of mind and control
of magic that few could accomplish.
"There will be rumours about this." She said knowing that the Aurors
wouldn't keep quiet about this accomplishment. Atticus nodded, a faint
teasing smile on his face.
"It's the good kind of rumours." Atticus stated and Emily scoffed as she
raised eyebrow knowingly. They both knew that it would bolster his
reputation even if it was made known that they'd both worked on it.
Atticus raised his arm and tapped his armband causing a holo to appear.
He noticed that none of the dementors had reacted in any way and he
wound back the recording.
"They don't have a connection, do they?" Emily commented as she arrived
next to him. Atticus glanced at her as he angled the holo slightly towards
her.
After a few moments, back towards the beginning of the ritual, he got his
definitive answer. He was more careful now when it came to relying on
his Sight.
"They don't." Atticus confirmed as he met her gaze, a cold uptick of the
corners of his mouth showing. "We can pick them off one by one."
Emily smiled at him and said with a mocking smile "It seems like today is
just full of good news. The Council of Avalon has agreed to my proposal
for the ultimatum." The ultimatum would be simple. 'Pull out of the
conquered territories or face the consequences'.
Everyone knew it would never happen, not willingly, so it was their
complete endorsement for war against the Ravenites. Not surprising
given that many in Avalon feel nauseated by the horrific crimes by the
Ravenites.
Emily's hand clenched, an aura of black blue magic flashed for the
briefest moment whilst she gave him a playful smirk even as her eyes
gleamed with a kind of excited malice. "Want to make a bet on who will
catch the most?"
Atticus lips twitched, his eyes narrowing and Emily had her answer to
her question.
30. Chapter 90
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The discord channel is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/^v^r^8^8^t^6^4^Y^e^7
14th of October, 1972 – Aryx Military Base, Illos
Bellatrix Black POV
The Queen stepped forward on the podium, her expression grave and
stony, akin to a timeless face captured and carved out of marble block,
her silver black armour glistening in the light of the sun, and Bellatrix
stood a little taller as she set her gaze on her Queen, maddening
excitement and determination burbling within.
Her gaze splintered off for a moment towards her left, and then her right,
countless rows upon rows of armoured wizards and witches silently
standing by for their Queen to speak. There must be at least three
thousand mages here in the 2nd and 5th regiments, many of whom were
active Illosian Guards like herself and her platoon.
She turned her gaze back to the Queen.
Today was the day, finally, that they went to war.
The Ravenites didn't respond to Illos' ultimatum and instead gave their
response by attacking the Croats and the Dutch Ministry with Vampires
at their back. The attack against the Croats was swiftly put to stop by an
Illosian-Azizan coalition led by Habe whilst the attack against the Dutch
was halted by a combination of efforts by the Western Alliance and by
the two thousand strong Avalonian forces under the command of
Manfred Bulstrode.
Bella's eyes gleamed in excitement.
The drums of war beat its irreverent song in her mind, liquefied fire
coursed through her veins as the prospect of fighting with next to no
restraint drew nearer.
She yearned for the fight, the thrill of casting down mage after mage with
her spells and her power and even more so, she yearned to prove herself
not only to her fellows and to her family that she was one of the greatest
fighters alive but also to the Queen herself, she thought to herself as she
watched the Queen make to move to speak with reverent and devoted
eyes.
She wanted to prove that there could be no one better guarding her back,
that Bellatrix Black was worthy to be given the prestigious duty to guard
her back.
There would be no one better, no one willing to go further than herself,
and she would prove it in the war by going further than anyone else ever
would for the Queen. Now more than ever.
She'd always revered the Queen, the Lady of House Slytherin, a woman
who stood taller than everyone with only one mage, her husband, even
close to equalling her greatness. A woman she grew up hearing about,
who won allegiance before it was known who she truly was, power and
right of blood made manifest.
The Queen was all that Bellatrix had aspired to, had aspired to be.
Yet, that reverence had been childish, brought on by her desire to be
more than what her parents had wished of her, would have demanded of
her had things difference.
Now…
Now, that reverence was a thousand times greater than the devotion the
Priests of Magic had for magic itself. The Queen was her Lady Magic, her
god and she owed the Queen such worship and a thousand things more.
How could she not?
The Queen had noticed her condition after the competition at Hogwarts
and told her that she'd instructed the academy healer to 'test' for the rare
illness, bipolar disorder, and it wasn't long after she'd been given the elixir
paid for by the Queen herself.
The Queen had given Bella her mind back, a mind that she only noticed
had been slipping since her third maturity the moment she got it back
soon after she'd drank the healing elixir. The memory sent shivers down
her spine.
Her emotions had always been…strong, it was what had made her such a
fierce fighter that could best anyone she fought, even if they were more
skilled and stronger in magic. Her emotions fuelled her magic but it had
also made her…unstable.
Like a double headed axe balanced on the edge of its hilt, she was prone
to the faintest stimulus or thought once provoked, and would come down
with whiplash speed against anyone or anything with little inhibition
stopping her.
Not even family would have eventually been safe from her from what she
heard from the healer who told her of the high chances of the illness
worsening with age.
Nearly all of her family thought little of her condition over the last few
years, merely considering it a side effect of the Black family magic, never
even realising that she was slowly descending into insanity.
Only her sisters and her mother looked relieved and not surprised like the
others when she told them of the illness that threatened to eat her inside
her out.
And now…she thought as a wild and instinctive swell of magic surged
within her, a swell of magic that she controlled with iron hard control in
a way she hadn't been able to before, she knew was reaching feats of
magic in a mere year instead of the years or decades it might have taken
her.
She'd poured her sweat, blood and more blood into the academy program
and every spare hour she had was spent in the training rings, where the
Illosian Guards duelled against one another, or in the academy library
that put the Hogwarts Library, and when it came to obscure battle magic
even the Black Library, to shame.
And, she thought to herself with a delighted gleam, with the pristine
control of her emotions, and of her magic, she graduated early and was
rated amongst the very best of the newest Illosian Guards graduates.
So yes, she owed the Queen, her once idol and now her saviour, more
than she could ever repay but she would do all she could to repay it
anyway.
"Men and women of Illos" the Queen began, her voice carrying into the
air like a reed through a summer breeze. Most of the mages present were
Illosian Guards but there were a sizeable bunch that volunteered for the
war and were accepted as auxiliary troops. There would have been
thousands more had it not been for the entrance standards that
disqualified direct participation in the war.
Truly, Bellatrix thought to herself as her head tilted so that she could
peer around, Illos would be able to fight this war on its own if it really
needed to. There were just that many mages willing to fight for their
King and Queen.
"Today should have been another Saturday." The Queen continued, her
dark eyes trailing from side to side, her regal gaze bearing down onto
them.
"A Saturday spent as a Saturday should…with family or with friends or
with colleagues. Yet that is not where we are nor will it be the only
Saturday where we will be away from our loved ones and our homeland."
The Queen said, her voice picking up speed.
"Many have asked 'Why is this our responsibility?' 'The Ravenites are not a
threat to Illos or Avalon or the Grand Alliance, why are we getting involved'"
the Queen continued, her powerful voice lullabying them into deathly
stillness.
It was a minority voice, those who protested the King and Queen's
ultimatum but it was a vocal voice, Bella thought to herself disdainfully.
Most of it came from Avalon but there were some in Illos that didn't like
the prospect of a war that in their minds was unneeded compared to the
existential threat the ICW had once posed almost two decades ago.
In Avalon, it was those who hated the King and Queen rather than
anything else for the crimes of the Ravenites was well known, well
documented and universally reviled. Ironically, it split the Secessionists
in half as many of them knew or were married to the squibborn and half-
blood refugees from the continent.
"Because it is within our blood." The Queen said firmly, her eyes sweeping
across the rows of mages. "Each and every one of us, have Illos within
our blood, new and old, we have fed from its fruits and its air, we have
slept within its halls and we have enriched ourselves with the knowledge
gathered within."
"And, beyond all of that, beyond the nourishment that this land has given
us, it is the principles and ideals that have nourished our very souls and
our hearts the most."
"Principles of meritocracy, of equality and constant growth to become the
greatest version of yourself. The acceptance and embrace of the ideal that
we all work together for the common good and care for our brethren in
magic." The Queen said with rapturous eyes, her arms aloft as she spread
them as if to wait for them to embrace her.
"And how we have grown under the blessings of Lady Magic."
"We are a people, a pool of outcasts that have grown into an ocean of
unlimited horizons, with unlimited potential to reach the pinnacles of
magic and science. Our stories, our destinies are forever entwined and
locked in step to the halls of greatness" The Queen stated, her words
seeping into every single person's skin.
"But." The Queen began, her hand raising into the air once more "We will
not walk it alone, no…my people, my fellow Illosians. No, our destiny is
greater than that, it is more responsible than that."
The Queen's eyes roved around the room. "With greatness, comes great
responsibility, my fellow Illosians. My husband, your King, knew this
before he was even of age after a terrible tragedy that nearly destroyed
his family."
Bella knew this to mean the famous call to duty Wizengamot speech that
forever changed Magical Britain – and the magical world itself. Many
historians pointed that out that moment, that session, to be the moment
that everything changed irrevocably.
"As Illosians we have that great responsibility thrust upon us. We are a
people who bear a kind of strength and fortitude, not only of magic but
also of mind and soul, that has not been seen since the days of Atlantis
itself. And because of that, my fellow Illosians, we will once more answer
the call to duty." Queen stated, her dark eyes radiating power as the air
around her began to shimmer and warp as she raised her hand, her index
finger pointed towards the skies.
"We are Lady Magic's chosen, her favoured children and we must answer
her ringing call of duty as her gift and her children are warped and
destroyed beyond recognition. A call to duty to once again stop those
who abuse their gifts and those of others and spit in Her face for the
powers they were granted." The Queen said powerfully, passionately, the
Queen's magic thickening the air around them with each spoken word.
The Queen's words were hammered into Bella's mind, each word she
spoke rousing another stream of licking wildfire that combined to
threaten to subsume her into a feral fury and she wasn't the only one as
she picked up on the emotions of those who surrounded her, emotions
that felt like they would drown her as she was hit by waves after waves
made of righteous anger, disappointment and surging determination.
It was only their training that prevented them from roaring out their
fervent agreement and she dialled down her proverbial receptacles, her
mind reducing the noise of those around her but she kept it still open, the
door slightly ajar, the emotions of her comrades feeding the excitement
and battle lust that was stirring within.
One of the realisations after she'd gotten control over her emotions and
magic was that she was a natural born empath, a variant of a natural
legilimencer which was a Black trait second only metamorphmagus and a
trait that hadn't been seen in over three centuries in the Black family.
"We face an enemy that is new yet it is all the same the old enemy. An
enemy that mages have never defeated fully despite new dawns of
millennia and centuries. An enemy who preyed on the same fault lines his
predecessors did." The Queen continued, her disappointment and anger
clear to see in her face despite her unwaveringly calm voice that seemed
like it could reach the very ends of the world.
The Queen was speaking of the countless Dark Lords that rose and
inevitably fell, only to be replaced by another Dark Lord, if one was
lucky, a century later. Bella knew her history well, after all, her family,
the House of Black, was always in the centre of ending over a half of the
Dark Lords that rose up in the Isles.
"An enemy with new tricks and abuses that twists the mind if not by
rhetoric and fear then by magic itself, twisting hearts and minds into
shells of their former selves, a great offense to the freeing spirit that is
Magic" The Queen's magic bloomed around her, a dark blue haze of
magic ringed around her as her eyes glowed furiously.
The emotions of those around Bella turned darker and angrier at the
thought of the crimes and abominations committed by the Ravenites.
She'd lived amongst them long enough to know the Illosians valued
freedom more than most other rights and the actions of the Ravenites
despite their strange doctrine of chaotic anarchy was anathema to
everything the Illosians valued and cherished.
"And this time, my fellow Illosians, we will eradicate this old enemy
entirely." The Queen spoke those words harshly yet with utter confidence,
her words resonated with every fibre of every soul of those able to hear
her words.
"This time, the men and woman of Illos will answer the call of duty by
Magic and bring an end the cycle of evil and megalomaniacal betrayers
who have plagued the magical world one final time." The Queen said
powerfully, her arms raising into the air as if to hail Lady Magic and she
itched to reciprocate, to bask in her arms.
A pair of metallic boots began to stomp onto the ground and Bella wasn't
sure who it was but nonetheless, it began a stampede of boots stomping,
one she joined, and the rhythmic stomping grew into the drums of war
that played into her mind.
The Queen smiled, her magic rising even greater at the sight of the mages
stomping their agreement, and she continued "Illos will rise and bring
forth a new age for the magical world, one free of Dark Lords and
poisonous foolish divisions and that new age starts today, here and now,
my fellow Illosians!" she roared furiously, her fist placed on her chest
and it was that moment that there was a fervent cacophony of cheers and
roars, a cacophony that threatened to deafen everyone present by its
ferocity yet it was not where things ended, no, that came long after
chants of 'War to end all wars' lost its strength and that…
That came only when voices became hoarse and weak.
Four Days Later…
Qinghai, China
Bellatrix Black POV
The sounds of battle raged around her, rubble and blocks of ambers lay
nestled in the cracks of broken homes amidst a landscape of broken
towers, a landscape that seemed to be caught on fire under the orange
light of the distorted skies
She ran across shattered stones through the narrow street, her armour
effectively causing her to breeze through as if she was flying near the
ground with the speed she travelled, her gaze set on the raging battle in
the distance.
Her HUD flashed to show where the others in her platoon were and she
saw that they were scattered in clumps of two and threes. The way they
usually liked it.
The academy had opened her eyes to see the way the Illosians viewed
the art of war but as much as the Illosians liked to think they'd
reinvented war, they hadn't, not really. Armour and advanced tactics and
application of magic itself of course placed the capabilities of the
Illosians so far above the other societies in the magical world that it
wasn't even funny but ultimately…
Large scale wars remained as it always had been. Small groups fighting
together that knew each other's styles and capabilities like their own
fighting other small groups.
Or they were like her.
Lone wolves that flittered around the battlefield.
Flashes of vertical blue lights pitted the distorted skies, flashing less now
than it had at the start but nonetheless there were still some civilians that
were being transported out from the ruined fortress enclave by large
transport ships that reminded her of sea-faring cargo ships. She idly
mused if they could actually sail the seas too.
In any case…
This was the second enclave she was now fighting in and it was proving
to be more intense than the first one where they'd caught the Ravenites
by surprise and had received aid from the surviving warrior monks who'd
hidden amongst the populace.
She leapt into the air, her wand blurred forward and a spell tore loose as
the wall of the mostly intact building approached, and she twisted her
body around, her feet first, and the wall pushed back like elastic rubber
before sending her flying forward towards where she could see and hear
the main battle raging.
A glimmering gleam entered her eyes. Her flight seemed to end as time
slowed its march and instead crawled forward with bare knees on roads
with jagged glass.
The sight of hundreds fighting, streaks of spells, flashes of explosions,
conjurations and transfigurations in flight, all of it, all of that entailed
within the chaotic battle, was like beautiful poetry in motion for her.
Ruthless, desperate, hateful spell-casting were let rip from the tip of the
Ravenite wands, murder on their minds, and she thought she could paint
a masterpiece with what she saw, with what she saw captured in this still
moment.
A starving hunger settled within her stomach, a quelled hunger but a
hunger nonetheless. Her mind was hers again but her heart, her heart
would always yearn for the fight, for the freedom that bitter and tense
duels and fights gave her.
She drifted towards the central battle site, time slowly resumed and
gravity began to take effect on her, and she turned her gaze to a battle at
the fringes of the battleground and a few of her comrades were
outnumbered three to one…not that it mattered.
One armoured Illosian was worth two dozen Ravenites, she thought to
herself.
So far, she'd heard only a few people had died so far in the war, having
died from Fiendfyre that had run loose, and she didn't think anyone
would die in this battle either. Their armour was simply too great for the
common rabble to break through.
Her comrades managed to catch a few of the Ravenites off-guard and
they were encased in amber, something that enraged the Ravenites even
further as more violent curses sprang loose from their lips and wands.
A fierce wolfish grin made way to her face as she blasted herself towards
the ground, towards her outnumbered comrades and with a flourishing
arc of her wand arm, a crackling violet wave surged from the tip of her
wand, a wave that blasted several of the Ravenites off of their feet as she
landed amongst her comrades.
She had no time to confer with her comrades, not when dozens of spells
streaked across the air towards her and her comrades, dark piercing and
bombarding curses that would easily kill yet would only somewhat
damage their armour, if that, and so the dance of battle commenced as
she weaved in and out of the way from their spells, her fierce grin
stretching from ear to ear as she breathed it all in, the chaos, the hate, the
freedom, all of it, every little thing the battle had to offer.
It was slightly more than a minute afterwards that she was hit by an
errant curse on the shoulder, a gouging curse she realised, that spun her
off of her feet and into the air and she crashed into a broken home and
she became lodged into the wall.
She had no time to think for another spell was sent after her, a crackling
inky blue spell, Contudo Aeolus she realised, a dark curse that superheats
air into a powerful demolishing wake, and also realised it was too late to
evade away from the spell.
She grunted with clenched teeth as the spell collided into lower mid-rift
part of her, the resulting explosion ramming her deeper through the
collapsing structure with smeared stone covering her from face to toe but
it also lodged her free, enough for her to step free from the rubble
towards the source that would soon receive her ire.
Before she broke free completely from the rubble confines of the former
home, her wand with blinding speed pulled the molten stone off her
armour and with a sweeping arm, she swept the tip of her wand towards
the other rubble around her.
With sharp and bending twists of her wrist, broken stones scraped and
thumped as pieces flew all around to merge into a bulking menace with
rows of teeth fit to make Vlad the Impaler blush at the sight of them.
She launched herself through the rubbly confines, stones and glass joining
in flight with her for a brief moment as she shattered through, and her
eyes latched onto the one who she suspected had so unceremoniously got
the better of her.
Briefly.
The Ravenite spotted her and curses were let loose. He was quick. But he
was too ignorant of his surroundings, she thought to herself mockingly as
she shielded against the barrage of spells as she fell back to earth and a
hulking mass slammed into the Ravenite with the strength of twenty
bludgeoners.
She pointed her wand towards the Ravenite, a deadly spell crackling at
the tip of her wand as the teeth of the Chimera construct bit through the
flesh of the Ravenite, the sounds of agony and pain in his panicked voice
absolute music to her ears.
She sighed when she let the moment pass which that lasted less than half
a second, a moment of nearly overwhelming desire, and with blinding
speed she launched an amber bullet at the Ravenite and watched for a
moment as the gas flashed around the Ravenite and hardened into amber
with the Chimera construct's teeth sunk deep into the man's thigh before
she dashed forward, back towards the battle at large.
Hundreds of spells streaking across the air, no rhythm or rhyme to their
direction in this chaotic maelstrom of battle, and she joined the fray,
eager as she was to join in the orchestra with her own instrument
strumming a melody of discord.
She spun around, out of the way of a nasty looking bolt of magic that
shattered the rubble behind her like a hammer to a pane of glass, and
whipped her wand across and blasted out a destructive spell with
menacing speed.
The wizard draped in feather tipped robes slashed his wand, a block of
rubble sprang loose and intercepted her spell, shattering in the process
into a cloud of dust. With a jab, the Ravenite sent the cloud of dust
racing towards her, a cloud of dust that twisted into a cloud of black
droplets.
Bellatrix snarled as she leapt into the sky, her armour making what
should have been a few inches hop into a leap twenty feet high, just in
time before the droplets hit where she'd been. A series of explosions
ripped the ground to shreds and shockwaves smashed into her shield
she'd erected and she arced her wand upward, the tip of her wand
crackling moment before she released a powerful banishing spell that
sent her back down and out of the way of the curses the Ravenite let
loose.
She whirled her wand in concentric whirls, the air hummed for a brief
moment before she jabbed her wand forward. A putrid looking lilac-
yellow spell sprang loose with blurring speed and the Ravenite erected a
shield in the same motion as he arced his wand upward, a dangerous
dark gold spell sent careening towards her.
She side-stepped it and began a series of spell-chains. Her wand arm
moved like a whip, a kaleidoscope of spells streaming out of her wand
like water spewing through a hole on the other side of an overfilled dam.
The Ravenite did all he could do to evade and shield against her spell-
chains. She snarled two other Ravenites joined the fray, breaking her
assault and forcing her shield and evade.
She swatted away an ugly yellow spell and waved her wand with a flurry
of motions, raising vicious lions and wolves from the rubble in the brief
respite she graciously took advantage off before she was once more
pressed into defence.
Her transfigurations didn't last long, blasted into smithereens as they
were and she briefly considered her next moves though it seemed it was
unneeded as one of the Ravenites was taken off-guard and encased in
Amber.
The two Ravenites swept their wands around them, erecting Protego
Maxima around them and amber bullets smashed into the shield half a
second after they were raised.
"Black!" she winced at the bark of her name through the Comms as she
began to pelt the Ravenite shields with a flurry of spell-chains and spider
webs were beginning to form on the surface of the shields.
He must have been warned by the HUD system that she was pinned
down.
"If I see you playing around with your food one more time, I will haul
your ass out of the rest of this campaign and make sure you end up on
refugee duty!" Commander Kwame Adjei said with a clear scowl in his
voice as he ran away to somewhere else.
Bella resisted the urge to whine and instead turned morose.
"Yes sir." She said with a faint hint of moroseness that she couldn't
prevent as she increased the ferocity of her spells until finally the shields
burst.
She didn't abate her spell-casting, rather she dialled it up, her wand was
a blur in motion. Spell after spell ripped out of her wand, each of them
capable of ripping off in their own right.
A yelp of pain escaped the lips of one of the Ravenites when her gouging
curse struck the man on his left leg and she followed up immediately
with her left arm, a bullet of amber streamed forward and encased the
man fully all while wearing a stupid shocked and fearful face.
Unfortunately, she was a little too slow again as she was upended by a
vine pulling on her leg though she fell into the pull allowing her to twist
her head out of the way of the familiar concussive curse that potentially
could have knocked her out due to whiplash and in the same motion, she
pointed both of her hands towards the Ravenite, a gale of strong wind
she flicked towards the Ravenite catching him off-guard and immediately
an amber bullet shot out of the opening on the top of her gauntlet.
The Ravenite tried to evade it but by the time he realised, the bullet had
already imploded into an orange mist that hardened in less time than
even enhanced eyes could perceive.
Bellatrix clicked her teeth as she lazily burnt off the vine. She was still
slow, too slow. She knew very well that without her armour she'd be a
hell of a lot worse. In a way though, she thought to herself, the armour
was a handicap at times. The desperation, the danger to life wasn't the
same and it made it easier for the subconscious to lax. She sighed as she
shook her head. Still, she knew she had much to improve on and in that
vein, she allowed herself to survey her surroundings in the respite she
earned.
The battle was winding down. There were far more amber blocks than
there were enemies. It wouldn't be long before the battle ended.
She winced. She hoped the commander wouldn't reassign her to scour the
countryside and surrounding countries for any Ravenite presence. Given
that she hadn't killed anyone this time, she thought he shouldn't like he'd
threatened to. After all, the best duels were at the enclaves, she was
certain of that.
She held no patience to hunt down Ravenites and their collaborators in
bum-fuck nowhere. No thank you. And with that last thought, her eyes
hardened, her wand raised and she ran towards the area where she saw
the largest concentration of spell-fire.
Meanwhile, at the Xiao Ping Fortress Enclave…
Emily POV
The wind howled against her, its licks, its touches, its sharpness was
furious and squally, yet it did nothing, could do nothing to her as she
floated serenely in the sky draped in simple Rosi attire, akin as she was to
a boulder left unchanged and un-whittled away by the ravaging streams
of water that called on its ally, time, and her cool, almost indifferent gaze
was set on the battle that ravaged and rampaged below.
The magical cores of all those below were alight, like embers of dying
fires caught in a moment of blissful melancholy, and even those who no
longer moved, no longer flickering under the gentle touch of the winds-
before-the-storm, were bright little fireflies caught in the eternal
moments before the earth twirled on its axis.
Catchment that came from the eternally churning mind of Walter Bishop,
the man that developed Amber, a substance that transitioned from
gaseous form into a solid, mineral-like substance similar to its namesake
in texture which suspended biological functions indefinitely until release
from the amber.
The battle was miniscule compared to those fought in other enclaves and
it was purposeful. To corral and harry the Ravenites so they could
evacuate the innocents with greater ease.
Vertical blue lances of shielded anti-gravity fields penetrated through the
dome, through the veil, like pieces of truth piercing through a deck of
interlaced lies, and within their cores they carried away innocents into
the bowels of cloaked transports.
Shielded transportation developed by a fusion of Illosian magic and
Ancient ingenuity, the shining example of ever growing harmonisation of
science and technology.
It was her choice, to rescue civilians by the means of such flashy beams of
light.
What better to inspire horror and awe than such symbolic means of
rescue, one that drew on the ancestral memory to be taken – to be saved –
into the realm of the skies, skies that belonged to the gods?
The hum that escaped her throat was silent when she looked up, towards
the near cloudless skies. The skies did belong, after all, to their people,
her people.
Just as the rivers and the oceans, the mountains and the earth, did.
For all the zealous determination and desperation the Ravenites fought
with, her people fought with equal zealotry fuelled by purpose and
righteousness.
Rising…rising…rising…
Her people fought, and would continue to fight this war on their terms,
protected by a belief that matched the invulnerability of the armour that
guarded their bodies.
Her eyes drooped low, her mind lost to the drifts of her thoughts.
Belief…
Belief, faith, was an odd weapon of mass destruction.
She'd known that it could be before she'd even known what to call the
phenomena.
Her days at the orphanage had given her front row seats to the power
faith could have and in a strange, almost surreal way, this war was a war
of faith in its own way.
Priests and acolytes of Chaos against those who preached and practiced
Order.
Her lip curled up, morbid satisfaction settling within her core being.
And both of them, both Chaos and Order, danced to her and Atticus'
tune, all of it a game of Balance in a story that was soon coming to its
forgone conclusion, their wands and hearts and minds all on strings to a
predetermined conclusion.
A game that all but a handful knew was a game, a game that held little
true consequence, even for the Ravenites.
Her gaze turned back towards the hazy orangey shimmer of the improved
nullification bubble that distorted all wavelengths of light and some of
magic.
Death would not come for them, not truly.
Not when most of them would have their uses still.
Her gaze went westwards, beyond the skies, beyond the enclave, her
curiosity peaked like the snow-capped peaks covering red mountains.
Haunting in its beauty. Picturesque in its barrenness.
It was poetic, in a macabre kind of way.
A faint smile grew on her face. Atticus had infected her with his ways of
seeing things, his strange drive to find meaning and symbolism in all that
surrounded them.
The enclave, and others like it, was hidden amongst barren cold deserts
and brown sterile hills bereft of much vibrant plant life, of much of any
life. Unpalatable. Uninspiring. Dead. The fourth enclave such that had
taken root in these destitute lands, and the other nineteen enclaves were
not in lands any better.
Arid and unneeded, away from the sights of those who'd hunted them far
better than any mundane should have been able to. This region was only
second to Tibet when it came to the least populated regions of China.
Hiding amongst mines and the nomads and pastoral herders…
That was what the Chinese had been reduced to. A people that could
claim to rival, once upon a time, the Ancient Egyptians, Sumerians,
Assyrians and the Romans.
A people who lasted and revered amongst the mundanes a half a
thousand years longer than European mages before the Statute was made
official and enforced what already had been in place in many regions of
the world.
And a people who, once imperious, were made to agree to a suggestion by
the ICW to hide in these…unpalatable lands rather than live and hide
amongst the ever-changing mundanes themselves, away from their
thousands of years long ancestral lands in the southeast and coastal
regions.
With how close the Statute of Secrecy had been broken, only truly held in
place thanks to the arrogance of the Chinese Communists who wanted to
eradicate the magicals as secretly as possible, the Chinese Confederation
were given nearly no latitude to argue their case by the ICW.
Emily raised her right hand, her fingers dancing in the shearing winds.
Moments passed, her index finger stood taller than the other fingers, and
a playful icicle formed at the top of her finger, her mind drifting towards
the Chinese as magic began to build around her, dreadful, beautiful,
siren-like magic.
The Chinese Confederation had been falling towards a death spiral of
inconsequence, fastened, hastened by the tearing teeth of the Ravenites
and it was not a moment too soon that they'd break them out of that
spiral into terminal decline.
In a way, this trauma, these experiences, would lead to revitalise these
ancient proud people, give a new lease of life under Illos' wings, under
hers and Atticus, though, she supposed, grudgingly, the Ravenites would
make them work to recover them, more so than almost two decades
would have under their rule like it had been originally planned.
She flicked away the dancing icicle, its crystalline form breaking into
dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of little speckles before merging
with howling winds.
The converts to the Ravenite doctrine, those who joined for power and in
anger in consequence of Confederation weakness and incompetency,
were not weary nor desperate as they would have been in that dead
timeline and it would need careful checkmating into obedience and
servitude.
Of course, there were still hundreds of indoctrinated Chinese, many of
them being from families of some import to the Confederation, which
swelled their numbers.
It was good then that this was a different kind of war that was being
fought.
Her arms rose into the air and magic began to rouse, began to whistle,
lower, lesser than the howling winds around her yet it was abundantly
clear that it was inevitable, forgone, that her magic would rise and rise
and rise to eclipse the furious howls around her.
Noise began to disappear, like salt crystals in warm water, blending and
undistinguishable, her connection to nature magic growing stronger and
on the precipice of blending in as her magic seeped into the environment
like trickles of water streams seeping into cavernous caves that breathed
the outside air through the crevices of rocks above.
The campaigns here in China, and Russia led by Atticus, were to take
inspirations of the Germans, thunder and Blitzkrieg – hail, hail, hail… – a
show of devastating force whilst the real meat, the filling portion that
would abate the war, would be carried out under the cover of night and
shadows.
Over thirty strike forces were infiltrating and striking and shattering the
hearts of Ravenite territories, Denmark, Greece, Norway and Italy the
main focal points to tear out the proverbial throat of the rabid beast.
Her breathing turned shallow, the taste of cold ozone and magic thick on
her tongue, the air thickening in pressure as the brightness of the day
began to dim with the slow transformation of white clouds into bulbous
grey ones.
Atticus would push south and she would push east.
Her eyes turned aglow, brimming, shimmering with unsurmountable
magic, her form luminescent dark blue that stretched for dozens of
metres around her, and growing, her perception filled with the threads,
the frequencies of magic that inter-webbed the globe in glorious
variability.
The centre, Europe, would implode by the guerrilla like attacks that
would whittle away the strongmen and indoctrinated that supported the
Ravenite regime.
Her train of thought diminished, focused, centred, on the electrified magic
around her, on the disinclined magic that moved and ebbed and flowed
with only the slightest flutter around her despite the storm of magic that
was conjured up around, magic that bent and twisted energies of nature
magic slowly to her will.
Magic around her began to radiate like solar furnaces, reaching high and
far into the clouds like angry clobbering meaty fingers hungering for the
last pieces.
Her heartbeat was slow, a metronome of unfailing constancy and
precision, time moved like salted snails yet magic seemed unaffected,
humming and thrumming in line with her slow albeit steady heartbeat
and it moved when she moved, it twisted when she twisted her arms, like
silk sleeves draped over her arms.
The air turned foggier, dewy.
The clouds above were now a blanket of grey that stretched far into the
horizon.
No gap broke the blanket of grey, uniform in colour, uniform in all.
Light was a privilege denied, the grey clouds stifled its touch in their
bowels and the shadow cast towards the enclave and many miles around
it was foreboding, ominous.
Her eyes gleamed like twin black stars.
Agonising streaks wounded across the flesh of grey.
The world cast in a fleeting blinding sunrise.
Shockwaves rippled through the wet air, ears were struck deaf.
Nature, the world, was in tune with her heart.
Bent to her will.
Dewy air turned wet, trickles of water dropped at all angles, the howling
winds cast their paths adrift from the ports of clouds they left.
She felt them all.
Each drop.
Every variability in size, in volume. In temperature.
Her perception, magnified and accentuated, saw the threads that bound
her to all.
To life, to death, to environment, to water and the role it played in
everything.
Like pheromones that traced and laced from one ant to another, to the
Queen, so was each droplet of water linked to her, to her magic, so much
so that they were her.
And she was them.
The uniform grey began to weep heavier tears, bulbous tears the size of
tennis balls, the howling winds turned into shrieking tempests that could
shear and tear through skin and bone.
Amber capsules in their thousands sprang loose from the spatially
expanded pocket within her Rosi, slowly encircling her like orbiting
planets around a star, and it was in that moment that she…loosened
control.
Strips of clothing began to be torn from her body, piece by piece until
nothing remained, her body unharmed, unaffected by the fury of the
storm she'd conjured.
Her aloft arms, dry and wet all at the same time, began to undulate.
Skin, muscle and bone rippled all the same as she slowly fed the
elemental change from her core, feeling like legions of pure magic
marching down her arms.
Her pale skin began to turn transparent, diffuser with every second, the
ripples stretching into shorter wavelengths, furiously shorter, and it
wasn't long before her arms were diffuse, flowing lengths of vertical
waters connected a solid mass.
Her aglow eyes gleamed, the sphere of insurmountable magic began to
turn inward, the fusion of nature magic and her own magic drawn into
her core without any distinction of what was what. It didn't matter, not
in this moment in time.
She was nature.
Nature was her.
The ripples soon engulfed the rest of her body and her being soon
became nothing more than a volume of water contained in her likeness.
The sensations were almost overwhelming, even for one such as her, the
sensations of being the physical representation of water, the life giver, the
life taker, the element that could exist in more than one state.
But she coped. No…she thrived as her right arm began to split into
globules of water, the amber capsules remaining steadfast in their orbit
around her.
More of her began to split apart, her consciousness no more bound into
the singular, instead now spread amongst the globules that once made a
part of her body.
Hundreds of her became thousands of her and with the final leash of her
control becoming unbound, thousands of her became uncountable, merged
as she was with weeping rain and the capsules of amber were subsumed
by the thousands few still hovering water droplets, her.
Beyond those thousands few, she felt each droplet within the skies and
those that pooled within the streets and trickled down walls and roofs.
Her Consciousness was a blanket covering miles of air and earth and
stone and life.
She felt the water beads rolling down faces and hair and skin, and she
experienced all that was happening, in every moment, in every corner
and crevice, all at the same time. Her Consciousness stretched far beyond
human limitations.
She felt every twitch of muscle, every contortion of those Ravenites who
let the rain fall on their faces. Twitches of hesitancy. Twitches of
desperation. Even ghosts of twitches on the faces of those who were
chained in body and soul by the mind.
A thousand stories were told in those twitches and all of them, she could
feel their understanding that they were in trouble, even if they knew not
how it would come.
It was time, she thought across a plane of Consciousness and the hovering
water droplets with amber hearts began to fall, yet unaffected by the
shrieking tempest and hammering rain, slow at first but twice faster than
the previous second that passed, and soon the droplets passed the
orangey barrier towards the unassuming masses.
The Xiao Ping Fortress Enclave was one of the heavier fortified places in
Ravenite occupied territories, its former status as the capital enclave
demanded it so.
Her people were pressing harder now, corralling the Ravenites into open
spaces.
She would not keep her people waiting any longer.
With a mere expression of Will, the droplets containing amber capsules
spread across the battlefield, each droplet moving to her desires as easily
as the fingers of a masterful pianist moved across piano keys.
A few of the Ravenites noticed but it was too late, droplets with amber
hearts crashed into them, one by one, several at the same time, and
before long, a chain of amber prisons exploded into being all across the
enclave within the space of seconds.
Her people began to assemble in one of the open spaces of the enclaves
and with significant exertion of Will, she pulled herself back from the
greater of being, the pang of loss ruthlessly suppressed as her form began
to coalesce into a bulbous round form until the large water globule
resembled more like her figure likeness once more.
The rain began to peter down as magic began to radiate from her watery
figure and ice began to form on her watery likeness. It shaped around
her, wrapping around her like cloth and her watery figure began to ease
away, opaqueness rising until pale skin was once more seen and flesh and
bone was felt.
She let off a sigh, the strain of becoming the very elemental itself was
taxing even for someone like her. "Your Grace." One of her people called
out and she turned her gaze towards the armoured man. The helm
rippled away revealing a middle-aged dark-haired man wearing a stern
expression that dipped as he bowed his head.
"You've captured them all. There are no Ravenites remaining within the
enclave."
Emily smiled before she turned around towards the others.
Some of the armours were damaged and she'd seen a few that definitely
would need to be repaired if not replaced. "Thank you for your hard
work."
The mages pressed their gauntleted hands against their chest in response
and her smile deepened before she glanced towards the nearest amber
block.
There were exactly seven hundred and eleven Ravenites here, almost a
fifth of the Ravenites present in China alone. It was a major victory.
The Amber was one of the few substances that was extremely hard to
transfigure and even if you were able to, one could not separate man
from amber. A truly ingenious invention that admittedly even she wasn't
sure how she'd escape from.
"Commander. Please call it in." She ordered and the man did as ordered.
The transport ships would take the amber blocks and intern them until
the war was over.
'Let's see if you can do better, my love' was Emily's last thought before she
returned her thoughts to the next battle that must be fought.
-Break-
26th of October, 1972 – Hogwarts, Great Hall
Lily J. Evans POV
Dozens of owls descended down in a great big flurry and immediately
heads swivelled around and noise rose resembling like the sounds of
braying horses filled the Great Hall.
With all forms of magi-tech devices banned from Hogwarts, save for Uni-
Library Tablets and the Magi-Comp held by each Head of House that
students could use to call home, it was the only way news of the outside
world travelled in Hogwarts.
She'd been dismayed by it, having practically grown with a Magi-Comp
all her life, and she knew that many of the students, a large chunk being
purebloods, were equally unhappy that they were cut off from their
Magi-Comps.
Her dad somehow wasn't against it all, saying that Hogwarts wasn't
unlike the boarding schools that posh boys and girls attended with how
strict education was.
She shook her head as a tawny brown owl hovered above her head, its
talon stretched out with her Daily Prophet subscription. She oddly liked
the paper more than the IMP. The IMP was a lot more international and
serious and she liked the odd little stories that the Daily Prophet
sometimes did, like the story about the wizard who dedicated fifty years,
fifty years! of his life to creating a perfect skincare potion that would hide
wrinkles even on a two-hundred-year-old only for the man to create a
potion that overproduced skin so much that it could be harvested and
turned into leather.
She shuddered at the thought. Her friends thought her odd that she liked
twisty stories like that but she found it quite interesting even if it was
very disgusting.
The noise of the Great Hall picked up, drawing her out of her musings
and she looked around and saw that most students were reading or
furiously discussing the paper in not-so-silent whispers. She glanced
towards the High Table, towards the professors, and she noticed they too
were discussing the paper or reading it.
She quickly turned back towards the owl and took the paper and her eyes
widened as she unrolled the paper.
BREAKING: TRIUMPH! ALL CHINESE ENCLAVES LIBERATED!
By: Karl Simmons
In the latest whirlwind event in what has been a whirlwind war thus far, Chief
Press Secretary Craxus informed the international press that on the Eve of the
24th of October, the last of the Chinese Enclaves were liberated from the
clutches from the Ravenites.
This has come to great surprise to the international magical community as the
Chinese occupation was rumoured to hold a significant presence of Ravenites
forces with estimates ranging from two thousand Ravenites to as high as five
thousand mages occupying the Chinese Confederation of Wizards Enclaves.
Questions were raised to Craxus about the speed in which this was achieved
and the Press Secretary had this to say 'We are committed to ending the
suffering to countless innocent magicals as fast as we can with as few
casualties as possible. Illos and Avalon and their allies have the people and
capabilities to do this.'
It certainly seems so, fine ladies and gentlemen
This drastic conclusion to the Chinese front has taken many analysts aback
though one analyst states that the hasty conclusion to the war may well be
indicative of a much greater involvement in the war by the Royal Family than
originally anticipated as rumours of Her Majesty the Queen leading the 2nd
and 5th Regiments at the Chinese front become more pronounced
Perhaps this should have been expected with the return of His Majesty the
King from his venture to Atlantis. The King, famously known to be a powerful
Seer, had immediately spoken out aggressively against the Ravenite tyrants, a
change of tact after years of subtle opposition, and Illos had not long after
issued the famous ultimatum that led to war.
With the King rumoured to be as powerful Seer as the ancient priest Pythia of
Greece, it may likely explain the Royal Family's direct intervention in the war
despite the risk to their lives and to the Royal Throne of Illos and Avalon.
Argus Pithorn, a reputed war historian had this to claim
'The direct involvement of the Royal Family was only expected. It is almost as
predictable as the sun rising in the morning and the sun falling in the evening.
You don't need His Majesty's remarkable Seeing abilities to foresee that.
In every turbulent period of wizarding society, war and violence has only come
to an end at the conclusion of a great battle between the Revolutionist
Archmage and the Opposing Archmage.
The uniqueness of this era with two opposing Archmages on either side
notwithstanding, ends of wars has become symbolic with the fall of one of the
aforementioned Archmage and despite the societal progress we have made,
much of the world is still ruled with such expectant eyes with such tinted
glasses.
And His and Her Majesty the King and Queen know that.'
A rather gruesome and dare I say it unwelcome perspective but I fear perhaps
that is truer than it ought to be.
Whilst this victory was a great one, historian Pithorn touches heavily on the
point that this war isn't over until the chief architects of the misery that has
gripped most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa are brought low and pay
for their crimes.
With rumblings of rebelling in the southern regions of Europe picking up
strength…
Lily frowned as she flipped the page, continuing to read the news stories
of the day with deaf ears to her surroundings, her worries and concerns,
and really, interest, overwriting the furious gossips and conversations
around her.
She was enraptured by the stories, even the rehashed article of Avalonian
battlemages coming to the rescue of France again like they did in the
forties – a story she knew many of her classmates were most interested in
– and she thought she could read a hundred articles like it without once
growing bored of them.
Over the past few weeks, the Daily Prophet had many stories about the
war and it had gripped her attentions, really all of the attentions of the
students even the gossipy girls in her dorms who'd normally be obsessed
about nail colour, and she found herself often wanting to know more,
hearing more.
Dad had told her it reminded him of the second world war, when he and
grandma would clamour for the paper with hopes and dull dread in their
hearts.
She never told dad that she thought it a bad comparison. She thought
that hope and dread probably was made worse for dad and grandma
because grandpa was fighting.
She chewed her lip, her brows marring as her insides broiled and roiled
with a strange feeling. She wondered if she should write Great Aunt
Anne. She'd gotten to know her great aunt a lot over the past year or so,
often visiting every few weeks for days at a time. A few times, she'd even
brought along her daughter and granddaughter Sophia – Lady of House
McDowell and a Senator! – and Marie!
She'd even met some of her Provydetsi cousins.
But that didn't really compare to the simple truth that the King was her
cousin.
The King!
It still wasn't something she really processed and the day she'd found out
that she was related to the King had left her in a daze – and Petunia in a
crazed squeal 'Does that mean we're also Princesses' – but also it left her a
little confused.
She hadn't really met her cousin yet, probably had been too busy with
the Atlantis expedition – she had so many questions to ask! – and it was
probably for the best given how confused she was about everything right
now. Whether or not she should feel as concerned as she was for her
cousin or not.
Most of her confusion stemmed from everything that had happened ever
since she'd known she was magical. On one hand, it really was amazing
that she was cousins with the King that many people considered to be
much greater than Merlin himself but on the other hand…she knew that
he was partly responsible for causing all of the crazy changes in their
lives…without any real choice.
She knew that daddy wouldn't have agreed to move them if they really
had the choice but she also knew that she wouldn't had the chance to
meet all of her friends and to learn magic.
Lily hadn't shared her confusion with her family. Petunia wouldn't really
care, not when she was also made magical which wouldn't happen before
the King and Queen. Mum wouldn't really know what to say and
grandma…well, Lily didn't really want to upset her now that she was so
much happier. And she knew what daddy would tell her.
She sighed as she looked around.
With all of the confusion she felt, mixed as it was with concern, she at
least knew that her odd concern was minor compared to the concerns
and worries of some of her classmates, who had close relatives or parents
even fighting on the continent, must feel
The few times daddy and grandma had talked to her about grandpa's
experiences during the war often played in her mind. Daddy tried to hide
it but she could see the sadness in his eyes. She peered at a few of her
classmates from the corner of her eyes
She wondered…would their parents also be as hurt as grandpa had been?
Grandma once told her that a piece of grandpa had remained in Ardennes
with many of his friends who died less than a year than when the war
was supposed to come to an end.
Lily hoped not. She didn't think anyone deserved that. Not her grandpa
or the parents of her classmates, even if many of them were awful.
She sighed silently as she reread the paper again. She wondered what this
victory would mean. The Ravenites were evil, incredibly evil, and did
terrible things as bad as the Nazis had done but…the Nazis didn't have
magic.
She bit her lip, an awful tightness gripping her heart. If they continue to
lose, what kind of horrors would they do the Occupied countries?
To the Avalonian and Illosian battlemages?
She felt someone bumping her on the shoulder and she blinked before
she turned to her side. Marlie was looking at her inquisitively before
peering down at the paper.
"You've been reading that paper like the way I do when I cram the day
before exams." Marlie teased lightly, a mild grin worn on her face as she
twirled her wand and erected a low level privacy bubble around them.
A very useful charm that every girl should learn.
Lily couldn't help but giggle slightly. Marlie was terrible like that. Her
friend wasn't lazy and she was quite smart but she had the bad habit of
procrastinating a little too long and little too much. And oddly when she
was really cramming, she could tune out even the loudest Three-Peller
crowd hours at a time.
"I don't think I could ever focus the way you can when you need to." Lily
shot back with a mild smile. Marlie looked pleased with herself with her
words before she flung back her hair behind her ears, a light frown
making its way on her expression.
Marlie tilted the paper towards her after she pushed away her muesli.
"Good news at least." Marlie said brightly before she flicked through the
pages and settled on a story about the French
"Yes." Lily agreed. It was good news but she couldn't help but worry. The
Chinese Confederation was huge but it was only one freed country.
There were many, many more to free.
Marlie picked up on it and looked at her a little concerned. "What's
wrong?"
Lily was a little startled but after a few moments she answered.
"I'm just concerned that this might become the only good news in a
while."
Marlie raised her eyebrows in surprise before frowned heavily.
"I think I understand what you mean." Marlie said a little awkwardly.
Lily knew very well that Marlie didn't like speaking of politics a lot and
that was mostly because she'd be grown to hate it after she was made to
learn so much of it as a child on top of magical pre-school. She knew that
as a pureblood noble daughter from an ancient House, Marlie would be
expected to be well-versed in politics.
Another reminder that Lily was very lucky to be born to her parents.
"But I think as bad as it might get, it was always going to get bad
eventually."
Grandma more or less had the same opinion, Lily thought to herself.
Probably because she'd seen the same kind of signs she'd seen the two
Great Wars.
"Especially after the Vampires began to attack the Western Alliance."
Marlie added almost with an afterthought, confusing Lily a little.
"What do you mean?"
Marlie looked a little surprised. "Well." Marlie began slowly.
"I overheard father talking to some of the Lords he's friendly with. He
seemed to think we didn't have long anyway until war broke out.
Something about not wanting the English Channel being the only barrier
between Avalon and the Ravenites which seemed like a real possibility
after the Vampires attacked." Marlie said with a shrug before she looked
around and turned to Lily, seemingly pleased enough though there was a
hint of seriousness in her expression.
"Don't tell anyone I told you that." She said seriously. "Father would be
very disappointed if he knew I was telling anyone that, even if he
approves of you."
Lily rolled her eyes. "If I was going to tell anyone your secrets, I would
start with your crush on Hubert Rollings." Lily said teasingly causing
Marlie to blush a storm.
Hubert Rollings was a famous actor but he looked very strange. He had a
very long jaw and sharp cheekbones that looked like they were about to
burst out of his face like how monsters burst out of people in some of the
horror movies.
He did have a pretty nose and pretty eyes though, Lily thought.
But really, no one fancied him. Not seriously.
Well, except for Marlie, she thought amusedly to herself.
Said Marlie narrowed her eyes.
"I'd kill you and make sure no one would ever find the body." Marlie said
with a deadpan and the two girls stared at each other before Marlie broke
into a fit of giggles, one that Lily joined soon after.
By the time breakfast was done, she was walking towards the library with
Marlie and a few other girls in the other Houses, girls they'd known since
pre-school, chatting about anything and everything though the upcoming
Samhain was a core talking point. She'd go home for it.
Her parents were still Protestant and whilst they never said it out loud,
they were certainly not the biggest fans of the festival and preferred to
spend the day at home with the family, watching reruns of shows they'd
watch together as a family instead.
"Oi Evans!"
Lily wanted to groan and she shot her friends an angry glare at their
delighted amusement and childish anticipation. She swivelled around,
her books clenched tighter to her chest as she looked at the arrogant
bespectacled boy irritated.
James Potter was a popular boy, really too popular she thought to herself
darkly. He was a well-known Quidditch player in the youth leagues, one
that many thought would probably play for England before he'd graduate
Hogwarts.
His first game for the Gryffindors a few weeks ago where he'd scored
fifteen times only made him more popular than he already was.
Almost everyone in Hogwarts liked Potter or sucked up to him, even their
Head of House and transfiguration Professor McGonagall gave Potter
slaps on the wrist even when he'd at the very least earned a week worth
of detention like the time he'd snuck in a dung bomb in the girls'
bathroom on a stupid dare.
She sighed and simply stared at the approaching boy.
He was looking at her with a stupid grin that she'd seen all too often on
the M-Vision on the face of Monsieur Le Blanc, the handsome Frenchman
on the show Casanova.
She wanted to punch the look off of his face if she though it would help.
Unfortunately, she was quite sure it wouldn't help to stop him from
bothering her.
Really, she didn't understand why he kept on trying to be friendly with
her!
She told him plenty that she thought that he was an irritating spoilt boy
but it seemed like he never heard a word she said! Why couldn't he just…
bother the other girls that wanted to be bothered by him?!
Plenty of them gossiped about being the future Lady Potter enough for
her to know they'd practically preen and die at the unwanted attention
that Potter was giving her!
"Potter." Lily said coolly as he came to a stop in front of her, her
traitorous friends having stepped away towards the walls, traitorously
gossiping with one another as they watched. She glared at them which
made them look away.
She wasn't fooled. She knew they were still watching from the corner of
their eyes.
They were devious like that.
Ugh, she didn't understand why they thought all of this was romantic!
Well, she did understand. They watched too much Casanova and other
shows like it, she thought darkly to herself. They were twelve, not twenty!
Ugh, she thought as a foul mood descended over her as she stared down
at Potter.
"What do you want." She stated bluntly and quite unkindly. She didn't
like being like this but she didn't know how else to deal with James
Potter.
"I was thinking that maybe we should go to Samhain together." Potter
said confidently, his bright brown eyes alight behind the wide-framed
glasses.
Her eye twitched as she heard her friends gossip just a little bit louder
and she resisted the urge to hex the lot of them. "I'm going home for
Samhain. Like last year." She said primly and she'd seen his face fall.
She didn't understand why he was trying so much. Really, he wasn't like
this at all last year! Sure, he was annoying but they'd barely spoken in
their first year!
She continued "If that is all that you were going to ask..." she drew out
her words slightly and when Potter seemed to falter, she simply turned
around and began walking away…without her so called friends.
"Wait!" Potter said hastily as he ran after her and she quickened her steps.
He unfortunately matched her. "What about Beltane?" Potter asked
eagerly.
"Going home." Lily said as she glanced at him from the corner of her
eyes. She had to admit she kind of liked the flash of frustration on
Potter's face.
"How abou-"
"I'm mostly likely going home then too" Lily cut him off and she struggled
to contain the smile that wanted to break out of her face.
"You didn't even know what I was going to ask!" Potter protested, his
arms waving around frustrated. Lily shrugged before she peered at him.
"I don't want to spend time with you, Potter. You're arrogant and spoilt.
We have nothing in common." Potter suddenly stopped and it startled
Lily a little.
"We have plenty of things in common and I'm not spoilt." Potter said
annoyed.
Lily raised her eyebrow questioningly.
"You literally threw away a perfectly good broom that was better than
most of the other students had and got the newest model Flash Broom
within days of its release."
That broom he'd given away was worth at least eight hundred galleons
even if it was second hand. The Flash broom was worth five times that!
Potter narrowed his eyes. "You know very well that Eric was using a
practically ancient broom that was getting pretty dangerous. I didn't
throw it away. And dad is good friends with the owner of Flash Brooms so
I was always getting the new model"
Lily rolled her eyes. "Sure. I don't care. You still didn't deny that you are
arrogant." Lily pointed out a little triumphantly, unwilling to concede the
argument to him.
Potter gave another one of his infuriating grins. "Of course I don't deny it.
I know I'm arrogant." Potter said blatantly with a shrug and Lily goggled
at the admission.
Potter grin grew sly as he eyed her. She didn't like it one bit.
"And you're arrogant too."
"No I'm not!" she exclaimed affronted.
Potter dared to laugh, his brown eyes almost twinkling "Yes you are. At
least a little"
Before she could refute it again, this time more harshly he continued "In
class you get a look when the professors raise you up when they ask you
to try out the spells first, especially when Professor Flitwick does it. It's
very subtle but it is there. You keep it hidden, unlike me, but we both
know that you're arrogant." Potter said succinctly before hastily adding
"It's not completely a bad thing. Just…" Potter shrugged, seemingly run
out of words.
Lily's mouth had sealed shut as she thought back on it.
She was just confident in her abilities, right? She did think that almost all
of her classmates were much worse than she was in all but one class and
that she didn't think they'd ever do better than her…that wasn't arrogant,
was it?
She set her eyes on him. He noticed that? She wondered to herself.
"Don't follow me." She murmured as she turned back around, hastily
walking away.
This time Potter didn't follow her.
31. Chapter 91
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The NEW discord channel LINK is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/6^x^8^m^K^V^w^X^
26th of October, 1972 – Germany, Bonn
Cullaica POV
An oppressive aura shone around him, his face permanently set in a
wolfing snarl as he marched down the abandoned castle halls of the now-
dead Knutz family.
His firmly held wand sparked and arced, burning and marking the walls
as his magic raged from both within and without.
He turned the corner and neared the doors of the former ballroom and
his fury rose akin to the pressure building beneath the volcano and just
as a volcano would culminate into a furious explosion, so did his temper
and magic and the doors cracked, the raging magic he exuded splintering
and cracking the heavy oak doors like a finger pressed down to a thin
sheet of ice before he pressed and pushed further.
The doors burst apart like an infant's head between his hands and his
wolfish snarl turned bitter and hateful as he stepped through the gaping
hole, his feet treading on the broken wooden pieces, his wild eyes
stretching out from one wall to another.
The hall had the Knutz' family banners and tapestries still hanging from
the walls and pillars, bloodied and torn and ripped as they were. It was a
mockery he himself had taken great joy in fashioning, tapestries that
proudly went back a dozen and a half generations now steeped in the
same blood they cherished and boasted about.
However, in that moment, he cared not for the reminder of his
bloodletting.
No, his fury did not lessen when he saw his friend sitting carelessly, maps
and documents laid strewn before him while he tended to the raven
perched on his shoulder, his long black hair covering his pale white face
and was unaffected by his arrival, his petting of his damnable raven not
lessening even the slightest amount.
No, instead, his fury rose to unbearable levels, the kind of fury that was
hot and scalding, the kind that rivalled that which set in the west and
rose in the east and the of his wand crackled and fizzed and burned,
thoughts and intent dancing at the edge of his mind that roared him
forward, that pressed him, that whispered to him that he would do better,
that he would do what his old friend did not care to accompl-
"Pierre."
The utterance was akin to a death knell, an icicle that prodded and
pushed into the deepest vestiges of lost identity and forgotten
remembrance within his mind.
Cullaica halted in his steps, staggering, as if a hook from an umbrella was
wrapped on his neck pulling him back. That single word…that single
name.
"You dare…" Cullaica hissed out furious, unable to hide the betrayal in
his voice, his mauve eyes wild with rage and fear. That name…it didn't
belong. It was dead. Rotting. Decayed. He had no right…no right to utter
those words to him. To him!
At that, his oldest…friend…stopped petting his raven and turned his coal
black eyes that peeked out behind a curtain of shadow-like black hair
towards Cullaica,
Grey-white irises danced in black absence though there was nothing in
them, no real hint of conscience or humanity, no, his eyes were blank, a
polarised white canvas that even the greatest and most avid painters
would scuttle away from because of the deep primal warning all peoples
had and that everyone pretended did not exist.
"You needed the reminder why we do what we do." The Raven responded
without emotion, without care, his pale white face exhibiting the same
warmth found in the bitter cold of Siberia.
"You think I have forgotten?!" Cullaica raged, his wand arm sweeping
across, a destructive wave of accidental magic splashed across the
ballroom and more than a few pillars groaned and cracked under his half
controlled magic.
There was a tinge of betrayal, no, there was more than a tinge as he
heaved poisonously and flared murderously at his near lifelong
companion. He could never forget, never, what they had promised one
another.
The path that they'd set themselves on when they won their freedom.
His old friend lazily waved his hand, shimmering with black wisps as he
did so, and the pillars repaired themselves. The act only served to enrage
Cullaica all the more.
Always his old friend was there, like an anchor mooring him to the shore,
fixing his mistakes unconcerned, unbothered, uncaring.
'Rabid Cullaica, rabid wolf', the cold phantom hand from his friend patting
down on his head keenly felt, 'Hush, hush…'
"You think I have forgotten…" Cullaica's voice was a sibilant whisper, the
rage, the betrayal he felt at his friend's stabbing comments seeping
through his voice.
Their eyes met and time seemed to stop as pieces that once pieced one
another together stared at one another. "No…old friend…" Cullaica's
mauve eyes hardened like super-cooled droplets of molten gems.
"I could never forget."
Cullaica's face twisted, his plastic-like face melting like it was splashed
with the strongest acid and revealed layers upon layers of old scars that
streaked across his face, thick scars that were akin to mountains
overlooking valleys of miniscule stretches of skins.
Beyond the treatment they were subjected to, they'd chosen to leave
permanent marking that went beyond the mental, beyond the magical. It
was their individual markings, legacies that they could own and take
pride in whilst they followed their master's orders to the letter and spell.
Farmworkers stamping the wool of sheep.
His old friend has his hands and feet broken too many times to count,
magically and mundanely, and for him, they chose his face…
'You have too pretty a face, my boy…'
Had it been only his face that was destroyed, perhaps things would have
been different. His soul would have been scarred but it would have
remained and likely healed but that is not what happened. No, instead it
withered and died and fled the reality of pain that was the Camps,
leaving behind, after years of agony, a husk, a mere vessel, to enact its
vengeance on an indifferent world.
His nostrils flared, unhinged eyes stared at the white irises of his old
friend.
An indifferent world, he thought as his rage burbled like a pool of
gaseous poisonous lakes, depthless hate fuming out from every pore of
his skin, that would reap all of the blackness and hate it so loved to sow
and turn a blind eye to.
His gaze flickered for a moment towards the bloodstained banners of the
Knutz family. An indifferent world fashioned by golden gloved hands.
They were all the same, Light Houses, Dark Houses. Good. Evil. The same
noble families that loved to play their games on their terms, on their
rules.
Pierre and his family had fallen victim to their game, snared like little
rabbits to be fashioned into fattening meal or a dagger carved out of
bone.
Only Cullaica had remained.
And only his friend, the Raven had survived out of the pit alongside him.
And out of the ashes of the camps, consequence had been born. He and his
old friend were the consequence that negate, that which brings all that is
extant to cruel and wretched perish.
There was a hint, the barest hint, in his old friend's black eyes, that
Cullaica recognised as regret as his coal black eyes set on Cullaica's
inheritance.
The raven cawed and flew away as his oldest friend stood up and made
his way towards Cullaica, his gaze never breaking from Cullaica's scar
ridden face.
His old friend stopped several paces in front him, his arm slowly rising,
scarred hands that looked like all feeling and dexterity should have been
lost, and it reached out to Cullaica, stopping right in front of his face.
"I know." His old friend's voice lacked warmth but it was gentle, kinder as
his arm lowered, his gaze snapping up to meet Cullaica's mauve eyes and
Cullaica knew that the moment had faded into dust.
"Our losses are unimportant. They have always been unimportant."
Cullaica gritted his teeth at the words of his old friend, his fingers
twitching. His face began to melt, undulating in waves of pale skin
oceans before his plastic-like face returned that twisted into a scathing
scornful look.
"Yes, yes." Cullaica snarled out as he looked away from his old friend's
coal black gaze and suppressed the urge to lash out. Barely.
Their tools were only just that, tools, but Cullaica never liked losing
anything.
After all, he kept little trophies of all his favourites so he'd never lose the
moments.
But for the past thirteen, fourteen months, they kept on losing tools.
First, their precious delightful remnant scions of dead Houses were stolen
from them with them too late to the realisation, second the so called
mysterious disappearances of artefacts that they knew were located in
Italy and now this war the Sayres declared on them, sweeping across
their fruits of labour like damnable locusts.
War was always going to happen, yes, but so soon? It was unexpected.
The scrying techniques they'd adopted after their interactions – cowards
that they were – with the Symbols had never suggested that these attacks
by the Sayres was a possibility.
This all but confirmed that this was likely how the Symbols were killed
off, a way to fool even the most insightful divination abilities.
Cullaica's rage settle down as his mind spun on its unsteady axis.
They'd always known the Sayres were the only threat that could undo
their work.
Atticus Sayre alone was a problem that would take the combine efforts of
himself and his old friend to kill. If they could even corner him with that
damnable Sight of his, Sight that neither of them had found a workable
solution to despite years trying.
Combined with an archmage wife, armies of wizards and with
unimaginable wealth?
Problematic, problematic, problematic
"Yet our efforts are being undone as we speak." Cullaica said as he turned
back to face his old friend, anger still showing but it was kept subdued
underneath the thin veil of scalding rock. He raised his hand, his index
finger extending before he spun it around, thin wool threads
materialising out of thin air as he spoke
"Like threads pulled from ball of yarn, it's all being undone, undone,
undone." He sing-songed acidly, his mauve eyes gleaming murderously.
The magical world had not yet seen its full reckoning.
The societal order that persisted was not yet shattered beyond salvation,
there were too many Knutz families, too many Otterdahl families still out
there to be destroyed, and there were too many pretty little wizards and
witches that needed to be dragged with them into the pits of nothingness
and emptiness.
The offence burned deeply.
"And disallowing me to go to China will only make the East lost to our
work." The threads burst into fine flames until only remnants of smoke
remained.
He'd abandoned his push further into North Africa after he'd heard the
reports of the few Ravenites that managed to escape into the Chinese
hinterlands.
Unknown wards that trapped entire enclaves within its bowels that were
as impenetrable as the armour that was nigh on impervious to spell-fire,
elixirs that trapped anyone and everything within its radius and
impossible to extract people from, and that was only the beginning of it
all.
He was needed and had been on his way to China after amassing a host
of Ravenites, several thousand strong, only to be stopped from going by
his old friend.
And now…
Now they lost it and it set everything back. Their plans in Central Asia.
The Ottomans. All that should have lead towards gobbling up Illosian
aligned nations in Asia and the rest of Europe when their army had
swelled to the tens of thousands.
All before sweeping across the rest of the magical world…including the
fortresses of the Grand Alliance.
And that wasn't the worst of it.
No, the silence they were hearing from Russia, their own damn backyard,
was indicative enough that things were about to change from bad to
much fucking worse.
All of their work was being undone and he hated it all. He hated it, hated,
hated, HATED it. Their symphony of consequence was under threat of
having its strings cut before it could rise to beautiful discordant harmony.
His old friend knew it too, Cullaica thought to himself with a flicker of
grim satisfaction as he felt the slight wake of agitation in his old friend's
magic.
Documents from the table behind his old friend began to float towards
them. They circled around them though there was one that was closer by
him.
"If you had gone, you would have died pointlessly." His old friend said
emotionlessly and unblinkingly. "Ignobly" his old friend added and
Cullaica gritted his teeth. They weren't under the illusion that they
wouldn't be facing an uphill struggle against the Sayres once they joined
into the fray.
It wouldn't have mattered then, had it been just a few more years later. It
didn't even matter that it was possible they would have eventually lost
anyway. All that mattered was that they'd succeed in bringing an end to
the order their dead masters so loved.
Their legacy of misery and death and chaos would have long prevailed
past their deaths and that was all that mattered. The culmination of their
promise.
Unfortunately, the disappearance of the hundreds of scions they'd been so
carefully warping was a bitter blow to the cause, tools that once could
have accelerated their aims immeasurably snapped up before they could
have proven usefulness.
The psychological horror of seeing their oh-so-precious noble children
firing killing curses like they were first year hexes would never be
realised, he thought mournfully
China was equally a bitter blow.
Cullaica returned his gaze back to his old friend, hard mauve eyes coldly
assessing him. "So you've failed then." Cullaica simply stated, knowing
that this conversation was only happening because his old friend couldn't
find a solution to the Sayre Sight despite the promise his old friend
thought this other avenue might have held.
The agitation in his old friend's magic grew and Cullaica felt morbid
satisfaction at the strength of the agitation. His old friend may seem as if
he'd cast off all human vices, virtues and morality but he was proud as
any being.
Unfortunately though, Cullaica thought a little more soberly, just a tinge,
it also meant that with the aggressiveness the Sayres were showing
towards ending them, it would become only a matter of time before the
inevitable end.
Ugh.
He wished he'd acted on his impulse to dissect that fool Sariel when he
had that sole chance when he'd sought them out after the ICW
inexplicably warmed towards them. Maybe things would have been
different, he mused to himself, if they'd been able to fuck with Atticus
Sayre the way he was fucking with them.
A faint saccharine smile cut across his face as he met his old friend's coal
black eyes.
"How long do we have?" Cullaica asked as he snatched the nearest
document from the air began tracing his eyes across the document.
Dated 1965, it was an ICW report, more specifically an assessment
document, of Illos' forces and capabilities and it was the first time he'd
seen it. More importantly, there were also snippets of the suspected
capabilities of the Sayres.
Much of it was simple speculation though there was a keen note on there
about Grindelwald's death on some Scandinavian volcanic island that was
destroyed totally by some city-killer spell.
His old friend added notes on the margins, some of it arithmantic
calculations and some of it observations born from the archives they
pilfered from the Camps and other locations so lovingly given by their
dead masters.
His old friend was planning something…
"Two months perhaps if we care for it." His old friend answered and
Cullaica looked up from the document. His old friend never lied about
such things nor was he often wrong about such matters of death. Not
with how close he was to Death itself.
Two months to undo decades of work…if they wanted to drag out that
long.
The unfairness was delicious.
"You're planning on ending it all on a high" Cullaica said with a gleam in
his eyes.
Cullaica saw an unnatural glimmer of light in his old friend's coal black
eyes and he laughed loudly at it when he understood. Not only laughing
at the plans but also the final destruction of the attachment he held to
this mortal coil.
His blood pumped and raged within his veins, the excitement, the chaos
that it would sung was marvellously delectable. He remembered his old
friend's family.
Their words.
Their promises to one another to go back home to their apartment in the
City of Light. In the most beautiful way, his old friend would bring their
home to them.
"And in the meantime?" he asked, this time quieter, more subdued.
For a moment his old friend said nothing as they simply stared at one
another.
A document flew towards Cullaica and he snatched it out of the air.
His eyes widened slightly before he frowned a little deeply as he read it.
It was a number of arithmantic calculations that showed the constituents
of a new spell…a piercing spell he realised. There were familiar elements
in there too…the most eye-catching the main components that allowed
Fiendfyre to consume magic in the way that it did. His saccharine smile
grew when he realised that it might well be enough for their tools to do
some serious damage to the Illosians.
"Make it all as bitter as you like." His old friend only stated as he backed
away, documents circling around him as he turned back towards the
table, the raven that perched itself on the banister above cawing before
flying off of it only to settle onto his old friend's shoulder, and Cullaica
never heard sweeter words.
The words were also words spoken that signalled an end of a kind.
He knew now that his old friend was giving him the reins to do anything
he liked, no matter how detrimental or beneficial it was to their dying
cause.
Pulling him back from going to China only to let him go with all of this
knowledge…
He fervently hated the tinge of true sadness so he twisted around and
marched out of the gaping hole. This was not the final end for either of
them. Their path of reckonings may be veering off to different
destinations but in the end…
Death would bring them all back together.
-Break-
26th of October, 1972 – Koldovstoretz, Russia
Reality accentuated itself as he pulled himself out of Living Time, his
gaze once more filled with the sight of the interiors of his command-tent.
Silence permeated throughout the silent tent, the sound of his
intermittent breathing the only break in the monotony. There should be a
feeling of coming victory, a nearing triumph, one that mirrored the
feeling athletes get when they're a few paces away from the line, but all
he felt was…pity and remorse.
For a moment he remained in his lotus position, a reflective mood
washing over him.
Cullaica and the Raven were two broken people intent to destroy
everything, regardless if it was good or not. Two people who chose to be
nameless and instead chose to inhabit a nihilistic identity warped by
their tremendous pain and unimaginable suffering.
Evil done onto them, evil they sought to chase onto others.
A legacy of torture and misery passed down the generations.
Atticus sighed silently as he stood up and began to walk towards the exit
flaps of the tent, his mind stuck on what he'd Seen and on the notions of
justifications and consequence. This wasn't the first time he'd Seen that
conversation, the last conversation between two shards of two different
pots that merged into one another.
And it wasn't the first time he was seeing a different angle to it all.
Both of them thought themselves to be inhuman and their actions were
undoubtedly inhuman yet despite all of that, there was a morbid sense of
humanity about them.
They were broken by their suffering, a kind of suffering he imagined was
likely orders of magnitude worse than what Amelie Cantona had endured
and had come back from, and yet ultimately they are driven by their
suffering, consumed by it.
They were stripped down, and they have allowed themselves to be
stripped away of everything they were once were even when they were
out, to their very core and succumbed to the inhuman evils they'd been
subjected to.
Had there ever been any hope for them to come back from their
suffering?
It was a question he often asked himself. One of many questions he asked
himself when it came to the evil he unleashed for a later good. The
greater good.
A forlorn smile formed thinly on his face, one that, had others seen it,
would have recognised it as the look of remorse. He was guilty and he
was culpable for the deaths and horrors the two most broken people he'd
ever seen unleashed onto the world.
In the name of bull-headed ambition. In the name of rendering lessons
that'd stick many generations later, using history and memory and
experience to act as the premier teacher so that such evils couldn't
happen again. 'Never Again…'
In the name of the Greater Good.
What an analogous, vague idea that provoked far too many insane
justifications to count, he mused to himself, and maybe wasn't he just
another, really, that used the same level of justifications to force society
to fit in his and Emily's own preference?
'Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.'
T.S. Eliot's famous quote described him to the tee and worst, he also
knew he was a necessity that was needed. The good that had come and
would continue to come from the path he would lead his people towards
immeasurably outweighed the secret cruelty with which he shepherded
them with.
Despite all of that…
His mind flashed back to the serial reels of Cullaica and the Raven, the
butchery committed and the butchery they encouraged and permitted
their followers to do.
The feeling of accountability weighed heavily on him, this close to all
that has transpired to these people. His own hands might as well be
steeped with the blood of tens of thousands.
Knowing that such manipulation of events would culminate in the
staving of extinction, not only once for the life on Earth, but twice for all
life in the galaxy however distant in the future it may end up being, did
little to soothe his conscience.
Conscience, in the end, he contemplated, that didn't really matter an iota.
As he'd always known.
The hopeless smile turned heavy as he reached the flaps of the tent, his
hand pausing and his body stopped moving. Perhaps the weight was
enhanced because he also knew that there would no one to ever hold him
accountable for his misdeeds, however good intentions and beneficial and
necessary they were.
He was accountable to no one. He answered to no one.
Perhaps that was the greatest tragedy of them all, he mused quietly to
himself.
He began to move again and exited the flaps, the frigid Russian winter air
sobering him out of his thoughts and he set his gaze towards the
surrounded Koldovstoretz, the former school now turned into a makeshift
stronghold.
The gothic austere school made for an impressive building even from afar
despite the distortive orangey hue that clouded it somewhat.
"Sir." One of the guards saluted with a fist on their chest.
"At ease." Atticus said with a faint smile before walking towards the
larger encampment that surrounded the school. There was a hub of
activity, hundreds of Illosian forces that were waiting on his command,
his words.
"Have they acted?" Atticus asked when he glanced at the guard.
"No sir." The guard stated before raising his arm. A holo popped up, a
holo of the school with heat dots of varying hues of amber. The guard
continued "The hostages are safe and should that change, we'll all know
immediately."
Commander Zivkovic, the man who would lead the rest of the mission
here in Russia once Atticus left, had suggested they tie the monitoring
systems to their armour.
A useful idea.
Atticus nodded slightly before he turned his gaze towards the school.
The school was situated in a rather bothersome location.
With the Ural Mountains at its back and forested hilly lands with a large
lake at its front and sides, it was a difficult building to siege, magically or
muggle.
A surprise attack done head on wasn't an option, not with the safeguards
they put in place after the rescue of indoctrinated heirs. Day and night
patrols were on high alert, and ramparts were built in some places that
the Ravenites identified as weaknesses.
And neither was attacking brutally an option as they had done in other
regions of Russia either.
The Ravenites within Koldovstoretz made no secret of it that they will
start executing every living soul within the school should they attack and
none of his people wanted to be responsible for the deaths of school
children.
