Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 73

Mirarion Aside : Exuvia 2

We stood in the small chamber outside the tribunal meeting and Articulo said. “I have sought you out to ask you to not force this debate. If War is necessary I will prosecute it. I know my mother valued you. I do not wish to make you mundane.”

I waved a hand in a gesture Apophany always used to mean “have patience” and noticed it worked perfectly on her son.  “Before you continue and accidentally damage your Gift,” I replied “you should know you can’t do that to me here.”

“Explain, please?”

“I know.” I paused “There’s no student here.”

“You’d learn a great deal of humility were I to break your Gift.” he replied, and I tried to see anger in the corners of his eyes or mouth. It wasn’t there. I was a puzzle to him. There was no more point in being angry at me than at a chicken which, against all probability, has distracted millions by crossing the road. Apophany knew about the chicken, and she knew the important question was “Why do you care enough to want to know the answer?”The trick is done before the magic starts.  Articulo wanted to know.

That meant we were not going to come to blows now. I relaxed a little. So did he.I noticed, and so did he, and then I was aware we’d been reading each other for a longer than normal pause in the conversation. Criamon magi do that sometimes, and consider it perfectly normal: in some senses preferable to people lying with their mounts at each other. I decided to start us up again, because I like not having to be honest with people. I’m not saying I want to lie to them: I’m just happier if the option is there. “I am an initiate in the Enigmatic Wisdom of your sect. I am the Vessel of the Great Lie. I cannot be your witness.”

“Thank you for warning me, Brother.” he nodded. I presumed he did it to draw attention to the tattoo by his right temple, but I didn’t know what it represented, beyond an attempt to communicate fellowship that had failed.

“Ah.” Pause “When I say I know, I don’t know any of the aspects of the cult. I know your first mystery, though: you can only transgress when someone is watching, and the watcher needs to be outside the cult. They need to be a witness, and to learn something important from the transgression. You can’t just do whatever you like.”

“What is the Great Lie?”

“If you don’t know I can’t explain it to you.” I smiled “Is it wrong to admit that it feels wonderful to say that to a Criamon magus?”

“Petty, but not wrong. How did you discover it?”

“The Lie? I cannot say.”

“No, our Mystery.”

“Callida told me.” I shrugged for effect.

He looked deflated “That is disappointing. How did she discover it?”

“She asked your mother why she kept dragging about a useless illusionist like me, when she was a mistress of illusions herself. Why not have a different partner, with complementary skills?”

“And my mother said that Callida was too focused on material advantage to be a witness?”

“No. You don’t need to be a spiritual person to be a witness. Rather the opposite. She wanted me around because she was worried what might happen if she slipped into Twilight.  Fire magi don’t burn. She was an Illusionist so she needed other illusionist around to corral her Adulteration if she Ascended.

“That is not the same thing. Discovering that she needed you in case she ascended is not the same as knowing that a student makes transgression safer for us.”

“Callida worked that out. She’s a Verditius. People think that because, yes, they are mercenary, and yes, they are petty that they aren’t spiritual. That is wrong. When she pours out bronze, she’s not handling metal: she’s handling the thing that lies behind the metal, in the realm of form made manifest. She is watching the idea become ensnared in matter and become greater by its ensnarement in the material. They use casting tools not as a crutch, but as a bridge to their spirituality. Callida knew I was a casting tool.”

“You have given me much to ponder, brother, and yet the adulteration you have taken as an apprentice is still a thing of terror and wonder. It must be assessed.”

“She. She is a person. A human person. A souled individual.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Well, prepare to be enlightened then. She can cast Hermetic spells.”

“I was told she was the equivalent of a five year old? She ages?”

“Yes. She also eats, drinks, is vulnerable to Mentem magic, all of the usual tests.

“Then she’s seven now. Even if she already knew Latin, as reported, you cannot have Opened her Arts conventionally yet.”

“The Cave of Twisting Shadows is a regio, yes? I also live in a regio.”

“What is the dilation?”

“Sevenfold. She’s eighteen, now. Her apprenticeship ends in two seasons, mortal time. You walked right by her earlier today, and didn’t realise who she was.”

He looked stunned. I didn’t have any real resources, but when you see the opening, you need to pretend, until you can make good. “Even if you take her, you won’t hold her.”

“I recall your mind was made tabula rasa when you were taken as apprentice? It is not a usual Criamon practice. We value our scars. Nonetheless, in extremis…and we are the cult for such situations. We need to understand it.”

“Her. Go ahead and try, Articulo. There’s literally no winning scenario for you here.”

That was a lie of course. The Tribunal declared her a sprit, not a person, and they took her for two years. As I said goodbye to her, in her spidersilk cloak, I handed her an apple. She tossed it back to me and said “I choose the name Pupilla, and ask you to keep this for me, father.” It wasn’t something I’d planned, but I was so pleased by it that I laughed and sent a letter to the Primus.

As she was my my first apprentice to graduate, he was worried the other three might be similarly troublesome. Hortensia, Lacrimosa and Aegidius were, however, more conventional and useful. Hortensia became a  teacher, like myself, using the same method of training four apprentices at a time. Her Arts are negligible, sufficient only to open the Arts of others and provide the most basic of training.. Lacrimosa is an urban illusionist who now lives in Naples. Aegidius is a hoplite in Britain.

Pupilla came back to us because the Genius Locus of the Cave of Twisting Shadows would not permit her to enter its regio. She was the living embodiment of everything that Apophany did or believed that was at odds with the tenents of their Mystery.  Had they not been pacifists, had their violent clutch not been Apophany’s children, they would have killed her. Instead, she was sent to the Clutch of Ebony Eggs, taught them nothing, and then tried to come home. A Bonisagus wanted to claim her, and so she lobbied for her reclassification as a person. She was old enough to graduate swiftly and then come home.

Mirarion: The Missing Alethia Chapter

(Author’s note…comes late in the book)

Alethia began as an idea, which led almost immediately to a debate in the House. I think the correct side won, if only by accident. If some druids surrendered, and we decided not to kill them, what could be done with them? Severing the Gift was an obvious measure, but true diabolists could bargain with their masters for the False Gift. The decision was that they should be imprisoned until death. So far, consensus.

A regio was the obvious place to hold magi, and we had several under our control in Hungary. The question was: should they be kept in a regio with time slower then mortal time, or faster? If they were in a slower regio, even if they could rebuild their power secretly, we would rebuild so much faster that we could crush them. If we put them in faster time, then they would age and die faster. If they had the chance to rebuild their power and take a fresh shot, then it would be on ground designed and prepared by us. Best to let them exhaust their quiver, then let them linger forever and pass the problem to our children.

