Tales from the Trenches (Dresden Files)

[SCRawl]

Very nice even though there are loop holes about the no killing with magic, as Warden's in the books killed evil wizards in combat with magic so he could kill Mendez with magic but only if it occurred during battle.

And Mendez is probably smart enough to not get into combat like that with Frost -- he'd certainly lose. One wonders exactly how far that law goes. I mean, if Frost had done that back-breaking contractions trick with Mendez, and then opened up his jugular vein with a pen knife, that's pretty much flouting the law. I suppose, as a Warden, Frost might have a little more latitude than most wizards, but that still sounds like dirty pool to me.

As to the story, things are moving along more quickly than I thought they would. It needs a polish or two -- I recognize that this is a first draft -- but it could really be something.

[dragon]

Very nice even though there are loop holes about the no killing with magic, as Warden's in the books killed evil wizards in combat with magic so he could kill Mendez with magic but only if it occurred during battle.

And Mendez is probably smart enough to not get into combat like that with Frost -- he'd certainly lose. One wonders exactly how far that law goes. I mean, if Frost had done that back-breaking contractions trick with Mendez, and then opened up his jugular vein with a pen knife, that's pretty much flouting the law. I suppose, as a Warden, Frost might have a little more latitude than most wizards, but that still sounds like dirty pool to me.

As to the story, things are moving along more quickly than I thought they would. It needs a polish or two -- I recognize that this is a first draft -- but it could really be something.

Either that or the conflict with Mendez is just the opening conflict and the true main bad guy is yet to emerge.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I mean, if Frost had done that back-breaking contractions trick with Mendez, and then opened up his jugular vein with a pen knife, that's pretty much flouting the law. I suppose, as a Warden, Frost might have a little more latitude than most wizards, but that still sounds like dirty pool to me.

The problem with the first law is not that you are killing. Killing is just fine (provided it is justified). It is that you are perverting magic, which comes from life, to take it. It is a metaphysical abomination. Crippling with magic and then killing with a blade does not have the same... problem. Granted it is a dirty trick, and most Wardens would shy away from that. However the whole reason wardens carry a sword is so that they can defeat their enemies in magical combat and then stab their way through the loophole in the first law. That and the silver Warden's blade dispels magic.

Either that or the conflict with Mendez is just the opening conflict and the true main bad guy is yet to emerge.

Seeing as I am only 10-15% done.... Spoiler

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

[Garlak]

Good story.

One of few mixups I found:

The fire reflected wide as I raised my shield in an arc and deflected it. He went for a gun. He moved quickly for a gun. I was faster.

"He went for a gun. He moved quickly for a gun." is repetetive/redundant...

And I guess when Duncan is mumbling "S Steven" could use a hyphen but that just nitpicking...


When is, or will, Steven call in backup, or at least deliver an After Action Report?


Also, about the dragon-blood... why was it necessary? So he could speak to the birds and have them track him down?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Also, about the dragon-blood... why was it necessary? So he could speak to the birds and have them track him down?

Pretty much. The other effects vary from version to version of the Norse legend that would later become Nibelungenleid, or Ringen der Nibelung, they included sharpened senses, increased vitality, and the enhancement of certain basal emotions like rage and lust.

Normally he could call up a fairy, but they can be a bit sketchy for long term things like tracking individuals for six hours, and bargaining with them can be like bargaining with D&D wish spells. It can be dicey, and your debts can get mortgaged up the chain to something more malevolent.

With the dragons blood he can speak to and bargain with small animals (not sure if this applies just to birds or other stuff), which are much easier to deal with. They are not necessarily bound to "keep their word" like the fey are, but they wont buy and sell your debts like a credit default swap either.

"He went for a gun. He moved quickly for a gun." is repetetive/redundant...

I was getting tired. I will clean that up.

When is, or will, Steven call in backup, or at least deliver an After Action Report?

Backup he will try to call in. Until it is more than one warlock though, he probably wont get much. There are less than a hundred wardens in this time period who have to enforce The Laws and deal with a war over the entire world. Not much to spare. There are a few Wardens who have more or less stable posts, they handle a given Jurisdiction that can be pretty damn large (Dresden has command over three for the entire eastern half of N. America. Frost is under Ramirez). Others are in the personal guards of members of the senior council. From what I can tell the rest are floaters or are stationed at the barracks in Edinburgh.

He will of course deliver an after action report to the council in the next installment.

[dragon]

Any plans to having your character make a trip to a certain other city and bump heads with a certain Wizard.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It would be a very fleeting encounter if it happens. Probably during a council meeting. Ramierez on the other hand is another matter.

[LadyTevar]

I don't think the two should meet, honestly. This way it keeps your character free to move in different directions.

[Alyrium Denryle]

When we got back to the alley near my house I looked down at Hops

“Pleasure doing business with you.” I told him

“Indeed. Maybe one of these days I can be of more assistance to you.” he said, looking up at me, tilting his head quizzically.

“So I can owe you a favor? We shall see.” There was not really any question about it. I would have to call him eventually and incur a debt. Yet another. The Sidhe were bound by their natures to find a way to get the most bang for their buck with a debt owed, and often that meant that they would twist the wording beyond the original intent. This is why I attached conditions to my agreement with the Summer Court.

If the Sidhe did not collect on the debt they could use it wield power over me forever, so I put on a time limit. They could also use a debt to make one violate their principles, or could put someone in a situation where they had to neglect another duty.

That is why I prohibited against those things. It helped in damage control. Simply put, with the Sidhe, there was no spirit of the law, only its letter. Thus it was prudent to make sure the letter was iron clad. The Summer Queen, by accepting a debt so laden with conditional statements had accepted the gesture for what it was. A good faith gesture. A wereguild for harming one of her sentries.

That did not mean it would not come back to bite me on the ass.

Duncan was very weak. He was in bad shape to begin with, to say nothing of the walk back through Nevernever. Thankfully that had gone uneventfully, more than likely because we were being escorted by a native. With an investment of will, almost all I had left, I veiled both of us. I essentially made it so light bent around us, and air around us was sound proofed so that we could travel unseen and unheard. I was almost tapped out by this point and could not afford to be seen. The sum total of my existence, to say nothing of the last few days had taught me to be a little bit cagey, and Mendez had escaped, which meant he could still do us harm until we got behind the protection of my wards.

I looked around the corner and saw an old Lincoln Towncar parked in front of my house. There was no one in it. That ruled out the front door. If there was a car bomb inside I did not have the energy remaining to shield us from the blast. So, half-carrying the exhausted Duncan we crossed the street to the alley directly behind my house. I disabled my wards and helped Duncan over the wall, then I braced myself against the inevitable agony from my damaged ribs and hauled myself over. If I kept this up the bones would not heal properly.

The sun was starting to come up. Thankfully today was Tuesday and I did not teach on Tuesday or Thursday. Don't ask me how I managed it, but I managed to cram my classes, all three of them the three-hour-per-sitting variety into Monday Wednesday and Friday (much to the chagrin of my students). This meant that I could sleep and take care of my apprentice.

I got him into my bed and pulled the covers over him. Then I forced out the last bit of my will.

“Somnes” I said gently touching his forehead. He fell asleep immediately.

Now, when I say that I was tapped out and used the last bit of my willpower to put him to sleep, I mean it. I tried to move in order to get to the couch, my muscles refused to obey the command. Either that or my brain just did not have the strength left to send the message. My eyes refused to stay open and within seconds I had passed the fuck out.

I don't remember dreaming. I am fairly sure I didn't. When I woke up it was morning again, judging from the angle of the sun entering my window. I reached over and Duncan was not there. My heart jumped into my throat again until I smelled the bacon. I lurched up, my ribs screaming in protest, as a matter of fact my entire body felt like one big muscle cramp. I was warm though. It took a moment for my weary brain to realize it but I had fallen asleep on top of the covers and woke up under them. I also felt lighter. My chain mail and arming jacket were off, so was my cloak. Wow. I must have been completely gone. I don't know if you have ever worn armor, but take it from me it was very difficult to get someone out of mail and an arming coat without one's active cooperation. That Duncan had managed to do it without waking me up was definitely evidence that I needed the sleep.

I heaved myself out of bed, careful to keep my back perfectly straight to avoid causing my ribs to yell at me to stop, and walked stiffly with my usual slight limp into the kitchen. Duncan had set out two plates of bacon and eggs in a basket on opposite sides of my little table. I sat down at one table, my shoulders hunched.

“How long have you been awake?” I asked. He filled two cups with hot mint green tea and set one next to me before responding.

“It is Wednesday. The dawn broke the spell.”

“Ah. You doing okay?” I had to ask. He had been taken from his home, beaten, drugged, forced to withstand mental assaults and almost raped. Then he had seen me...asked me to...

“I am holding together. A little. The sleep helped. So did getting you out of your mail and making breakfast. I don't want to leave your wards though. I don't feel safe at home anymore. ” It made sense. They had taken his power, his control and routine. Little things like that helped him claim himself back. It would take him a while to recover though. Until he could build wards that could withstand bunker busters he would feel better staying with me.

“You wont have to. I will head to your place and pack up some stuff when I am done teaching, your books, clothes. As far as I am concerned you can live here as long as you like.”

“Thanks Steven. I called my profs and told them I had a death in the family and did not know when I would be back. They always say they want to see an obituary or something but they never do, I can't exactly tell them the truth.” I chuckled a little.

“It would certainly be more interesting than saying the dog ate your homework. It will buy you a few days. I can teach you to veil yourself so that no one can see your comings and goings too. It will pay off. Mendez was not stupid enough to stick around when he knew I was going to come calling.” It was then that he surprised me by asking his own question.

“What about you?” that was the first time in what seemed like ages anyone had ever asked me that question. I broke. The whole day came flooding back to me. The frustration, the fear, the rage. The things I had done. Oh God.

I had done things I never thought I could do, I am not talking about the raw power. I knew I had that. I had caused suffering with malice, I had enjoyed it. Magic comes from life yes, but it gets its form and shape by the content of the heart and soul. One could not cast a spell unless they believed in it. Not only that it could happen, but that the effect should happen.

I had killed before, but it was always necessary. It was my duty, I took no pleasure in it. I sometimes laughed to prevent myself from crying when a warlock had to be executed. I had enjoyed breaking those men's spines with power. I had enjoyed the terror I inflicted and the pain I caused.

“I-I took pleasure in pain. I may not have violated the Laws, but I tasted what it was to be a monster.”He held up his hand, and looked directly into my eyes. When he spoke, it was in Latin. It was a bit halting, as he considered what word ending to place where, and how to conjugate which verb, but the grammar was perfect.

“Vos es meus magister. Magis parentis ut mihi quam meus cruor. Meus os pulsatus vestri animus , vestri bonus animus. Vos es non ingens. Vestri tantum vitium eram accerso poena in qui vulnero unus vos diligo. Ut est haud vitium.“

“When they took you, all I could think about was getting you back and making them pay for hurting you.”

“Like a bear protecting their cubs.” His hand was still on mine and it felt warm.

“Something like that.” I told him. Then it hit me. He was deflecting my own inquiry. His concern was genuine, but he deflected the question so that he would not have to confront what Mendez had done. I remembered our Soulgaze. He removed chaos and fear and replaced it with order. That is who he is. It meant that he would deal with someone else's problems before he would ever consider addressing his own.

“Are you really okay?” I asked him, squeezing his hand.

“I dont want to talk about it.” he said,his voice cracking.

“But you need to. Abusers like him thrive on the control they take from their victims. If he scares or ashames you into silence, he continues to have power over you.”

He nodded and took a sip of tea. Then he spoke.

“When I came out of the tranquilizer, Mendez' lieutenant was there. The first thing he did was try to beat his way through my mental defenses. I was in a circle, the best I could do was try to keep him out, I could not draw on any power to fight back.”

“He was in the circle as well? He must have drawn in his will before he put it up, otherwise he would have been as powerless as you were.” He nodded and continued.

“When I managed to keep him out, he beat me physically. He had razor blade and would make incisions” he broke off, shaking. He took another sip of tea to calm himself. He paused, gathering his thoughts and then went on.

“The room was well lit, but there were no windows. I did not know what time it was, or how long he kept at it. Then Mendez would come in and call him off. They would switch out. They would drop and then re-make the circle too quickly for me to do anything while in that much pain. I was incapacitated, unable to resist as Mendez....” he broke off again. “Injected a small dose of heroin into my arm. I dulled the pain, made me feel euphoric. He would clean my wounds and abrasions, all the while telling me how useful I would be if I joined him, and how he would make the pain stop. All the while trying to get past my defense. I managed to keep it together enough to keep him out. When he left, his lieutenant would start over.” I nodded, then reached over to squeeze his hand. A tear left his still blackened eye.

“They did it over, and over. It was almost as if they could tell exactly when the heroin wore off and I felt the old wounds even as they inflicted new ones. Steven. I started to have doubts. I started to look forward to each time Mendez entered the room to give me respite. I knew he was evil. I knew all he wanted to do was break me so that he could use me. But by the time he went away to meet with you, my defenses were starting to crack. I started to believe him.”

“It is not your fault.” I told him, releasing his hand.

“Oh please, Steven. I knew that he was just trying to break me, and I still started to fall for it.”

“You knew it here” I said, pointing to the front of my head. “But not here” I continued, rubbing my fingers all over the rest of my skull.

“No one has defenses strong enough to withstand a combined psychic and psychological assault for very long. You did very well, considering the fact that he was trying to put you on the express train to Stockholm Syndrome, and knew all of the buttons to push.” The light seemed to strike his head.

“Identification with the abuser?”

“Yep. By being the one to come and relieve your suffering, he made himself a knight in shining armor to your stressed and tortured mind over and over again. You don't think that other captives who find themselves willingly working for, or even loving the scumbag who brainwashed them didn't know in their higher brain functions that the fucker was just trying to manipulate them?”

“I suppose not”

“Of course they know. It is just their rational mind against the rest of their brain. Eventually rationality loses.” he nodded and I smiled at him. “But you are still here, and you are still you. You did good.” he smiled back.

“I guess I did.”

“Damn right. Now we have a job to do.”

“And what is that?”

“Kill the motherfucker. I promised him on my Power that he would die screaming, begging for death's sweet embrace before the end if he harmed you. I deliver on my promises.” he smiled

“Well I would not want you to go back on a promise, especially one sworn on your Power. There is one problem though.”

“Oh?”

“How are we going to find him? You would have been there as soon as you found out I was missing if a tracking spell would work.”

“How do you think I found you?” He paused, thinking.

“I have no idea. For all I know, a little bird told you.”

“That.” I raised my index finger and pointed it at him “Is spot on.” he laughed then when he saw my amused facial expression he paused and spoke.

“You are serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“But you don't speak sparrow, and even if you did, it is not as if you can compel them into service like the Sidhe, or Demons.”

“You speak in the present tense. You should be speaking in the past tense. I didn't speak sparrow. Now I do. Or more to the point, I did. I am not sure if I can anymore.”

“How did you pull that off?”

“Remember last year, the set of lectures on dragons?”

“Yeah but...” I practically saw the light bulb go off in his head. “Fafnir? The Norse story about the guy Sigurd who killed the dragon Fafnir and ate his heart, then could understand birds?” I grinned.

“The same.”

“Where the fuck did you get a dragon heart?”
“I never said I had a dragon's heart. Oh God, do you have any idea how deep the shit would be if I had one of those? No no. I drank a dram of a dragons blood.”

“Oh that is so much better...”

“No one can prove that the dragon it came from died.” I protested. “I did a Sidhe Lord a favor, got a vial of it in exchange. It allowed me to talk to the birds and make a good faith deal with them. They dont bargain like the Sidhe, but if you make a deal with them, apparently they will make good on it.”

“What was the deal?”

“That I keep cats away from their nests and provide them with a regular supply of bird seed. In exchange, they are on retainer.”

“That is not something I would have expected on the whole.”

“I know, which is why it was perfect. How many people do you think have a vial of dragon blood?”

“Knights of the Cross maybe?”

“Not their style.” I responded. “Mendez never saw it coming, and I very much doubt he will ever figure out that the birds are watching him.”

“Hold on a second.” he demanded. “I read the same story you did. Sigurd ate a heart and not only could he speak with birds, but he had enhanced senses. The blood also enhanced primal emotions such as avarice, lust and passion. It is why he turned into a dragon himself, to better guard the treasure he won from the horde.”

“Yes. But as you know I am not especially greedy, and there are other emotions that the blood can give a shot in the arm, love and rage to name a few, and Sigurd was no wizard either.”

“Why does that matter?”

“My binding spell. I have never used it like that. It creates electricity inside the body and makes all the muscles contract. Usually I use it to lock up the muscles, but it is not an easy spell. Sure the power I use is low, but affecting a person like that directly is hard and I have to keep the electricity away from their brains and hearts to avoid killing them. I use it against warlocks because it has no weaknesses in the magic that can be exploited and it keeps them distracted enough with pain to keep them from trying.”

“So it was not supposed to do that? Break their spines?”

“Well, it was. I intended it to. My point is, I have been enraged in battle. I have seen other Wardens draw in their emotions like a suit armor, use it to smite down their foes, and I am fairly high up on the raw power scale. I could have done that spell unaided to one, maybe two people if they were close together. To say nothing of five, and I kept going afterward.”

“So you are saying that the blood enhanced not only the emotions used to fuel the spell, but the power of the spell directly.”

“Probably” I responded. “Unless the effects are permanent, I could not do that again.”
“Are they?” he asked. I shook my head.

“At least not fully. The problem is, no one knows because no one has been stupid enough to drink the blood of a dragon for twelve hundred years. When I first drank the blood, my vision practically had a zoom lens and could hear the cockroaches in the walls talking.” he looked at me with his head tilted sideways.

“We have cockroaches?” he asked.

