Paranoid Mage

Federal Agent Larry Johnson still wasn’t sure what to think of the prison. It wasn’t exactly the usual concrete cell block, and he and his fellow agents weren’t being treated badly, but it was definitely a prison. The claim that the walls were for their protection was, of course, not to be trusted, but after seeing the outside of the compound he had to admit it wasn’t entirely nonsense.

Some people still hadn’t admitted to themselves that they weren’t on earth, and that their captors weren’t human. There was some insistence that the whole thing was one big psyop, but Larry didn’t think it something on that scale was possible. The sky was wrong, the smells were wrong, the massive animals outside the walls were all too real, and the so-called shifters were definitely real. The ease with which they could handle even ex-Marines was sobering.

The outside courtyard of the walled compound was large enough and nice enough, and for lack of much else to do Larry was throwing a football around with some of the guys. A couple of the shifters were watching, eight-foot-tall wolf-men, who probably weren’t participating because they’d have to treat the federal agents like children. He threw the ball and then turned to look as a group of shifters emerged from the building that had to be the command center.

The weird part was that there was no way in there. Or rather, nothing visible, since it was composed entirely of flat, blank walls. Shifters seemed to just emerge from nowhere in particular along a section of wall, and vanish there just the same. It was strange and eye-hurting but it sure happened, and even when he’d managed to sneak over there he hadn’t been able to spot anything. Normally only one or two shifters at a time went through the invisible doorway but this time it was a whole group, and one of them looked to be very much in charge.

The football game ground to a halt as the big white-furred shifter approached, followed by several people who were obviously guards. Not that he seemed to need guards — Larry could tell just by the way the boss walked that he was a dangerous beast. Coupled with the insane strength and speed that the shifters had demonstrated, he was pretty sure the leader had nothing to fear from anything short of artillery.

“Mister Johnson,” the big shifter said, in a rumble like an idling tank. “Your time here is nearly at an end.”

“Yes, sir?” Larry said, trying to ignore the potentially dire implications of that statement.

“Come with me,” the shifter said, and Larry glanced at the other agents, gave them a sign, and trailed after the wolf-man. It was clear they weren’t quite wolves, so not exactly a mythical werewolf, but close enough to play one on television. Fortunately it didn’t seem they were man-eaters. Larry was led off to one of the smaller side buildings, a log cabin type construction. Once inside, the shifter waved to a normal human-sized chair in the living room while taking an oversized one for himself.

“My name,” the shifter said, “is Alpha Chester. Yes, the very same Chester Frederickson that you were being aimed at. I’m sure you’ve realized by now that there was something more at play than just a tax issue.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” The instructions had come from the top, but after seeing the weirdness that was in play, that didn’t really mean anything. He could add two and two together just fine.

“While you have no reason to believe me, the explanation is that your people were being used as a weapon by other supernatural interests against me.” Before Larry’s very eyes the big shifter – Chester – shimmered and changed, suddenly appearing human. One of the other shifters entered the room with a six-pack, tossing one beer to Chester and another to Larry, who caught it reflexively.

“Okay, and we’re here because of secrecy reasons?” The beer was just an ordinary domestic brand, so he shrugged and cracked it, hearing the hiss of carbonation.

“Pretty much. But we’re gearing up to dispense with that secrecy.” Chester took a sip of his beer. “We’ve been working to get our house in order first though, because you can just imagine what people would think if there were supernatural groups trying take over governments or siphon funds.”

“Yeah,” Larry agreed. “That’d be a problem.” He took a sip of his own drink, not entirely certain what to think. The pencil-pushers would probably have a lot to say about it, but he was mostly concerned about his own neck, and that of his men. “So why is this all happening now?”

“Mostly, because of The Ghost,” Chester said, with a chuckle. “Supernatural society got a shake-up and this is the fallout. I’ve thought it was coming for years, but he accelerated the process.”

“Who’s The Ghost?” Larry eyed Chester, concerned that actual ghosts were a possibility. Or maybe it was someone who was just as invisible to these people as they had been to him. Someone who could force a bunch of powerful people hidden in plain sight to dance to his tune was quite the threat.

“Someone who got fed up with the way normal people were treated,” Chester said. “Which I personally agree with. That’s why you’re here, and we’re talking.”

“To show you aren’t the bad guys?”

