Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Seth, may I see it?” Dad asked, clearly interested.
“Yes, sir,” I said, looking down at Ellorn.
If anyone needs to leave because of this, it won’t be an issue with me. There is no disgrace
, I told him.
“Thank you, Lord,” replied Ellorn, then darted up his half-built steps, using my chair to bound past the unfinished part. Taking up my empty plate gracefully, he said coyly, “We’re beginning to know you better, sir, to understand you.” Smiling, he turned quickly and hopped down the steps, completely ignoring the missing ones. He was most amusing when he was being sweet, always so macho and running away so quickly.
I drew the Accords from my hiding place and passed it to Ethan, who passed it to Ted, who handed it to Dad. From his expression, I believe Dad expected more of a reaction from Ted than he made. Outwardly Dad made little reaction himself and his aura was guarded. Recalling the effort their presence took from me at the Crossroads, I was surprised at the small toll the scroll took on him while he examined it. David and Steven, on the other hand, obviously blanched and pulled back from the table fearfully.
“Dave, Steve, they aren’t really here, guys,” I called to the end of the table, putting a little force of will behind it. That helped to settle them somewhat, but they were still leery of it.
“I can’t read this,” Dad said as he slowly unrolled the scroll. “I don’t recognize the language, but it looks like a Faery derivative. It bears only two signatures, but the Oath is amazingly crisp and strong.”
“Not too many people can read it nowadays,” I told him. “That’s the Faery language from which all others are derived. And all the signatures are there. You just have to know who you’re looking for or be strong enough to hold the Authority.”
“I thought I was,” he said, sounding dejected slightly.
“Oh, certainly of Hospitality,” I assured him. “Run the scroll back about eight inches and lift up the paper. The scroll is much more elaborate than it appears. The Oath of Hospitality should be immediately visible, but there are so many signers to this document that you have to ask the signer if you’re unsure. All humans are covered by Accorded definition.” Dad checked the Hospitality seal, then rolled the scroll up again. I retrieved it from there to stop the passing through Ryan and Thomas.
“So that’s why their translations can be crap and still claim the rights,” Bishop said, finally understanding.
“Seth, would you mind reviewing the Cahill copy for me?” Gordon asked apprehensively. “We’re going to translate from this, but we want to make certain it’s viable to start with.”
“Do you have it with you?” I asked and Gordon nodded, handing me a thick sheaf of papers. It was written in Gaelic by a precise hand and it was centuries old. Only a few of the pages showed their age. These bore the history of the translation and had no further significance to the binding of the Oath, explaining their lack of protections even though the Cahills had placed their own over the stack to help prevent decay. The last few pages read like a family Bible of history for the Cahills, going back over a millennium with signatures binding them to Hospitality in several places across Ireland until the keep that predated the Castle was established. The Cahills’ had excellent provenance here.
“Yes, it holds the Oath quite well, Gordon,” I answered.
“Good, Da wants Martin and me to take the Oath when we return to the castle,” Gordon said cheerfully, pulling a chair from the wall to the table between Steven and Kieran. Ted noticed and made room between Ethan and himself for Thomas and Ryan. Ellorn darted up his steps again as everyone got settled into place, putting a glass of ice water next to my beer. He seemed to be taking care of me alone as others swept in around the table.
A flurry of brownies flooded the room from the kitchen, each carrying a plate of some Southwestern or Tex-Mex concoction, brownie variants of foods I, for the most part, hadn’t had before. The table filled quickly as brownies trouped up small sets of steps and dropped off steaming hot plates of enchiladas, tacos, and more, then disappeared again over the edge of the table, chittering and chirping happily in their native tongue to each other.
Conversation was just as unlikely for a few minutes after that as the plates in the center of the table were off-loaded onto ours. My family ate quickly and voraciously, surprising only Ryan. We were home and relaxing. We let a few walls down, moved at a comfortable pace. At lunch today, we had “normal people” around so we were at a “normal pace,” and what he was used to seeing. We were a little fast for him now. Even Dad and Mike had an “orphanage speed” to their eating.