“It seems so.” I replied.

“Well, might there be a way to find out?” he suggested.

“Well I could always go out and try to talk to the birds. Is that Lincoln Town Car still outside?”

“What town car?”

“There was one parked out front when we got in the other night. If it is still there, it is cause for concern. It may be a car bomb. It would suit him.” Duncan got up to check. He walked to the front window and peered out of the blinds.

“yep.”

“Alright. Lets see what I can do with that.” I got up and went to grab my staff. I was not particularly worried about a sniper or anything. Not only were his men probably not very good shots, but my wards would take more than a few bullets to penetrate, and I did not think that Mendez had access to a flight of B-52s.

Mendez was not a threat while we were home. He was a threat when we were everywhere else. Doubtless he had gotten blood for tracking spells off of Duncan. There were ways around that. However I would not have a car bomb go off the second I left my wards.

I opened the door, and raised my staff, still safe behind the wards that surrounded my house from the threshold in like a towering battlement. Well, not so much a battlement, more like a giant Faraday cage.

The part of it that kept out magical and physical attacks worked by redirecting energy that hit my home around its surface and then out into the air and ground. It could be overloaded, just as an actual Faraday cage could be, given sufficient energy. If someone was powerful enough and knew how to take it down, they could do that as well if I was not there to reinforce them. Mendez had access to neither of these routes of attack, and Duncan learned how to bypass my wards and let himself in, and gave me back the ward charm,months ago, which meant that Mendez could not have taken it.

I drew in my magic, and created a loose field of energy around the car. If there was a bomb, it would detonate as the spell grew in strength. I was not planning on stopping the explosion exactly. I could not match wills with a car bomb and come out the victor.

My strength lies not in creating energy but moving and redirecting it. It was hard to create energy like fire or pure kinetic force. Technically one couldn't. It had to come from somewhere, with wizards it was the energy of their thoughts and emotions. I was capable at that, but moving forces around was more economical and I was well practiced at it.

Sure enough, the bomb exploded. How predictable my nemesis was. Instead of containing the explosion in a shield, I forced it through a magical spiral. The heat and pressure wound their way around a maze through the path or least resistance in the magical matrix I had created and by the time it had reached the numerous pores in the outer surface the force the bomb had generated was muted and a titanic boom was reduced to a dull barely noticeable thud.

The effort left me a bit drained. My knees buckled, but Duncan was there to steady me.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, just give me a second.” I pulled myself back together and went outside.

“His effort was clumsy. Must have underestimated how observant I am.” I declared absently. I could hear the tweeting and singing, but no talking. Then again, I figured I may as well invest some effort.

I never really learned how to Listen. The ability to close off one's perceptions to only what the wanted to hear. However, I actively concentrated on the birds and soon was able to make out words, then clauses. Finally I was able to understand sentences and conversations.

“I can do it if I concentrate on it.” I told myself. Duncan was still inside. I did not blame him. I figured I could probably manage to enhance my senses with similar effort. I would have opportunity for that later, and I did not even want to think of the other things I might be able to do.

What I did know was that I had not finished my breakfast.

[Alyrium Denryle]

“You should veil and go out the back” Duncan told me as I was about to leave out the front door to head to my class. “It would be safer.” he added.

“Safer, but not smarter.”

“How does that work? You expose yourself to more risk.”

“Mendez is a thug who uses magic.”

“Wait, and you are not?” he responded. I looked at him in mock insult.

“Not at all!” I protested “I am a magical thug, there is a difference. I am a blunt instrument. A creature that the White Council uses to beat warlocks, vampires, demons and necromancers into line. A specialist in combat magic. I am still a wizard. I think like a wizard. He is the equivalent of a thug who uses a sword instead of a switchblade to mug people. He is a threat, but he just threw down with a professional swordsman.”

“But how does that make you parading around in public smarter? You come to less risk if you conceal yourself.”

“That is also what he wants. Take a second to consider the possibilities.” He thought for a second. That second drew on into a few more, then I saw that moment that told me he got it.

“Image. You cannot be seen by the magical community of fearing him, or they may start marching to his tune, and it may embolden him. He may push up his timetable.”

“Exactly. There is something else too.” He looked at me, as if trying to read the augary bones and divine what gears were turning in my head. “Like any thug hiding his crimes, he usually tries to hide from the wardens until they get wise.”

“That means...”

“Trap. He set us up from the beginning”

“For him to do that...”

“He would have had to target a practitioner, and lure us there so we could be identified.” I confirmed, completing his sentence. “Also, because it is not his style, he is not clever enough to come up with that on his own.” I beat my fingers in the door frame in a drum roll.

“He is working for someone.”

“We have a winner!” I triumphantly declared. “Which means I need to go see a few people after I get your stuff. I will be home late.”

“Alright, stay safe.”

“Oh now why would I want to go and do a thing like that? If I get arrested I will call you.” he laughed, and I left. I was carrying the usual bag full of gear, and as I pulled Der Hexenhammer out of the garage I concentrated, pulling all of my senses into overdrive. I did not want to get caught flat footed.

The caution was unnecessary. I managed to get to my class just on time. I taught three classes, as I said before. One was a class on mythical creatures, which was Monday. My Friday class was a class I taught on the Mythic History of Europe. It was fun. My Wednesday class was a Conversational Latin.

I know, I know. No one speaks Latin anymore. It actually gets enough students to be taught every other time it is offered though. The prerequisites were twelve hours of Latin coursework, or a written exam in the language prior to instructor permission. Most of the students were upper level linguistics, religious studies, or literature students. I never spoke a word of english in that class, though I did speak slowly. The drop rate was high. The problem was not with my teaching. It was with the teaching of the other Latin professors, and with the teaching of languages in this country in general. When I learned Latin, it was one giant practical exam. I was given a crash course in grammar which put the structure in terms of what I was trying to say and not the formal cases, then I had to go to White Council meetings holding a lexicon. I learned very fast.

Today we had a debate over whether or not Caesar was justified ethically and under roman law to cross the Rubicon. It went largely as I expected. Two of my eight students did very well. They even used the proper rhetorical gestures I taught them during their arguments for the extra credit. Not that the good students ever needed it, it was a paradox of teaching. Only the good students ever wanted the extra credit or came to office hours while the ones that needed both never did. Three of the others managed to get by with their understanding of the language and having done the reading. The other three tried to stay quiet. I would not let them, and they fumbled their way through some sentences that were barely understandable and made plain that they did not do their homework.

I went to my office and held court, hoping to hear some grade groveling from mewling supplicants. It had been a bad couple of days and I needed the amusement. I probably have issues. I took the opportunity to catch up on some back grading. The clock finally ticked noon, and alas no petitioners had clamored to my doorstep to beseech redress of their grievances.

I need to appraise the Council of the situation. I got up and shut the door, then dialed the number on my rotary phone that reached Warden Ramierez, who was the Regional Commander I reported to.

“Ramirez” he answered.

“Hey there sexy, its Frost.” he laughed nervously at my greeting. I enjoyed hitting on him, there was nothing behind it but he bragged so often about his prowess with women that I could not help teasing him.

“It is always a pleasure to know that men as well as women want a piece of me Frost. Whats up?”

“I need to let you know that Edwardo Mendez is in town. He took my apprentice...” he cut me off.

“I was wondering when you would report in Frost. A string of horrific murders is all over the news.”

“What?”

“Don't you watch the news? An apartment in Tempe for one.”

“That was Duncan's”

“One of the victims was killed with magic Frost.”

“I know. The idiot was the first to try breaking down the door. Lethal wards do not violate the Laws, Warden Ramierez.” there was a definite edge to my voice. I did not like where this conversation was going.

“Then there was a storage unit. The police found a decapitated body with a severed head which had a message scrawled in Latin on a forehead with a small blade, and several men who will be paralyzed for the rest of their lives. The door was arc welded shut from the inside.”

“That was me. I make no apologies.”

“It is getting the mortal authorities involved Steven. You know we cannot afford to be known to the world. We would have another inquisition.” he said, his voice irritated and with a similar edge to my own.

“What do you expect Carlos? Do you want me to play nice? I came through a gate from the Nevernever right as they were about to brutally rape my apprentice, one of a handful of people I have ever cared for on a personal level. “

“You mean love.” he said, point blank, his voice softer. He understood at least.

“That obvious?”

“Not until I saw the message on the head. One does not do something that brutal without good reason, and you are not one to get that worked up over a warlock.”

“If you knew already, why the hell did you run me over hot coals?” He laughed through the phone. I laughed back. Way what you want about the man, but his sense of humor was infectious.

“I just wanted you to admit it man. How long have you been carrying that around?”

“About six months.”

“He know?”

“No. And it is going to stay that way. As far as he is concerned, my rage was that of a parent protecting young, which also has the benefit of being equally true.”

“Good. You might as well tell me everything then.”

So I did. I told him about the crime scene we were called in to investigate by my Paranet contact, my being tailed, my escape through the Nevernever, the dragon blood. I told him everything.

“Yeah” he confirmed. “I am thinking he is working for someone else. Do what you need to do Steven. I will back your play. Call me if you need help.”

“Will do boss. The mortal authorities may end up getting involved. I may need an extraction if things go poorly.”

“Just let me know. We can give you both shelter in Edinburgh, it has happened before. However you and Duncan would be on the front lines if that happened.”

“I have never shirked from that Carlos.”

“True. But I would rather have you where we are. There are few enough of us with this war who can do recruiting and Law enforcement though. I would prefer to keep you where you are.”

“Oh come now. Someone as pretty and talented as you? You can handle it all on your own.”

“You took the words from my mouth. Stay safe, keep me informed. Adios”

“Will do. Bonus”

….

No sooner had I put the phone back on the receiver and started to head out the door than I heard a knock on the door. I opened it, and a man built like a like a slender brick wall, if that makes sense, and wearing business casual with a Tempe Police badge stepped in.

“Warden Steven Frost” he stated, a look of worry on his face.

“Detective Captain Lucien Walsh, what can I do for you?” I was smiling.

“I Duncan alright?” he asked. My smile soured a bit.

Most major metro areas had a division of their law enforcement departments that was tasked with solving the crimes that gave everyone the willies, or just could not physically be solved. The men and women there tended to be very competent, but also bereft of any ability to navigate department politics. It was in effect professional exile to Siberia. Just like in the Soviet Gulags where geneticists were kept in the early USSR, politically connected individuals tended to take credit for all of the successes. They also tended to share information between departments in close cities, which meant that in effect meant that the special divisions for every municipality between Peoria and Mesa were more or less united, if unofficially.

Detective Walsh was their director in the city of Tempe. He was also a member of the Venatori Umborium, or Hunters of Shadow. Think of them like the Masons, only with rocket launchers. They hunt the supernatural things that stalked the mortal world. They were mostly regular mortals, though there were a few sorcerers in their ranks as well. They were particularly good at using human legal and bureaucratic systems to lay the smack down on organizations such as the Red Court. Lucien was good people.

He was also my ex.

We went to school together and he taught me everything I know about using a blade. When he was not a cop he was active in the local SCA, and was a damn fine fencer. We broke it off when he joined the Venatori and I got drafted into the Wardens three years prior.

“He is now, at least physically.” I told him. “I take it your department caught the case at his apartment?”

“Yeah. And Mesa's Special Squad is investigating a storage unit. I have not told them, but I think the two are connected.”

“You would be right.” I confirmed for him. “I may as well start from the top.” so I did. He knew everything about the supernatural world, so I did not hold back any of the details.

“Jesus christ. And yeah, I agree. I dont think he is calling the shots.” he told me.

“You are the second person today to tell me that. So, can you help?”

“I can at least keep the police off of you. As far as I am concerned, one Duncan Buskirk was over at your place when a gang war spilled over into his apartment. It is lucky he was not there right?”

“Right. What about the storage unit?”

“With the door welded shut, no witnesses and no forensics they will not trace it back to you.”

“Good.” I said as he shifted. He needed to go.

“Give Duncan my regards. He did some good work with that mace, but they are too heavy. For close quarters like that I can teach him how to use a long blade. I will see what I can pull up on Mendez and his known associates. He deals in drugs and that means south america...”

“Which means red court. I considered that. Look at a guy named Johnny Powers as well.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks Lucien. I owe you one.” He smiled broadly, then pulled me into a hug.

“You're welcome. Keep yourself safe.” I returned the hug, running my hand up and down his back as I did so.

“Will do. I will call you when I have something.”
…

I got to Duncan's place and packed up his stuff without incident. However as I took the turn to get back on Rural road and head home, something did not seem right. I looked around on my bike and noticed that someone in an SUV was driving very aggressively behind me. They pulled up beside me in the other land and then turned, trying to change lanes and crush my bike, sidecare and all, against the side of a truck.

I hit the gas, barely missing their front bumper. I could not very well use my magic while driving, so I had to rely on my defensive driving skills. I changed lanes, cutting off the truck who was going to play anvil to the SUV's hammer, and used it as a shield so I could pull a hard right onto Curry. There was a public park there that I could use to actually defend myself. The SUV followed and I made it into the little parking lot with just enough time to spare. Pulled my sword and my staff from their racks and yanked my buckler out its bag.

I moved away from Der Hexenhammer and readied myself. My buckler was strapped to my left arm, staff in hand. They were held in front of me defensively and my sword was raised in a high guard. I was expecting people to come out of the SUV as it rounded the corner. Instead they lined up the truck and gunned the engine, accelerating toward me.

There were people watching. Mothers covered the eyes of their children as others went ducking for cover screaming. I was protecting them as much as I was defending myself. I shouted a battlecry in Latin.

“TERRA OFFENDO VOS!” I screamed as I drew in my will and struck the earth beneath me with my blade. A jagged column of bedrock rose from the earth with such force that it was driven into the undercarriage of the SUV's engine compartment and through the hood. The vehicle pinned in place as it was died with a mechanical gurgle as men threw themselves out of each door brandishing automatic weapons. There were five of them, against poor little me.

I drew in my will and threw up my shield as they raised their guns. I angled its concave outer surface to throw their bullets back at them in a very narrow cone in order to avoid civilian casualties. They opened fire. Round after round slammed into my shield and reflected like balls reflecting off the walls of billiards table. One of them scratched and bit the dust with a scream and a spray of blood. That left four.

Their magazines were spent, they may have been told what to expect, but I didn't think they grasped the magnitude of it when they were told to kill a wizard. They stopped to reload and I went on the offensive. I balled my willpower, my desire to survive in order to see Duncan and even Lucian again, gathered it into a little sphere. Then I knelt down and released the energy with a word through my staff.

“Impetus quod contricio ventus” I hissed as I released the energy. It lanced out and went under the SUV and then expanded in a wave of airpressure and concussive force, breaking the legs of the would be assassins and sending them sprawling to the ground with shrieks of pain and fear.

With another effort of willpower I gestured with my sword and brought their guns to me into a little pile. I concentrated, sending my power into the ground through my blade and calmly uttered a pair of words.

“Terra voro”. The ground literally swallowed their weapons. I heard mutterings from the crowd of onlookers. Some crossed themselves and I heard the word “witchcraft”, a few clapped or cheered bewildered but relieved that I had come out on top. Most of them just scattered.

One of them I recognized. A student from two years ago, my History of European Mythology class. Alan Johnson. He was with his wife and infant . His wife was also in my class. They were a constant annoyance. PDA does not begin to describe their behavior. It was a large lecture class and I swear, even though I could not prove it they were doing things to each other in the back. They did alright grade wise though.

He looked at me in recognition.

“Dr. Frost?” he stammered. I walked up to him with my usual limp, he backed away a bit but did not run. Others did, getting in their cars and hightailing it out of there now that it was safe and the big scary wizard-professor was walking toward people.

“Hello Alan.” I told him. “Rebecca.” I nodded to her. “I take it you both graduated? Who is the little one?” I said peering over at the carriage. I knelt down, and cooed at the baby a little.

“Hello there little one. Oh you look like a little slug dont you? Yes you do! When you are mobile are you going to leave little slime trails as you crawl around and get into things you shouldn't?”

His wife spoke as he chuckled a little. “her name is Anne”

“Well Anne, I have to go.” I made little smoochy sounds. The baby grinned toothlessly up at me with that ridiculously wide mouth that babies have. The kid didn't know to be afraid, and her parents I think were too confused.

“What the hell just happened?” they both asked at the same time.

“Jynx” I told them. “You know all that stuff I told you about Merlin and other wizards through history?” They nodded. “It was not actually mythology. I am a wizard, and those were people someone sent to kill me. They have been neutralized. I would recommend that you get behind a solid door tonight. I have the feeling some bad stuff is about to go down. Go, quickly!” they packed up their stuff and left.

I heard sirens. I figured that I should follow my own advice. I went back to Der Hexenhammer and packed my stuff up again. Then I felt the alarm. My wards were under magical assault.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The sun had gone down while I was doing battle. That did not necessarily mean anything, but it did expand the number of possibilities. It could be anything from the Sidhe to vampires. I sped down the road just absorbing the white flashes of the photo radar, weaving in and out of traffic in a fashion that was barely legal. Even in traffic it only took me ten minutes to get to my street. I parked the bike on the curb a hundred yards away, and armed myself. I threw the tweed into the sidecar and donned my gray warden's cloak. I strapped on my buckler, put on my helmet and strapped my scabbard to my belt. Thus armed and in my full armor I stalked toward my home.

If a home was a man's castle, mine was besieged. Surges of sorcerous power slammed against the inner wards, crawling across the now brightly illuminated sphere of energy that shielded my dwelling, runes and sigils of protection ebbed and flowed across the glowing dome. The air around the ward shimmered, letting off the energy it absorbed into the air, and the ground shook from similar discharges. The birds were silent and the neighbors were instinctively huddled behind what meager protection their thresholds provided.