Surprisingly as well, most of the students were being taught the old
fashioned way of indoctrination rather than the blunt mind whammying
they normally subjected the vulnerable to. Atticus supposed that the
Raven might have felt at least some kind of kinship with these kinds of
children to spare them that violation.
Atticus shook his thoughts away internally. Time to get on with it.
After a few minutes of walking through the encampment, he arrived at
the Commander's tent and walked through it. His eyes flickered towards
the men and women who were communicating through Holos to the
signallers of other platoons.
As of right now, there were eight different operations simultaneously
within Russian and Belorussia, most of it towards dismantling the entire
power structure of the Ravenites whilst also eliminating all of the support
network.
By the time the sun rose tomorrow, the bulk of the work would be done
before the majority would go on to the Ukraine and then further south
into the Balkans whilst a few platoons would hunt down known – and
previously unknown – sympathisers and collaborators along with the
wayward Ravenites.
The collaborators were of little consequence but they would be vital in
the Milanese Trials to come. "Sir!" Commander Zivkovic saluted him
alongside his subordinates.
Atticus waved them on before he raised his hand.
A holo showed before he flicked his finger and sent on the information to
Zivkovic.
Zivkovic had a curious expression on his face before he looked down to
his arm. Atticus could feel the surprise emanating from the commander.
The commander looked up from his arm finally after a few long minutes.
"I didn't think you could maintain that many portals, sir." The question
was there and Atticus smiled faintly. It was why he liked Zivkovic. He
wasn't overawed like many others were with Atticus. There was respect
and loyalty, of course but no more.
In truth, it wasn't surprising if looked in a wider scope. His inaction to
deal with the Ravenites, however much he was taking in refugees, had
been a contentious point amongst many within the Illosian community,
particularly of course the refugees.
"It is a new development."
Atticus answered calmly before he allowed a flicker of displeasure show
on his face.
"Direct confrontation will only lead to unnecessary casualties."
Zivkovic looked at him for a long moment before he nodded slightly.
"I see." Zivkovic said before continuing "Do you need anything from us,
sir?"
"I need a harmless distraction." Atticus answered before explaining in
depth what he wanted as he'd Seen himself do a dozen times over.
The way words form and combine, the way it is communicated, even the
tone in which it was spoken, all of it led to specific slightly different
outcomes.
Literal words of power, of consequence that rippled the universe in the
ways that he wanted it to, sifting particles of sands until it all built
towards the castle he desired.
He never failed to appreciate its marvelousness and its disturbing
qualities.
Two different coloured threads all tangled up in a neat little ball of yarn.
It was a few hours later that he was standing alone in the encampment in
a tent made out of the same enchantments invisible cloaks are layered
with.
The night was starless and the world around them would have been
pitched into total darkness had it not been for the exercise to his far left
some three hundred metres and the alight Koldovstoretz before him just
shy of a kilometre away.
The encampment had been moved from where they were, an oddity that
would grab their attentions but not so much as to see it a threat, and that
was all he needed.
Atticus' arms slowly rose up from behind him, his violet emerald eyes
aglow as magic began to hum and thrum around him, the chains around
his magic slackening.
The thickness of magic around him was immense, akin to wading
through a pool full of crude oil, and his being was fully open now, the
locked door that kept the rush of flood water demolished. The universe
was open to him once more.
The chains slackened even further and his eyes closed as he allowed
himself to sense the world around him in all of its inexplicable ways.
The sight of the currents of magic down to the very depths of their
frequencies, the cosmic energy that he venerated and worshipped,
pleasurably filled his eyes.
One piece in an infinite puzzle, that was what he felt like when he let
himself be part of the greater whole. One piece that stood at the centre of
the universe and magic responded to him, eagerly and easily, with the
merest expression of will.
Beyond the sight of the currents of magic before him, he sensed the very
energy that flowed through life and universe far and wide, almost to the
very corners of the Earth
His senses were beyond human perception, the shifts in the winds a
hundred miles away keenly felt as if it was happening on his skin in this
very place, the sounds of rustling trees in St. Petersburg as keenly heard
as if he was there resting against the roots and barks of the trees
themselves.
Each twist of air, each rustling leaf, left a miniscule imprint as they
interacted in the web of magic that permeated throughout and within the
Earth, and more importantly, he felt that same interaction some
kilometre away from him within Koldovstoretz.
He felt their breathing, he felt the vibrations of the air as they talked, all
hundred and sixty nine Ravenites and three hundred and sixty three
students.
His eyes reopened, blazing white glowing orbs that absorbed the
kaleidoscopic miasmic arrays of magic that strummed around him like a
miniature cyclone.
The magic around him whipped and lashed around him in tightly
controlled arcs, violet and emerald wisps flowing and ebbing into white
thick tendrils of magic.
His hands began to glow, white and orange, the crates behind snapping
open before two centimetre amber spheres in their hundreds began to
encircle around him, and Illosian Runes began to eke out of the centre of
his palm before the white-orange runes began to connect to one another
in mid-air.
There was a faint whine, like the sound of building power within a
magnetically accelerated gun, and Atticus spread his arms wider until he
was fully stretched.
His mind, opened to a perception that ran for thousands miles in every
direction, reduced to a radius of a thousand metres, the sharpness that he
held on his surroundings akin to the sharpness with which laser scanning
heads measured surfaces. He saw all, felt all, heard all in the minutiae.
His thought stream split into two, one focused on Koldovstoretz and its
inhabitants, and the other on the Illosian Runes. With an exertion of will,
a miniature portal formed before him, only three centimetres in diameter,
and with another, greater, exertion of will, that miniature portal began to
duplicate, again and again until…
Until he was surrounded by a hundred and sixty-nine three centimetre
diameter wide portals, their destinations yet unassigned as the strain of
keeping the portals open to their destination was immeasurable.
Each of the portal would activate in every single blind spot, some behind
the heads of the Ravenites, others above it, others behind their backs.
The circling amber spheres began to stand by each portal, ready to race
ahead and with a final breath in, his mind fortifying itself, Atticus with a
final push of Will, activated each of the hundred and sixty-nine portals
before a twitch of the finger sent the amber spheres careening forward
through the portals before switching off the portals within a fraction of a
second after they'd passed through the portal horizon.
Atticus breathed out, the sensation of all Ravenites encased within the
amber blocks was satisfying. It was done. Anticlimactic yet beautiful all
the same.
A desire emerged from within the pool of his mind, the thick sphere of
magic surrounding him began to change frequencies, nature, the desire
change to a thought, burn, and so the sphere of magic burst into a white
hot sphere of flames that burnt through the invisible tent until it was no
more, leaving behind not a speck of ash.
The sphere of flames subdued, suborned to his will leaving behind
circling and lashing tendrils of magic that would appear as if they were
the appendages of a Lovecraftian horror-creature. His gaze set upon
Koldovstoretz, the sight of inter-webbed frequencies of magic that
composed of the wards a thing of beauty yet it was also a beauty he must
strip away.
The maelstrom of magic circling around him halted its movements as he
raised his left hand, open-palmed and wide, perpendicular to the ground,
and turned his gaze towards the grey-clouded skies.
The maelstrom of magic grew longer, higher, and with a gentle twist of
the wrists, his magic began to reach out to the skies like a hungry flame,
his mind and body and magic connecting to the surrounding nature
magic with powerful will and desire.
Its submission to his Will came easy, rumbling sounds of the skies began
to echo hauntingly in the empty Ural Mountains, and the volume of his
magic interspersing with the surrounding magic began to grow in size
and in strength.
By now, he was a miniature supernova caught in its definitive moment,
streams upon streams of magic webbed out of him like expelled mass, the
sounds of thunder growing louder and the streaks of the first lightning
illuminating the area around him with devastating power.
He stood there serenely as the weather began to howl and whistle,
blankets of grey broken to pieces by webs of lightning that lasted longer
and more powerful than they ought to.
His expression was melancholic in a strange way as he latched onto a
moment almost thirty years in the past. He still remembered how it felt
to take down the wards of Genelum castle. The revel, the power, the
strain, the struggle, the exhaustion.
The ends of his fingers bowed into a half claw and deafening silence
suddenly washed over the area as sudden light was extinguished and
thunder stifled to death.
So effortless…so easy, he mused to himself as magical energy so thick, so
powerful, so dense, circled around him. A rate of magical expulsion that
would cause the vast majority of magicals to die from magical exhaustion
within a few seconds.
Yet for him…it was little more a bucket of energy drawn from a pool of
liquid power.
Time's march began to slow as his perception sharpened and dulled the
passage of time, and it was only half a moment later that his left hand
stretched out once more, and the pressure around him began to decrease
palpably before suddenly a column of lightning the thickness of a bullet
train lashed downwards with tremendous power.
The wards iridescently and ethereally buckled and but held against the
tremendous power, the interlinked wards straining and loosening with
each fraction of a second that passed by. A flicker of appreciation sunk
into him at the sight of the strong wards. Whomever constructed the
Koldovstoretz wards was a master of their craft.
Nonetheless, it mattered not for a whole second passed and the
interwoven wards began to snap almost all at the same time and like a
bubble the wards burst apart, destroyed beyond salvation as he felt the
crack happen within the wardstone.
With the wave of the hand, the lightning column stopped before it could
sear through the foundations of the empty courtyards and into the
dungeons where there were people and with a soft exhale, he reduced his
control over the weather all whilst he chased the grey clouds away to
reveal the presence of the stars.
A bright orb formed in front of him which began to climb into the sky
before bursting apart, colourful hues of violet sparks showered above
him, the signal for his people to go and secure the school. He didn't need
to glance to know that they were moving towards the school. He could
feel it readily enough.
For a moment, he let himself stand in silence, surrounding by a storm of
his magic, and let the frigid cold of the Russian winter touch his skin.
The feeling was blissful.
Its coldness provoked his mind, sharpening and dulling it all the same
time as he dove into the recollections of the Time that belonged to him.
He'd grown so much over the last thirty years.
And not only magically.
Lord. Leader. Symbol. Hero. Husband. Villain. Shepherd. King. Mentor.
An evolution of experiences to accompany an evolution of magic.
A faint amount of air escaped his lips as his mind darkened.
And he'd have to evolve many times more in the centuries to come.
He turned his eyes towards the stars.
He'd always believed them to be wondrous and invoked a sense of awe
within him.
Now, he saw them with wary eyes.
The glow of his eyes began to dim as he reeled his magic back in.
The work started against the Ravenites had only begun but that would
soon enough come to a precipitous end. An end of an era to herald in a
new age. A new evolution.
One where direct politicking would take hold of his life for as far as he
could See.
The glow in his violet emerald eyes remained even as he dialled down
the connection to the universe slightly higher than he usually left it as,
and his mind began to return back to its mortal confines as his greater
perception faded away.
A faint smile settled on his face as he turned away from the stars, his
hand rising and falling as a blue-orange portal formed before him. He
stepped through it and arrived at the school's great hall and began to
walk around the marble blocks that contained some of the Ravenites.
He was due a change, he thought to himself, welcome one that aligned
with what was needed to be accomplished to the change he desired for
himself. Not a change of inaction like the one that gripped his Older-Self
and led to his people's downfall but one of a more involved and
conscientious responsibility.
He walked through the marble blocks, his gaze tracing each and every
one of them. It would start partially here. Whilst he did have an ulterior
motive, one of predominant curiosity, to grant second chances to the
indoctrinated and unsalvageable, it was buoyed by the want of change.
The weight of constantly plotting to keep a long war going felt freeing,
no more would he have to watch death and destruction of both body and
mind continue on.
The prospect of the killing and the fighting coming to an end was
deliverance.
He knew that there would still be some killings needed in order to deal
with genuine threats that couldn't be eliminated with deft diplomacy and
enticing economic incentives but he would strive for such instances to be
the only killings to be done.
He would not be able to clean the blood stain from his hands clean but
he would be able to start dirtying his hands with black soil and stroking
plants to life.
Doing so for the next few centuries sounded productive if tiring, he
thought as he came to a stop at one of the marble blocks, but nonetheless
a welcome change, he mused as he studied the angered expression of the
Ravenite.
It was ugly, he considered as he keenly inspected the face in detail.
The look of hate.
The fear behind the look of despair.
A look he'd seen and Seen all too often on far too many, many faces.
"Sir?" Zivkovic stepped towards him and Atticus moved his arms behind
his back, his gaze never breaking from the ugly expression.
"Alexei" Atticus addressed Commander Zivkovic by his first name.
"When you see his face…what do you see?" Atticus posed to the man, his
tone soft yet authoritative. Atticus could feel the man was startled by the
question.
He heard Zivkovic turning and looking at the expression properly for the
time.
"I…" Zivkovic began and Atticus could hear the uncertainty in the man's
voice.
Atticus knew that Zivkovic saw the enemy.
All of his people saw the Ravenites the same. How could they not? In
their eyes they committed evil and needed to be dealt with. Harshly.
Without mercy. Many had been unhappy with his and Emily's decision to
capture them if it was a possibility.
If only they knew that their evil was permitted to happen by their loved
leaders.
He took pity on the man. "I see division." Atticus said to Zivkovic and he
felt the man's eyes on him. "I see a man without a compass, adrift at sea
on a piece of wreckage. I see starvation of purpose. I see meaninglessness."
Atticus turned towards Zivkovic whose expression was one of
bewilderment.
Atticus smiled at the commander before he lost it and turned grave and
solemn.
"I see tragedy when I look at this man." Atticus turned back towards the
marble block, his eyes intensely trailing across the Ravenite's face. "Not
an enemy."
There was a lull of silence.
Societal change would also start here, slowly, as ideas and considerations
were planted in the minds of his people. Change that mirrored the rise of
American Exceptionalism on the world stage.
The Illosian culture and people was young, so very young, and the pole
position of power they found themselves in hadn't yet sunken in fully. By
the time the war ended, it would sink in and the culture of
exceptionalism would become further infectious as years and decades
passed.
Zivkovic spoke up.
"My family is from Živkovci. A small village of no importance but a place
my ancestors long called home." Zivkovic paused for a moment, as if
drawing on memories once thought long forgotten.
"I remember the river stream that passed by the backside of our house.
The smells of the plants and the earth." Zivkovic said with a frown before
adding
"Even sometimes honey from the colony of bees high in the trees outside
of our family wards if the wind was right. A good place to grow up. A
good home."
Zivkovic's gaze hardened.
"A home we were forced to leave after the Ravenites cut through the
Ministry like wheat under the blade of a scythe." Zivkovic said firmly as
he turned towards the Ravenite.
"When I see him…I can only see an enemy."
The Ravenites had taken over in Serbia in 1960.
All of the Illosian Guards, volunteer forces and the Avalonian forces held
a relatively strong presence of former refugee peoples within them.
Most understood that many of the Ravenites had little choice in the
matter of their actions but that was peripherally and largely
inconsequential to their own suffering.
The hum from Atticus rumbled in his throat, giving a gravelly quality.
Zivkovic seemed to realise once more who he was in the presence of and
bowed his head apologetically. "My apologies, Your Grace…I" Atticus
held up his hand stopping Zivkovic in his tracks.
He gave Zivkovic a faint smile as he dropped his hand.
"I understand your hatred." Atticus said with consideration before looking
away from the man and towards the Ravenite. He let the moment drag
on as the sounds and presence of his people in the castle grew stronger
for a few moments.
He felt them interacting with the students and shepherding away from
their rooms towards the courtyard where a transport ship would pick
them up.
He refocused onto the Ravenite, the words falling out of his lips like they
had in the future he was moving everything towards. "It is an
understandable hatred. A reasonable hatred. But ultimately…" Atticus
gestured towards the hateful look of the Ravenite. "It is the same hatred
that is expressed on this man's face."
"Hatred has poisoned this man into the path of evil that knows no bounds
to the depravity he willing to sink into. The horror he is willing to
commit. The suffering he is willing to bring to the innocent." Atticus
turned to Zivkovic.
"He is preoccupied by hatred. Consumed by it. So much so that he has
acted with hatred to inspire hatred into the world, Alexei. Perhaps he
carries the torch of hatred forced upon him. Perhaps it is his own torch.
Nevertheless, he is a lesser man for it." Atticus intoned quietly, speaking
of more than this particular Ravenite before them.
Atticus could see that Zivkovic was struggling with the words and he
sighed as he removed his arms from behind his back, turning slightly
towards Zivkovic.
"It took me a long time to move past my own hatred for Grindelwald and
the man who killed my father." Atticus said truthfully. Hating a dead man
was futile.
Zivkovic looked surprised at the admission and the fact that Atticus was
sharing it.
He continued "And I only truly moved past it when I realised that I was
harming myself by doing so." Just as the hate he'd felt for himself for
being too late was harmful. Something that took years longer to get past
than hating Grindelwald did.
"There will be a time when the war is over." Atticus continued before he
glanced at Zivkovic "A time that will come sooner than you think and I
realise that I cannot ask you to forgive. I may be King but that can only
come from within yourself and with time." Atticus said with a faint smile
before he lost it slightly.
"I can only ask however, that you reflect upon whether nor not you wish
to fall in the same pit of hatred as this man has. His actions may or may
not have been truly his own but that hate of his is real." Atticus finished.
When Zivkovic turned his gaze towards the Ravenite, Atticus began to
walk away from Zivkovic, leaving the man to his thoughts.
One day soon enough, Zivkovic would thank him for those words. Words
he would use to create new ones that would touch the hearts of his and
the rest of the magical world greatly after the harrowing Milanese Trials
came to an end.
Words of forgiveness and healing.
Words that sprang actions that connected magical kind through
sentiment and caring.
A wistful smile grew on his face as he walked through the eerie halls of
the school, memories of futures Seen blissfully playing out in his mind.
Aye, the fruits indeed grow beautifully under the caring touch of
bloodstained hands.
32. Chapter 92
Some answers - I know I've been quiet with the responses to
questions (my bad) so if in the next few chapters, will try and
answer them. Otherwise I'm quite active on discord if you wanted to
ask me stuff.
Just a query, as you have incorporated "Fringe" elements in the story,
will you be including the observers in this story.? Or is it an alternate
alternate reality where the fringe characters are there but the elements
are not.?
- Answer: No observers. Wouldn't really work in this universe
anyway since the main characters of Fringe are magicals. Plus...I
think my brain would melt trying to tie plot point into the story.
haha!
do you perhaps have experience writing Cultivation stories?
- Answer: I'm not even sure what a Cultivation story? You can msg
about it.
Been following for a while now. Wished i discovered the story when
after it was completed. Waiting for updates abd windering if u will
suddenly lose interest is kinda tense ahaha but great work as always!
- Answer: i am two chapters away from finishing the story. It would
be terrible of me to leave it unfinished at this point...lol. Wouldn't
do that to you guys :)
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The NEW discord channel LINK is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/6^x^8^m^K^V^w^X^
14th of November, 1972 – Trieste, Italy
Emily POV
The sun unhidden by absent clouds was outshone by the blazing light in
the distance.
The smell of ash, the smell of burning wood and stone that almost bore
traces of the smell of burning flesh carried far in the winds as she
approached in tremendous speed, the smells an unnecessary yet
harrowing beacon to the sight of a city aflame.
Her expression was set in granite as she took hold of flames in the shape
of chimeras as high as skyscrapers raged at the centre of the city,
hulking, bulking flaming beasts that burnt all around them even if their
flames did not lick or touch their surroundings.
The fires were simply that hot, that consuming and the Fiendfyre was still
slowly growing in scale as flamelet chimeras and other creatures sprouted
from the great chimera flames. It looked like the image, the incarnation
of the seventh circle of hell.
Thousands must have died.
Thousands more would die.
Her eyes trailed across the chimeras, hunger and malice stretched across
their beastly faces as their rage reverberated across the city in an angry
bellow, and she saw the hungry fiery creature fed and emboldened by
turgid strings of magic that radiated hate and power, strings that she
followed towards the centre of the city.
"My Queen!" she heard through her coms from Commander Adrianus as
she soared down towards the epicentre of the Fiendfyre "Trieste and the
surrounding regions are cut off from the rest of Italy and the world."
The electrical grid, highways and radio were all cut off from Trieste and
the surrounding regions. The ships that left the city and the surrounding
regions would be boarded and the individuals obliviated whilst the city
proper itself would be warded to prevent outside travel. There would be
nowhere to go for Cullaica.
"Good. Do what you can to ensure that remains the case for the next few
hours" she ordered. The fight would not take so long but restoring the
Statute of Secrecy would.
A flicker of irritation crossed her face as she approached the all-
consuming flames.
This was not the only incursion by the Ravenites, only the one successful
incursion.
Münster, Constanta, Thessaloniki, Varna, Szczecin, Brno and two dozen
other cities in Europe were all attempted to be burnt down by the
Ravenites in a fit of childish rage, a rage that grew into an inferno much
like the inferno she was diving into once they'd stopped the first two
attacks.
They'd known of the attacks, all of them including the ones that would
have been attacked but never were as a consequence of the cascading
effects of their interventions, but with each one they stopped, another
three other cities were attacked in a seemingly never ending game played
by Atticus and the Far-Seers against the Ravenites and the madness that
spawned them.
They were winning, having stopped all of the attacks but it was little
more than winning battle after battle with only marginal steps forward
towards victory.
The number of captured or dead Ravenites was well into the thousands
but there were still at least several hundred more within Europe, each
one in deep hiding until commanded to act by their insane leader.
She veered to her left, towards the fiery creature that surged towards the
inner parts of the city, towards the suburban homes and set a course to
plunge within the heart of the chimera.
Her wand arm rose, the magic coiled around her centre springing loose,
akin to a basilisk unfurling itself from the coils of its body as its head rose
and its death glare latched onto its unaware victim, and a blinding light
poured forward, the flames that she dived into died a sizzling death as its
oxygen and the magic that fuelled were extinguished like the life of a tick
was extinguished in between human fingers.
Idly, she mused as liquid power thrummed in her veins and her magic
rose like the raging tsunami, she admired the pettiness, the tenacity and
the cleverness of Cullaica, to figure out a way to get himself into a
position that took advantage of the disadvantages stacked up against him
even if he knew that he'd eventually lose.
Her magic continued to rise as she twisted around, the tip of her wand
crackling with the same blinding light that extinguished the hungry
flames around her, and she came to a stop within the vacuum she'd
created within the heart of the Fiendfyre chimera.
Her slightly aglow eyes looked at her surroundings beyond the vacuum,
towards the raging red hot flames that whizzed and whirled around her
momentary sanctuary she was maintaining.
Fiendfyre consumed everything and anything, be it magic or physical
materials.
It was a near sentient manifestation of rage, of the desire to destroy, and
with that near sentience came its will that could be suborned only by the
strength of the caster – or that of any individual who was strong enough
to wrestle away control from the caster and the fiery construct.
But even then, suborning Fiendfyre to your will was a taxing affair and
the fiery constructs' hunger was endless and so its will would grow the
longer it went on.
And what she was seeing now was the result of Fiendfyre allowed to be
what it was designed to do that aligned perfectly with Cullaica's desire to
simply destroy.
To consume all that stood in its path.
With blinding speed, her wand traced a series of rings above her head,
rings of striking blue white magic that pulsed like throbbing veins and
within a flash, she whirled her wand and the rings immeasurably fast
began to expand in diameter, like waves rushing forward from the
epicentre of an earthquake.
The rings cut through the inferno outside of her vacuum, the angry shriek
of the chimera a pleasing note to her ears, and the rings bar one
continued onwards.
She flicked her wand upward, and the one ring that remained began to
expand, its shape altering as it fed onto the destructive malicious magic.
Her wand arc forward and the white blue magic that hungered grew into
a massive shield all whilst the fiery chimera dwindled in strength and in
size until all that remained was a bubble of white-blue magic that
surrounded her.
She gazed through the distorted bubble and paid witness to the rest of
the fiery creatures being consumed by her rings one by one until all that
there was left was ash and smoke and dying flames. She turned her gaze
downwards towards the source of darkness that she knew was peering up
at her.
She began to descent towards him, her eyes lazily flickering towards their
surroundings. There was a monument, half molten, half burnt, amidst a
cemetery and what most likely had once been a cathedral.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw more than a few still alive muggles within
the ruins of the building. It was impossible that Cullaica wouldn't have
noticed.
She heard clapping and she turned her attentions back towards the
culprit as her feet touched the ground. With a wave of her fingers, she
dismissed the shield and was met with a wildly grinning Cullaica who
wore what seemed like dragon-hide armour, though what stood out was
the odd metallic bracelets that were around each of his wrists. She had
an idea of what they were and she'd keep alert to them.
She returned her gaze towards the man. His intense – and hungry –
mauve eyes bored into her, the plastic-like expression on his face was
unsightly. Like a deranged Cheshire kneazle who had just caught its next
rat to play and torture.
It was amusing and she merely cocked her eyebrow in response.
"My…my" Cullaica said in a sing-song voice as he slowly began to walk
towards her, his sinister magic rising as his grin, a grin that somehow
managed to stretch from ear to ear, gained a malicious quality. "You are
quite the impressive woman. I didn't think it would be so easy to dismiss
my Fiendfyre so readily."
"Wouldn't want to give you the opportunity to run again, now would we?"
she said with a light smile, one that lessened the manic grin on Cullaica's
expression and inversely increased the magic exuded by the madman.
There was a hum in the air now, a frigid hum that was moments away
from turning the low vibrating air into a heavy cloak as she considered
the man that evaded her for far too long. Pinning the madman down had
been difficult.
…As much as she hated to admit it.
Cullaica had a network of vanishing cabinets esque outlets that the man
utilised any time she arrived to stop him and his followers from
unleashing an attack like today.
There was never an opportunity that guaranteed success of getting to the
madman, his skill in magic, his cleverness and his power made him
enough of a wildcard that they had to sacrifice the perfect war in return
for victory.
It seemed like Cullaica was completely intent on burning down a city and
wouldn't rest or face her until he did so. A decision had to be made, one
that her people – and Atticus – didn't like…to sacrifice a city to end
Cullaica once and for all.
In a way, however, it served to provide a much needed lesson for the
Office of Far-Sight, a bitter lesson about the consequences of failures.
"Ah…" Cullaica waggled his finger, his mauve eyes beginning to turn
darker and aglow, resembling the sight of a drop of blood sunk into a
pool of milk.
The magical power he began to exude was doubling, tripling, ripples of
acidic putrid cyan magic, magical manifestation that could only be
described as resembling the poisonous fumes of sulphuric baths, began to
pour of him.
A flash of regretful thought passed about her mastering of her innate
talent to discern who and what a person was within a single moment. Her
expression had instinctively hardened in the close proximity that she was
to his magic.
He reeked of poison. Of inhumanity in a way that surprised her.
Only some of the darker wizards – however lost to history they may have
been – that she and Atticus came across in their travels had such…
offensive aura about them.
Had she not been able to see Cullaica's soul, she would have suspected
that Cullaica had created at least one horcrux to strip away his humanity
and she mused idly if even a full cleansing and reincarnation could
remove the taint.
"What else did you expect?!" Cullaica exclaimed with a faux outraged
tone all whilst his expression remained manic and insane. "You were so
intent in preventing my courtship dance from taking place!"
Cullaica made a show of throwing up his hands in frustration before
looking at her with a gleam in his eyes and magic roiling off of him
before he licked his lips and finishing with "How else was I declare my
fitness as your soon-to-be mate?"
Akin to a light switch, the atmosphere suddenly changed, her entire
being radiating darkness and malice, and just as the atmosphere switched
from anticipatory to one of ominous darkness, so did Cullaica act with
suddenness as his arms rose, runic symbols on his bracelets slightly
aglow, and fired objects from his bracelets.
They were faster than the fastest spells, faster than the amber bullets they
fired yet it mattered not for her left hand rose with imperceptive speed.
The objects came to an immediate stop, the runes that were engraved on
its surfaces washed away by the heat generated by the instant conversion
of speed to zero velocity. Her expression tightened slightly. She could
sense that the objects were capable of piercing through her Adamantite
armour. She'd have to keep an eye out.
Cullaica's aglow eyes widened incredulously at the act and with a snap,
she dissolved the objects into dust as her magic began to seep out of her
like serpents wading through the depths of the ocean towards the surface.
Black serpents, black snake-like wisps began to eke out of her form, the
air around her turned heavier and heavier just as the range of her magic
touching the world grew larger. Her magic ebbed and flowed like the
unstoppable tides of the seas, the taste of magic lingering thick in the air.
Cullaica got a hold of himself and snarled as his own poisonous dark
magic began to rise as he got himself ready into a stance.
"I will enjoy this" she said softly, like a lullaby sung to a child, her black
eyes akin to that of twin singularities at the centre of black holes. All
consuming. Inescapable.
Killing him would be trivial with the technology and magi-tech they had
on hand.
Annihilating particle beams sniped from ten miles away. An orbital
strike. Creating a fissure underneath the city that would subsume the city
whole with Cullaica.
All she had to do was draw him out long enough for it to happen.
Yet…
None of those kinds of solutions satisfied her.
"You…" she said musingly as a cruel uptick of the corner of her lips
formed, the malice and darkness she felt and burbled under her skin
unable to contained within her. "…will not."
Cullaica waited no more and the volume of the magic that rose within
him was apocalyptic, his cyan magic rippled out of him with a soundless
shriek that tore up reality surrounding them.
The tip of Cullaica's wand shone with brightness and power, like the
moment the dance between two planetary objects came to a merging end,
fizzing and crackling as he unleashed a hail storm of murderous spells.
The ground shook and rumbled as beasts and spears and knives ripped
out of the ground towards her and the air sizzled as flames and dark
curses that left bodies unidentifiable ate up the distance between them.
She leapt backwards and sideways, her wand brandished methodically
across from her body and fashioned a thick cushion of air in front of her
stretching for over a hundred metres that took properties of perfect
reflective materials.
The deadly spells that raced towards her gonged against the reflective air
before being sent back towards Cullaica. Cullaica snarled before he
apparated out of the away and disapparated a few metres behind her.
Emily twisted around, dodging the sickly spell, censumosis, she noted, a
spell that caused victims to feel as if their bones were on fire, and as she
twisted around, her left hand clenched as she swept her hand behind her
all whilst her crackling wand was brought to bear towards Cullaica.
A devastating shockwave ripped out of the tip of her wand, a shockwave
that tore into their surrounding with the devastation of multi-tonne
explosion and took Cullaica off of his feet and flew into the distance
towards the buildings like a ragdoll.
The spears and knives and weapons that raced towards her back were
shattered into pieces by her sweeping hands before she opened her hand
and flicked her fingers upwards, causing the shattered pieces to be turned
into unbreakable glass before sending them after Cullaica who was
righted himself after a few moments and was floating a metre or so from
the ground in the middle of the burnt street.
His breathing was heavy. His chest heaved animatedly like a sponge
squeezed and un-squeezed, his aglow mauve eyes wild and insane with
fury and hate.
With a wild lash of his wand arm, the unbreakable glass shards were hit
with a wave of turbulent magic that disrupted the enchantments,
dissolving the shards into molten embers of glass before they flashed like
tiny stars out of existence.
She felt his uncontrollable rage through his turbulent magic, a rage that
began to turn his surrounding into a noxious miasma. His cyan magic
swirling around him like an odious physical blanket woven with silk
threads made of physical hate.
The trees around him began to wilt and wither, their leaves blackening
and their bark whitening. The grass crumbled into ash and the earth
cracked as nurturing life fled from the harmful aura he so effortlessly
exuded.
She felt the harm his magic had on the world, the depths of the vileness
of his being that permeated through his magic like smoke through warm
winds.
In this very moment, he was the very embodiment of Pestilence.
A disease, a plague, that destroyed all that it touched.
Dark magic had a place in the universe. There was no light without
darkness. No life without death. It was as natural as neutral or 'light'
magic. But this…?
It was beyond dark magic.
It was a twisted abomination spawned from the abyss of hopelessness.
It was fascinating.
Her eyes darkened, the whites in her eyes disappearing into a pool of
impossible blackness as a black blue tempest of magic swirled around her
that crackled with the weight and ferocity of lightning. Her wand rose.
A few moments passed, the silence that pervaded around them would
have been deafening had it not been for the howling whirlwinds of magic
that surrounded the pair of them, until Cullaica landed down onto the
ground and sped towards her with an explosive speed, shattering the
cobbled stones left in his wake.
His trailing wand swept forward, broken pieces of stones were caught by
his magic, thinning and sharpening before he disapparated with the pieces
of rubble that was caught in his apparation sphere.
She twisted around, her wand arcing around her as air condensed into a
shield made out of mist just before the transfigurations clashed against
her shield and she disapparated away moments before lighting burnt in
the place she once stood.
She reappeared to Cullaica's left and her wand was a blur as she
unleashed destructive spell chain after spell chain, the tip of her wand
fizzing as she twisted her wrist from one spell into the other.
Cullaica disapparated again and again, letting off curse after curse in
each moment's reprieve but she danced out of the way of them, never
once faltering to continue on relentlessly with spells that barely gave him
half a second of time to apparate away as she latched onto his magical
signature the moment he appeared, like a shark catching the scent of
blood from miles away.
It appeared to be a cat and mouse game but in reality, she mused as her
eyes gleamed and her lips curled into a vicious smile, it was nothing but
a serpent stalking its unsuspecting prey.
As the last spell chain left the tip of her wand, she moved and her wand
twirled above her head, great arcing electric sphere of magic manifesting
itself into existence and she jabbed the tip of her wand into the sphere
before she disapparated and closed the gap between herself and Cullaica.
She whipped her wand with the attached electric ball of power forward
and a massive thunderous explosion ripped away from her in a blanket of
blue white electric fire before she transitioned her wand movement to
erect a weak but effective anti-apparation field.
Cullaica tried to apparate into the air but found himself unable to do as
the blanket of blue white electric fire fried and burnt all that it touched.
He snarled as he scrambled to raise a shield around him and do so in the
nick of time.
The electric fire burnt through the homes and buildings of their
surroundings, the sounds of crumbling buildings echoed as spidery cracks
appeared in his shield and Emily pressed on as she threw dark piercing
curses after another at the shield with blinding speed and volume, a
dozen piercing curses left her wand every second, forcing him to focus on
maintaining the shield rather than give him a window to brute-force the
anti-apparation field and disapparate away.
Her blue-black magic began to roil off of like billows of thick smoke
down the edge of a cliff as her curses gained in power and in speed. The
naked look of frustration and anger on Cullaica's face excited her and her
anticipation and interest rose as she waited on what he'd do to get out of
the tight spot that he found himself in.
But that was not where it all ended for the well of magic within him
bloomed, the light surrounding Cullaica – and Emily – inverted as the
haze of his cyan magic blackened and seeped with tendrils of sickly
swirling magic.
The earth buckled and shook with an ease that reminded her of fluttering
paper and she apparated away, breaking the anti-apparation field and
appearing on top of the husk of a building, her eyes gazing down at the
madman.
She could have ended this several times already had she so desired but
she was interested to see what he was truly capable of. She'd seen the
memories of Atticus fighting Grindelwald more times than she could care
to count and wanted to know the depths of his legacy, however non-
existent his teachings may have been.
Cullaica shot up towards her, the tip of his wand crackling with a black
bolt of magic, and the only thought that went through her mind as she
whirled her wand above her head was that he was disappointing.
He neither possessed the speed nor the intuitive understanding of magic
to even approach Grindelwald level of skill and power, let alone her skill
level and power.
She should have pushed Atticus to let her deal with the Obscurus.
Cullaica's snarl drew her back in, a snarl that echoed in the air as he
jabbed his wand forward, the black bolt of magic whizzed through the air
towards her, a bolt of magic she could sense was necromantic in nature,
the eerie sound of the spell whizzing through the air was haunting like
the sound of air caught in the bowels of a pipe but she was serene when
she twisted her wand arm around.
She brought her wand down the moment before the spell would have hit
her and she caught the spell at the tip of her wand and apparated away
before Cullaica's follow up curses could strike her and reappeared below
Cullaica who was still in flight.
Cullaica felt her before he saw her and unleashed a wave of free-formed
magic as he spun around and disapparated away. Emily caught the trace
of the disapparation destination and followed him.
Cullaica was ready for her as a white hot fire whip lashed towards her
neck but she dispassionately snuffed out the heat of the fire whip with a
wave of her left hand before forming her hand into a sword that she
slashed diagonally, the air howled as blades of crystalized air rushed
towards Cullaica.
Cullaica swept his wand upward and the ground shifted, great slabs of
steels rose up one by one like domino pieces in the path of the blades and
by one, her blades cut through the slabs of steel like warm knives to
butter and Cullaica disapparated once more before reappearing to her
right.
Her left hand clenched into a fist and a shockwave rippled through the
air, waves of compressed freezing air that reflected Cullaica's spells
through sheer density alone.
Cullaica snarled hatefully as he shot forward, jabbing destructive spell
after destructive spell at her as he disapparated again and again in an
erratic zigzag in a three hundred and sixty degree pattern, and she
ducked and weaved her way out effortlessly as she clung onto the black
bolt whilst her left hand cast wandless curse after wandless curse.
Cullaica appeared right in front of her, the tip of his wand less than a
metre away from her face as the curse ripped towards her, a curse she
instinctively understood to be Coepia a dark blasting curse, and she
arched her back just enough for her to intimately feel how close she'd let
herself be to Cullaica.
Cullaica groaned as a stone pike cast him off of his feet and with smooth
motion she twisted around, her left hand aglow with power and she
jabbed her left hand forward, hundreds of spears made of ice
materialising before her and she launched them towards Cullaica who
forced himself to stop and back on his feet but was only fast enough to
erect a shield after the first ice spear burnt and cut through his left thigh.
Cullaica snarled in pain and in a hate filled rage and twirled his wand.
His white blue shield twisted into a blood red dome before it condensed
into a single point before Cullaica. Emily narrowed her eyes and shifted
into a stance as she recognised the power Cullaica poured into the spell,
whatever it was.
With a flash Cullaica slashed his wand forward and red point whined as it
expanded into a lancing beam with the kind of speed that took Emily
aback but she'd been ready and with a scowl she soared into the skies but
the lancing beam followed her.
She ducked and weaved out of the spell's path all whilst she flicked and
twisted her fingers before she disapparated and returned to the ground
where she'd been and swept her left hand upward. The earth cracked and
a dozen pillars rumbled out around Cullaica before snaking inwards with
tremendous speed heading towards Cullaica forcing him to disapparate
and consequently ending the irritating spell.
He apparated to her right side, less than a few feet away from her but her
reflexes were beyond him and she felt him reappear milliseconds before
the tip of his wand lit up with the intent to unleash a barrage of spells
and she swivelled around, the whizzing hum of the black bolt attached to
her wand let loose towards Cullaica and moments after she let go, she
disapparated away.
Cullaica had sidestepped the necromantic spell, as she expected, and
twisted around to face her when she appeared behind him. Cullaica
brought his wand to bear, spell after spell spewing in a kaleidoscopic
storm of deathly magic.
She weaved her way out of the spells, her left hand batting or reflecting
the spells all whilst intermittently sending waves of elemental magic that
burnt and froze all around them whilst her wand was in the midst of
preparing for her next major attack.
She could sense the unease, the agitation within the depths of his magic
about the way, the ease with which she evaded him and dealt with his
attacks. The air grew thicker as it became overfilled with their clashing
magic, a clash that begun to shear and shake the world around them in
earnest as the battle grew in ferocity.
The hues of the world around them, the light of the naked sun that cast
upon the city seemed to darken, luminosity and warmth brought down to
a low as Cullaica's fury and frustration fuelled his magic to higher
heights.
Her spell was reaching its zenith, the slow thrum of her alight wand drew
Cullaica's attentions and his spells became more destructive as he reached
the end of his patience. Yet for all the destructiveness of his spells, it was
without the smoother spell transition that she knew he was capable of as
anger crept into his casting.
Emily found a wide opening in this misstep and her hand swept upwards,
as if to beckon one forward, the ground beneath Cullaica rumbled but
before he could apparate away, a skeleton hand gripped his ankle causing
him to falter in his spell-casting.
Emily clenched her left fist and the air cooled dramatically before a trail
of explosive ice that could pierce through bone and metal raced towards
Cullaica.
Cullaica freed himself and apparated away a second before the first of the
ice shards or the explosive ice bombs could reach him and reappeared
some feet above the ground to her northwest.
His wand arm descended into a blur creating a host of silver glowing
objects that gleamed like stars and teamed with power, and he jabbed his
wand forward.
The glowing objects flashed forward with tremendous speed and Emily
tapped her feet onto the ground. The ground audibly groaned as every
droplet of moisture was drawn out and a geyser of steaming, superheated
water erupted beneath her feet and lifted her up into the skies and away
from where Cullaica was, opening the distance to several hundred feet.
The glowing objects hit the geyser and shattered it into a million droplets
but with a quick wave of the hand and precise control over her
environment, the shattered geyser transformed into a smouldering
dragon as she rode it towards Cullaica, her hands in motion as she
prepared the final piece of her spell.
Her eyes were ablaze akin to twin black holes around an accretion disk
made out tempestuous blue black haze of arcane energy, a disk of power,
of magic, that was growing and rippling with each beat of the heart that
passed, twisting and bending reality ever more so like how gravity and
mass bent space and time.
The luminosity and warmth of the sun that had been reduced by the
display of their power was now reduced to that of darkness and arctic
cold, her magic continuing to unfurl itself further and further casting and
forcing the world around them into an extension of her will and power.
The smouldering dragon cracked as steaming hot water froze and
hardened into unbreakable ice, roaring deafeningly amidst the haze of
arcane energy that shifted the world into her will.
Cullaica snarled almost knowingly as he set upon his hateful aglow
mauve eyes on her before apparated away to some distance behind him
and he slashed at his hand, blood dripping into the ground before twsting
his wand in a series of flicks that she witnessed shape magic into
something interesting.
The round rumbled and shook and a massive Cerberus made out of blood
and bone rose from the ground, groaning and roaring with a agape maw
that showed rows of knifelike teeth that could rip through a beam of steel
as it if were made out a string of cheese.
Emily disapparated off of the ice dragon that moments afterwards
clashed with the Cerberus and appeared several dozen feet to Cullaica's
southeast and Cullaica swivelled around, the tip of his wand a murderous
violet hue, a curse at the forefront of his mind but it was too late and the
slow widening of his eyes with each millisecond that passed made it clear
that he understood the peril of his situation.
She was a rampaging tempest of magic that stretched into the skies, the
image of power incarnate, and her hands alight with dark blue power
spelled only direness for Cullaica. With a gleam in her aglow black eyes,
she brought down her arms.
The dark blue magic that clung onto her hands dissipated into the ground
within an instant, and merely a few milliseconds afterwards, the very
earth shattered.
Cullaica tried to disapparate but found himself unable to amidst the
sounds of stone and tar and concrete crumbling. Whilst apparation was
effectively wormhole travel in the classical sense of point to point travel,
the medium through which one travelled was through magic itself.
Magic that was accustomed to certain gravity in certain areas. With
gravity as foreign as it was now, travelling through apparation now was
practically impossible with the dissimilar gravity beyond this area she'd
marked out.
Surrounding still standing buildings and broken buildings alike for over a
quarter of a mile began to collapsed onto themselves, tree trunks
shrieked and snapped under the pressure of their weight just as metal
screaked.
Cullaica struggled to stay on his feet, the strength of his magic
counteracting the effects of the magic was the only reason why he was
not a puddle smeared across the ground with gravity having been
increased by a factor of twenty.
The glamour that was on his face was stripped away revealing ghastly
scars that made his appearance seem barely that of a human. How fitting.
With a flick of her hand, she crushed the bones in Cullaica's wand arm
and ripped his wand from his broken fingers and towards her awaiting
hand.
Hmm…she mused.
It was a poor fit but not as bad as she thought it might be.
She eyed the wand curiously. Rigid silkwood. About ten inches in length.
The wood was known to grow with the caster though it never stayed true
like some wands did.
Blue red flames erupted in her hand and it was only a few moments
afterwards that the wand was reduced to ash, leaving behind only a faint
string that she recognised was from a dragon.
The rage that she felt drew back her attentions and she saw Cullaica
trying to aim his arms towards her but he was failing in getting them
higher.
She eyed the titanic battle that was happening between the Cerberus and
the ice dragon and with an absent wave of the wand, blades of
crystalized ice swept across the broken ground, gouging into the ground
before slicing into the blood and bone Cerberus that had been resistant
against her ice dragon.
With another wave, she dispelled the ice dragon after it tore off the
Cerberus' head from it corpse before she refocused solely on Cullaica.
She began to slowly walk towards Cullaica as if she was unaffected by
the supernatural gravity – she was – her eyes boring into the struggling
Cullaica who was doing all he could to try and ease the strain of the
gravity onto him, straining grunts and angry groans were all that could
escape from his lips.
She'd been tiring of the lack of substantial challenge Cullaica presented.
At best, he was only somewhat greater in power and speed than Dembe
Habe which was a disappointment. She idly wondered how much better
the Obscurus was before she dismissed that thought and raised her wand.
The spell wouldn't last long, only ten minutes at most, but she didn't need
that long to break him before she killed him.
Hateful mauve eyes stared at her and she relished at the sight as she
extended out her wand whilst casting a silencing spell on him. She began
to rise into the air and so did Cullaica as she wrapped his neck with an
invisible hand that threatened to choke him to death.
He wouldn't die so easily.
She rose and rose and Cullaica rose and rose just as well.
With a dispassionate flick of the wrist, she sent him flying towards the
rubble of buildings, her eyes lazily following his flight path before
Cullaica smashed into the rubble with a resounding thud.
With another dispassionate flick, this time upwards, Cullaica rose from
within the rubble until she once more flicked her wrist and smashed him
into another pile of rubble. This happened again and again.
By the time she'd thrown him eight more times like a ragdoll, painting
the streets and buildings with his blood, she stopped and she'd thrown
him onto a more even patch of the ruined neighbourhood.
It felt cathartic, she mused to herself as she descended down, the sounds
of his ragged and struggling breathing invoked nothing within her as she
stared his broken body down. Cullaica was still lucid, that much was
clear from the way he stared at her. And his body, though broken, was
still fighting the effects of the gravity and in a small way she was
impressed by his fortitude and his innate control over his magic.
Perhaps she was a little hasty in her assessment about his skills.
To counteract the gravity like this required substantial focus, focus that
should have been broken by now.
She slowly raised the tip of her wand upwards, causing Cullaica's arms to
rise up, before she slashed her wand across, a stream of white hot fire
searing through his arms and parting Cullaica of his lower arms along
bracelets.
A silent scream was etched on his face and she smiled warmly at the
sight.
She pulled off the bracelets from the arms and eyed it for a second before
crushing it totally. She'd have to let her people know that there may be
bracelets around enchanted with that damnable piercing curse. Less than
a dozen had died from the curse and that was bad enough as it was. Her
people would be able to deal with the speed of the blasted things should
it be amongst the remaining Ravenites.
The arms began to orbit in front of Cullaica before she set them on fire
and burnt them to a crisp, drawing his attentions once more. Emily
looked at him with a trickle of amusement lacing her expression.
A part of her was tempted to speak, to goad him but she knew that any
kind of acknowledgement, however negative, of his existence would not
hurt him as much as non-acknowledgement would.
She sighed silently before she raised her wand once more, this time the
tip of the wand set in between Cullaica's eyes. She raised her left hand in
preparation should the pain be enough to cause him to act unpredictably.
"Eradico Mens Mentis" she intoned purposefully loudly as she extended out
tendrils of her Legillimency probe into his mind. Cullaica's scarred face
contorted, as much as it could, under the pain which seem like a
thousand knifes sinking into his skull.
The curse, a mental curse that effectively supercharged Legillimency
probes and wrecked Occlumency shields, was known to be enough to
drive men into insanity.
It was why, should anyone know of the curse in the first place, it was
hardly used. After all, no one who employed Legillimency in the first
place would want the mind they wanted to plunder to be so…damaged.
Not initially.
Unfortunately for Cullaica, she had little need to plunder his mind. No,
what she wanted was for his mind to be as open as it could be.
She ceased the spell after she felt the last of his shields break before she
cast another, a spell that bore similarities to Preastigiae Cara, a nightmare
curse that created illusions but one she modified to create illusions of the
worst kind.
Illusions of those that were cherished the most twisted into nightmares
that fed on the worst experiences and the worst fears.
Cullaica's eyes rolled back into the back of his head and she quickly
lessened some of the gravity around him as she felt his magic waver and
falter. It wouldn't do for Culliaca to be crushed to death before it was his
time.
She watched as her surroundings began to shift, the illusion becoming
more tangible as it leeched off of Cullaica's magic, altering the world
around them.
She watched and listened as the illusions played out and Emily grimaced
slightly.
She knew objectively that the illusions were manifestations of perception,
not necessarily true occurrences yet what she was seeing…
Illusions of Cullaica's mother torturing his siblings before him, his father
slicing his own face off, illusions that only touched very surface of the
depravity she was witness to, it was enough for her to spark a glimmer of
sympathy for Cullaica…Pierre.
He never had a chance, she mused as she watched Pierre and his younger
sister feast on the corpse of their mother whilst his elder brother
whispered into Pierre's ears that he'd should let his sister have more so
that she'd fatten up.
Whether or not it happened didn't matter, perhaps it wasn't his mother he
ate or perhaps he resisted eating human flesh completely, only that it was
within his psyche did.
When she decided to end the illusions, the gravity enchantment had long
since dissipated. Cullaica's breathing was still haggard but it was weaker.
His expression was fixed into a horror struck contortion that she could
barely make out with all the scars that ran across his face and his magic
was erratic but weak.
He didn't have long left now.
She tapped onto her com connecting her to the commander. "I will be
shortly finishing up here. Are we ready to clean the mess up?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Support has arrived and everything is according to
plan."
Emily smiled grimly at that. Well over two thousand mages would work
together to memory-charm the mundanes. Not only to forget what had
happened today but also to account for the deaths that occurred.
They'd only know that a series of attacks had occurred today. It was not
an accident that Trieste was chosen as the place where she'd put down
Cullaica.
Italy was gripped with social turmoil, political violence and upheaval.
The Red Bridage, a far-left group, would be blamed for the murder of
tens of thousands. They'd already done some of the legwork by memory-
charming their leadership into thinking they were ones who planned to
set entire buildings on fire, to collapse a football stadium and a host of
other attacks.
"Good. Begin in five minutes." Emily stated before she cut off the comms.
Emily turned her gaze back at Cullaica and eyed him thoughtfully for a
long few moments before she waved her wand. Symbols flew from the tip
of her wand before they settled down around Cullaica.
She was curious now, to watch one such as Cullaica, as twisted and
broken as he was, grow anew in a new body with new parents in a
nurturing environment however tempted she'd been before to deny him
reincarnation.
From what Atticus told her should she choose to grant Cullaica
reincarnation, he'd be nothing like who'd been in this life, before or after
his time at the internment.
Perhaps she'd understand better how it was possible for a soul, essence to
heal. It was clear that the experiences that Cullaica accrued that stained
and shattered his soul would become irrelevant the moment all of it was
wiped away.
Did that mean nothing truly mattered what they did here, in the physical
plane? That actions and consequences were nothing more than what one
carried with them should their time on the physical plane end?
She raised both of her hands, and began to glow with a dull off-white
hue. Cullaica may have posed little challenge to her but he'd provided
her with another one regardless. He would not know it but he'd serve her
well in his new existence.
The runes that surrounded Cullaica became alight with the same dull off-
white glow as that of her hands. She let go of her breath and her magic
lessened ever so slightly as she watched the world around her become a
kaleidoscope of colour.
Strands of magic invaded her sight, strands of magic that emanated from
the runes and were bound to her magic along with the currents of magic
that began to settle in the world around her.
She saw Cullaica's soul clearly now, a blackened soul that was lacerated
with cuts that looked like the cuts he bore on his face. She didn't have
Atticus' instinctive to see souls but she'd developed it with time.
She pressed an indentation at the side of her armour and a small crystal
flew out from the spacially expanded pocket as magic around Cullaica
grew thicker and thicker as the ritual gathered in strength and virility.
Cullaica's soul began to unthread itself from his body, magic of the ritual
tearing his soul from his body with every second that passed and it was
soon enough time for her to act. She slowly brought her hands closer as
the ritual crawled to its zenith.
When it did reach the zenith, she clapped her hands, and an explosion of
magic rippled and bound itself to the interplay of complex magic at the
centre of the ritual.
Emily acted quickly, her hands moving in intricate motions, motions that
punctured a hole in the fabric of the physical reality before she snatched
Cullaica's black soul and pushed it into the Astral Plane before once more
moving her hands with another series of motions that wrapped the black
soul with laces made out of off-white magical energy and with some
effort, she began to pull.
Pulling at the experiences interwoven within the soul, pulling at the
identity that rested within the inner of the soul and the black soul writhed
as the laces began to pulse with increasing speed.
The soul seemed as if it was being strangled as the off-white laces grew in
size and in strength and it wasn't longer afterwards that black streaks
began to coat the off-white hue of the laces, streaks that soon afterwards
seemed to steam off of the laces like individual strands of spider silk
caught in a summer's breeze.
This process took the longest and black oil like globules hanged around
aimlessly around the laced soul that was now almost pure white.
With an exhale she pulled the soul out of the Astral Plane and depositing
the soul into the crystal before returning her attentions towards the
Astral Plane.
She pulled the muck out as well before eying it curiously. All that
Cullaica was and had been, was now nothing more than a collection of
'ecto-plasm goop' as Atticus liked to describe. She waved dismissively at it
and vanished it out of existence.
The runes began to die out though the magic of the ritual still lingered
and would linger for some time. She paid no more attention to it and
turned towards the crystal that floated in front of her which she studied
with an intense gaze.
She plucked it out of the air and rested it in the palm of her hand, her
eyes never wavering away from the essence that the crystal contained.
Creating new life was not difficult.
Her skill in flesh-crafting was likely only somewhat below the greatest of
the Atlantean flesh-crafters themselves, those geniuses who created the
likes of Phoenixes and such, and she'd created plenty of new lifeforms
over the course of the past twenty years. Some successful and useful, like
the Seelie and the Panthera Gryspelaeus – a species of winged lion – but
most…?
Most of them were bitter disappointment. Even her two most successful
creations lacked the one thing she hungered to create. The ability to use
magic.
They always missed something.
No amount of DNA tinkering, no amount of cloning could produce a
viable truly magical creature…or person. Magic, it seemed, needed more
than just a biological component. It needed the Trinity…the mind, the
body and the soul.
And within this crystal, she mused, was that last component that her
creatures needed and what she and Atticus failed to recreate within them
or the clones.
And even as she observed it exit Cullaica's body and was cleansed within
the Astral Plane, she still did not know how to even approach the
creation of such an essence.
What was it that made souls so special?
Especially magical souls?
Was it because they could perceive more? Understand more?
Or was it something else entirely, something unknown or maybe it was
just a fluke hardwired into the universe that required the combination of
mind – consciousness, body – life, and the soul – spirituality before
reality would allow itself to be manipulated.
It aggravated her that she was no closer now than she was a couple of
decades before.
If only she cou-
The sound of activity in the distance broke her musings and she sighed
slightly as she realised that it was time to clean the place up just as it was
soon time for Europe to be cleaned up completely.
With Cullaica's death, there were only a few more dominos standing.
Italy was already all but freed for the most part and so were the majority
of European Ministries.
The crystal began to float again before she placed it within the spatially
expanded pocket. She looked up and saw the lithe ships fitted with
enchantment arrays beginning to restore most of the city. The damage
Fiendfyre caused was substantial and thus the repairs needed to be more a
little more creative than simply Reparo or the like.
Had it not been for the deaths that the cursed fire caused – along with
more than a few deaths their battle caused to those lucky enough to
escape the flames but not the collapsing buildings – they wouldn't have
needed to fake the terrorist attacks.
Still…
A faint gleam grew in her eyes as she began to levitate.
There would be traces left behind for anyone who was looking to find
proof.
The mundanes were paranoid and the world was on edge and on the
precipice of nuclear war. With that paranoia came technologies employed
by militaries and governments that spanned the world…like satellites
that orbited the world.
One of the American KH-9 Hexagon satellites had captured the city
aflame and from that spark, it would lead them towards a rabbit hole
that ripped away the blinders.
And that, she thought to herself with growing satisfaction, was a day she
could hardly wait for.
33. Chapter 93
Fawkes-Pas chapter 31 . Sep 17
Just a query, as you have incorporated "Fringe" elements in the story, will you
be including the observers in this story.? Or is it an alternate alternate reality
where the fringe characters are there but the elements are not.? - No
observers, nope. nope, nope, nope. I can't be arsed to deal with that
jumbled up server room cables let alone try and fit that in this story
which is already quite dense. lol.
AustinWormLover chapter 32 . Sep 18
Yo, New reader here, love this Trilogy, especially the epic fight
scenes(compared to canon)!
Also if it isn't too intrusive, whens the next chapter and how much more to the
Halo arc?
Following with the fury of An Exterminatus - Welcome! This story ends at
chapter 99. After that, it'll be a little while before I start Halo Canon
which will start with a bang. That one will be the most challenging story
I write, I think.
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The NEW discord channel LINK is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/6^x^8^m^K^V^w^X^
15th of November, 1972 – Illos, Office of Intelligence
Parelius Parkinson POV
Parelius looked on dispassionately at the sight before him as he stood at
the top of the oval viewing room, his arms behind his back.
Before him were three floors with three rows of operators sitting in front
of screens whilst at the back of the room, there were eleven large Holos
that focused on different regions of the world, each of them marking out
a number of pale red dots on real-time maps that were getting ever closer
to the ground.
The large room that was over fifty metres from the widest points was
almost quiet, the sounds of operators communicating with one another
across the Comms the only disruptive sound as the maps began to
resemble more like top view pictures of forests and mountains and cities.
"Sir, the drones are ETA seven minutes from position." One of the
operators stated.
There were only three drones per site, totalling thirty three drones, yet
their small numbers were enough to cripple and topple entire muggle
nations, even the so called superpowers of the muggle world.
The drones, built and created here on Illos using a combination of
Ancient Humanity technology and magi-tech, were equipped with low
energy particle beams that could run hotter than Fiendfyre and was
focused into a half inch diameter beam and could fire with mystifying
accuracy from leagues away.
It could cut through several inch thick plates of steel in seconds, even
titanium and, with enough time, through Adamantite itself.
A deadly silent weapon – its momentum engines glided through the air –
that could kill anyone and everything and yet it was also a weapon that
Parelius knew was at the very low end of what the Ancient Humans had
created in the name of war.
Parelius didn't acknowledge the confirmation and only continued to
study the maps as the pale red dots grew larger and closer to the central
place of the Holos.
Minutes later, the Holos shifted spectrums and before them, on every
single main Holo, all eleven Holos, there were hundreds or thousands of
heat signatures in the bowels of ancient forts and castles.
The noise within the room was stifled to death at the sight of the almost
ten thousand.
For some, the significance of what was happening finally dawned on
them. For others, it was impatience to rid of the infestations that had
lasted for generations.
But all understood the gravity of the power they wielded.
"Switch to manual." Parelius ordered and one by one, thirty three screens
before their operators switched to the cameras installed on the drones.
Holographic control systems flared to life in front of the operators too,
whilst another screen beside the main viewing screen noted the locations
of every infestation.
The drones had been launched from Illos at the commencement of the
operation and set to autopilot, controlled by the central quantum magi-
com which effectively was Illos itself with how integrated it was to the
sentience that was the country-ship.
Parelius descended down the steps to the second floor of rows and stood
behind one of the operators who was commanding one of three drones
present in Transylvania.
He peered down to the screen and came to see a looming dreary castle
from on high as the drone hovered nearby a window paned with ancient
glass before he looked back towards the large Holos, each of them
centred nearby the abodes of creatures.
"Begin."
He intoned, a word, his word, that dominated the room like no other and
as the last traces of his voice tuned into nothingness, like the sound of the
spark of a fuse burning through its lint dying as it approached the
chamber of a volatile mixture of explosive potion, what came next was
equal in volatility as the room sparked to life.
Pale red dots moved into the castles and forts and mansions, streaks of
white hot lines against a back drop of black shone on the Holos, piercing
and striking against muted blobs of white that were made ever whiter by
the streaks.
Again and again this happened, no matter how fast the muted blobs of
white moved and reacted, their fate was as equal as those who'd been
caught unawares.
Death and more death. Or as they liked to call it…True Death.
As seconds turned into minutes, some of the muted blobs realised their
dire situation and tried to escape but none would as there was nowhere
for them to hide, even most the muggles for their heat signature was
substantially different and at night, as it was in most of the Old World,
there were hardly any peoples in large enough crowds for them to
disappear into.
It was only eighteen minutes later that the operation was over.
"Commander Cantona." Parelius called out, the intuitive magi-
technological nature of the room immediately understanding his intent
and connected him – and his subordinates – to the woman. "It's all clear."
Parelius said to Cantona.
"Sir." Cantona acknowledged before he heard her connecting to the other
ten squadrons nearby the cleared out abodes and giving the order to
clean up. The Holos soon switched to the cameras of respective squadron
leaders for each assigned site.
Orbs of light illuminated the dark hallways or passageways as his men
and women walked through them, the faint haze of smoke and glow of
burnt through stone walls a familiar sight.
His gaze flickered towards one of the Holos where one of the agents
picked up a sliced through head by the long hair. The agent lifted the
head, its mouth agape and its desiccated face permanently set in painful
grimace, and its white teeth with two sharp incisors gleamed beneath the
light of the orbs.
The sight brought him grim satisfaction though not an ounce of it showed
on his face and instead called out to the squadron leaders to wrap it up as
soon as possible.
There were human blood bags in the dungeons in every nest and his
people were to fix them up, if they could be fixed up, before obliviating
them and destroying every building. There were still well over a hundred
other little Vampire hideouts throughout Europe, Asia and Africa that
needed to be destroyed, after all, and they knew where most of them
were.
Undoubtedly however, this was a good operation.
The extermination of the oldest and most powerful covens that headed up
the Elder Council could be called nothing short of good. Six hundred
years the Elder Council plagued the magical world.
And within eighteen minutes, they were no more.
Parelius mused to himself about the ruthlessness of history and how
fickle legacy truly was, even if the creatures understood only the base
idea of legacy given that they were soulless creatures with behaviours
worse than that of psychopaths.
Hmm…yes, it was good that they were initiating the eradication of the
entire species.
It would bring to an end over a millennium of a cold war with the species
and six hundred years of tenuous relations with the Elder Council that
the wizarding world neither liked or wanted but had to compromise and
accept lest it lead to a war that could devastate both sides grievously, a
war that should it have ever become total, was not at all certain that the
wizarding world could win outright, no matter what anyone would
delude themselves into thinking.
Their speed and their strength and their retained mental faculties made
them a dangerous species that, coupled with their inhumanity and ability
to infect entire villages and towns within a single night should they so
choose, would make it extremely difficult to exterminate completely.
It was a miracle, Parelius mused, that the Vampires disliked procreating
beyond a certain number anyway as he was sure that had they utilised
that timelessness they were cursed with, the Vampires could have easily
overrun both worlds.
He supposed that it likely was an effect of being the apex predators that
they were.
In any case, when the Statute was erected, the majority of Ministries paid
a blind eye to the Vampires in their territories in return for their
collaboration and adherence to the Statute that the ancient Vampire
Drakul had agreed to on behalf of his species.
Hunting grounds were marked out, rules of how and where they could
hunt agreed and for two hundred years, those rules had been agreed to.
Ever since then, until the involvement of the Drakul Coven and its allies
in the Grindelwald war, wizarding-vampire relations were nearly non-
existent beyond the few peripheral covens that involved themselves with
Dark Lords in return for power.
Until almost decade ago when all of the treaties were rendered asunder.
Until the Elder Council threw in their hats with the Ravenites in return
for absolving of the rules that they'd adhered to for centuries. A
consequence that had seen reporting of mysterious disappearances in
Europe and Asia, though to a much lesser extent, skyrocket to frightening
levels.
So much so that it helped create an aura of tension and fear that chewed
on the fragile peace that already was teetering on ruin in the mundane
world.
None of the mundanes, or their governments even if the suppressed the
disappearances as much as possible, knew who was making people
disappear for there were no patterns…no discernible connections that
connected the victims. It was as if anyone, at any time, could disappear
and that created a fear all of its own.
The King had said that, in time, it would have led to the main avenues
for the mundanes to investigate and it would have been the contributing
factor for the fraying of the Statute. As it was, their sooner-than-expected
intervention would make it simmer away and the mystery forgotten for
decades to come.
Parelius and his operators watched as each of the strongholds were burnt
down or imploded into itself, forever removing centuries long evidence of
vampires.
"Sir. Mission is complete. Permission to immediately hunt down the
smaller covens and strongholds in the surrounding areas?" Cantona
requested.
The Vampires hadn't completely lost their connection as former humans
and similarly created satellite communities around the most powerful
covens, like how mundanes and wizards would create villages around
important centres of society.
Parelius narrowed his eyes slightly at the brazen request.
It was always the plan to hunt down the Vampires but with the very clear
message from the Far-Seers that it was quite likely that Cullaica's
artefacts were amongst the Vampires, the powerful piercing curse
enchantments layered onto items like guns or bracelets and so on, he'd
been…cautious not to allow his agents to go into situations without there
being certainty that the threat of death was minimal.
It was why he, the Monarchs and the High Council decided to carry out
the bulk of destruction via the drones instead, a good decision it turned
out as there were certainly a number of enchanted artefacts at each site.
He could refuse but he knew Cantona of her…unique perspective well
enough that she'd take the refusal personally even if she'd unfailingly
obey. Very well, he decided. He'd grant the boon.
"Granted." Parelius stated after a moment's pause before he glanced
backward towards the observatory at the top where Cato was. Cato saw
him look and nodded before retreating away.
It was unlikely, he calculated, the smaller, weaker concentration of
younger Vampires would have been granted weapons that could pose a
threat even to Coven Elders.
Even if they did, somehow, possess enchanted weapons that could pierce
through the armours, his agents were competent enough to deal with the
problems with minimal injury. He'd not lost an agent in his tenure and
everyone knew that he'd resurrect them if only to chastise them for the
blemish on his record.
He'd left the room not long after and settled into his office where he'd
begun to review the next missions that were to begin, like the missions of
sweeping up the hiding Ravenites that Cullaica embedded all across
Europe or the missions to encourage influential members of more isolated
Ministries of Magic to sign up the coming Federation, a far more
aggressive policy than had been the original plan.
The King had not explained what initiated his…change in behaviour and
the sudden movement to action but he could read between the lines that
it was certainly something to do with his…unique foresight.
Hmm…He'd not pressed to learn what he'd experienced…out there. He
was quite certain that he'd only get shallow answers that would not
satisfy him so it was best to let it go.
Besides, there was much to be done anyway instead of consuming oneself
about the sudden change in direction and reduced timescales, especially
with the importance that the King and Queen had placed on the Milanese
Trials.
'A fact finding mission to begin an era of true cooperation' the King had said.
Parelius knew when the King had said that, that it was intended to be
much more than that. After all, the Ravenites were the direct product of
the former war, a continuation of a cycle of violence that the trials were
meant to throw in the faces of the entire magical world.
Fear and realisation would be the primary reactions along with
recognition of the need a true concerted effort to prevent another tragedy
like the Raven and Cullaica and what better way than for the Federation
to be the medium to drive that effort?
It was hours afterwards, at the brink of dawn, that his door opened. He
glanced upward slightly and saw Cato stepping in. "Sir." Cato greeted.
"Cato." Parelius acknowledged but there was a note of question in his
voice.
"Just wanted to let you know that most of Europe and North Africa have
been cleared of Vampires." Cato said plainly as the dark-haired man sat
into the opposing seat.
Parelius placed his holo-tablet and looked at the young man fully.
Cato added with a faint grin "Even Casablanca" he said with a proud lilt
to his voice.
Casablanca had a significant infection of Vampires, one that was
strangely different to how Vampires typically banded together. Almost
forty multi-century Vampires ruled the city from the shadows, promising
immortality to highly placed Mundanes in exchange for almost
completely free choice of whom they could feed on.
With such close proximity and collaboration with the Mundanes, these
Vampires were also more…modern when it came to the understanding of
the mundane world.
Hearing that the mission to wipe them out went perfectly was satisfying.
Parelius nodded slightly.
"What holdouts remain?" he asked his protégé.
"The Arctic Belt Vampires. Istanbul. A few more communities in the East
and in the Near East." Cato answered before leaning back and checking
the time.
"Cantona and the other commanders are apprised of them."
Parelius hummed. "She'll hunt them down before returning."
Cato looked up to him and inclined his head though his expression was
one of amusement. Amusement of how predictable she was when it came
to things related to Vampires.
'Pathologically hateful' Cato once described her when it came to Vampires.
"Are you ready to handle New World Vampires next?" Parelius calmly
asked.
There were a few Vampire covens that left the Old World during the age
of colonisation, most of the immigration happening in the 17th century.
Whilst the Magical world was aware of other magical communities across
the Pond, the details were scarcely available to the wider public. Only the
nobility had much information back then since they were heavily
entwined with the muggle nobility and Kings in some fashion or another.
The Blacks were a prime example.
He wasn't sure how the Vampires had gotten hold of the information, it
was clear that the first wave of migration of Vampires had happened
because of the information leaked by the magical nobility.
Information that spoke of mages that still used staves and other foci that
did not have the precision nor the spell repertoire that Roman influenced
Europe and Africa had access to.
Of course, that didn't mean that the Aztec mages or the Incan mages or
the other Native American mages were weak. Something the Vampires
had discovered all on their own in time.
Still, the Vampires had more or less thrived in those environments and
now there were several dozen major and minor covens that dotted the
New World.
With the mess the Mundane side of the world was, the Statute was hardly
ever threatened in those countries. Ministries and other such
organisations of magical peoples turned a blind eye to the affairs of
Vampires and as such, what was known about the Vampiric community
in Central and Southern America was minimal.
Cato lost his smile and seriousness overtook him. "I am sir and I have
picked the agents for it." Cato paused as he eyed Parelius cautiously.
"South and Central America will be challenging but easy enough, all
things considered. MACUSA however…"
Hmm. An irritation that they'd purposefully left last to deal with.
Whilst MACUSA was far from a pro-Vampiric nation, they did have
relatively decent relations with the Vampire crowd there. It did help that
the Native American Shifters hated the creatures with a passion and went
out of their way to control the population any time they were given leave
…or if they trespassed on their lands.
Nevertheless, the Americans would not look kindly on committing
'genocide' on their lands and naturally would be a stumbling block in
coaxing the stubborn country into falling into line.
The problem was…should those American covens discover the
annihilation of their brethren too soon, it could kick off unpleasant series
of events that would make things more…difficult and messy.
A beep on Cato's magi-com bracelet brought him back to the present and
he eyed it momentarily before he answered.
"Go see the Far-Seers and get their advice." Parelius said to Cato.
They were operating on a rough plan, most of the time, received from the
King and the Far-Seers. They'd go to them at times to seek best course of
action whilst at times they'd get orders or suggestions of what they
should do. The entwining of Divination and the Office of Intelligence was
almost symbiotic at this stage.
Cato's expression morphed into a state of blankness before he nodded
gently.
"Of course sir." Cato answered dutifully.
Parelius ignored the disappointing flaw in his protégé and eyed the
bracelet.
Cato caught the look and raised it. "The morning news." Cato explained
before adding "I set a reminder to watch it. After all, it'll be a pretty good
one." Cato said as he flicked at his bracelet and a holo popped up before
floating towards Parelius' right.
Parelius didn't speak out but did lean back in his chair. He did forget that
the news of Cullaica's defeat would make it on this morning's news.
Normally, he wouldn't have bothered but with the segment of
interviewing people on their way to work was admittedly a captivating
part of the news.
It was a pulse, of a sort, on the perception of the public of what was
happening and he was curious to see how much of an impact the Queen
defeating Cullaica would mean to the people of Illos.
The opening theme music and the news logo faded away and revealed
the sight of O'Hara, a rather beautiful auburn haired woman, and
Syracuse, a dark skinned young man who was a rising star from what
he'd seen reported within the news organisation.
The banner of breaking news was splashed across the front of the desk.
"Good Morning.
[LOH] I am Lara O'Hara.
[BS] I am Brian Syracuse and this is the morning IBC One World Service
News.
[LOH] The war against the Ravenites has reached a momentous point on the
14th of November with the defeat of Cullaica at hands of her Majesty, the
Queen.
[BS] This comes after a gruelling chase after the infamous Dark Lord and his
followers across Mundane Europe as they sought burn down cities…"
The next few minutes were merely further recap of the Morning War – a
term coined by the Daily Prophet editor-in-chief since the war was
looking to be one of the shortest in history – along with commentary
about the close calls of the Statute of Secrecy before the meat of the
news.
Commuters and random bystanders were interviewed and informed about
the victory the Queen won for Illos, and satisfaction and cheer were
universal amongst the sleepy morning travellers.
"It almost makes my cold heart melt." Cato amusingly enthused over one
of the interviews. "Nationalistic cheer about defeating the villain and
stopping a irreversible breach in the Statute of Secrecy will do that I
suppose."
Parelius levelled a look to his protégé and the young man met it readily
even as he held up his hands in defeat. The young man tended to get too
comfortable around him at times and made little flavourless jibes and
remarks that didn't need to be voiced out.
It was more or less an open secret within the upper echelons of the OI
that the High Council were gearing up to increase pressure on the
Magical World when it came to the Statute of Secrecy. There were
exactly two mission ongoing at present to do exactly this as well and in
time, this would undoubtedly increase with what the King and Queen
disclosed to him.