The Alethia regio has time that speeds at seven times mortal. It was cleared out early in the war, because we wanted the vis of the creature living within it. The destruction of the Ice Wyrm may, we are told by our magical theorists, lead to the time in Alethia eventually resynchronising with the mortal world. If so, no matter, its purpose has been served for now, and we can repeat the procedure elsewhere. It served as a prison only briefly.

Two years after the war, we refitted it as a hospital for magi with combat fatigue. I was sent there to oversee the retrofit, officially. In truth, I had sufficient combat fatigue to be useless in the struggle for Diedne resources. I was the most effective of the useless, so they were my responsibility. I needed reinforcements, so I sent messages to the Foolish Fires. They did not seem temperamentally suited to rural idyll, but the House was exhausted, and I needed help. It was friends or mercenaries.

Malvolio came much as I remembered him. His clothes clinked and shone. He filled too much space, and he talked too loudly about things he didn’t really understand. He knew you knew that half of what he was saying was a performance, but you could never be sure which half. He had more baggage than a small army, and it was filled with impractical delicacies. He was all the things that used to infuriate me, when we were comrades in arms. In bleak Alethia, as it then was, I loved him for it. He had retainers, many of which which he sent away so that they would not age faster than their families. The remainder still live here, save a scant handful who left with him, after his stay.

Callida sent a contract, which the House signed, and then she came. She’d not been with us at the end of the war, but I still considered her one of my people. We had not told her Apophany’s Lie. I felt guilty about that, then. Eventually I did tell her, after she showed me a magical mousetrap she had made for my apprentice Euxia. She bought less material, but has stayed longer. Some magi have asked if she and I, living as we do, with our hordes of children, out of time, are a couple. We are not. We are not good at compromise.

Together, they built modern Alethia. I made suggestions about the function of the place, which they sometimes incorporated, and so the House tends to see the facility as mine. That’s a bureaucratic undersimplification. I may have made it a school, but they made it beautiful. Callida stays, I think, because she knows that the school is her masterpiece. Her kind have criticized her because it is not enchanted, but she has calls it an engine that makes magicians.

Hermetic architecture generally follows an Imperial Roman model. Conjuring the Mystic Tower originally created a Roman wall fort. The Pseudo-Bonisagus redesigned it slightly to create odd, circular towers. These cylinders of stone have been the keystone of covenant building ever since. They are ridiculous.

Cylindrical towers are designed for watchers standing on the roof, and archers defending approaches. They are liveable, but inconvenient. So much floor space is wasted with stairs. So much time is wasted walking between levels. They are dingy and cold. Some people have improved them slightly by building a stair tower next to their laboratory tower. Malvolio showed me that none of this was necessary.

Alethia was designed as a vast and beautiful metal frame, which remains visible in the building today. Over this, Callida poured a skin of bronze, which created the roof and walls. It has aged to a deep verdigris. Malvolio set vast panels of glass, made magically for clarity and strength, into the roof. It never rains on the roof, as it is sheltered with wards, like a Jerbiton garden laboratory .Internal partitions were then made, by skilled mortal crafters, and placed to Malvolio’s specifications. The school may be Mycetians, but it was crafted by a Jerbiton skilled in light, and trickery and void. It is like a temple to an intensely practical god.

It took a year of Althean time to complete the work. That’s less than a season in the mortal world and I expected Malvolio to hurry off to some new revel. He seemed reluctant to leave, so I asked him if he wanted to stay. He remained at Alethia for three real years during which he studied Arabic and ways to avoid his housemates.

It took time for us to pry the story from him: for him to relax and discuss his hurts.  I had come home a shattered man, but to a House which accepted my wounds as a cost paid for victory, and honoured them. He and Benvolia had returned to the cities, which had been untouched by the war. They were met by Housemates who scorned his role in the utter extermination of a style of magic that, even a few years after the war, was being romanticised as being about harmony with Nature.

Benvolia, he said, had gone to Egypt, and we did not understand what he meant. She had taken her ability to blend in with people, and used it to disappear. She was seeking her happiness far from the ingrates she had kept free and safe, but also far from the city of her birth, which she loved. Malvolio refused to give Europe to his spiteful kin. He stayed with us, and having trained in illusions at sevenfold time, now lives in secret among them.

If you are ever in Naples, and need the aid of the redcaps, you may be directed to the home of a Coptic merchant, who lives a genteel but secluded life. If you ever have trouble with the underclass of the city, you might meet a strange monk who metes out justice from the shadows. If you ever threaten the city, the caverns of its necropolis may spit forth an undead necromancer commanding hordes of ghosts. His life is full and pleasant. Some of my past apprentices live with him, in what would be a covenant, if they ever admitted they were magi.

My best books of the year

Over on my work site, I keep a reading journal, and they’ve had me recommend my top books for the year.  I’m not allowed to mention Ars Magica books, because I’m not allowed to spruik stuff I’m paid for. Gosh Faith and Flame is good, isn’t it?

Hey…actually…must put that in my posts next year.

https://gcbooks.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/my-best-from-2014/

Mirarion : An Aside

I’d been working in Alethia for almost two years when I received the order from my father. I came to the gateway to the real world, worked through the perfunctory locks, and emerged to greet a young maga sent to act as my aide. She stared at me in shock, which she could not disguise.

“It’s all right, Augusta.” I said. “I am Mirarius. Surely they warned you about this?”

“No.” she flustered. Then she caught herself. “You look fine, Mirarius.” she lied. I did however, feel fine, and had been expecting this reaction, if not from her than from someone else. For her my sudden aging was a shock. Not so for me. I had lived the fourteen years that had passed in the regio. For her, I had been gone a time, but not a long one.

“My father sent me a letter. I am to await a Criamon magus in the pavilion commemorating the Battle of the Silver Peacocks. I have not missed her, I take it?”

“She has not arrived. Mirarius.”

“I do not know where this pavilion is. Please direct me.”

“Do you know it lies at another covenant?” she asked, noting my lack of luggage.

“No. I have been away.” I shrugged. I was wearing combat webbing that had some food in it. I could make shelter and keep my clothes clean magically. I didn’t need gear.

