Paranoid Mage

Archmage Janry was, in a way, hoping that the other side wouldn’t show up to the summit. Their pet fae princess had made certain demands on Prince Galivrick that had nearly sunk the entire thing, but sadly the fae negotiations had been straightened out in the end. Still, it would have been far better if the princess had been the only one to represent her side. Even if there was to be no violence, he would have preferred his faction to dominate the talks.

Most of the Archmage Council was there, and the Guild of Enchanting had somehow pulled off a miracle and even convinced Duvall to attend. It was clear her attendance was only grudging, and she made a point of seeking out Janry. Her perpetually sour face was pinched, even for her, and he braced himself for the lash of her tongue.

“If that heretic Wells shows up, you’re ruined,” Duvall said instead, scowling fiercely. “He is meddling in things not meant for mages. They’re forbidden for a reason. I won’t be sticking around if you provoke that man and his deviancy.”

Janry made soothing remarks as he tried to steer her back to Rossi, glad that he wasn’t as hidebound as Duvall was. The beliefs of the older Archmages made them easier to control, but they interfered just as much. There was nothing mystical about magic, or those who wielded it.

In all, there were over twenty Archmages and at least that many Magus level personnel at the summit, plus all of Galivrick’s fae playing host. It wasn’t quite as one-sided as the numbers would indicate, since over half the council was neutral at best, and he could only count five other Archmages besides himself as being totally unshakeable. With luck, he could change that.

He winced inwardly at some of the names as the herald spoke them, his voice ringing through the enormous meeting room. After the incident at House Xu he just didn’t know whether or not the dragonblooded were still in play, but they’d been quiet enough that he had hope they’d been removed. Apparently he was wrong.

The inclusion of Huitzilin was strange, since that man basically didn’t bother with any politics. He just wanted to be left alone and generally was, only invited to meetings out of politeness. Janry doubted that he was genuinely as dangerous as some of the stories said either, but his lack of connections made him a bit of a non-entity.

Then there was Wells. Janry had not expected him to come, considering the man’s history and general unreachability, and he wasn’t entirely certain what to think of that other than perhaps he was on someone’s leash. Calling him an Archmage was laughable, but a fairly predictable strategy. A new mage was hardly going to get much respect.

“Those are the guests you expected?” Prince Galivrick asked disapprovingly, though Galivrick disapproved of almost everything. He was a tall, willowy fae that absolutely radiated contempt for anyone he believed to be beneath him. Which was essentially everyone.

“It’s easier for people to make up their minds when they see what they’re dealing with,” Janry said by way of explanation as he watched the group walk into the room. The air shivered with vis from dozens of mages using active senses, a low background thrum that painted the room and the magic therein onto his consciousness. He didn’t need to see the guests with his own eyes to gauge them, though he liked to.

Shahey’s oversized avatar towering over everyone was strange, like some obscure joke Janry didn’t quite get. The rest were, effectively, as he remembered them, though Wells didn’t match the pictures from years ago. He’d aged some – another point against him being an archmage – but that was made up for by the hard cast of his face. The expression of someone weighing life in his hands.

Everyone was looking at the new arrivals, judging them. Even the people who had accepted the bribery via the Guild of Enchanting had never actually met Wells, and many of the people in the room had never been on good terms with either Hargrave or Taisen. Half of Janry’s people were still outraged about the latter’s unilateral formation of his own House.

“Come. We are the hosts,” Galivrick said, making his displeasure clear, though whether at the guests or at Janry remained ambiguous. The two of them walked across the polished wooden floor, past the tables laden with exotic fruits and meats, to greet the Earth Alliance. Janry had to admit it was exceedingly tempting to do something, given Wells didn’t have a sphere of authority, but neither did Huitzilin and it was a matter of historical record that attacking him was a poor idea.

“Members of the Earth Alliance,” Galivrick said, in a tone that was just short of a sneer. “Welcome to the Court of Leaves. As a reminder, you all agreed to begin no hostilities while you are here.”

“We understand,” said the princess, who looked relatively small and ordinary next to Galivrick’s finery, though even Janry could feel the power in her voice. To his mage sight she was cloaked in vis, crackling down into a long train behind her, so despite the outer appearance she had some claim to being a contender.