“Don’t stop on their account, Mr. Davis,” Ted said very quietly. “If you show that you’re intimidated by them, they’ll pick on you incessantly. And you’ll starve.”
“Ted, you bastard!” Mike cried across the table, grinning his accusation. “You know he heard you. He hears everything in here.”
“And your problem with that?” Ted asked smiling.
“Careful, boys, you never know which way the wind might blow,” Dad warned them quietly, chuckling.
“Thank you, Ellorn,” I said, accepting the mug of steaming coffee he handed me. “Have I told you how much I love you today?” Peter and I both caught the brownie as he fell off the table laughing. We set him on his feet on the ground and he scuttled away for more coffee, still giggling.
“This is a very different faery from the Queens’ faery,” Thomas said to Ryan, who still seemed shell-shocked. They
were
eating, however. “Much more friendly and caring, and at least you can eat the food.” He leaned over his plate and savored something. Then he called to Peter, “The food is
excellent
, Peter, but I don’t recognize any of it.”
“You would if you saw it made with ingredients from Earth,” Peter said. “All the produce is local and has a very different look and flavor. We’ve worked hard to match the spices to what we’re used to and Gilán has a few more we haven’t tried yet.”
“That should make dinner at the Palace most interesting for years to come,” Thomas said.
“We’re in the Palace? In Gilán?” Ryan whispered to Thomas.
“Yes, I thought that was obvious when I said we were going to the McClures,” Thomas said, matter-of-factly. “Where did you think Lord Daybreak would spend his nights?”
“I just expected… more grandeur, I suppose,” Ryan said. “More extravagance.”
“These are Peter’s suites,” Mike said, smiling briefly to the brownie taking his plate away. “He’s not the extravagant type.”
“Neither is Seth for that matter,” Dad said. “But the Palace is suitably elaborate and grandiose in the right places.”
“Jeez, aren’t you people tired of talking about me yet?” I said, scowling down the table.
“I haven’t even started yet,” Thomas scowled back. “Do you realize the trouble you caused, young man?”
“Yep, and don’t care,” I said, scowling back at him. “They sicced a decrepit old man at me just to watch me fight him and got a slap on the wrist for it.”
“Well, it was your own damn fault for working High Magic for fifty solid minutes beforehand!” Thomas cried, throwing his hands up in front of him, palms up.
I looked at Kieran and asked innocently, “What is ‘High Magic’?” Half the table burst into laughter while the other half stared at me uncomprehendingly. Kieran and Peter were both laughing at me, so I plugged on with the questions. “Is there a ‘Low Magic’ as well? Or does it change to some weird macaroni code?” I took on a mocking tone and said, “This spell is ziti class and can be upgraded to spinach with a flick of the wrist!” Even the guys who didn’t understand the reference were smiling at the ones laughing, finding the humor infectious.
“High Magic is strong and transformative,” Kieran said chortling and a bit flushed. “Not everyone is capable of performing it since it takes considerable skill and talent as well as loads of raw power. On the human scale, it’s generally ceremonial magic to help build the concentration and power necessary. It’s not easily hidden and even non-magical humans tend to sense its working as a vague discomfort.”
“But I didn’t do any ceremonial magic today,” I objected. “I wouldn’t know how, though some of the crap I did for Cornell could have been close, I guess. Besides…” I turned to Bishop, slightly confused. “You can’t see our magic. How do you know I did anything?”
“We
all
heard and felt that!” Ryan said emphatically, with both Thomas and Gordon nodding in agreement.
“Is that why you were muddling around in that sink?” I asked Kieran, grinning at him.
“Yes, I wanted to see what you had done,” he answered. “Masterful work, too.”