Her directions made little sense, until I actually saw the pavilion. It was an opulent tent, outside the Aegis of Lycaneon. It wasn’t for us. It was a place for visitors to arrive, and if they were not particularly clever, be dazzled by our wealth and taste. I thought the Criamon would probably find it so irrelevant as to verge on inexplicable, so I sat outside it. I fried some farina. I drew random shapes on it. I put them in in an artless design on a plate.

When the Criamon appeared, she spent a good minute staring at the food, before rearranging the pieces, and eating them in descending order of size. She smiled and said “Thank you.”

“Salve.” I offered. She knew who I was. I didn’t know her, but knew that Criamon magi generally have no interest in, and little capacity for, small talk. My opening “Salve” was mere form, but at least it was brief.

“I come to ask a favour.” she said.

“I come to grant your favour.” I answered, nodding.

“I have yet to ask it.” she crooked her head sideways.

“You have yet to ask it of me. ” I answered. “I grant it, nonetheless.”

“Your father knows none of the specifics of the request.” she countered.

“He grants it anyway, and I am his agent in this.”

“There is to be no negotiation?” She looked concerned, and crestfallen.

“You were sent with threats or inducements?”

“Yes”

“You wish to threaten or induce?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was asked to.” Her body language and tone were completely neutral. I’d seen this in some Criamon before, when they were talking about their own motivations.

“You seem a poor negotiator. Why were you, particularly, sent to seek my assistance?”

“I am able to walk through the spirit realm, and carry others with me, swimming through the great fields of magic which bathe the world.” There was no pride in her voice.

“You have been asked to carry me somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It is the swiftest method of travel we have.”

“So, urgency is a significant motivator for you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have no time to haggle inducements. I am sorry. Where are you to take me?”

“The Island of the Adulteration of Apophany.”

“Why?”

“I do not know. I have not been instructed on the nature of your task.”

“My last question was essentially conversational in nature. I have said I will come. I am ready to depart.” I waved to Augusta and from her perspective I vanished.

We flowed through the world, skimming through the clockwork which lies behind the façade. I had seen the world this way before, in a Twilight episode, as a young child. That incident had warped my Gift and perhaps my personality. This was different and beautiful, but on some level,  it felt like I was fighting a certamen duel with an enemy so far away our phantasms could not engage. We landed on a small boat which sat in a small circle of calm,  ignoring the waves that tried to lap upon it.

“Did the adulteration have this appearance on your last visit?” she asked.

“Do you have a name?” I failed to reply. “It seems odd you’ve not told me a name to call you. Is this one of your riddles?”

“I don’t find a name useful.” A shrug.

“That seems a peculiarly selfish attitude.”

“I don’t agree with your opinion. Did the adulteration have this appearance on your last visit?”

“Not at all. No.” I answered, staring at the strange object. It was spiky, ellipsoid and twelve feet long. It appeared to be made of metal, but its lack of rivets, dark blue colour and oddly curved superficial markings  convinced me that it was biological. It seemed like the seed from a great thorny briar, lying it wait for the passing herd of a giant.

“It has been like this for weeks. Our Intellego spells indicate that the Adulteration has liquefied within this carapace.”

“Why am I here?” I asked. “I have no skills suitable for field investigation of unique phenomena.”

“You are here because our Prima says you must be. You are to watch it, until it hatches.”

“Hatches? It’s an egg?”

“No, it’s a cocoon.”

“And I am its warder?”

“Yes.”

“Why me?”

“You shared some bond with Apophany. It avoided killing you before, perhaps deliberately. Your presence may prove useful.”

The cocoon began to flex, its spikes undulating in slow patterns.

“Ah.” the Criamon maga said “This has not previously been observed.”

“What is it doing?”

“Reacting to our presence.”

“Our Parmae prevent it detecting us, surely?”

“No. They merely prevent it harming us. The Parma is a wonderful little bubble in the tide of magic, but a bubble defines the water about it. Your Parma has your sigil in it, if you know how to look. Within the carapace the disgusting ichor is coming together into shapes. Disparate organs form and merge, and flex into new configurations. This is remarkable. It is so like the writings of Empedocles that it is either proof or flattery.”

It cracked open, and a pale jelly oozed from the hole. The hole became wider, as further pieces cracked away. Then I saw a tiny first, smashing into the shell, breaking it apart from the inside. It resisted, then gave in a great tearing, like a fruit torn in half, revealing the stone. She stood in the ichor and looked at us, a little girl of perhaps five years of age. The Criamon was immediately sick over the side of the boat.

I could feel it too, when our eyes met. There was a wave of disgust and horror that swept through the front of my mind. I am, however, an illusionist, so I demanded, and retrieved, control of my thoughts. “What’s causing this sensation?” I asked the Criamon.

“The mystical stench? It’s like the Gift, or the magical air some animals have, but stronger. Worse. I am perhaps more prone because of my training. It’s all I can do not to be blown back into the Magical Realm.”

“You are here in purely spiritual form?”

“Yes.”

“Then be blown away, but first, explain what I’m seeing. This is an Adulteration?

“Perhaps. It might be something descended from the adulteration, a sort of spirit. It might be a parasite that has eaten the adulteration. It might, technically, be a faerie drawn by these odd circumstances, or a demon.”

“That was absolutely no help at all, in an executive sense.” I remarked. She looked annoyed at me, and then faded from view, like a ghost at cock crow.”

“Sir?” it said to me in passable Italian, with an accent I’d call Sicilian.

“Yes?” I answered, knowing that if this was a faerie that was precisely the wrong thing to do, and deciding to do it anyway.

“I am hungry and lost. Have you any bread?”

I decided to feed it, again, knowing that if it was a faerie, this was completely the wrong thing to do.

I went ashore, and took some bread from my combat webbing. I decided I’d tempted fate so far that I might as well demand it bite me.  “I am Mirarius” I said, thereby opening an arcane connection if this was a faerie. Then I gave it bread, which linked us by the ancient rites of hospitality. “What is your name?”

“I have no name.”

“You speak well. How did you learn to speak?”

“I do not know.”

“What is the first thing you remember?”

“Breaking out of the darkness behind me.”

“Are you a human or a spirit?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Would you like an apple?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m still hungry.”

“That’s strange. Spirits aren’t generally able to feel hunger.”

“May I have an apple anyway?” I passed it that apple and watched it demolish it with glee. I made a tentative decision.

“Provisionally, let’s accept you are human and Gifted.”

She nodded then said “I don’t know what that means.”

“I am a teacher. I am taking you to my school. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You must have a name.”

“Apple?”