As I approached I felt a cold wind that could only indicate one thing. Vampires. I could not tell which court. As I got closer, I saw the cadre of sorcerers. They pounded the battlements of Frostenschloß with everything from fire to electricity. One of them even drove a hand to the ground and tried to seismically shake down the house through the wards. I opened my Sight, and saw their power raking against the persistent spell.

It hit me then before I willed it closed that they lacked the raw power to brute force the wards. They were assaying them, pounding them with magic in the hopes of finding a weakness that would allow them to take it down with less brute strength, perhaps an amount they did possess.

I did not know of any such weakness in my defenses but I was only human. Their testing it was not something I could abide. I began to draw in power. Not from my own will, but from the air around me. The night was cool, but as I drew in energy in the form of heat my breath became mist before me. I sucked in the heat and converted into raw power with which to fuel my opening strikes. My body tingled, my fingers and toes burned and my vision began to constrict from the power I held.

I drew my sword with an intentionally loud sound of metal grinding on the steel bindings of its leather casing, set the butt of my staff on the ground and held my sword pointed forward in challenge.

“ Once I say to thee, as a Warden of the White Council, withdraw from this field and get thee hence, Or I shalt lay thee and thine low!” I used a tiny bit of will to cause my voice to boom through the night air. They did not speak. Instead they turned to face me and I could see them for what they were. Their flesh masks were gone and they no longer appeared as men or women. There were six of them, three males, three females. They were bat-things. Grey leathery skin stretched over a gaunt frame, the women with flabby breasts and heads that looked like those of an appropriately blood sucking central american bat. They moved faster than was humanly possible to array themselves to that I could not easy get all of them with a single spell and began to summon forth their own dark energies.

Vampire magic did not come from the same source that mind did. It was drawn partially from the blood they consumed, and partially from the pain and suffering of others, whereas mine came from the emotions, aspirations, and very life of every living thing. Theirs was a perversion.

They had to draw energy to them, while I had it already stored for use. I had the initiative, so I pointed my blade at one of the six and forced my will through it.

“Levitas!” I snarled, and brilliant azure lightning sprang from the blade of my sword with a deafening clap of thunder and struck one of the six vampires, one of the females. It threw her back and her charred corpse hit the ground. The other vampires sent power, fire and lightning lanced toward me from their outstretched fingers, but I was ready for them. With another effort I thrust the tip of my sword to the asphalt.

“Parietis ex terra!” The ground rose to meet their strikes in a chest high embankment that I ducked behind. The smell of burning sand and asphalt hit my nose in a wave as destructive energies licked across the surface of my earthen breast work, leaving me otherwise untouched. I did that because I was not sure my shield could defend me against that much magic. Earth magic on the other hand had the advantage of momentum. If one moves the earth, it stays where you put it with no need to maintain the spell. It did have the disadvantage of screening their movements though. Something moved in the hedges to my left, and a vampire in normal human form came at me with a machete. If I got up to defend myself properly I would be open to the spells of the sorcerers, but I had other tricks up my sleeve. I raised my buckler, showing the vampire the pentacle etched into its surface. It was the vessel of my faith. The symbol of the one thing I really believed in, Magic. The pentacle was the symbol for the powers of the universe bound in a circle of human thought. That faith erupted from the buckler like the light of the sun. The vampire threw itself backward, shield its eyes. Its flesh mask burned away leaving its true form. The ugly bat-thing hissed in a way that no human could imitate.

Then with a whistling sound an arrow struck it in the chest. It reeled back again, and another arrow slammed into its stomach, a few seconds later another in its throat. It hit the ground hard and I looked back to see Lucien standing in a lawn, his squad car parked on the curb. He was clad in armor. A hundskull helmet with its visor raised over its head, a coif of chain draping over his neck, he had on a combination of chain and plate armor that was popular in the mid 14th century. He had a buckler strapped to his left arm, a sword at his hip and longbow was in his right arm. He was drawing another arrow from a patch of them he set in front of him. He drew back the bow and sent the arrow downfield at one of the sorcerers who batted it out of the air with an effort of will.

I smiled broadly, very happy to see him, but he would be vulnerable there. I would have to cover him so he could get behind the safety of my embankment. I raised myself over the embankment and pointed my staff over it. The vampires were waiting for me to present them with a target, but I once again had the initiative. I forced much of the power I had gathered around me through my sword, and called fire with a loud shout.

“Incendia! Incendia ex abyssus!” A whirling vortex of blue flame materialized in front of me and with an effort of will I sent it down field. The vampires scrambled to shield themselves and little domes of energy wove around them and were engulfed in fire, but there were only four of them present. Where was the fifth?

A shield collapsed and the male vampire sheltered underneath it was consumed by fire, his inhumanly high pitched shrieks of pure agony carried through the air as flesh blackened and flaked away and bone charred. The fire died away as the fifth vampire exploded over my embankment. Darkness snaked from its hands and tendrils of shadow and I raised my shield against it. The energy sapped my shield, causing it to flicker.

My heart began to quicken, if something that could drain my shield like that touched my skin I was a dead man. I poured energy into the shield, unable to do much of anything while the attack was maintained. The earth began to shake as I heard shouts from where the other vampire sorcerers were located. My embankment began to disappear back into the earth, which would leave me fatally exposed.

Lucien hit the vampire at a full sprint, bowling into it and disrupting the concentration necessary for the vampire to maintain the spell. I had now used the power I had drawn to me before the battle started. I would have to be more judicious in rationing the use of my reserves of energy, which came purely from my own desires and willpower. I raised over what was left of my rampart and thrust my staff forward.

“Impetus” I screamed, sending a ball of kinetic energy toward the vampire earth-mage who was dismantling my defense. It slammed into his chest like a speeding car. Then I went to help Lucien. The surprise of his attack had been expended and the vampire had him pinned to the ground, its long tongue slathering over his armor trying to touch his skin. I brought back my sword and stabbed the abomination through the back of the skull, and helped Lucien get its skill corpse away from on top of him. We huddled behind the barrier for a second catching our breath as chanting reached a crescendo in the background.

“Thanks Lucien.” I told him breathlessly. “You really saved my ass.” He smiled and replied.

“Well I figured with all of the other things I have done to it, I owed it to you to save it just this once.” I snorted.

“That spell cant be good.” I told him. Then I felt the power gather, the heat sucked from the air and knew immediately what it was. I pulled Lucien's steel encased body close to me and a bubble of pressurized air around the both of us then extended my shield. A storm of fire washed over the ridge of earth and asphalt that shielded us and crashed against my shield. It was not the fire that was the problem. The flames were not supernaturally hot, and while it took a lot of energy to hold them back my shield and my willpower were up to the task, though I did not know for how much longer I could keep this up. My knees were starting to become weak.

The problem was suffocation. Magical fire behaved like normal fire once it was created. While its fuel source was the willpower of the person or thing casting the spell, it still required oxygen to continue burning and a fire this large would suck the air out of your lungs ans asphyxiate you even if the flames never actually touched your skin. I heard the dull roar as wind fueled the flames, and my shield's air supply started to leak.

“Hold your breath, we will have to outlast them.” I told him before sucking in a deep breath. He did the same. After about thirty seconds my lungs started to burn. I concentrated on maintaining the shield, telling my body and its pathetic need for oxygen to sit down and shut up. It was better to risk suffocation than allow immolation to become a certainty. I realized somewhere in there that they were taking turns. The inferno that engulfed us was not continuous, rather it started and stopped as each sorcerer was forced to stop by the expenditure of energy and another took up the slack. Of the three vampires I could account for only two distinct magical signatures in the spell, each time it stopped and started the fire felt slightly different against my shield and these distinct identities alternated. What was the third doing?

About fifteen seconds after that the flames died down. I was sweating bullets from the residual heat that had bypassed my shield, as air rushed in to replace that which the fire had consumed. I took in a shuddering breath and looked up. The vampires were gone, and a demon stood in their place.

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me?” I whined in exasperation. This one was not like the last one I had faced. It stood crouched on all fours, great clawed talons gripping the pavement. Massive bat-like wings extended into the air. Its head was like that of a giant toothed eagle, and it had no tail. What it did have was tough leathery skin.

It launched itself into the air and Lucien took up his bow and sent a goose-feathered shaft toward the demon, but his timing was wrong the downbeat of the wings sent the arrow off course. The creature flew over us and then swung around. I set my staff into the ground like a pike against a cavalry charge and drew upon my power.

“Impetus Valde!” I screamed slamming my will through the staff and sending a lance of kinetic force at the oncoming monster. It hit the flying beast square in the chest and did not seem to even effect it. It came screeching toward me with its rear talons outstretched, hitting me full in the chest. However demons were not the beings of hell that they are commonly thought of. With the exception of outsiders they were just beings from the nastier places in the Nevernever, and they were vulnerable to iron. It did not impale me like it thought it would. Instead its claws did not penetrate my steel mail. Its talons erupted into green flames that threatened to consume its legs.

The demon screeched a high pitched keening wail of pain, as did I as the impact hit my already broken ribs. I was sent flying backward and hit the pavement hard about five meters from my original position and scraped bodily against the street for another two before coming to a rest. My armor and arming coat had taken the worst of it, but I was experiencing truly exquisite levels of pain. I moaned on the ground stunned for a few seconds, unable to move.

The demon climbed again and came back around for another pass. Lucien knocked another arrow, drew the bowstring back between his cheek and ear and lined up his shot. The demon's wings came down, and then as they drew back up he released his arrow. The iron broadhead he let loose plunged like a hot knife through butter into the demon's iron-vulnerable flesh, and the arrow buried itself up to the knock. Green fire exploded from the entry wound and from the creature's mouth as it screamed in agony and plunged to the ground not six feet from me. As I struggled to get up It clawed at its own flesh, desperately trying and succeeding at ripping the barbed arrow from its body. It glanced at me and then to Lucien who had set aside his bow and drawn his sword. I too had gotten up and had picked my blade off the ground by the time it had removed the source of its torment.

It sucked in a breath and belched forth a gout of flame at the warrior, who shielded his eyes and dove to the ground. I charged, agonizingly limping forward with all my aching muscles and injuries would allow me and brought my iron blade down in the demon's hide, driving it in to the hilt. The demon shrieked as more fire erupted from its flesh and it batted me aside with a swipe of its claw. Lucien pulled himself up and charged its flank.

I had managed to keep my feet and as the demon whirled to deal with Lucien, I lept forward strained and attacked. Each time the demon turned to deal with its new attacker, the other would harass its flanks, allowing blow after blow to be struck. Eventually it weakened. Its turns came slower and more clumsily. Both of us were battered and bleeding from the attacks it had managed to land. One last time it turned to counter Lucien and I summoned the last bit of will I could muster without risking unconsciousness.

“VERITAS!” I screamed, thrusting my sword into its body and releasing blinding white lightning to liquify its internal organs. The combination of iron and gigajoules of energy were too much for it and its form dematerialized in an explosion of ectoplasm, banished back to the Nevernever.

A few minutes and a lot og ragged breaths later and every bit of evidence of their having been a pitched battle here were gone, save for changes to the landscape and the hedges and sections of lawn which had been char broiled. Even the bodies were so mangled and twisted by the heat that one could not distinguish them from bricks of charcoal.

Lucien and I stumbled toward eachother and fell into an embrace. Steel plate pressed against chain for a moment before before we both started laughing. Not the mirthful happy laughter you experience when you hear a funny joke at a bar either. No. This was the mad crazy laughter that people do when they make it through an ordeal that was beyond the ken of mortals. After a few minutes the adrenaline from the fight and the endorphin surge from surviving started to die down, and we slowed our laughter. My entire body ached as I released him from the hug.

“How did you know?” I asked. “And in full armor too. Do you keep your harness in your trunk or something?”

“I got a call about some sort of combat going on in Tempe Park, but you were not there when I arrived. I figured you were in trouble, then got another call about explosions and flashing lights from your neighborhood. And yes, I keep my armor in my trunk.” he said grinning.

We hobbled to my front gate. I did not even have the energy left to disable my wards. After a about a minute I felt them fall, and I was able to open the gate without risking myself against their power. The outer ward was just a warning and a mind admonishment, but I still did not feel like putting my hand in an electrical outlet. We staggered to the door and opened it. Duncan was standing by the door and I stepped aside, letting Lucien in.

Duncan was armed to the teeth. He held a crossbow resting on his shoulder that he must have gotten from my closet, and a halberd was resting against the corner by the easy chair. Power thrummed through the air around him. He had been siphoning power from the wards in case the wards were breached. The stress to the wards would have been negligible considering what he could draw at any given time, but he had the space of some twenty minutes to do it. He was now slowly releasing the energy back into the spell. He smiled, relieved to see us both. He walked over and gave us good solid hugs. Not the usual brotherly man-hugs either. This was the heartfelt hug of seeing friends and loved ones return from battle. We returned them, I put a little bit more than the usual emotional investment into it, my relief from knowing in my heart rather than just my head that he was unharmed.

“There is a weakness in the ward.” he said as he released me .”They didn't find it, it took being severely stressed for it to manifest.”

“Oh? It has been attacked before, but I suppose never that heavily. What is it?” I said, collapsing on the couch. Lucien followed after, snuggling up under my arm. Believe it or not, it is actually fairly normal for gay guys to cuddle like this, even if they were not together. None of us, Duncan included, thought much of it. Though I will admit it was rather nice, even if both people were in dirty, sweaty, beaten up armor. I put Lucien's visor down over his face so the pointy hundskull visor would not poke me in the eye.

“A seam. A place where the energies converge when the entire surface is strained. It is transitory, and moves around, but it is there.”

“Good work. You have a skill with defensive magics, it is uncanny. I did not see it even with my Sight.” He beamed at the praise. “Though I may not have been looking when it manifested. How bad was the weakness?”

“Had they found it, they may have been able to work in concert to tear the ward apart, though it would have taken time. It would take more than one sorcerer or wizard of considerable power to do it.”

“They seemed trained to do just that. You saw the fire storm?” I asked him.

“Yeah. That is why I started to draw power to defend myself. I was not confident they would not find the weakness before you got here. And I was not sure you would win either. That was not a problem though.” he smiled at Lucien. “Thanks to you Lucien, where have you been? I have not seen you for a while.”

“It has been an interesting few weeks. I would have been by sooner, but the cases have been piling up lately.” the man said leaning against me, his voice muffled through the helmet. He was banged to hell. His armor was dented and gouged in places and he was bleeding from a few spots that the demon had hit so hard that plate dented or collapses in, driving steel fragments and broken chain links through his skin. Nothing too bad, none of it would need stitches, but he needed to get himself cleaned up so we could get the metal out and get him patched up.

“And now we know why.” I said. “You want to get a shower so we can get your wounds looked at?” I asked. “My house is your house.”

“Yeah, I think I will do that.” he said, but didn't move. Duncan went into my bedroom and got my clean bathrobe and a spare towel, he handed them both to Lucien and offered him a hand up. Lucien accepted the hand with a mailed gauntlet and pulled himself up with a groan.

“See you both when I make myself all presentable again.” he told us and then headed to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and I could hear him stripping his armor, pieces of metal hitting the tiled floor.

“Aw damn it! It is going to be a bitch to repair this breastplate!” he yelled in frustration. Then he turned on the shower and a second later I heard him hoot due to the cold. We both laughed, long used to cold showers.

“You alright?” I asked Duncan.

“Yeah. I kept focused on watching the wards and gathering power to defend myself. It did not give me time to think about fear.”

“Good.” I told him. “Excellent work in fact.” I paused, considering for a second. “I think you are progressing very quickly. When I was in the business for a year, I could not have found and diagnosed a weakness in a defensive working like that.”

“To be fair” he said. “I had been accidentally using magic and seeing through the Sight on regular basis for years before you found me.”

True. But be that is it may it is time we started thinking about the construction of foci. Particularly with the events of the last few days. You will need at least three. One for defense, and the elemental magics should not be concentrated into less than two.”

He thought for a second before speaking.

“I want something I can more easily conceal than what you go with. I am thinking a set of vambraces for defensive spells, leather gauntlets for fire and wind, and a warhammer for force and earth.”

“Good choices. For the warhammer are you thinking the spiked fifteen century variety?”

“My thoughts exactly” he replied.

“You will need a staff for formal functions, but that does not necessarily have to be a working focus.” I told him.

“Of course” he replied.

...

A little while later Lucien came out of the bathroom in the robe and set of my boxer briefs I had left on the floor. They were a bit tight on him and thus left nothing to the imagination. He looked good. Well, except for the shallow gashes on his chest and arms. To say nothing of the bruising.

“You have been keeping yourself in shape.” I told him.

“What do you expect? I make all my own armor and use it, and the weapons regularly. Not all of it for non-sporting combat.”

“True enough” I told him as I heaved myself off the couch and went into the bathroom to take my own shower, after grabbing the robe I used for work in my lab, a towel and a set of clean shorts.

The water was cold, which helped sooth the wounds. I cleaned the dirt, grime and sweat off as best I could. Then got out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror. I kept myself in fairly good condition. Not anywhere near what Lucien managed, but I was an academic who moonlighted as a Wizard. Well no, it was the other way around, but still. I could fight and had a lot of stamina, but my frame was not built to carry as much muscle as his was. My entire abdomen was one massive blue-black bruise, and I had a few good sized gashes in my arms where the chain did not cover. I shook my head. Lucien was worse off than I was, triage dictated that he be treated first.

I opened the cabinet under the sink and found my medical kit and the rubbing alcohol, as well as the gloves. I sterilized everything in the kit, which included a scalpel and hemostat tongs, as well as the needles and thread needed for stitching, and went outside.

Duncan was a medic and made short work of removing the little bits of steel and cleaning the wound with minimal pain to both patients. Once that was done, he did not bother with the stitching. He placed his hand on each wound and rocked back and forth muttering in german.