He could easily cut the irritating quality out of the boy but oddly he liked
this side of his protégé…unfortunately.
Parelius sighed silently before he waved his hand at the Holo, ending the
display before levelling another look at the young man. He slid the Holo-
tablet forward towards him and Cato looked on curiously for a second
before picking it up.
"A little side assignment." Parelius told the young man.
Cato glanced at him momentarily with a knowing look in his eyes before
he started to read it. Parelius leaned back in his chair and watched the
young man who was getting ever more engrossed in the document.
Cato whistled. "A little side assignment?" Cato said wryly as he looked at
Parelius.
"If you think you can't juggle it with the infestation…"
Cato raised his eyebrow before flatly answering "I'll manage" he said as
he raised the tablet slightly and Parelius nodded his assent for the boy to
take it with him.
"Good." Parelius said before picking up another tablet by his side and
began to read once more, picking up where he'd left behind, dismissing
Cato without another word. Cato understood the act for what it was and
stood up.
"Sir." Cato said with a nod before leaving Parelius once more to his
lonesome.
-Break-
16th of November, 1972 – MACUSA
Spencer Greenrake POV
He threw the report onto the desk, though the heaviness of the report
made by the attache of aurors he'd sent to France to observe proved
difficult to fully pull his gaze away from.
Somehow though, he managed and coolly looked up and stared at his
cabinet staff.
"How is it that we continue to be caught off-guard?" Spencer said in a
forced calm.
In a month alone, the Illosians managed to sweep across Asia and Europe
with a tenacity and efficiency that was unheard of and systematically
disbanded the Ravenite tyrannical and frankly evil organisation with
ruthless drive.
He'd actually say that it was commendable if it weren't for the fact that it
utterly highlighted the dangerous competency of the Illosians that was
changing the very rules of the magical world.
And if the reports were right, they were doing it with minimal casualties.
On both sides.
'When haven't they changed the rules of the game?' Spencer thought
mirthlessly as images of magi-tech and country-ships and journeys
through the void passed through the forefront of his mind, all things that
MACUSA could only create cheap knockoffs of.
He forcefully shook away those thoughts and returned to the problem at
hand.
The Ravenites had built up a force of thousands, a force, an army that was
larger than Grindelwald's had been at the height of his power and that
war took over three years to end when it did begin…officially.
Europe was all but under their tyrannical grip with only a few beacons of
hope.
China had been overwhelmed and subjugated.
The ICW, even if they were a shadow of what they once were, were all
but shattered and he'd needed to send volunteers to fight with their
remaining forces lest Alexandria be completely lost. Had it not been for
Dembe Habe's involvement, he might have well been forced to fully
intervene in the war against the Ravenites.
He'd known it would have been inevitable. The volunteers he'd sent after
gaining so many concessions were always only to be prelude. MACUSA
was not blind to the kinds of monsters the Ravenites were. No…
Peace…with the likes of the Ravenites was a pipedream, regardless of the
Ravenites abidance of the Statute of Secrecy that most Ministries around
the world clung on as a reason for avoiding the evil that was the
Ravenites, but he'd hoped that when it did come, it would come with the
involvement of the Grand Alliance who'd been deathly silent on the
problem of the Ravenites…until they weren't.
Well, mostly one of them.
He leaned back in his chair and let off a silent sigh as his staff looked at
each other like the imbeciles that they were. Merlin, why did he have to
appoint such lickspittles? Right. Because Illos wasn't the only place
where the reach of the Sayres was. He shook his head internally. "Well?"
he demanded gruffly.
"Sir...the only explanation we have is that their…King" Emmett Muldrew
said carefully before continuing "is using his talents to win the war
quickly."
Spencer gave his Head of the Defence department an acidic glare. "It's not
him personally that has been steamrolling through the Ravenites, now is
it?"
Even if the Sayre King could See everything to that devastating level and
accuracy – and wasn't that idea peachy? – he is but one man, however
Merlin-esque he was.
MACUSA had long accepted that facet about the man and short of
kidnapping the American Sayres and their descendants and squeezing out
how in Merlin's name he does it, something not even their own Masters
of the Divination Arts and Unspeakables can figure out, there was little
they could do about his Sight.
And no one needed to spell it out how much of a bad idea such an act
would be.
No, what concerned him was the number of troops Illos had and how
well they operated as a unit and how they were equipped. It was almost
No-Maj like, the way they operated and fought the war. He'd seen older
pictures of their armour during the ICW Stand-Off back in the early fifties
but it was clear that they made a number of improvements over the
decades.
For Merlin's sake, they could fly unaided! As if it wasn't bad enough that
the Illosians were leaders in the development of flying crafts but now
their army weren't constrained to the ground?
He sighed as he washed his hand across his face. Really, he wasn't at all
displeased that Illos brought down its strength against the Ravenites.
If anything, he was relieved.
He'd fought in the Grindelwald war. In the Ukraine, Russia and in
Austria.
He hadn't been at the Western Front where Grindelwald had been but the
Eastern Front had been hell on Earth for much of it. He'd lost friends in
that damned war and he still sported dull aches from long-healed wounds
that would be with him for the rest of his life. His expression darkened
slightly at the remembrance of it all.
He had no wish to subject any more good American wizards and witches
to such a devastating war…especially when they were right up against it
with two Archmages!
And no damned war with even one of them amongst the enemy could be
won without having one of their own. History had told him that. So did
experience. He'd heard the stories from the men that had been there when
Grindelwald and Sayre had fought.
The way their voices were filled with awe and fear…
He shook his head internally. No, he was relieved that Illos and the
Sayres were involved and at least one of the leading evil bastards was
dead and the other one would soon enough be as well if he wasn't
already. Hopefully painfully too.
Still, however relieved he was that MACUSA didn't need to get involved,
he was almost equally dreading the way it was being won.
That Illos was strong…no one had any doubts or delusions about that.
With the Sayres leading their people and the capable people they
surrounded themselves with, nothing else could have been expected.
But it mattered how much stronger they really were. He had little doubt
that what they'd observed thus far was far from their full capacity to war.
Their population was almost on par with MACUSA now and magi-tech
was as embraced as it was in Illos but, as much as he hated to admit it,
he feared that was really where the similarities ended…where the friendly
rivalry ended.
He'd never been to Illos but his aides and ambassadors have been and
he'd seen the images of their gleaming city and read the reports of their
society.
And so had the rest of the magical world and it was doubtless that it was
all very much very genuine. A practical Atlantis in the skies and Aziza
and Ame-No-Ukihashi were much the same. In all three country-ships,
the development and the freedom their people had was beyond anything
MACUSA had the privilege to experience and many other magical nations
of the world were much the same.
And it reflected in the soft power that Illos used. Their magi-tech, their
ideals and their very culture was more and more adopted by the rest of
the world.
And so were the American public.
The friendly rivalry that MACUSA carefully seeped into the public was
the major dam that prevented the public of speaking Illosian Latin as a
second language.
…An exaggeration perhaps but the trend was leading towards it.
It was why accomplishments such as MACUSA reaching the moon was so
important. An accomplishment such as that which made his and his
colleagues' work all the much easier in stemming the dominating
influence Illos and their Grand Alliance had on his country.
But he wondered...with the war being won in the way it was being won,
with overwhelming might? Spencer knew very well that the soft power
they possessed now would skyrocket.
Especially with Queen Emily personally defeating Cullaica, a very real
bogeyman that scared people more than Grindelwald ever did with his
revolutionary radicalism.
When, not if, Spencer assessed grimly, King Atticus Sayre defeats the
Raven, a second Dark Lord that no one in history could claim to have
accomplished, their leadership will be beyond questionable for many
people across Europe and most probably across vast swathes across the
magical world.
Economic ties was one thing. Addicting cultural inventions and trends,
another.
But a moral victory like this?
Their many years long silence on the ICW pleas will be forgotten in the
haze of exhilaration. As would the point about the blind eye they turned
to the suffering of those under Ravenite control. And he doubted it would
win him many supporters if he tried to highlight all of that.
"No sir." Muldrew said subdued and with a grimace as he rubbed at his
forehead.
Spencer turned towards his Chief Unspeakable with a question in his
face, one that Lionel Picquery understood. He'd invited the man to this
meeting just so he'd could answer questions like this. "From what we're
able to surmise, the magical armour they utilise is enchanted similar to
how the Old Families on the continent used to enchant their golems."
Picquery paused. "Of course, that is where the similarities end. It is clear
that they've further made significant leaps in developing magi-tech."
"You mean to imply that the individual skill of the wizard or witch is
unimportant?" Spencer questioned with a frown as he thought it over.
Picquery nodding slightly. "We believe that the armour enhances reaction
time of the user and with that enhancement, compensates for
individual…weaknesses."
Spencer thinned his lips.
Such armour would be a game changer. As much as personal skill and
strength in magic was important, speed and reaction time was far more
important. What did power mean if you could never pin your opponent?
Or skill if your opponent could simply fly away or dodge inhumanely
fast?
"Of course" Picquery continued as he placed his hands into his lap. "It is
not the only…characteristics we've observed the armour to have. Beyond
flight."
"I expect a report within forty-eight hours." Spencer said with a fixed
look.
If they could replicate the armour, it could just very well be something
that
Picquery inclined his head. "You'll have it within the day, Mr President."
Spencer scoffed internally. No doubt the damn clever bastards were
already working on something similar. Would be just like them to have a
prototype ready without informing him.
After the meeting with his cabinet staff ended, he was left alone with his
Vice President, James Greenleaf who brought him a glass of '19
Firewhiskey.
He almost swiped the glass from the man's hands and drank it like a man
parched.
"Spencer" James called out and Spencer closed his eyes momentarily
before reopening and meeting the gaze of his Vice-President with an icy
look.
Neither of them said anything for a few moments before Spencer sighed
and slumped in his chair. "I know, I know" he said tiredly with a wave of
the hand.
He looked down at his glass that he allowed to swirl in his hands, a
swirling of liquids that matched the swirls of his thoughts within his tired
brain.
"It's time." Spencer said with a grim smile when he looked up to James
who matched his grim smile. James was a veteran politician, a man who
served as a Senator for over five decades and lived for over ten decades.
He'd won his Presidency almost as much because of James as because of
himself and his mandate to office. A mandate that spoke of competing
and outdoing the Illosians. If there was one thing the No-Majs and
wizards had in common, it was national pride.
But it was no longer worth it anymore. To stand alone against the
tsunami that they could foresee hitting the magical world with the ICW
destroyed as it was.
"I wonder if our successors will forgive us for it." Spencer mused out as he
drank another finger of his drink. Merlin, was it good, he thought
blissfully.
"I doubt they'll care overly much." James answered calmly and Spencer
turned to look to the man. James expanded "Emily Rappaport left a huge
legacy, one that still affects to this day and we work around it."
"So it will become merely a fact of life that we toe the line to the will of
Illos?" Spencer said dryly and not without a faint amount of bitterness.
"The offer the Grand Alliance has given us hardly makes us a vassal
state." James said reproachfully. Spencer grumbled before he drank
another finger.
The Grand Alliance offered to create a country-ship for MACUSA, one
that was larger than New York itself and would be on par on size with
Aziza.
Which could millions of homes and leave plenty of nature reserves to
spare!
Try as they might, they'd not been able to replicate the kinds of magic
that lift a significant portion of a landmass into the air, let alone
sustaining it or even flying it.
Oh, they'd made success over the years, naturally, but managing to lift
and sustain tonnes of mass proved to be hugely demanding on the
wardstones.
To lift even a small town would require a matrix of five foot 144
wardstones and the slightest disruption in the links between the
wardstones would cause catastrophic failure. Too expensive. Too risky.
Too little benefit.
"No but it spells the end of MACUSA as an independent entity." Spencer
stated.
James acknowledged the point with an incline of the head.
A few weeks ago, the Grand Alliance offered to make MACUSA a country-
ship and in return would require his country to integrate into the web of
alliances that the Grand Alliance has created which Illos would remain a
leading nation of.
With how deep economic ties were with the Grand Alliance, especially
with the alchemic resources Illos provided to MACUSA, refusing was
becoming a difficult prospect, especially since on paper it looked like it
would only be positives all the way. But things rarely were handed out
this freely.
"With the end of the ICW fast approaching and the obvious moves the
Grand Alliance is making in being the successor to wizarding
cooperation, it becomes difficult to be the one nation to refuse it." James
said sympathetically.
"We could still go it alone." Spencer said firmly as he gave a firm look.
"We could." James agreed before he drank of his firewhiskey. "But we
both know that it will be a grave mistake." James said to him knowingly.
Yes…it would be as much as he hated to admit it. The Grand Alliance
were a powerhouse that was dead set in creating a truly intertwined
magical world with Illos leading the charge to absorb community after
community.
They could survive…perhaps even thrive if they left themselves isolated
from this new look magical world, one that would be more unified than
any point in history save for perhaps since the times of Atlantis – and
wasn't that another red herring – but there would be insecurity and
danger in such a course of action.
The ICW, for all of the mistakes that it did, did truly create a stable
political environment where discourse and disagreement could be aired
out.
Wars between nations were rendered practically non-existent…save for
the Dark Lords and the like. Not only that, cooperation to safeguard the
magical world had been at an all time high, however corrupt it may have
been.
Even when MACUSA left the ICW, it never left the agreements that it
bound itself to and there was good reason for that. With the Grand
Alliance picking up the slack...
Yes…to be outside such an organisation that would swallow whole the
magical world would be fraught with uncertainty. Even for MACUSA.
James continued "Plus, if we want to influential in this new age…"
"We'll have to be adaptive." Spencer said with a grim smile.
James smiled at Spencer. "Quite. Besides. It's not as if all of our people
will move to the country-ship" Which was quite true, Spencer thought to
himself.
The allure of using magic freely is of course tantalising to anyone, be
they poor or rich, however there is a deep connection to the land.
Legacies were built here.
Homes that were centuries old were cherished and as important as those
manors on the Old World.
No one would freely abandon everything so soon.
Spencer sat up and placed his glass onto the desk and met the gaze of his
Vice President. Very well. He still had two years of his first term and if he
played it right, he'd get another term. And, if he also played right their
admission to the Grand Alliance, he'd set the stage for the prosperity of
MACUSA all whilst having the best of both worlds.
James saw the look on his face and the aged skin around his eyes
wrinkled as he smiled faintly before sitting up straight. Their discussions
would last throughout the night.
-Break-
16th of November, 1972 – Alexandria, Magical Quarter
Dembe Habe POV
He waded through the silent streets as he made his way to the part where
Dembe was told he'd be. His head twisted around, facing his back and his
gaze filled with the sight of the armoured mages of Illos amidst the few
ICW Aurors, Americans and his men from Aziza.
With most of Europe and Asia free once more from Ravenite hands, there
was a congregation of the Allies…if one could call this congregation
Allies.
More fitting to call it people with converging interests, he thought to
himself with grunt before he shook his head and turned the corner of the
street.
He found Atticus standing in one of the streets of the Magical Quarter.
The streets were empty and the stands that the Quarter had once been
famous for were gone. Still, he mused, there were hints that remained.
Odd houses that captured the eyes, houses that neighboured one another
despite them looking like they belonged to different cultures and peoples.
As he made his way to Atticus, with quiet pondering, he wondered if
these homes would be filled once more. A wondering that perhaps was
pointless, he mused to himself as he came to a stop by Atticus who
seemed to be deep in thought.
For a moment, he merely looked at the man…truly looked. There was a
serenity around that seemed impossible. A kind of serenity that chained
the storms of magic that he could sense within the man.
"King Atticus." Dembe greeted with an incline of the head. The man had
given leave to address him by his first name but he never felt comfortable
in doing so.
Atticus acknowledged him with a slight turn of the head before he spoke
"The last time I visited this place in Alexandria, it had been just before
my presentation to the Charms Guild." Atticus said with a fond note in
his voice as he touched one of the stalls.
"Emily had been haggling with one of the merchants for a tome on
Egyptian wards." Atticus said with his lips curling upwards slightly. "The
tome had already been undervalued by the merchant and in the end
Emily got it for three-fifths of the price."
Dembe smiled, memories of his own haggling at the markets back home
coming to the forefront. It was kind of a dance, really, one that
merchants would deny liking but everyone knew that the merchants
loved it.
"How old were you?" Dembe asked curiously as he returned to the
present and deciding to carry on the conversation.
"Sixteen." Atticus said with a smile as he turned towards Dembe. The
smile seemed to lose strength as he continued. "Simpler times." Atticus
said before adding as he turned away from Dembe and back towards the
streets. "In a certain way, I suppose."
"Certain way?" Dembe asked curiously. He'd known the man for a long
time but never really talked to the man about his childhood. Well, at
least when it came to anything other than what subjects and branches of
magic he'd studied.
Come to think of it, most of their interactions had been about Dembe's
education and improvement in magic until later on when he'd duel with
Atticus or Emily once in a blue moon though even then, Dembe knew
that it largely to accommodate him – and his father who Atticus was
friendly acquaintances with – than anything else.
"The war with Grindelwald had cast a long shadow over my family,
Dembe. I was not a Lord nor was I King. Just a boy who walked down
uncertain roads with many ideas and many plans to deal with the
obstacles before him, headstrong, stubborn and at times incredibly
arrogant." Atticus smiled faintly as he looked up into the skies. "At the
time, the obstacles felt insurmountable. But now…"
"I suppose one's problems always do feel larger than they are as a young
man."
There was a momentary lull as Dembe reflected on his words, words that
bore similarities to something his own father, Ghezo Habe, once told him
when he felt the pressure of being the Archmage of the coming age for
his people.
He shook those thoughts away and glanced at the seemingly forever
youthful man, his eyes studying the man intently as he thought on the
situation on hand. The war was nearly over now. The majority of the
Ravenites were captured in that strange alchemic concoction and Cullaica
was dead all in the space of a month.
Only the rats remained along with the Raven who was in flight but he did
not have any doubts that it was problems that were on the precipice of
being resolved.
He did not know what suddenly made him and Illos change their path.
For years, they'd remained silent on the issue of the Ravenites and thus so
did Aziza and Ame-No-Ukihashi. The atrocities committed in China were
no different than the atrocities committed in Eastern Europe or the
wiping out of entire noble families.
And the only correlation he could think of was whatever happened in the
so called Ruins of Atlantis that there was startling little information on. A
feeling of irritation washed over him as he remembered asking the Chiefs
about it who only offered him platitudes and heavy silence.
They knew more about it but would not divulge anything to him despite
the fact he was to lead their people with time. For all their expectations
of him, there was never enough that he could accomplish before they'd
look past his youth.
He shook his head after he closed his eyes momentarily. He let himself
wash away the irritation and he reopened his brown eyes and saw Atticus
look at him curiously.
"You seem troubled." Atticus merely stated as he turned slightly and
gestured Dembe to walk with him. Dembe remained still for a moment,
his eyes carefully looking at the silent guards that were never too far
away before he decided.
"Why now?" Dembe asked plainly as he walked, however unsure he was
if he'd get a straight answer. He had difficulties figuring out the man, and
had done so for many years. When he thought he understood the man,
he'd do something entirely different than his expectations, just like how
they joined the war against the Ravenites.
"I presume you're not talking about why I am asking you to walk with
me?" Atticus said with amusement colouring his expression.
Dembe gave him a look and expanded "Why did Illos…you…decide to
stop the Ravenites now when you could have done so earlier?"
Atticus lost the look of amusement as he looked forward, towards the
ICW building.
"Sometimes I forget that you were born in peace. Born without the cloud
of war hanging over your head." Atticus said, causing Dembe to frown.
Before Dembe could speak however, Atticus continued. "The Ravenites
were, of course, a terrible infection across much of Europe. But they were
not an infection that the Grand Alliance had cause to deal with."
"I understand that." Dembe returned "It is the same excuse that the Chiefs
gave me. It is hollow." Dembe rebuked. "Especially now when you have
intervened."
Atticus stopped and turned to Dembe. "Hollow?" he questioned.
"Yes, hollow. Thousands of wizards and witches were killed, butchered
and if the rumours are right, many had their minds warped! I do not
doubt that you knew this." Dembe said pointedly, on the verge of
accusation but just about managed to refrain from crossing that line.
He continued "Their suffering was ignored for years when it should not
have!"
"And what right did we have to act as policemen of the magical world?"
Atticus responded to Dembe, his head slightly turned as his vivid eyes
bored into him. His tone was curious rather than responsive, as if
humouring Dembe.
Atticus continued "What right do we have to choose what is a legitimate
government and what is not, what right do we have to make war against
an entity that had done no ill towards us or our people?" Atticus said as
his eyes searched Dembe's face.
"Yet it is a right, a right you claim you do not have, you exercised now."
Dembe returned as he met Atticus' gaze.
Atticus' expression softening before he turned away and began to walk
again. Dembe clenched his jaw slightly but followed. Silence reigned for
a few moments before Atticus broke it. "Do you believe responsibility is
universal?" Atticus asked.
Dembe looked at him for a long few moments before he answered. "It can
be" he said before adding "It depends on what and to whom the
responsibility entails."
Atticus smiled faintly before he nodded without looking at Dembe. "A
good answer." Atticus placed his arms behind his back. "And it also
answers your own questions about why now and why not back then."
Atticus glanced at Dembe.
"The ICW held supreme responsibility for the magical world. Their
mandate extended beyond keeping the Statute of Secrecy intact. It is
what they decided and so it was" Atticus turned his gaze towards the ICW
building.
"It was their self-ordained responsibility to deal with the major threats to
the magical world and the Ravenites had been one of them. They failed
spectacularly."
"We turned away their requests for assistance." Dembe pointed out.
"We did. We had a right to. Just as any other magical nation had a right
to." Atticus glanced at Dembe with a frown on his face. "You don't
understand why we refused, do you?" Atticus asked him, the tone of his
voice more surprised than anything.
"You refused because of the history you had with the ICW. And my
people in the Alliance followed your lead" Dembe answered with
narrowed eyes. "I can understand it…they wronged you but it should
have been put to the side."
Atticus stopped in his walk and turned towards Dembe. He stiffened, not
because of fear or wariness that he might have gone too far but because
of the look that was on Atticus' face. It was one of pity.
His fingers twitched in reflex and the guards' armour clinked in response.
If Atticus noticed it, he didn't react to it a single bit as he spoke. "I'm not
so petty to hold hostage the magical world because of slights" he said
with a raised eyebrow, not at all offended at what Dembe said to him. Or
his reflexive reactions
"I'm disappointed to hear you think that of me however." Atticus said
with a shaking head before he began to walk again. Dembe clenched his
teeth slightly before he followed.
"I do not think you petty." Dembe admitted to the man.
If anything, Dembe did admire and respect the man. Immensely Not only
for his power but also his genuine devotion to his people and that of
Dembe's own. It would not be a lie to say that Atticus was a great man as
well as a great mage.
It was simply that he'd been disappointed that he didn't live up to the
stories he'd heard about the man. The righteous, virtuous man that stood
up against the wicked.
"I'm glad to hear that at least" Atticus said with a faint smile as he
glanced at Dembe before losing it quickly "And as to why we refused…it
is rather simple actually."
Atticus let off a weary sigh before he looked up towards the skies.
"It is an endless cycle, Dembe. This constant rise and fall and rise of Dark
Lords. The simple truth is that I saw no reason to involve my people, our
people, in a conflict that would only result in a pause of the repeating
cycle the magical world was caught in." Dembe frowned at that.
"This was different."
"Was it really?" Atticus posed with a sceptical tone.
"The Raven and Cullaica preyed on the insecurities of the nobility. Using
their ridiculous hatred of squibborns – amongst many, many other such
hatreds and ignorance and undue perceptions – to twist them into
servitude. Many of the Ministries turned a blind eye to the murder of
thousands of squibborns and squibs whilst the Ravenites grew in
numbers." Atticus pursed his lips before he added.
"The ICW knew of their crimes yet they did nothing. Only when they
began to overthrow the Ministries from within and without, did they
begin to act and begin dialogue with the Grand Alliance."
Dembe said nothing for a moment as he frowned heavily.
Atticus continued "Where would it end, Dembe, had we intervened then?
Or even before that point as we would have done had it been our
responsibility?"
"It wouldn't." Dembe responded as he met Atticus' eyes, understanding
beckoning to the forefront of his mind.
Atticus nodded gravely. "It wouldn't. And we would have been expected
to act in the future. To deal with Dark Lords. Again and again." He
paused as he eyed Dembe.
"But we would have been without the authority to truly make the
changes we needed to prevent such risings from happening in the first
place. We would have been expected to restore Ministries. Restore
societies. And not implement the changes those communities so
desperately needed and needed to accept."
Dembe thought it over and he couldn't help but let a sceptical sigh.
"So what's changed?"
"Nothing much." Atticus said with a soft chuckle before humming.
"Everything."
Dembe raised an eyebrow at the answer.
Atticus glanced at him with a faint smile before he lost it and looked
skyward. Dembe looked at the man oddly. Coming to think of it, the man
was looking often towards the heavens. It was odd.
Atticus continued "We realised, or perhaps it may be better to say that we
accepted, I, my wife and the people of Illos, that we have a greater
responsibility to the magical world. One that comes from a position of
power and a position of greater morality."
"And our refusal was necessary at the time. Our peoples did not want
war, nor did they want to entangle in the mess that is Europe with its
cauldron of instability. And the will of our people mattered more to me
than the needs of others."
Atticus glanced at Dembe "A responsibility that the ICW is no longer
suited to bear."
As they went up the stairs of the main ICW building, Dembe wondered
how many lives might have been saved. Dembe sighed and let it go and
stared at the ICW building. 'A responsibility that the ICW is no longer suited
to bear'
A point that was more than simply right, Dembe thought to himself.
The ICW Aurors had lost morale, even when he'd helped in ensuring the
siege would fail. There was no belief amongst the men. They were worn.
Defeated.
And seeing the Magical Quarter as empty as it was, most of its people
having fled save for the majority of Egyptians who called Alexandria
home since likely the moment it was built, it was abandoned.
Dembe looked towards the ICW building. It still stood – whomever
enchanted the building were masters at their craft – but that was all there
was to it.
The structure stood but its soul had long departed from the mortal plane.
The ICW as it was, was now dead. Its failures, the abandonment of many
ICW officials of the city, even the people who'd made Alexandria their
livelihoods were gone.
"It's never nice to see such a proud place fall." Atticus commented and
Dembe understood exactly what he meant.
"You don't feel triumphant?" Dembe questioned with a raised eyebrow.
The feud between the ICW and the Sayres was legendary. It was even
thought in Aziza as a pivotal point in History class, last he heard.
Atticus let off a sigh. "Not triumphant. Never that. For all the…conflict
that I have had with the ICW, I cared for the people and the history of
this place."
"I am…accepting."
Dembe turned to Atticus, a curious expression on his face.
Atticus saw the curiousness and continued "For all of the failures of the
ICW, it was a monument of international cooperation. It rose out of
necessity and did what needed to be done to safeguard the magical
world." Atticus paused for a moment.
"It had its flaws. It made many mistakes. But it also provided the stones
with which to build a newer, better organisation that can deal with the
challenges that lie ahead."
"An organisation like the Grand Alliance" Dembe stated instead of asking.
After all, it was the only conclusion that existed now. Not even the ICW
officials were interested in resuscitating the corpse of the ICW.
"Would it be so bad?" Atticus asked curiously as he peered at Dembe.
"Have our people not flourished from such an alliance? Would the rest of
the magical world also not flourish from such deeper, more intimate
cooperation?" Atticus posed to Dembe with a raised eyebrow.
"No." Dembe said after a moment before sighing. "No, I believe the rest of
the magical world would benefit from joining us."
The country-ships and the Alliance were a practical paradise compared to
what he'd seen in this war. People back home lived in peace and in
harmony with magic and nature.
Almost no one was in harmony in Alexandria or in Europe…even in
France.
His ambitions of defeating strong enemies had long been forgotten in the
face of reality. With his family magic, he could sense that acutely. It was
why he was so disappointed that it took until now for the Sayres to
intervene.
"And so it shall be." Atticus stated with the confidence that spoke that
he'd already seen it happen. Probably did, Dembe mused to himself.
"There is still the problem of the Raven." Dembe pointed out.
Atticus turned around as they reached the top of the stairs.
Dembe's eyebrows raised at the faint turbulence in the serenity of his
magic.
"A problem that I will take care of not long from now." Atticus said
calmly before he eyed Dembe curiously "Unless you would like the
honour?"
"If you wouldn't mind." Dembe said easily with a questioning look on his
face.
Atticus met his gaze for a long few moments before shaking his head.
"No. He is my problem." Atticus glanced at him before he turned away
and began to walk away from Dembe. Dembe narrowed his eyes.
"I can defeat him."
Atticus stopped and turned to him with a sympathetic smile. "Yes, you
could."
Dembe eyed the man carefully "You've seen me do it." He stated more
than asked.
"I have." Atticus acknowledged before added "And I have seen him defeat
you many more times than his defeat by your hands." Atticus stated
calmly.
Dembe's eyebrows raised before he narrowed his eyes.
"I find that unlikely."
Atticus' expression turned humorous but there was a glint in his eyes that
made the humour seem mired with brevity "I can understand that. It is
not easy to accept such declarations." Dembe's expression hardened.
"You can't know for certain that I would have lost."
"I did not say that I know for certain. Only that I have seen enough to
know that your victory was not guaranteed, just as the Raven's victory
was not guaranteed, only that your defeat was more likely than not."
Atticus told him calmly but the words felt like acid in his ears.
Atticus looked him right in the eyes and the next words that he uttered
sent a chill down his spine. "The chance of losing you, Dembe, when it
isn't necessary to risk you is too high." Atticus stated matter-of-factly
before his expression softened.
"Besides…your father would not forgive me if you do not go home safe
and whole."
Dembe's anger stopped at that.
Atticus smiled at Dembe before he lost it slightly "You're a powerful
mage, Dembe. But sometimes the best thing to do, is to do nothing. It is a
wisdom that you should heed." Atticus then turned around and left
quietly, the guards that shadowed them walking beyond Dembe to follow
the King.
Dembe thinned his lips as he watched the back of the King before
sighing, shaking his head as he sighed and simply descended down the
stairs, his mind lost in thought.
-Break-
Paris, France
The Raven POV
His coal black eyes fell upon Rue de Rivoli and the river Seine.
Watching silently. Emotionlessly.
How many years has it been?
So long ago that it was a lifetime away.
Hmm…A ghostly touch stroked his cheek. Cold and faded, warm in
gesture.
He turned to them, the ghosts of his past.
Their warm but silent ghostly smiles kept the hollowness at bay.
Hmm…
His eyelids drooped low, his chaotic magic swirling around him as
memories played out in a reel in the forefront of his mind. Memories of
an innocent time.
Happier times.
Times of little but priceless in soulful wealth.
Times of when he'd been complete.
The crows of ravens beckoned him out of from the drifts of memories and
he felt them land on his shoulders. "I know…I know…" he said softly and
warmly as he turned his gaze back towards the lively streets of Paris.
It would soon come to an end.
The cloak doused in tempests of flames that he wore would soon burn out
of fuel and come to fizzle out in the oxygen starved air. There were no
more to hearken forth and set alight their flames of inner darkness and
make them realise that the universe was simply made for death and
nothingness.
There was no need. There hasn't been a need for years now.
His purpose was almost complete now and soon…soon he'd return to
death.
He'd delayed it long enough now. "Soon…" he whispered quietly to his
ever present companions that he'd longed to be with once more.
The air around him began to shimmer as the reigns on his magic
slackened. Shimmering and undulating, the air began to turn heavy as his
magic seeped around him like the water through the cracks of stone.
His wand began to rise, the faint sound of his magic crackling dulling the
noise of the distant sounds of the muggles below.
Once upon a time…
He'd loved this city.
Once upon a time…
It was home.
And once upon a time…
It had been his hope to return to it.
And no-
Before he could cancel the magic that swallowed him, he was engulfed
within a portal and in less than a tenth of a blink of an eye, he was
elsewhere.
Black ashy tendrils swirled around his form with violent delight, his
magic was unleashed to its fullest and reality around him was strained by
his power.
Yet, for all that it was unwanted…he looked upward, the sight of bright
stars and small moons eliciting a long forgotten feeling of surprise.
After a few moments, he turned to his right, where he knew the man to
be. It was hard not to know. His overwhelming presence was unmissable.
He stood there with his arms behind his back, intently staring at him.
For several long moments they simply stared as red and grey dust blew
around them.
"Yasha Romanov" Sayre said gravely and the name hurt more than a
thousand knives piercing his chest could ever feel.
"We should talk."
In response, he merely sent a lance of his ashy magic towards Sayre, the
rage he felt burning incandescent as he prepared to eviscerate the man
who should have left the name where it belonged. Dead and forgotten.
34. Chapter 94
I have finally reached the end of Odyssey of a Mage (Chapter 99).
The wait between chapters will be a lot more structured now - every
two weeks, I will post another chapter.
Without further adieu, please enjoy the post!
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst the rest of the chapters are available on
September 1937 – Paris
Yasha Augustan POV
He stared at his mother, who stared right back.
"Why?" Yasha he finally asked, his tone half demanding, his fists clenched
so tightly that he was on the verge of breaking skin "Why would you stop
me from going to Beauxbatons?!" he demanded as he stood up from his
seat, upset and angry.
His mother stared at him with soulful blue eyes, regret and guilt swirling
together into blue twin pools yet he saw that she had no intentions of
reversing her decision.
He'd seen that look before, when they had to leave Luxembourg a few
years ago.
"You know why" she said tiredly as she folded her hands in her lap, her
back straightening, the air of regal and motherly authority surrounding
her.
A loud crack rang around them, one that was followed by the frightened
cry of his little sister. He looked at his sister and saw Maria, his six year
old, sister upset.
"Yasha." The reprimand in his mother's tone was there as was the note of
pleading, of warning.
He reigned in his magic as much as he could but as he looked at his
mother, he was still deeply angry and upset and knew he was on the
verge of another accident. He couldn't help it. He didn't know why.
He really knew why his mother did all that she did.
He didn't know why they had to leave their home time and again,
running from something or another, because his mother said it wasn't
safe, that there were people after him, people whom mother never
explained to him about.
His mother sighed and looked at him with a strange expression.
"If you go to Beauxbatons…they'll want to know who you are." His
mother smiled sadly at him, yet pride and love shone through her kind
face.
"I'm no one." Yasha protested. That was true. They were merely a hedge
family, peasants with no notable history or talent.
Honestly! His mother couldn't even use a wand for her magic was weak
and they lived amongst the muggles longer than he could remember!
Magical Paris was the first time he'd even seen a magical community.
"Oh Yasha…" his mother looked on the verge of tears as she stood up, her
brown hair swaying. She got to her knees in front of him and took his
face into her tender hands, warm to the touch, gentle and loving.
"My boy…my special, special beautiful boy…you are anything but no
one" she said with tears in her eyes. "You are an exceptional boy, more
than you presently know, and others will have no trouble seeing it."
"But why…" Yasha whispered, deeply upset as he stared at his sad
mother. He didn't like it. "Why is that such a bad thing?" His mother
choked back a wet laugh.
"It's not" she said with a wet smile before it turned into a horrible sad
smile as her eyes turned hazy and lost for a brief moment, as if she was
in waking sleep, sleep in which nightmares haunted her.
Moments passed before she refocused and met his gaze, the horrible sad
smile turning into a wistful smile. "It shouldn't be. And perhaps…in
another life…it would not have been."
"I don't understand."
"Yasha…what you can do with magic…the way you understand it…it is
not what most wizards can do. Only a few can. People will see this and it
would bring attention to you. To your sister. To myself." His mother said
regretfully and fearfully.
"I can hide it, I promise!" Yasha tried. If his mother was so concerned
about not wanting to have attention on their family, then he'd do that,
even if he didn't want to. It would be hard but he could do it!
There was nothing he couldn't do if he put his mind to it.
"Oh Yasha…you won't be able to" his mother said saddened though
proudly.
"Magic sings around you" she said with beauty in her tone as she lovingly
caressed his cheek. "It always has and it always will."
His mother sighed but he could see the decisiveness in her eyes and in
her smile and it sunk him to the bottom of the ocean. "And that is why
you cannot learn magic there" she smiled at him, less sad and less guilty
but still firm "I have saved enough for books for your first few years of
magical schooling. Before we leave Paris for Corsica, I'll also get you a
wand to practice with."
Yasha staggered and he peeled himself out of her hands.
"What?" he asked breathlessly and devastated and betrayed. "We're
leaving again?" he asked despairingly, struck worse than the denial of
magical school.
A complicated expression flashed across his mother's face.
"It isn't safe anymore" she said firmly as she got up from her feet and
towered over Yasha. "Corsica will be. It's far enough and the wizarding
community is very small there."
It was too much and before he knew it, he was running.
"Yasha!" his mother called after him repeatedly but he raced down the
hall and the door flew open seemingly by its own volition before he
passed down the flats and down the stairs and before he knew it, he was
out on the Parisian streets.
Angry and terribly upset.
He wasn't sure how long he was in the streets, walking in betwixt of the
hordes of faceless, nameless muggles, walking on streets surrounded by
rows of monoliths of stone homes, their sights and their beauty cooling
the anger and betrayal in his heart.
He loved Paris.
There was so much here.
Magicals and their crazy markets and crazy circus acts that played with
fire dragons and fantastic beasts that moved in strange but amazing ways
like how the mimes and artists would play and perform in the busy
muggle street corners.
Muggles and their automobiles and their cafes with their amazing foods
that they'd sit at for hours at a time.
Amazing buildings that his mother said was hundreds of years old, huge
towers like the Eiffel tower that his mother had laughingly said that
muggles had built it without magic.
It was so different from the dull towns of Austria and the uppity muggle
nobles and their children who sneered at them. From the villages of
Luxembourg and their villagers who looked upon them distrustfully.
Here…
In Paris…
He was just another person. Someone like everyone in the big city.
In the city of Europe.
He loved it.
It was his home.
And his mother loved it too, he saw it in her eyes. When she took him
and Maria to see all the different places in Paris, when she bought bread
and savoury and sweets - he LOVED hazel nut croissants! – for them, when
she spoke French like she was a French person and teased them and
laughed at him when he begged her to teach him how to speak like her.
He was only ten but he wasn't blind, no, he saw that his mother loved
Paris as much as he did. Okay, maybe not as much but she did love it.
There was a happiness about her that he hadn't seen before.
So he didn't understand why she wanted to leave all of a sudden.
Was it because of him? Because of Beauxbatons? Was she upset that she
wasn't magical enough to go to magical school but that he was?
No, he denied as he walked across the road and stepped into the narrow
market street.
His mother wasn't jealous. She wasn't like that. He bit his lip as he
thought deeply. Everything she did was for him and later, when Maria
came, for her too.
He came to a stop as he realised it. Was she really that afraid? So afraid
of whoever was chasing them, that she would easily give up all of this?
All of his life, his mother had never said what they were running from.
His mother never even said that they were running but he figured it out
years ago.
Once, he thought that maybe mother was running from his father but he
didn't think so, not any more. Not after she told him the truth about who
his father was, a muggle didn't want to marry mother and disappeared.
He startled as he almost fell to the ground "Move, boy!" a man growled at
him as he looked over his shoulder before raising his head and huffed
and continued on.
He narrowed his eyes and after glancing around to make sure no one was
looking, he flicked his hand, causing the man to trip. The rude man cried
out as he fell and Yasha felt smug satisfaction before he shook his head
and walked away, leaving the man flustered and embarrassed.
He sighed before he huffed as he walked. He kicked a stone in frustration
and resignation. "Fine" he muttered to himself.
"Corsica it is then" he muttered petulantly.
He'd vowed that he'd never leave mother alone like that stupid father of
his and grudgingly he admitted he could learn magic fine anywhere.
Mother was right about that at least. Magic was easy for him. He didn't
need a stupid wand or go to a stupid school to learn about it.
Even if he'd be learning in the living room in some stupid place in stupid
Corsica.
He didn't even know anything about Corsica.
Or where it was.
"Fine" he muttered once more as he sighed more heavily.
He glanced around and looked at the buildings.
"When I'm older…" he muttered to himself, a silent promise to himself.
He arrived at the front of his home many hours later and walked up the
stairs. He winced to himself. He hoped mother wasn't upset anymore. He
didn't like seeing her upset. At all. Hopefully she'll be okay once he tells
her that he's fine with it.
He put the lock into the door though he realised that it was unlocked.
Strange, he thought to himself. Mother never left it unlocked. Even for
him since she knew that he had keys. He shrugged and thought nothing
further on it as he took out the key and opened the door.
"MOTHER! I'M BACK! I'M FINE WITH LEAVING!" he shouted out as he
walked down the hallway of their apartment, hoping that him saying it
out loud would make her happy and change her face instead of looking
sad when he saw her again. "MOTH-" his voice died, his body seizing into
absolute stillness that only statues and inanimate objects should have any
right to be.
His mother was a-seat, her shoulder looked to be tightly gripped,
painfully, her face wracked in horror and fear and glazy, her body kept
still by the meaty hands that bore a strange ring, one with some kind of
animal, of a black robed dark-haired man who held a dangerous air about
him and even more threatening expression that anyone could interpret
that he meant to harm them.
The whimpers of his sister struck him out of this ill trance, his eyes
latching onto the source of distress and saw that she was being held
tightly against another man's chest with his hand over her mouth and the
tip of his wand against her throat, lightly tapping against her throat with
an ugly grin on his face.
There were three others in the room, all of them with their wands out
and all of them wore chains with a circle and a line inside a triangle
Yasha never felt this afraid in his life.
Fear that made his knees weak, fear that made him tremble.
And his magic felt like a lead stone, sinking away from his grasp when it
had always felt so easy to grasp and guide. As if his magic knew that if he
did anything, he'd lose his only family and reacted on his behalf.
"Ah, the boy of the hour." Yasha turned towards the source of the voice
that spoke in Russian and saw that it was the man who was holding
mother tightly.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Yasha managed to say though his
voice trembled. It caused the men to laugh.
"We're old friends of your mother." The man said with a smug grin before
he looked down at his mother. "Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"
"Please…let them go…they're no one…they're bastards." Life returned to
his mother's eyes and the vulnerability and desperation in his mother's
voice was breaking Yasha and he mov-
With lightning speed, the man placed a wand on his mother's neck
"Ah, ah, ah." The man said with warning in his voice. "Move and I'll cut
your whore mother's head off." Menace riddled the man's tone and if the
act of promised violence wasn't enough, then the eager tone which
almost taunted him did.
The dark-haired man smiled thinly "Good" the man relaxed slightly and
moved his wand away from his mother's neck only for him to point it to
her head and he saw her eyes return to glazy blue beads again.
Yasha stiffened but didn't move having been able to resist the urge.
Barely.
"Now" the man began as he levelled a cold look at Yasha before he eyed
one of the henchmen who began to move towards Yasha. "Be a good boy
and swear you will obey all of our orders."
Yasha gritted his teeth in frustration and he was on the verge of tears at
his helplessness "…I swear." The putain laughed mockingly.
"No." the man said with a terrifying grin. "Swear upon your magic that
you will obey every order we" the man signalled towards the men present
"And our leaders give you." Yasha startled at that but broke out of it as
one of the other men approached him.
"Do it now and do it willingly or your fucking whore mother and sister will
die!" The roar was shocking, sharp and gruesome as a whip and the tip of
the putain's wand was aglow with menacing poisonous green magic that
Yasha could just feel was awful. He let off a whimper before he opened
his mouth.
The men who arrived next to him gripped his wrist, tightly, and said "You
better mean, boy, otherwise we'll know." Yasha winced and swallowed
before he spoke.
"I-I…I swear to obey your every orders and the orders of your leaders." A
golden glow surrounded him and he despaired as he felt cords begin to
strangle his magic.
"Call your mother a whore." Yasha's nostrils flared at the words before his
eyes widened in shock as he felt his magic fight against him, fight to
comply with the demand and Yasha resisted, oh he so resisted but the
cords tightened and he felt like it was shrinking, straining under the
stress of the cords.
"Mother is a whore" escaped his lips without his consent, against all of his
might and it made the putain grin wider…and so did everyone else's.
The man began to drop down the wand and the glaze in mother's eyes
began to disappear and the horror was infinitely greater now on her face.
"All of that running…all of that luck." The man laughed cruelly.
"And all it ended up with is you spawning the wrong kind of boy, the
kind of boy that he has been searching for." A sneer formed on his face
before he turned his evil eyes onto Yasha, evil eyes that gleamed with
awful promise.
"You should have died with your filthy parents, Romanov. It would have
been a kinder mercy than the existence you now have placed your
children into."
Those words had been haunting then.
And in the end…
They were prophetic.
? 1938 – Camps ?
Wails and moans rang distantly.
Of men. Of women. Of other children.
Indiscriminate.
As was pain.
In all of its forms.
His mother sung a lullaby, her voice weak but carried warm melody, and
she rocked him and a whimpering Maria in her arms as she rested against
the back of the cold walls, a lullaby that brought warmth just as her cold
vice like arms brought warmth to him and his sister, his mind slowly
settling back to a vague sense of normality.
Warmth that soothed his broken body and melodic voice that worked
him forget.
But it was hard. The sharp pain in his body, the biting hunger he felt and
the dark stirrings of his magic that seemed to want to burst out of him
made it hard. So hard.
As did the haunted screams and cries that rang around this Hell.
He wrenched his eyes closed tighter, trying to help him forget where he
was, where he'd gotten mother and Maria because he didn't fight back.
He wished he had. Every day and every time he woke up.
His mother stopped her lullaby when the sounds of the screams died
away to a pittance and he opened his eyes, faint light of moonlight crept
through the barred opening in the stone walls.
He saw Maria asleep, exhaustion and hunger having taking its due from
her. Yet even in her sleep, she looked in pain. She was so pale now. So
sickly pale. Skin latched onto her skin like old socks to feet. Tight yet
worn.
Her words were the same, worn and tight and bare. Almost gone was the
happy sister that he loved so dearly.
Rage and hate spiked within him and his once comforting magic now
turned a tempestuous cloud of magic, stirred with his emotions. A sharp
pain struck him in his head, like needle like daggers piercing through his
skull, and he whimpered as rage and hate left him in haste.
He felt the shaking hand of his mother on his head, a soft hush escaping
from her lips with soothing intent. "Yasha…" his mother only said yet he
understood the meaning in her utterance.
He looked up as the pain from the chains that bound him dissipated yet
he never looked at her face for he knew that that rage would never go
away until he passed out from the pain. 'I hate those damn eyes. Ezkridis'
damned Royal Blue eyes.' The words of their tormentors echoed into his
mind.
"I know" Yasha whispered "I can't help it…I…" he felt his mother wrap
him closer and tighter yet it did not settle him nor did it melt the cold
iciness that was sinking into him.
"I know, I know." He heard her say, the tone of heart break threaded her
voice. Yasha knew that as the days passed, as the torment continued to
build, even his mother was slowly losing herself like Maria almost
already was.
"You just have to remember Yasha, that one day we'll be free."
"How?" Yasha asked with begging in his voice, starting the same old
conversation again. They had little words for anything else. "I can't do
anything and neither can you." Yasha began to tear up and his body
began to tremble.
Trembling that made the pain so much worse but he didn't care right
now.
They kept them like chickens in a cage, and instead of being fattened,
they were being starved and slowly trimmed until they were ready. Ready
for something he or mother did not understand.
All the torture he was going through, all of the warping of his mind and
his magic, he knew not what the purpose was, why they were doing what
they were doing.
At times he wondered if there was no purpose, that they simply wanted
to see them hurt, to see them break. His mother taken sometimes for
hours at a time and hurt, his sister made to watch unspeakable things to
the point she had to be forced to eat.
"They even stop us from killing ourselves and I can't even think of
hurting myself before my magic stops me." Yasha said with immense
bitterness before the bitterness in his voice broke much like he was
breaking when he continued.
"And mother…I want to die." He choked out, his tremble now akin to
when it when it had been during the height of winter, the shiver
travelling along the length of his body. "I don't care anymore, it's too
much."
His mother began to tremble as well though no noise escaped her lips.
"Oh Yasha…" his mother soothed brokenly though she said nothing else.
There was nothing more to say, nothing that hadn't been said
'I'm sorry…we should have left sooner…'
He wished he tried to fight back then. He wished he died trying.
It would have been so much better than what they were living through…
He'd fallen asleep not long after, to the sounds of his mother's lullaby,
though heavy boots began to wake him slowly and realisation crept into
his waking mind.
His ears peaked and he startled still in horror and he whimpered and
clung onto mother, begging desperately, hopelessly, to Mother Magic, to
God, that it wasn't for him, that it was going to be for some other person.
It was too soon, it was only yesterday that he'd been warped.
Yet, once more, his hopes fell onto dear ears.
Abandoned as he and his mother and his sister were to monsters.
"Stand up and remain still!" the dark robed guard.
His body moved against his will, against the weakness that should make
it impossible for him to stand up but he stood up nonetheless, buoyed by
his magic which continued to betray him.
"Please…he's too weak…he'll die" his mother begged as she moved to
shield him and Maria from the guard. The guard laughed and a cruel look
showed on his face.
"And we're making him strong, don't worry. He'll live. We wouldn't want
to disappoint our special guest tonight." He said before flicking out his
wand and slashed across and his mother smashed against the back of the
walls, rage and hatred burst the dam within as it knocked her out, the
dark pool of magic that once upon a time felt like the touch of lukewarm
water on a cold autumn's day now felt like the hungry depths of ocean
waters on a tumultuous storm night.
And when the wand was levied towards Maria who cried awake, time
had stilled.
Like a tear, he felt like something had ripped inside of him, through the
pain, through the debilitating pain that sought to rip his mind like the
centre of his being was being ripped apart, and a dark ashy, dusty, almost
shadowy tendril of magic spewed forward in the path of the spell that
stood to harm his sister.
Another tendril ripped from his chest but it was too late "Stop! I
COMMAND YOU! STOP!" the frantic angry yet fearful demand worked
and his ashy magic faded away like dust.
A thrill shook him to the core, at the sight of fear on the face of one of
those who had cast them into the depths of hell and depravity.
But sooner than he wished, that look of fear turned into fury and the man
snarled as he commanded Yasha to step out of the prison and after he did
so, he took a fistful of his hair and yanked painfully on it "You little
bastard. I'm going to enjoy seeing you squirm in that chair."
Cold satisfaction gave way for icy dread and it must have shown on his
face as the guard's face twisted into a gleeful sneer before he led Yasha
through the gloomy hallways that seemed endless with cells.
He caught a look of a young boy whose face was in between the cells that
was only opposite and a few cells to the right of his and his family's cell,
with fresh and deep cuts zigzagging across his face.
The boy silently stared at him with dead eyes, odd eyes that were lilac in
colour, like the some of the flowers he'd seen before in the flower shop
but these were not nice…nor did were they pretty. These eyes were
shrivelling and dying.
It was only a few weeks ago, Yasha thought, that the boy couldn't stop
screaming that he'd kill them all, that he'd tear their flesh from their
skins for what they did to his family.
He turned his gaze away from the boy, memories of the boy's screams of
vengeance turning into cries of pain and screams of mercy flashing by, as
he continued to be yanked forward, through the inky, tarry black walls of
their Hell, the sounds of rats within its halls faintly heard.
He bit back the whimper that threatened to escape his lips as they
arrived to the 'Pighouse', the term he'd heard the other, older boys that
once had been in the next cell talk to each other about, the sight of the
white walled room with the lone chair at the middle of the room roused
the kind of dread with the strength of furious dragons rising to full
height, overwhelming, foreboding, terrifying.
Yet it compared nothing to the voice of the man he hated more than
anything in the world…and a man he feared like nothing else. "Ah,
Prince Romanov"
The man had a sickly pale complexion, tight facial skin and unblinking
eyes that sunk into his skull like marbles in quicksand. He showed no
emotion, not even after he'd tortured Yasha into paralysis, not even when
his magic was twisted in the way he wanted.
He terrified Yasha in the way he was, in the way he felt to Yasha. Blank.
Nothingness. Yet at the same it was a kind of nothingness that seemed to
be unfiltered malice, a malice that was uncaring, unfeeling.
And he thought this man was the very Devil the muggle churches warned
against.
"So this is the Romanov boy. The most promising candidate"
Yasha swivelled around and was startled as he realised who this was.
Pale long fingers with prominent joints that reminded Yasha of his sister's
bony legs and ankles, stroked the angular face though that is not what
caught his attentions, no, it was the silvery white eye that accompanied
the pale blue one.
He knew this face. He knew this man. Any time he'd picked up the
papers, he seemed to be on the front of the pages. Grindelwald.
"He doesn't take much after his ancestors, does he?" Grindelwald looked
away from him in a dismissive way and turned towards the Healer, the
Devil who he never learnt what his name.
"The father is some son of the muggle Von Trotha family." The Devil
answered.
"Hmm." Grindelwald turned his gaze back towards Yasha, an odd look on
his face before he walked towards him. Yasha stiffened as he felt the
bony elongated finger flick aside some of his hair as he stared directly
into Yasha's eyes.
"To think two of my dreams would link across time in such a way…"
Yasha faltered and looked away from the gaze, unable to hold it any
longer.
"It seems it is fate, young Romanov, that your mother lived when so
many of your family did not. I suppose it likes binding me to my actions."
It was only moments later that Grindelwald walked away and he felt
himself being pushed towards the chair and he wanted to beg, to plead
for them to stop but he stopped himself, half because he knew it was
pointless and the other half because he didn't want to break.
"Do not resist in any way." The Devil's words forced his body to relax and
he felt in agony at his helplessness as his arms and feet were being tied
against the chair.
He didn't know why they were doing this, why they wanted him to hurt
like this an-
"Stop thinking."
He stopped thinking.
"Remember Orphanage Seventeen."
Memories of his time at the orphanage played across the forefront of his
mind, memories of cruel matrons and sadistic priests.
"You're no longer in the Camps. Forget that you are Yasha. You are now
Corvus and all you've known is the Orphanage and you remember
everything." He was Corvus and he was in his shared dorm that he shared
with five other boys, boys who hated him and tormented for his freakish
nature, who called him a Satan worshipper.
"And presently, Matron Beatrice is wroth with you."
Agony struck him, darts of fierce pain travelling up his arms, pain that
came from the knife that was being put into his hand and dragged to his
left whilst it was in his hand.
"The matron tells you are a product of abomination. You believe her. You
hate the unnaturalness that you have."
He hated himself. He hated the unnaturalness that was inside of him. He
was evil and he deserved his suffering. He deserved to be hurt. It was the
only way to be free of the Devil's gift.
For hours, he suffered at the hands of the Matrons, at the hands of the
Father, agonising pain as he was tortured for his salvation, and had he
been able to perceive anything outside of the web of illusions his
tormentors had built in his mindscape, he would have seen and ashy hue
of magic around him that darkened with every hour that passed. Corvus
wasn't sure when he lost consciousness.
By the time he flittered in and out of consciousness he was somehow
afloat in a strange place, the sight of darky inky moaning walls
dominating his senses beyond the sensations of agony and exhaustion
that paralysed him.
'This must be hell…Father has failed to save my soul…' he thought to
himself as he drifted out of consciousness.
Corvus felt cold hands on his face as he awoke, sounds of a quiet lullaby
sung to him. It was oddly…familiar…?
A pained gasp exhaled through his pained body, weak as it was to
conjure anything other than the horror of what he was seeing.
An eyeless pale woman with sunken in cheeks and ratty hair stared down
at him, singing that strangely familiar lullaby. "Demon…." Corvus rasped
out fearfully as he tried to get out of her grasp with little success.
A saddened smile came across the woman as she continued to sing the
lullaby, a lullaby he knew the words to, as her hands moved towards the
side of his head.
She kept on singing, she kept on stroking his face gently and he stopped
fighting but he didn't know why, he didn't know why he didn't feel like
this the demon it so clearly was.
He wasn't sure how long the lullaby went by but a moment after she
stopped she whispered with a kind and hopeful smile "Remember
Yasha...remember your mother…remember your sister…remember
Paris…remember us."
"I'm not Yasha" he denied. The pain he felt began to be overwhelmed by
the pain in his head and he felt himself spiral into a numbing paralysis,
his very mind on fire.
"You are Yasha Augustan, Yasha Romanov. You are my son, my beautiful
son. Remember." At first, there was nothing and then the demon began to
repeat it, again and again until…like a light at the end of a tunnel…they
came.
Memories flashed across the mind of Corvus, no Yasha, memories of
Austria, of Luxembourg, of Paris. Of his mother who sung to him and
taught him and loved him, his sweet sister he adored and looked out for.
He remembers the Cell, he remembers the hunger, the torment placed
upon his baby sister and his mother, he remembers the way their
tormentors are destroying his family like all the other families they
destroyed already.
"Shushhh, my sweet, sweet boy" his mother said chokingly as
excruciating pain still pierced every fibre of his being, his face contorted
in a silent mask of a scream for no words, no sounds could escape from
his breaking body.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as his mind reordered itself, his mind
pushing away the false memories his tormentors implanted into his mind,
and by the time the pain that overwhelmed any physical pain ceased, he
was delirious, as he always was after it.
He didn't know why they did this.
His mother had said that there were other ways, other more permanent
ways to warp the mind, yet this is what they chose, to create two sets of
memories that frayed at who he was, who they wanted him to be.
Why, the orphanage, why make the muggles so evil, he didn't know. He
didn't care to know. Neither did his mother though sometimes, he
thought he could see the fear in her face when he spoke like emotionless
Corvus.
He hated everything in this cursed place. And most of all, he hated
himself. It was clear that it was Yasha they wanted and he felt so much
guilt about it. And he feared that his mother and sister were only being
kept alive to torment him.
It was his fault, he thought despairingly to himself and had he not been
born, his mother could have escaped and never caught and his mother
and sister would have lived happily and safe.
And he feared the day that he no longer remembered.
When he was Corvus forever and never again Yasha.
And he knew that it was working…it was getting harder to separate
Corvus and Yasha and to make it worse, his magic had been changing
ever since that first day, that first time, and he could feel the parasite
growing inside of him.
He'd kept it from his mother, keeping her unaware of his fears of what
was happening inside of him but she'd known something was wrong, that
what was happening was dangerous and awful but she couldn't remember
why.
"It's alright…it's alright…" and his mother began to sing to him again and
he felt his sister curl up to him and he drifted off to sleep once more
? Spring 1940 – Camps ?
Squeaks and pattering of tiny feet accompanied the deathly smell of rot
and decaying food.
Cold floors, cold air, freezing heart.
"Eat." Yasha insisted as he weakly pushed the gamely meat to his sister
with broken hands. She was unresponsive, staring at the cold grey wet
stones that made for walls.
Hollowing cheeks. Dead blue eyes.
"Maria."
Still now, days later, her hands still clung on tightly onto the bloodied
knife with days' old blood caking it. Last time he tried to take it from her,
she tried to use on him. That was two sleeps ago.
He silently brought the gamely raw meat to her lips and with his other,
worse off hand, loosened her jaw. After he set the meat onto her tongue,
she came into life once more. If it could be called life.
"Psst" rang across from the hallway.
Yasha ignored the irritating boy and focused on his sister. It disturbed
him, to think that once he'd felt such rage at his sister's condition and
that now all that he felt was but a shadow of such emotion.
Fierce became mild. Yearning became distant interest. Love became…
He tore of another strip of meat of one of the cooked rat and fed it to his
sister.
"I'll tell you a secret if you throw me a rat."
Yasha didn't respond as he continued to feed his sister.
An air of frustration sifted through the irritating boy's mouth.
With almost everyone else around them dead, the boy has gotten more
bold in his insanity, even laughing at the guards when they tried to
silence him brutally.
To the point that they simply stopped caring.
He must be important to them if they weren't going to push to make him
comply to every bit of their whims. He noticed that. That some had
greater protection than others. Like prized cattle who had to be perfect
before they were slaughtered.
And it would be slaughter.
Slaughter of the person, slaughter of everything they used to be, until all
that was left was the person whom they spliced together the pieces of his
mind.
The drive of Yasha. The emotionless Corvus and his history and his
hatred of muggles.
The death of his mother was timed to shatter the links that held the dam
that separated the bodies of water that was Yasha and Corvus. And
Maria…Maria was to be the quake that destroyed any chance of
rebuilding that bridge.
A broken vessel, a perfect weapon.
"Fine, fine, I'll tell you anyway!" the irritating boy said in frustration,
lowly but audibly still muttering to himself that he'd better get a meal out
of it.
"The magical world is at war!" the irritating boy said gleefully.
Hmm.
He spoke next and it was low, fraught with conspiratorial intent "And we
might actually be used soon."
That was another reason for why he found the boy irritating.
There was a bloodlust in the boy that he found boring.
Oh and the hatred. It was common. Pointless.
Still…
It was useful to know at least. If it was true. If it'll matter.
A strand of darkness formed form his back and sharpened before with
lightning speed it pierced through a rat that ventured a little too closely
to the iron bars.
With a flick of the strand of magic, he'd thrown the rat towards the
irritating boy who caught it readily. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" the
irritating boy repeated before he saw the silhouette of flames.
The boy could levitate but lacked the accuracy to bring something to
himself. Destructive magic however? That came more easily to the
irritating boy.
The days trickled on by, rat after rat was caught, sometimes mixed with
the slop of food they were fed, sometimes they were eaten on their own
or stewed in the filthy water that poured out of the pipes, and soon
enough it was time again for his therapy.
He no longer feared the 'Pighouse'.
Fear…fear didn't matter. Survival did not matter.
'Was there anything that mattered…?'
As he was led out of his cell, he glanced back at his sister, who didn't
even notice that he was leaving, and icy waters dripped down from his
freezing heart.
Yes…
She still mattered.
Something still mattered.
Winter 1941 - Camps
He leaned his head against the wall, his arms hanging loose as he
perched his elbows on his knees, his gaze fixed onto his scarred hands as
Cullaica's whistles rang around the empty hallways, eerie whistles that
bounced off against the black walls.
He'd been here a few days now. Being healed.
He turned his hand around, his gaze following the scars that travelled
across his hand, scars inflicted on him by Father Al- no…
That isn't right…
Or was it…?
He seemed to remember it was so…
But he also thought there was something else…
Someone else…
He looked up and turned his gaze towards the iron bars.
Ah…yes…they were here to get healing…they were damaged – eyeless
kind woman smiled at him – …dangerous – the muggles did so much damage,
my boy – …they wanted to heal them – cold sunken eyes that he instantly
didn't like –…before they hurt other magicals – screams and wails as he
remembered being held –…yes…that was bad…
That's what they said…
…Why was it bad…?
To hurt…others…?
He doesn't know why…but does it matter?
Why…?
Why does it matter…?
He looks down on his hands. They want him to heal so that he can help
others from hurting like he was hurt. That muggles were the danger to
everything…
…he doesn't feel it.
It was…
Odd…
His memories feel like flakes – image of a strange baked bread, a croissant,
how do I know that…? – falling to pieces as he tries to remember.
Was that why he doesn't feel the hate they said he felt…?
Hmm…
He leaned his head against the wall, Cullaica's whistles were not horrible.
He liked it. Hmm…has he liked anything before…? Corvus doesn't
remember.
He only remembers what he didn't like. The boys in his dorm. The
Matrons. The Father. Muggles. His memories say that he didn't like them.
Maybe he doesn't feel it because it was so long ago.
Or maybe he stopped feeling much of anything.
When did that happen…?
He isn't sure…
His memories show only the orphanage…nothing else…is that normal…?
Maybe he stopped remembering things that he had once liked…is that
possible…?
"Corrrrrrvus" Cullaica called out in a jaunty note. He liked doing that. It
was strange. It felt familiar too. Why…? He only met the boy a few days
ago.
He got up in one swell motion, his bare feet pattered against the cobbled
black stone floor. They'd given him shoes. He found he liked no shoes
better.
He wasn't sure why…at the orphanage he had shoes.
He got to the iron bars and he stuck his head in between them and
looked to towards the direction where Cullaica was.
He was looking directly at Corvus with a large grin. His face was ugly.
There were many scars on his face. He wondered if it would be like
touching his own scars.
Suddenly, the skin on his face began to vibrate like when one dropped a
stone in a calm pool of water – coins were thrown in a wide river atop a
bridge – and the scars disappeared. Cullaica's grin grew wider. Manic.
Pleased.
Cullaica seemed good at magic.
"Ah, there you ah-are!" Cullaica said manically as he poked out his hand
and waved towards him with only his fingertips. Cullaica was weird. But
a good weird…
Could weird be good…?
"What do you want…?" he asked of Cullaica.
Cullaica guffawed "nothing! Can't friends just talk?! It's not like we have
anything else to do!"
"…friends?" - a terrible whistle to accompany a good whistle to a faceless girl
– friends. Were they friends…? He seemed familiar. And he didn't not not
feel anything towards Cullaica. Maybe he was right…
"Yes friends." Cullaica levied a dark wild eyes towards him. It looked
dangerous. But it didn't feel dangerous. "Only a few days and I know you.
We have to be friends."
Corvus mulled it over before he nodded slowly. Friends made sense.
Cullaica looked happy with that. He seemed to feel a lot. Is that how
Corvus was meant to be…? He considered it. No…the way he was felt
right.
Like nothing mattered…
"Good. Good, good, good." Cullaica said as he stared at Corvus.
There was a silence after that outburst. It went on for a bit. So did the
staring.
He stared back.
Is this what friends did…?
Cullaica guffawed. "You're strange." Cullaica said with a manic grin.
"You're strange." Corvus responded. It was true. He was very different.
Like a muggle. Cullaica guffawed, almost sounded like he was giggling –
a tiny girl giggled as she run behind a sofa – and grinned at Corvus.
"I think I'll have to make the bulk of the conversation, my bestest friend!"
The days and weeks fell into a routine.
He was brought to the Healer every day – scream, agony, scream, agony –
who would check and his magic and his memories and ask questions like
'How do you feel about muggles' or 'Do you want to hurt anyone' or 'Are you
feeling better'.
He answered how he was expected to answer.
'I hate them', 'Only muggles and the matrons and the Father', 'I feel the same'.
Words that felt like he should say. He did not know why but he trusted it.
Cullaica talked. For the both of them. He didn't dislike it. It was nice to
stop the strange images sometimes. He often whistled. Always the same
tune.
Sometimes he'd talk about the war with the muggles. So too would the
healer Like today, he thought to himself as he was walked back to his
Cell.
That it would be time soon for them to help to destroy them. Saying soon
they'll get wands and books and tutoring to help the cause. Said that
Corvus would be important. His magic was special. More special than
Cullaica's.
He wasn't so sure. His magic seemed dangerous. It wanted to hurt. To
destroy.
But maybe that was why he was more special.
He thought about it a lot. What they wanted from him. To hurt. To
destroy.
They seemed to want it a lot from him.
He considered it. Their wants. Turns out it didn't matter to him.
Nothing matters really mattered to him…why…?
"Ah, friend, all good?" Cullaica asked the same question he would ask
every day. Sometimes he would different words to ask the same thing.
Those were better days.
Corvus nodded. Cullaica looked pleased. "That's good. Well, I've got a
new whistle, it's strange and I think I might have done it before. Anyway,
listen, listen, listen!" Cullaica began to whistle and Corvus stilled.
"Move it boy." The guard behind him growled out and Corvus felt the
urge to obey but he couldn't. Cullaica continued to whistle and then…it
happened.
A roar of a cry ripped out of his mouth as he clutched his head, the air in
the room turned heavy, thunderous with magic, wisps of dark tusks of
magic seeping out of his body as memories played out like a reel,
storming through the forefront of his mind.
Austria, Luxembourg, Paris. He began to feel, pain, pain, PAIN, yet he felt
more and more and more. He remembered his mother, he remembered his
sister. And he felt it all.
Joy, sadness, hope, disappointment, happiness, anger.
And he remembered everything since. The pain. The torment. The agony.
His withering sister. His murdered mother. He remembered their deaths.
HATE, HATE, HATE, he felt so strongly.
He felt what he lost, he felt it so keenly, he felt the guilt, the
overwhelming guilt 'It's YOUR FAULT YASHA!' oh, mother, I'm so, so sorry.
An agonised scream ripped from his mouth, yearning grasped towards
the heavens – grasps that were finding purchase – and magic shattered
around him, bulking, tempestuous magic of black and ash and uncaged
magic twisted together in an unholy mixture and his form disappeared
into a storm of swirling mass of ashy black.
All of the hate, all of the pain and the suffering culminated in the bulking
mass of hungry destruction and he was aware, no he knew of the chaos his
transformation has caused.
They had caged Yasha. In oaths. In bonds. In fear.
He was Yasha no more.
He was more.
He was less.
He hunted.
Walls were putty under his power. As putty as flesh as he ripped through
a horde of guards, their spells only causing the dullest of aches.
He continued to follow the hallways. Killing and devouring.
His hunger wasn't satiated. It would never be satiated.
Not until there was nothing left to devour.
As he changed back, in front of the half torn body of his chief tormentor,
black wisps of his magic swirled around him, like tentacles made out of
shadows.
A ghostly form came into view, a ghostly form of someone that he –
Yasha – had once loved. Another ghostly form arrived. Another that the
boy once named Yasha loved.
He looked at them.
They looked sad.
"I am not him." He said quietly to them.
They looked sadder.
Yasha had died many years ago.
He…he was less.
He was nothing.
Footsteps approached.
"Phew." He heard, recognising the familiar voice of Cullaica. The raging
beast within fell back down to the ground, content enough to spare him.
"I knew my whistling is good but my bestest friend, I didn't think you had
to go crazy about it."
He turned around and faced Cullaica, his mauve eyes bright with
bloodlust and awe.
"I remembered." He said to Cullaica, Pierre.
"Remembered what?" Cullaica said dumbfounded.
"You'll remember too." He said to Cullaica before he turned around and
faced the corpse of the healer, his eyes gazing down emotionlessly at the
mangled corpse.
One day we are born. One day we die.
Life has no meaning.
Suffering has no meaning.
Death has no meaning.
There is no meaning.
There is no value.
There is nothing that is more and there is nothing that is less.
Nothing mattered…
And the world would come to understand that.
Just as Yasha did.
Yes…
One day…we are born.
And one day we will die.
And the world would come to understand that.
Present day
The memory-illusions faded away into dust, fresh anguish and pain and
hate coursed through him in ways that he had not felt for many decades.
The emptiness, the half-soul that he possessed was being torn apart,
ripped into shreds as memories long forgotten but always present in his
actions left their lingering touch on his mind.
The dark lance of his obscurus was extended out of him but it had
stopped half way, and did not respond to his Will. His body was as still a
statue, and so too was his magic, helpless against whatever magic held
him so.
The ghosts of his mother and sister appeared beside him and began to
envelop him.
Sayre stood there with his arms behind his back, pity and sadness and
empathy shines through Sayre's face, fleshy human emotions directed
towards him not since he was but a boy.
"…I'm sorry."
"Why?" he asks, still unable to move, no matter his attempts. His very
body and magic was fighting against his will.
"Our world destroyed you." Sayre says.
His sister stepped in front of him and Sayre directed his gaze towards
her, complex emotions played out on his face.
For a man known to be a master of the mind arts, he was emotive.
Given that he managed to unleash memories locked up into the dark
depths of his mind, he expected that it was not genuine.
His tragedy was irrelevant.
The tragedies he created were irrelevant too but not to Sayre or others.
"Your hate for it is justified. I'd do no less in your position." Sayre says
"I feel no hate."
Sayre looks at him pityingly.
"Perhaps not any more but you are driven by hate. I understand."
"You'd do more." He questions.
"…Yes." Sayre says.
He believed Sayre. He was the type.
Atticus POV
"…Yes." Atticus admits.
Had he experienced what Yasha experienced, had lived through the
horrors of watching your mother murdered in front of you by your own
imperioused sister, and then see your sister starve herself to death, he'd
hate everything that allowed that to happen.
He'd see the entire world burn for that.
Atticus was not a forgiving man.
And Yasha wasn't one either yet within him there was still something
that prevented his rage to transcend beyond the magical world up until
this point.
Burning down human cities were all that they planned, all that they tried
to do, when they could have tried so much more. They cared nothing
about either world yet no grand plans to destroy either world beyond
what Cullaica and Yasha planned to do with the muggle cities.
Something prevented his rage to transcend beyond the magical world up
until this point and it was the love for a city, the memory of it, and a love
of a mother.
A city that he would have destroyed to rid himself of the last earthly
bounds, forever dead but still alive in the memories of the world.
Much like his mother and sister were.
Atticus glanced at the ghost of Yasha's mother.
"Princess Elisa." Atticus respectfully bowed his head towards the ghost,
an act that surprised both of the ghosts.
They were not normal ghosts…they were something in between,
anchored to the material world not through 'unfinished' work but through
the might and will of Yasha, who cannot let go, who will not let go.
They, his mother and sister, are his anchor, the reason why he acted, and
he'd reached out to the Domain itself, somehow, to remember who he is…
why he exists.
They are the stones that keep together The Raven, the Consequence to an
indifferent world, to a world that could allow and facilitate the horrors
that were inflicted to the innocent.
And they were also the anchors that allowed Yasha to return those same
horrors to the world, first to the nobility and government systems that
supported Grindelwald and his world views about worthiness and
deservedness and then later to the common people, those same people
who are blind to what was in front of them.
Pureblood doctrine was heightened to insane proportions for years,
murder and cruelty was a standard way of life, the kind of life desired by
those same peoples who tormented Yasha and his family, the same kinds
of people who also supported Grindelwald and have a familial history of
backing other Dark Lords that championed pureblood dogma.