“That’s a silly name, but once you graduate you may select it if you wish. I choose to name you Exuvia.”

“I am Exuvia?”

“Yes. Of Mycetias.”

It was at that point four Criamon arrived, and the arguments started, but I’d claimed her fairly. I took her home to Alethia, and trained her for what, to us, was seven years. She was one of my second batch of students. After that, we were forced to bring her to the Grand Tribunal, because House Criamon had engineered a confrontation. I proved she was human, but a Bonisagus magus demanded her service, and it was a year before she could return to us.

The Wild Things, The Kith of the Elven Folk

I’m off on paternity leave, but I just struck a wonderful faerie description in a story by Lord Dunsany and wanted to share.

So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes. But from the deep and perilous places, edged with bright mosses, the Wild Things came leaping up to dance on the reflection of the stars, and over their heads as they danced the marsh-lights rose and fell.

The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all brown of skin and barely two feet high. Their ears are pointed like the squirrel’s, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights. They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but at night they come up and dance. Each Wild Thing has over its head a marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.

All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflection of the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold them by itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down one by one into the pools of their home. Or if they tarry longer, sitting upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires pale in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of the kith of the Elf-folk. Neither may any see them even at night unless they were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at the moment when the first star appears.

Mirarion: where to from here?

When I started the Mirarion, I was trying to write something similar to the war diaries that were left by Australian participants in the First World War. Generally, they did not see the great turning points of the War. They don’t describe things which they think are obvious to the people reading the diary. Generally their works are filled with little hints of side stories that don’t play out. The endings are almost always just a cessation, or a collapse into “then I came home and bought a farm.” Some, like AB Facey’s “A fortunate life” has a bit more depth, but for the writers, the story isn’t about them.

Having done that, now. I think I’m going to rework it so that it is more novel-like.  That may take some time. I’ll do it on the back blocks of this blog, and if I’m ever happy with it, I’ll post a link.

Thanks for the positive comments during this process.

The blog will be a little quiet in the next few weeks, because my wife and I are expecting a baby. If I find time, I’m going to slap the paddles onto the chest of Vaults of the Order and get that working again.

Mirarion Chapter 20

I didn’t have time to run. I tried, but the thing that had been Apophany swelled enormously in an instant. It reached out a great, clawed hand for me, and grabbed my leg. The hand was covered in dark scales that reminded me of the carapaces of the pseudoscorpions that defend the Library of Durenmar. It hand six fingers, slender, multi-jointed and ending in sliverlike nails of the deepest blue. I felt the nail go bone deep, but they were so sharp they didn’t hurt much. The hand continued to swell as it lifted me up, and palmed me. It drew me in to its enormous face. It was eyeless, and had dark blue teeth. The head was shaped like a long tube, above a body basically still human. I cast a useless spell on the hand, trying to break the nail.

It sniffed me, with a long inhalation, then it roared. I use the word roar because I have no better. I have heard nothing else like it. Imagine a human scream, but magnified enormously, but more like pies of metal being tossed in a storm. Even that is completely inadequate. I decided to cut my leg off with my next spell, then roll free.

I didn’t really feel like my leg was truly mine. It had someone else’s sigil on it. After the war, I gathered enough vis to cut it off and grow a new one. A lot of veterans did that, I believe, when the faeries came back and we could hunt them again. Eventually I decided against replacing my leg. I have an illusion to cover Decimata’s ashmarks. The way I see it, my leg’s a gift from Achlys. Her death means more if it has some tangible result. I can’t just cut that off and burn it. Anyway…

It screamed again and threw me across the island. I curled into a ball to protect my head and fastcast The Dangling Puppet, concentrating on not hitting the ground.  Apophany’s adulteration was ridiculously strong, and my spell prevented me from falling to the ground, so I smashed hard into the torso of the wicker man, and blacked out. I came to with Apophany shaking me. “Mirarius?” she said.

“Yes?” I said groggily. I was, at this point, relieved that it had all been a dream. Then the pain kicked in and I snapped awake.

“You need to wake up. There’s a battle.”

I was at an angle to the horizon, so I willed myself right way up. There was almost a mile of ocean between me and the island. Apophany was hovering slightly above the water. “Are you a hallucination?” I asked.

“You know that’s a foolish question.” she smiled.

“I’m happy you are here, but, you know, goodbyes and demons.”

“At the verge of enlightenment, my people can pause, to give counsel to others.”

“Oh, like Criamon?”

“Yes. I’m not suited for it. I’ll ascend. Tell my apprentices to find a better way to deal with the adulterations. Actually, tell them to sacrifice their Gifts. That’s my choice, actually. I can ascend or manifest a phantasticum and live as a human. A phantasticum is…”

“I know what that it. It’s a body made of magical mind meat.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, House Mycetias has some people who can make them.”

“You do? Why?”

“To kill magi with.”

She seemed surprised. “I should have guessed. I am me. My only business is to wake you up and warn you. You have been unconscious for two minutes. My creature threw you through the ritual space, but the druids don’t want to break off their sacrifice, so they have sent their familiars after you. They’ll arrive very soon.”

“Then why are we talking like this?” I said, scanning the air between myself and the island.

“You aren’t actually awake yet. We can converse quickly here. Do you know Demon’s Eternal Oblivion?”

“No.”

“Do you mind if I possess you for two minutes?”

“Go right ahead.”

This time I really did wake up. She used Snap of Awakening to force it. Apophany then cast Demon’s Eternal Oblivion. I imagine that’s when the Criamon tattoo appeared under my left eye. I hide it with an illusion as well.

“Now, head back.” she said “This really is goodbye, Mirarius. Well…until next time.” and she was gone again.

The creature was eating the druids. I tried not to look. Benvolia and Malvolio were on the boat with what was left of Llewellyn of Diedne. Benvolio was holding a bloodied oar. I swam through the air in that silly way apprentices do, when they are using The Dangling Puppet to fly. I climbed down the mast.

“Is it done?” I asked.

Benvolia nodded. “I thought I’d use a plan I’d developed before we came into the Infernal aura.”

I started for a moment “You were serious?”

“No. Well, not really. I have these thoughts sometimes. I don’t intend to actually follow through.”

“I need his arm.”

“Which arm?” asked Malvolio, pulling out a knife.

“Is he right or left handed?”

