Metaworld Chronicles

Petra Kutznetsova, Human Rune Smith in training and soon to be Magus, carefully studied her cousin, the Devourer of Shenyang.

Since Shanghai, she had known that her Void Mage cousin could not be expected to behave like an average Mage, though no theory and research had prepared Petra for what Gwen had now become—a possibly unhinged person.

Despite her academically-aligned mind, Petra felt compelled to make such a judgement because her cousin, the mistress of the Isle of Dogs, Apprentice to Henry Kilroy and future Tower Master, was now conducting a tea party with a gathering of talking animals in a scene reminiscent of her childhood picture books.

Prior to Petra's present predicament, Gwen had invited the crew to spend the afternoon relaxing at Mudchute Park, previously a mound of mud, though now transmuted through the power of HDMs into rolling lawns overlooking the Thames, flanked from behind by gleaming glass skyscrapers.

The picnic was initially pleasant, with talk of work and their private lives—until the animals arrived.

Petra took another gander at her cousin, currently holding an animated conversation with her non-human "friends".

Foremost of Gwen's new companions was Dede the duck, an enormous brute of a drake, a born bully now fully capable of committing assault and battery on Cambridge's Mages.

Besides the duck, sipping tea and nibbling on biscuits, was a rat wearing jeans and a t-shirt, more capable of murdering Mages than even the duck.

Opposite the two animals, Caliban coiled on the picnic bench, listening to the conversation, nodding and waving as it received bits of shortcake from the duck. Gwen's other Familiar, Ariel, lounged beside them, yawning as it groomed itself.

After the usual suspects, the sole humanoid member of Gwen's entourage was Lea, who was more interested in the sweets and the freedom of manifesting in the Prime Material.

Finally, there were the crows, a whole host of the damned things, each the eyes and ears of London Tower, weighing down the sycamore tree that made the park shady and cool. The murder's representative, an enormous crow Gwen had been feeding, was delivering avian oratory in the middle of the table, conversing with the duck and presumably Gwen in a way only their Spirits could fully comprehend.

What worried Petra now wasn't the talking beasties but how their table had been arranged by default. Gwen sat at the head, surrounded by animals—while she and Richard sat on a second bench, seemingly alienated from their cousin.

Unlike Gwen's other peers, Petra saw herself as the original "Gwen Researcher", one who had kept a longitudinal observational journal on her cousin. Therefore, Petra understood Gwen's propensity for attracting the strangest beings to her side and her uncanny ability to attract trouble.

Despite the endless drama in the Shanghai portion of Petra's journal, Gwen had made friends and forged an unbreakable bond with her estranged family. For London, Petra had expected Gwen to perform likewise, instantly surround herself with a new social circle of high society Mages.

Yet, here and now, in the aftermath of her triumph over London's elites, Petra could only shake her head in disbelief that her cousin's London posse possessed nought but a duck and a crow, reinforced with a rat from Shalkar.

Where were the Lulans of London? Petra gazed questioningly at Richard, who appeared more amused by the spectacle than alarmed. Of course, Gwen had made many allies and found helpful colleagues like Charlene Ravenport, that balding fellow from Peterhouse, and new patrons like Lady Loftus of Ely. However, none of these connections was akin to Mayuree or Lulu, who would eat a Fireball for her cousin should the need arise.

Perhaps, if Gwen's present company were starry-eyed colleagues and superiors, Petra would have written the matter off as the perils of power. However, The Wonderful Adventures of Gwen of Looney Woods was nothing short of ridiculous.

Should she release her Spirit to join them? Petra desired to know what the Spirits and Gwen were so heatedly discussing. But unlike Gwen's Familiar or Richard's Undine, her Naga Spirit was an acquisition, more so a tool than a companion. Not only was her Spirit's Ego singularly shattered by the Thunder Dragon that tore it from its body—it was utterly terrified of Ariel and Caliban.

"What do you suppose they're talking about?" Petra asked Richard, growing curious as the crow's caws grew impassioned.

"The weather? And something about water levels. Mermen, I think. You know Gwen and Mermen." Richard appeared baffled as well.