Of them all, it was Wells who had the least magical presence, just behind Huitzilin, though there was just the faintest hint of something that Janry couldn’t resolve. Despite his opinion of Wells, he knew what the man had achieved before. There was no reason to underestimate what Wells could do, though both he and Huitzilin seemed completely blind without their own contribution to the buzz of active vis around them.

“I am Archmage Janry,” he said, though most of them already knew that. “I’m glad to welcome you here,” he continued, despite them all knowing it was a lie. “Hopefully we can work out our differences and come to a mutually beneficial resolution of hostilities.”

Wells’ eyes fixed on him, and despite himself Janry felt a chill. It wasn’t like Wells was angry, it was more like he was simply considering ways to kill. The gaze didn’t last long, but it was a face of complete psychopathy. Janry revised his opinion; Wells was just insane.

“Unlikely,” Hargrave said, flat and matter of fact. “But it does seem to be time to clarify where we stand. Sniping back and forth is sure to end in disaster.”

“Something you should have done before you decided to break the back of GAR,” Janry snapped.

“Then GAR should not have come after me in my own home,” Alpha Chester growled, low enough that Janry could feel it through his feet.

“We’re not here for recriminations,” the princess said. “There’s plenty of those to go around. The point is to find something short of total annihilation.”

“Quite so,” Janry agreed, not entirely certain who had come out ahead in the exchange. “I’ll give you time to meet the rest of the archmages before we convene.”

“The food and drink are quite safe,” Galivrick said, as if it were unthinkable that a fae would ever serve questionable refreshments. “Feel free to partake. I have other guests to attend to.” His tone made it quite clear that any other guests would do. Galivrick glided off, but that was fine. The fae had provocations to make, ones that might work even better with Wells around.

***

Callum wasn’t really impressed by the gathering of mages. He could tell how powerful they were from the steely mage bubbles and the sheer amount of vis in the air, every single one of them leaving trails through the heady mana of Faerie and pulsing out active senses, but they didn’t look any different from normal people. Mostly grandfatherly or grandmotherly people, at that.

By common agreement, Callum stuck with Taisen, Felicia, and Ray. Everyone else could take care of themselves and probably had their own deals to make. Even Chester could probably deal with an Archmage better than Callum could, but it wouldn’t do to let anyone know that. Such gatherings were as much about theater as they were about fact.

To that end he refused to show his own anxiety and kept his shoulders back, his head up straight, and looked people dead in the eyes. Though he couldn’t help feeling somewhat diminutive compared to Shahey’s eight-foot avatar, Chester’s natural bulk, or the fact that most of the elves were over-tall, willowy things whose only way of looking seemed to be down their noses. Not to mention several of the archmages using foci or just their natural aspect to float about the place a few feet above the floor, rather than doing something so pedestrian as walking.

In another time and place he might have been impressed by the huge wooden arches vaulting the ceiling, or the living vines twined around every column and beam, or the sprays of flowers with exotic colors not found in nature. It was all very sumptuous and calculated to impress, but the people made it impossible to enjoy. Callum couldn’t help but track Janry’s bubble as the archmage moved off elsewhere and had to fight the urge to do something about it.

Fortunately, Rossi of the Guild of Enchantment came to rescue them before Callum had to really wrestle with temptation. It was his first time meeting the man on purpose, and Callum had to remind himself not to offer a hand. Mages didn’t do that, thanks to the bubbles.

“Archmage Wells,” Rossi said, with a credible straight face. “I’d like to introduce you to Archmage Montgomery. Archmage Montgomery, this is our supplier for the private portal worlds.” Montgomery was a short and portly fellow who didn’t look much older than Callum and, unlike most of the other archmages Callum could spot, he was beaming from ear to ear.

“Oh, excellent! I’ve been very much enjoying the new locale. Faerie is fine but, the neighbors, you know?” Montgomery winked, and Callum felt his lips quirk upward despite himself. At least someone was happy with him, and he frankly couldn’t blame Montgomery for not wanting to live next to fae. Especially ones who radiated arrogance like the Court of Leaves.

“Glad to hear it,” Callum said, summoning up the best diplomatic tone he could manage. “I am of the opinion that separating the supernaturals out into their own individual worlds resolves many problems. Of course, for that to happen those individual worlds have to exist, and be worth living in.”