Benvolia said “His bicep on the right is bigger.” Malvolio put Llewellyn’s hands together, lacing fingertip to fingertip. “His right hand is bigger too.” I nodded. He cut. I told the sailors to pull us to further from the island, to get our minds out of the Infernal Aura. It also meant that we were further away if Abomination decided to wade out after us. At the moment it was hurling everything off the island into the sea.

“Did you kill the druids?”

“No. The thing ate them.” said Benvolia. “They lost focus, their ritual failed, then it swallowed them whole. It didn’t even chew.”

“Oh, that was Apophany. Her spirit desstroyed their familiars.” The Adulteration had stripped the island down to bare rock and sand. Then it curled up and seemed to rest.

“So, one final con, and we are finished, I think.” I said. I told them the lie. They took it well.

It was so easy to do.  People really wanted to believe the Diedne were not defeated. We were all tired of the war, and it gave everyone an excuse not to fight over the spoils. We set up commissions to find the last Druids. House Mercere goaded us into a new age of exploration. We were reassigned.

I was sent here, to Alethia. The House assessed me, and in their view, I had combat fatigue. I thought they were wrong, just that I was exhausted. I didn’t fight reassignment politically, though. Obedience is the highest virtue. I was good with logistics, so I was doing useful work, rebuilding the hospital as a school. I’ve been here now for thirty five subjective years. I know that outside it has only been slightly more than ten. I exchange letters with outsiders, particularly my students.

I’ve trained eight apprentices while I’ve been here, and am working with my third cluster of four. The oldest cluster graduated eighteen of my years ago, but for them, now in the mortal world, it has been six. My arts have stagnated, of course. My students are not necromancers, although most of them are not pure signallers. They aren’t powerful magicians, not by the standards of the great warriors of the war, but they are loyal, and cunning, and I hope that’s enough for whatever may come next.

The House has asked me to come to Council meetings again. I hold nine sigils, after all, and I’m bizarrely lucky at  Certamen, as are my children. With my siblings, we make a formidable bloc, now. The House may have other challenges for me, and I will obey with a light heart, but I must say that I feel happy here. My school is my home. I wish all of the other veterans had found the peace I have here.

 

Mirarion Chapter 19

Things had advanced further than I’d hoped. The island was a small pocket of Hell already. Illusionists are more sensitive to some thing than other people, and the sickliness in the air radiated out almost to the ship. The seawater was, as Apophany had hinted, clear of the taint. Everything else was more yellow than it should be, smelled more like bile than it should, felt oilier than it should. The air felt warm and my face was flushed. I looked at the others.

“So. What are we feeling?” I asked.  I’d not fought in an Infernal regio before, but apparently this was how the professionals  prepared themselves.

“Pride in my coming ascension.” answered Apohany, going first. I’d expected that. She spent so much time contemplating her own mind that changes should be obvious. She looked to her left and said “And you?”

“I want a drink, and lots of sex.” answered Malvolio. He was being flippant, but it was his serious flippancy.

“Gluttony?” asked Apophany

“Yes.” he said. “Very much so.”  He looked to Benvolia and asked “You?”

“God yes. Booze and sex.  Cheese. A decent bath. Sleep. For it to be over. Sloth.”

“Really?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have picked that as sloth.”

“I want to not have to be responsible for this. Spiritual sloth.” She nodded. “So, you Mirarius?”

“Wrath.” I answered.

“You need to say more.” she said. “You know we need to know more.”

“I’m sick of it too, but I want to take it out on people. I want to do such terrible things to them no-one will ever dare cross us again.”

“That’s not anger. That’s pride.” she said.

“No it isn’t.” I answered. I was calm with her. She was one of my people.

“If I crush them, is that enough?”

“Ah. No. You’re right. Pride.”

Malvolio quipped in “You are allowed to have several at once. I’ve got some gluttony going on to be sure, but there’s more than a little lust in here.” He made an obscene gesture toward his groin.

“Right. Thanks. Good. So, now we know.  We watch out for each other. We tell each other if we are acting oddly. Like, well, that, Malvolio. Visual comedy’s not you.” He looked down at his hand, looked shocked, and then sort of shrugged and straightened up. He doesn’t hold himself to high moral standards, just high aesthetic standards.

Apophany nodded “We share each other’s virtues.”

“So, we need to know what’s going on.” I said.

“The island is so tiny we can probably just use Eyes of the Eagle.” said Benvolia.

“Good idea.” Malvolio said. “As I understand it, demons can spot illusions. We should do as much passive work as we can before we do anything that’ll call to them.”

“One spell or four?” I asked.

“Four, but we take them easy. No need for anyone to botch. We all look. We all say what we see, regardless of how obvious it is. We discuss anything that’s out of place, regardless of how small.” The rest of us nodded. I noticed that I’d just lost command of the mission, then reasoned that actually I’d never had it on this run. That felt fine, but I second-guessed that the reason I was fine with it was that it meant that I wasn’t in the co-ordinating role, so that would let me cut loose when thing got hot. “Apophany, do you mind if I give the orders? I need the..mental distance?”

She looked at me and asked “Have I ever given you orders before?”

I answered “No. Not like this. Only in emergencies, or specialised settings.”

The four of us looked at each other. Malvolio spoke for all of us when he said “Well, this is just a ridiculous situation. I want this over swiftly.” He lost me when he continued with “It’s preventing me from enjoying my petty, purely mental, vices.” but I understood what he meant. The problem fighting in Infernal areas is that you really can’t second-guess yourself continually. It takes too much energy, unless you are a Criamon and like that sort of thing.

Benvolia said “So, for the sake of throwing off sloth, let me be the first to cast.” She did. Her sigil was that her spellcasting  made people around her feel happy, which I’m sure the crew enjoyed. We each followed suit. We each started saying what we could see. I noticed the Apophany’s list started with the aura itself, and then prioritised items by their arcane significance. I looked at things from a military perspective: threats first. Malvolio described the humans in terrific detail. Benvolia was looking at the mortal objects, trying to find ways to use the environment to our advantage.

My recollection is, of course, tainted by my perspective. There were three magi that we could see. Malvolio noted the humans had fine clothes, portable magic items, and thumbstick talismans. That meant they were Diedne magi. They were old. That meant they were probably powerful. That they were absent from Bard’s Isle at a time like this made whatever they were doing extremely significant.

They did not have any large demons with them, although there were three small creatures in attendance on them which might have been familiars. Apophany noted that demons, being prideful, tend to give away how powerful they are via their physical features. Very few powerful demons are little.  They had little wings and were humanjiform. They were sprites, perhaps…but given the Aura, best to imagine they were imps.

