Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Arthur,” Bishop called out. “This is not a good time for this.” Looking quickly back at Bishop, I could see that Arthur was more an embarrassment than a problem. Gleaning the top thoughts from Arthur, I understood. The man was nutso-cuckoo. He actually thought he was the living embodiment of King Arthur from
La Mort du Artu
. He felt this was a very good time to assert himself and further his provenance.
“I agree, Arthur,” I said calmly. “This will not help the cause of Camelot…”
“That is
not
for the Fae to decide!” Arthur declared angrily, which just ticked me off. I pulled Daybreak back and faced Arthur.
“I’m not Fae, you twit,” I said coldly. “But if you want to be the object lesson, fine. If you wish to know more, then simply call upon the Authority and review the Arbitration.”
That gave him pause. “What?”
“Call the Authority, Arthur,” I said. “Call upon the Oath of the Unseelie Accords to grant oversight and review the Arbitration. If you are a Signatory of the Accords, it is your right. You would know that if you had ever read them.”
“I am a Signatory and have officiated many times against offenses of the Accords,” Arthur said haughtily, throwing his shoulders back and clanking loudly in his armor.
“Do you wear that crap everywhere?” I asked sarcastically. I hadn’t felt the pull of magic that would have foreshadowed him either dispelling a cloak or armoring himself. “And there haven’t been ‘many’ breaches. This was the first in several centuries. You must be speaking of Hospitality.”
“You seek to belittle me, little wizard,” Arthur said, low and angry. His hand went to his sword as he spoke. Checking his aura, I saw several small tendrils of energy flickering around him, poking and prodding him, then retracting quickly. He was being manipulated, pushed into arguing with me and he was just nuts enough not to see it. Tracing the tendrils back to their owners, I found most of them were just looking for a scapegoat. Everyone wanted more information and they were using Arthur to try for it, but two of my five suspected blood mages were also prodding him. This would end poorly if I let myself be led.
“No, Willis Hugh, I don’t think that mental instability is something to make fun of,” I said sadly, using the wizard’s real name. It was the first time someone had used his name in over a century and as is the way with all true things, it had an effect on him. His guise cracked, just a little.
“Do not try your foul Fey tricks on me, Modred!” he cried, drawing Excalibur and rushing down the aisle at me. I seized the tendrils of those that poked Arthur this time and sent a strong and burning energy back along those lines. Eight different magicians screamed in pain before Arthur made three steps, three of my five among them.
Arthur was fast for a human but he had to make twelve strides to get to me. I waited in relative stillness, watching him run in his clunky armor. On his ninth stride he pulled his sword arm back to thrust, drawing in strength on his tenth and thrusting forward on his eleventh. On his twelfth, what should have been his killing strike, I batted the blade aside, grabbed the hilt of the sword and wrenched it free from his hand. For an instant, I thought I held the Day in my hand, but I knew better. It changed quickly in form back to Excalibur. I stepped forward and out of Willis Hugh’s path as he stumbled over my pedestal. His body twisting to follow the path of his stolen sword. His face was aghast in horror and shock that I’d taken his toy so easily.
Moving further down the aisle, I examined Excalibur slowly in the light as Willis fought to regain his feet. Not an easy task in full mail and body armor without help from a knave or porter. It was certainly laden with enough magic to be that sword, but it was not Excalibur. My vision warred with the enchantments as I peered deeper into the sword’s magic, but it finally resolved into its true self: a long wooden plank, sharpened to look like a sword, with a simple cross-guard tied with a hemp cord. Since that was the belief I held of the sword and as I now held command of it, that was the aspect it took in full view of all the spectators.
“You’ve been duped, Willis,” I said, peeling the enchantments off the wood and feeding them to the Night in my cavern. “This is no more Excalibur than you are Arthur. And I have it on good authority that Modred is dead and the Morgana destroyed.” I dropped the useless vessel on the ground and turned back to Willis Hugh.
