The Otherworld War

(The Multiverse War)

17 St. Ronan’s Terrace
Edinburgh
EH10 5NG

Christopher_g_nuttall@hotmail.com
Christopher@changingthetimes.net
Tel: 0131-447-4117
Mobile: 0796 006 5850
Cover Blurb

Five years after the Nazi War, the Thande Institute is working to explore alternate timelines.  When a timeline hints at vastly superior technology, the institute is more than willing to send an Insertion Team right into the timeline…only to see it become trapped within a timeline where the laws of science are very different.  Magic works, dragons fly high in the sky…and all-powerful Powers control the lives of humans within their influence.  

Their arrival plunges Otherworld into war, for the established power structure cannot cope with the very notion of such concepts as freedom, democracy and advanced technology.  As a magical war rages across the land, few are aware of the true danger; the entire world is a trap for cross-time travellers.

For Otherworld holds a secret beyond price; a clue to the identity of the mysterious Enemy…and the key to understanding their role in the Multiverse War.

Author’s Note

Although The Otherworld War forms Book 3 of The Multiverse War, it is intended to be stand-alone in its own right.  All the reader needs to know is that there was a cross-time war (detailed in The Counterfactual War) in which Nazi forces from TimeLine C invaded our world (TimeLine A).  In the aftermath of that war, the Thande Institute was set up to explore alternate timelines and provide warnings of further cross-time threats.

Prologue

It was something of a surprise to Grand Mage Akron, one of the greatest of the wizards of the land, that the assembled Council of Wizardry worked as well as it did.  In some ways, he understood the success – the Council was the only way of keeping Wizardry under some form of control and keeping upstarts down – but it still astonished him.  Wizards rose to power through a combination of learning, experience, luck and bloody-mindedness – it was not a pattern that called for willing cooperation.

He shook his head absently as he paused outside the main council room.  The spells on the door tingled as he approached, checking his identity as one of the six Grand Mages; no one was stupid enough to try to pass through the wards without permission.  In a unique display of cooperation, the Grand Mages of four hundred years ago had established the Council – and bound a Power to guard the castle from treachery.  Even the most capable wizard – and Akron knew without false modesty that he was one of the most capable ever to walk the Earth – would hesitate before taking on a Power, let alone risk releasing the Power from the wards that held it firmly in place.

There were people who prayed daily that the wards would hold, at least until after their time was over.  Akron was one of them.  He already had his suspicions that not everything was working as well as it had for the last four hundred years.

He stepped through the door and placed his staff in the corner, trusting in the subtle magics around the room to guard it.  Staffs were important to a wizard, but not all-important; more than a few wizard-killers had come to grief after forgetting that little fact.  He bowed once to the statue of Friar Bacon – the founder of the Council – and took his seat.

“You are late,” Grand Mage Shayde said, without any preliminary.  Akron refused to rise to the bait; Shayde was the youngest of the Grand Mages; if it were not forbidden for the Grand Mages to oppose one another directly, he would have tried to slap Shayde down.  The man’s short dark hair, and shadowy black eyes, seemed designed to suggest imprudence, if not danger.  “After all your time spent talking us into convening here, you have the imprudence to be late.”

“We were warned that he might be a few hours late,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  Incredibly corpulent, Grand Mage Gorgre was one of Akron’s allies on the Council; his smiling face hid a cunning and determined mind.  

“We were also informed that the matter was of considerable urgency,” Grand Mage Valastar said.  As the only female Grand Mage, Grand Mage Valastar’s position wasn’t as secure as Akron’s – or Shayde’s, for that matter.  She changed her appearance constantly, from silver-white hair to the red curls that she wore at present.  A small manikin hung from her neck, all that remained of a Sorcerer who’d thought that a woman would be easy to challenge for her position.  

Akron took a long moment to study her.  Her outfit, outrageously revealing, revealed that she was a magic-user.  Her cold green eyes revealed, to one with magical senses, that she was powerful indeed.  Under his gaze, she bit a part of the manikin off and chewed it thoughtfully, absorbing the dead sorcerer into her considerable reserves.

Akron shook his head again, stroking his long white beard.  How could anyone believe that a woman who wore so little was defenceless?  Had the sorcerer intended to violate her after taking her power and position?

“We have a problem,” Akron said, using the formal words.  The Council sat up and paid attention; those words were not used lightly.  The last time they had been used, there had been a rebellion against the authority of the Council, led by a Prince who had been allied with a Power.  The Prince had been killed and his family had been turned into toads, a salient lesson to any who would defy the Council.

Magic-users above a certain power level could not be allowed to stay on their own.  Everyone agreed on that, even Shayde.  The Prince’s crime had been to believe that he was permitted to develop his own band of wizards, perhaps even necromancers, and turn them against his neighbours…and the Council itself.

“Two weeks ago, a young man who had developed magical abilities tried a spell to generate fire,” Akron said.  The fire-generating spells were simple; unlike the more complicated spells, which tended to be the property of only a handful of wizards, they could be used by even the smallest magic-user.  “The result was…illuminating.”

There were no responses to the bad pun.  “The entire village was destroyed,” Akron said.  “The fireball scorched across the village, setting fire to everything and everyone.  Only the local wizard, a man by the name of Hawthorne, survived the blast, and then only because he was inside his wards at the time.”

Shayde crooked a single dark eyebrow.  “And I assume that the man himself died?”  He asked.  Akron nodded.  “Then the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six loses a possible addition to its – our – ranks…so what?”

Akron scowled darkly.  Friar Bacon had outlined the formal ranks of wizardry in simple terms; six hundred wizards, sixty mages…and six grand mages.  The only way to advance was to take the place of a senior wizard; a formality that kept everyone on their toes, watching to be certain that an imprudent young wizard wasn’t trying to cut them off.  Under normal circumstances, a wizard who had managed to destroy an entire village in his first week as a wizard would be a formidable challenger…but these were not normal circumstances.

“I travelled to the ruins as quickly as I could and used revealing spells,” Akron said.  “The young idiot used flambé, which, I might remind you, is only suitable for lighting dry wood.  Revealing spells are not very reliable, but it seems likely that the young man – whose name escapes me – used the only one he knew.”

He paused for comment.  Grand Mage Shan spoke first.  “Flambé is not a spell that can destroy a village,” Shan said.  “It would be quicker to burn the village down without magic.”

Akron nodded without comment.  Flambé, as Shan had pointed out, was only suitable for lighting a campfire, nothing else.  As a weapon of sorcereous warfare, there were dozens more that were more effective, even assuming that the young fool had meant to burn down his home.  He waited for someone to make the connection…and was not disappointed.

Valastar spoke in the tone of a puzzled woman, one attempting to convince her husband that she knew nothing…when in fact she was hiding the evidence of her adultery.  It was so out of character that Akron knew that she understood, or at least suspected enough to suspect the truth.  He saw Shayde blink…and realised that Shayde had counted Valastar as an ally.

“How did the spell destroy the entire village?”  She asked.  “That cannot happen; I have used that spell thousands of times and it often refused to do more than warm me.”

Akron smiled.  “The village was very near the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “I experimented there with several other spells…and was lucky to escape with my life.  The power levels were so high that several other harmless, inoffensive spells had quite unpleasant effects.”

He paused.  “Hawthorne, by the way, was literally blown apart by a wind spell that should have caused a mild breeze and managed to raise a tornado.”

Shayde made a show of preparing to stand up, ending the Council.  “Exactly what is the point, old man?”  He sneered.  “We do not normally worry when a handful of peasants, and possible competition, die experimenting with magic.”

“Our magic is threatening to get out of control,” Akron said, calling on all of his authority and power to hold them in place.  “What will happen when someone tries to summon a demon and gets Satan himself?”

“Satan never appears in person,” Valastar said.  Her tone was grim.  “What do we do about it?”

Akron took a breath.  “All magic emits from the Castle at the End of the World,” he said.  “We have to control the flow somehow.”

There was immediate uproar.  The magic of the Council Chamber came into play, dulling the noise until only one voice remained.  “You are suggesting that we risk our lives in the Castle at the End of the Land,” Shayde said.  He sounded…stunned, astonished, unable to believe that Akron had suggested anything like that.  “Do you have any idea how many people have attempted to penetrate the Castle at the End of the Land?”

Akron nodded, feeling the pressure of his age.  “I have seen hundreds go into the castle,” he said.  “None have returned…and the magic remains.”

Shayde stood up, making a speech to the room.  “It is the dream of the entire population of wizards that one day someone will succeed in penetrating the Castle at the End of the Land and therefore managing to gain complete control of the magic within,” he said.  “So far, many have tried…and all have failed.”

Akron spoke with quiet authority.  “I spent time with Old Mother Daughter,” he said.  “She was as unhelpful as she normally is” – there were some chuckles – “but she made a prophecy.  It was, in fact, clearer than any other she has ever made.”

The room stared at him; time itself seemed to stand in the balance.  Old Mother Daughter, one of the handful of soothsayers with any reputation for accuracy, rarely made any clear predictions.  They tended to be vague…useful only in hindsight.

“She said that five people from outside would enter our world,” Akron said.  “She said that they would enter the Castle at the End of the Land and they would change the magic forever.”

There was a dead silence.  “From outside?”  Shayde asked, and his voice held none of its constant arrogance.  “From outside the brass walls?”

Akron shrugged.  “No one has ever come from outside the brass walls,” he said, citing long history.  “It is hard to know how to interpret the prophecy…except the part about them entering the Castle at the End of the Land.”

“And change the magic,” Valastar said thoughtfully.  “I don’t think that we can allow that.”

Just like that, the attitude in the room changed.  The Grand Mages, the six most powerful wizards in the world, looked at a changed world and shivered.  They had grown used to their power; the prospect of change was more than they were prepared for face.  For Valastar, who was condemned to permanent servitude as a woman without her powers, it was worse than most.

“We do not have a choice,” Akron said, suspecting that he had already lost.  “If we assist them, we will have a say in what happens in the Castle at the End of the Land.  We will be able to prevent the magical tides from overwhelming us.”

“And if we try to stop them and fail, they might be able to destroy us,” Shayde said.  “If they gain control of the Castle at the End of the World, they will be able to stop the magic from flowing out over the land.  We will be destroyed.”

“We cannot allow them to reach the Castle at the End of the Land,” Grand Mage Shan said.  “We have to stop them.”

Shayde nodded.  “We all have to work together,” he said.  “Between us, we control a large portion of the country.  If they arrive within our lands, we stop them and kill them.”

“No,” Akron said.  He tried hard to keep his voice calm.  Losing his temper would not help.  “The risk of the magic overwhelming us is too great.”

“You’re old,” Shayde sneered.  His tone darkened with scorn.  “You have nothing left to lose, not like us.  If they enter my territory, I will kill them.”

“And I,” Grand Mage Shan echoed.

“And I,” Valastar said.  Her tone darkened.  “Many of the wizards will support us.”

“You are talking about a war within the ranks of the Wizard Council,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  His tone was horrified.  “Do you have any idea of the potential for outright disaster?”

Shayde stood up again.  “The disaster will be far worse if we allow strangers within the Castle at the End of the World,” he said.  “I will not allow it…”

“You imprudent young pup,” Gorgre snapped.  “We will not allow you to kill them.”

Shayde glared at Akron.  “If this place was not protected by a Power, I would kill you now,” he snapped.  “For the moment, goodbye!”

He stormed out of the door, grabbing his staff as he left, followed by Valastar and Shan.  Akron watched them go, his heart heavy.  As the doors slammed shut again, he turned to face the remaining two.

“Gorgre?”  He asked.  “Will you join the effort?”

“The war effort, you mean,” Gorgre said.  He smiled wryly.  “Yes, I will,” he said.  “It might just be interesting.”

Akron smiled.  “And you, Ixa’em?”

The dark-skinned mage looked up at him.  He’d said nothing during the meeting.  “I think I will stand on the sidelines for the moment,” he said.  “You will have enough support without me, for the moment.”

He stood up and left the room.  Akron smiled, concealing his annoyance.  Without Ixa’em, the two sides would be seriously unbalanced…perhaps tempting Shayde to a first strike against Akron.

Gorgre lifted an eyebrow.  “So, what do we do now?”

Akron sighed.  “We gather our forces,” he said.  “Once that’s done, we wait and see.”

Chapter One: Politics

The Thande Institute had to be the most unusual place that Captain Jack Drache had ever served in, a complex that seemed out of place in the western world, even after the Nazi invasion, five years ago.  Situated in the heart of what had once been Cambridge, it was surrounded by bunkers designed to pour fire into the complex, manned by an armed force with units from six different nations.  American Rangers, Marines and Green Berets rubbed shoulders with SAS from Britain, specialist commando units from Germany and France, as well as units from Russia and even China.  It was, as the recruiting broachers said, a gateway into a whole new world.

Cambridge itself had never quite recovered from the Cambridge Incident; the nuclear explosion that had practically destroyed the famous city.  The knowledge that the Thande Institute was to be constructed there had not endeared the city to its surviving citizens; the media had gotten enough of the security precautions correct to panic anyone.  Jack knew, better than anyone, that if something from another universe broke out into Cambridge, at a final resort the entire institute would be sterilised.  

He smiled.  Few people really liked the idea of being near a nuclear blast, even with the damage in Africa and Arabia claiming more and more lives every year.  

He drove up to the first security fence, grimly aware that powerful surveillance systems had already located his implants, and held out his papers.  His priority clearance didn’t impress the Chinese guard; his insistence on searching the car cost Jack minutes he didn’t have.  He took the delay with grace, however; the Chinese officer had probably been ordered to take extra care over all cars after the spat of bombings in China.  If his implants had malfunctioned, he would have been intercepted by an SAS patrol outside the fence; more than a few reporters had accidentally been shot after poking their noses into the security system.

“You may pass,” the guard said.  Jack thanked him and passed through the fence, entering the free-fire zone surrounding the institute itself.  The British Army had designed the system, and then they’d taken the unusual step of asking their allies to contribute to the design…and to test it.  In one wargame, almost the entire 1st Marine Division had been mock-wiped out, testing the defences in an attempt to break through into the surrounding countryside.  No one, but no one, would be allowed out of the Institute until after they had proven their good will…and the world had decided that it was worth dealing with them.

He parked the car outside the main building and stepped inside, nodding to the receptionist as he entered.  The SAS close protection detail had done a wonderful job on the lobby, he thought with frank admiration; the entire lobby was a death trap for anyone trying to force their way in.  Hidden machine guns could just be seen by his trained eye; anyone without military experience – and a very devious mind - would miss them entirely.

“Your name?”  The receptionist asked.  She was short and slim, with big owlish glasses that concealed her eyes.  Jack wasn’t fooled; she moved like a trained killer.  “Your name?”

Something in her voice told him that he had better comply, and fast.  “Captain Jack Drache, team seven,” he said.  “Do you want my resume as well?”

She blinked at him from behind her glasses.  “No,” she said.  “You may proceed to Director Rogers office.”

The massive door swung open.  Without a backwards glance, Jack stepped into the corridor, heading down towards the office.  The corridor was brightly lit, but he had an impression of…grimness around the building, as if something bad had happened.  He thought as rapidly as he could; what had happened?

Perhaps they lost a team, he thought, and shook his head.  There were no teams, but his, planned for an insertion mission.  His team had hardly completed their training; they would never have been sent in without their leader.  Exploring alternate timelines was dangerous enough without splitting up a team at the last moment, which meant…

He reached the director’s office and tapped on the door.  A voice shouted from the other side, ordering him to come in.  He stepped inside the office and saluted the blonde-haired man behind the desk.

“Captain Jack Drache, reporting for duty,” he said.

“Pleased to see you,” Director Steve Rogers said, almost hesitatingly.  “Please, take a seat.”

Jack sat down, carefully removing his cap and placing it on his knees, using the moments to think.  Steve Rogers had been involved with inter-dimensional travel since before the Nazi Invasion; he had been the one to recruit the ultra-famous Professor Thande to the project examining the loss of an entire task force into an inter-dimensional warp…and exposed the invasion threat.  He had helped to develop the Portal suppressor that had ended the invasion threat…and had made the first penetration of TimeLine C.  He had been the natural choice for the Directorship of the Institute.  

He deserves respect, Jack thought, concealing his puzzlement.  Rogers was clearly preparing to deliver bad news, news that he suspected would be very bad indeed.  Could the world governments have gotten cold feet?

Rogers chose an unusual approach; further convincing Jack that bad news was on the way.  “Do you know anything about how this Institute is controlled?”  He asked.  “I assume that you know enough to hold your own in a discussion?”

Jack hesitated.  “I understand that you report to a six-nation committee on the subject,” he said.  “I thought that we had a guaranteed budget and protection from random attempts by Congress to cut the budget.”

“We do, well sort of,” Rogers said.  He smiled.  “I think you mean Parliament, over here.  The point is we are suddenly under some pressure to have an additional success.”  He paused thoughtfully.  “We originally reported to America, Britain, Germany and Russia; the nations provided troops, operatives, protection and a guaranteed budget…in exchange for full access to all of our work.  In recent years, both France and China have joined the program…and that is where the troubles have begun.  Both of the newcomers want an expanded program, one that they can exploit for their political ends, rather than the slow program of Britain and America.  In fact, both Russia and Germany are interested in expanding the program themselves.”

He smiled thinly.  “And that’s where the story really starts,” he said.  “They want greater representation of their nationals on exploration teams and a major presence on the next mission into unexplored timelines.”

Jack found himself leaning forward.  “They want us to take along a bunch of untrained amateurs?”  He asked.  “Are they mad?”

“Its politics,” Rogers said, apparently unmoved by the outburst.  “Do you have any idea of how hard it is to lock onto a given timeline, or rather to find a new one to lock onto?”

Jack shrugged.  “I don’t understand the specifics,” he said.

“Nor should you,” Rogers said, his tone sharp.  “You know the possible consequences if someone hostile were to learn how to make Portals from us.”  He waved a hand in the direction of what had once been Cambridge University.  “Suffice it to say that we have only managed to locate three other timelines…and one more.  The one, as it happened, that your team was intended to explore.”

Jack winced.  “And we won’t be exploring it now?”

Rogers frowned.  “You will be exploring it, yes,” he said slowly.  “You’ll just have an extra member of your team with you.”

Jack leaned forward sharply.  “Now hold on,” he said.  “My team has been training for the task of exploring TimeLine G.  We can’t incorporate another member…”

Rogers matched him, glare for glare.  “You can and you will,” he said sharply, before falling backwards into his seat.  “Yes, you will,” he said.  “I’m sorry about this, Captain, but politics have forced common sense to take a backseat – again.”

Jack leaned back in his seat, unsure of what he should say.  “Why?”  He asked finally.  “If we have to take an untrained person along, why?”

“Politics,” Roger said, showing a flicker of annoyance for the first time.  “The French and the Chinese want a greater share in the exploration teams, or they’ll defy the Portal Treaty of 2009.  After a long argument, the Oversight Committee ordered me to place a French representative on your team, which is already considerably more international than…”

“We have trained together,” Jack repeated.  “I know we’re from several different nations, but…”

“But nothing,” Rogers said grimly.  “You have to talk her along.”  He paused.  “Quite frankly, there is some doubt over whither or not TimeLine G should be opened at all.”

Jack blinked.  “I don’t understand,” he said.  “They want to shut the entire project down?”

Rogers snorted.  “The Thande Institute is the only thing preventing a complete collapse of the Portal Treaty,” he said.  “The Governments won’t shut it down.  No, Captain; there are practical problems with TimeLine G.”

Jack frowned.  “Practical problems?”  He asked, searching his mind.  “Is their Cambridge under water?”

Rogers smiled.  “Very good, Captain,” he said.  Jack smiled.  “Not exactly, but there is something odd about the timeline; the Portal didn’t form quite right.”

Jack sighed.  “Sir, with all due respect, can you get to the point?”

“The Portal seems to be reluctant to remain stable for long,” Rogers said.  “We poked a camera through, moving the control arm to prevent it from collapsing, but it collapsed anyway.  There was no footage past the Portal and any system we sent through simply failed.  We believe that we can move a team through the Portal, the sensors think that there is room to expand into, but…we can’t send any equipment through without people.”

“I don’t understand,” Jack said, after a moment’s thought.  “What can cause something like that?”

“An advanced technology,” Rogers said grimly.  He smiled at Jack’s look.  “Oh, come on; we deploy orbital Portal suppressors to prevent anyone hacking into our universe, don’t we?  What’s to stop them doing the same?”  He paused.  “Did I ever tell you that Professor Thande suspected that someone had aided the Nazis in their discovery of our universe?”

Jack shook his head.  “No, sir,” he said.  “We can’t get into TimeLine G?”

“Oh, we can get in,” Rogers said.  He frowned.  “The question is different; in five years of exploration, we have never discovered an equal, but sheer logic dictates that an equal – if not a superior – must exist.  If TimeLine G is…say, ten years ahead of us, all of a sudden contact with the universe becomes utterly vital for the security of the nations involved in Portal research.

“At the same time, if they have Portals, they will have our quantum signature,” he continued.  “They may be coming back at us…at any moment.”

Jack scrabbled for ground and found it.  “Do you think that they might have given the Nazis the Portals?”

Rogers laughed.  “It’s impossible to know,” he said.  “There are two points, Captain; first, your force may be going to a world we may not be able to recover you from, and that your force may be…killed in transit.  We don’t fully understand what’s happening, Captain; our best analysts think that they’ll accept a manned mission, but its impossible to be sure.”

“And, of course, the analysts won’t be going,” Jack said wryly.  Rogers nodded.  “We did train for a dangerous mission, sir.”

“I know,” Rogers said.  “So far, we have not lost any team.  This one…may be different.  There are too many unknowns.”

“We knew the risks when we signed up,” Jack said.  “Hell, sir; I fought in Washington and New Orleans.  I don’t think that it could be any worse.”

Rogers sighed.  “All I can promise you, Captain, is that we’ll do our best to help you if you get into trouble,” he said.  “You must know, however, that there will be very little that we can actually do.”

Jack nodded, feeling an unexpected lump in his throat.  “I understand,” he said.

“It’s a volunteer mission only,” Rogers said, with unexpected firmness.  “Do you want to meet your additional team member now?”

Jack scowled.  It wasn’t something he wanted, but he was smart enough to know that it was something he had to have.  “Yes, please,” he said.

Rogers smiled at his tone.  “Miss Feather, please send in Doctor Videzun,” he said, into his phone, and smiled.  “You’ll like her, I think,” he said.

Jack couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth, or if he was being sarcastic.

***
Doctor Christina Videzun knew, without false modesty, that she was one of the most competent French sociologists and historians in the nation, and one of the higher-ranking experts in the world.  Her family connections – her family had provided three mayors, several high-ranking army officers…and one Admiral – had given her the opportunities to develop her unusual interests; none of them had ever felt that her interests would ever come in handy for the family.

And then the Charles DeGaulle had vanished into the inter-dimensional warp, along with the American and British ships, and the family had become very interested indeed.  The Nazi Invasion had offered some of the army officers a chance to make their careers – and just incidentally repair France’s tattered military reputation – but that hadn’t solved the mystery of the disappearance of Admiral Videzun.  She had found herself pushed towards the Thande Institute by her family, resisting until the last, when dire threats of disowning her finally penetrated her skull.  

She scowled as she checked her appearance in the mirror.  Her long dark hair and shapely body had contributed to her success; Frenchmen, just like other men, tended to look at the body’s design, rather than the brain it housed.  She knew that her body, properly used, was a weapon, but it wasn’t one she liked using.  How could men respect her for her achievements if all they saw was a nicely shaped piece of meat?

“You can go in now,” the receptionist said.  Christina nodded and stood up, smoothing down her skirt, before following the pointed finger to the Director’s office.  She stepped inside and smiled at Rogers, before nodding politely to the man seated on her side of the room.  He was clearly an army man; his close-cropped hair and disciplined bearing suggested that to her. 

“Doctor Christina Videzun, please meet Captain Jack Drache,” Rogers said.  “You’ll be working together.”

“Charmed,” Christina said, shaking his hand formally.  He didn’t try to kiss her hand; he showed almost no interest in her whatsoever.  “Pleased to meet you.”

Jack Drache spoke with an American accent, Texas-accented, but without the full depth of the accent.  “Pleased to meet you as well,” he said, and Christina realised that he was being insincere.  “I understand that you will be joining team seven?”

Christina sighed inwardly, allowing no trace of her annoyance to appear on her face.  She understood Jack’s concerns, but he could be more welcoming, surely?  “I believe that that is the case,” she said coolly.  “I look forward to working with you.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed.  “Exactly what do you bring to the team?”  He asked.  Rogers opened his mouth, but said nothing, closing his mouth without a noise.  “Why do we have to take you, instead of a French soldier or commando?”

Christina smiled.  Defending herself was something she understood.  “This mission has particular implications,” she said.  “A fourth soldier was deemed unnecessary.  Instead, a sociologist and historian was required…and it so happened that I was available and willing to go on the team.”

“I see,” Jack said.  He warmed slightly.  “And what experience at following orders do you have?”

Christina coloured slightly.  “I can follow orders, within reason,” she said.

“But that’s not enough,” Jack said.  “You have to obey orders at once, whatever they are.”

Christina smiled.  “I will obey orders, within reason,” she said.  “I am not going to obey a command to lie back and spread my legs.”

She’d dropped the crudity into the conversation to see how he would react.  His lips twitched with genuine amusement.  “I rather doubt that either of the other women on the team would stand for that,” he said.  “I’m not that desperate.”

Christina studied him for a long moment.  His rugged face didn’t suggest desperation.  “I said that I would obey orders, within reason,” she said.  “And that, I promise, is what I will do.  I have been on expeditions to dangerous locations.”

“Including a French mission to Africa,” Rogers injected.  “She performed well there, Captain.”

“That’s good,” Jack said.  He scowled down towards his feet for a long moment, before looking up and smiling.  “Welcome to the team,” he said.  “I dare say that we will find a place for you.”

Rogers snorted.  “I’m pleased to know that you get on,” he said, before Christina could say anything.  “Captain, Doctor; insertion is in five hours, unless you want to back out now.”

Christina shook her head.  “I don’t want to back out, thanks,” she said.  “Captain, when do we meet the others in the team?”

“Right now,” Jack said.  “With your permission, Director?”

Christina frowned.  She was sure that the two men had been discussing her before she arrived.  “You have my permission,” Rogers said.  “Just try not to kill each other before you return.”

Jack snorted.  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” he said.  “Insertion in five hours, sir; be seeing you there.”

Chapter Two: Gathering the Troops

The camera closed in on the face of Doctor What, commander of the AH.COM, as his faced filled with horror.  “Oh good god,” he said.  “They reproduced.”

Martin Anderson, technical expert and computer operator, leaned back in his chair, laughing his eyes out.  The actual discovery of a real alternate timeline, and the invasion that had convinced the entire world that alternate timelines were real, had provoked interest in alternate history writing…and TV had not been slow to follow the trend.  The loss of the satellites had pushed many television and entertainment companies out of business, but the remainder had adapted and prevailed.

“We are a ship full of semi-alcoholic porn obsessed lunatics that barely get along with one another,” Doctor What informed his future crewmembers.  “We have travelled through hundreds of different timelines; we worship giant sheep, goats and a bartender of a pub as gods….”

The television screen flickered out as Doctor Sumrita Patel tapped the power button.  “Are you still watching that?”  She asked, her cute face twisted into a half-smile, half-grimace.  “I thought you were supposed to be preparing for your part of the mission.”

Martin scowled up at her.  AH.COM had become one of the worlds most famous comedy television programs, even though it was played mainly for laughs.  The actors might never score on screen, but they were very famous in their own world.

“I have done everything I can,” he said, concealing his annoyance.  Sumrita was quite attractive, after all.  Her dark skin concealed a warm and caring nature; her brown eyes warmed him whenever they met his eyes.  “Step through the Portal, activate the beacon if alone, if not alone, follow Jack’s orders, blah blah blah.  I know my role, Sumrita.”

“You’re still pissed over the inclusion of a stronger military role,” Sumrita said.  “You don’t have to be that unhappy; there are three fully-trained combat soldiers going along to keep you and me safe.”

“This is a dangerous mission and it will only be made harder by trigger-happy maniacs,” Martin said.  “It’s bad enough being accused of being a draft-dodger, but to be under the orders of three utterly suspicious people, when we might be jumping right into the heart of a very advanced timeline.”

Sumrita smiled.  “If that happens, Captain Drache will not start a war,” she said.  “Don’t worry; you’re covered.”

“How reassuring,” Martin said.  He scowled at her.  “Are you going to turn the TV back on?”

“No,” Sumrita said.  “I thought we could talk instead.”

Martin mentally cursed his shyness.  He couldn’t talk to girls without his tongue tripping over itself.  “What is there to talk about?”  He asked.  “The forthcoming mission?  The delays as the governments argue over how we should contact this new timeline?”

Sumrita’s eyes glittered.  “We could talk about football,” she said.  “How do you fancy Manchester’s chances in the World Cup?”

Martin flushed slightly, hoping that she hadn’t noticed.  Football wasn’t something he followed.  “I honestly don’t know,” he said.  Dating advice books had told him never to lie to a girl.  “I would have thought that with half of the teams wiped out, they would have a good chance.”

Sumrita smiled.  “You don’t know about football?”  She asked.  “What do you care about?”

Martin waved a hand at the computers scattered around the room.  “In the time it takes to win a football match, I can set up a dozen computers, doing truly useful work, but how much do I get paid?”

Sumrita snorted.  “You have a slot on one of the insertion teams,” she said.  “Once you get back, you will have a slot on all of the talk shows; you might even have a place in the Big Brother house.”

Martin tried to scowl and failed; the smile burst its way onto his face.  “The best episode of that was the one with Doctor Who,” he said.  “Apart from that…if I want pornography I would look on the internet for it.”

Sumrita frowned.  “I think that would be cheating,” she said.  “You don’t like the idea of being filmed on the toilet?”

Martin opened his mouth to say something he would probably regret later, when Captain Drache walked in, along with the other two soldiers…and a fantastic girl.  He felt his jaw drop; she was drop-dead gorgeous.  Her long dark hair fell over a pert mouth, flawless skin and firm breasts.

“Mouth that is open, should be shut,” Sumrita muttered, elbowing him.  The newcomer gave him a wink; he felt Sumrita stiffen beside him.  Martin looked away, up at Jack Drache; he had to be safer to look at.

I will never understand women, he thought to himself.  What are they playing at?

Jack cleared his throat noisily.  “If I could have your attention?”  He asked.  “This is quite important.”

The military people stood up straighter, coming to attention.  Martin and Sumrita sat up slightly, just enough to look attentive, while maintaining their independence as civilians.  Jack smiled at Sumrita and winked at Martin; the entire team had spent several months training together, after all.  They might not always be friends, but at least they could work together.

“You have seen the briefs on the problems with the Portal formation,” Jack said, without preamble.  “If any of you want to back out now, please say so.”

Martin felt more than saw Sergeant Angelina Harper, one of the first women in the SAS, fixing her attention upon him.  He made a face; she had not been one of his biggest fans and had vented the opinion, more than once, that he would let everyone down when push came to shove.

“Respectfully suggest, sir, that we hurry up and go,” he said quickly.  “We need to move before I have a sudden attack of brains to the head and realise how stupid I’m being.”

Jack laughed.  “We have around four hours before the Portal is opened,” he said.  He waved a hand at the newcomer woman.  “Allow me to introduce, first, Doctor Christina Videzun, of France.  Doctor Videzun…”

“Call me Christina,” the woman said.  Her voice was lightly accented with a French accent, light and breathy.  “If we are to work together, then we should be on first name terms, no?”

“We are all on first name terms here,” Jack said.  “Doctor Videzun, allow me to introduce Sergeant Angelina Harper, Private Loke Magnesten, Doctor Sumrita Patel, medical support, and last, but not least, Martin Anderson, technical support.”

Christina bowed once.  “A pleasure to meet all of you,” she said.  “I’m sure that we are going to get along famously.”

“I’m not,” Angelina said.  Her close-shaven skull bobbled forward as she spoke, her tone hard and flat.  “With all due respect, doctor; you have not trained with us for the past months.”

Martin felt Sumrita move beside him.  He scowled, wishing that he understood her better.  “This team already has one trained medical officer,” Angelina continued, nodding at Sumrita.  “It does not need a second officer, does it?”

“Doctor Videzun is not a medical doctor,” Jack said firmly.  “Doctor Videzun – Christina – is a sociologist and historian.”  He tapped the table before anyone else could speak.  “And our masters have spoken; she comes with us.”

“I have to register my protests,” Angelina said.  “In my considered judgement, adding a newcomer is only going to disrupt the team.  We all work together well, sir; do we need someone new?”

“Enough,” Jack said, quietly, but with great force.  “Our lords and masters have spoken.  Now, Martin; what is the status of the tech equipment?”

Martin stammered as he spoke, astonished by the sudden change in subject.  “Ah, sir; the equipment is ready for use.  We have a beacon for the systems here to lock on to, should we get into trouble, and enough support equipment to ensure that we have the components to build two new beacons, if we have to.  The sensor apparatus is ready to deploy, carried in my rucksack.  If they have communications, the equipment will detect them and allow us to analysis them without being detected – we assume.”

“I’m assuming that they will detect the Portal,” Jack said quietly.  “We did, after all, when the Nazis invaded.  If they have the ability to localise the Portal, we can assume that they will be sending combat teams in to investigate.”

Martin nodded.  “I expect that we will be able to talk to them,” he said.  “In the event that we can’t, we’ll have to beat a hasty retreat.”

He’d expected Angelina – and what an incongruous name that was for an SAS officer – to protest.  She said nothing.  “We have to establish communications,” Jack said.  “I assume that you have communications protocols already programmed?”

“Does the pope shit in the wood?”  Martin asked.  “Of course; I have programmed messages ready to broadcast across their world.”  He hesitated.  “We might be stepping right into a trap, you know.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Jack admitted.  “I’ve even considered asking for the Portal to remain open for longer two-way, rather than just the one-way that we normally use to access the new dimensions.  Security rejected the suggestions; the Portals will be reopened briefly half an hour after the first penetration if the beacon is not activated.  If the beacon is used, of course, the Portal can be kept open.”

He shook his head.  “They rejected the suggestion,” he said.  “Still want to come?”

“Yes,” Martin said, recognising that he was being teased.  “Yes, I do.”

“More fool you,” Jack said.  “Sumrita?”

Sumrita smiled grimly.  “I have packed enough medical supplies to keep us healthy for a while,” she said.  “If we get into trouble, we should be able to handle any minor injury without serious problems, particularly with the SAS medical training that Angelina possesses.  If worst comes to worst, we should be able to stabilise even a bad fever, but that won’t be necessary.”

She paused significantly.  “I’ve also packed the other supplies.”

Martin felt his face heat.  “If I ever find the bastard who suggested that we would need contraceptives, of all things…”

“Standard Special Forces equipment,” Jack said, carefully keeping his voice bland.  “Christina, what equipment are you bringing?”

Christina paused for a moment to think.  Martin didn’t like the look of that; even he had been able to rattle off the contents of his rucksacks at will.  “I have my computer and some reference materials, including nearly forty gigabytes of material on history on the laptop, and even some paper books.”

Martin blinked.  Forty gigabytes of material represented one hell of a lot of material.  “That much?”  He asked.  “What do you plan to do with it?”

Christina turned her brilliant smile on him.  It was like being struck with a hammer.  “I don’t know anything about the Point of Divergence within the new timeline,” she said.  “I would be a lot happier if the entire University of Edinburgh library was with me, but for the moment…”

“Finding the Point of Divergence will be her task,” Jack interrupted.  “Angelina, what about our supplies?”

Angelina smiled.  It made her face seem almost human.  “For the three of us, we have weapons, lots of bullets – you can never have too many bullets – grenades, explosives and other weapons,” she said.  “If we have to fight, we can make them bleed.”

Martin felt a flicker of concern.  “If they can jam up a Portal, they are at least our equals,” he said.  “Do we really want to start a shooting match with them?”

“No we don’t,” Jack said.  “Martin; if we are attacked, we will have to defend ourselves.”

Martin lowered his eyes.  “I understand that,” he said.  “That’s why we are all carrying weapons, Jack; even I’m carrying a weapon.”

“Just don’t point it at me,” Angelina said.  “I live for danger.”

Jack tapped the table sharply.  “Yes, I know,” he said.  “Can we please keep the flirting for later?”  He waited until Angelina had finished glaring at him.  “This is pretty much the last chance everyone has to back out, so…”

Martin sighed.  “Please, Jack; stop offering that,” he said.  “I might take you up on it.”

Jack smiled.  “Don’t worry, I’ll drag you along with us,” he said.  “Everyone; meet at the Portal room in four hours, understand?”

With that, he swept out of the room, taking the other two soldiers with him.  Martin looked up at Sumrita and was surprised to see her scowling at Christina.  “Ah, Sumrita, should we not go for lunch?”

Sumrita looked down at him, as if she had almost forgotten that he was there.  “Yes, that’s a good idea,” she said.  “We have to eat, and then have some sleep, before we go through the looking glass.”

Without saying anything, Christina left the room, her shapely behind temping Martin as she left.  “What’s happening between you?”  He asked.  “Why are you so mad at her?”

“She’s a bitch,” Sumrita said.  She stood up.  “Come on, let’s go to lunch.”

Martin was puzzled.  The two women had hardly just met.  Shrugging, he followed Sumrita out of the room, heading for the refectory.  They didn’t know when they would be able to eat again.

***
The centre of the Thande Institute was the Portal Room, a single massive room with a Portal-generating system emplaced directly in the centre of the room.  The room throbbed with power; the three fusion reactors that provided the power to the Thande Institute, situated some distance away, were already channelling power into the power cells.

Director Steve Rogers smiled wryly.  Fission had such a bad reputation that fusion had replaced most of the fission reactors without any dissent, much to the astonishment of the pro-nuclear factions, who had expected resistance.  The Nazis, irony of ironies, had developed the fusion reactor by forcing through their research without any problems from an anti-nuclear faction, finally inventing a safe reactor.

“Activate the main Portal sequence,” he said, looking over at the framework of struts that surrounded the Portal itself.  The Portal was nothing more than a wave distortion in the fabric of space; one localised to one particular location on a planet…and connected to another location on a different universe.  “Confirm activation status.”

The Portal shimmered, and appeared, a rolling wave of silent white light hanging in the air.  It flickered in and out of existence as it rotated through the timelines, unconnected as yet to any other reality.  It was eerily silent; Portals only made a noise when they were under pressure.

“Confirm, Portal is active, but unlocked,” a technician said.  “The Portal is ready for them to step through, once the destination has been selected.”

Rogers felt a lump in his throat.  It would be dangerous – and as one of the men who knew how to build a Portal it would be impossible – for him to come, but he wanted to go with the team.  He’d visited all of the explored timelines, but with the exception of TimeLine C, the Nazi world, he hadn’t been part of the first to enter.

“Summon the team,” he said, watching the Portal.  The six team members entered and Rogers quickly checked them; the civilians looked nervous, but excited at the same time.  The military personnel only looked alert.

“Captain Jack Drache and team, reporting for duty,” Jack said.  He held out a hand; Rogers shook it firmly.  “We’re ready to go, sir.”

Rogers smiled.  It didn’t touch his eyes.  “Have you all of your equipment?”  He asked.  “Everything?”

“We double-checked, sir,” Sergeant Angelina Harper assured him.  “We have everything we thought we would need, that we could carry.”

Rogers stepped back, taking a moment to study them all.  Dressed in combat fatigues, they looked very military, very prepared.  “Good luck, all of you,” he said.  He took a breath.  “Take your positions.”

He watched as the six team members stepped up to the Portal.  They didn’t step through, not yet.  “Select the destination,” he ordered.  “TimeLine G; access it…now!”

The Portal flickered, shattered, reformed…and froze into a wall of light.  Rogers frowned; something was definitely wrong with the Portal.  It just…didn’t look right.  He hesitated, about to order the team to stand down, and then shook his head.  The team knew the risks, after all.

And besides, he thought wryly, the Oversight Committee would just overrule me and send them in anyway.

“You may proceed,” he said.  Jack didn’t hesitate; he and his sergeant stepped forward quickly, their weapons raised.  The Portal flickered as they passed through, and then reformed.  “Now, the rest of you.”

The remaining four stepped though quickly, and the Portal collapsed.  Rogers stared at it, his eyes unable or unwilling to believe what they had just seen.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” the operator said.  He pressed buttons on his computer rapidly, trying to understand the readings.  “There was a wave of feedback, and the Portal just collapsed.”

“Reform it,” Rogers snapped.  “We have to see if we can get back to them!”

The operator worked his system.  “I can’t,” he said, his tone showing mounting horror.  “I can’t get the system to access the new timeline at all!”

Rogers felt his blood run cold.  “Then they’re stuck there,” he said, as the full implications of the operator’s statement struck home.  “We have to wait for them to set up the beacon?”  A second thought struck him.  “If they can set up the beacon…”

Chapter Three: Bad News and Worse

In the week since the disastrous Council meeting, Grand Mage Akron had spent hours carefully rebuilding and strengthening the wards around his castle, as well as summoning the troops of his lands to his banner.  It had been an attempt to prevent Shayde launching a pre-emptive strike, but to his private astonishment no strike had materialised.  Shayde had three Grand Mages on his side; the temptation to strike must have been overpowering.

“Perhaps Shayde is a coward after all,” the Knight Errant suggested.  Akron’s oldest friend, from the time that the two of them – the magician and the warrior – had set out to challenge the established order…and had ended up as the established order.  “I would have launched an attack by now.”

Akron shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “Whatever else Shayde is, he’s no coward.  Anyone determined enough to rise to the rank of Grand Mage is no coward.”

The Knight Errant paced the large room, wandering from side to side.  “Are there no spells you can cast to spy on him?”

“He has them all blocked,” Akron replied.  One of the things he’d done himself was to ensure that Shayde would be unable to spy on him…and Shayde had clearly spent at least some of his time doing the same.  Half of his apprentice wizards were trying to crack the defences around Shayde, only to report failure, day after day.  Akron didn’t have the heart to punish them; he knew that he would be unable to do any better.

“And Old Mother Daughter can’t tell you anything?”  The Knight Errant pressed.  “She started all this, after all…”

“She’s dead,” Akron reminded him.  “I wish I knew who had killed her; that necromancer was totally useless.”

He scowled.  Necromancy, magic involving dead bodies, spirits, and the Powers that governed them, was frowned upon by the Council.  Even hiring a necromancer would have had costly consequences…had it not been for the split in the Council’s ranks.  It had been a risk that had been taken for nothing; the necromancer had been unable to raise the old woman’s spirit.

“Shayde must have killed her,” the Knight Errant said.  “Who else stands to benefit?”

Akron shook his head again.  “I don’t think so,” he said.  A thought occurred to him.  “Shayde would want her alive to help his campaign against us; there are no wards that can block out her visions, are there?”  The thought blossomed into a full idea.  “Perhaps…”

He shouted for one of his serving maids.  When she arrived, her eyes full of terror, he ordered her to fetch a basin of water.  “Perhaps we can gain a prediction,” he said.  “If we had any idea of where the five are going to land…”

“We could be there to meet them,” the Knight Errant said.  “Nice maid, by the way.”

Akron gave him a dry look.  “Always you and the women,” he said, as the maid returned.  “Go with her, if you want; I’m going to do some scrying.”

As the Knight Errant left in pursuit of the maid, who would be unable to refuse him because of the spells placed on her when she entered Akron’s service, Akron bent over the basin, casting a spell to ensure that he would not be disturbed.  The water was clear; the mirrored silver of the bowl could be clearly seen at the bottom.

“Show me them,” Akron breathed, casting a spell with all of his power.  Nothing happened; the vision refused to form.  That alone was alarming; it suggested that they were shielded in some way, or that they were outside the reach of the spell.  “Show me them!”

The water bubbled, its temperature nearly reaching boiling point.  Akron cursed and stepped backwards sharply, avoiding being scalded by a matter of seconds.  The water cooled unnaturally fast, another sign that the newcomers were defended.  Just for a moment, Akron entertained the thought that they could already be at the Castle at the End of the Land, and wondered if he should try to attempt to spy on them there.  The memory of what happened to wizards’ stupid enough to try to peer within the Castle at the End of the Land dissuaded him and he sat down heavily, wondering what to do next.

“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered, as he paced over to the map of Britannia.  It was a magical map; it constantly updated itself as borders, even entire counties, changed hands.  A Power had moved into the Lake District, twisting and turning the entire region – which had once belonged to a Prince who would have been Shayde’s ally – into it’s personal domain.

He allowed himself a moment to consider the map.  If the strangers arrived within the domain of a Power, they were doomed; the Powers would be unlikely to let them proceed to the Castle at the End of the Land.  That was good, in a way; the Powers depended upon magic and really didn’t need strangers trying to interfere with the power source…but at the same time it prevented them from moderating the supply flowing out from the Castle at the End of the Land to the wizards.

Akron shuddered suddenly.  There were currently nearly three hundred Powers within Britannia, and their domains were slowly expanding.  How long would it be, he wondered, before they held the entire country, right up to the Brass Walls?  Powers were dangerous, capricious, and totally uncaring about human lives.  

Thinking about the Powers triggered a thought in his mind.  “It has been possible to predict where a Power might find interesting,” he thought, and checked the basin.  The water was cooling, almost cool enough for him to drink safely, but he had another idea.

“Tell me,” he mused, dipping his fingers in the water.  “Tell me…where they will arrive.”

It was a gamble; they might have arrived already, but instead the water shimmered, revealing…a forest.  Akron snorted; half of Britannia was forest.  It was progress, but it was about as helpful as Old Mother Daughter’s prophecies.

“Higher up,” he said, hoping that he could recognise any landmarks.  The Castle at the End of the Land would be instantly recognisable; would anywhere else be recognisable?  The Knight Errant had flown on a dragon, but Akron hadn’t.  He was on the verge of calling his friend back, when the image pulled back, revealing a landscape that was unfamiliar…except for the black castle at the top of a mountain.  It had been built by magic, he recognised; there was no other way that such a building could stand for more than a few weeks.

“Shit,” he breathed.  He recognised the castle; it was Tooth Castle, home of Grand Mage Shayde.  “Knight Errant, come back here, now!”

The Knight Errant returned, making a show of buttoning up his trousers.  “What is it?”  He demanded, too used to Akron to fear him as a wizard.  “She was just right, she was.”

Akron gave him a hard look.  “Keep your thing in your trousers,” he snapped.  “This is important.”  He waved a hand at the basin, wondering if the Knight Errant could see the vision.  The gasp of indrawn breath was enough to prove that he could.  “That’s where they’re going to appear.”

The Knight Errant cursed.  “Right in the heart of enemy territory,” he said.  “No wonder Shayde’s been going on the defensive.”

Akron nodded.  “That might explain why the little bastard hasn’t attacked,” he muttered, thinking as fast as he could.  There was something oddly humiliating about having the wool pulled over his eyes by Shayde, who was very young, after all.  Akron, who was nearly seventy years old, scowled; Shayde was thirty.

The Knight Errant was thinking about more practical matters.  “So, what do we do?”  He asked.  “Do we launch an attack?”

Akron studied the map, thinking hard.  Shayde had fewer princes to call upon, but having three Grand Mages more than made up for it.  He would have problems with manpower, but at the same time he would have the magic to make the manpower of all of the princes in Britannia irrelevant.  Soldiers, even the ones who had sworn eternal loyalty to a prince, tended to desert when faced with magic.

The Powers made men, he thought, but magic picked the leaders out from the common herd.

“Can we win a quick attack?”  He asked, trusting in his friend’s military skill.  “If we gather every soldier we can and launch a thrust right into the heart of Shayde’s territory, can we win?”

The Knight Errant shrugged.  “Can you, Grand Mage Gorgre and your apprentices handle the magic of the people on the other side?”

Mentally, Akron cursed Grand Mage Ixa’em.  He’d thought – hoped – that Grand Mage Ixa’em would join his side.  His decision to remain on the sidelines meant that magical superiority would be on the other side, if not decisive enough to permit Shayde to gamble on a strike of his own.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “Around twenty-five of the sixty mages have declared for me and ten for Shayde.  The rest seem to be waiting for some sign of who is going to win before committing themselves to the war.  Shayde will have a lot of support from the wizards – and if he makes all manner of promises and Wizard’s Oaths he might end up with support from the necromancers and the other…special wizards as well – promises that we cannot match.”

He smiled wryly.  “On the other hand, the day I can’t handle even a combined attack from the wizards is the day I start spending the rest of my life croaking on a lily pad.”

The Knight Errant frowned.  “Then the answer is no,” he said.  “Shayde – I will say this for him – has not slacked at maintaining the defences, particularly with the recent spat of bandit attacks, rather than Wizard Challenges…”

“He defeated a challenge only a year ago,” Akron said.  “The mage is still stuck as a burning bush.”

“The defences are strong enough to repel a conventional attack,” the Knight Errant said.  “If we had magical superiority, we might be able to avoid most of the problems with attacking under the conditions we will have to launch the attack, but as it happens…”

“We don’t,” Akron said.  “So…what do we do?”

The Knight Errant blinked at the question.  Akron had always known what to do, always.  On their adventures, he had always been the thinker; the Knight Errant – before he held that title – had been the man of action.

“We can get a small force in,” he said.  “We might be able to launch a raid on Shayde’s base of operations.”

Akron sighed.  “You’d need me along to untangle the wards,” he said.  “It’s not a bad idea, particularly if I could talk Grand Mage Gorgre into standing guard here while we moved.”

The Knight Errant nodded grimly.  “It’s the only thing we can do,” he said.  He hesitated.  “Akron, you could summon a demon, or a Power, and command it to help us out…”

Akron paled.  “No,” he snapped.  “Not for anything!”

The Knight Errant blinked.  “I thought that we were desperate,” he said wryly.  “Is this not a time for extreme measures?”

“You’ll be the death of me yet,” Akron said, with genuine affection.  “You also have to be crazy; demons are unpredictable and Powers are utterly uncaring about human life.  Why do you think the town of Lanark died?”

The Knight Errant shuddered.  As far as the Council of Wizardry had been able to establish, the town had been destroyed by a blood-sucking demon, summoned by a tormented young boy.  The ignorant man, who knew nothing beyond an old rhyme for summoning demons, hadn’t even known to draw a circle for the demon to be restrained.  Naturally, the demon hadn’t even bothered to listen to the conditions – before killing the man and slaughtering his entire hometown.

Akron remembered.  The Council of Wizardry had sent him and Grand Mage Shan to stop the demon, an attempt that had almost killed them before they finally succeeded in trapping the demon and banishing it back to hell.  Afterwards, they’d entered the town and examined the remains – it had merely been the latest in a series of failed attempts to summon demons.

“We cannot trust a demon to help out,” he said.  “Demons are malicious and they hate us; they know all of the rules far better than we do.  They can’t be trusted.  A Power, even assuming that we can summon one that will obey us, would be worse.  It would be bound by its nature; Shayde might be able to trap it, or even to convince it that it should be serving him instead.”

“There is a reason I left magic to you,” the Knight Errant said.  “Then…do you want me to move people into the region, standing by to attack if we can?”

Akron nodded.  “I’m going to send birds into the region as well,” he said.  “If a few of my servants wish to take wing, they can join them…and then we might just be able to catch up with them before Shayde kills them.”

***
The statue appeared almost human; an incredibly beautiful woman, one who wore no clothes at all.  It was trapped in a position of desperate pleading, a woman who had been defeated and trapped, stripped of all of her power, bargaining desperately to avoid the fate she knew was coming.  She held her breasts up towards the watcher, trying to show off her charms…and it had not availed her anything.

Grand Mage Shayde allowed himself a moment of triumph, remembering what had happened – what he’d caused to happen – to a female mage who’d sought to rise to the level of Grand Mage, before turning to assume his throne.  He purposely kept his back turned to the four men prostrated before him on the floor; their swords and knives would be useless against one of the greatest wizards in the world.

He gave the former female mage, now trapped forever as a statue, an affectionate pat, before sitting on his throne.  The guards watched the prostrated men, their eyes flickering over the statue, knowing that they could meet the same fate if they failed Shayde in any way.  Shayde didn’t want them anywhere near him – he was his own protector, with powers that no one below the level of Grand Mage could match – but they reminded the Princes of his power, and were therefore indispensable.

“You may sit up,” he said, affecting a bored tone.  The Princes sat up, careful to keep their faces blank.  Two of them had replaced their brothers after they had attempted to defy Shayde.  If they were annoyed at his tone, they didn’t show it at all.  “So, what have you to say for yourselves?”

The Princes looked from side to side, trying to decide who should speak first.  Shayde pointed to one of them, Prince Roger, almost at random.  “We have summoned all of the troops to our banners…”

Shayde clicked his fingers.  Prince Roger screamed in agony.  “My banner, my dear prince,” Shayde said.  “Please, carry on…”

Prince Roger stuttered through the rest of his statement.  “We have raised nearly five thousand infantry, one thousand housemen and two thousand bowmen,” he said.  “Unfortunately…”

“It’s not enough,” Shayde said mildly.  “Why can I not get more?”

The Princes exchanged glances again.  “My Lord,” Prince William said carefully, “eight thousand trained men are all we can raise, without conscripting men we need for the harvest and the winter stockpiles.  And then…”

“And then there is your constant refusal to train more than a handful of peasants in the arts of warfare,” Shayde said.  “We have nearly twenty thousand people within my domains; do you not feel that all of the menfolk could be trained?”

He smiled as the Princes tried to decide what to say.  They hated the thought of training peasants in the ways of warfare; they would find themselves the first targets of peasant anger.  Shayde himself, protected by magical wards, was perfectly safe from any outburst of commoner anger.

“My Lord, we have to be careful when raising an army,” Prince Dike said.  “A massive army, encamped in one place, rapidly burns the place clear of food and spreads disease everywhere.  We might be placing all of our manpower into a killing zone before we even see the enemy.  I fear…”

“Fear?”  Shayde asked.  “You should fear me, dog.”

The last time he’d said something like that, he’d turned the offending prince into a dog for a few days, leaving him with a lasting doggish devotion – and a humiliation that had never left him until his cousin assassinated him.  Prince Dike flinched, but Shayde had another target in mind.

“I have cast endless spells of prediction,” he said, and watched the princes flinch collectively.  “One thing seems to be clear; the strangers who will defeat all of you are due to be coming here.”