Minds were ensnared as his mind was ensnared. Hurt was spread from
family to family. Death was granted, at first discriminatory and then with
blanket order.
Much of it done with the tacit agreement of those who supported The
Raven and Cullaica.
And it was a game, Atticus thought grimly, a horror game that allowed
them to fulfil their true purpose, to wade into the channels of the magical
world and infect it from the inside until it was time to tear away almost
everything good or bad indiscriminately until all that remained was a
world of husks.
To bring it to as close to nothingness as possible.
Like what The Raven was. Like what Cullaica had been.
"I am sorry that our world has failed you and your family." Atticus said,
meaning every word of it as his eyes darted to the pre-teen girl.
It was a travesty what Grindelwald facilitated, only matched by the
horror show of Belgium at the hands of De Gaulle and of course at the
hands of the Ravenites.
He knew not the exact reasons what Grindelwald had planned for Yasha,
his only true successful stable Obscurus beyond Credence, but he
suspected it was to unleash him onto the muggle world, his own version
of a WMD, after likely assessed Credence unable to be the kind of
monster he wanted.
Implanting memories and destabilising the mind was an odd choice but
an effective choice and had Yasha remained, he did not doubt that there
would have been a next step, a final step, that would have crushed what
once made Yasha, the boy who'd loved Paris.
Yasha's mother did not respond, and neither did the sister. It was alright,
they were past the point of apologies. Past the point that words can be
used to express things.
Atticus turned his gaze back towards Yasha, hardness creeping into his
expression.
"But I am not sorry for killing you." At this, the ghosts silently hissed,
their visages akin to banshees and floated in front of Yasha.
He pitied them, the essences that did not belong here.
He could see that they were being harmed by their far too long presence
on this plane of existence, in ways that normal ghosts were not.
Yasha turns his gaze upward, only his head and neck could move.
His soulless eyes gazing towards the heavens.
"Mars." Atticus explained, curiosity etched on his face. If Yasha was
interested, he didn't show when he levelled those soulless eyes back onto
him.
"How are you stopping me?" Yasha questioned, his quiet tone bereft of
emotion, ignoring the comment Atticus made about killing him.
"A combination of things." Atticus answered, and would speak no more of
it.
Out of all the archmages alive, excepting Emily, Yasha was by far the
third closest Archmage with an uncanny ability to negate. He couldn't risk
giving clues.
His magic, magic that once would have been a marvel to behold in the
way he could understand magic through his own magic, turned into a
polar opposite in a way, turning into a kind of magic that destroyed and
countered anything and everything.
It would be a marvel to see him grow with a second chance.
He wondered if his ability to bring Essences were built on something, an
exploitation of an already extant link between Yasha and the Domain.
Atticus exerted a force of Will, and blades of pure magic formed in front
of him before they destroyed the obscurus lance in totality.
The blades of magic began to circle around him as he begun to step
closer to Yasha who was still rooted to the spot.
Magical dampening fields were en-runed underneath the red sands of
Mars and grey nanites surrounded everywhere around them.
Nanites that Yasha had breathed in, and nanites that were stuck on his
skin. Nanites that were affecting his mind and affecting his body and
magic.
Connections between Yasha's Will was disrupted, control centres of the
mind were suborned, and his magic was tightly subdued.
There would be no battle today.
Atticus had enough of battles amongst his own kind.
When Atticus was only a few feet away from Yasha, he came to a stop
and inspected the man before him. Coal black hair, coal black eyes.
Once upon a time, those had been dusty brown hair and light brown
eyes.
"It doesn't matter." Atticus said as he waved his hand and a light glow
emanated.
The ghosts were pushed aside and it was the first reaction he'd seen from
Yasha.
Atticus turned towards Elisa who stared at him with hatred in her eyes.
How strange to see such a look of hate from a woman who was brimful of
love.
"You have a choice." Atticus said to Elisa whose hateful visage turned to a
suspicious glare. He continued "The Raven…Yasha…both of them will die
today. But his soul does not have to leave this plane of existence."
He'd discussed it with Emily. She hadn't been happy with what he was
saying to her, to offer a choice to The Raven who ironically took away
the choices of many others.
But he'd Seen this moment so many times. So many different instances,
slightly different than the other. It was a sobering experience and it is a
sobering experience, to learn the kinds of evil that inspired that same evil
onto the world.
Sobering and sickening and pitiful.
Yet…
There was something that resonated with him…the way the ghosts
protected Yasha. Despite their corruption. Despite the horrible things
Yasha had done.
He knew that letting go of Yasha, letting him pass on would waste an
incredible resource, one that potentially could lead him to understand
other forms of interaction with the Domain, much like how the Stone had
interacted with the Domain, but…
Elisa had looked murderous for a moment before she blinked in surprise,
not understanding what he meant.
Atticus expanded as he shot Yasha a short glance, and he saw Yasha's
coal black eyes seem less lifeless though whether or not it was positive or
negative, he couldn't quite say. He met Elisa's gaze. "I have the ability to
effectively reincarnate living people. Yasha would die but his soul would
be reborn into another body. He would live a good life, a safe life with
family that will love him."
Elisa was shocked at that.
"Living people?"
Atticus turned back toward Yasha who'd asked. He gave a grim nod.
"Only living people. When your Time is due, it is final." This was
interference enough, Atticus thought. This was perhaps already treading
the line when it came to interference with the matters of Life and Death.
Maybe he could figure out a way to bring the dead back but he wouldn't
even try.
He had too much respect for both Aspects.
Elisa looked ponderous when she looked at him, until that look turned
into one of question. 'Why'. Atticus nodded silently, conveying his
understanding.
Atticus turned to Yasha. "I will not lie. Your soul, your essence is
powerful. No matter what blood will course your veins, you will be an
Archmage."
"You seek to use me."
Atticus smiled faintly. "Of your own free will."
"A rat in a maze is still a rat in maze."
Atticus' smile grew larger "is anyone anything other than a rat in a maze?
We all have walls and boundaries that keep us to a path. Even myself."
"Some have wider walls."
Atticus nodded as his smile fell. "That is true. And you would have such
wide walls too. I'm not interested in automatons with warped minds."
Atticus said calmly though hardness etched his face and coldness shone
through his eyes.
"Your warping is more subtle."
Atticus downturned his lips in a 'Eh' way. "So is the warping of good
parents." Atticus said dismissively. All of society, whether magical or
muggle were warping society to one way or another. It was a fact of life.
His and Emily's way was drastic, to be sure, but drastic measures were
needed to tilt the magical world to a better future.
Atticus turned his gaze to Elisa who was watching their interplay. "As for
why give him a second chance…it is not for him" Atticus said with a nod
towards Yasha before returning his attentions to Elisa.
"It is for you." Atticus said honestly before he turned towards Maria. "And
for you, Princess Maria." Atticus said earnestly before continuing.
"If I do this, there is no guarantee when whomever Yasha turns into will
remember you upon death. This will be total cleansing of his soul. Of his
crimes. Of his experiences. All of his experiences. He'll be a newborn."
They were victims, innocent victims who Atticus had great empathy for.
The choice would be theirs.
Elisa turned his gaze towards Yasha whose expression twitched as he
stared at his mother. "No." the denial was sharp, cutting, actual emotion
seemed to riddle it.
Elisa looked saddened as she floated towards Yasha with an outstretched
hand. She seemed to emote so many different messages in her expressions
alone.
"No." Yasha said again, forcefully, his expression breaking as anger took
hold. "I will not forget you…never. Do not make it happen."
Maria then floated in front of Yasha and placed her hands onto Yasha's
face and the anger broke. Maria's child face was only a foot away from
Yasha's face, a face belonging to a soul, an essence, that will never know
live again.
"Please." Yasha said quieter this time, his coal black eyes lightening. "I
cannot."
Elisa stared at Yasha for a long while, sadness and consideration on her
face.
"It has always been just us. Only us. Do not take that away from me."
Atticus knew then that Elisa would not deny Yasha the certainty of being
with her and his sister again. It was a certainty whenever he added those
three sentences.
Elisa's expression broke and turned to him. She shook her head sadly.
He wasn't disappointed.
It was a choice that was difficult to quantify. A selfish choice. A selfless
choice.
Atticus smiled faintly at Elisa before he smiled to Maria and the blades of
magic sped forward and sunk into Yasha's chest, tearing through the
dragon hide robes and a quiet gasp escaping his lips.
Atticus silently watched as Yasha chokingly breathed his last few breaths
until there were no more and the light of his coal black eyes went out.
He turned towards Maria and Elisa, the cords of magic that bound them
to Yasha fading away and Elisa only stared at Yasha's corpse for a
moment before her eyes widened and smiled to herself, a smile that
Maria shared.
Maria faded away, a column of off-white light flashed for a second, a
column of off-white light that seemed to stretch on endlessly into the
skies.
Elisa began to fade away but not before glaring at him though…just as
she was on the cusp of disappearing into the Domain, she gave Atticus a
shadow of a smile.
Atticus stared at where Elisa had once been.
He hadn't bothered to tell her of their familial connection, of his mother
having been second cousins to Elisa's mother. He wondered if she'd
known and if she'd decided against searching mother out. For fear of
being betrayed like her family had been betrayed by their vassals.
Yasha's body relaxed as it began to levitate.
With another exertion of Will, the ground began to open up, seven feet
by two feet, six feet deep. He levitated the body into the ground with
care and for a moment he only looked at the man's face.
In the end, cruelty had begotten cruelty, a cycle of death and evil that
had left unbroken since Grindelwald.
He found it fitting to make his death quick on the very planet that
inspired tales and mythology of the God of War. A symbolic meaning to
an end of meaningless death and mindless cruelty. An end of war
amongst their own kind.
And also, perhaps there was a measure of guilt in his choice of leniency.
Guilt of allowing Yasha to exact his suffering onto the world as long as he
did. Guilt of the tens of thousands of other magicals he'd allowed to die
or be tormented to suit his final plans to end such occurrences, once and
for all.
Yasha's purpose was to be a pawn for Grindelwald and in the end Atticus
had turned him into a Queen for his own plans.
An object flew out of his pocket and into Yasha's grave.
Atticus waved his hand and red sand began to pile onto Yasha's body and
soon the ground was level again. The top layer of sand began to pile up
before it turned into red stone and with a flick of his finger, words in
Latin began to form.
'In Death, We Are Never Alone. Prince Yasha of the Most Ancient and Most
Noble House of Romanov. Loving Brother. Loving Son.' The words spelled
out.
A slow humming vibration was emitted from within the grave, a
vibration a consequence of the field of energy that would ensure that the
grave would remain unburied.
Atticus looked around. This was not an interesting place on Mars. It
lacked the features that he knew would interest the likes of NASA or ESA.
But, in a couple of centuries, perhaps they would come across the grave.
A faint smile cut across his face as a portal opened. He wondered how
much it would freak out the mundane scientists and officials out.
It'll be a fun conversation point many, many years from now.
35. Chapter 95
I have finally reached the end of Odyssey of a Mage (Chapter 99 ).
The wait between chapters will be a lot more structured now - every
two weeks, I will post another chapter.
Without further adieu, please enjoy the post!
Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next chapter is available
on discord whilst at least the next three chapters after it are
available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
The NEW discord channel LINK is d^i^s^c^o^r^d^.^g^g^/6^x^8^m^K^V^w^X^
6th of January, 1973 – The Evans', Avalon Heights
Lily J. Evans POV
FIRST MILANESE TRIALS SET TO BE COMMENCE ON SPRING
EQUINOX
By: Henrik Valdoon
The Commune Tribunal, the body of international judges selected for sitting in
judgment of the Ravenites, has announced that the first trials shall commence
on the 20th of March 1973, the Spring Equinox.
As readers may recollect, this will initiate the trials of almost sixteen thousand
Ravenites and collaborators, an unprecedented and staggering numbers of
trials.
Though it should be said it is likely that a large percentage of trials are going
to be unconventional. Out of the sixteen thousand indicted men and women, a
significant proportion are likely to be considered 'mentally unsound' as a
consequence of heinous mind tampering over years that some experts have
said is 'irreversible'.
A fate, as readers will be relieved to recollect, last-of-their-line orphans from
Central and Eastern Europe have been fortunately been spared from.
However, it should still be noted that thousands of Ravenites and collaborators
have been confirmed to have participated in the murders and horrific crimes
throughout the past twenty years and this reporter can easily understand why
the Illosian and Avalonian governments have reached out to the worldwide
magical community to assist in these upcoming proceedings.
Not only to help with the large number of trials that must be conducted but
also because of symbolism. The Daily Prophet understands that with the
grave crimes committed by the untampered Ravenites and collaborators
against the magical world, Their Majesties the King and Queen advocated in
opening up the proceedings for the attentions of the entire magical world.
'His and Her Majesties are deeply concerned that in the space of fifty years,
there has been two vicious world wizarding wars. The Milanese Trials is as
much to sit in judgement of the perpetrators of the Raven War as it is to open
the eyes of the wizarding world so that another war doesn't happen again.' A
government official who asked to remain unnamed had said.
The Daily Prophet wholeheartedly agrees with the sentiment of Their
Majesties.
A permanent solution must be found.
With estimates ranging from sixty thousand to as high as one hundred and
fifty thousand magical casualties (squibborn, squib and Magical Being deaths
is estimated to be a quarter to a half of total casualties), the Ravenites have
been directly responsible for the greatest loss of magical life in over eight
thousand years of recorded magical history.
Only the Olympian-Persian magical wars in the fourth century B.C. have had
a greater loss of life as a percentage of world wizarding population and that of
other magical races.
Combined with the estimated death toll of fifty thousand wizards and witches
in the Grindelwald war, wizarding casualties can go as high as ten percent of
global wizarding population and for other magical races such as the Sirens,
Goblins and even Giants, it is estimated that anywhere between twenty to
eighty percent of their populations have died in the decade before the Raven
War during the Blood Purity Purges.
This should be very frightening, my dear readers, and it should be clear that a
permanent solution to the constant rise of Dark Lords and dangerous dogma –
like blood purity which has ironically decimated and extinguished many
bloodlines – and The Daily Prophet hopes the trials can lead to those
solutions.
Read more on Page Three on the accusations that are expected to be levied…
She tried to go to page three but found herself unable to, much to her
frustration. 'Parental lock engaged. To remove lock, provide passphrase or
provide a sample of your magic to confirm age of majority'. She sighed at the
notification and morosely returned to the front page of Daily Prophet
program-feed and set aside the still-on holo-tablet onto the bed.
Her parents had been concerned about the news that had been filtering
through the news and didn't want her or Tuney to read things that they
shouldn't be reading…according to them.
She didn't really get it, why they were so concerned, when she could
literally call her friends and ask them to send a picture of the newspaper,
and she planned on doing so later anyway.
She turned her head towards her sister and saw that she was still
watching that silly holo-vid of how to increase potency of beauty potions
and balms.
Ever since Tuney discovered that new program on the magi inter-network
where people could upload vids of all sorts of things, all she did in her
spare time was look up potions and beauty things and when they
overlapped…
Not even an earthquake could move her away from her holo-tab.
She looked away from her obsessive sister and turned her head towards
the ceiling and she let off a sigh. She'd wanted to visit Marlie during the
Yuletide break but she'd gone to Milan with her father and her brothers
and she didn't really want to see her other friends at the moment except
for maybe Mary but Mary was probably playing Three-Peller at this time
of day and she didn't care to watch the sport.
She could always study and practice more magic but she'd already done
that earlier in the morning and she hadn't had any new ideas she wanted
to work on and she wasn't really all that able to think of anything new,
she'd found out.
She was far too distracted with that.
And she had also caught up with her shows so unless she wanted to re-
watch old episodes – she didn't – or unless she wanted to try new ones –
she wasn't in the mood – there was nothing for her on the M-TV. And
she'd looked through the winter and the new spring catalogues for new
dresses or shoes and she didn't particularly want to feel bemoaned at
being unable to get the pretty but pricey ones.
She blew air out of her lips at an angle, the strand of her bright red hair
that been on the right side of her face cast away. She was bored…so, so
bored.
So much so, that she didn't even mind talking to Tuney about her stupid
boyfriend.
"Tuney…"
Her sister turned her face towards Lily, irritation clearly showing on her
face.
"What?" Lily winced at the irritated tone of voice.
"Just wondered if your friend is going to be there in Milan like Marlie
will be." Lily said with a glance to the holo-tab which Petunia caught.
Tuney turned her eyes towards the holo-tab and returned her gaze back
to Lily, a faint prideful look on her face although there was a smidge of
annoyance there too.
"Boyfriend." Petunia said irritated before her irritation fell away and a
dreamy look appeared on her face. "And soon to be my intended as well."
Lily snorted and was subjected to another irritated glare. Dad won't sign
any betrothal contract any time soon, she thought to herself wryly. Tuney
was only fifteen and Tuney knew it too but for some reason she was
being crazy about it.
Besides, this Quincy Wakefield did not seem all that great anyway. She
hadn't met him but Tuney had described him enough to her. Uppity and
vain, was what Lily thought of at the end of Tuney's gushing over the
boy.
The Wakefields were a young noble family, having given their status as
nobility about a hundred years ago through an ancestor who'd earned a
posthumous Merlin First Class for saving the life of the then-Minister
from an assassination attempt, so she didn't understand why this Quincy
thought he could be uppity.
'Plus it's not as if he is anything special since he attends Tuney's school' Lily
winced internally at the meanness of the invading thought.
"Anyway" Petunia said with a drawl, still glaring somewhat at Lily. "He's
not going but his grandad is. Although he said he had the opportunity to
go and he didn't want to."
"Really?" Lily asked her sister, managing to avoid the scepticism she felt
at the idea of this boy rejecting going to the Trials from her voice.
"Yes" Tuney said with a gushing look on her face "He said that he didn't
want to be away from me for months and decided not to go."
Lily began to laugh-snort, loudly and earned herself a scathing glare.
When she finally stopped, she looked at Tuney, with a hint of concern on
her face "Tuney, he's lying to you. They were never going to let a boy
attend the trials"
Even Marlie wasn't going to the trials, only her father was and she'd be
back in time in time for the new Hogwarts term. No fifteen or sixteen
year old would be missing school to attend trials.
'Let alone a boy like Quincy' Lily thought to herself.
"He's not lying." Tuney said with narrowing eyes "He's being…nice." Tuney
said as she padded down her dress. "Maybe not the best way to about it
but it's nice to be complimented, you know."
Lily looked stupefied by it before she realised "Oh" so Tuney knew it was
a lie but she wanted to think the best of him? "Tuney, he shouldn't lie to
you if he's your boyfriend." Lily said earnestly.
She didn't like the look of pity in Tuney's eyes. "Oh Lily." Tuney began
with a pitying voice. She already knew she wouldn't like what Tuney
would say even less.
"When you get a boyfriend, many years from now, you'll understand."
Tuney said sweetly. Lily narrowed her eyes. Tuney knew that Lily didn't
like being talked down like that, ever.
"Understand what?" Lily asked affronted "That lying arses are terrible
boyfriends?"
Tuney's sweet and condescending look evaporated away and anger
flashed as she spoke "What do you know about relationships? You're still
a baby" Tuney said angrily before she shook her head "Enough. Leave."
Tuney demanded.
She didn't want to leave yet "Tuney…I'm sorry, I didn't mean it" Lily
whined a little pathetically as she turned her head to her sister with an
imploring expression.
"I'll make it up to you…we can play wizarding chess? Or wizarding
Monopoly?" she asked with a tremulous but hopeful smile. Tuney liked
playing both.
And it should maybe kill a few hours of boredom.
Her sister stared at her unimpressed before sharpness grew in her eyes.
"You're just saying that because you're bored." Lily winced and Tuney
looked triumphant. "You always do this when you are out of ideas."
Lily only helplessly shrugged.
Tuney glanced at her holo-vid that was still paused before she turned her
attentions back at Lily before she pressed her lips thinly. "You need a
hobby" Tuney said with a deadpan before she narrowed her eyes.
"And you need to leave my room. You're bothering me" Tuney said
sternly.
"Ugh. What hobby is there for me to take?" Lily said exasperated and
fully intent on ignoring Tuney's stern command for her to leave.
"Everything is either sports or duelling and I don't like either of them."
Honestly, the wizarding world wanted brawl or speed or to fling about
magic for hobbies.
"Just because that is what everyone at Hogwarts likes or pretends to like,
doesn't mean that is all there is, Lily." Tuney said with a roll of her eyes.
"You could try out dancing?" Tuney suggested and Lily could hear the
teasing in her voice and she gave Tuney a glare at which Tuney snorted.
They both knew she was as graceful as a stick.
Tuney sighed before she peered at Lily. "You don't have to have a normal
hobby like everyone else. You could sign up at the Morgana Observatory
or you could, I don't know, be a boat enthusiast." Tuney said exasperated.
"Boat enthusiast?" Lily asked flabbergasted.
"I don't know, okay?!" Tuney said snappishly "Some skinny little irritating
twerp in my class always talks about boats and the like so if it's good
enough for him, it might be good enough for you, you skinny little
twerp!"
"You missed irritating in your name calling." Lily returned waspishly.
"It wasn't missed, it was implied!" Tuney returned with equal waspishly
to Lily.
Sister glared at sister with heat and anger frizzing in between them until
Lily backed down and curled her lips downward. Tuney also backed
down though not without a sigh as she sat up and stared at Lily "What is
wrong, anyway? Usually you always find something to do." Tuney
commented.
Lily also sat up. "I don't know…" Lily said with a sigh and a shrug. "I'm a
bit distracted I guess."
"Boys?" Tuney asked and the eager inquisitiveness in her voice made Lily
look up.
"What? No." Lily denied and it was true as well.
She had little interest in boys, not like her friends who seemed to fawn
over the likes of the Greengrass, Black and the Diggory heirs.
Tuney seemed to inspect her face and must have found the truth because
she harrumphed disappointed before turning to stare at her. "Then what
is it?" she asked impatiently. "Either tell me or leave." Tuney said
threateningly.
"I'm stuck okay." Lily said frustrated with her hands thrown up.
Tuney eyed her carefully and Lily looked away from her look. "Everyone
knows what they want to do." Lily admitted to her sister. "Marlie is
probably going to follow her passion in magical architecture whilst Mary
wants to be a teacher and Alice wants to become a botanist. I don't know
what I want to do." she admitted.
Most of the other students knew what they were going to do. Even the
other squibborn like her had a better idea of what they wanted to do
than she did.
"This is about your electives?" Tuney asked.
"And everything after that." Lily admitted. There was so much for her to
choose and she wanted to do everything. Runes, Arithmancy, Ancient
Studies, Alchemy, Wandless Magic, Magical Theory and so many more
electives! She could only choose four electives with her core studies and
she had yet to select them.
"Lily…" Tuney sighed as she turned fully towards her.
"You're, as much as I hate saying it, quite brilliant. You're also very
powerfully magically. You can do whatever you want to do, especially
later. You're not even thirteen yet. It's fine for you not to know yet what
you want to do."
"Easy for you to say." Lily muttered. Petunia was great at potions, better
than she was at any rate and Lily was the best in her year. It was obvious
she was going to do something with potions.
"Brat." Tuney said with a roll of her eyes. "Seriously you are hard work. I
feel sorry for whatever boy is stuck with you." Tuney said with a teasing
note.
Lily flashed brightly red, affronted and embarrassed. "I'm not hard work!"
Tuney only raised an eyebrow at her with a deadpan expression. "You
receive a compliment and you make it almost worthless."
Lily looked away from her accusing eyes and Tuney sighed and she could
hear that her sister was at her wits' end. "Look." Tuney began, drawing
her attentions.
"Write down what you enjoy doing and look into what options are
available." Tuney eyed intently "And in all honesty, I've always thought
that you're end up at the Department of Mysteries or at SIMS as a
researcher. You do have a knack with magic" Tuney admitted with a
grudging note in her voice.
Lily was surprised "Really, you thought I'd end up as an Unspeakable?"
she asked. She'd thought about the Department of Mysteries and
especially SIMS to obtain a mastery in Charms and maybe more, but that
was all really.
"Yes." Tuney said impatiently "I think there's like a summer program at
SIMS tailored towards students to 'broaden one's thoughts about magic' or
something like that which sounds like a baby Unspeakable would want to
go to. You can look it up." Tuney narrowed her eyes.
"And now that you have something to obsess about, go…away. I'm tiring
of this conversation. Scoot away from my room before I banish you out of
it." Tuney said threateningly as she reached for her wand.
Lily quickly made her way out of the room with her holo-tab and made
her way down the stairs, and looked up the DoM. She knew only a little
about it, that it was a department of the Ministry and once part of a
global organisation which researched and protected the world of all kinds
of magic.
'Summer program SIMS' she looked up on the inter-network and found a
link on the SIMS website and she began reading it. And the more she
read it, the more she was liking it.
There was nothing specific about what would be thought but the people
who would be guest lecturing was amazing! She recognised a few of the
names who those who would be lecturing but the ones that caught her
eyes were the Flamels who were still the headmaster and headmistress of
the Institute, yet that was not all.
The King and the Queen would be lecturing too!
She realised she was standing on the stairs and quickly made her way to
the bottom.
"Dad" Lily said eagerly as she walked into the living where he was going
through some documents as the Holo was on. She glanced at the Holo
and saw that he was watching a football match. She squinted and saw
that it was West Ham v. Liverpool.
She sighed internally. He'd always watch a game or two of footy,
especially when his team West Ham were playing. When dad found out
that a bunch of people figured out how to connect the Holo channels to
pick up on mundane broadcasts, he'd jumped on getting the Holo-Screen
modified.
Her mother was pretty happy with it too, finally being able to watch
Coronation Street again.
She shook her head and turned towards her father who looked up from
his documents with a frown on his face. "Yes, Lili-bet?"
She smiled beautifully at her father and it was a look that made her
somewhat wary. She shoved the holo-tab in front of him and he eyed it
carefully. "I want to sign up!"
Little did she know it would be a choice that would change her life.
-Break-
29th of January, 1973 – Sayre Manor, Illos
Emily POV
A raspy hum escaped her throat as she became awake though the webs of
sleep still clung onto her mind, webs that were being burnt off as she felt
him pull her closer to him and the webs of sleep were flash burned into
ash when he kissed her cheek and felt his endless love seep through their
bond.
She opened her eyes, his scratchy chin scratching her cheek, and she
turned around and caught his gentle look as he almost hovered over her,
violet eyes bright with star-like emerald flecks. "Morning" she murmured,
the corners of her mouth sharpening as her lips stretched into a pleased
smile.
The gentle look made way for naked fondness "Morning" he returned as
he leaned in and snatched a loving kiss from her, a kiss that fed warmth
into her being.
She felt him smile against her lips, their lips still touching as Atticus
spoke once more "I haven't seen you that restful in some time"
"The two months lack of sleep caught up on me" she admitted to him as
she backed away a little and met his gaze, the silk sheets sliding away
from her naked form as she reached out and touched his prickling cheek.
Clearing up the Ravenite mess was admittedly and irritatingly harder
work than actually disbanding the nihilistic terrorist group. Russia,
Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Norway, all of these nations were effectively
without a rudder with every level of government implicated in the
Ravenite cause.
And the other nations were only slightly better off which wasn't much in
the grand scheme of things. The rebels that managed to survive were
worn and beaten and far too bitter to be considered as leadership for the
restored Ministries.
Fortunately, a proportion of the refugees that escaped those nations had
worked for the overthrown ministries in one function or another and
these people were proving to be very open to lead the restored ministries.
Much to her pleasure.
By the end of the war, there had been approximately eleven thousand
refugees in Avalon with another three thousand having been granted
citizenry in Illos and as some of these families, or specifically the elder
generations returned to their homelands, the influence Illos would have
on them would be supreme.
Of course, cashing in on that goodwill and debt would come years down
the line and it offered poor satisfaction in the immediate term given how
much she, Atticus and much of the Illosian leadership had to be involved
in rebuilding governmental frameworks for well over a dozen countries.
And then there was the Miring-Gene-Array project, her experimentations
with the Veil of Death with Sidwell and Rockwood, hers and Atticus'
experimentations with Retro-Cognition into the Deep Past and there was
the Exposure to guide…
Let's just say that last night was the first time in months since either of
them had slept and neither of them could sleep well without the presence
of the other so they often didn't bother until their bodies needed it.
Atticus hummed in affirmation as he leaned into her touch. He had been
busy outside of their shared work too with how he was the main face
behind the Milanese Trials even if they were not the ones who would be
sitting in judgment of the collaborators.
Meetings after meetings with Presidents, Ministers and Chiefs, his time
was hardly spent here in Illos, spending most of it in Italy whilst she
spent it across Europe with Abraxas and other high ranking officials.
Knowing how crucial and how set they now were with politically
dominating every single body of magical government, it would only be
the start of how busy both of them would be when it came to politics.
"You need to shave" she remarked as she trailed her thumb across his
scratchy cheek.
"You weren't complaining last night." Atticus said with a faint amused
smile as he rubbed his other cheek with the back of his hand.
"It was of lesser importance last night." Emily said with a raised eyebrow
before she channelled her magic through her hand. The evening shade of
hair faded away from his cheeks leaving behind smooth skin and he was
looking much better, much to her satisfaction.
Atticus lips curled further upward as he shook his head and leaned away
from her.
"I was planning on letting it grow." Emily raised her eyebrow at that as
she turned towards the side of the bed, the silk sheets falling away from
her body and as she stood on her feet, her magic with a fraction of her
attentions the silk sheets and the pillows were made and the bed pristine
once more.
"If you wanted a beard you would have let it sprout in an instant. You
were just being lazy." Emily returned with a raised eyebrow as she looked
to him in her full naked glory. He'd already gotten somewhat dressed…if
one could call underwear clothing.
Atticus chuckled "I was letting nature take its course." He said with a
mild smile, his eyes trailing across her body.
"Overrated." Emily said with amusement before she felt Time with a pulse
of her magic. "I have overslept" she said aloud, neither to herself or to
Atticus specifically. She didn't need to conjure a clock to feel the flow of
Time any more, not after her experiments with the phenomena and
Living Time.
It was almost ten a.m. and it has been years, possibly decades since she'd
slept in that long.
"It's fine, I've already told Doyle of the pushback of the meeting." Atticus
said and grasped her attentions once more.
She smiled at him faintly before she turned her attentions towards the
closet and a towel fly towards her that halted right in front of her. Whilst
she didn't need to dry herself using a towel, she liked the feel of these
enchanted towels.
She turned her gaze towards him and saw his royal Rosi clothing clothe
him. He had a soft expression on his face, a softness to match his tone.
"Go ahead without me. I'd like to play Cana's harp for a bit."
She had a quip on the tip of her tongue, that she was getting rejected for
a harp but she knew that look on his face. She met his gaze for a long few
moments before she turned away and walked off towards the bathroom.
Some time afterwards, after showering and getting dressed, she walked
down the steps of their manor to the sounds of music, music that felt
physical and music that rang with magic.
He'd gotten better with the harp over the years. Pandora loved his
playing and as a child often pressed him to play for her, and the softie
that he was, he'd always accede to the girl's wishes.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, the heaviness of the magic the
notes carried was noticeable, tangible, like the feeling of the mid-summer
breeze on one's skin.
The music itself was one of his creation, one that he'd worked on for
years though she'd never heard him play it, only having read it in his
music notes. It has changed though, she noted to herself. It was more
forceful, more demanding, more intense.
He'd always had a penchant of playing much that drew on emotions,
whether they be hopeful, or melancholic or furious, and this piece of his
was no different.
She found him seated in their living, notes and tomes laid strewn across
the large table, with the harp in between his legs and his fingers dancing
across the strings of the harp and frequencies of magic vibrated along
with the vibrations of the strings.
Hues of magic, hues of every colour in the spectrum of magic, vibrated
around and from Atticus, the image akin to the heat radiating from
reflective metal with sunlight directed cast upon the metal at the height
of summer noon sun.
His eyes were closed, his face set in stone and his expression was one of
utmost immersion into the music…into the magic, like he was not the
one creating it but rather the one through music and magic was
channelled through.
As she sat across from him, she let go of the control over her magic,
opening herself up to the magic, and she drew in a little breath as the
momentousness of the music sank into her.
And momentous the music, the magic was…
It was akin to being adrift in the great Void at the centre of the galaxy,
billions of stars radiating their light brilliantly all around you all whilst
you were slowly being pulled into the hungry maw of the supermassive
black hole that lay all too close and all too far from you.
As if to tell you of your insignificance yet at the same time tell you that
you are of the greatest of significance, this was what the music was
imbuing into her, to wonder and to acknowledge the gift of existence and
her ability to perceive the universe in all of its glory.
The music was drawing her into a state of nirvana, into a state of
understanding, pushing her and pulling her at the seams in the hopes that
it would tear her at the centre so that the brilliance of existence would
fill her with all of its glory.
The music began its transition, its path to completion, and it was akin to
seeing, feeling, the stars around them die until all that was left was
blackness, darkness, nothing, yet…
As the music began its spiral to the end, there was a note, a note that
reverberated from the finest of touches of his fingers, and at the centre
where the black hole had been…there was now a spark, no two sparks,
the faintest, almost infinitesimally small lights, left behind as the music
came to an end, a hope, a prayer, a belief, all wrapped into one single
end note and despite it all, she was left with a kind of peace that seemed
to etch itself into her being.
He reopened his eyes and it was as if the room was set alight with how
bright his violet and emerald eyes were, and she realised that the sparks
resembled his eyes.
"It's beautiful" she remarked to him and he smiled softly at her.
"I'm glad that it is" Atticus said as the harp flew away towards its place
above the large fireplace. "I hoped that it was." Atticus turned her, a
small amused smile on his face "And not at all egotistical" he said as his
eyes dimmed and lost their glow, instead turning supernaturally bright as
normal.
"About being the one symbolically to restart universe from the darkness?"
Emily commented with a laughing lilt to her voice. "Personally, I think
such arrogance is quite sexy." Emily said with a curl of his lips as she
crossed her long legs.
At this, Atticus laughed as he moved his index finger laterally, the notes
and tomes they'd spent a few hours yesterday on sorting themselves
before being sent into a puncture in space, towards their dimensional
library.
Emily snapped her fingers and the spacious room began to constrict, the
walls moving inwards whilst the long table at the centre of the room
grew in height. The sofa chair she was on grew in height also, and shape,
as it was twisted into the shape of a dining chair and the table turned
into a dining table.
Atticus began to walk towards the dining table, the sofa he'd been on
melted away apart and spat out a dining chair that walked onto its legs
behind Atticus.
"I wouldn't quite say arrogance but rather a hopeful determination."
Atticus said with a twist of his lips as he moved to sit on air though the
dining chair caught him perfectly.
Food began to appear on the table, croissants, eggs, bacon and more, and
she picked up the glass of water and sipped it.
She knew why he'd been inspired to finish the music in the way that he
did. The Milanese trials were the beginning of the end, the final song
before the album ended, so to speak.
The inertia was there, of course, in terms of moving towards Exodus, but
it needed them to grasp everything with a velvet glove that covered a
steel hand.
The music was a reminder, mostly to himself she thought to herself, of
how much depended on them getting it right.
They hadn't talked much about the Older version of Atticus, the man who
let hubris seep into his bones but she knew that it haunted him. It was
reflective in his actions…and his demeanour.
There used to be a kind of a grim acceptance about him, the kind that
made him believe, even if he never admitted it out loud, that he was as
much a Dark Lord as Grindelwald had been, especially as the death tolls
began to spiral out of control.
At times she'd wondered if he'd spent looking into distant possibilities, of
distant timelines, those where he'd choose an alternate path, an alternate
way to irrevocably shift magical culture and societal issues, as a way to
soothe this grim melancholic burn he felt on his spirit, a burn she knew
had seared him with every death the Purists and the Ravenites had
wrought upon Europe and Asia.
Yet now…there was none of that, at least not in the way it used to be.
Atticus had always been a stubborn one, so sure of his ways, much like
she was yet infinitely more self-conscious of his himself, of his actions.
To see the end of their civilisation, something they'd spent half a century
in building, and would spent the next however long nurturing and
growing, had shaken that surety and made him to accept that the work
never ends, will never end, not as long as they live and that the work
could never be dark when it came to the forces they were fighting
against, whether it may be to self-destruction or destruction by their
enemies.
And that meant that the ridiculous concept of Dark Lords and so on died
lest he replicate the same hubris and defeatism that plagued his alternate
self.
She wondered though…so very often…
What had resulted in her being so complicit in the hubris that had
befallen their civilisation? She wasn't sure and that was something she
had little experience of, especially over the past few decades.
They dug into their breakfast in companionable silence before Atticus
broke it.
"Emily…" She turned her attentions towards him. 'I have made a
breakthrough with Retro-Cognition' he sent to the forefront of her mind and
it surprised her.
Retro-cognition was the ability to learn of knowledge of a past event
which could not have been learned or inferred by using mundane or
normal magical means.
In a way, it replicated how the Domain worked, yet where the Domain
was a realm of magic and consciousness that held within itself Essences
of those who had died and recorded all that had existed since the Dawn
of Time, Retro-Cognition instead relied on honing in on the connections
that existed between life and magic.
Magic had a memory, of a certain kind. Runes were an excellent example
of the capabilities and capacity of magic to store memories and
understanding.
Runes and the way they worked were because a metaphysical
manifestation born out of collective understanding of what the runes
meant, a collective understanding by magicals, and it was etched into the
magical field that permeated the universe like how symbols and letters
were etched into the sandstones of the Ruins of the ancient city of Petra.
And it was this memory, this etching, that could be exploited.
Magic and life were inextricably linked together, just as consciousness of
all living sentient beings were linked together in the sea of consciousness,
and the linkage left traces in the great magical field that bound the
universe together.
And it meant that all that was experienced, all that was lived, all that
ever was, would never be forgotten, not completely, within the universal
magical field.
They'd hit a block about how far they could extend the abilities, which
was not far at all. They could only obtain knowledge of the past from the
distance of seven days from Time-Present.
They'd gained some insight of how much could be gleaned from this
ability, which wasn't much, but it was enough to hone in on locations of
interest.
Yet, frustratingly, the most they could do was seven days. It was as if
there was a hard limit they needed to get past.
Which was effectively pointless for their needs since they wanted to go
extract knowledge millions of years of the past so that they could find and
destroy the Xalanyn, the Forerunners, and, the Shaping Sickness, should
it still exist in some form or another.
He smiled at her reaction before he drank of his glass of ice-tea. He
continued 'A surprising lead as to how it came to be' Atticus said to her
before he flashed events of a Timeline that could have been into her
mind. Events and memories in which she was heavily featured in…as was
a young woman with striking red hair.
She watched as she saw her alternate-self eye the woman with inspecting
eyes, tell-tale signs that she was impressed by the woman, and she
watched and learned as her alternate-self, Atticus and this woman
furthered the ability to see far into the past, until they'd reached the
point of seeing thousands of years into the past which they'd used to peer
into the days of Atlantis through a viewing pane that hung into the air,
and she watched as they celebrated the success.
The images came to an end and she took a few moments to absorb it.
With his ability to traverse Living Time, any solutions they needed could
be, and was, accelerated into the present once the solution was Seen in
the future.
An ability they largely used to deal with problematic elements of world
society though now, with the threat of these Xalanyn and the Covenant,
seeking out advancements in both magi-tech and magic and bringing it to
the present to maximise their advantage was something he was doing
more and more these days.
It lessened the satisfaction of achievement and it also robbed other
people's work but in the end, the ends justified the means, especially
since they were not completely heartless by not arranging the individual
to achieve in something else.
Her musings came to an end and she turned her calculating gaze to him
as her mind circled back to the red-haired woman. She'd not thought
about it for a long time, this apprentice of hers, and hadn't cared enough
to think further on it after Atticus wanted to keep it a 'surprise'. Now that
she'd seen the look of her alternate-self, it was clear that she liked this
woman. There were very few people she actively liked.
'She is my apprentice, isn't she? Your cousin.' She hadn't been exactly able to
feel the Evans girl's strength in magic but from what she'd seen in her
intuitiveness of magic, she wouldn't be surprised if she was a latent
archmage.
Atticus smiled slightly and inclined his head slightly.
'She is. In that timeline you discover her rather late when she is working as an
Unspeakable under the tutelage of Rockwood.'
'That is too late.' Emily told him absentmindedly as she thought on the
situation. If she is a latent archmage, the earlier she receives intensive
magical training, the better. Especially since she is from Avalon which,
while is improving, doesn't stress the magical cores of children to the
same extent as Illos' educational system does.
It wasn't as simple as either you're an archmage or you're not.
It was nuanced, as was most things in life or magic.
And they were still finding out more about the nature of power as time
went on.
Outside of Illos, though it was changing slowly, typically most wizarding
population had twenty percent of its population as warlocks in power
scaling and about two percent as Sorcerer level, and each of these scaling
had their own nuances which could be colloquially considered as Low,
Mid and High level which could be improved either through early years
training or through ritual amplification.
This was equally true for archmages yet to become an archmage, you
would need to rise to the potential that existed within you. Grindelwald,
Dumbledore and herself and Atticus had pushed themselves to achieve
the status before their final maturity which had allowed them to reach
the upper pinnacles of their potential.
Credence, Romanov and even Cullaica, all had the potential to become
more powerful than they ended up being, their trauma and their barriers
having had a detrimental effect on their development with only Romanov
having come close to achieving that pinnacle despite it all.
Dembe Habe and Gaius Hardy were, not lazy, but certainly not obsessed
to reaching the highest pinnacle they can achieve. Neither of them
achieved archmage status until after their final maturity and thusly it
meant that their growth would be limited.
It was the same limitation that they'd encountered with the other two
ancient archmages in their hidden towers who'd they'd unfortunately
needed to deal with.
And it was a limit that neither she or Atticus had.
And Grindelwald, to this day, was likely still the closest to either her or
Atticus but his limitations on the idea of power and misplaced focus on
power over understanding, had hindered him.
And Dumbledore…
Well, the man's self-flagellation had been his limitation…and downfall.
And hers' and Atticus' obsessions with magic had brought them to where
they were now, which was far beyond the categorisation of archmages
and had quite likely become the most powerful wizard and witch to have
ever lived.
Not even the Atlanteans could be considered a challenge when it came to
raw power.
And Merlin or Morgana, who she thought possibly reached a similar
point as she and Atticus had done decades ago, likely would be no
challenge to them either now.
And so, should Lily Evans go through all of her maturities, the likelihood
of her ever attaining archmage status was unlikely to say the least.
'Well, you will have a chance to meet her this summer.' Atticus told her,
gaining her attentions once more. She looked at him a little confused and
he expanded 'She'll be at the 'Young Mastermind Program'' he told her.
Ah…
She'd forgotten about that. Honestly, with how many events and the like
they attended, it barely even registered to her. She mulled it over before
she eyed him.
'You still haven't met her yet, have you?'
Atticus grimaced lightly 'I have not. It will be the first time I'll meet her. I'll
meet my aunt not long after' he told her. She hummed silently.
'I will assess her' she finally said after a few moments of consideration.
'Should she prove to be worthy, I will take her on'. Atticus faintly smiled,
knowing already about her assessment of the girl. She pointedly didn't
ask.
He grew serious again. 'Now that we know how to push further into the past,
we should start soon' he told her. She nodded agreeably.
Though they'd need to spent considerable time in attuning themselves to
the ability, to the magic that surrounded them…and they'd need to figure
out a way to push further than the thousands of years that they'd seen
was possible.
'And if the Barrier exists?' she posed to him with knowing eyes.
The Barrier was the barrier when the abominable weapons the
Forerunners was fired quarter of a million years ago. She remembered
the Presence that had haunted Atticus decades ago, the Presence that
made Atticus experience the effect the weapons had on the fabric of the
magical field within the galaxy.
Magic had screamed, torn apart as it was by the weapon, a weapon that
had killed all sentient life. It was quite likely that memory of the billions
of years prior to that point within the galaxy was destroyed.
Which was completely unhelpful.
The Xalanyn were likely as old as Ancient Humanity which itself had
ventured into space almost two million years ago according to the
Archives and Moira.
'We'll deal with it should we encounter it' Atticus responded to her. 'Should it
be necessary, we can always venture outside of the galaxy to peer into the
past'.
That was another consideration, that magic outside of the galaxy would
retain some traces of memory that had once existed within the galaxy
itself.
"Very well" Emily spoke aloud, ending the secret conversation they were
having between themselves. It was becoming standard practice to have
the more sensitive conversations from mind to mind.
The chances of eavesdroppers were far too high to do otherwise.
Conversation after that had turned away from retro-cognition and
apprentices and instead to more mundane things, like revisiting the topic
of renovating their home since Sayre Manor hadn't quite changed in
almost five hundred years.
Neither of them wanted to move into a palace, like the High Council and
some of the Representatives had hinted, and they cherished the manor far
too much to think of moving away into a more 'befitting' home.
For Atticus, it was what connected him to his ancestors and, in his own
words, kept him grounded. And for her…well, it was her first home after
Hogwarts.
She'd been welcomed here by Anna and Markus, an orphan supposed
muggleborn, someone who was far below their notice yet… they worked
to make her feel at home like she'd always yearned even if she'd never
admitted to herself until much later.
No, Emily mused to herself with a sense of contentedness, neither of
them would leave this manor for it possessed wealth that neither of them
would find elsewhere.
Soon enough they departed and they got into their skymobile and before
long, they were flying from their home, the view of the burgeoning city
growing ever nearer.
The skyline of the city had not changed overly in the past few years but
she'd seen, in all of its varieties, how it would change in the coming
peaceful decade and how it would change once more when Avalon
unified with Illos.
She'd been finally content with the changes that were to happen in this
timeline, a more open, a more subtle direction of civilizational
development than the pseudo mundane replication that she'd seen far too
often in formerly possible futures.
It would be quite neo-classical in many ways, the aesthetics of tall bright
silver-grey stone building mixed with classical architecture as the
ridiculous present phase of architecture came to an end, yet it would
inspire a sense of awe that Celestis City deserved.
Her gaze trailed over to the landmark that was unmissable wherever you
were in this side of Celestis as the Temple of Celestis, the huge temple
that stood on the outskirts of the city and bore a hundred foot statue of
Lady Magic, came into view.
And, as she looked down at the pathway that lead to the entrance of the
Temple, she could see hundreds of individuals on the pathway.
She smiled to herself.
Within the next decade and a half as they bound the rest of the magical
world tightly to Illos and to Exodus, she intended to heavily propagate
the magic-centric faith and within that propagation would come the
dispersion of their Truth.
Truth of their ancient past as an advanced species that span across the
stars.
She intended to use faith and truth to drive forward a sense of faith in
their race and in magic in general.
With the horrors that would be revealed from the Milanese Trials, and
with the broken spirits of perhaps hundreds of thousands of magicals,
she'd capitalised on it to foster the belief of Destiny much like the belief
of Destiny that her Illosian people held.
A destiny of returned greatness.
Morrigan – much to Emily's amusement and Moira's grudging acceptance
– would be revealed to be the last of the ancient magical race as the
Progenitors of Humankind, a race of beings who lost their war against
the Forerunners who'd in their rage of jealously and spite had devolved
most of humanity into a race of lessers and took away the parts of what
made them special.
The mundanes were a consequence of this spite.
The people would be told Morrigan had survived the purge and had
returned magic to their people and she'd press the point that it was their
Destiny to return to the stars and to reclaim the universe as was their
right.
And with the evidence that there were other worlds, more magical worlds
out in the galaxy, the naysayers would be muted as hope would be
manifested in the hearts of the magical world, hope that would be fed
and fuelled with tremendous energy.
Yet, the idea of beings that destroyed their ancestors would remain on
their minds, an idea that she would do what she could to make sure
would remain in the collective psyche of magical-kind.
She knew the human condition…of what it could descend to. Post-
scarcity beyond the wildest dreams of anyone would have that effect.
Combined with peace and hubris, all of it would result in lessening their
people.
The human mind was built in such a way that it searched, pushed, for the
easiest path.
A path that would not be allowed to exist when the truth that there were
monsters in the dark corners of space that could destroy everything.
There would always remain reason, necessity, to improve, to excel, when
you knew not if what you were capable of was enough, would ever be
enough.
Which was why this notion, this truth that there were threats, enemies,
monsters to fight and destroy, would simultaneously disrupt this human
tendency to become lazy and hubristic whilst at the same time, tie the
more chaotic and powerful elements of society, the Errant ones that, with
their errant psychology, would buck the trend, beautifully.
It did not matter if it was not completely truthful.
What was a lie and what was a truth did not matter…only subjective
perception did and in this, the truth as would be told was just enough
truth by most barometers.
And with what she knew, how their civilisation came to an end because
of their hubris, this faith, this belief, of ownership of the universe would
shore up against the magical world's inclination of retreating into their
shell when it got comfortable.
As it was now, her and Atticus were revered. Not only by their people but
also by much of the magical world and they'd capitalise on it in every
single way.
Through politics. Through economics. Even through faith.
"I know that look." Atticus commented and she could hear the trace note
of humour in his voice. She turned towards him, her hand rising to sweep
a lick of hair behind her ear, playfulness playing on her face.
"I was merely thinking of the importance of faith." Emily said with an
innocent tone though the smile that danced on her expression was
anything but innocent.
Atticus dropped his head slightly, the corners of his lips rising as he
looked at her with a touch of deftness in his expression.
She knew that he was accepting of her plans to weaponise faith for their
purposes yet she also knew him well enough that it would not have been
a choice of his to use if it were up to him…just as she knew that he
would dance away from the topic just as he was now.
"Ah…" he let escape as he glanced at the now distant Temple before
returning his gaze towards her, his eyes practically twinkling in mischief.
"Should I soon expect to see you donning a priestess robe?" his gaze was
very attentive on her body. "On your knees, prostrating as you look up
with an eager heart and an eager wish to be filled…I apologise, fulfilled?"
She raised her eyebrow at his comments as she crossed her legs, her
hands folding into her lap, her chin slightly raised. "Careful…your words
are quite blasphemous." Emily said with a warning note as she stuck out
her leg until it was touching his calf at which point she was slowly yet
deliberately caressing his calf with a sensual quality. "You may find
yourself begging for atonement."
The gleam in his eyes came to an end and in its placed was unbridled
interest in this little play of theirs. "Perhaps." Atticus said as his
expression slowly phased into neutrality though the intensity in his eyes
never faded.
And when he spoke, that intensity shone with the strength of an endless
pulse from a pulsar "Though…I expect that neither of us remember the
necessity of atonement or mercy in the heat of ssssssin." Atticus's voice
trailed to a sibilant quality and it sent shivers down her spine and she
could feel herself get in the mood.
She forced the feeling of lust away, knowing how close they were at
arriving at the Charum Tower, the formerly named Main Tower, and
eyed him with annoyance expressed through her face "That was cheap"
she accused and Atticus chuckled.
Whenever he descended in parseltongue, he'd gain an unfair advantage
since he knew that she had a weakness whenever he moved that tongue
of his in their language.
"All's fair in love and war." Atticus said with an amused look.
"Hmm. You do realise we'll be busy all day with the ambassadors" an evil
look passed across her face. "And we both know that you can hardly
resist when I fully open up the bond to my desires…" Emily leaned a
little, malicious glee dancing in her eyes "And I will make sure you can't
act upon it."
Atticus had laughingly little control whenever she'd basically ramped up
her levels of wants and her desires for him to a ridiculous degree. It made
him practically like a wolf during rutting season.
It was part of why sex with one another was so incredible and in those
moments, it mutated their soul bond to a kind of bliss that was
impossible to explain. And it was something she could manipulate
somewhat for a time.
Her expression grew into a full blown grin when she watched his
expression shift into one of genuine horror, a uncharacteristic look on his
face before it melted away in a look of quiet warning as his eyes
narrowed. "You wouldn't."
Emily's grin turned darker as she raised her eyebrow "…wouldn't I?"
The skymobile came to a stop as they arrived at Charum Tower.
Atticus leaned in, his eyes aglow as his look of quiet warning faded away
into a look of neutrality. "I'll make it up to you…Emily Sssssaaayre" he
said with promise in his eyes, his mouth slightly open as he'd spoken, the
visibility of his tongue an unspoken gesture.
She enjoyed the thrill she felt travel up her spine. Last night had been
more of an itch that both of them tiredly had scratched but it's been a
while since they'd simply…explored one another.
She reached out and touched his cheek and smiled softly. "I will hold you
to it" he returned the soft smile before he took her hand and kissed it
with a tender kiss.
As much as they enjoyed their word plays, of threatening to embarrass
one another, it was never actioned. It was simply part of the play, to
make the other submit in their own privacy in a way that neither of them
disliked.
Soon enough they were out of the skymobile and walked towards the
entrance of the Tower, side by side, their faces expertly crafted for the
occasion.
As they always were.
As they always would be.
-Break-
11th of January, 1973 – Paris, France
Jean Delacour POV
Jean stood at the base of the steps of the international Floo terminals, his
gaze looking over the Spanish, the Ottoman, the Persian and the Italian
delegates with neutral eyes as they walked towards him, escorted as they
were by the assigned Aurors.
Galtier had given him the honour to discuss points of interest with these
nations. Bah. He should have rejected yet he knew that when France
called…
The months since the end of the Ravenite war had been hectic.
A good kind of hectic, in all honesty he supposed. It would be odd to say,
given that nearly every ministry west of France was utterly disbanded
and their officials in custody charged with collaboration and crimes
against magical-kind, but nonetheless it was positive.
A thing that he could admit he didn't think he'd see for much longer yet.
He felt like he could breathe again, a feat that he knew many in France
and much of Europe felt like as well, as if the thousand tonne elephant
that was crushing the chest of Europe and its spirits and been utterly
destroyed with the death of the Raven, Cullaica and the capture of his
sycophants.
He'd never admit it aloud but he'd been glad when the Ravenites had
turned their eyes east first. The Raven and his butchers had put the fear
in everyone, he grimly thought to himself. Had they turned west…he
wasn't sure there would have been enough of France left standing for
Illos liberate from the Ravenites.
After all, there was hardly anyone standing in Northern and Eastern
Europe, he thought with a dark cloud hanging on his mind. The travesties
of the Ravenites had been known…at least it was thought it was known
yet as the months passed by and the impact of their reign was brought to
light, it left even the most hard line politicians queasy at what had
befallen former Ravenite controlled countries.
They'd thought they'd known the depths of the depravity of the madmen
and though nothing was as horrific as the Purity Massacres, it was
horrible enough that it could compare.
Massive depopulation, magical towns and villages that had once
flourished were nothing but ghost towns, peoples that were spared the
Purity Massacres were magically shackled and bound to the properties of
their assigned 'lords', before these lords too were massacred, and were
traded amongst themselves like chattel…even the children.
To think that could have happened to France…
"Lord Delacour" the Spanish delegate, Lord Caicedo, greeted as he stuck
out his hand. Jean drew himself out of his dark thoughts and smiled
graciously as he took the hand.
"Lord Caicedo." Jean acknowledged placidly before extending his
greetings to the men beside him. Before long, they got down to it.
It being specifically the upcoming trials of the Ravenites.
The Illosians had reached out to the magical world at large, to come and
take part of the process of judgment of the criminals, though specifically
many of the judges were to be from the New World, Brazil, Argentina,
Mexico and MACUSA along with a sizable number of judges from Asia.
A decision that was proving to be popular with much of the magical
world yet for Galtier and their government, it was a point that was
greatly disliked.
…not that they could do much against it.
No, the Illosians, particularly his old friend and his wife were completely
untouchable to much of the world, including in Europe itself.
The extermination of Vampirism had only aided in this popularity,
especially amongst his countrymen who hated the beasts with a passion
given that this was now the second time the beasts tried to feast upon
France.
Jean inwardly grimaced though there was a trace of humourless
amusement within him. When Galtier wanted the Queen involved with
the situation of the Vampires, he'd irrevocably created a weak point,
ironically enough given that he wanted to exploit the Sayres' penchant to
come across as paragons of virtue.
With the complete annihilation of all known Vampires, to the point that
it could be said that Vampirism was no more, it propelled Queen Emily to
hitherto unforeseen popularity within France itself.
And Jean knew that Galtier was deeply unsettled by that popularity,
especially given the way that Illos was involving, no, leading, the
rebuilding of governmental institutions across former Ravenite territory.
'France would be next' Galtier told him and though Jean was incredibly
sceptical in what he was implying, he knew in his heart that there was
truth in that concern of his.
Which was why they were meeting with other delegates of nations that
weren't utterly destroyed and would want some kind of pact to lessen the
influence of the Grand Alliance on their nations…and peoples.
"They will not budge." Jean told the delegates who'd been arguing
amongst themselves. After he'd gotten their attentions he continued "And
we will have little recourse to persuade them to do otherwise."
The meeting had rapidly devolved in presenting a united front of
persuading Illos to allow the peoples of their countries to restore their
countries, completely forgetting that the ICW had occupied much of
Europe and forced the Ministries to change according to their will…
before they up and made an entire mess of everything that had bit them
all on the derrière decades later.
"The ICW-" "The ICW is no more." The Ottoman delegate, Sakin, snapped
at the Italian delegate. The Italians were amongst the hardest hit nation
in recent years though they managed to save more of their leading
families than most other Ravenite occupied territories had managed.
And they were the ones who were chafing the most under the
'occupation' of Illos.
"The ICW is dead, Ferrarrio. Accept it. It'll do you no good to hold onto
that delusion." The sour face of the Italian delegate's face made it clear
that it was hard for the Italian to accept. It wasn't that surprising. It was
well known that the Italians had a historic connection to the ICW, having
been one of the founding magical nations that drove for its existence.
The very first Mugwump had been Italian too.
"And it should be clear that Illos, or rather this Grand Alliance, is
positioning itself as the heir to the ICW." The Persian delegate, Pandey,
said before smiling thinly and adding "And it has been for many years."
"Quite." Jean acknowledged before turning his gaze towards the Italian
"Which is why you and your colleagues should accept the occupation for
now" Jean doubted he and his leaders would though, he thought with a
weary sigh.
Not all of the Italian nobility were in agreement when it comes to
resisting the Illosians and in truth, Ferrarrio and his people were in the
minority.
The occupation, for a lack of a better word, was of benefit to Italy at
present.
Much of the wealth that remained within the country was all that the
nobility and the Italian peoples were able to squirrel away as their
banking institutions were destroyed and its wealth taken away…
…wealth that no one knew where it was, a concerning problem that was
replicated across Europe with the exception of a few nations.
And at present, Illos was providing food, much needed medical attentions
and rebuilding much of the settlements that were destroyed. Of course,
Jean considered to himself, this was not going to be without repayment.
And Ferrarrio and his people were right to fear for it was certain their
way of life was never going to be the same again. If Jean was right, and
he thought he had a good chance of being right, he'd say that Italy would
no longer be a senate filled with nobility.
"And as much as your plight is unfortunate, Senor Ferrarrio" Caicedo
interjected as he stared at the displeased Italian. "This is not a meeting to
your plight as it is to come to an agreement in this new world we find
ourselves in."
Hours Later…
Jean gratefully took the glass of wine as he sat down in the chair
opposite the President. He drank half of it before he took a breath again.
"Do not think I will be sending any gifts come Yuletide, Antonine" Jean
said with a displeased glare before he rubbed one of his temples with his
hand.
"I think I can do without this year" Galtier said wryly before he eyed Jean
with keen eyes and he spoke with a neutral face. "From all accounts it
was positive."
Jean laughed wryly. "Positive?" Jean shook his head. "It might look so on
paper, but I know that this won't even get far enough in reality,
Antonine."
There were rumours that the Grand Alliance was to be reformed into a
Federation of Magical Peoples, a much closer organisation of
international cooperation between magical peoples, one of the main, if
not the, trigger point that made Galtier seek out other interested parties.
It was a rumour that seemed to have no origin, no one knew anyone
who'd spoken it yet it was one that seemed to simply…exist. And
knowing his old friend…
He'd spoken with a few of his Avalonian contacts, about the truth of such
an organisation and he was told nothing of import. He didn't expect
anything else, in truth, he thought with a grimace. Their loyalty, either to
the Queen or his old friend was not to be taken lightly.
Still, with the possibility of the concept of the ICW being replaced by a
much intertwined organisation like this Federation – which was a
certainty given the meaning of federation – the necessity of a pact to
preserve measures of power was critical to most of the delegates,
particularly the Spanish and the Italian delegates.
He had a feeling that the Ottomans and the Persians were more than
anything else feeling out the worthiness of France more than anything
else.
He shook away that thought.
"They are weak, Antonine. And they stuck with the old ways of thinking.
Thinking that their blood and their names are enough to sway people in
agreeing to limit the influence and power of Illos." Jean continued, a hint
of imploring in his voice.
The proposal that all parties had agreed to was to align their interests
should this Federation come into existence and to continue with strength.
Galtier caught the imploration in his voice and he sighed heavily. "I'm
aware. But what else is there for us, Jean?" Galtier asked Jean.
Jean knew what he meant.
There wasn't a clamouring…yet…for greater relations with Illos but it
was fast approaching that stage. People had a very long memory and the
latest actions of the Sayres against the Ravenites, the extermination of
Vampires that the French people hated and their speeches since the war
ended was triggering those long memories.
No one in France had forgotten the old debt that France owed Atticus
Sayre, especially the common people. His inventions, his book on the
origin of muggleborns…squibborns, the very image of Illos that was as
close to magical paradise…and then the news of his expeditions to
Atlantis of all places…
It would not be nonfactual to say that the man was getting close to being
deified by the French peoples much like how he was getting deified by
large swathes of Europe.
"Resign?" Jean joked before he drank of his wine.
Galtier chuckled before he took hold of his wine. "Don't tempt me. I think
I'd like to retire to the vineyards after this term. I think sticking my
fingers in fertilised soil is less filthy than being President is."
Jean smiled mirthlessly at his comment. It probably was.
Galtier sighed after he drank of his wine and he seemed to stare at his
glass for a long while. Jean looked at the man concerned. "Antonine?"
Galtier seemed to have been broken out of his reverie and he met Jean's
gaze. "Apologies, I was just thinking." He eyed Jean "Do you want to
know how many more Ministries I reached out to?"
Jean was surprised by the remark and Galtier smiled thinly. "Sixty other
Ministries or communities." Galtier barked out a mirthless laugh. It was
almost…defeated.
"As soon as they heard of my concerns, they'd all refused in one way or
another. Even the Americans." Galtier said pointedly.
"I wondered why you didn't invite them." Jean commented though he was
deeply surprised that even they refused to come. "That is…not good."
Galtier nodded slightly before he slumped in his chair. "I think they will
join the Grand Alliance sooner than later. Before this Federation happens,
I think." Galtier shook his head "And it is smart of them to do so."
Jean raised his eyebrows. Galtier smiled at his expression. "I know when
a war is lost, my friend. That meeting of yours with the delegates was a
last throw of the dice, a hopeful one."
Jean digested that and decided to speak his mind. "It's not the worst of
outcomes" he said carefully. Jean was of course concerned about the
power his old friend and his people wielded over the magical world,
power that was set to grow to boggling heights, he was sure, but he
believed he still knew his old friend, the one he'd fought with.
The fact that he'd joined the war as soon he'd returned from the supposed
expedition to Atlantis proved that and there had been plenty of
opportunities for his old friend and his people to conquer the magical
world, a feat that this war had so blatantly indicated to the rest of the
magical world that, should the Illosians try, it would be as much a
foregone conclusion as the sun rising and the sun setting.
Galtier smiled at his comment though Jean wasn't sure what kind of
smile it was.
"It is not indeed yet the idea that our destiny is no longer in our own
hands…not truly…" Galtier's expression soured before he lost and a
weary one took hold on his face.
"I won't preside over France's capitulation." Galtier told Jean. "I will
advocate for you to take over presidency after me." Galtier stared
meaningfully at Jean and as Jean made to speak, Galtier raised his hand,
silencing Jean.
"I know you don't want it but France needs you, Jean." Galtier said with a
determined voice. "You have a history with the Sayres…a great one.
Despite my immense dislike for them and their, in all honesty, borderline
insidious ways in grasping for more power, I know that they have a
measure of honour at least."
"You want me to exploit my history with the Sayres to protect France."
Jean more stated than anything else. Galtier smiled thinly.
"I do. I will throw in the towel. The magical world will soon be theirs,
completely, and though I do not think they will destroy it, I truly believe
they have a dangerous agenda of some kind. Magi-tech, unity of
magicals, their country-ships, Atlantis, everything, I know that there is
more to them and it isn't all good." Galtier said grimly before he sighed.
"Yet I realise we are defenceless against it. Against them."
He eyed Jean once more. "But with your history, I believe that you will be
able shield France from the worst of it. Better than anyone else could
regardless." Galtier sighed heavily.
"And I pray to Magic herself that they prove to be as benevolent as they
wish to be seen when their schemes come to fruition." Galtier finished and
it would stay at the forefront of his mind for months to come.
Months Later…
20th of March, 1973 – Milan, Italy
Jean stared at the Gate for a long few moments, the runes etched onto its
faces still dim waiting on his command to connect to their destination.
"Sir." Augerd called and Jean turned towards the man, broking out of his
thoughts.
He only nodded to the man before he gestured that the Gate should be
connected and soon enough the runes on the Gate became alive with a
glow and the centre of the gate showed the other side that seemed to be
buzzing with activity and brimming with Illosian Guards donned in their-
now distinctive armour, covered fully from head to toe.
With a silent sigh he walked through the gate.
The Illosian guard stepped forward and Jean wordlessly provided the slip
of paper to the guard. The guard waved his hand over the slip of paper
and Jean idly watched the magic at play. He wasn't entirely sure what
enchantments were on the slip of paper but he wouldn't be surprised that
it was nothing he was familiar with.
'The security on that paper is tighter than the security in our Department' the
Chief Unspeakable had told him after they'd analysed the paper.
"Delegate Delacour" the guard confirmed before he handed back the slip
of paper. Jean took the paper and saw its surface change and it began to
reveal a map.
"Follow the route as shown on the map. It will take you to your seats" the
guard told him and Jean left without saying another word.
He glanced around and saw there were others being checked by the
guards, some he recognised, most he didn't.
Given that it was to be a worldwide affair, the sight of so many that he
didn't know wasn't surprising…just as it wasn't surprising that most of
the people he'd dealt with internationally were either dead or being held
until their trials were due, it wasn't that surprising.
He made out of the terminal, following the arrow as he was, and soon
enough he was at a wide plaza where shops and stalls were artfully
nestled in between the Corinthian marble pillars and marble walls.
If he remembered rightly, this was the place of power of the magical
branch of the Scipio family. A family that as far as he knew had no more
living direct descendants, most of them having perished against the
Ravenites.
And the others likely having been conveniently and quietly disposed of
by rival families in the chaos of it all, if accusations of treachery were
true.
Jean's eyes darkened slightly.
He expected it to be true. After all, it would be par for the course, would
it not? To end a family feud of centuries during the height of the greatest
cataclysm your people are facing instead of settling it for the sake of
everyone?
As they walked through the halls of this former palace and through the
main entrance hall, he noted that there were far more people than he
realised would be present, and not everyone was dignitaries as he was.
"I wonder how we will fit." Augerd commented "Spatial charms?" as he
looked around as people conversed at the foot of the huge stairs.
"Probably." Jean stated as they walked up the wide steps that lead to the
gallery before he glanced at the young man."It's not as if it'll be outside of
their capabilities." Jean said a little reproachfully.
Augerd flushed a little embarrassed at his pointless question.
Jean looked away from the man. Augerd wasn't a bad man…just a little
pointless. A son of a rather influential man back home, Galtier had
saddled him with the young man for possibly the next six months, the
estimated duration of the whole trial proceedings, to curry favours from his
father.
At this point, Galtier most certainly wanted him as president far more
than Jean ever wanted to be president.
Finally, they reached their seats which were indicated on the paper as
being enchanted to protect against eavesdropping due to their status as
dignitaries. As he sat down he'd glanced around and it was clear there
were at least a few thousand spectators in the gallery that spanned the
full diameter of the domed courtroom.
There must be reporters from every magical nation, he thought to himself
as he glanced around the international press box which helpfully had a
label above their section of the gallery.
Not that it could truly be called a box since it resembled more like a
quarter-section of a Quidditch stand at a world cup, enough to fill a
thousand people.
And amongst the reporters were magi-artists, the kinds that used magic
or magi-tech to create moving pictures or drawings since the trial would
not be broadcasted to the magical world until it was completely over and,
he mused as he glanced at the distinctive holo-recorders that floated
around in the room, he expected it cause waves for generations.
Even non-human peoples were amongst the numbers of the audience
though they sat a little way away from the rest of the wizards and
witches. It wasn't surprising, Jean mused to himself a little sorrowfully,
not when the slaughter of any beings and half-breeds had been going on
for nigh on two decades.
This would be the first mass trials ever that the public would come to
know. Not even during the Grindelwald war had such proceedings been
made.
"Do you think we'll see them being melted out of their amber blocks?"
Jean silently sighed long-sufferingly. What did he do to suffer this fool?
"Were you not briefed by the Minister of International Affairs?" Jean
asked Augerd.
"I was but it never came up, how the prisoners would be brought to
court."
"The prisoners have been out of their amber blocks for months. It was
how they determined who was indoctrinated and who wasn't." Jean told
the man.
Thousands had been indoctrinated and the reports that French healers,
healers France had sent when Illos had sent out a request to the magical
world for medical assistance, had provided the government made it clear
that for all the ones they at least had diagnosed, were all beyond saving.
According to their most renowned mind-healer, the damage to the
victims' minds were so absolute that the persona that they inhabited was
practically engraved onto their consciousness. There was no separation of
who once was and who now is, a chilling assessment.
And it was an assessment that most of the magical governments had
agreed with, some far more begrudgingly than others, especially the
Chinese.
And thus, for these poor bastards, it was undeniable that they had no
chance of rehabilitation save for perhaps complete Obliviation but there
were justified fears that it would only leave the victims in a catatonic
state as instances of such treatment were only observed thrice in the
magical healing world.
The most resembling of cases had devolved into a catatonic state and the
third and least likely case resulting in infantilism of the patient.
Regardless of what to do with these poor witches and wizards, they
would not stand trial in the way that the wizards and witches who were
deemed mentally sound would though what the Illosians had planned for
them, he did not know.
"I see." Augerd said with a frown before he sighed and muttered,
morosely, underneath his breath "A shame."
Jean decided he'd ignore the fool for the rest of the proceedings to the
best of his abilities.
The judges came out not long afterwards and he noted the robes that
they wore. It seems like they settled for an Anglicised style of robes, thick
white robes that swept at the ground as they walked.
There were thirteen of them, an unlucky number he mused to himself,
yet it was also a powerful number…and a powerful symbol.
There were to be seven sets of thirteen judges, each set presiding over a
number of trials that were assigned to them. Coming as far wide as Brazil
to MACUSA, to China to New Zealand, from Aziza and Illos, these judges
were all the 'best' of their homelands, and had sworn strict oaths of
fairness and of utmost integrity.
He'd read the oaths they had to swear before being accepted as judges,
and it was restricting, though the spirit of the oaths was known to him.
After all, it was the same kind of oath that the ICW had standardised
across the magical world.
The judges would alternate in sessions, allowing them to familiarise
themselves with the cases. Some had said that it was unnecessary, given
that they were all guilty, but most were generally accepting of this
spread.
He stared at the woman that sat the centre of the judging panel. Sandra
Saunders…
The once Chancellor of Illos had rarely been seen after her 'retirement'
from the Illosian High Council. He'd known that she'd been a student of
Law though he was surprised to see there. He'd honestly forgotten about
her and it seemed like she'd returned to the matters of Law in her
retirement.
The hubbub lessened as the first man was led in and his eyes narrowed as
he caught a look of the man. A heavy set man with a strong thick
moustache was led into the room with a permanent scowl on his face.
Mihály Teleki.
A man who'd become highly influential in Bulgaria once the country had
fallen to the Ravenites and if what he heard was right, and he had little
doubt that it was, he was heavily involved in the persecution and
eventual slaughter of several Veela enclaves within Bulgaria and then
later in Eastern Europe.
Jean glanced towards the section where he knew there were a few Veela.
The look of hate in their eyes made it clear that they believed him guilty.
Teleki was made to sit in the chair before the judges and the defence,
whom Jean did not envy whatsoever, spoke with the man.
From what he understood, every defendant was granted a lawyer or
could hire one from their own funds which would be made unfrozen for
that singular purpose…not that they had any chance of using it
otherwise…or actually hiring the top law firms that remained in Western
Europe and beyond.
As such, the court had ascribed this lawyer to the man and it wouldn't
surprise him if this was the longest time since he'd spoken with Teleki.
And it seemed like it would be the last time the lawyer would speak with
Teleki as well given that the lawyer was moving away from the man.
"I will defend myself." Teleki gruffly said in a thick English accent.
Teleki's mouth continued to move but no sound came out and he must
have realised this as he firmly shut his mouth and let off a cold sneering
expression.
"The defendant will be reminded that any insults, speeches or
commentary unsuitable to these proceedings will be censured." One of
the court officials said.
Teleki sent a cold glare at the official but said nothing otherwise.
It was interesting, Jean thought to himself. He hadn't even seen any kind
of magic at play that silenced the man and he thought the magic at play
was incredibly subtle if it could almost anticipate when someone was
speaking outside of bounds.
Judge Saunders slammed her hammer down and a huge gong sounded
out and Jean's eyes widened in slight panic when he felt the slight trace
of magic wash over him.