“I’m definitely beginning to see Ferrin’s point here, though,” I said, looking at the man losing his grip on his sanity as he stared at his lost sword. “I stand here before the combined might of this realm’s mightiest wizards, all of you far better trained than I, and you cower behind the delusions of a lunatic. You’re so arrogant in your perfection and enraptured in your own little worlds that you rarely venture outside of them. It’s no wonder we’re losing this war and it’s no wonder the lesser magical world despises you so much. Hell, you haven’t even bothered to learn the treaties that protect you from being destroyed by every dragon that pierces its egg.”
Okay, they’d pissed me off and I was showing it. Humanly, though, I was pulling my punches since I already had their attention so strongly. It helped to keep my brothers calm and collected, not having to worry about me. That was about to change, but it wasn’t my magic that I was about to toss about, exactly. Jimmy and Peter left the front podium and trotted down the main aisle to Willis. They hefted him to his feet and started easing him away, gently murmuring platitudes to calm his injured mind.
“Some facts are in order, ladies and gentlemen,” I said imperiously. “First, there is a vast difference between the Accords and Hospitality. Second, I am not a teacher, learn them yourselves. Supposedly you already have.” I pulled my copy of the Accords from its hiding place and held the scroll aloft. Pulling the ancient vellum down, the Oath was clearly visible along with the two Elven sigils of Seelie and Unseelie. There were other signatures on the document, masked by their own power and better left unsaid and unseen.
“This is the Unseelie Accords,” I announced, turning the document to face everyone in the room. “
Don’t
look away! Half of you said you signed this!” I looked around angrily at the panicking crowd of wizards, gasping and blanching and trying desperately to
not
look at the Oath that held more power than most of them had ever seen. “
This
is what keeps this realm safe from the elder powers of the universe. Who among you has signed this?” No one would confess to having signed anything similar to my scroll. Separating the Rules of Hospitality from the scroll, I sent it back into hiding. “What about this? Is this easier to take?” The relief of removing the alien magic from the tent was palpable from everyone but Jimmy, my brothers, and me. People fell limply back in their chairs. Hyperventilation was running rampant. Masters grew irritated with their students and underlings over it, though not as irritated as I got.
“Oh, the vapors!” I said, affecting a breathy, Southern accent and fanning myself with the Rules, one hand on my forehead as if about to faint. Then I snapped to and looked around again, angry. “Should I put in some fainting couches for you?” Pausing to let the full affect of my sarcasm sink in and frankly let them regain their senses, I circulated the air through the permeable membrane I put around the tent. It was getting a little stifling in here and the breeze felt good.
“Mr. Milykos, is this what you signed?” I asked pointedly, once I had the majority of everyone’s attention again. He nodded nervously, afraid to speak to me. “You should have actually read it, then, Mr. Milykos. That lie is going to cost you.”
Before Milykos could respond, his father interrupted, finally having something to say. “But he has done nothing wrong!” he said loudly and full of conviction, standing in objection. “Even the elves do not require payment for the asking of questions! Merely for their answers.”
“So the entire family joins, marvelous,” I said, smiling. “Mr. Milykos, your son’s breach of Hospitality wasn’t in asking questions or in challenging me. It was in willfully lying to me about signing the Rules. He didn’t… take… the Oath.”
The elder Milykos was appalled. Now he was caught in a lie his son told. I listened to him cuss his son out for a few moments before I interrupted, thinking that Greek might be funny to hear. It wasn’t.
“Will you accept my judgment or do you wish to call for an arbiter?” I asked them.
“I’d advise staying with Seth,” Kieran said. “You’re already going to lose. If you chose an arbiter, then you’ll just pay more for the privilege.” I didn’t say anything, but he was right.
“And I
will
challenge anyone in this tent,” I added.
Senior Milykos swallowed and nodded. “I will accept your judgment, Lord Daybreak,” he said hoarsely.