He ignored their astonished looks.  “They will arrive somewhere within my domains,” he said.  “The spells make that quite clear; somewhere within my wide domains, they will appear and start their mission to breach the Castle at the End of the Land.”

“My Lord, they would be foolish to come here,” Prince Roger said.  “Would they not be more likely to appear within that cringing milksop Akron’s domains?”

Shayde smiled.  “You would not be so keen to insult him, did you not live under my protection,” he said.  “They may not have a choice, or they may know nothing about what our lands are like.  It doesn’t matter; they are coming here.”

His smile grew wider.  “You are to take them alive, whatever it takes,” he said.  “Disperse your men through the villages and towns, take control and watch for them.  When they arrive, watch them and inform me; then do nothing until I order it.  Understand?”

“Yes, My Lord,” Prince Dike said.  “Would it not be wiser to have them killed at once?”

Shayde pointed a finger at him and set his hair on fire.  “You will do what I tell you,” he said.  “We need them alive.  They know things…and I would know them myself.  Understand?  We take them alive!”

Chapter Four: Trapped

Captain Jack Drache had been though dozens of Portals since the technology had been discovered, crossing from one universe to another without any problems at all.  The Portal into TimeLine G was different; he stepped through and instantly was forced forward, into the new world.  The Portal literally spat him out onto the ground, sending all of his carefully-prepared tactical plans into the scrap heap.  Even as he grabbed for his rifle, Sumrita landed on top of him, knocking him back to the ground.  It was sheer luck that his rifle didn’t go off and kill both of them.

He shook her off and rolled over, expecting to see…what?  He didn’t know what he expected, but he didn’t get it; instead of behaving normally, the Portal flickered once and vanished, leaving behind nothing…except the team.

“That’s not supposed to fucking happen,” Martin snapped.  Somehow, the voice of the computer nerd brought Jack back to reality.  “What the hell happened?”

“Roll call,” Jack snapped.  “Angelina?  Loke?”

“We’re here,” Angelina said.  “Everyone is here, except where’s here?”

Jack wasn’t sure what he had expected, but as he staggered to his feet, he could only be puzzled; the new world wasn’t some duplicate of the Thande Institute – as some analysts had speculated – but a forest.  Trees were everywhere; they had materialised in a clearing in the centre of a wood…

A bloodcurdling scream brought his attention back to Earth with a jolt.  Loke was clutching his head and screaming.  The words were impossible to make out; he couldn’t understand them at all.  There was no sign of injury, but he was in terrible pain.

“Stop,” he yelled suddenly.  “It’s not right, not right…”

He collapsed on the ground in a dead faint.  Sumrita was on her knees beside him at once, checking his pulse and temperature.  “I don’t understand,” she said.  “He seems to be fine, except for…”

Jack nodded.  His ears were still ringing.  “Angelina, secure the area,” he said.  “Brains, where the hell are we?”

Martin glanced around him uneasily.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “If this is Cambridge…”

“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,” Christina said dryly.  “This has to be some counterpart of Cambridge.”

Jack scowled.  Something was missing, and then it struck him; there were no birds.  The skies were blue, the trees seemed to have grown normally, but there were no birds.  He remembered a book he had read once in his youth and shuddered; were there deadly spiders around killing all of the birds?

Or perhaps Loke’s screaming drove them into silence, he thought.  There wasn’t enough data to speculate.  “Sumrita, when will he wake up?”

Sumrita met his eyes, her dark eyes wide with concern.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “I have checked everything I can, and there’s nothing wrong with him…”  She hesitated, and then unbuckled her rucksack.  “I’m going to do a brain scan with the portable system,” she said.  “Martin, can you give me a hand?”

“I think I better had,” Martin said.  His normal half-snide tone had vanished; Jack was reluctantly proud of him.  He helped her to unpack, while Jack and Angelina spread out, checking the surrounding area.

“If there’s someone around, then they’re very well hidden,” Angelina said, after they had circled the former location of the Portal.  “Of course…”

Her voice broke off as she looked towards a dark mountain.  A dark castle, impossibly frail, glared down at them.  It seemed to radiate a sense of oppression; it sent chills down his spine as he looked up and saw it.

“There’s nothing like that near Cambridge,” Angelina commented.  “They could be watching us from there with high-powered binoculars and we wouldn’t know about it.”

Jack nodded.  “What the hell have we stumbled into?”  He asked, thinking rapidly.  “Where are the people we expected to see?  A firefight would be preferable.”

Angelina cocked an eyebrow.  “I thought I was supposed to be the aggressive person,” she said.  “This could be worse.”

“I suppose,” Jack said.  “One third of our competent fighting power is down and the Portal has vanished.”

Angelina narrowed her eyes.  “Wasn’t that supposed to happen?”

Jack shrugged.  “It was meant to be open for longer,” he said.  “No, Angelina; I really don’t like this at all.”

Martin swore vilely.  Jack heard him from right across the clearing.  “What’s happened?”  He asked.  “Tell me, calmly if possible.”

“The equipment is refusing to work,” Sumrita said.  She held a metal box, part of a complex and portable diagnostic system.  Jack cursed softly.  It was worth nearly half a million dollars…and it was useless to them.  He took it, examined its dead screen, and pushed the power button with a hard push.  Nothing happened.

“There was a quick burst of power at the beginning,” Martin commented, as he unpacked his rucksack.  Several tools fell onto the ground, followed by a pair of power cells.  They’d been based on Nazi technology; something that was carefully concealed from the general public, who had had enough problems with absorbing the medical knowledge from TimeLine C.  “Since then, it faded.”

Jack watched with frank admiration as Martin neatly removed the old power cell from the medical tool, examined it quickly before placing it in his rucksack, and unwrapping the replacement cell.  Quickly, neatly, he placed the power cell in the system and pressed the power button.

“Shit,” he muttered, as the lights blinked on brightly…and then faded away to nothing.  “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.  Despite himself, he was starting to get unnerved.  “Martin, I think you’d better set up the Portal beacon.”

Martin nodded.  “I think I better had,” he agreed.  “It’ll take…”

A distant female scream rang through the air.  Jack spun around and considered, then made his decision.  He knew that it was dangerous, but necessary; they had to act to save whoever was screaming, if they had to remain human.  “Angelina, with me,” he snapped.  “Martin, get the beacon working, now!”

***
Jill, daughter of Ivan the Innkeeper, ran for her life, cursing her decision to sneak back to the town.  Even as she’d passed over the produce of the forest to Old Hubbard, an old crone far too old to be interesting even to the soldiers of Prince Roger, she’d been seen by the soldiers.  She’d fled into the forest, heading away from the other young maidens hiding in the forest, but they hadn’t given up.

She heard the crashing behind her and ran harder.  She knew with a sick certainty what they would do when they caught her.  Soldiers had permission to rape and pillage as they willed; she had no illusions that any of the remaining young men in the village – those who hadn’t been conscripted into the army themselves – would risk their lives to serve her.  Even Mother Dissmall, the village witch, wouldn’t be able to stop them.  She might kill one of the soldiers, perhaps even turn them all into toads, but the Grand Mage would punish her, if not the entire village.

She risked a look behind her and saw one of the soldiers, gaining on her, moving with a speed that proved that he too had originated in one of the forest villages.  It wouldn’t stop him; he wasn’t from Griffin Village, but from some other village.  Even if he had been, Jill knew that her father had been receiving requests for her hand in marriage from some of the young men, men she didn’t like or trust.  Compared to the soldier chasing her, they were paragons of virtue; their looks when she had blossomed into a young woman mild compared to the leer on the ruffian’s face.  

She turned her back to him and ran as fast as she could, moving with all the speed that a lifetime of living in the forest – and helping her father poach the deer – had given her.  It wasn’t enough; the soldier clearly hadn’t allowed his skills to atrophy.  In a massive leap, he tackled her, sending her crashing to the ground.  She screamed aloud, knowing that there would be no help, and he punched her in the side of the head.  Sick and dizzy, she offered no resistance as he tore at her trousers, tearing them away from her legs and exposing her rear to his inspection.  Rough hands groped her, even as the second soldier came up behind her.

“Hold her,” he captor said, unbuckling his belt.  “We should give the bitch a thrashing first…”

“Just get on with it,” the second soldier said.  “The Captain will have a fit if he doesn’t get his first crack at the virgins, so…”

Her captor stuck a finger inside her.  Jill couldn’t help it; she screamed in pain.  “Silence, bitch,” the soldier said.  “Blood; she’s a virgin, all right.  The Captain will have to wait.”

He finished removing his trousers and forced Jill’s legs apart…and then he stopped.  Jill was suddenly aware of two new people in the area, pointing strange sticks at the soldiers.  She twisted, trying to get a look at them, wondering if they were about to fight over who got her first…and then she had the surprise of her life.

“Stand up, away from the girl,” the newcomer said.  His accent was odd, almost barely understandable.  “Stand up, now…”

“Sean, kill them,” her captor said.  The strange sticks were levelled at the second soldier, who laughed and lifted his sword.  A loud BANG rang out…and Sean toppled backwards, his head exploding into a mass of bloody gore.  Jill had seen blood before, she’d helped Mother Dissmall with her medical work from time to time, but there was something horrifying about seeing a grown man simply slapped aside like that.

“You can take her,” her captor said.  He had gone from strong man to coward in seconds.  “Just let me go…”

“Kill him,” the second newcomer said.  Her accent was more understandable, but still odd, almost as if someone had smoothed all of the words together.  A second BANG rang out…and her captor fell back over her, blood leaking from his head onto Jill’s body.  She twisted, expecting that she would be forced back down at any moment, and gasped as she realised that the male newcomer was holding out a hand and politely averting his eyes from her near-nakedness.

She looked into his blue eyes and plummeted into his eyes.  “Are you all right?”  He asked.  “Who are you?”

“Jill,” Jill said, careful to say nothing else.  They could be looking for the other maidens – a twinge of pain from her vagina reminded her that she might no longer fall into that category – and she didn’t dare tell them anything else.  “Who are you?”

“We’re…well, that’s something of a long story,” the woman said.  Jill stared at her; she was lithe and muscular, almost manly in the way that she moved.  She seemed stronger than any woman she had ever met, even Mother Dissmall.  “I’m Angelina.  Pleased to meet you.”

Jill took her extended hand and suddenly found herself crying on Angelina’s shoulder.  “The poor dear needs some clothes,” Angelina said, and her…man?  Husband?  Brother?  Moved to obey, stripping the two soldiers of their trousers and offering one of them to Jill.  “Good,” Angelina said, as Jill pulled on the trousers.  “We have to take her with us.”

***
Jack studied their new charge and scowled inwardly.  The United States Rules of Engagement, which had been revised after the Nazi Invasion, permitted – demanded – that war criminals be executed as soon as they were captured.  There would have been no comeback if the thugs had been in Afghanistan, trying to rape women there, and the famous Tyler Case of 2011 suggested that the principle could be extended to America itself.  

It wasn’t as if Jill was unpleasant to look at, he realised, and was honest enough to admit that the hero worship in her eyes had touched him; the wrong parts of him.  She had admired him for saving her life and her eyes had held a promise…one that the rest of her body suggested would be great indeed.  Her long blonde hair, dirty yet attractive, full breasts and shapely legs – he’d caught a glimpse as he’d helped her from the ground – were not unattractive.  She radiated a wholesomeness that American or British girls tended to lack, after years of trying to follow the latest fads, only to abandon them when newer ones appeared.

The problem was that there had to be high technology around here somewhere; the interference with the Portal alone was proof of that.  Was Jill really a rape victim, or someone who had been placed in their path?  The castle had to be built with modern materials; something from a medieval culture could never have stood on such a peak.  It was smaller than the castle itself, like an obscene flower perched on its stalk.

“We are taking her with us,” Angelina said, in tones that dared him to make a fight of it.  “She is terrified of them.”

Jack looked down at the would-be rapists.  Their clothes were old-style; the swords they carried dirty in a way that would have had his former platoon sergeant kicking ass all over the training fields.  Even the Iraqis hadn’t taken such lack of care with their fighting equipment, had they?  He examined the clothes they’d left on the dead soldiers, and then searched their pockets.  A handful of strange coins emerged, along with a tiny pouch of white powder, but little else.

“There has to be a high-technology culture around here somewhere,” Jack said, not answering the question.  “And yet, all of this seems older than the Roman stuff.”

Angelina nodded thoughtfully.  The team had spent a little time in one of the other opened timelines, one involving a roman empire that had never fallen, but developed steam engines very early in its development – too early to develop the scientific mindset that allowed further development.  The entire planet had stagnated at roughly the level of the 1800s, with steamships and gunpowder, but no aircraft or rockets.

“You didn’t answer my statement,” she said, after a long moment.  “We’re taking her with us.”

Jack scowled.  “I have a nasty feeling about this,” he said.  Angelina nodded.  “Exactly why did a piece of equipment that was tested and retested during the preparation stages fail…just when we needed it?”

Angelina shrugged.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “Our guns still work, I notice.”

“It would be hard to miss,” Jack said wryly.  He sobered.  “Has it occurred to you that we might not be able to get back?”

Angelina looked up at him sharply.  “You don’t think that Brains can get the beacon to work?”

“They should be able to open a Portal to here without the beacon,” Jack said grimly.  “That they haven’t done that is…curious, is it not?”

Angelina shuddered.  “And if we can’t get the beacon to work, then what do we do?”

Jack frowned grimly.  “There are protocols to deal with such a situation,” he said.  “Unfortunately, they don’t depend on the situation we face now; we are, and I quote, ‘supposed to remain at the first point of entrance for the Portal to be re-established.’”

“Bollocks,” Angelina snapped.  “What happens when we run out of food?”

Jack gave her a mirthless smile, and then glanced down at his watch.  It had stopped; the liquid crystal display had faded to nothing.  “I don’t suppose that you have a clockwork watch?”  Angelina shook her head.  “Splendid, we don’t have the slightest idea what time it is,” Jack said.

“Its around four o’clock,” Angelina said dryly.  “We entered at three o’clock…and it can’t be much later than that.  Hell, it can’t have been more than half an hour, really.”

Jack snorted.  “We’ll have to take Miss Jill with us,” he said, waving a hand towards where Jill was trying to sort herself out.  “Exactly where the Point of Divergence is I don’t know, but she might be able to tell us.”

“I doubt that this is the typical nuclear aftermath timeline,” Angelina said.  “She didn’t recognise the guns at all, and nor did those bastards.”  She kicked one of the bodies.  “I think that the point of divergence is much further back.”  She chuckled.  “Perhaps it’s a good thing we have the French slut along.”

“You don’t like her much,” Jack observed.  “Feeling threatened?”

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Angelina said dryly.  “Jack, we have to find out what’s happening here – quickly.”

“She speaks English,” Jack observed.  “Perhaps you should spend some time talking to her, just to find out what she knows.”

“If she knows anything,” Angelina said.  “If this is a medieval world, they might not know any history worth the name.”

Jack frowned.  Something was nagging at the back of his mind.  He concentrated, but it refused to come clear.  “Perhaps,” he said.  “Can you check on her?”

Angelina nodded and stepped over to Jill.  Jack followed her with troubled eyes; Jill looked a lot better with her clothes changed.  All she would need was a bath and she would be stunning; the kind of farm-girl beauty that no amount of make-up and dieting could match.

“She’s ready,” Angelina said.  “Jack, do you want to lead the way?”

Jack blinked, and then understood.  “Yes,” he said shortly, and started to make his way back towards the entrance zone.  Their passage had made a path in the forest; otherwise they might have been reduced to shouting to Martin and the others.  On impulse, he checked his radio.  It didn’t work.

“It’s us,” he said, as they entered the clearing.  Martin was bending over the beacon, fiddling with it.  A discarded laptop had been dumped on the ground, a sign that something was badly wrong; Martin wouldn’t simply dump a computer unless it was useless.  “Sumrita, could you check our new friend?”

“I could,” Sumrita said, standing up.  Jill shrank back as she saw Sumrita; she clearly hadn’t seen an Indian girl before.  “What happened to her?”

“Attempted rape,” Angelina said, her tone hard and angry.  “Doctor…”

Sumrita nodded and led Jill over to a corner of the clearing.  Jack moved over to the beacon and scowled down at Martin.  “Any news?”

Martin looked up at him, his expression grim.  “Nothing,” he said.  “Whatever I do, there’s no power.  We could be stuck here for a very long time.”

Chapter Five: When Science Fails…

Martin Anderson had been born in a world of science; the natural world was governed, he knew, by a series of interlocking rules.  It was impossible, cool novels of post-apocalyptic disaster aside, for radical changes in the rules to occur…without damaging reality beyond repair.  If humans could survive and think within the new timeline, then the laws couldn’t be that different…could they?

He stared down at the beacon in his hands.  It had activated itself for a few seconds, and then simply lost power.  His watch didn’t work, but Sumrita’s clockwork watch worked perfectly, which suggested that steam power would work as well.  As soon as he’d heard the gunshots he relaxed; if guns could be fired, that meant that chemical processes still worked, which meant…

“It’s the electricity, it has to be,” he said to Sumrita.  “Nothing electrical works; the flowing current simply faded away.”  He tested the power cell, a process that used a chemical reaction that reacted to power sources, and discovered that it was empty.  “For some reason, electricity simply flows away once a circuit is connected.”

Sumrita frowned at him.  “What does that mean?”

Martin frowned.  “I wish I knew,” he said.  “I was hoping that you would understand.”

She blinked at him and he smiled dryly.  “The batteries and power cells held their charge, I think, until we tried to use them.  Then the power just…faded away, which suggests that there is some reason for it beyond simple laws of nature.  It’s possible that it’s impossible to use electricity above a certain charge here, which is very bad news indeed.”

He stood up and paced around the Portal’s former location.  “That would explain, I think, why the Portal worked, except that it just snapped out of existence.  In its natural form, it’s an altered quantum region in a dimension, which means that it should have been immune to whatever is affecting our electricity-powered gadgets.”  He shivered.  “This is starting to seem like the lobster pot.”

“I hate lobsters,” Sumrita said.  She checked quickly on Loke; the soldier was still unconscious.  “What’s a lobster pot?”

“It’s a trap for lobsters,” Martin said.  “The trap is set on the bottom of the sea, the lobster stumbles into it and can’t get out.  No matter how it struggles, the pot prevents it from using its strength to escape.  In this case, we seem to be unable to use our beacon, which means that we have no way of opening a Portal beacon here ourselves.”

“I kept telling them that they should have added a Portal generator to our equipment,” Jack said, coming over to sit beside them.  Martin felt a brief irrational flash of jealousy as he sat next to Sumrita.  “We could have opened a Portal and stepped out.”

“There would be no electricity,” Martin said grimly.  Jack’s face fell slightly.  “How’s your new friend?”

“Eating a MRE and wondering at our taste buds,” Jack said wryly.  “Brains; can you build a Portal generator?”

Martin felt his mouth fall open with genuine amusement.  “I can’t even start,” he said.  “There’s no electricity to power the generator, you know.”

Jack nodded grimly.  “I assume that the problem is holding a current,” he said.  “Can’t we build up a charge slowly?”

“Not enough to do any good,” Martin said, once he’d thought about the concept and overcome his astonishment at Jack having any useful thoughts.  “We just don’t have the equipment or the manpower.  Hell, we don’t have the resources.”

Jack’s gaze slipped up towards the castle.  “Why?”  He asked.  “Why the hell are we here?”

“Lobster pot,” Martin said.  “I have a nasty suspicion that we’ve walked into a trap.”  He glanced around the clearing.  “If for some reason electricity above a certain level is being…absorbed, I have a feeling that it’s being absorbed by some deliberate process, perhaps even sent to power something.  It might not be deliberate, not in the sense that its aimed at us, but the failure to re-establish the Portal is suggestive.”

Jack scowled.  “You mean…they set a trap for us,” he said.  “There might well be a high-technology civilisation around.”

“I don’t think that she’s from a high-technology civilisation,” Sumrita said, indicating Jill.  “She is very healthy, but its natural health; some of her teeth need work and she has signs of being touched by a very primitive medical science.  I tried to ask her about it, but she wouldn’t say very much.  There are disease marks on her neck, hidden by her hair; a sign I don’t recognise.”

“I really don’t like this,” Jack said.  Martin snorted; he had a feeling that the entire conversation was redundant.  “So, what do we do?”

Martin blinked.  Jack rarely asked for advice, let alone suggestions.  “We have to find the device that is creating the hyperspace resonance energy absorbing field,” he said.

Jack looked at him.  “Hyperspace resonance energy absorbing field?”

Martin grinned mischievously.  “It beats alien space bats and elder gods,” he said.  “We find whatever is causing the effect and we shut it down long enough to escape.”  He pointed a finger towards the castle, which seemed…odd to his gaze.  It seemed to have become darker, more looming.  The sun was still high in the sky, puzzling him as he studied the castle.

“Perhaps we should start there,” he said, and heard the doubt in his voice.

“Perhaps we should find out where Jill came from,” Jack said.

“Jack and Jill,” Sumrita said.  “Has it occurred to you that she might have been fleeing her own villagers?”

Martin exchanged a glance with Jack.  Sumrita had been born in India, one of thousands of women to have suffered during the brief confrontation with Pakistan during the Nazi War.  She knew, on levels none of the westerners could match, how women could be abused by their own families, from forced marriages to arranged rapes to make up for the sins of their fathers.

“We have to investigate further,” Jack said, after a long moment.  Martin lifted an eyebrow; it was very diplomatic.  He scowled, noticing for the first time that Christina was talking to Jill on the other side of the clearing, and wondered what they were talking about.  “Her village could have been attacked.”

“And which side are we on?”  Sumrita asked.  “They might not be any better than their enemies.”

“That’s why we are going to investigate,” Jack said, a new note in his voice.  “They were going to rape her and leave her to die.”

Martin flinched as a thought occurred to him.  “What happens when we run out of bullets?”  He asked.  “If they don’t have guns themselves, it won’t be long before we run out of bullets ourselves, and then we’d be fucked.”

“Just killed,” Jack said grimly.  “It will be the girls that get fucked.”

Sumrita opened her mouth to say something, and was interrupted by a moan from Loke.  The short dwarfish soldier had opened his eyes, one hand slowly moving to clutch his head.  Martin leaned forward and swore; Loke’s eyes were bloodshot and flinching back from the light.

“Just kill me now,” Loke said.  Martin felt Jack’s glare more than saw it.  “Please…”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sumrita snapped, checking his pulse.  “How do you feel?”

Loke tried to stand up and fell down.  “Stay down,” Jack snapped.  “That’s an order, soldier.  What happened?”

Loke’s eyes tracked around the camp, recovering from the shock.  “I’m not sure.  I followed you through the Portal, and then…there was something in my head…no, sir; there was something missing and then there was a sense of…I’m not sure sir.”

Jack’s scowl darkened.  “You’ve been out for nearly an hour,” he said.  “Doctor, take care of him.”  Sumrita nodded.  “Martin, what happened to him?”

Martin gasped at the injustice of the question, before realising that he was – perhaps – the most qualified to answer the question.  “I don’t know, Jack,” he admitted.  The pun made him smile, but Jack didn’t seem to even notice the play on words.  “I just don’t know.”

He thought rapidly, pacing backwards and forwards.  “It can’t be his implants,” he said.  “They’re not connected into any part of his nervous system or whatever he has that passes for a brain; all they are is basic transponders at base.”  He paused.  “Did he have unusual electric activity in his brain?”

He knew that he was clutching at straws and wasn’t surprised when Jack shook his head.  “I don’t know, then,” he said.  “There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it to have happened, so…”

“Damn it,” Jack snapped.  “Martin, do you have any way of getting a bearing on whatever is causing the…ah, hyperspace resonance energy absorbing field?”

Martin shook his head.  “That was just a term I invented on the spur of the moment,” he reminded Jack.  “No, I don’t; without all my toys, we might as well pick a direction at random.”

“That castle?”  Jack suggested.  “Perhaps we should try to find the local boss and ask questions.”

Martin frowned.  “Guns don’t make us invincible,” he reminded Jack.  “What did Jill say?”

“I haven’t asked her yet,” Jack said.  “I think we’d better see to Loke first.”

Martin followed his gaze.  Loke was standing up, still holding one hand to his head, but otherwise he seemed fine.  “Loke, report,” Jack snapped.

“I’m alive, sir,” Loke said.  If it hadn’t been for the seriousness in his tone, Martin would have assumed that he was making fun of Jack.  “I don’t know what came over me, but I’m alive.”

“Good,” Jack said.  He ran through a quick explanation of their situation.  “Any thoughts?”

“We need to make friends and allies,” Loke said.  “This can’t be a very civilised world, more like the nuclear nightmare on that timeline we found only last year.”

Martin nodded thoughtfully.  The long-feared nuclear holocaust that had been avoided in their timeline – TimeLine A – but it had occurred in another timeline, destroying both the United States and the NATO alliance…and the Warsaw Pact as well.  Australia and South Africa dominated the remains of that world, competing for suddenly scarce manpower and resources.  

A pity the Nazis didn’t stick their nose in there instead, he thought grimly, and then shook his head.  Whatever the results of the Nazi invasion, it had given him a chance at a life less ordinary…which seemed to have come to a sudden halt in the impossible timeline.

Loke seemed more animated as he talked.  “Hell, sir; this might be a world needing some help,” he said.  “We should look around, just to find whatever is buggering up the Portals and the computers here.”

“Six people search an entire world?”  Martin asked.  “That would take a very long time indeed.”

Loke snorted.  “We can’t sit around here all the time,” he said.  “What happens if we run out of supplies?”

“When we run out of supplies,” Jack said.  “I don’t think there is a choice.”

Martin nodded, wishing that he could argue.  Whatever he said to Jack, he was badly shaken by the discovery of the so-called hyperspace resonance energy absorbing field; it represented a science far above their own, closer to magic than anything he knew.  Jack was right, it had to be found and shut down; God alone knew what sort of effects it was having on the development of the world around it.

He shuddered.  If Jack’s story about how they’d saved Jill was true, and he knew that Jack wasn’t a liar, then the world had to be very uncivilised indeed.  A jock-world, one where strength was all…and he knew that he wasn’t very strong at all.  A world where bullies lived and prospered; a nightmare for one with brains, but little real strength.  If they had been so bold as to try a rape, they clearly didn’t fear punishment, which meant that they were either an invading army or an occupation force.

He said as much to Jack.  “We should ask Christina,” Jack said, after a moment’s thought.  “She might know more about this sort of thing.”

Martin glanced over to where Christina had finished talking to Jill and was wandering around the clearing, mumbling to herself.  “Good luck,” he said, and smiled at Jack’s reaction.  The Captain didn’t seem pleased…and Martin knew, deep inside, that he didn’t blame him for being unhappy.

***
Doctor Christina Videzun was worried, both for herself and for the rest of the team.  She would have preferred to have only worried about herself, but her conversations with Jill had convinced her that the team had to stick together – at least until she saw a way to gain even more safety and influence.  The Videzun family had prospered, mainly, though seizing the main chance when it appeared, but the main chance here was likely to be marked ‘male only’ or some similar nonsense.

Her probing questions had gained good answers, although the girl clearly hadn’t shared many of the concepts that the team shared, despite their multinational composition.  She had spoken of a village, headed by a headman, part of a Prince’s domain.  She had spoken of a Prince, one who served a greater lord, and of a magic-worker in the village.  Christina had dismissed the latter, concentrating on analysing the useful snippets of information, cursing Jill’s limited outlook.

What would a peasant know of useful information?  She asked herself, and then laughed at herself.  What would one know?  How could someone from a tiny village know, let alone understand, the power currents that defined the land.  She’d been told that the village was called Griffin and there were nearly two hundred people living there, but she didn’t know where Griffin was in relation to the centre of power.

“Don’t go near the castle,” Jill had said, and Christina was inclined to agree.  The castle high above them seemed to glow with darkness, chilling her to the bone, but she hadn’t been able to get any idea of why the girl was so scared.  Was it the home of the local prince, who she suspected was a feudal lord, or something else?  And just what was going on politically?

She scowled, pacing backwards and forwards.  Jill had spoken of a garrison that had been placed in Griffin, one that had driven all of the maidens out into the forest.  It all fitted a feudal background, but Christina had a suspicion that there was something else going on.  She found it hard to believe that someone who could generate what the nerd had called a ‘hyperspace resonance energy absorbing field’ would bother with ruling a feudal state as well.  It was a puzzle and she loved puzzles…ones that she’d set for other people.  

“Christina, what have you found out?”

She turned slightly to see Jack, standing there behind her.  He’d come up behind her without her ever hearing him, something that sent a tingle down her spine.  “Not enough to be useful,” she admitted, leaving the statement uncompleted.  “She lives at a village called Griffin, which is under occupation.”

Jack blinked, his face shifting to a grim determined expression.  “By whom?”  He asked.  “Is there a war on?”

“Jill wasn’t sure,” Christina said.  “Captain, she knows very little about the concepts we need to understand what’s going on.  One might as well ask a tunnel rat to explain Paris to a stranger from China.”

“Which means that we would be walking into a situation we know nothing about,” Jack said.  “Why was the village garrisoned?”

Christina scowled.  She had hoped to conceal some information until she could decide if she needed it for herself.  “Apparently, it was garrisoned by their own people; troops belonging to their lord, who is himself under another lord.”

Jack shook his head.  “I see,” he said.  “So, should we go to Griffin or not?”

Christina nodded slowly.  “I don’t think that we have a choice,” she said.  “If Jill will take us there, then we should go.”

***
Jill sat on a small stone and watched the strangers, taking all of their activity in with wide eyes.  The woman who looked to be permanently sunburned was tending to the dwarf – she’d seen dwarfs coming through her village from time to time – with genuine affection.  The bespectacled man next to her was packing up strange objects, loading them all into his rucksack, presenting a strange contrast.  Only very rich men could wear spectacles – they were awesomely expensive – but at the same time he was doing his fair share of the carrying.  Jill smiled and rubbed her knees together; whatever they were, they might be worth staying around; not just because of Jack.

She felt a flush as Jack himself came over to him, the dark-haired lady who’d asked her all of the questions hiding behind him.  Jill suspected that the dark-haired lady didn’t like her, but she didn’t understand why; what had she ever done to her?  Jack himself smiled at her and the flush got worse, sending strange feelings running over her body.

“Did you enjoy the food?”  He asked, a strange gentleness in his tone.  “It was the best that we have, I’m afraid.”

“It was lovely,” Jill said, truthfully.  She didn’t know what sort of beast a Turkey was, but it had tasted delicious.  “What are you going to do now?”

She flinched as she spoke those words, her imagination providing suggestions.  Jack surprised her again.  “I understand that your father owns an inn,” he said, his odd accent mashing up the words.  “Would he be able to put us up for the night?”

It took Jill several moments to understand, and then she nodded.  “Yes,” she said.  “He’s always glad of new custom…and it keeps soldiers from spending all of their time in the inn…”

She clamped a hand firmly over her mouth as she realised what she’d said, but Jack only laughed.  “I understand,” he said.  “Will you show us the way to Griffin?”

Jill stood up, feeling better than she had done for years.  He was going to come with her!  “Follow me,” she said, and headed for the track.  Like all of the forest-born, she had an intrinsic sense of direction.  “It’s not far at all.”

Chapter Six: Try Magic Instead….

The house was one of the finest horses in the land, a magnificent chestnut stallion, controlled by some of the most capable horsemen in the land.  Clutching to his saddle for dear life, Grand Mage Akron felt scared; scared in a way he hadn’t been since facing the Demon of Lanark.  

“I hate these beasts,” he snapped at the Knight Errant, who only laughed.  “We really need to get that teleportation spell working properly.”

He scowled at the thought as the horse jumped over a series of stones on the muddy road.  Teleportation was possible, but only between two carefully pre-prepared locations; neither he nor Shayde could teleport directly into one another’s lands.  Adding to the confusion, teleport spells seemed to follow the land; Shayde’s blocks prevented him from teleporting across them, even to a prepared location.

We spent so long blocking each other that we should have neatly prevented one another from teleporting, he thought, as the small force of horses cantered down the lane.  He made a mental note to look up the local lord and do something amusing to him; the muddy lane was only getting his clothes muddy and scaring him to death whenever the horse threatened to slip on the mud.  The air felt as if it had rained recently; it might well have done.

“I should have brought a bloody horse and carriage,” he said, scowling madly.  “I hate riding the horses.”

“Perhaps you should have walked,” the Knight Errant said, without real malice.  He sounded tired too; the fast pace Akron had set them had kept them moving faster than he would have preferred.  The Grand Mage Gorgre had cast a handful of spells designed to penetrate Shayde’s lands, covering them from Shayde’s observation, but Akron knew that that wouldn’t last.

It won’t be long before we start actual fighting, he thought, and shuddered at the thought.  No one had fought a really big war in so long; how would Shayde react to their advance?  Would he send his men into Akron’s territory, or would he try to trap Akron’s force and kill him?  Successfully killing a Grand Mage would guarantee his victory, unless, of course, the newcomers somehow reached the Castle at the End of the Land without his help.

“We had to move fast,” he said, sighing.  His body ached; he wanted to cast a handful of spells against the pain, as well as perhaps blasting the horse into a pile of meat for the cats.  “Have you seen…ah.”

He looked up as a shadow fell down from the sky, resolving into a hawk.  He held out a hand and the hawk landed neatly on his arm, opening its beak to caw at him.  “Good afternoon, Sigmund,” he said.  “What do you have to tell me?”

“Food,” the bird cawed.  Akron sighed; training the bird to speak had been a good idea, but at the same time it had allowed Sigmund to make his desires known before satisfying Akron’s.  Hawks were bastards; only eagles were worse.  Sigmund would do nothing; tell him nothing, until he was fed.

“Food,” Akron agreed, and passed over a small bag.  Sigmund stuck his head into the bag, making munching noises as he ate his way through the meat, carefully preserved with a small charm.  “Now, what do you have to tell me?”

The horse chose that moment to jump again, causing Akron to grab for the reins and shudder.  Sigmund ignored the horse’s legitimate concern over having a hawk nearby with lordly disdain; hawks were the kings of the skies and they didn’t care who knew it.  Sigmund’s ability to speak only made him more cunning and capable; Akron knew that his brood also shared the ability to speak, perhaps even to use humanity’s tools.

He smiled suddenly with genuine humour.  Dozens of wizards, armed with curiosity, magic and a total lack of concern for the animals, had set out to see what they could do with them…and the results of their experiments had been leaking out into the wild for generations.  The inbreeding had left thousands of weird creatures running through the forests and woods of Britannia, from spiders that were instantly poisonous to dogs that could talk like men.  

His smile vanished as a nightmare vision overcame him.  If the modified creatures learned how to use humanity’s tools, like magic, they would be capable of overwhelming humanity.  Villages too close to the Power-dominated regions tended to vanish from time to time; there was nothing anyone could do about it.  What would happen if more areas of the country became unsafe for human habitation?

“You still do not like riding horses,” Sigmund said.  The hawk’s voice was normal; a very high-class human, nothing like the sort of voice one would expect to be coming from a beak.  Like the dragons, those very rare creatures, Sigmund drew on the magic field to provide his voice, drawing more and more magic into the world.  Akron remembered the Castle at the End of the World, and the growing magic field, and shuddered.

“No, I don’t,” Akron said flatly.  “Tell me; do you have news for me?”

“I flew north and I flew south and I flew west and I flew east,” Sigmund said, his voice echoing oddly as he spoke.  “The forces of Shayde are gathering in his own territory, near the city of Cambridge.”

Akron swore.  Cambridge was the seat of Prince Roger, very much the heart of Shayde’s power.  It wasn’t exactly the place to launch a war, but he was certain that it was where the newcomers would arrive, right in the heart of darkness.

“That is worrying,” the Knight Errant observed.  “Still, it won’t be long before disease starts to get them and decimate the soldiers.  In such close quarters, disease is inevitable, I fear.”

“Shayde can cast spells against that,” Akron said.  “Still, you have a point; they will eat the area out of food and fodder very quickly.”

“Shayde would hardly worry about such details,” Sigmund said, his tone a sneer.  “I met his eagle two years ago; you never heard such a pompous creature.”

Akron smiled openly.  Sigmund was a fine person – hawk – to talk of pompousness.  “I don’t care,” he said, although he had to admit that the Knight Errant had a point; would Shayde’s army stay together if its members were dying, or starving.  Magic couldn’t provide them with food, after all, and the peasants would be in open revolt soon enough.  “What about the other birds?”

“The sparrows report that Grand Mage Valastar had summoned her army,” Sigmund said, his voice growing petulant.  “So far, she has not moved past that, not even to reinforce Shayde.”

The Knight Errant shrugged.  “A pity,” he said.  “If she had added more soldiers to the mix, she would have only made their collapse faster.”

Akron shrugged.  “We have to move quickly,” he said.  He considered the map for a long moment, holding it firmly in his mind.  With Grand Mage Valastar remaining in place, it meant that there would not be an immediate invasion of his own territory, but at the same time she was ideally placed to block an attempt to reach the Castle at the End of the Land.  “And the final evil-doer, Grand Mage Shan?”

He scowled.  He’d spent time with Grand Mage Shan, he even liked him as far as he could; Grand Mage Shan was nothing like Shayde, who was…not exactly evil, but unpleasant.  Grand Mage Shan could be good company, and back during the Lanark adventure, he had been a steadfast companion.

“He has not moved,” Sigmund said.  “Grand Mage Shan remains in his territory, not even calling out his muster.”

The Knight Errant blinked.  “Doesn’t he know that there’s a war on?”

“I’m sure he does,” Akron said, remembering the companion of the adventure.  “Why is he not moving?”

“Perhaps Grand Mage Shan plans to remain neutral until you or Shayde come out on top,” Sigmund said.  “Food?”

“He could have remained neutral from the start, like Grand Mage Ixa’em,” Akron said, passing over a second bag of food.  “Old friend, how long until we reach the village?”

The Knight Errant studied the sky, and then cursed.  “Look,” he said.

Akron looked up, and then swore.  A hawk was flying high above them, turning lazy circles in the sky.  “Sigmund, is that one of yours?”

“No,” Sigmund said, his beak still in the bag of food.  “It’s not mine.”

Akron and the Knight Errant looked at one another, and then Akron snapped his fingers.  The air around the hawk solidified into a block of ice; the hawk plummeted from the sky, smashing into the ground at very high speed.  Sigmund watched it fall, and then breathed a whistle through his beak, rather than the spell.  

“Impressive,” he said, his normal tone shaken.  “That was…impressive.”

“Behave yourself,” Akron said.  “Old friend…”

“Shayde might know that we’re here,” the Knight Errant said.  “If that happens…”

Akron sucked in his breath as the universe went…grey for a long chilling moment.  Everything dimmed…and then the pressure vanished and the universe snapped back to normal.  He knew without asking what had happened; there was only one thing that it could have been.

“They’re here,” he said.  “The newcomers.”

The Knight Errant stared at him.  “What happened?”

“I felt a twist in the field,” Akron said.  “All of the magicians will have sensed it.”  He felt his eyes grow wide with fear…and a peculiar kind of anticipation.  “They’re here,” he said.  “We have to move faster.”

***
Akron had wanted to move with stealth, and to some extent they had, but it was hard to hide the progress of two hundred horsemen, let alone a Grand Mage.  Akron didn’t wear his formal garb, contenting himself with the clothes of a merchant, one who had plenty to defend.  One of his apprentices, the young Dominos, wore the garb of a street-sorcerer, a man with enough magical talent to make a career, without having the talent – or the inclination – to challenge one of the wizards for his place in the hierarchy.  

“If we try to hide the weapons, we’ll look like fools, rebels, or exactly what we are,” the Knight Errant had insisted, and Akron had been too much in a hurry to argue.  Weapons were forbidden to the peasants; they had ideas about using them that the lords disagreed with mightily.  The thirty horsemen that their group admitted to possessing – Akron’s direct guards, led by the Knight Errant – were dressed as hired blades, just right for protecting a rich merchant.  

“We are nearly at the village,” Dominos said, his young face nervous.  He had won his spurs as a wizard, but it would be a long time before he felt ready to challenge a mage, let alone Grand Mage Shayde.  “I can feel the wards now.”

Akron nodded.  He’d already felt out the wards from a safe distance; wards laid by the village witch – the village, too small to even have a name, had no wizard or sorcerer – to keep out bandits.  He smiled faintly; he could have broken the wards with ease – Dominos could have broken the wards with ease.  The witch wasn’t powerful, nor was she skilled; Shayde would hardly have allowed her to live right on the edge of his territory if she was either.

Unless she’s in Thrall, Akron thought grimly, as Dominos led the way into the village.  It was typical and his nose twitched at the smell; ten tiny huts, one large inn designed for travellers who didn’t want to spend a night in Shayde’s territory, and one large hall, which he assumed was used for dances.  The women on the streets, all middle-aged or older, stopped what they were doing and bowed to Dominos, before heading back to their hovels to hide their daughters.  Soldiers, even hired blades, knew nothing of restraint.

“Ho, landlord,” Dominos bellowed.  “Come forth, at once!”

Akron nodded in approval as a fat man stepped out of the inn, trying desperately to clean his hands.  Sigmund, on his shoulder, snorted very quietly; Akron had threatened him with loosing his wings if he revealed that he could talk.  If magical communications were out – and Shayde could hardly fail to notice so close to his territory – then Sigmund and some of his family could take its place.

“Hail lord,” the innkeeper said, his voice trembling.  “How might I serve you?”

Dominos played his role to perfection.  “My lord” – he nodded towards Akron, playing the role of a snooty merchant – “and his men require the use of your inn.”

The innkeeper had guts.  Akron had to admit that.  He was wasted in his role.  “How will you be paying, noble lords?”  He asked.  “It’s been a bad year, with all the war…”

Dominos slipped off his horse and produced several bronze coins, paying the innkeeper enough to barely cover the costs of running the inn.  Akron nodded in approval; money was a dangerous thing in the hands of the peasants.  Besides, if the innkeeper had been given a gold coin – worth more than the entire inn – it would have attracted attention.

“This way, noble lords,” the innkeeper said.  “Unfortunately, my daughter is ill with the pox, but my sons will assist you.”

Akron smiled as they entered the inn.  It was dingy and damp, but well lit, revealing a fire burning brightly in the grate.  Shayde clearly didn’t care how much wood they took from the forest; some wizards punished entire towns for taking more than the bare minimum.  Three men, sitting in the corner, bolted out the rear entrance as the soldiers took up positions in the living room, clearly expecting trouble.

“The men will sleep down here,” Dominos said.  The innkeeper fawned on him.  “The master and the commander and myself will have the good rooms upstairs.”

“Of course, your lordship,” the innkeeper said.  “Does your master have a name?”

Akron turned to meet the innkeeper’s eyes.  The question was imprudent beyond belief; name-magic wasn’t as effective as many people believed it was, but it was still dangerous.  The innkeeper flinched back at his gaze, perhaps sensing the magic hidden behind Akron’s eyes.

“You may call me Snub,” Akron said.  Given his real name, or even his assumed name, would have been dangerous.  “The rooms, if you please.”

The innkeeper bowed again and led the way up tricky wooden stairs, hardly illuminated at all.  Akron made a sign to Dominos and the young wizard cast a light spell, allowing them to see their way before they fell down the wooden stairs.  Behind them, the soldiers – delighted at actually getting to sleep within the inn – were unpacking, bemoaning the infection of the innkeeper’s daughter, who was not in evidence.  

Akron smiled.  If the girl had the pox, he would have been astounded; it was far more likely that the innkeeper had lied to save the girl the attentions of his men.  

“These are the best rooms in the house,” the innkeeper said, opening the door.  Akron concealed a smile; the room was hardly larger than his wardrobe in his castle.  “I hope that you will join us for dinner.”

Akron doubted very much that the innkeeper meant that comment.  “We will join you, of course,” Dominos said, playing his role.  “I trust that the food will be edible?”

“Meat stew,” the innkeeper said.  “I trust that meets with your approval?”

Akron nodded.  “You may go,” he said.  The innkeeper bowed once, deeply, and left the room.  “Sigmund, you may go hunt and find the others.”

“Of course,” the hawk said, taking to the air through the tiny window.

“What a dump,” the Knight Errant said.  “It’s just like being young again.”

Akron laughed and pulled out the map, unfurling it on the table.  “We have seven groups out there,” he said, after casting a spell to prevent espionage.  “Most of them are hidden out in the forest, not always a bright idea in the night, but it has to be done.”

“How true,” the Knight Errant agreed.  “I wonder where his daughter really is.”

Akron shrugged.  “If you catch the pox again, I am not curing you,” he said.  He smiled as he remembered the time that the Knight Errant had spent time with a very willing girl, one whose very willingness should have sounded a mental alert.  She’d been raped, been infected, and had started to infect as many knights, soldiers and wizards as she could.  It would have been funny, under other circumstances.

Sigmund flew in through the open window.  “Food,” he demanded.  Akron scowled; the smells wafting up from downstairs were very tempting indeed, but there wasn’t time.  “Food.”

“Not until later,” Akron said.  “Where are the others?”

“In the required positions,” Sigmund said.  “All of my children are with them, spreading the information around.  All of the men are ready to move, as soon as you give the command, except for one man who’s managed to break his leg.”

The Knight Errant snorted.  “Idiot,” he said.  “Are they all well-provisioned?”

“They seem to have all of their supplies with them,” Sigmund said.  “Food.”

“Now look what you’ve done,” Akron said, without heat.  “Sigmund, what about the spies within Shayde’s territory?”

“The ones I’ve found saw nothing of the newcomers,” Sigmund said.  “Shayde himself has started to gather in the birds to his castle, so we had to be careful.  He’s still garrisoning the villages, so…food!”

Akron ignored him, thinking rapidly.  The only reason to garrison the villages was to intercept the strangers, which meant that they weren’t prisoners – or dead – yet.  Shayde’s territory was large, but even he lacked the manpower to watch all of the likely arrival sites…so he’d done the sensible thing and spread out his men to find them and capture them.

Clever bastard, Akron thought.  If Shayde had been stupid, it would have been a lot easier, but – perhaps – a lot more dangerous.  When the innkeeper shouted that food was ready, he went down to eat still thinking…and worrying.  What was happening, just over the border in Shayde’s territory, which was less than a mile away?  What were the newcomers doing?

Most important of all, what was Shayde doing?

Chapter Seven: Griffin

The walk had taken longer than Jack had expected, even though the entire team made good time.  Jill led them on a complicated path, warning them of dangerous regions within the forest, before finally leading them onto a dirt track that might have been able to tolerate a motorcycle, but would never have been able to take an Abrams tank.  The air felt as if it had rained recently – very like England – but it was clear, further adding to Martin’s suspicion that this world didn’t possess patrol-powered vehicles, even steam vehicles.

At least we’ll have something to trade, Jack thought, as they crested a hill and saw Griffin spread out below them.  It was larger than he’d expected; several dozen houses and buildings, surrounded by fields and woodlands.  Several fires were clearly burning in the buildings; he could see dozens of people moving about on business.

“Cows and pigs,” Christina commented.  “They’re taking them into the barn for the night.”

Jack nodded slowly.  It might be high summer, but it was starting to darken; the sun finally slipping down behind the castle.  Its brooding presence had oppressed them as they’d walked, even though they’d been heading away from it.  Absently, he wondered what they would do if the inn turned them away; he didn’t fancy spending the night in the forest.

“Hardly any fields as well,” Christina continued.  “I suspect its something like they used to do in Russia or France, even England; the lord took a share, the local priest took a share…and the rest was shared out among the families who worked the plots.  According to the revisionists, it was a form of semi-communism, proof that humans could actually live in a communist state.”

She snorted.  “In reality, life was nasty, brutish and short,” she said.  “They were often on the edge of collapsing completely and staving to death, while the lords grew fat and happy on their produce.”

Jack smiled, pleased to see her finally contributing something useful.  He surveyed Griffin as Jill led them down into the streets of the small village, looking out for signs of their weapons…and suspecting that he might not recognise them if he saw them.  Some of the men wore long knives – not proper swords at all – and some of the boys carried catapults, but there were no real weapons at all.

“Boy, they’re pleased to see us,” Angelina commented.  The men were staring at Christina and Sumrita; the women were staring at her.  They clearly knew that she was female, but she walked like a man.  The older women were carefully trying to move the younger women out of sight, clearly suspecting that the team had bad intentions.

“Eyes right,” Martin muttered, as Loke waved cheerfully to a small boy who was staring at him.  Jack looked, careful to disguise his interest, and saw two burly men studying the team with undisguised interest.  They both held themselves like big men, overcompensating like mad, and he wondered just what they were.

“They’re dressed like the men we killed,” Angelina muttered, sotto voice.  Jack scowled, wishing that they had their subvocal communications equipment with them; it was so hard to whisper vital information and keep it private.  “I think they must be more soldiers.”

Jack took a stronger hold on his rifle as they reached one large building, reassembling a tribal yurt rather than anything else, anything more complicated.  Two fires burned outside, providing light to the handful of people – all men – sitting in the garden and singing a song that he didn’t recognise.  

“This is my father’s inn,” Jill said.  Jack studied it with new eyes; it was a more complex building than he would have expected, with two upper floors and a balcony.  “He’ll be ever so pleased to see you.”

Jack smiled as she opened the door and led them in.  Inside, it was made of stone and wood, providing an appearance of lightness, while remaining strong.  It reminded him of an inn he’d visited near Manchester and a sudden stab of homesickness struck through him, nearly sending him to his knees.

Jill was talking rapidly, faster than he could understand, to a man who had emerged from behind the counter.  After she had finished, he gave her a hug and turned to look at Jack.  He was big and bulky, but he didn’t move like a soldier, rather like a man trying to look big.

“You saved my daughter,” he said.  Jack nodded.  “You saved her from being taken by the parasites.”  Jack nodded again and he turned to Jill.  “I will still be able to find a marriage for you,” he said.

“That bastard,” Angelina hissed.  “Can I cap him now, please.”

“It’s what normally happens in a culture like this,” Christina muttered.  Angelina glared at her.  “Well, it’s true, you know.”

“You would like rooms,” the innkeeper said.  He stuck out one meaty arm.  “I’m Ivan, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you, I think,” Jack said.  Ivan’s hand felt like solid calluses.  “We need a few rooms and food.”

“Certainly,” Ivan said, as he examined the rest of the group.  His gaze passed over Loke and Martin without comment, gaped at Sumrita and Christina, and stared at Angelina, as if he was trying to figure out what she was.  “Ah…”

“Never mind,” Angelina said, her voice like ice.  “Jack…”

Jill spoke again, too fast for them to understand.  “A woman?”  Ivan said, staring at her.  “You’re really a woman?”

Jack spoke quickly before Angelina could explode.  “Yes, she is,” he said.  “We need two rooms, at once, and then we need to talk to the most knowledgeable person here.”

“That would be Mother Dissmall,” Jill said.  “I’ll take you there.”

Her over-eager tone attracted a stare from her father, but he said nothing about it.  “You’ll have to see her as well,” he said, his tone darkening.  Jill flushed angrily.  “I’ll show you the rooms now, shall I?”

“That would be very nice,” Jack said.  He paused.  “In fact, could we eat first?”

“It’s nearly feeding time,” Ivan said, glancing out of the open window.  It took Jack a moment to realise that there was no glass in the window; it was meant to be open.  Permanently.  “If you want to sit there, I will serve the food in” – he glanced at a neat clockwork clock – “around thirty minutes.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.  Martin murmured a request into his ear.  “Do you happen to have a map as well?  A map of this nation?”

Ivan’s mouth fell open.  “I have no such thing,” he gasped.  “Had you not saved my daughter from a fate worse than death…”

Abruptly, he stormed out of the room, dragging Jill with him.  Jack watched them go with troubled thoughts, before leading the way over to the large table.  He had a very bad feeling about this.  

“Barbarian,” Angelina snarled.  “That man needs to be shot.”

Christina shrugged.  “You can shoot him later,” she said.  “For the moment, why does Jill have to visit the village witch?”

Jack scowled at her.  “Don’t be stupid,” he said.  “Magic doesn’t exist.”

Martin frowned.  “I think I should be the one to go with her,” he said.  “I’m the least threatening.”

Jack thought rapidly.  Part of him wanted to keep the team together, part understood the logic and suspected that only sending one person was a wise idea.  “I suppose,” he said, reluctantly.  “When Jill goes for her maidenhead check-up” – he winced as he remembered what the soldiers had tried to do to her – “you go with her.  Take a weapon and keep your eyes open.”

He turned to the others.  “The rest of you, don’t go wandering off.”  He paused.  A regular noise, unpleasantly familiar, could be heard.  “Damn all of this,” he muttered.

“Nice simple mission, my hairy arse,” Angelina muttered back.  “No interfering in their society, remember?”

***
When the master - Grand Mage Shayde – was angry, he made Prince Roger eat shit, sometimes literally.  When Prince Roger was treated like that, he passed it down to his minions, who in turn passed it on to the peasants and the soldiers who enforced their will on a daily basis.  Captain Brant, commander of a force that was supposed to number thirty armed soldiers and really consisted of ten, was scared; he’d lost two men in the forest.

Why couldn’t they have kept their sausages in their trousers?  He asked himself, and knew the answer; soldiering was a hard and dangerous career, one anthemia to most of the peasants, who provided the manpower.  Brant himself had been born in a village not unlike Griffin, before Prince Roger’s men had snatched him up and conscripted him into a small army, chasing bandits across the lands.  

He remembered the War of Shayde, when the Grand Mage had started to gather his lands.  The process happened every thirty years or thereabouts; a new Grand Mage would start to build himself an empire out of the tiny states that were ruled by the princes.  Brant himself had been part of a force that had switched its loyalty to Prince Roger, whom Shayde backed, when the commander had been placed in Shayde’s thrall.  Since then, he’d stayed in the army; there was no other life for him.

He scowled.  He knew what happened to those who tried to return to their villages; they were shunned.  The girls refused their suits, their fathers refused to consider the ex-soldier as a match for their daughters, the village witches used them to test out their new spells…the soldiers either left quickly or tried to blend back in, often without success.

The Prince is going to be mad at me, he thought, and shuddered.  Desertion was often a problem; conscripts, those who escaped the army in their first year, often managed to return to their villages and hide.  His force had bled over half of its people on the march from the castle to Griffin, and for what?  The orders had made no sense at all.

“You are to watch for people who don’t fit in, who don’t look as if they were from the villages in the domains of our lord and master,” the General had said.  Brant found it hard to hate him; his eyes were dead and suffering, the sign of someone in magical thrall.  Shayde – or one of his servants – had enslaved the General, leaving him with no choice, but to work for him.  