Benvolia was most interested by the huge wooden structure in the centre of the ritual space. It was a human figure, eighteen feet tall, made of wood made magically fluid and woven into a human shape. Its legs and arms were stuffed with human figures in cassocks. She said they were already dead. That would explain the Infernal regio. There was another human in the head. He was older and was in a cassock, but he wasn’t a monk. Benvolio caught her breath, and then drew our attention to him. “People, cross check me on this: who is in the head of the wicker man?” We all looked. She was right.

Apophany said “They must be desperate.”

“It could be a coup.” answered Malvolio.

Apophany shook her head in the diagonal which on her meant “Maybe yes, probably no.”

Benvolia said “So, the plan where we rescue the sacrifices is wrecked.”

I answered that one. “Not really. We don’t want him sacrificed to whatever they are trying to call up.”

True, she said” but this makes it more difficult. If he cuts his own throat in the ritual space, is he still a sacrifice?”

“Yes.” said Apophany, “Yes, he is.”

“We could drown him in the sea.” I mentioned.

Benvolia answered me “I want to say that’s you going for pride and anger, but it might work.”

“Then you do it.” I suggested in a way that was more an order, “You’re sloth: you do the active killing bit.”

“Before we go,” said Malvolio “we need a plan.”

Apophany asked “Who likes my original plan? I speak my lie. My physical form becomes a monster. You use the confusion to grab the Primus.”

I answered “I don’t like it on the basis that it’s precisely what your pride would want.”

“I had the plan before the Aura. I’m just staying the course.” I looked at that from several angles and said to the others “I find I’m in favour of that. Is that just me wanting mayhem?”

Malvolio said “I’m fine with it, and it doesn’t;t lead to either sex or wine.”

“I find that perversely reassuring” said Benvolia. “So, two teams?”

“Yes.” I said. “We kick off the distraction. You do what you need to do. We meet back at the boat. The boat thing falls through…we get back to Blackthorn however we can.”

“Is that it?” Benvolia asked?

“Yes.”

“Then it’s time for goodbyes?”

I’d been ignoring this part deliberately. I closed my eyes for second. “Apophany…it was an honour to serve with you.”

“Thank you Mirarius. We were friends. You meant a lot to me.”

Benvolia looked deeply stricken. Malvolio looked like he wanted to make a sexual quip and was restraining himself through force of will. They also said completely inadequate things. Apophany hugged each of them. She didn’t;t hug me: she knew me too well. They hurried away. We waited fifteen minutes, for them to get into place. During our wait, the druids started chanting.

Apophany leaned in close to me. We were hiding behind a bush, covered with the best illusions we could manage. She whispered. “I’m ready now.”

I answered “Do I need to be further away?”

She laughed “Probably. You do need to hear the lie, though.”

“Alright. Goodbye Apophany. Travel well.” What an inadequate thing to say.

“Goodbye Mirarius.” she said, and smiled. “Quickly, before my pride gets the better of me, let me tell you my lie.”

“Whenever you are ready.” I whispered back.

“You will take the hand of one of the Diedne, the Primus by preference. After the Battle of Bard’s Isle, the Foolish Fires will be asked to survey the site. You will find an inconspicuous place. You will use the hand as a stylus to write the following into a wall. ‘We shall last as long as the wind blows hot on the backs of your necks, as long as the storms pound your tower walls, as long as the waves smash the sides of your ships, as long as the merciless sun looks down upon your abominations, sees your sins, and calls out for vengeance. We will return to haunt you.’. and then her body collapsed, and a pale coloured shadow of Apophany stood over her writhing, darkening, swelling corpse.

Her ghost continued “It will prevent the war…” she said, and then noticed her body had fallen away. “Oh, Mirarius!” she said, in the distant, breathy way of ghosts. “Run!”

Mirarion Chapter 18

We had few allies for the final battles in Stonehenge. The Tytalus and Flambeau were shaping up for war over the spoils in France and Germany, so few of them crossed the sea. House Ex Miscellanea was actively mopping up sympathetic hedge magi, but their Primus had fallen, or been assassinated, and so their strongest fighters were meeting to choose a new leader. The decisive victories shook loose a few more neutrals. A group of Bjornaers and some Merinitans volunteered to fight, perhaps to ensure that we did not turn on them when the druids were finished. House Jerbiton sloughed back into sleep now that the cities were safe. The twins told me that the magi who had contributed vis to the war effort still met to discuss progress, and push little wooden pieces over maps. The final blows would be taken and dealt by us.

We gathered at Blackthorn in Norgales. Blackthorn had been our outpost in these Tribunals for decades. Some of our leaders had questioned the expense. A camp of size and cost could have given us control of the Russian steppes. Overstaffed, over-engineered, oversupplied, it was a little colony on the far side of the world. Blackthorn was a testament to the power of the sunk cost fallacy that finally came good.

When war was declared, Blackthorn was too far away to be supported. The Druids besieged it for years, and we held only with the aid of the Ex Miscellaneans. Eventually the force surrounding Blackthorn switched to containment. The M inside could not sortie, but the Diedne outside could not be spared for the continental war. At the fall of Branigurix the besiegers retreated to Bards Isle. They were the final intact Diedne force of any size.

Years of magical siegecraft had taken a toll on the defenders. Some of the magi who held it went mad. Others retained their sanity but were so scarred by the experience that they were unable to serve on the combat line. The House reopened The Hall of Forgetting for them all, here in what is now Alethia. The hope was that the rapid passage of relative time here might allow them to recover and rejoin the war effort. Most did not rejoin the line.

The Battle of Bard’s Island has been well described by others. I did not see most of it. My type of illusions matter less in siegecraft than in wars of manoeuvre. I was kept further back, at Blackthorn, running logistics. I was the youngest concilliarus, but the shattered staff of Blackthorn was happy to obey me. They’d heard so many stories from other veterans, who seemed to make a sport of untruths. I was a master of deception, and a poisoner. My leg had been eaten and grown back on its own. My lover was a Criamon who got drunk and killed people. They drew a strange confidence from the idea that although I was a monster, I was their monster.

Late one night, Apophany arrived in the Covenant. The Blackthorns ushered her through, because they knew she had come from the front. She took precisely an hour to have a bath, a meal, and change clothes. Then she rapped on my sanctum door. “Get your kit.” she said. “You’ve been reassigned.” She handed me a letter from the War Council, and I was to follow her instructions. This was unusual. The War Council, in this theatre, existed primarily to allow us to tell our allies what we wanted them to do. I’d been receiving orders directly from father for a month now. As was usual in war, I had my gear packed, so I just sent a servant to call up Andrmachus and tell him he was in charge.