“Something like that,” Chester agreed. “When we get you back to the United States it’ll be nice if you all are read in on the situation already.”

“I’m not exactly high up in the food chain,” Larry said, just stating a fact. “I don’t think I can help you that much.”

“Sadly, you’re going to be,” Chester said with a laugh, and Larry took another long drink of beer. “Since you’re basically engaged in first contact. Most of us are good, law-abiding citizens, but we’re not human and we aren’t even like each other. We’ll try to get you all introduced to the various types before it’s time to open up.”

“Right,” Larry said, skeptical but figuring there would be no harm. “What else is there? Vampires?”

“Ha!” Chester laughed. “Not anymore. The Ghost took care of that.”

“Um.” He hadn’t expected that, and mentally raised the threat level of this Ghost up another notch. “Am I going to meet The Ghost, too?”

“That isn’t likely,” Chester said. “But believe me, he has a vested interest in your safety.”

***

“You don’t need to come yourself — after all, that’s not what you do anyway. But I need The Ghost at my shoulder for this.”

Callum didn’t sigh or frown. He’d brought this on himself, and Felicia’s request was entirely reasonable. It wasn’t like being virtually present was really that onerous a thing, even if he could swear that – magical healing or no – the stress was giving him more gray hairs.

“I suppose it doesn’t hurt that I have a few tricks to cow even the most recalcitrant of fae, either,” he said instead.

“It does not,” Felicia agreed.

“You’re going to have to teach me some of those tricks one day,” Ray observed, leaning into the pickup on the drone Felicia had been gifted. “I’m no slouch, but it’d help if I had more punch than just wind magic.”

“Most of what I do isn’t really reproducible,” Callum said. “But I’ll think about it. There might be something I can pass along.” It was easy enough to say, since he only used spatial magic, and mostly relied on his passive perceptions. A normal wind mage might as well have been another species for all he had in common. “Guess you might as well bring a drone. The bad pennies are okay but drones are more functional.”

“Do we have permission to modify your remote to make it more appropriate? No offense, but they tend toward more toward function than elegance.”

“I don’t mind, so long as it still works,” Callum said. He was sure Lucy would like to know what the new one looked like, too. They were less cobbled together at this point, so there was room to start discussing aesthetics.

“Dominic!” Felicia called, and very shortly a fae entered the relatively small perceptual bubble Callum was keeping around Felicia’s drone. She was residing in the strange fae parallel universe that he’d tracked the vampire through before, which Callum actually approved of. It represented a vector of attack that would have been unmonitored otherwise, and he wasn’t sure it was even possible to collapse the whole thing. Or that it was a good idea to do so. Having an extra, secret, and secure way to get around worked to the advantage of his allies just as much as it had once benefitted his enemies.

“Eure Majestät,” Dominic said, going to one knee. Through Callum’s perceptions he resembled a musclebound gnome more than anything. Felicia responded in the same language, and then handed the drone over to the gnome. Callum nearly kicked himself for thinking that the fae would work like an engineer. Instead of doing something as blasé as unscrewing the housing or breaking out the multimeter, the gnome took it away to a table that formed out of nowhere and began to sing something under his breath.

The liquid fae magic wrapped around and flowed through the drone. It didn’t touch the bad penny enchantment, but the housing and the electronics shifted and warped like they were made of putty. The process wasn’t instantaneous, but it was only a few minutes later that the drone had been changed into a small sphere with ducted turbines rather than quadrotors, the surface covered with a fine filigree that hid the camera protrusions, as well as the microphone and speakers. The decorations finished rippling into shape, forming the House Wells heraldry that Lucy had designed on one side of the drone, with Felicia’s winged cat logo on the other.

It floated into the air of its own accord, without needing to use the motors, which by itself made the device seem more like a fae ornament than a piece of technology. He couldn’t object to its self-propelled nature as it went to hover at Felicia’s shoulder either, since the entire point of that particular drone was to link him with the fae princess. The whole procedure was a reminder of exactly why he wore the cloak. Fae magic was completely unfair.

“Is that satisfactory?” Felicia asked.

“Yeah, it’s actually fantastic,” Callum admitted, and Felicia said something to Dominic, dismissing him and walking toward the edge of the big clearing that held the beginnings of her castle. Despite being conversant with all kinds of spatial shenanigans, he was still fascinated by the way the clearing it twisted and flexed its size and scale with Felicia’s movements, an opening appearing as if it had always been there as she walked.