He stood up; leaving the room of the house he’d taken as a billet for his troops, trying to keep the last soldiers together.  Resistance was unusual – Shayde would have destroyed any village that dared to offer resistance to him or his forces – but it wasn’t unknown for individual soldiers to meet accidents.  As it darkened, the two men who’d chased a girl into the forest hadn’t returned, which meant…what?  He tried to convince himself that they were out in the woods, sleeping it off, and failed.  They had strict orders not to go into the forest when it was dark, very strict ones indeed.

Why couldn’t they have kept their sausages in their trousers?  He asked himself again, as he stepped outside and nearly bumped into one of his men, Grak.  Grak claimed to have dwarf blood and was certainly short and stumpy enough to qualify as a true dwarf.  He’d been banished from his home village and refused to discuss the reason for that with anyone.  Brant privately suspected that it had something to do with his nature; Grak was malicious, more unpleasant than a brownie or a kelpie.  

“My Captain,” Grak said, falling into a bow.  “Strangers!”

Brant looked across the darkening fields.  Soon it would be unsafe to venture out past the village fields.  Only the most powerful of the wizards and the most daring of the warriors would try to cross the woods in the dark.  Even if they didn’t encounter one of the Powers that only appeared in the darkness, they would be lucky not to run into a magical disaster site.

“Strangers?”  He asked mildly.  “Where are they?”

“They’re at the inn,” Grak said.  “My Captain; they saved the innkeepers brat from two of our men!  They killed them!”

It didn’t occur to Brant to believe that Grak might have lied; he couldn’t.  A wizard had placed a spell of eternal honesty on him; he might be able to bend the truth a little, but he couldn’t lie, not even slightly.  His malicious nature had nearly cost him his neck before the wizard intervened; his first commanding officer had not appreciated the lies he’d told about him and his wife.

He sucked in his breath sharply.  If he could capture them, then it would be a real feather in his cap; perhaps enough to rise to a higher rank himself.  Even Grak might get promoted.  “How many of them are there?”

“Six, My Captain,” Grak said.  “Only six of them, four men, two women.”

Brant dismissed the women from his mind; everyone knew that women could only fight to save themselves from rape, mainly unsuccessfully.  “Four men,” he mused.  “Call the rest of the men together,” he said.  “With nine men, we can take them prisoner and then inform the master.”

“Yes, My Captain,” Grak said.  “I can’t wait.”

The little man drew back his lips in a smile.  His toothy mouth opened wide enough to reveal an unnatural number of teeth.  Brant shuddered.  “Women,” he said.  “It’s been too long since I had a woman.”

“Take one from the village,” Grak said.  His town betrayed no emotion, no concern, only a cold amusement.  “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

***
Her father had been very angry; his cold harsh rage had scared her, even as she tried to remain standing.  When he’d unbuckled his belt and given her a strapping, something that hadn’t happened for years, Jill had finally broken down and cried.

“You’ve put us all in danger, you silly girl,” her father had hissed; as he applied his belt to her bare rear.  The sheer humiliation was bad; the pain itself was worse.  “What happens when the soldiers come for them?”

Jill stuttered, trying to compose a reply.  One refused to form in her mind.  She rubbed her behind as her father let her slid off his lap, before standing up and pulling on her trousers again.  “You’ve risked us all,” her father snapped.  “Do you have anything to say at all?”

She shook her head.  “Go wash, and then go see Mother Dissmall,” he said.  Jill stumbled out of the room to the washroom, where she washed her face.  The mirror on the wall, which had cost her father two silver pieces when he had married her mother, showed that her face was stained by tears.  She wiped them off with her fingers, splashing water on her face and combing her hair.  She wanted to look nice for the man; the first man she had ever cared to look nice for in her life.

She buckled up her trousers, wincing at the heavy cloth against her sore skin, and walked out of the door and over to the table.  The room was starting to fill up with customers, villagers who wanted to eat in the inn instead of with their families.  Her family had spent most of the day preparing for the single big meal.

“Jill,” Jack said.  She smiled bravely at him.  “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Jill said.  It wasn’t that sore, or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself.  “Are you coming with me to Mother Dissmall?”

“No,” Jack said.  “Martin is going.”

Martin stood up.  Jill smiled faintly and held out a hand.  He took it and allowed her to lead him out of the door into the darkening village.

“You can’t leave the village after dark,” Jill said, trying to make conversation.  Her behind hurt enough to make that difficult.  “It’s not safe.”

A brownie ran across the road, barely seen in the darkness.  “What was that?”  Martin asked.  “What kind of creature was that?”

“A brownie,” Jill said.  Brownies weren’t harmful, most of the time.  “They help out sometimes, if we feed them.”

Martin said nothing, but she saw his face in the flickering light from the houses.  He was puzzled, suspecting that something was wrong.  She was about to ask him what was wrong, and then she saw Mother Dissmall, standing outside her house.  No light poured from the windows, the only glass windows in the entire village.

“Jill,” she said sternly.  “I understand that you have a problem.”

Jill cursed rumour; it spread faster than a bird could fly.  “Yes, mother,” she said, and said nothing else.  Mother Dissmall would have to work for accurate information.  “I do.”

“And you need me to test you,” Mother Dissmall said, with a sigh.  She winked at her.  “Men are stupid sometimes, aren’t they?”

Jill giggled, feeling better for the first time since coming home.  “Come on in, you and your friend,” Mother Dissmall said, as she stepped into her house.  It was dark, but that didn’t matter; Mother Dissmall waved a hand in the air, muttering a spell under her breath, and light blossomed in the house.  Everywhere and nowhere, a strange pearly light spread through the room.

Jill smiled.  It was a reminder of Mother Dissmall’s power; a practical spell that was also very impressive.  Mother Dissmall knew more spells, including ones that could strike down soldiers, but the light spell was the one she liked best.  She heard a gasp behind her and turned, to see Martin with his mouth hanging open.  He had nice teeth, she noticed, but she’d already given her heart to someone else.

Martin stared at her, and then at Mother Dissmall.  “What was that?”  He asked.  His tone was utterly stunned.  “What happened?”

Mother Dissmall blinked at him, her expression puzzled.  Jill shared her puzzlement; Martin and his friends commanded magical tools of their own, didn’t they?  “It’s magic,” Mother Dissmall said seriously.  “It’s a magical spell.”

Chapter Eight: Magic

Martin Anderson stared at the old woman.  She wasn’t like the typical Granny Weatherwax; she seemed almost friendly to him, and more than friendly to Jill.  His first thought was that he had been tricked – that there was a technological answer somewhere – and then he realised that that was impossible.  There was no source for the light; they cast no shadows as they stepped into her small house.

“What happened?”  He asked.  “How did that happen?”

“Magic,” Mother Dissmall said, patiently.  “Have you never seen magic before?”

It had to be a joke.  Martin’s mind worked rapidly, trying to see the puppet strings, and wondered.  They’d already seen one mystery – the loss of their electricity-powered devices – and now…there was another one.  What was this world?  Were the laws of nature different after all?

“No,” he said, as Mother Dissmall helped Jill to stand in the middle of the room.  “How did you learn how to do that?”

“I learnt a few spells from my teacher, discovered a few more and burnt my fingers,” Mother Dissmall said.  “Oh, you’re in a bad state, aren’t you?”

Jill nodded.  Martin realised that she was on the verge of crying.  “I got thrashed,” she confessed.  “My father wasn’t happy and…”

“Very right of him,” Mother Dissmall said tartly.  “Young man, I must ask you to turn your back, now.”

There was a tone in her voice that made it impossible for Martin to disobey.  He turned and faced the wall, examining the small bottles placed on shelves.  He couldn’t see the contents – the jars were made from clay rather than glass – but he could smell them; herbs and some substances he didn’t recognise.

There was a rustle of cloth behind him.  “Your father did a good job,” Mother Dissmall commented, as Jill whimpered.  “Now, let me see.”  There was a long moment of suspense.  “No, that was a hand rather than a man.”

Martin fought the temptation to laugh and won.  “They did that to make you easier to take, but they didn’t actually take you,” Mother Dissmall commented.  “I’ll tell your father.”

“Thanks,” Jill said, almost sobbing with relief.  “I…”

“Don’t worry, child,” Mother Dissmall said sternly.  “Now, let’s see what we can do about the burning pain in your behind.”

She walked past Martin and winked at him, taking a jar from the shelf and opening it to reveal a strange off-white cream.  “I make this myself from herbs,” she commented.  “It’s not real magic, but it will make some of the pain go away.”

Martin frowned.  “How does the magic work?”  He asked.  “What do you do to make it work?”

“I cast a spell, of course,” Mother Dissmall said.  Her tone suggested that she thought that he was an idiot.  She returned to Jill; Martin heard Jill sigh in relief.  “Magic is knowing a spell and knowing how to use it.”

“I do not understand,” Martin said.  “How did you learn the spells?”

“You can turn around now,” Mother Dissmall said, as Jill covered herself again.  Martin smiled at her as he turned around; she looked a great deal happier after Mother Dissmall had checked her virginity.  “My teacher taught me a few spells before she started to experiment with new spells; she had plans to become a wizard.”

Martin frowned.  “A wizard is a man, isn’t he?”

“It’s a rank,” Mother Dissmall snapped, clearly on the verge of ending the conversation.  “She managed to get herself killed by the Grand Mage Gealth.”

Martin shook his head slowly.  “Magic works here,” he said.  “I wonder…is that Grand Mage the man who lives in the castle?”

Mother Dissmall blinked at him.  The pearly light gave her face a somewhat sinister expression.  “Where are you from, that you show so little sign of understanding magic?”

Martin considered his answer and decided to be truthful.  “We’re from another world,” he said.  Mother Dissmall flinched.  “We can to see what your world was like and got ourselves trapped here.”

“Demons?”  Mother Dissmall asked, her voice becoming alarmed.  She waved a hand at him; he felt a slight tingle passing over his skin.  “That should have banished you!”

“I’m not a demon,” Martin said, and Jill echoed him.  “I felt that.”

“Interesting that you felt that,” Mother Dissmall said.  Her tone was deliberately ambiguous.  “Grand Mage Gealth was killed by Grand Mage Shayde, who rules these lands and their Princes.”

Martin frowned.  He knew what he needed to know, but he wasn’t sure how to ask.  “Where does the magic come from?”  He asked.  “How did the Grand Mages manage to harness it?”

Mother Dissmall looked sharply at him.  “The magic is supposed to come from the Castle at the End of the Land,” she said.  “You should not be here.”

Jill started.  “Mother Dissmall…”

“Tell your father,” Mother Dissmall snapped.  “They should not be here.”

Martin smiled wryly.  “I know,” he said, his mind racing.  Might the magical field – assuming that it wasn’t a joke or crazy belief – be interfering with their equipment?  He needed to experiment and there was only one way to do that.  “Could you teach me a spell?”

Mother Dissmall glared at him.  “No,” she snapped.  “Get out!”

Jill caught his hand and dragged him out of the hut, back into the darkness and the cold of the evening.  “Come on,” she hissed.  “You don’t want her mad at you!”

Martin blinked.  “Why?”  He asked, his mind trying to tackle all of the new questions.  “What can happen?”

“You could spend the rest of your life as a toad,” Jill hissed.  She stopped suddenly as she saw the inn; a single shot rang out, and then another.  “What’s happening?”

Martin felt like fainting.  Too much was happening, too quickly.  “I don’t know,” he said, unslinging his weapon.  “I think we’d better find out, quickly.”

***
The food was hardly typical inn food, at least for the inns in their timeline, which they seemed to have lost forever.  Jack tried the stew and found it very meaty, with vegetables and bread to eat with it.  There were dumplings in the stew; the innkeeper Ivan seemed to have cooked for the entire village.

It looked as if the entire village had come to eat in the inn, mainly young teenage boys and older man.  Married men, Jack supposed, would be in their own huts; there were hardly any women in the room.  Both Christina and Sumrita were attracting glances from the young men; they seemed to have taken Angelina for a man.  

“This really needs improvement,” Sumrita muttered.  She had taken a look inside the kitchens and returned looking as pale as an Indian girl could.  “We’re probably going to come down with all sorts of diseases.”

“I hope not,” Loke said.  The very short man was still attracting attention, even more than the girls; they seemed to think that he was odd indeed.  Ivan had tried to protest against men and women sitting at the same table and Jack had glared him into submission; they didn’t have the time.  “You did insist on using some of our purification tablets to clear the water.”

He’d been sulking because Jack had forbidden them to drink any of the beer.  Ivan had offered them so much that he was starting to suspect that he wanted to get them all drunk and steal their possessions in the night.  It would have been just their luck.

He took another bite of the stew.  The meat – it tasted like beef – was tasty and there was plenty of it.  “So, what now?”

Christina snorted.  “I tried talking to some of the men,” she said.  “They don’t have any maps, although some of them said that if I visited their houses they would be more than willing to show me other things.”

Angelina laughed.  “I just bet they were,” she said.  “So, no maps.  Why?”

“They might not have any,” Christina said.  “Ivan clearly recognised the idea, but he was horrified at the thought that he might have any, which is interesting in itself.”

“Security?”  Loke guessed.  He bit off a large piece of bread and chewed it thoughtfully.  “Perhaps the local lord, this Prince Roger, doesn’t want them knowing where they are in relation to the rest of the country.  This place seems to be at war; there could be a war on between the lords and the serfs are caught in the middle, as always happens.”

Jack nodded.  “I managed to get one other detail, from the merchant over there,” he said, nodding towards a fat man who was drinking his way through a massive barrel of beer.  “There’s going to be a trading convoy passing through in a few days, one heading to Cambridge itself, which can’t be that far away.”

He scowled.  Might whatever had interfered with their electronics have messed up the Portal endpoint?  It was supposed to be impossible, but so much else that had happened was supposed to be impossible.  Their Cambridge had been a large town – before the Nazis destroyed it – this Cambridge was likely to be smaller.  How small?

“A few days,” Angelina said.  “You’d think that they would have exact dates.”

“They’re not on cars and trucks and trains,” Christina pointed out.  “All they have is dependent upon the conditions and the roads, all of which seem to be ghastly.  My guess is that their entire nation is fragmented.”

“They might not have many maps because they keep changing,” Jack said thoughtfully.  Something about that thought didn’t seem right; why would the land change so much?  “Still, it’s beside the point for the moment; do we travel with them, or do we head to Cambridge on our own?”

“If they’ll take us with them, then we should,” Angelina said.  “Strength in numbers.”

Loke tapped his rifle.  “Strength in bullets and firepower,” he said.  “You know; they have blacksmiths here, like Fulleauomatix over there.”  He waved to a big beefy man, who wore the only suit of armour they’d seen and had massive scars on his face.  “It wouldn’t be hard to introduce primitive firearms to this village.”

Jack frowned.  “We’re not meant to interfere,” Christina said, before he could say anything.  “Introducing firearms will only warp them.”

Jack felt a sudden flicker of hot anger.  “The gods made men, but Sam Colt made them equal,” he said.  “We could improve their lives, just by introducing weapons that will give the peasants an equal chance against the lords.”

“We don’t know enough,” Christina said.  Her tone became concerned; all an act as far as Jack was concerned.  “We have no idea what the effects of introducing such weapons will be on their society.”

“It can hardly be worse than they already are,” Angelina snapped.  Her voice rose slightly.  “You have grown up in a sheltered world; the girls here are permanently second-class citizens.  You saw Jill; don’t you think that she would have liked a gun when the two bastards came after her?”

“Can they make weapons?”  Jack asked.  “Can they make enough to matter?”

Loke frowned.  “Perhaps,” he said.  “A cannon is actually quite simple to make; its only finding gunpowder that’s the problem, and there are bound to be…ah, sources of the materials around if we look.  Matchlocks and other weapons would be harder, but they could be done.”  He smiled.  “If all the troops here are armed like the pair you told me about, it would be easy.”

“I still don’t like it,” Christina said.  “Anything could happen.  What about going to look at that Castle?”

“Everyone seems to be scared of it,” Jack said.  The castle disturbed him; it shouldn’t have existed, and yet it did.  It should have collapsed under its own weight…and yet it stood strong and proud.  Advanced materials could have done it, he supposed, but he would have hated to test that theory.

“Exactly why we should go there,” Loke said, once Jack had explained his thoughts.  “If there’s a haven of advanced technology there, we should find it.”

Ivan dumped a bowl of apples in front of them, picking up the pot of stew and returning it to the fire.  “Perhaps we should have a look at it,” Jack said doubtfully.  There was something about the castle that scared him.  “Perhaps…”

The door crashed open and four men stepped inside.  They wore leather armour and carried swords.  Part of Jack’s mind sniggered in amusement; with weapons like that they would hardly be a match for the Knights of the Round Table, let alone the modern firearms they had been discussing.  They glared around the room, their gaze passing over the patrons before fixing in on the team.

“All bow to the noble knights of Prince Roger,” Ivan called, his voice suddenly scared.  “All bow.”

Almost all of the patrons stood up and bowed quickly.  Jack hesitated, and then made his decision; he motioned for the team to stay down.  The knights, if that was what they were, clumped over to their table, glaring down at the team.  Close-up, their breath stank; he could see rotten teeth in their mouths.

“You did not show proper respect,” the leader snapped.  He was short, almost as short as Loke, but he had a very powerful body.  “You will come with us to see the Captain!”  He reached out a hand towards Sumrita.  “And your women will serve us tonight…”

Jack lashed out once; with all the power that Green Beret training could give him.  His fist connected most satisfactorily with the leader’s jaw, sending him crashing over backwards.  A collective gasp rose from the villagers, still bent over in their bows, and then they jumped backwards, trying to escape what they were certain would be a massacre.

“Perhaps we could all have a drink,” Ivan said desperately.  It didn’t work.  “Drinks on the house…”

“Shut up,” one of the soldiers snarled.  “Fatty; get your daughter ready to come with us.”

The leader staggered to his feet.  Jack was reluctantly impressed; he had a jaw like a brick.  “You are wanted by the Captain for killing two of his men,” the leader said.  “The Grand Mage wants strangers and he cares nothing for their condition.  Take them!”

Two of the guards started forward, drawing their swords.  Angelina lifted one of her weapons and fired once, neatly putting a bullet through the first guard’s head.  Loke fired a moment after her, killing the second guard.

“Magic,” the leader hissed, his face paling.  He stumbled backwards as Jack raised his own weapon.  “Magic.”  He was almost grovelling.  “If I had, but known that you were magicians…”

“Shut up,” Jack snapped.  Why did the leader think that they were magicians?  “Get out!”

The leader turned and fled, his sole surviving guard following him.  Ivan came out from behind his counter and stared down at the dead bodies, as the door opened again.  Four weapons snapped up…to be lowered sheepishly as Martin and Jill came through the door.

Martin lifted his hands.  “Umm, friend,” he said.  “I come in peace.”

“They didn’t,” Jack snapped.  He wasn’t in the mood for joking.  “Look at their bodies.”

“Captain, magic works here,” Martin said.  Jack stared at him.  “I’m not joking, Jack; magic works here.”

Jack burst out laughing.  “Did you know, that was perhaps the least surprising thing that you could have said?”

***
The room cleared remarkably quickly, the villagers running from the inn they suspected would be the centre of attention very soon.  Jack was relieved; it meant that there would be fewer innocents in the crossfire.  He was morbidly certain that the local lord, this Prince Roger, would be sending more men to arrest them and, perhaps, to burn down the village.

“That witch, old Mother Dissmall, could work magic,” Martin said, as soon as they were alone.  Jill sat in the corner, watching Jack worshipfully; Ivan had disappeared into the back rooms.  “She cast a spell and there was light everywhere.”

Loke gaped at him.  “Are you sure that it wasn’t a trick of some kind?”  He asked.  “That would explain a lot, you know.”

“She took me for a demon,” Martin said.  “It’s quite possible that the magical field is what’s interfering with the electric gadgets.”

“I suppose that those are real too,” Christina said.  “I wonder…if they know demons exist, where’s the church?”

Jack blinked.  He’d missed that; Griffin had no Church, Mosque or Temple.  “Wonderful,” he said.  “We have to figure out the new laws, quickly.”

“We have a clue from the old witch,” Martin said.  “She said that magic came from the Castle at the End of the Land.”

“What an odd name,” Christina said.  Her tone was droll.  “So, did she provide a road map?”

“If this…Castle at the End of the Land is real, then it must be the source of the magical field,” Martin said patiently.  “Magic has to obey some laws, or it would have gotten out of control quite badly.  If we find the castle, we might manage to find a way home.”

“You could learn magic,” Jack suggested.  He was certain, somehow, that Martin would be the best at learning magic.  “You might be able to open a Portal back home.”

Martin shook his head.  “We’ll have to find someone else,” he said.  “Old Mother Dissmall refused to teach me; I suspect she feared that I would be a rival.  Logically, if I could learn one spell, then I might be able to figure out the underlying laws, but…”

“I see,” Jack said.  “So, if we head to Cambridge tomorrow, we might be able to find directions to the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Angelina nodded.  “You might also want to take Jill with you,” she muttered.  “Her father didn’t look pleased at all.”

“I’ll ask her tomorrow,” Jack said.  The temptation was almost overpowering.  “A native guard might be useful.”

Martin nodded.  “I think that we have to move quickly,” he said.  “What will our weapons do against magic?”

Jack shrugged.  “We’ll go to bed,” he said.  “Tomorrow, we’ll head off to Cambridge.”

Chapter Nine: Spider in the Web

When he had been very young, Shayde had learned to love spiders; an entire nest of spiders had lived near his house.  The entire forest had been called Spider Forest for a reason – it swarmed with spiders – and few dared to enter.  The spiders weren’t poisonous to humans individually – or at least they hadn’t been poisonous individually at the time – but with several dozen bites they were lethal.

He’d hidden from childhood bullies in the forest, protected by the spiders, and he’d learnt his magic deep within the woods.  Surrounded by spiders, he’d practiced and practiced, finally emerging to take revenge on the bullies, before heading off to challenge a young wizard for his seat on the Council of Wizardry.

Like all the wizards, he had animal familiars, officially a hawk that had been a gift from his first teacher.  Unofficially, he had thousands of spiders; he’d transplanted some of his friends from Spider Forest into the Cambridge region, adapting them with spells to make them more able and active in his service, using the abilities of the spiders to allow them to report to him at once through a chain of spiders.  Spiders – his spiders – were mildly telepathic; touching their minds had awoken his magic, after all.

He hadn’t expected much from the local lords; all three of the Princes could barely decide to go to the toilet on their own.  His spiders were everywhere, slaughtering the native spiders or dragging them into their nests with their strange telepathy, and they reported to him.  The network was nearly perfect, but the spiders themselves were not; some things that he regarded as important mattered little to the spiders.  It was only the sudden change when the strange weapon was used that the spiders noticed, focusing their gaze on the newcomers and studying them.

Shayde studied them too, using a bowl of water to look at them.  They didn’t look that impressive; their weapons seemed to be all the threat that they were.  There were six of them, not five, which puzzled him; how many were there in all?  The prophecy had said five, not six.

The spiders hummed their deadly web of telepathy into the air.  Between them, they painted a composite picture of what had happened; the strange weapon had fired, killing the second guard.  Shayde fought to peer into the past, cursing his own defensive wards that prevented anyone from spying, even himself from the future.  The first guard had been killed, but that was as much as he could see…

“Soft,” he commented, as the remaining soldiers fled.  He would have killed them without a second thought.  “Very soft.”

He closed his eyes in consideration.  He wanted them alive, just to see what they knew.  He wanted to know how the magic of their weapons worked; they would be very useful when it came to waging war against Akron and Grand Mage Gorgre.  All of that made life difficult; from his castle it would have been easy to simply destroy the entire village.

“We move at once to Griffin,” he said, to the commander of his personal guard.  All of the men were under his control; he trusted them because it was impossible for them to betray him.  “Have my horse saddled at once.”

“As you command,” Captain Rayne said, bowing.  He scurried out of the room, leaving Shayde behind to think.  Taking them prisoner might require magic – he briefly considered ordering the spiders to bite them, before realising that it would be hard to cure them in time to save their lives – and he scowled.

“I’ll have to be directly involved,” he muttered, and scowled.  He wasn’t scared of Akron – he knew that the other Grand Mage was old and growing older – but the unknown weapons posed an unknown threat.  How dangerous were they?  For a moment, he considered talking to the village witch, but dismissed the thought; she would be untrustworthy.

Smiling to himself, unwilling to admit that he had been looking forward to action, Shayde buckled on his magical armour, before heading down to the stables.  His horse, a magnificent stallion he'd made from an old friend who had wanted to spend the rest of his life as a horse, whinnied to see him.

Shayde smiled with genuine affection.  “It’s time for action at last,” he said, as he swung himself into the saddle.  “We have some people to capture.”

As the horse cantered over the drawbridge and along the long needle-like path to the castle, Shayde allowed himself a moment to consider.  It would be easiest, he decided, to capture one of them apart from the others, and then he bent his mind to consider how best to do that.  One benefit about having a horse that could literally think for itself was that he didn’t have to worry about the journey; it passed by in a blur as he thought.

***
Captain Brant heard Grak’s report with growing horror; were the strangers wizards or not?  Grak had been clear on the fact that it was the newcomers’ weapons that had killed two of the guards, but he didn’t know if they were really weapons, or just some clever version of the massive catapults the army used from time to time.

“I have had to inform the Grand Mage,” Brant said, after sending a runner to the castle.  It would take the runner hours to reach Grand Mage Shayde, which would give him time to think of a story to explain the loss of four of his men.  If Shayde accepted it, Prince Roger would have no choice, but to accept it as well.

“I’m sorry,” Grak said, prostrating himself.  Brant resisted the temptation to cut the half-dwarf’s head off; it wouldn’t have helped.  “I’ll make it up somehow, Captain…”

“Shut up,” Brant snapped, unwilling to handle whining.  “Have the other men been placed around the inn?”

Grak nodded desperately.  “Yes, they’re there,” he said.  “All five of them.”

Brant scowled.  If the strangers were as capable as they seemed, fifty men wouldn’t have been enough.  If Prince Roger had reinforcements close enough to…

A series of black horses canted up to their commandeered house.  The headsman of the village had been turned out of his hovel so that they could use it; Brant felt his mouth fall open as he recognised the man in the lead, Captain Rayne.  If he was here, then that meant that the young dark-haired man was…

“Your lordship,” he said, and prostrated himself.  Grand Mage Shayde slipped off his horse with a skill that matched Captain Rayne’s skill; he looked down at Brant for a long moment before speaking.  Brant risked a glance upwards; Shayde’s eyes were burning like coals.

“You will tell me what’s happening,” Shayde said finally.  His tone was like ice; under other circumstances, Brant would have been mortally offended.  “What happened?”

Brant reeled.  Shayde shouldn’t have been there for hours.  “The strangers killed four of my men,” he burst out.  “They killed two men who were going to have fun with a village slut and two more when Sergeant Grak attempted to apprehend them.  They have magic, Your Lordship; they are great wizards.”

“Indeed?”  Shayde asked.  His tone was suspiciously mild.  “How great?”

Brant realised his mistake in a hurry.  “Not as great as you, Your Lordship,” he said, grovelling beneath Shayde.  “They just killed two of my men…”

“Silence,” Shayde said.  “Where are they now?”

Brant realised that he – might – live through the day.  “They’re in the inn, on the ground floor,” he said.  “They’re not in rooms, Your Lordship; the innkeeper wants them gone.”

Shayde smiled.  “Let’s oblige him, then,” he said.  He glanced around, searching for something.  “You have done well, Captain Grant.”

“Brant,” Brant corrected, before remembering that Shayde might consider it imprudent.  Shayde didn’t reply, still looking for something, anything.  Brant wondered what the Grand Mage was looking for, when Shayde straightened up with an evil smile.

“I have some very delicate spells to cast,” Shayde said.  “You and your men are to pull themselves back to this hovel” – his nose twitched – “and wait for me.”

Brant slowly rose to his feet.  “As you command,” he said.  “I’ll call them back now.”

***
Shayde took a long moment to study the inn, smiling darkly, before wandering over to the edge of the forest.  As he reached the first tree, it seemed to shimmer before him; the entire region was crawling with spiders, summoned by him to aid him in his task.  

“Excellent,” he said, as he sat down under the tree, gathering his magic around him.  He cupped his hands in front of him and muttered a spell under his breath; the spell was too complex to be dangerous if it went wrong, but also very easy to get wrong and fail to use it.  An image formed in front of him; five of the six strangers were asleep in the inn, with one of them standing guard.

“A dwarf?”  Shayde asked himself, puzzled.  Dwarfs rarely interacted with the human community; they didn’t like humans much at all.  The dwarf, if that was what he was, didn’t have any beard, but other than that he was almost dwarfish.  “Very strange,” he muttered, before examining the other strangers.  There was nothing special about the other two men; one was clearly a warrior, the other…the other made him feel that they might be wizards after all.

“He looks like a wizard,” Shayde told the spiders, who rustled in agreement.  The women were strange; one looked like a man, one had dark skin like the Power who held the lands near Akron’s lands, and one looked almost normal.  “Too thin,” Shayde commented, “but perhaps the most vulnerable to me.”

He asked the spiders a question.  Christina, they whispered back, their strange mind echoing across the land.  Shayde repeated the question several times; he knew – without false modesty – that he had progressed further in understanding and communicating with spiders than any other mage, but they were still very…alien, very non-human indeed.  Even the Powers were easier to understand, if not to challenge.

He shaped the vision around her again, carefully bending his spell around her.  Someone awake would never have fallen for the spell; someone sleeping might just fall for the spell.  “Christina,” he whispered.  “Christina…come to me…”

***
“Christina…”

Doctor Christina Videzun felt her eyes snap open as the voice echoed through her mind.  She knew, somehow, that it was real; that it was calling her.  She looked up and a brownie waved at her, a little man-creature smiling at her.  Ivan had left out milk for them, exchanging the milk for their assistance; Sumrita and her had been charmed by the small creatures.

“Come to me…”

Christina stood up, ignoring Loke’s concerns.  “I need the toilet,” she muttered, and he smiled.  She knew, somehow, that she couldn’t tell him about the voice.  She was sure that it was warm and friendly, she was certain that it meant well, but she couldn’t – she mustn’t – tell anyone about it.

“Be back soon,” Loke ordered.  She would have been annoyed, but the voice had made her happy; she smiled at him and walked towards the rear door.  The voice whispered in her ear, in her mind, telling her to walk out of the rear door, moving silently so that no one else was woken by her noise…

I’m coming, she thought, as she stepped outside.  The full moon beat down on a silent village; even the fires in the braziers had burnt out.  The voice spoke to her of magic echoing down from the moon, magic and mystery from a world outside time, magic singing through the air.  She saw suddenly, as clearly as if it had happened right in front of her, witches flying on broomsticks, laughing in the sky as the rain fell down on the world.

She passed through the village, called by the voice, and reached the forest.  A man was sitting under the tree, which was swarming with…spiders!  She saw them and she shuddered, her panic breaking her free of the spell.  She stared at the man and turned to run, trying to flee, and then her entire body froze.  Helplessly, she plummeted to the ground and landed hard.

“Good Evening,” the man said.  His English sounded more…educated than Jill’s or Ivan’s; there were hints of a Latin accent, perhaps even some French words.  Unable to move, Christina listened to him and thought rapidly, controlling her panic with iron discipline.  

“I am the Grand Mage Shayde,” the man said.  He was younger than Christina would have expected; he could hardly have been more than twenty-five, Christina’s own age.  “I control magic and I control my little helpers.”

The spiders swarmed towards Christina, who tried to scream desperately.  Panic bubbled at the back of her mind as the spiders crawled all over her, examining her, crawling all over her body.  Frozen helplessly, she could only endure as the spiders examined her.

“You have no trace of magic,” Shayde said.  Christina fought to control her panic, wishing that she could roll over and squash the departing spiders under her weight.  “How…curious.  Who are you people?”

Christina, of course, couldn’t answer him.  Shayde smiled.  “How Akron would laugh,” he said, and smiled again.  He leant down to face Christina, and then touched her on the side of her head, muttering under his breath.  “You will obey me,” he said finally.  “You will do as I command, answer what I ask, tell me what I need to know, serve me all of your life…”

A wave of dizziness rolled over Christina.  She realised with a sudden shock what was happening, but she couldn’t fight; she couldn’t even move in her mind.  Strange tendrils of thought fixed themselves in her mind, controlling her, forcing her to obey and obey and obey…

Her body suddenly went limp as the spell was released.  “Now,” Shayde said pleasantly.  “Tell me, who are you people and where do you come from and what do you want with the Castle at the End of the Land?”

She knew it was wrong, she knew that she shouldn’t be telling him anything, but she couldn’t help herself.  She started to speak slowly, but inexorably, telling Shayde everything.  From time to time, as she talked, she had bursts of pleasure, even a near-orgasm, rewarding her.  She hated herself, for she understood what they were doing; conditioning her to serve him, but she somehow couldn’t find anything wrong with the thought and…

***
Shayde wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not, even though he’d checked the hypnotic spell several times.  He knew that other dimensions existed – Hell existed, for that was where the demons lived – but he didn’t understand the concept of alternate timelines.  She knew nothing of magic, but much of technology; she talked at length about something called ‘interfering with development’ that her friends planned to do to his home if they failed to get back.

“You can make guns without magic,” she said, her dark eyes dead under the weight of the spell.  Understanding ‘guns’ had taken a long time as well.  The concept horrified him; what sort of society could form if any peasant with a grudge could kill his local lord, or magic-user, with a single shot?  “They can overthrow you.”

Shayde shuddered with horror.  He didn’t believe that Akron understood the dangers; all of the wizards would be in danger.  He considered trying to make an alliance, rather than pressing ahead with the war plan, but changed his mind.  He had made a number of agreements with some very dangerous Powers for the weapons of war; going back on the agreement would have consequences.  

He scowled at the thought.  A maddened Power was a horrifying thought; several of them very angry with him would be a disaster.  He couldn’t hope to stop them, even if he gained control of the guns.  On the other hand, he had reinforcements coming; taking them all alive would be simple.

“They have no magic?”  He asked.  “Only their guns?”

“They have discipline,” Christina said.  She was quite attractive and utterly helpless, he realised; the thought of taking her was quite interesting.  He forced down the thought; there would be time for that later.  “They have more discipline than any of your men.”

Shayde didn’t doubt it.  Common soldiers were not meant to be disciplined.  Fairly often, hired soldiers were better fighters than the official soldiers commanded by the lords or princes; it wouldn’t do for any of the lords to start thinking that they could do without magical support, would it?  If any of them got the idea that they didn’t need the magic-users, they would rebel against the wizards, which would mean that they would have to be crushed.

He looked up into the sky.  The first flickers of dawn could be seen.  In the sky, he saw the first birds reeling through the sky, cawing to one another.  Her absence would have been noticed now, he was sure; he was surprised that they hadn’t come out hunting for her.  He smiled darkly; without any magical defences – unless they had magic by any other name – they would be easy to handle.

He summoned Captain Brant and issued some orders, and then he turned back to the helpless woman.  He took care to check that all of the spells were firmly in place – one common cause of magical death was the spells breaking and the pleasure slave extracting revenge on the magician – and then he started to issue her orders.

“Now,” he said.  “This is what you are going to do…”

He outlined the orders, feeling, once again, the reward of being a wizard; the feeling that someone was nothing, but clay in his hands.  He smiled down at Christina as he finished issuing the orders; even a hypnotised slave could carry them out.  “Now, go,” he said, “and lure them to their doom.”

Chapter Ten: Confrontation

Jack had been dreaming of home as he lay on the floor, having taken the first watch.  Ivan hadn’t been pleased about them using the main hall instead of their rooms; after hearing Jill’s report from Mother Dissmall, he’d stamped off to his room, leaving them to sleep on the floor.  He’d entertained the fantasy of Jill coming to join him, but he’d known that that was silly; she’d just had her virginity proven and she wouldn’t want to do anything to imperil that.

He’d spent most of the first night wondering, both about magic and about their ability to affect the world they’d found themselves in.  If they managed to make gunpowder, they would instantly create a threat to all of the magicians in the society, one that they would try to respond to and squash.  They would become targets, rather than strangers; they might discover themselves hunted from end to end of the land.

He mentally cursed the insistence that there were no maps in the village.  He understood it; both Saddam and the other barbarian states in the Middle East had classified maps – so had the Soviet Union.  Maps were knowledge and knowledge was power; keeping knowledge out of the hands of the common people suited the lords just fine.  He scowled; with magic-users, such as Mother Dissmall, healing people, there would be little need for medical knowledge, which would limit the numbers of the peasants.

I wish we knew more about the magic system, he thought, and fell asleep.  He was woken by Loke shaking him and trying to awaken him.  The small man was clearly worried about something, but there hadn’t been any gunfire.  He would have heard that; it would have triggered the instincts that had been firmly embedded in his mind by his training.

“All right,” he snapped.  He sat up and glanced sharply around the room; everything seemed fine.  “I’m awake.  What’s happening?”

Loke stared at him in horror.  “She’s gone,” he snapped.  “Christina said that she was going to the toilet, so she went to the toilet and now she’s gone!”

It took Jack a moment to understand.  The less said about Ivan’s toilets, which operated on the principle of collecting manure for the fields, the better.  He wouldn’t have blamed Christina for being horrified, but…

“Where’s she gone?”  He snapped, as his mind caught up with him.  “Where is she?”

“She didn’t come back after ten minutes,” Loke said.  He had the finest time sense that Jack had ever seen; if he said that it had been ten minutes, it had been ten minutes.  “I went to check on the toilet and she wasn’t there.  I checked around and I couldn’t find her…”

Jack thought rapidly.  “Did Ivan drag her into his bed?”

“I don’t think so,” Loke said.  “I just can’t find her at all.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.  “We said we had to stick together,” he said.  “Where the hell is she?”  He shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said.  “Wake up the others, now.”

Loke nodded and started to shake Martin, while Jack paced over to the window, removing the heavy slatted boards and peering out into the village.  It was deserted, even as the first hints of sunlight appeared over the horizon.  He wondered absently when the people would arise; did any of them know where she was?

“What’s happening?”  Angelina demanded, snapping awake at once.  She grabbed her weapon from where it had rested next to her, looking for threats.  Her gaze alighted on Christina’s bedding.  “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said grimly.  “Martin?”

The computer wizard – and wasn’t that an ironic term – looked up grimly.  He had slept in his clothes – they all had – and he looked rumpled.  Jack was used to it; he’d slept in a full armoured combat suit once, during the exercises in America.  He looked unwell, but his eyes were bright.

“I’m awake,” Martin grumbled.  “She’s left us?”

“She’s vanished,” Jack said.  “God alone knows where she’s gone.”

“She can’t have gone anywhere,” Angelina said.  “How much do we know about this country?  She hasn’t found anything the rest of us missed, has she?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said, understanding Angelina’s point.  If Christina had intended to run from them, for whatever stupid reason she might have come up with, where could she have run to?  She didn’t know any more than the rest of them about the world outside Griffin.  “I think someone must have gotten to her, somehow.”

“That bastard Ivan,” Angelina hissed.  “I’m going to sort him out good and proper.”

“I don’t think so,” Loke said.  “She would have cried out for help, would she not?”

A spider scuttled across the floor.  Jack squashed it on instinct.  “Yes,” he said.  “Still; Angelina, Loke, go check on him, carefully.”

Angelina nodded and lifted her weapon.  Jack smiled as she left; he was confident that she could handle the situation with as much violence as was required.  “If she’s not in the building, then where can she have gone?”

“She wanted to do more research,” Sumrita said.  The Indian doctor was blinking the sleep from her eyes.  Jack noted how close she was standing to Martin and smiled to himself.  “Perhaps she went out to do that.”

“In the middle of the night?”  Jack asked, just before Martin could say the same.  “That seems a bit…unusual.”

Angelina returned.  “The fat bastard is still asleep, snoring,” she reported.  “Sir, Loke’s still searching the house, but I don’t think she’s still here.”

“Damn,” Jack swore.  “I think we’d better get looking for her.”

Angelina nodded.  “Leave most of the equipment here,” she said.  “I think we’d better search the village quickly, and then” – she lifted her rifle – “once we find her, we can decide what to do next.”

Jack nodded, and then looked over at the door.  “Tactical hard exit,” he said.  “Angelina and I will go first; Loke will follow us and cover us.”  He snorted.  “They don’t have anything that can touch us, so it might be a waste of time, but remember Afghanistan.”

Angelina nodded.  More than a few high-tech American soldiers had been killed by simple weapons, or shot down at point-blank range.  “Ready,” she said, and her voice was hard.  She wandered over to the door, pushing it open with her rifle barrel.  “On three?”

Jack nodded.  “On three…two…one…go!”

He moved out of the door, lifting his weapon, prepared to shoot down anyone in the half-light.  Angelina followed him, covering him, with Loke bringing up the rear.  It was useless; there was no one there to attack them, or to fire at them.  

“Come on out, both of you,” Jack ordered, and Martin and Sumrita followed, both holding weapons.  Jack felt a flicker of pride; neither of them would make good soldiers, but he trusted them at his back.  “I can’t see her…”

“There,” Sumrita said.  Jack twisted his neck to see Christina, waving urgently at them from the edge of the forest.  It was growing lighter, but there were no signs of activity, apart from Christina herself.

Jack felt relief, then suspicion.  “Come here,” he shouted, no longer caring who heard them.  “Christina…”

She came towards them, keeping her head lowered.  Jack felt more suspicious; why was she hiding her eyes?  “There’s a Portal up there,” she said.  “They found us!”

Jack didn’t believe her.  Her tone wasn’t the voice he both liked and hated; it was curiously flat.  Something was very wrong; how could she have known to leave to find the Portal, even if it existed?

“Jack,” Angelina murmured.  Jack nodded.  Something was wrong, but…

“We have to check it out,” he said.  “Follow me, weapons ready.”

“It’s this way,” Christina said.  Jack tried to see her eyes, but she twisted away from him, pulling them onwards by her motion.  “Come on.”

They reached the edge of the forest and stopped; Christina stopped dead and froze.  Jack leaned forward, grabbing her chin and staring into her eyes.  He recoiled in shock; they were dead, with something damned and suffering – and desperate – flickering within them.

“What’s happened to you?”  He demanded.  “Tell me!”

“Please,” a new voice said.  “Allow me to answer that.”

Jack spun around, suddenly realising that nearly fifty men had appeared out of nowhere, surrounding them.  All of them wore the same uniforms as the men they’d killed, carrying swords and strange slingshots.  All of them were out of their sword range; his eyes narrowed as he saw the archers, further behind and preparing their crossbows.

He stared.  “How did they get so close?”

Martin answered him.  “Magic,” he said.

***
The leader of the soldiers carried no weapon.  He was dressed in a long dark cloak, covering dark trousers and a dark shirt.  Only his hands and his face could be seen; the rest of his body was covered in the strange material.  It wasn’t black; it was blacker than black, as if the eye had trouble even looking at it, let alone describing it in terms people could understand.

Martin shuddered.  He was as certain as he was of anything that the man was a magician.  He…stank of magic, he could feel the tingling pouring from him in a great dark wave, pouring over the village and extending across the land.  He shuddered again as a wave of spiders crossed the forest, coming closer and closer to their position.  He hefted his weapon, confident that they could handle the soldiers, and knew that it wouldn’t be enough to handle the sorcerer.

“Magic,” the sorcerer agreed.  His tone was mild, but with a dark undercurrent of dark amusement.  “Who are you?”

Jack ignored the question.  “What have you done to her?”  He demanded, indicating Christina.  “Release her at once!”

“I’ve put her in thrall,” the sorcerer said.  Martin realised with a sudden shock that he got off on controlling people.  Carefully, he adjusted his position slightly, bringing the weapon to bear on the sorcerer.  “I am the Grand Mage Shayde, ruler of these lands, owner of these people.”

“You don’t own people, and you certainly don’t own her,” Jack snapped, allowing his anger to show.  “Release her!”

Shayde smiled.  If he’d had a beard, Martin realised; he would have stroked it.  “You are trespassers in my land,” he said.  “You have killed my people.”

“You have hurt one of my people,” Jack said.  “Grand Mage…”

“The correct title is Your Lordship,” Shayde said, smiling darkly.  “You have a choice, Captain Jack Drache; you can come with me to my castle” – he indicated the looming building – “or you will be dragged.”

Martin tried to speak in Jack’s ear.  “I think we have to be careful,” he muttered.  “That man is a magic-user.”

Shayde clearly had very good hearing.  “You have a magical sense, boy?”  He asked.  Martin flushed; Shayde couldn’t be much older than he was.  “How…curious.  Was Mother Dissmall helpful?”

“Not really,” Martin said, deciding to be honest, but not too honest.  “She didn’t seem to know much.”

“Oh, she doesn’t,” Shayde said, dismissing her with a single sentence.  “If she was powerful enough to become one of the Council, I would have destroyed her, long ago.  She is useless for anything beyond love potions and preventive medicines.”  He smiled.  “So, are you going to come with me?”

Jack muttered orders to Angelina.  “Cover the archers,” he said.  “If I give the order, kill them all.”

“Are you that confident?”  Shayde asked.  His tone was amused.  “You know nothing of how this world works.”

Martin thought rapidly, wishing for telepathy.  Shayde must have interrogated Christina at some length.  Judging from Jack’s expression, he had clearly thought the same; he glanced sharply at Christina, held in thrall, and scowled.

“You won’t have our knowledge,” Jack said.  Overhead, a hawk soared in the air; Martin wished that he were as free as the bird overhead.  “We can’t let you have it.”

Shayde stepped back.  “Take them,” he said.  It all happened very quickly.  Jack fired once at Shayde, while Angelina fired on the archers.  Jack’s bullet…bounced off Shayde; the archers tumbled like ninepins, torn apart by bullets.

Shayde’s eyes were glittering with an unholy light as Loke added his fire to Jack’s attack.  The Grand Mage’s body was surrounded with a field of…something; the bullets just bounced off the field, scattering all over the ground.  The soldiers were stumbling backwards, trying to avoid involvement, and Angelina let them go.

Shit, Martin thought, as some of the worse possibilities occurred to him.  His mind hurt; he could feel the magic field wrapping itself around Shayde, even as the spiders scuttled forward, but not coming too close.  He could see the magic; tiny threads between the spiders, linking them together…and to Shayde.  They glittered in the air like a spider’s web, binding them all together.  He thought of some horror stories about intelligent spiders and shivered; had Shayde taught them to work together?

Shayde lifted a hand.  “It’s not that easy,” he said, as Jack stopped shooting.  “Are you going to give up now?”

His tone was gloating.  Jack reached for a grenade on his belt.  “Now, that won’t work,” Shayde said, and he muttered a few words under his breath.  Martin felt his entire body lock solid; he was paralysed, unable to move.  The magic flickered around him, and then vanished, locking them firmly in place.

He knew what a grenade was, Martin thought.  He knew something – he didn’t know how – that the rest of the team were in the same position.  Christina came forward into his field of vision and knelt before Shayde, her face in the same dead expression as it had always been, since she’d wandered off.  

Shayde threw back his head and laughed.  “Do you feel stupid now?”  He asked.  Martin mentally recoiled; was that how he really acted, or had he picked that concept up from Christina too?  “Get up, you lazy bastards; there’s work to do!”

Martin would have laughed if he could have; how could they get up?  Frozen to the spot, they couldn’t move.  The soldiers slowly came to their feet, coming over to them, some of them taking the opportunity to grope Sumrita as they came.  Martin felt his blood boiling, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything to save a girl he cared about more than he had ever dared to admit to himself.

He would have cried if he could have cried.  For all of their great plans, they seemed to have been trapped…and defeated.  Checkmate, he thought bitterly.  We’ve been checkmated…

***
Captain Brant had taken one look at the dying archers, torn apart by the strange hell-weapons, and flung himself to the ground.  Cowering, knowing that any moment could be his last, he had watched as Shayde confronted the newcomers, playing with them until the moment when his magic finally gripped them and froze them solid.

“Move,” Shayde snapped, and Brant came to his feet.  Of fifty soldiers, all of the archers were dead, and several had been hit by the hell-weapons as they bounced off Shayde’s magical shield.  Shayde didn’t look as if he cared for either the dead or the dying.

“Yes, Your Lordship,” Brant said.  Anything else would have been dangerous.  “What are your orders?”

“Search them and strip them of everything, but their clothes,” Shayde ordered.  Brant was oddly disappointed – that would give them no chance to enjoy the women – but he knew better than to disobey.  He used his rank as an excuse to search the brown-skinned girl, taking the opportunity to grope her even as he removed the contents of her pockets, and the hell-weapon she carried.

He scowled.  Trying to prise apart her fingers was dangerous – a BANG rang out as one soldier managed to fire a hell-weapon – but he knew better than to bother Shayde with such details.  Her fingers felt delicate – it was clear that she’d never worked on a farm or as part of a military force – which suggested that she was a sorceress herself.  Shayde had countered their magic, but he knew how quickly something like that could change; he took the opportunity to squeeze one bum cheek as he checked her rear pockets.

“I’d put that in the pile, if I were you,” he muttered to Grak.  The half-dwarf had been pocketing coins – the strange light coins of the newcomers – something that would not endear him to Shayde.  They would get some loot – and time with the women if they were lucky – but Shayde would want to examine all of their artefacts.  “What about the weapons?”

“I want three carts up here,” Shayde ordered calmly.  The Grand Mage seemed more amused by the results of the accident with the hell-weapon – a soldier had blown off his own leg – than anything else.  “Once they get here, load them onto the carts and take them up to the castle.  I want to question them personally.”

“This one’s a woman,” a soldier said, examining one of the men.  Brant blinked; what was a woman doing, acting like a man?  His tone became a leer; Brant remembered that he had been one of the men demanding a search for the maidens of Griffin.  “She should be punished.”

Shayde pointed a long finger at the lecherous man, who had already started to pull down the woman’s pants.  A second later, a frog was hopping on the grass, with the spiders closing in on it.  The frog saw them coming, and tried to hop away, but it was too late; the spiders were everywhere.  Minutes later, the frog was dead, with thousands of spiders eating their way through him.

Brant felt sick and turned away, fighting not to throw up in front of Shayde.  The Grand Mage laughed darkly as the spiders tore the frog apart.  “There will be time for that later,” Shayde said, as the soldiers paled.  “For the moment, you will get them up to the castle and place them in the dungeons.  Later, you can have the women.”

The carts arrived and the soldiers started to load the frozen strangers onto the carts.  Brant took a moment to pull the woman-man’s pants up, before placing her on the cart.  No one laughed now; the reminder of Shayde’s unpredictability had scared hell out of them.  No one looked at the spiders now, not even Brant.

High in the air, a hawk circled, watching them.  Brant picked up a stone and hurled it at the hawk, which dodged it with ease, before flying off to the south.  Brant wished, not for the first time, that he were flying with it, away from the affairs of the great and powerful.

Whenever the mages fought, it was the common people who bore the cost…

Chapter Eleven: Artefacts of Great Power and Powers

The innkeeper had actually been very good to the ‘merchants,’ although fear of Dominos and his magic had probably played a role in that.  Dominos had apologised afterwards for treating Akron like a stupid man, but Akron hadn’t minded; they didn’t want to attract attention.  They were right on the outside of Shayde’s territory, waiting for something – anything – to happen, and Akron knew that time was running out.

“How long will it be before he attacks our lands?”  He asked the Knight Errant, who was pacing backwards and forwards in the room.  Their remaining in the room would attract attention before too long; as merchants they should be out looking for the next bargain, if not driving on towards Cambridge.  “Why is he waiting?”

“A very good question,” the Knight Errant said seriously.  “It’s not as if there is a direct land border, is there?  He could be striking deals with the princes between him and you, or perhaps even with the Power of Oxford.”

Akron shuddered at the thought.  The Power of Oxford had appeared out of nowhere thirty years ago and absorbed the town and the surrounding villages into its lands.  Like most of the Powers, it had reached a certain size and stopped growing; unlike most of them, it had seemed genuinely interested in talking to human lords nearby.  When the Council of Wizardry had realised that the power was serious about taking part in the ongoing power games, a lot of trousers had had to be changed in a hurry.

“The Princes would be more likely,” he said, and considered the number of tiny kingdoms – some as small as thirty square miles across – between Shayde’s territory and Akron’s lands.  They had to be scared to death; the only thing that kept them independent was the reluctance of both Grand Mages to link their lands together.

“He’ll be talking to them,” the Knight Errant predicted.  “I wonder what he’s offering them.”

“Lands, power…perhaps even their lives,” Akron said dryly.  “So far, none of them have approached us for a counter-offer, which could be good or very bad indeed.”

He unfurled the map and scowled at it.  “He could move from here, to here, to here, and have his troops on my border in less than a day,” he said.  “If the princes didn’t oppose him, that is.  If they did…say, several days to crush them utterly, and then he’ll be on us.”

“The council can do nothing?”  The Knight Errant asked.  “The war can’t be stopped before it truly begins?”

Akron snorted rudely.  “All those girls are having an effect on your brains,” he said.  “The people who would be making the decisions are the ones who are doing the war-fighting, or the preparing for the war-fighting.  The wizards are running around trying to decide which of us is more likely to be able to give them what they want; the mages are considering who they might be able to defeat, if the war weakens us.

“No, the council’s unity has been broken,” he said.  His face fell.  “It won’t be long before the entire Council of Wizardry shatters, removing magic from any control at all, and then…the princes will inherit the world.”

There was a tapping at the window.  “Sigmund,” Akron said, with genuine relief.  “What news…and don’t you dare demand food.”

The hawk gave him an irritated look; Akron had no difficulty in recognising it.  “Shayde has the newcomers,” he said.  “He found them in Griffin.”

“Here,” the Knight Errant said, pointing to the map.  Akron cursed; Griffin was too close to Shayde’s castle.  Rescuing the newcomers would be…difficult, to say the least.  “That’s going to be dicey, but Griffin is big enough for us merchants.”

Akron smiled.  Moving closer, at least, would be no real problem.  The trick would be pretending to be merchants in such a way as to fool Shayde’s agents.  Magic would have to be kept to a minimum, just to avoid detection.

“Exactly what happened?”  He asked.  “How were they found?”

“Sebastian found them,” Sigmund said, referring to his son, another hawk.  “They’d reached Griffin late last evening, before sunset.  They were attacked by some of Shayde’s soldiers – Prince Roger’s men, I think – and they killed two of them with some kind of magic weapon.”