“Montgomery got the infinite fjord portal world.” Lucy’s voice came through his earpiece, and Callum relaxed a little bit. Having someone else who could do all the referencing for him was a great help.

“The more connections we have, the better it is too,” Montgomery said. “You ought to talk to Duvall. I’m sure she’s somewhere around here.”

“That would not be a good idea,” Callum said with a wince. He reflexively glanced around, but he didn’t actually know what Duvall looked like. All he knew was that she was one of the female archmages, but that still left a half-dozen possibilities assuming she was even in the room. “Duvall and I are not on good terms at all.”

“Ah, a shame. I’m a water mage myself and I always found it useful to compare notes,” Montgomery said, completely indifferent to the grudge between Duvall and Callum. “Maybe later, when things have calmed down a bit.”

“Perhaps,” Callum said, considering that, to Montgomery, later might well be fifty years down the line. There was no telling how old he was.

“Well, I shouldn’t monopolize you too much,” Montgomery said, nodded to him, and wandered off. Rossi offered Callum a smile and waved his hand around at the assembled mages.

“Over half of them have portal worlds you provided,” he said. “We can introduce you to a few more people before anything starts.”

“I would appreciate it,” Callum said, though he wasn’t really looking forward to it. Gladhanding was an important part of networking but it was also the most tedious, insincere, and unpleasant part of it.

“I’ll tag along,” Taisen said. “In case any of them are having issues with local wildlife. My people screened the portal worlds first but there was hardly time for a thorough, years-long inspection.”

“I haven’t heard any complaints,” Rossi said, waving a hand toward a thin, almost emaciated man who looked like he was bent under the weight of the world, but had a bubble as steely as Hargrave. Felicia waved her hand briefly and made for some fae, since it was clear that Taisen had things well in hand.

Callum had himself braced for a long and exhausting time with strangers when there was a musical tone and a wood column in the middle of the room began to move. The base twisted outward, turning from a single post into a series of arches, revealing a spiral stairway that could not possibly fit into the post it had once been, or the column above. But still, from it came a trail of humans, some dancing and others playing instrument, presumably to provide entertainment.

Every single one of them was clad in chains.

Nor did they look particularly joyful, something false to the smiles and dancing. The real fae weren’t exactly the fae of stories, but they were close enough. He’d be hard-pressed to relate any specific examples, but he knew there were plenty of tales of artists or musicians trapped and forced to perform forever. Callum had seen some of that in passing the first time he’d sent the drone through, but it hadn’t been so blatant.

“Felicia,” he muttered, toggling the microphone with the remote in his pocket.

“Yes, I see.” Her voice sounded in his ear. “It’s a deliberate message.”

“Not very diplomatic,” he replied. “We’ve got to do something about it. We’re here to show what we’re about, right?”

“We did agree not to start trouble,” Hargrave’s voice came over the line.

“We agreed not to start hostilities,” Felicia corrected him. “As did they.”

“The only way to make this work is to show we’ve got the biggest, brassest ones in the room,” Taisen chipped in. “We’re here to make demands, and the only way they’ll take us seriously is if we take ourselves seriously.”

“I will deal with it; such a thing is my responsibility,” Felicia said. “Just be ready in case I need to show exactly how strong my backing is.”

“You all be careful.” Lucy’s voice came over the line. “There’s more of them than there are of you.”

“Yeah,” Callum sighed. “That’s my worry.”

“My lords and ladies,” Felicia said, not raising her voice but still cutting through all the sound commotion, severing the music even as it started. “Is this seemly?”

If they didn’t have people’s attention before, they did now. Mostly it was on Felicia and Ray, but Callum was wearing her heraldry and he drifted over her way along with Taisen. Their other allies were scattered around the room, but they all had the comms equipment so they knew what was happening.

“Prince Galivrick, you will explain yourself at once,” Felicia added, and the fae in question was abruptly right in front of her.

“Princess Blackblood,” Galivrick said, oily and condescending. “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about. There hasn’t been any—”

“Do you pretend to be unaware of the nature of The Ghost? Of what has driven the destruction of GAR, the removal of the vampires, and what has pushed the entire Archmage’s Council to be here today?” Felicia’s voice was withering, and nearby flowers sagged, some drying to husks, others rotting. “Are you claiming to be that ignorant?”