"Gwen had spent the last hour talking about the weather over tea with a table of animals?" Petra affirmed her suspicions, feeling the pit of her stomach sink. Had Richard's ears deceived her, or had she spent too much time studying the Dwarven Runescripts and had lost perspective of what constituted normality?

The latter could be the cause, for according to her Magisters at Queen's College, she had made excellent headway in her research. For her certification thesis in July, Petra had planned to unveil a revamped Spell Cube system, which allowed for long term storage and safe retrieval of the retained "spell" at eighty per cent of the original caster's tier even after a year. Now advised by the best, she knew for sure that Magister Wen's original designs would never supersede the ease of vellum scrolls. By the laws of mana conservation, a Spell Cube's sub-optimal ergonomics would never replace scrolls. However, thanks to her work with Gwen's Dwarves, her research could be re-classified as "magical batteries" slated for stationary spell storage and the craft of Golem-making.

"And now they're talking about the ice caps." Richard raised a brow, giving Petra a strange look she did not like. "When did Gwen become Cambridge's resident Lecturer of Geomancy? How does she know all this?"

"Know what?" Petra furrowed her brows as the crow continued to caw on the adjacent table, intermittently interjected by the duck.

"Hold on—" Richard closed his eyes. Petra felt the circulation of mana around her cousin as the air around him grew sodden, soaking his shirt. Richard, Petra acknowledged, was diving into the consciousness of his Undine. Like herself, Richard had come a long way from the ravages of Sydney to where they were now, the blue lawn of Mudchute, a demesne where her cousin was the top dog.

"—well." Richard opened his eyes, though both of his pupils appeared clouded by a film of silvery Conjuration. "I'll transcribe, and you try to make sense of it."

Deep in her bones, "Mori" Morrigan sensed that Gwen was spilling forth secrets that few would otherwise know, for there was no other explanation for the thrill coursing through her immaterial psyche.

"…It is rather more complicated than that because the Afaa Al-Halak is a symptom of the climate change and not the cause." Oblivious to Morrigan's ecstasy, Gwen continued to explain for her ratty companion the cause behind the collapse of the Rat-kin's homeland, a continuation of the explanation she had initially addressed for Morrigan. "It's like a spider web. If even a single string is drawn, the whole thing deforms, changing weather patterns where the anomaly forms, but also impacting climates further away, albeit in declining magnitudes."

Earlier, while Gwen relaxed with her cousins, Morrigan had arrived uninvited to attend afternoon tea, conveying a strange and unusual question about Gwen's report on Shalkar. Her enquiry proved fortuitous, for Gwen was in the middle of teaching Strun the Rat-kin, who would return to Shalkar in a month, about the system she had put in place to maintain food security in his homeland.

"Okay, let's try this." The girl turned to the School of PowerPoint when Strun ashamedly professed his confusion once more. With some effort, she conjured a globe to represent Terra, the conjunction of Elemental Planes and Humanity's native home, then willed forth a rudimentary map. "We all know the laws that the Dwarves have been touting since before man, right? That heat ascends, the chill descends, and that these thermodynamic forces are responsible for the wind and rain, yes?"

"Caw—!" Morrigan affirmed her understanding.

Her non-human companions nodded. Strun listened as though Gwen was delivering a sermon first-hand from the horse's mouth.

"Okay." The sorceress added a layer of blue to the globe then overlayed the equatorial band with a dash of orange. "This is where you live, Strun, this dot over here. The orange part is the heat during summer—and as the world spins on its axis, we can see the blue because it's winter. The change of seasons, which we associate with the sun's Radiance, brings the wet winter and the hot summer."

Having never seen such an exhibit, Morrigan was thoroughly enthralled by Gwen's simplification of Terra, where the sphere and the Elemental Planes conjoin. According to her recall, no one from the Mageocracy's Geomancer Corps has ever given such a concise summation.

"Before the Fire Sea, plentiful precipitation annually soaked the grasslands, then flows downstream into the Amu River, which feeds the Ural Lakes and the Caspian Sea. The humidity from the grasslands not only keeps the Khitani desert cool during the summer but also prevents erosion, thereby bringing trees, and thus shade—does that make sense?"

Strun nodded, as did Dede, Caliban and Ariel, who liked to copy the Rat-kin.