Akron’s eyes narrowed.  “What sort of weapon?”  He asked.  “A staff?  A wand?  A magic blade?”

“I don’t know,” Sigmund said.  “Sebastian didn’t specify.  He called me late at night and I got there just in time to see Shayde lure one of them out and take control of her.  He spent time interrogating her, and then he used her to lure the others out.  They tried to fight and their weapons were useless against his shield.”

Akron scowled.  If the weapons had been more powerful, they might have levelled the balance between him and Shayde…when the war finally started.  “How did he take them?”  He asked finally.  “What happened?”

“He froze all of them, but the woman he had in thrall; she had all the signs of being a thrall,” Sigmund said.  “They were all loaded onto carts and he took them towards his castle.”

“A thrall,” Akron said thoughtfully.  Placing someone in thrall against his or her will wasn’t easy; controlling someone permanently – for more than a few hours – was difficult.  For Shayde to make that kind of effort was…interesting, to say the least.  A thought struck him.  “How many were there?”

“Six,” Sigmund said.  Akron was aware of the Knight Errant’s astonishment.  “There were six of them.”

“Odd,” Akron said.  “One of them must be a spare.”

The Knight Errant blinked.  “A spare for a prophecy?”  He asked.  “I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“Me neither,” Akron said.  “We are going to move to Griffin.”

The Knight Errant nodded.  “I thought you would want to do that,” he said.  “It’s nearly two hours away on horseback, even with the coaches as well.  I assume that you want the other men to come in as well.”

Akron scowled, thinking as hard as he could.  The more men, the greater the chance of detection, but at the same time they would lower the odds of actually being able to do anything.

“No,” he said finally.  “Just us.”

Sigmund cawed.  “Food,” he said firmly.  “I have to get back to Sebastian and tell him that its time to move.”

“No,” Akron said.  “I need him to stay and watch Griffin.”  Sigmund bowed his head.  “You…no, I can’t spare you that long.  I want one of your children to carry a message to Grand Mage Gorgre; tell him what’s happened so far, and tell him I want him to make diplomatic approaches to the princes between my lands and Shayde’s.”

Sigmund stretched out his wings.  “What about the Power of Oxford?”

Akron scowled.  “Too unpredictable,” he said, after a moment’s thought.  “I don’t think that Shayde could make the Power of Oxford do much to support him, beyond closing Oxford to our forces; he has little direct power outside his lands.  I would prefer not to have any Power involved.”

“You may not have a choice,” Sigmund pointed out dryly.

Akron laughed.  He allowed the hawk to be rude on occasion; he felt that it was good for his character.  “True, true,” he admitted.  “See to it, would you?”  He passed over a small bowl of meat.  “The landlord was quite helpful; he rather admired you.”

Sigmund cawed once.  “If he knew who you were,” he said, before diving his beak into the bowl.  He munched happily for a few moments.  “If he knew, he’d be sending his daughter in to spend the night with you willingly, just in the hopes that it would please you.”

“This close to Shayde’s territory?”  Akron asked.  “I very much doubt it.”

***
Two and a half hours later, at least by Akron’s estimate, the small convoy reached the village of Griffin.  This close to the centre of Shayde’s power, Akron fought his own power, and the desire to shed his disguise.  The temptation to challenge Shayde directly was strong; perhaps he could even beat the Grand Mage…except that would leave him weak and unable to defend himself against a mage, even a wizard…

And, of course, if I lose…he thought, as the convoy reached the large inn.  The innkeeper looked relieved to see them; his daughter looked upset.  She had been crying, Akron realised, and from the way she moved she had been recently beaten.  He made a mental note to see why she had been beaten; it might have some bearing upon their problem.

“Ho, landlord,” Dominos bellowed.  “I am the Wizard Dominos, serving the merchant guild.  Rooms for my master!”

The innkeeper looked pleased.  “I have goods for sale,” he said.  “Very interesting goods indeed.”

Dominos sneered.  “Rooms first,” he said.  “One silver piece for the rooms.”

“And then we will look at the goods,” Akron said, unable to contain himself.  If the innkeeper was selling off goods, they might just have been lucky…might the newcomers have left some of their supplies in the inn?

“Of course, mighty lord,” the innkeeper said.  As he came closer, Akron could see that he had been branded; Shayde or one of his servants had clearly punished him for something.  Perhaps…allowing the newcomers to stay at his inn.  His tone became pleading, desperate, the tone of a man who had nothing left to lose.  “Would your wizard happen to know a cure for this?”

Akron looked and winced.  Shayde had really been angry; the man had lost the use of his right hand.  Dominos might be able to cure it; Akron himself certainly could, except that might reveal too much.  Under the normal practice of the Merchant’s Guild, any wizard who worked for them worked only at the bidding of the merchant who hired him, swearing a wizard’s oath to that effect.

“Perhaps I will permit him to cure you,” he said, pretending to be unaware of the dangers of Shayde noticing.  It really wasn’t nice of the selfish man; either the real Dominos or the pretend Dominos would have little chance against a Grand Mage, should that mage detect his work and take revenge.  “Allow me to see the goods first, and then I will decide.”

Dominos gave him a half-dry, half-pleading look as they entered the inn.  The innkeeper’s daughter scrambled to provide wine for them, as the innkeeper waved them towards a pile of goods in the middle of the room.  Akron studied them with interest, probing for any magical wards that might have been placed around them…and found nothing.

“They were left behind by other travellers,” the innkeeper said.  “They left them behind when they went on to Cambridge.”

Akron took one look at the pile – and a longer look at the daughter – and knew that the innkeeper was lying.  There was simply no way that the items had been made by anyone he knew; they were too complex.  He poked through the pile and came up with a knife, one sharper than any he’d ever seen before.

“You may leave us,” he said, and the innkeeper bowed and left.  His daughter made to follow; Akron’s eyes stopped her.  “You may stay,” he said.  “What is your name?”

“Jill,” she said, with a curtsey.  She was still moving as if it hurt her to move.  “My name is Jill.”

“I heard you the first time,” Akron said.  “Tell me; where did these devices come from?”

Jill’s eyes clouded with tears.  “Jack,” she said.  “They belonged to Jack and his people.”

Jack, Akron thought.  With some name magic, he might even be able to find Jack – and with him the rest of his people.  “And what happened to Jack?”  He asked, although he knew.  He wanted to know what she thought.  “Where is he now?”

“The Grand Mage took him and his people to his castle,” Jill said.  Her voice was beginning to break up.  “No one comes back from there.”

Akron scowled grimly.  He knew that it would be difficult to penetrate Shayde’s fortress, but Shayde’s very overconfidence would work against him, particularly as Akron would not be seeking to kill Shayde, only to liberate some of his prisoners.

“No,” he said thoughtfully.  “I wonder…”

Jill looked up.  “My father is selling all of their stuff,” she said.  “He doesn’t want anyone to know that Jack came here.”

Akron smiled, before examining the stuff again.  He thought rapidly; did the other world – where Jack seemed to have come from – use magical items, rather than intrinsic magic?  That alone would change things; were the changes near the Castle at the End of the Land to be dealt with by channelling magic into items, rather than people?  Akron considered the likely reaction of Shayde and the other members of his faction and smiled; the heart attacks would decimate them.

“Tell me about him,” he said, considering Shayde’s castle.  He’d been there before, visiting Shayde’s predecessor, before Shayde killed him in a duel.  “What was Jack like?”

“He saved my life,” Jill said, her voice bubbling.  Akron recognised the symptoms of infatuation and smiled to himself.  “He killed some of the soldiers with a magic wand, and then saved my life.  His people looked after me; they were astonished to hear about magic, even when Mother Dissmall saved me from being punished for premarital sex.”

Akron frowned; did the town witch know anything she would tell to a simple merchant?  He picked up some of the items and wondered; had Jill – or Mother Dissmall – mentioned the Castle at the End of the Land?

“They didn’t know what that was,” Jill said, when he asked.  “They wondered if it might be a” – her tongue stumbled over the words – “a generator of some kind, something providing magic to the world.”

Akron stared at her, feeling the ground shift under his feet.  Either Jack had known in advance, or they were smart enough to deduce that much from the little that Mother Dissmall would have known about the matter.  He frowned; what could Shayde do with a whole new way of looking at the world?  Some possibilities occurred to him and he scowled; he had to get them out of the heart of Shayde’s power.

The Knight Errant was talking to the soldiers, too far away to share his advice.  Akron made up his mind quickly, trusting that he would have time to make amends if his choices were wrong.  Options were narrowing down anyway; time was becoming more and more limited.

He nodded once to Dominos.  “My wizard will heal your father, in exchange for the goods,” he said.  “Go inform him at once.”

Jill hesitated.  “I’ll try to get them back to him,” Akron said.  “My oath on it.”

He was prepared to swear a wizard’s oath, but Jill left to inform her father.  “You can do it,” Akron told Dominos, as soon as she was out of earshot.  “I’ll help you.”

“Thanks,” Dominos said, just barely leaving ‘my master’ off the sentence.  “If you help me…”

“It’s worth the risk,” Akron said.  He called for the Knight Errant.  “I’m going to purchase these goods,” he said.  “Once he accepts, detail five men to escort them back home.”

“Understood,” the Knight Errant said.  “What happens if he refuses?”

The innkeeper came in, clutching his hand.  “My cure and ten silver pieces,” he said.  Akron smiled; the innkeeper clearly through that he was cheating Akron.  He would have paid a gold piece, had he thought that it couldn’t be avoided.  “And that’s my final offer.”

Akron smiled.  “These are hardly worth anything,” he said.  “They may have a market as curiosities, but little else.  Do you want your cure or not?”

The innkeeper, like most bullies, wilted under the pressure.  “Yes,” he mumbled.  “Just the cure, then.”

Akron was almost disappointed; the man hadn’t tried to bargain further.  “See to moving the goods,” he said to the Knight Errant.  “Wizard Dominos?”

Dominos took the innkeeper’s hand, stroking it grimly with one finger.  Akron placed a hand on Dominos’ shoulder, sharing some of his power.  His senses probed the brand; it hadn’t been a through job.  Shayde clearly hadn’t intended more than a warning to everyone else; he could have booby-trapped the brand against interference.

“This will hurt,” Dominos said, as he drew on his power.  Akron bled some of his own power into Dominos, assisting his student to complete the spell and heal the innkeeper.  The hand recovered quickly as the magic poured through it, regenerating the damaged nerves and muscles.  

The innkeeper gasped in pain as he flexed his hand, and then he smiled; the hand was working well, just as Akron had specified.  “It’s healed,” he said in astonishment.  “At last my hand is whole again!”

“It’s only been a day,” Jill said.  Her father rounded on her.  “Father…”

“I think that I would like to hire your daughter as a guide to the area,” Akron said quickly.  She had clearly forged a link to the mysterious Jack; she would be helpful, he was certain.  The innkeeper stared at him.  “Now, if you please…”

Some of the soldiers entered and started to sort out the strange devices.  Akron picked up a strange device, shaped like a tiny book with buttons like a typewriter, and peered at it in puzzlement.  What was a COMPTECH LAPTOP anyway?  The words meant nothing to him.

“It’s going to be difficult,” the Knight Errant murmured in his ear.  The two men stepped outside, looking up at Shayde’s castle.  Akron wasn’t intimidated – he knew that a simple distortion spell caused the looming effect – and he knew how it helped him.  Shayde would have done better to set up a new castle; with the unlimited manpower and considerable magic he could have called upon it would have been possible.

Instead, he’d taken the old Grand Mage’s castle, one old enough for the magic to have seeped into the warp and weft of the castle; one that hadn’t been built by him.  Had he had long enough to learn all of its secrets?  Akron doubted it; he’d built his own castle, after all, and even the Knight Errant had problems there.

He smiled; it wouldn’t be long until they found out, one way or the other.

Chapter Twelve: Secrets, Lies, and Politics

As soon as the prisoners were secure in the dungeon, Shayde dismissed his guards and returned to his rooms, collapsing into a comfortable chair with a sigh of relief.  Despite his bragging, he knew that it had been harder than he had expected, and it could have been a complete disaster.

It was foolish of me to confront them myself, he thought, and considered.  I should have sent a few of the Wizards to do it instead.

He allowed himself a moment of complete collapse, before pulling himself back to his feet, pacing around the room.  As he passed the basin of water, he made the required passes and spells to spy on Akron, but found nothing; Akron’s wards blocked him as effectively as his own blocked Akron’s probes into his lands.

Foolish, he thought again, coldly.  Protection spells took energy to operate; a wizard’s power levels depended on how much power they could draw from the magical field, fine-tuning their spells to collect as much power as they could, doing as much as they could with as little power as possible.  No protection spell ever designed had been intended to deal with thousands of tiny objects impacting on the shield in quick succession; he’d had to draw power from the spiders to keep the field in place.

Very foolish, he thought, cursing himself.  He was careful not to curse himself aloud; there were enough tales of magicians who had accidentally cursed themselves to teach even him caution.  Still, he had won; how could they hope to escape from the very heart of his power, let alone reach the Castle at the End of the Land?

The spiders scuttled across the room, pouring from one of the internal pipes to reach him, climbing up onto his hands.  Shayde knew that many people, even many wizards, would have hesitated to touch a spider, but he had always loved them.  He drew power from them, even as they drew it from him, restoring his energy.  In time, it would have to be paid for, through a blood sacrifice, but for the moment he would have the energy to do what needed to be done.

A knock at the door announced the captain, Captain Brant.  Shayde made a mental note to promote Brant; he had done well in the battle.  He checked to make sure that he looked as active and capable as ever, before turning around to confront Brant.  The Captain quailed under his gaze; Shayde realised that the spiders were still covering him.

I’ll have to make sure that he forgets that, Shayde reminded himself, before giving Brant a nasty smile.  “Report,” he said.  “Have the devices been moved to my lab?”

“Of course, Your Lordship,” Brant said, prostrating himself.  Shayde felt a spider moving across the floor, heading towards Brant, and he warned it from going too close.  There would be time for them to feed later.  “They are ready for you to examine at your leisure.”

“Good,” Shayde said.  He liked it when everything waited on him.  “Go to the dungeon; take the hypnotised girl and move her to the lab.”

Brant bowed.  “As you command, Your Lordship,” he said.  “Will you be coming to inspect her?”

Shayde smiled darkly.  “Of course,” he said, sensing Brant’s disappointment.  “You and your men can amuse themselves with the maids.”  Brant looked brighter; the maids couldn’t say no.  “I shall be along in a few moments.”

Brant bowed again and left.  Shayde watched him go, then turned back to the basin of water.  It bubbled as he approached, powering careful spells into the water, and waited.  It didn’t take long; Grand Mage Valastar must have been waiting for his call.  Seconds later, Grand Mage Shan’s face joined hers in the water.

“I have them,” Shayde said, without preamble.  “Six of them, not five.  One is in my Thrall; the others are prisoners.”

Valastar smiled, revealing pointed teeth.  She’d made a bargain with a vampire early in her career and he had left his mark on her.  “Excellent,” she said.  “How much threat did they pose?”

Shayde hesitated.  “Hardly any,” he said.  “They had hardly any resistance to magic at all; one of them might have risen to Mage Rank, given time…”

“Which you will not, of course, give them,” Shan said.  His voice was curiously eager.  “Execute them at once.”

Shayde frowned inwardly.  Shan was older than he, but slightly less powerful.  He wasn’t weak enough to make a challenge a safe prospect, even if issuing the challenge was possible.  They were on the same side, after all; defeating Akron and his conservatives was the first and most important step they had to do.

It hit Shayde in a bolt of sudden inspiration and he smiled brightly.  Shan was scared – with good reason – of what Shayde might do with anything the strangers might have brought with them.  His mind raced rapidly; how much did Shan know?  Had he been spying on Shayde?  Someone magical had killed a spying hawk; had that been Shan?

It’s nice to be able to trust one’s partners, he thought, with irony.  Anyone would think that he liked me.

“We need to know more about them first,” he said.  “They had magical weapons” – if Shan had been spying, then he would have known that – “which might pose a threat to the wizards.  If more people come from their world – they seem to have come from another dimension – then we will have to be prepared.”

“Hell?”  Valastar demanded.  “Are they demons, then?”

Shayde concealed a smile.  Valastar, who would have done anything for power, was the most conservative when it came to dealing with Powers or demons.  Even Akron wasn’t as paranoid about demons, and he had been trying to convince the Council to act against any demon-worshipper before the recent unfortunate events.  

“I do not believe so,” he said.  “They’re just humans from another world.  Who knows what they might be able to tell us?”

Shan snorted.  “They’re too dangerous to keep around,” he said.  “Who knows indeed, eh?”

Shayde inclined his head slightly.  “I will place all of them in Thrall eventually,” he said.  “If nothing else, I can drain them of their energy and keep them trapped here, perhaps even trap them in other forms.”  He looked across at the statue of the challenger and smiled.  “They seem to know nothing of our magic, although theirs is different.”

He shook his head, as if it hurt him to change the subject.  “So, what about the preparations for the attack?”

Valastar spoke first.  Barring something completely unexpected happening, she would have the least to do.  “My soldiers are ready to intercept them, should they try to make it to the Castle at the End of the Land,” she said.  “I’m watching Grand Mage Ixa’em closely; our actions may force him to declare for one side or the other.  A number of mages have also been preparing their forces; a wildfire is going to sweep across the nation.”

Shayde nodded.  Despite appearances and battling lords and wizards, there was a great deal of trade between communities, normally through the guilds and the peasants who traded amongst themselves in defiance of all law.  The Council, under Akron, had been unwilling to prevent the illegal trading; it allowed them to maintain a higher level of manpower than had been otherwise possible, but at the same time kept everyone divided.

He scowled.  When the war was won, he planned to establish a college of magic; one that would allow the newcomer wizards and mages to share their spells – just incidentally keeping him on top, for he would have learned from their errors.  Magic stayed at the same basic level because magic, unlike clockwork, kept killing those who pushed themselves too far.

Yes, we could learn a lot from the clockwork guild, he thought, and nodded to himself.

“It will teach many princes a lesson,” Shan said.  “You should be forging alliances across the neck of the land, just to provide an impenetrable barrier.”

“And exactly how are they going to escape you?”  Valastar asked Shayde dryly.  “Even if they did, there would be plenty of warning; the most direct route leads right through the territory of a Power.”

“Several Powers,” Shayde commented.  “Shan?”

Shan looked at him for a long moment.  “My troops are ready,” he said.  “We have to move soon, however; sooner or later we’re going to start doing real damage to the peasant economy, which will cripple our ability to provide food and fodder for the men.”

Shayde shrugged.  “Peasants are there to work for us,” he said.  “My troops are also ready, along with the” – he smiled – “weapons of mass destruction.”

“Weapons of mass destruction?”  Valastar asked.  “Where did they come from?”

Shayde mentally cursed his error.  He’d picked the concept up from Christina’s mind; weapons so powerful and dangerous that even she quailed at the thought.  It was one of the problems with Thrall spells; some ideas from one mind slipped into the other.

“From dealing with the Power of Oxford and some other ideas of mine,” Shayde said, without going into details.  He didn’t want to discuss them; it would only upset them.  “I propose that we move in a week, which will give us time to isolate Akron, and then we can crush him.”

“Ah, diplomacy,” Shan said, as if savouring a fine wine.  “And the fatty?”

“Grand Mage Gorgre,” Shayde said.  “We can take him at any time we want, and then march on London in triumph.”

“Triumph,” Shan said.  “I think that we should overwhelm Grand Mage Gorgre as soon as Akron falls.”

Valastar frowned.  It made her look surprisingly pretty – and deadly.  Almost like a spider, Shayde thought, and smiled at the thought.  “Will he not surrender as soon as Akron is killed?”  She asked.  “The last thing we need are new challengers to Akron’s position and challengers to his position as well.”

“I think we have no choice in the matter,” Shayde said.  In the rare circumstances when a Grand Mage died naturally, the Power of London – and the Council of Wizardry – would appoint one of the mage’s to the rank.  That mage would then be challenged by any number of other mages who thought that they should have the rank.

Valastar leered.  “Could we not influence the choice of the next Grand Mage?”  She asked.  “We would be the Grand Mages…”

“No,” Shan said.  “It has always been through challenges; how else could the most powerful rise to the highest positions?”

Shayde thought rapidly.  Could they do such a thing?  “I think that that should wait until we have the war won,” he said.  It was an interesting thought; one that he would give some thought to, but defying a Power would be dangerous.  He thought of some of the bargains he’d made and shuddered.  

“So, a week,” Shan said.  “Do you have permission to cross the little lands between your territory and Akron’s lands?”

Shayde snorted.  “Does it matter?”  He asked.  “They will stay out of the way, or they can join me.  It hardly matters.  I have the tools to make their opinion irrelevant.”  

Valastar smiled.  “Good,” she said.  “Do you wish me to send some troops via sea?”

“I would have thought that that would be a risk,” Shan said.  “The brass walls and all that, you know.”

Valastar’s eyes flashed fire, literally.  “I am willing to commit myself to help you,” she said sharply.  “Do you not wish me on your side?”

Shayde held up a comforting hand.  “You may need them if Grand Mage Ixa’em declares for Akron,” he said.  He made a face.  “Damn it; why could he not have chosen a side right at the beginning?”

“He wanted to see who would come out on top,” Shan said dryly.  “I never liked him, so we can deal with him later.  For the moment, I’ll set events in motion.”

Shayde nodded.  “Be seeing you,” he said.  “We’ll shake hands in Akron’s castle this time next week.”

Shan seemed about to say something, but changed his mind.  “Be seeing you,” he said, and his image vanished from the basin.

Shayde checked to make certain that he wasn’t still listening, and then smiled at Valastar.  “I think that we will have to do something about him,” he said.  “He’s too much of an old man to do what needs to be done.”

Valastar smiled.  “They’re all too scared of change,” she said.  “We’ll talk more on this later.”

Shayde nodded to himself as her image vanished from the basin.  He waved a hand over the basin, cancelling all of the spells that had been crawling over the basin, and poured the water into the sink, just in case.  He carefully rescued a spider that had fallen into the sink, sensing the hive’s cries of distress and responding to them, before drawing himself up and stalking out of the room.  There was work to be done.

***
When Shayde had been much younger, he’d heard a story of a village wizard who hadn’t been quite right in the head.  The women of the village had been very uppity – even defying their husbands from time to time – and he’d responded to their complaints by designing a spell that made them responsive to beatings, eventually coming to desire the beatings.  By the time the wizard had had the life let out of him by an outraged husband, he had created a legend…one that had inspired Shayde’s own researches.

Thrall spells were very dangerous.  There were times – as had happened when dealing with Christina – that concepts bled over from victim to victimiser.  The stronger a mind was, the harder it was to place them in Thrall, and the more likely it was that the victim would break free.  Shayde’s own variant on the spell – it wasn’t one of the spells that were traded freely – worked along the same lines as the possibly-legendary wizard’s; it encouraged good behaviour, defined as anything that pleased the spell caster.

Christina stood in Shayde’s laboratory, looking as if she was still in Thrall.  Shayde took no chances and checked the spells carefully, ensuring that they did indeed reach to the heart of her mind and soul.  His former teacher had shown him, once, a person who had Thrall spells cast on his body, but none on his mind.  It had been intended as a punishment, but it was recklessly dangerous; when the spells had broken the victim hadn’t needed any time to decide what to do at all.

“Splendid,” he said finally, having concluded that she was still under his control.  “Now…what is this?  How does it work?”

He picked up one of their weapons, a long dark object, made of a metal he couldn’t identify, and held it under her nose.  It spelt slightly, of oil and of something else he couldn’t identify; there was no magical charge as far as he could tell.  It was odd; the weapon was clearly a magical tool, but it had no magical charge.

“It is a gun,” Christina said.  Her voice was flat and emotionless.  “It fires bullets at people and kills them.”

Shayde blinked.  “What is a bullet?”  He asked.  “How do they kill people?”

“They’re metal items that fly through a body at very high speed,” Christina said.  “Some of them explode in a body, others tear it to shreds.”

Shayde was half-pleased, half-worried.  Pleased because the spells to encourage cooperation were clearly working; worried because he was starting to realise that he didn’t even know how to form the right questions to ask her.  He considered trying to pull more concepts out of her mind, and then realised that that would be dangerous with her under Thrall.  

“What spells are used to fire a gun?”  He asked.  “How do you make the bullets fly?”

“No spells,” she said, and said nothing else.  Shayde glared at her; the question wasn’t specific enough.  “No spells at all.”

“I do not understand,” Shayde snapped, allowing his anger to show.  “How are the bullets launched?”

“They are propelled by a chemical reaction,” Christina said.  Shayde blinked; chemists were not well regarded in his world.  What could they do that magic couldn’t do a hundred times better?  “The expanding chemical reaction forces the bullets out of the gun.”

Shayde felt his blood run cold.  What would that do to their society?  “What did that do to your society?”  He asked.  “What did these guns do to you?”

“Made us all equal, ended the world of knights and castles and kings, and opened the door for more mass slaughter than ever before,” Christina said.  “They changed the world; suddenly strength mattered nothing compared to the guns, which anyone could use.”

Shayde thought of how long it had taken to train the archers and of how quickly they had been slaughtered by the guns.  The thought was appalling and somehow arousing at the same time; what could his forces not do, armed with such weapons?  How were they made?  How quickly?  If he built up a stockpile, and then attacked Shan with the weapons…

He asked.  “How do you make a gun?”  He asked.  “What do you need?”

“Gunpowder,” Christina said.  Her voice twitched, a sure sign of resistance.  Shayde strengthened the spells and asked again.  “You need gunpowder,” she said.  “You need enough to make a gun fire.”

“That’s useful,” Shayde sneered, remembering how quickly he had mastered the early stages of magic.  “How do you make gunpowder?”

“I don’t know,” Christina said.  He slapped her, hard.  “I don’t know,” she protested.  Her Thrall was demanding the impossible.  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

Shayde scowled.  She wasn’t reacting normally to the spells and that was odd.  “Does anyone on your team know?”  He asked.  “Jack?”

“Jack,” Christina said.  Her mind was on the verge of bursting; Shayde quickly de-powered most of the spells, just to prevent her brain from collapsing.  “Jack knows.”

Shayde smiled.  “Rest,” he said, leading her over to the small cot in the lab.  “Stay here and sleep.”  She collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep.  Shayde cast a spell to make sure that she would stay that way, before leaving the room and calling for Brant.  “Bring that Jack to my quarters,” he said.  “I want to discuss some matters with him.”

Chapter Thirteen: Secrets, Lies and Politics (II)

Captain Jack Drache tested the door on the cell and scowled.  His body hurt; when the spell – whatever it had been – had worn off, he'd fallen over, crashing into the ground.  He knew that he'd been very lucky not to break anything; the fall had been utterly unexpected.  One moment he’d been frozen, unable to move or even to breathe, the next he’d been falling, too quickly to react in time.

He whistled mournfully, cursing the decision not to flee Griffin at once.  He couldn’t help himself; his mind insisted on going over what might have been, time and time again.  Since they’d been frozen, he’d seen the death of one of Shayde’s guards, punished with a ruthlessness he’d never seen before, even from a Jihadi.  The worst was knowing that the entire team was locked up in the cell and that there was no way out.

He examined the lock again, cursing.  The lock was primitive; he’d been trained to move through far more complicated locks in seconds, but the creature on the other side of the prevented him.  A vaguely humanoid form composed entirely of fire; it swirled backwards and forwards outside the cell, glaring at them.

“I think that that’s a magical construction,” Martin said.  The computer expert had been thinking to himself ever since the spell had broken, leaving them in the same cell.  He could see the cell with the girls opposite their cell; the fire-monster seemed to move between doors, intimidating them with its sheer presence.  Unarmed, wearing only their clothes without any weapons at all, how could they deal with it?

“Wow,” Jack said sharply.  “I don’t suppose that you have a way out of here?”

“No,” Martin said grimly.  He lowered his voice.  “What about the girls and…”

Jack shrugged.  He’d expected the guards, from the remarks they’d made while transporting them into the castle, to have come swarming into the female cell, intent on forcing themselves into the girls.  He’d been half-hopeful; the last person to try to rape Angelina was still singing soprano, but it seemed that Shayde’s treatment of the groper had convinced the guards that the women were to be left alone.

Pity, he thought.  If the guards came in, they might have been able to see how the fire-monster knew to avoid them.  Was it smart enough to recognise them, or was it dependent upon some clue that the guards carried?

He paced away from the door, tapping at the walls hopefully.  They were solid stone, composed like a very primitive wall – which he supposed that it was, after all.  The walls weren’t smooth or neat; the builders had been very slapdash, as if they hadn’t been paid enough to care about the entire building.

“Water,” Martin said thoughtfully.  He pointed a hand at his groin.  “We pass water, do we not?”

Jack had to smile.  “And what are we going to store it in?”  He asked.  It wasn’t a bad idea, but as he looked up at the fire-monster, he suspected that it wouldn’t be enough to have any real effect.  “They didn’t even give us a chamber pot.”

Martin smiled.  “I suppose that we could urinate directly on it,” he said doubtfully.

Jack had to laugh.  “After you,” he said.  “Loke?  Any thoughts?”

“None,” Loke said.  The short officer was lying on the ground, trying to think.  “I don’t suppose they left you with anything useful?”

“We could get out with ease,” Jack said.  “All we have to do is get past…that.”

The fire-monster chose that moment to push up against the door, hissing and crackling at him.  Martin spat with unerring accuracy, hitting the fire-monster directly, but the creature showed no reaction.  It emitted a howl, but nothing else, not even an attempt to get at its tormentor.  

“There was a story in a comic annual about fire monsters from a volcano once,” Martin said absently.  

Jack felt his temper flare.  “And does it have any useful ideas about how to get rid of them?”  He demanded.  “Anything?”

“Nothing useful here,” Martin admitted.  “They trapped them behind a wall of water.”

“Then shut up,” Jack snapped, trying to think.  Could they get through the wall somehow?  It didn’t seem possible, but he resumed the inspection anyway; a loose stone would be helpful, if they could find one.

“Cave,” Martin said sharply, as the outside doors opened.  The fire-monster lunged forward, towards three guards, and sniffed them.  The guards cowered back, but the fire-monster retreated, heading back towards the corner of the room.  The guards leered towards the girls, but ignored them otherwise, stamping over towards the male cell.

“Jack will come with us,” the leader said, as he opened the cell door.  “You will come forth at once.”

“Oh, I will, will I?”  Jack asked dryly.  “Why don’t you come and take me?”

The guards came forward, crowding into the cell, and Jack struck out at the leader, striking him directly in the throat.  Loke kicked the second guard and the nuts and the three staggered away from Martin…and the fire-monster lunged forward, into the cell.  The wave of overpowering heat scorched Jack, even as the guards recovered and grabbed him, dragging him out.  The fire-monster loomed down over Loke, and then followed the guards and Jack out of the cell.

“We’ll have you back here soon,” the guard said, and he laughed unpleasantly.  “Don’t you fret…you’ll be back soon.”

“You go,” Angelina shouted at them.  “Come in here if you think you’re hard enough.”

The guards ignored her; perhaps they didn’t understand her at all.  They locked the cell again, before dragging Jack out of the main door and attaching chains to his hands and feet.  Hobbled, all he could do was walk in short steps, heading towards…what?  His execution?

***
Martin watched grimly as Jack was hauled out of the door, his mind racing.  Something was ringing a bell somewhere in his mind, something important; something he was missing.  He paced backwards and forwards, wondering why Loke stayed so calm; something was right in front of him…and he couldn’t see it.

He glared down at his hands…and then it hit him.  They weren’t burnt!  The fire-monster should have burnt him – and he hadn’t.  The creature was intimidating the girls and he took a moment to examine the cell door; there were no signs of burnt wood, or anything.

“Loke,” he snapped, shaking the man.  Loke had been trying to sleep, even though Martin couldn’t understand how he could under the circumstances.  “This is important!”

“It had better be,” Loke said.  “What?”

“I’m not burnt,” Martin whispered.  Loke stared at him, flickering anger in his eyes, and then he understood.  “That…thing didn’t burn me!”

“It should have done,” Loke whispered back, without malice.  “It should have burnt me as well.”

Martin grinned.  “It’s magic,” he said.  “That’s what we’re dealing with here, you know; that thing is a magical construct.”

“I see,” Loke said.  “Or at least I think I understand.  So what?”

“We can get out of here,” Martin said.  He grinned openly.  “If its illusion, it can be challenged and defeated.”

“And where is Harry Potter to help us when we need him?”  Loke asked.  “How do you plan to test the theory?”

Martin frowned.  “Once Jack gets back, we can break out,” he said.  He knew he was right; his confidence refused to break.  “It’s quite simple; we go through the lock, and then we can escape!”

“Unless we get frozen again,” Loke pointed out.  “What about that, eh?”

Martin refused to be deflated.  “We can deal with that when we come to it,” he said.  “Once Jack comes back, then at least we can try to escape.  I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of these walls.”

***
Jack had been through an Escape and Evasion course during his Green Beret career, and the Thande Institute had put them all through a second, much more through course.  Both courses had been designed – according to popular belief – by sadists, but they had been very similar; the Thande Institute, which had been forced to face the fact that its personnel might have to escape alternate timelines, had insisted on learning as much as possible about the new timeline.

Jack concentrated as he hopped forward in his chains.  They had clearly been somewhere within the castles bowels, part of the lower regions of the castle, perched on its impossible mountain.  It wasn’t quite as bad as the letter ‘T’ – there was more support than that – but Jack hadn’t been able to understand how it still stood.  The answer, in hindsight, was clear; magic.

As they climbed up long stairs – clearly the magic didn’t stretch to lifts – the surroundings became more and more luxurious.  People, some clearly farmers delivering produce, others clearly bureaucrats.  He smiled at the irony; they were trapped in a world where magic provided power for magicians, but bureaucrats were clearly still required.  Absently, he wondered what the well-dressed bureaucrats did for Shayde; what could they do?  Did Shayde have an IRS?  A formal army, past the mass of conscripted troops?

I wish I knew where Christina was, he thought, trying to recall all of the problems that medieval states had faced when mobilising troops.  Not unlike the modern-day army, they suffered from armies being useless – except in times of war.  Modern states like America or Britain could afford to keep an army even during peacetime – which did a lot to ensure that peacetime remained peaceful – but for a medieval state it would be difficult.

With castles and knights…to say nothing of magic, he won’t need a large army, he thought, and wondered exactly what was going on in the wider world.  Was there a war on or something?  A medieval state would have difficultly fighting a total war; they had too little manpower for everything that would be needed, just for bare survival.

They passed through two massive doors, covered in gold, and entered a long corridor.  It was very much like Buckingham Palace, which he’d visited once; the corridors seemed very fine, without any trace of war.  As soon as the doors closed, the hubbub of the castle vanished; the air was suddenly a-tingle with magic.  He felt his hair stand on end as the guards led him towards a second set of doors, which opened on their own.

He was pulled into the room and he almost smiled.  The scene was deliberately cliché; a high-backed chair was facing away from him, its occupant staring out towards a window.  One of the rifles lay on a table, half-opened; it looked as if someone had taken a cutting laser to the weapon, slicing it open to see how it worked.  Jack frowned; someone with a grounding in mechanics might have been able to work it out, but could someone from this strange new world?

The guards shoved him down onto a sofa.  “We have brought him to you,” the leader said redundantly.  They’d made enough noise with the chains to wake the dead, which might just be possible in the new world.  “What do you wish for us to do with him?”

The chair rotated.  The man sitting in the chair wasn’t a surprise; Jack had expected it from the moment he’d been dragged into the room.  Grand Mage Shayde himself.

“Leave us,” Shayde said.  “We have much to discuss.”

***
Up close, Shayde was handsome, in a sinister kind of way.  He reminded Jack of a portrait he’d once seen of a magician called Jonathon Strange; with dark hair instead of red, but with the same build of face.  All he needed was a top hat and a cane and Shayde would have been a darker version of the actor who had played Strange.  His fingers were strange, almost spidery; long and very thin, almost like a violin player’s fingers.  

His fingers were steepled in front of him, giving him a meditative pose; one that seemed oddly unsuited to his body and face.  He looked as if he were playing chess, rather than making decisions for an entire nation; he didn’t seem to be taking anything seriously.  He looked around twenty-five, hardly older than Jack himself.  He was clean-shaven, but he acted as if he had a beard; it seemed somehow there.

Jack took one long look and knew that they weren’t going to get on.

“Do we?”  He asked carefully, as soon as the doors shut.  “Holding us prisoner could be considered an act of war.”

Shayde laughed at him.  “You’re trapped here,” he said.  “Your people have no way of reaching us, even with your…remarkable weapons.”  He smiled.  “And even so, what do you call killing four of my people?”

Jack scowled.  “Two of them were trying to rape an innocent girl,” he said.  “Does that matter to you?”

“No one cares about such matters,” Shayde said, dismissively.  “A peasant’s virginity means nothing to one of the high-born, or one who rises to power.  I have Christina; one of your people.”

Jack felt a hot flash of anger.  “What have you done to her?”  He demanded.  “Where is she?”

“Nothing I cannot undo,” Shayde said.  “I have placed her in Thrall to me.  She lives to please me, loyal only to me, serves me until death.”

Jack blinked.  “If you could do that,” he said, “then why are you so worried about the peasants revolting?”

Shayde lifted a single eyebrow.  “I could use a spell to lift a village high in the air and drop it from a great height,” he said.  “I could also use a spell to create a firestorm that would destroy the village utterly.  Which one would you use, if you had to do such a thing?”

Jack understood.  “The spell that cost the least effort,” he said.

“Correct,” Shayde said.  He smiled darkly.  “I tell you this, of course, because you couldn’t hope to use it against me.  Your weapons, as you might have noticed, were useless against me.  You are useless against me.”

Jack thought cold clear thoughts.  If that were true, then why bother with the chains?  Perhaps Shayde was vulnerable to him in some way as yet undiscovered.  He didn’t say that aloud; perhaps he was right and something could be done.  We don’t think like them, he reminded himself, and waited.

“These weapons are not based on magic, according to Christina,” Shayde said.  “They seem to use something called science instead.  It’s really quite clever, don’t you think?  A single man, untrained and uneducated, can use them against their elders and betters.”

Jack inclined his head, not trusting himself to speak.  “They would be very helpful to me,” Shayde said.  “At the same time, they cause an imbalance in the power relations between myself and my fellow wizards; with these, a wizard could cut down a Grand Mage, assuming that they were lucky.”

Shayde held Jack’s eyes.  The effect was almost hypnotic.  “An army armed with these weapons could cut their way through any army that didn’t have any magical support,” Shayde said.  His words seemed to be weaving a spell on their own.  “Is that not true?”

“Weapons cut through the Zulus and the…”

Jack caught himself as a sudden burst of understanding rang through his system.  He’d so nearly been hypnotised into telling everything he knew.  “No,” he said, his tone darkening with anger.  “It won’t be that easy.”

“No?”  Shayde asked.  “Join me.”  His voice became soft, warm, and friendly.  “Your people are going to be hunted from one end of the world to the other, right up to the brass walls; perhaps even past them.  If you join me and help me to establish my empire, I will keep you safe.  I can reward good service, in many ways.”

Jack wasn’t even tempted.  “I swore an oath to the United States of America,” he said.  “That’s an oath I cannot break.”

“You have no way of returning to your world,” Shayde said dryly.  “Your oath means nothing.”

“I won’t serve you,” Jack said.  He’d had enough of everything.  “I won’t help you to enslave more people.”

Shayde’s eyes flashed fire and he clenched his fist.  Jack screamed as ice and fire burned through his brain, worming away at his resolve and hammering at his soul, but he resisted.  He muttered a prayer under his breath; it seemed to have some effect.  Shayde’s force bore down on him, trying to warp him…and then receded.

“Something stronger is needed,” Shayde said, waving a hand casually.  Jack’s body froze in place.  Shayde stood up and walked over to Jack, looking down at him coldly.  Their eyes met…and Shayde was inside Jack’s mind.  The violation was so shocking that Jack felt his anger burst.  As Shayde’s mind clawed away at Jack’s knowledge, Jack tried to fight back, using his mind as a weapon.

No, one of them thought, or perhaps both of them had thought it in the maelstrom of their thoughts.  Jack sensed Shayde’s astonishment at the resistance, even as he drew on everything he’d been taught on resisting interrogation.  He threw his memories in Shayde’s face, showing him Panzers smashing their way through Washington, and saw in return spiders crawling over an entire village, thousands of the little beasts, eating their way through those who had tormented him…

You did that, he thought, or Shayde thought.  A flash of pure power lanced through them, blowing them apart; Shayde was blown across the room by his own magic, whimpering in pain.  Jack was whimpering too; unable to think coherently.  His mind hurt; it had never been abused like that before.  He opened his eyes and wished he hadn’t; the light hurt, as if his head had been slapped several times…

“That was remarkable,” Shayde said, holding his head.  Jack realised with sudden dismay that Shayde would have thought mental battles before, even if not quite on the same level.  A thought, one of Shayde’s, surfaced in his mind; Jack had been the most effective opponent Shayde had ever faced on the mental plane.  The thought gave him strength to pull himself back together.

“You are too dangerous to keep around,” Shayde said.  “The guards will take you back to the cells for a last meeting with your friends, and then we will have to kill you…unless you join me now.”

Jack searched for words in the wreck of his mind and found them.  “Go to hell,” he said, as the guards picked him up.  “We will never join you.”

Chapter Fourteen: Rescue Mission

Although it was more than a little vain, Akron loved his long white beard, which he had once endowed with the power to move on its own.  That spell had had to be cancelled after a while – it had started to get on his nerves – but he still loved his beard.  Cutting it off had been a real sacrifice, even if he looked twenty years younger.

I may be a man of eighty, but I have the strength of a man of a hundred and seven, he thought, as the line of caravans slowly made their way up towards Shayde’s fortress.  The problem had been simple; there was no way that he could cast a glamour or a seeming around himself, because Shayde’s wards would catch him at it.  He had to counter the wards anyway, but they would certainly sound the alarm if they saw the glamour – which might have alerted Shayde.  Glamour spells were not the exclusive property of the Grand Mages, but with the war on, Shayde might not be willing to take chances.

At the very least, he’ll start investigating any magic-user who enters his domains, Akron thought, wishing that someone – anyone – had invented a proper teleportation spell.  No one had; teleportation required hours of preparation, even for a Grand Mage.  It would take far too long to prepare the spell here, even with a certain destination in mind; his people in his own lands would have to drop the wards long enough to allow them to teleport through.

Now, that would be stupid, he thought.  Dying by crashing against my own wards.

“Here it comes,” the Wizard Dominos said.  He took a breath, pressing against Jill, who moved back from his touch.  Akron frowned; he’d given Dominos very precise instructions, but few wizards liked the thought of trusting another’s efforts, even a Grand Mage’s work.  “I…”

Akron closed his eyes, seeing the ward with his mind’s eye as the horses pulled the carriage closer to the ward.  He was almost disappointed; it was a simple ward, designed merely to warn of guests and to transmit some details about them to whoever was watching the ward.  It was simplicity itself to create a magical field around them, lying to the ward…

…Which almost killed them as he saw the second ward, hidden in the shadow of the first ward, scanning on a more through list of items.  He nearly panicked, knowing that Dominos might panic, knowing that if he did there would be no hiding their presence.  He reacted with all the speed of a Grand Mage, trusting to luck, and sighed in relief as the ward bugled around him and Dominos, registering their presence, but nothing else.

He sighed in relief as he stretched out his senses, looking for any more surprises.  The path to the castle, up a long steep road with a sheer drop on either side, was crawling with defensive spells, many of which wouldn’t have caused him any trouble.  Now that he knew to look, he could see more, hidden beneath the first and capable of hurting even him.

“Shayde doesn’t take anything for granted, does he?”  He muttered, feeling how the wards interacted with the magic in the castle itself.  There was interference where the wards crashed into the magic, but Shayde had carefully built in redundancy and tripwires, just to keep unwelcome guests out.  

“The carriages have to go into that courtyard, noble lords,” Jill said.  Akron nodded to the Knight Errant; he’d given the Knight Errant strict instructions to leave Jill alone.  Not just because his apprentice seemed interested in her, but also because Jill had feelings for Jack.  “The Castellan will meet you there.”

The Knight Errant cracked the whip as Sigmund poked his head out of the coach.  The hawk said nothing; Akron had warned him to keep quiet.  Shayde was supposed to have hawks as well, perhaps even ones related to Sigmund.  Sebastian, who had been observing the castle since daybreak, had reported that Shayde hadn’t taken the newcomers out of the castle.

They’re in there, Akron thought, and winced.  The castle was Shayde’s place of power; even the problems caused by taking over his predecessor’s castle wouldn’t change that.  Even as the coaches entered the courtyard, he felt more defences, magical spells created, but held in reserve, ready to strike on Shayde’s command.

“Ho, merchants, stop there,” an imperious voice demanded.  Akron looked over at the speaker; a very tall, very thin man with a long thin noise, down which he peered at the merchants.  There were no signs of magical control; the man must have served Shayde willingly.  “You – peasant – who are they?”

Akron sensed Jill’s concern, but she answered well, well enough to impress him.  “They are the merchants from the Regan group,” she said.  Akron, who’d taken the precaution of using a different name at each stop, could only hope that Shayde didn’t keep that close a watch on his territory.  “They have goods for the master.”

She was almost grovelling.  The Castellan didn’t seem impressed.  A commoner had no friends within a lord’s palace; it might not have been safe to bring Jill here.  A merchant had some protection – no lord, not even a Grand Mage, would care to be blackballed by the merchants – but Jill was property, as far as Shayde’s Castellan would care.

“Oh, really?”  The Castellan asked.  “Merchant Regan; what do you have?”

Akron studied the long thin nose and had to force down the desire to pinch it.  The Castellan’s eyes were almost rodent-like; had Shayde managed to imbrue a rodent, a weasel perhaps, with human-like intelligence?  It wasn’t a question that he could answer, short of spells that would be all too revealing, and so he put it aside.

“I have goods from Oxford and Gloucester,” he said.  The second one was the important one; Gloucester was the centre of his own power, one of the larger towns in Britannia.  With all the panic over the Council breaking apart, and the war about to break out, trade between Gloucester and Cambridge had almost collapsed.

The Castellan looked down at him.  Akron could almost see the wheels going around in his head; Gloucester was known for items that would be useful for the war effort, to say nothing of some of the curious spices that were grown nearby in magical greenhouses.  If he took them to Shayde, he would receive little credit, but if he dealt with Akron personally, Shayde would have to credit him…

“Unfortunately, the master is rather busy,” he said, in a tone somewhere between a sneer and a disdainful sniff.  Akron lifted one eyebrow; if the Castellan had known who he was talking to, he would have been grovelling in the dirt.  “Perhaps I would be prepared to deal with you.”  He paused significantly.  “Your cargo would have to be valued first, however…”

Akron frowned.  “We really have to move quickly,” he said, showing just the right amount of reluctance.  “The roads are hardly safe these days, you know; there have been more and more bandits around the Larkin Marshes, and I hardly want to pass through Rayon.”

The Castellan inclined his head.  Rayon was home to one of the nastier Powers, an entity that dominated only ten square miles, but made up for that with a very nasty attitude to travellers.  Unlike most of the Powers, the Power of Rayon didn’t tolerate humans at all; humans who entered Rayon rarely came out in the same form, if they came out at all.

“You may stay the night here,” the Castellan said.  “That will allow for a proper valuing of your goods, would it not?”

Akron smiled.  He couldn’t care less about the goods.  “That would be suitable,” he said finally, after a moment of thought.  “And the food and drink?”

The Castellan hesitated.  Again, Akron knew what he was thinking; feeding the strangers would be on his head.  Shayde might not be happy; twenty-seven men and Jill would eat a lot of provender.  At the same time, it would be churlish to make them pay for the food, even in trade goods.

“It will be provided free of charge,” the Castellan said finally.  He turned to lead them into a large stable for the horses.  “I must warn you that you are only permitted access to this floor,” he continued.  “If you are discovered on any other floor, the master will punish you.”

There was a hint of sadism in his voice as he pointed a finger at a fountain.  Akron’s eyes followed the shape of the fountain, finally recognising the promising young man who had been transfigured and placed in the middle of the courtyard.  He had set off to challenge Shayde…and Shayde had made a fountain out of him.

“Very impressive,” Akron said, concealing his feelings.  Shayde should have killed him, not left him in permanent living death.  Akron cared nothing for those foolish enough to challenge – and then lose – but they were supposed to be killed, not transformed.  “When do you wish to begin the valuing progress?”

He had expected the Castellan to insist on a delay and he wasn’t disappointed.  It wouldn’t do for the Castellan to suggest that they were somehow important, after all.  Having agreed to give them food and lodging for the night, the Castellan would have to reassert his superiority before bargaining.

“Perhaps in a couple of hours,” he said, calling for a set of maids.  “Your men can remain in the stables; you yourself will have good quarters.”

Akron bowed to the Castellan as the maids arrived.  They were in Thrall, he realised; not too complex spells, but ones that had been applied from their teenage years until they would be almost past rescue.  They wore outfits that would come off in a hurry, something that said a lot about Shayde’s own youth; Akron liked to think that he was more practical when it came to outfitting his people.

“Follow me,” the lead maid said.  Her skirt was so short that he could almost make out her pubic hair.  “Your rooms are right this way.”

Akron beckoned for Jill, the Knight Errant and Dominos to follow him, leaving the soldiers in the stable.  He wasn’t surprised that they weren’t being granted access to the castle proper; it would hardly do for Shayde to invite potential enemies inside his fortress.  The merchants would be treated like royalty; the common soldiers would have the leavings and be grateful for it.

Somewhat to his surprise, the maids showed them to a set of rooms large enough to hold all of them, perhaps assuming that they would be prepared to stay in the same room.  Akron was delighted, even declining the maid’s offer of her spending some time in the room.  He held up a hand for silence as soon as the maid left, taking the precaution of checking the room for spying spells.

“Just one,” he muttered, after carefully jamming it.  It was, he was privately certain, not one of Shayde’s spells; it was too slapdash for Shayde’s work.  It was considerably more likely that it came from one of Shayde’s apprentices.  “We can talk now.”

“We should have kept that maid,” the Knight Errant said wryly.  “Think of what she could tell us.”

Akron recognised it as a joke to relieve tension and shook his head in amusement.  “We have more to do,” he said sharply.  “Don’t leave this floor,” he said.  “I can feel the wards from here, powerful ones.”

Dominos nodded slowly.  “Is that what I can feel?”  He asked.  “Those are wards?”

“Yes,” Akron said.  “Do not try to breach them.”  He thought for a moment.  “Go get some sleep,” he said.  “I have some work to do.”

***
The Castellan had presumably intended for them to wait and wait until they had become properly subdued.  Akron didn’t care; all that mattered was that he would have time to work on Shayde’s defences, learning as much as he could from the inside.

Now, what happened there?  He asked himself, as soon as he opened his inner eye.  Something had clearly happened; up towards Shayde’s own tower, and it had damaged the wards.  They were still in place, but weakened, affected more by the castle’s own magic than normal.  What was odder was that Shayde hadn’t repaired the ward; any magician knew enough to repair wards as once.  You never knew what might take the opportunity to sneak in while the wards were weak.

He smiled at the irony, and then flinched away as his mind touched…something.  A thousand tiny…things seemed to be moving everywhere, and then he realised that there were thousands more, hundreds of thousands…  His mind reeled back to his own body, stunned by the experience.

“Are you alright?”  The Knight Errant asked.  Akron opened his eyes to see the Knight Errant bending over him, his old face concerned.  “Old friend…”

Akron had cautioned them not to use their real names, not here.  “There was something here, in the fortress,” he said.  “I touched a mind from somewhere, old friend; a mind in many bodies.”

The Knight Errant frowned.  “Him?”  He asked, jerking a finger towards the ceiling.  “Did he sense you?”

Akron pulled himself to his feet, taking a glass of water from the sideboard.  Preservation spells crawled over it, keeping it cool and clean; they didn’t even respond to his presence.  The water was fresh and cool; such a spell could be performed by anyone, even a village witch.

“I don’t think that it was him,” Akron said.  “It was something else.”  He closed his eyes again, feeling out the strange sensation.  “I’m not sure,” he admitted, after a long moment.  “It’s…just weird.”

He shook his head.  “I found them,” he said, after a long moment.  “They’re in the dungeons.”

The Knight Errant snorted.  “Surprise, surprise,” he said.  “Can we get them out?”

“Tonight,” Akron said.  He frowned.  “We’re going to have to fight our way out, old friend.”

The Knight Errant smiled.  “It’s been too long,” he said.  “How long was it since we took on that old Mage?”

Akron smiled.  It had been their first serious adventure; one that had propelled them towards the top of their respective career.  The old Mage had been tough, but unprepared for the new spells that Akron had invented and the Knight Errant’s skill at swordplay.  

There was a knock at the door.  A moment later, a maid came in, her bodice undone.  “Masters,” she said, with a bow that exposed everything to their eyes.  “The Castellan demands your urgent presence in the trading hall.”

“I think we will come at once,” Akron said.  He knew better than to discuss anything important in front of her; she would be part and parcel of the castle’s defences.  “Lead on…”

***
The Castellan had moved ahead of him, ordering his people to unload the coaches before summoning Akron.  Akron pasted an expression of helpless irritation on his face, just to stay in character; his excitement was high enough to make him jumpy.  The Castellan had wanted to check out what he might be buying ahead of time, just like any slightly dishonest Castellan.  Akron found that slightly reassuring; it proved that the Castellan was human.

“I trust that you have enjoyed the inspection,” he said, keeping his tone in character.  He had to express his annoyance – and his concern – without seeming too cheeky.  “Did you find what you wanted?”

The Castellan frowned.  “Exactly what are these?”  He asked, pointing to a small bag of roots.  “They do not seem to be worth even a single bronze piece.”

Akron followed his gaze.  “They are Preston Roots,” he said, launching into a long spiel about the roots.  “They were bred by a wizard around a hundred years ago, one who wanted spicy food.  The breed quickly spread across the region before being contained by the insects, who felt that it was good to eat and…”

The Castellan interrupted him rudely.  “And are they?”  He demanded.  “Are they good to eat?  Will the master like them in stew?”

Akron bowed slightly, imagining Shayde’s reaction to someone overdoing the roots in a stew.  “They have to be used sparingly,” he said.  “A single root is enough to flavour enough stew for the entire castle.”