“Fortschaffen die Schmerz des strikt.” he would chant those words three times over each wound. By the third repetition the pain of the gash would lessen and when he removed the hand a neat scar would be in its place. It did not take long to finish. He could only do it with surface wounds, but damn was it nice to not have to endure the stitching. OSirens started going outside and Lucien had to make himself scarce for a while when Duncan had finished cleaning him up, as he dealt with the mortal side of things. Of course to do that he had to change into a set of my clothes. This left Duncan to deal with my injuries.

Once he had finished, he looked up at me.

“Damn it Steven, you need to stop getting these ribs hit over and over again. Four of them are broken, at least. If you are not careful, bone fragments will puncture a lung.” he scolded me sternly.

“Yes Herr Doktor” I replied. “You know what I could use?”

“What?” he asked.

“A drink. Or eight.”

“I'll get behind that” Lucien concurred as he walked into the house again. “Gas explosion, is the official explanation.” he added.

So we cracked open the liquor cabinet. Lucien went out to his car and got a box that contained bags of steel rings and two sets of pliers and went about repairing his chainmail by firelight as he took shots of tequila. Several hours, all of the tequila and a bottle of scotch later, and Duncan was passed out on the other couch snoring loudly. I gently turned him over on his side, just in case, and sprawled clumsily across the couch, my head resting on Lucien's lap.

“Are you still 'knitting'?” I asked him. “You have to have finished your repairs.”

“Oh I have” he said, his voice slurred a little. “Now I am making you a set of sleeves” he specified. “I can get you a coif by next week if you want one.”

“You know, I think I may have to take you up on that.”

“Cool.” he replied, then looked over a Duncan's sleeping form while taking another sip of the scotch. “He's a good kid” he added.

“I know.” I replied, pride and pain warring for the tone of my voice. He looked down and saw the hint of sadness on my face.

“Oh honey.” he said, setting down a set of pliers to stroke my cheek. Despite the fact that he would seem at first glance like a hyper-masculine battle-junky, the reality was Lucien was more open with his gayness and more obvious about it than me. It made us a very strange pair. He also had a sharp mind and an observant eye.

“I deal with it by being parental.” I told him. He chuckled and went back to knitting steel like a bizarre old woman. Nothing more needed to be said. He knew what was going on in my head, and would be there if I needed to talk. It was not long after that that I drifted off to sleep.

[Enforcer Talen]

I will admit, Im running out of ideas to take Steven out. Im doing my normal spread for this genre, but hes holding strong.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I will admit, Im running out of ideas to take Steven out. Im doing my normal spread for this genre, but hes holding strong.

But we have not even touched the entropy curses or use of thaumaturgy, or snipers yet!

[LadyTevar]

I think you're being far too open with the Magics now, in front of ex-students. I think we also need a 'break' from the excitement for a scene or two.


Let me know if you need any help with a Scadian outlook.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I think you're being far too open with the Magics now, in front of ex-students. I think we also need a 'break' from the excitement for a scene or two.


Let me know if you need any help with a Scadian outlook.

Yeah. There will be a good break.

Not that he had much choice in the matter at the time. That is something that the original books did not deal with much. Dresden would get into magical fights in the middle of the street. Ghosts would materialize on his street with thousands of potential witnesses. For hell's sake he Spoiler

rode a zombie T rex through chicago

.... I can go on and on in that regard.

The whole premise of people not believing in magic is that they rationalize it away. It is not that they dont see it, it is that they convince themselves that what they saw could not possibly be true... and a good chunk of the mortal community does think that the stuff is real.

Fine line to walk, and this is basically my Public Commentary Rough Draft before I clean it up, organize it into chapters, put in more inner monologue etc.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Chapter 11

I woke up the next morning on my back in bed, with Lucien's head on my upper chest where the ribs were unbroken, that strong sword-arm of his wrapped across my stomach. It was nice. I have no idea how he managed to get me there though. I must have been half asleep because there was no way he could have gotten me there with my ribs the way they were. He had even managed to get me out of my clothes, though that had never been a problem for him on the worst of days. I did note however that certain parts of me were not sore, which meant that only sleep had occurred.

I was very comfortable, warm and in the arms of someone I cared for and trusted. I did not want it to end. It had to though. I had a list the size of my arm of things I needed to get done that day before I taught the next, so I very gingerly slid out from under Lucien and put a body pillow in my place so his slumber would not be interrupted. He would not have to go in to the station for another two hours, his shifts tended to be from ten til six, and it was eight. Physically getting out of bed was the second problem. The ribs would surely protest if I did the usual lurch. So I slid myself from the bed to my knees on the floor without bending my midsection, and then stood to my feet.

Once I was up I took a cold shower and gingerly got dressed. This time I put on a wool sweater. I did not have air conditioning or heat because of the way my magic messed with technology. The only heat came from my fireplace and while the house was well insulated, it still got a bit chilly, so I put on a pair of sweatpants and then slid into my long fleece robe. I had not shaved in a few days and was growing a decent beard. I decided I would keep it and see how it looked. Then I went down into my lab.

Francis was still there, and still asleep. It had been three days but the sleep spell slowed his metabolism so there was no pile if filth to clean up. I went back upstairs and got him some water. Two glasses, one to throw over his face, the other for him to drink. I woke him up, and he looked at me, stark terror in his eyes.

“W-w-what are you going to do to me? Please Dr. Frost, dont kill me!” he begged. I just rolled my eyes.

“I am not going to kill you Francis. I got my apprentice back. The only way you are leaving this place is in handcuffs though. I have a cop upstairs. Other than that, no harm will come to you-from me, or anyone else.”

“Really?”

“Really. However, I need information. It would be in your best interests to provide it. I need you to tell me the truth. Agreed?”

He sighed, any hope of resistance faded. He had no stake in lying to me now, no loyalty to those he worked for. Nothing. The kid just wanted to get home, not that I could blame him.

“Good. Now drink this” I said. I reasoned that some questions he had been magically compelled to not answer. I would have to get the information I needed through the back door. He was not randomly chosen. He was involved because he was in a position for Mendez to know about him, this probably meant that they ran in the same circles.

“How did you earn money for school? Did you work, have loans?” I asked him.

“It started that way. I scraped by. Then I joined Pi Kappa Alpha. It was fun. I swear to God, just having those letters on my chest got me laid.” he left out how a lot of the girls were drugged when it happened. Pi Kappa Alpha had recently had their university and national charters revoked for that sort of behavior. They did not exist on campus as an entity after last year, and never would again. Whether he participated in that, or even knew about it though was a question I did not press. I could see it though. He was certainly their type. He was not a bad looking guy, shaggy brown hair, strong jaw. He was a little thin for his frame though.

“The membership fees and other...” he coughed “activities were a little steep, but I managed to scrape by. I took a job as a waiter at Applebees to manage it. Then someone brought some blow to a party.” That was my connection, it also explained why he was thin. I nodded and waited for him to continue.

“I was drunk. I tried it. From that point on I couldn't get enough. My grades started to slip because I would skip class to get high. Then I lost my job. My only option after that if I wanted to stay high and keep a roof over my head was to deal. One of my brothers got me in touch with his dealer. I started to sell his stock, then I got approached by the distributor.”

“What was his name?” I asked.

“Something Powers.” I nodded and filed the name away. The same guy who's entire family had been raped and murdered earlier that week.

“How did that work out for you?”

“Not well. I had a few connections, but too much of it went up my nose to give me a good profit. I managed to pay rent, but ended up owing Powers money.”

“What happened after that? And when did all this happen? You were not failing my class last year.”

“This was a while ago. I realized I was in deep shit and got out after about a year. I came back to school after getting clean and going through six months of rehab. That is when I met Duncan. He helped me out, kept me from falling off the wagon.”

“That's the kind of person he is” I told him. “Why did you do it? Why did you betray him?” I said, piling on the guilt a little.

“I didn't have a choice” he said. He was shaking. Perhaps I had been too harsh. I could hear his voice crack, he was wracked with guilt. “Some guy came to me.”

“What was his name?”

“I-I dont know” he stammered. I had hit a wall with the compulsion.

“Why did he come to you?” I asked the question. I did not necessarily need names for a good inference.

“I still owed Powers money, but he was... I suppose you could call him a nice drug dealer? He let me pay him off in installments with a loan-shark level of interest. Most of my food money went into paying him off, but I was getting it done. Then someone came to me, on Monday. They told me that the money I owed Powers was now theirs, and I would be theirs. They threatened to kill my family. They even gave me surveillance photos of where my little sister goes to school. Red Mountain High. They had a picture of her getting on the bus.”

I could not help but pity the kid. I hated feeling pity. In anger I had been less than kind to the kid and he was just as much a victim as anyone else. I would try to make it up to him.

“Where was Powers getting his supply?” I asked.

“I dont know.” he told me. Genuine. This was not in the bounds of the compulsion. What his information told me though was important. It told me that Mendez, who was in fact who he had worked for, moved into town recently and displaced the movers in at least the cocaine and meth trade and consolidated it under his control. However there were a few possibilities regarding him and the Red Court.

No one really knew how the Red Court funded their war with the White Council. As Wizards we could not exactly go into their bank accounts, and the Venatori were still hampered by human legal systems. They could not see the big picture. However when I looked at a map I had a fairly good idea. Wars, even covert magical ones, required money. One had to pay goons with something, and pay for their weapons and transportation.

The world's supply of cocaine came from one place. Colombia. They sold three hundred metric tonnes of cocaine in various forms every year in the US alone at wholesale prices of twenty thousand dollars or so a kilo. Six billion dollars a year. That was definitely enough to fund a covert war against maybe a thousand or so wizards, only a fifth of whom were experienced in combat. It just so happens that our intelligence indicated that the parts of Colombia that were not under government control were under the control of the Red Court, via their communist front group, the FARC.

The hole in my logic however was that they already controlled the cocaine trade. There would be no need for a catspaw such as Mendez to move in. Unless they were trying to expand their sphere of control. Or, I told myself, remove an obstacle. There were only a few Warden's regularly stationed anywhere other than Edinburgh these days, specifically in order to provide intelligence and act as a first line of defense against any movements by the Red Court. I was stationed on a supply line, if my speculation about their control of the cocaine trade was correct. The third option of course was that I was wrong, Mendez was in fact calling the shots, and the Reds in the area capitalized on it while I was off-balance. I needed to know which one it was, and all of them were equally likely. If Mendez was working for the vampires, he might not even know it.

“That is all for now.” I told the kid. “I am sorry for how I treated you Francis. I was angry and scared, but that is no excuse. I will put your family under my protection, and make sure that no one can touch them, or you.” he blinked.

“Thanks?” he told me, bewilderment creeping onto his face.

“Don't mention it. Even if you were not a hapless bastard caught in this web, I am still bound to protect your family. Just do me one favor.”

“What?”

“Don't fuck it up. Oh and you will need to apologize to Duncan.”

…

He still had a broken collar bone, so showering and in fact moving very much were not in the cards for him. Instead I elected to spray him down with some Febreeze and hope for the best. I would need to get him to a hospital to have it looked at. Then I went upstairs to wake Duncan up.

He was still asleep on the couch snoring loudly. I shook him gently awake and lurched forward, murmuring and blinking his eyes.

“I have someone you need to talk to.” I said to him, and waited for him to get a shirt on. I tried and failed not to spare his half-naked body a glance as he put his shirt on. He shuffled downstairs with me and as soon as he saw Francis, his eyes widened and I felt him drawing in power.

“He was with the one's who captured me.” he said, the anger in his voice rising. “He betrayed me to them.”

“Peace Duncan. He means you no harm, and if he did...” I did not mention what I would do. Suffice to say it would not have been pleasant. “He had no choice. Tell him Francis.”

The kid did. He told him everything. Duncan nodded, releasing the energy he had drawn into himself and drew a deep calming breath. He seemed to weigh options in his head, then a quizzical expression drew across his face.

“Quamdiu eram is hic?” he asked in Latin.

“Ex ut vos erant captus. EGO subpono suus presentia propter incompositus.” He gave a short laugh, then spoke again in english.

“How do you know he is telling the truth?”

“I don't. He seems sincere enough, I don't think he can lie effectively right now. If you want to be sure though, there is only one way to find out.” Duncan nodded and knelt down in front of Francis.

“Look me in the eye” he told him. Forcing the prisoner to meet his gaze. It only took a second, but when he pulled away he let out a heavy breath. Francis shivered.

“I am so sorry.” he whispered. He had seen Duncan's soul. The soul he had betrayed to torture. The sight would never leave him, it would never grow dim with time. It would always be there.

“You are... a decent person Francis. An idiot, but a decent person. I can forgive.” Duncan told him. “But not forget. I don't ever want to see you again after today, is that clear?” Francis nodded.

“Do you have somewhere to go?” I asked him.

“Yeah. I have family in Idaho.”

“We will make sure you and your family get there. It don't think it will be safe here.” At that I turned and went up stairs. I woke Lucien and filled him in while he got dressed.

“I'll take him to get his folks when I start my shift” he told me as he gathered his armor and weapons.

“Good. Can you get in contact with your friends in the Venatori and let me know if there has been an upswing in drug-related violence? Border with Mexico, and through Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, as well as the Netherlands and Spain?”

“I think I can manage that. Might take me a day or so to get a hold of people.”

“I can wait.” I told him. “I have a few angles I need to look at myself.”

“What is it you are thinking?” he asked, rubbing my shoulder a bit as I knelt down to grab his helmet.

“Three possibilities. The least likely is that Mendez and the Reds are unrelated and Mendez is working for someone else. The Red Court may have just taken a swipe at me because they thought I was vulnerable. Alternatively, the Reds and Mendez are working together to remove a mutual threat or even Wardens in general, or in order to expand their hold on the drug trade. If it is the latter, I would expect an upswing in drug violence in all of those areas. If it is the former option, I will have to go through channels to find out, hell it may even be a combination of the two. All options require a different sort of response, and I need to know which one.”

“Well, I have never known you to act without thinking. I will try to have the information to you tomorrow.”

“Alright Lucien. Stay safe. They may try to hit you.”

“I know. I will kill them before they kill me.”

“Good. I dont want to have to do my Punisher impression again.”

Something hit me. Francis had a broken collar bone, and the Reds were everywhere. Francis would not be safe in Idaho, or anywhere really. There was only one way to make sure they stayed safe. I had a friend who may be able to hide them.”

“When you go to get his family, bring them to me. I will put them in contact with someone who can protect them. Dont tell them the whole story until you get them to me. We can make sure Francis gets treated for that broken collar bone then. The hospitals are not safe.” He nodded.

He went downstairs and without further fanfare was out the door.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Grad school is kicking my ass. Should have another chapter up this weekend.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Preface: I tried to be as accurate with the history as I could, up to and including coats of arms. There are a couple ahistorical minor characters though.

Chapter 12

Duncan and I had moved to the back yard.

“Alright. It is best we start you out without the use of foci. You have fairly well mastered shielding, the only thing that can improve that is practice and a focus. We need to start you on combat effective evocations spells. Usually these take the form of manipulation of the elements. Air, earth, fire, water. These can also be more abstract, but we will get to those later. Air is the most versatile. Barring the use of lightning however it is also the least physically damaging. Its most simple application is the creation of a strong wind. I want you to try doing that. The hardest part about evocation is the lack of ritual. You don't have anything to help you clear your head, so you have to keep the image of the effect you want tight and focused. So I want you to try creating enough wind to blast apart that pile of raked leaves over there.”

“Alright” Duncan replied, and turned to the leaves he looked at them sideways for a moment, then began muttering in german

“Explodierand auslüften:” he said clearly, pointing his hand at the leaves. They shook for a second and then the pile shattered and swirled for a moment before the shattered leaves fell into place all over the back yard. Then he wavered for a second.

“Take a breather, but keep drilling that. Repeat the exercise as often as you can until you are completely drained. Once you are able to hold that image in your head and not waver from the exertion, we will try something with earth. I want to give you a broad sample of the elements. I need to go check the mail.” I left him to drill and headed out front to the mail box.

As soon as I was outside my defensive wards, the air shimmered and I raised my hand to defend myself, only to find that it was the Gatekeeper, Rashid. He was a tall man, clad in purple robes that covered him from head to toe. He reached into a fold in his robes and pulled out a dusty old book and handed it to me. I took it.

“What is this?” I asked him

“A message. A favor. The Gatekeeper before me gave it to me, as the one before had it given to him with instructions to give it to you on this day, at this time.”

“But that had to be at least four hundred years ago.”

“Four hundred and twenty two to be exact”

“Doesn't this violate the Sixth law?” I asked. Rashid just chuckled

“The law is to prevent Wizards from swimming against the river of time. Changing the past. Effecting the future is not strictly forbidden, if it were we would have to kill every wizard as soon as they are born. The time-line cannot be changed. I will leave it to you to figure out how the this intervention does not do so.” with that, his duty discharged, the Gatekeeper stepped back through the fabric of existence and back into the Nevernever.

I took the book inside and opened it up. It was in Welsh. Not just Welsh, but old welsh. God damn it. I went downstairs to my laboratory and pulled out several books and walked back upstairs. I then began the work of painstakingly translating the document through Middle English, then into modern so it could be more easily understood. It took me hours, and I got almost none of what I had wanted to get done that day accomplished, but if the Gatekeeper tells you to read a document quickly you damn well better do it. Finally I got the first third or so done. I was about to read it silently to myself when Duncan came in and collapsed next to me and all of my scratch paper covered in possible translations of various sentences and paragraphs.

“What the hell?” he very understandably asked.

“Telegraph from Mr. McGatekeeper” I told him, doing my best Mr. Rogers impression.

“I see. What does it say?”

“Well, I had to translate it from 14th century Welsh... but here it goes.” and I started to read aloud.