"Good." Gwen used her fingers to add a dab of red, representing the Fire Sea, allowing the colour to pollute the surrounding blue and orange until the whole section appeared like a swelling bruise. "So, what would happen if there's no more cold air here? What if the seasonal winter is negated?"

"Caw?" Morrigan raised a wing.

"No, not no more rain." Gwen shook her head. "Which is itself an imperfect answer. The correct answer should be that the rain which should have fallen here is now elsewhere, likely causing enormous floods or crazy snowstorms. All that moisture from the land and the mountains south of the Khitani heartlands is still flowing downstream, only that it's all evaporated and gone before it can feed the plants. At the same time, the loss of all those florae would destabilise the planar balance of the region, making it more hospitable for creatures like the Afaa al-Halak, and less viable for folks who relied on the grain-grass, like Strun's folk. Of course, the Afaa al-Halak would then consume the remaining tablelands to expand their territory, meaning the destruction of the aquifer, which means hotter summers—which means?"

"Caw!"

"That's right!" the girl patted Morrigan's feathers, simultaneously awarding her a droplet of Essence. "More desert! More Elemental Earth and Fire as Elemental Water moves elsewhere. A bigger rift in the planar gash! Even FASTER deterioration of the region. At some point, there's bound to be another flashpoint, meaning the place may become a new home for the Salamanders and the Elementals."

"Caw?" Morrigan asked for the consequence.

"I don't know," the girl confessed. "I am not sure anyone would know, and if they do, they're certainly not teaching it at Cambridge. I am pretty sure our Prime Material will be fine regardless, only it isn't going to be anything like the one we're enjoying right now. Can you imagine what the weather would be like in Europe if there's a permanent balefire burning over in Russia? All that water from the mountain caps is going to enact some pretty big natural disasters."

"Caw?" Morrigan wanted to know if the Fire Sea could expand once more.

The girl shrugged. "Not now, not if we can help it unless a bigger Brass Legion breaks through the portal at the Fire Sea, but until the portal's big enough, the region can only sustain so many Elementals. Isn't that interesting? Do you see why your people are essential now, Strun? To Tryfan and the Prime Material. So long as you maintain the region with the gifts from the Hvítálfar, the threat from the Elementals can only grow so dire. And to mitigate that threat, you'll feed the Centaurs with grain from the Mageocracy. Between Rat-kin and the Khitani and the Towers, you'll be able to prune the Elementals, thereby keeping the portal and the weather in check. Hopefully, when the Fire Sea wanes in time, you'll even get your homeland back."

"Caw? Caw?" Morrigan brought their conversation back to her original proposal.

"Caw? Naw—Is that even possible?" Gwen cocked her head quizzically. "A Portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire where the Para-elemental Plane of Ice is strongest? Even if it is open, how long could it last?"

"Caw! Caw—Caw!" Morrigan could only say that it may very well happen.

"Ha!" the girl laughed. "Do you have any idea how much ice is up there? Millions and millions of tons of ice, maybe billions, more than any of us can imagine! Even if a new Fire Sea opened up, how much of it could it possibly melt? Not to mention the amount of ice on Greenland isn't even comparable to the sheer volume of water stored in Antarctica."

"Caw?!" Morrigan wanted to know if warping the Elemental Nodes at the poles could be applied to Gwen's theory on Shalkar's decline.

"Bloody oath it will!" Gwen gestured wildly with her hands, launching herself into a new frenzy of doomsaying. "But you contradict yourself—isn't Antarctica the blackest of Black Zones? Has anyone other than Magister Shackleton ever traversed it? If my history lessons are correct, he didn't reach the centre until the Second Expedition. He had to make a fort and survive a year-long siege from the Ice Elementals when the Diviners in his first expedition got eaten, right? Besides, doesn't the Bestiary state that whole broods of Mythics make their home there, including a White Dragon?"

"Caw—!" Morrigan not only knew that there was a Dragon there, she even knew the creature by name.

"Anyway, I am not an expert on Astral Theory. Whatever the case, the energy required to subvert the polar junctions of the Planes of Water, Ice and Air would require magnitudes of power we can't access with our current Magitech. Not that we would want to control that power anyway. Why do you ask?"