“Perhaps I will purchase a bag,” the Castellan said.  “Five bronze coins?”

“One silver,” Akron said.

“Seven bronze,” the Castellan said.  Akron made a show of pretending to consider, then nodded reluctantly.  “Make a note of that,” the Castellan ordered a scribe.  “Now” – he lifted a water pump, built by the Clockwork Guild – “what is this?”

Akron described the system in great detail.  “It’s worth one gold piece,” he said.  One problem with the Clockwork Guild’s products was that any halfway competent artisan could duplicate their work, so unlike magic and the wizards.  “The idea alone is worth that much.”

The Castellan considered, then nodded.  “The master will be pleased,” he said.  “Cambridge could be made even larger with such a system.  Now, I notice that you have some of the newer designs of clock.  Our own people from the Clockwork Guild also make them…are yours any better?”

Akron pasted the correct expression onto his face.  “Ours have a slight improvement,” he said.  “With a tiny charm, one powered through the magical field, they can remain exactly the same, no matter how far apart they are.  They will keep the exact same time, no matter what happens.”

Merchant Regan wouldn’t have known the theory, so Akron didn’t outline it.  “They would have many uses for you in the coming years.”

The Castellan narrowed his eyes.  “Why do you wish to sell them to us now?”  He asked.  Akron understood; he was in the strange position of committing treason against himself, or at least under other circumstances he would be.  “Quite frankly,” he said, lowering his voice to suggest a conspiracy, “there are some of us in the Merchant Guild, with the agreement of the Clockwork Guild, who would prefer to stay on the good side of all parties.”

The Castellan nodded and accepted the clocks at the price of three gold pieces per set.  Akron smiled as the bargaining continued; accepting the Castellan’s skill, for he’d already done what he intended to do.  Last night’s work had not been wasted.

“The master will wish to meet with you tomorrow,” the Castellan said finally.  “Until then, you will return to your rooms and remain there.”

Akron was only too happy to comply.  “Of course, my lord,” he said.  Flattering the Castellan might have benefits later down the hours.  “It will be done as you command.”

Chapter Fifteen: Breakout

Martin wished, not for the first time, that the guards had put the entire team in one cell.  They’d dumped Jack back in the cell without a word of explanation, not even bothering to identify the bowls of stew they’d given the team, before storming back out of the cell.  They needed Sumrita’s medical skills, but she wasn’t there; all he could do was follow her shouted instructions.

Jack had looked terrible, almost completely shocked out of his mind, when they’d dumped him back in the cell.  He’d slowly recovered, clutching his head, allowing Martin and Loke to work on their escape plan.  Before they could start asking Jack what he’d seen from his trip, Martin had glanced up – and seen the spiders hanging on the ceiling.

“They’re watching us,” he said, looking up at the closest spider.  When he closed his eyes, he could still see it; a tiny knot of something, far too close to him and linked to something else, something alien.  When he looked at the spider, he could see that it was deadly; it seemed to be larger than any spider he’d found in his Britain.

“That makes life difficult,” Jack said, trying to pull himself to his feet.  “They’re going to kill us.”

Martin had expected that, but it still came as a shock.  Jack’s ears seemed to be burning red, and then he saw that they were bleeding slightly.  “You’re bleeding,” he said in horror.  “What happened to you?”

Jack closed his eyes and clenched his teeth against the pain.  “He tried to take control of me,” he said.  “He’s got Christina, Martin; she can tell him how to use his weapons.”

Loke frowned and held up his fingers, shaping word with sign language.  “But he doesn’t know how to make black powder,” he signed.  “Does Christina?”

“Apparently not,” Jack said.  Martin could only hope that the spiders couldn’t understand sign language; Jack was in no state to try to sign to anyone.  A nasty thought had occurred to him.  “We have to get out of here.”

“Don’t discuss that,” Martin said, signing to Loke to say nothing.  He signed to Jack, taking a risk.  “We can get past the fire creature, I think.”

Jack nodded once, saying nothing.  Loke signed urgently.  “It’s not night yet,” he signed.  “Do we move at night or now?”

Martin smiled.  “When did I get elected leader?”  He signed.  “Night would be better, don’t you think?”

Loke nodded and tried to sign to Angelina.  She nodded once the message had been passed across; Martin winked at Sumrita, trying to reassure her.  “A shame we don’t have a pack of cards,” he said aloud.  “We could have spent a week here quite comfortably.”

Jack blinked at him in puzzlement, then understood.  “A chessboard,” he said.  “Noughts and crosses.”  His tone was dazed.  “Tic-tac-toe.”

Over the next few hours, they tried to concentrate, sharing information.  As Jack got better, they went over the details of Jack’s experience; the soldier had observed a great deal about the castle on his trip.  

“It must be the centre of this land,” Martin said.  “Shayde clearly has enemies; like any medieval lord, he must be concentrating on his own defence, and keeping all of his people subjected.”  He frowned.  “What would Doctor What do here?”

“Run the other way and get a porno movie on,” Loke said.  “What about Doctor Who?”

Jack snorted.  “Why not wish for Bugs Bunny while you’re at it?”  He asked.  “What’s the time?”

Loke frowned, feeling out his time sense.  “It’s around eleven o’clock,” he said.  He lifted an eyebrow and signed a single question.  “Now?”

Martin scowled up at the spiders, hanging inhumanly still on the ceiling.  “We should try to get rid of them,” he signed.  “I just don’t know how.”

Loke tapped his shoe meaningfully.  “Could just smash them all quickly,” he said.

Martin had a sudden vision of the spiders swarming down on Loke.  “No,” he said.  He nodded towards the lock.  “Now.”

Loke pulled himself to his feet and checked the lock.  It only required a few moments of manipulation to unlock the door, pulling it open.  Martin stepped forward; the fire-monster howled forwards towards him, glaring at him with its fiery eyes.  I hope I’m right about this, Martin thought, as the fire-monster reached him.

The heat became overpowering, but he stood his ground, staring into the monster’s eyes.  The fire-monster stopped, staring at him, and then it advanced forwards slowly, tentatively.  Martin stood his ground, and then stepped forward, into the heat; there was a long moment of struggle…and then the fire-monster exploded in a great gout of flame.

“Come on,” Martin hissed.  Loke and Jack moved quickly, even as Angelina opened her door; Sumrita raced out and give Martin a hug.  For a moment, he could think of nothing, but her; warm and safe in his arms.

“Come on,” Jack said, as the main doors opened.  Three guards poured in and the three soldiers tackled them.  There was a brief fight, and then they fell before them.  “Take their weapons,” Jack ordered.  “We have to find Christina.”

***
Shayde was lying beside Christina, half-asleep after testing some of the spells on her.  She knew things about sex that none of the women in his employ knew; tricks with her hand and mouth that had brought him to the peaks of excitement time and time again.  The sheer desperation in her eyes aroused him; few of the women in his world could resist, even if they had the nerve to try.

The spiders shrilled their alarm through his mind, using the direct connection to his mind to awaken him, and then something twisted out of existence within his castle.  He concentrated, studying the wards, looking to see what had gone…and then he realised that the fire-monster had been destroyed.  His prisoners were escaping, or trying to escape.

He drew on the spiders and saw through their eyes, what they considered important, including three suddenly unconscious and helpless guards.  The prisoners were running out the door, heading towards…where?  It didn’t take much effort to guess where they were heading; the only way out they knew was on the route that Jack had been taken, just before…his head hurt at the thought.  

“Captain,” he shouted, ignoring his nakedness.  He wanted to confront the prisoners himself, but he didn’t quite dare; his mind wasn’t up to its normal status.  Someone who could destroy a fire-monster had more power than he’d expected; if trained he would be formidable indeed.

Captain Brant appeared in the doorway, gaping at Shayde’s nakedness.  “Your Lordship,” he said.  “I…”

“The prisoners are escaping,” Shayde snapped, ignoring the Captain’s shock.  “You are to take all the guards you can to the courtyard and seal the place.  Those merchants are to stay in their rooms, not moving at all.  Understand?”

Brant bowed.  “I understand,” he said.  “What about the risk of them coming upstairs?”

Shayde glared at him, but contained his fury.  Brant was smart, just the kind of man he needed for the war.  “Leave that to me,” he said, trying to think.  Some of Jack’s memories filtered through his mind; Jack hadn’t liked Christina much, but he would feel a duty to her.  “Go, now!”

Brant ran, heading towards the stairs.  In the weaving corridors, he would probably have some trouble fighting a determined opponent, but it wouldn’t matter.  Shayde cast a sleeping spell on Christina, just to make sure that she stayed out of the way, and then cast an illusion spell on top of her.  

“Betty,” he snapped, calling one of his maids.  The girl had been more than willing to serve him, so he’d only spelled her with the simplest of loyalty spells.  She’d shared his bed for the longest of his maids, and he still slept with her from time to time.  “Come here, you stupid girl.”

Betty appeared, blinking sleep from her eyes.  “Come here,” Shayde snapped, casting a spell on her.  Betty changed before his eyes.  “Excellent,” he said.  “Now, go down to the courtyard and wait.”

Betty curtseyed and left.  Shayde watched her go, and then concentrated on the wards.  If used properly, they could be used to push the strangers towards the correct place, one where they could be recaptured.  It was then that all hell broke loose.  

***
Akron had been working on the wards, using the castle’s old magic to help him weaken them, when he felt the death of the fire-monster.  The strange alien mind, the strange creature he’d sensed, focused it’s attention towards the dungeons; Akron realised that he had a moment to act and acted.  Closing his eyes, he sent a single magical command to a hidden ward within his equipment, and waited.

“Come on,” he snapped, as the Knight Errant came to his feet.  Dominos and Jill awoke quickly, looking around them in fear.  “We have to get to the courtyard.”

A strange alien hiss echoed through his mind as the Castellan spoke to all of the guests through the magic in the castle.  Akron had to smile; doing that would only make the magical field more confused, which might be…unfortunate for Shayde.

“All guests are to remain in their rooms,” the Castellan said.  His voice had lost its superiority.  “The castle is under attack by bandits.  All guests are to remain in their room…”

The explosion shook the castle.  He’d taken a leaf from Shayde’s book when he’d seen the clocks for the first time, hiding a simple sabotage spell within the spell that linked the clocks together had been easy.  The power in the first spell had been placed in storage for the second spell.  The wards shimmered as they absorbed the blast – there wouldn’t have been much damage – but there would be a distraction.

Akron muttered a spell under his breath – there was no point in hiding now – and blasted a hole through the door.  By now, his soldiers would be trying to secure the courtyard, hopefully presenting Shayde with too many problems to handle.  By the time he worked out all of the wrinkles in the plan, Akron hoped to be heading away from the castle as fast as he could.

“Come on,” he snapped, as the Knight Errant cut down two guards, singing an old battle song under his breath.  “We have to get to the courtyard.”

***
The guards were practiced with their weapons and had the advantage of numbers.  Jack and his two formal warriors had discipline and a burning icy rage.  Shayde’s warriors died or fled from them as they ran, cutting their way through the soldiers with ease.  Jack had never felt so alive, hacking his way through a soldier who had tried to stop them, looking all the time for the way out.  

All of his pain had gone in the sheer delight of action again.  The corridors made it hard for the enemy to come at them in groups; the only thing he was worried about was archers – and magic of course.  The castle shook violently and he wondered; what had caused that?

“It’s too fucking easy,” Angelina said, as she decapitated one of the soldiers.  “There should be more than this…”

They broke through into a large ballroom, one capable of holding dozens of people.  It allowed space for the soldiers to move, but they seemed reluctant to actually fight, only doing what was necessary to look brave.  Jack had his suspicions that some of the dead bodies were anything, but dead, and he started to wonder if Angelina had had a point.  More guards ran in to face them and he steeled himself for the final battle, when…

“There’s the way out,” Martin shouted, as the main door fell inwards.  Jack stared; an older man was standing there, his body still spry and strong.  The soldiers couldn’t react in time as he lifted his hand and cast a spell, blasting a cloud of fire over the soldiers.  Unlike the fire-monster, the soldiers caught fire and died.  

Jack stared at their rescuer.  “Who the hell are you?”  He demanded.  “Why…”

“I am the Grand Mage Akron,” the man said.  He smiled, rather craftily.  “I think you’ve met my rival.”

“Shayde,” Jack said.  “Yes, you could say that we have.”

“We can’t talk now,” a new man snapped.  Jack stared at him; he was strong and powerful and had a long orange beard, one that made him look like Brian Blessed.  “It won’t be long until the master of this place comes for us…”

“This is the Knight Errant,” Akron said, performing the introductions with a sardonic twist of amusement.  “We have to move!”

“We have to rescue Christina,” Jack snapped.  “We can’t leave her here.”

“She’s not meant to be here,” Akron snapped back.  “We don’t have time…”

“Jack,” a new voice called.  Jack looked up to see Christina, on the top of the stairs, waving at him desperately.  He started to run up the stairs and was astonished when Akron grabbed onto his arm.

“You have to leave her,” Akron said.  Jack swung around to glare at the old man.  “You can’t take her with you, not now…”

Jack shook Akron off and ran up the stairs, knocking a guard down the stairs as he tried to step out of a hidden passage.  Christina smiled at him as he ran closer, and then her hand came out of hiding, carrying a knife.  Jack’s reflexes saved his life, he leapt aside, just in time to save his life.

“Christina, what are you…?”

Her face shimmered and he saw her for the first time; she wasn’t Christina.  He slashed out with his sword, decapitating her, and turned to face the new threat he sensed…when a bolt of magic picked him up and tossed him down towards the floor.  He fell faster and faster…and then landed on something bouncy.  He stared, there was nothing there to support him, and then he realised that Akron had saved his life.  He turned to thank the mage and saw that Akron was staring up at the man who had tried to kill him; Shayde himself.

Shayde seemed quite at ease.  “That wasn’t nice,” he said, with commendable understatement.  “Akron; in the heart of my power.”

Akron stared at Shayde with undisguised loathing.  “You have sparked off a war, one between the highest powers in the land, just for them?”  He demanded.  “Do you feel stupid now?”

Shayde gave him an icy look.  “This is not one of those minstrel songs,” he said.  “I do not have to gloat endlessly and reveal all of my plans, just because I have you helpless.”

Martin spoke quickly, trying to remain calm.  “No, you’re too smart for that to work,” he said.

“I’m not that stupid either,” Shayde said dryly.  “Akron; the war is over before it has even begun.  You are here; your fat friend cannot defend himself against three Grand Mages and their army.”  He crossed his arms, pasting a smug expression on his face.  “If you surrender now and allow me to drain your power, I will permit you to live.”

Akron laughed at him.  “As what?”  He asked dryly.  “A slave?  A prisoner?  Someone condemned to walk into the territory of a Power?”

Shayde actually managed to look sincere.  “I would give you my Wizard’s Oath,” he said.  “You could become one of the Clockwork Guild; I know it always fascinated you.  You could become a merchant in truth; my Castellan, who was killed by your little devices, was impressed.”

There was a long chilling pause.  Jack checked around; Akron had three people – and Jill – with him.  He himself had five people, two of whom weren’t natural fighters.  Shayde had himself and the horde of guards who were appearing at the edge of the room.  It was tactical disaster, at least according to the rules of their home universe.  Here…?

“I think you know me better than that,” Akron said dryly.  Jack sensed that the young man with Akron was relieved at the decision.  “Some of us still have a sense of duty.”

Shayde didn’t bother with any melodrama; he simply lifted a hand and sent a bolt of fire down towards Akron, who countered with his own burst of fire.  Jack clutched his sword as the guards advanced, before being waved back by Shayde.  He saw, in the crowd, the Captain who had captured him and met his eye for a long moment, before he vanished among his people.

There was a flash of light and Akron staggered backwards.  “Too old, old man,” Shayde taunted.  “A blood sacrifice is needed for power, old man; you will be that for me.”

Akron fought to stay upright as a dark mass formed on the floor, sweeping towards them.  “Spiders,” Martin gasped, and Jack stared; Spiders didn’t work in formation.  It wasn’t what they did.

“Fire,” Akron breathed, his voice just above a whisper.  The young man with him lifted a hand as Shayde laughed, sweeping a wave of fire across the spiders…and Shayde screamed in pain.  The Grand Mage was clutching his head and screaming, before falling back on the balcony.  The spiders were scuttling around, a monstrous mass attacking everyone, including the guards…

“Run,” the Knight Errant snapped.  Jack didn’t need to be told twice; he led the way towards the main doors, crashing headlong into the wards.  Akron snapped a word, one that sounded like breaking glass, and the wards vanished; Jill and Sumrita led the flight back towards the coaches.

“Get the men on the horses,” the Knight Errant snapped.  Jack nodded; the coaches were already in position.  There didn’t seem to be any choice, but to go with Akron’s people for now; what else could they do?

Angelina blinked at him.  “Jack?”

“I think we don’t have a choice,” Jack said.  “Get into the coaches.”

“I don’t mean that,” Angelina said, over Shayde’s agonised howls.  Jack was certain that as soon as Shayde got over his shock, he would be after them with all the power at his command.  “Our weapons; Christiana.  Shayde has them back there, Jack.”

Jack looked back at the castle.  Thousands of millions of spiders were swarming towards them.  Every spider in the world seemed to be there, marching towards them with the discipline of American Marines.  He had a brief mental impression of a single mind directing them, seeking revenge and punishment…and food.

“Into the coach now,” he snapped.  “I don’t think we have a choice now, Sergeant; we’ll recover them later, somehow.”

Chapter Sixteen: Interludes and Examinations

Shayde had never felt such agony, even when duelling for the post of a Mage.  His opponent then had been a sadist, fond of spells designed to hurt without killing, but he’d been able to spread the pain out over the spider-mind.  This time, it was the spider-mind that hurt, with hundreds of spiders dying every second as the castle rocked, each one a living death in his mind.  He tried to close his mind, but the bargain he’d made with the spiders held; he felt all of their agony as they screamed, lashing out in their pain.

“No,” he said, trying to control them, trying to prevent them from eating every one of his guards.  Their rage was overpowering; no power or Power had ever hurt them like that before, they wanted revenge on all of humanity.  A single thought spread through his mind and he fought to hold on to it; if the spiders tried to seek revenge, they could devastate his lands by slaughtering every man, woman and child.

“No,” he snapped, focusing out with his formidable will.  “I will not let that happen!”

The spider-mind, stunned, agonised, reeling in pain, didn’t argue.  For once, he was struck by the mental impression of a sick dog or mouse, looking desperately at its master for salvation.  It had been traumatised, he realised now; hurt by the pain, beyond even its formidable endurance.  He reached out with his mind, gently picking up and stroking a spider with one finger, trying to comfort the beast.  

“Stop that,” he bellowed, seeing some of his guards stamping on the spiders.  He couldn’t blame them, not seeing the seventeen guards who had been overwhelmed, poisoned and killed by the spiders, but it was hurting him too.  He fought to control the spiders, sending them scurrying back into the pipes around the building.  The guards let them go; they were scared of Shayde and his reaction.

Shayde wanted to sleep, but couldn’t; there was too much to do.  He drew recklessly on the link to the spiders, drawing on energy to keep himself awake, even though it would cost him later.  He pulled himself to his full height and glared around him, watching the guards quail.

“Have the entire castle searched,” he ordered Captain Brant.  “A team of horsemen are to chase them and kill them if they can.  Send Agway with them; he can track them.”

Captain Brant bowed and started to shout orders.  The guards dispersed quickly, leaving Shayde alone in the ruined room.  Shayde examined the wards, wondering what Akron had done to them; they hadn’t been intended to deal with an attack from inside.  He staggered as he worked to rebuild the wards, waiting until the horsemen had left, before sealing the castle off from the world behind the first ward.  It would make it impossible for anyone to get in, but that didn’t matter; no one could get out either.

He closed his eyes, wishing that he could sleep.  He doubted that the spiders could remain under control while he slept, as traumatized as they were; it wouldn’t do to wake up and discover that they had eaten everyone in the castle.  The wards would keep them inside as well, hampering any attempt to send their brethren after Akron and his group…

They had to have planned it that way, Shayde thought, and felt the first shift in his confidence.  If Akron had planned to kill him, he could hardly have done it better; only the spiders had saved his life.  He stumbled over Betty’s body and felt cold anger; the newcomers would pay.  Jack would pay!

He concentrated, carefully securing his person with protective spells, and smiled as a thought occurred to him.  After all, he still had Christina – and he still had the weapons of war.  The newcomer weapons, the ones from the other world, might be useful; Christina knew enough to make working out the rest of the principles simple.

What has been let into the world?  Shayde asked himself, and shuddered.  He stumbled up the stairs, reaching his quarters, and sank into his chair with a sigh of relief.  If Jack knew how to make the weapons, then he would be telling Akron all he knew…and the war would change again, sharply.  How long did it take to make the weapons?

“Your Lordship?”  Captain Brant asked.  Shayde looked up, feeling murderous impulses moving through his body.  The Captain must have seen them in his eyes, for he stepped backwards.  “The castle is free of infection.”

Infection, Shayde thought, icily.  “Good,” he said.  “How many guests are there in the castle?”

“Seventeen,” Captain Brant said.  “All traders…”

“Dump them into the spider pit,” Shayde ordered.  It no longer mattered what the Merchant Guild thought of him.  “All of them.”

Captain Brant, wisely, didn’t bother to say anything else; he bowed and left.  Shayde thought rapidly; the wisest thing to do would be to attack Akron at once, but it would still require time to set up the attack, particularly as he couldn’t inform his allies as to what had happened here.  

I can’t let them think that there’s something that they need for themselves, he thought, and smiled.  With the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ from the Power of Oxford, Akron would have no chance at all, not even with the new weapons.  Shayde smiled and completed linking with the spider-mind, sensing their alien happiness as they devoured the remains of the traders who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I must have all of the bodies put down there, Shayde reminded himself, drawing on the new energy and using it to complete the work of sealing his wards.  With the spiders content – the loss of thousands of spiders meant little to the overall nest, which had millions to draw on – he could relax finally.

He smiled as he sealed himself in his room.  Christina still lay in his bed, fast asleep, and he cast spells intended to keep her that way.  There was one final act to be done before he could sleep, punishing those who had assisted Akron, and he did it – before falling into a fitful sleep.  His last thought was a flicker of admiration for Akron; the Grand Mage had style.  Which suggested…

He’s going to head straight for the Castle at the End of the Land, he thought, and fell asleep.

***
Akron knew that it would provide a beacon to any magic-user with any power at all, but there was truly no choice.  Once Shayde recovered from his trauma – and Akron cursed the mistakes that hadn’t allowed any of the other mages to see his link to the spiders – he would be after them with fury in his heart and magic in his hands.

He closed his eyes, focusing all of his concentration on the magical links.  Sigmund and seven of his children flew high overhead, their eyes seeing in the dark and sending what they saw to the horses.  The horses weren’t happy at the violation of their minds – horses were stupid brutes compared to hawks – but they obeyed, using the hawk eyes to see their way in the dark.

The first coach lurched from side to side as the horses ran.  Akron kept his eyes closed; at their speed crashing into something could prove fatal – and protective spells could disrupt the link between the horses and the hawks.  Every time the wind rustled, he saw the spiders again, scuttling towards them searching for revenge.

“Watch for spiders,” he muttered to the Knight Errant, who nodded once.  The old warrior had been equally shocked by the spiders – how could warriors fight something like that?  Magic had worked, but Akron knew better to think that it would work again; Shayde’s first priority would be to secure his mind against a repeat of that stunt.

Madness, he thought, with a chilling flicker of admiration.  Who would have thought of linking to spiders – except Shayde?  There would be enough of them to give him a great deal of power indeed, perhaps even enough to threaten Akron himself.  They made ideal spies and agents; how many spiders existed within Akron’s own domains?

Sigmund gave a caw and fell from the sky, his beak snapping at something in the air.  The wind was blowing spiders towards them; Akron felt panic for the first time, even as the hawks snapped their way through the spiders.  He concentrated, drawing on one of the darkest and least powerful killing magics, taking the risk of using the spell…

Spiders flared once in the night, burning in the balefire, and Akron could only sigh in relief.  He heard them; a hissing insectoid mind, lashing away at him.  They were mad; mad at him, mad at Jack’s people, mad at everyone.  The horses stumbled and Akron felt his blood run cold, but they reasserted their footing as the last of the spiders fell to the magic.

Sigmund dropped neatly onto Akron’s shoulder, nearly giving him a heart attack.  “They’ve sent a cohort of horsemen after us,” he said.  “Around ten minutes away at the pace they’re moving at, until they reach us.”

Akron cursed.  They didn’t have the time for a running battle; coaches were notoriously bad for that.  Half of his own soldiers had been killed in the battle, several more had failed to make it away from the castle before the wards came crashing down.

“They won’t be able to see in the dark,” the Knight Errant said, his tone grim.  “Unless…”

“They’re Shayde’s breed of horses,” Sigmund confirmed.  “The ones they use for night travel.”

Akron scowled.  “I don’t have enough magic left,” he said.  The short brutal confrontation with Shayde had drained most of his supplies.  “Even if we do use it…”

Lightning – an eerie green colour – flashed off in the distance.  The horses buckled as the flashes reached out across the land.  “Hunting magic,” the Knight Errant said.  “We have to stop them somehow; they must have a magic-user with them.”

Akron felt his heart grow cold.  “I really hope that they’re worth it,” he said.  He hadn’t had time for a proper look at Jack and his friends; Jack’s attempt to save his friend had proven that he had a good heart, but how useful would he be?  Shayde had clearly considered them to be useful, but did they have anything that could be useful to save them?

“Sigmund,” he said slowly, “can your children attack the riders?”

The hawk looked at him, his body inhumanly still.  “I understand,” he said, in a voice like ash.  “Just bury us well, if you find the bodies.”  He paused.  “I ought to lead it.”

Akron shook his head.  “I need you,” he said.  “Just…send the children.”

He didn’t look at the hawk as he concentrated on the driving.  He couldn’t bear to see what he would see in the eyes of his friend – whose children he might have sentenced to death.

***
His name was Agway and he was one of a handful of powerful wizards who didn’t take part in the power-games played by the 666.  In his case, he had been discovered by Shayde and offered some private training…in exchange for sharing his power with the Grand Mage.  Agway had accepted – he had had the feeling that it would have been bad for his health to refuse – and hadn’t really regretted it.

He did now; the last thing he wanted was to risk duelling a Grand Mage.  He’d sensed enough of the battle between the two Grand Mages to know that he didn’t want to fight Akron, even with the Grand Mage in a weakened state.  It would have been fatal either way; victory – and Akron’s title – would have attracted dozens of mages to fight him…but refusing Shayde’s orders could be fatal as well.

He closed his eyes, hoping that the horse under him would behave itself – it clearly knew that Agway wasn’t a disciplined rider, one too weak to use the whip and spurs – and opened his inner eye.  Akron hadn’t bothered to hide his trail; he could see the green line as easily as anything.

“That way,” he snapped to the guard captain, who would have been beating him under other circumstances.  It was the greatest pleasure of his existence; jocks who would have been beating him and making fun of his slight build cowered before his magic.  “After them…”

The road diverged here, his magic told him, but he could see very little as the horse cantered past…until something impinged itself upon his magical field.  The captain screamed as his horse screamed, then its leg stumbled, crashing to the ground with a stunning impact.  A dark shape lashed past Agway’s face and he jerked backwards, not quickly enough to avoid having his nose sliced off by…something.

He snapped out a spell, casting a ball of light in the air and saw the birds.  In the sudden brightness, some of the guards stumbled; the horses panicked.  The birds swept down, pecking at the horses and the guards’ eyes, blinding them and killing them.  Agway saw the Captain’s body, his neck at a savage angle, and knew that he was dead.

He tossed a spell into the air, one designed to burn.  A hawk caught fire in midair, falling from the sky to the ground.  The others swooped around, hiding in the darkness of the forest, before flying back out and slashing away at Agway and the remaining men.  Agway had only seconds to see a hawk flying right at his face and he reacted, quickly enough to kill the hawk, but not quickly enough to see the second hawk, slashing away at his mount’s legs.

Agway screamed as the horse buckled, crashing over and throwing him to the ground.  The ground came up and he had only seconds to realise that it was the end…and then the darkness came for him.

***
Seven hawks had gone to delay the hunters; four returned.  There was no recrimination in Sigmund’s voice as he reported; it only made Akron feel worse.  He tried to think through the guilt, but it was hard; part of him just wanted to go to sleep.

“We’re right on the edge of his formal territory now,” the Knight Errant said, trying to reassure him.  “We’ll be moving faster than any warning to any of the local lords now.”

Akron nodded.  At high speed, assuming they could stop at an inn and exchange horses, it would be several hours before they entered their territory.  The problem, of course, was that the Power of Oxford sat almost across the direct route, which meant that they might have to make a detour.

He looked over at Jill, sleeping inside the coach with Jack and Dominos.  The other coach held the rest of Jack’s team, waiting for their instructions from their leader.  Akron was almost jealous of their ability to sleep through the entire desperate journey; he had been too active to sleep.

He yawned now.  “I think that you’d better go the shortest way once we find the detour,” he said.  Fortunately, that wasn’t unusual; Powers were so unpredictable that many merchants would avoid their territory if possible.  As they reached one of the main roads between Cambridge and Oxford, he allowed himself a moment to relax; the main roads were neutral by long convention.

The Knight Errant looked down at Jack’s sleeping form.  “Are they really worth it?”  He asked.  “They don’t look that special.”

“That man reminds me of you,” Akron said wryly.  It was true; Jack clearly had a warrior’s sprit.  “One of the men has magic; the other seems to be a dwarf.”

“Odd,” the Knight Errant said, puzzled.  Dwarfs tended to remain in their tunnels deep below the Earth, rarely coming out to trade with humans; food for rare metals.  They took no role in the disputes between humans; they couldn’t care less who won the war.  “Do you think that the dwarfs are interested?”

Akron frowned.  He didn’t think that that was likely, and yet…Jack’s team wanted to go to the Castle at the End of the Land.  The dwarfs might just be magical; they would have as much interest in the Castle at the End of the Land as anyone else.

“Perhaps,” he said.  “Still, for the moment, all we can do is proceed towards home.  The future will come when it comes.”

***
There were differences between man-magic and woman-magic, Mother Dissmall knew.  Men never quite grasped that; they saw magic in terms of how much power they could obtain for themselves; the Council of Wizardry existed for them to have a chance to strut their stuff and to show off their power.  What was being a Grand Mage about, if not the chance to humiliate one’s rivals?

Woman-magic was a little different.  It wasn’t a coincidence that the handful of seers, soothsayers and prophets were all women; they were attuned to a slightly different branch of magic.  There was some convergence - Mother Dissmall could have turned someone into a frog with the best of them – but not as much as one might think.  Men, so attuned to directing the magic to do their will, never allowed the magic to guide them.

Mother Dissmall lay back on her bench and looked into the magical field.  She sensed it almost at once, a looming threat that demanded attention…and then she saw how strong it was.  She sighed to herself, wishing perhaps that she had taken a husband, rather than being too scared to risk ever loosing her virginity.  It had given her power, but no children; all she had was the chance to see what could have been if…

She stood up.  The threat was certain; there was nothing she could have done about it.  She’d spent sometime last night watching all of the excitement in Shayde’s castle, or as much as she could through the wards, and she knew what would happen.  Shayde - typical man – would seek to act and…

She stepped outside.  The sense of looming threat was stronger and stronger, but she saw nothing.  There was nothing…until she heard the noise from the animals in the field.  A dark mass was moving across the land, swarming over them and killing them; their panic availed them nothing against the size of the mass.

She watched as the wave of spiders came on.  She’d known that there were spiders in the forest, but she hadn’t realised how many; there were thousands of them.  She saw as they swarmed into the village, chasing and capturing Jill’s father Ivan…and then they came for her.  Mother Dissmall closed her eyes as they started to bite her; death came quickly.

Jill, she thought, and died.

Chapter Seventeen: Making Alliances

Shayde’s castle had been almost fairy-tale in its design, standing atop an impossible mountain and glaring down at the rest of the world.  Akron’s castle, Jack was relieved to note, was far more conventional; a massive blocky castle, situated at the centre of a lake.  A single long bridge led to the castle, which was apparently undefended.

Magic, he thought bitterly.  With magic, there was no real need for human guards; wards could watch for intruders far easier than any human guard.  As the coaches cantered over the bridge, which seemed oddly insubstantial, he saw strange creatures floating in the moat.  Hawks flew overhead, forming part of what he was beginning to realise was a defence system that made use of the material resources of the region to hide the defences.

They’d stopped briefly in a large town, roughly the size of El Paso, to exchange horses, before heading along the road.  Akron had promised to explain as soon as they reached his home, but he’d been too involved in moving them to explain further at the time.  Jack had accepted that; Shayde had to be hopping mad over the entire breakout, which meant that he would probably be in hot pursuit before too long.

He’d been pleased to see the town though; it reminded him very much of a half-remembered concept from his studies, that of a free city in a medieval setting.  It had been very industrious, with thousands of farmers selling their goods in exchange for the town’s products, and peaceful.  If there was a war on, the traders didn’t seem to know it.

Anyone could be spying from there, he thought, and shuddered.  

The horses finally stopped inside a courtyard and a set of young women came forward to help them all down.  Guards and servants examined them with interest, their gaze passing over Jack with interest, Jill with contempt, Dominos with respect…and then they bowed to Akron.  It was a deeper bow than any Jack had seen before; one that suggested total respect and devotion – or fear.

“I hope that you enjoyed the trip,” Akron said.  In good light, the Grand Mage reminded Jack of the second Master from Doctor Who; his goatee and hair was white, but the air of general cunning and bright intelligence was the same.  The Grand Mage looked relieved.  “We should be safe her, for the moment.”

Jack felt brilliant alarm.  “What’s to stop him just crashing after us?”

Akron gave him a respectful look.  “You may not have noticed, but there are a lot of tiny little states and lordships between here and his territory.  He’ll be working to convince them to let his forces pass through, or he’ll be fighting his way through them.  Either way, we’ll have a lot of warning.”

Jack frowned, not quite convinced, but accepted it.  “Follow me,” Shayde said, after giving some instructions to the servants.  He led the way up a flight of stairs into a large room, one studded with odd astrological tools.  A basin of clear water sat in one corner, a map hung from the wall.

“Look,” Martin said, examining the map.  Jack studied it ad felt his heart sink; the map wasn’t a world map, only one of a nation that was clearly Britain.  A large area around Cambridge, where the Portal had opened, was marked SHAYDE; several others were marked only with an ‘X’ letter.  Surrounding Britain, roughly twenty miles from the shore in some places, as close as one mile in others, was a single black line.  

“No Ireland,” Jack commented.  “What the hell is that line?”

“They have France, on the other side,” Martin commented.  “What sort of Point of Divergence leaves them with knowledge of France, but not of Ireland?”

“If Ireland exists here,” Jack said.  His attention was caught by an odd symbol at the very north of Britain.  “What’s that?”

“The Castle at the End of the Land,” Akron said.  The Grand Mage peered over their shoulders at the map.  “Good; Shayde is having problems.”

Jack blinked.  “How can you tell that?”

Akron’s finger touched Shayde’s territory, which zoomed out at them, allowing them to see some details.  “Prince Dike is clearly having thoughts about Shayde’s weakness,” Akron commented.  He smiled like a cat.  “Dike has some magicians on his payroll, including one who might be very powerful under other circumstances.”

Martin frowned.  “He might rebel against Shayde?”  He asked.  “Couldn’t you tell him about Shayde’s weakness with the spiders?”

Jack gave him a warning glance; they knew very little about Akron, hardly enough to trust him.  Akron shrugged as if the matter was unimportant; perhaps it wasn’t to him.

“We could tell him,” he said.  “I imagine that Shayde has never had so many of his spiders die so quickly while attached directly to him, therefore he had little idea of what it meant.  By now, he’ll be setting up barriers against it happening again; Prince Dike’s rebellion, if it becomes one, is going to be very short-lived.”

He removed his finger from the map, which collapsed back into the more normal display of all of Britain.  Jack took a long moment to try to memorise the terrain, but it was hopeless; there were so many tiny states that it made the Holy Roman Empire look neat and organised.  Jack had studied that during his training; none of the Emperors could command all of the resources they should have been able to command, just because of the fragmented system.

Martin’s eyes became very concerned.  “It’s quite possible that that’s why they never developed a united state,” he said.  “If magic appears every so often to fuck up the state system, then you have magic-users carving out their own careers and empires and knocking over the noble lords.”

Jack nodded.  “Then the magic-user dies and the whole story begins all over again,” he said.  “The empire fragments, the princes reassert their authority, and the common people suffer.”  He looked over at Jill, who was gazing at him out of the corner of her eye.  “I won’t stand for it.”

Martin tapped the location of the Castle at the End of the Land experimentally.  Nothing happened.  “Humm,” he said.  “I think that you might not have much choice,” he said.  “None of our weapons affected Shayde, did they?”

Jack swore.  “And he has them, and one of the world’s experts in developing societies, under his control,” he said.  “So…do we try to rescue her, or do we go directly to the Castle at the End of the Land?”

He’d spoken too loudly.  “You go to the Castle at the End of the Land,” Akron said.  “That’s what Shayde was so terrified of, you see.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed.  “And you?”

Akron looked back blandly.  “I’m too old to be scared,” he said.  Jack suspected that he wasn’t being truthful.  “Just before you arrived, a woman – who has since vanished – predicted your arrival.  That split the Council of Wizardry; some wanted to help you reach the Castle at the End of the Land, like me, and some wanted to stop you at all costs.”

He paused dramatically.  “You can guess what side Shayde is on,” he said.

“He wants to stop us, I assume,” Jack said, suddenly tired of the game.  “Look…”

“I know,” Akron said.  “You need to know what’s happening…and why.”  He waved to a maid, who was wearing a very short skirt indeed, who brought in a tray of glasses.  “This is the best of the whiskey from the north,” Akron commented.  “A while back, some dunderhead of a mage developed a spell to help it mature quickly and was then stupid enough to die without sharing the spell with anyone.”

He snorted.  “Rumour has it that he was murdered, which isn’t exactly normal for mages,” he said.  “Anyway, there are only a few casks left; I paid more than I care to think about for this stuff.”

He waited patiently until they all had a glass, except Sumrita, who refused it.  Jack tasted his whiskey and found it perfect; light and smoky at the same time.  “If we could get some of this in trade, it would pay the operating budget for the next five years,” Martin muttered.

“Later,” Jack said, not too willing to discuss the Thande Institute with Akron.  If they somehow managed to use the Castle at the End of the Land to get back, he was half-minded to recommend no further contact with TimeLine G.  “So, what happened to make this world…this?”

Akron paused for a moment, clearly collecting his thoughts.  “History is not well studied here,” he said.  “The Council of Wizardry has an official history and a library of spells, but people are reluctant to contribute to the latter and often unable – through death – to contribute to the former.  Ever since I became interested in the Castle at the End of the Land, I tried to research it, but very little is known for certain.

“What we do know is simple.  Around a thousand years ago, the Castle at the End of the Land arrived…and the world was never the same again,” he continued.  “In fact…”

“Arrived?”  Jack asked.  Might the Castle at the End of the Land be a starship, or some kind of craft for travelling between dimensions?  Might the entire process of trapping them in TimeLine G have been a cry for help from a crashed ship?  “Where did it arrive from?”

Akron shrugged helplessly.  “There are legends that whoever penetrates to the heart of the Castle at the End of the Land will learn the source of all power, but no one has succeeded – yet.  Anyway…a few years after it arrived, the first magicians started to appear, and then the Powers and the other creatures a few years after them.”

Jack shuddered, imaging the disaster.  If the timing were right, that would have placed it in 1014AD, which had been part of the dark ages.  Scotland had been torn by warfare, the Popes had been trying to assert power for themselves…and then magic had burst into the world.  How would such an intolerant world, one that had waged war against the Muslims on one side and pagans on the other, have tolerated magic?

“The lords proclaimed them to be evil, servants of demons,” Akron said.  His face darkened.  “That didn’t last long, but the magicians fought back, using the early magics to defeat the lords who tried to proclaim against them.  They didn’t serve demons – only fools would try to summon a demon – but they were often willing to take power for themselves.  The land was devastated by warfare; crusades were declared from the Pope in Rome, thousands of warriors came to burn out the magic.

“And then the Brass Walls came up, protecting Britain from the world outside,” Akron said.  “The magicians kept fighting, until Friar Bacon set up the Council of Wizardry and bent a Power to enforce the laws, just to prevent a total magical war.”  He scowled.  “That might just be what Shayde is planning.”

Jack frowned, uncertain how much to believe.  Was Akron telling the truth, or was he lying without even realising that he was lying.  Martin stepped in with a question.  “This…Castle at the End of the Land,” he asked.  “Does it generate the magic?”

Akron looked grim.  “Yes,” he said.  “At least, the magic is stronger there, which is what the war is all about.”  He sat back, crossing his legs.  “Listen; the magic has been getting stronger recently; new magicians have been developing powers they cannot control…”

“Which of course threatens your power,” Angelina said.  It was the first time she had spoken; she’d been engaged in a silent contest of wills with the Knight Errant.  “It wouldn’t do to have the peasants playing around with magic, would it?”

Akron’s face twisted.  It took Jack a moment to realise that he was trying not to laugh.  “I was a peasant myself, once,” he said.  “In general terms, magical talent doesn’t pass through families; I earned my power.”  He paused.  “Unfortunately, so did Shayde…

“The problem is that there’s now more power,” he said, tapping the map.  “One young idiot used a spell that is designed to start a fire, one that is barely hot enough to start burning parchment.  The resulting fireball destroyed an entire village.  That was only the worst incident; more may have happened that we don’t know about, at least not yet.”

Angelina started.  “Why doesn’t magic pass down through a family tree?”  She asked.  “If it’s a genetic talent, then…”

“Perhaps its not a selected trait,” Martin commented.  “If experimenting with magic can get you killed…”

“It can,” Akron said grimly.  “You would not believe the number of new wizards, new to magic, with their eyes on the post of Grand Mage, who try to force themselves forward too fast and kill themselves if they’re lucky.”  He smiled darkly.  “You really don’t want to know what happens to those who aren’t lucky.”

“If experimenting with magic can get you killed, then it would make sense for the talent to be bred out as quickly as possible,” Martin said.  “Not just because of young men killing themselves before they can pass on their genes, but in the sense that accidents like the destroyed village wipe out entire bloodlines.”

Akron frowned.  “I don’t understand,” he said.  “Wizards have to struggle to master magic; they are determined to gain power, power, and more power.  In contrast, the children of a wizard might have the talent, but not always the sheer driving will.”

Jack remembered the old man facing off against Shayde and nodded.  Akron clearly had determination as well as power; willpower enough to shape the world around him.

“Just like Japan,” Martin said.  Akron lifted a polite eyebrow.  “There was a shake-up; the first Emperor and his cronies after that shake-up were very brilliant indeed, winning the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War.  The next batch was merely competent; Japan won her part of the First World War, but fucked up the aftermath.  The batch after that got Japan smashed flat in the Second World War.”

“Very interesting,” the Knight Errant sneered.  He’d abandoned his game with Angelina and was clearly unhappy at the outcome.  “Exactly what relevance does that have to our situation?”

Akron gave his friend?  Servant?  A dry look.  “Go on,” he said.  “I think I understand.”

“The newcomer wizard is determined to succeed,” Martin said.  “He learns as much as he can, both through experimenting and learning from other wizards, but never loses sight of the prize.  He is patient and determined to master the art, because he knows that only hard work will get him the power he seeks.  The child of a wizard may learn magic from his parent, but lacks the sheer drive; he thinks that he has a right to the benefits of magic, rather than working for them.”

“That would explain a lot,” Akron said.  “Anyway, seeing we’ve slipped off the main subject, back to the issue at hand.  Your coming was expected; your trip to the Castle at the End of the Land is expected.  Shayde has broken the Council, although I might be able to damage his coalition with some well-chosen words.”

“So he’s going to be trying to stop us,” Jack said.  “We should move now, before he has time to react.”

Akron pointed to the map.  “It’s around five hundred miles,” he said.  “We would have to detour around territory held by a Power, because they have every reason to stop us as well.  Shayde knows that as well as we do, and he has a powerful ally in the north, Grand Mage Valastar.  I was hoping that Grand Mage Ixa’em would join us, but so far he’s just sitting on the sidelines.”  He examined the map for a long moment.  “There’s a powerful collection of Mages, my supporters, at Newcastle, led by an old friend.”

“We’ll have to fight our way through,” the Knight Errant said.  “At the same time, if we stay too long here…”

“Shayde will either attack us at once or trap us here,” Akron said.  “He has your weapons, then?”

Jack nodded.  “And a woman who could tell him how to build a real army out of the forces here,” he said grimly.  “I don’t know how much she knows, but we might have to build one as well.”

“Wonderful,” the Knight Errant said.  “Your weapons; how much good were they?”

“Not much against Shayde,” Jack admitted, although he had his doubts.  “Against your soldiers, a single regiment of my old force could take and hold the entire country with ease.”  He saw that Akron was confused.  “All of Britain,” he said.

There was a long moment of silence.  Jack used it to argue with himself; what he was about to say would blow the non-interference rule out of the water, but it was hard to see that he had any other choice.  The Thande Institute would crucify him – there might even be criminal charges – but it would keep his team alive.

“If we have time, we can build weapons,” he said.  “It won’t take long to make basic weapons, although they won’t be much good compared to the ones that Shayde has his hands on.  Still, he’ll run out of ammunition fairly quickly.”

“I hope so,” Akron muttered.  “Can he duplicate the ammunition by magic?”

Jack stared at him.  The possibility had, quite simply, never occurred to him.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “How is something made with magic?”

Akron frowned at him, obviously reluctant to answer, and then he made up his mind.  “Old oaths die hard,” he admitted.  “The magician needs a lot of power, raw materials, and then he would have to know exactly how the item went together.”

Jack considered.  If Sumrita was to master magic, she’d be the best healer this world ever saw, he thought, rather dimly.  “I don’t think so,” he said.  “I don’t know enough to be certain, but it would be difficult for him to learn enough to make more that way.”

Akron looked relieved.  “I’m sure you’re right,” he said, as if he was trying to convince himself.  “Now…Martin; I’m going to teach you some magic, enough to allow you to help with the war.”  He nodded at the Knight Errant.  “If you want to work with the others, then we can work out how to build such a war machine, hopefully before Shayde himself does.”

The Knight Errant frowned.  “Do we have time to do that?”

Akron shrugged.  “The sooner we begin, the sooner it will be completed,” he said, and swept out of the room.  Martin followed him hesitantly, leaving the others behind.  Jack watched them go, worried; just what had they brought to this world?

Chapter Eighteen: Magic (II)

Martin was feeling on safe ground again for the first time since their capture.  Destroying the fire-monster had boosted his confidence, and learning about the Castle at the End of the Land had convinced him that some of his theories were correct.  He had the oddest image in his mind; a crashed starship spilling out energy which humans – some humans – could use to work magic.

Akron led him down a long flight of stairs to a door, which he opened with a word.  It floated in Martin’s head after Akron had spoken, but he didn’t have the slightest idea how to pronounce it; it twisted away from his tongue.  As soon as the door opened, they came face to face with a monster; Martin felt his legs turn to jelly as the…thing looked at him.

He stared.  It wasn’t quite there; he could only make it out by the effects it had on reality.  “What is that?”  He stammered, stunned into terror for the first time since escaping Shayde.  “What…is that?”

Akron waved a hand in front of the creature and it vanished.  “A guard dog,” he said.  Now that Akron had pointed it out, Martin could see that the creature had reassembled a dog, but without all the doggy disadvantages, such as smell and hairs everywhere.  Presumably it didn’t have to be taken for walks either.  “It took me several weeks of effort to create that, but now it will allow you to enter.”

Martin took a breath to calm his nerves.  “I see,” he said.  “Would it keep out Shayde?”

Akron considered as they walked towards the door at the end of the corridor.  “Probably…not,” he said, after a moment’s consideration.  “Shayde might be taken by surprise, but he would be able to destroy it after a short struggle.  Now…”

He opened the second door, stepping into a laboratory.  “This is the centre of my magical research,” he said.  “Don’t touch anything without my permission, please; I’m forever rescuing apprentices from being trapped by the security spells and they’re just the lucky ones.”

Martin stepped inside and looked around.  One wall was covered in bookshelves, with old-looking books stacked right to the ceiling.  The titles, printed in gold, seemed to leap out at him, covering thousands of different topics from metals and magic to demons.  A second wall was covered in symbols that seemed just on the verge of comprehension; the other two walls were covered in shelves holding a variety of supplies.

He smiled, feeling almost at home.  The ceiling had no light source; the light seemed to come from the air itself, just like the spell that Mother Dissmall had used.  It seemed so long ago now.  The floor was cold stone, with chalk diagrams drawn on it in the shape of a circle, with a six-point star in the centre.

Akron followed his gaze.  “I very rarely have to deal with sprites, Powers or demons,” he said in explanation.  “If you learn nothing else, learn this; always draw a restraining circle around the symbols of summoning.  That’s the most basic mistake of all in demonology and the most lethal; the demons are more than willing to try to suck enough power out of the fool who summons them to break free of hell permanently.  Then someone, like me or one of the other Grand Mages – the Powers alone know who would do it now – will have to destroy it, somehow.”

He picked up a small wand and tapped the circle, indicating a point where it was broken.  “A broken circle is useless, as is a broken symbol of summoning.  Great care has to be taken when drawing them and you have to draw them yourself; any circle that you didn’t draw will – at best – be so offensive that the demon won’t show up at all.  At worst, the circle will be useless for you and the demon will eat you alive.

“Preparing a circle, according to Demon Murphy, puts the operator in the right frame of mind for the spell,” he said, indicating one of the books.  “Wizards rarely write their spells down – many of those books were written by people who weren’t part of the Council – but the wizard who styled himself Demon Murphy was careful to research demons and write down all he found out.”  He laughed, a cold bitter sound.  “He vanished one night and turned up a few years later as a statue near the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Akron talked faster, as if he was unwilling to even think about the former wizard.  “The demon is intended to materialise inside the circle; a Power will materialise outside.  By creating the circle, the wizard is creating the larger spells needed to bind the entity; no wizard ever born could take on a Power and hope to survive.  There are some spells that are meant to defeat a Power, but all of them involve such power that the attempt will kill the wizard in question.  Fortunately, you don’t need them to work magic; the price for their services is often too high.”

Martin nodded.  “Your soul?”

“Among other things,” Akron said.  “Some Powers have been known to offer wizards power, in exchange for them being their Judas Goat.  Some demons have been known to offer more power to the inexperienced, just to tempt them to break the circle while the demon was in it.  Very bad idea, that; the demon would be free to do whatever it liked.”

He paused, breathing heavily.  “You have to understand that demons and Powers are – at best – uncaring about humanity,” he said.  “At worst, they will take delight in tempting you to do the worst you can to everyone else.  Even talking about them is dangerous, even in this shielded room; you never know who or Who will be listening.”

He waved a hand in the air sharply.  “But no matter,” he said.  “Magic is all about learning the magical language,” he continued, tapping the table.  Martin paced over, careful to stay out of the circle, and looked down at the table.  A strange symbol was etched on the table, just waiting for someone to see it and understand it.  He looked – and he understood what it meant.

“Small fire on my hands, not to burn me,” he whispered.  The words that came out of his mouth weren’t English; they were something else.  There was a sense of great power flickered over him, twisting and bending…and his hands erupted into flame.  He screamed once, as the heat rose up, and then he realised that he wasn’t being burnt at all.

Akron spoke a word, too quiet to be loud; a word that echoed across the room.  The flames vanished; Martin had a sense of more power flexing around his hands, snuffing the fire.  He stared down at his hands, expecting them to be black and burnt, but they were pink, normal pink.

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Akron said, thoughtfully.  His expression was unreadable as he led Martin away from the table.  “How did you do that?”

Martin stared at him, unable to believe Akron’s calm.  “I just saw the symbol and I understood it,” he said.  “It just leapt out at me.”

Akron looked astonished, then thoughtful.  “There are wizards who cannot do anything like that,” he said.  “They can cast the spell, but not by reading it from a book; only by experimentation.  That symbol is a reflection of a word; an attempt to allow others to see what the word is, without actually saying it.”

Martin opened his mouth, and then shut it again.  How could he explain what he’d seen; the word and the components that made up the word?  How could he even begin to explain that to anyone?  A sudden surge of desire to learn more flooded through him, overriding caution and common sense.

“It would be well to learn some basic cancelling spells,” Akron said dryly.  Something of his thoughts must have shown in his eyes, his face, even his stance.  “That spell, for example, has no time limit; no wizard has ever managed to add one into the basic spell.”

He looked at Martin expectantly, who found it hard not to laugh.  How could Akron expect so much from a man who had only cast one spell?  The spell itself danced in his mind and he stared at it, seeing the interlocking components, seeing what did what when the spell was spoken aloud…

The wave of heat took him by surprise.  His hands were burning again.  This time, he could study the feeling dispassionately; the power building and crackling around him, before dispelling itself into the flames.  The spell danced and sang in his mind, draining power from the magical field…and from him.  He saw it now; the spell might be created and powered by the magical field, but the first burst of power came from him.

It must be something in the blood, after all, he thought, and became dizzy.

Akron snapped a single word into the air and the flames stopped.  “The power does come from you,” he said dryly.  “If you press ahead with any spell for too long, it will drain you without you even noticing.  You’ll get used to it.”

Akron was wrong.  Martin knew that somehow, as he considered the spell.  Now he understood his mistake, he could study it without triggering the spell.  Shayde had cast spells without using words; so had Akron…but both of them had acted as if a spell was a single…well, a single word.

He thought rapidly.  A word, like ‘Edinburgh,’ wasn’t one single item, but E-D-I-N-B-U-R-G-H, a composition of nine letters.  Might the same be true of magic, with some magicians taking the daring risk of trying new words, without knowing if they were saying ‘save me,’ or ‘kill me?’  No wonder magicians were careful; the wrong word could kill them…but why hadn’t they seen it that way?

Akron frowned.  “This is a basic cancelling spell,” he said, and pronounced it carefully.  The spell lodged itself in Martin’s mind, triggering yet another insight; spells must be somehow capable of being drawn as a single symbol.  “Use it to cancel any spells you make that don’t have a time limit.”

Martin nodded, too eager to press on for caution.  “Tell me, both you and Shayde don’t need to say the word to cast magic, right?”