‘Where are we going?”

“You’ll know slightly before we get there.”

“Ah.”

“No. I can answer by not answering. We are getting the band back together.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“The twins who aren’t twins.”

“Oh. Anything I need to do?”

“Get horses?”

“Horses hate me.”

“No, horses just don’t like you. You should work on that. You only need to make friends with one.”

“Easier to ride a mind-controlled cow, and put an illusion over the top.”

“That’s beautifully clever and wonderfully stupid, all mixed together.”

“Thanks.” I said. We arrived at the stables and a servant fixed us a donkey and a horse. “We are going to the shore?”

“Yes.”

“So the others are already here?”

“Yes, you are closest to the problem, so I collected them on the way.”

We arrived at a small cove on the Welsh coast. A tiny little fishing boat was there, crewed by two men. Malvolio and Benvolia were waiting on the shore, looking disgustedly at the course sand and amking vaguely offensive jokes about my groin and the smell of the rotting seaweed. When we were well underway, Apophany cast a spell to prevent scrying on the wind, and explained herself.

“The Spirit of the Lord moves in the waters.”

“Sweetie”, said Benvolia “if you’ve dragged us out here to introduce us to Jesus I’m going to hit you in the head with an oar.”

Apophany laughed “No. I mean the chances of a demon scrying on us by chance are markedly less at sea. We are going to disrupt an infernal sacrifice. It is best to plan while at sea.”

“Why us?” asked Malvolio, “I’m neither a combat magus, nor the sort of saint that can face them with confidence.” He smiled. We knew he was not the sort to regret that he’d have to answer for his actions if the Christians are right.

“I have had a vision.” Apophany said.

Benvolia sighed. “We thought you were different from the other Criamons.”

“I am. Listen. I’m going to fall into Final Twilight tonight, after I tell a powerful and necessary lie. Specific enough for you?”

“What’s going to cause the Twilight?” I asked.

“I am. The process of telling the lie completes my path. I will ascend to realm prepared for us by my master.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why do you need us here?” asked Benvolia, who was visibly saddened.

“Do you know what an Adulteration is?”

“It’s…the bits of you that can’t go to your heaven?” she answered, which was better than the definition I’d have come up with.

“Close enough for what we are doing. How much of me gets into our Heaven?”

Benvolia answered “Well, none of you, I thought. Wasn’t that the point of your path? You lose your place in the Twilight?”

“Close. A small part of me, perhaps, remains incorrupt. The rest stays here, in the mortal world, as a spirit. I need you to track that spirit. The other Criamon magi need to know where it goes, so they can destroy it. Given the things I’ve done, it’ll be one of the most dangerous ever.”

“So, why are we going to disrupt an infernal ritual?”

“I need somewhere to Ascend that can’t be destroyed by my Adulteration. The Infernal ritual site is already ruined.”

“What’s the lie?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you. If I did I’d begin Ascending.”

“So, that’s the plan?” Malvolio said. “We get you to the island, we defeat the Infernalists, and you tell us the lie on the battlefield. You become a monster and we contain you until the Criamon arrive?”

“No. We go to the site and I tell the lie. My Adulteration gets ripped apart by demons. You use the distraction to rescue the sacrifices. The Diedne ritual fails. Bard’s Island doesn’t get infernal re-enforcements.”

“Intricate, but workable.” said Benvolia.”We need better information about what’s on site.”

“We will make our plans when we get there. I have a spell which gives us a fair following wind and a friendly current, so our journey will be quick.”

“Hot food and sleep then.” I said. We had porridge. There was no real reason for it: we’d had good supplies since the war turned. It was just kind of the thing we ate when we were in this sort of situation. Maybe we didn’t want to jinx ourselves by changing our little ritual of preparation. Apophany could sleep on her own. I knocked myself out with The Call to Slumber. I hated to use it the first few times after The Tempest, but being able to fall asleep instantly is just too useful for a soldier to ignore.

One of our attendants roused me. We were floating, invisible, near a small island. All the vegetation on it was dead. Fires burned toward its middle. A gigantic humanoid shadow stretched out across the waves.

Mirarion Chapter 17

While we were fighting the Diedne, House Tytalus had seized its moment. Branugurix fell the day after the Battle at Durenmar. The Tytalus opened the Mercere Portal, and my family were invited through. Our mixture of necromancers and tricksters used the vis that had been won in the battle to make the covenant look as if it had not yet been attacked. We repaired the walls. We replanted the fields. We unpoisoned the river. We mind-wiped the mortals. We called up the ghosts of the covenfolk who had died in the battle, We stole their appearances and mannerisms for our assassins. We peeled their minds like fruit, to stage every detail, every point of routine, perfectly.

The Diedne remnants, limped home through the psilos-infested lands. They collapsed into their safe haven. Their casting tokens no longer worked. The friendly faces around them were masks. The sacred grove had been felled. and its wood hewn into a throne. Upon it sat Decimate of Tytalus, and above her towered one of the Cthonic horrors which had assisted in the siege, and eaten the gods of the Diedne. Before her was a great table, where she rendered the bodies of the druids for vis. She caught one of the leadership group, and deliberately spent his Corpus vis on an enormous block of human meat. It sat in the grove, defiling it, as it fed the rats and crows, and the dark giant that held her throne in five of its many, many hands. There are lurid stories of the Cthonic horrors that waged war here, but I saw none of them except this.

Decimate met me at the victory feast, and asked me to see her afterward. She was sitting on her throne.

“Have you puzzled it out?” she asked. She was almost incandescent with happiness. Her monstrous chair bearer rocked her slightly, as if she was a baby in a crib.

“No. Well, parts of it. I’d prefer not to claim to understand everything and then have you laugh at my presumption.”

“What parts do you need explained?”

“Did the War Council sanction the attack on Branugurix?”

“No. My House no longer answers to the War Council. We are, however, on cordial terms with them.”

“Are you the Prima of Tytalus now?”

“Perhaps. I’m not certain I want it for more than a few minutes.”

“I take it from your cryptic tone that you want me to ask, and so I will. What have you done that’s so clever?”

“That’s a very direct and slightly stupid question.” she frowned. Her thing swayed forward, so that she seemed to loom. It was a cheap trick, but slightly disconcerting nevertheless. My professional admiration centred my emotions.