"Caw—Caw—"

"You're a very curious bird with very strange questions." The girl's striking eyes regarded Morrigan inquisitively. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Caw!"

"The—the need to know?" The girl grew flustered. "You'd be far more convincing if you weren't a bird—Oi! Where are you going?"

Morrigan took flight.

From the moment the Hvítálfar witch-queen made her offer, Morrigan had felt her feathers tingle, and now she knew where to find the answers. Though the girl knew nothing, her wild conjectures had ignited the root of Morrigan's altar as though it was once more drenched in offerings of heart blood.

Long ago, ancient men once whispered to the "Crone of Crows who wove the Secrets." And though Morrigan had since separated from the potent Faith of secrecy and war, she nonetheless instinctively understood that she was on the cusp of some great understanding.

And for a being whose psyche was formed of such a thing, there was no ecstasy sweeter than possessing the knowledge that others did not.

"What in St Augustine's name is Gwen on about?" Petra asked her cousin, now more confused than before Richard had transcribed the conversation.

"The weather. Seemed simple enough to me." Richard shrugged at her with infuriating nonchalance. "Whatever Gwen's interest might be, our present problems are more immediate. Maybe we should resolve the Barlow problems first—get the METRO back on track—and then worry about terraforming a Black Zone, eh? Gwen's not paying us for overtime, you know."

"That's not the problem here, Dick. I mean, why does she know this? Did the Elves teach her this—what?" Petra stared at Richard when the man dared to roll his eyes.

"Go ask her yourself," Richard smirked. "It's not like she's hiding anything."

A moment later, rearranged so that her cousin no longer appeared the Princess of a Russian fable, Petra began the soft interrogation of what she suspected was yet another episode of her cousin putting herself into unfathomable peril. Trusting in the rapport built with Gwen over the years, Petra forwent the pleasantries directly asked what the crow called "Mori" had wanted from her.

"It's nothing serious," Gwen happily explained her hypothesis once more. The second time Petra better comprehended her cousin's reasoning, even if the scope of Gwen's proposal anchored firmly in the realm of fiction.

"Just because we don't think about it or know about something doesn't mean it isn't happening behind our backs, Pats." Gwen clarified with an air of conspiracy. "I am not a Diviner like the Oracle of Delphi, but you don't need magic to see that a lot of the problems in the Mageocracy can be explained by the changing weather patterns in the Wildlands. Before Shalkar, I wasn't aware of how impactful an Elemental incursion may be. Now I am."

As she spoke, her cousin thoughtfully stroked the duck's neck, eliciting something between a quack and a purr.

"Pats, relax. I am not saying we should lose sleep over any of this. We have bigger problems, and besides, there's not a lot the Mageocracy can do other than work with Tryfan's directives."

"Meaning, if you're right, we're at the mercy of Tryfan?" Petra recited after her cousin. As a committed adherent of Dwarven Runecraft, she was no longer clueless about the High Elves and their role on Terra. The Hvítálfar, whose Dwarven Masters labelled "knife-ears", had always perceived themselves as better than their Elementally estranged cousins and loved to meddle. Thereby, Petra felt great unease that Elves were beginning to feature more and more of late in Gwen's dealings and not Dwarves.

"I don't mind them. Sanari was pretty chill, all things considered. Did you know she told me that even if I blocked that Eldrin fellow, she still would have left me the seeds and stayed to help? If you're right, then it's because their generosity can be downright creepy."

"That's because they are much more long-lived." Petra felt her anxiety soften. "Maybe we're not seeing the scope of their plans from their perspective."

"Maybe," Gwen said. "But you know what's wild? Remember that time I went to Talwaenydd? I bought those dresses, right? I gave the Elf working the shop the money, and she just tossed it on a pile behind her in a basket. I know my shopping, and I am certain that the HDMs in there are from other Mages who had visited in the past, meaning they've got no interest even in the money they've collected. It was more of a ritual just so that we would pay and feel good."

"I can see how that's strange." Petra thought about Gwen's gripe.

"Right?" Gwen completed her thought. "They're not interested in profit, Pats. Now that's enough to give a girl the chills."