“I would be careful with that, for a while,” Akron said.  “The wrong spell could kill you, quite easily, or have effects you didn’t want to happen.  Some spells, such as the spells used on your friend Christina, have to have some contact between the two minds, which is why only people with considerable discipline can cast them with any major success.”

Martin felt his eyes gleam.  He was on the verge of a breakthrough; he knew it.  “The symbols you draw to attract a demon are antennas,” he said.  Akron didn’t understand the concept.  “Something to attract something,” he explained, wishing that the world had radio.  Could they get a radio to work, if they tried?

“That would work as an analogy,” Akron said, after a moment’s thought.  “The symbols are needed to summon and then restrain the demon.”

“Which I take it they view as bad hospitality,” Martin said wryly.  “An antenna collects energy; you might be collecting more energy by using the symbols as such.  If so, that suggests that you need more power to summon a demon than is implied.”

Akron blinked.  “I never thought of it quite that way,” he said.  He looked up; Martin saw a glint of absolute mischief in his eyes.  “Let’s see what other insights your world gives you into the way things work here…”

***
Two hours later, Martin had experimented with a dozen more spells, learning more than he felt safe discussing with Akron.  They were simple, once understood, and they gave him insight into the Castle at the End of the Land.  Magic was, more or less, a computer system that worked in the head of the wizards.

They don’t understand the language, he thought, and realised just how much danger he was in.  With some more experimenting, he would be powerful…but inexperienced.  Shayde would have plenty of time to take him if he wanted to, and with the new threat, he would be almost certain to want to kill them all next time they met, face to face.

“Enough, for the moment,” Akron said.  As they went on and on, he had slowed down noticeably; finally nearly collapsing during a more complicated spell than any he had shown Martin before.  “I wish I was young again.”

Martin blinked, trying to look surprised.  Shayde had looked very young indeed.  “Magic can’t make you young again?”

“Not with the amount of power I can gather,” Akron admitted.  “Shayde is young; he doesn’t use a glamour to appear that way.  Come on.”

He led the way out of the laboratory, pausing only to pat the guardian on the head before reaching the stairs.  “You can come back here to practice if you want,” Akron said, as they headed up the stairs.  “I would strongly prefer not to have you experimenting outside the laboratory – and don’t try to summon anything.  Not here, at least, and nowhere near me.”

Martin said nothing, thinking hard.  Akron seemed to be almost having second thoughts about teaching him anything; the permission might just be guided by a desire to have Martin blow himself up by accident.  As they reached a small dining room, Akron called for food and a serving maid brought them white rolls with honey, brushing her behind against him as she walked.

“You can have access to them if you want,” Akron said, noticing the maid.  Martin blushed scarlet.  “They agreed to serve me for a time and bedding the guests is part of their agreement.”

Martin stared at him, then up at the maid.  There was a curious deadness in her eyes; the magic field flickered around her.  “She’s in Thrall,” he exclaimed.  “Why did you do that?”

Akron looked puzzled at the question.  “It was part of the agreement,” he said.  “Anyone who works here goes into my Thrall, until they want to leave.”

The maid bowed, exposing perfect breasts that had never seen a bra, and left the room.  Martin felt his eyes following her and forced them back to Akron with a hot flash of anger.  “How could you?”

Akron met his gaze blandly.  “Security,” he said flatly.  “You have no idea how many wizards want to steal my secrets.”  He paused.  “Besides, I gave them my Oath.  Has anyone explained the concept of a Wizard’s Oath to you yet?”

“I only heard of it when Shayde offered to swear one to you,” Martin snapped, feeling betrayed.  “Who did you expect to explain it to me?”

Akron smiled.  “Your world lacks that concept,” he said.  “You don’t swear an Oath to someone, you swear before the Castle at the End of the Land.  A Wizard’s Oath is unbreakable; you swear, you have to carry it out, or face the consequences.”

Martin nodded slowly and asked one question.  “I assume that this applies to me?”

Akron nodded.  “You and everyone else with a connection to the magical field,” he said.

Martin waited for Akron to continue, but he didn’t, seeming to wait for Martin to ask.  “And the consequences?”

Akron leaned forward sharply, speaking in almost a whisper.  “It depends on the Oath,” he said.  “The mildest, I might note, is the loss of the magical powers.  The worst…well, there are places where that happened, and on most of them the grass will never grow again.”

Radiation?  Martin wondered.  Could a nuclear reaction work here?  “And what about the non-magical population?”

Akron shrugged.  “They can make and break their oaths at will,” he said, without concern.  “My Oath to the maids?  If they want to leave, they can come tell me and I will let them go.  I have to; it would cost me all of my powers if I refused.  Still…their life here is better than anywhere else, you know; some of them have asked if they could marry and remain within the castle.”

He saw Martin’s expression and laughed.  “Don’t worry; unlike most lords, I treat married maids as off-limits and modify their Thrall so that they can say no.”

“My world doesn’t have anything like that,” Martin said.  It was a dream of every red-blooded male, but he knew now that it would be a disaster.  “There’s no true way to control a person against their will.”  He paused.  “We have to free Christina.”

“If we can, we will,” Akron said.  “We’ll work on spells to break Thrall in a few days; by then, you should have mastered all the basics.”

He didn’t seem pleased.  Martin asked why.  “It’s not bad,” Akron said slowly.  “It’s just…unusual, that’s all.”

He sounded like a man trying to convince himself…and not quite succeeding.  Martin took another bite of his roll; it turned to ashes in his mouth.  Was yet another problem about to be thrown in their path?

***
The Wizard Dominos watched from the top of the stairs, hidden from view by a drapery that had been strategically placed by the Knight Errant when he had become paranoid about an invasion of the castle.  He couldn’t believe it; he was Akron’s apprentice, so why was Akron showing the newcomer spells that he hadn’t permitted Dominos to try, let alone granting him permission to experiment at his leisure.

Dominos had saved them all from Shayde.  Dominos had the training.  Dominos knew far more than someone from a world that didn’t have magic…so why had Akron abandoned him?  Akron was fascinated with the newcomer, risking both of their lives to test the newcomer’s limits, breaking all of the rules of apprenticeship to experiment – in ways that he would have forbidden Dominos, had he dared to ask.

The Wizard Dominos clenched his fists, feeling jealously storming through him.  He took a long breath, feeling his rage seething through his body and stormed off to summon a maid.  The insult would be avenged, somehow; his former master would pay for abandoning him.

The maid clearly hurt after their brief encounter, her body covered in bruises, but the rage remained unsated.  Dominos, furious and hurting, made a cold grim decision…and set about turning it into reality.  Martin would pay for his treachery.  

Chapter Nineteen: Matters of a Military Kind

The minute he saw it, Jack fell in love with the Knight Errant’s war room.  It was situated on top of a massive tower, commanding views all over Akron’s land, with big glass windows that had been spelled to work as a magnifying glass.  Akron’s small number of apprentice magicians had been busy, setting up magical communicators, and the hawks provided both reconnaissance and communications.

“You can’t spy on anything unless you know what you’re looking for,” the Knight Errant explained.  “Magic is both more and less useful in warfare than you might expect.”

Jack shrugged.  The centre of the room held a detailed map of Akron’s domains, which were tiny compared to any American state.  One side, the northern side, was marked as the territory of a Power; another side – near Cardiff – bordered on the water.  The Brass Walls, which had a real physical existence, could be seen in the distance, a hazy wall of something across the horizon.

“They’re not brass,” he said, in astonishment.  “Why do you call them that?”

“They are brass, up close,” the Knight Errant commented.  “From this distance, all you can see is the haze.  Akron has a theory that the walls are in fact magical constructs, but so far no application of magic or physical force has managed to make a hole in them.”

Jack frowned.  “I suppose there’s also some concern about what might be let in,” he said.  “Do you even know anything about the world outside?”

“I believe that that’s one of the reasons that the Council of Wizardry banned further attempts to get outside,” the Knight Errant said.  “They were also concerned about the dangers of people actually believing that there was something worth seeing outside.”

Jack shrugged.  The more he saw of the social mores of the culture in TimeLine G, the less he liked it.  “Fine,” he said, staring at the map.  “How many soldiers can you call upon?”

“Around eight thousand,” the Knight Errant said.  Jack felt his mouth fall open.  “That counts all of the lordly soldiers as well as Akron’s personal guard.”

“Impossible,” Jack said.  “How the hell do you support that many?”

He thought rapidly.  His Britain – well, Martin’s Britain – could have provided eight thousand men and never noticed it.  This Britain was a medieval world; one that would need almost every man to work the fields, just to provide the food for the small middle class and the upper class.  How high was its population anyway?

“With difficulty,” the Knight Errant said dryly.  “The lord has the right to call every able-bodied man to his banner, which flies under Akron’s of course.  Each lord has around two hundred to four hundred men as a personal force, which serves as a cadre to assimilate the peasants, who have no choice, but to fight.”

Jack started to say something, but the Knight Errant held up a hand.  “We also have around fifty magic-users, most of whom are medical and warfare-trained, not members of the Council.  All of them are under Akron’s control; all of them are trained to use their abilities to help the soldiers fight.”

Jack shuddered.  “Any major battle would decimate your population,” he said.  “How large is it anyway, around here?”

“The total population is around twenty thousand, within Akron’s holdings,” the Knight Errant said.  “We could double our forces with the other Grand Mage helping out, but that will strain our logistics beyond breaking point, with disastrous effects.  Normally, the magic-users do most of the fighting, then the armies have their short battles, and then break up…”

“Hellfire,” Jack said, too stunned to shout.  “That would explain a lot; the armies are only for holding ground, aren’t they?”

“There was a warlord, around two hundred years ago,” the Knight Errant said.  His hand traced a line on the map, from Glasgow to Edinburgh to Stirling.  “He didn’t have any Grand Mages working with him, but he had several Mages who wanted more, so he started to build himself an empire.  It worked fairly well for a few years, but his logistics couldn’t handle it and several of the lords he forcibly assimilated into the empire betrayed him, trapping much of his army here.”

He pointed to a location that had held Preston in the original timeline.  “An army marches on its belly, as General Radnor said,” he continued.  “Trapped there, much of his army starved or deserted him.  The peasants there couldn’t stand his demands, so they rebelled against him, aided by their own magic users.  None of them were a match for a Mage, but…

“That was the end of the empire,” he concluded.  “Logistics are too weak to hold a major war.  You need to move thousands of tons of supplies per day, just to feed over a thousand men.  What we do here is hide the supplies in the forest, where our local commanders can find them, and billet the men around the villages and towns.  It’s a strain for the peasants, but that’s what peasants are for.”

Jack felt his blood run cold, then red hot with fury.  “They’re people,” he snapped.  “No wonder there’s no real empire; you magic-users can’t cooperate to create one, and the peasants don’t have the knowledge to overthrow you.”

“I know no magic,” the Knight Errant said.  Jack wondered if that meant what it sounded like and made a mental note to discuss it with Martin later.  “If the peasants wanted to be more, let them join one of the Guilds or the service of Akron.”  He paused, closing the subject.  “So…what can Shayde do, if he had your weapons?”

Jack had been giving the matter some thought.  “You know how a wizard can fire a blast of fire?”  He asked.  The Knight Errant nodded.  “With our weapons, anyone can do the same – to anyone.”

The Knight Errant stared at him.  “Your world is a world of wizards?”  He asked, utterly unaware of the irony.  “Are you all magical?”

Jack grinned.  “Only in the sense that we know more than you,” he said.  “Allow me to give you an example; how long does it take to train someone to use one of your swords?”

“It can take years,” the Knight Errant admitted.  “Swords are in short supply; peasants are forbidden to train with them, so they have to use their spears and archery skills, those permitted such weapons.”

I guess this Britain never insisted that everyone train with the bow and arrow, Jack thought coldly.  He thought of the absolute mayhem that must result from giving peasants weapons and expecting them to fight well away from their villages.  Every time there was a little skirmish between lords, the number of peasants must take a sharp drop.

He gritted his teeth.  It was a puzzle in the American Military, one designed to express the problems of logistics.  If the 1st Marine Division requires X number of supplies to exist – anywhere – and XY number of supplies to fight and win a battle, how do you ensure that the marines can get at least X supplies all the time and XY during a battle?  Marines – HooYah – are the best soldiers in the world; given XY supplies, they can whip any other force of equal size.  Can you give them the supplies?

He turned the puzzle over in his mind, and then understood.  “No one can build a large empire for long,” he said thoughtfully.  The Knight Errant blinked at him.  “If you have magic, you can hold an empire…until your sorcerer dies.  If you are dependent upon manpower, sooner or later you’ll outrun your logistics – or get torn apart by a magic-using opponent.”

“I believe that that is what I said,” the Knight Errant said.  “What is the point?”

Jack thought with a bloody viciousness that shocked him, at the same time as he welcomed it.  I’m about to blow your comfortable world to bits – and you’ll thank me as I give you the instructions for committing suicide…

“Your problem is that you have large armies you cannot feed for long, or magic-users you have to rely on,” Jack said.  “What if you had weapons that could kill at a distance?”

The Knight Errant frowned.  “They’re called magicians,” he said.  “Can you give a man magic?”

“Yes,” Jack said flatly.  He picked up a quill pen and looked around for something to draw on; the Knight Errant passed him a sheet of paper.  “Look,” Jack said, drawing a cylinder.  “You have a hollow cylinder, one with a ball of metal placed inside, with some explosive powder behind the ball.  You detonate the powder…and the ball comes racing out towards the target.”

He briefly detailed how the bullet could be improved, how a basic matchlock could be produced, before continuing.  “Quite frankly, I’m rather surprised that your Clockwork Guild hasn’t stumbled upon this before,” he said.  “It’s quite a basic idea; you have a small force armed with these weapons, and they can cut through any number of knights in armour.”

The Knight Errant smiled darkly.  “That would convince the silly princes and minor lords and nobles that they’re not as important as they think they are,” he said.  “Carry on…”

Jack nodded once.  “As I understand it, you have your knights raiding enemy supply lines,” he said.  “It makes sense, I suppose; it’s not easy to stop a knight without considerable luck or discipline, and if you’re using peasants without proper training, they’ll break under the pressure.”

“They do,” the Knight Errant confirmed.  “They just don’t have the stomach for war.”

“Perhaps they don’t like dying for you,” Jack said, unable to resist the gibe.  “Point is; it’s hard to stop a knight with a man on foot, as the horse is always faster and the knight wears armour, right?”  The Knight Errant nodded impatiently.  “With one of these weapons, a handful of unarmoured troopers could bring down an entire charge of horsemen.”

“I…see,” the Knight Errant said slowly.  “Go on.”

Conservative stick in the mud, Jack thought coldly.  “Feeding your eight thousand will take lots of food,” he said.  “With weapons like these, you could have only a hundred men from each of the lordly estates; they could stop Shayde’s entire army dead in its tracks.”

“And then Shayde himself comes up with his magic and defeats them,” the Knight Errant said.

“Shayde can’t be everywhere at once,” Jack pointed out.  “Even so…these are the weapons that Shayde himself could duplicate, given time.  He also has the help of an expert on how these weapons are used…and plenty of time, unless you plan to take the field with the army you have now.”

Having baited the hook, he began to make it more attractive.  “With this knowledge, local blacksmiths could be turning out cannon and cannonballs, even weapons,” he continued.  “With such a large supply, you might even be able to invade Shayde’s territory sooner rather than later, before he gets his own weapons ready to move.”

“And logistics?”  The Knight Errant asked.  “How do you plan to make the magical powder and the…bullets?”

His voice stumbled over the unfamiliar word.  “It’s quite simple,” Jack assured him.  “Any soldier, given the right training, could make the bullets.  Gunpowder is harder, but it could be done.”  He detailed how American pioneers had done the same during the years of expansion, leaving out the bit about how such weapons had been used against oppression.  “Your force would be unbeatable.”

“Magic would still provide a problem,” the Knight Errant said.  Jack scowled; he’d thought – hoped – that they’d left that problem behind somewhere.  “Shayde has his own magicians; many of the wizards have signed up with him.  These weapons will change the field of warfare and that would be dangerous for all concerned…”

Jack spoke as fast as he could.  “Shayde is young,” he said.  “He won’t hesitate to use these weapons, just because he is young.  Cannon fire could bring down this entire castle, Mr…ah, why do they call you the Knight Errant anyway?”

“Names can be dangerous,” the Knight Errant said.  “Cannons could bring the entire castle down?”

“Oh yes,” Jack said.  “A few cannon shells into the walls and they would come crashing down.  How long would the wards hold against something like that?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the Knight Errant admitted.  He stared down at the sketch of the cannon Jack had drawn.  “Are these weapons likely to be dangerous to us?”

Jack snorted dryly.  “Well, if Shayde points them at you, instead of you pointing them at Shayde…”

He’d deliberately ignored the undercurrent of the question, forcing the Knight Errant to spell the question out more carefully.  “If the peasants get their hands on these weapons, will it convince them that they can ignore us, or even protest our over-lordship?”

Of course, you moron, Jack thought coldly.  “No,” he said.  “The weapons alone are nothing without the discipline to use them carefully.”

The Knight Errant looked doubtful, but said nothing, changing the subject.  “I will call for members of the Clockwork Guild,” he said.  “They know the most about making devices…then we can talk strategy.”

***
The members of the Clockwork Guild were, one and all, exactly like the famed Swiss stereotype of the watchmaker.  Small watches, such as Sumrita’s, weren’t all that common in their world; the members discussed it at great length.  After a long discussion about casting cannon, and complaints that it was more a job for blacksmiths than skilled workers, they left to find the components for gunpowder.  Loke went with them, just to help…and to keep an eye on them.

Blacksmiths are skilled workers, idiots, Jack thought.  No one could spend time near a blacksmith’s forge without knowing that…unless they were stupid enough to go too near and get burned.  A few dozen lawsuits had cut down on the number of genuine blacksmiths at renaissance fairs, but he had seen enough to interest him.  It wouldn’t be hard for them to show blacksmiths what to do…and the genie would be out of the bottle.

God made men, but Sam Colt – and now Jack Drache – made them equal, he thought, and smiled coldly.

“Strategy,” the Knight Errant said.  “Does your world offer any lessons for winning wars?”

“Kick the enemy in the nuts, chop off his head and make bloody certain you kill the guys on top,” Jack answered promptly.  “Shayde and those three Princes, along with their bureaucrats, have to be killed.”

The Knight Errant paled.  “Kill the Princes?”  He asked, in astonishment.  “That only happens to those who rebel against their sovereign lord.”

Bloody divine right, Jack thought.  They care nothing for shedding the blood of eight thousand peasants, which will utterly ruin their lands, but kill the parasites on top?  Hell, no!

“They are the ones responsible for the war,” Jack pointed out.  It was interesting that the Knight Errant hadn’t balked at the thought of killing Shayde, but perhaps low-born wizards weren’t covered by the medieval code on not killing kings and nobles, just to avoid giving the rabble ideas.

“They are following their lord,” the Knight Errant said.  The concept of war crimes and responsibility clearly didn’t exist here either.  “They cannot be held responsible for anything they do in his name.  If they swear loyalty to Akron, they’re safe.”

“I see,” Jack said, privately resolving to see what he could do about that.  “We have one course of action that everyone expects us to take, charging for the Castle at the End of the Land, right up at the end of Scotland.”

“Caledonia,” the Knight Errant said.  “That’s what Akron wants; he wants the problem of the rising magic levels ended quickly, before it starts to affect the people in Britannia.”

Jack peered at the map.  “Who’s this up here?”  He asked, pointing to a spot of land marked as an allied state.  “That other Grand Mage?”

The Knight Errant shook his head.  “No, that’s the lands of the Wizard Rinpotch, a man who was once Akron’s apprentice before leaving to set up his own little empire.  It’s been a gathering ground for several mages who support Akron, along with their men.”

“We’d be expected to go through there,” Jack said.  In fact, he was certain of it, unless they wanted to risk a passage through enemy territory.  Grand Mage Valastar sat to the west of the allied lands; the mysterious Grand Mage Ixa’em to the north.  His lands would have to be crossed, or avoided.  “If we start building an army there as well…”

The Knight Errant nodded.  “It wouldn’t be difficult to get a couple of samples, perhaps even a couple of craftsmen, up there,” he said.  “They could start building such an army as well.”

Jack nodded.  “So…we can either strike into Shayde’s territory from here and try to defeat him, or we can head north.”  He paused.  “If we leave an army here, Shayde will have real problems trying to catch us without smashing his way through here first, which will delay him.”

The Knight Errant considered.  “Link up with the army up north, which doesn’t exist yet, and head north,” he said.  He smiled.  “It might just work.”

There was a dull bonging sound, echoing through the castle.  “That’s Akron, calling for a meeting,” the Knight Errant said, leading the way out of the room.  “I think you’d better come with me.”

Jack followed him down the stairs, back to the meeting room.  Akron was standing there with Martin, looking grim.  Jill sat on one of the chairs, abandoned there; he felt a flash of guilt for leaving her there.  One of the hawks sat on Akron’s shoulder, eating from a bag it held in one claw.  Under other circumstances, it would almost have been charming.

“I had several of the hawks spying on Shayde,” Akron said shortly.  “The population of the village of Griffin has been utterly destroyed.”

Jack barely heard Jill’s gasp of horror.  “What happened?”

“The hawks don’t know,” Akron admitted.  “They were watching the castle when they heard something and went to investigate.  They found only an empty village.  The entire population has been wiped out.”

Jack reached out to Jill, but she pushed him aside angrily, before running out of the room.  The Knight Errant swore softly.  “That’s something new,” he said.  “What Grand Mage would destroy the population of a village, but leave the rest of it intact?”

Jack’s eyes met Akron’s and knew that they had shared the same thought.  “I think that Shayde has just raised the stakes a bit in the war,” Akron said.  “If he is willing to destroy entire village populations, he can only intend to do the same to the villages here as well.”

Chapter Twenty: Affairs of the Heart

Jill ran through the corridors, unable to face the rest of the group.  She passed through corridors fit for kings and stone passages suitable only for servants, before coming out onto a balcony.  She stared down at the moat, looking out over the land before her eyes, feeling hot tears prickling out from behind her eyes.  

She saw them all in front of her eyes.  Her father, who had loved her and cared for her.  Her mother, long since dead.  Her cousins, who had played with her and envied her for having an innkeeper for a father.  The old witch who had cared about her and helped her, as she had every young woman in the village, and…

She stared down towards the water, with the hordes of tiny man-eating fish, and wondered what would have happened if.  If she had submitted tamely to the rape, would she have been able to remain with her family?  If she hadn’t gone with Akron, would she have been killed when Griffin was destroyed?  If…

“I wouldn’t jump,” a female voice said.  Jill turned to see Angelina, striking a match on the stone walls and lighting…a tube in her mouth.  It burnt slowly, sending up a long line of dark hazy smoke.  “Suicide is not approved of.”

Jill felt her temper flare.  “My entire family is dead,” she snapped.  Her voice broke and she slumped against the floor.  It felt cold under her body.  “My father…”

“Who beat you,” Angelina said.  “I saw; he gave you more than just a simple spanking.”

Jill flushed eagerly.  “He loved me,” she said, feeling more tears running down her face.  “He always tried to protect me from the rest of the village; he had ambitions, he did.  I would marry a trader, one of the traders who went through Griffin with their goods, and build himself an empire of trade.”

Her voice broke and she sobbed for a moment.  She looked up to see Angelina holding out a thin white cloth.  “They’re all dead,” she sobbed.  “Mother Dissmall; you know, when I was young, she gave me the talk about…well, bleeding and all that.  She looked after me, told us all how to use herbs for when we didn’t want children, talked to us about men and about how they would treat us after marriage…

“There were young men,” she said.  “Some of them tried to lure me out into the forest, some were bolder and tried to kiss me.  I didn’t dare go too far; some of them tried to touch me and…”

She broke down again, feeling Angelina placing a hand on her shoulder.  “They’re all dead, just because of me!”

“It would have happened anyway,” Angelina said, as reassuringly as she could.  Jill felt the older woman giving her a hug.  “Shayde wasn’t about to let your people go; sooner or later he would have destroyed you.”

Jill didn’t believe her.  “And what of you?”  She asked, bitterly, in tones that would have earned her a slap from Mother Dissmall.  “Don’t you have any family?”

Angelina smiled ruefully as a cold wind blew from the north, chilling the tears on Jill’s face.  “My mother died giving birth to me,” she said.  “My father had always wanted a boy, but he had me instead.  He could have ignored me, but instead he sought to bring me up as a boy.”  She smiled.  “I was quite a tomboy and a holy terror on the football pitch.”

She shook her head slowly.  “My school wasn’t too keen on their best football player being a girl,” she said.  “Girls and boys weren’t supposed to change together after puberty and away matches didn’t always have separate rooms.  I didn’t really mind; I’d never understood boys and girls until I started to bleed myself, and I must have panicked my father.”

She giggled.  “There he was, his face as red as a lobster, trying to explain periods to the child he thought of as a boy,” she said.  “He finally sent me to see the nurse, who was helpful, and she explained more about them, but it meant that I wasn’t often able to play in the male teams.  Female teams, of course, but I wanted the best.

“My father had fought in the Falklands War and so he told me tales of the army,” she said.  Jill leaned against her; drawing what comfort she could from Angelina’s touch.  “It didn’t take much to convince me that the army was the world that I wanted to enter, even though it was hard to convince all of the Sergeant-Major’s that I was as good as a man at fighting.  Joining the SAS was tricky – almost half of the recruits drop out in the first few months – but I made it.”

Jill didn’t understand everything, but she understood enough to feel envy.  “You had a life of freedom,” she said.  “You never had to worry about men trying to have their way with you, despite your protests.”

Angelina snorted.  “I’m a lesbian,” she said.  Jill blinked, not understanding.  “Blame my father,” she said.  “He raised me as a boy and I got the idea that girls were sexy and men were not.  Half of the men were scared of me – my father had taught me to work out – and the others only wanted one thing from me.  So…it was natural to start fancying women, who at least care for more than a pretty face.”

Jill felt her mouth fall open, and then she smiled.  It wasn’t unknown in her village, but it was very rare…and severely punished when it was discovered.  It was mainly young men, exploring their own sexuality when there were too few girls, or occasionally a pair of girls seeing what they could do with their bodies.

“I was scared that you and Jack were…you know,” she said, feeling relieved.  

Angelina looked down at her for a long moment.  “I was wondering about that,” she said.  “You like him, don’t you?”

Jill nodded, knowing that her voice was weak.  “He saved me from a fate worse than death,” she said.

“A knight in white armour,” Angelina said, her voice carrying the hint of a laugh within it.  “That suits him, you know; he doesn’t like this world much, but…”

Jill frowned.  “Do you think he’s interested in me?”

“Oh, I’m certain of it,” Angelina said, pointing a long finger towards Jill’s breasts.  “Men are like that, you see.”

“He’s not like that,” Jill said furiously.  “He could have taken me himself after saving me.”

“I would have blown his head off,” Angelina said sharply.  “Seriously, our society believes that a woman should choose her own husband, even a casual sex partner.  It’s not good form to take a woman against her will, and there are so many who will be more than willing to sleep with him without force.”

Jill felt…a confused maelstrom of emotions.  “Do you think he cares about me?”  She asked.  “I came here for him.”

“I think he cares a lot,” Angelina said.  She frowned.  “Seriously, do you think that there are grounds for a lasting relationship?”

“I don’t understand,” Jill said.  Angelina frowned darkly.  “I…want him…”

Angelina smiled.  “Then you shall have him,” she said.  “Now, come here.  Auntie Angelina is going to help you get your man.”

Jill smiled weakly.  “And you’ve never had a man yourself?”

Angelina shrugged.  “Young men are rarely concerned with anything, but their own pleasure,” she said.  “They went atop me, or under me, thrusting away until they came, with never a thought for me.  Girls are much nicer.”  She smiled.  “Come on, Jill; this is not a safe place to stay for too long.”

Jill looked at the balcony and really appreciated, for the first time, just how far down the water was.  She’d never been so high before; the ground was a very long way away.

“Come on,” Angelina said.  “It’s time to go inside.”

***
Jack studied the pile of equipment in front of him, the remains of their packs and the equipment they contained.  Some items, such as the knives and the grenades, were still useable; others, including the laptops, were not.  He’d wondered if there would be an electronic substitute in this reality, perhaps using magic, but Akron had suspected that powering up the laptops or the beacon would be impossible, particularly as it might cost them their last power cells in the experiment.

The weapons, at least, had been left in their places.  Shayde had four assault rifles and several hundred bullets; Jack had the rest, two rifles, one dismounted submachine gun, and a small collection of pistols.  Silently, he blessed the Thande Institute’s paranoia, even as he cursed his decision to become one of its agents.  The weapons would run out of ammunition soon, and he knew that it would be years before the blacksmiths could produce ammunition for them, severing another link with his past.

He picked up a small folder and peered through it.  Under the American flag, he saw the documents that he was intended to present to any alternate universe that captured them and found out what they were.  He shook his head once; the universe that had captured them hadn’t proven to be able to cross timelines, let alone knew enough to try.

He studied the flag for one long moment, and then put it aside.  The beacon itself sat there, completely powerless; without some power, it would be useless.  The radios, small tactical sensors and other equipment was also useless; the charges for the tiny amount of plastic explosive utterly powerless in the new reality.

“Look at this,” Loke’s voice said.  Jack looked up from studying the flag, wondering if he’d ever see home again, and peered at the device in Loke’s hands.  It looked like an old musket, except it had a bayonet on the end, pointing threateningly towards him.

“Cruder than I hoped,” Jack commented.  “What will it fire?”

“They don’t have enough skilled craftsmen to make flintlocks yet,” Loke said.  “It can fire, and it can be reloaded fairly quickly, but when you’re facing a charge, you need something else to fight with.  Hence” – he tapped the bayonet – “this little beauty.”

Jack looked down at the rifle on the table.  It was from another world, literally.  “I suppose it’s a start,” he said.  “Shayde hates Akron, you know.”

Loke gave him an odd look.  “How did you know that?”

Jack paused.  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, and rubbed his head.  “I think…I think that some of Shayde’s memories have poured into my head…”

Loke frowned.  “And vice versa?”  He asked.  “What might Shayde have learned from you?”

“I don’t think that we have any way of knowing,” Jack said.  “Tactics to use the weapons he has?  Perhaps.  How to build them?  I very much doubt it.”

“Some of the craftsmen are already working on improving the design of this Brown Bess,” Loke said.  “How hard is it to work out the principles behind firearms?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted.  “Shayde…is smart and very clever indeed.”  He changed the subject quickly.  “How many of these have you made in two days?”

“Fifty,” Loke said, with a great deal of pride.  “Now that they know what they’re doing, they can move faster.”

Jack looked down at the modern weapons again.  “Fifty,” he said slowly.  “If Shayde has any idea of what we’re planning…”

“We have to head to the Castle at the End of the Land,” Loke said.  “Shayde has too many advantages for us to hope to win in the long run.”

Jack nodded.  “I know,” he said.  “What do we do?  Build a few hundred of those muskets and set off north?”

“I think that would be best,” Loke said.  “That’s the real target; whoever gets there first can block the other, even if we learn nothing from the Castle itself.  However, I’m sure that that’s where we have to be.”

Jack sighed.  “We need an army behind us,” he said.  “I tried to sell Akron on the concept of attacking Shayde as soon as we had enough weapons, but no go; Akron was just as determined to get us to the Castle at the End of the Land as you.”  He smiled.  “Why are you so certain that we can do anything there?”

Loke gave him an odd, unreadable look.  “I want to get out of this world,” he said.  “Everyone here takes me for a dwarf.”

“Humm,” Jack said.  “I know; I’m in half a mind to leave, or to stay.  This world needs…help.”

***
“It’s been four days since we got here,” Jack said, addressing the other members of the team.  Akron and his people had not been informed of the meeting.  “I think the time has come to start making a few more decisions.”

Martin looked up from his chair.  Jack frowned; Martin looked unhealthy, with sallow eyes and a pale complexion.  Sumrita reached out to take his temperature and he shrugged her off.  He’d been spending most of his time with Akron.  Jack learned forward, looking into Martin’s eyes, and was relieved to see that they were alive, if unhealthy.

“Decisions,” Martin said.  His voice was weak, as if he was suffering from throat trouble.  “What sort of decisions.”

Jack gave him his best commanding look.  “Are you sure that you’re alright?”  He asked.  “You don’t look well.”

“Learning magic takes a lot out of you,” Martin said.  He paled still further.  “I feel better than I have in years.”

Jack frowned.  “A question,” he said.  “Can Akron listen to us here?”

Martin closed his eyes.  For an awful moment, Jack feared that they’d lost him.  “There are no spells in here designed to spy on us,” he said finally.  “I’ve made enough progress to be sure of that.”

Jack wasn’t sure that he liked his tone.  Sumrita’s face seemed to share his worries.  “You first, then,” he said.  “How much progress have you made?”

Martin smiled tiredly.  “Magic is the cheat code to reality here, just like Ellis put it,” he said.  “Each spell is a computer program, one that adjusts local reality to suit the user’s will.  They don’t understand that truly; they just…make progress on putting together a spell by sheer luck.  Sometimes they get nothing, sometimes they have a disaster, and sometimes they have a real success.”

He scowled.  “They’re all natural webheads,” he said.  “That’s the part we were missing; people who have the talent for magic tend to develop into a computer webhead, with the talent and insight into how a computer works, but they don’t have any framework for understanding that.  Their spells; they have parts in them that do nothing, and parts that warp how much power it can draw upon.”

“I see,” Jack said.  He wasn’t sure that he did.  “How long will it be before you can match Akron?”

Martin’s eyes flickered.  “Not long,” he said.  “They don’t understand their own magic, you see; even Akron and Shayde only have limited insights into their own powers.  It’s like using your own mind to…well, write a book; the more you do, the harder it is.”

“Good,” Jack said, doubtfully.  “As I said, we have a decision to make; this war between Akron and Shayde is really none of our business, but at the same time we cannot leave Shayde behind us, armed for blood.”

Angelina spoke from her seat, her tone sharp.  “Sir, with all due respect, we’re already involved,” she said.

“I know,” Jack said.  “This culture is an…abomination.  I’m old enough to remember serving in places that needed an atomic strike to clean them up, but instead they were our allies and so we pretended we liked them.”  His tone darkened.  “We can change all that here; Martin can teach people how to use their magic, and the rest of us can introduce democracy and human right and all sorts of medical advances that will make their lives better.”

He stood up, pacing around the room.  “Every few years, the power system is shattered when a new wizard arrives and calves out a kingdom,” he said.  “The Council, which we still know little about…”

“The six hundred and sixty-six most powerful wizards in the land,” Martin injected.

“The Council, I suspect, served to keep a check on the devastation, but now its broken,” Jack said.  “We could introduce new concepts into the land, smash the lords and nobles, and rebuild the nation in a form that we could all be proud of.”  He looked around the room.  “Comments?”

“You are abandoning your duty to the Thande Institute,” Loke said.  “It is our duty” – he glared around the room – “to get back home and report.  Our duty; there is no get-out clause.  I know you have ideals, and I cannot say that they are bad ideals, but we have a duty.”

He paused for effect.  “And have you forgotten?  The Castle at the End of the Land is spilling out more magic.  Your paradise might just be destroyed in moments – accidentally!  We have to go there to find out what the hell the Castle at the End of the Land actually is!”

Angelina glared at him.  “I thought that your country was a strong supporter of human rights,” she snapped.  “The lot of a woman here is bad, Loke; they’re often lucky if they’re only raped by one or two people in their lives.  The peasant men aren’t much better off; a war, even at their low intensity, ruins lives completely.”

Loke glared at her.  “So do our wars,” he snapped.  “We know very little about this world, Angelina; we should not interfere.”

“You helped to design Brown Bess,” Angelina snapped back.  “Loke…”

“Silence,” Jack said, as strongly as he could.  “I know that we will damage this society – that we already have damaged the society – but seriously, what choice is there?”

Loke sighed once.  “We have to go to the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.

“I know,” Jack said.  “Afterwards, however…we have to help these people.”

Chapter Twenty-One: Distractions

Shayde had never been truly certain that Prince Dike was on his side.  The Prince had bowed to Shayde’s magic, but he had been reluctant to submit; placing him in Thrall would have agonised the rest of his royal relatives for no good reason.  There was nothing they could have done against him – none of their Court Magicians could hope to stand against Shayde – but it would have proven an unwelcome distraction.

Now…it no longer mattered.

Shayde watched from his horse as hundreds of his soldiers marched towards Prince Dike’s seat; the town of Peterborough.  The Prince had resisted his commands to have his forces prepared at once for dispatch to Akron’s territory; as soon as he was safely back in Peterborough he had started to drag his feet.  Akron’s rescue of the newcomers, right from the heart of Shayde’s power, had embarrassed him, weakened his standing with the Merchant Guild, and convinced Prince Dike that he was weak.

Captain Brant pulled his horse up beside his master’s.  Shayde congratulated himself on choosing Brant; he had more than proved his worth in the last few days.  His actions had earned him rewards and status, and command of some of Shayde’s personal troopers.  The man had talent; he reminded Shayde of himself, but without the magic needed to make him a threat to Shayde himself.

“They are preparing to make a fight of it, Your Lordship,” Captain Brant said.  Shayde nodded, lifting his ‘spyglass’ to his eye; a concept that had slipped out of Jack’s mind and equipment.  Using a handful of spells to create something similar had been easy, now that he knew that it was possible, and with some work on the part of his craftsmen it should be possible to cut out the magic altogether.  

“Fools,” Shayde said, twisting in his saddle to view the defences.  Prince Dike’s Court Magicians had been busy, perhaps even enlisting a travelling wizard; the wards were strong around the gates of the walled town.  He smiled; they had indeed done their work well, too well.  They had intended to prevent him from simply blasting the walls with magic, but there was another way.

He shivered in the saddles as a vision overcame him, part of Jack’s memories.  A city, far larger than any he’d ever seen, under attack by Jack’s people.  Explosions echoing across the city with violence no magic could match, falling from ‘aircraft’ in the sky.  

“Normally we would need to use catapults to hammer the walls,” Captain Brant said.  Shayde pulled himself back upright, watching the archers on the walls.  They would be taking pot shots at them while they prepared…under normal circumstances.  “Now…”

Shayde smiled to himself.  The memories he had pulled from Jack were frustratingly incomplete, but some things were perfect, utterly so.  “Have the warning issued,” he said.  “You may deliver it in person.”

Brant bowed once and galloped forwards, distracting attention from Shayde as he reached the truce-ground, just in front of the gates.  Shayde had given him a protective charm, but a spelled arrow could still kill him, depending on the spell used for the effect.  Shayde nodded once, and then drew the weapon he’d fashioned with some help from Christina and Jack’s memories, and then powered with additional magic.

He smiled.  It had taken almost all of the life force of the villagers of Griffin to prepare the weapon, but he was certain that it would be worth it; no one else had even thought of the concept – except him.

“Hear ye,” Captain Brant bellowed, his voice echoing over the walls and into the city.  The inhabitants might overthrow Prince Dike if he refused to surrender; they would hardly care to be caught in the middle of a magical war.  “Hear ye; this city and its lord have acted against their supreme overlord, Grand Mage Shayde.”

There was a long pause.  There was no reply.  “But he is merciful,” Captain Brant continued.  “If the ruler of this city steps down and opens the gates, there will be no sacking, no punishment for the city as a whole, nothing for anyone, but the traitor.  This is your final warning…”

An arrow lashed out at him, deflected by the protective charm.  Shayde winced; if Prince Dike had had the magical weapons from the other world, it would have been disastrous for Brant.  Brant turned his horse around, fleeing the city; firing at, let alone into the envoy meant war.

“They mean war,” Captain Brant said, as his horse reached Shayde’s position.  “Your Lordship…”

“Have the troops ready to move,” Shayde ordered coldly.  “You know what to do.”

Captain Brant trotted off, snapping out orders to the soldiers, who did as they were told.  All of them had been warned; they had to cover their eyes and look away from the gates when Shayde launched the weapon.  Shayde reached into his saddlebags and brought out a single ball of magic, frozen in a single moment.

He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the weapon, before hurling it towards the gates with magic.  The Court Magicians wouldn’t understand it; the wards would be capable of handling it, which was the point.  Shayde covered his eyes, reaching out with his inner eye, as that massive burst of magic, powered by blood sacrifice, slammed into the wards.  

He peered through his fingers as the entire city was enveloped in white light…and then the wards collapsed.  He lifted one hand, summoning his magic, and threw a single bolt of power at the gates.  The magicians must have been attached to the wards when they went down; they made no attempt to stop his attack.  He smiled; it wouldn’t have made a difference.

The bolt of power slammed into the gates and they exploded, blown backwards by the sheer force of the attack.  His soldiers shouted and charged forward, crashing through the remains of the gates and slicing their way through the suddenly stunned and demoralised defenders.  The enemy soldiers, often just soldiers of fortune, threw down their swords and surrendered as the fight became more brutal; Shayde’s soldiers captured them.  They could be ransomed or enslaved later, or even invited to join Shayde’s forces.

Ten minutes later, it was all over.  The city was under occupation; the soldiers were already looking for women, dragging out mothers and daughters, slaughtering their menfolk if they dared to object.  Shayde ignored it; the city had resisted him and it would pay the price.

Captain Brant met him outside Prince Dike’s palace.  Shayde had visited once before, when he had taken Dike’s oath of allegiance; there was some pleasure to be had in considering how it could be torched.  The assembled nobles refused to meet his eyes, but they remained defiant; they knew that they could not be touched.  Noble blood was required…

Shayde smiled and some of the weaker observers fainted.  None of them knew how wrong they were.  His personal guard followed him, stepping inside the throne room without even bothering to wipe their feet.  It was a massive breach of etiquette to have commoners in the room; the nobles were horrified.  

“Your Lordship,” Prince Dike said, as bravely as he could.  Shayde scowled; the fool was going to try to make a fight of it.  “Had I known that it was your forces outside the city…”

Shayde met his eyes and the Prince cringed.  “You rebelled against me,” he said calmly.  There was no need to be angry, yet; Jack’s thoughts told of discipline and the power that came from controlling one’s temper.

“My Lord,” Prince Dike said, cowering on his throne, and then found some reserves of dignity from somewhere.  “My Lord; the path of confrontation with Akron is suicidal.”

“Indeed?”  Shayde asked, refusing to move, just to unnerve Prince Dike further.  “Had you concerns, you should have informed me when we discussed the preparation for the war.  Did you not swear loyalty to me?”

Prince Dike paled still further.  A rustle from behind him, the sound of a sword being drawn, showed that one of the noblemen had more courage than he had brains.  Shayde clicked his fingers; the nobleman burst into flames, burning away his soul in an orgy of hellfire.

“Did you not swear loyalty to me?”  Shayde demanded, allowing his anger to finally show in his tone.  “I made you great, Dike; I gave you power, backing and support, enough to overwhelm several smaller states near your borders.”

He turned to gaze around the room.  Several of the men there were old enough to remember how Shayde had provided the support to conquer their states.  In the normal run of such affairs, they had accepted their subordinate status in exchange for their lives and some limited power.

“All of you swore your loyalty to me,” he said, and it was true.  “You have a duty to me, which you have rejected.”  He turned back to face Prince Dike.  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“You have broken every rule of these matters,” Prince Dike said.  Some reserve of suicidal courage had appeared within him.  “You have brought armed soldiers into these hallowed halls, ones only suitable for those with noble blood, or magic.  You have warped all of the agreements that were made between the Council of Wizardry and the Chamber of Noblemen, before…”

“Before that body collapsed,” Shayde said, pleasantly.  “Get off that throne.”

Prince Dike looked as if he would like to refuse.  Shayde cast one spell, just one, and Prince Dike slid off the throne, landing on the ground with a bump.  Shayde’s soldiers laughed uproariously; some of the nobles looked as if they would have liked to join them.  Prince Dike flushed angrily, crawling away from Shayde.

“Now,” Shayde said, peering at the throne with his inner eye.  There were no spells designed to prevent anyone else from taking the throne, so he sat down, staring at Prince Dike.  “The rules have changed, Prince Dike.”

The Prince looked absurdly like a dog, cowering on the floor.  Shayde reached out with his magic, murmuring a spell under his breath, and Prince Dike became a dog.  He barked once, in panic, and then fled out of the door.  Shayde motioned for Captain Brant to let him go; the lesson would not be forgotten by the other nobles in a hurry.  Besides, the city would be starving soon…and who would know that the dog was once their former ruler?

“Now,” he said again, eying the courtiers.  “I think we will start with all of you.”  He looked over at his guards.  “I promised you all a special reward,” he said, “and I meant it.”  He waved a hand at the assembled nobles.  “Kill all of the men, and then have your fun with the women.”

There was a long moment of dead silence, and then there was pandemonium.  Some of the nobles drew their swords and tried to fight against the soldiers, who brushed them aside and killed them.  Shayde amused himself by shooting bolts of light from his hand at some of the noblemen, killing or transfiguring them at will.  He laughed aloud as the women started pleading; they were all whores at heart.

He watched as Captain Brant dragged off a young lady who had formerly been the apple of her father’s eye.  She’d been kept safe by her father from the world, in perpetration for a marriage alliance of some kind.  She was pleading desperately, offering gold and jewels, but he wasn’t interested.  His hands were already probing at her bodice as he pulled her out of the room.

Serve them all right, he thought, sitting back in his throne.  The city wasn’t in a good location to act as a forward base for the coming war, but with some effort it could be developed into a useful base for later operations.  Jack’s mind, and Christina’s knowledge, had given him insights…ones that would give him the whole country, in time, and then supreme power.

“I have gold,” a female voice said, and Shayde realised that a girl was still pleading with one of his men.  “I have gold…I have jewels, you’ll be hunted down and killed…”

Her voice broke off as the guard raped her savagely.  Shayde leaned back in his throne and smiled; the rules had changed, once and for all.

***
I’m being raped, she thought, with some small corner of her mind.  Her surprise was great, her terror dulled by the effects of the magical spells placed upon her.  I’m being raped…

Christina had never wondered what being raped would be liked.  Women of her family never did; confessing to having any sexual thoughts would be well out of character.  She’d had experiences, of course; time with a lover in university, time with a boyfriend, time with a man she’d almost married, but she’d never been raped.

She knew now was it must be like.  Her mind felt as if it had been wrapped in cotton wool, and then hacked into two parts.  One part served Shayde and was rewarded; bursts of pleasure for helping him and his people learn more about the alternate world and it’s technology.  That part told Shayde’s soldiers things they needed to know about their trade, laying out all her knowledge and understanding, political and military, for their attention.

She shuddered inside.  It didn’t even affect the slightly vacant smile on her face.  The part that kept the smile in place obeyed; it was rewarded for obeying.  She’d seen how some of the Arab immigrants in France had brainwashed their women and even some unlucky Frenchwomen; the principle was the same, it was just the method that was different.  That part was rewarded; it was rewarded for committing what was in effect treason, bursts of pleasure that never lasted long enough.

And the sex!  Shayde had commanded her to sleep with him and she had; she hadn’t had a choice.  She’d used all she’d learnt, using her hand, her mouth, and given him pleasure.  She’d come herself, but that hadn’t pleased her any longer, not when she was rewarded for obeying.

Deep inside her mind, the other personality fought to keep itself together.  It was like being trapped underwater, barely able to breath, barely even able to see.  It could feel the Thrall burning its way through her mind and it hid from it, just as it hid from Shayde’s frequent inspections of her mind.  It was in hell, and it – she – knew that she was in hell, but she’d picked up one detail from Shayde; Jack had successfully resisted Thrall.

I can do it, she thought, deep inside her own mind, and struggled, building her strength for the final push out of her mind.  I can do it…

***
The morning afterwards, Shayde watched as the handful of surviving women were herded into the slave gangs, which were already being prepared.  The senior surviving civil officer, the mayor, had been found and held by one of his guards; Shayde wanted him and his family alive.  The Mayor was dragged in; his face widened when he saw the former princesses and noblewomen being herded out of the palace.

“If you betray me, that will be the fate of your wife and daughters,” Shayde said.  He knew all about the Mayor; he’d done the hard work of running the city, while Prince Dike had sat back and skimmed off the cream.  “On the other hand, if you serve me, I will reward you.”

The Mayor didn’t take long to make up his mind.  “I will serve you,” he said, and prostrated himself before Shayde.  “What is your command, Your Lordship?”

“You will be ruler of the city, under me,” Shayde said.  “You may style yourself Prince of Peterborough, if you wish.”  The Mayor’s eyes went wide.  “You will get the city back into a working part of my empire as soon as possible, once my men have finished having their fun.”

It was on the tip of the Mayor’s tongue to point out that Shayde’s forces had caused much of the damage.  Shayde was almost disappointed that he resisted the temptation.  “I will do as you command,” the Mayor said.  

“Excellent,” Shayde said.  He stood up from the throne.  “The city is yours,” he said.  “Now, you have certain requirements to meet, within one month.”  He rattled off a long line of supplies for the army and watched the mayor blanch.  “Can you meet them?”

The Mayor paled, but stood his ground.  “Your Lordship…the damage caused by…ah, Prince Dike’s forces has crippled us,” he said.  Shayde smiled at the reminder.  “We cannot meet all of these, I fear…”

“You should fear me,” Shayde said.  The Mayor paled still further.  “You will meet these demands, which I calculate you can do by using the slaves we have so kindly enslaved for you.  Naturally, you will enjoy your work.”

The Mayor stammered for a moment.  Shayde clicked his fingers threateningly.  “Your Lordship, they are nobles…”

“They were nobles,” Shayde said, smiling.  “Now they’re slaves.  I would really advise you to avoid failing me, whatever it takes.”

The Mayor bowed and left quickly; Shayde watched him go, considering.  Once the city had satisfied the demands he had placed upon it, he would go lighter on it; handling his first set of demands would cripple the city for several years and – just incidentally – warn anyone else thinking of rebelling against him. 

He looked down at his notes, which were detailing the formation of the new army, and then stopped as something flew into the throne room.  It was a magical bird – he could tell that just from the field around it – and that meant that it was one of Akron’s hawks…except it wasn’t.  Shayde cast a protective spell and watched the bird as it came closer; it was a sparrow.  

“A magical sparrow?”  He asked himself, puzzled.  “Who would use something like that?”

The sparrow came closer and chirped a message into his ear.  Shayde listened carefully, and then nodded once to himself.  His own experience with Akron gave the message only one origin…and it hadn’t come from Akron.  Only one person could have sent the message, with the information the bird held in its memory, information that would commit that person to Shayde’s side.

He closed his eyes, considering.  It might have been a trap, but he doubted it; the information already given to him was a secret beyond price.  Akron would never have taken such a risk, which argued that it must be genuine.  If it were genuine, it was something that he could not afford to miss, or allow to slip past him.

He called for Captain Brant and issued some orders, and then took his horse, riding away from his own territory.  He had a meeting to attend.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Who Dares to Call it Treason?

The Wizard Dominos stepped off his horse and stared into the darkness of the forest near the village that held his parents and siblings, who had been capable merchants before the war had begun.  It was a queer kind of war; Shayde had done nothing after Akron’s rescue, but trade had been crippled; his father had pressed him to tell Akron that the war had to end quickly.

“I’m trying, dad,” he’d said, without explaining the double meaning behind his words.  He had thought that Akron cared about him, that he had accepted Dominos as one of the most promising young wizards, even to assist him in rising to the rank of wizard.  As Akron’s apprentice, he had been trained and allowed to develop his powers in safety - except now that Martin had arrived, Dominos had just been dropped.

Like an old shoe, he thought bitterly, recognising the thought as a sign of the lifestyle he had come to expect.  Martin got to experiment with spells on his own, Martin got access to books that Dominos would have loved to read for himself, Martin was taught spells that Akron had never shared with anyone else…

The darkness of the woods was overpowering.  A Power had lived there once, one now long-gone; the Powers waxed and waned in ways humans couldn’t even begin to understand.  The place was eerie; only wizards went anywhere near it, just to conduct business they could never have conducted in public.  Necromancers used the place for ceremonies that would have shocked even Shayde; young men and women never dared to use it for fear of what they might disturb.

Within the forest, strange lights flickered, the remains of the power that the Power had controlled.  Dominos found his way down the path; he’d been before, looking for artefacts that might have helped him rise to power, and had barely escaped with his life.  This time, he might have help…or Akron would never know what had happened to him.

Dominos shook his head, feeling seething rage and jealousy; he’d served the old man for so long and this was his reward?  He hadn’t been permitted to court Jill, he hadn’t been permitted to learn alongside Martin, he…Akron hadn’t even bothered to ask him where he was going, when he left the castle.  He’d taken the precaution of preparing a cover story, but it hadn’t been needed.

There, he thought, stepping into a clearing.  A small circular building had once stood there, the centre of a Power’s domains.  Now, it was in ruins; an alter for the necromancers sat in the exact centre of the building.  Dominos knew better than to enter the circle; the necromancers could have trapped it with all kinds of nasty spells, just to get rid of spies.

He shuddered.  His childhood had been spent listening to ghost stories told by his parents, and when he’d become a wizard he’d looked many of the stories up in the Council Building.  They’d been understated, if anything; necromancers had created dark shadows from the essence of those they sacrificed, such as the human-shaped shadow standing on the opposite side of the building…

Dominos felt his heart race with sudden terror; he clutched his wand as the shadow came forward, stepping into the clearing.  A bright beam of moonlight flickered down into the clearing, illuminating the scene, but the shadow remained a shadow.  Dominos frantically readied spells for illumination, knowing that it would be too late…

The shadow took on human form, the shadow falling away, revealing a man standing there.  In the moonlight, he seemed as pale as an elf, with dark hair hidden under a dark hat.  No wand gleamed in his hand; instead he held a staff made of pure oak.  Something rustled near the ground and Dominos looked down, to see spiders scuttling around the clearing.

“Grand Mage Shayde,” he said, kneeling before Shayde.  He kept his voice calm through sheer determination; the spiders alone could kill him before he could even begin to harm Shayde.  Shayde’s own power could overwhelm him in an instant.  “I give you my Oath that I will do nothing to harm you for this night, provided only that you do not seek to harm me first.”

Shayde’s dark eyes held him in place; a humiliating position, intended to remind him of who was boss.  “Wizard Dominos,” he said.  His tone held no humour.  “I knew that it would be you.”

Dominos had expected that, bowing his head.  He noticed – and could do nothing about – the fact that Shayde hadn’t offered an Oath in return.  “I understand,” he said.  “How many others could have given you that information?”