“Pretend I’m Mycetias and you are Tytalus.” I offered.

She smiled. “Very well. This victory gives my House much of France and Germany. Mycetias and Flambeau have been weakened by the War far more than we. Our earlier disadvantage of numbers, due to the culling in the Corruption, is redressed.”

“And that was always the plan? Wait for us to exhaust ourselves and destroy the losing side?”

“Yes.”

“So, you’d have been just as happy taking Val Negra?”

“It would have been harder, because of its mystical geography, but yes. We may yet have to, if the Flambeau force us.”

“Why would my House permit that?”

“You don’t have the strength to prevent it. You’ll acquiesce. You still need our assistance against the last of the druids, after all.”

“We could get that aid from the Flambeau.”

“And perhaps you will.” she shrugged. “I’m not saying a war with the Flambeau is inevitable. Their leadership is disgraced and their Mercurian magi are lost. It may be that an accommodation can be reached.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I like you.”

“Why, thank you, but that doesn’t explain anything.”

“You were a friend to my daughter.”

“That matters?”

She laughed. “You forget that in this conversation, I’m Tytalus. I do not care which side was right or wrong, in a moral sense. I care that my design is complete. My war is mine. It is, as always, about me.”

“So, you need someone to tell the other Houses that they’ve been outplayed?”

“Yes. You.”

“Why me?”

“It will remove the opprobrium that the Flambeau feel toward you over the death of Incendia. It will shift their hatred to me. I am too formidable an opponent for many of them to face, and the few that would prove difficult are my enemies anyway, in this territorial dispute. It cost me nothing.”

“And gives you the joy of explaining to them that they were your puppets.”

“That wasn’t even a question.”

“No. It was not. Is there any other message you need me to take?”

“Oh, minor administrative matters. I’ll give you a packet of documents for the War Council. I know you don’t mind playing the redcap.”

“I give you joy of your victory, Decimata”.

“Joy of the victory, Mirarius.”

***

The next day, when I travelled to Durenmar to give the packet to the War Council, I asked for an audience with Callidus of Verditus.

“Young man!” he said “Joy of our victories!”

“And joy to you, great craftsman. May I ask an impertinent question?”

“No.” he said, looking shocked.

“Please? It does not reflect negatively on your honour. The reverse in fact. It concerns redressing a slight upon your name.”

Now he looked angry. “Well then clearly you must ask! Pray sit! Take wine!”

“Great Callidus, may I ask: why did the War Council value you less than Incendia?”

“Oh, politics, you know…”

“Truly? She was a powerful maga, of course, but surely she was not of greater value than you?”

“Well.” he said, and stopped. I could see the strain in him. The flaw of pride that burns in all who learn his style of magic was working in his soul. I could see it cutting him for his silence. I pressed on.

“Which Councillors think you worth less than a minor Flambeau maga?”

“I cannot speak of it!”

“Who told her she was next on the triage list?”

He broke. “I did. It was all my idea.” I later learned that the first part of this was true, and the second vanity. No matter.

“Thank you. Did she actually die, or was she swapped out?”

“No, she died. The Flambeau had to have an absolutely convincing reason to leave.”

“That wasn’t the plan though, was it?”

“It was my version of the plan.”

“Had I died, House Mycetias would have marched off, supposedly to Bohemia.”

“Yes, but I always hoped you’d win. You were right, you see? They were to blame for the lost battle.”

“I see. Did the War Council agree to this?”

“Yes. well, not the part with my talisman, that was all my own design. You did offer to commit suicide.”

“Had she?”

“Offered to commit suicide? Not in so many words/ She was a warrior.”

“How was she chosen? Why her?”

“She’d insulted the wrong people.”

“As simple as that?”

“As simple as that. House Flambeau was given their choice.”

“Who chose me?”

“You chose you. You offered to commit suicide.”

“Was I chosen before or after Decimata healed me?”

“I don’t know. After, I think.”

“Did Decimata know?”

“No.”

“So you gave her this idea? To heal me?”

“I might have done. I can’t speak of it.” Again, a lie, I later discovered.

“Thank you great crafter, for making me your tool in this. An excellent device, which served its purpose well. Joy of your victory!” Really, Verditus magi are so easy to get along with provided you don’t have any of the sort of arrogance so common among magi. They know you are buttering them up, and they love you for it.

“Joy of my victory indeed. Thank you, Mirarius.”

***

My family was having a small dinner, and it was relatively private, so I asked my father “Who is holding the strings, father? I don’t mind being a puppet as necessary, but my professional interest is piqued. I never saw the trick until it had been played.”

“Which trick, my son?” he asked.

“Who convinced Decimata to heal me, so that I’d fight a surplus Flambeau maga?”

“I’m certain I don’t understand what you mean.” he answered.

“Mirarius.” said my sister, “You’re looking for someone who isn’t there.”

“How do you mean?”

“There isn’t a great trickster. You want there to be a single person pulling the strings because you find intricacy sublime. You are seeing connections that aren’t there, because a single vast deception would be beautiful.”

I laughed “That’s true.”

My father frowned “Hundreds of magi are dead. Anyone who had a hand in this, regardless of their intent, will scarce survive the end of the war.”

I nodded to him, to acknowledge his point, but queried my sister. “How do you know there’s no grand trickster?’

“I was the one who convinced Decimata to heal you. It didn’t take a lot of effort. She had a soft spot for you, and, as we now know, it suited her other plans.”

“So, you had her heal me. Then Callidus had the idea of having either Incendia or I die, and the losing House heading off…”

My father interrupted. “Callidus? No. I presume he took responsibility himself?”

“Who?”

“The Primus.”

“Our Primus?”

“Yes. Do you accept this?”

“Obedience is the highest virtue. So, after that it all follows quite simply.”

“Yes.” my sister answered “Decimata, Callidus and the two Primi may all claim that they planned this from the beginning, but I know they didn’t. There was no plan. There’s no trick. There’s no reveal. There really is just one thing happening after another.”

I slouched a little and she laughed at me “By the wolf, you’re disappointed!”

I smiled “A little. I’d have liked to shake the hand that pulled the strings.”

She offered hers “I am the closest you’ll find, my brother.”

“Joy of your victory, Scipa.”

“Joy of the victory, Mirarius.”

The next day, I took ship for Stonehenge. Small Diedne covenants were being destroyed throughout Europe. There was a single place of power left to them, on Anglesey.