Dear Steven Frost,

I am your great great maternal grandfather, Owen ab Gryffeth, writing from the “Year of our Lord” 1588. I do not know the state of the world or if the White Council has been maintained for the last four hundred and twenty two years, so much of this information I provide to you for the sake of being thorough, and so you understand the constraints I was under which lead to the decisions which I fear have put you and yours in mortal danger. I have trusted this text to the Gatekeeper in the hope that he would find a way to get it to you at the proper place, in the proper time. I pray that the information contained herein will permit you to survive the horrible chain of events which I have set in motion.


I Paused and thought about that for a second. The only words I could muster were "Holy Shit"


It was April 15th, 1403. I woke up, heaving myself off of my nice goose feather mattress and went down to the cellar where I grabbed my breakfast-which consisted of a hunk of cheese, bread, salt pork, and some ale to wash it all down with. Then I went below the cellar to my work room.

“Lux Illustro ” I muttered in Latin, investing some of my will in order to ignite the candles around the room. The illumination revealed a small room, a work table in the center with an elaborate set of glassware used in the distillation of various essences, with shelves along the four walls containing all mater of alchemical ingredients, various preserved body parts, exotic ores, dried herbs, and hand copied books. The later were acquired at great time and expense. I would remark almost forty years later after the moveable type printing press was invented by Guttenberg that my life could have been made much easier--and cheaper--had he been a bit quicker in his work. Hanging from the ceiling were cages filled with small birds, toads, newts, bats, and an adder. I would use various secretions and leavings from these animals in the preparation of potions, elixirs, balms and ointments.

I shivered and put on a set of thick woolen robes. Say what you want but there is a reason wizards wear robes. It is not because they look foreboding or give off a sense of mystery to the peasant folk that helps to scare them into not trying to burn us at the stake for witchcraft. Do not mistake me, both of those things are true. The real reason is because it is cold in our work rooms, and we wear robes chiefly because we are frugal and excessive livery was an expensive and otherwise useless indulgence.

The robes did little to keep me warm. I tend to awaken in the cold pre-dawn and this day was no different. I looked wistfully at the fireplace in on the far wall, gathered another portion of my will and shoved it forcefully into the wood that I keep stocked there.

“Estus vorago” I muttered, and the fireplace burst into flame. The fireplace had a chimney and rather than choke the room in smoke as happened in most houses which were of wattle and daub construction, the smoke wafted up outside leaving me awash in light, and more importantly heat. Then I began my work. Every potion one brews has several ingredients. A base liquid that needs to have some sort of connection to the effect you want, one ingredient for each of the senses, one for the mind, and one for the spirit or soul. Eight in all. I was making a potion to reduce seizures because an old woman in Shrewsbury was wracked with the fits. So I started with a base liquid of extract from oriental poppy--enough on its own to ease the pain--and looked around my work room for the other ingredients. I needed things to calm and sooth, so for sight I added some flower petals, lavender extract for scent, some bottled bird song for sound, the fur of a puppy--don't ask me how I got that--for touch, camomile for taste, a written poem for the mind, and I took some pages from the Holy Orders for the soul. I set them to a boil in a pot over the fire and waited, stirring regularly. I opened a book, a treatise on politics within the Nevernever. The solstice had just come and gone, so the power of the Winter Court was waxing while Summer waned. It would be useful to know what sort of antics Mab, as opposed to Titania, might try to pull in order to increase the power of her court. The fey courts were in a constant tug of war like this, the pendulum swang back and forth at regular intervals. The only time it ever mattered was when their constant power struggles spilled over into the mortal realm or they started involving mortals—particularly wizards—in their games.

After several hours of stirring and one hundred pages I took the potion off the boil and with a mental push invested the pungent liquid with power in order to activate its magical qualities. When it was finished I put the mixture in a ceramic bottle, stoppered it with cork, blew out the candles and then went upstairs. I changed out my robes for a set of less conspicuous traveling clothes—boots, a set of breaches, a tunic and wool vest. I then put on the symbol of my office as a Warden of the White Council, a gray cloak, and strapped my sword to my belt. I put on a set of leather gauntlets and strapped on the scrip that contained my money and a few other herbs and headed out the door. I locked the door with a large bronze key which also rearmed my wards, the wreath of defensive magic that surrounded my home and protects it from direct attack as well as both physical and magic intrusion. My home is more appropriately described as a stone tower. It has a front door constructed of iron-banded oak, which can be barred from the inside. It is four stories with a crenelated roof, with a cellar and sub-basement.

I suppose now is a good time to give a summary of a few things. First, the White Council of Wizards, or White Council. Prior to it's founding by Merlin in the fifth century, the world's wizards were fractured into a number of different groups. The largest of these was the Order of Hermes which managed to save many of the books and scrolls which otherwise would have been burned by the Christians in the Great Library of Alexandria under the auspices of then Bishop now Saint, Cyril.

The White Council was founded not only to Unite the wizards of the world, but to give us all a common purpose—to protect the mortal world, particularly those who cannot defend themselves, from supernatural threats. You know, Loup Garou, goblins, ghosts, the four types of vampire, and fey incursions. It also serves as the governing body for wizards, binding us to seven laws of magic. These laws are important. In addition to just being morally wrong or dangerous, the breaking of these laws literally corrupts the souls of those who do the breaking, causing them to slip further and further into corruption to the point that they are driven mad.

The first law is a prohibition against killing another person with magic. This does not mean we cannot kill. Magic comes from the energy of all living things, and especially from the imaginations and aspirations of people. To use it to take a life is a perversion. The same goes for the second law, a prohibition against transformation of other humans. Specifically against their will into animals. A human mind cannot be contained inside of an animal's brain. It goes mad, and eventually is destroyed, in effect it kills them. It just does so more slowly than if you sent a bolt of lightning through their chest. The third and fourth laws can be combined. Thou shalt not enter or control the minds of others. Forcing yourself into someone else's mind is worse than physically raping them. The next is a prohibition against the practice of necromancy. Specifically it is a prohibition against summoning, binding, or otherwise mucking around with people's souls. Again, obviously bad.

Violating the next two is just dangerous. Thou shalt not swim against the stream of time. No time travel. Think about this for a second. If you want to change the past and then go do so, why did you travel back in time in the first place? This creates a paradox in the universe. These are bad. It may not matter, the universe may be self correcting in that what you try to do is already taken into account in the timeline. We don't know. We do not want to find out.

The last requires some explanation. We have an existence, a universe in which we live. It includes within it other realms like the Nevernever which is the land of the fey and it exists parallel to our own world but still part of it. They interact with eachother naturally. Outside of that existence there is something else. That something else has things in it which need to be kept out, they are anathema to all life, beings of horrible power. The church would burn me at the stake for saying it, but God, Satan, Bhaal, they are just very powerful fey. A sufficiently powerful wizard or group of wizards could kill any of them if it became necessary. These things are so powerful that if they got in we would suffer heavy losses just to banish them and shut the door behind them. It is forbidden to open that door. It is forbidden just to think about ways to open it or to try to so much as find out about these beings. They are there, we are here, we have a Gatekeeper and alarm spells all over the door to there. Stay the hell away, if you are ever tempted to do otherwise.

There is only one penalty for breaking any of the laws of magic. Beheading. That is where I come in. The Wardens of the White Council are those who enforce the law, like the magistrates of a town. We have broad powers of arrest and summary judgment, meaning of course execution. There are many users of magic who are not wizards--in fact most are not powerful enough to ever be wizards—they fall under our jurisdiction as well. Mostly because we say they do. We get paid for this, a wage of six pence a day, approximately the wage of a mercenary bowman. Not a bad income. Still, this does not explain how I afford my tower or the land that surrounds it. Let me explain. In addition to that, I also earn some money as an apothecary within Shropshire, the county within which Shrewsbury is the largest town.

The land and manor I dwell on is a land grant from the Sheriff of Shropshire . This would be strange, because I am Welsh by birth, but also because wizards must maintain neutrality in mortal affairs. The White Council is comprised of people from many nations, nations which the Europeans have not even discovered exist yet, and contrary to popular belief, the world is spherical and revolves around the sun. If we got involved in mortal politics and wars then the council would splinter and be engulfed in civil war. As a result, I have a particular arrangement with Sheriff Prescott.

I am permitted to dwell upon my manor and collect the usual duties and taxes from the peasantry who toil in the fields and who must use my mill and ovens. In exchange I agree to do what I would normally do, which is deal with any rogue wizard or sorcerer who harms the shire, in addition to any supernatural threats which may present themselves. I owe him no oath of fealty as such, though he is empowered to conscript those who live on my lands into armed service when the situation calls for it-- they owe him and not me the usual forty days of militia service per year. He does not know about the White Council. Most mortals do not. Nor do they know about the Laws of Magic, Wardens or anything else. They know about wizards, and they know about other things like Vampires that stalk them in the night. There is a problem with this: The church--often correctly--accuses us of being heretics and in league with dark powers. Well, maybe not dark powers but we occasionally have to make certain deals with other-worldly beings. Because of this, the peasantry as well as the nobility tend to have religiously inspired cause and effect problems. When the wizard is around, strange and often scary things happen. Children get abducted by faeries, people go missing, harvests fail. Due to the fact that we are somewhat visible, they assume we cause these things, when the reality is we prevent them from being far worse. As a result, many wizards do not get a kind reception, and because we are restricted by our own rules from defending ourselves with deadly force, many of the less powerful wizards and magic users get tortured to death, hanged, or burned alive. The church in recent years has taken to this with a particular fanatic zeal, and I fear for the worst if one day they obtain any form of royal sanction.

So how did I reach this agreement? Well this requires a story.

One year earlier in the summer of 1402 I was living in Wales, outside the city of Conwy. The castle of Conwy had been built by King Edward the First in order to secure his domination over Wales back in the 1280's and the town around it had prospered, particularly under the protection of its own walls. I on the other hand was one of the wizards who did not receive a very warm welcome. I was forced to live outside the walls in a hermitage in the surrounding forest. Being me though, I made it a comfortable hermitage. I can still remember it. I had used earth magic to hollow out a small hillock and placed a door I had made from fallen some of the local trees—much to the lords displeasure. I slept on a bed of dried moss. The only problem was the lack of smoke ventilation in winter. I was only permitted in the town proper during fairs and certain holy days to trade, and there made a good amount of money and got most of my supplies from trading my herbal remedies and magical elixirs. No matter how much someone fears you, if you can cure their gout they will generally set aside their fear and trade with you.

It was the time of the annual trade fair and it was dark. I was heading back to my humble hole when I heard a muffled cry behind me and to my left off in the forest. I had not been conscripted into the Wardens at this point, but was not about to let that stop me from investigating. There had been a series of grissely murders in the town after dark the last few fortnights, and this could well have been the culprit. I took a two-handed grip on my staff and crept forward into the woods. I reached a clearing and there saw a young Welsh girl I knew being ravished while pinned up against tree. I could not see the face of the person doing the deed. At first I mistook this for a romantic interlude and was about to turn away when she got a hand free of her assailant and slapped him across the face. At this point he withdrew from her and rather than pull up his breeches, adjusted something at his waste-line and began transforming into a massive wolf, at least triple the size of the native beasts. He was a Hexenwulf, in the German tongue. Literally meaning Spell Wolf. A person who is transformed by a talisman into a great wolf. Shapeshifting is safe—if you do it yourself, which is why the Laws do not prohibit the shapeshifting of yourself, only others. The problem with Hexenwulfen is that they use a talisman usually crafted by another. Eventually the worst parts of the mind take over and the person stops being one. They become an animal, a predator, even in human form.

The beast snarled at her, leapt up, clamped down on her arm with its great teeth and continued his—its foul act. She screamed piteously. Not a scream of fear, or anguish, but the frightened and pained shriek of a rabbit when captured by a fox. I stepped forward, gripped my staff and thrust my staff toward the ground, willing the ground itself to rise up to my biding.

“Lancea ex terra!” I screamed in order to shape the spell in my own mind, and a perfect cylinder of earth and stone rose up and slammed into the beast's groin, thrusting the beast ten feet in the air with an agonized yelp to land on his back in the grass of the clearing.

“Do you know the way to my cottage?!” I asked the girl in haste. She nodded, tears streaming down here cheeks.

“I will hold him off, go now!” She got up, picked up what remained of her clothes and ran past me toward my cottage.

The beast rose, its shoulder rising to my chest and its head the size of my thigh. I roared a challenge

“Hold there and get you hither, or prepare to die!” I said, brandishing my staff between us. I channeled power through it, the runes along its surface sparked into radiant light the color of scarlet flame providing additional illumination in addition to the half moon that was just now rising above the trees. The wolf gave out a howl, and four other howls answered it. Stepping out from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing came four more wolves of the same size. They crouched low barring their teeth, their ears back, and their hair standing on end. They began to circle around me.

I set my stance, bent my knees and put my left foot back. I was without most of the foci that would allow me to easily channel certain forces, so unless I wanted to expend a lot of energy I could only use earth and fire magic. Before I could work out a plan, who had reach my flanks and charged, leaping into the air, their teeth shining silver in the moonlight. I had mere seconds. I placed my staff parallel to the ground, each point facing a different wolf, gathered my will and forming the spell in my mind, released the energy.

“Consurgo speculum bacillum ex silex!” pouring the energy I had gathered into the spell. Two rows of blunt stone spikes, one on each side, rose up and met the Hexemwulfen in mid air. I had used their own motion against them like any competent commander uses spears against heavy cavalry. They screamed in agony but between the force of the rising stone and their own momentum their bodies were too broken to pick themselves up and harry me further.

The others howled and snapped in rage, but did not dare to charge blindly at me again. Instead they surrounded me in a triangle. Each would attack in turn, wear me down until I was easy prey. They got in closer, closing their trap, while I lured them into mine. I did not want to set the forest on fire, but I feared I may have to. They got sufficiently close. I gathered my will and scrawled a rough circle in the ground around me, pouring energy into it. I formulated the spell by chanting in latin.

“Incendia orbis impendo. Igneus Orbis Impendo!” as the first of the Hexenwulfen closed the distance my voice reached a crescendo “ Exustio Orbis Impendo!!”

The first one broke the circle and released its power, unleashing an inferno. The firestorm, with me at its calm center expanded in all directions filling the air with heat, and the acrid smoke of charred flesh and fur. The effort left me drained. The energy for that much fire had to come from somewhere, and now it burned with a life of its own. The growing conflagration filled the air with choking smoke and noise which would screen me from heir superior senses. Well, their superior sight and smell in any case. The sound would mask quieter movements but speech would reveal my location. I focused in on the sounds around me, cutting out each one in turn. I do not know whether the ability to Listen is magical in nature, but it is a skill I mastered from thirty five years living in a world where every day may be my last. I could hear them rolling around, trying to put the fires out which still licked across their flesh, their yelps and whines revealed their locations, and it gave a clue as how much of their rational minds remained. They could still think clearly enough to not run and fan the flames that engulfed them.

I drew a small dagger and moving very quietly, holding my breath to avoid breathing the noxious fumes, and while the three who were still conscious were distracted, I slit the throats of the two I had disabled. They were on fire, whining and screaming in agony. I ended their suffering like I would a wounded dog, for indeed that is what they were. Blood sprayed from their throats violently, and their final screeches and gurgles alerted the other three to my location. I heard them moving toward me. As the fires spread the hot air began to rise and a cool breeze came in to replace it from above, the smoke started clear and I was once again becoming visible. I looked to see the eye-shine of the three who still stood staring back at me, their skins blackened and lacking fur, save for their stomachs which still held the relatively undamaged wolf pelt talismans that allowed them to maintain their forms. The lead wolf, the one who had been raping the girl lunged for my throat, his teeth bared. I sidestepped, but only managed to partially avoid his strike. Instead of my throat he locked his jaws around my right arm wrenching me to the ground and causing me to drop my staff. I managed to keep hold of my dagger though. My sword arm felt warm, and not from his mouth as he began shaking and tearing at the flesh. I think I heard myself screaming, my heart beat like the wings of a bee. I started stabbing at him with my dagger to little effect. Until I drove the blade into his eye until the hilt stopped at his eyebrow. With a very short lived yelp the Hexenwolf went limp and lay still. The death-grip on my arm released, I was able to wrench my way free, and fighting through loss of blood face my last two opponents. They were gone.

I suddenly felt sick, of course that may have been from bloodloss, my skin was beginning to pale. Had they tracked the girl back to my cottage? I cut a piece of cloth off of my shirt used a stick to create a tourniquet around my arm. I needed to be stitched. Still, I had to know who these sorry excuses of men were. I knelt down and tore the belt from the one I had stabbed. The corpse transformed back into the body of a man, my dagger still protruding from his eye socket.

I rasped in horror. It was the son of Henry the Hotspur Percy, King Henry's mailed fist and the current overlord of these lands—having retaken the castle at Conwy back from Owain ap Glyndwr's cousins, Rhys and Gwilym ab Tudur. His elder son Harold Percy no less. If I had not blanched white, I did right then. I dripped with a cold sweat, and pulled my dagger from his now useless eye. People from the town would be there to put the forest fire out soon, the garrison, some seven score men at arms and three hundred archers would soon be hunting me. Evidence of my being there was everywhere. I knew I could not take on that many without killing them and thus feeling the wrath of the Council, and I was doubtful about my ability to not catch an arrow. It could not have just been Harold. No, the others had to be friends, they would run to the Hotspur and make up whatever story they liked. Who was he to believe, them, probably the sons of his trusted household retainers, or some Welsh hermit-wizard and a shepherd girl? I felt it best that I get home fast, stitch up my wounds get the girl and her family to the homes of relatives in other towns--then get the hell out of this part of Wales.