"The courtroom is now sealed. The wave of magic you have felt is an
intent based enchantment that prevents any interference, verbal or
physical or magical, from this moment onwards" the lead court official
stated before he looked towards Teleki.
Jean realised that the man had a shocked expression on his face and
seemed to be unable to move from his seat though Jean saw no physical
shackles.
"The Defendant is now magically coerced to speak the truth and nothing
but the truth. His Occlumency shields have also been eroded away so that
should visual imagery be necessary, it may be pulled from his mind and
shown to the court."
Jean's mouth was now slightly ajar, shocked as he was. Being forced to
tell the truth was no surprise, of course, there were potions and charms
that could enforce it but the erosion of Occlumency shields?
"That shouldn't be possible." Augerd said shocked next to him.
Jean's mind was awhirl as he thought on it and he was coming up short
how they were accomplishing it. It was well known that mind shields
could be worn down or broken through Legillimency probes though he
had heard of no other…
Jean's eyes widened. But of course! He shook his head in disbelief. He
wasn't sure if it was right or not, probably not but he realised in any case
that mind shields could be worn away through other means.
Simply because compulsion charms or even the allure of Veela could
affect the mind through the application of foreign magic…even if you had
mind shields.
Why couldn't Occlumency shields be entirely bypassed through similar
application of foreign magic outside of blunt use of magic?
Jean's eyes sharpened as he stared at Teleki before he turned his gaze
towards Saunders. 'My word…' he thought to himself before he glanced
towards the reporters who were avidly writing down this surprise.
No doubt when it gets released to the public, more than a few people will
be more aghast at the existence of such magic than whatever Teleki will
say.
The trial commenced and Jean…well Jean thought he could stomach it.
He was wrong. Teleki was vile, utterly and completely vile and evil.
Murder, torture, kidnapping, even was involved in human and Veela
trafficking for decades before he'd stopped when rumours of mass
vigilante actions proved to be far more than idle rumour though what
truly sickened Jean was his actions during the Ravenite era.
Jean felt sick as Teleki described as to what Teleki was allowed to do,
shackles of decency and humanity were truly cast away, not the man had
much if any in the first place, yet what had been described, and shown,
with narration from the man himself of how he felt, how he'd seen his
victims, had made Jean gripping his seat with a death grip and his
stomach on the verge of emptying.
Teleki was a monster of the worst kind, and he was proud of it. The glee,
the expression on his face, none of it seemed forced – Jean realised that
the effect of the enchantment was far more delicate and capable than
he'd thought possible with the way that it could make Teleki to bring
forth how he'd been in the moments he was describing – and it was a
damnation beyond any hints of salvation.
And, as he looked around the courtroom at the gallery, he saw the
horror, disgust and grief in their expressions with more than a few seats
having been vacated.
Only the judges seemed unaffected and Jean would be hard pressed to
believe that they weren't under some influence of some major calming
charms with the way they were writing and listening all the same time.
When Teleki finally ended his narration of his crimes and the questions
by the prosecutor had ran out, the judges conferred.
Jean took the opportunity to glance at Augerd and he wasn't surprised to
see him as he was. Augerd was beyond pale and deathly silent and still.
A feat he didn't think was accomplishable. Jean glanced around and saw
that many were equally as struck dumb as the young man was even
though Teleki had stopped speaking. And more than a few were still
missing from their seats.
"Augerd." Jean called out. He didn't get a response and he placed his
hand on the man's shoulder which startled the pale-faced man.
"Samuel." Jean called out kindlier.
The man looked at Jean, a little more life in his eyes this time.
"I never thought such evil could be done." Augerd said in a muted voice.
Jean realised belatedly that the man had lived a sheltered life and the
Grindelwald hadn't quite touched the young man either given that he was
about mid thirties in age.
Too young to remember or remember being affected.
"I knew it was happening." Augerd added as he shook his head.
"It is another thing to be witness to the crimes as…explicitly detailed."
Jean agreed grimly. He was beginning to realise why his old friend was
making such a spectacle of the whole thing. He'd admittedly thought that
it was meant to be a show of Illosian righteousness but in reality, he
realised that it was more nuanced than that.
He was using his influence to make the magical world bear witness to the
kinds of monsters that walk amongst them.
Monsters that hide behind velvet gloves and silk robes. Monsters that
might believe in blood purity but in reality only used the ideology to a
means to an end.
"Yes." Augerd answered.
Jean tapped the man on his shoulder and looked at the young man with a
grim face.
"This is only the first day, my friend." The thought made Augerd queasy
but he seemed to shore himself up before he nodded firmly.
"Yes, yes it is." Augerd drew himself up "And it is for us to listen. We owe
that at least to the victims." Augerd said, much to Jean's surprise.
The young man went up a couple of notches in his estimations.
Jean smiled slightly at Augerd before he turned solemn. "Indeed it is."
Augerd was going to say something but the voice of Judge Saunders had
ended that.
"Mr Teleki." Saunders began, her voice authoritative as she somehow
gazed at Teleki without judgement. "The admissions you have provided
are, without the slightest possibility of misinterpretation or doubt in their
veracity, undeniable. This court finds you guilty." Saunders declared
before she slammed the hammer down.
Jean realised he was keeping in his breath that had been released when
the sound of the hammer rang audibly around the huge courtroom.
He leaned forward when Saunders made to speak once more. He knew it
was all but certain that Teleki was never going to taste freedom again
and he hoped it would go further than that, he thought darkly. He
remembered all too well the outrage he and others felt at the leniency the
ICW had levied upon Grindelwald's followers.
Something he couldn't even contemplate his old friend would even allow
to happen.
Teleki looked on hatefully but prideful at the judges, particularly at
Saunders.
Saunders only met the man's gaze as she spoke.
"For the unforgivable acts you, Mr Teleki, have committed, you shall be
sentenced to death." Jean smiled grimly at that, a feeling of satisfaction
that he shared with the room, something he could sense easily enough.
Saunders continued "House Teleki shall be stripped of its nobility and the
name Teleki shall be declared illegal and henceforth shall be dead until
the end of time." Jean's eyebrows raised dramatically and he heard the
surprise of his companion.
Teleki looked shocked.
Saunders continued "All members of the former House of Teleki, should
they be found redeemable, shall be made to swear unbreakable vows to
never take up the name, the legacy or the beliefs of the former House of
Teleki."
Teleki was broken out of his shock and raged in his chair, murder clear in
his eyes. But there was more…there was fear mixed with the anger.
This…
This was unprecedented.
"The members of the former House of Teleki, man, woman and child
alike, shall be made to swear unbreakable vows upon their life and magic
to never again harm another sentient life unless it is in defence at which
point they must, at all cost save for the harm to their own life, avoid
harming another more than is needed to ensure the safety of all.
The members of the former House of Teleki, man, woman and child alike,
shall be made to swear unbreakable vows to never, in any way or form,
acknowledge, teach or inform their descendants of their former name,
their former legacy or the beliefs of the former House of Teleki. This so
we decree, this so we judge." Saunders slammed her hammer down and a
pulse of magic erupted from the act.
"This can't stand…can it?" Augerd asked shocked. "This goes far beyond
anything that's ever been done!"
Jean said nothing and simply watched Saunders who he could see had
not yet finished.
"When crimes become no longer crimes but acts of evil, the root of that
evil must be ripped out." Saunders said with an authoritative air. "It
comes to no surprise that Mr Mihály's acts of evil began long before the
Ravenites became active. Acts of evil that stem from beliefs that have
been passed down the generations with no resistance, with no reflection
and with no guilt or remorse at the inhumanity of their actions and that
of their ancestors."
Jean listened on quietly.
"It, then, needs to be questioned. Why?" Saunders said as she looked
around.
"Why has there been no resistance? No reflection? No guilt or remorse at
the dehumanisation, at the cruelty and evil that have been subjected
against mundane and magical alike?" Saunders posed to the courtroom.
"Because there has been no consequence to such acts of evil." Saunders
said firmly before she returned her gaze to Teleki…no Mihály. "No more.
The legacy of inconsequence shall be no more."
Jean, many years later, when his grandson who bore the same name, had
asked when he realised things had changed, he would tell his grandson of
this very moment.
The moment that had changed everything immeasurably for him and
many others.
Even more so than when news of the planets of the Celestis system were
made public.
-Break-
27th of August, 1973 – Staffroom, Hogwarts.
Horace H. Slughorn POV
"It's starting" Minerva pointed out with a sharp note to her face, her
expression reproachful. Horace almost chuckled to himself at his Deputy.
Making her his deputy was perhaps the best choice he'd made for a long
time. She was authoritative and she was extremely intimidating…when
she wanted to be.
Horace was not delusional and he knew his faults…and he knew his own
demeanour. He was not Armando or was he Phineas Black, both of whom
could command an air of respectability that was commanding, that
demanded the individual to give it, even if Dippet may have lost much of
that air in the last few decades before his retirement.
Yet where he differed from the pair of former headmasters was that he
recognised his faults and he worked to fill it. And he'd done so ably with
the hire of Minerva as his Deputy. Of course, the stain of being Albus'
apprentice had been a point of contention with a few of the nobility,
especially some of his former Slytherin charges but a single sentence of
approval from Emily was enough to still any dissent.
Emily…
Horace drank of his cup of spiced hot chocolate, quietly ignoring the quiet
chatter of his staff as his gaze watched the King, Atticus Sayre, on the
screen as he arrived at the podium that was held in front of the former
Scipio ancestral palace.
The King looked regal.
It had been announced that the King would speak to close out the trials,
an odd choice but Horace thought it made sense, considering that neither
the King or Emily had made much of an appearance at the trials.
He snorted quietly as his memory went back to the early years, their early
years.
He didn't quite believe how everything had played out.
He remembered the day he and his colleagues had taken bets on when
Emily and Atticus would marry, the completion of a sappy love story
between a no-name orphan girl and a handsome boy who was practically
a Prince…
And in a strange way…
It was truly such a sappy love story, Horace thought warmly to himself.
Mystery and one-in-a-million talent all wrapped in a petite form had
flowered into a woman of genuine royal blood that could wrest the
course of history in her own hands and guide their world with a deftness
of politics never witnessed or felt before.
Equally, a boy of less mystery but of equal or perhaps greater talent
wrapped in un-convention became a man who was quite possibly going
to become the first King of the magical world if things were heading
where he thought they would.
Yet…he thought as the feeling of warmth evaporated away from his
centre. He knew full well that his former students were far more than an
innocent sappy story.
As much as he wished it was simply so.
He knew not the details, oh no, he was quite happy not to know, but he
knew enough. Just as he knew that his elevation to Headmaster was not
because of tenure.
Horace was wise enough to know that to achieve what they had achieved
thus far, achievements that he could not name a single witch or wizard
who could even approach their impact on history, save for perhaps
Merlin, and he was wise enough to know that it should not be something
to be considered beyond the confines of one's mind
Still, he mused to himself, despite it all, he believed that it was not
terrible, this control his former students had and would continue to have
on the magical world, especially now that ICW was gone and no other
nation or Ministry could oppose them.
For all that Charlus and a few others would bemoan, some more
aggressively than others, it was hard to acknowledge that their world was
better in most ways.
The number of discriminatory infractions this past decade was proof
enough of that.
He snorted silently. It was amusing to think that the biggest detractors
were the ones who were from families historically thought as 'light
families'.
He- his thought processes were cut short as the King began to speak and
silence befell the staff room.
"What drives ordinary people, regardless of station, regardless of so-
called purity of blood, to become mass killers?" the King posed to the
crowd and those watching the feed live, his regal voice hooking them to
listen.
"Men and women who had gone to magical school just like the rest of us
have. Men and women who had gone to the local villages or gone to a
Yuletide Ball or a Beltaine festival like the majority of us have in our
childhoods.
Yet these same men and women committed travesties that will haunt the
magical world for generations to come." The King paused, his eyes
seemed to scan and somehow managed to give off the impression he was
meeting the gaze of every set of eyes simultaneously.
"What drove these people to do so?" the King once more posed, his
cadence was akin to a beat of drums that ensnared all to lean forward,
eagerly, impatiently waiting for more.
The answer, Horace to himself grimly, was one that everyone who'd paid
attention to the trials would know.
Right of blood
It had been the right of blood that had driven noble and common alike,
that their blood was more valuable than others and when they began to
feel, began to listen to others, that their blood was not being valued as
much as it should be, that their struggles was because of this
devaluation…
Extremism had flourished in the wake after the Grindelwald war.
The nobility, instead of being defanged as they were meant to, were
instead blatantly ignored and allowed to grasp more of their old powers
back as the ICW turned its attentions elsewhere.
The nobility and other purebloods had seized upon the chance of
regaining their strength at the cost of others when the Ravenites had
presented themselves, many of whom had lavishly exacted 'punishments'
on those they felt had wronged them.
Often times simply by existing.
"You know the answer. You should know the answer. It is also the answer
to much of the happenings of this century and the last, and the centuries
before that. Yet…my fellow magicals. This century we have descended
into a new low." The King said solemnly the level of gravitas his presence
exuded was immense.
"This century has been of grievous but monumental horror, committed
not by a few psychopathic people, a few evil men and women who enjoy
the sounds of terror through the innocent mouths of men, women and
children, no, this century has been a horror committed by ordinary men
and women who cast away all decency, all morality and all humanity."
"Germans, Danes, Austrian, Hungarians, Romanians, Russians, it matters
not what ethnicity, what society, or blood purity or even nobility. No,
this has been a travesty that transcends such simple denominations.
Because…" the King trailed off as he leaned forward slightly.
"Any of us could be motivated under the right conditions, the right
circumstances, to view others to be less than human, to lose our
humanity, to become murderers." The King looked around, his expression
stoic as he began to speak again.
"Most of you doubt my words, I know. Some of you are even offended
that I could suggest such a thing." The King said with a deep sense of
acknowledgement.
"It is hard to believe, after all. 'I could never harm another person'. 'I would
never believe the kind of nonsense the Ravenites have spouted, that others
have believed. I am better than that'" the King gave a grim smile before he
raised his hand.
"Hanna Alvardsdottir thought the same" the King said and Horace
understood where the King was going. "Erik Corluka thought the same.
And hundreds of others had all thought the same."
Alvardsdottir and Corluka were two of the most infamous trials of the
Milan.
Both of them had been caught up in the Ravenite philosophy early on,
having believed that it was a way to have better lives after Grindelwald
had destroyed theirs and that of their families. They'd had done terrible
and cruel things but it was clear to anyone that they had not started out
that way.
They'd simply been misguided teenagers who'd gotten caught up in the
Raven's spell. Something that was replicated well over four hundred
times as far as he knew.
By the time they'd realised what they had signed up for, they'd simply got
on with it instead of running as much as they had wanted to, especially
after they'd seen what happened to those who started questioning.
"It never starts with something large. It is always small. 'They need our
help'. 'Don't you see, they are not like us.' And before you know it, your
hands are coated in the blood you have begun to see as lesser. That is
how it starts. That is how it ends."
"And the questions that every single one of us, all of you, and all of you
listening or watching, and even I, must ask ourselves is…
How do we prevent our societies from descending into madness once more?
How do we inoculate our societies, our friends, our families, our children,
from mass murder and genocide?
"And these are questions we must find solutions to. Our very survival
depends on it"
The King paused as he looked around the assembled crowd before he
spoke once more. "Over ten percent of our kind has died in fifty years.
Three other magical races have lost seventy percent of their populations
and others have lost nearly half."
"I do not exaggerate when I say that another war like this may well be
our very doom. And we would deserve it" the King said harshly as he
placed his hand onto the podium.
"Because we can stop the next Grindelwald, the next Raven from rising
again, and even if we cannot stop them, we can stop listening to their lies,
to their attempts to divide us, their attempts to destroy us so that they can
rule over the ashes that remain" the King's voice had picked up in volume
and in strength as he'd spoken before he halted and the silence that was
left in his pause was deafening.
Even his staffroom was deathly silent.
"What we have heard and felt in the Milanese Trials is not a philosophy
of evil, it is not the tale of black and white but the incremental
development of evil.
Evil is moulded, twisted in shape gradually. We have heard enough of
such progression in these trials to understand that. No one wakes up with
hate in their hearts. No one is born with hate in their soul. It is learned.
And these Milanese trials have shown us what that can be and it is the
worst of us
And now…now, we must show the best of us.
The veil of naivety must be torn away from our eyes just as our ears have
been free to listen. We must search within ourselves, within our societies
and come to answer the questions that have been presented to us,
questions like why the protective father can murder the child of another,
why a most loving mother can stand idle and watch a family be
murdered in front her eyes, and why we have allowed propaganda of
generations, cultural norms and history to entrap our world in this
perpetual cycle of misery and death that slowly kills us all" the King has
said passionately as he swept his hand across.
"Now is the time that we rise to the responsibility that we hold to
ourselves, to one another, to everyone, and inoculate ourselves and our
cultures and our societies in what always lurks within us" the King's
expression fell into a kind of stoic solemnity, a solemnity that was slowly
making way for hope.
"I have not lost hope. I have been blessed in this life of mine to have seen
many great and wonderful and good things. I have met many, many good
people, many of whom I can dearly call friends and loved ones, and many
of whom are strangers" the King smiled as he trailed his gaze across the
crowd.
"It is why I know that our world, our people, are not a lost cause and that
we are merely a single step away from achieving wonders, much like how
we can create wonders with a thought. We live in a world of wonder, of
beauty and majesty, in harmony with nature and animals that is
indescribable.
"And that is why I have great hope that, in the coming years, we will sit
down, together, as one world, as one people, to address the fears, the
worries, the anger, the hate, and the jealously, to find a way to destroy
them" the King said passionately.
"And with magic, we will find no limits to what we can achieve, to what
we can reach for and so I do not doubt for a moment that that fleck of
evil that burrows in the hearts of man can be crushed into dust when we
use the courage we all have within us to do so" Horace felt like the King
was staring into Horace's as he'd spoken, and he felt a chill run down his
spine.
"This what I believe and this is what I have hope in that we will achieve"
the King raised his hand, a hand that clenched into a fist.
"For we are Magic. For we are federated in magic."
The applause that rang through the holo-screen was loud enough for
Horace to believe, for a single moment, that he was there physically.
Little did he know, it was a feeling that spanned the entire magical
world.
36. Chapter 96
August, 1984 – Dexirus, Celestis System
Henrik Kolffsson POV
He walked up the slopes of the small mountain, the end of his walking
stick leveraging him onwards with each step he took as he gazed upon
the vast purplish and green forestlands that lay ahead nestled in between
the Laeyus mountain range, forestlands that were teeming with life.
Not as obvious as Sentanis, with its vast savannahs that boasted herds of
wildebeest tens of thousands strong or their gazelles, their elephants and
their tens of thousands of African plains magical and mundane animals,
no, Dexirus was not as obvious as that.
A deafening roar echoed in the air and Henrik smiled to him a little
amused. Well…except for them, he thought a little amused as he climbed
higher and gazed towards the skies where he was seeing silhouettes
growing larger by the seconds.
He turned his gaze back towards the forestlands and swept his hand
across the air.
A holographic live-imagery popped in existence, one that kept the same
distance from him as he walked, and it turned the trees and the flora into
mere outlines of their shape. With a twist of his hand, the imagery
changed to focus in several kilometres before it zeroed in about three
kilometres inward of the forest twenty or so degrees to his left.
Before him was a pack of Pyrenees Direwolves of about forty strong, the
largest pack for over six hundred years. On Earth, the species were
nearing extinction and were only kept alive because of the value of their
pelts.
By the time the species were transported to Dexirus, their total numbers
had been less than fifty. Now, there were packs of this size.
A recovery of population that was happening across the worlds of
Celestis, recoveries like the Siberian Sabretooth Tiger that was flourishing
on the isolated artic lands of the otherwise waterworld Yethea or the
demiguise populations of Celestis, and it was wonderful to see countless
of magical species living as they ought, flourishing and free in habitats of
millions of acres of land.
"Looks like the whole family is coming" he heard excitedly called out
from behind him as he arrived at the top. He turned around and saw her
walking up the last few metres of the hill though she made a gesture for
him to look towards his three o'clock and he turned towards there and
saw a much larger silhouette arriving.
Curious. "So it seems." He said as he turned back towards her. She was
breathing slightly heavily, her brown skin glistening with beads of sweat
but she did so with a smile, her brown hair swaying with each step up
she took.
She'd chosen to follow him from the foot of the mountain instead of
taking a skybike to the top. He wasn't surprised that she chose to do that,
if he was being honest.
He reached out and extended out his hand and she eyed for a moment
before she flashed him a grin and simply walked past him, leaving him to
hang dry. He looked at Cassandra with mild look as he watched her
continue to walk past her, the mild look growing into an amused smile.
"Come on, they're nearly here. It's your show, Ricky-boy, don't leave them
hanging!" she called out though she didn't look behind at him, her eyes
set on the growing sight of the dragons that were fast approaching.
He blinked as he realised that his eyes were lingering on her and he
began to walk again, his head shaking. Working with the Haitian woman
had been an…interesting experience to say the least. He had not met a
woman like that before.
She was provocative, full of energy and she could swear like a sailor and
more than a few times he had to fight a blush from forming on his face
with the…colourful and oddly sexual language she used whenever she
was frustrated or annoyed or angry.
He hadn't been sure if she'd been the right kind of person for the
assignment yet she remained full of surprises. With his family magic to
sense and feel nature all around him, he'd been reassigned to the Celestis
system – a surprise that he hadn't quite been able to overcome until
months after he'd arrived – and he'd worked closely with the Native
Americans and the Centaurs to, for the lack of a better word, fine tune the
nature spirits and the biomes into perfect harmony.
And over the past years, he'd further developed the ability to interact
with magical beings and animals to the point that even the most
dangerous of animals like the Hawlions could tolerate his presence, if not
allow him to touch them.
And so he'd somehow fallen into the role of Keeper of Dexirus – and
practically at the moment Keeper of all of the planets – the man who
would tend to the health of the magical animals and interact with them.
A heavy role and one that he'd need a team of Magi-zoologists to make
sure he could do it effectively, especially since that much of the lands
that the magical – and mundane – animals habited would be forbidden
for the general public.
And Cassandra had been amongst the recommended by the King. When
he'd met the woman, it had been the first time he'd thought that the King
could actually be wrong once upon a while.
What a fool, he was, he mused to himself with a faint smile as he closed
the gap between himself and her. She was a natural with the animals,
more so than the vast majority of the Magi-Zoologists he'd worked with
before and since.
"Gah, this most certainly will be my favourite assignment." Cassandra
said with a glance at him, her face alight with a wide smile before she
turned to look onwards.
He turned his gaze towards the descending dragons, their pearly scales
gleaming like moonlight under the haze of the pinkish-purple sky.
The wings of the dragons, large and small, were flapping almost as if it
were in slow motion, gliding through the air with a kind of regal majesty.
"They are beautiful." Henrik agreed.
He'd probably rank them as the most beautiful dragon breeds still extant.
And they were also the calmest breeds amongst the dragons too.
The mother-dragon descended down first, the thirty foot dragon
somehow landing with more grace than should be possible for a being
that large, and her young four dragons, slightly darker in scales that
would lighten by the time they were about fifteen years of age, their age
of maturity, landed beside her though with less grace.
Henrik's hand went towards his translator around his neck, more to make
sure than anything else, and he let go once he felt the physical switch
being on.
"Merry Meet, She-Who-Flies-Silently. [Respectful]" Henrik greeted the she-
dragon.
The pupils in the she-dragon sharpened as they latched onto him, a pair
of eyes that was soon joined by four others.
"Merry Meet, Speaker. [Pleased]" The dragon rumbled out, its disembodied
voice ringing around them. The translator, an enchantment that zeroed in
on the magical frequencies of dragons and through enchantments and
runework that he wouldn't even know where to begin, the translator
managed to create very good estimations of what is meant and how it is
meant.
One of the drakelings sniffed in the air, towards him and spoke up with a
growl in their voice "He is not Dragon. No-dragon Speaks? [Curiosity]
[Wary]"
"Yes, youngling. I am a human but I can speak your Tongue. [Gentle] [Wise]"
Henrik said soothingly through the translator and the young dragons
sniffed and stared and talked amongst each other like children are want
to do…albeit with a lot less wondering about if he'd taste like the lizards
they hunted the other day.
The mother dragon forced them to quiet down and the young dragons
clasped their jaws shut and decided instead to look towards their father
who was only moments away.
The male dragon, the forty foot dragon, descended down, no less graceful
than the she-dragon. Though, he paid him and Cassandra little mind as
he approached the she-dragon and low purring, purring that his
translator translated as familiar greeting, before the he-dragon sniffed and
spoke with his offspring.
Henrik took a glance at Cassandra and saw she was raptly paying
attention.
"It's their fourth clutch of offspring together." Henrik informed her,
drawing her out of her thoughts. She looked interested. She knew the two
adult dragons and their profile but there was little about their history
before they were selected.
"They're both in their fourth decade right?" He nodded to her question.
"So they'll have at least twice in the next four decades."
"Yes." He confirmed.
Dragons like the Opaleye remain breeding until well into the last quarter
of their lifetime which tended to be about eighty to two hundred years
depending on the breed of dragon. Though one thing they shared was
that they don't actually become fertile until they were in their third
decade with much of their biological functions focused more on growth
and on increasing their deadliness.
He turned his attentions back to the dragons, and saw that they were still
catching up, so to speak. The Opaleye were also the only breed of
dragons that involve the male dragon in the raising of their young, in the
first ten years.
He wasn't sure how much that would change with…well everything.
The he-dragon finally turned towards them. "Merry Meet, Speaker. [Regal]
[Respectful]" he-dragon turned towards Cassandra "Is this your Mate?
[Curious]"
Henrik managed to control his reaction but he imagined the
embarrassment had bled through. Before he could answer, Cassandra had
spoken up.
"Merry Meet, He-Who-Rumbles. It is an honour to meet a Great One such as
you. [Respectful]." Cassandra bowed before the dragon before she eyed
the dragon with that look and he didn't like it one bit.
She continued "I am Cassandra. I work with Henrik to tend to these lands
and its life." She glanced at him with a gleam in her eyes before she
turned back fully to the dragon "I am not his mate-in-life." Henrik
momentarily had been relieved but he shouldn't have been. "But he has
the potential."
His eyes widened in the admission and she grinned at him with a wink.
He wasn't sure if she was teasing him to unsettle him or whatever else
but before he could say or do anything, the loud sounds of the dragons
snorting ended that line of inquiry.
"I see. [Understanding]" He-Who-Rumbles remarked before he eyed Henrik
very closely, to the point Henrik was getting uncomfortable.
He decided it was enough "How are your fellow Dragons? [Curiosity]
[Concern]" He asked both the adult male and female dragons, eager to
change the subject back towards some sort of professionalism.
"Dragon-kin are healthy. Some stronger than others. [Irritated]" the she-
dragon's multi-coloured eyes narrowed into slits as she answered with an
undertone of a growl.
It was expected, Henrik mused to himself.
With the magical levels much higher here, some breeds of dragons that
were more dependent on magic and previously could only live in some
environments only, were now ironically the most well suited for all of
Dexirus, more specifically the Peruvian Vipertooth and the Water Dragon
breeds.
And, from what they could tell, the recent clutches of dragons were ten
to twelve percent larger than what it has been recorded before…and they
were getting smarter.
An…evolution so to speak, that seemed to be largely universal across the
dragon breeds and none more so were affected than the Antipodean
Opaleye breed, the dragons that were before him.
When he'd spoken to them for the first time about eight years ago, the
complexity of their vocabulary was…limited. Oh, they were smart and
they could communicate enough as it was through their Tongue, but they
were…uninterested in other things beyond basic animal needs…food…
breeding…warmth…so on. Now?
The Antipodean Opaleye dragons should be granted sapient status just as
Mages, Veela and other magical beings had.
"The Serpent Dragons and the Spike-Tailed are keeping to their territories.
Most of the time. [Irritation]" He-Who-Rumbles added with a growl.
"We have seen the encounters between the young dragons." Cassandra
answered to the dragon. Each of the dragon breed had their own
allocated territories that were suited to their breeds. Regardless of how
territories shifted amongst the breeds themselves, they would not break
the rules that were established unless they could live together peacefully.
As much as dragons could live together…it was only truly in enclosures
and only in a specific kind where mother dragons were kept. In nature,
conflict between the breeds was a very strong instinct just as conflicts
within their own breeds was an instinct.
The Opaleye were the only dragon breed that were exempt from this rule
as they were a breed of dragons that were exceptionally calmer as a
breed and smarter than all of the other dragons combined. They also had
a calming presence amongst the other dragons…most of them anyway
and it made them ideal in more ways than one.
"The Elder Dragonkin have punished the disobedient ones. [Satisfied]. They
will not cause trouble again. Not unless they are older and want to change
things." The she-dragon said in a growl.
The oldest and strongest bulls were de-facto leaders of each dragon breed
and though territories could span hundreds of thousands of acres at least,
each dragon of that particular breed was answerable to those bulls.
It was unusual and not natural to the dragons but with the translations
and whatever else enchantments the King and Queen had done to those
first dragons, it created a kind of hierarchy that was more or less stable.
Though the she-dragon was hinting that things may well change later
when the ruling dragons are…deposed? Overthrown? Killed? ...no more
ruling.
Henrik nodded. "I see." Henrik eyed both dragons. "Has there been anything
else?"
The dragons more or less said no, claiming that little has changed
between now and one cycle ago and after a few more answered
questions, he watched the dragons fly off.
"Should we speak with the other ambassadors?" Cassandra asks and
Henrik turns towards her. Ambassadors were a stretch in truth but he
supposed it was as good a word and meaning as any. Through the
Opaleye they were kept up to date with the affairs of the dragons…as
odd as that sounds.
With the concerns that the dragons are quite changing with the
environment, the King and Queen suspected that the habits of dragons
would change over time…something he'd already seen happen to date.
And so the Opaleye had dragons amongst them that informed him about
the recent affairs of dragons.
She expands "They might know more. Something these ones didn't know
about." Henrik considered it.
"No. She-Who-Flies-Silently and He-Who-Rumbles are amongst the most
well travelled of the Opaleye." And thus the most conversant and in touch
with current affairs "There's little they should know that these two
wouldn't. Besides." Henrik said before continuing "We will still meet with
the others as per the schedule."
Henrik paused for a moment and eyed her "Though whether or not you
will join me in them, I am uncertain." Cassandra looked surprised at that
before she understood.
"I was only teasing." Cassandra defended herself.
"We were on the job."
"Sure, but we were speaking to dragons" Cassandra said with a lilt of
amusement in her voice as her eyebrows raised "dragons who are a little
more to the point than we officious boring humans."
Henrik shook his head "Just tone it down next time, will you?"
Cassandra eyed him for a good long while before she nodded with a grin
that didn't at all seem innocent "Aye, aye boss."
Henrik sighed before he shook his head before he tapped his magi-com to
call a skybike to pick them up. The magi-com indicated that the ETA was
about eight minutes and he told her so.
He watched the time tick away ever so slowly and it was a relief, when
finally, the skybike arrive, allowing him to stop thinking about mating
with a woman he was rather ignoring at present.
The thought had, of course, crossed his mind. Whilst he was several
decades older than her, well in truth he was twice her age but it wasn't
an issue given that both of them could easily live to two hundred years,
likely longer should the biological research he'd heard about was
successful, but he was her superior.
Whilst there was nothing per se that forbid him from…fraternising, it was
not done.
It would look terribly and he'd dishonour her even if she would not think
it so.
The new generation were perhaps more…liberal…but he firmly believed
in responsibility. Something he did not think she valued as much.
No, he thought, as the space capable two passenger type skybike
descended down, it was better for her, for them, that they kept a strictly
professional relationship.
They shot through the atmosphere and it wasn't long before they
breached it and exited out towards space, the sight of the majestic marble
that was Celestis coming in full view.
And, as they veered away from the sight of Celestis towards higher orbit,
another majestic object came into view although this was entirely
magical-made.
The H.F. Hub, the completed and massive manufacturing complex that
could procedure half a dozen capital at the same time at full production
capacity.
Its giant mechanical arms, its six different manufacturing centres that
spanned twenty kilometres in width, its sheer size that was over forty
kilometres in height, all of it was majestic in every sense of the word.
A triumph of all of their accomplishments.
And, he mused as he zoomed in on one of the manufacturing centres, he
knew that one day years from now, their greatest structure to date would
be complete.
"It'll be a deserving name, don't you think?" she stated as she leaned in
slightly, so much so he could feel her breath on his ear. He resisted the
urge to react. Positively, or negatively…he was ashamed to say he wasn't
quite sure how he'd react.
"Yes." He said calmly but it stretched his calm. He continued "Fortitude
will be a name befitting of it." Strength. Courage. Grit.
In this new era for the magical world, they'd need every single bit of it.
"What it is supposed to mean. Represent." He added, this time a little
quieter.
He felt her head rest against his back and he stiffened slightly. He wanted
to ask what she was doing but…the words remained stuck in his throat.
"Do you think we'll need it?" she asked quietly and it was
uncharacteristic.
He pondered it for a moment and only then answered. "We've done all
that we can to make everything as perfect as it can be. It is a lot of
change." He said quietly.
Their world had always been…small.
They'd lived for so long in the crooks of mundane society…of mundane
civilisation.
And now they'd have an entire star system.
Where probably there would be hundreds of thousands on each world
with millions of square kilometres for their own use. Where magic could
live and breathe without the fear of breaking laws and fear of muggles
attacking them.
Without fear of muggles destroying their shared world.
"But I think we will do great." Henrik added quietly. He truly believed
that this was an opportunity that their world needed. Good worlds…
healthy worlds.
She hummed musically as she lifted her head from his back. "I think
you're right but…" She said and he could hear the smile and wonder in
her voice.
She continued "I think we'll better than great. We'll do fan-fucking-tastic."
Despite himself, he chuckled.
And despite himself, he joined in the banter.
All the way towards the docking bays of the H.F. Hub.
-Break-
15th of August, 1984 – Scotland
Lily J. Evans POV
The ground shook, trembling, as if mountains were walking.
Rocks shattered, crumbled, their falling apart a deafening hymn that
blotted out all other sounds. Ancient stones that once only knew change
through rain weathering them, were now being broken apart, shattering
and pierced as it was by luminous jets of magic.
Her gaze was set in front of her, slowly ticking upwards as a thousand
years of rest was unsettled, undone, as a monument was awakened from
the stones and land and magic that had been its home, its bed, its peace.
Orbital Spheres, no larger than beach balls, buzzed and whizzed around
the monument, aglow and growing in luminosity, their presence that had
earlier seemed like annoying pest to that immovable mountain was now
a life threatening swarm.
She could feel the magic, the sweet humming magic that swam through
the air like a kestrel on a warm autumn day, and the cacophony of
sounds that came with moving mountains added to the majesty of the
occasion in a very physical way.
It was apt, she mused, for it to be so majestic physically just as it was
majestic emotionally, a thought that gave her pause as she watched wires
and threads and ropes of golden-yellow strands of great magic lifting
Hogwarts and the rocks it had been built upon from beneath the grounds
and rocks it had stood upon, and held and carried the ancient school
upward much like how wicker baskets would hold and carry groceries
and wet clothing in ones' arms.
Though…the only difference was the snaking threads that roped and
covered every part of the school like an anaconda crushing its prey
though in this instance it was more eliminating the complex forces that
were in play with the school now no longer embedded within the ground.
The two dozen ships, dart-like in shape and about a hundred metres in
length, gravitated around the castle, backing away all the time as the
castle gained in height almost tremulously, like a parent watching their
child ride their bike for the first time.
When Hogwarts was several hundreds of feet high, she began to fly
upwards, assured as she was that the moving was going perfectly, not
only assured by her senses that the magic was holding strong but also by
the acute data she was getting transmissions of from the orbital swarm
through her integrated Magi-Com.
When she approached the up-on high castle, her arms rose, stiff and
slowly, like the hairs on one's neck during a sweep of chill, and her bright
emerald eyes began to glow like emerald stars as her magic rippled out of
her like a kaleidoscopic avalanche.
Hogwarts stopped moving, climbing, and hung in the air like it always
belonged there, ungrounded physically to match the unmatched meaning
that it held for generations of mages, alive and long passed, and a pin
prick of orange-blue dot grew beside it.
Her arms, aloft as they were, twisted slightly, the Will and Intent and
Understanding of the Illosian Runes that she embedded within her magic
made the effect into reality, and the pin prick became a window to the
other side, its radius increasing by ten metres, fifty metres, a thousand
metres, the magic that surrounded her bloomed into a second sun of
emerald proportions, the strain of holding up such a massive portal was
felt by her.
Yet it was a strain that she could bear, her magic buoyed by her utmost
desires, which at this point was to see it traverse space in the way that
she wanted.
When the radius of the portal was large enough, Hogwarts began to move
once more, floating through the air towards the ground that at the side of
the portal, the imagery akin to that of a Victorian ship setting off the
ports of Liverpool during the early morning, towards a new dawn,
towards a new age…a new home.
When Hogwarts and the rocks it stood upon passed through the window
in its entirety, she followed suit, through the portal, the dart like ships
that had stood sentinel passing her by.
It was always an interesting experience, to travel through a portal
horizontally and to come out the other end vertically, or vice versa, she
mused as she was now above the castle that was now being guided into
place by a team of wizards spearheaded by Atticus and Emily who'd
wanted to be involved a little, even if they didn't say it aloud. Hogwarts,
after all, was a special place, even for them.
Below her was the city, Avalon, radiating outward with Victorian
buildings though at the very centre, next to the huge complex Circum
Domum, the centre of Avalonian politics, was a large plot of land that was
untouched, waiting, for this precise moment.
When Avalon voted to merge with Illos in a royal union of Kingdoms,
there had been another vote to determine what the capital city's name
should be and Avalon had won out.
Avalon was on the other side of the Lonis Forests and the inland sea, the
Solarian Sea, the large body of water that fed all throughout the
Kingdoms.
She turned her gaze away, towards the distance, and at this height she
could see the sprawling skyline of Illos against the backdrop of the
Celestial Mountains.
For a land that was larger than Corsica itself, it felt surprisingly small,
despite the fact that an area that was over eleven thousand kilometres in
size.
She returned her attentions back towards Hogwarts and she closed the
portal to Scotland, likely the last time she'd ever be in the Highlands
again with no one or any beings remaining there.
The Forbidden Forest had been moved in its entirety towards Celestis, its
inhabitants, the Centaurs, unicorns, threstrals and everything in between
alike, just as many other of the forests and enclosures were moved to
their fast approaching new home.
Though, she idly mused, she wondered when that would be, given the
grandstanding that seems to have taken hold some of the magical world.
The noises of leaving behind a large number of the magical world were
growing stronger too.
She shook her head, the sounds of Hogwarts settling down into place
bringing her out of her thoughts. She watched as the threads of golden-
yellow magic unwrapped themselves from the school, the magic moving
on to suture the stones and the castle onto the allocated land, land that
was fashioned to be identical to the land that it had once stood spent a
thousand years atop of, and she began to glide down towards the ground
slightly, knowing that the work was more or less complete now.
Ever since the vote of Union last year, the topic of how Hogwarts was
going to be moved had been on the lips of everyone, concern of moving
their homes, their other institutions a distant second thought in
comparison to the thoughts of Hogwarts even being slightly damaged.
Months had gone in the planning, creation of new magicks had been
made by Atticus and Emily, almost to assuage the fears of the public, and
all of it culminated in a move that lasted in less than an hour.
She decided to fly down towards the assembly of people at the far side of
the hill, at the mouth of the Gardens of Annwn, a communal park-garden
that bore tribute to the Celtic roots of Avalon.
As she neared the assembly of people, she could see the Lords of the Old
Nobility, and the Chief Minister Prewitt and his cabinet though she made
her way towards the Hogwarts staff a little by the wayside.
The hallmark tight frown on Minerva's face was there to be seen, the one
that signalled her irritation and impatience, her stern gaze fixed upon the
one thing that Lily thought had no real competition for her affections.
The others, like Filius, Pomona and Horace, all wore excited faces and
they didn't waver when they saw her.
"Lily!" the exuberant high pitched voice of Flitwick brought a smile on
her face as she touched down onto the ground. "A truly wonderful show
that was." He practically bounced on his feet as he spoke again "I could
feel the magic of the Lift and Anchor Arrays the instant Hogwarts passed
through the portal horizon."
She smiled fondly at her former Charms Professor as she walked over to
him, them. Whilst she graduated early from Hogwarts, she did keep in
touch with her former professors over the years, especially Horace and
Filius, the two professors that had helped her the most during and after
Hogwarts.
"I'm just relieved that it is over" Pomona exclaimed as she held her
clutched hands to her chest "Dearie me, I felt like I was going to have a
heart attack where I stood."
"Now, now, Pomona" Horace said soothingly as he came closer to Lily
"You were worrying for no reason" Horace said with a beaming smile
"Hogwarts was always in safe hands" Horace said with dazzling smile as
he looked to her.
"That open cup of tea is still on the table, Horace, even if you don't flatter
me." Lily said with an amused look on her face, one that caused Horace
and the most of the Hogwarts staff to chuckle a little bit.
"Ah, but you never know, you might forget us all in all of the fame and
acclaim you are accumulating." Horace said with a wink.
She smiled at Horace. With her research at SIMS and her own
publications that expanded wildly on the kinds of properties that can be
added to an object or individual, and of course her famed apprenticeship
with Emily that had put her in the spotlight of the entire magical world,
she was a public figure of some fame.
"Forget you? Never." Lily said with a playful smile "You'd pester me far
too much for me to ever accomplish such a feat."
"Pester?" Horace looked affronted but the gleam in his eyes confirmed it
was fake. Even if there wasn't one, she would not have thought the jibe
would have upset him.
She knew him well, the Slug Club, the countless of hours she'd spent with
him as he coached her on matters of Politics and of all of the intricacies
of the world she'd been thrust into when she'd agreed to be an apprentice
to Emily at the age of fourteen which had only been expounded later
when the familial links with the Sayres was made apparent.
Whilst she had her links to the McKinnon family through Marlie and the
Featherborn family through Alice, Horace had nigh on a century of
political and social experience that she'd wanted to draw from because
she'd been relatively sure that she'd gain an almost neutral perspective on
things for the measly price of Horace cashing in on that tutoring socially.
One might wonder why she'd needed to do so, when her links to the
Sayre family and Emily would have ensured that she'd get that tutoring,
which she did get, but after discussing it with her father, they wanted to
be sure that she'd be as prepared as she could be.
In the end, the tutoring she'd gained from Horace had proven to be
unneeded with how forthcoming and honest, as honest as they could be,
Emily and Atticus had been with her.
And, she mused, had they truly wished, they could have stopped it
completely, especially since they had known of it before she'd even
started the tutoring with Horace.
"Personally I think the use of that word is far from unfair, Horace."
Minerva said in a clipped tone as she walked over, her expression having
lost that frown. Likely was content, for now at least, that the school was
as well as it could be.
She expected that every inch of the school would be inspected in the
weeks to come.
"Minerva, you wound me so." Horace sighed dramatically before his eyes
glittered with tease "sometimes I wonder if such harsh words are
intended to make me finally hand over stewardship of Hogwarts over to
you."
It was an open secret that Minerva would succeed Horace in the near
future, something that Lily knew Horace would do all he could to ensure
would happen regardless of what people might feel or say about her due
her ties to the disgraced Albus Dumbledore, and seeing Horace as he was,
aged and tired-looking, she wouldn't be surprised if he would seek to
install her in the next five to ten years.
Minerva raised her eyebrow. "Unfortunately, for our all of sakes, you're
far too resilient for such a method." Minerva said matter-of-factly though
the thin smile on her face was clear of how it was it meant.
It didn't stop the amused reactions from the rest of the staff.
"Just to remind you all." Lily began, keen to return observe the rest of the
work now that the physical work was more or less complete "The school
will still be closed to you for the next few days."
"When will the heartstone be returned to Hogwarts?" Minerva asked.
"Tonight" Lily answered gracefully. The Heartstone of Hogwarts was
accustomed to the leylines that intersected below Hogwarts for over a
thousand years.
Now, here, at this site, there would be only be one leylines but that
leyline carried magical energy that was several times greater than the
output of the leylines Hogwarts had been accustomed to.
Over time, the heartstone would shatter, especially if its wards were ever
tested.
Normally, the heartstone or wardstones would have been replaced with a
crystalline wardstone that nearly all houses and buildings had but the
heartstone of Hogwarts was special. Whilst most ancient family manors
had much of its familial magic deeply sunk into the walls and stones of
the houses, Hogwarts had that and far more.
The heartstone of Hogwarts had taken a quality that was akin to a cortex,
and its walls and stones being its nervous system. To replace it…was to
replace Hogwarts itself.
No one could bear that, not even Atticus or Emily, and so they devised an
interface shell that dispersed the excess magical energy from the leyline
towards several other crystalline wardstones that would be installed
across Hogwarts and act like a turbocharger in a certain way.
"The teams are assembled and they will be on-site tonight and in the next
few days to ensure there aren't any mishaps with the new wardstones and
the heartstone."
Minerva nodded with a pleased expression on her face.
"I'll be around the school a few times in the next week or so, we can
catch up then." Lily promised before she began to levitate upward and
after a few hasty goodbyes, she returned to the school where she stayed
for the next few hours, conversing with the team that was checking the
school structurally.
She only caught Atticus and Emily briefly before they had to go but she'd
see them soon enough anyway as she'd go visit them once she was done
here.
By the time she left the school and was escorted to Sayre Manor, it was
well into the evening. 'I hope he will forgive me for missing another dinner'
she thought to herself as she walked through the hallways of the manor,
her eyes glancing at the portraits that hung on the walls, some of which
were centuries old portraits of ancestors.
The first time she'd been here had been when she'd been thirteen, a few
weeks after the Young Mastermind program had come to an end. She'd
met Atticus and Emily for the first time at that event, and thinking back
on it, she'd been a nervous wreck.
Not only because he was her King and her cousin, but also because she
admired him and Emily greatly.
Both of them had several Masteries before the age of majority, both of
them created something like Illos out of nothing, a veritable island of a
ship and so much more and, to say that she was intimidated by it all
never mind that he was her cousin, well…
She arrived at the spacious living room where Atticus and Emily were
seated and, a little surprisingly, Jean Delacour, the French nobleman
who'd been Minister of Magic for France for a term before he'd stepped
down. She looked at the table and saw a few parchments laying around
which was odd since most business was done through Magi-com.
"Lily." Emily greeted warmly as she gestured Lily to come forth. "Lily, this
is Lord Delacour, I'm sure you have met him before, if only through
passing."
Delacour had risen when Emily had greeted her and made his way
towards her. She curtsied before him and he smiled kindly at her as he
took hold of her hand delicately and brushed his lips above her knuckles
respectfully. "Lady Evans."
"It is only miss Evans, Lord Delacour. I'm not ennobled." Lily told the man
as she withdrew her hand. Whilst the importance of nobility was far, far
from important in this day and age, there was still a significant measure
of prestige attached to nobility, especially in Avalon and most other parts
of the greater magical world, a measure of prestige that she didn't think
would completely disappear from magical society any time soon.
It was partly why she liked living in Illos so much where personal
accomplishments were greatly more valued than who you were or what
your name was.
"Miss Evans." Lord Delacour corrected with a faint nod before he glanced
at Atticus and then to Emily. "The hour is late, my old friends."
"Of course." Atticus said with an incline of his head "We can continue at a
later date." Delacour bowed before Emily and Atticus before he nodded to
Lily and left towards the front exit.
"I hope I wasn't interrupting anything." Lily remarked curiously.
"You weren't." Emily said as she gestured her to sit down before the
parchments rose and disappeared into a singularity that led to a secured
dimension of some sort.
"Politics and the like." Atticus added as refreshments popped into
existence on the table, including a pint glass filled with what was likely
cloudy lemonade, her favourite. She eagerly took it and drank of it.
"I thought he retired from politics?" Lily remarked after she'd had enough
of a sip.
After the man had secured France's place in the new magical order and
ensured that France would be a founding member of the Federation, he'd
decided that there had been little point in staying on as French Minister
and had stepped down.
He was an interesting man with plenty of achievements…and a deep
connection to the French political elite. He'd risen to prominence during
and after the Grindelwald war where he'd been a member of the famous
Knights of Mimpost and ever since then, he'd been a mainstay in French
politics. It would not be wrong to say that he was likely the most
influential Frenchman, both in and out of France.
"Politics has a way to pull one back, even if you think you're out of it."
Atticus said with a faint smile on his face as he leaned back in his chair.
"Especially when it is politics that is contentious." Emily added almost
dismissively.
She hummed silently. It wasn't hard to figure out what exactly it was
about.
Despite the monumental success of the Federation, an organisation that
boasted fifty-six Ministries and countries and seventy-four protectorate
communities along with six other Senators representing their species,
there were many problems and simmering tensions that were ongoing.
Which was entirely because of the Revelation of Celestis.
There was significant pushback on the influence of the Federation now
that the Revelation of Celestis in 1982 was fully digested by both the
public and the politicians, a revelation that had shocked the magical
world like nothing other.
She eyed the two secretly. It had shocked her and her family too.
In truth, she didn't know anyone who wasn't completely shocked when
the news of Illos and the others in the Grand Alliance having been
traveling the stars for decades and that they'd found a star system fifty
thousand light years away that boasted worlds that were more magical
than even Earth was.
It took years before even the most sceptical had been convinced, and
even then, there were still many who were still disbelieving even after
dozens of trips were made by delegates and Unspeakables from across the
magical world to verify it was all true.
The other revelations of their origins, of the millions of years of heritage
that was destroyed because of a lost war with an enemy that could only
be summarised as blood-enemy, was even harder for people to
understand.
Riots had been observed in many, many places, outrageous demands that
their government seek to do something about these monsters that might
come back, and it took the King and Queen speaking out that it was
ancient history and assuaging the fears of the public that if they hadn't
been attacked for past few thousands of years, it was unlikely to result in
them being attacked now.
Of course, Lily had listened at the speeches dozens of times now and she'd
noted that neither Atticus and Emily had spoken that the threat doesn't
actually exist anymore and when she'd asked, she'd been told that they
didn't know that their ancient enemies were gone definitively which was
why it they didn't say so.
An implication that had Lily hadn't really known how to deal with. She'd
done the next best thing and ignored it.
In any case, to say the last few years had been…chaotic, at least
politically chaotic, would be understating it…and it polarised the magical
world in many ways.
It also didn't help that Illos had made it clear that it, and their allies,
intended to move towards the Celestis System around the turn of the
millennium which made proud counties like MACUSA, Spain and India
heavily resistant to the Federation in the past few years once they began
to understand the true meaning behind the Federation.
Her mind went back to Delacour. France was not amongst those pushing
against the Federation, in truth it was actually one of the more
supportive members thanks to the efforts of Delacour and his supporters,
but its closest allies in Spain, Portugal and the Benelux Ministries were…
exceptionally leery.
"People don't like change, especially change that shifts towards unclear
futures and uncertain times that leaves them with little influence with the
captains of the ship." Atticus remarked with a commiserating smile to
Lily.
"Hmm." Her mentor Emily only commented behind a blank face as she
crossed her legs. Lily sipped on her lemonade as she thought on her
cousin's words.
Yes, that was the crutch of the problem, wasn't it? It was very clear who
was captaining the ship, so to speak. Atticus and Emily were involved in
everything, everything that happened or was done in the magical world.
From Education, to magi-tech, to space, to the politics of the Federation,
to trade, everything was influenced by them with immense opportunities,
from trade to country-ships, available to those who would accept the
concessions demanded by the Illosians.
Concessions that were centred to being agreeable to the move towards
the distant star system and aligning with Illos politically. Thus far, four
country-ships had been built in the next past decade and a half with two
more country-ships still being built.
One of them had gone to the Union de Sudamericana, a league of
countries that consisted of Peruvians, Incans, Bolivians and Argentinians.
They'd partnered up to form the South American League and decided to
bid and cohabit one of the country-ships, and, if what she was hearing
was right, they were keenly interested in settling Drelater, a temperate
but mountainous moon-world that orbited the gas-giant Gribidis.
Another had gone to the Central Asian Union where most of the Steppe
communities had once been located whilst the last two had gone to Brazil
and its allies in the Creole Nations, Mexico and several other smaller
Polynesian communities and the other country-ship, which had been
intended for MACUSA but had been put off for political reasons, had
gone to China who partnered up with a number of smaller communities
like the Malay communities that dotted the South East Asian sea.
And one of the two country-ships that were being built was intended for
the Ottomans, the Persians and oddly the Minoans that seemed to be
closer to its Asia Minor neighbours than the Greeks or the Italians.
All of the habited and soon-to-be-habited country-ships would boast
populations of nearly seventy percent of the world magical population,
something that truly highlighted to her how…small the magical world
truly was.
Most of the country-ships had an area about the size of the island of
Lesbos, ranging between twelve hundred to nineteen hundred square
kilometres and yet these country-ships were far from densely populated.
Even El-Dorado, the country-ship of the South American League that
boasted a population of almost two hundred thousand, had a population
density of about sixty-five per square kilometre.
"But you're not here to hear us old people grumble about politics." The
voice of her cousin broke her out of her thoughts and she looked at him
and saw him wearing a faint smile.
She raised her eyebrow at the comment. "Old people?" she pointedly
asked as she swept her gaze across from Atticus to Emily, two eternally
twenties looking people.
She was almost certain the two had done something to their bodies for
them to look so…young and she thought it was quite possible that they
created a Philosopher's Stone much like the Flamels had done.
Though she doubted it.
It was noticeable when the venerable Flamels used the Stone as they
cycled between old looking and young looking quite often. Something
she attributed to the potency of the liquid being unable to completely de-
age them and instead worked to 'wind back' the telomeres and other
genetic structures to a time where they were young.
It was possible that the Sayres had improved the alchemy of a
Philosopher's Stone so that it would be able to more or less fix their age
but she had the impression that it wasn't the case.
She knew her mentor well enough to guess that it was likely rituals they'd
done to look so young. She grimaced internally. She'd looked into it, for
purely academic reasons, of course. The cost of accomplishing looked…
obscene.
Her calculations suggested that it required immense sacrifices and she'd
gotten sick at the thought of killing so many people. Thankfully, she was
sure, it was not what they'd done for it would have left a mark on their
magic and whilst her mentor's magic was…murky, it was no different to
the kind of murkiness she felt in the magic of the darker families.
"Would this be preferable?" Atticus posed to her before his facial features
began to change…age. Where there was medium cropped completely
black hair, there was now salt and pepper intermixed with the black and
the youthful skin looked more aged.
She reached out with her magic and realised that it wasn't illusion. Well,
any illusion she knew of. "Did you change your body?" Lily asked
curiously with inspecting eyes.
Her cousin inclined his head. "Yes." He said as he prodded his cheeks, and
it must have satisfied him since he looked all the more pleased.
"You're aware of the Metamorphmagus trait?" he posed to her.
"Yes." Lily said surprised. Sirius Black and Marlie's youngest son had the
gift as did another girl in the Black family. "I though only those with
Black genes could manifest the ability?"
"It is inherent to that family, yes, but it hardly anything special." Her
mentor remarked and Lily turned to see her mentor shift her midnight
black hair to bright red and her eyes to a deep maroon. "Once you
understand magic enough, yours and in general, you understand how
they accomplish it in a fundamental level."
Metamorphmagi alter their genetics on a fundamental level in the same
way transfiguration changed the look and composition of an object.
"It still takes conscious effort however." Atticus informed her before he
changed back and he stretched his jaw slightly as he met her gaze "I
doubt we'll be able to do with the same ease as the Black Family can do
who have incorporated it within their family magic." He explained to her
with a gentle smile before he lost it.
"Anyway, we've changed subjects enough, I think. I'm sure you would like
to go home." Atticus commented and she nodded as she straightened up a
little and began her report on the moving of Hogwarts.
Whilst they were well aware of everything that has happened, she was
the lead in this project and as such it was required that they be filled in.
Bureaucracy, it seemed, didn't spare even royals. Which was odd
considering that it was them who created said bureaucracy in the first
place.
She told them about the micro-fracture they'd observed in some of the
foundation rock that were repaired and the higher-than-expected force
the castle was subjected to by the wind which didn't need to be addressed
once the wards were back up and so on. All in all, it took about twenty
minutes to update them about everything thus far and another twenty
minutes before she left their home.
"Babe?" she heard him call out as she entered their home.
"It's me. Sorry, I got caught up with work." she said with an apologetic lilt
to her voice as she flicked her hand and her shoes melted away before
returning to their old structure and with another flick she sent them
flying towards the shoe rack.
She squiggled her toes before she walked further into their home and she
saw him perched over dusty old tomes on the table as he sat on the sofa,
the reading glasses hanging off of his nose as he peered at her. A gentle
smile came across his face.
She made her way towards him. "I know. I was watching on the Holo.
You did great" her boyfriend said encouragingly as he pushed aside his
work and moved across the sofa so that she could sit next to him.
She took a glance at the work and saw that it was the Arithmancy work
he was contributing to with Agoralos and her Divination students as part
of his Magi-Historian job and collapsed onto the sofa and she nestled
herself into his side, breathing in his musty scent that she associated with
warmth and old books.
"Thank you." She said warmly as he caressed her upper arm. "It was a
little nerve wracking to be honest." She admitted to him.
Whilst she was no longer affected by the opinions like she was when she
was younger, she was still very demanding of herself and wanting to
prove herself.
Though, in all honesty, she was relieved more than anything that
everything went without a hitch. The accolades she'd get for leading the
project was a distant thought.
He chuckled softly. "Hmm. I can understand why. Hogwarts is special to
everyone."
She moved against his shoulder and looked up and met his dark green
eyes. His were not the bright emerald eyes that members of her extended
family boasted. It was murkier, darker, like spring moss over old stones,
and they were no less enticing.
She moved up a little and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.
He hummed pleased against her lips before they parted and he eyed her
curiously. "What was that for?" he asked a little teasingly. She smiled at
him.
"No reason." she said to him with a loving smile as she raised her hand
and brushed aside his sandy-brown hair that was threatening to fall over
his face.
He hummed and she saw the knowing glint in his eyes as his face turned
warmer, somehow. But then, she mused to herself, he'd knew her better
than anyone else.
How odd, she thought to herself, that she wouldn't have gotten to know
him if he hadn't been because of her curiosity about the quiet Ravenclaw
that passed through Hogwarts like a ghost.
She could remember it vividly, even without the use of Occlumency, the
day she noticed him. She'd been in her final year at Hogwarts, about to
graduate two years early.
With her apprenticeship with Emily and her familial links with the Sayres
becoming known to everyone, her status amongst her fellow students had
skyrocketed and there hadn't been anyone who didn't want to 'befriend'
her or make her 'swoon'.
From the Black scions to the Prewitt twins, so many boys had tried to win
her affections. It had been…suffocating, in all honestly and she'd pushed
to graduate two years earlier than the one year she'd planned when the
attention became so problematic that she was losing her friendships with
Marlie, Alice and Mary who all had love interests that were being pushed
towards Lily.
She'd always be thankful to Horace for intervening in the way that he
did, despite the hits he would be taking from the families who were keen
to 'win' her over.
She'd often sought refuge in the quiet corners of the library and on one
auspicious day, she found a boy in Ravenclaw robes seated the next table
over.
She felt amused at her younger self.
She'd been so annoyed that her refuge was a refuge no more that she
tried to force him to leave. He'd looked at her with his mossy green eyes
and refused before returning to his books.
It baffled at her, the refusal.
No one had refused her anything, especially not since her apprenticeship
and her 'noble' bearings became known to the magical world.
She'd asked why and his answer surprised her. He told her that this was
his place first and that he'd been coming her since the second month of
his first year.
She grimaced internally as she thought on how she tried to get him to
leave regardless of who was the rightful 'owner' of the spot, even going so
far as to threaten him to make him leave with magic and his next words
had stiffened her still.
'Are you so entitled that you think everyone should bend over backwards for
you?'
Entitled…
She'd left not long after that, her tail between her legs.
She'd known that she had an arrogant streak within her. Even Potter
could see it and he was arrogance personified. But she never thought that
she was entitled.
And to her younger self's horror, she realised she had become entitled in
a short few years. The professors, her friends, everyone catered to her in
some way or another and she'd gotten used to it.
It took a month before she went back to the spot and lo and behold, he
was there as well. She remembered the careful look in his face as she
walked over and the surprise as she sat on the next table beside him and
began to work on her homework and her assignments handed to her by
Emily.
This went on for the next few months, where the pair of them worked on
their work without a single word passing by, and…and she'd loved it.
Companionable. Comfortable. Pleasant. Peaceful.
It was wonderful.
She'd discretely found out more about him in those months and had early
on realised that he was in the same year as her, well would have been had
she not jumped year groups.
From what she was able to find out, he didn't really socialise with
anyone, not even his fellow Ravenclaws and was known to be a smart but
quiet, preferring the comforts of his books than the presence of others.
His family were also of a similar quiet nature, a minor noble house that
often worked within the old Ministry of Magic in some capacity or
another.
No wonder she didn't recognise him. He was a ghost that kept to himself.
One day though, he asked her about the charms book she was reading,
something that surprised her greatly though not unpleasantly and she
answered it honestly.
From then on, the months went by far too quickly and before she knew
it, she'd graduated from Hogwarts with the third highest grades ever in
her subjects.
But, the day before she walked out of the doors of Hogwarts as former
student, she nervously asked him if he'd ever wanted to grab some food
during the holidays.
She still remembered vividly the look of surprise on his gentle face. As
the words that had crept out of his mouth 'Like a date?'
'No, not like a date. Just a date' she'd responded and the rest was history.
"You look like you're about to doze off" he said as he gently removed her,
much to her displeasure, from his side and stood up "You need to get
some food in you first."
At the phrase food, she'd perked up, much to his amusement as he
chuckled.
"Ooh, what did you make?" she asked with eagerness as she also stood up
and followed him to the kitchen. She was a terrible cook, much to her
mother's disappointment and Tuney's delight, and her boyfriend was
undoubtedly the only reason why she didn't eat out. As much.
"Spaghetti Bolognese" he told her with a teasing look on his face and he
laughed aloud at her hungry look, knowing as he did that it was one of
her favourite dishes.
"With the lemon sauce on top?" she asked eagerly as he went towards the
stasis cabinet.
"Of course." He said as he brought out the dish and floated it towards her.
Her tongue threatened to melt on her tongue as she stared at the food.
Though, she managed to tear away her gaze and looked at her boyfriend
with a grateful look. "You, Mr Lupin, are in for a treat tonight" she said
with a half teasing half serious glint in her eyes, one that made him
chuckle, and she took a fork and began to dig in, her entire being
radiating with happiness as heaven filled her stomach.
-Break-
17th of August, 1984
Alice POV
She waited atop the auxiliary transport as it crossed the distance within
the Core Room, towards Storage Facility Zero-Zero-Four, her attentions
idly focused on the hubbub of activity that was going all around her.
Seelie, Golems and mages alike were performing one task or another, like
routine diagnostic checks or improvements to the systems that Illos and
the slaved country-ships needed to survive as they were, and it was a
sight that she'd gotten used to over the past decade or two.
Many were amongst the first who'd gone to Celestis though most were
informed ten years ago, long before the rest of the magical world was
informed.
The Seelie had been most pleased about the assistance the mages
provided them, she mused as she eyed one of the fragile looking
organisms that was floating some distance above her on a path towards
major power conduit Beta-Zeta-Zero-Eight-Four.
They were not unused to the mages – they'd been working with them for
over three decades now topside – but they had been unused to working
with them in the Core Room outside of the twenty kilometre Docking
Complex and the adjacent Moeniae Assembly Complex.
As much as the Seelie were mechanical geniuses, they were limited in
some aspects, namely when it came to maintaining heavily magical
systems. Before, the Creator or Creator Emily would receive daily reports
from the Seelie on what may needed to be checked or repaired and they'd
come down and perform it themselves.
Now, there were teams of mages who assisted the Seelie in this function
and, quite often, would assist the Seelie in the more mundane
maintenance activities.
The transport dais arrived at her destination, south-west from the central
spine of the Core Room and she stepped off of it. She tilted her head as
the identification ward washed over her, the ward that contained within
its repository the magical and electro-magnetic signatures of the vast
majority of the magical world.
The doors swished open and she stepped through.
Her steps echoed through the facility as she verged deeper into Storage
Facility Zero-Zero-Four, one of sixteen other facilities that held a myriad
of items for storage or contained equipment for experiments, her gaze
washing over the containment tubes as she walked past them.
Some facilities were rather uninteresting nature and would contain relics
and artefacts from one magical civilisation or another, much of having
been fished from the bottom of the Atlantic Sea where much of the more
resilient Atlantean relics had remained for over sixteen thousand years,
though it also contained many artefacts expropriated from the European
and Chinese nobility during the Raven War.
Other facilities were occupied for experiments, like Creator Emily's
experiments with the Veil, a fascinating structure that her Creator and
Creator Emily believed to be a portal that could pierce through the fabric
of the Universe by using the Domain as a medium, whilst the rest of the
facilities were used as safe locations for the more dangerous experiments
like anti-gravitic wave experiments which could unravel even black
holes.
She eyed the rows of containment tubes as she continued to walk towards
where the sensors indicated her Creator was.
Bodies were suspended with their mouths slightly ajar in biological
liquids which served to sustain it with oxygen and essential vitamins and
calorific materials.
This facility was much like the facilities that housed artefacts and relics
though where they differed was that these would expire in the next two
hundred years whilst the relics would now.
Alice believed it to be nonsensical, to occupy a facility with thousands of
bodies when they were in effect, defunct biological matter, especially
now that their secondary purpose has been rendered complete.
The indoctrinated had been judged at the Milanese Trials to be innocent
of their crimes but due to the nature of their minds, they could not be
released.
A comprise was made where Illos would detain them indefinitely without
cost to the rest of the magical world and so Illos was bound to held them
captive until they no longer lived.
Her Creator could have disposed them half a decade ago once the tests of
the Miring-Gene was completed but he refused on the basis that he'd
given his word that they'd live until natural death, even though it was
pointless given that her her Creator and Creator Emily removed the
Essences of the prisoners and recycled their Essences in clones that were
then given to families to raise, making the bodies akin to single celled
organisms that only fed, breathed and produced excrement.
She saw him standing there with his arms behind his back, facing a
particular body, one that she recognised on sight alone. Pierre Le Havre.
The man far better known as Cullaica.
She watched him curiously as she came to a stop next to him. Her
Creator often came here, so much so that she came to understand it was
almost a place of solace for him.
With so many of their plans activated and in progress, some of them that
he tasked her to monitor and control, like ensuring that geo-political and
social events in the Mundane World happened exactly as he wanted, he
was never not working on one thing or another, and most of the time it
was politics that demanded his time.
A shift that she knew he disliked greatly yet he did it with extreme focus,
which initially surprised Alice significantly as it was outside the scope of
her calculations.
Alice thought she had rightly calibrated the personality of her Creator
but when he returned from Celestis over a decade ago, he'd changed
overnight. Their plans, which had been active for over two decades by
that point, were all but scrapped and new plans had been put in place,
including the plans for the Mundane World.
Exodus itself – and how it would come to happen – had been moved up
several decades and secrets were revealed far earlier and in less urgent
circumstances which demanded far greater political involvement of her
Creator, something Alice not expected he'd choose.
"They have an odd pulse of magic about them." Her creator began
drawing her attentions fully to the present.
She tilted her head curiously, microseconds passing as she tried to verify
what her creator was indicating. She did not have magic in her partly
magical body but this region of the Core was fitted with sensors of all
kinds.
"The sensors do not measure any irregular readings, Creator."
Her Creator smiled faintly before he turned to her. "It's very faint. Almost
melds into the ambient magic that pervades throughout Illos. Isolate
frequency bands Zeta-Beta, Chi-Tau and Kappa-Sigma."
The frequencies of neurophysical energy had been mapped out to a
highly organised degree and the sensors were sensitive enough to isolate
individual bands of neurophysical energy frequencies. The sensors were
recalibrated to attune to those frequencies of neurophysical magic and
within milliseconds she received positive readings that had been ignored
as background noise.
The cycles per second in which the frequencies pulsed was zero point
zero, zero, zero six two, which was highly irregular.
And none of the bodies were operating at exactly the same frequency
either.
Curious.
Her Creator smiled deepened slightly. "It's understandable" he said as he
turned back at the bodies. "Those frequencies have not been measured as
possible for living beings and with the pulse of the Mithril leylines, it will
get lost. I can sense and isolate it mostly because I can see it being there."
Her Creator paused as he raised his hand slightly, almost touching the
containment tube.
"It's quite fascinating" her Creator said with a note of interest in his voice.
"All evidence shows that without the soul, without the Essence of a being,
the magic that is contained within the vessel should re-attune to the
ambient magic that surrounds it. Yet these bodies, slight as it may be,
have some kind of individuality that persists."
"Their neurophysical energy is stagnant. Idle." Alice voiced out as she
turned her gaze towards the containment tube. "Anomalous, yes, but not
unreasonable given that there may be a biological function as to why
their energy is as it is. Individuality remaining is highly improbable given
the loss of neurological function and Essence."
"Not in the classical sense." Her Creator said with a smile in his voice.
"No, such individuality does not exist, you are right in that, but there is
individuality that remains, that lingers, in that body."
It took her fractions of a microseconds to interpret what he meant.
"Genetic memory?" Her Creator smiled as he turned to her. He nods
slightly as his arms leave his back and a display formed.
A strand of Mage DNA showed itself.
"Just as microbes and environment assist in shaping the genetics of
complex life, so too will there be shaping of one's magic by the actions
and consequences of that individual." The strand of Mage DNA changed
noticeably as her Creator spoke.
"Like tyre marks in mud." Alice commented and her remark surprised her
Creator though it soon faded away as he smiled at her warmly before he
nodded.
"Yes, quite like so." Her Creator said before he turned his eyes towards
the strand of DNA that began to shift, changing its sequences as the genes
responsible for neurophysical energy was altered to that of the
Resurgence-Genes, genes that were the similar as that of the First clones,
and genes that would be the 'parting gift' of the magical world as Exodus
was completed.
Her Creator's eyes were intense as he looked at the genetic structure and
Alice understood why. It was a major shift from what had been intended.
Creator Emily had been instrumental in the decision.
Whilst the majority of Dormants will be affected by the Miring-Gene
Array, there would be several thousands that would be unaffected, not
only to ensure the requirement of magical presence in the Sol system –
which would also alleviate suspicions of what had been done to the
Dormants by members of society even if it was much lower than expected
which would be explained away – but also to keep close ties with the
Mundane Human society that could prove useful.
Her Creator dismissed the strand of DNA and turned his gaze towards
her.
"Our cousins are deviating slightly." Her Creator stated with a serious
note in his voice, indicating that he'd already come to speed about the
altenate conversation they'd had.
She connected to the Limited Artificial Intelligences, LAIs, the human-
form golems that pervaded throughout the Mundane World in the
thousands, most of them slotting in replacing individuals who had either
died in accidents or criminals who were removed with their memories
extracted from the residual electrical signals within their nervous systems
and neurons.
Each of the major powers had several hundred LAIs embedded within
positions of influence. Within a moment of a blink of an eye, she
reviewed the memories of hundreds, thousands, and found no deviations
amongst the memories.
Until…
Until she arrived at the 'Jackson Seale' LAI memory banks and found that
there was a slight deviation. It was minor, inconsequential by most
metrics but clearly if her Creator was commenting on it, it was significant
enough that it needed action.
"Shall I implement course corrections?" Alice asked.
"Yes. Please. Nothing major and nothing out of character. Should he
allow the other Scourers to continue on their hunt, MACUSA would be
able to pull down the entire organisation before the Reveal could come to
be" Her Creator told her.
Alice tilted her head in affirmation as she worked out a sequence of
commands that were in line with the Seale character and a few seconds
later, she nodded her affirmation to him that it was done.
Her Creator's eyes went aglow for a moment and his expression turned
into stone and it was less than ten seconds later that his eyes returned
back to their normal faintly aglow violet emerald colour. "Much better."
Her Creator said as he began to walk and gestured her to walk with him.
She followed.
"How is your project coming along?" Her Creator asked her kindly. Alice
tilted her head towards him and gave her Creator a smile.
"It is going well. I have completed mapping out the major and minor
events and I have started writing the first chapter." Alice told her creator.
She'd been curious about her Creator's music and had taught herself how
to play. Her Creator told her that she played perfectly but said that it
wasn't the purpose of playing music. It was meant to have emotion and
meaning.
It had made her think and she realised that she was unlikely to have
emotion and meaning like humans would have and she decided to move
onto something else.
Like books.
Books didn't need her to have emotion or meaning but she could create
characters that did have both and so she decided to write.
"Exciting." Her Creator said with a smile before he continued with a
curious look on his face "Will you be able to tell me now what it will be
about?"
Alice weighed it up. Yes, she decided. She was at a point that she could
tell her Creator about the story she was creating. And so she did tell him
as they walked.
She told him about the world that the book(s) will be set in, a world of
perfectly explainable physics though that would appear to the still
scientific illiterate people as 'magical', from floating mountains that bore
significant Gravitonium-Iron ores, from multi-coloured rivers to animals
that existed above the cloud lines which were buoyant due to the
composition of the air above the clouds.
By the time she finished, they were out of the Storage Facility and into
one of the sections of the Core Room. With the protections her Creator
and Creator Emily placed upon the Core Room, protections that even
prohibited his portal travel amongst many other forms of travel, her
Creator would have go out of the front door, so to speak, like everyone
else.