“Certainly not,” Galivrick replied, his tone packing in all the imprecations lacking from his words. “But everything and everyone here is part of the Court of Leaves or guests of the mage Houses. There is nothing for anyone to object to.”

“You claim that, and yet you have human slaves here,” Felicia was scornful, and while Galivrick didn’t show anything, several of the fae nearby shrank away. “Violating the entire purpose of our talks and flaunting your depravity. Insulting your guests and showing your true nature as hosts. Pathetic and insolent.”

“Strong words from a Princess without a Court,” Galivrick replied, apparently unconcerned. “What do you intend to do? These are mortals bound by word and bargain, and even you cannot unbind the chains they have laid upon themselves.”

Felicia smiled, suddenly and in a flash, her sharp teeth showing as she pounced upon the opening. Even Callum could see it, though maybe Galivrick didn’t understand what Callum could do. Or discounted his ability to do it when surrounded by other mages.

“Would you like to make that a wager?” The words had an almost physical weight to them, and Callum could see all the other fae twitch. “We cannot abide human slaves, and if these can be sundered from you, then all the rest shall as well. Should we prove unequal to the task—”

“If you prove unequal to the task, you do not deserve to call yourself royalty,” Galivrick said.

“I would not,” Felicia agreed, and it suddenly struck Callum what Felicia was betting. She had to have a lot of faith if she was willing to risk everything.

“Then by all means, see what you can do for those poor souls,” Galivrick said, gesturing in the direction of the human players. The fae magic tightened down around them, latching onto the chains and collars. Felicia just looked at Callum and smiled. She didn’t need to say anything.

“Big brass ones,” Callum muttered under his breath, reaching through his gut portal for his vis crystals and one of his drones. Working by fae rules, it probably would have been impossible to unshackle those people. But he had never bothered with the supernatural rules.

At this point forming anti-mana portals was, if not easy, at least straightforward and something he could do without fumbling. He only needed one for the moment, formed out in the middle of the Midwest and stretched to enormous size, with two other, even larger portals directing the outflow to Faerie. The weaponized portals directed the anti-mana over the group of humans, catching them in the crossfire, though of course it didn’t harm them directly.

Galivrick was completely blindsided and let out a glass-shattering wail as the anti-mana ate through all the gathered fae stuff in a flash. It washed over the people and dissolved the chains, the collars, even most of the clothing, leaving them clad only in rags. The incidental damage to the fae realm was bizarre, with how much space and structure and god knew what else was based on the mana, all of which was being erased.

Even outside the blast radius, the room seemed to contort, wood creaking ominously as the support columns near the disruption vanished. The poor victims made various noises of surprise but none of them dropped dead or aged a hundred years in an instant, but he wasn’t going to leave them there. He made a few extra portals while everyone was still staring and abducted the entire ensemble, depositing them in the hospital at Taisen’s base.

The entire process took maybe five or ten seconds, during which Felicia somehow forced Galivrick to his knees. Not that the fae prince was resisting, since the blast of anti-mana destroying a chunk of his gathered power seemed to have put him into a catatonic stupor. The other fae all sprang to conjure defensive magic around themselves, and one of the mage bubbles vanished. Someone deciding to homebond out, apparently.

Callum had become so inured to using anti-mana that he’d forgotten basically nobody else had seen it. Even the people he’d used it against had all died, save for Duvall. Now it’d been used out in the open, and while he didn’t know how it looked to other mages, it was an all-devouring black hole to his passive senses. It couldn’t look much better to anyone else.

In his earpiece he heard Lucy filling in the hospital staff, so they knew why there were suddenly a bunch of nearly-naked folks in their staging area, but the room in Faerie was dead silent. For a moment the only movement was the flash and ripple of various forms of active shields surrounding the mages. Even Hargrave had donned his golden force armor.

“We are not concerned with your bindings or bargains,” Felicia said, her voice shocking the room and stirring people back to life. “As you can see we are well capable of negating any such frivolities.” She reached down and grabbed Galivrick by the neck, hauling him up to his feet. Even as Callum watched, fae mana swirled around Felicia and seemed to sink into her, though unlike with princes he’d seen there was a definite distinction between her body and the surrounding mana. It seemed she was actually taking power from Galivrick.