I removed all three belts, stuffing them like proper pelts between my waste and my own belt, and then ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I actually caught up to the girl, and as I burst through the underbrush she turned with a start and a cry, shielding her face. I stopped just before colliding with her.

“Rochyldis?” I asked, she was still weeping but she looked at me, wisely not willing to meet my Gaze “Is your father a serf or tenant?”

“A-a-a tenant, why?” she responded through her tears. She was still bleeding, and not just from her arm.

“The man... thing that attacked you. It was the Hotspur's son. He is dead. You need to get your family out of this area. Do you have family elsewhere?” her eyes went wide and she replied, dead calm now. She understood the gravity and her mind took over. She would probably collapse into weeping again later, but for now she could function.

“My father has a cousin near Harlech” she said. I nodded and ripped off one of my shirt sleeves and used it to bind her arm.

“Take this and go quickly, tell your family what happened and get them out of Conwy before dawn, do you hear me? Percy's men will be busy helping to fight a forest fire until then. Go, and quickly.” she had turned tail and started to run at a dead sprint toward her father's farm before I had even finished the sentence. This left me alone in the woods. I was close to home and exhausted, so I jogged the rest of the way. When I got home I shut the door behind me, flipped the flimsy latch and enabled my wards, I would be safe enough at home, it was leaving that would be the problem. They could starve me out I they wished it. The first thing to do was see to my arm. I angled a few steel mirrors in the proper locations and then lit the candles manually, using a taper lit from the coals of my fire. The room was smokey but not too bad, and the mirrors focused the light where I wanted them, allowing me to see. I put some water to boil and then took a jug of distilled spirits from a shelf and doused my arm with it. I really should have put a bit in my mouth, because my screams could probably be heard for some distance.

By the time the alcohol had stopped burning the ragged flesh the water was boiling and I took it and a clean cloth and began cleaning the wounds of the dirt. My arm was starting to go completely numb from the lack of and loss of blood. The wound itself was a ragged mess, both the skin and the muscle were badly damaged and the arm would have seriously reduced functionality, I would learn, for months afterward. When that was done I heated a needle over a candle and the began the long and painful process of stitching the skin back together. It took me around an hour to finish, and when I did I smeared a balm made from Calendula, Oil of Clove, Rose Bark and Witch Hazel. The herbs acted to dull the pain, stop the residual bleeding, and keep the wound from becoming infected. I did not have much, so there was not much to carry. I could only take cuttings from my herb garden and replant them elsewhere, many of my other reagents would need to stay. I released the newts, toads and other small creatures outside my door, bound my most important books together with leather straps and placed them in a satchel, then gathered my foci—which consisted of a pair of leather gauntlets with silver etched pentacles inscribed on the palm, my pentacle necklace, and my staff. By the time I had finished, dawn was upon me. I had managed to fit my most important possessions, and some dried meats, half a wheel of cheese, and a loaf of bread into a large satchel that I slung as comfortably as possible over my left shoulder—securing it and distributing the weight with a set of leather straps.

I opened the door and was greeted by three armored men. The man in the center was wearing a a surcoat over his armor, a blue lion rampant over yellow--the Percy family coat of arms. He held a sword-point mere inches from my face. The two flanking him had different coats of arms, a red cross on yellow. They must have been the two wolves who had escaped, members of the Mortimer family who held estates along the Welsh border They even had the belts, they were over the straps that buckled their armor together at the waste, but they remained unfastened. The one on the left had a Poleaxe leveled at me, the other had a mace raised in one hand, a sword in the other. Behind them were a score of men at arms, all in various mixes of chain and plate, and behind them were ten archers, in the typical patchwork of armor that bowmen managed to scrounge together on the battlefield. They had arrows knocked, but their bows were not drawn.

“My Lord!” I croaked, my heart in my chest, bowing slightly but not enough to compromise my defensive position, my left hand, which is what I used to throw up defensive spells placed protectively over my chest.

“Going somewhere Sorcerer, Murderer?” he charged, pointedly, so to speak.

“As a matter of fact yes my Lord” I replied, gathering my will for a hastily thrown up defensive spell, forming it in my mind and keeping it ready. “ I will not waste time with denials. Your son and two of his friends are dead. I killed them--” he cut me off in mid sentence

“Kill him!” he ordered, and the two knights flanking him raised their weapons and took a step forward

“Parietis quod speculum vis” I shouted rapidly and thrust forth my left hand. The pentacle on the palm of my hand burst into light and a quarter-dome barrier sprung up around me right as their weapons struck. The mace, blade, and axe rebounded off of it, and the two men clutched their forearms and dropped their weapons, which had been injured from striking a solid surface and then had the force of their blows visited upon them again in the same instant by the shield.

“You will not live up to your name Hotspur.” I spat at him, as his men at arms stepped forward and the archers knocked their bows. As a wizard I am vulnerable if caught unaware or in an indefensible position. In this instant I was in neither. I had my home to my back, which allowed the quarter-dome shield I was able to project and hold for considerable lengths of time to defend me adequately.

“You cannot harm me, and if I were so inclined I could immolate you all this instant. You will listen” I snarled, completing the statement. He held up his arm, calling of his men, who stopped advancing but stayed at the ready to defend their liege-lord.

“Speak then.” Hotspur replied. I took a deep breath and continued, still concentrating on my shield.

“I killed your son, but it was not murder.” I set my staff across my right shoulder and still holding my shield up, removed the three fur belts from where they were tucked under my own belt and held them up.

“He and four of his fellows wore these. They are magically empowered to transform the wearer into a Hexenwulf. A giant wolf that is three yards long and at least forty stone. I found them raping and preparing to murder a peasant girl—in wolf form no less—and was forced to kill three of them. The other two escaped my Lord, and I believe they are in your present company. They wear the belts even now about their armor.” He looked at me, he looked at the two beside him and saw the same nearly identical belts.

“My Lord Percy” one of them responded “He is a sorcerer he lies. If there was such a girl, let him bring her before us so that she can be called to bear witness.” he considered for a moment.

“What proof do you have that your accusations are true Warlock?” he asked after seeming to consider.

“None that I am able or willing to provide. For fear of reprisal against her, I will keep the girl's location and even her name a secret. I will take it to my grave if I must. One of them putting on the belts would be proof... but I doubt they are willing to bear witness against themselves, and in any case if they were to put those belts on, I would be protected but they would be transformed into creatures of pure bloodlust. It would not be safe for you my Lord. Might I suggest a compromise?”

“Why should I compromise with you?” he asked, his voice icy cold. If I dropped my shield, even with what I had just said, he would kill me where I stood. Rapist and beast or not, Harold was still his son, he would take his grief out upon me even if he knew his son was guilty. He may even do it because of that very fact.

“Because we are at an impass. I am unwilling to kill you, and frankly you cannot kill me right now. You may get your chance later Lord Percy. Give me their belts. I will destroy them in front of you. Even if you do not believe me, why take the risk that I am right? I will even make sure that they cannot resist—without harming them of course. If I am right, a series of murders within the town will end.” He nodded in response

I dropped the belts before me, and took a deep breath. I took up my staff and touched it to the ground, drawing parallel lines from me to the two men at Percy's side, then I released my spell.

“Ferrum mos fio vis ut terra” With that a buzzing sound filled the air and with a metallic clank the two men were forced to the ground as their armor was inexorably drawn to the ground.

“Throw me their belts and I will release them from the holding spell.”

He did as I commanded. It took a bit of tugging, but they were unable to physically resist, they did however scream writhed in protest—all inside their enclosed metal suits. The belts struck my shield and bounced off a little, but they were close enough to do what I needed to do. I raised my staff, slowly, because my arm was still in a lot of pain and the muscles were not working properly—being nearly flayed off will do that-- and spoke a single word.

“Incendia” It was said very softly, I did not put a lot of power into the spell, but the belts were immediately and spontaneously set on fire. Then I reached behind me with the staff and tapped on my door frame.

“Ostium” I said, willing power into my staff and through it, to the veil that separated the mortal world from the Nevernever. The portal to my small house erupted with light, and I stepped back through it, shield in place, and shit it behind me. The two men would have been released as soon as the gate closed.

I took a route I knew very well through the Nevernever, the route to the White Council's headquarters in Edinburgh—or more to the point under Edinburgh. The Nevernever can be a dangerous place, the fey that dwell there are primarily—but by no means completely--split into two courts, Winter and Summer. You can think of the symbolism surrounding the seasons and largely get the point. At about the half way mark I was met by an older man in a chainmail hauberk carrying a staff, a sword at his belt, and an old Norman kite shield slung over has back along with a gray cloak. He stood a bit taller than me and was definitely more heavily built, he had graying hair cut in the bowl style typical of the mid 12th century when he grew up, and had a grey mustache cut in the Norman style, Warden Captain Fortesque, head of the Wardens of the White Council.

“Wizard Gryffethson” he addressed me in french accented English, I dont think he spoke Welsh, I responded back in English

“Yes, Warden Fortesque, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“You are being conscripted.” he replied flatly.

“Conscripted Captain?” I asked, dumbstruck. They were conscripting me? My master had been a Warden, but had not recommended me for the posting. He had not recommended that I not be made one, but as he put it, he preferred to let the Commander of the Wardens make his own decisions without bias. He did not like the idea of having the posts be awarded by any other basis but ability.

“We have need of you in Shrewsbury. War is brewing and the Council fears there may be something larger afoot. You handled yourself well with the Hotspur, you are more than capable, and your dedication to upholding the Laws are unquestionable. Otherwise you would have used magic to kill those Hexenwulfen when they were not humans. You did not give yourself that out. The Council would not have either for that matter and would have executed you had you done so. Your judgment was good. You deserve the cloak. I know you never really wanted it, but you will not shirk from the duty either no?”

“No sir.”

“Then go to Shrewsbury. Do you know a Way there?”

“I do Captain.”

“Then go, and take these.” he said, handing me a gray cloak and the sword that Wardens carried that allowed them to cut through the defensive spells of other wizards. “Your wages will arrive by courier. I would recommend saving money for a suit of armor, it may come be useful.”

“Thank you Captain” I replied. We both turned, and went in our respective directions

[LadyTevar]

So what do Hexenwolves have to do with Mendez, I wonder.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So what do Hexenwolves have to do with Mendez, I wonder.

Well that is only the first third of the text...


*consults the giant web that is my plot and grins*

[Eleas]

So what do Hexenwolves have to do with Mendez, I wonder.

Well that is only the first third of the text...

*consults the giant web that is my plot and grins*

Sounds promising.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So what do Hexenwolves have to do with Mendez, I wonder.

Well that is only the first third of the text...

*consults the giant web that is my plot and grins*

Sounds promising.

To be fair, it looks a lot like the force diagram for a binary star system with a lot of planets

[Eleas]

Well that is only the first third of the text...

*consults the giant web that is my plot and grins*

Sounds promising.

To be fair, it looks a lot like the force diagram for a binary star system with a lot of planets

It could be worse, you know. Mine usually looks like a blank slate, with the remaining plot points spiralling in towards the literary equivalent of a black hole*, there to be devoured.


(I don't know why, but when I try to give it a name, I always end up calling it "Robert Jordan.")

[Alyrium Denryle]

“Well... Shit” was all Duncan could say when I had set down the part I had finished translating

“What do you think it means?”

“Well, the sixth law prohibits him changing the past, and changing the future is dicey. It is all a matter of perspective. Somehow, something he did back in 1402 and 1403 set in motion a chain of events. I assume in the 1580s he looked into the future and saw something that would happen to me. The only way for what he is doing to be legal is if he saw something that is happening now, but the outcome has not been determined.” I thought about this for a moment. The decision I made which got me into danger cannot be altered. Otherwise by trying to alter it, he would be attempting to modify the past... in the future. It seemed counter-intuitive, but it would work.

“Yeah, but if you are not allowed to change the timeline, how does him trying to change the future not violate the sixth law?”

“Well, not trying to effect the future cannot be against the laws. Otherwise we would have to kill everyone as soon as they were born. What matters is whether or not you try to change an outcome you have observed. Think about Schroedingers Cat for a minute and you will get it.”

He thought for a moment. I could tell he was really thinking because his forehead creased and his eyes moved as if he was moving information around in imaginary columns. Finally I saw the little lightbulb turn on over his head.

“You can think of the cat as existing in two states prior to it being observed. Both alive, and dead. Once the box is open, the outcome is fixed. The cat is either alive, or it is dead. So if he is trying to effect a future he cannot see, that is not a violation of the law. It would be if he saw you die or something”

“Exactly. But he did observe the events that lead to the current danger, he could not change those, so he had the book sent after they occurred.”

“I cannot believe that actually makes sense.” Duncan replied. I slapped him on the back lightly

“Neither can I. What time is it?”

“Around four I think.”

“Shouldn't Lucien be back by now?”

“That is what I would have thought. He actually has a cell phone doesn't he?” With that I started to worry. If there was a problem he would call wouldn't he? I walked over my positively ancient rotary phone and dialed in his number. It rang, and when he answered the line was full of statics. I could not hear him very well, was he whispering?

“Lucien, is that static or are you whispering?”

“Static. My charges and I are being tracked”

“By what?” Static filled the line.

“What?” he whispered back.

“By what” I repeated

“I don't know, I have only heard them, caught glimpses. I can't risk getting out of the car, but fuel is running low”

“Where are you?”

“Near Saguaro Lake”

“Get to Sycamore Creek, I will be there as fast as I can”

“Get here soon, I will be a sitting duck if I get there and you are not”

“Will do, stay safe”

“Will try” he said back, and hung up.

Sycamore Creek was a permanent creek where an underground river broke the surface of the ground, it was in a canyon along a seldom-used off-roading trail. The road down to it was winding, but if I got there first I could set up an ambush.

“To The Hexemhammer” I told Duncan while grabbing the chain shirt, staff, buckler, sword and helm, putting them all on hastily. He went to the closet and grabbed a triangular shield and a war-hammer. We went out and boarded the old Nazi Beast. Muttering a few words in Latin I put up a veil that would make it both invisible and inaudible. This made speeding along the streets of Tempe and then out of town northeast toward the creek a dangerous business. People do all kinds of crazy things when they don't see anyone around them. They change lanes, slow suddenly, speed up behind you. We were almost turned into street pizza a few times, and I think I may have fried the electrical system of a sportscar accidentally when I got too close. I say this because he suddenly had to pull off the road. Very suddenly.

I managed to get to the entrance to the off-roading trail in record time, and pulled off to the side to avoid my bite getting hit by a certain squad car. I could not maintain the veil while off the Bike, so I concealed it behind a stand of thick creosote bush. Looking down the road and focusing on my sight, I called upon the Dragon's Blood that would hopefully forever be in my veins. I saw Lucien's squad car in the distance, and thought I saw something else, moving quickly along a levy, just out of his field of view. Several somethings. Very large and brown. If they were what I thought they were, a puzzle piece would fall into place. I did not have to wait long to find out.

I maintained the veil around myself and Duncan, and as soon as the squad car headed down the tail the creatures following the car became visible as they sailed over an embankment. Large wolves, around nine feet long. Three of them. For a wizard who is well-rested and prepared, Hexenwulfen were not a problem. Provided you could avoid killing them with magic. They were still marginally human. Instead, I hit my staff against the ground and willed it to open up and trap them in a pit.

“Foramen!” and it was done. They did not even hit the ground where they wanted to. A large pit opened in the ground and they fell approximately eight meters to slam into the floor with three perfectly timed surprised yelps. I hit the ground with my staff again, willing the entrance to mostly close, leaving them trapped in a cave with a hole just large enough for me to fit my head down

“Perumque Propinguus prodigium!” Upon saying those words and forcing my will upon the earth itself, the door became a sky-lit ceiling, internally there was an embrasure starting about a meter and a half in and leading up to an opening just under a foot wide. They howled and snarled in rage, it was almost earsplitting. I waited there a while, until Lucien's car came back up the trail and parked alongside me. Four figures were in his car, Francis and I presumes his family, three in the back, an older guy who I presumed was the father in front. Lucien got out of the car and walked up to me, resting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Hey Lucien. You would not happen to have a grenade in the back of that thing would you? I cant just crush them with the spell, that would be against the rules. I suppose I could just leave them here. Technically I would not be killing them then. On the other hand, the Council may not appreciate the loop hole.”

“No” he replied “I have a dog-whistle though” he said with a wicked grin.

“Oh that is just wrong” I told him, returning his grin as he went to retrieve it from the glove box and handed it to me. I looked down the hole and blew the whistle for about half a second, to be immediately met by yelps of pain. Ah I love the sweet song of torment in the morning. It very quickly shut up the growling and howling though. They were paying attention.

“Hello there puppies. I know you can still understand me, some of your humanity still has to be alive in those things or you would never remember to take off the belts and could not be sent on assassination missions anymore.” I blew the whistle two more times in quick succession to make sure they were listening. I was met by more piteous whining.

“Now, here is the deal. I am going to blow this continuously until you take off the belts. I will create wind to bring them up to me” and with that, I took a deep whistle and blew, slowly. The sound of their suffering wafted up like the morning breeze, so warm and full of sweet smelling flower blossoms. I took a second breath, and by the time I had finished it, the whining and yelping and barking had stopped.

“Alright you sick bastard, you can stop now” one of them said in a spanish accented voice.

“Oh damn. I was enjoying that sound.” and with a quick motion of my hand the belts sailed through the opening. Drew my sword and send just a little bit of energy into it, enough to make it red-hot, then touched each belt with the blade before dissipating the spell. It worked like a charm, setting each belt on fire. They would never be a problem for anyone again. I looked down the hole again.

“This elevator going up” and I gathered my will, forcing it down my staff and toward the ground again

“Reverto terra ut exemplar positus”, and the earth returned to its original position, though not without raising those trapped inside up above the surface first. It would not do to crush them.