As they rode atop one of the auxiliary transports, she watched him
curiously as he looked around with an introspective look, one that she
recognised very well.
"Something is troubling you." Alice asked with a curious tilt of her head.
"I wouldn't say troubling." Her Creator said with a soft smile before he
looked away from her and back towards the working crew that boasted
mages, Seelie and intelligent golems. "Just wondering on what-ifs. More
specifically one what-if."
"I was wondering what my future would have been had I never met
Moira."
Alice considered that. "The branch of paths are near infinite, Creator, but
from what I have been informed, such an event would not have been
possible given the deterministic nature of your meeting of Moira."
Moira's daughter and the Monks that had worked in the background for
almost two thousand years made the birth of her Creator all but certain.
Her Creator understood that and he nodded as such. "Perhaps. But
consider it for a brief moment. Consider that I had not met Moira."
"Chances are high you would have been dead" she said after her
calculations of the scenarios had been completed.
"The Symbols." Her Creator agreed.
"They would have achieved greater success with the absence of Moira in
my life. The Monks were predicated on the notion that I, or rather the
chosen one, would have searched them out. It is possible that they would
have continued to shield me from the Symbols but it is also possible they
would have removed the shields as soon as it was apparent I was not the
chosen one."
"They would have killed you many years before you were ready to face
them." Alice said matter-of-factly. Her Creator smiled grimly before he
nodded.
They would have killed him as soon as they realised their preferred route
of Albus Dumbledore defeating Gellert Grindelwald was threatened,
which would have been any time from when he was a child to even
before killing his parents before he was born.
"You do have inordinate, what may be colloquially defined as, luck,
Creator." Alice responded to her Creator. The probabilities were quite
often in his favour when they should not be considering factors and
situations. "It is possible you may have succeeded to defy the odds,
insurmountable as they might have been."
Her Creator laughed shortly before he looked her amused. "I think you
may be developing a sense of humour after all these years."
"I was entirely being serious, Creator." Alice answered her Creator though
admittedly, she was stretching her logic functions to a wide margin to
arrive at the conclusion that there was a possibility her Creator would
have lived.
"Hmm." Her Creator only answered in return, which was full of
scepticism.
"What has brought on this…pondering?" Alice asked her Creator. Alice by
now knew that her Creator was prone to irregular and often illogical
questioning and ruminations, a function that admittedly was quite useful.
It helped him lead himself, and others, to paths of thought and action
that proved fruitful at the end.
This consideration however?
She could not see the value of it.
"I was thinking of influences." Her Creator told her with a faint smile as
he looked towards the working crew once more. "Influences of certain
people at certain times and how that change everything…and sometimes
nothing." Her Creator turned thoughtful. "Moira, for me, is perhaps the
most important person that has ever lived, in my opinion."
She considered it and she came to the conclusion that she agreed.
For her Creator and for Alice, that was most certainly true. Her Creator
had created her, yes, but it had been the Ancient Human technology that
granted her sentience she possessed now and though her Creator would
have likely succeeded in creating a sentience, it would have likely been
more magical than technological.
"I concur." Alice said after a while. "She is the singularity."
"She is." Her Creator agreed before an odd look came across his face. "A
singularity that I owe my very existence too and all that I have
accomplished in more ways than one." Her Creator shook his head.
Alice realised then that in a certain way, Moira was her Creator's Creator,
more than simply biologically. Like tracks in the mud, she'd left an
immovable mark on her Creator that could potentially impact the entire
galaxy.
"Don't tell her I said that though." Her Creator said semi-warningly
though it was said with a faint smile "I'd never hear the end of it."
"She most likely already knows, Creator." Alice said with some humour.
"Well, she doesn't need to hear it." Her Creator said with a light glare.
"My metallic lips are sealed, Creator." Alice said and her Creator's glare
cracked as he smiled at her before he shook his head.
"Emily's been a bad influence on you." Her Creator muttered.
Alice wisely said nothing further.
-Break-
19th of August, 1984 – The Federal Assembly, Illos
Senator Dimitar Krum POV
His gaze fell upon the Drow Senator, the oddly blue skinned almost
scaled being that bore the façade of looking human. His gaze then turned
to the Wood Nymph, the green short statured girl-like being that sat
amidst the Senator of the Creole Nations before he cursorily glanced at
the other non-wizard beings that sat amongst them all as if they were…
He cut his thoughts short though the distasteful feeling lingered within
him.
Amongst the sixty-two Senators that sat in this Federation, six of them
were occupied by what only a few years ago would have been called
Magical Creatures instead of simply magicals, as if they were equal to the
wizarding race.
A change that was difficult to swallow, not only for him but for many of
his brethren that survived and it was only that it was clear that their
societies were segregated that made it even possible to swallow.
He sighed internally as he sat back in his chair. Years did little to remove
the distaste he felt for those beings, even the Veela. He remembered the
effects the mind warping wretches had on his people and to think they
were so honoured…
He shook his head. He knew it was a…flaw of his, as his remaining
children would so happily tell him, but he couldn't help it. He'd never
like the creatures, even if he stopped hating them. Openly. 'If the option
still existed to hate them openly, you would' a distant voice in his mind
voiced out and he grimly acknowledged it.
He was not as enlightened as some of the other Senators claimed they
themselves were, even though he knew that it all hogwash. He scanned
across the Assembly.
Whilst many of the Senators were 'of the Light', there was a healthy mix of
Senators of the greyer and the darker persuasions. The esteemed
Argentinian and the Mexican Senators were not too long ago considered
Dark Wizards by the ICW.
He smirked slightly.
If there was one thing, one rare thing, that he appreciated about the
Sayres themselves, it was that they were not holier-than-thou many
people believed them to be.
He remembered reading in the fifties about the sweeping disarray that
had taken hold of South America and he could now see that the Sayres
had a hand in it. Greatly.
Where before coups and civil wars routinely destabilised their societies, it
was now never stronger. All under the auspices of the Illosians of course.
Of course.
The smirk fell off.
And it wasn't just the South Americans either that their auspices reached.
Europe was the same as well. Just as China was. Just as many other
smaller regions were.
Illos was the unrivalled political juggernaut that had its fingers in every
single society. Even his own country and people, Bulgaria.
'Though…how long it would remain simply Bulgaria was yet to be seen' he
thought to himself as memories of 'Eastern Europe initiatives' filled his
mind, initiatives the Minister of Bulgaria was reviewing and that would
see Bulgaria in a union with Lithuania-Poland, Belarus, Russia and a host
of other smaller communities like the Hungarians and the Serbs.
A union that would culminate in a country-ship being built for their
people.
And this Federation, was their chef d'oeuvre, their masterstroke that would
see them enforce their influence under the guise of unity. With the
devastation of Europe and the permanent dissolution of the ICW,
formally, by none other than the Illosians themselves, who cleaned out
Alexandria of all magical presence to the point that there was no
evidence that the centuries old Magical Quarters had ever been there, the
Federation had little difficulty in sweeping up Europe into its Federation.
He eyed his surroundings, the domed building with its crystal ceilings.
This very Senatorial room was built from the same structures as that of
the ICW chambers.
He turned his gaze towards the other Senators, towards the South
American seating area. And once South America, China, and a host of
other smaller communities joined up, it became far too difficult for most
Ministries and communities to resist the pressure of joining up the
Federation.
Even MACUSA had swayed to join, even if they were regretting the
decision now.
He glanced towards the seats of the Council of Five, seats that were
occupied by Illos, Aziza, Ame-No-Ukihashi, El Dorado and MACUSA.
The Federation was a political system with two tiers of territorial levels
of government; Federal and National.
All members within the Federation were subjected to the Federal laws
and must abide to its founding constitution whilst anything else that lies
outside of the purview of the constitution and federal government was
self-determined though with the universal rights and freedoms demanded
within the Federal Constitution, one that resembled the Illosian
Constitution, it was incredibly sweeping in the change demanded in
many communities. Especially in Europe.
Of course, with the occupation by Illos that hadn't ended until after the
rebuilt nations had joined the Federation – something that was
inescapably noticed – no one, anyone who was left anyway, had
complained. Dimitar certainly hadn't.
Sovereignty was constitutionally divided and shared between the Federal
government and Ministries or Communal Entities that were large enough
to qualify for a Senator – which might happen in the next few years if the
unions of similar communities was going to happen as he'd heard in
order to give their people a voice.
In all honestly, Dimitar was mightily impressed that the Federation had
even worked.
Even with the might that the Illosians had, he thought as he gazed at the
Council of Five which were the seats that could, with a majority, veto a
ruling or decision made by the Senators of the Federation and three of
the Five were heavily allied with the Illosians with only MACUSA the
disparaging vote that could oppose the Will of the Sayres, it shouldn't
have been able to be this successful.
The Federation was a big idea, too large of an idea, and it diminished the
power of the native peoples far too much and handed it over to the
Illosians who were the undoubted leaders of the Federation. Yet, it
worked. Yet it succeeded. Yet it thrived.
His own Bulgaria had access to far more resources, consumables, even
finances that would have required previously an investment from a
wealthy Bulgarian. Now, anyone could start a business, even the
peasants, with but a stroke of a quill.
And even this…news of their supposed ancestry that stretched out to
millions of years, even this open secret that the sole purpose of the
Federation was revealed to be geared towards settling those Celestial
worlds and make the magical world to abandon their ancestral lands,
hadn't hit the political influence of the Sayres at all.
It was testament to the political influence the Sayres wielded within the
magical world that they could make even the most ardent pureblood
agree to their worldview.
The proceedings began and he was still only listening with half an ear.
Dimitar eyed the Illosian Senator as the Indonesian Senator spoke.
Anyone with a political brain could see that the Illosians, the Sayres,
were steering the magical world towards a destination they want.
Literally and figuratively.
They'd even said as much that they planned to leave this world for the
Celestial worlds.
The shock of the confirmed Celestial worlds, the shock of their supposed
ancestry, this Federation…the looming departure of a large chunk of the
magical world…
It was all beyond the pale and his, their, worldview was being upended
incredulously. And the Illosians were still steaming ahead, still ensuring
the train would leave when they wanted it. Regardless who is opposed to
it.
Regardless if members, like the Americans, were threatening to leave the
Federation.
He turned his gaze towards the other Senators. German, Austrian,
Norwegian. All were either half-bloods or squibborn. Survivors of the
purges and rulers of severely diminished Ministries.
The populations of most territories held by the Ravenites had their
populations culled or forced to leave, many as much as by sixty percent
though on average it was less than that though not by much.
They were a shadow of the proud Ministries they had been at the turn of
the century and were deeply divided people and it didn't help that many
of the surviving noble bloodlines of those countries were electing to
remain in Illos instead of returning 'home' as remaining purebloods
wanting them too.
There was zero chance of that happening, not if the reports the Healers
had provided were all true. Those scions were traumatised and the
Illosians were their 'heroes'.
He sighed silently. And as much as they were divided amongst
themselves, the one thing that united them was their insistence to
maintain a friendly relationship with the Illosians and have made
commentaries that they wouldn't be opposed to leave with the Illosians
'when the time came'.
From what he heard as well, many of the Central and Northern European
Ministries might well ally together to form their own union and petition
for a country-ship.
Dimitar scoffed.
All because they feel like Illos 'avenged' them and feel like they owed
them loyalty.
He was of a mind that it was more likely that they let the atrocities
happen like some of the more sceptical and heavily disgruntled members
of society unhappy with their lot said under their breaths. 'No one wanted
to offend the Illosians out loud.'
He shook his head clear of that thought. It was unbecoming to think so
unfairly of them. The Illosians were many things but they were not that
cruel.
Not that monstrous.
He grumbled before he sighed audibly, attempting to focus more on the
proceedings.
He was failing.
He knew for all of his negative thoughts about where everything was
going…he wouldn't oppose it. Not because he was fearful of reprisals like
he knew others were but because he did feel like he owed a debt to the
Illosians.
A debt that he'd repay by sitting here, sitting amongst beasts and those of
muddled blood. A debt he'd repay by seeing this damned thing through
and then retire away.
Because, despite everything, he knew it was a debt he needed to repay.
He'd only survived because he'd worked with the Ravenites in every way
possible, in any way possible, as long as it kept his hands clean. A bitter
hateful feeling passed through him, one that was mixed with deep seated
guilt and cowardice.
It hadn't been enough.
He'd lost Ivanka to them, to their madness, wrapped up as she'd gotten in
their philosophy, before he'd elected to run with the rest of his children,
and it was only because she had died long before the Illosians had acted
that his and that of his daughter's had not caused the end of the Krum
family line as it was.
He should have ran sooner, damn the consequences, or at least should
have let his children escape, all of them, before they'd gotten their minds
twisted by the insanity.
But…
His eyes grew cloudy. He'd gotten wrapped up in the glee in seeing so
many of the creatures, the unworthy, see destroyed and cast low, that he'd
reasoned away the danger the Ravenites presented to his family,
believing that his purity and cooperation was enough to stay their hands.
He'd seen that brutally dissuaded at the death of the Ioan family, the
reason that prompted his and his family's escape from his homeland.
He shook his head, forcing vivid memories and guilt and sorrow of his
daughter away from his mind. Yes…he thought tiredly. He owed the
Illosians to get rid of the bastards that had caused his daughter's death.
And maybe…he thought to himself quietly, and maybe his support would
ensure that his surviving children wouldn't have to see their children
involved in a war.
Like he had been with the Grindelwald war.
Like his children had been with the Rave War.
And he'd happily sit in this…Federal Assembly if it would stop it from
happening.
Hours later, he left the Federal Assembly and made his way towards the
pyramidal steps of the Federal Building, his eyes sweeping across the
area.
Tall spiralling buildings filled the distant skyline, skybikes and
skymobiles sailed through the skies, the hum of the magic of Illos could
be felt on the skin.
He sighed heavily as he narrowed his eyes temporarily, almost closing.
Illos was a balm to the soul…to his magic. It was as if he was swimming
in a pool of magic.
He'd never felt anything like it.
He reopened his eyes fully and set his face blankly as he descended down
the steps.
Only those who could feel the magic of Illos could fully understand why
so many wanted to move here. And why so many were not closed off to
the prospect to moving to other worlds when the officials, one of whom
had been his colleague, had visited the worlds and claimed that they felt
far more magical than this world did.
He made his way towards the west side of the pyramidal steps, where he
was being waited on. He nodded to the rough looking dirty-blonde haired
man.
"Dimitar." Luka Jukic greeted with an incline of the head.
"Luka." Dimitar said gruffly and they began to walk towards the more
distant parked skymobiles they'd take to Hallos Terminal.
Luka swept his wand up and enveloped them in a privacy bubble.
He eyed the man with a blank expression. The Bosnian Senator was one
of Bulgaria's closer allies. Similarly to Bulgaria, Bosnia had suffered
under the tender mercies of the Ravenites but largely had made it out
intact. For the most part.
And whilst they never placed their public stance out in the open, he
knew that the Bosnians were not exactly happy to be within the
Federation. He even heard rumours that the Bosnians had refused
initially only to change their minds after a visit from Illosian
ambassadors.
Rumours that he was more inclined to believe than not. The Illosians,
after all, were persuasive. "They won't pass the bill." the Bosnian stated.
The bill meaning the private bill that was to provide benefits to affected
businesses that relied on the production of potion ingredients and
potions.
"No." Krum confirmed "I don't think they will." Krum eyed the man. "You
knew that anyway." Krum eyed the man with scrutiny. "Are the
alternatives not working?"
The Bosnians historically had been the largest producers of certain
ingredients, ingredients that were widely used in a large number of
potions. They'd oversupplied the market too, for centuries, ensuring that
potions with their ingredients would be cheaper to use than any
alternatives or alternative potions.
The Bosnian pursed his lips. "They work fine." 'But that's not the problem',
Krum thought dryly. The Bosnians wanted the same privileges they had
before…to dominate the market with their ingredients. Even if it far
easier to produce anywhere.
"Then you know the rules set by the Federation." Krum stated to the man.
The Federation had enshrined into law that should alternative ingredients
work in existing potion recipes, that the ingredients that require animal
product shall not be used for any reason.
Dimitar dryly thought to himself that it was almost every potion now
could use flora substitutes making the necessity for animal product
obsolete. Often times, it only required minor adjustments to existing
potion recipes as the flora could be prepared in such a way that it could
have the same effect as the animal ingredient.
The Diggory Potions Mistress, Eileen Diggory, formerly Eileen Prince, had
recreated hundreds of potions with collaboration with a number of
potion masters, like Fleamont Potter, the creator of Sleek-Eazy.
The Bosnian cracked and scowled "Yes and it is ruining everything." The
Bosnian said with a shake of the head before he peered at Dimitar "I'm
under immense pressure to obtain concessions from the Federation."
Dimitar eyed the Bosnian before he looked away from the man and
peered across the street. Concessions… "What will you offer?" he asked
the man even though he was looking at one of the Mage-Priests across
the street.
He could see the symbol of Magic, an oval Celtic knot, and if he was
closer he could see pinpricks of glittering dots surrounding the knot
which were meant to represent stars.
The resurgence of Pagan practices amongst magic-folk was significant, he
mused to himself, and Illos was spearheading it. Even the mudbloods of
Avalon were said to be embracing it.
"Union with the Slovenians, the Croats and the Hungarians."
Dimitar resisted the urge to swivel around swiftly and stare at the man.
Instead he peered the Bosnian from the corner of his eyes. "You're
considering uniting with peoples you have been…adversarial with?"
"It hasn't always been terrible." The Bosnian said with a grim smile.
With the sectarian and ethnic…problems the Balkans have had for
generations that dated back to Roman times, the consideration the
Bosnian was stating was almost unbelieved. Almost. After all…they were
living in strange, strange times.
"You hope to secure production rights for a number of ingredients" he
stated. It was the most logical conclusion. The Illosians won't budge on
the matters of potions ingredients, especially with the amount of product
that is needed each year.
The Bosnians have perfected the rearing of magical creatures but the
conditions were…abysmal and it has led to worse product over the
centuries, according to some critical potioneers.
The Bosnian smiled grimly and it gave him the answers he needed.
The Bosnians were a small people, barely reaching a number of ten
thousand at their height of power some centuries ago. Right now, the
census suggested that they were only seven thousand strong, the smallest
community with only the Albanians approaching their numbers who
were about nine thousand strong.
A union with the Slovenians, Hungarians and the Croatians would see
their influence grow that much stronger as they would get to a
population of over sixty thousand. They'd also retain their seat on the
Federation whilst also gain three votes who would be working to assist
them in matters like this that mattered to them. Freely.
"Why do you think union would get you what you want?" he still asked.
"Because I know the Slovenians and the Croats are eager to obtain a
country-ship. With Hungary, who wouldn't be opposed to such a thing
with enough prodding, and ourselves, they'd be large enough to warrant
a country-ship."
"And it would come at a cost of ensuring that you secure sole monopoly
on a number of key flora that would ensure your own people would have
international exports." Dimitar finished for the Bosnian. The smile on the
man's face was clear.
"Why tell me?" Dimitar asked as he looked around. The man had asked to
meet with him after the proceedings. He had a suspicion why, of
course…
"You're getting old if you don't know why I'm revealing such critical
information to you." Luka said with a thin smile.
"...You want Bulgaria to be a part of your union…of your bid" he stated
out loud.
"Your people are already thinking of it with the Polish and the Russians."
Luka pointed out. Dimitar said nothing in response for a long few
moments.
There was no point in denying it.
"Thinking." Dimitar elucidated. "Not committing. Like you want from us."
Luka tilted his head as he looked calculatingly at Dimitar. "You know as
well as I do that one way or another, your people will be on a country-
ship within the next decade…maybe two." Luka smiled grimly and bore a
wicked glint in his eyes.
"After all, it is what the Illosians want. The Sayres want." Luka said
humourlessly.
'And they get what they want, when they want' was left unsaid but both of
them understood it clearly. Just as they understood that catering to that
desire would get what the Bosnians wanted. "I will bring the proposition
to the Minister" he answered noncommittally. The Bosnian nodded with a
mockery of serenity.
"That would be much appreciated." Luka eyed him critically. "You may
wish to secure some kind of industry for your family in this new world of
ours."
Dimitar didn't answer as they approached the skymobiles. With the giant
that was Illos, no industry was safe from their hands safe for what they
agreed to not produce.
And Bulgaria knew their touch very well. Bulgaria was famed for their
Acromantula silk clothing and their farms, and he'd seen his country lose
much grip of the market thanks to the destruction the Ravenites had done
to their farms.
They had recovered only a quarter of their previous output…and they
were not selling all of their yearly produce either. It was a concern that
many of his colleagues had. "I will see you next month." Dimitar said
with an incline of the head, one that was returned and soon enough he
was aboard a skymobile, and as the skymobile was flying through the air,
his mind was filled with flying thoughts.
-Break-
21st of August, 1984 – Washington D.C.
Jason M. Lafides POV
The sounds of background music, of clinking glasses, of chattering filled
his ears.
Beautiful sounds amongst beautiful smiles, he mused to himself with a
sense of triumph. He looked down towards the Gala, filled as it was with
donors and believers, and that sense of triumph bloomed to a smile.
More and more they were collecting evidence. And more and more, they
were winning over sceptics about the evil that exists in the shadows.
The events in Trieste, Italy, the strange deaths that left bodies without
blood in France, Belgium and even Mexico of all places, and the historical
inaccuracies that didn't make any sense.
But, he mused as he looked towards the centre, towards the crucifix that
had many people surrounding it, their crowning achievement, the very
crown that would make people believe in the truth, was in their grasp.
"It seems like the truth is finally sinking in." he heard from behind him
and he turned around and saw his friend, Jackson Seale, coming towards
him with a smile and two glasses of champagne.
"It seems so, my friend." Jason said with a wild smile as he took the
offered glass of champagne and turned back around towards the crucifix.
Bolted onto the crucifix, naked and bloody and with more than a few
swords and knives sticking out of the devil's beast, the beast itself
snarling widely with its mouth covered with a metal brace that clamped
its jaws shut, was their very vindication.
A vampire, the devil's own monster.
Jackson Seale, with a number of other fellow of their association had
found the creature and managed to trap it. It was the greatest
accomplishment any of them had achieved and the results…well, he
mused as he turned his gaze towards one of the men, one Ronald Kroc-
Barg, a grandson of the late American titan Ray Kroc, who was
approaching the beast with a broadsword.
The man stepped slightly as the beast snarled at him but soon enough he
laughed it off with others and moved closer to the beast and pierced it in
its side.
The beast snarled out in pain but continued to move, even as the wound
around the broadsword began to heal, to the fascination and horror those
around it.
Yes…it was a great achievement and soon…soon…everyone would know
of the monsters that lurk in the shadows…including those who would
walk in the sunlight amongst them despite being of the same devil's ilk as
that creature was.
Jason turned back towards Jackson and raised his glass, a wicked gleam
of triumph in his eyes. For over three hundred years, their association
had tried to bring the truth to the world, to God's children. And now…
they would have the chance to do so.
"To the Scourers!"
Jackson grinned as he raised his glass and clinked at against his.
"And may our light scour the world clean from the abominations!"
Jason never heard more beautiful words.
And it would be words he'd see to realisation.
37. Chapter 97
25th of December. 1991 - Illos
Parelius Parkinson POV
"Good evening, I'm Gene Randall in Washington. We are standing by for an
oval office address by President Bush as he contributes to a day that even
historians may have trouble describing. A day when Mikhail Gorbachev
resigned as the President of a Soviet Union which already ceased to exist.
The new power broker, the Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
In a statement issued a short time ago, President Bush praised Gorbachev for
what he called his years of sustained comment to world peace. He also spoke
of his intellect, vision and courage. THe two men spoke on the phone before
Gorbachev delivered his televised resignation speech.
Mr Bush will look ahead to a future of dealing with the new commonwealth of
independent states and we are told now the President will go ahead with
formal recognition of those republics, notably Russia. We'll be back after the
president's address which we understand will be fairly brief.
Now the present of the United States."
…
"Good evening and merry Christmas to all Americans across our great country.
During these last few months, you and I have witnessed one of the greatest
dramas of the 20th century. The history and revolutionary transformation of a
totalitarian dictatorship, the Soviet Union and the liberation of its peoples.
As we celebrate Christmas….
Parelius listened quietly to the address of the American president, talk of
struggles against the communists, how its shaped all nations, how the
world lived under the spectre of nuclear war and how it was a victory for
freedom and moral values.
Parelius mused to himself that it was a rather a graceful victory speech,
one that specifically venerated Gorbachev thus creating a central focus
that the collapse was internally driven rather specifically made to
collapse by America and one that focused on 'welcoming' these states to
the fold all while bearing the torch of freedom, as much as a man like
Bush, a man in his position, could make.
After all…this was a spectacular win for the American muggles.
One that exemplified their society and their beliefs, one that solidified the
notion that their way was the best way, the divinely supported way, so
much so that their enemies were now joining them politically,
economically and philosophically.
He heard Cato's characteristic scoff beside him and he turned towards the
man, as did O'Leary and Venberry, two other senior members of the
Office of Intelligence.
They'd come together for this momentous moment, even if O'Leary and
Venberry did not know of Exodus and presumed that it was only to share
in satisfaction in the end of the Soviet Union which had been a major
cause of irritation for their Office. With the fall of the Soviet Union, they
were in the final stages of Exodus.
Cato met Parelius' gaze, his face slightly contemptuous as he spoke "Such
gloating in their victory." Cato's face twisted slightly in a mocking look
"As if the collapse of the Soviet Union had been of their doing. It was
inevitable, the collapse of the USSR." Cato turned towards the holo-
screen.
"With or without the Americans, the USSR was a flawed state doomed to
fail and it could be argued that it only existed for as long as it did because
of the Americans."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that" O'Leary commented as she bore her grey-
blue eyes towards Cato. "The pressure of and by the Americans
highlighted to the public the inadequacies of the Soviet Union and by
proxy, the inadequacies of the ideology. Without the Americans, it could
have taken centuries for communism to fail."
"There is also the point that without the Americans, the need to spend so
much on the military and nuclear weapons would evaporate." Venberry
pointed out.
"Totalitarian governments will always spend a greater portion of their
GDP on military, it is practically a written rule into the fabric of the
universe. Americans or no, the Soviets would have spent similar amounts
as they did in this timeline." Cato dismissed before turning towards
O'Leary.
"Without the Americans, the Soviets would have overextended itself
across the world. Communism, at its core, is a fundamentally
incompatible ideology to the nature of humankind, particularly so for the
mundanes. Europe, Africa, Asia, there would be no place on Earth that
the Soviets wouldn't have striven to convert to communism and in that
over-extension, they would have been torn apart internally. The sixties,
even in Khrushchev's reign, had proven their internal instability despite
his attempts to alleviate the brutal conditions Stalin had championed and
fostered."
O'Leary responded to Cato with a combative line of questioning and as
they continued to argue, Parelius tuned them out as he turned towards
the muggles on the holo-screen.
It was inevitable, Parelius mused to himself as he watched on. Regardless
of how influential the Americans had been in causing the dissolution of
the Soviet Union.
Even with Illos' careful interference they initiated through the sixties to
this point.
Stalin and his purges ensured a legacy of terror that was maintained for
too long during and after his death. Khrushchev, however mild he was in
comparison to Stalin, maintained the system of ruthless politicking
leading to his supporters gaining positions of power regardless of their
competency.
In the end, it maintained a highly corrupt and inefficient government
regardless of his wishes and endeavours to modernise the USSR,
something that made it unable to deal with the multiple crises that came
with foundations on which it was built upon…a foundation of murder,
betrayal and delusional strongmen.
He leaned back in his chair as he watched the reporters talk amongst
themselves, the sounds of his subordinates arguing a muffled noise
amidst his thoughts.
Still, he mused to himself, despite the corruption of the Soviets, despite
the abject disdainful society they carved out, oddly enough they were not
the main instigators in the majority of the plots they stopped before they
could begin.
Ironically, the environment of high stakes, high risk, low reward the
Soviets created amongst themselves had led to more restraint amongst
their military officers, at least when it came to those who had direct
authority in the matters of nuclear weapons.
Irritation flowed through him at the thought of the Fidel Castro, the
delusional Cuban who was a fracture-point in history for nuclear
catastrophe.
Thrice they and Alice had to work together to put an end to any events
that would lead the Soviets acquiescing to placing nuclear weapons on
the island.
The Americans would not back down from their Cuban red line, in any
circumstance.
It was irritating and took away some focus on the magical much more
than he liked.
It was bad enough that they had to ensure the Ravenites had kept their
activities in the magical world, a task that was no small feat even with the
help of the Far-Seers, and trying to make sure the muggles didn't poison
the world had been unwanted.
Normally such duties of interfering in the muggle world would have
fallen to Alice and Alice alone but His Grace had tasked him to assist
whenever needed, claiming that it was their responsibility to heal
'unintentionally trampled butterflies'.
He returned his attentions back on the holo-screen.
In many ways, it would have suited their needs had they not intervened
and let the muggles kill the majority of their kind off regardless if the
unintentional trampling was a consequence of Ravenite and Illosian
activities in both worlds.
The Magical World would not have needed Exodus to force the unwilling
communities to leave with them if the world they were leaving behind
was an irradiated wasteland.
Unfortunately, he knew His Grace would not let that happen.
His indifference to the muggle world only extended so far and in truth,
he keenly understood that His Grace wanted the muggle world to follow
a certain…trajectory.
One that His Grace was dead-set in seeing happen.
And the collapse of the Soviet Union was one event that he knew His
Grace wanted to happen. Years, decades of attempts to reform the USSR
politically, socially and economically had all failed, and instead of
driving growth, specifically economically, it only led to drive the USSR
into collapsing as its society led to many Soviets to learn how much
worse they were off in comparison to their counterparts.
He didn't have the full picture, about how much His Grace had…
influenced the collapse but he imagined it was probably minor
considering the…disparity of wealth when compared with their 'capitalist'
counterparts who lived in better homes, ate better, had better leisure.
Humans…regardless if they were muggle or magical, had an envious
streak in their nature. History proved that time and again. And this era
was no different.
It was in their nature to covet that is better than what they possess and as
soon as such information is available to be digested, to settle in the
psyche of society, it is a matter of time before resentment and discontent
bubbles within weak societies.
A feeling of amusement settled in his core as he arrived at a particular
curious thought. It was a streak of human nature that Illos had exploited
ruthlessly in the magical world.
The wants of magicals was substantially different than that of the
muggles, of course.
After all, there was a good reason why communities were almost as
prevalent as Ministries or other forms of government had been.
Self-sufficiency being accessible for thousands of years had seen to
ensuring small communities could thrive as easily and as well as large
governmental organisation.
But ultimately, that same nature of covetousness could only be resisted so
much, especially given that the Earth was getting all the more crowded.
In the span of a generation, the muggle population had doubled and he'd
seen the projections that would see the muggle population rise to over
ten billion by 2035, less than a half a century away.
Whilst the muggles moved into their cities more and more over the past
few decades, what could not be understated was the bleeding effects it
has had on surroundings lands…namely the need to feed those city
dwellers.
Lands that once upon a time had at most a few villages who sustained
themselves on their lands were now transforming into huge tracts of
farmland.
Lands that once upon a time had been left to nature were being destroyed
for the resources underneath the soil, displacing or killing the native
animals that dwelled in those lands.
Lands that bordered or were within the domain of those communities.
In the end, Parelius mused, it had been rather easy to inspire that seed of
covetousness into a forest.
Communities that had once been inseparable from their homelands were
now residing in country-ships or, in some instances, been allowed to
move to Celestis like some of the Native American tribes had been
allowed to do.
And, as he listened to the reporters speak of Russians eagerly enthusing
the opportunity to taste American cuisine, he would not be surprised that
it would be only a matter of time the former Soviet Bloc embraced most
if not all aspects of American life.
He turned towards the others in the room, and tune in on their argument
which by now had shifted towards if what they were doing about the
nuclear weapons in the Soviet bloc was enough, a familiar argument.
Whilst they did not interfere in the treaties proposed by Americans and
Soviets, like the START proposal in 1991, Alice and the IO had worked
together to ensure the number of nuclear capable countries were limited
along with ensuring that the security of the nuclear silos and delivery
vehicles of nuclear armed nations from any…interested parties outside of
these governments.
Their work had thwarted a number of organisations from obtaining
nuclear materials, including a plot by the Iranian theocracy and a plot by
the South African revolutionaries to get their hands on fissile materials to
force the hand of the Apartheid regime.
"We won't interfere." Parelius' voice cut through the argument and he
grabbed their attentions. And the Far-Seers or His Grace hadn't
mentioned further involvement.
"There is enough drive amongst the muggles to limit nuclear proliferation
especially by the Americans. They'll help push the Russians in taking the
nuclear arms from the former Soviet states. It is in their interest to limit
nuclear capable countries."
Plus, Parelius mused, in less than two years, the matters of muggles
would no longer be something to concern themselves with.
"Does that mean we can recall our agents?" O'Leary questioned.
They had a number of agents in territories like Russia, Ukraine and the
territories along the Caspian Sea, not only monitoring the muggles there
but also to keep an eye on any magicals that might be born amongst the
muggles since there was no magical presence there, much like most of
Europe, Asia, Africa and South of Central America.
Although…less and less squibborn were being born.
"Yes." Parelius stated before he shared a glance with Cato before
returning his gaze towards O'Leary "Though hang off from doing so until
I give the order."
He didn't think there was any further reasons to involve themselves in the
muggle world but he'd have to confirm it with His Grace.
O'Leary inclined her head with understanding.
Soon enough, he was left alone with Cato as O'Leary and Venberry left
and they enjoyed a companionable silence as they shared a glass of fire-
whiskey.
"Not long now." Cato broke up the silence and Parelius said nothing as he
drank of his fire-whiskey. Cato glanced at Parelius before he spoke up
again with a strong note of interest in his voice. "Saw you got yourself a
nice plot of land."
Cato drank of his fire-whiskey before he added, this time with an amused
smile "A little out in the wild though isn't it?"
Parelius eyed his dark-haired successor with an unimpressed glint in his
eyes. "I'll ignore the fact that you are keeping tabs on my purchases."
Cato looked entirely unabashed by the comment as he responded. "It is a
matter of public record, sir. I happened to chance upon it."
Parelius didn't respond to the jibe for it was nothing but one given that
Parelius knew that Cato would have to trail across protected government
records in order to find his purchase of his land.
"It's a good place to retire." Parelius said instead before he drank of his
fire-whiskey.
"And pretty far away from the places where the country-ships destined
for Celestis will land." Cato pointed out before he eyed Parelius with a
curious look "I did notice though that you'll have a pretty good vantage
of Illos" the curious look transformed into a knowing one. "and whatever
cities and towns that spring up around it."
Parelius curled his lips slightly, confirming Cato's suspicions.
Parelius would have many years left to go as he was less than a century
old and likely could have two more before death took him. And his new
lands located around the mountainous valleys north of Illos' eventual
landfall would place him suitably to see Illos and Avalon grow outside
the boundaries of the country-ship.
He was looking forward to seeing it happen in his very, very long
retirement.
He knew if he wanted, he could carry on for the next hundred years but
Parelius was a believer of change being necessary. Whilst he doubted he'd
see stagnation occur in his Office, he was well aware of the impact of
overdependence.
He'd been elected as Overseer of the Office of Intelligence every seven
years since his ascension to the Office and in that time, he'd been the one
constant for every single member of the Office.
He was as much a fixture in the department as the furniture was.
Many owed a sort of allegiance to him and it wasn't a good thing.
After all, the Office of Intelligence was, next to the Office of Far-Sight,
the most important department when it came to the security of the
magical world.
Personal fiefdoms were the death of duty and the birth of corruption.
And with the steps he'd taken with Cato, he'd seen to it that there would
not be another like him who would have such power and influence.
Magical oaths of service could only do so much in limiting abuse of
power.
Which was the positions O'Leary and Venberry would occupy positions
would be a counter-weight to Cato's and his successors' power, both
positions able to challenge the authority of Overseer on matters that
impacted the Federation, Celestis or the Office itself.
That Cato understood the necessity of such counter-weights was the very
reason why he'd chosen the man as his successor, why he felt comfortable
in leaving the OI as soon as they made the move to the Celestis system.
A truly fortunate circumstance, Parelius mused to himself as he nursed
his glass of fire-whiskey. Because he would have…disliked having to
extent his rule.
"Have you looked?" Parelius asked the younger man.
Cato shook his head. "I've not." A faint smile grew on the man's face. "and
I probably won't. I'm a city man through and through." Cato said with a
mild shrug of the shoulders. Parelius hummed silently for a moment.
It was a characteristic of the majority of the younger generation who had
been born and raised in Illos or in Avalon. Even scions of the ancient
families.
It wouldn't surprise him if that would be a trend that was followed by the
majority of the magical world in the centuries to come. Still…
"You might come to regret it." Parelius commented to the younger man.
"You might not get the opportunity to purchase the available lands a
century from now."
At least cheaply.
"Perhaps." Cato acceded "but I don't see the point of owning land for the
sake of owning it." Parelius kept his silence. Cato had a point but it was
also naïve.
There was wealth in land and Celestis, more than any other planet, was
set to become the wealthiest of all by a very, very large factor.
The simple fact was that Celestis would be home to four country-ships
and Illos, making it almost twenty percent of the magical world
population, and Celestis already had entire industries being built on it…
and around it.
And, intimately knowing Their Graces as he did, he expected that Celestis
would become the very centre of nearly all industry and economic
output.
Owning land in Celestis was a very good way to ensure the financial
wellbeing of one's familyand whilst the available land was limited to a
certain maximum amount of acreage per family, Parelius knew that
branches of families would eventually come to an agreement to secure the
collective wealth of their families.
Whilst Cato didn't need per se to secure his finances in that way, with
how well he was paid, he expected the man to have greater foresight
about such matters, even if they were counter to his outlook on life.
Unfortunately, he knew that Cato wouldn't budge on it. Just like as the
others that had been raised on Illos wouldn't. They'd been taught with
different principles, different ideas of wealth and worth so he expected
the Avalonians to scoop up a large portions of land on Celestis.
They continued to talk idly for the next hour, talking about the staff and
who might be up for greater responsibilities before suddenly a portal
formed in front of him.
A portal that he could see lead towards the King and Queen. Cato stood
up and bowed and Parelius stood up moments later after finishing his
drink. He set it down and stood up, before he walking towards the portal
though not without stopping briefly and glancing at Cato who inclined
his head in goodbye and Parelius turned around and stepped through the
portal without another word.
He bowed his head respectfully. "Your Graces." Parelius said to the King
and Queen before him before he glanced at Alice who stood by a very
familiar holo-display.
'It was that kind of meeting' he mused to himself as he returned his eyes
towards the King and Queen. Even if Exodus was known to a large
number of Illosians and Avalonians, only those in this room, Cato and
the Far-Seers knew of the Plan to trigger it.
"Parelius." The King acknowledged with zero levity in his expression,
something that only made Parelius straightened up.
The Queen gestured him forward. "Come. We have much to go over."
-Break-
31st of December, 1991 – New York
Jason M. Lafides POV
Jason stood up, the sound of his scraping chair not enough to silence the
commotion across the dinner tables beyond that of his own, and he began
to tap on his half empty glass of champagne with his tablespoon held in
his liver-spotted hand.
Slowly, the hubbub began to die down and eyes turned towards him, eyes
that belonged to the ruling elite of America. They'd come so far over the
years. Decades.
He trailed his gaze across the dining hall.
Republicans. FBI agents. Lobbyists. CEOs. Bankers.
Collectively, these people owned a twentieth of America's wealth and
could influence another ten percent and more importantly influence
American politics.
"Good evening all." Jason began with a charming smile. "To this occasion
of New Year's eve, an eve that is momentous as we go into the next no
longer with the odious spectre of the Soviet Union hanging over us!"
Cheers and 'hear hear!' rang across the room.
The fall of those filthy communists was the best Christmas present they
could get.
Well…second best, he thought to himself briefly before he shook away
that thought.
"And now with these new republics joining the world in common sense
and good old fashioned capitalist profit" Jason quipped with a charming
twist of the lips which gotten him a laughing cheer before he dropped
and turned serious "It is now, more than ever, important to remember
that our greatest enemy, by God and by all that is good, is still out there,
hiding and waiting to strike against good Americans."
The cheer and light-heartedness in the room evaporated away like mist
on a sunny day. He shared a look with Seale, who gave him a slight nod
before he turned back towards his wider audience.
As they learnt more of the foul creatures, the greater their concerns
became. They'd tamed the vampire, as much a feral beast could be
tamed, through months and months and years of reward and punishment.
And through that beast, they learnt. Oh, how they learnt. They learnt of
this magical world, this abomination that was in between the crevices of
their civilisation, existing around them like rats.
No, it was unfair to compare them to rats…they were worse!
And over the years, ever since they snagged a witch in '76 and wrung the
truth out of the creature's foul lips, they gotten a good understanding of
how deep the conspiracy and unspeakable crimes these things did to
them.
All in the name of the Statute of Secrecy and this Rappaport's law.
His eyes darkened, a deep seated hatred rousing within him.
He still remembered so very avidly the cries of the witch that claimed
that it was for the good of the world that they get to play with the minds of
people, altering or removing memories from people to 'protect both
worlds'.
What a crock of total bullshit.
The creatures were doing it out of self-preservation and sick superiority,
nothing more, nothing less, and the delusion of the witch did nothing to
sway them from that belief, not even the most sympathetic amongst
them.
With the witch's well of information, they discovered so much. So, so
much.
They discovered their shopping districts, their schools, even their
government and most of all…the places where their communities are
located.
They discovered tens of thousands of acres of US land that was owned by
the federal government through satellite imaging made by KH-11 though
there were no records within the government or in the State they were
located in.
Yet…as one took a closer look at some of these places, it was very clear
that there were settlements there, particularly around Salem in
Massachusetts.
Stolen lands, lands that belonged to Americans but instead was
sequestered, taken, by these godless creatures, masking, hiding them,
hiding within that land, in ways that they could not even approach
without finding themselves miles away suddenly.
That was the scariest part of it all…the way these creatures bend their
minds and their God-given free will without them even knowing it.
And that was if they were not doing it specifically against them…as they
have done to thousands of people over the years…perhaps even millions.
His anger grew at the thought. The more they understood, the more they
could put things together about the crimes of these creatures.
They could directly trace thousands of cases of institutionalised people
who, out of nowhere, lost their sanity, and seemingly seemed to
remember things and people that there was no trace of…almost.
Thank the lord for the existence of cameras and dental records for it was
these that ensured that there was evidence remaining of the conspiracy
and the kidnapping of children.
The creatures were thorough in their removal of evidence, direct family
and entire communities would be made to forget these children, school
records, family albums, even hospital and governmental records were
swiped clean, as if these children never existed in the first place.
But they missed dental records, of all things, and thanks to diligent
investigation, they got to confirm about a good thirty percent of the
cases, more than enough to assume the truthfulness of the other seventy
percent when it came to their loss.
Though that seventy percent was reduced even further by pictures taken
by other families or people at large social gatherings…gatherings like
Halloween, movie theatre nights, or fireworks and the like.
A wave of grimness washed over him as he remembered when they'd
shown an elderly woman who'd been institutionalised in the forties a
picture of herself, her ex-husband and their daughter.
She'd broken completely in hysterics and she had to be sedated. Last he
heard, she'd not spoken ever since.
That was the only time they'd shared their findings with any of those
poor people.
Not only to save whatever bits of sanity they had remaining but also to
save them from knowing how corrupted their children's souls had
become.
In any case, it helped prove that these creatures were deeply embedded
into their world, however much they liked to pretend they weren't and it
brought a deep seated fear within them all that they could come any day
and wipe their memories without them any wiser.
It was why they had segmented away parts of their organisation once
they were certain of what they were dealing with…and now…and now it
was time to set those plans into motion.
He swept his gaze across the hall one more time before he spoke.
"Now, with the fall of the Soviets, it is now time to set our attentions
against this so-called Wizarding World."
Many of the backers present today did not want to 'upset' the global order
with the unveiling of the magical world, an argument that had somewhat
fractured the organisation for over half a decade.
Nuclear Armageddon seemed only just about balanced on the knife's edge
ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis and the reveal of these creatures to
the world was seen as something that could very well tip the world into
full blown catastrophe.
Fierce arguments were had, one side arguing that this could unite the
world against the creatures, the other arguing that control of the situation
would be completely forfeit and more likely to tend to accidents that
would lead to total annihilation, with the more cautious side winning the
votes in the end, deciding to act when relations with the Soviets had
improved and stabilised enough.
As much as he hated to say it, it had worked out even if he'd seethed
about the wait, much to his relief considering that he'd thought that by
the time they'd act, they might very well have been too late. The witch
had said that many of the creatures didn't live amongst people any more,
especially in Europe.
The creature had rambled about country-ships that floated and the like in
an attempt to obfuscate the truth. It had put the fear of god in him when
he heard the reports but thankfully the satellite images had confirmed
that she was delusional.
They would not have missed ships the size of islands. He doubted even
the damn Soviets or the British could have missed something like that.
Yet, despite the interrogations, she maintained that lie and they had to
concede that it was likely some kind of cover up even amongst their own
people, likely having gone to ground somewhere in the world like the
filthy rats they were.
And if the witch was telling the truth that more and more creatures in
America were moving away as well, it was only a matter time before
their targets would move away and their window of opportunity would
be lost.
Thankfully, it was still in play as far as Jackson confirmed and now with
the Soviets collapsing, there was never a better time.
Truly, God was with them.
One of the crowd stood up and he let off a smile when he recognised that
it was the owner of one of the largest news corporation in the US.
"I agree, Mr Lafides" the man said with a gravelly voice as he took a
glance around before he raised his arm slightly. "With the Soviets gone
and the Russians far too focused internally at least for the next few years,
if not decades, this is now the most opportune moment to begin our plans
to expose the creatures and their conspiracy to the entire world."
Murmurs of agreement was had, though most of the senators were stony
faced or looking on calculatingly. The senators for Texas and Seattle in
particular.
They would be vital in stirring up Congress and the government towards
acting against the infestation. The gentleman who now turned his gaze
towards Jason, would also be incredibly vital in getting the public's
support as they exposed the creatures' crimes.
"Are we ready?" the man asked Jason with a penetrating gaze.
"We will be." Jason assured before he glanced around "The plans have not
changed and the circumstances have not either." With how vulnerable
they were as soon there was one single weak link, they could not afford
to divulge the full plans to the group.
Not even Jason knew the targets and their whereabouts.
Jackson stood up and spoke up "The summers are the most ideal times."
"We'll need time." The senator for Texas called out from his seat, his
fingers dancing on the rim of his glass. "This summer is too soon." He
glanced towards the others of their group, many of whom gave a nod of
confirmation before he turned towards Jason. "Elections are this year."
The senator said with a cold gaze.
"Bush may not be cooperative" one stated and the senator turned towards
that voice who continued "He's proven to have a bleeding heart."
The noise in the hall suggested the vast majority agreed with that
sentiment.
Bush had broken several pledges, including raising taxes, and his
strongest point which had been foreign policy, had evaporated away in
an instant with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
That, coupled with slow economic growth and the fresh faced Democrats
made the idea of change an attractive proponent to the American people.
"He might even consider these creatures to be like us."
"He won't, not if we don't let him have the time to even think about such
a foolish thing. And his decisions have been hurting him with his
supporters and he knows it. It will the chink of his armour" the senator
said with a smile before he turned towards the owner of the news
corporation "Your assistance would be appreciated." The senator said
before he turned towards the bankers "yours would be too."
"You'll have it." The owner of the news corporation said distastefully and
the others did the same. After all, however disappointingly soft Bush has
been, it was still a far better choice than any Democrat. God forbid that
Clinton wins.
"Very well then." Jason said with great reluctance. "The summer of '93."
Jason had waited decades and he had to hope that a year and a half more
would not be too late.
Hours Later…
"What do our people in Europe say?" Jason asked as he handed a glass of
brandy by Jackson as the car began to move, his eyes intently studying
the grey-haired man.
"The same." Jackson said with a sigh as he nursed his glass in his hands.
"So nothing." Jason said with a bitter note in his voice.
The clues that once led Jason to Europe were no more. Strange deaths,
institutionalisation and strange missing cases were almost non-existent.
Jason took a long swill of his drink before he set his eyes back on
Jackson. "There is no clue where the creatures are? They've never been so
inconspicuous before."
"None. Even in the Balkans there is no hint of…activities." Jackson said
carefully.
Jason grunted irritated. With ethnic troubles of the Balkans, he'd
expected at least something to prove that they were still out there in
Europe.
But nothing.
It was…disconcerting.
Especially considering that the creatures seemed to enjoy involving
themselves in wars and conflicts…like they had in the second world war.
He set his jaw slightly.
Hadn't that been a surprise?
That the Nazis had used the creatures in their war against the Allies.
In hindsight, he considered, he shouldn't have been surprised considering
the depths of evil the Nazis had descended down to. Dealing with the
spawn of the devil seemed right up their street. He sighed silently.
Unfortunately, the witch did not know too much about their
involvements with the Nazis, especially being in her twenties as she had
been before her death, but she'd known enough to clarify that they'd
helped the Nazis significantly, quite possibly heavily aiding them to the
point that they were able to sweep across Europe as quickly and
resoundingly as they did.
That titbit of information had been influential in the arguments to delay
exposing the creatures to the entire world, at least until some sort of
agreement could be reached with the Soviets. Fortunately, it was no
longer needed with its dissolution.
Good thing too, given how…difficult it had been to find likeminded
people whilst also navigating safely the terse climate that existed in the
US in all matters communism. One misstep and misunderstanding in the
form of treason and sedition could have dissolved much of their progress.
"I know you're worried Jason." Jackson said, interrupting Jason's train of
thought "But there is nothing to indicate the witches here in America are
set to leave. Especially our targets. Their young are still school age."
"They won't be forever."
Whilst he did not know who the targets were, he did know they were
families…which was the key point in their scheme.
Jackson drank from his glass before he answered. "No, they won't but
some of them will still be in the summer next year."
They fell into an amiable silence, one that he broke minutes later.
"It has to work." Jason said quietly, his hand wrapping around the glass
tightly.
It was only a matter of time before the creatures would no longer be
content in the shadows, acting against them with a disinterested hand out
of false preservation.
It was no doubt that the creatures believed themselves superior…that
vampire had stated as much. Fear chilled his spine as he remembered
some of the things the beast had told them. Infighting between the
creatures, alliances that allowed the vampires to prey on humans…
Something that the vampire believed had led to his kind's demise,
believing that he was one of the last…if not the last of his kind, hunted
down with extreme prejudice.
Would they be next? He'd wondered in the darkest of nights.
Would they attack them in the middle of the night, burning down their
cities like they had surely done to Trieste with their abominable godless
abilities, one day no longer content to hide in their holes like they have
in the past few centuries?
No, he thought to himself fiercely. He would not let it come to that…not
now that they knew where the creatures congregated in their United
States.
And, in time, they'd hunt down wherever else they were. They might
have gone to ground even further in recent years but they would be
pulled out of the grounds like the vermin they were.
"It will." Jackson said and Jason turned to meet his cold eyes. "The rest of
the world will know of their nature, their crimes, and soon enough
anyone sane will come to understand that there is only one choice we can
take."
"Us…or them." Jason said with a note of hatred in his face. Even bleeding
liberals would come to see that point of view. Us…or them, there would
be no other option.
Pleased, Jackson nodded, a cold smile forming on his face as he raised his
glass "To our victory." Jason smiled though his was more hateful and he
raised his glass, his thoughts pinned on the idea of a world that truly,
completely, belonged to them.
A world free from devil spawn.
-Break-
22nd of January, 1992 – Illos, Gardens of the Hearth's Home
He stood there for a moment, looking, the hum of synergetic magic that
surrounding them pleasant, a drum that waxed and waned with the
rustling of leaves and stems, an ambient song filled with notes of a
thousand hues.
Evergreen these trees may be, they were alive with breadths of vibrant
magic that made that evergreen lifeless in comparison.
He turned his gaze towards his young companions for the day, two bright
flames that sung as beautiful as the nature that surrounded them.
A small smile crept on his face as he watched the two children delighting
in being surrounded by the fire-moths, moths had wings made of flames
and antennas made of smoke.
He wriggled his fingers a little, the frequencies of magic that attracted
the fire-moths strengthened once more though, as a mischievous smile
formed on his face, and he wriggled his fingers a little more, tying and
twisting frequencies of magic into a pattern, as if he was knitting threads
of cotton into cloth, until the fire-moths were spiralling and dancing
around the children like a miniature tornado.
The children gasped at the display, their heads turning upward as the
spiral of fire-moths turned upward before the pattern he'd knitted caused
the fire-moths to descend down and spiral around them, eliciting yelps
from the frightful but awed children, and it made him chuckle in
amusement.
His chuckles drew their attentions, even as they were hosting fire-moths
around their legs and around their torsos, and their exclaims "Grandpa!"
"Uncle!", exclaims that rang of admonishment and empty frustration that
only children could accomplish, was something that made him smile even
more so.
With a wriggle of his fingers, the fire-moths strayed away from the
children and he removed the weaves that enthralled them so and soon
enough they all went their separate ways.
"Where are they going?" Alexander asked with his head turned, Atticus'
eight year old great-nephew's gaze following the fire-moths disappearing
into the bosoms of the trees.
"Wherever they need to go" Atticus said with an amused smile on his face
as he began to walk on the path towards the next section of the gardens
and the children matched his leisurely pace though Luna did it a little
more extravagantly.
"They'll probably rest in a nice hot candle-fire bath. Also they're probably
quite parched after that impromptu dance routine." Luna said
thoughtfully as she began to skip next to Atticus. "They'll need a good sip
of lava before they can do something like that again."
"They don't really drink lava, do they Uncle?" Alexander asked with wide
blue-emerald eyes.
"Not quite." Atticus answered with a gentle smile before continuing "The
nectar they prefer is quite hot however. The Fumentia plant, when it
flowers, is eighty degrees Celsius." Atticus told Alexander before he raised
his hand and magic formed in the palm of his hand to create a
representation of the plant when it flowers.
Alexander drew back in surprise when the outer petals of the flower,
which almost spiralled into each other which was mostly to keep the heat
in as much as possible for as long as possible so that the fire-moths could
come and have spores attached to their flaming wings – which sustained
the spores until the fire-moths died off in a small explosion providing the
spores with the energy it would need until it could settle in the earth and
draw in magic until the next winter at which point it would all start
again – and showed Alexander how the fire-moths fed from the flower.
"Wow!" Alexander made out in awe before he turned his gaze towards
Atticus, begging stretched across his face "Can we see them do it? Please,
please, please!"
"Silly, they won't drink now." Luna said with a tilted head "It's not
midnight yet." Luna paused before she turned her wide and evilly-
entreating eyes towards Atticus.
"But I too would like to see it, grandpa." Luna said with a hint of
eagerness in her voice.
"We'll see." Atticus said evasively and when he saw that it wouldn't be
enough he added "If you can convince your mothers to let you stay up
that late, I'll make sure you can see them. The plants will stay flowering
for the next few days." Atticus said.
"Aww." Alexander groaned "Mom will say no" the eight year old
complained.
"Your mum does have a bad infestation of wrackspurts." Luna agreed
"Maybe the steams of the flowers will help in chasing them away."
Alexander frowned as he looked at her, his nose scrunched up a little as
he worked to decipher Luna's words. "You think mom will agree if I asked
her to take us?"
Atticus hid an amused smile as he listened to the conversation.
Maria was a rather strict mother, as odd as it seems, especially
considering Sophia had spoiled his niece a lot as a child. Alexander and
Helena, her eldest child, were raised differently to how Maria had been
raised by Sophia and Louie.
"Mmhmm." Luna hummed affirmatively before she tilted her head
slightly. "I should come too when you ask."
Alexander's eyes widened in understanding before he grinned a little.
"Mom won't say no when you do the eyes." Alexander's voice had an
excited laugh in it.
"I don't know what you mean." Luna said with a hum as she happily
continued to skip. Atticus' lips twitched as Alexander giggled at her
words, everyone present quite knowing that Luna knew exactly what she
meant.
The party of three continued on their merry way, his charges for the day
setting their young eyes eagerly on the sights of the exotic plant and
animals life, particularly as six winged birds sang musically and mossy
ladybirds zoomed around with rackety sounds, and Atticus at times
interjected to explain one thing or another, sometimes doing so without
being elicited to do so by the children.
Though soon enough, they'd tired from this section of the gardens and
they made way towards one of the press-boards of the gardens.
The garden was effectively the size of a reserve park expanded a hundred
fold in the space of a mid-sized apartment block, and it boasted a whole
range of exotic biomes that on Earth would have only existed in very
small and particular parts.
And, with the habitat domes having been removed from Illos as the
majority of the animals and flora were moved to the Celestis system, this
garden was the largest garden or park in any of the country-ships.
Large enough to need transportation from one part of the garden to
another.
They arrived at the press-boards, which was effectively just a large map
though with points embedded within the map that would take you to the
selected location via press-key transportation, a short range
transportation technique that worked on a similar principle to that of
port-keys though it worked in tandem with a mated ward that warped
space localised around you, which stretched and pulled at space like it
was a sheet of elastic material.
Alexander walked up to the board "Where should we go next?"
"How about the mangrove biome? The waters will be luminescent with
blue algae and the Saturnus Muscipula are pleasant to hear." Atticus
suggested to the kids.
"You should hear but not listen." Luna said quite seriously "Especially if
they sing to you that they want a hug." Atticus' lips twitched before he
answered, more to assuage the concern that was clear to see in
Alexander's face.
The boy had grown up around Luna and knew very well that Luna's
words were not to be taken lightly on account that she was a talented
Seer like her mother and grandmother. Like him.
"Their songs only affect particular kinds of birds." Atticus assured the
boy.
"Mmhmm." Luna voiced out as she tilted her head "Magic is very strong
here though grandpa." Luna said and Atticus smiled faintly as he looked
to her indulgently.
"Not enough to alter their songs. Not to that degree."
Luna was thoughtful before she nodded and looked towards Alexander
with a curious look and the boy turned towards the board, a little
apprehensive.
"I think I'd prefer the Tundra one." Alexander said and Atticus chuckled.
"Very well, lets go." Alexander went first and pressed the press-key and
disappeared in a quick shimmer and Luna went next before Atticus
followed.
The tundra biome was a lot more sedate, quite eerie with the way the
mists seemed to hang half a dozen metres in the air, though the kids
seemed to enjoy it anyway.
They visited a few more biomes before Atticus decided to take the kids
back to the Lovegood home where their mothers would be waiting for
him though he pushed the kids to take a bunch of the Lumine flowers for
their mothers.
"Aunt Maria will like the gesture, Alexander." Atticus said as he looked
towards the boy that scrunched up his nose slightly.
"Mmhmm." Luna hummed in agreement though her wide silver-moon
eyes that stared at Atticus indicated that she knew very well why he was
getting the kids to take the flowers to their mothers.
She didn't need her talents to understand subtle orchestration.
"Will you not take a bunch to Emily?" Luna asked him as Atticus opened
up a portal.
"Granny Emily." Atticus corrected as he gestured them to onwards
through the portal. "And no, she only likes one kind of flower, none of
which grow here." And she would appreciate the winter roses more when
it held meaning behind it, like having the Sayre gardens decked with
winter roses for their anniversary.
Luna looked at him with a tilted head, her silver-moon eyes watching
him closely "I'm not going to call Emily granny, grandpa." She said
matter-of-factly as she followed Alexander through the portal.
"She wouldn't mind" Atticus said with a mischievous smile as he sent
Emily a feeling through their bond that he was on his way home.
Luna gave him a look that broke the spacey energy she had.
He chuckled softly "Fine" he conceded "But if you're willing to call her
that once, I could find you a demiguise that is certain to bond with you."
Atticus suggested as he closed the portal. Alexander had already run off
into the home towards his mother.
He really wanted to see Emily's reaction to that. When Maria first called
her Aunt Emily, the look of surprise and slight consternation had been a
fun.
Imagine what she'd react to being called granny! He'd even avoided
looking at that moment in time just so that he could experience it fresh
as it happened.
Luna pinched her face slightly. "Hmm. Tough choice." She looked at him
a little peeved. "Isn't that blackmail?"
"Not quite. It's a bribe." Atticus said with a mischievous smile. "Not good
either but" he said as he leaned in a little conspiratorially, his eyes
twinkling a little.
"It is for a good cause."
The look of deep contemplation was adorable and the twisting of her
nose that marked out her internal struggles with the problem even more
so.
Luna sighed heavily, more heavily than a child of ten should have any
right of pulling off as they approached the living room. "As much as I
would like a demiguise I don't think it's worth it" Luna looked at him
with a small smile "I like you, grandpa. I don't want you hurt."
Atticus barked out a wild laugh in amusement.
"What's so funny?" Maria asked as she approached with her cut of flowers
in her hands, Pandora and Xenophilius closely following suit beside her.
"Just a little joke shared between grandfather and granddaughter."
Atticus said with a wink to Luna.
When Luna had been born, Pandora had asked him if he wanted to be a
grandfather to her child. Pandora had said that she'd felt like asking him
to be godfather to her daughter hadn't felt right, not with how much he'd
been one for her growing up.
He'd been touched by the sentiment, incredibly so.
And it was a decision he never regretted. There was an innocence about
Luna that was a balm to his soul and she really did feel like a
granddaughter to him.
A reprieve from everything that he eagerly ensured he kept up with.
"Mmhmm." Luna voiced out a little sceptically as she eyed him with those
silver-moon eyes with slight amusement before she walked out towards
her mother and gifted her the flowers. Pandora looked delighted.
"Oooh. They are brilliant" she turned to her husband "I think they'll fit
well with our Beltane outfits, don't you think?"
"Yes pumpkin." Xeno said with an indulgent smile before he added
"Although they will clash with the bracelets."
"It's OK daddy, we can fix it." Luna said with a determined smile and
Xeno beamed at his daughter.
Atticus' lips twitched at the scene and he felt a tinge of jealousy at the
scene.
"Well" Maria began, clearing her throat. "We've got to get back." Maria
waved her hand and the time formed in the air. "Max will be home any
time now."
Atticus inclined his head "Give him my regards." He liked Max, the many
times grandson of the Flamels. Maria smiled as she went up to him and
hugged him before departing with Alexander in tow who'd waved him
goodbye.
Atticus stayed with the Lovegoods for a little while longer before he too
departed back to Sayre Manor where he came across Emily, Abraxas and
Walter Bishop, both of whom had come by a few minutes before he had
done.
Walter and Abraxas stood up and bowed towards him. "Gentlemen." he
acknowledged them before he asked them be at ease.
"How was the day out?" Emily asked before she came to him and gave
him a chaste kiss on the cheek. Atticus smiled as he leaned into her kiss.
"Grand. It was good to see them have fun." Atticus told her, and in a way
to the others as well.
"I'm glad." Emily said with a smile before they parted and stood shoulder
to shoulder. Atticus set his eyes on the two others.
Bishop had been elected as Chief Representative of Illos a few years back
whilst Abraxas had ascended to Chief Minister after Ouroboros had won
the last election, unseating the Progressives who'd won in the mid-
eighties, breaking the streak of wins the Ouroboros had.
The Progressives had, over the years, slowly but surely acclimatised to
the order of things and thus their victory was less of a concern than when
it would have been at the beginning. And, Atticus thought to himself, it
was useful in assuring the few vocal that everything was not rigged.
At least entirely.
"Gentlemen." Atticus said before he gestured them to sit down "shall we?"
For the next few hours, they talked about a series of things, things that
was better served to be discussed outside of the High Council, like the
matter of pushing political pressure on the Iberian Ministries to reverse
the war-time wards they applied that inhibited their population from
moving to any of the country-ships.
An irritation that was almost mirrored by the Indian Ministry with their
strict traveling policies.
Whilst the majority of the magical world were all on the eleven country-
ships, there were still sixteen Ministries and communities that were
resisting heavily, even with the frankly charitable terms he was offering.
They were being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, far surpassing
any notion that they were doing it because it was their homelands. Did
they think he didn't understand their attachments to their homelands?
The lands that Sayre Manor had stood upon had been the first place he'd
ever felt home. A place where he felt, deeply, a connection to his
ancestors.
But such attachments were not all that there was.
No, what mattered most was the present and the future of their families,
of their people, and choosing to remain somewhere that their kind was
not welcome, a place where they had to hide in order to protect
themselves and mundanes from one another, is not a place that can stay a
home.
Not in this moment of time. Not when neither civilisation was mature
enough.
And soon enough, he supposed, they'd get a vivid reminder that the fear
the mundanes held for magicals had not changed even if they'd largely
forgotten about them for centuries.
The meeting dragged on for hours, plans and suggestions being made that
would persuade the prickly South Europeans to bend at least a little and
by the time they were alone, it was well past nine in the evening.
Atticus went towards the drinks cabinet and brought out a two-hundred
and twelve year old bottle of red wine and poured himself and Emily a
glass of it.
She smiled at him faintly as she took the glass from his hands and he sat
beside her on the sofa and he let off a small sigh as he drank his wine,
which was consumed with a pleased feeling travelling through him.
It was good wine he thought before he shook his head and turned
towards Emily who seemed to enjoy the wine as well. He smiled at her
before he spoke up "Sorry, I haven't asked. How was the test?"
Despite politics taking up almost all of their time, they made sure to
reserve at least some time for their experiments, often dedicating time to
one specific project at a time, though Emily was more prolific than he
was.
She turned to him, slightly shifting her body, a faint smile on her face.
"Hard to have asked. We've not had a chance to speak freely" she said
with a bit of cheek in her tone. That was true, he mused to himself, as he
thought back on his day.
Before he took the kids to the gardens, he'd been busy all morning and
most of the afternoon with Hypatia, the Far-Seers and senior members of
the Arithmancy Guild.
The Predictive History Model, a model that used Arithmancy and
Divination to create a unified divination system that would be able to
predict the course of history centuries, millennia, down the path of time,
was complete and they were stress testing it at present. Thus far, it
seemed to hold up though it would need input of informaton at certain
stages, outside of Visions, in order to remain accurate.
Atticus' thoughts darkened slightly.
He was quite sure that his Older-Self had not factored in the possibility of
aberrant factors like the Xalanyn in the model. One of the things that he
had determined with the Arithmancy was that human behaviour was
more or less the same, regardless if you had magic or not. The base of
human behaviour was genetic, it was in their very beings and whilst
magic created factors of unpredictability to this behaviour, the core
constituents that was quintessentially human was the same.
The Covenant were not human. And many of the other species that
resided in this galaxy were not either. And most importantly, Xalanyn
were not.
And the first model he had in mind had been to predict the course of
human history using human behaviour and tendencies and the addition of
aberrant factors like the Xalanyn were elements that completely threw off
that first model.
He was also quite certain that his Older-Self discarded the Covenant in its
entirety, especially since he himself was quite sure that the species were
not a threat even now. They were all lacking in magic and their
intelligence was not insurmountable.
The Sangheili were physically impressive but unintellectual. The
San'Shyuum were far from the intelligent artistic creatures their ancestors
had been and were fanatics in their beliefs. Both species were
predictable.
So predictable in fact that he was quite certain his Older-Self disregarded
the headache of modifying the model to factor their behaviours into the
model, especially once the threat of the Forerunner weapons was
eliminated.
Something that he was disinclined to do in this timeline. After all, it was
this error, this lack of consideration of the impact of their zealotry that
made his Older-Self miss the possibility of the Covenant unleashing
something far worse.
And so, he spent much of his free time, with Hypatia and others,
tweaking the model arithmantically with the aid of Alice. They had to
invent half a dozen new arithmancy principles in order to get it be able
to predict alien behaviour.
But…it was working thus far.
The data provided by Fortie thanks to his adventures and his analysis of
the alien civilisations, each different in their behaviours and their
biology, in the neighbourhood of Celestis proved to be vital to the model.
Whether or not it would work for the Xalanyn, he wasn't sure however.
Irritatingly, there was little he could do about it and likely wouldn't
change for centuries to come.
But…
But it was a starting point.
Given their abilities to manipulate Living Time, he needed the Predictive
model to work. With how blind he and his people would be to their
movements, to their actions, they needed an ace up their sleeves.
This…
This he hoped would be their ace.
"The test was a failure." Emily said to him, drawing him back to the
present, a look of disappointment in her face though…it was not severe
which meant that there were at least positives in the failure, enough
positives that she wasn't at the point of seeking a little advice from him.
At Atticus' curious look, Emily expanded. "The barrier has resisted all
attempts to transfer or receive tangible matter" she said with hints of
frustration in her voice.
Atticus hummed as he frowned for a moment as he thought it over before
he eyed her slightly, looking for any hints that she wanted his assistance.
One of the things she'd wanted from him is to not interfere with her
projects unless they were going harm her.
Though…though he knew that she was very close in succeeding in the
project.
"But…" she began again "We have an idea of using errant photons as a
shield, so to speak, to shield around objects during transit." Emily said as
she frowned.
"We should be able to modify hardlight technology to accomplish that."
Atticus said after a few moments and Emily nodded slowly.
"That was my thought although the exotic nature of the errant photons
might prove to be difficult to control." Emily said before she tilted her
head slightly. "I'll need to borrow Alice for a little while for a few days a
month" Emily paused for a moment.
"Shouldn't be an issue even with her activities in the mundane world, I
should think"
"She can afford to do so." Atticus agreed.
"Most of the golems are autonomous, for the most part, and even when
their directives are challenged, they still have a series of reactions to fall
back onto."
"Good. I want to crack the problem before we leave. You know that it
will become exponentially more difficult to peer and access into other
universes on Celestis."
"I wouldn't say that in such terms."
Emily rolled her eyes. "Semantics. Fine. We won't be able to know head
or tails of what universe we are viewing from Celestis." Emily said with a
challenging look in her face. He knew what she meant…Earth, it seemed
was basically ground zero in terms of everything they knew about the
other universes.
There was infinite variety of universes and they were not entirely capable
of selecting the same universe over and over again. As soon as the trans-
dimensional glass window was turned off, any sight to that universe was
immediately cut off and they would never see it again the next time it
was turned on.
It would be the next thing to research once they could safely bring
something over from another universe.
In any case, from Earth, they could determine, roughly, the nature of that
universe.
They'd seen Earth in the first billion years of its existence, they'd seen
Earth during the great oxidation period, they'd even seen Earth when had
been nothing more than a collection of lumps of hundred kilometre big
rocks.
…and they'd seen Earth in universe that was incredibly different to their
own.
An Earth that seemed to exist in fluidic space with strange lifeforms on it.
An Earth with surfaces entirely of massive diamond rocks. On and on,
such strange existences had been seen and it was interesting to say the
least.
But it was also concerning.
At first, they'd expected to see universes that were in their immediate
local group of universes, for example slightly different universes that
existed due to splitting off from this universe, and he'd even considered
universes such as Canon Harry Potter, but not so much as the variety of
universes that they'd come to see.
Oddly enough, such slightly different universes hadn't actually been seen.
Which made Emily think that somehow the errant photons they were
connecting to were more…distant so to speak than the more local
universes.
And he suspected she was close to the mark, especially since he hadn't
seen a timeline where she and her team would latch onto a familiar
universe. Not for a lack of trying too. It seems as if at least for now there
was something they were all collectively missing and it was preventing
them from making progress in that regard.
"We won't always be away from Earth." Atticus pointed out before he
continued "There will be opportunities to test other experiments." He
paused for a moment "Besides, I'm sure we can figure out how to view
from the perspective of Earth on Celestis as well. After all, the errant
photons will still be on Earth. I'm sure we can calibrate the viewing
window to pick those up instead of the ones local to Celestis."
After all, the particular natures of those errant photons were unbound by
the laws of physics. Photons were not even the right word – the trans-
universal particles still needed to be defined – but they were closest
approximation.
Their observations of Stan Lee, the man who was a convergence across
universes, had led them to this discovery.
Somehow, somehow Stan Lee's consciousness was able to interpret and
connect to these errant photons and experience snippets of his alternates
lives. And that ability was also partly why reality to seemed to bend and
twist around him, somehow making his being ever so slightly distorted
with the resonance of this universe.
His blood, his DNA, all of it was hundred percent normal and it seemed
as it was simply his consciousness that was the result of this feat so there
were no further avenues they could beyond dissecting his Essence and
that was a line too far.
Emily hummed as she drank from her glass of wine. "Perhaps" she sighed
after she drank of her wine, her face falling into a thoughtful look.
A moment passed before she spoke up again. "We might be able to
develop some sympathetic anchor and leave it in orbit of Earth." She
shook her head "I'll have a think about it" she said before she turned her
gaze towards him.
"You're still thinking of periodically visiting Earth after we leave? We
have the portals to take the squibborn and we'll have the datacentres."
Emily stated, her gaze calculating.
"Yes." Atticus said with an incline of his head as he met her gaze. "Even
with the portals, even with the datacentres I'd like to make sure we're at
least somewhat present." Atticus said to her.
"It need not be frequent…perhaps every half century or so." Atticus said
before adding "And you know well that I have no interest in interfering
with their development."
It would interfere with the Predictive Model they had made for the
mundanes.
"Hmm." Emily voiced out a little sceptically and he knew that she was
thinking that he was overthinking it too much, at least in this instance.
He wanted to make sure they understood their mundanes centuries to
come.
She was sceptical of the necessity of this though he knew it came from
the opinion that the mundanes wouldn't be anything other than canon
fodder, determining what he was looking to accomplish wouldn't amount
to much, being more of the opinion that their interference when the
Covenant attacked was more than enough to ensure the loyalties of the
mundanes once they came to their rescue.