“I’ll make this simple and educational, then, since you’re listening to reason,” I said more cordially—well, at least more politely. “Obtain a copy of the Rules, one correct enough to bear the Oath, in whichever language you prefer. Translate this document into Greek, English, French, German, and Spanish. Then attempt to copy the Oath onto your translations. Let me know how that works out for you.”
“Too easy!” Ethan yelled out from the podium.
“You want to do it, too?” I asked him, turning around and grinning.
“No, but that’s no real punishment,” he complained.
“So Ethan is volunteering!” Kieran announced, laughing.
“You can’t ask my faery for help, either!” I said still grinning, knowing the difficulty of the task. There were many conceptual difficulties in most human language for the oath to take hold. “I think the Milykos family will find many friends because of this. They’ll be crawling out of the woodwork to compare notes on their translations. This will be good for everyone involved.
“This conference was called as a means of sharing information and developing ways of defending ourselves against an unknown adversary,” I said trying to bring everyone back to a purpose. “Instead, you people came to look at the freak. ‘Daybreak’s coming, right? We want to see the new elf-king, the one that killed MacNamara. We aren’t coming if he’s not gonna be there.’ What do I matter if you’re dead?” I paused briefly to give them a chance to consider the question, but only briefly. “That isn’t a rhetorical question and you really need to consider your answers.
“You are a fractious and arrogant lot. As much as I hear complaints of the faery, you’re no better, sitting in your ivory towers, arrogant and powerful. You totally lack concern for your neighbors and communities and this
seriously
confuses me as many of you were alive during World War II. You know how Hitler progressed through Europe and you know how he lost it again. These people are playing the same sort of scorched earth policy that Hitler and Stalin played except they aren’t playing for territory, they’re playing for lives. Our lives. And we don’t even know who or why yet. And
you
were attacked! How do you forget that?” I recalled the map that Gordon and Ferrin presented for us and pushed the image out into the aisle.
“Those eighteen families weren’t as lucky as you. The people in those twenty-three facilities weren’t as lucky. And while the destruction of those places is a minor distraction for you, it’s a major problem for hundreds of lesser talents in this country and on the continent. You’re making me wonder if I should deal with any of the councils, if it is in Gilán’s interest to even allow council members access at any point.” I was too angry now, feeling their indifference settling back into place. So I just left.
Falling back on my butt on the same hilltop, I sulked for a moment, trying to let my anger seep away.
“Damn, I’ve never heard Seth so mad before,” I heard Peter say to Ethan quietly. Bishop turned in alarm when he heard him.
“You think he meant it?” Ethan asked both Kieran and Peter.
“Yes,” they said together and nodded, slowly. Bishop got nervous at this. Good.
Jimmy
, I called across our link,
would you send Ryan to me, then find Simon and bring him to me, please? I don’t want to go near those people again today.
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy answered as he stood. He whispered in Ryan’s ear and put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder, then shifted Ryan to me across the veil in that odd rolling way he used to move without a portal.
“Are you going to talk to him?” Bishop asked Jimmy as he passed the lectern.
“I’m going to talk to Simon, if that’s the him you had in mind,” Jimmy answered.
“No, I mean Seth. Someone’s got to talk to Seth and calm him down,” Bishop said anxiously. “He can’t leave. We need him. We need all of you.”
“You may have a problem, then, Mr. Bishop,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never seen Seth mad. I’m not sure how to take it, but I do know he told me to do something so if you’ll excuse me…” Jimmy walked past Bishop and off the podium. When he hit the energy field around the pavilion, it collapsed completely, freeing everyone inside and allowing the breeze through again. Simon wasn’t hard to find. He was waiting a few yards away from the tent.
“Ryan,” I said to Davis. “Give me a few minutes to get your old friends set and we’ll be on our way.”
“Okay,” answered Davis, nervously. After a moment he added, “That was an impressive display in there.”