“Now, will you fulfill your wager?” Felicia asked, shaking the dazed Galivrick. “Or will I have to tear my winnings from you piece by piece?” That seemed to catalyze the prince, who finally focused on Felicia again, his hands coming up to pry her fingers from his throat. To no avail.

“You agreed to no hostilities,” he rasped instead. “How dare you violate the guest agreements?” Felicia cocked her head, and instead of answering herself nodded to Callum. For himself, he would have rather left the wordplay to the fae, but perhaps it was better that he answer for himself.

“That wasn’t hostility,” he said shortly. “That wasn’t even an attack. That was surgery. It’s you who offered to put yourself under the knife.”

“How was that not an attack?” Galivrick demanded, incredulous.

“Because you aren’t dead,” Callum said, his voice flat. Elsewhere in the room, Shahey laughed, a big booming guffaw.

“Now, are you going to do what you promised?” Felicia inquired, her voice dangerous.

“I won’t stand for this,” Galivrick said, and Felicia smiled toothily.

“You have no choice in the matter,” she said. “Or are you going to break your word and start a fight?” Galivrick’s eyes darted from Felicia, to Callum, to Taisen. He didn’t reply. “I thought not,” Felicia said, and shoved him away. Galivrick stumbled backward, shorn of his haughty air.

“What the hell was that?” Someone demanded. One of the archmages that Callum had yet to be introduced to.

“That was The Ghost,” Hargrave said, projecting his voice to echo through the room. “Before anyone gets excited, let us lay out exactly why we are here. Earth belongs to the mundanes. Our demands are simple — you do not prey on the humans there.”

“And what gives you the right?” It was Janry, who had drifted closer, his sleepy eyes narrowed. “We all come from Earth, and most of us were there long before you.”

“If you don’t understand the obvious moral arguments, then I can’t help you,” Callum said. It was a bit of an insult, but he didn’t much care. “If you want a pragmatic argument, there’s no point in the old setup. You’ll get a lot more out of interacting with them normally than the potentially nuclear consequences of trying to conquer them.”

“Earth is still the nexus for the portal worlds,” Janry said. “We can’t possibly—”

“Not anymore,” Callum interrupted. “How many people here have the new portal worlds I opened up? How many of you are already living there? You want access to the various portal worlds, you can just work it out among yourselves.”

“We all have seen Fane’s research notes,” Taisen continued. “We know that mages benefit from experiencing a number of different portal worlds. Archmage Wells has expanded that number significantly, and between him and Archmage Duvall, the Guild of Enchanting can provide passage between them without needing any holdings on Earth at all.”

“That is ridiculous,” Janry said. “You want to leave the mundanes to manage their own affairs? Without magic they can barely function, let alone run a planet. No, you’re just wanting to hold Earth for yourself, with all its people and resources.”

Callum almost sighed. Of course that was the conclusion Janry would draw; that type didn’t understand that some people just wanted to be left alone. Or that they didn’t want to grasp and take everything they could see. The tyrants throughout history, large and small, all had that same bent.

“I sure don’t want to try and run a planet.” Callum clasped his hands behind him, aware of the fact that he was trying to look like an archmage, not some guy with a grudge. “You have Faerie and the Deep Wilds, you have the other portal worlds. If you want things from Earth, you can get them the same way anyone else does.”

“The era of secrecy is ending—” Shahey got out that much before people started talking over him. Callum was actually surprised that people had been quiet that long, rather than trying to shout each other down in the aftermath of his collaboration with Felicia. Though quite a few people were still looking at him with hard eyes.

“Well, the summit is in shambles already,” Lucy’s voice sounded in his ear, more amused than anything. “Twenty minutes in? I’ll have to see who wins the betting pool.”

Callum grunted, too distracted scanning for threats to engage in banter. Taisen was still close by, his vis stretching outward to intercept any magic that might be thrown. Anyone who started a slugging match with so many high-powered mages around was asking for trouble, and an all-out brawl between archmages would be terrifying.