What appeared to be a leisurely walk through a wooded path was anything but, judging by the sheer amount of mana in the air and the occasional twitch of nervous reflexes on Ray’s part. For once, Callum was relaxed when everyone else was nervous, the drone not even picking up any sound out of place. He found it a little bit amusing, though he would never say anything about it.

They stopped at a vine-entrapped crystal gateway standing improbably by itself in the middle of the woods: a Door of Glass, as Felicia had called it. She reached out and pricked her finger on one of the thorns that curled about the mirror’s frame, the drop of crimson staining the door before it swung open and Felicia and Ray stepped through. He recognized the destination, because he’d been there before, by drone at least. The court of Jissarrell.

It was as violent a place as ever, with at least two brawls that Callum could sense through his perceptions, and Felicia’s guards appeared out of her shadow to flank her and Ray. None of Jissarrell’s people approached though, instead falling away as Felicia walked through a short passageway, with a tiny pixie fae flying ahead to announce them.

“Princess Felicity Blackblood and Consort,” a voice boomed, and the court, centered around Jissarrel’s throne nestled in the trunk of an ancient oak, came to a halt. Ray and Felicia walked up to the base of the throne, but neither of them knelt, or even bowed. Jissarrell was the same as ever, a large and intimidating man of bark and vines and leaves, and he inclined his head to the pair of them.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Jissarrell asked, the voice creaking and cracking like groaning bark over the microphone. No glamour covered it.

“I am sure our visit comes as no surprise,” Ray said, speaking for Felicia. “My liege is here to collect your sworn oath. She has no desire to displace you or dispute your rule, change your court or even change your mind. The only commandment is that mortals must be treated by their own rules.”

“Not a very enticing prospect,” Jissarrell said, his court shifting and shuffling around. If Ray or Felicia seemed worried that they were surrounded, they didn’t show it.

“Perhaps not, but a necessary one. You surely know how the world is changing, and with GAR gone it falls to fae to govern themselves in their own way. Princess Felicity is offering autonomy for all but a few provisos.” Ray’s voice was reasonable, and reminiscent of the time he’d come to Callum’s door. Clearly he’d been working on his manner.

“Perhaps the offer is reasonable, but how is she going to enforce it? You’ve come to my Court with very little in the way of protection.”

“Have we?” Felicia spoke for the first time. “The Ghost has my back. Who has yours?”

“Jissarrell,” Callum spoke into the microphone. “I advise you to listen to Felicia.”

With his words, he could actually see the shift and change in the fae magic within Jissarrell’s enclave and Court. Obviously he didn’t have any fae magic himself – so far as he knew, the various types of supernatural power were incompatible – but fae magic knew him. Or at least, it knew The Ghost.

“I see,” Jissarrell said. “So you have decided to back power, rather than defy it?”

“I’ve only ever wanted one thing: for supernaturals to not prey on normal folks,” Callum replied. “Felicia’s offer is a pretty good deal, and it means I don’t have to worry about enacting punishment over the whole world for the rest of eternity.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have replied, but he was a little stung by the accusation. He hadn’t wanted to enforce anything, but unfortunately it had turned out that the only way to get people to play nice was one person with a really big stick.

Callum’s contribution wasn’t exactly eloquent, but Jissarrell was apparently brighter than some of his compatriots back in Faerie. He leaned back with the groan of shifting wood and then nodded. With that capitulation, the Court shifted, lifting Ray and Felicia up above Jissarrell’s throne on a dais. Abruptly, they were the masters of the Court and Jissarrell was the petitioner.

Jissarrell left his throne, kneeling before Felicia as he made his oaths. Callum would have felt that his contribution was effectively nonexistent, were it not for the way that he had seen the magic shift. His reputation was putting in a lot of work.

“Rise, Prince Jissarrell,” Felicia spoke once again. “You have Our approval to govern your Court as you see fit. We have no interest in your internal affairs, nor do We need tribute. Only your commitment to preventing abuse of, or conflict with, mundanes.”