“A credit to the Hilliards, really, especially Cornell, even if he did nearly kill himself to do it,” I said. “But how was that High Magic? We merely repaired what already existed.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but in at least one place in that particular spell, didn’t you supply no less than three of the necessary parts of the magic needed and direct a fourth?”
“More than once, but you can’t expect First to sing in a language he doesn’t know without some help,” I said, my accent was the only Southern drawl present with Jimmy absent. “He hasn’t been graduated from high school yet, y’know, and not too many of those teach dead languages. So everyone felt the magic because it was druid magic? No one feels the faery magic.”
“I think it was because you worked in concert with the Hilliards,” Ethan said.
“Probably that, yes,” Kieran agreed.
“Where the hell does your accent come from?” Dad asked in what could only be described as an “American” accent, Eastern certainly. “Seth, you have a very distinctive Southern accent that is like nothing you have been exposed yet is perfect to the region you were born and raised in. Your mother is from Louisiana and I’m… from all over. The staff at the house was Southern, but rarely Georgian. Where does your accent come from?”
“I dunno,” I replied, shrugging. “Maybe at some point I recognized how studied y’alls’ were and thought mine had to be the same way.”
“It was beautiful work,” Kieran said honestly. “I could barely see your lines in the larger patches but your touch showed in the power flows. The Hilliards don’t have that sort of dimensional control to draw energy that strongly over such a short distance, though I agree with you on Cornell’s role.”
“Oh, wait, Tom, are you done trying to bitch at me for my hissy fit?” I asked.
“Actually, yes. You couldn’t have played a better role if we planned it,” Bishop said. “After you left, they were so afraid of you that when they felt the High Magic the second time, we almost had a mass exodus until Simon came back and assured everyone the ‘Archdruid’ left after impossible magical acts. Your brothers manned the sinks for many incredible displays of magic. Several of them were both informative and visually stunning. And I finally broached the idea of a world council with broader political and policing powers in front of a receptive audience.”
“Yeah, good luck with that last one,” I said skeptically. “Unless you’re willing to foot the bill yourself, anyway. That group didn’t appear too willing to loosen their purse strings.”
“Gotta start somewhere, Seth,” rumbled Gordon. “You and Mike have a point about the ivory towers and you shook their walls hard today. Hell, you rattle the walls of conformity just by existing.” A light chuckle went around the table.
“We have a division that handles magical crimes in most of the larger metropolitan area in Europe,” Bishop said defensively. “And there are similar divisions in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Clifford Harris is with the Marshals and you work with a branch of the military, don’t you?”
“After a fashion, I suppose,” I said, cocking my head to one side briefly. “I’m just saying good luck with it. We can’t help you with it. We’re useless on matters of the Accords, short of wielding the Authority.”
“You can advise us,” Bishop offered.
“With no experience?” I asked, again skeptically. “I doubt that very much, but I’m sure we could be talked into it. Sort of why I’m building embassies. London will be my first.”
“So you’ll be holding court here?” Bishop asked.
“No, there’s only one Court of Gilán and it’ll be years before I have need of it,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel. “Besides, what do I need to hold Court for?”
“
Esteleum
trade, for one,” Gordon said. “Other than that, I’m sure you’ll find out as soon as your embassy opens for business.”
“While we’re on the subject, Ryan,” I called down the table, “We need to get both McClure and Associates and FirstGuard Securities incorporated in England as soon as possible. Would you see to that, please? You can hire as much assistance as you need to get the job done. Seymour has the US documentation if you need it. David, if you and Steve would help him… And tomorrow, I’d like you two to go with me to the Pentagon to set up a plan to canvas the rest of the world by military bases like we did in the US. We’ll be moving much more slowly, but we need certain cities as soon as possible. Ric has a list for the first leg.”
“Okay, Seth, no problem,” Steve said. David nodded with acceptance.
“Mike, would you explain to Ryan how to use the key for communication, please?” I asked. “He has you three, Ted and me stamped into his.”