“Bing! Ground Floor” I said in a monotone voice with my staff and sword pointed at them. They started to speak, but I cut them off. They were all hispanic, all young. I would say late teens, early twenties. I could not just kill them, though that would be my preference. They would be more useful to me alive anyway.

“You will not speak. You will listen. I know who sent you, there is no point denying it. You will deliver a message. Tell Mendez that I keep my promises, though I have been a bit busy lately. Let him know that I am coming for him”. They nodded, terrified. They were afterall out here in the desert completely naked and defenseless (unfortunately none were especially good looking).

“Also” I fished through my pockets and grabbed three kleenex. I took up my sword and slashed each one lightly across the shoulder, then used the kleenex to take a blood sample. “I have a direct line to you now. Any more funny business from you three, any of you, and I will hunt you down and do to you what I did to the ones in the storage container. You know what I am talking about. Now get out of my sight. The best past is that there was only two places to go. They could go into the desert with its scorching hot soil and cacti, or they could go out onto the freeway with its even more scorching hot black-top. As we got in our respective vehicles and headed back to my place, I could not help but laugh loudly while watching them dance on the tarmac trying to flag down a passing car through my mirrors.

…

We got back to my place around half an hour later. The trip back was more pleasant than the trip back. We got everyone safely behind the wards when Francis' mother walked up to me

“Now just what the fuck is going on!?” she demanded of me, not in so much a yell or a shout but her voice was raised. “Why were we taken from our home, who the fuck are you and just what in the hell were those?!” She was a large woman. Not Jabba The Hutt large, but East German Women's Olympic Team large. I needed to put her off balance a little bit or she would knock me unconscious, so I gave her the short version.

'You are in mortal danger, I am an officer in the Wizard's Secret Police, and those were people who use Talismans in the form of a wolf pelt to turn into giant wolves” she seemed taken aback a little bit.

“Are you insane?”

“Think about what you have seen in the last hour and answer that for yourself.”

“I have not seen anything that cannot be explained rationally” she said angrily.

“Oh yes, of course. Nine foot wolves, let alone transforming into people, someone calling fire to their fingertips and completely raping all of geological science. Of course of course, easily explainable.” I snapped back, the sarcasm a viscous fluid dripping from my lips. She considered that for a moment.

“Would you like the long version?”

“...yes” she nodded, relenting. I told her everything to date. I even included the white council. I don't practice openly—at least not intentionally—but when someone gets caught in the crossfire of the war with the vampires or any of my dealings, I clue them in as a rule. I do not like leaving people twisting in the wind unable to use even knowledge to defend themselves. It took about an hour to go through everything.

“So, what happens to us now?” she asked while her daughter just hid in a corner with her father holding her. Francis seemed a bit more at ease.

“You will stay here tonight. My house is safe, it would take more bombs than some countries have in order to get through my wards, which are protective spells that surround my house. After that, I will get you to a friend of mine who can get you to a safe house far away from here. Probably in Canada actually.”

'We don't have passports”

“Why on earth would you need those? I never said anything about you crossing the border. You only need to be there long enough for me to take down Mendez, then you can easily return. I am going to try to have all of this sorted out within a week, so you can call the school and let them know that there has been a death in the family, say... in europe or something to justify the length of time. You should be alright after that.” she nodded.

“What do you do for a living anyway, I have to ask”

“I coach Ju Jitzu”

“Ah, now it makes sense”

'What does?” she asked

“Nevermind... In any case, I have some nice comfy couches, The fridge is open and I have a large library of books. The english language stuff is all over on that shelf.” I said pointing to a large book case over by the front window.

“Why do you have this many books?” she asked.

“When I am not killing things that stalk the night, I am a professor in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies department at ASU. I study medieval mythology and folklore. It helps that I live it.” She laughed a little bit.

“I do however have some translating to do. Lucien, bring yourself up to speed” I said, tossing him what I had translated in the document so far, before pouring over another section of the text.

...

Let me tell you, traveling through the Nevernever, even on the best of days is not pleasant. Time does odd things, space does odd things, and you dare not fall asleep there. Needless to say, I was very very tired when I got to Shrewsbury. Unfortunately, while I knew the path to the town, I had no idea where I would be when I opened the door back into the mortal realm. So I opened a door to a random spot. Where was I? In the middle of the Shrewsbury Abbey. In the middle, I mean inside the chapel itself while the monks were singing Compline. Needless to say my appearance out of a gate torn in the fabric of existence in the middle of the two opposing rows of Benedictine monks was cause for alarm.

The parishioners panicked, the monks crowded back against the walls screaming “Sorcerer! Sorcerer! Witchcraft! Call the guard!” An older one, but not the oldest took a rosary from the walls and walked up to me holding it out in front of him like a shield

“Brother Prior! What are you doing!?” another called behind him. I thought it was out of fear for his life, but it was really because the prior forgot the holy water. This monk grabbed a vessel and took holy water from the bowl the parishioners use to bless themselves prior to the service then ran over and doused me with it. Both of them together then proceeded to use the Roman Ritual to cast the Devil out of me. I had to hand it to the monks, they had courage. I however had no patience, and I cut them short by gathering my will and then sweeping my right hand—painfully I might add--over his face, releasing the energy and using a single word to shape the spell

“Silentium” I spat angrily. He fell silent. He could try to speak, he could breath, but the sound would not actually get from his lips to my ears. Or his own for that matter. He looked shocked, confused, and angry. I however could speak, and did so in my Welsh accented english.

“If I were sent by the Devil or possessed by an evil spirit I could not have easily done that. Not on Holy Ground. Now shut up and answer my questions, I have had a very long journey.” He was cowed. So much for faith. He nodded.

“Now, other than my showing up here unannounced, have strange things been going on lately? Just nod your head or shake it for yes and no respectively” He nodded. “Have they involved attacks on people?” he nodded “Have people gone missing?” he shook his head. “Were the bodies mutilated?” he nodded. “Ritualistically? Were they the same type of mutilations?” he nodded again. I sucked in a breath, they had a sorcerer. I suppose their reaction to me was justified, in a way, so I told him.

“You have an evil sorcerer on your hands. It is not me. If you promise not to try exorcising me again, I will let you speak. Do you promise?” he nodded. “Good” I said, and released the effort of will that sustained the spell with a sigh.

“I am sorry if I scared you, I was traveling to Shrewsbury through the land of fey, yes it exists don't contradict me, church doctrine is in error, and I did not know I would come out here during Compline. I need to see the Sheriff of Shropshire, I am going to help the town with the problem you are having. Is he in the castle presently?”

“Yes” the monk said. “With your permission Brother Prior, I will take my leave. By all means continue with the Holy Office.” I left the monks stunned and confused, but none the worse for wear, and soon I heard them singing again. They would probably send a message out and the church would want to 'Examine' me. I would have to deal with that when and if it came. The church did not look kindly upon Wizards, but did not have a position on whether or not to torture to death wizards who do not bewitch people—yet. That would come later in 1478. I left the abbey, giving the Porter a cheery smile and started the walk from abbey to castle. It was night, so most of the townsfolk were indoors. I had to stare down some street toughs, but what were they going to do? I was well armed and walked confidently. I finally reached the castle's gatehouse and met the guard.

“I am the Wizard Owen ab Gryffeth, here to see the Lord Sheriff Prescott, prithy grant me entrance and pay me no disrespect as host, and I shall pay no disrespect as guest.” The guard was younger than me, perhaps three and twenty, black hair, and a scruff of a beard. He wore a coat of plates with plate armor over his arms and legs, a kettle helmet on his head. He and another guard place billhooks in front of me to block my entrance, even though the portcullis was shut.

“It is an urgent matter, you have a sorcerer killing those under Prescott's protection. I am here to kill that sorcerer for his crimes and can do far better tracking him down than you and yours. Prithy allow me entrance” the guard seemed to weigh his options then called up to the gatehouse proper

“Raise the Gate!”

After a considerable length of time, a period full of a loud clinking and wrenching sound as the metal portcullis was raised using a giant chain and struggled against the stone tracks it was set in, the gate was open and I could walk through it unimpeded. I turned to the guard.

“Thank you” and I placed three pennies in his hand, half a day's wage, and walked through the door. The castle itself was an older design. Rather than more current concentric rings of walls it was surrounded by a relatively low curtain wall which itself had no towers save for the gatehouse. The keep was also nothing remarkable. Rectangular, it stood some six floors high and was fairly long. The door to the keep which was of stout iron banded oak was set two floors up and could be approached by a causeway which had a gap. A wooden plank could be retracted denying access to the door, and the keep had two towers, one on each of the short walls. The door to the keep was open and archers patrolled both the curtain wall and the towers. As I got through the gate two guards armed with billhooks came to escort me to the keep. I wont bother describing them, they all more or less look the same. From the sounds of music and revelry inside, I guessed it was dinner time. We ascended the causeway and entered the guard chamber where I was disarmed and taken inside the feasting hall.

A few musicians played in a gallery overlooking the hall itself, where jugglers and acrobats performed their craft. There were two long tables where the lesser gentry of the town wolfed down roasted venison and other victuals. On a raised area there was a shorter table where the Sherrif, a man in middle years with a stout brown beard with flecks of gray ate along with his sons, daughters, wife, and those who ran the castle itself such as the Steward.

“My Lord Prescott!” called the guard on my right “A wizard has come, seeking audience!” the eating stopped, the music died, and with a loud thump and clatter one of the acrobats fell over mid carthweel. The room was dead silent until I stepped forward and spoke.

“Peace, Lord Prescott and those assembled. I am Owen ab Gryffeth, a wizard recently from Wales. I come in peace and with an offer of assistance” I only hoped that Prescott was a reasonable sort. Shropshire had been in the middle of the Welsh Revolt under Owain ab Glyndwr for the past two years and several towns had been attacked. My being welsh did not help matters.

“What need to I have for help from a wizard, and a Welshman to boot?” he shot back.

“Many have need for a wizard my lord, and that I am welsh is irrelevant. I am a wizard and thus owe no loyalty to king or country. I go where I will, live where I will, and assist where I am needed. I am needed here, and thus have come here by my will”

“And what are you needed for?”

“There have been murders my lord. Murders committed I think by a sorcerer. I am here to apprehend this sorcerer and force him to face his maker and face the good justice of our Lord the Risen Christ”. Personally, I do not believe in God, as I have said before. However keeping up a pretense with the local christians that I do, even if my beliefs on certain subjects were heretical, often helped. “Might I dine with you and discuss the matter? I would prefer to operate with your sanction, though will do without if necessary.” he thought if over for a moment. I was only physically unarmed, but had left much of my power at the door. Homes had a certain power that way. The threshold of a home could hedge out a lot of things. Ghosts, vampires, even demons. This power also included the power of a wizard who came in without an invitation from the person who lived in the home. The older and more steeped in memory a home, the strong the threshold. Castles were fortifications, but they were also homes. Many generations have lived, been raised, and died here. This castle was originally built after William of Normandy took England in 1066, but even before that it had been a Saxon timber fortification. It was old and powerful, I would have trouble so much as blocking an arrow here, while outside I could have stood unharmed at Crecy. .

“Come then wizard, sit at my table.” he motioned for a servant to bring me food and drink and someone made a place for me at the table across from him. I put my satchel down and then sat down on a stool, having a sip of the wine poured for me before I spoke.

“Before I begin my Lord, I arrived here rather abruptly in the Abbey during Compline—completely by happenstance. I am afraid I gave the Prior a bit of a fright. If you could send your assurances that I meant no harm to the abbot I would appreciate it.” he nodded.

“Alright, I I know there have been murders, and that they were done as part of a ritual, but I will need to examine the locations where the bodies were found, as well as examine any bodies that have not yet been buried.” he nodded again and spoke

“There are two in the abbey mortuary waiting to be buried”

“Good, I shall go there in the morning at dawn. I shall also require the ability to search homes and shops.” most shopkeeps ran their actual business out of their homes which substantially weakened the thresholds.

“Done”

“I will also need the assistance of one of your men at arms, someone open-minded and willing to obey my orders. The guard at the front gate should suit my purpose”

“Ah, Smyth. Yes, you have him”

“Thank you my Lord. Now, if I succeed in this and do not die, I plan on making Shropshire my permanent home. At Conwy I lived in a hovel out in the forest, I would prefer not to have to do that.” he looked at me quizzically.

“What is it you propose?” he asked.

“An agreement similar to being granted a fiefdom my lord” he scoffed “Hear me out. I must remain neutral in most mortal affairs. I cannot get involved in your wars.”

“Why not?” he asked, almost insulted by the tone. I was being impudent I think.

“Imagine the horror of wizards being involved in the wars of men.” I said “If I wished it--though it would take considerable effort--I could tear down this keep. Even the foundations would not be left standing. Castle walls would become useless, entire populations could be wiped out. That is all well and good for you... if only I was involved. Your enemies would recruit their own wizards. They would think themselves invincible, and soon England, all of Europa would be engulfed in war. The devastation would be worse than that wrought by the Black Death. No. I cannot be bound to military service. There are other ways I can be useful however.” He seemed to accept that explanation which, while true, was not the whole truth. As I have said before, we are neutral in mortal politics mostly for reasons of unity within the White Council.

“I am listening” he said, indicating he was willing to negotiate terms.

“I am a skilled herbalist. Say what you will about the monks, I am better. I have magic and a wider knowledge of herbs and other curatives from the around the known—and unknown—world with which I can work. I am willing to provide those services to the town for a fee, and your soldiers for free. I can cure gangrene for example, and speed recovery from injury, arrest the fits. If you can name an affliction, I can treat or cure it. I can also deal with threats to your lands that you are ill-suited to dealing with. Loup Garou, Ghosts, Spirit Posessions. All of them. I am skilled in combat both magical, and physical. If it comes to pass that mortal agents are being used in a power struggle between supernatural powers—the fey for example— and this is a threat to the shire I can help deal with that and not break my oath of neutrality. The mortal world was by god” I said crossing myself “created for mortals”

He nodded and thought about it for a second.

“You will owe me the usual taxes and tributes coming off your land including one eighth of all crops, and those who work your fields will owe their fealty to me and be obligated to my service for forty days each year in the summer. I want your oath on it.” It was then that I Soulgazed him. I looked into his eyes and in them I saw a man standing on a wall in full armor surveying his lands and the people who dwelt within them. He looked on them with compassion and love, the sort that one has for a beloved son. He had been born here, raised here. He loved his land and his people. There was something else though. As he looked across his fields and saw shadows moving in the darkness beyond, he maneuvered his people like chess pieces. He blocked passageways evil could use to approach, sacrificing people if necessary. He wept for them, but did not let it interfere with his purpose. He loved his land, but could be, and was, calculating and efficient. He did not spare a moments hesitation to sacrifice those he loved for the greater good of all. As the gaze ended, he placed himself as a chess piece on the board. I had gazed into the souls of nobility before and had seen things which would haunt me. I had seen men who took pleasure in the suffering of serfs, consorted with evil for their own gain. This man was a far cry from this. He could be trusted. Of course, the Soulgaze is a two way window to the soul. I saw him, and he saw me. When we ended the gaze he simply nodded. We understood eachother and had seen the quality of another. If someone approves of what the other sees in a Gaze, there is no better way to secure trust.

“I swear on my power that I shall abide by these terms for as long as I dwell on this land, and bring no harm to you or your heirs”

“Do this task and I swear to uphold these terms, and bring no harm to you, or any apprentice you deign to train” That was a nice touch. Then again wizards had apprentices, he knew that, and if I added his heirs to the terms it would only be fair if he included mine. There was no need for a formal ceremony. I was not being knighted or anything.

We ate, talked, got to know each other, and the Steward showed me to the guest quarters where I promptly fell asleep until dawn

…

At dawn I went back to the abbey, Smyth in tow. Actually his first name was Alec. He was an amiable sort, friendly and talkative. He would serve several purposes. He knew everyone, as he frequented the ale-houses throughout the town. His escorting me also gave me a certain amount of legitimacy. I had the permission of the Sheriff to conduct my affairs. He would also serve to retrieve certain items that I may require over the course of my investigation, and serve as guard against possible danger such as knives in the back. Wizard or no, I was still only human, as vulnerable to a knife when caught unaware as anyone. Hell, a man with a longbow at a hundred yards could still put me down, though at that distance the best archer would be hard pressed to hit his mark.

We arrived at the abbey gates and the Porter opened the door for us. We were greeted by monks crossing themselves, and the Abbot, walking forward to greet us. He was a kind and gentle looking old man, a bit wizened and he stooped a bit, but he had a broad smile.

“Welcome to Strewsbury Abbey Master Wizard, I am Abbot Herebrut. Sheriff Prescott sent your apologies and an assurance that you are here for good purpose. I apologize for Brother Prior and Brother Jeremy.”

“It is alright Father Abbot, and thank you for your warm greeting” I said with a sincere warm smile. “No need to apologize. I did scare them half to death, and with what has been going on lately I understand. I am however here to see the bodies that lie interred within.”

“Of course of course, Come this way” he led me across the courtyard an up the steps, through the great doors and down to the mortuary. I saw two bodies, a man and a woman. I gave them both a cursory exam first. The throats were cut, as were the wrists. There was a pentagram cut into the chest. Not a pentacle like what I wear. A pentacle has a circle binding a five pointed star. A pentagram has the points unbound by the circle. A perversion. The christian equivalent would be an inverted cross. They were also covered in an old Saxon script that predated the Norman invasion historically by some six hundred years.