Shayde smiled.  It wasn’t a pleasant sight.  “Few who would have any motive or means for contacting me,” he said.  His head tilted quizzically.  “I was unaware that you had bonded to sparrows.”

Dominos nodded.  All magicians above a certain power level bonded to an animal, normally through their familiar, something that gave them a link to every single one of that particular species.  He himself had always loved sparrows; he’d had fun playing with them when he was younger.  They were such flighty creatures.

“I was unaware that you had bonded to spiders,” he said, as the spiders pooled around his feet.  He mentally readied a fire-spell, knowing that using it was a final option; all of his powers would be lost at best.  “Everyone thought that you had bonded to hawks.”

“I allowed my former teacher to think that,” Shayde said mildly.  “It pleased him; me following in his footsteps.  Instead…spiders.  They’re such delightful creatures, don’t you think?”

Dominos shrugged.  “I have never played with spiders,” he said.  “They do not frequent this area.”  He looked around at the silent mass of spiders.  “Until now, apparently.”

Shayde picked up a spider on one long bare finger and held it out to Dominos.  “Spiders don’t think the way that humans, or hawks do,” he said.  “The spiders have a group mind, one they share among themselves.  This particular spider was a…well, let’s say a sister of the ones you burnt.”

His voice was flat, unreadable.  Dominos stared at the spider, almost hypnotised.  “How many brothers and sisters does it have?”  He asked, as the spider remained motionless.  “You just happened to bring just that particular spider along?”

Shayde laughed, very quietly.  “Oh, very good,” he said, approvingly.  He reached out and placed the spider on Dominos’ shoulder; it ran down his back and back onto the ground.  “I would advise you not to move, by the way.”

Dominos felt a hot flash of anger.  “Why?”  He demanded.  “You have not acted like a person coming under a flag of truce.”

Shayde looked down at him for a long moment.  “There are thousands of spiders all around you,” he said, in a tone that would be used for addressing an idiot.  “Should you happen to squash one, the rest will be rather…unhappy, to say the least.”  He adopted the tone of a teacher.  “They don’t like you already, Dominos; if you kill one more they will kill you and eat you, leaving your body as a nest for their brood.”

He smiled.  Dominos saw his teeth flashing in the moonlight.  “It was only with the greatest difficultly that I persuaded them to leave you alone, when they learned that it was you coming.  I would advise you to be very careful what’s hiding in your room, these days.”

Dominos shivered.  Shayde paced around the clearing, examining the altar and the other ruins.  He was careful not to step inside the circle himself.  Dominos closed his eyes, trying to ignore the spiders nearby, watching him with unblinking eyes.  This wasn’t what he had expected!

Shayde completed his circuit and paced back to Dominos.  “So…now we’ve gotten acquainted, tell me…what do you want that you gave me a secret beyond price?”

Dominos shivered, realising that he was in very real danger of falling over.  He looked up pleadingly; Shayde didn’t seem concerned at first, and then he waved at the spiders.  Hissing and clicking, they moved backwards; Dominos suddenly realised that the hissing was somehow ominous.  

“They can’t wait to eat you,” Shayde commented.  “So…before I run out of patience, what do you want?”

Dominos stood up slowly, stretching his muscles to prevent him from collapsing.  “Akron has taken on a new apprentice,” he said.  

“I fail to see why that should concern me,” Shayde said.  His eyes glittered in the darkness.  “You came to tell me that?”

“The apprentice is one of the newcomers,” Dominos said.  He sensed Shayde’s sudden blinding interest, pressing down on him.  “In less than a week, he has begun practicing spells at Mage level.”

Shayde looked sharply at him.  “You lie,” he said finally.  “It can take years of training to reach even Wizard level.”

“I give you my Oath that I do not lie,” Dominos said.  “The newcomer, Martin, has the run of the castle and…”

Shayde threw back his head and laughed, a high chilling sound.  “Now I understand,” he said, chuckling.  “You’re jealous.  Why not challenge him to a friendly duel?  Why not turn him into something for a while, just to keep him in his place?”

Dominos didn’t reply.  “Oh, you’re that scared of him,” Shayde said delightedly.  “How could he have advanced so fast?”

“Akron has pushed him forward hard,” Dominos said.  “He only needs to see a spell to understand it; nine times out of ten he will perform it perfectly.  Akron is showing him spells that belong to Akron himself, spells that he never showed me, let alone taught me how to do them.”

Shayde lifted an eyebrow.  “If you had not given me your Oath, I would have called you a liar,” he said.  The tone was absurdly friendly; Dominos shivered.  “Still, what made you come to me?”

Dominos played his trump card.  “You know what its like to be abandoned by a master,” he said.  “You were once in my place.”

Shayde’s expression was unreadable, his voice flat and hard.  “Explain,” he commanded, and the spiders hissed.  “How was I in your place.”

Dominos knew that he had to be right.  No other explanation was possible.  “You were once Akron’s pupil,” he said.  Shayde’s expression, for once unguarded, revealed that he was entirely correct.  “You left him when he took on someone new…just like me.”

***
The clearing was deathly silent.  Even the spiders had stopped scuttling around.  “A most interesting conclusion,” Shayde said.  “Might I ask how you came to that conclusion?”

Dominos looked at him, his face shrouded in shadow.  “There are five years of your life that remain unaccounted for,” he said.  “You appeared out of nowhere to challenge the Mage Rupert, with skills that should have had you brought to a wizard’s rank by the Power of London.  You had to have gathered them from somewhere – more likely someone.  Akron won’t tell me about his other apprentices – the last time he asked he turned me into a statue for a week.

“And I was there when you and Akron exchanged blows,” he continued.  “The magic styles were the same, which is indicative of similar training, and as there’s no magical college or university…”

He paused.  “This split between you has been building up for a long time, hasn’t it?”

Shayde looked down at him for a long moment, saying nothing.  “Yes,” he said finally.  “We had a major disagreement over the use of magic and the role of the Council.  He wanted me to remain small; I wanted to be great.”

“Just like me,” Dominos said.  “What sort of wizard will I be if all I learn are piddling little spells that show nothing of my true talents?”

“Now you understand why I left,” Shayde said, and refused to elaborate.  “So…you gave me one vital piece of information, enough to pay for this meeting.  What now?”

“I want to join you,” Dominos said.  “Akron will continue to use me as a power supply, without teaching me enough to allow me to satisfy my ambitions.  You’re young; you have every incentive to see the old order toppled and replaced with something new, something better.”

He paused, inviting comment.  Shayde said nothing.  “How many of the Wizards have declared for you?”  He asked.  “Why should I not be part of the new order?”

“Around one hundred have declared for me openly,” Shayde said.  “Perhaps another hundred will be willing to go for me if the war should go my way quickly.  The older ones, of course, will go to Akron.”

“Exactly,” Dominos said.  “You need as much manpower as you can get.”

Shayde laughed.  “Manpower is not the problem,” he said.  He smiled slightly.  “You do realise that Akron will see this as treason?”

“He betrayed me,” Dominos said.  “With this newcomer…he no longer has time for me.”

Shayde looked at him for a long moment.  “He should have placed you in Thrall,” he said.  “There are no loyalty spells on you?”

Dominos shrugged.  “None at all,” he said.  “Such spells interfere with the magic I could do for him – such a wasted effort.”  His bitterness rose up, almost overwhelming him.  “What are the rewards of power under him?”

“Nonexistent,” Shayde said.  “So…what are you going to do for me?”

Dominos nodded.  He’d always known that Shayde’s tutorage would come with a price.  “They’re building new weapons,” he said.  “Ones intended to make a large army unnecessary.  I can get you samples.”

“Can you?”  Shayde asked.  “I will also need details on how to produce them.”

“A child could make the weapons,” Dominos said.  Was it his imagination, or did Shayde react to that?  “Given a year, they’ll be up and down the whole of Britannia.”

“Something we have to stop,” Shayde said.  “Very well; you will get me the plans and some samples.  In the meantime, you will remain at Akron’s castle and…”

Dominos felt terror for the first time.  “But what if he finds out?”

Shayde shrugged magnificently.  “Oh, I imagine he’ll be very unhappy,” he said lightly.  “As long as you take basic precautions, you should be quite safe; don’t give him any cause to suspect you and you’ll remain undetected.”

Dominos nodded miserably.  “Of course,” Shayde continued, “you could tell him about this meeting, but then he’d know what you gave me and…”

He leered.  “I’m sure that you can fill in the rest,” he said.  “There’s just one thing I have to do, and then you can go.”

Before Dominos could react, Shayde grabbed his jaw in a grip of pure steel, peering into his eyes with all the power of a Grand Mage.  Dominos felt his mental defences shatter; Shayde could have made him say or do or believe anything and he knew it.  He stood there helplessly, long enough for Shayde to ransack his mind for the slightest trace of treachery, and then collapsed when Shayde let him go.

“I’ll be in touch,” Shayde said.  “Take a couple of days to stay at your family’s home, and then go back to Akron’s.  I’ll be in touch…goodbye.”

Dominos didn’t say anything.  He just turned to the path and ran down, back towards his home village.  There were girls there, girls who had mocked him as a child, but had fawned on him as his magic appeared.  They at least were human; not a Grand Mage who was more than half spider.

***
Shayde watched through the eyes of the spiders as Dominos fled, ignoring branches across the ground and spiders, both part of his spiders’ mind and ones that weren’t – yet.  His spiders were spreading out, using their strange powers to absorb other spider families into their own network, building newer parts of the network.

Dominos had been amusing, he decided.  Someone with the ability to rise to great heights, but prevented by Akron from rising…although perhaps not for the reasons that Dominos suspected.  Power took time to build up; a wizard who cast a spell without having enough training to handle it would be in serious trouble, at best.  At worst, he would be wishing that he were dead.

Shayde turned his back, allowing the spiders to continue watching Dominos, and headed in the opposite direction.  Coming so close to Akron’s castle had been a risk, but – as Dominos had correctly deduced – both wizards used the same style of magic.  No wizard ever born could cast wards around an entire country; as long as Shayde restricted himself from casting any really powerful spell, he would remain undetected.  

He smiled as he saw his horse, waiting patiently.  Three dead bodies lay nearby; bandits or horse thieves, perhaps.  It didn’t matter; the honour guard of spiders had killed them and were busy stripping the bones clean of meat.  With that, the spiders would be fed…without attracting too much attention.  Akron had seen his spiders; it wouldn’t be hard for him to put three and four together, and it was too much to expect that he wouldn’t get seven.  If Akron had a reason to look, he would see the spiders inching all over his land, heading towards his castle.

He swung himself onto the horse and mentally communed with the spiders, ordering them to hide themselves from humans and not to kill anyone until he ordered it.  Spiders could do a lot of damage, far more than anyone would expect, but he knew better than to expect them to win the war on their own.  They couldn’t fight magic; Akron might not be able to shock him twice with the same trick, but the spiders would be destroyed by magic if he knew to cast the spells.

Good, he thought, as the spiders hissed into his mind.  Taking the reins, he drove the horse forward onto the main road, concealing his clothes beneath a messenger’s cloak.  No one would see anything strange in a messenger riding late at night.  As he reached the top of the hill, he gently touched the spiders again, seeing through their eyes as two helpless girls were forced to spend the night with Dominos.

“Enjoy it while you can,” he muttered, and spurred the horse on.  There was much to be done before the war could begin properly.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Magical Effects, Side-Effects, and Unwanted Effects

The pattern hung in the air in front of him, an invisible line of force that was all too clear to Martin’s eyes; a ward designed to respond to anything that crossed it with ill intent.  He looked at the picture of Shayde he’d placed on the other side of the ward, gathered his strength and rage, and threw a punch at the picture.  The ward didn’t respond.

Martin cursed, feeling the strength drain out of him, and sat back on his bed.  The picture of Shayde seemed to be laughing at him; perhaps he couldn’t work up the hatred needed to trigger the ward.  He closed his eyes, feeling the room spinning around him, and tried to remember what Akron had said about wards and their creation.

“A ward is stationary magic,” Akron had said.  “Like all such magic, there are limits on how complex you can make them; in short, the more you want the ward to do, the shorter the wards have to be.  You draw a ward from one location – call that ‘A’ – to the other, ‘B,’ and define its characteristics…”

Martin tried to close his eyes and failed; the wave of red pain danced across his head, hammering away at his skull.  The room spun around him and he felt darkness rising…until he felt a hand on his forehead.  He looked up into a pair of concerned brown eyes.

“You’re burning up,” Sumrita said.  “Lie down and stay down.”

Martin was too tired to argue.  “Water,” he said, very firmly.  Sumrita passed him a mug of cold water; he sipped it gratefully.  “Thank you,” he said.

“Good,” Sumrita said.  Her attention was caught by an item on the table.  “Why do you have a damaged bell in the room?”  She shook it absently.  “It doesn’t even make a noise.”

Martin giggled helplessly.  “Ding-dong!  Clang!  Clang!  Ding-dong-dang-dang!  Hear ye!  Ding-dang!  Stolen!  One bell!”

Sumrita gazed at him, too concerned to even smile at the weak joke.  “What have you been doing?”  She demanded, even though Martin knew that she must have known the answer.  “It’s not doing you any good.”

“Practicing,” Martin said, trying to keep the room from spinning around his head.  For all he knew, his illness could make the room do just that.  “I was practicing making wards…and I kept trying because I couldn’t get the hang of it and…”

The room spun again.  “No more magic for a while,” Sumrita said, in a voice of command.  She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, pushing him down onto the bed.  “Why are you working so hard anyway?”

Martin blinked at her though his pain.  “I have to learn magic,” he said.  “We’re too dependent upon Akron at the moment.”

It wasn’t exactly the truth.  Sumrita called him on it.  “And the real reason?”

Martin looked up at her.  “Akron is scared,” he said.  He frowned; he’d been certain of that, even before hearing the news from Peterborough.  “A couple of nights ago, we were talking about history; this world seems to have had an equivalent of the civil war and the Commonwealth period, in somewhere around 1200AD.”

“1200AD?”  Sumrita asked, puzzled.  Her lips twitched into a frown.  “The dating is that accurate?”

“It’s not the same as ours, of course,” Martin said, before realising what she’d actually asked.  “It was somewhere around two hundred years after magic appeared, but history is all screwed up so it’s impossible to be certain.  There were apparently two sorcerers, two extremely powerful sorcerers, and they fought with magic.  The land was utterly devastated; they used magic to wreck havoc everywhere, breaking all of the rules before they met in single combat.

“They killed each other,” he said.  “Akron said that research into that area of history is almost impossible, the collapse was that great.  In the aftermath, the royal family was killed off by some wizards and the Council of Wizards was founded.”  He paused, coughing.  Sumrita passed him more water without comment.  “I got to wondering; what keeps the lid on the wizard wars?  Why don’t wizards rule the entire world?”

“I thought they did,” Sumrita said.  “At least, all of the world that they can get to.”

Martin nodded, sipping his water.  “It occurred to me that one reason for the Council of Wizardry – not the official reason, of course – was to keep the magical population down.  If wizards are killing each other off, it’s impossible to build up a large magical army; they start picking fights with each other and start killing each other.  There are three ranks – Wizard, Mage and Grand Mage – and they’re not supposed to wage war within their ranks.  If you reach a high rank, your time is occupied in keeping what you have, not launching major adventures.  The devastation is kept in check.

“But that’s lost now,” he said.  “Akron and Shayde exchanged blows back at Shayde’s castle.  One of them would have killed the other if they’d been alone, which means that the system is breaking down, and last night…Akron’s hawks reported on the fate of Prince Dike and his city.  The noblemen were killed; the noblewomen were raped and enslaved.  That’s a brutality that this world cannot afford; Akron is scared that Shayde will shatter the balance beyond repair.”

He sighed and lay back.  Sumrita placed an arm around his shoulder.  She felt so cool in his arms.  “I think Akron is seriously worried about the whole matter,” he said.  “I think he’s scared of watching the entire system coming down in flames.”

“And so you’re pushing yourself,” Sumrita said.  “Will mastering magic give you inner peace?”

Martin gaped at her, then smiled, realising that he was being teased.  “I can’t not perform magic,” he said.  “It’s like…something I have to do, just to see how far I can go.”

Sumrita sat up, her eyes narrowing.  “Until you kill yourself,” she said, flatly.  “Martin, I don’t understand how magic works, but you are risking your life.”

“Shayde is going to kill us otherwise,” Martin said, through the haze.  “We know too much to be allowed to live.  He thinks that he can destroy the old order and replace it…”

“So does Jack,” Sumrita said.  “He was planning to do the same.”

“I know, but this is different,” Martin said.  “You have to ask Jack to talk about magical tactics with the Knight Errant.”

Sumrita nodded.  “I will,” she promised.  “Martin…go get some sleep.”

Martin closed his eyes and fell asleep.  Sumrita watched him for a long moment, and then curled up next to him on the bed.  Moments later, she was asleep as well.

***
“Magic is something of a wild card in warfare,” the Knight Errant said, the day afterwards.  Jack nodded grimly; he’d heard enough about Martin’s theory to get very worried indeed.  He had a nasty feeling that Shayde was going to pull a rabbit out of his hat, perhaps literally.  “A single magician is capable of dealing with a whole army, given time, but will run out of power very quickly.

“At the same time, magic provides the only way to actually win a small war,” he continued.  “Under non-magical circumstances, an attacker can rip up the land quite badly, but if he does that, then the land won’t support his army either.  An army takes up food like a horde of locusts, to say nothing of drink and the eternal problem of disease.  Magic can be used to counter disease as well, but at a high cost in energy.”

Jack scowled, thinking.  If one magician could cure…say, five people per day, then a large portion of the army would drop dead if an epidemic spread through their ranks.  In fact, could magic be used to create an epidemic?

“It has been done, from time to time,” the Knight Errant said, when he asked.  “The spells that create the disease simply don’t last very long.”

“The perfect biological weapon,” Jack commented bitterly.  “Are there counters?”

“Basic protection spells can handle them,” the Knight Errant assured him.  “That’s not a real problem, since the last attempt to create a real empire.”

Jack shook his head in awe.  Britain wasn’t much larger than a singe American state; it had almost certainly been destined to have only a handful of political units.  England, Scotland and Wales in their timeline; here endless little states and statelets, spreading out over the entire country, dominated the country.  The geography didn’t match exactly either; some of the most productive farms seemed to be in the sheep-farming regions.

He shook his head.  Magic explained some of that, he supposed; every so often a magician would shatter the established order in one part of the nation and establish his own order.  It was impossible to hold a ruling family if a magician could kill them all, being shaped by circumstances to be harder and far more ruthless than anyone born to the purple could ever be.  If Martin were right, however, the rise in the available magical power – and Shayde’s war – would have disastrous effects for warfare.

I’d prefer to believe that he was wrong, he thought, and shuddered.  Magic was taking a toll on Martin; attempts to probe Akron for details on what magic did to those learning magic had been fruitless.  Martin looked more and more like a drug addict; Jack was starting to get seriously worried.

“We’re getting off the subject,” he said.  He was starting to suspect that that was the point; the Knight Errant hadn’t been keen on discussing magical warfare at all.  “How can a magician use his magic in warfare?”

“A magician can attack the opposing side,” the Knight Errant said.  “If there’s a wall, a magician can knock it down, freeze the opposing army in place, cast illusions to force the enemy to move from something harmless to something that’s really dangerous, control animals to help their people…the list is really dependent upon imagination and the power of the magician.”

“But at the same time a magician can overstrain himself,” Jack mused.  “Perhaps we should be considering forcing Shayde to exhaust himself.”  He swore.  “We should have gone back and killed him when Dominos hit the spiders.”

The Knight Errant shook his head.  “The spiders would have killed all of us,” he said.  “Its unheard of for a magician to be controlling so many animals at once; its quite possible that Shayde made a deal with a Power for the control.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed.  “There’ll be spiders in this building,” he said.  “How do we know…?”

“I thought of that,” the Knight Errant said.  He grinned proudly, stroking his orange beard.  “Akron has cast wards around the castle, ones designed to force the spiders into the moat and drown.  If Shayde tries to send spiders into the castle, they’ll be exterminated.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jack said.  A thought was nagging at the back of his mind.  “How do you deal with a spider anyway?”

“Fire, as Dominos showed,” the Knight Errant said.  “Do you have any better ideas?”

“Bug spray, if we could work some up,” Jack said.  He smiled at the thought.  “Sumrita could do that, just to give her something to do past trying to hammer basic sanitation into the heads of people…”

“Who would have magic to save them from the worst effects she described,” the Knight Errant said.  “Village witches do help.”

“There isn’t a witch in every village,” Jack said.  “You could expand your population if you had better medical facilities and better transport.”

“I saw the railways you outlined for us,” the Knight Errant said.  “I think that there would always be wizards destroying them, just because of the limits they would put on their power.”

Jack frowned.  Clearly the Knight Errant wasn’t a fool.  Building railways would take years, but they would work towards unifying the country.  “On the other hand, warfare would be easier,” he said.

The Knight Errant looked over at the map.  Peterborough burned brightly on the map, revealing where Shayde had crushed rebellion against his rule.  “Answer me a question,” Jack said thoughtfully, as the nagging thought returned to his mind.  “Is that level of violence normal?”

The Knight Errant said nothing for a long chilling moment.  “Yes and no,” he said finally.  “Shayde was well within his rights, under the unspoken laws, to punish Prince Dike however he chose; Dike’s actions might have cost Shayde the war.  He wasn’t within his rights to crush, exterminate or enslave the rest of the nobles there, at least not those smart enough to not to offer resistance.

“At the same time, he…wasn’t supposed to exterminate the nobles, even those who didn’t resist, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to hand the city over to a common-born mayor, even one from a high-class merchant family.  That will have shocked hell out of the nobles between Akron’s lands and Shayde’s lands; they might be lying back and spreading their legs for him now.”

Jack grimaced at the disgusting metaphor.  The nagging thought refused to leave his mind.  “I don’t suppose that any of them will declare for Akron now?”  He asked.  “If Shayde will kill them regardless…”

“He won’t,” the Knight Errant said, speaking with absolute confidence.  “Exterminating the nobles in that town is understandable, if a little harsh, but he hasn’t done the same to the loyalists…which means that they will have every incentive to remain loyal.”

“We caused it,” Jack said.  His voice was stunned.  “If we hadn’t escaped…”

“Shayde would have used your knowledge to crush us by now,” the Knight Errant said.  “Don’t beat yourself up about it; plenty of others will do that for you.”

Jack couldn’t even manage a smile at the jibe.  The Knight Errant was wrong; it was their fault.  In fact, it was all his fault.

***
He found Angelina outside the castle, wearing her uniform and commanding practice with the new muskets.  Production was limping along – both Akron and the Knight Errant had been horrified at the suggestion of expanding the base of craftsmen – but they were making progress.  As more and more craftsmen were trained, they were expanding…but would it be fast enough.

“Ready…aim…fire,” Angelina snapped, and the muskets crashed out a ragged blast.  The men were keen to learn, having seen what the far more modern weapons could do, but they knew very little of discipline.  How could either Shayde or Akron have kept more than a handful of trained soldiers?

“Reload…stand by,” she snapped.  In the distance, the little models of advancing horsemen looked damaged; few looked fatally damaged.  “Aim…fire!”

“Not bad,” Jack said, after the volley had crashed out.  “How do you think they’ll fare against Shayde’s lancers?”

Angelina snorted.  “They’re coming along,” she said, rather reluctantly.  She waved a hand at a big beefy man who was watching her worshipfully.  “I had to kick the shit out of a couple of sexists before they got the idea that I could actually fight, and then they started to do what I said very quickly.”

Jack smiled.  “As bad as the Saudis?”

“Worse,” Angelina said.  “These people…know that women are weak, except the handful who use magic.  I bet you dinner in the Royal Hotel that half the magic-using women get strangled or something.”

“No bet,” Jack said.  “What about the cannon?”

Angelina rolled her eyes.  “Oh God,” she said.  “You have no idea how much trouble Loke is having, trying to convince them that cannons have a real use when attacking a town – or a castle.  With cannons” – she waved a hand at Akron’s castle, rising behind them – “that castle is suddenly indefensible.  They…didn’t like the sound of that.”

Jack nodded slowly.  It was true; medieval warfare was based around the castle, because any defender could retreat behind invulnerable walls and wait for the attacker to stave.  Entire villages could go behind the walls, leaving the land bare.  Magic offered some ways through the defences, but not enough to change the basic equations.

Angelina met his eyes, saw the silent request within them, and nodded once.  “Break for lunch,” she called, and her men straightened to attention.  “Be back here in one hour.”

Jack smiled as she led him around the corner of the castle, away from the practice site.  “They’re already calling me some local variant of Wonder Women,” Angelina said, and laughed.  “Sumrita has real problems from time to time, when she tries to educate them on remaining clean, but I have none.  I killed one of the would-be rapists and the rest learned their lesson.”

Jack nodded, approvingly.  “Make it very clear that she and Martin are lovers,” he said.  “That would convince them that she’s off the market.”

Angelina blinked.  “Are they lovers?”  She asked.  “I knew she liked him, but…”

“They will be soon,” Jack predicted.  “Any of the women looking good?”

Angelina smiled.  “Jill likes you, you know,” she said.  Jack blushed.  “When are you going to talk to the girl?”

Jack shook his head and changed the subject.  “You know that I’ve had a few of Shayde’s concepts and memories going through my head,” he said.  “I told you that.”

“Akron said that that was normal,” Angelina said.  “Shayde did try to hurt you pretty badly.”

“Shayde exterminated a group of nobles and placed a commoner in charge,” Jack said slowly.  “Shayde wouldn’t have done that before; it was against the unspoken rules.  This fucking place is like old China; as long as the rebels rebelled according to the rules, there was no real disruption.  Shayde has suddenly shattered the rules – why?”

He paced around her, trying to work off his concern.  “Shayde might not have done that, but I would; I would have exterminated them with the same gusto as the Nazis exterminated the Saudis, just for being what they were.  Did Shayde learn that from me?  If so, what else has he learned from me?”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Desperate Measures

I wonder if I’m being foolish, Akron thought.  The Power of London had obliged his request – which it would have been required to handle under normal circumstances, but no one knew if it had to with the Council in disruption – and invited the Grand Mages and a select number of other invitees to London, but Akron didn’t know how many would attend.  His allies would, of course, and Grand Mage Ixa’em would probably put in an appearance, but he didn’t know if Shayde would attend.

Akron shook his head slowly.  Of course Shayde would attend; he would be looking for more allies, or perhaps support.  He wondered what the nobles thought of the meeting, where their fates would be decided, and smiled grimly; Shayde’s actions would have made many of them reluctant to act against the wizards.

Not that they could have checked us anyway, he thought, and stepped into the Council Chamber.  The six-chaired table had five seats filled; Shayde was indeed present, along with his allies.  Grand Mage Gorgre smiled at him, Grand Mage Ixa’em nodded, but Shayde’s allies said nothing.

Shayde himself looked up, smiled an unpleasant smile, and looked down at the table again.  Akron paused to study them, feeling the emotions rippling across the room.  Were it not for the Power of London, silently standing guard within its magical bonds, he knew that fighting would have broken out already.  As it was, the room was tense, like the calm before the storm.

Just like the war, he thought, and took his seat.  There was a long chilling moment of silence; it went on and on, no one daring to speak first for fear of…what?  What could happen to a wizard here, within the Council Chambers?  The Mages and the handful of wizards shifted, standing behind the Grand Mages, but they said nothing either.

“The Council of Wizardry is now in session,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  As the only Grand Mage not to have declared for one side or the other, he was the only arbiter around.  “Let all speak freely and without malice.”

The ritual words, spoken whenever the Council was divided, fell on deaf ears.  “I fail to see the point of this meeting,” Shayde said.  “I have certain matters to attend to in my lands.”

“You did not have to attend,” Grand Mage Gorgre rumbled.  “Akron says that this situation is important; I accept his word.”

“You are his ally,” Grand Mage Valastar said.  Her mouth opened, revealing pointed teeth.  “You would support him, whatever he said.”

Grand Mage Gorgre opened his mouth to retaliate against the imprudent woman.  Akron spoke first before the meeting could collapse into shouting, even threats of war – or more war than there was already.  He knew that Shayde wouldn’t listen, but if Grand Mage Valastar or Grand Mage Shan listened, then perhaps they would change sides.

“There has been a shift in the balance of power,” Akron said, with unintended irony.  “Only three days ago, Peterborough was destroyed – by the forces of Shayde.”

“The ruler of the town, that little state, was in rebellion,” Shayde said flatly.  The dark Grand Mage folded his hands in his lap, then brought them to the table.  “I had every right to do what I did.”

“I’m not disputing that,” Akron said.  “I’m disputing what you did.  You slaughtered thousands of noblemen and raped thousands of noblewomen.”

He’d picked the word ‘raped’ to remind Grand Mage Valastar that she too was a woman.  Too late, he remembered that Grand Mage Valastar had begun her career by murdering a noblewoman who had also been a witch.  

“Thousands,” Shayde said, as if savouring a fine wine.  The Power of London could have provided them with anything to eat or drink, but none of them were eating, or even sipping wine.  “It was hardly thousands.  Two hundred at most.”

Akron sighed openly.  “You wiped out a cell of noblemen,” he said.  “That is a breach of the agreements we all made.”

“Oh, you make it sound like a big deal,” Shayde said, mock-regretfully.  “They were hardly any use to me as anything, but whores…”

Akron felt a hot flash of anger.  “We need them,” he said.  “Yes, we rule, it is right that those of us with magic should rule, but you can’t just swat aside an entire city’s worth of noblemen and place a commoner above them.”

Shayde glared at him.  “So this is what it’s all about,” he said.  “Do you have any idea what you have in your castle?  You have people who are already spreading ideas into our society, ones that will bring down our entire system.”

“I would have thought that you had already begun that,” Grand Mage Gorgre said, with heavy irony.

“Shut up, fatty,” Shayde snapped.  Akron blinked; personal insults were unlike Shayde.  The Shayde he remembered had been ambitious, but hardly…insane enough to insult another Grand Mage.  “Akron, the weapons that they’re building for you will make any commoner as good as a nobleman.”

“I thought that magic already did that,” Akron said.  “That’s where you came from.”

Shayde looked at him dryly.  “So did you,” he said.

“I know,” Akron said, and said nothing else.

Shayde spoke in almost a hissing tone, fighting to control his anger.  “You should have let me kill them,” he said.  “What happens when commoners start tearing down the noble system?”

“Like you have?”  Grand Mage Gorgre asked.  “You killed around two hundred nobles, at your own admittance, and elevated a commoner to a high rank.”

“I have magic,” Shayde said flatly.  “That makes me superior to all, but my peers; the other Grand Mages.  With these weapons, the commoners could kill all of the nobles and then society would collapse.  That threat has to be stopped.”

“How?”  Akron asked dryly.  “Do you intend, then, to kill everyone who has even seen one of the weapons?”

Shayde nodded.  “I think that we have no choice,” he said.  “It can be done.”

Akron realised something in a mental flash of inspiration.  “Like you destroyed Griffin?”  He asked.  “You sent in the spiders, didn’t you?  Why did you tell me that you had bonded to hawks as well?”

Shayde’s eyes glittered with an unholy light.  “You wanted to believe it,” he hissed.  “You chose to believe, rather than look closely at the evidence.”

There was enough truth in that statement to make Akron wince.  “How true,” he admitted.  “You were always a pupil above your station.”

Shayde ignored the insult.  “You have been developing those weapons,” he said.  “Akron; I demand that you kill them all and present the Council with their heads, melting down all of their weapons and equipment, then swearing an Oath that all has been done.”

“You are in no position to demand anything,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  Every one of his words dripped cold anger.  “You are an insolent young man.”

Akron recognised the trap and shut his mouth angrily, thinking hard.  Shayde had had the force advantage in the war from the start, but the new weapons might change that, perhaps even enough to allow Akron a chance to win the war.  Shayde…hadn’t struck at once, because of Prince Dike’s rebellion – its suppression might have been an expression of frustration – which had given time to Akron, exactly what Shayde didn’t want him to have.

Akron smiled in genuine respect.  Perhaps it had been a mistake to have remained at his castle for so long, rather than having started for the Castle at the End of the Land, but it had alarmed Shayde – perhaps even alarmed his allies.  If Akron complied with Shayde’s demands, Shayde would still have his modern weapons, and if Akron managed to insist that Shayde made a similar Oath, Shayde would still have the force advantage.

Something of his thoughts must have shown in his face, for Shayde glared at him.  “No,” Akron said, and outlined his reasoning.  “I will not kill them, even though you disarm yourself.”

Shayde scowled darkly.  Akron briefly considered trying to convince Shayde to swear an Oath not to attack him, but he knew that it would be futile…and dangerous.  Shayde would hardly give up his plans, just to return to square one, and even if he did, two Grand Mages were allied with him and could do the attacking for him.

“Perhaps the weapons could be placed in storage,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “They seem to be impossible to prevent from spreading anyway.”

“Don’t you see,” Shayde said.  His tone was moderated to convoy desperation; the junior attempting to convince a senior.  It was perfect acting.  “The balance that keeps us on top has to be shattered – if the weapons are not removed.”

Grand Mage Valastar frowned.  “How will not having the weapons benefit the women?”  She asked.  “Two of the team under Akron’s protection are women, are they not?  One of them is a soldier.”

Akron thought rapidly.  He wasn’t surprised to know that Grand Mage Valastar had spies in his territory, despite his wards; she too was bonded to birds, after all.  Could Angelina’s example be used to prise her free from Shayde?  He shook his head; he was a conservative and Grand Mage Valastar was a…radical.  She couldn’t be anything else; a powerful woman was always a challenge to the men.  Still…

…She didn’t know about Christina!  Akron realised, and wondered why, his mind hopeful for the first time.  Was that a card that could be used against her or Shayde later, or something else, something that would have no use at all?

“Women with the weapons will be worse than men with the weapons,” Grand Mage Ixa’em commented.  “How many women curse their rivals, or the women they think that their husband has his eyes upon, or their daughters-in-law?”

Grand Mage Valastar glared at him.  She would have been beautiful, except for the scarring on her face.  A demon had done that to her – and she’d been one of the lucky ones from that little adventure.  Her comrades, all women seeking escape, had been eaten by the demon.

“Women would not act like that if they had freedom,” she said.  Akron shrugged; Grand Mage Valastar cared only about her own freedom.  “I agree with Shayde; the weapons will only make our life harder.”

Grand Mage Shan nodded.  “Better to wipe them out now,” he agreed.

Akron shared a long glance with Grand Mage Gorgre.  “No,” he said.  “Shayde, don’t get in my way; we have to deal with the problem at the Castle at the End of the Land, before the war shatters all of us.”

Grand Mage Ixa’em lifted a finger thoughtfully.  “What makes you think that the team can actually handle the Castle at the End of the Land?”  He asked.  “For all we know, they will meet the same fate as all of the others who walked into the castle; some came out horribly warped, others were dumb animals, others were dying even as they staggered free of the Castle.”

He paused, significantly.  “Those were the ones who came out of the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “How many never came out at all…and nothing changed here.”

“That we know about,” Akron whispered.  “We have Old Mother Daughter’s prophecy to guide us.”

“Prophecy is unreliable,” Shayde said.  “It might well have meant something completely different and your friends would die for nothing.  In any case, I choose not to allow you to do this.”

Akron wished, for one shining moment, that they could have talked as they had before.  It was impossible, of course.  “The levels of magic are rising,” he said, grimly aware that he was repeating himself.  “If we don’t do something, then we will be swept away by a tidal wave of magic.”

“Nonsense,” Shayde said.  “Will you surrender the weapons and kill the newcomers?”  Akron shook his head once.  “We’ll meet on the battlefield,” Shayde said.  His voice betrayed nothing, but anticipation.  “Good day.”

On that faintly inane note, the meeting broke up.  Akron watched as Shayde, followed by Grand Mage Shan and Grand Mage Valastar, left the room, clearly to plan the attack against Akron’s stronghold.  Akron himself considered, plotting his strategy, against such a formidable opponent.  He needed the Knight Errant – and he wasn’t permitted within the Council building.

Akron looked down at his hands, and then stood up to return to the teleportation room.  He made a mental note to take precautions against anyone trying to seize the London Council building and teleporting into his castle, even with the Power of London on guard.  Enough rules had been broken recently – what was one more?

***
Grand Mage Valastar looked young, with long flowing red hair.  Her face had been blunt, but still beautiful – even with the scars.  Shayde had occasionally considered trying to court her, but he knew that it would have been futile; Grand Mage Valastar hated men, and with good reason.  She wore a long flowing silver dress, covering battle armour; rumour had it that each of the stars on the dress was a transfigured lover.

Grand Mage Shan had gone on ahead, leaving them alone.  Shayde led her into a separate room and activated the privacy spells around the room, ones designed to prevent the handful of students or apprentices from spying on their rivals.  There was no formal schooling for wizards – something that Shayde was determined to change – but there were always apprentices.

“All of the preparations have been made,” Shayde said, after they had exchanged largely insincere pleasantries.  They were allies by necessity, not liking; they respected each other, but they would never like one another.  “I assume that you are building too?”

“Yes,” Grand Mage Valastar said.  Her voice was a thrilling contralto.  “Thank you for the details you sent me.”

“It was nothing,” Shayde said, assuming an expression of modesty.  Inside, he was brimming with an almost childish glee; success!  “Once you start making the weapons up north, we will have an army in place to block Akron, whatever he will do.”

Grand Mage Valastar bowed once.  “So…what will your former tutor do?”

“I have been giving the matter some thought,” Shayde said.  He pointed to the map on the wall; it wasn’t a magical map, but it would do for the purpose he had in mind.  “Myself, using the new…weapons of mass destruction, will be attacking in two days, while Grand Mage Shan will be attacking from the west.  Even if the Power of Oxford lied, or exaggerated, Akron’s holdings cannot long stand against such an attack.”

He tapped the map, isolating Akron’s castle.  “If Akron and the team remain there, they will be trapped and killed,” he said.  “That will put an end to that; we can deal with Grand Mage Gorgre at leisure.  If not, and I don’t think that Akron will keep them in his castle for two more days, then they’ll have to be caught – that’s your job if they get that far north.”

“I think that they will have some problems doing that,” Grand Mage Valastar said.

Shayde nodded.  “There are several Powers in the region, so they will have to avoid them,” he said.  “There should be sufficient time for them to be intercepted at any of the inns, assuming that they don’t stray into the powered territory.  If they do, of course…”

“They’re dead,” Grand Mage Valastar said dryly.  “And if they somehow make it through?”

“At Newcastle are some of Akron’s allies,” Shayde said.  He allowed his finger to cover the loose association of small states and wizards.  “They will be a safe place for them to hide, until they have to head further north.  They may be making their way for Grand Mage Ixa’em’s territory; it’s so hard to know what that bastard’s thinking.  It may be a safe haven, or it may not be; he may decide that we are more likely to win and join us.  Past Grand Mage Ixa’em…highland clans and the Castle at the End of the Land.

“I’ll be bringing my army north as soon as possible,” he said.  “You will have the task of delaying or destroying them.  If they reach Edinburgh and Grand Mage Ixa’em, I’ll join you and we’ll crush him together.  If you can kill them before, of course…”

Grand Mage Valastar lifted one delicate eyebrow.  “Do you not think that I can defeat Grand Mage Ixa’em?”

Shayde closed his eyes for a long moment.  The last man who had questioned Grand Mage Valastar’s abilities had spent the rest of his life on a lily pad, eating flies.  She couldn’t do that to him, but she could hurt him…if she felt that her pride and power was being questioned.

FemmeNazi, Jack’s voice echoed in the back of his head.  He shook it to clear it; the concept meant absolutely nothing to him.  She’s a female nazi…

“I would prefer to crush him with overwhelming force,” he said, and sensed Grand Mage Valastar relax.  “Discovering the hard way that he has weapons like the ones we’re building would be…annoying.”

Grand Mage Valastar smiled.  It was a haunting sight.  “I suppose that would be a good idea,” she said.  “So, what are you going to do in those two days?”

Shayde knew better than to gloat about Dominos.  “I have some contacts I need to check up on,” he said.  “Once that’s completed, I can keep my forces ready to move, but out of Akron’s territory, or even non-aligned territory.  We wouldn’t want him to know that we’re moving, would we?  It could really spoil our plan.”

He smiled.  The concept of blitzkrieg surfaced from within his mind.  Jack had taken part in one, in a city that seemed like a dream.  “Akron and that old knight of his will be expecting some signs that we’re moving,” he said.  “By the time they see them, it will be already too late.”

Chapter Twenty-Five: Final Hours

The dinner table was something out of an unrealistic movie; one with knights in armour and hundreds of contented peasants enjoying the kicks and punishment from their lords and masters.  The dinner was large enough to feed an army, from roast chicken to beef and pork.  Sumrita had taken one look at the kitchens and threatened not to help anyone who caught a bug, but Akron had assured her that spells would keep them all safe.

“The wards around the dinner hall won’t let anyone poison us,” he assured her, and she’d had to be content.

Jack sat at one end of the long table, feeling as if the world was about to change.  Akron and the Knight Errant were sitting at the other end, regaling them with dozens of stories about their lives before they became top of their respective professions; most of them, Jack suspected, were untrue.

The Knight Errant told about how he had tracked a werewolf over hill and fen, finally risking stepping within the territory of a Power to finally catch and kill the beast with his sword.  Under the silver blade – he drew it to show it off to them – the beast had reverted to human form; a young girl who hadn’t had any idea what had been happening to her.  He’d even seen her when tracking the beast; she’d helped him, without ever knowing that she carried the beast inside her.

Akron told a long and complex story about an expedition to look at the Castle at the End of the Land, and about how it had gotten badly lost and stumbled into the Caves of Memory, emerging somewhere with white cliffs, near London.  They’d had to run from the Power of Dover, learning that it was related to another Power…and of a spell that could destroy a Power, but only at a terrible cost.

Martin lifted an eyebrow from where he sat.  “What is a Power?”  He asked.  “You never gave me a straight answer.”

Dominos snorted from where he sat.  The apprentice wizard had only become more sullen, in Jack’s view, over the last couple of days.  “No one knows,” he said, taking some clear delight in knowing more than Martin.  Jack realised suddenly that he was jealous of Martin.  “Powers are creatures that can take any form or shape…”

“Close enough, in some ways,” Akron said mildly.  If he was aware of the by-play, he didn’t show it; Jack made a mental note to discuss it with Akron later.  “A Power is composed, so we believe, of magical energy from the underworld.  It comes into our world and grows strong on the faith of humans, shaping itself to fit their perceptions, and then it vanishes again…

“Or at least that’s one theory,” he said.  “Another is that they come from Otherworld itself; they’re creatures that can’t stay for long on our world.  Yet another theory is that they come over the Brass Walls and live here, or that they’re magical spells that somehow got very badly out of hand.”

Jack frowned, considering.  Martin looked a little better – Sumrita had cared for him as best as she could – but he wasn’t in any state to experiment.  Personally, he was tempted to believe the last explanation – it would be very typical of wizards to do just that, and then lose control.

Akron sighed.  “I have been putting off a decision,” he said.  “Some of you know about what happened at Peterborough.  Like it or not, Shayde has put himself in the spotlight; he has to move forward against us now, perhaps within a few days.”  He paused.  “I was…worried that they would attack us at once, as soon as he sorted himself out after the spiders were burnt, but instead he has been content to wait.”

He looked down, almost embarrassed.  “I had hoped that I could talk some sense into him,” he said.  “Instead, Shayde rejected my proposals – I had hoped that the devastation would bring him to his sense – and demanded, in effect, that I killed all of you.  I told him, in your terms, to fuck off.  War is now inevitable.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully.  He, at least, had always accepted that.  Part of him had considered just taking the team and running for the Castle at the End of the Land, but he suspected that it would be futile.  Martin’s magic couldn’t keep them all protected for long enough to travel the four hundred-odd miles.

“That means that we can expect to be attacked soon, perhaps within the week,” Akron continued.  “Shayde’s forces are still in their barracks, which means that it will take him at least two-three days to have them moving, and then to enter the neutral lands.  After Peterborough…I don’t think that they will try to fight him.  It will take him around a day to reach my lands, perhaps less, but if he’s smart he’ll try to plan it so he reaches the last neutral village at night and attacks in the morning.”

“We could attack his forces at night,” Martin said.  “Magic could burn the villages, with ease.”

“It may come to that,” Akron said.  Jack noticed Sumrita’s concerned look at Martin, and then at him, signalling concern with her dark brown eyes.  “Still, you’re too valuable to be wasted on something like that; there are apprentices and Court Magicians for that.  However, Shayde’s objective will not be land, or food, or manpower; it will be you and your team.”

He looked up at Jack.  “Shayde has sworn to prevent you from reaching the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “I don’t think that we have the time to build the army we need here, in time, and without that army we won’t be able to cut north with the army we do have.”

The Knight Errant nodded once.  “I fear that we will not have the army we will need in time,” he said.

“Then we have to cheat,” Akron said, and he smiled.  “This night, my old friend” – he nodded at the Knight Errant – “and the Wizard Dominos will head for Newcastle, via the old Fairy Road.  It’s safe to use these days – the Fairies haven’t been seen for years – and once there you’ll start preparing an army there.”

“You want me to go to Newcastle?”  Dominos demanded.  Jack frowned; there was something in his voice…

“But of course,” Akron said.  “You have a duty to save as much as you can of the wizard system, which Shayde will bring shattering down.”

Jack frowned again, watching Dominos.  “I see,” Dominos said finally, ironically.  “I live to serve.”

Jack spoke before anyone could say anything unfortunate.  “And us?”  He asked.  “We are Shayde’s targets, after all.”

“Along with me,” Akron said, nodding.  “We’ll stay here for a while, until Shayde starts moving…and then we’ll head north ourselves.  If we’re lucky, Grand Mage Gorgre’s magics will keep them thinking that we’re here…until its too late.  By the time they find us, we’ll have a head start, quite a long one actually.”

“You can’t simply smash your way through and take an army up through territory like that,” the Knight Errant said.  “It will cost Shayde considerable time and effort to get permission to cross some of those lands, and of course taking an army into a Power’s territory is a good way to lose that army.  We’ll have time enough to build an army with a small core of your weapons and a lot more of our more normal ones.”

“You’ll strip the land bare,” Jack muttered.  The Knight Errant pretended not to hear.  “What about the people there?”

“What about them?”  Dominos asked.  Akron coughed meaningfully; the apprentice’s face flushed badly.  “They’re only peasants.”

Jack took a breath, feeling willing to start a fight.  “I see,” he said, darkening his own.  “Exactly where…”

“Why can’t we go by sea?”  Martin asked quickly.  Jack smiled, realising what he was trying to do.  “We could get a ship at Cardiff…”

Perhaps Akron understood as well.  “If we take a ship – even assuming that we can get one in the heart of Grand Mage Shan’s territory – we will be extremely vulnerable to magic directed against us, to say nothing of the storms and the really unpleasant sea monsters.”

“Sea monsters,” Jack said, dazed.  “It just figures, doesn’t it?”

“And what about me?”  Jill asked.  Sitting where she was, she looked small and delicate; very much out of her element.  In a flash, Jack understood; she’d been taken from a very closed world – her village – to the centre of power in her world.  “Where am I supposed to be in your plan?”

Akron’s voice held a condescending tone that would have started a fight under other circumstances.  “You may travel with us, my dear,” he said, and changed the subject.  “If we are lucky, we’ll reach the Castle at the End of the Land before Shayde can catch us,” he said.  “Once you’re there…”

“I was meaning to ask that,” Jack said.  “Once we’re there, what do we do?”

Akron sighed.  “I wish I knew,” he said.  “I think – I hope – that you will know what to do, once you’re inside.”

***
Dominos stepped onto the balcony and whistled softly, waiting until the pigeon floated out of the sky and landed on his shoulder.  It was all he could do not to crush it in rage; he hadn’t ever signed up for a war, let alone under the command of a man who had dumped him when someone better came along.

Bastard, he thought, and smiled to himself.  Who knew what he could do, in the middle of an army Akron would fondly imagine to be a secret, but wouldn’t be anything like a secret.  If Shayde moved quickly enough, he might just manage to get Akron and the newcomers before they could even leave the lands, which would really show him how stupid he was.

Dominos carefully attached the small tube of paper to the pigeon, taking care to ensure that it wouldn’t fall off.  He had to admire Shayde’s plan; an intelligent talking beast would be noticed by the wards, if not kept out altogether, but a trained pigeon wouldn’t be noticed at all.  Hints of spider venom would keep the hawks from chasing them and killing them – Sigmund might notice the tube of paper – and the pigeon would make it all the way to Shayde’s base within a few hours.

“Fly,” he muttered, tossing the bird into the air.  It fluttered its wings and headed away from the castle, heading out into the darkness.  Dominos smiled once and headed down to the stables.  The Knight Errant would be there, waiting for him; he could wait forever, as far as Dominos could care.

He smiled as he passed a tired maid, her nightgown almost falling off.  “I think I have time,” he said aloud, and ordered her to come with him.  Twenty minutes later, in a much better mood, he mounted his horse and followed the Knight Errant on the road to Newcastle.

***
Jack stood on the balcony, feeling nervous for the first time in years, watching Jill from the corner of his eyes.  The blonde girl was looking east from the balcony, back towards where her village had once stood, almost on the verge of crying.  No, Jack realised; she was crying.  Her tears glistened in the moonlight.

He stepped forward and stood beside her, placing an arm on her shoulder.  “Don’t worry,” he said softly.  “It’ll be alright.”

“No it won’t,” Jill said.  “I have nothing left now.”  She leant into his arms.  “Old Mother Dissmall used to say that I would make a good witch – she even tried to convince my father to let me study with her – but he would never agree.  Now look where I am.”

She waved a hand about, encompassing the whole castle.  “I’ve been in the castle of the lord of Prince Roger, who was the lord of my village.  He came through once, on his way to Shayde’s castle, and he took some of the maidens of the village with him.  They never came back.”

“Perhaps he’ll be killed in the war,” Jack said.  “He’s bound to be a large target.”

Jill shook her head, pressing it into his chest.  “The nobles always take care of their own,” she said.  “It’s death to even think of crossing them.”

Jack held her as she cried.  “Not for me,” he said.  “Even so-called noblemen have nightmares, ones about the American Marines and regime change.  This entire world needs a regime change, don’t you think?”

Jill looked up, her face wet with tears.  “Even noblemen have nightmares?”  She asked.  “What do you have nightmares about?”

“Hordes of peasants coming their way, having finally worked out the concept of strength in numbers, and their own guards refusing to fire on their own people,” Jack said, his voice grim.  “I’m going to make that happen.”

“They won’t let that happen,” Jill said.  “They always kept a check on everyone who might have become a problem for them.  The village blacksmith was punished for repairing a blade, but then duplicating it.  They cut off his arms.  No one can defeat them, not even the magic users.  Mother Dissmall couldn’t have stopped them all.”

“I can,” Jack said, and meant it.  “Whatever happens at the Castle at the End of the Land, I will make sure that the nobles get wiped out.”

Jill looked up at him.  “I’m here, in the heart of a castle of a Grand Mage,” she said.  She smiled through her tears.  “I am tolerated here, nothing more; I am a peasant in the world of the great men.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Jack said firmly, and saw her gape at him.  “You’re important; you’re a normal person, and nothing makes you less important.  You’re one of the people – and that alone gives you importance.  You’re real; you’re not some prince who would be happier without being the prince, or some magician with more power than sense.”

He looked down at her, her body so slight against his, and smiled at her.  “You have talents as a witch,” he said.  “Why don’t you try to develop them?”

“I don’t think that the Grand Mage would teach me,” Jill said.  “People like him are always reluctant to deal with witches.”

Jack looked down at her for a long moment.  “Jill, I’m sorry,” he said.

Jill smiled.  They were still holding each other.  “Whatever for?”  She asked.  “You saved my maidenhead and perhaps my life.”

“We should never have come here and destroyed your life,” Jack said.  “I’m sorry for that.”

“I never knew what life was like outside my village,” Jill said.  “I would have been married to someone who would have ruled me for the rest of my life.  I would have had children, perhaps four or five, as a wife; I would have remained at home while my husband went out, perhaps to spend time with another woman.  My father…he used to say that he would have given the inn to whoever married me, so I would have never had even a slight change and so…”

“This culture is not very kind to its women,” Jack said.  He understood, in some ways; parenthood was important because the woman, almost all of the time, never did paid work.  Being a wife wasn’t a paid job, after all.  This world couldn’t stand the concept of a female merchant.  A man needed to know that his children were his children – and without DNA testing, how could they do that without controlling the women so carefully?

Bastards, he thought.  Perhaps it made sense, in some ways, and perhaps it was right, for them, but he still hated it.  It had taken too long to learn about the dangers of too much toleration, almost long enough to destroy the fragile western civilisation.  Irony of ironies, the Nazis had saved them from that, but at far too high a price.

“Jack,” Jill said.  Her voice was shaking.  “Jack, do you like me?”

“You’re one of the bravest women I know,” Jack said.  “Yes, I like you.”

Her lips moved slowly up towards his lips.  Jack lowered his head and came to meet her, kissing her gently.  Her lips felt soft and warm against his; he felt charged and ready for action.  They broke the kiss, still holding each other, and they kissed again, and again, and…

His hands fumbled at her shirt, gently stroking her.  She took one of his hands in hers, whispering to him, telling him not to go too far.  He nodded, kissing her and kissing her, and…

“Jack, I think I love you,” she breathed.  He could feel her excitement in the way she moved.  Her body twisted against him, exciting him, except he saw something…  “I…

Jack’s eyes left hers, peering into the darkness, staring with all of his concentration.  Finely tuned instincts snatched him away from her body, concentrating on the threat.  He knew, somehow, that something was very wrong, very threatening.  Something had twitched, just out of his eyesight, and he knew instinctively that it was very dangerous.  His first thought was spiders, and he glanced around nervously, but the balcony was clear of scuttling dark shapes.  Then he looked up.

“Oh…my…God,” he breathed, as he saw them against the moon.  Jill screamed as she saw them, holding onto him and trying to hide behind his uniform.  He could make them out against the moon, gigantic forms moving purposefully towards the castle.  He couldn’t hear anything, until the screams began from the city nearby, so loud that they echoed across the land.