“That should not be a problem,” Jissarrell assured them. “Most of those with that sort of predilection have already been removed.” He cast a glance at the drone hovering at Felicia’s shoulder and Callum suppressed a snort. It had been years since he’d dealt with that particular wild hunt, but he still remembered it. So did everyone else, it seemed.

It seemed that was all, for after that Felicia and Ray moved on. Which Callum appreciated, so he didn’t have to sit and pay attention through endless diplomatic niceties. They went back through the parallel reality, emerging in Florida to deal with Ferrochar. Callum didn’t think it was coincidence that they’d started with the fae that had actually interacted with Callum. The Ghost was more real to them.

Unlike Jissarrell, Ferrochar seemed entirely happy to see Felicia, as if he’d been waiting for the opportunity. The members of his court weren’t violent at all, but every single one of them was loaded down with gold or silver or gems, to the point where it went far past being tasteful and became an ugly sort of opulence. They all seemed happy enough with it though, so it wasn’t really for him to criticize.

“We’re looking forward to opening relations with the mundanes,” Ferrochar confided to Felicia after he gave his oaths. “There will be more business opportunities, more reputation to be had. We can advertise magically-protected vaults!”

“Yeah, that’s all well and good, but he probably shouldn’t use this opportunity to financially prey on people either,” Lucy put in, having joined him just to see the reshaped drone. “Like, insider trading type rules. Gonna be a lot of disruption when things go public.”

“Good point,” Callum said, and opened the mic to pass that along to Felicia. Ferrochar looked almost hurt by the insinuation.

“Of course not!” He said, as if it were unthinkable. “Simply being more trustworthy is enough of an advantage, and we will certainly be under close scrutiny at the beginning. Integrity can be made very valuable.”

Callum figured that would have to be good enough. He couldn’t demand to see the receipts and, even if he did, lacked the expertise or interest to spot any chicanery. Even Lucy would probably have issues, so he had to trust to the fae’s word and whatever magical enforcement was involved.

With Ravaeb’s court dispersed, there apparently weren’t any other fae power centers in North America, just the small individual fae that had mostly been snapped up by the American Alliance. Those that weren’t could be attended to by Felicia’s subordinates — now that she had subordinates. The next few stops were somewhat more difficult for him, because he had no idea what anyone was saying. Felicia and Ray were multilingual, but Callum wasn’t.

Fortunately his role was very easy. All he had to do was flex a small bit of anti-mana if the fae in question seemed recalcitrant. He was not, fortunately, a bodyguard or anything of that nature. Felicia could take care of herself in that regard, and it’d be hard to read the room anyway. Fae weren’t human and could flip between emotions without any warning at all.

The shortcut dimension that Felicia used meant that he lost track of exactly where they were fairly early on, though he recognized some of the languages. German, French, Swahili. He wasn’t aware that there were so many fae princes throughout the world, though at the same time, it was surprising there were so few.

Felicia was first attacked in France by the fae leader there, a large, bestial sort dressed in the finest fashion of two hundred years ago at the center of a Court that looked like a miniature Versailles. Callum had been prepared to intervene with a blast of anti-mana or possibly the anti-material rifle, but it wasn’t necessary. Ray had stopped him cold with a blast of air mana – which probably shouldn’t have worked, as far as Callum understood it – and then Felicia spoke.

“Yield.” Despite the word being in English, it had dropped the French prince and his entire court to their knees. Callum could practically mark Felicia’s power level by the amount of people her commands affected. Though maybe she was still holding back; he had no idea how exactly the fae magic worked.

“I feel fairly irrelevant,” Callum remarked as Felicia left the Swahili-speaking court and its tiger-men behind. “It’s been interesting, I suppose, but not really my business most of the time.”

“On the contrary,” Felicia said. “Your presence makes me much more powerful. I know you can’t really feel it, but your story – especially after your demonstration in Faerie – makes your backing extremely potent.”

“Even I can feel it,” Ray remarked. “It’s like a strong tailwind, only for magic. An odd sensation.”

“I’ve heard of having your reputation work for you, but this is something else!” Lucy said with a laugh.

“We need to formalize the Earth Alliance,” Felicia mused. “Without your authority, it doesn’t really exist.”

“Since when am I an authority?” Callum sighed, but he kept the mic off. Felicia didn’t need to hear his grumbling.

“Anyone big and scary is an authority,” Lucy said, poking his side. “And that’s you.”