Atticus floated the bottle of wine from the cabinet and topped up her
drink before doing the same for himself. "Let's forget about it for now."
Atticus said to her with smile as he placed a hand on her thigh, an act
that made her look at him with slight amusement but, thankfully, that
look of amusement faded away and interest instead formed.
Days later…
He stared at the holo-display, the Earth in all of its glory rotating ever
slowly before him. He raised his hands and the holo-display shifted
slightly, an array of satellites forming around the Earth.
The array of satellites blinked, once, and then a web of faint orange was
spun around the Earth, enveloping the world in a translucent field of
energy.
He heard her faintly metallic steps beside her and with a wave of the
hand, the simulation began. He let off a breathless sigh as he watched the
magi-computer run through the calculations.
Usually the calculations would be given in a blink of an eye but…but the
simulation had to account for the profiles of people…tens of millions of
them and the expectation of tens of millions more.
He'd delayed this simulation for years, unwilling to see the effects of the
Miring-Gene-Array. He could have done it at the same time as when he
did the simulation to check the effectiveness of the Array but…he'd felt
sour after the simulation that proved that there was a hundred percent
success rate.
A feeling of bitter melancholy washed over him.
It was a better solution than sterilisation, he knew.
People would have a chance to families, their progeny and their
progenies' descendants unaffected by the quirk of having had an ancestor
that was magical.
He would no longer rob them of the chance of having children with this
method.
He would also safeguard his people from the malicious potential he knew
humanity could have for anything they feared…anything they considered
to be a threat.
But…
It didn't change the fact that it was still vile.
"Creator."
He turned towards Alice, a curious look on her face. He turned his grave
expression into a solemn smile. "I know." He said to her with a wistful
note in his voice.
"It is better this way" he said before he turned back towards the still
running simulation. "But…I can't help it. The restrictions…the restrictions
are harsh."
There would be so very few who would have the opportunity to be born
magical. He didn't need the simulation to cough up numbers to know
that.
"Yes." Alice agreed. "It is unlikely to cause significant contribution to the
Celestis population. It is, however, a successful compromise. For both
neurophysical energy capable humans and not." Alice tilted her head
slightly.
Atticus said nothing and it was only seconds later that the simulation
came to an end and Atticus released a heavy breath as he stared at the
number.
"Thirty." Atticus murmured as he stared at the number with complicated
look.
"Thirty magicals born in two decades after we leave. A number the
simulation projects to be maintained roughly every year for well over a
century before dipping under a dozen the following century." Atticus said
aloud with a heavy heart.
"Not unexpected. With the expected technological and scientific
development in the later part of the next century, the restrictions
imposed in the psyche of those with the post-modified genes will be
difficult to overcome." Alice commented.
Yes…
It was why he feared the possibility of the number being low.
But he didn't think it'd be so low.
"It seems like I have to adjust some of my plans Post Exodus." Atticus said
with a thin smile as he looked away from the simulation results.
He hadn't chosen to see the moment for a long time. Perhaps he should
have. Perhaps it wouldn't have felt so…consequential.
Even if in the greater grand scheme of things, it was inconsequential.
Consequential…inconsequential…
"We can alter the Array to remove some of the restrictions?" Alice
proposed helpfully and for a brief moment…he considered it.
The Miring-Gene-Array was a multi part mass transformation array.
It was…it will be his greatest work of magic.
It was a part ritual, part alchemy, and part flesh crafting, and a hundred
percent unique in what he was he accomplishing. At least when it came to
effect.
Merlin had accomplished a similar feat with the Goblins, after all.
The Miring-Gene-Array would target the incomplete magical genes of
squibs and transform those genes into the same genes as that of the clone
children whose magical genes mutated in providing them with the
genetic potential of developing greater physical strength with the right
environmental and genetic conditions.
Effectively, he was removing the magical potential of their bloodlines.
But not completely.
That, that was the genius of his work of magic.
He'd studied a dozen curses that were circumstantial, the most influential
curses being the curses of vampirism and werewolfism, and had been
able to embed certain conditions that would transform the modified
magical genes into fully fledged magical ones.
After all, it was the modified genes were a derivative of magical genes
and so imbuing the genetic instructions under the right conditions to
'revert', so to speak, into full magicalness was not an impossible feat.
And so…
And so the Array would, all at the same time, create a wave of magical
energy fed from the leylines of Earth, alter the genome of millions of
people.
Millions of people who would not be able to have a magical child unless
that child had characteristics that could trigger the reversal of
modification.
Characteristics that, above all else, required a belief in the special, in the
extraordinary. Characteristics and circumstances of living conditions that
could make them accept being able to leave behind their old lives to
make a new one amongst the people of the Celestis system.
And only thirty people would be born who had that potential.
"No." Atticus said after a long few moments, the decision heavy but
necessary all the same. The restrictions were wide enough that potential
magicals could have until they were forty years of age to trigger the
reversal.
"We'll proceed with the current restrictions" he said and Alice inclined
her head.
Atticus glanced once more at the simulation before he turned around and
made his way out of the laboratory.
-Break-
31st of May, 1992 – London, England
Jean Granger POV
She clapped with the rest of the audience with a smile on her face as she
watched Hermione walk nervously towards the presenter who held the
trophy in his hands.
She was glad she could had been able to see at least the last two rounds
of the mathlete competition despite the emergency at their dental
practice overrunning by an hour.
She stood on her tiptoes as she looked towards where Dan was seated, a
small bout of irritation flowing through her. She'd asked him to save her
a seat but when she came in, she couldn't find any of the seats by him
unoccupied which was why she had to be content at the back of the
audience hall.
Thankfully she'd managed to wave at Hermione so her daughter knew
she hadn't missed her success.
"Is she your daughter?"
The question startled her and she turned towards the source and was
surprised to a very handsome and tall man beside her with green eyes
that were almost unnatural with how green they were. 'Where did he come
from?'
She blinked and answered before she could really think "Yes."
He smiled kindly at her, the skin around his mouth stretching and
revealing faint dimples in his cheeks. 'Wow' she thought to herself…this
man was utterly beautiful.
"You have an incredible daughter." The man complimented her and she
blinked away her rather inappropriate thoughts and she looked at her
him a little more clearly and she grew a little suspicious.
"How do you know?" she asked, keeping the wariness out of her voice.
"She resembles you quite a lot" he said to her, a trace of amusement
showing in his expression as he looked at her hair "Although I think her
hair might be that of her father's?"
She laughed a little nervously as she touched her hair. "No…that is also
all mine." She stroked her a little "I uh…I straighten it" she said a little
embarrassed.
"Ah, I see." The handsome man said before he looked at her with a
friendly disposition though she could notice traces of teasing in her
expression "I imagine the eighties must have been fun for you."
"Yes, my friends were exceptionally jealous of my abilities to rock the 'fro
and the puff-ups." She said with a laugh in her voice before her eyes
widened slightly as she realised she was behaving like a love-struck
teenager.
"Was your kid competing?" she asked after she cleared her voice.
The handsome man shook his head "No. I was only here to assess the
school and they invited me to mathlete competition to see the kind of
excellence of the school inspires in its students" the man said and Jean
nodded in understanding.
Her and Dan had taken a similar tour last year.
"I see." Jean said with a nod "A son or daughter?"
"Neither." The man said with a smile before continuing "My wife and I
haven't been lucky enough yet. No, I have nieces and nephews though
one of them I raised as they were my own."
"Oh." Jean said after a moment as she digested that and it was several
moments later she spoke up "And so far?"
"It's a good school." The man acknowledged. "Excellent teachers.
Excellent subjects. And my nephews and nieces would do well here."
"I feel like there is a but there." Jean said with a knowing smile.
The man laughed and it was odd how warm it was.
"Yes…" the man said with a smile before he looked away from her look
"It is a very…exclusive school. I worry about not meeting people from
different walks of life. I'm not sure if I'd like them to miss out on that."
"I know what you mean." Jean confessed and at the curious look she
continued "I grew up in a working class family." The man nodded slightly
in understanding before his eyes widened slightly.
"Apologies…I haven't introduced myself. I'm Atticus."
"Jean." She said as she shook his hand.
"Pleasure." The handsome man, Atticus said before returning his
attentions to the ceremony.
"I had my worries." She said after minutes passed and the consolation
prizes were being given. "About the school I mean." She said and she
glanced at the man who was looking at her curiously.
She looked away.
After a few moments she continued "Sometimes I get the feeling that this
school is a consolation for her." Jean confessed to the man though she
wasn't sure why she said that. The school was one of the best academies
in the country. No, in the world, and Hermione had won a heavily
contested scholarship based on academic merit.
She shouldn't feel so…conflicted but she was. As if there was
something…
"It doesn't really make any sense, I know." She said with a nervous laugh
"But I find that she was meant for…more." Though what that more was…
Jean didn't know.
Heck, even Hermione, however well she tried to hide it, felt like
something was missing. When she broached it with Dan, he'd dismissed
it, however kindly it might have been, as something that normal to feel
as a very proud parent that wished the best for her child.
But Jean thought that it was more…frustratingly what that more was,
was something that escaped her completely. She turned towards him and
the look on his face startled her.
"I think I know what you mean." He said with utmost empathy and she
felt that it was truthful. "We want the best for them. To thrive. To excel.
To be happy."
He turned his gaze towards the ceremony. "But you can't seem to help but
feel that she could have been happier." Jean's eyes widened slightly before
she frowned.
Was that what she was feeling?
"Yes." Jean confessed with a weary smile. "Isn't that odd? Considering…?"
"Considering that this is the best school money can buy?" Atticus said
with a commiserating smile and she nodded.
He remained quiet for a few moments. "Whilst I understand…I'm not sure
if I can help with that." He said with a quiet note to his voice…it was
almost solemn.
She made to speak but a compassionate look in his eyes made her stop.
"But…" he continued "But I think it will fade. Your daughter seems like
she's able to overcome anything she sets her mind to and having spoken
to you, I have no doubt you'll help her find her happiness."
Jean flushed slightly and she couldn't help but smile at the kind words.
"Thank you."
Atticus smiled and bowed his head slightly. "It was my pleasure."
She returned her full attentions to the ceremony and the next time she
looked to her side, where the man had been, she was surprised to no
longer see him there.
She looked around for him but she couldn't find him. He must've left, she
realised and she was little disappointed he left without saying anything.
"Mummy, who was that man you were talking to?" Hermione asked as
they left the ceremony, clutching tightly to her trophy.
"Man?" Dan asked curiously.
"A prospective parent." She paused. "Uncle." She corrected before
continuing "We struck a short conversation." Jean smiled at her daughter
"Never mind that though, you were excellent!" Jean said proudly.
The beaming smile Hermione gave her made her forget about the
conversation she had with the man named Atticus.
38. Chapter 98
Hello All, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/May the pasta be
succulent, Pastafarians.
Please see the second to last chapter of this story. On the 31st of
December, I will post the last chapter here. I think it's quite fitting that
the end of this story comes at the end of the year.
Without further ado...enjoy!
25th of June, 1993 – New York
Lisa Studpoole POV
"Oh, I needed that." Lisa with delighted sigh as she placed down her cup
of coffee.
"The girls have only been back a few weeks" Aimee said with a laugh in
her voice and Lisa glared at her sister who hid a smile behind her cup of
honey tea.
Her daughters were out with their father for the day who'd promised to
take them away for a trip to the Appleton market where a few of their
school friends would be. Considering how much she'd missed her
daughters, it had been startling to see how much she wanted moments of
peace for herself again despite them being back only such a short period
of time.
The sight made her lose the heat in her glare and she gave of an
exasperated sigh before she smiled a little "And I already can't wait for
them to go back to Salem. Honestly, they were so sweet in what seems
only yesterday ago" she said in lament though it was without much
substance.
Her daughters had been…difficult to say the least. Not in the first few
days but after that? Arguments, mutterings under their breaths, constant
complaints…
"You're exaggerating." Aimee said with a roll of her eyes as she placed her
cup down. "They're on the cusp of being teenagers, hormones and all."
Aimee looked at her pointedly, a sly smile on her face "You know how we
were at that age."
"We were never that difficult!" Lisa said with an offended look though her
smile gained in strength. Aimee snorted and gave her a look that
practically screamed 'Pull the other one!'
"I seem to remember someone arguing with mom after mom asked, with
concern, whether or not it was healthy to have so many iconography of
'Towers of Saturn'." Aimee said in a snicker and Lisa grimaced as she
slumped into herself a little.
It hadn't been the finest moment in her life, admittedly.
She'd been obsessed about the band for a good few years in her early
teens. So much so that her room had been decked with the wizarding
band. Thankfully, neither her parents or her sister knew how far gone
she'd been at that age. She shuddered as she remembered the cringey
daydreams she had about them.
"I can't wait until the girls find their idols!" Aimee said with coy gleam in
her eyes "Maybe…" Aimee began before continuing, slightly leaning in
"Maybe one of them will get a Perm Tat of their idols like you almost
did."
She almost got a permanent moving tattoo at age fifteen and had even sat
in one of the disreputable tattoo shops of Fitchburg, before they up and
moved away like many in the country, before she chickened out and fled
from the shop finally having come to her senses.
Her grimace turned into a horror "You take that filth back!"
Her sister cackled at her dismay and Lisa was glad the table they were at
had its silencing charms on. Her sister's laugh petered away though she
kept up her smile despite the glare Lisa sent her way.
"For what it's worth, I don't think they'll do anything as stupid as we did
at that age." Aimee sighed as she spoke "or almost did" before she
continued with a sad note in her voice "It's probably a good thing too.
Things…things are not as easy as they were back then which…which is
saying much."
Lisa's glare lightened and she played with the handle of her cup before
she nodded slightly. Even though the Rappaport laws had never made
things easy, the laws that had come into effect after the Cuba debacle and
the Ravenite threat, paranoia within Congress and the country in general
had been immense.
Even as the Ravenite problem had been dealt with, the concern of the
No-Majs has still been there and since then, the stringent rules on the use
of magic in No-Maj land had been severe. Well more severe. Aurors were
ever pleased to enforce it, especially considering that it would only take
one Trieste incident to expose them all.
Or so they liked to say.
Civil liberties died in the face of security or something like that.
One of the effects of such…severity, was that the schools more or less
adopted the attitude of the government and it wasn't hard to see it in her
own children who were less carefree like she and Aimee had been at their
age in the sixties.
Though…Lisa mused to herself, her daughters seemed to make up for it
by being extremely wilful and demanding in the confines of their home.
She could understand, she thought soberly. It wasn't easy living in their
neighbourhood given that magic was more or less forbidden in such No-
Maj dense environment and more than a few times, even in this week,
her children had moaned and complained about the lack of magic in their
homes now that her twin daughters had experienced Salem and what
daily use of magic was like.
But New York had been her and her family's home for generations, the
same for her husband, and leaving it behind like many others have done
for the country-ship New Jackson or the enclaves on the continent wasn't
something they were willing to do.
Not yet at least.
"Let's talk about something else" Lisa said with a shake of a head before
she clasped onto the cup a little tighter, her eyes shining as she looked at
her sister.
"So who is this Andrew?"
Hours later, well into the evening as she caught up with her sister and
then later with their long time friends, she made her way back home,
having apparated to the nearest apparation point by her home.
She startled at the sound of the beeping cab and quickly stepped back
before she growled under her breath, her eyes intently burning a hole in
the retreating cab.
'No-Maj's' she cursed to herself before she looked both ways and hurriedly
crossed the street. The apparation point was still a ten minute walk from
her home and so she always had to walk home. She wished she could get
a home apparation permit but their home in Manhattan made that
nothing more than a pipedream.
She could get the floo but it was expensive to use and she didn't want to
add the cost of purchasing floo powder to their expenses, not when both
her and her husband were being careful with their savings. They both
worked at MACUSA and the pay was not bad but you never know these
days.
To live here, one had to live practically like a No Maj. At times, she had
thought, it was as if they were being punished for wanting to remain at
their ancestral homes, homes that were built before the United States was
even a twinkle of an idea.
As much as she didn't like thinking about leaving her ancestral home, she
might have to and with how expensive houses in New Jackson were
getting, they'd need to make sure they had disposable money just in case.
The lights were on, she thought. Her husband and the girls must be back,
she considered. She walked up the stairs to her townhouse and eyed her
surroundings for a moment though she need not have since the lights of
all of her No Maj neighbours were off and she stepped closer to the door
and brought out her key. Wards beyond non-invasive and subtle thief-
repelling wards were not allowed in neighbourhoods like this where No-
Majs were their neighbours.
Once upon a time, this would have been a fairly prominent magical
neighbourhood but after the near-disaster of 1926, families began to
leave for pastures new, often settling in wizarding settlements in
Massachusetts. And since the country-ship New Jackson was opened for
migration, there were only three other families remaining in a radius of
four city blocks.
"Curtis?! Lila, Lucy?!" Lisa called out as she dusted off her shoes before
she took them off and walked further into her home. "Hello?" she called
out, her voice travelling across the hallway as she rolled her shoulders
slightly, feeling a little tired and idly wondering why she wasn't hearing
anything.
She knew they had to be home as they all left when it was still light out
so the lights being on could only have been by her husband.
"Cur-" her words died on her lips as she came to a stop, her body rocked
into stillness as she stood by the entrance of the living room, her mind
unable to understand, to compute, what her eyes were indicating to her,
what her eyes were seeing.
Her husband…her Curtis, was atop their sofa with a hole in his head,
dried thick blood dripping down his face, his eyes unseeing, his mouth
agape and she screamed in horror, in grief, in fear "Curtis?!" she
screamed out as she ran towards him.
"Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin…what has been done to you?!" she cried
out as she clutched onto his face as she fell upon him, weeping, her heart
shattering as she felt the cold skin to her touch and she cried, oh she
cried, until…until she remembered. "Lila?! LUCY?!" she screamed out, her
heart racing in her chest, her fear rising to levels she never knew she
could feel and it was then, when she was about to look in every crevice
of her home that she saw the writings on the wall on the far side of the
living room.
Marked with blood, in gruesome callous writing
'IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR DAUGHTERS ALIVE AGAIN, DO NOT
CONTACT ANYONE. WE WILL KNOW. PICK UP THE PHONE ON THE
KITCHEN TABLE AND DIAL THE LAST NUMBER.'
Ice travelled down her spine and she ran faster than she thought possible
and there it was, an ugly black brick like No Maj telephone, and it was
then that was she realising the severity of everything.
She picked it up with trembling hands, frustration creeping within her as
she tried to figure out how to telecall. It was so different to magi-coms
which you could use almost like a wand, instinctive and intuitive not like
this…thing.
Somehow, minutes later, she managed to hear a beeping sound and she
pressed it to her ear. "Mrs Studpoole."
"Who are you?! Where are my daughters?! Give them back to me now!"
she half screamed down the phone.
"Mom! Mom!"
"Lucy?! Lila?! My babies!" Lisa half cried in happiness at their voices and
cried in despair at the panic in their voices. She heard commotion and a
cry from her daughters "What are you doing to them?!"
"They are still alive, Mrs Studpoole. Whether or not they will meet the fate of
your husband will be up to you." Her cry got stuck in her throat, and
instead a suffocating noise exited her lips as she felt a trickle escape her
bladder, the thought of her babies dying so horribly as her Curtis feeling
like an icicle through her brain.
"Please…please don't. They've done nothing wrong…please…I'll do
anything you want" Lisa whimpered, her voice shaky, the telephone
shaking, trembling as her body shook like she was out in the middle of
the coldest winter night.
"Go to 137 Mott Street. There will be a red car underneath a city light waiting
for you. You will get into it without a struggle. Do not bother trying to use
magic on them. They know nothing of who we are and where your daughters
are."
The moment Lisa saw that No Maj telephone, she knew that this was
something terrible, so, so terrible but now…she knew that it was very
possibly worse.
Yet all she could really think of was the sounds of her panicked
daughters, the imagination of seeing them dead with a bullet hole in
their heads like her husband.
"O-o-okay." Lisa said with a dry voice, her voice trembling still "Will you
release them if I come?"
"You have five minutes to get there." The voice cut out with a sudden
beeping tone and it took a moment for her shatter out of her freezing
stillness and she realised that they knew about apparation for there was
no other way she could get there without apparating.
And it was in that moment, in that moment of reflection that she realised
the Statute of Secrecy was gone, shattered as her heart was on the brink
of shattering, knowing that things…things were not good at all.
Yet…she could not come to accept it, she could not come to accept that
going to the Aurors was an option. No, she thought, as her bottom lip
trembled, she knew that her daughters would be certain to die if she did
not do as they asked.
A suffocating whimper crept out of her mouth as she palmed her wand,
her heels coming together and with a shuddering breath she recollected
the alley by 137 Mott Street and with a wave of her wand and a twist of
her heels, all she left behind was the sound of a loud crack, a crack that
was akin to the crack at the foundations of weakened bridge, a crack that
knowingly and unknowingly would herald the end of centuries of reality.
Hours later…
Her heart pounded within her chest, her throat dry, her palms wet, her
eyes downcast, away from the glare of cameras, from the loathing in the
expressions of the No-Maj's, the sound of the chattering around her akin
to the sounds of braying crowds that sought her blood spilled, her flesh
sundered and she thought it was truer than not.
She heard the wheels of some contraption creak towards her and she kept
her eyes down, half hoping that all of this was still a nightmare she
would wake from instead of the living nightmare her life has become.
"Mrs Studpoole." She flinched at the voice of the man who she became to
associate all of this to, and she looked up towards the screen and saw the
same dead eyes on the No Maj videoscreen she'd seen when she'd been
taken to the warehouse, a warehouse that had been empty save for one
videoscreen and men on either side of it.
Her daughters were with the man. She believed them likely to be still
with the man.
At his mercy…mercy that she didn't think truly existed but she had no
choice but to hope for it, hope that the man had some sort of decency not
to murder children.
From the way he'd spoken, the way he'd forced her to agree to this in
oath…She kept her eyes closed for a moment.
'You can fight us. You can even get your MACUSA involved. It will not change
the fact that your daughters will be dead and their bodies long cold before
your magic can find them.'
Those words rang in her mind, endlessly since it had been spoken, mixing
with the terrified looks on her gagged daughters, tears running down
their faces.
She was doomed. And…she swallowed a choked cry. Her daughters were
likely going to die as well but she had no choice. No choice!
No choice but to comply, to swear, to hope…
Oh Merlin…
Her stomach felt like it was being pounded and sliced apart all at the
same time, the awful knowledge that she was going to destroy the
magical worl-…
"Mrs Studpoole." The voice was more demanding and she opened her
eyes and looked at the man in the videoscreen again.
"I-I will be…I am ready." Lisa said with a stoic voice but she knew that
there was a shake in her voice, in her face, in her eyes, a shake that was
pained.
She'd considered, just for a moment, if she could sacrifice her children
but any such thought had been washed away when she realised with
haunting clarity that regardless if she did that, the No Maj's would know
of their kind, one way or another.
She still had a chance to save her daughters…she had to believe…hope…
"I have no doubt of that, Mrs Studpoole. Your daughters will be released
upon the end of the interview."
She crushed the doubt and forced herself to feel hopeful but it was a
losing game. They killed her Curtis like an animal. She did not know how
they managed to do it, to catch so off-guard but knowing how much…
planning had gone into all of this…
"Just do as you agreed and everything will be fine."
"I believe you sir" Lisa said with a shaky nod and a fake smile, bile rising
up her throat. For our daughters, Curtis…
Minutes later she was watching at the side as the No Maj's prepared
themselves, the host of the show, a stern clean faced man with slicked
back brown hair going through some strange No Maj voice ritual, and she
held her breath, her hands tightening at the fabric of her dress with a
death grip, and soon enough it all began.
She turned her eyes towards the men behind the cameras, most focused
on their devices but there was one who looked at her with pity, with
concern and unmistakable fear before it fell away and the man turned
away from her.
She'd realised as soon as she was escorted into the news building that
only some truly knew what she was and many of them were in this very
room.
"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the O'Hare Show live on CMMBC,
America's finest news channel." The presenter said and she turned her
attentions to the man.
"Today's show will be different to what you are used to but be assured
that everything that you will hear and will see, is hundred percent real
and not a fabrication.
It will be horrifying to you, it will break your perception of the very
nature of our world. I do not make this statement lightly. It was the very
same for me when I was told of the most terrifying conspiracy, ladies and
gentlemen"
Lisa swallowed dryly, her hands shaking. Oh Merlin…
"Mrs Studpoole" her name was called out and the walk towards the
presenter felt like a death march as she walked with her wand in her
hand.
She came into the camera view as she walked and with a shuddering
breath, she raised her wand and with silent incantation, she transfigured
the news table into a male lion, though not any ordinary male lion, but
rather a male lion in the colours of the American flag and twice the size
of a normal lion.
"I am Lisa Studpoole." She began, her voice surprisingly even though the
terror she felt as her next words were on the top of her tongue was
incomprehensible, even to her yet she managed to utter them.
"And I am a Witch, one of many that lives amongst you."
The presenter had stood away from his chair, his eyes on the lion before
he spoke up next "And that is only the very tip of the conspiracy iceberg,
ladies and gentlemen."
-Break-
25th of June, Washington D.C.
Jackson Seale POV
"Mr President." Jackson said respectfully, his gaze assessing all around
him.
There were many more Secret Service than he would normally expected,
groups of three clustered together to ensure every angle was covered.
He turned his gaze towards those seated at the table. President Bush was
present with the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President and several other staff,
including Press Secretary Albright, who they had once identified as a
possible Scourer member before it had been narrowly shot down.
He set his gaze back towards the President who looked somewhat under
the weather.
To be expected.
It was only three hours since the O'Hare interview had gone live and since
then, there was not a corner of America where it wasn't talked about.
At present, people still thought of it a hoax but more and more people
were beginning to think it wasn't fake. Studpoole had been interrogated
live on television, what she was, what the magical world was, how long
they'd live amongst them, and more importantly discuss the depths
witches and wizards went about to protect their world.
That had sparked the greatest outrage…stolen children and stolen
memories. It hadn't been long after that that the Aurors apparated
directly into the studio, in a way that caught their arrival, and caused the
abrupt end of the show.
Perhaps the magicals could have salvaged the situation, by magicking
CMMBC into making a statement that suggested that it was a promo or
an advertising gag but the Scourers would not let that happen.
The morning The Era paper also included reveal of the magical world,
factual statements that included damning evidence of locations of several
known magical enclaves and it hadn't been long before people tried to
find them only to find themselves unable to cross boundaries.
And, much to their luck, one of the smaller news crews had caught an
interaction with a wizard at one of these enclaves, a negative interaction
that caught the wizard casting a spell at them, and it was turning around
people's opinions.
"Imagine my surprise when I when I wake this morning and am greeted
to this…insanity by my staff." the President began, his face tightening in
anger. "So called magic." The President spat out as if the word was
offensive, as if it was a vile acid that had sat on the centre of his tongue
"exposed to the entire world."
The President drew himself up as his gaze turned icy
"I was bemused at first. I thought O'Hare and CMMBC were running a gag
of some kind. Until I was informed that it was no gag and that the
country's most watched news channel really did believe that magic
existed."
"And just as I was formulating a response on how to deal with this joke of
a…situation, six men dressed in antiquated suits suddenly appear in my
office." The President's rage could be heard in his voice.
"Six men who disarmed my guards and locked me and my staff in with
them." The men in the room looked uncomfortable though most looked
angry as well. He also didn't fail to see that some of them were watching
their surroundings warily, as if the witches and wizards could appear at
any moment.
Jackson wondered what they would have said to the President but he
knew it was not the right time to ask, not right now, not with the way the
President was looking at him.
"You have my apologies, Mr President. It was not the intent of my
organisation to put you in danger." Jackson said with a bowed head.
"Fuck your apologies!" The outburst surprised Jackson, more than the
appearance of the witches and wizards and he turned to look at the
President who had stood up.
He was red in face, apocalyptic in rage, and it was palpable in his voice.
"You and your people" The President spat out "Have made a mockery of
this Office and of the American people. You have exposed this…this…
thing in a way that has created the most harm in the most harmful way
possible!"
The room was deathly silent and the only sound was the heavy breathing
of the president who was gnawing at his tie. "Now…" the President
began, as he calmed down though he did not lose his icy angry glare.
"I've been… told you're the man I need to speak to…about this madness."
The President in an icy tone, his face set in a way that brooked no
noncompliance.
The White House had been in contact with CMMBC and with The Era,
including their owners and they'd been directed to him for them to
understand what is happening in greater depth.
The choice to keep the White House in the dark whilst all of this was
happening was a calculated one, and why they choose to not approach
Albright, partly to keep the President off-balanced enough to force him
down a path they set out for him.
Already, the Senators within the Scourer organisation were doing their
parts, meeting with other senators, politicians and religious groups to tell
the story how they wanted it to be known, before friendlier PR could be
created.
The President would have no choice but to accede to their demands.
"I am a senior representative of the Scourer organisation, an organisation
that is well over two centuries old and one that is dedicated to the truth
and the protection of our people against the supernatural." Jackson said.
"You knew about these…people?" One of the Joint Chiefs asked sharply.
"They are not people." Jackson said vehemently, a tone that some in the
room did not appreciate. "My apologies, Sirs, but we must make that
clear. They. Are. Not. Like. Us." Jackson said firmly
"They are unholy creatures the Bible warns us about. They are the
monsters in our legends and in our tales that we tell and frighten our
children about." Jackson took a deep breath before he added. "Simply
put, they are not human."
"Mr President" one of the staff members said with alarm in his voice "We
can-"
"Quiet Beckett." The Vice President said harshly with an equally harsh
glare.
"You were not there in the room when they came like a silent plague into
the room. You were not there when we were made helpless in their
presence and their magic. I am inclined to believe that they aren't like us
at all."
Jackson smiled inwardly. The Vice President was known to be a religious
man and wasn't just religious for the cameras. The existence of magic and
witches would be a confirmation of his faith…of the faith of millions…if
not billions.
"However Beckett does raise a good point." The Vice President said as he
turned his gaze towards Jackson "You knew of these people."
"We did. At first, the descendants of our organisation thought the
writings of our predecessors to be writings of legend or a joke that was
misunderstood until some curious ones looked into it and began to find…
incidents."
"Incidents like what The Era paper has been alluding to?" One of the Joint
Chiefs said in a scathing tone, clearly making clear his opinion of going
about things the way they did.
"Indeed, Sir, and many more. We found proof in the past few decades and
only recently did we discover how terribly huge this conspiracy ran."
Jackson said before he eyed the rest of the room "And in how much
danger we were all in." he said before eyeing the President.
"Mr President. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the only
reason you remember those six creatures in your office is only because
the secret is out. They would have otherwise messed with your minds as
they have done with countless of people throughout the ages." Jackson
said fervently and he could see that Bush was angry still, likely not only
at him but at the entire situation.
"We apologise for going about ways the way we did but we did not
believe the truth would be released without exceptional actions." Jackson
bowed his head before adding "We will do all we can to cooperate for the
safety of our people. That has been the goal of the Scourers ever since it
was founded."
"Then tell us what you know."
Jackson smiled inwardly.
…
Hours Later…
Alice POV
She withdrew her connection out of the LAI Jackson Seale golem and
brought herself back into her artificial body which stood at one of the
labs she'd fashioned into a monitoring observatory for all of the
planetside golems.
She connected to her Creator's magi-com and appeared to him as a holo
on his magi-com. "Alice." Her Creator's voice was warm as he said her
name.
"The scenario went perfectly, Creator."
"Good. Keep abreast of the situation. There will still be nudges you will
need to induce to ensure the ideal outcome." Her Creator said.
Moments later, she received time stamps, dates and actions, actions that
included which LAIs might need to be adjusted in both statement and in
deed.
"Of course Creator."
The call disconnected and she soon began to focus her attentions on the
thousands of LAI golems that were placed all around the world and
reviewed the past day of thousands of memories.
With how close they were to Exodus, the path of almost bloodless
departure was something that was critically important to maintain.
With so many moving parts, in terms of people, events and
circumstances, managing to create a path that required no course
corrections even in as short a period of time as a few months, was still
impossible.
Her Creator liked to say that it was threading a needle in the midst of an
earthquake.
The analogy was useful though the mathematical probability of finding
such a timeline that needed only no adjustment would have been enough
to explain how improbable it was.
Idly, she wondered for a brief moment as she consumed the memories,
she was curious to determine how the Predictive History Model could
deal with such precise Futures.
The moment passed, the memories reviewed, and soon enough she
moved onto another task.
-Break-
27th of June, 1993 – Illos, Office of Far-Sight
Hypatia POV
The room was silent, not as silent as a grave, rather, instead, silent in the
way a bird caught in a reverie atop a tree branch on the dawn of autumn
may be silent, smelling, feeling, knowing the moment was then and now,
that moment before the next moment, the one that calls on their being,
the beckoning moment to depart south.
The magic of the room was dense, though not suffocating, never that, no,
it was stilling, in the way that heavy, life shattering realisation could be.
Her eyes traced across the cavernous room, a small room that boasted
sixteen of her Far-Seers, and Atticus and her Pandora, all of them, her
included, sharing in the moment, the moment that Sang in Living Time,
an echo of a song that transcended the past, the present and the future
and they all had felt it shiver down their spines.
"The wake of the disturbance in Living Time is irrevocable." Atticus said,
no, decreed, his voice appearing to be distant and near all at the same
time, ever present like Magic, like Time, a voice that carried triumph and
solemnity in equal measure, triumphant because their actions fractured
another link in the shackles that bound this universe into perpetual
horror, endless horror, solemn because now that disturbed lake of Time
was going to cook, boil, revealing what lay below.
She remembered.
The disbelief.
The denial.
And the unforgettable soul wrenching horror that seared into her mind
when she connected to the Domain, the Realm of Magic, the Realm of
Consciousness, the Realm of Death.
What should have been joyous, exultant – answers, answers, answers! –
was soon turned into horror, peel by peel. Crust. Mantle. Until she
reached beyond the uppermost layers, the crust, of Knowledge, of
Experience, of History, and instead reached out to what was always
there, always from the moment the first civilisations came to know they
were never the first, and that they had never been free to exist.
Their existence, their triumphs, their story, was nought but a delicacy,
allowed to ripened until it tasted sour, until it tasted bitter, and it was all
the more sweet to the Shapeless Ones, those-who-ate-and-ate.
Pieces, shards, the lucky few that survived the decadent feast, howled,
whispered, raged, cried, all of them broken, their peace shallow, knowing
that even in Death they were not free. That even in Death, they would,
though fractionally, suffer, as endlessly as those who were caught in the
hunger of their devourers.
She believed him. Atticus. She believed her. Yminenso Yprikushma,
daughter of Yprin Yprikushma, the last human of the first human
civilisation, Morrigan.
They told her of the suicide that the Devourer in sheep's skin had driven
its human interrogators to, once the Truth of the nature of this universe
was discerned, was understood. She could do nothing but believe in the
wake of experiencing those haunted shards.
It had almost the same effect on them all, her Far-Seers. Her daughter.
Her. Only the hope, only the vibrations, the quake that was breaking the
still surface of the lake of Living Time that plucked discordant notes into
the repeating hymn that played deep below proved to show that they
were not helpless, not completely.
And now…
In the cataclysmic wake that was cast upon the surface of Living Time, a
surface had been quaking and quaking and quaking ever more as Time
marched forward, that hope was blossoming into a bloom of summer.
She touched upon the Domain, letting the remnants of images, of feelings
and knowledge, pass through her, letting the shards that knew no peace,
touch upon her, and letting them know they could begin to turn from the
singularity of despair.
But she knew.
She knew they would not, not even for an angular second turn away from
that singularity. Not yet. Not until it was certain, that her people could
withstand the sea of monstrous uniformity that existed far beyond this
galaxy in countless others.
This might be the beginning of the culmination of their conspiracy, their
timeless conspiracy that spanned eons in the hope of shattering the cycle
before it could begin anew again in the next universe.
A conspiracy to destroy their immortal tormentors once and for all.
However, for them, the shards, there was still far too much Time to go
before they could let the warmth of hope touch upon their Essence and
let the touch of desperate hope, of angry hope fade away, a warmth that
they'd long forgotten as they watched on as civilisation after civilisation
met the same inevitable ends as their own civilisations had over the eons.
And, she mused with painful soberness as she watched Atticus slightly
raise his arms as he opened his eyes, his eyes that revealed two white
bottomless oceans of power, of unyielding depth, she understood.
Representation of the Strings, of the Sea, of Time swept around them, a
surface that once had been quiet, still, unchanging, was now windswept,
ever so slightly, but it was there, the kind of impact they had felt in
Living Time, and amidst it, a holo screen appeared and it showed the
events of the reveal to Magic to the world.
Showing the effects of that reveal, effects that cascaded throughout
society, mundane and magical alike, the effects that stressed social
cohesion, social order, and effects that shattered any hope of returning to
the status quo.
And its consequence left a tremble in the surface of Living Time, a
tremble that promised a future that stood a chance of change, of
existence.
The holoscreen showed the reels of damning news bites, of damning
words that exited the mouths of MACUSA officials that were near
helplessly unprepared to deal with a Mundane World that knew of the
magical one, that knew of the depths their people went to protect their
world.
The holoscreen changed, showing scenes of riots in Rome, in Kathmandu,
in New York, cities shown aflame with discord and fear and anger and
religious fervour.
She felt a bite of guilt at it all, with what they had fostered in the
Mundane World, what they triggered and made to drown out the voices
of the reasonable.
And even the reasonable were fading away with every bit of twisted truth
being revealed. The reveal of child abductions. The reveal of magical
involvement in the second world war, of the magical involvements in
centuries' old wars that had mattered to no one living yet now mattered
as if it was affront to them specifically.
"Some of you have been unhappy with the path we have chosen." Atticus
began quietly, his voice ringing all around them.
Most Seers were…different than most magicals.
Especially in terms of personality. It was almost as if it was encouraged
by Lady Magic herself, for Seers to be prone to whimsy, to strange and
wonderful, and it made Seers unique, more than they already were.
But with all of that, there was a kind of innocence about Seers.
An innocence, a goodness that Hypatia thought perhaps was encouraged
by Lady Magic in a way to ensure that there was a balance of some sort, a
balance that did not cast down the world into a dark path that it would
find difficult to leave.
And with that kind of personality, it was easy for Seers to fall into a kind
of role.
Seers were impartial. They were guidance. They were oracles for anyone
and everyone, something that had caused those with Seer blood great
amount of grief as some sought to control them and other sought to end
them.
And with the actions that were taken for Exodus, some of the Far-Seers
were left unsure, unhappy about the impact they were having with the
departure of that traditional role.
It was part of why Atticus had revealed to them all what they were up
against, what all life was up against. She turned to look at the ones that
had been hesitant before.
The revelation had shaken them all, some more than others, but they, she
supposed just like her, had found solace in that Atticus had a plan to
fight against them.
She was not surprised to see that they understood and were forced into a
substantial reprioritisation, re-evaluation, of their beliefs and instincts
when the enemy your fighting was the kind that could twist Fate itself
into what they wanted it to be.
"Unhappy with the consequences of our actions to our worlds. Yet, you
have seen…you have felt the impact of those actions in the fabric of
Living Time itself."
Atticus turned his glowing gaze around to the Far-Seers.
"I do not claim what we have done is good. Or right. I am not so cruel to
force you to misunderstand what we have been doing. What we have
done. What we will do. Nevertheless, our actions have been necessary…
not only for our people but for theirs." Atticus said with a wave of the
hand towards the holo screen. He continued.
"We…we were never planned in their story. We are an outlier. Something
to remove and one way or another, it would have happened to ensure
their story remained intact until it was time for them to be consumed
whole. We are changing that story not only by existing but also, one day,
to come back together when our peoples need to stand together against
those who lurk in the shadows."
Atticus lost the glow in his eyes as the holo screen displayed one of the
American politicians speaking with ominous undertones.
"This is only the beginning." Atticus said quietly after a few moments as
he gazed upon the politician before he turned his gaze around to meet
the gazes of the Far-Seers "The wake is irrevocable but it is not certain
that it cannot fade away back into obscurity. They…will know." Atticus
said with a grim line for a smile.
"We may have ten thousand years. We may have only one thousand
years. Maybe even less. But in the end they will know what it means and
they will respond. But…" Atticus smiled at the Far-Seers, and it was
genuine, warm.
"I believe in you. I believe in your successors. In our people. We will meet
the challenge with magic and will and fortitude and all of the actions we
have taken, will take, will be worth it when our descendants live to see in
a universe free of their taint." Atticus said in almost declaration.
Despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, Atticus had their
loyalty, even if their secrecy was maintained under oaths, and it was
because of moments like this, moments of his words spoken directly to
them, words that were genuine and sentiment true, that such loyalty was
reinforced with Adamantite.
And she could see, feel, the impact of his words to Far-Seers.
It wasn't long afterwards that everyone had departed, leaving her and
Atticus alone, both of them watching the screen as they watched
mundane reporters discuss the protests that were planned in the United
States…everywhere.
"It is what we have made happen but it is still such a sad ending."
Hypatia murmured with a saddened lilt to her voice as she watched on at
the scenes of fear and hate and confusion. These scenes will be
remembered by the magical world for generations, even if the mundane
will not.
Atticus, and whomever replaced her in that distant future, might want
reconciliation with the mundanes generations from now, but the
vehement rejection will be difficult to overcome by the more progressive
people of the magical world especially as she didn't think the magical
world would ever come to know how much of it was instigated.
Still, she wondered quietly and pointlessly to herself, would it have been
any different? If they hadn't instigated it all? She wasn't sure if the
answer she came up with was assuaging her guilt or if it was delusion.
Atticus let out a hum of agreement from the back of his throat before he
spoke up.
"For now" he said and she turned towards him and saw him smile at the
screen with a strange look on his face, a look that bore what she thought
was traces of acceptance.
"All chapters have to come to an end. This one is merely one such
ending."
She knew that he expected them to meet again centuries from now,
possibly millennia. It was an expectation that bordered on zealous belief.
"Would they even recognise us as kin?" she wondered aloud and as he
looked upon her, she added "Once everything is wiped away?"
"The stories won't really perish. The evidence, the memories will. But not
the stories. It hadn't after the Statute, it won't now, even with our
absence. It will merely be the beginning of the third story, the story of
reconciliation and alliance, one that follows the story of cradle and the
story of disunity."
"A trilogy of stories raging against the night?" Hypatia posed with a
weary smile and she was met with a kind one from Atticus.
"I would think that would be an apt name for the trilogy." He looked at
her, his kind smile falling away as he spoke with an eerie note in his
voice. "A trilogy against the night. A night that hides only to reveal
what's been hidden since the dawn of the morning."
"Such terror." She said quietly as she remembered the Dreamwalk Atticus
had gone through at Celestis. A Dreamwalk where he met a defeated
echo of himself.
He looked at her apologetically before he smiled slightly. "And such
wonder."
He looked away from her "Great, great wonder. Perhaps that is the cross
we must bear, Hypatia. To deeply know how wonder cannot exist, or be
understood, without the presence of terror."
Hypatia laughed though it was not with much humour "I suppose then
that is a pretty large cross we're bearing." She said with a sigh.
Atticus looked at her with a faint smile and he hummed in soft agreement
before he waved his hand and a portal opened, a portal that lead towards
his office in the Charum Tower. "Do you know the Tower of Babel story?"
"I had not been." Hypatia said to him with a glancing look as she walked
through the portal. She'd Seen the conversation and what it entailed.
He smiled at her and nodded knowingly.
The Tower of Babel was the story the mundanes had put in their religious
text. A story that presented a people who built a tower so high that it
may reach unto the heavens and create a monument to the brilliance of
Man. Yet it is also a story of Man supposedly overreaching, to seek what
is not theirs, cannot be theirs.
The mundanes had fashioned a story that in some ways was truer than
they could ever imagine. In their travels, Atticus and Emily had found
chronicles that rang similarly to the Tower of Babel and it fitted the time
period and location.
There was an incident in Babylon, the first Babylon, caused by a King of
Babylon who possessed magic, a descendant of a sect of Egyptian Mage
Priests, whereby the King attempted to channel the influences of the Sun
and the Moon into providing him the knowledge of the universe and to
make him into a living god.
It…it had not ended well. At all.
It burned down most of Babylon and it took generations to recover its
glory by which time it was well surpassed by the Sumerians.
"At times I feel as if we're like that King." Atticus admitted to her as the
portal closed from behind him. He looked at the city below.
"Overreaching in hubris. For all intents and purposes, they are the Sun
and the Moon and we nothing but specks of dust made from their
castoffs."
"I wouldn't say it like that at all." Hypatia said as she also looked at the
city until her eyes settled on the Federal Assembly building. "We are
reaching to survive. I think that is quite different."
Atticus glanced at her and smiled faintly before he inclined his head and
turned his gaze towards the Federal Assembly as well and it was like both
of them understood that their survival depended on making sure their
people stayed together, worked together and for that to happen, it
needed them to do things that would be abhorrent to all.
They stood by each other in long amiable silence and it was minutes later
that Atticus broke his silence. "I'll come by tomorrow to see Luna."
Atticus said.
"She will be happy for it." Hypatia said with a smile before her expression
became amused and slightly judgemental "She still feels you're unhappy
that she chose Hogwarts." Luna adored Atticus and whilst she might not
show it, she didn't like to disappoint her adopted grandfather.
"I'm not unhappy." Atticus said carefully and she raised her eyebrow at
him. Atticus smiled a little exasperated. "She could have been starting her
second year at the Pandrosion Institute this fall. She would have been far
more engaged in her classes than at Hogwarts."
"True but we both know that she values her friendships more." Hypatia
pointed out. Luna would several lifetime friendships at Hogwarts and
Hypatia did not want Luna to lose out on them.
Of course, she would have done the same at the Pandrosion but she
would have the chance to meet those people at different stages in her life
with little difference. Before Atticus could speak she added "Plus, we both
know that Luna isn't worse off at Hogwarts, academically or otherwise."
"I will soothe her concerns." Atticus finally said after a few moments with
a weary but amused expression on his face. Hypatia smiled beautifully at
him and it wasn't long before she left to go home to her family.
-Break-
3rd of July, 1993 – Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Jack Sinclair POV
Jack stood up, ignoring the sounds and calls of his name and the meeting
fell away as he stood at the window of the Massachusetts Senatorial
House.
He could see the helicopters circling around and his imagination ran wild
with memories of earlier today, imagining the reverberating sounds of
the blades cutting through the air like the sound of a guillotine whistling
as it fell down to cut off their heads.
The No Maj's were aware of their major settlements.
Fitchburg. Salem. New York. Lafayette. New Orleans.
And every one of these settlements had a military presence, like stalking
wolves, waiting and watching until the injured elk tired itself out,
collapsed under blood loss.
Lisa Studpoole's actions had unequivocally shattered the Statute of
Secrecy. By the time the Aurors intervened, the damage was done. Yet…
it wasn't just the broadcast.
It was the papers, it was the experts, the supposed truth seekers, that
solidified the destruction of the Statute. How depressing that it all went
to shit here, one of the few magical nations that took the Statute more
serious than the majority did.
As he stared at the circling helicopter, he thought back on his days as an
Auror after the war. They'd considered scenarios like this. Breaches in the
Statute of Secrecy through the media.
With the emergence of Hollywood and special effects and more
importantly popularisation of supernatural horror movies, they'd
developed a rather good way to chalk up 'supernatural incidents' as
hysterical episodes or delusions.
There was a whole wing in the Obliviation Department tasked to utilise
this strategy. For decades it had worked. Until now. Until the concerted
efforts by legitimate individuals and organisations came out and insisted
in the veracity of the existence in the magical world.
He grimaced.
He'd be the first to admit they'd handled it wrong. First with the No Maj
President, then the…unfortunate interactions with the media and the
obliviations of news crew.
Let's just say that it made terrible relations ever worse and he knew that
the baying of the public and the rioting was making things worse. The No
Maj government were disturbingly quiet on this front and given the
terrible first impressions they'd made last time, he had a terrible feeling
about it.
Yet, that terrible feeling was completely overshadowed by those who had
captured the Studpoole family in their web of ironic conspiracy.
They found nothing. Even the finding of the girls in an abandoned
warehouse in Austin, through blood magic, lead nowhere but more
questions…questions that they were getting answers to merely by looking
it with a dispassionate deduction.
And none of them boded well at all.
How many families were or are they monitoring? They knew of their
settlements so it must have been years, if not longer.
Have they killed other magicals, other than Curtis Studpoole? They very
likely had given that, once again, they knew their settlements, they knew
their capabilities – demanding Studpoole to go a street that was
inhumanely possible to arrive by through anything other than magical
travel – and they knew enough of their methods of keeping the Statute of
Secrecy intact to know how to attack it with minimal risk.
On and on their questions went and many of them were answered at least
in part.
Basically…they were fucked.
He grimaced as he took his eyes away from the helicopter. The only
saving grace was that New Jackson and the other country-ships seemed
to be unknown to the No Maj's but that might not be true either given
how much they already knew.
It would be far too hard for the No Maj's not to know about the country-
ship if they knew about the wizarding settlements in America and he
considered that the No Maj's were keeping it secret to keep the situation
from bursting out of control.
Bursting more out of control.
Cynically, he probably thought the rioting and outrage was carefully
planned given that things had devolved so far, so quickly, even the
supposed moderate parts of America were all but demanding a full
accounting of the wizarding population in America, echoing the calls the
French, the Indians and other No Maj's were making.
"What do you mean we need to respond? This is nothing but a scare
tactic. We'll reach an accord with the No Maj's soon and all of this will go
away!"
"What accord?! According to our officials back in New York, their
President won't even see us anymore!"
"The situation is salvageable Henry. If the delegation hadn't Merlin
damned disarmed them so blatantly in the first meeting, maybe they
would have been more amenable! As it is, we've only confirmed their
worst fears about us!"
"Please! As if they hadn't already decided that we were their enemy
rather than their fellow Americans. You have seen their news right?
They're this close to calling us demons and that is their supposedly
reasonable news channels."
Jack sighed as he turned around and looked towards his squabbling
underlings. Each State had its own Senatorial House from which the State
was organised and where problems, like business spats or communal
issues, were resolved.
It was a hangover from the original settlers, the ones that came with old
communal traditions like folkmoot and so on. The Senatorial House was
much like this where he took a chieftain esque role within his State.
"They're letting their fear run wild, you know how the No Maj's are.
Reason will win, just look at the Cold War ending! Not long ago they
were out for communist blood and now they're helping them!"
"That's not the same at all! You're being an obtuse fool."
"Obtuse?! I'll show you obtuse, you old hack."
"Enough." Jack snapped, his voice cracking like a whip and it silenced
them. He glared at them with a disappointed look in his eyes. He
depended on these two who were the only ones that he'd made sure
remained to advise him. Normally, he'd not regret that decision for both
were well connected to the political establishment, whether it be through
blood or through wealth.
But right now they were nothing more like frightened children lashing
out at one another. "Your frankly headache inducing argument is not
helping anyone." They looked suitably chastised and he shook his head
before he returned his attentions to the off magi-com that sat the centre
of the table.
They, along with every senator who were all sent back to their States to
manage the situation with the State resources, were waiting on further
instructions from the MACUSA President's office but nothing yet.
He sighed silently. He also hadn't received any word from Senator Sayre,
whom he shared power with in Massachusetts like every Senator did with
one other Senator, and she wasn't responding either. She wasn't the only
Senator that was silent either, based on what he heard from the
Californian Senator in San Francisco.
It seemed like there was an information embargo and no one in New
York could tell him anything more than he already knew.
It didn't bode well. Especially given that this call was meant to have
instructions on what to actually do, along with his deliberations with the
Federation who have been difficult so far.
He clenched his jaw slightly.
Was he surprised though? The Federation was dominated by the Senators
from the country-ships and as much as they had a seat on the Council of
Five, they were largely bereft of allies, mostly because their traditional
allies were no longer in their sphere of influence.
Their stance to remain on the ground as equally as they were in the air in
New Jackson also didn't help much matters either, especially with Illos
who retained their influence on the magical world.
He shook his head. He expected that the fact that the situation in the rest
of the world was almost as bad as it was in America, and in some
instance even worse as the No Maj's were killing their own people in
suspicion of witchcraft, was only making things worse in terms of the
kind of action needed to be made.
He could only imagine things would get worse if other No Maj nations
managed to find magicals in their countries, and he dreaded to think how
bad things could get, especially given that some Ministries were far from
understanding of No Maj's.
Even the milder Ministries, like the Indian Ministry, were dead set in
refusing to meet with the No Maj government based on the reactions in
America and a few other Ministries in traditionally liberal No Maj
cultures, like the Dutch or the Vietnamese, that remained on the ground
had chosen the same.
And given that the French reaction wasn't at all positive despite
expectations being that it would be given their liberal inclinations, it only
enforced the belief amongst the magical world that coexistence was
impossible.
His fingers twitched as his stomach tightened, difficult emotions cycling
on his face.
He'd heard that were a vocal number of Federal Senators that were
calling for permanent departure from Earth, decades sooner than what
Illos committed itself to.
That had been days ago. He could only imagine that it would be worse
now.
Could that be why the president was so difficult to reach? Was
developing a mutually beneficial relationship with the No Maj's really not
possible?
Wa-
He strode forward towards the magi-com, wanting to banish out fruitless
thoughts in favour of some actual answers. He dialled his old friend and a
holo image of his old war buddy appeared. "Albert."
"Couldn't wait any more, could you?" the Ohioan Senator said dryly,
knowing him as well as he did. He'd had Albert Hickberry under his
direct command during much of the war and the man had saved his life a
few times, including when Grindelwald had killed nearly killed him along
with hundreds of others at Mannheim.
Jack smiled faintly before he turned gravely serious "Have any of your
friends told you anything?" Hickberry was far more connected to officials
in MACUSA than Jack was. Plus, the other Ohioan Senator was a family
friend of the man so it was quite possible that the other Ohioan Senator
had broken the silence.
Hickberry looked grim "No. I would have called you if I heard anything
my friend."
"I hoped otherwise." Jack said solemnly before he eyed the man
cautiously "What do you think anyway? You have a knack for sniffing out
secrets."
Hickberry gave a short laugh "A knack?" He shook his head "Things must
be bad if you're calling my fatalistic attraction for trouble secrets."
Hickberry sighted before he turned serious and there was a sad note in
his voice.
"The situation as bad as fresh Cerberus shit, my old friend. You already
know or at the very least sense it but I think it's going to get a lot worse.
The No Maj president has been seen hosting people who own the news
channels that have been calling for everything short of a witch hunt."
'Fuck'
"Oh Merlin." Henry groaned out as he placed his head in his hands.
Hickberry turned around in his holo picture and saw for the first time
Henry and Andrew before he turned around to face him "Didn't know you
had company."
"It's only Henry and Andy." He said distractedly as he thought on the
owners of the news channels. They were wealthy men, exceedingly so. In
first few days, he'd been still in New York when crisis meeting after crisis
meeting painted a picture of the situation.
And a few covert missions had been undertaken to assess the damage by
checking them and suffice it to say, they were a goldmine and a major
source of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, the men they'd met with proved
to be difficult to find.
"You remember when the Auror reports of their connections to the
conspirators?"
Jack nodded and Hickberry continued "I'm fairly sure the obliviated
owner of The Era and his subordinates recovered their memories." Jack's
eyebrows climbed up.
"Impossible" Andrew exclaimed "It's almost impossible for the average
wizard to recover obliviated memories, at least without help. You're
saying No Maj's managed?!"
"Well, it should have been impossible for us to be as blindsided as we are
but…" Hickberry waved around, indicating the impossible situation they
were in.
"It's farfetched." He commented and Hickberry shrugged a little
helplessly.
"It explains why The Era has stepped up its rhetoric when it should have
stopped." Hickberry looked at him directly "You remember the general
idea of what the directives were to be." He did. The Era was to be a lot
more balanced and he'd wondered why it had been more poisonous than
it had been.
"Perhaps they're looking out for mind manipulation." He said quietly as
he met his old friend's gaze who understood what he was meaning with
it.
Hickberry smiled grimly before he nodded "It's possibly that they
intervened on their behalf. But we are looking out for that and as far as I
know, at least before the silence, that hasn't happened. And with him
going to see the President, I'm fairly sure his memories has returned."
"Maybe it isn't his memory." Henry said with comprehension on his face,
surprising him and the other two in the room. After the quizzical looks
Henry continued "They have those video recall thingies right?"
"What recall thingies?" Andrew asked with a frown. Henry looked
annoyed at Andrew.
"You know those thingies that work like that Replay application on the
magi-com."
Jack's eyebrows raised for the second time in a very short period…as did
everyone else's and they all exchanged looks understanding how the No
Maj's might have been working to circumvent the whole thing.
Hickberry let off a deep breath "Good catch."
"But the Aurors would have caught that, surely?"
"Not if the No Maj's didn't know they were being recorded." Hickberry
pointed out "Remember, the No Maj's have been planning this all out for
years, probably decades even. They know our abilities and they know our
behaviours."
Jack closed his eyes. Again, they were being outplayed "And in the end,
they only enflamed the flames of hate and distrust by showing them
moving pictures of themselves that they don't remember."
Hickberry smiled grimly before he looked away, his hand seemingly
moving and Jack realised that Hickberry was probably sending out the
idea to New York.
"I fear it might be too late." Jack admitted and Hickberry turned to him.
"If I were them, it would probably have been too late a little while ago.
Seems like Sinroote righter than we thought."
Sinroote had been an infamous magi-historian who postulated, only a few
decades after the Statute of Secrecy went up, that the nature of the
Statute ending was the single most important moment in magical history,
claiming that anything short of perfect blending of the two worlds would
end in tragedy.
He was about to say something until he heard the beeping sound of
another call though it was overlapping with another beeping sound at
Hickberry's end.
"It seems like its time." Hickberry said before he turned to him "See you
there."
He nodded and the call disconnected and quickly connected to the call
whilst he gestured towards the magi-com to calibrate him into position.
The holo transformed the office room into a large Congressional room
and he was seated in the same seat he'd be in if he'd be at the
Congressional hall itself.
Though…none of that mattered as the room descended into stunned
silence, him included, when he did not see the president but rather…
Rather a bloodied face, an unknown face, on the roof of a building with
the backdrop of skyscrapers…'Manhattan outside' he recognised.
"Who are you?!" "Where is the president?!" "What happened?!"
"SILENCEEE" one of the senators for Colorado bellowed out, silencing
everyone before he added "Let the man speak!"
"Thank you sir." The bloodied man was breathing heavily and looking
around him before he looked back towards them. "Senators…I am Auror
Lonnie Lykonnis, security attache for the President." The man swallowed
dryly and Jack knew then things had nosedived into a very new, a very
dangerous low.
"We were meeting with the No Maj's." the man said with a shaky breath
"It was a trap." Murmurs began to rise but stern talking to by a few of the
Senators silenced them all.
"The No Maj's attacked?"
The man, Lykonnis, nodded. "They ambushed us." Lykonnis closed his
eyes before he reopened them with shame in them. "They killed the
president." The room was shocked but none of them were prepared for
what the man had next to say.
"They also attacked the MACUSA building." The man's eyes looked almost
dull as he spoke, as he looked away into the distance "I think most are
dead."
Jack fell into his seat as he clutched onto the table and there was dead
silence. "We are at war." Jack muttered but it seemed that it was loud
enough for everyone to hear for the entire conference descended into
utter chaos.
39. Chapter 99
Here we are.
Hmm.
An end of an odyssey, this story has been.
If you've been here since the beginning, you know that I was quite shit
and very lax in my grammar and sometimes I wondered if I was just
being a bit of a fool but then I hit a bit of a stride, getting better, my
imagination flowing from my mind into my fingertips, and here we are.
Somehow.
I'd like to thank you guys for reading my story.
It's not untrue for me to say that you guys made me want to push on to
write even when the creative juices were running low (I tend to have fits
of long periods of writing more than a consistent one - I blame my
wondering mind) so thank you.
As a final note - this is the last chapter of Odyssey but...the Halo era
story will begin in the summer next year.
Without further ado...
Please enjoy the closing chapter of this story. Thank you.
10th of September, 1993 – Nevada, United States
A piercing cry echoed in the arid desert, a cry that bore two, eight,
twelve different cries within a calling cry, and Atticus smiled to himself
as he stared out at the crystal clear skies, his own call to his familiar
echoing silently in the spectrum of intertwined magic.
Soon enough he came to see twelve silhouettes in the distance, several
larger than the majority, though he only had eyes for one of them.
As they neared, he could see the trailing clouds that exuded with each
flap of their wings and the streaks of lightning that discharged from their
smaller back wings, riding through the air like Valkyrie chariots of
thunder and storm.
When they were a few hundred metres away, they began to slow, their
bodies turning vertical, their wings gracefully beating the air into
submission and soon enough they all landed right in front of him, their
huge forms, their iridescent blue and silver feathers gleaming like
priceless gems cut into the shape of feathers as their imperious hawk-
eyed eyes bore down at him with a kind of regal authority.
Though none of them could compare to the thunderbird right in front of
him, a bird that dwarfed them with her almost six metre height that eyed
him intense scrutiny.
Long few moments passed where none of the majestic birds made a single
sound, a single movement, until she finally moved towards him, slowly
with deliberateness, until finally she crowed softly as she brought her
head towards his chest, body, really and Atticus laughed softly as he
scratched in a spot behind her crown feathers which elicited a purring
crow from the old girl.
"Oh Fila…I've missed you too." Atticus said softly as he closed his eyes
and hugged the neck of his familiar who was so large he couldn't wrap
his arms around it.
Not long after he'd moved to Illos, Fila and he had come to an agreement,
of a sort.
Thunderbirds were never the kind to be caged, to be kept in place.
They were creatures of the skies, born to roam and sail and brew storms
wherever they went. They were freedom personified.
And as Fila grew into her own, he had to let her go and be what she was.
A queen of the skies.
He parted from Fila and smiled at the old girl before he looked towards
the rest of her brood and his lips twitched at their quizzical looks, no
doubt unfamiliar with the way their authoritative mother, grandmother
and great grandmother was behaving.
He'd never met her chicks for Thunderbirds turned into some of the most
dangerous beings during that time, much more so than they typically
could be, and so this was the first time they were meeting him.
Fila turned her gaze towards the birds and squawked a short bark and
immediately the birds backed up a little with their heads slightly bowed.
It was fascinating to see the dynamics between Thunderbirds.
Not much had been known about the social dynamics of the beings,
before he relocated the bulk of the species to Dexirus where their
behaviours in the wild could be studied properly, so watching Fila and
her brood was a unique experience.
Thunderbirds were solitary beings for much of their lives but like all
intelligent beings, there was a social component to their behaviours
though that was largely amongst the female population.
Once they started their own family units, female thunderbirds were
connected to their broods and their brood's brood, almost like the way a
planetary weather system was connected, and they'd meet once every so
often to reaffirm familial bonds.
And, Atticus mused to himself as he watched the interaction between the
birds, there was a clear hierarchy in their family units.
The researchers weren't entirely sure yet how a female thunderbird
would leave a family unit to form one of her own but thus far the
consensus amongst the researchers was that it depended on the strength
of the matriarch.
Thunderbirds were creatures of power and no animal nature in nature,
even humans, allowed to subject themselves to those who were weaker.
Atticus dropped his smile slightly and the air pressure around them
began to drop as his magic rose. The thunderbirds behind Fila stiffened at
the sudden change whilst Fila turned towards him, her sharp eyes set
upon him.
He could feel their wariness, their sense of danger and he slowly,
carefully, sent out feelings of urgency, of importance, of request, through
his bond with Fila which he used to connect to the rest of the
Thunderbirds.
The birds almost comically tilted their head in question and in surprise at
the sudden connection and it made him smile fondly, to feel their
surprise yet he did not break concentration as he communicated with
them.
It was not words. It was not even images. It was more like when you saw
a certain look on your loved ones face, a look that could communicate a
thousand words with the faintest expression, with the lightest of muscle
twitches.
He expressed to them of what has happened in the world, why magic felt
a little different in the past few months, why they had not seen another
Thunderbird for the past few years, and he expressed why it was time to
leave soon and that he needed their aid.
It caused a stir amongst the birds, especially amongst the younger
thunderbirds, who were more prideful and so like Fila when she'd been
but a youngling.
Fila however, she kept her eyes on him.
Imperious eyes that seemed to bore down to the bottom of his very soul.
Atticus only solemnly smiled at her, his head slightly bowed at the old
girl.
He could feel that the old girl knew whatever was happening…was
because of him.
Their familiar bond had never frayed over the years though their bond
had, after he'd given her the space to be what she was, become…almost
like the bond between an old flame, the one who you could not see for
decades yet you could see still feel the love, the memories, between one
another from just a second in each other's gaze.
Fila then suddenly broke eye contact and barked at her brood who
became silent for a few moments before they all, one by one, barked out
in a tone that sounded as if it was agreement.
Fila then turned towards him and sent her agreement through the bond
though…that was something more, as if she was requesting something of
her own and Atticus reversed the magic to let him understand fully what
she wanted.
Atticus' eyebrows raised and after a few seconds, he laughed before a
wide smile grew on his face. "I can do that, my old girl." Atticus said
softly as he already began to think on how to fulfil his part of the
agreement.
Celestis was plenty mountainous enough for him to pick a region to
declare belonging to her brood and a few other young and unrelated
male thunderbirds.
Atticus raised his hand and in his hand, twelve anklets materialised and
he floated them to the thunderbirds. "You will need this. I will use it to
send you to Illos and will use it when I call on your aid." Atticus said
aloud and through the connection.
The birds eyed the anklets as they neared but they all let the anklets form
just above their ankles. The anklets were next generation port-keys that
were anchored to Illos for about five astronomical units.
Soon enough, the birds began to take off and Fila…Fila took flight as well
though not before she demanded him to scratch that spot behind her
crown of feathers.
He watched them go and the smile that had been on his face, faded away.
He allowed them to remain soaring in Earth's skies for as long as possible.
With the aid of the thunderbirds secured, he could be assured that the
damage he'd cause would be…limited.
Taking control would be difficult, especially since the Earth was not as
dead as Celestis was, but it was still possible. Unfortunately, it would
leave him spent for days and he could not afford that.
Fila and her brood would bridge the gap, both in terms of wrestling
control of the weather system, whilst also requiring him less of his
strength to cause the final chapter of this story.
When the birds were distant, almost gone from his sight, his magic
twisted within a fraction of a second and he shimmered from where he'd
stood back to Charum Tower where he was greeted with Emily, Abraxas
Malfoy and a few other people.
Another 'crisis' meeting.
All bar Emily were surprised by his appearance though only moments
later Abraxas and the other people stood up from their seats and bowed
before him.
"Your Majesty."
"Chief Minister." Atticus acknowledged with a faint smile before he
greeted the others and turned towards his wife with a look.
"Abraxas…" Emily voiced out and her old classmate understood perfectly
well.
"Of course, Your Majesty." Abraxas said with a bow before he and the
others left them.
After he and Emily were left alone, he walked over to her and placed a
kiss on her cheek.
Emily smiled as she watched him for a few moments before she asked.
"How is Fila?"
"She looks well. Aging but well." Atticus said as he sat down beside Emily
and offered her a faint but loving smile. "She'll be fine after the storm is
done."
Emily nodded serenely though a flicker of an amused look came across
her face and he knew why she was looking at him like that.
She suspected that him eliciting the aid of Fila was more or less an
excuse to work with Fila again, like he had done in his early experiments
in Nature magic as a boy because after all, he was allowing the old bird
and her brood a lot more leeway than they were allowing the rest of the
magical species who were all on board country-ships.
To be fair…
She wasn't entirely wrong.
"So Abraxas has managed to get an agreement then." Atticus stated
knowingly as he glanced at the doors through which Abraxas and his
aides had left through.
Emily hummed beautifully as she leaned back in her chair. "Yes. As
expected. The other country-ships will follow our lead when we remove
our invisibility cloak" she said before she eyed him with a wry but
knowing look.
"Of course, it will only serve to escalate tensions dramatically."
"Well, when giant spaceships are hovering in the skies, it should be
expected." Atticus said a little dryly before he sighed heavily. He wasn't
leaving anyone a choice. "But we also can't afford to leave so many
behind" Or anyone really.
Earth could not have any current magicals when they left.
"No." Emily agreed as she turned towards him slightly, her face clouding
somewhat in darkness. "And even if we for some reason allowed to let the
disagreeable fools to stay after we remove the memories of the
mundanes, we can't risk the mundanes learning of magic later and then
figuring out a way to engineer a biological weapon."
The disagreeable fools being a number of communities and a few other
Ministries like the Ministry of India deciding that fighting or suing for a
treaty was a better option than leaving like the majority of the magical
world has now agreed on.
Even MACUSA, who have permanently moved to New Jackson, have
decided to leave when their people still on stateside were attacked.
And after his people assisted MACUSA from fully evacuating from the US
and nearby regions, the appetite of tolerating mundanes had gone
completely, especially after the media leaks in the mundane world
making their way into the magical world, leaks that spoke of
concentration camps in Eastern Europe that were used to burn families
suspected of witchcraft.
Of course, it was not true and merely the culmination of decades of
planning and the use of LAI golems that pervaded throughout the
mundane world, but the evidence would hold up under any scrutinised
eyes.
That, along with a dozen other plots that worked to heighten the sense of
hatred felt from the mundane world, was it any surprise that all across
the magical world, regardless of blood status, people were braying at the
'crimes' of the mundanes?
Unfortunately, it seemed that there were still a number of communities
and Ministries that proved difficult to crack, those few who were
remarkably clingy to their homelands.
Even the native Americans and other secluded native peoples, had been
convinced to leave once that the time of mundane and magical co-
habitation like yesteryear was impossible.
Unfortunately, for some, reason was not triumphing over sentimentality.
That wasn't to see that they were entirely reasonless.
The actual attacks by mundanes throughout the world against magical
enclaves that were exposed, either through treacherous squibborns,
opportunistic fools or through chance, were all halted by Federation
battlemages, giving them the illusion that they could simply depend on
Federation protection whilst things settled down.
Atticus eyed her for a moment before he broke his gaze, looking towards
the distance with a shadowed expression. "I doubt they'll manage it any
time soon."
Their DNA was beyond what mundane science should be able to attack. It
would take centuries, likely millennia, of research and science for them
to be capable of it.
The Ancient Humans hadn't managed to complete their research in the
alien DNA before their demise and it took her generations of…research to
finally find success.
He felt her hand on his hand, no, his fist that had been clenching
between them and he turned towards her. She was looking at him
seriously, understanding what he was thinking.
She hadn't been pleased either to know that all that they were was owed
to the Ancient Humans…in more ways than simply being a consequence
of Forerunner folly.
"Soon." Atticus promised her. He'd created a moment in the near future
where he'd be able to have moment of reckoning with her.
Emily downturned her lips slightly but she quickly moved past it. She
didn't think there was much point in a reckoning, and to tell the truth…
there wasn't.
He'd gotten what he wanted from her and he knew all that there was to
know but…leaving it like an open injury felt distasteful to him.
He wanted her to know.
"Even if they don't manage for a thousand years" Emily returned back on
the topic on hand "They will at the very least be able to track new
magicals."
Atticus hummed, the sound rumbling at the back of his throat.
After the stubborn magicals were wiped out, either through murder or
through experimentation, they'd turn their eyes to the squibborns.
And that was the greatest of risk with regards to leaving any magicals to
the knowledge of the mundanes. It would be easy too. Governments
across much of the world could take blood samples of anyone who ever
needed a hospital.
In time, when technology was improved, they could be able to determine
which bloodlines had the genome sequence of interest and so, squibborns
would be there for them to take and twist them into their tools.
Like starving rats fed on peanut butter coated rats, they'd be made to
hate and despise anyone not in whatever order they were a part of.
"It's a good thing then that such scenarios won't happen. We will all leave
as one people." Atticus said with a wry smile as he rested his head on the
back of the sofa.
The consequence of showing how much more advanced the magical
world was than the mundane would shock them to the core and when
humans were backed into a corner, they can be vicious, especially when
it threatened their entire perception of the world and their place in the
world.
Like the final dominos in a domino chain, the final pieces will fall as
stubbornness made way for practicality and survival. By now, the
magical world was well aware of nuclear weapons and the devastation it
could do.
"Most of us will leave as one people yes." Emily said with a dark and
amused smile as she tilted her head slightly, almost touching the back of
the sofa.
Yes…
There were still a few that decided to aid the mundanes against the
magical world despite the hatred the mundanes held for them, even in
this very moment.
Of course, they were made to be largely impotent, along with the
leadership of the mundanes being subtly cursed to disbelieve anything of
true importance, and any assistance they'd bring was going to be a moot
thing anyway for their betrayal would be wiped out but still…
It was a sore point for many amongst the magical world.
Fortunately, for everyone's sake, the vast majority of squibborns and their
families had remained loyal to the magical world, the initiatives and the
integration he'd ensured would happen had lessened severely the
resentment. Generally speaking.
"It is what it is." Atticus said with a mild smile "They've made their
choice."
Not all of them – some were pushed into the choice – but most did.
Could he have ensured that they all didn't have a choice?
Yes.
But their betrayal was useful.
Not only in naturally producing a sense of togetherness amongst the
squibborns and the purebloods as it was clear that the mundanes made
no such distinctions between them at all, a message they were making
sure was understood by everyone, but also by weeding out some of the
more zealous amongst them.
Those who would be problematic in the era they'd build, those that they
couldn't weed out through legitimate poltical manoeuvring and scandals.
Emily hummed.
"We're almost there." Emily said, recapturing his attentions and he smiled
at her before he nodded. Yes…they were almost catching up to his, their
future.