Fortunately it seemed like everyone was limiting themselves to words, though he caught some mages flexing their bubbles, pushing them out further than the normal radius. It reminded him of pufferfish, a little bit of amusement that broke through the stress of trying to figure out whether there’d be some all-out magical war or not. After a few minutes, Hargrave and Janry between them did manage to wrangle people into some semblance of order though, and Felicia snapped something at Galivrick. Magic swirled and a truly massive table with enough chairs for everyone appeared from nowhere.

“Very good, now we’re all ready to discuss things like civilized people.” Janry looked around the table as the last people seated themselves. Felicia, Ray, and Galivrick did not. The fae prince seemed to be rather wilted, and Callum noticed he hadn’t yet produced any of his other human prisoners. But by the way Felicia was muttering to the pale-faced elf, that was taken care of. “We can actually begin real negotiations.”

“No negotiations,” Callum said, before anyone else could reply. Perhaps he should let Hargrave and Taisen and Wizzy deal with it, and definitely would for any details, but he wanted to make things very clear from the outset. “We’re not telling you what to do in your own portal worlds or among yourselves, nor are we telling the fae out to act within their own borders. We’re just enforcing Earth’s sovereignty.”

“What is this nonsense about breaking magical secrecy?” One of the mages at Janry’s side broke in. “There’s no need for the mundanes to be told. It’s not like they can do anything about it.”

“There is plenty they can do about it,” Taisen rebuffed him. “In fact, our demands are for your own good. The mundane world would absolutely respond to your attempts to undermine and control it with violence. And there are few enough of us that it’s doubtful magekind would survive the encounter.”

“You think that mundanes can threaten us?” This time it was someone nominally on their side, one of the archmages that had gotten a private portal world. The face was familiar from the reports Rossi had passed back to him, though he couldn’t remember the House in question. “Maybe before we understood how magic truly worked, the threat of war was a serious one, but now?”

“I think I can arrange a demonstration,” Callum said. Part of him hated showing a card he would have preferred to keep in reserve, but the way people were nodding at the mage’s skepticism showed they had no sense of reality. Or at least, no understanding of modern militaries and nuclear weapons. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone would know how he did it. “Felicia, is there any way we can get a view of the sky?”

“Galivrick,” Felicia said coldly, and the prince obediently snapped his fingers. Mana swirled and the room flexed and shifted, and rather than just a scrying view of the outside it seemed they had been taken outside, up to the top levels of the massive tree.

“I am going to demonstrate one of the weapons that the so-called mundanes have,” he said, ignoring the stares from Taisen and Shahey, who knew exactly what he meant. They were probably questioning how and where he’d gotten his hands on a nuclear warhead, but he wasn’t about to answer that. “I would advise you not to look directly at it. Archmages, a shield might be a good idea.”

He pointed upward and off to the side, using his Alcubierre trick to shove a bad penny miles away. At least a hundred miles, judging from what he could see through the secondary portal he opened at the penny’s location to gauge where he was. Then he reached out to two of his boxes, since he didn’t want to impact the landscape. Instead he’d have them hit each other, since they were basically two clumps of relativistic metal moving in a straight line. He created a portal loop in the air to redirect any missed impactors back toward each other, for as long as the portals lasted anyway, and then teleported the two spaces in between, facing each other.

A new sun bloomed in the sky, washing out the light. On the moon, enough leaked through the penny portal before it collapsed to detonate the matching anchor in the nexus and bore a coin-sized hole in the regolith. A half-dozen magical shields snapped into place overhead and long moments passed as the shockwave visibly expanded, driving home how far away the detonation had been. There was no sound, and wouldn’t be for minutes.

Little trails of fire hung in the air where shrapnel, still moving at relativistic velocity, had gone off in each direction, making the still blooming firestorm look like some apocalyptic spider, its legs encircling the world. The force of the explosion was a hell of a lot more than he’d anticipated, and he hadn’t even used the fastest boxes. Mages and fae alike cursed, most of them in languages Callum couldn’t understand.

“Now you know,” he said loudly, and Shahey did something insanely complex that immediately halted all noise but Callum’s voice. “How many of you could survive one of those? How about ten, or a hundred, or a thousand? Because there are thousands, and they will use them.”

The only answer was silence.