***

“I wish we had a better idea of what is going on Earth-side,” Archmage Tasser complained, though he didn’t stop weaving metal through the protective dome meant to keep out the worst of the Deep Wild’s creatures. The massive raptors and other flying things were quite capable of preying on the unwary mage, even with shields. Archmages had nothing to fear, but any operation needed more than just their best.

“I’m not sure it really matters.” Janry shrugged, summoning stone from raw mana and spinning out buildings for their encampment. “Until and unless they openly engage with the mundanes – and believe me, we’d hear about that in advance – all they can do is spin their wheels. I’m sure they’ve got plenty of internal opposition to deal with — ones they can’t just cow into submission. Not with how bleeding-heart they are.”

“I don’t think they’re as soft as you say,” Moravin argued, helping Tasser with the metalwork. “I don’t think you think they’re as soft as you say, otherwise we’d be doing this comfortably in our Houses.”

Janry grunted, acknowledging the fact. It was almost certain that some of the other Houses were keeping an eye on Janry, and Faerie itself was questionable. After that pet princess had cowed the Lesser Courts, he couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t pay some extra attention to any temporary outpost. Especially since there were some people from the Greater Courts arriving and sniffing around, which Janry trusted even less. So they were stuck with the Deep Wilds, which weren’t bad, but not nearly as nice as Faerie.

The rest of the mages they’d brought along were attending to the minor details to make the compound more livable, some of them making small alterations of the archmages’ work, others installing basic enchantments. Nothing overly fancy, since they didn’t intend to do more than stage some operations from the compound. No more than a few months of work, or maybe a year at the outside.

“We still have all the intelligence from GAR before they were taken apart,” Janry said instead. An irritatingly large amount of records had been seized and still not returned to the appropriate authorities, but Janry had the prior reports, at least. “We know how the governments are structured, where they’re located. Who to target. I doubt much will have changed in the past few weeks.”

“Well, we still need to—” Moravin was interrupted by one of his subordinates emerging from the private teleporter and rushing over to them.

“Archmages,” the man said, offering a perfunctory bow. “They’ve seized control of the Deep Wilds portal. The Earth-side location has been altered.”

“That was faster than I thought,” Janry said with a frown. He wasn’t truly surprised, since it was an obvious next step. “That is why we have the teleports.” One benefit of that damnable Wells was that teleportation links had become far more available for personal use. Not to House Janry directly – the Guild of Enchanting was still rather reserved on that matter – but he had enough allies and contacts to get them indirectly.

“Is it even worth figuring out where the Earth side is?” Tasser asked, watching other, lesser mages appear through other teleport foci with furniture and supplies. “We’ll need it eventually but prowling around now might just tip our hand.”

“Agreed,” Janry said, nodding to the messenger. “It’s useful to know – best to not even try to cross through the main portal – but we don’t need it now.”

“Right.” Tasser waved dismissal, and they continued to work. The reason for the compound was simple enough — practice. There had been enough half-baked groping around and vague plans carried out ad-hoc. They were going to do things right.

The basic bones were simple enough, they just needed to frame the American Alliance – Earth Alliance, now – as the villains of the piece. It wasn’t even that hard, since Wells had precipitated the vampire slaughter and Chester’s name was already mud. All it would take would be a few pushes here and there, some falsified documentation and meeting the right people.

Executing it so that none of the blowback hit the rest of the supernaturals and there were no cracks for the Earth Alliance to stick a wedge in, to blame things on House Janry or its allies, was harder. If that wasn’t possible, at the very least he’d have to make sure he was personally safe. There was no point otherwise. They also had to make sure that the teleport connections they had to Earth were secure — while it was possible they could leave through the Faerie portal, that was almost certainly being watched. It had been some time since the Houses had done more than jostle each other, but most Archmages remembered the early days. Janry, Moravin and Tasser, at least, knew how to shore up their flanks.

Admittedly they hadn’t been doing the best job, but Wells’ ability to create new portal worlds had come out of nowhere and undercut all their plans. Sadly, it wasn’t possible to prepare for contingencies nobody had ever seen coming. That and the devouring weapon that Wells had demonstrated were significant issues, but not unresolvable. If only Wells himself weren’t so damnably difficult to get at.