As one who had undergone training in Moscow's infamous Tower, Petra agreed with Gwen's wariness. Indeed, the more an adversary desired, the more trustworthy they became when an agent monopolised the supply, be it sex, drugs, or authority. According to her erstwhile Master, no living being possessed of an Ego could be without desire. Therefore a party that presented itself as neutral meant two things.

One, she was being deceived.

And two—she had not done her due diligence.

In the blink of an eye, Morrigan returned to the Raven Roost at Westminster, transferring her principle consciousness from one bird to another until she passed a visage of her likeness etched onto a wooden sarcophagus, alighting finally at the catacombs of knowledge.

Now bathed by sterile light, her eyes opened once more, finding herself in a grand hall so vast that even the casual observer could guess at the spatial magic used to maintain its immenseness. Below her, as always, a thousand Diviners in drab tweed and leathery brown stomped through a maze of shelves, stocking its indexes with data collected from the Mageocracy's domains.

The room reeked of mana miasma, for in recent years, most of the incoming information had been transcribed onto data slates, allowing even mortal Diviners to aid in the great project of clarifying the going-on of the Mageocracy's multi-continental realm.

Morrigan refocused her mind.

Materialised into a murky avian apparition, she flew past the magically cooled data-scape into the ancient vaults below, entirely indexed by hand, with tens of millions of scrolls, scripts, notes, files, memos and annotations going back to the time of the Argent King. Within its lightless crypt, Morrigan now traversed, wading through a sea of secrecy, relying only on the tatters of her eidetic recall to find her true north.

Earlier, her favourite Essence Vessel had convinced her that the Elements were up to something—and that something had to do with the Seats of Frost at the axis of Terra.

For Morrigan, the clue wasn't in Gwen's untested proposals but the implication therein.

In the present state of the Mageocracy's policies regarding the Black Zones, Beast Tides were classified as the consequence of explicit and sudden actions, such as the Undead War, the emergence of the Fire Sea, or the spontaneous insanity of Vynssarion the Black. These were observable catastrophes, all of which forever altered the wind and rain.

According to Gwen, Beast Tides, especially spontaneously occurring ones, may just as well result from changing climates.

And according to what she had gleaned from Tryfan and her Duke, such subtle changes in climate could very well be the result of willful malice.

However, unlike the mundane, short-lived members of the present Mageocracy, Morrigan's memory was long and old, older than even the Empire's most sagacious Magi.

After delving through six storeys of catalogues, Morrigan stopped in front of a pigeon hole half-smothered with dust. Gingerly, she willed forth the records within, composed originally by a Nordic Mage before the time of the Towers by the name of Styrkar Arrhenius.

Quickly, Morrigan confirmed the contents—an annotation of the purged proposal made by Arrhenius, insisting that the Axis Mundi—nodes where the Elements conjoin, could be coaxed through manipulating the most plentiful Element on Terra, "Water". It was an opinion that was well-regarded. However, for Arrhenius, his infamous doomsayings soon made his position untenable. Even as Humanity made its way around Terra plotting colonies and expanding territory, Arrhenius proposed that Terra was not meant for Humanity's destiny manifest, but the Mermen. "The Elementals shall inherit the Earth!" was the famous saying that turned the Magisterial community against Arrhenius, leading to the censure of his research. Nonetheless, the Mage had left an impression in history, as well as the prophecy that should Humanity fall— the remnants would survive in a "water" world. For this reason, Arrhenius argued, if he were one of the Seven Kingdom's sovereigns, subversion of Terra's planar balance would be his principal goal.

With her first reference stowed safely away, Morrigan came upon the second piece of evidence two rooms above. Unlike Arrhenius' unsanctioned opinions, Lord Stewart Collins of Reeds was a Geomancer of the Mageocracy's heartland, a respected Magister, and a chief researcher of the Black Zones with tenure from before to after the Great War of Undeath. Lord Collins, taking advantage of the desolation sowed by the Undead Tide, recorded alterations to weather patterns in central and northern Europe due to the planar instability caused by Negative Energy. Interestingly, Lord Collin's warning conflicted with that of Arrhenius, who was convinced the oceans would rise and the Mermen would reign. Instead, the Magister observed that unseasonal winters over the Seven Kingdoms would catastrophically impact food chain systems utilised by the Mermen, thereby triggering Beast Tides inspired by desperate Kingdoms looking to shed their excess citizens. Thereby, Collins warned that a "foe" with enough commitment could wipe out Humanity, not through direct combat, but by proxy against the natural world. Like Arrhenius, Collins' words also fell on deaf ears. Then, for reasons unknown, his research was never again published.