“Alec, could you go and get me parchment, ink and a pen. I need to write these down” He nodded, crossed himself and stepped out of the room while I examined the bodies more closely. The cutting of the throat and wrists had happened post-mortem. The cut disguised ligature marks. A thin line bit into the flesh just outside the bounds of the slashes. They had been strangled by a waxed chord, perhaps fishing line. The man had his wrists and ankles bound, they had the same ligature marks. The woman had a bite mark on her left breast and bruises to her face. Her feet were unbound as well. This made me suspicious. I examined her more closely and found that her inner thighs had been bruised, and her vessel had been torn. She had been raped, and violently. Probably so that whoever had done this could use his own lust and her fear to lend power to whatever rite he had been conducting. Just to be sure I also turned the man over and checked for equivalent injuries to his rectum. I found them. He had been sodomized. Unfortunately, in a sense, the bodies had been washed by the monks. There was no way I could retrieve the hair or fluids I would need for a tracking spell. As I contemplated that, Alec came back with the parchment and quill I requested and I began writing down the writing on the bodies.

“Were there always two bodies, and are these two husband and wife?”

“Yes, they are, so were the others.” The symbols, the power of a rape ritual... it was all very familiar to me.

“When and where were they found? And was there blood everywhere? These bodies have been drained. Were they found face down, at an incline perhaps so that the blood would drain?”

“Aye they were Master Wizard, found the morning after the first full moon of the month for the last four months, scattered through the town.” I looked at the pentagram drawn on each one and the mystery solidified further.

“I will need a list of the victims, and also a list of taxpaying households and their size. Would the Sheriff have that information? I need to know if they were prominent in the town and had a lot of kin”

“I can tell you that. They were members of some of the larger families. Many people here are related by blood or marriage and all of the victims came from well-off merchant and craftspeople, a lot of relatives in the town, let alone the shire.” then it hit me. A bloodline curse.

“I need to see that list, and a map showing the locations of the bodies” I told him, my voice taking on a hurried tone. I had nearly a month, but wanted to find this bastard before he killed again and completed the rite.

“We only have a very rough map of the defenses of castle and town I am afraid, but I can get you the list”

“Good. Can you show me the locations, and were they all on the town side of the Severn?”

“I can, and yes. All on the town side, just outside of the walls. Why?”

“Running water drowns magic, if magical energy must cross flowing water a spell will not work. Whoever he is, he is setting up his spell from within Shrewsbury itself. I need to see the locations” he took me to the location that the current victim's bodies were found, a place on the southeast side of the town just outside of the town wall by the bridge across the Severn. Blood still soaked the reed-covered ground where every drop of their blood had drained. It was the same at the other points. Near the stone quarry, by the Welsh bridge, outside the south wall. It formed four points of a five pointed star. The last point would be at the castle, which was cause for concern.

“Alec, how many relatives does Sheriff Prescott have?”

“He is related by blood or marriage to many of the lesser nobility in this region”

“What about the town proper?”

“Not many, most of his relatives have manors outside the town proper”

“What about his retainers? The Steward for example.”

“Most of his relatives are in Wales. I don't know why you are asking, none of the bodies were found anywhere near where they live” I used dirt and a stick to map a rough drawing of the city. The river Severn looped around it with the castle protecting the only land approach, three bridges crossed the river and the city walls ran a somewhat irregular path through the older parts with some of the newer sections extending outside the stone wall. It was very very rough. The configuration of the walls was probably not at all accurate. I then gave the locations of the killings, marking them on the map with a dot and then connecting the dots. Alec took in a breath and crossed himself.

“Look familiar?”

“Dont you wear the same symbol?” he asked, pointedly.

“No” I stated flatly. “This symbol is very common among wizards and sorcerers. It represents the elements. Air, earth, fire, water, and spirit. For wizards, it is bound inside a circle that represents human reason and conscience. The power of the universe contained and controlled by the benevolent will. It symbolizes that magic is to be used to help and protect others, to ensure the greater good and to provide a defense against darkness. This symbol was drawn on the corpses I saw today.” I said as I drew the five pointed star with a circle drawn inside it. “It is an abomination to us. Magic unbound by law, conscience, and reason. It is to us what an inverted cross is to you. The final point is at the castle, which means the ritual will culminate at the castle. That is why I asked about the Sheriff and his retainers. The easiest victims will be the ones who live within the curtain wall. Difficult to get a body inside.”

“It would also be difficult to do everything that needs to be done inside the walls. Especially for someone who does not know the grounds well. To violently rape and sodomize a married couple will be difficult to do and not get caught there.”

“Unless you know all the little hiding places?”

“Yes. There are a few secluded places, but whoever is doing this wont know where they are.”

“Then we need to begin our search with those who dwell in the castle.” This gave Alec cause for pause.

“How do you suppose we do this?” he asked, his voice dropping a tone.

“Very carefully” I told him, and started walking toward the castle.

…

“Just what is the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer anyway?” he asked me as we reached the castle gate. I smiled.

“Good question.” I replied “Not everyone is born with the ability to do magic. It is a gift granted to very few. Those who have the gift have it to varying degrees. A sorcerer has some talent, but does not have it in them to really master magic. Usually. Sometimes someone has the talent, but never get the training needed to realize their full potential.”

“Why is that important? With enough practice, shouldn't they be able to figure it out for themselves?” another good question. Such an astute lad.

“You were trained to use that billhook and a sword right?”

“Yes. Men at arms and Knights are trained by weapon masters and have strict regimes of practice that those in peasant levies never get”

“Exactly. A thousand archers can all try to turn me into a pincushion, and I can emerge from the arrow storm unharmed. I can do this because starting at the age of twelve, my master would throw rocks at me until his arm got tired every day. Later he would call fire and lightning to his hands and try to break my spell-shield. The true difference between a wizard and a sorcerer is that the sorcerer never had someone do that for them. No matter how much raw power they have, they lack the training and discipline to use it fully. That makes them no less dangerous. Through trial and error they are capable of some fairly impressive spells... Like the one we are trying to prevent.”

“Which is?” he asked. I had left this part out.

“I will explain that to you and Sheriff Prescott when we get to his chambers. I do not want to be overheard.”We walked through the gate with a nod to guards and up to the keep, ascended the causeway and went through the guardroom. There was no need to disarm me any more. From there Alec lead me up the west tower steps to Sheriff Prescott's chambers. I found him laughing while his six year old daughter Elizabeth played the dulcimer, poorly but adorably. I sat on a stool by the door and waited for the little girl to finish the piece before speaking.

“My Lord, I have news, it is best you hear it privately.” he nodded and got up from his fur covered chair and took Alec and I to his study, shutting and locking the stout door behind him. I removed a length of chord from my scrip and placed it around us in a circle, investing it with the energy required to hedge out any clairaudience my opposite number could use.

“What is it?” he asked. If filled him in on what I knew so far. The cause of death, the violation of the victim's persons, the locations and how they formed a pattern. I finished with where the last body would be found. In the middle of the castle courtyard.

“But what is the spell?” he asked.

“I think it is a bloodline curse. A spell which wipes out everyone related by blood to those who were killed in the preparation.”

“In all of England?” he asked, a touch of sheer horror on his voice.

“No. Only within the bounds prescribed by the circle. Most of Shrewsbury. How many people are related to these people?”

“Not knowing who the last victim will be, it is still most of the merchants and craftsmen”

“So many of your able-bodied men, and the majority of those who can afford decent arms and armor to lend to the city defenses in a siege?” he blanched

“Yes. Do you think it may be a prelude to a siege of the town?”

“That is as good a motive as we have right now. Which is also the reason I did not want to be overheard. The most likely person to be committing these crimes and setting up this spell is one of your retainers. However, we cannot just begin questioning people. The culprit will catch wind of it and may flee before we can close in. No, whoever is doing this needs privacy. They need a seldom-used outbuilding or storeroom. ”

“If the culprit is doing all of this in the castle, how are they moving the bodies?”

“There are many ways. Mind-affecting magic is easy under the right conditions. Veils are easier, spells that can be used to hide in plain sight. I can see through such spells.” A thought suddenly struck me. The river Severn would not completely hedge out a spell. It could be cast from the area beyond the castle on the land-bound approach. “My lord, do any of your retainers have land to the north east of the castle?”

“My Steward, Delwyn owns a small farm house in that direction. It is several hours ride from here. Surely you cannot think him. He has been here for years.”

“His family is Welsh, and he can come and go as he pleases. He has access to all of your tax records and knows exactly who to target. Did you see him at dinner the night of the last killing?”

“Come to think of it no. That is not unusual though. He has been gone several nights each month for the last six months... Oh.” I could see the connection form in the Sheriffs head, and his face turned red with rage. Men such as he do not countenance betrayal kindly. His fists clenched.

“My Lord, he is not guilty yet.” I counseled. “You must not change in the way you deal with him for now. If he is guilty and thinks he is suspect we may never catch him. Moreover, it would be a shame to condemn and innocent man. I will survey the city tomorrow and over the next few days. If I find corruption within I can track down someone else, and if I find none it will legitimize a search of the surrounding regions without making obvious any suspicion on Delwyn” I reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Say what you will, but seeing the quality of a man's soul can form lasting friendships faster than most other methods.

“How will you start the search?” he asked

“At the highest point in Shrewsbury. The Abbey bell tower. When a wizard wishes to, they can see all things as they really are in all of the splendor and horror that it entails. This comes at a price. A man exposed to such horror and magnificence can be made a strong person, capable of weathering all emotional storms. What usually happens though is that they go mad. As a result we learn to close ourselves off to it at a young age. I will expose myself to it. The black magic will be like a signal tower in my Sight. I will be able to narrow the search from there”

“Alright. I will let you get to it. On the morrow though, the evening meal will begin shortly.”

…

The next day after changing the bandages on my arm and thanking providence that it was not gangrenous, I found myself at the top of the bell tower just after dawn. The monks had just finished their Offices and the townsfolk who attended morning worship had gone. I looked out over the bustling town. Men and women were bringing in goods through the gates, shopkeepers were hawking their wares and children played in the streets while the crippled begged in the streets. The town practically hummed with life, even in the misery and toil that described existence in any town there was happiness there. Joy. All of the things that gave magic its power and made life itself worth living. They would be snuffed out like a candle if I should fail. I concentrated on a place between my eyes, willing a door I kept shut to open. When it had open I stood exposed to the world as it was. The smells and sounds of the city were more intense, light and dark mingled all throughout the landscape. The abbey itself was a bastion of light and order. Awash in a pale radiance and composed of orderly geometry amidst its architectural splendor. The castle was composed of the same shapes, but with a somewhat different character. It was warm with a soothing and protective warm glow, but was also covered in spines and plates of armor. The locations of the bodies were something else. Dark things crawled over them, rats and fowl crawling things wormed and squirmed around their centers and I could see the lines of dark power begin to take shape between them, the circle was forming. There was however no dark nexus, nothing in the town or castle where the ritual was being performed. I willed my Sight closed and descended the tower.

“What did you see?” Alec asked

“Nothing. Whoever is doing this, their ritual is being performed outside the walls, on the other side of the castle”

“The Steward then?”

“Maybe. I will need to find out. Did you get those tax records?”

“No, but I was going to talk to Delwyn about that today. He was absent last night at dinner”

“I noticed. Alright, I will go with you. There is an easy way to rule him out.”

We went down the long winding spiral staircase. It had seemed just moments before that we had to climb up it, and the going down was no less unpleasant. My legs were sore by the time we reached the bottom and started the walk back toward the castle. We were allowed in the gate, just as he had left it. We found Delwyn in one of the stock rooms taking inventory of the castle's provisions. I left Alec at the door and greeted the man with a warm smile.

“Good morning Delwyn” I told him, avoiding looking directly into his eyes to avoid a Soulgaze, and clasped him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. I had expected to feel the slight tingling that would inform me that he was a practitioner of magic, but I felt nothing. He was innocent, or at least not the one preparing the spell. He may be a collaborator, so I kept that in mind.

“Good morning” he responded back, taken aback slightly be my unusual level of friendliness.

“I need to take a look at the tax records for the town, to see if I can find out who the next victim may be so they can be placed under my protection. If you have time today could you get those for me and hand them over at dinner?”

“I have business elsewhere tonight. I can get them for you now if you need them, or tomorrow morning.”

“It can wait.” I told him. “I have three weeks, and do not want to take you away from your duties.” At that point, I opened up my wizard senses, not my sight, just a portion of it. I could sense something off about the man. Something coming out of and to him. Like puppet strings. I opened my Sight for a second, just a second, and before I closed it again that is exactly what I saw. Dark tentacles of energy wrapped around his arms, legs and throat. Where they touched the flesh was scarred, burned and bleeding. He was being magically controlled, often directly it would seem. He was innocent, but not clean. He was not even a Thrall. Thralls are magically compelled to act in the interests of their master. Puppets are controlled directly. The strings were not currently tight, he was himself now. I saw no evidence that the one controlling him was currently in his mind. I willed my sight shut. The man would be permanently damaged, his soul ravaged by the yoke he was bound to, but without keeping it in place there was no way I could track the culprit”

“I will see you tomorrow morning then” he said. It was my hint that he would like to get back to work.

“Of course, it has been a pleasure” I said, taking my leave.

Later that day, I informed Prescott that I would be absent at dinner following Delwyn, but also that he was as much a victim as those who had died. He gave me leave to do so, and to confront whoever it was who was orchestrating the ritual. Summary judgment was my right. I left Alec to watch the postern gate in case I was followed in turn and that night set to stalk Delwyn across the countryside. It took several hours and he was on horseback, so I had to track the horse hooves through the soft earth, but I eventually found myself in a shepherd's hut, Delwyn's horse was tied up outside whinnying in the darkness and straining at the leather chord which bound it. I heard chanting in words I could not make out, but which sounded like an old form of Saxon, accented with Welsh. Quietly I crept up to a small window and peered inside. I did not need to use my Sight to feel the wrongness within, or the silent thrum of magical power. Inside a circle demarcated by candles, Delwyn was violating a pure white sheep who's wool coat around where he penetrated it was stained with blood. His movements were mechanical and his face blank, its plaintiff and frightened bleats were almost drowned out by te chanting. A girl, no older than the age of five and twenty rocked back and forth invoking dark power just outside the circle. When the chant reached its peak, the Steward removed himself from the sheep and drew his dagger across its throat, spilling its blood upon the ground. The circle flashed with power, and sorceress touched the circle, pulling the power it contained into herself. She then touched that to another circle inscribed inside a five pointed star, and released the energy into it. The nexus for her spell, the place she stored the energy she collected each night between full moons. At the points of the star were several articles. At the head lay a standard of green and white. The other articles were goose feathers, a vial of blood, a clump of loamy soil, and a flaming arrow.

I reached into a small satchel I carried, and leaving it on the ground removed my gray cloak and very quietly fastened it around my neck and shoulders with a pentacle clasp. Then I walked very quietly to the front door and felt it with my wizard senses. The home was warded against intrusion, a nasty blast of fire awaited anyone who would attempt for force entry and it was shielded from direct magical attack. The dark power she had been using from her home had weakened the threshold, but a ward could still be anchored to it. I could shatter them with magic but that would take time and cost me energy. Instead I set the staff upon the wall very gently, and drew my sword. Calling upon its power with a thought I held it in both hands—much to the chagrin of my right arm--and thrust it into the bottom of the door, drawing it up the wooden length. It cut through the wards like a knife through a meat pie, shattering them utterly and split the door in two. I held the sword in my left hand, and the staff in my left, and then kicked the remains of the door in. She looked up startled and seemingly very very cross. I spoke to her in Welsh.

“By the power vested in me as a Warden of the White Council of Wizards, you are arrested and condemned for the crimes violating the first, third and fourth Laws of Magic. You may make peace with whatever it is you worship and come peacefully, or I will take you by force”

Eventually, I stopped bothering to inform people that they have the option to come peacefully. They never do. She called fire to her hands and thew it at me in a somewhat uncontrolled wave of heat and flame. I thrust my sword into the ground and threw up a shield based upon the principles of water magic and force redirection. The flames simply washed over and around the shield like water over a stone catching the small hovel on fire in the process. She went on the attack again, trying to do something somewhat more focused. Lightning arced between her fingertips and she thrust it at me. The bolt of lightning struck my shield with a crack of thunder and spiraled around it, only to flow back to its point of contact and exploding back at her. She threw up a hasty barrier shield and her lightning washed against it like a wave against a craggy shoreline. It was simple, but strong. I used her distraction to counter-attack. I brought my sword up but Delwyn was on me, thrusting a dagger toward my face, I used the hilt to parry and struck him in the face with the pommel sending him sprawling unconscious to the floor. My shield was down though, and I was vulnerable. A blast of wind from the sorceress sent me to the floor in turn. She stood over me and spoke.

“Are all wizards this weak? You are Welsh! Help me to complete my task and Wales can be free from English rule.”

“At what cost?” I told her “The lives of innocent people? My loyalty is to the protection of mankind, not to any particular nation or king.”

“Then you will die.” she told me “and your life shall feed my spell”

“I think not” I told her, sweeping the sword across her ankle, severing the tending. She collapsed to a knee with a cry. I heaved myself up onto my feet and amidst the fire raging in the house around me, I did my duty. I took the sword in both hands, and though my right arm was amazingly stiff and the movement pained me I swept it down, neatly severing her head from her neck in a shower of blood. Her eyes blinked several times as her mouth opened in a silent scream. I cleaned my sword in the cloak and sheathed it and tossed my staff out the door. I then took up her head with my right hand, and used my left arm to drag Delwyn's unconscious form out of the burning house. As I left, a beam fell on the circle severing it. The power was released and with no completed ritual it spiraled around in a dark nimbus of energy for a few moments before dissipating. As I exited, baggage in tow, the house collapsed. It was on this site that my home would soon be built. I threw Delwyn over his horse and put everything into his saddle bags, then mounted the horse and rode back to Shrewsbury. The head of the sorceress, who's name I never learned, was mounted on a pike outside the castle gates for a month.

And that brings us up to date.