Janry mused at that while they finished the basic work for their operating base, their little black site as Taisen would put it, and decided he’d put in another visit to Duvall. There was only one real counter to Wells’ spatial nonsense, and that was their own spatial mage. She had been quite deficient, and she really needed to step up.

After ensuring that the work could continue without his direct attention, Janry took the teleporter back to his House, only to immediately turn around and take another one to return to the Deep Wilds. The second jump was to the central area of the massive tree that housed the main portal and all the Houses that had settled in the Deep Wilds. Power had long ago centralized itself in Faerie, with the biggest and oldest of the Houses, but some holdouts like House Duvall had refused to move there.

He swept the area by habit, but as the mountain-sized tree lacked stone his active vis pulses were not quite as sensitive as they should have been. Another reason why he was not so enamored with that particular portal world. There wasn’t even good bedrock, just boulders.

Janry energized his flight focus and headed upward, not really needing the signs that pointed to the enormous limb that House Duvall had claimed. It was somewhat rude to drop in without any prior warning, but that was offset by Janry coming himself rather than sending a messenger. Not that a messenger would have been appropriate anyway, since he wanted to talk archmage to archmage.

A shifter butler greeted him and guided him to a front room that was put together with a very careful eye toward aesthetics, everything matching and color-coordinated. One of Duvall’s quirks, and probably took time that she could have better spent on magic, but that was her business. He only wished she had been more inventive, and then Wells wouldn’t have blindsided everybody.

“What.” Janry blinked at Duvall’s annoyed snap as she almost stomped into the room. She’d only kept him waiting maybe five minutes, which meant that she was eager to be rid of him.

“Archmage Duvall,” Janry said, standing and giving her a proper bow, to remind her that he deserved the respect appropriate an archmage if nothing else. “I know I arrived without any prior warning, but I wanted to discuss the current state of affairs with you and the usual channels are somewhat suspect at the moment.”

“Mmph.” Duvall scowled and then waved him to sit, taking the chair across from him. “You know I’m staying out of that. I don’t want anything to do with what’s going on. House Duvall only concerns itself with spatial products.”

“Yes, exactly,” Janry nodded agreement. “That is what I wanted to discuss. The proliferation of portal worlds has put us at somewhat of a disadvantage — which yes, you do not care about, but House Janry would be interested in purchasing a similar service from you.” He didn’t ask if she could do it. At this point virtually all of Wells’ secrets had been laid bare and he was certain that Duvall could duplicate it.

“You want me to create new portal world access,” Duvall said, not really a question.

“I do,” Janry admitted. “I won’t insult your pride by insinuating you can’t do it, though I do wonder why you haven’t yet.”

“It’s dangerous,” Duvall said flatly. “You saw what Wells did. That mana-devouring burst was no weapon. It’s what’s outside the walls of the universe, and all it takes is a little bit of carelessness for it to be permanent. Would you care to have a mana-devouring hole permanently placed in Faerie?”

“I would not,” Janry said, considering the apocalyptic potential of such a thing. “That is even more reason to remove Wells and—”

“I am notinterested.” Duvall cut him off. “He uses it as a weapon, don’t give him more reasons to use it. It’s not even the only danger from opening portal worlds — there are monsters in some of them.”

“We’re archmages,” Janry scoffed. “We managed to tame the Deep Wilds and Night Lands well enough.”

“Monsters the size of worlds and more powerful than dragons,” Duvall growled, pointing a finger at him. “Not mere beasts. We’re only lucky that none of them are close enough to our reality to survive here long. But for anyone who opens a portal, the consequences could be dire.”

“So give it long enough and the Wells problem might solve itself,” Janry said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps. He’s clearly adept at using portals remotely, so perhaps not.” Duvall shrugged, unbothered by either possibility. “I could attempt to open such portals, but the risk is too high and House Duvall has enough to do already.”

“I see,” Janry said, frustrated by Duvall’s instant dismissal. “You’re not interested in opening new portals at all? House Janry has access to quite a vault; price is no object.”

“No,” Duvall said with finality. “If you want one, make nice with the Guild of Enchantment. It’s not hard.”

“Very well,” Janry said. “I apologize for wasting your time.” He knew it was useless to try further threats or cajoling, but he would come back around to Duvall eventually. Janry did not intend to be deprived of such a valuable resource.