The final piece of information Morrigan possessed of note was from a New World Magister, a recently perished Charles H. Hansen, Senior Lecturer of Geomancy from Stanford University. Unlike his predecessors, Magister Hansen possessed the advantage of Spellcraft long since matured after the Beast Tide, supported by evidence collected over two decades fighting the global catastrophe. In the end, Hansen concluded after engaging in "meta-analysis" of the Beast Tide and the Coral Sea War that there must exist parties actively manipulating the Prime Material's climate patterns.

In yet another "phantom" publication that saw widespread censure outside of the New World, the researcher made the outlandish claim that Elves and their World Trees directly impacted the Prime Material and that alteration to these "nodes" of the Axis Mundi would see Humanity prosper over Terra's Elemental denizens.

Unlike his predecessors, Hansen, a resident of the New World, initially saw widespread support in his native nation. Yet, like his predecessors, Hansen quickly recused himself after publishing his work, disappearing entirely from academic life.

Of the report Morrigan now possessed, the obituary stated that Hansen had wanted to reignite interest in his theory, only he grew obsessed enough to venture into the Wildlands alone. When finally a party stumbled upon his beacon, the only part of him that was not beyond Divination was his old dog tags.

It came as no surprise for a being like Morrigan that the man's narrow "truth" did not take on. In Europe, Elves and men had partnered from before the epoch of Anno Domini. Likewise, in regions like China and the Indian subcontinent, the very notion of uprooting Land Gods who in actual fact controlled the weather would see Hansen lynched and hung by a terrified mob.

And as for the events that had occurred in Greenland, where Lhîweth burns and the Wyrm Laelitharian rots—Morrigan was beginning to sense logic in what appeared to be a fruitless and costly campaign.

As an appendix to her data dives, Morrigan concurrently collected reports of anomalies surrounding events of the last decade, pairing the spotty logs with piecemeal records of weather patterns in the affected regions.

Her evidence remained insufficient, but for a collective consciousness wrought of secrecy such as herself, Morrigan knew she was on the orgiastic cusp of a forbidden discovery.

All that remained was to barter her findings for her Duke's flesh. The act was a ritual that restored the waning motes of her decaying power and fortified her psyche, buying her time.

For so long as she survived the tyranny of time, one day, Ravenport's mortal line will cease to be. Then, The Morrigan, Crone of Crows and Weaver of Secrets, shall once more fly free to wreak havoc and feast upon the offerings of her knowledge-starved sycophants.

Deep in thought, Mycroft Ravenport, Duke of Norfolk, paced the perimetry of his office, balancing a dozen threats to the Mageocracy.

Hours ago, Ashbridge had left for the Palace to report to her Majesty, who would then trust her Dukes and General to deal with the Mageocracy's worldly affairs. The same applied to Holland, who retreated to rouse the Mageocracy's reserves after leveraging his aid for a favour. After the fiasco at the Niger Delta, Mycroft wondered if it was even possible to persuade the Noble Houses that they should feed scions into another expedition—though this time, with Solana's guarantee of profit and treasure, it was difficult to see why a Faction starved of currency would refuse.

What's left to Mycroft now was the question of leadership, for the head of the Northern Expedition into Greenland, a Black Zone without any infrastructure, would reign by martial law and be unchallenged until their hour of return.

Usually, Mycroft possessed a small trove of candidates to draw upon—but their employer, Tryfan, had made the matter infinitely more complex.

The Greenland Expedition, Mycroft suspected, was not one to send the men home by Christmas.

By The Accord's parameters, the war would not be over until the region was wholly stabilised, which meant the complete and total Purge of Fire Elementals, Undead, and Mermen from Lhîweth's domain.