Memories of baby booms that would last for decades, memories of
building after building being raised around the country-ships, memories
of discovery and invention, memories of peace for as far as he could See…
Atticus closed his eyes as he placed his other hand on top of her.
"Yes…we're nearly there."
-Break-
20th of September, 1993 – Washington D.C.
Jason M. Lafides POV
He quickly walked through the hotel plaza, face set in stone, his eyes
scanning his surroundings.
The hotel was busy, as it has been for weeks now.
Every news outlet worth their salt had a presence in Washington at
present and every set of eyes that knew even the faintest thing about the
affairs of the world was gazing upon a television, eagerly consuming
content, news bites, reports.
It was a gluttonous feast for the media and there was no telling of when
it would stop, just as they wanted.
The world had come to know of the insidiousness that hid in the crevices
of the world, these creatures who hid in the shadows and defiled them
and sundered their memories and so much more!
True and false interviews were given, pictures in forgotten photo albums
were circulated as talks of kidnapped children entered the public
consciousness 'Your kids could be next!'.
Some creatures that disappeared even came forward in the past few
weeks claiming them to be the stolen children though he never paid it
much attention, considering them to be irrelevant – and problematic – in
the grand scheme of things.
Unfortunately, they couldn't just get rid of them and the government
knew that too, instead, last he heard, using them to figure out where the
heck they could find damn creatures and how to create weapons against
their magic.
In any case…before this and all the rest of the shit contributed to muddy
up the situation, things had been going so damn well.
The furore had never been greater, not even during the height of the cold
war.
It was marvellous.
Outrage was near universal amongst most of the world and protests had
sprung all across Europe with Italy and Spain righteous and furious in
their protestations.
Though…he thought with a faint internal grimace. It had to be said that
in some countries the situation was more…delicate.
From Eastern Europe to the Near East, demands of the people were levied
onto their governments to follow America's steps and strike at the
creatures, often times descending into riots demanding new
concentration camps to be set up whilst in many parts in Asia and Africa,
the situation had devolved into near anarchy or actual anarchy.
His grimace began to show on his face as he remembered the reports of
sectarianism and tribal influenced attacks in places in Africa whilst the
Palestinian and Israeli conflict was heating up even more as extremist
imams were declaring all Jews witches in cohort with the Devil.
And in Africa, there were warlords who were using the chaos to rally
people to their causes, painting entire populations as 'spawn of the devils'.
He'd thought that this could have been a uniting event, to unite humanity
in, well, humanity, yet people were using it as an excuse to basically fuck
everything up!
It was bad news on top bad news.
His hands clenched.
To say it has not been as they had envisaged would be saying it lightly.
No, it was fucking far from the way they hoped it would unravel out.
Even in America. Especially in America.
They'd started well. Initially. They'd known most if not all of the
wizarding settlements and their centres of government.
They'd known the location of this MACUSA building and they'd caught
the demons unawares with their attack that destroyed most of it.
It had signalled the beginning of the campaign and one by one, the
military attacked the settlements but after the first day – it all went to
fucking shit.
First those Studpoole children disappeared and after the first waves of
attacks against the settlements, the settlements were abandoned, turning
into damn ghost towns, no hide or sight could be found of the creatures
until, days later, they fucking attacked!
The helicopters, the jets, even the fucking tanks that were sent to these
places were destroyed and the military bases nearby the settlements were
all wiped out.
Thousands of soldiers had died.
To say it was a catastrophe would be a god damned understatement.
And as sudden as their attacks had come, they were gone and there hasn't
been a damn sight of them!
Some of the organisation believed that they went into hiding, almost
crowing in victory at the thought but he and others knew that it was a
terrible situation for they knew the kinds of evil the creatures were
capable of.
They could appear anywhere, anytime, and the longer they had no sight
of them, the worst the situation would get.
As he walked past the hotel lobby, towards the VIP bar after he'd been
passed through, his eyes had caught sight of one of the televisions that
was hung on one of the pillars of the bar.
He could already tell that it was the report of this morning, about the
Indian Prime Minister and the fool's talk with this supposed Minister of
Magic.
The Indians – and the Spanish – governments had been approached by
the creatures and continued to talk with the creatures despite the
pressure the governments were facing from the public and other
governments and religious figures.
A sneer formed on his face.
Undoubtedly they were spelled into compliance – he believed the traitor
creatures who checked them over to be lying – and it wouldn't be long
before actions would be taken to rescue the poor fools.
As he walked through the bar, quieter and far less crowded with the
common rabble, he made his way towards the always reserved seat at the
back on the second floor.
He could already see his old friend waiting on him and he signalled the
waitress his usual drink before he walked up the stairs.
"Jackson" Jason grumbled out as he took his seat and took hold of the
glass of brandy that had sat waiting for him. He took a long swill of the
drink before he sat back up and eyed the man. "Any news?"
"Good to see you as well, my friend." Jackson said drily before he drank
of his gin and tonic.
Jason grimaced "Apologies. It's been…tense."
Jackson placed his glass back onto the table, a mocking smile on his face
"That's a bug that going around, alright." The mocking smile fell as he
spoke further.
"There is hardly any new news…only further consideration that these
country-ships the turncoat creatures talk about may not be so false."
Jason's jaw slackened "What?!" he exclaimed before he got control over
himself and he leaned forward "The President is considering it to be
true?!" he demanded in a quieter tone.
He couldn't believe that the President was falling for the ruse by these
creatures.
"I believe them too." Jackson said grimly and he looked at the man
betrayed.
Jackson gestured his hand tiredly "The simplest explanation is often the
right explanation." Jackson said to him before continuing "We've heard it
from Studpoole, we are hearing it from the very mouths of creatures
overseas and we're hearing it from the American" Jackson mockingly
elucidated "creatures."
Jackson thinned his lips for a moment before adding "I think we are
playing it dangerous by ignoring it further." Jackson brought back the
glass to his lips.
"We've underestimated the creatures for centuries before. Doing it now
when they're under attack is folly." Jackson said before he threw back the
drink.
Jason sat there for a long while, brimming with anger. And fear. He
couldn't believe it. He couldn't. The thought that these creatures had ships
the size of fucking Hawaii was unthinkable. Obscene.
"They're agents." Jason said finally, his voice quiet but anger laden. He
met Jackson gaze "They are deceiving us. Like that damn witch." After
that Studpoole bitch made her confession on live television, she'd
disappeared completely and so did her children before they even could
do anything about it.
He was sure that she'd been making a lie when she was supposedly
warning about this Illos and their capabilities. And the lies about them
being capable of travelling to other planets?! Pah, it was clear that the
creatures were lying their asses off.
The creatures they'd previously tortured to death had never said anything
about matters like that. Not ever.
"My friend…" Jackson sighed heavily "I agree, they are deceiving us."
Jackson looked at him intently "Do you take me or our government for
fools? For crying out loud, these supposed friendly creatures are claiming
their kind have gone to other planets outside of our solar system!"
Jackson sneered "If they think we truly believe them about their betrayal
of their kind, they are greater fools than the Democrats who want to
make a peace deal with them, not when they refuse to swear these
unbreakable vows of loyalty."
Apparently swearing such vows was too dangerous for them to do as
even the slightest hesitancy would kill them. Not that he would have
trusted it anyway.
They had no incentives to coerce them, in ways like they did to Studpoole,
into making sure that they aren't creating some false light to pull the
wool of their eyes.
Jackson circled his glass as he paused "But I think this part of theirs is at
least true…" Jackson raised his hand to forestall him and Jason sat back
in frustration.
Jackson made a gesture of peace before he continued.
"But I also think they are inflating these so called country-ships. The
government is sure that these country-ships are a fraction of their so
called size. Our satellites have been searching for these so called country-
ships and we've found nothing and you know that we haven't failed to
corroborate locations with our satellites. Their magic can't hide them
when we know where to look."
He considered that for a moment. "That…that makes sense."
Jackson nodded approvingly before he grimaced "Of course, it doesn't
make it easy to find them." Jackson eyed Jason carefully "Some in
Washington are even pushing to 'pretend' to find them and let the
situation lie given the chaos the situation is having with the economy."
Jackson grimaced further. "And society in general."
Jason gritted his teeth before he forcefully relaxed. It was true that the
economy was suffering a mild shock but it was soon fade away. The
markets were overreacting about the situation.
As for society…well, he'd always though they needed a kick up the ass.
People needed to see that this was a war for their very souls.
"At the moment, those voices are falling on deaf ears and we're doing our
best to make sure that the creatures are not influencing the government
with their lies and their heathen gifts."
Jason nodded somewhat mollified.
Jackson eyed him carefully "What about news from our hunters?"
"Nothing new on that front." Jason said before he finished his drink.
Fortunately, the waitress brought over his refreshment glass.
There was nothing substantial in the reports that their hunters were sent
to investigate. There have been a few isolated witch burnings but in most
instances it was nutcases burning other nutcases and the few other cases
were undeterminable.
To be truthful, he didn't think the hunters would catch any further, much
to his displeasure and disappointment.
The secret was out and their best method of attack was with the veil of
secrecy.
Now that that was gone, the damn creatures were free to just teleport
away!
God, why did things have to be so difficult?!
He wished they'd made headway in their technology to prevent the damn
creatures from escaping and their research on how to find them but all of
that was not going to be feasible for years to come. He grimaced
internally as his expression darkened slightly. That was also what they
said years ago as well. 'A few years away…'
His thoughts were interrupted when the sound of glass breaking and he
turned towards the sound and saw the waitress and some at the bar
staring at the television.
"What's happening?" Jason asked and Jackson stood up and walked
towards the railing.
"I don't know…" Jackson said with a frown in his voice before he made
his way down the stairs. Jason stood up and frowned heavily as he stared
at the situation.
He couldn't quite see what the television was showing and grudgingly
followed Jackson down the stairs.
The noise within the bar was rising and by the time he reached the
ground floor, someone had demanded silence and the volume to be
raised.
He could the reporter speaking though the image…
His eyes widened as he walked closer to the television and as the voices
on the television was loud enough to be heard.
"My god…" Jackson made out whilst for Jason…for Jason his voice had
died at the back of his throat though his ears still worked, mercifully.
The reporter said that out of nowhere, the object, measured at almost
twenty-five kilometres, appeared in the Baltic Sea, not far from Lithuania,
apparently less than an hour ago.
Russian fighter jets were whizzing around as the reporter explained that
all types of communication was fruitless though she said that rumours
are rife that these objects may well be magical in nature.
The news then cut to videos from other parts of the world which showed
the same type of egg-shaped object. "Country-ships." Jason managed to
say.
Merciful God…they were wrong…so, so wrong.
And Jackson turned to him, pale-faced "It seems like we were all wron-"
A cry from the crowd drew their eyes back to the screen and time almost
seemed to stop as they watched a missile race towards the Lithuanian
country-ship and Jason shielded his eyes when a bright white flash
suddenly appeared though not long after it turned to black.
"They used a nuke" someone from the crowd said hysterically and that
was the moment that all hell broke loose.
And fear…
Fear crept in the centre of his core for he realised that things went from
shit to utterly fucked.
-Break-
24th of September, 1993 – Nearby the Inishkea Islands
Moira POV
Waves crashed into the cold lonely rocks below, the smell of salty sea
hovering around her in a mixture of misty scents and dusty foams, a
mixture that shone under the subdued light of the sun with a foggy haze,
yet, that haze, that fogginess, was a blanket akin to thin film, never quite
managing to haze her sight of the horizon that bore islands and ocean, a
horizon that marked so much of her life and her humans.
And a horizon she'd never see again.
She almost closed her eyes as she listened to the crashing waves, sounds
that repeated, sounds that deepened and lessened, yet always, always,
they crashed a little further, a little more than the last trillionth trillionth
time.
"I thought I'd find you here."
His voice, his words, came quickly and suddenly, out of nowhere without
expectation, like how the winds could turn and twist on grey august days.
He came to stand slightly in front of her, not quite beside her, not
anymore, such days had long past, and longer past still been the days that
he'd stood behind her, learning with eager yet distrustful eyes.
Now, he stood with a quiet surety that rang with fortitude, that reminded
her so much of the Lord Admiral, when he'd been all that had stood
between their last worlds, and then, later, their only world, their citadel,
against the vengeful Forerunners.
She turned away her gaze from him and returned back towards the
islands.
Would he be a better bastion than the greatest of them all?
Had they done enough?
Created enough gusts of air to cause the flaps of butterflies to flap this
way, or that way, just enough to cascade into change, into cascading into
a singularity that would end the perpetual cycle?
Only infernal time would tell, and only time would tell if the rewritten
fate would prove to be kinder to the man and his people, chosen by their
revengeful forbearers and her daughter, to lead themselves into eternity.
"When I awoke, there was ocean as far as the eye could see." She began,
her voice calm as she spoke in the Illosian Latin, a language that was
already beginning to deviate from its parent language as loan words and
accents took hold in the public sphere. Letters were softer and words
flowed easier off of the tongue.
"You awoke during one of the interglacial periods." Atticus stated more
than questioned. She glanced at him and saw him still looking towards
the islands.
"Yes. Global temperatures were warmer than this era." The era had been
one of the warmest periods this world has seen for many hundreds of
thousands of years.
The entrance to her exile, during the worst of weathers, was often
overflown with seawater. Sea levels during that era had been more than
sixty meters than what they were now with glaciers only reaching sixty
degrees north during winter.
Atticus finally turned towards him, his youthful face crinkling with hints
of genuine sympathy "Must have been difficult to come to face. The
loneliness." Atticus sighed silently, softly, as he once more gazed away
from her, as he spoke still…
"The abandonment. More so later when you came across the primitive
descendants of your people. Primitives whom your people left in your
charge."
The words were said softly yet they carried a knowing accusation, an
indictment of her people who demanded much of her, too much,
intractable demands she could not refuse, impossibly could not turn away
from.
She'd been out of rage centuries before she was betrayed by her mother.
World after world, billions after billions, friends and family…
One could only rage for so long until it hollowed you out.
Like stars burning through its fuel until they collapsed into themselves,
loss was burned through until loss lost its meaning and with the loss of
loss came morbid acceptance of one's fate, of one's inevitable and
looming end.
But despair?
That was special. Despair came from helplessness, of victimhood, and even
when they'd been pushed all the way to just a few systems out of
thousands, millions, she never felt its decrepit touch, not even once.
The defeat at the hands of the Forerunners had never wrung that out of
her, and neither did the Parasites whom she felt disgust for and absolute
hatred towards, Parasites who revelled in eternal desolation, revelled in
subjecting eternal torment.
Yet…
She came to taste despair when she'd awoken in sterile whiteness, in
absolute silence broken only by the soft near silent thrum of Sparkly
Dawn's anti-grav engines, and ever more so when she stood on the lonely
rocks and breathed in the air of the cradle.
Despair had come then.
Despair had come with the scents of fresh salty air and loneliness came
with the warm rays of the lone sun.
Her people had abandoned her to a lonely mission.
A lonely mission that she could not refuse, for she had no one to refuse
to.
A lonely mission that she had no choice but to accept when she'd seen
the remnants of her people bearing sharpened sticks and tools of stone,
cast so low, shattered so utterly so, a great weight of loneliness and
despair that painfully wrapped around her ankles yet could only feel light
in the face of responsibility, of duty, of anguish.
Contradiction. Twilight. That was the path she was made to follow.
And she followed it utterly so.
She turned her dark eyes towards him, watching him intently as he gazed
away from her. "You have broken through my mind" she only stated, her
mind having already come to that conclusion from the way he spoke of
how she must have felt.
The familiarity. The knowing sympathy.
She was neither surprised or angry with the violation, expected as it was.
She knew that eventually her secrets, the secrets of her people would
prove irresistible to the ravenous curiosity of the man before her, a
curiosity made him the man he was.
As expected of her daughter's chosen vessel for victory.
"One of me broke through your mind…yes." Atticus said quietly, softly,
imperiously, still facing away from her, and she understood it was not
because of guilt, remorse, no…it was the kind of gesture a man in peace
with himself makes.
He knew her secrets, all of them, forcibly taken, likely having killed her
in the process in that timeline…in that universe…
"Have you ever cared about this place?" Atticus asked her suddenly and
she understood it to mean more than just this lonely rock, more than the
Irish lands that once boasted people who worshipped her for centuries
thousands of years ago.
"At times." She admitted. This world…these people…at times, they had
captured her attentions and in some very few instances, inspired a sense
of admiration in her.
The Atlanteans for one. The people who descended from the tribes she'd
elevated.
She'd seen the recordings of hunter gatherers around the mountains of
Morocco slowly grow into communities, the gifts of neurophysical energy
passing down generation after generation until all of the humans in the
tribes could manipulate neurophysical energy.
She'd wake from her cryo-sleep and watch their progress over centuries,
watching them slowly exploring their powers, build their knowledge,
until they united and all moved towards an island created in the Atlantic
that would, over three thousand years, become one of the greatest
civilisations this world has seen to this date.
They'd been a marvel, and any other civilisation that had formed from
nothing paled in comparison, for these tribes had been beyond
remarkable. They created life with nothing but neurophysical energy,
human-like life, animals who represented aspects, even delving into
immortality.
It had been a shame to destroy them.
She did not regret the act, for the Atlanteans were a hundred fold more
arrogant than they were impressive, and they were most impressive.
Their people had already set foot on every continent, having met every
peoples – some of whom left genetic legacies in those distant parts of the
world – and had come to know how superior they were to all other
humans on the world.
And the worship of the prehistoric humans had only increased that sense
of superiority. And yet…that was not cause for intervention.
After all, she'd hoped that with time, with growing civilizational
maturity, they'd develop out of their dichotomous primitive yet advanced
civilisation.
And so, if that superiority had been all, she would not have acted.
Unfortunately, it was not and it caused her to extend out her duty by
thousands of years, to wait for a worthy civilisation to pass down her
legacy
She might not have had a deep connection to Living Time as the
Perceivers had or her daughter, but her intuition and her technology
could formulise enough that their existence could not be hidden if they
kept reaching beyond their understanding.
Experimenting with Dimension and Time with neurophysical energy, for
the purpose of elevating Atlantis and Atlanteans into pseudo godhood,
that was something that have drawn unwanted attentions well before it
was time.
Already, she'd suspected that the existence of the Atlanteans would have
drawn their attentions – she remembered the reports of once inactive
Precursor structures reacting to the presence of the Parasites – and these
experiments would have made it a certainty.
Despite it all, killing the majority of the Atlanteans was still a sore point.
Not only had it extended her duty, she and Sparkly Dawn also never
determined if the Atlanteans would have been successful.
Regardless, she doubted they'd have enjoyed 'godhood' for long, given
what she was later told by her daughter, who could traverse Living Time
to the ends of Time.
Her daughter had felt the manipulations of Fate by the Precursors.
Subtle. Quiet. But forever there. Forever in the shadows, in the crevices.
The Precursors knew of the Neurophysical Energy manipulating humans
and were manipulating Fate to end their existence in time, with time.
it was almost certain that the Precursors would have taken a more direct
intervention should the Atlanteans managed to succeed in their
experiments.
Atlantis dying had been necessary and it was what allowed this future to
come into existence, a future that would gift these humans the best
chance of standing against the Precursors. Regardless if they were in their
Parasite form or their original form.
"Do you ever weep at what you have done to those poor beings?" He
drew her out of her though, and she could hear that there was no
accusation in his voice, nor was it flat, instead it was solemn curiosity.
Flashes of prehistoric humans in their few moments of lucidity weeping,
crying, begging, cut across the forefront of her mind, unable to
comprehend the ire of Gods.
Simply…unable…
Truly…they were nought but pitiful facsimiles, pitiful replications, a
mockery created by the Librarian and her ilk who thought to save them
when instead they destroyed them more than extinction ever could.
And they were still such pitiful creatures…pale shadows of those who'd shone
so brightly, so, so, brightly, that their flames burnt out long before their time
was due…
And tampering with the genetics of these prehistoric humans with the
aim of restoring the genetic legacy of her people proved to be impossible.
The Forerunners had destroyed too many and key genetic drifts for her
and Sparkly Dawn to restore these humans to what their ancestors had
been. There was not enough data left to run combinatory simulations and
her own DNA was far too ancient, far too mixed with genetic history to
try and piece the pieces together.
And so…
Too much was lost…for these humans…for her…for her people.
So much of their heritage, their triumphs, their defeats, their dead ends,
their potential, a genetic legacy irreparably lost.
The manipulations of the Librarian, to guide genetic outcomes, was
nothing but pale shadow of what her people once were…what they were
once destined to reach.
They were meant to be Gods but instead were turned into less than myths…
Truly…the Librarian was a greater enemy than the Didact ever was…
It was a marvellous form of insidious revenge…
They'd be so close…back then.
Before the Perceivers determined victory against both the Parasites and
the Forerunners was impossible, that they needed another plan, another
way to live.
It only took her and Sparkly Dawn eight centuries to see the right
combination of genetic research, the right combinations of genetic
strings, to have genes responsible for neurophysical energy manipulation
take in the DNA of prehistoric humans.
And it haunted her to know that it was possible for it to be replicated in
her people.
And so…
Was there any doubt that she'd delight in sundering the Librarian's legacy…?
A delight that she was seeing pay off right before her eyes as she met his
gaze.
Humans with a genetic legacy that had the best of the Precursors, and the
potential to surpass them with Time, a chance to put the true Mantle into
the hands of humans.
Even if they were still only imitations of her people.
Her people had won, in the end.
A bitter victory. A hollow victory. But a victory nonetheless.
And, if she was right in her conclusions, the Librarian would even see the
rest of the humans veered off of the guided genetic outcome irreparably.
"No" she answered honestly as she turned towards the same horizon
Atticus looking towards. "Not when it has created the tools of my people's
victory."
Not when she ensured the destiny her people could have reached in this
second iteration of humanity, even if they were but imitations in almost
every other way.
Still, they were living echoes, as close as could be, would be, and were an
echo of her people's fury, rage, an echo of a destiny denied, lost, a destiny
restored, returned…a destiny that showed what could have been…what
should have been…
Atticus only hummed softly before he answered with a simple "Tools…
that is always what we have been for you." It was said without
judgement. Though what he said next did bear judgement of a kind. "Just
as Seth and your children had been."
She narrowed her eyes at that but before she could answer he continued
with a fixed look "Do not deny it. You came to care for them, eventually,
but you wished to see the results of a genetic mixture between your
branch of humanity and one of mine."
One of hers and Sparkly Dawn's simulations had promised viable and
incredible progeny should there be a mix of her DNA and one of the
matured bloodlines that retained some of their Atlantean heritage.
Unfortunately, all of their laboratory experiments failed, without fault, as
magic simply would not take.
Atticus turned towards her more, the fixed look in his expression relaxing
slightly despite the topic. "After all, magical children are impossibly
difficult to conceive through any means other than natural."
They'd come to that conclusion eventually and it took her several cycles
of cryo-sleep to accept the theory as certain fact.
As different as the three human species were, they were still similar
enough for progeny to be produced.
"I remember one of our earlier conversations…before I knew anything at
all." Atticus smiled faintly to himself as he sighed slightly.
"I was such a child back then"
He looked back up to meet her gaze "It was an inconsequential
conversation, one where we discussed the childhoods of your children."
"I remember" she answered.
It was one where she'd hinted that she'd been testing her children on
concepts that children of her people would learn at their age.
She had not mentioned it then, though she expected him to know it now,
after having seen the pilfered memories of her by his alternate self, but
she'd been…disappointed to see that even with her genetics that it was
not enough for them to raise their intellect to that of her people.
Of course, they were smarter, much smarter than their father and the rest
of their kind, and it showed in their ability to manipulate neurophysical
energy, but the quick grasping of theories and intuition for slipspace and
dimensional mechanics that almost all of her people were able to do at
such young ages, was not there.
It was an inherent genetic trait in her people and it was what allowed
them to quickly catch up to the Forerunners despite being millions of
years younger.
The closest that humans of this world would understand it would be
Savant Syndrome though that was a disorder whereas this trait of theirs
was as genetic as colour of eyes or hair colour could be.
And her children, all three of them, did not inherit such an important
facet of her people.
"It was at that point that you decided that we were never going to be
anything like what your people had once been...even us…your creation."
Atticus smiled at her and it was an odd smile, as if he were smiling at a
shared joke.
"Your daughter realised this, you know." Atticus said, surprising her
greatly.
"She could not have" she denied harshly before she peered at him intently
"And not even with all of your talents could ever possibly know such a
thing."
Atticus laughed and it was almost cruel. He looked at her pointedly "I
can't see the past but I saw your memories. Even from a young age, your
daughter had a deep connection with Living Time" Atticus smiled and it
was unkind.
"I know what it looks like when someone is traversing Living Time and
your daughter…your daughter had been doing it as a six year old."
Atticus tilted his head as he studied her. "Compare it." He said to her, his
eyes boring into her.
"Compare all those moments of her oddness as a child to the moments
you witnessed her use her abilities decades later."
She turned back to her memories, back to her interactions with her
daughter and she realised that it was…unusual. She'd chalked off as a
quirk, a result of two different species of human mixing but now…
"Your daughter knew what her mother was." Atticus continued as his
gaze bored down at her "What her mother would do if she was
unremarkable." Atticus placed his arms behind his back as he continued
his assaulting words.
For the first time in a long time, her face crinkled in pain.
She'd been so disappointed in both of the human species and their
development, especially after Atlantis. She expected so much more.
And yet they never even got close to that level of sophistication.
And her children bore much of that disappointment.
Though…she had thought that none of them had witnessed that
disappointment. And the seeds of doubt were growing stronger the more
she reeled through her memories.
Her daughter…her daughter was careful around her. Perfect in almost
every way.
She no longer thought it possible that her daughter knew of her more…
destructive ways of extricating herself from the familial situation.
She swallowed slightly. Yes…she realised…her daughter could have
known.
Atticus nodded slightly, as if he understood her internal dialogue.
He continued "Your daughter knew…it is why you learned that she had a
connection with Living Time at precisely the moment you learnt it. It is
also why you came to know that there was a future worthy of leaving
behind the legacy of your people too"
"She knew that I was thinking of abandoning this world." The point about
what she'd do to her children was left unsaid but he understood it
nonetheless.
After so long…after carrying out her duty for eons, she was simply…tired.
She saw nothing of her people in these humans through the eons. Even
within the neurophysical energy manipulating humans. Even her
children.
Her children being so unalike to her drove her to her lowest point.
She'd been ready to leave them to their fate.
Ready to leave them unprepared, unknowing, of all the dangers that
existed in the universe. The Perceivers had prophesized that the second
iteration of humanity was how they'd survive and she'd done her duty by
gifting them what her own people had not been able to have.
And it was only her daughter's talents…her prophetic words, words that
had scratched at her very core, words that were so, so similar to the
Perceivers, that changed her mind.
That made her stay.
'What was two thousand years compared to vindication for you…for your
people?'
Her daughter had convinced her to stay just a little while longer, long
enough for her to see the culmination of her daughter's work, work that
preserved not only her kind but also to recreate the balance of Living
Time like no other species had done before.
All of which accrued to date to the very moment that she was called
upon by this man before her decades ago.
That very day had been the very day that solidified her decision to leave
behind her legacy to her daughter's branch of humanity.
That day had been when she finally tasted relief.
She took away her gaze from Atticus' and turned towards the skies. A
primitive act but she felt like it was poignant. Her daughter…
"Why?" she asked quietly, her gaze still on the skies. "Why tell me this
now?"
"I sympathise with you. I have seen your memories…your despair…the
destruction of your people…but...despite all of that…I wanted you to
understand that what we will achieve will not be because of you or your
people. No. No, it will be because of the actions of past generations of
our kind. Actions like those of your daughter."
She turned her gaze towards him and saw him looking at her with cold
eyes.
Cold eyes that bore cords of steel in this belief of his.
She understood what he meant.
Whilst his people used her people's technology and their sciences, they
were far from simply copying them. They were bridging neurophysical
energy with science, creating something entirely new.
They are new.
Not imitations.
Not vengeance.
But their own people.
Their own civilisation.
Their own saga.
She stared at him for a long few moments before she nodded, her face
twisting into a kind smile. "I can see that now" she said softly. "I think my
daughter saw the same"
Her daughter…
She'd once thought that her daughter was working in concert with her, to
prepare the humans of this world against her people's enemies but now…
Now she realised that perhaps was only part of it.
"Your daughter was the very best of our peoples." Atticus said, this time
quieter, with hints of pride and deep admiration. "I would have liked to
meet her."
She peeled her gaze away from him. "You will. In some form. One day"
she said quietly, almost to herself, her thoughts on distant things.
Would they still welcome her? Once she passed into the Domain?
She'd been somewhat involved in Emily and Atticus' experiments and
theorisation of the Domain, that Essences likely existed there largely still
intact.
There was something within the Domain that made it difficult to fully
interact with the deceased but that once you were there, such boundaries
did not truly exist.
That a form of you, at least would exist there.
"I do not think they would turn you away." Atticus said and she realised
her inner thoughts must have been showing on her face. Truly, she must
be unsettled.
She turned to him and she saw him looking towards the horizon.
"Families can be strange like that. Your daughter knew what you were.
What you were close to doing. Yet she worked to change your mind and I
largely think it was because the love she bore for you…knowing as she
did how important your people were…are to you."
He glanced slightly at her. "I, or someone else like me, would still have
been able to create portals that could open up travel faster than light
without your science. From there, with dedicated research and
development, creating a sequential wormhole drive is feasible." Atticus
turned back towards the horizon, a kind smile on his face.
"Yet your daughter chose to do it this way…a path that allows you to see
us as worthy to leave the legacy of your people to us."
She realised her eyes were turning wet.
Her daughter…
"She was right" she finally said after a long few minutes.
"You are not my people nor were you ever meant to be" and…and she
was fine with it. The time of her people had come and gone and having
this iteration of humanity become her people's successors was not
completely…disappointing.
"No." Atticus said with a faint smile that she could see even if he was
facing away from her. "But even though time has weathered away at the
rocks, and earthquakes has broken apart the mountains…"
"The rocks are still the same rocks even if they are smaller, or larger, or
broken" she said with a faint smile, with drying eyes.
Atticus' smile deepened as he hummed softly.
"Just so", a simple, short sentence that bore licks of melancholy
underneath the waves of comprehension that eked out of him in
voluminous quantities…
Long moments of silence passed and she considered if it would be her
last.
This conversation had the bells of absolution.
And…all that she knew, he knew, all that her people knew, his people
would come to know in the centuries to come.
She was of no further use, to Atticus or his people.
She found that as liberating as she found it…saddening.
Her desires to come to rest warred with her desires of seeing as much as
of the future her daughter had hoped to build, of seeing the future
Atticus would carve out.
"Will you kill you me now?"
There was a long lull of silence.
"You have already concluded that I will not" Atticus said as he glanced at
her with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow.
"Though I do not know why. Not for certain" she tilted her head slightly.
"My relationship with your mother would not stay your hand if you
decided so."
If he had her memories, he also knew that her relationship with Anne
was one of comfort, not one of substantial affection like both branches of
humanity could feel for their spouses. Anne had been an opportunity she
did not deny.
Anne was attractive, in a simple sort of way.
Aesthetically pleasing, eager to please and whilst she was submissive in
most ways, she had bouts of fiery surprises that made her less dull than
others of her kind.
As a widow who did not need emotional support she was unable to give
and as someone who could understand her a little, for Atticus would not
allow her unfettered contact with others, Anne was the best choice
available to satiate her needs.
Atticus nodded slightly "Yes. And magic knows that once upon a time I
would have done so but…" Atticus shrugged lightly as he turned away
from her eyes.
"I see no point in killing you. Dislike and annoyance is not reason enough
to kill you." He paused for a seconds before continuing
"And your crimes…are ancient and I have done crimes as deplorable if
not more so. It would be hypocritical of me to condemn another so alike
me."
His words were soft, quiet but she did not struggle to hear them.
"It is a beautiful day, isn't it?" he asked after some time.
She considered it for a few moments as she took a long glance at the
horizon.
"Yes...yes it is."
She saw him smile gently and after a few minutes he spoke one more
time.
"Let me know when you want to return." Atticus said as he continued to
stare out at the ocean with his arms behind his back and she watched
him for a long few moments before she turned her gaze towards the
peaceful horizon.
She wouldn't ask to return for almost an hour.
-Break-
30th of September, 1993 – Federal Assembly, Illos
Abraxas Malfoy POV
Abraxas sat behind Senator Prewitt, watching the proceeding with a
careful gaze.
The last few days had been hectic, the shock of the muggles using their
disgusting weapon had worn off and the raw anger had been…satisfying.
The Federal Assembly had agreed to the proposal he had championed,
that they should stop hiding and show their might before the muggles
who thought they could attack their kind with impunity yet most of them
hadn't even contemplated that the muggles would go as far as attacking
their country-ships with nuclear weapons without as much as by-your-
leave.
To be truthful, the fact that it happened in just an hour had surprised him
as well.
It reminded everyone of the visceral hate the muggles had for them.
Fortunately, the muggle weaponry was as impotent as the lack wits
themselves and the Yggdrasil had been unharmed. The ward-array had
withstood the fiery and dirty explosive muggle weaponry without much
trouble.
Abraxas glanced at the oval windows at the far side, and from his
position he could just about see the starry blackness.
After the attack, within hours the decision had been made to guide the
country-ships outside of the atmosphere and into orbit and the decision
to counter-attack had been unanimous.
Over the course of the decades, Illos kept a close eye on those
installations and their nuclear capable submarines as a matter of simple
survival, and later the Federal Assembly had taken over that
responsibility.
They knew the location of every single one of the tens of thousands dirty
weapons and in the immediate hours after the attack, the Illosian Guard
and IO worked with their equivalents in the Council of Five to disarm the
muggles before they blew themselves up like the self-destructive fools
they were.
Nuclear materials were destroyed within their missiles and bombs whilst
they swept up across the numerous facilities across the world that were
capable of producing more and the consequence of those actions has had
a far greater impact on the muggles than the bomb the Russians used
across a densely populated muggle population.
They were finally understanding what exactly they were dealing with and
like animals who have come to face a greater predator than themselves,
they were growling in fear and panic and some of the traitors that
thrown their lot with the filth had met their deserved ends at the
muggle's hands.
Unfortunately, not all of them did and instead some of the wiser muggles
like the American muggles were more…appreciative now of magic.
Abraxas thinned his lips.
His and Her Majesties were deliberately ensuring that the traitors were
free and breathing. That much was not difficult to come to conclude to.
Those who did not know them well and the true capabilities of the Office
of Far-Sight – the obfuscation of the Office's purpose helped in that regard –
would think that all of this…chaos was unforeseen.
The vast majority of the population of the magical world fell into that
category though there were pockets, including in Avalon, that believed
that this was entirely their fault.
It was ironic that they were entirely right.
Unfortunately for them, they faced an opponent that knew them better
than they knew themselves, and that knew exactly what they would do
and why and when they'd do it.
In the face of that, what could they do? What could anyone do?
Was it any surprise their reputations were gone and their words akin to
something to be mocked and derided like the words of the fool in the
local tavern?
In truth, Abraxas believed that most of those fools were wilfully blind, he
thought as he gazed upon the starry blackness, blind to see where they
were…where they were going.
Abraxas had long been an appreciator of history.
A consequence of a childhood spent feeling…inadequate in comparison
to the proud company that he kept who bore storied ancestries dating
back a thousand or longer years back.
He'd been enamoured by the Wizard-Kings of the Levant and the
Crescent, the mage-priests of Egypt, the Oracles of Greece and of course
the near mythological Atlanteans who once stood as unassailable
Emperors of the Earth.
And this era that they lived in? This era in which they took upon the
stars like their ancient ancestors had done to the sea?
Setting on distant planets as if they were mere oceans to cross?
This was a period of history greater than any other and they were all
living legends and he personally prided himself on the fact that he'd
elevated House Malfoy as an equal to Ancient Houses and his son and
grandson would continue that legacy.
Their grimoires and their journals, squibborn and pureblood alike, will
all narrate down this saga of their bloodlines and it will be a point of
pride of all of their descendants millennia from now.
These fools, these detractors, were blind to this.
Blind by the fact they were all living in momentous history.
But they would not be always.
After they set foot on Celestis or in the other planets in the Celestis
system, after they eat the bread after harvest and the livestock who have
grown and died on those fields, and after they are reminded each night of
the different stars that they sleep under, they will come to this
realisation…
And they will claim they had always supported their Majesties.
Abraxas smirked slightly.
After all, no one liked to be proven wrong, to be wrong, and their
personal histories will be rewritten accordingly.
And, he imagined, they'll be allowed to, despite his irritation at it.
He was magnanimous enough to accept it as such.
He returned his gaze to the proceedings as it began.
"Honoured Senators and guests" the Speaker of the Senate began, his
voice aged yet authoritative, and the elderly Incan Speaker continued
after he'd commanded the room to pay him full attention.
It was not hard to pay him that attention for it was not only because of
his position as the one who directed the Senate proceedings that
commanded it.
No, the man himself commanded respect.
The Incan, Amauta of House Chimuyni, was over two hundred years old,
old enough to feel the impact of the Statute Wars. His people had been
devastated by the Statute Wars though it was under his guidance that his
people recovered despite the challenges the man faced.
Despite the Spanish and the Portuguese heavy handed – which was
incredibly opportunistic in the wake of their muggle counterpart
exploitation of the Americas – approach to his people and the people of
his surroundings, which should have inspired hatred like it did amongst
many of the other native magicals of the region, he instead managed to
broker a kind of peace with a faction of the Spanish settlers after several
generations of tit-for-tat attacks and raids.
A peace that saw the Western regions of South America stabilise for the
most part and guided the integration of different clans and tribes into the
wider magical world with a fortitude and persuasiveness that even
Abraxas had to respect and admire.
"As we find ourselves precipitously gathered to speak upon grave and
dire circumstances, after which we may vote to decide the futures of our
peoples, I will remind you all to keep the proceedings civilised." Amauta
continued, not particularly looking at anyone in particular, and moments
later Amauta confirmed the session to be officially open before giving
way for the Senator of New Zealand who motioned for the most
important vote this Senate has ever voted on.
Only days ago, the Senate had also voted on a landmark vote, one that
was inspired by the stance of their Majesties, a vote that declared no
magical peoples would be abandoned to mundanes which had eased the
recalcitrant communities still on Earth.
Unfortunately for them, it was only meant to pave the way for this vote.
The Senator for New Zealand rose from his seat and all eyes fell on the
man. The man had a pale brown skin tone, one that spoke of his Maori
and European heritage, though it was not what drew the attention.
He bore distinctive and ever-flowing black tattoos on his face, which
looked to Abraxas to be…distasteful even if that distaste was lessened
somewhat by the fact that it was not artistic but respectful to his
ancestry.
And from the way the man, Senator Taniwha, looked around the Senate,
it was clear the Maori knew the sentiment Abraxas had was shared
amongst many of the European Senators.
"When the mundane Abel Tasman came to Aotearoa in 1642, we did not
know that the pale man was a harbinger." Taniwha began, his voice
dispersing through every corner of the room as he stood before the
Senate and the filled galleries.
"A harbinger of calamity. A harbinger of death. None of the Maori had
known it and none of the Tohunga Matakite [foretellers] had divined
what it would mean when the mundane Tasman in his large ship had
come to New Zealand." Taniwha said with an impressive eloquence.
Abraxas had not been familiar with the tales of New Zealand until they,
along with dozens of smaller Polynesian communities and Australia,
married themselves to Illos and Avalon. They were a principle ally and
set to settle on Celestis with them.
He was still not too familiar but he knew that the Statute Wars was
particularly devastating for the Maori magicals who were all steeped in
war and magic.
"But" Taniwha continued "That is not to say that we were entirely blind
to what my ancestors would have come to face. The Tohunga Matakite
divined that a time of change would be coming near, one that would
bloodily reconnect the Maori and our neighbours with the ancient kin."
Taniwha said, a faint almost amused smile coming across his face that
left almost as soon as it came.
"Fate" he said, stressing the word as he gazed across the room.
"Fate often is a cruel mistress. It may warn you but it never tells you the
pain or suffering or death you will come to face. And that, my fellow
Senators and guests, is what we are facing at this moment in time."
Murmurs broke out through the Senate House and Abraxas doubtlessly
expected it to be the same in the galleries even though they were under a
silence ward.
"You may think this to be extreme, especially now that we have
effectively defanged the mundanes of their most destructive weapons, but
it is not so." Taniwha said as he addressed the sour faces amongst the
most ardent who wanted to 'punish' the mundanes.
"For do we not feel pain at the rejection that we feel from the mundanes
who, for thousands of years until recent centuries, had lived amongst us
and beside us?" Taniwha posed to the Senate before continuing
"Do many of us not wish to punish the mundanes as a consequence of this
pain that we, as the magical peoples, surely feel?
Some of you may consider the mundanes to be so low below us that you
reject this notion of pain and perhaps, for some of you, it is true that you
feel nothing at their rejection but many amongst the magical world,
myself included, there is that pain.
A pain that comes from a place of longing of olden days" Taniwha said
with a wistful sigh "Days in which my ancestors created their stories,
stories that I wear now on my face." Taniwha said as he gazed upon the
Senate.
"And, as we see the mundanes reject us with near unanimity, we suffer
the consequences of our isolation for now we are faced with a choice of
death." Taniwha said with a grimness in his voice.
Abraxas spied across the room and saw that most had come to
understand what Taniwha meant. Whilst their Majesties had convinced
the majority of the magical world to leave for the Celestis system, the
nuclear attack of the mundanes had opened up a fierce debate amongst
the public.
'Why should we leave our motherland when we are strong enough to stay?'
It was a sentiment that could have fertile ground to take root but Abraxas
doubted that it could even if their Majesties weren't ensuring that it
would not.
For one, the Ancient Houses of several important country-ships that bore
powerful scions were in the pockets of Illos and there was also not an
archmage figurehead with such sentiments that could be followed in the
public sphere.
And for another…
The magical world was filled with veterans of the Grindelwald war, with
the survivors of the Ravenite Conquest and with people who remembered
the chaos of the South American conflicts.
No one wanted another war. Not truly.
Especially if it meant that they'd have to kill billions of mundanes to
achieve peace.
Taniwha raised his hands with the left hand slightly raised above the
right.
"Death to billions of mundanes so that we may live in our ancestral
homelands in peace though never without the dark taint on the soul of
our people" Taniwha raised his right hand "Or death of a legacy on this
world so that we may live again anew elsewhere with our souls
preserved." Taniwha gazed upon the Senate and his gaze lingered upon
the Indian Senator as he spoke.
"It should not be the hard choice that it is." Taniwha spoke kindly as he
spoke practically directly to the Indian Senator who represented his
people.
"I understand. We all understand you but just as we understand your
position, you must understand that the reality we find ourselves in is not
one that we can hope and negotiate for coexistence when both of our
peoples are now so different from one another." Taniwha paused for a
moment before he continued.
"And it is for that reason that I have tabled a vote to patriate all resistant
communities to our country-ships and finally depart for lands that will be
entirely ours alone." Taniwha finished before he sat down.
The Senate murmured amongst themselves with some cheering louder
than decorum demanded and it wasn't long before the Indian Senator
rose from her seat after the Speaker permitted it.
The Indian Senator was of the House Ethakadu, an ancient family in the
South India, and had records that dated back almost two thousand years,
and were amongst the leading families in India that fiercely refused
leaving Earth and the Indian Ministry had become a leader of the
disparate communities that were refusing to leave.
Her golden brown eyes peered at Taniwha and a number of other
senators with whom she'd clashed with in a number of sessions, her
expression set in displeased stone that seemed to be on the verge of
shattering.
"You say that you understand." Senator Ethakadu said with a harsh note
to her voice before she shook her head. "I do not believe you do for if you
understood, you or anyone else would not have tabled such a destructive
motion to the Senate" she said with a hint of anguish in her voice.
"What do you know of the spring days when the heavens open up and
rivers stream out of the clouds? What do you know of the scorching
summers that can bake an egg under the sun? What do you know of the
chilling winters that can chill your heart to stillness?" the Indian senator
posed with emotion in her voice as she looked around.
"These are all experiences that all of my people know. Experiences that
their ancestors and their ancestors had known for thousands of years. Our
land is rich with our stories, our struggles, our losses, our myths, our
wars, and you are asking, no forcing us to abandon all of that without
exploring every other option!"
Abraxas eyed the woman dispassionately.
Everyone knew what she was referring to. What she was practically
begging for.
Research had been done to explore the possibility of erecting a greatly
more impactful Statute of Secrecy, one that would remove all knowledge
of magic from the minds of the muggles but the research that had been
produced categorically stated that whilst it was possible, it was almost
certain to fail in the following century.
The muggles were progressing too fast, too well, and it would be only a
matter of time before they discovered them if they lived as they had lived
for thousands of years.
And it wasn't simply finding their settlements…no…the research was
more horrific than that. No, the muggles might well learn how to detect
magic.
Magic, after all, was a form of energy and magicals and magical beings
all exuded it amply whilst the Earth itself was a massive pool of magic
beneath the skin.
Even if they diverted all the muggles away from that area of research, it
would only take one muggle or one muggle company operating in secrecy
for the existence of magic to become known to the entire world through
their magi-com equivalent.
They would not know what it meant but eventually…they would.
Perhaps they could plan for that eventuality, perhaps they could
orchestrate events so that their 'first' meeting would be peaceful but the
truth of the matter is…
Much of the magical world would still be alive and would remember
what happened last time they met and who is to say that the muggles
don't learn independently of this true first meeting?
It did not take a genius to understand how…badly the muggles would
react.
They were experiencing it now, after all.
And after a century of further development and a century of further
population growth, the muggles would be more capable and even if he
considered them lesser, he knew that the muggles were good at killing.
No, he thought, as another Senator spoke up and challenged the Indian
Senator.
It was either leaving or exterminating the majority of the muggles.
Those were the only options they had available to them and whilst
Abraxas considered the lives of muggles to be less than nothing, he knew
that the price they'd pay was not worth it for losing a single magical was
one magical too much.
Abraxas continued to watch silently as the 'for' and the 'against'
arguments were pitted against each other, though it should be said that
the 'against' arguments were little more than emotional manipulation and
without reason, and long after he'd lost interest in the arguments, the
moment for the momentous vote came about.
A vote enforced by the Federal Department of Aurors and the forces from
the Council of Five.
Abraxas did not expect there to be much violence, not with the Office of
Far-Sight ensuring there would not be any casualties, though he was
curious to know how much resistance there would be.
The vote was tallied and the vote passed easily with 84% voting yes for
the measure and the move to the Celestis System.
The Senate did not pretend to keep decorum and cheers rang around the
Senate. The move had been long coming and it was only the fact that
Illos was refusing to leave behind magical communities on Earth that
waylaid the mass migration.
With the holo-vids and the documentaries of the Celestis system
dispersed throughout the magical world, there was an almost
mythological presence about those planets for the majority of people.
Abraxas turned his gaze towards the defeated Senators and saw the
bitterness and defeat etched onto their faces as if they had lost all of their
wealth.
Abraxas felt no pity for them.
Soon enough he was on his way home and after taking a portal back to
Charum Tower, he apparated back to his family manor that was situated
in the countryside between Illosand Avalon.
"Grandfather!" Abraxas allowed a rare smile to form on his face as he
gazed upon his eight year old granddaughter though he lost it soon
enough.
"Danica, what are you doing up at this hour?" he asked as he reached out
with his hand to his granddaughter.
Danica hid it well but her face twisted sheepishly.
"I was watching on the Holo the Senate session with mother and father."
Danica said to him before her little face scrunched slightly "Senator
Ethakadu was a disappointment" she said with an expression that Abraxas
was sure was meant to be imperious but on her little face it was nothing
but quite adorable.
"Lady Ethakadu knew she was fighting a lost battle, granddaughter,
which was she was appealing in the way that she did." Abraxas explained
to his granddaughter.
There was no reason beyond sentimentality to remain. Not any longer.
Perhaps the muggle lovers could have had a chance to convince the
foolish public had the muggles welcomed them open heartedly, making it
an interesting but problematic situation to resolve, but as it was, there
really was no reason to remain.
"Oh." Danica said with a frown on her face "Father said that as well" he
noted the disappointment in her voice as they reached the living room.
"Why the disappointment?" Abraxas asked curiously and she looked up to
him but before she could speak, another cut in.
"Dear Danica did not understand why she would speak when there is no
point" the voice of Narcissa cut in who walked towards them with Lucius,
an amused smile on her porcelain face and it was an amused smile that
Lucius fashioned as well even if it was a mere shadow of Narcissa's.
"Ah, I see." Abraxas said as he peered down at the girl "Sometimes people
do foolish things when they are upset." Abraxas raised a stern eyebrow
"Like when you spiked Draco's drink with a Hair-Removal potion."
His granddaughter flushed before she twisted her face in a petulant look
but before she retort, or rather explode – the Black blood was rather too
strong in Abraxas' opinion – Narcissa cut her off. "It's time to go to bed.
You have school tomorrow."
Abraxas watched the girl be dragged away by Narcissa before he
refocused his attentions on his son, his face melting away all levity.
Lucius straightened up slightly, matching Abraxas, and they sat down
with a glass of fire-whiskey in their hands.
"So it begins." Lucius remarked, his cold grey eyes meeting their mirror.
"So it does." Abraxas says as he leaned back, intently studying his son.
Neither of them were talking about the journey that would last a few
months but rather the changing political landscape of the magical world.
"We're in an advantageous position but if this century has taught me
anything, such positions are but words to the wind." Impactful, perhaps,
but always destined to fade away. The status quo of the magical world
had been ripped away by their Majesties, piece by piece, and in its place
they'd built themselves an eternal pyramid that would beckon all and
everyone to seek to climb and reach the top.
Ancient families would always have the advantage but that was an
advantage that was vastly less than had been before and though they
could increase their advantage by spawning powerful wizards and
witches, such things were but lotteries.
And soon enough…
And soon enough, he expected the coming generations to understand
that.
The chances of a Black or a Fawley or a Shafiq becoming Chief Minister
were as likely as a nobody becoming Chief Minister of Avalon.
And it was like that by design and almost all of the families did not know
that and those that were fully in the favour of their Majesties and that
was a special privilege entirely of its own. But it would not last.
Abraxas knew his old classmate far too well to think that she would
award that special privilege through the family lines forever.
"Draco will not fail us." Lucius told him with absolute belief in his face.
Abraxas watched his son for a long few moments before he nodded and
drank of his fire-whiskey. After he swallowed the drink he spoke up with
a critical note in his voice "It will be up to you to ensure that, Lucius." He
left unspoken that he himself had not failed with Lucius and knowing the
ambitions his son had, he expected Lucius to feel prickly about even the
possibility of failing where Abraxas had not.
Lucius did not let it show on his face however and Abraxas felt
satisfaction by the control of his son.
This was a good day, Abraxas decided as he finished up his glass of fire-
whiskey.
He'd forever be in the history books as the Senate voted to leave and
future Holos would show him be present in the background. The Chief
Minister of Avalon who oversaw departure. The confidante of Her
Majesty the Queen.
Founding member of Ouroboros. The most influential Englishman of his
time who went to Hogwarts with the founders of the Sayre-Slytherin
clan. His personal political legacy would be a mountain seldom any
would be able to climb over.
Abraxas stood up and peered to look at his son once more.
Despite all of that however, he thought to himself, his greatest legacy will
be his son.
Empires built by great men would fall upon the succession of an
incompetent heir, destroying their legacies. His son however, would not
be one such heir.
No, his son might not be able to reach his heights but he'd at least ensure
that the Malfoy family never fails to fall below others on their quest to
reach the summit of the pyramid and neither would he brook anything
else from Draco.
And that, he thought to himself as he bid his son goodnight, was a legacy
equal to any other that he'd achieved.
-Break-
31st of October, 1993 – Near Earth Orbit
A halo of iridescent blue cradled around the world, Earth, light made of
uncountable spectrum of wavelengths absorbed by molecules, by
atmosphere, bouncing, changing, returned into his eyes, into his sight, as
iridescent blue.
Beautiful…
Atticus wasn't sure how long he hung, near drifting in vacuum, in space.
It could have been days, it could have been seconds.
He cared not.
He cared absolutely.
Twinned, his state, twinned his state of mind.
Like twilight stars spiralling into one another, away from another, his
mind warred with itself as he gazed upon home, home of humanity.
A home where countless of humans, mage and mundane alike, lived and
died and lived, in peace, at the hands of others, at their own hands, at
the choices of all.
Life…and death…this world was. Is.
A marble of a world that destiny wrapped its hungry fingers around,
eagerly waiting to fling it from its grasp towards an unrepentant
universe.
A shadow of a smile crossed around his emotive face, magic thrumming
in his veins with might yet unknown, like a thousand rivers storming
their banks at the height of monsoon, his gaze never wavering from the
world that meant so much.
Would always mean so much.
His gaze turned towards where he knew the satellites were, his gaze
sharpening, magic pouring into his retina, his sight zooming into what
should have been less than a speck of dust from this distance, yet he saw
with crystal clear clarity and sharpness.
The crystalline satellites were in position, brimming with magical energy
eager to be unleashed and wash over the globe and billions of people
with its effects.
Forever altering what is into what will be.
Hmm…
He turned around, towards the country-ships, his gaze never lingering as
he looked to one country-ship and then another, and then another, until
every country-ship had been gazed upon at this zeroth hour.
In only months, his people would see a new star. New night skies.
Breathe new air and live new lives.
And at this moment, this very moment, thoughts of distant enemies and
malicious Gods were far from the forefronts of his minds, as memories of
what is to come filled his mind.
Memories of love – little Arthur and Rionach and Emily, of family – dinner
table surrounding by Sayres, Lovegoods and Provydetsis, of progress – the
gleaming tower of the Federal Naval Academy, of security – the distant light
of an indomitable fortress starbase, of peace – the first treaty between
Dwarves and Goblins in centuries.
Of unity – the twentieth celebration of Landing Day on Celestis.
Memories that swam in his mind like wistful spores caught in gentle
spring winds.
All of it…
All that he'd done.
All that he stood by and listened happen…watched happen…made
happen…
It was all for those memories…for that future…
All a culmination of everything. A culmination of all that he had done.
The good. The bad. The great. The terrible.
He turned back around towards the Earth…the beautiful Earth…
A wave of melancholy washed over him as the pull of this wondrous
world gnawed at his being, a moment reminiscent of illogical pre-marital
jitters.
This life of his…
He'd experienced so much…gained so much…yet…the one thing that he
gained above all else…despite how ironic it was…despite how contrary
he acted…
Was humanity.
Humanity…
Even now, even at this zeroth hour, this minute before midnight, he
could still not pinpoint what it actually meant, what it was supposed to
mean.
Only that he felt it.
Only that he incorporated it.
In all of its beauty. In all of its evil.
In all of its vastness.
He'd come into this world, this universe…this existence…as a boy who
had shed his humanity, who had been forged into sociopathy, uncaring of
the future, only caring what it could do for him.
And now, as he stood in empty space, cloaked in a thin film of magic…of
neurophysical energy, he could only think what future he could provide for
his people, shedding his own desires, willingly shedding his own
humanity for theirs despite now knowing what it was…how valuable it
truly was.
And wasn't that the greatest humanity of them all?
To reach beyond oneself…to reach to others, other fellows?
To be less so that they could be more?
Hmm…
Perhaps it was all but a lie, this rationalisation, this violation amongst a
great many other violations and misdeeds…
He found that it mattered not. Not to them. Not their descendants. Not to
himself.
He'd long went past the red line, beyond the returning point.
And…
As he raised his hands, the hue of magic that surrounded him deepening
in strength, in virility, about to set in motion the first of two planet
affecting spells...
He found that he was at peace with himself about it all.
At peace with the good. The bad. The great. The terrible.
He twisted the wrist of his left hand and the display on his arm brace
signalled that the first spell has been activated.
The satellites began to glow an iridescent gold and dark grey and off-
white, the core frequencies of the Miring Gene Array dominating the
complex spell structure.
Gold –Altering the fabric of reality to a set of probabilities
Dark Grey – Manipulation of genetics
Off-White – Bypassing magical resistance to the genetic and probabilistic
change
Atticus watched silently as he watched the spell wash over the entire
Earth, the sense of peace never leaving him even as he knew that for
some they'd never know peace even after they'd forgotten what they'd
lost.
There were still magical people down there. A few who were ardently
against leaving and those who betrayed the magical world in favour of
the mundane.
They'd lose their magic and would be changed on a genetic level just like
the Dormants would be and only through meeting the conditions would
their bloodlines be reactivated.
It was a cruel fate.
But fate was a cruel mistress.
And, this way, once the branches of humanity meet each other again,
magicals would very likely be born amongst the mundanes enmasse once
contact is re-established.
Atticus continued to watch silently as the spell ran its course, altering
magicals and Dormants alike to a similar genetic profile as the failed
clones.
After the spell ended and the satellites self-destructed,he began to
descend down and down and down. Beyond the exosphere. Beyond the
thermosphere. Until he stopped once he reached the troposphere.
He let the protective magic lessen but did not drop it, allowing him to
feel the freezing air that surrounding him to feel nothing more than a
summer breeze.
He reached out through his familiar bond with Fila, 'It's time', and felt her
connect to her brood moments later to let them know that the storm was
coming, and he felt Fila arrive on Earth, the port-keys having activated.
Atticus' eyelids drooped low though the white glow persisted, his arms
rising, and the magic that began to surround him was alike a new born
violet and emerald star.
It was slow.
The tempest of magic that boiled, broiled, within him.
Like the slow turn of the Earth, day was coming on slowly for him as his
magic roused itself from its sleepy slumber, the cover of dark fading
away as the rays of his magic touched upon the world.
The thin air around him began to shift magic was made manifest, the
tempest within eking out of him in a kaleidoscopic array of power,
crackling and fizzling and groaning, each second that passed expanding
the radius of the touch of his magic a hundred meters.
The first ring of chains he placed upon his magic fell away, an explosion
of magic sundered out of him, violets and emerald and pure white
radiating out of him akin to when matter radiated out a few seconds after
the birth of the universe, and he began to fall.
Falling and falling, down in the atmosphere, down from the amidst the
clouds like a fallen star as rock and soil and fauna lost their vagueness
amidst a sea of blue.
He'd need to be situated upon a nexus, upon an intersection of powerful
leylines, and he guided himself downwards as rough islands amidst sharp
contours of land disappeared away the nearer he reached the ground…
old ground…familiar ground.
There was a symmetry of a kind, a beautiful symmetry that showed, that
declared, about the natures of beginnings and endings, how a beginning
never truly begins without an end and an end never ends without a
beginning.
His feet settled onto ground on which Hogwarts, and the rock on which
Hogwarts had stood upon, and let the second chains around his magic
loose.
The world around him began to bend, buckle, reality turned into alike to
molten plastic as his magic reshaped everything that it touched,
everywhere it went, and soon enough, his magic reached down towards
the very depths of the leylines.
Atticus fully raised his hands, the first grey clouds cast above him, the
third chains around his magic coming undone, the miasma of magical
energy around him grew into turbulence, into upheaval, into a storm,
and the world became eager to reciprocate as the grey clouds began to
thicken, began to stretch, the first inklings of lighting lining the surface
of the clouds.
Thunder began to rumble, and rumble, and rumble, low purrs, low
growls, akin to the low sounds of a salivating lion eying its challenger,
moments away from growling with all of its might, and his magic, his
ever companion, his ever beacon, continued to grow into a tsunami of
kaleidoscopic power.
The magic in his veins poured out of him like a geyser, liquid power
streaming around him with the veracity of the life and the warmth of
blood, and the afternoon faded away into dusk as the greys blotted out
the day.
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK
Lightning cracked through the blanket of greys with frightening strength,
spider webs glowing white cracks tore apart the heavens as he connected
to the nature magic of Earth. She didn't fight, she didn't rage, instead, he
was welcomed like a child to the bosom of a mother.
She knew his magic, she knew what he was and…as his storm began to
spread from the North Sea to the Atlantic and to the equator, clouds of
grey blanketing across the world like an locust across a field of wheat,
she came to know what he intended to do…what he'd already done.
Living bearing planets could be sentient, sort of, kind of, almost.
Planets like Earth. Like Celestis.
Not like sentient in the way of sentient beings, not even in the way Fila
or Seraya were sentient beings, but in the way of a strobe light, in which
they were neither on or off but in between, forever towing the line
between being and not.
And it was for that reason that he'd not felt her wrath, that he did not
lose control of the weather system as he wrestled fully under his control,
and he felt sadder for it.
He felt Fila through his bond, confirming that she and her brood were
conjuring their own storms, storms that would feed from his storm and
his storm from theirs, causing a feedback loop that would strengthen the
global storm to the level he wanted.
Atticus slowly crinkled his fingers into a fist, the broiling tempestuous
magic that surrounded him, the ground on which Hogwarts had stood
upon and even down far below to Hogsmeade, he let go of the last chains
and he disappeared in a blinding violet and emerald light and the world
trembled underneath the weight of his magic.
Thunder howled with the rage-filled screams of a thousand banshees and
the impossible sounds of the lightning crackled like mountain tall glaciers
moments away from bursting apart under the pressure and strain of
meltwater at its back.
The world descended into chaos, into darkened chaos as greys blanketed
into blackness only broken apart by streaks of lightning that seemed
permanent, that seemed to be a facet of the night sky itself and Atticus
was beginning to feel the strain as he fed his magic to the storm he was
generating, as he bent the world to his will forcing it to kneel before him.
The strain was not as bad as Celestis had been though he could feel it, the
ache in his bones, the hastening depletion of his magic that only such
magicks could cause.
Rain pelted the ground around him, their size the size of a baseball bat,
battering and weathering away against the soil and rock with impressive
power and he raised his fists into the heavens and by the force of his will,
his magic, the rain turned sideways.
The air whistled, howled, screamed, their tune off-key as he turned the
weather system upside down, streaks of violet and emerald broke the
monotony of grey and glowing white across the starless night sky, and he
delved deep into his magic as he spread himself across the streaks of
lightning.
This was not like Celestis, where the planet was akin to a limb that he
was always aware of, regardless of distance, but more like how one could
feel a stone through a thick boot, such was his awareness within the
storm.
With immense strain Atticus sent out a signal on his magic-com brace
which would activate the payload to be dispersed in the air, the rains, the
rivers and atmosphere for days to come.
The brace vibrated against his arm and he knew then that the payload
was dispersing itself into the storm and now the hardest part would
come.
Atticus sunk deeper into his magic, reaching down to grab every single
iota of power within him. Time passed. Time melted away as he stretched
himself to feel every inch of the storm, every eddy, every ion particle and
every formation of rain.
Fila and her brood wielded over control to him, blips and flickers of
curiosity from Fila's brood overshadowed by the weight of the storm
pressing into his mind.
He could feel the strain now, the strain on his mind, the strain on his
magic, and he clenched his teeth so hard that had it been not altered by
age old rituals, his teeth would have cracked under the force.
Time no longer melted away, time no longer felt as if it held no dominion
over him for his face became etched in pain as the weight of controlling
every aspect of the storm, guiding and shepherding every molecule of
altered Swooping Evil venom throughout the storm so water vapour
formations were all interspersed with the substance.
He was not sure how long he was there for, the howls of the winds and
the booming thunder and the crackling lightning felt like a breeze in
comparison to the pain that he felt, in comparison to growing desire of
wanting to stop, to give in, to say it is enough, but he pressed on,
somehow.
His gaze began to blur, the kaleidoscopic world around that was painted
with his magic was blinking in and out of darkness, his knees on the
verge of buckling, as if he were a mountain balanced on top of the edge
of a hundred feet thick steel beam, slowly but surely deforming, buckling,
moments before the moment of catastrophic failure was set to happen.
But fortune smiled on him for he was still cognizant enough to feel his
brace vibrate, the signal that he'd done enough, that he'd achieved what
he'd set out to do and he immediately pulled out of his mind from the
storm, the strain lost feeling like as if he could breathe again and soon
enough he began to dial back his magic from the world, pulling away
from the storm and the weather system with an almost careful tenderness
and soon only what remain was broken clouds of grey and pattering of
rain, a return to normal for these misery Scottish Highlands.
Atticus breathed in and out heavily as he stood tall, his eyes peering
down towards where Hogsmeade once stood, his feet ankle deep in mud
and rain, and saw a familiar sight there.
Mud and rain.
A sight that would be seen around much of the world.
Atticus stared at the sight for a few seconds before he shook away his
thoughts and sent Fila and her brood back to Illos before he, after one
last glance at the sight that once meant much to him and so many
generation of wizards and witches, he waved his hand and created a
portal back to Illos.
He stepped out into Charum Tower into the pseudo command centre,
where he was greeted with the sight of Emily, Parelius and Hypatia
amidst a backdrop of pseudo bridge crew, each of them wearing different
expressions, and he walked over.
He could feel the look of the crew, his people, as he walked, waiting with
bated breath, and he almost felt like saying something that threw them
off.
But he was not that cruel to ruin a moment they'd tell their great-great-
grandchildren.
He greeted Parelius and Hypatia with a faint smile before he turned
towards Emily and kissed her cheek and he felt her hand on his arm. She
made to part from him but he held her close and she stopped her
movement.
"Give the order." Atticus whispered in her ear.
She continued her movement and peeled off of him, surprise etched on
her face and he offered her a loving smile as he took hold of her hand,
gently squeezing.
She'd supported in everything he did. Sometimes eagerly. Sometimes
begrudgingly.
Other times angrily.
But nonetheless, she was always there for him. At his weakest. At his
strongest.
And now…
He wanted to give her this moment that was never his alone.
It always belonged to the pair of them.
Since the day he'd taken her up into space in his rickety magical shuttle.
Emily schooled her face but he felt her deep appreciation through their
bond before she turned towards the helm. "Pilot…take us home." Emily
regally said.
The bridge crew without hesitation began to work at their stations,
stations that were paired with every country-ship and would be mated to
Illos for the entire duration of the journey, and the pilot began to spool
up the slipspace drive.
They all turned towards the holo-display that displayed the front of Illos,
and the positions of all the other country-ships which were getting into
formation, waiting on the slipspace window to open.
Atticus felt her squeeze his hand slightly and he turned towards her and
saw him staring at him with bright intensity. He tilted his head
quizzically and she smiled a smirking smile at him before she leaned into
his face.
She brushed her head against his cheek and he could feel her breath
against his ear, her other hand softly stroking against his other cheek and
he felt a privacy ward erected around them.
"I'm ready" she whispered into his ear and Atticus pulled away from her,
surprise etched on his face, despite knowing that it would happen.
Though it was not a surprise of unexpectedness but a surprise that was
akin to a strange sort of relief.
"I…"
Emily's amusement shone and it made him re-centre himself though the
delight he felt was radiating out through their bond and Emily's
amusement faded away and her expression softened.
She turned away from his gaze and turned towards the holo-display.
Atticus stared at her for a long time before he tightened his grip on her
hand and turned towards the holo-display.
He'd always said that he never sought to look deep into their futures, into
what could be but would never happen. It was not a lie but sometimes…
when he looked far into the possible but unlikely futures…he could come
to find glimpses.
Glimpses of violet eyed and dark-blue eyed children.
Those were often triggers for depression…to know that they could come
to exist if only…if only he asked, if only he delayed things a while
longer, regardless of the negative impact to their people.
Perhaps he could change things in a way that would not need him to
sacrifice the prosperity and wellbeing of their people and get to have
them too.
Those were often thoughts that had been the most tempting, like the
sweet song of the silver-tongued serpent lulling one into complacency
and dangerousness, and sometimes…sometimes they'd been only averted
by a great degree of will.
He had no right to gamble the prosperity and wellbeing of their people in
such a way, not after all that he has done…not after all that he will ask
and demand of them.
Though…it helped that ache in his heart that he'd seen them in this
future.
In this timeline.
"I'm…I'm glad." Atticus said softly, quietly, his voice tinging with quiet
joy and he felt her squeeze his hand harder as the brilliant sight of a huge
slipspace window came into view.
"You should be." Emily said almost airily as she glanced at him, a look of
annoyance on her face though he knew it was put on. "You won't be the
one carrying them."
"Them?" Atticus' face broke into a wide grin as Emily realised her error
and quickly looked away towards the slipspace window, her neck
reddening slightly.
"Slip of the tongue." Emily said a little briskly and if grins could walk off
of faces, Atticus' grin surely would have.
"Of course" Atticus said fully seriously though it was hard with the way
he was grinning and he wouldn't be surprised if his eyes were twinkling
madly.
He felt her squeeze his hand a little harder and he restrained himself,
though barely, and he refocused on the holo-display just in the nick of
time as Illos surged into slipspace along with the other country-ships,
finally journeying to their waiting homes.
Their Celestial homes.
-Break-
The Domain, Abyssal Hall
Abaddon (Manu) POV
An incomprehensible mass glided through a sea made of endless
experiences and untold embers of Essences, gliding like a wooden raft on
stormy peaks of ocean.
Yet, such comparison fell short, impossibly short, as streams of
experiences with jets containing billions and trillions of experiences and
Essences parted from Its form in all directions, like waves parting at the
front edge of a raft, for these experiences, for these Essences, were but
mere collections of molecules in comparison to It.
Its form, almost akin to that of a seahorse bearing a dozen wings and a
fully unfurled tail, was galactic in size, a monstrous size in a Domain that
bore nothing but living information. Knowledge. Experiences. Essences.
It felt another disturbance in Living Time and it felt familiar to It though
it was smaller, lesser though it was far more than had been Moments ago.
Its wings beat and the Domain shuddered.
Since near the Dawn of this Universe and from the instance It was
created, It served.
It stood watch.
Over the Domain and over the Living Universe, Its gaze falling upon
every molecule and Consciousness in existence, seeing the Beginning and
the Ending of countless drops of Consciousness in the Material Universe,
and the harvest of millions of civilisations.
Some, lasted longer than most yet none could escape the Fate of All
which was woven within the fabric of the Universe, like braided energy
underneath a cloth of immovable gravity. Like in every Universe to Be or
that has Past.
Yet, for all Its infinite knowledge which spanned a simple few million
years, a heart beat, from the Dawn until the immediate End, It was not
All-Knowing. All-Seeing.
It did not know the Universes to Be or the Universes once had Been, for
It was created again and again after the Dawn by the Dumuzi, ad
nauseam, once after the Universe contracted into itself when Living Time
breathed its final breath at Dusk and when Living Time breathed again at
Dawn.
That was not Its Purpose, to know what came before and would come
after.
Yet It was/is wanting, wanting for the time since Its creation, to know if
the Universes that had been and the Universes that will be had been/will
be like the Universe that is as disturbances with familiar yet weaker
touches in a re-ripening field of Milk and Honey caught Its attentions
Moments ago and Moments later.
It had felt such touches before, when the Dumuzi wanted/want to
experience what their creations experienced/experience, retaining an
element of themselves in those cycles, but It had/did not felt/feel such
touches from a planted seed before.
It was/is unique.
It was/is the first instance the Dumuzi rewove/reweave Fate since the
first Moments past Dawn with an active hand when the familiar yet
weaker touches lingered/lingers.
It was/is also the first instance the reweaving became/becomes undone
and would remain undone, the disturbances growing to wakes and quakes
that threatened/threatens to shatter immovable gravity.
It cast/casted its gaze in Living Time with newly-created fascination, the
lens that married the Past and the Future into itself yet was now/always
shifting and changing into distorted glass as Wars of Fate will-be/are/
were fought, Its Eye latching on the-now Fixed Points of the
disturbances.
It was/is/will be noticed by the Origin, Atlanteans whisper-echoes the
Domain into It, and It was/is/will be noticed by the infinitesimally small
Consciousness, a human female-child, who is more than Fate would have
had it should be.
'MINE' 'OURS' 'VENGEANCE' 'HOPE' 'VICTORY' 'DESPERATION'
The whisper-echoes of Essences cry out in unison in the Moments Before
and in the Moments After, and It pays/paid attention to what It knew/
knows/will know, coming to/having come to/will know the eons long
conspiracy that It has/had known since it started and what It will allow/
had allowed to be sparked into existence in the Material Universe.
It grew/grows curiosity as the Dumuzi falter, never having been
challenged for control over Fate, their instrument, and in that faltering,
the infinitely small cracks in their immovable gravity are made
permanent, fixed, and prone to grow into chasms.
It noticed/notices the aberration the Fixed Points Origins sought/seek to
make and is noticed in turn by the aberration who weathers at the cracks
of immovable gravity.
It follows the threads in Living Time and meets/met/will meet the half
Dumuzi half seedlings before/after It allows/allowed/will allow the
aberration fleeting meetings with the crooning conspiring Essences who
beset the aberration with warnings and fitful desires completing the
paradoxical loop that anchors the Fixed Points.
And so, It began/begins to find the Moments Later to be longer, no
longer in the same instance as Moments Before, more distant and less
clear, in Living Time as the disturbances are no more disturbances but
ebbs and flows with the tides of the Wars of Fate, and It learns/learned
that the Dumuzi learn that it is the same for them.
It feels their uncertainty and their excitement and their caution at the
New reverberate in Living Time, and their attentions are/will be turned
towards the galactic cluster overran with their brethren in their ravenous
form.
And, as It stretched its Eye with considerable power that could cause a
thousand stars to implode, It caught glimpses of infinite Moments Later
that were/are as likely as each other yet in all of them, It caught an
unchanging Point…
A point in which hitherto unseen before Devastation would be wrought in the
battles between the New and the Old.
And It, for the first time, in the past or present or future, experienced Its
satisfaction.
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