Meanwhile, there was every possibility that Lhîweth may attack the very Human Mages who came to help them, and the Mageocracy not only had to grin and bear the loss but apologise should they damage the land surrounding the Great Tree. The situation itself was as absurd as they came, for Mycroft could imagine the uproar if he had hired gardeners to fight an infestation in the rose garden, only to have his wife execute them when they misstepped on the good turf.

But what's the alternative?

Could they leave the infestation untreated?

For his generation of Humanity, the consequence wasn't so dire.

Dead roses.

A ravaged Eden.

And arboreal anarchy where straight hedges and shaded lanes once reigned.

But what of longitudinal neglect?

The worrying thing was that neither Mycroft nor anyone else had an answer. In the days before Spellcraft, the Mageocracy held scant records going past the Victorian Epoch of Enlightenment. To add insult to ignorance, each war and Beast Tide invariably destroyed more volumes of journals or erased indexes so that knowledge, so that even if one existed, verification was impossible.

"Caw— Caw—"

There came the sound of a crow rapping on Mycroft's door.

"Come in," Mycroft spoke absentmindedly as the crow descended in a flurry of jet-hued feathers to assume the humanoid likeness of his supernatural aid—The Morrigan.

"Dear Duke." The sultry voice of his bird sounded well-fed. "I come bearing delectable secrets."

"You do?" Mycroft packaged away his present thoughts for a later hour. "This better not be another rumour attending to one of her Majesty's wayward children."

"Oh, this is far more delicious," Morrigan purred, her dark eyes sparkling with delight against her pale cheeks. "I spoke to the girl of her experiences from Shalkar, and she has told me of a correlation between Beast Tides and the weather."

"Truly?" Mycroft decided he would rest his mind with an amusing distraction. "Tell me, what did the girl say this time? What secret did she inadvertently reveal?"

"Tis not the lass but I who possess this secret," Morrigan informed her dear Duke. "Do you wish to know why the Elementals are assaulting the Great Tree of Lhîweth? If you would pay the price, then Morrigan would gift you with an answer."

Mycroft regarded his Spirit with a critical eye.

As per her contract, she could not deceive him with falsehoods, though Morrigan was free to present the truth with as much guile as she wished. If so, and if indeed the Spirit possessed the wisdom to see past the constraints of the Accord so at least he knew what his men were dying for, then he would gladly pay for her service.

"Fine." Mycroft materialised a crystalline blade and slit the tip of his finger, allowing a bead of blood to swell forth.

Morrigan approached, her eyes primal and wild and her pupils enlarged. Without ceremony, she placed his finger so that the string of blood that now escaped fell into the gap between her hot lips. A second passed, then Mycroft felt his vitals falter in the wake of their contractual obligations. With haste, he withdrew his hand, leaving a streak of crimson to run past Morrigan's lower lip and across her chin.

How like the goddess in the Celtic engravings she now looked, Mycroft observed. Morrigan's was an Ego that had existed since the age of wild men, savages who sacrificed their flesh and blood to unnamed Spirits like Morrigan so that she could bless them with answers to questions they did not know existed. Calmly, Mycroft softened his breathing, reminding himself that though the woman no longer caked herself with offal offerings from Druidic supplicants, her very Essence continues to be constituted from the raw, unadulterated terror of a Humanity that cowered in crude forts and hid in caves from roaming Fomorians.

"So tell me." Ravenport wiped his hand on a white, silken handkerchief. "What do you know?"

"I know where Spectre will next strike, assuming they haven't done so already—" The Spirit spoke through teeth that were gory and bloody, her white bosoms rising and falling from the invigoration gifted by Mycroft's blood. "I know what they wish to achieve and what they would engender."

Mycroft's heart grew strained with sudden paranoia. "Where?"

"Antarctica!" The crow-Goddess of old war and death and secrets spat with triumph. "They seek to destabilise the Great Tree of Illhîweth in the same manner as Lhîweth! The Elemental Sovereigns cannot force their Legions into the Prime Material so long as the World Trees stand, but they can push each boundary to the extreme! And most importantly, they can push your kin toward destruction, even without war, thereby crippling The Accord and with it, Humanity's tenuous hold on the Prime Material!"