He stared at them, powerful, majestic, and very deadly.  “My God,” he said.  Even in a world of magic, he found it hard to believe in what he saw, right in front of him.  Sheer disbelief kept his voice casual.  “You have got to be kidding me.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: Dragons

The dragons hung in the air long enough for Jack to get a good look, massive beasts, hanging in the air on impossibly slow beats of their massive wings.  There were three of them, glaring down at the castle, their red eyes flickering with malice.  Jack saw the eyes and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they had come for him personally.  

Jill stared at them, almost hypnotised by the sight; Jack couldn’t move himself.  He couldn’t understand how they flew; they looked far too heavy and powerful to fly on their wings.  They seemed to glitter red in the moonlight; the silver light shone off them and reflected down towards the town.

The lead dragon opened its mouth and spat a ball of flame down towards the castle.  It slammed into the wards, releasing a massive burst of heat towards Jack, breaking the trance.  As the other dragons blew fire into the wards, shaking the entire castle, Jack dragged Jill into the corridor, running down towards their bedrooms.

“Dragons,” he bellowed, “we’re under attack by fucking dragons!”

Angelina didn’t bother to ask questions, she just jumped out of bed, pulling on her uniform as quickly as she could.  Jack got an eyeful and ignored it; there wasn’t time for the normal round of jokes.  “Martin, Sumrita, wake up!”

The castle shook again.  “The wards are taking a beating,” Martin said.  His voice was curiously toneless.  “I can feel Akron, trying to feed them with energy, and I can feeling dragons, four of them moving around the place…”

“I only saw three,” Jack commented.  He trusted Martin’s magical senses – or at least he trusted his good will.  “What is the other one doing?”

“It’s some distance away,” Martin said, concentrating.  Sumrita placed a hand on his shoulder as the castle shook.  This time, dust fell from the ceiling, scattering itself on the ground.  “Ah…Jack, I really think we should move.”

Jack glared at him.  “I’m not arguing,” he snapped, grabbing his rifle.  “Angelina, you’re with me; we’re going to find Akron.”

“He’s in his throne room,” Martin said.  “I think we’d better stay together.”

Jack nodded.  “No shit,” he said.  “Can you tell where he is through magic?”

“I can sense the magic currents building, rising…and falling,” Martin said.  His voice was stronger, Jack was relieved to note; Sumrita must have been good for him.  “I don’t know how long the wards can hold out.”

On cue, the castle shook again.  “Grab everything and come,” Jack snapped.  “I think we have to get to him, and then get the hell out of here.”

Angelina took point, holding her weapon as if she expected an attack, leading the way up the corridor towards the throne room.  The castle kept shaking and Martin tried to keep up a running commentary on the wards and how they were holding.  As soon as they reached the throne room, Jack knew that they were in trouble; Akron was sitting on the throne, almost collapsing under the effort.

***
The fourth dragon had fallen out of the sky onto Gloucester before the citizens even saw it, let alone had a chance to fight.  It spat fire onto the centre of the local government, killing almost all of the nobles in a single blow.  A handful, Shayde was certain, would not be in the tiny building, but they could be hunted down later.  

“Burn them,” he said, directing the dragon from his saddle on the back of the beast.  Dragons were old, powerful and very rare; their eggs had to incubate under a powerful magical field…and there hadn’t been one for centuries in Oxford, until the Power of Oxford had set up shop in the old town.  

The dragon roared and spat a wave of fire at a handful of local soldiers, who were, either out of bravery or foolishness, attempting to set up a cannon to fire at the dragon.  The explosions were spectacular; the gunpowder exploded in a fireball that amazed even Shayde.  The dragon’s wings beat once, lifting its massive bulk into the air, as arrows rose up to attempt to contest the dragon’s command of the skies.  

Shayde laughed aloud, the dragon’s peculiar magic carrying the laugh far and wide.  Arrows were no threat to a dragon; only the luckiest of knights, with the most capable weapons and determination, could hope to even hurt a dragon, let alone kill them.  The dragon he rode, the weakest of the four, was still almost invulnerable to human action; even magic would be hard-pressed to harm a creature that practically breathed magic.

He glanced over at Akron’s castle, illuminated by the glowing wards.  The problem with dragons was that they were really not very bright; some managed to develop intelligence, but only if they lived long enough to learn from their experiences.  At the same time, even the Power of Oxford had found it difficult to tame the four; giving them too many orders would be dangerous.

The dragon roared as another flight of arrows glinted off its armoured belly, then it spewed a gigantic sheet of flame out over the town.  Buildings caught fire, burnt, and were ashes in moments; the super-hot fire raged across the town.  Dragons hated humans; they had once had the freedom of the air, but now they were limited…and humans were not.

Shayde shook his head in awe.  It would have been good if he could have had a force of soldiers standing by to take over the city – assuming that the dragons, who knew nothing of human factions, could be convinced not to eat them – but it had been impossible.  He muttered directions to the dragon, ordering it to destroy the gates, and it did, reluctantly…and then it swooped down without orders.

Shayde felt a moment of pure panic, and then he realised what the dragon was doing.  A lone man, standing on a building that was on fire, was calmly trying to shoot the dragon down.  The dragon swooped down on him, its great jaws opening wide, and it bit, once.

“Time to rejoin the others,” Shayde said, trying to convince the dragon.  It ignored him; he couldn’t tell if it was ignoring him on purpose, or if it was genuinely unable to understand him.  The dragon fell to the ground, lashing through human buildings by flicking its tail, and started to eat humans.  Men, women, children – they were nothing, but a snack to the dragon.

“Die,” someone – a young soldier – shouted, waving a sword as he charged the dragon, bringing it down on the scaly wing.  The sword broke in his hands; the dragon swung round quicker than would have seemed possible for a creature of its bulk, bringing the terrified soldier suddenly eyeball to eyeball with the dragon’s glinting red eyes.  He stood there, hypnotised, and then the dragon opened its mouth.

“Good,” Shayde said, as the young man walked into the dragon’s mouth; the jaws closing with a snap.  “Now…”

He prodded the dragon as hard as he could and the beast leapt for open air.  He could feel the beast’s hatred, thanking all of the Powers that he had a young dragon force.  An older dragon, if he could not have been bribed or defeated, could have laid waste all of the non-Power territories in Britain within days.  Dragons were rare – much to everyone’s relief.

“Continue the attack,” he called, using the charm the Power of Oxford had given him.  Trusting a Power that much was dangerous – many Powers might just have rigged the charm to fail at an inconvenient moment – but it seemed to be holding up well.  “You – drop me down there, and then join the attack.”

The dragon hissed as it dropped down on top of a small hill, one that had been created by the dwarves before they emigrated into deeper tunnels, and allowed him to climb off.  He studied the burning town for a long moment, and then sat down, allowing his mind to access the spider-mind.  He’d placed dozens of spiders within the area when he'd met Dominos; now, there were thousands of them.  Some had bred within the week; others had been co-opted into the massive spider-mind by his spiders.

Akron’s castle was lit by the glow of its own wards.  Shayde nodded to himself and sat back to watch.  It shouldn’t take long.

***
Akron felt the castle shake as he merged his mind into the wards; drawing upon what power he could to strengthen them.  The wards had been his own creation ever since he'd built his castle; they defended his territory as part of his own mind.  He knew that it was futile; dragons could be defeated, but only through luck and cunning.

He staggered, nearly falling off his throne, as a dragon pressed its foot against a ward, pressing down.  He could hear their hissing mental communication, hissing at him and any who could hear them.  Give up, little humans; we won’t play with you for long…

They’re young, he thought, and scowled.  A young dragon wasn’t very smart, but they were powerful – powerful enough to survive hunters and sorcerers who had a use for their blood.  They lived for the hunt, with as much concern for the humans as human children had for flies, killing humans with the same casual malice as a human child would pull the wings off flies.

He became aware of Martin nearby.  Part of him was tempted to ask Martin to add his own magic to the wards, but he knew that there wasn’t time.  Martin might have become a Grand Mage in his time, but the wards were Akron’s; they would have to be dismantled carefully, even to allow him some access to their controlling spells.  Carefully, he altered the wards to a setting he’d thought of before, but had never even considered using before; one designed to sap the life out of his staff and use them to power the wards.

Damn the Power of Oxford anyway, he thought, as he disengaged from the wards.  It had to have been a Power that helped Shayde to gain control of the dragons; few wizards would even dare to try to cast any spells on a dragon except for killing spells, which only worked a fifth of the time.  Only the Power of Oxford had any interest in human affairs; Akron had always wondered why.

He shook his head.  There wasn’t time to worry about it.  He opened his eyes and looked around; the throne room was a mess, just from the castle shaking.  Even as he watched, one shake brought down a ceiling beam, making Jack swear in a language Akron didn’t recognise.  He would have laughed, under other circumstances, but there wasn’t time.

“This castle is about to be destroyed,” he said, marvelling at his own calm.  He certainly didn’t feel very calm, inside; he wanted to curse and swear at the dragons.  He wanted to fight them and to hurt them, but that too would have been futile.  He might have beaten one, if it had been alone, but four?  It was impossible.

“Believe me, I noticed,” Jack said.  “Can we hurt them?”

Akron shook his head as he climbed off his throne, staggering over to a tapestry depicting a battle against a wizard from years ago.  It was affixed to the walls by magic; Akron cancelled the spells with a wave of his hand and pulled the tapestry away, revealing a secret tunnel.

“The staff have their own tunnels and orders,” he said, lying.  The staff were dying to buy them time.  “We have to move, now.”

“What about our equipment?”  Angelina asked.  Her voice was calm, composed; was it as much of a mask as Akron’s was?  “Don’t we need to get it?”

“We’ll pick up a few items from the ground floor,” Akron said.  “Other than that, if we stay here, we’ll lose when they come through the wards and…”

He left the sentence unfinished.  They needed horses, which would have to be taken through the large emergency tunnel.  He took a breath as he ran, cursing the dry air of the darkened tunnel.  The castle kept shaking; one by one, he felt his people die as the wards shivered under the beating.

“We need horses,” he said, as they emerged into the courtyard.  He peered up at the glowing wards, high above; massive flying shapes passed over the wards, pouring down fire and occasionally lashing out with their claws.  “Grab them from over there and get them into the tunnel.”

Jack and Angelina didn’t hesitate, running for the horses.  Martin looked up at Akron, who was staring at the dragons.  “Can we kill them?”

“Kill?”  Akron asked.  “Perhaps one of them.”  He frowned.  “There’s only one hope now, Martin; only one place where they will lose our trail.  It’s nearly an hour away at a fast gallop.”

Martin sucked in his breath.  “We are so screwed,” he said.

Jack came back, bringing four horses, one after the other.  The horses were scared; without their normal riders they would have been skittish, with the dragons high overhead, they were terrified.  Akron didn’t bother with subtly; he cast spells intended to make the horses very responsive indeed, even to novice riders.  It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t know if any of them could ride.

”Move, now,” he snapped, as Angelina brought four more, one more than they needed.  High above, the fire was growing too powerful; the wards were breaking under the strain.  He chased Martin into the tunnel, under the stables, as the wards finally broke.  A tearing series of crashes announced that the Dragons had started to demolish the castle; an explosion marked the end of the gunpowder store.

A dragon landed directly in the courtyard.  Akron closed his eyes as the dragon’s eerie red eyes flickered into the stable, not daring to move because that would have attracted attention from the monster.  He knew just how dangerous dragon hypnosis could be; they made people walk into their mouths, or sometimes made them bring other humans for the dragons to eat.  Wizards had never understood that; a fully-grown dragon could have eaten an entire town without being stopped…so why the hypnosis?  They’d put it down to a weird sense of humour.

The dragon’s eyes seemed to rest on him as he opened his eyes, and then it started to bring up its mouth, opening it for a wave of fire.  Akron closed his eyes, expecting death…

…And then Martin cast a shielding spell over the dragon’s mouth.  The dragon belched fire at them, which bounced back into its mouth.  The dragon howled with pain and rage, lashing about in the courtyard, blowing steam out of its nostrils.  It’s cries of distress attracted attention from its three comrades, who jumped into the air and swooped down on the tunnel.  They didn’t hurry; they knew that they had the humans cornered.

“Run,” Akron snapped, as the dragons came closer.  Martin didn’t need to be told twice; he picked up his gun and fled for the tunnel.  Akron paused long enough to cast an illusion spell with the last of his strength, before running himself.  The dark maw of the tunnel was just ahead of him…and then he was in it…fleeing down the twists and turns…and then a monstrous wave of fire lapped along the tunnel, heading for him.  He barely managed to outrun it.

“We have to move fast,” he said, as soon as he met the others.  “Listen; if I get separated from you, head for the forest, stay under cover, and don’t look back.  Understand?  Head north…and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with you.”

“Little humans, little humans,” a voice said, echoing down the tunnel.  It was strange, almost reptilian, almost a singing voice.  It was almost hypnotic; with Akron’s bumps and scraps, he knew better than to think that it could affect him, but the others.  “Come on out, little humans,” it sang.  “We won’t hurt you.”

“Do not reply,” Akron muttered.  “We have to move quickly.”

He motioned for them to run the horses as fast as they could, cursing the size of the tunnel; it was too low for them to actually ride the horses.  That would have made life easier, but it was not to be.

“Can they hear us down here?”  Martin asked.  “Can we talk about the north?”

“Oh little humans, of course we can’t,” the dragon sang.  Akron muttered a curse under his breath, one that wouldn’t stick to a dragon, or even anyone above a fishwife.  Jill was trembling; he felt a sudden urge to slap her, before suppressing it.  “Would that we could hear you, little humans.”

Another wave of fire blasted down the corridor.  “There are spells in the tunnel, but I don’t know how long they will last,” Akron lied.  The tunnel had been dug through solid stone; there was no way that fire alone could bring them down.  Dragons, dangerously smart, might just be able to figure out some other way of killing them or forcing them to surrender.  Time passed slowly; they could hear the dragon breathing, but it said nothing.  “In fact…”

The air started to smell weird.  “Methane,” Jack snapped.  Akron could see his face, pale with shock.  “Get rid of it!”

Martin’s face went white and he muttered a spell under his breath.  Akron felt cold horror; he hadn’t recognised the spell, but it had worked perfectly.  Seconds later, more fire came down the tunnels, but they were out of range.

“Oxygen won’t be a problem,” Martin commented.  “They were trying to blow us up.”

“They would have succeeded too,” Akron said.  Perversely, he felt almost young again.  “Martin, once we get out of the tunnel, we have to cast spells of misdirection and confusion.”

Jack nodded.  “They’ll be coming after us?”

Akron frowned.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “These dragons were being controlled – three guesses as to whom – and they might have to obey their orders.  It depends what the orders were.  On the other hand, Martin hurt one pretty badly…so they are going to be really pissed.”

He smiled at the expression, forgetting for a moment that they were in deadly danger.  “Jack, give me your gun,” he said.  “I have an idea I want to try.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Waging Total War

No dragon had a name.  Names were a product of a grossly inferior species – such a humans – who were too stupid to be able to tell the difference between themselves with a glance, or a sniff, or a careful mind-touch.  When dragons met and talked, something that was very rare because of the handful of dragons that existed at any one time, they knew who they were.  Names?  They didn’t need names!

The leader of the small pack of dragons had no name either, but the Power of Oxford – which had raised them from hatchlings-hood – had been insistent; names were a requirement for dealing with humans.  The Power, which took the form of a powerful superior dragon when dealing with the hatchlings, had been irresistible.  Like every other dragon that found itself forced to take on a name, the leader had named himself Redscale.

The Power of Oxford had found it amusing.  The name was what passed for a dragonish sense of humour; almost every dragon in Britain had red scales.  A handful did not, but they were far away, near the Castle at the End of the Land; they were old and wise and had nothing to do with humanity.  All dragons called themselves Redscale; all humans persisted in believing that they had successfully imposed their will on a dragon.

Redscale would have found the concept and conceit amusing under different circumstances.  Bound to Shayde’s control, he could only obey his commands; Shayde had imposed his will on the dragons.  Redscale wasn’t in Thrall; he could still think for himself, and he was angry.  The Power of Oxford was a superior being; Shayde was not…and he presumed to control dragons!

The castle that had housed Shayde’s enemy was torn apart, bit by bit, by the remaining three dragons.  Redscale hovered high overhead, feeling the pain in his chest; the magical attack had turned every dragon’s natural weapon against it, and it hurt.  No dragon could blow itself up, of course, but Redscale knew that he had come very close to killing himself.

His cold blood ran with fury as he circled high over the ground.  Four dragons could have torn the ground up until the humans were exposed, chewing them up with ease, but Redscale was angry.  Shayde’s commands hadn’t been specific; not specific enough to contain Redscale’s desire for revenge.  Shayde had ordered that they be killed by the dragons, and Redscale had taken that task on himself.  His brothers could handle the castle; Redscale would handle the humans.

He burnt with fury as he sank lower, extending his ears towards the ground, and listened.  He was confident that the humans would have a tunnel entrance and exit nearby, one close enough for them to reach with their horses…and Redscale would be waiting.  His mouth lolling open in a dragon smile, Redscale took to the skies, watching from so high up that he would be invisible to human eyes.

The rats would have to surface soon…and Redscale would be waiting.

***
Jack watched as Akron felt out with his senses, trying to determine what had happened to the dragons.  The Grand Mage looked pale, but excited; almost like a child who had been plunged into an adventure.  The air seemed normal; the dragons seemed to have abandoned their attempts to smoke or blow them out.

“Dragons are powerful knots of magic,” Akron commented.  His tone was dull, tired; too tired to do what he had to do.  “If I can’t sense the one hunting us, then we will have a chance.”

“It’s out of range,” Martin confirmed.  Jack gave him a concerned look, seeing a brown hand gently squeezing Martin’s shoulder.  Sumrita was almost invisible in the semi-darkness, but he could see her eyes, glinting in the darkness as she started to shake.

“Don’t worry,” Angelina muttered, as Loke tried to calm the horses.  “You’ve had a nasty shock.”

“There are three dragons back at the castle,” Akron said, and Jack could hear the pain in his voice as his home was torn apart by the dragons.  “I can feel them, destroying the castle and digging up the cellars, smashing everything they can find.”  He winced.  “All that wine, exploding when the dragons turn their fire on it.”

“Good,” Jack said.  “Perhaps they’ll get drunk on the fumes.”

Akron shook his head slowly, from side to side.  “Dragons are almost invulnerable,” he said, returning Jack’s gun.  Jack felt a tingle as he held the weapon; it seemed to move in his hand.  “If they can be poisoned, no ones found anything that can poison them.”

Jack nodded once, returning the weapon to his holster.  “Tell me, how many dragons are there in all?”  He asked, as they started off down the tunnel again.  “How many could Shayde send against us?”

Loke coughed bitterly.  “Even one might be too much,” he said softly.  “We should have started out at once.”

“Enough,” Jack snapped.  “How many?”

Akron laughed.  It held a note of hysteria in it.  Jack realised for the first time that Akron was truly very old indeed.  “Shayde didn’t control them,” he said.  “As if he could; no human wizard ever born could control the dragons.  One dragon would be too much for anything short of all of the Grand Mages working together; it would be far simpler to destroy it.  Much safer too.

“It must have been the Power of Oxford,” he said.  “Only a Power could do it.  The dragon eggs must have been buried in Oxford somewhere, but we never had any reports of their existence.  Shayde must have bargained with the Power of Oxford, gaining control over the dragons in exchange for something.”

Martin frowned.  “What could a human offer a Power?”

“I have no idea,” Akron said.  “I have a nasty feeling that I would be much happier if I stayed ignorant.  It could be knowledge of your weapons, or…”

He sighed once, passing Martin a box.  Jack looked at it and realised that it was a simple compass.  “It’s charmed,” Akron explained.  “It will lead you directly to the place where the Knight Errant is building the army.”  He sighed.  “The dragons fly using magic,” he said.  “We may have to walk directly north.”

Jack blinked.  “What’s wrong with that?”

Akron stepped forward, pulling the lead horse along the tunnel.  “There’s a Power to the north,” he said.  “The magic field there will be too strong for the dragons to go safely.  If they do try to enter, it will certainly disrupt the charm controlling them – and one thing that charm will have is a preventive ward against the charm being broken.  You can’t enslave a dragon’s mind; even a Power can’t do that.”

“Just like a Jinn,” Sumrita breathed.  “You have to be careful of what you wish for.”

“Exactly,” Akron said.  His voice grew fainter for a long moment.  “By now, most of the town will have been burnt to the ground.  Shayde, at least, will get the blame for that, but after my castle will destroyed, very few indeed will oppose him.  Dragons can only be fought with luck and cunning…and it will be far easier to submit to Shayde.”

“How the hell did we get involved in this?”  Jack asked no one in particular.  “What was I thinking?”

Akron stopped and glared at him.  “If you hadn’t come to this world, Shayde and his dragons would have crushed all opposition,” he said.  “If you hadn’t been captured by Shayde, you would have wandered right into the heart of Prince Roger’s power and been squashed flat by Shayde if Roger managed to use you to rebel.  If I hadn’t captured you, you would at best have been trapped as a dumb animal or at worst dead.  If we had set out at once for the Castle at the End of the Land, you wouldn’t have a second magic user.”

He nodded at Martin.  “We have to move faster,” he said.  “Shayde will have the dragons digging up the secret tunnels by now, just to collect all of my artefacts, and then he will spread some damage around before he sends the dragons after us.”

“Damage?”  Angelina said.  “Hasn’t he done enough?”

“He can’t have brought many men with him,” Akron said, as he pushed them faster.  “They would have been noticed.  He’ll be bringing in troops to occupy my town and then to compel my lords to submit to them.  If the dragons do a lot of damage, and make themselves visible, they won’t be trying to resist.”

“They’ll just bend over for the dragons,” Angelina said.  “Cowards.”

Akron sighed.  “Crude, but accurate,” he said.  He pointed to a rock fall ahead, muttering a spell.  “We come up in the middle of a rock formation, just within the forest,” he said.  The pile of rocks vanished in a flash of light, revealing the tunnel starting to slope upwards.  He led the horses upwards, into a canyon.  “Mount your beasts and get ready to move,” he said.

Jack frowned.  “What happens if one of the dragons is outside?”

“We die,” Akron said flatly.  “They shouldn’t be.  This place is shielded from all, but me.”  He opened the wall, revealing a cruder hacked cavern…and open air beyond.  He crept to the entrance and looked up.  “Nothing,” he said.  “Come on.”

Jack spurred the horse and it moved forward, delighted to be out of the dark tunnels.  He glanced around as the horse moved onto the road north, but apart from a rising cloud of smoke from the south, there was nothing, not even a circling hawk.  For some reason, that bothered him.

“Ride,” Akron said, pointing north.  Jack spurred the horse and they fled along the road, moving as fast as they could.  He looked over at Jill, riding the horse without grace, and felt genuine pride and love.  He met her eyes and winked at her as they moved, wishing that they had had more time before the world caught up with them.

It was at that moment that the dragon caught up with them.

***
An old dragon is patience incarnate; Redscale knew from his racial memories that many of them had been prepared to wait years until they could do a task, once they’d decided to do it.  He knew of dragons who had patiently waited just outside an area low in magic, waiting for the shifts in the magical field to give them access to a human town that had tried to hunt them.  He knew of a dragon that had accepted a task from a Power, one that had taken two centuries…and the dragon hadn’t slept at all during that period.

But Redscale was young, and had a youngster’s natural impatience.  He wanted to hunt, to hurt the humans who had dared to hurt him, and waiting patiently didn’t sit well with him.  He circled high above the land, a silent harbinger of death, and waited…and waited…until he was on the verge of giving up and laying waste to the entire forest.  

And then he heard it.  A moment’s chatter in the human tongue, words in a language that he knew, but tried to avoid understanding.  Humans said nothing intelligent; most of them screamed and fled when they saw him, or tried to fight him with silly weapons.  The pain in his mouth flickered over him as he tried to zero in on the sound, wondering if it were truly the magicians he was seeking…or some young human too stupid to hide from him.

There, he thought, his eyes focusing on the horses.  There were eight horses, but only seven humans; three of whom had the curious bumps that indicated that they were female, an odd concept to the single-sex dragons.  A dragon laid eggs; years later the magic would rise to the point when the dragon could hatch.  Redscale wondered if they would be wearing the long dresses that human females always wore when confronting a dragon, ones that tripped them up when they tried to flee.  It was strange; human females never managed to escape a dragon, normally because of their clothing.

Redscale threw open his mouth and howled, and then fell on the humans from his great height.  In the dawn’s sunlight, he knew that he looked a terrifying sight…and he knew how scared the humans would be of him.  It was then that he got his first surprise.

***
The howl shook the air itself, making the horses jump under their riders.  Jack looked up once to see the dragon, and then he pulled at his horse, forcing it to jump aside.  The dragon’s claws slashed through empty air, the force of its passage nearly throwing him off the horse.  It’s tail lashed out against the unmanned horse, breaking its neck in a single blow.

“Shoot it,” Martin snapped, in terror.  His face was pale with horror.  “Jack…”

“Take aim,” Jack ordered, preparing his rifle.  “Off the horses, spread out.”

“We have to move,” Akron insisted, as the dragon rose above them with terrible force.  It’s red eyes glinted at them, eyes alight with malice and hatred.  “If we don’t get into the other Power’s territory…”

“Fire,” Jack said.  Angelina fired; Loke and Jack followed her seconds later.  The dragon recoiled from the bullets striking its belly, and then it looked down at them again.  The bullets hadn’t harmed it at all.  “Aim for the eyes,” Jack ordered.  “Take them out…”

The dragon roared and spat a ball of fire at the puny humans underneath it.  It struck the road between Akron and Jack, throwing them both to the ground.  The dragon roared with pain as bullets struck it in its eyes, but it was unharmed; it spat more flame at them, forcing them back.

“The bastard is playing with us,” Jack snapped.  “Take it out…”

“Your weapons are useless, little humans,” the dragon sang.  The song was haunting, almost as if it meant something to Jack.  The dragon settled on the ground, facing them, extending its long nose towards them.  Jack had the insane idea of trying to punch it in the nose, but he took one look and…

Up close, the dragon was even more ugly than he had expected; its beauty was clearly a function of the distance they had been from it when he had seen it before.  It’s nose was covered with dozens of tiny spines, dotted randomly over its glinting red scales.  It’s red eyes swung around them, holding them in place; Jack felt oddly calm as it held them…

“Walk into my mouth, little humans,” the dragon sang.  This time the singing was truly beautiful; Jack started to move forward helplessly, despite part of its mind screaming at him, and then Akron stepped forward, muttering a spell.

There was a brilliant flash of white light and the dragon jumped backwards, screaming in pain.  The trance broke in an instant and Jack jumped backwards, cursing himself for having been so easily put under control.  He lifted his gun, preparing to go down fighting, when he realised that something was very wrong with the dragon.  It was rolling over, scrabbling at its own eyes, trying to do something gentle with claws that were not designed to be gentle.

“Get the horses,” Akron snapped.  “Move, now; you can’t kill it now.”

Jack gaped at him, his body already moving to obey.  “My weapon,” he asked.  “The one you modified.  I could use it…”

“Move,” Akron said, pushing him towards his horse.  The poor beast was whining in terror as the dragon spat a massive cloud of flame, missing the humans completely.  It didn’t look as if it were playing this time; it looked as if it was in real pain.  “Jack, move.”

Jack swung himself onto the horse, spurring it on and following the others.  Akron climbed onto his and followed him, pushing the horse as fast as it could go.  “Akron,” Jack called.  “What the hell did you do to it?”

“Something your friend Martin inspired,” Akron said.  He sounded tired, but happy.  “I gave it a good strong light in the eye…and blinded it.”

Jack frowned.  There was something about it that seemed unsporting, and then he remembered how close the dragon had come to killing them all.  When it recovered and came after them again, it would be howling mad.

“How long will it stay blind?”  He asked.  “An hour?”

Akron shrugged.  “I have no idea,” he said.  “We have to reach the border before it catches us, though; doing that will really piss it off.”

***
Redscale howled in total agony, his eyes burning with white light.  The spell clung onto its eyelids, even though they were squeezed shut, sending daggers of pain into his head.  He lashed about with all of his considerable strength, spewing flame around him, but the smell was wrong for burned humans.  He knew that he hadn’t killed them at all, and…

The smell of water boiling attracted him, even through the pain, and he plunged his head into the water.  The cooling water soothed his eyes, making them feel better, even as dead fish started to rise to the surface as the water heated up rapidly.  Relief brought rage; how dare the puny humans do that to him?

“Revenge,” he howled, in the native dragon tongue, and launched himself for the sky.  The humans couldn’t have gone far, after all, and this time there would be no playing.

***
“That’s the border,” Akron said, pointing at a patch of the forest that looked exactly the same to Jack.  “The Power’s territory begins there.”

Martin nodded.  “I can see the magic,” he said.  “Is this safe?”

A red form appeared in the sky.  “I think that we don’t have a choice,” Jack said, as the dragon howled at them.  Even to him, it sounded mad…and out for revenge.  “Akron, I think I’d better use the weapon now.”

Akron nodded.  “We have to reach the border,” he said.  “You must not miss, Jack; you only have one chance at the dragon.”

The dragon roared and fell from the sky, landing neatly between them and the border.  “Now what, little humans?”  It asked.  It’s tone sounded really mad.  There was no attempt at hypnosis this time.  It snapped its neck forward, towards Martin, who yelped and fell off his horse, landing on his backside.

The dragon cackled.  Jack shivered at the sound and carefully took aim.  “Leave us,” he said.  “You don’t have to do what he wants.”

The dragon turned its red eyes on him.  “I will eat you first, warrior,” it said.  It stood up on its hind legs, like a giant hamster, and reached for Jack with its claws.  Jack fired four times, aiming the magical bullets into the dragon’s belly.  The dragon looked astonished – somehow the look transcended species – as the bullets ripped into its flesh, before rolling over on the ground, screaming in pain.

“Come on,” Akron snapped.  Jack didn’t need to be told twice; he ran for the border, pausing only to grab Martin and pull him onto the horse with him.  The beast neighed in protest, but obeyed, following the girls under it reached the border…and safety.

Jack turned to watch.  The dragon seemed to be bleeding; eerie green blood pouring from its belly, but it seemed to be recovering.  As he watched, the dragon pulled itself to its feet, standing on all fours, allowing the bullets to fall out of its body.

“I will remember you, little human,” the dragon hissed.  “You’ll have to come out of there, sooner or later, and then I will have you.”

With a beat of its mighty wings, the dragon hurled itself into the sky.  Jack took some pleasure in seeing that it had clearly been hurt, before turning to face the unknown.  Akron took a few moments to collect some of the blood, before rejoining them.

“There’s a Power around,” Akron said, when Martin asked.  “You never know when Dragon Blood might come in handy.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Putting the Pressure On

The fires were still burning several hours later when Captain Brant arrived with a detachment of one hundred soldiers from Shayde’s personal force, coming to secure the remains of Akron’s castle.  The three dragons remained sitting in the field they had claimed for themselves, casually eating their way through haunches of lamb and the hundreds of dead bodies from the town below.  Shayde hadn’t remained around; he’d given orders that the dead bodies were to be dumped in the field, and then headed over to the castle to search the ruins personally.  

“By the Powers,” one of his men whispered, as the force crested the hill and stared down towards what had once been Gloucester.  It had been a prosperous town once, Brant had been told, and now half of it was in ruins.  The dragon that had attacked the town had done a good job; not only had it wiped out the local noblemen, but it had destroyed the walls.  Defending the town would now be impossible.

“Remember, behave yourselves,” he ordered.  Shayde had issued very clear instructions on the subject; looting, pillage, rape and burning were off the attack plan, at least until Shayde changed his mind.  The Grand Mage seemed to be working from a plan that he hadn’t shown to anyone, even Brant.  

There were some good-natured grumbles, but no real annoyance, even though looting and rape were one of the few perks of a dangerous, underpaid and unpleasant job.  Shayde had done a lot to win their loyalty when he’d given them the noblewomen that had once belonged to Prince Dike; the men would fight for him now with real cheer in their hearts.  The hired soldiers from Peterborough had been less happy – they’d been on the wrong side, the one that lost, then – and they’d wanted some of the fruits of victory.

“If they step out of line, feel free to kill them,” Shayde had said, before sending them to their forward positions.  He’d paused with the dragons near the castles of the local lords, the ones between his position and Akron’s, warning them of what would happen if they even thought about doing anything to block the passage of Brant’s men.  

Brant had wondered if they would have been able to fly on the dragons, but Shayde had told him that that would be pushing the dragons too much; it would be actively dangerous to make them do menial work.  By now, the news would have spread across the land, scaring the living daylights out of Akron’s subject nobles, perhaps even enough to convince them to give up without a fight.

Gloucester’s gates, or rather the rubble where the gates used to be, rose up in front of them.  A strong and determined army – or even a weak one – could have held the walls for months if they had had to; Brant was quietly relieved that Shayde had managed to use the dragons.  A siege was murder on an army; hundreds of men could get ill very quickly with a single outbreak of disease.  The rubble would provide hardly any cover to the defenders…and he was relieved to see that there wouldn’t be any resistance.

He ignored the sullen stunned looks directed at his army, or the mad scramble to hide daughters and men of military age.  The force rode into the city, surveying the ruined buildings, and examining the scene.  A fat man, wearing noble robes, was directing the removal of the rubble, even of the dead bodies.

My lord must have spoken to him already, Brant thought, realising that the man must have been a lucky survivor.  The man was directing willing civilians and chain gangs, clearly half-terrified that he was going to join the criminals and soldiers who had been chained up.  Brant gave a snort of pure amusement; clearly the soldiers had belonged to Akron and had been enslaved to prevent them from causing trouble – or, more likely, to prevent Shayde from using their existence as an excuse for feeding the rest of the town to the dragons.

The fat man saw Brant and prostrated himself before the horse, which promptly took a swipe at him with a hoof.  “Not now, Satan,” Brant muttered into the horse’s ear; it was a point of pride with him that he’d never had to ask one of the court magicians for a spell to make the horse behave.  “Are you in charge, scum?”  He demanded.  “Where is the Mayor?”

“Dead, noble lord,” the fat man said, trembling.  Shayde must have really put the fear of…well, himself into the man.  “I am the Earl Richards…”

“You were the Earl Richards,” Brant informed him.  Shayde had given him very clear instructions upon this point; the nobles were to learn that their continued survival depended upon their obedience and usefulness.  “Now you’re a dog, and do you know whose dog you are?”

The Earl Richards looked up at him, fear in his eyes.  “Yours, noble lord,” he whispered, clearly aware that all of his authority would have been broken by his submission.  “I serve you and you alone…”

Brant cracked the whip in his face.  “You are the dog of the Grand Mage Shayde, whom I am proud to serve,” he sneered.  “You can obey and then you will live, or you will die and then you will be an object lesson for the rest of the people.  Do you understand?”

Earl Richards grovelled in the dirt.  “I understand, my lord,” he said.  “What are your orders?”

Brant felt a sick triumph spreading through him.  “You will leave control of the clearing efforts in the hands of your deputy,” he said.  “You will now carry out the following tasks for me.  One, you will hand over to me all of the craftsmen involved in making the new weapons.  Two, you will hand over all of the soldiers trained with the new weapons.  Third, you will organise barracks for my men, and all of the normal considerations for soldiers.”

He watched Earl Richards as he bowed his head.  He showed no concern at all for the people of the town, just for himself.  Brant wished that he would show some reason to kill him; Earl Richards was just the sort of nobleman who had been preventing the forging of a new empire.  Shayde had explained it all, at length, and Brant believed him.  

“There are prostitutes here, I believe?”  He asked.  Earl Richards nodded once.  “They are to be made available to my men; no women who were not already selling their bodies are to be provided.  You will make yourself available for any other demand I care to make, including food, drink, and if I so choose the services of your daughters.”

Earl Richards showed no reaction.  Brant was disgusted.  “Good,” he said.  “Now, go forth and gather the craftsmen.”

***
Adam Blacksmith had enjoyed his work; as one of the skilled clockmakers of the Clockwork Guild he had considerable funds and prestige.  He would never be a nobleman, but he would have been rich…even before the new weapons were invented.  With the resources that Akron had been able to put into the project, he had been able to train up a whole army of craftsmen to make the muskets and cannons, even the gunpowder that made them fire.

And then the dragons had come and made a mockery of all of their preparations.  Adam had watched as the dragon had come to the town, burning and destroying at random, including one of the priceless cannons, which had been destroyed in a mighty blast of fire.  He’d spent time working to repair all of the damage, when two of the guardsmen from the town grabbed him and arrested him.

“Here is the last, sire,” they said, to one of Shayde’s soldiers.  Adam, his hands tightly bound behind his back, knew that he was dead.  The guardsmen were unarmed; even if they had been armed, with the dragons around they would have been fools to even think about trying to help him.  “Should we put him in with the others?”

“Yes,” the soldier said, pointing Adam into a tent that had been established in the rubble.  Adam, like almost every other citizen, had been forced to work on clearing some of the rubble during the first few hours of the occupation.  He shuddered; occupations meant that he was likely to be conscripted into the army…and his daughters conscripted into a brothel.  

Inside the tent, he was astonished to see several dozen of the leading craftsmen from the city, including blacksmiths like his father, small delicate watchmakers, sewing women and other representatives of the Clockwork Guild.  None of them were bound; one of the women produced a knife from her bodice and sliced Adam free.

“What the hell is going on?”  He asked John Short, one of the blacksmiths.  The smith blinked at him.  “What are we doing here?”

“We all helped to build the new weapons,” Short said.  His wife, Holly, one of the sewing women, clung onto his arm.  “They’ll want to kill us for certain.”

Adam scowled as Holly started to cry.  He understood – and suspected that Short was right.  What else could it be?

A cough from the front of the room attracted their attention.  A man had entered, clad in chain mail, carrying a long sword in one hand.  He placed the sword down in the ground, in the traditional symbol of peace, and looked down at them for a long moment.  His grim face only made Adam nervous; it wasn’t the face of someone from their city, or even any of the cities nearby.

“Thank you all for coming,” the man said, with ironic politeness.  “My name is Captain Brant; for the moment, I am the commanding officer of the troops here and de facto governor of conquered territory, including your city.  You may have noticed that your ruler, the Grand Mage Akron, has been forced to flee his castle, which is in ruins.  With the dragons on our side, resistance is futile.”

He paused to take in their reactions.  “We hold your city and your countryside in the palm of our hand,” he said.  “However, that does not have to be bad for you.  We are aiming to build the first united empire in history, one that will not have the nobles constantly ruling everyone, or ruining commercial prospects through taxes and general banditry.”

Adam felt a rustle go through the room.  The Merchant Guild would be delighted if there were a united empire; it had real problems with bandits and local lords acting as bandits, or sometimes vice versa.  On the other hand, he knew a little history, and every other attempt to do anything along those lines had ended in disaster.

“We have an offer for you,” Brant said, and the room went deadly quiet.  Offers were interesting – but they tended to have a sting in the tail, or tale.  “We would be interested – hell, we are interested – in building more of the weapons you were trained to make, in fact; we will be happy to pay you through the nose for them.  If you accept the offer, you will become part of a provisional council that will run the city under Shayde, one where you will all be important.”

The room remained silent.  “We have little time,” Brant said.  “If you join us, you will be rewarded for your talents, rather than your blood.”

There was a cough from someone at the back.  “And what happens if we don’t join you?”

“You remain in a jail for a while,” Brant said.  “You know too much, you see.”

Adam didn’t need to take time to think.  He was the only man in his house; without him, his wife would be utterly lost.  He didn’t want to think what the young blades would do if they learned that there was no longer a chaperone for his daughters.  

“I accept,” he said.  “What do we do now?”

One by one, all of them accepted Brant’s offer.  “Excellent,” he said finally.  “Now, you start planning newer factories for the weapons, and then you let us know what you need to build them.”

A merchant held up a hand.  “What about the tariffs from here to Cambridge?”  He asked.  “How high are they going to be?”

“They’ve all been removed,” Brant said.  The entire room stared at him.  “There are no more tariffs in territory controlled by Shayde.”

He left, ducking through the tent’s flap, leaving them alone to discuss it.  Adam knew what would happen; tariffs had prevented many of the men from getting rich.  If they had truly been removed, then Shayde would suddenly have a groundswell of popular support.  Before, that wouldn’t have mattered.  Now…?

***
The sea port of Bristol was spread out before Shayde as he guided the dragon down towards the castle, perched on the outside of the city, glaring down at the smaller houses below.  There could be no trade outside the Brass Walls, of course, but sea-borne trade had always had the advantage of avoiding bandits, even though some of the sea monsters were dangerous even to magicians.  

There were no arrows or bullets coming at him as the dragon descended towards the castle, finally landing right inside the courtyard.  The massive field was just barely large enough to hold the dragon, which was looking around with its eerie red eyes, contemplating how much of a snack the horses could make.  For their part, the horses were jammed up against the walls of their stables, trying to escape the red glare.

“You ate plenty of bodies,” Shayde reminded the dragon, before sliding off the monster and standing on the ground.  As soon as it had stopped shaking underneath him, he left the dragon and walked around to the main entrance, which had been closed.

Idiots, Shayde thought, and muttered a spell.  The doors collapsed to dust, revealing a full – and terrified – court.  The noblemen – they’d left the throne empty, as per instructions – were scared to death; the dragon could have poked its head in and devoured them any moment, and they knew it.  All eyes were on Shayde as he strode to the throne, checked it quickly for unpleasant surprises, and then sat down.

“The last time I sat on a throne like this, I turned Prince Dike into a dog,” Shayde said, conversationally.  The air of pure hopeless, helpless hatred raged out at him; he ignored it without any effort at all.  “He had dared to defy me, you see.  Afterwards, I purged Peterborough of its noblemen, and productivity is way up.”

He sniggered once, just for the effect.  “So, I might add, is the morale of soldiers who fight and die on the behalf of princes, lords and noblemen; they finally got a chance at the women they were supposed to serve and forever bow to.  They were apparently rotten in bed.”

He allowed that statement to spread out across the room.  “Some of you are thinking about revolt,” he said.  “Some of you are wondering what I might do to your women if you dared to resist.  Some of you are wondering how much I might give you for eternal service.  I would advise you to take a look at my companion” – he waved a hand towards the dragon, which had curled up in the courtyard, eating several horses – “and put thoughts of revolt out of your mind.”

He smiled down at their stony faces.  “He’s only a baby yet,” he said.  “Think what he could do when fully grown; he’d be magnificent.  Dragons like that one put Akron to flight, my friends; the Grand Mage is gone, hiding among the peasants.”

“He’ll defeat you, him and the Knight Errant,” a young blade shouted from the corner.  Shayde looked at him; the young man was exactly the sort of man who had made his life miserable…or had he made Jack’s life miserable?  No, those were his thoughts, weren’t they?

He shook his head and clicked his fingers, killing the young blade.  The body fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, pooling on the ground with no life at all inside the eyes.  The room gasped; the paleness of the faces almost matched the colour of the fashionable clothes, brilliant white.

“Any more objections?”  He asked mildly.  No one even breathed.  “Good,” he purred.  “We will now discuss how you will fit into my empire.

“In some places, I have placed talented commoners in charge of my efforts,” he said.  They didn’t react; they would have heard about that already.  News spread fast, particularly when a Grand Mage wanted it to spread – and Akron would have every motive in the world to see him slandered.  “If you manage to do a good job at preparing your little states to fit into my empire, I will permit you to remain in control – and alive.

“The priority is to develop the new weapons as fast as possible, and to create a single force of magicians, rather than the current ramshackle system,” he said.  “You will send all of the court magicians to me at Gloucester, where I will place my current base of operations.  We will unite all of the armed forces into a single army, which will be under my control, although any of you with a martial bent can apply themselves to fighting.  That will be to ensure peace in the empire.  

“We will establish schools to allow the commoners to learn new trades, which will broaden our industrial base, and we will develop new farming methods so that more can be grown with fewer people.  In effect, we will prepare for the war…and ending it as quickly as possible.”

He looked down at them all.  It was a good plan, one that Jack’s thoughts and Christina’s knowledge had helped him to prepare, and he knew that they would hate it.  Yes, it would place one man on top – him – but their role would be forever his hostage.  Without their tariff rights and their taxation rights, without the personal armies they controlled, they would soon find themselves impotent – and they knew it.

A joke from Jack’s world came to his mind and he smiled.  Some of them shuddered under his gaze.  “If any of you would like to object to this, go out to the dragon and say ‘I’m lunch,’” he said, and laughed.  

Chapter Twenty-Nine: In the Kingdom of the Power

The dragon was already a dark spot in the sky before Martin even realised that it had taken off; it had moved so fast.  It’s final comment before vanishing had sent a shiver down his spine; it had sounded as if it was talking to him personally, even though it had been speaking to Jack.  He knew, somehow, that the dragon remembered him forcing it to eat its own fire and that it hated him.

If there was any justice, the gas inside it would have blown it to smithereens, he thought bitterly.  He’d read a fantasy series once where the dragons had exploded regularly; if the dragons here had worked the same way, it would have been easy to deal with them.  The dragon had echoed through his magical senses, a single knot of power, a moment of unchangeable reality…

“Are dragons parts of reality who we dreamed were dragons, or dragons we dreamed into being part of reality?”  He asked aloud.  Akron understood and smiled; no one else understood.  The team was trying to catch their breath; with only six horses left, someone would have to double up.  “So, what now?”

“We head to the Castle at the End of the Land,” Loke said.  Martin cocked an eyebrow; he was curious, but Loke had turned it into an obsession.  “If we can get there, perhaps we can escape this place.”

Jack stared at him.  Martin looked at Jill watching Jack and understood.  Jack had committed himself to her, without speaking, and to her world.  In many ways, Jack would probably be happier if they never regained contact with TimeLine A; it would have saved him from worrying about his duty if it were impossible to carry out his duty.

“Why are you so bloody interested?”  Jack snapped.  His normal accent had been fading, Martin realised; only his sudden anger with the short Loke had brought it back.  “Do you think that we can escape?  Why?”

Loke lowered his eyes.  “I had someone back home,” he confessed.  “God alone knows what Director Rogers told her, if anything.”

“He would have told them the truth,” Martin commented.  He’d liked Director Rogers.  “She won’t panic.”

“Stupid,” Loke snapped.  “We’re lost in a world where everyone thinks I’m a dwarf and you – our great white hope – are being stupid.  They can’t open portals here!”

Martin snorted.  “What’s to stop them opening one in orbit?”

“And how would they find us if they did?”  Loke demanded.  “We have to get to the Castle at the End of the Land and then you can stay here if you like.”

That comment was addressed to Jack, who flared back at him.  Martin stood up, ignoring the arguing, and wandered around the border.  For the first time, it struck him just how weird the place actually was; when he concentrated, he could feel strange eddies and twists in the magical field, spreading out over the land.  There were waves of strange energy, at a far higher level than Akron’s power or even the dragon, sweeping out and…changing reality on a base level, affecting everything within its sphere of influence.

Sumrita put a hand on his shoulder and he jumped.  “Are you all right?”

“I can feel it,” he breathed.  “Wave after wave of power…”

He looked down, into the bushes, on impulse.  The plants they had encountered so far had been natural British plants; the strange bush wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before, even in botanic gardens.  It was multicoloured, with every colour of the rainbow displayed on its leaves, with bees and wasps and…

“Uh-oh,” he muttered, as a spider ran across, leaping onto the flower with an ease that seemed somehow magical.  It took no interest in them, choosing instead to sink its legs into a bee, which died rapidly.  The spider didn’t pause; it dragged its prey away from the flower, lowering it down towards the ground on a large thread.

“I think I hate spiders,” Sumrita muttered, as Martin readied a bolt of magic to smash the spider flat.  Before he could cast any spells, a flight of bees flew past, hitting the leaf with their bodies and tossing the spider into the air.  It landed on its back – Martin felt his skin creep as its legs scurried helplessly in the air – and then the bees dropped a small stone on it.

“That’s what the Power has done,” Akron said.  The old Grand Mage seemed somehow too exhausted to stand up.  “We have to move to the village.”

“There’s a village?”  Martin asked, in disbelief.  “You mean…people actually live here?”

Akron nodded grimly.  “This Power – I can’t tell you its name, not where it might hear – has been warping this place for over twenty years.  That makes it one of the longest-lived Powers around, by the way, which means that it is rather set in its ways.”

It took a moment for the implications to sink in.  “Fuck me,” Martin breathed.  Sumrita made to slap him; he ducked quickly.  “Nothing remains stable here.”

Akron nodded, ignoring the byplay.  “Not even the weather,” he said.  “We have had this summer for five years, and once we had a winter for seven months.”  His voice seemed too tired to do anything.  “People came very close to becoming extinct altogether then; only a handful of wizards were able to do anything to keep them alive.”

“It can’t have been that cold,” Sumrita said, in genuine puzzlement.  “What about warm…oh, I see.”

“Food,” Akron said.  He looked back at the argument, which looked far too likely to degenerate into a brawl at any moment.  “Are your people normally this…undisciplined?”

Martin shook his head.  “It’s not normal for us to be out of touch with anyone,” he said.  “If I was on the other side of the world, Sumrita” – he smiled as her hand slipped into his – “could still pick up a telephone, or a computer, and call me at any moment.  Here…”

“You can do that with magic,” Akron said.  “I could call my allies from here, except that would be dangerous.”

“Here, almost everyone is like Jill, restricted to a small village,” Martin said.  “They live, play, marry, have sex with, have kids, and grow old with people from that village.  For us, our horizons are the entire world…and now we’re trapped on the wrong side of the dimensional divide.”

“Curious,” Akron said.  Martin could tell that he wasn’t really interested.  “We have to make it to the village here, before sunset.”

Sumrita looked up nervously.  “What happens at sunset?”

Martin’s question was more practical.  “There are people who live here?”

Akron paced nervously.  “The Power…changes people who don’t sleep within the village,” he said.  “Seeing no one is quite sure of what the Powers actually are, few Powers welcome guests, let alone colonists, but the one here is quite eager to accept them.”  He paused.  “They’re rather weird, to tell you the truth.”

Martin laughed harshly.  “Weird, in this place,” he said.  “I can’t wait to meet them.”

Akron smiled at a joke only he could see.  “Most men can’t wait either,” he said.  “Come on; we’d better get moving.  We’ll only be safe in the village.”

He wandered back over to the argument.  “Shut up,” he said, with considerable force.  “We have to reach the village before night falls, or we’ll be lucky if we wake up with four arms or something.”

Martin had to smile.  It had worked; the two men had stopped arguing.  “Does the Power know we’re here?”  Jack asked.  “Are we likely to be attacked?”

Akron shrugged.  “Powers are unpredictable,” he said.  “This one…is slightly more benevolent than most; the bees, wasps and almost everything else here have some form of intelligence.  Try not to harm anything.”

***
Jill sat on the horse as it moved up the path, with Jack sitting behind her.  She had angled for the position, but she now regretted it.  She’d known, of course, how excited men could get, but she hadn’t realised – not exactly – that she could get really excited as well.  Her mother, in the years before she had passed away, hadn’t said anything to the young Jill about sex, and the village witch had glossed over that part when discussing contraception.  

Akron kept up a long discussion on the history of Blossom, which was the village in the heart of the Power’s territory.  When the Power had arrived, apparently unseating a Power that had been on the wane – although Akron speculated that its nature had just changed radically – it had radically changed the area and a lot of people had simply fled into Akron’s territory.  For a while, nothing had been heard from groups that had gone into the Power’s territory, until a team had returned, revealing that the Power would allow some humans to live within its territory, provided that they obeyed the Power’s rules.

“That is not exactly unusual, but it is odd,” Akron said, as they approached a massive hedgerow.  “The Power of Oxford enjoys playing games with our own balance of power – rather makes you wonder how it intends to play with Shayde afterwards – but that’s something of an extreme case.  Some Powers are indifferent to humans; some forbid them from entering their territory.  In this case, Blossom quickly became popular because of the apples here.”

He waved a hand at a massive set of apple trees, each one larger than a giant oak.  The apples were a strange golden colour.  “Those apples bring back youth, for a short period,” Akron said, and Jill could hear the wistfulness in his voice.  She leaned back against Jack, enjoying the feel of his body against hers.  “You eat one, you get your youth for a few hours, long enough to enjoy your latest concubine.”

Jill felt a flicker of disapproval as Akron continued.  “The red apples bring instant sleep for a few days,” he said.  “Healers and villages witches seek them for their healing qualities.  The green apples are a perfect aphrodisiac; if you eat one, you will become very sexually excited indeed.”

Jack smiled.  Jill could feel that he was as excited as she was.  She didn’t know if she should be reassured, or concerned.  “The apples became instant trade goods,” Akron said.  “The Power only permits a small amount to be taken out of its territory, but they’re free…and they’re worth several gold pieces each on the open market.  In fact…”

They had reached the hedgerow, which moved aside to let them enter, revealing an ideal.  Jill felt a sudden flicker of homesickness; the village of Blossom was far too much like Griffin, except that it had more corn and haystacks than Griffin had ever had.  The collection of houses and huts, each of them seeming to be constructed from living wood, sat in the exact centre of the fields.  Each of the fields held a tree – just one – that reached up to heaven.

There was a motion near the hedgerows, near the haystacks, and Jill nearly fell off the horse as Jack grabbed his weapon.  Jill looked and saw a naked girl, moving impaled on an equally nude boy, her bare breasts bouncing in the sun.  She blushed and moved her head, feeling Jack kiss her gently on the head.

“That’s the headwoman there,” Akron said, as they reached the village itself.  Up close, Jill could feel the peace and serenity coming from the village, and then she saw the people.  One and all, they were naked; walking around as if it were the most normal thing in the world.  She gasped, and tried to burrow into Jack’s body, no longer certain where to put her eyes.  She stared at one of the houses and saw suddenly that it was a real tree, one growing in the shape of a house.  A butterfly landed on her nose and she stared at it, before it flew again.

“Welcome to Blossom,” the headwoman said.  Jill peeked at her and blinked; the woman was as old as her father, but she was still pretty; so was everyone in the village.  The girls were gorgeous; the men…she closed her eyes, unwilling to look.

“Thank you, Revered Mother,” Akron said.  The Grand Mage didn’t seem thrown by the public nakedness.  “We seek sanctuary for the night.”

The Revered Mother glanced up at the sky.  Jill followed her gaze; it was already growing dark.  “You will abide by the usual conditions, on pain of punishment by the Goddess?”

Akron nodded.  “I give you my word,” he said.  “We will behave ourselves.”

“A Grand Mage,” the Revered Mother said.  “It has been upwards of fifty years since I saw one of them.”

Jill stared at her, unable to look away.  “It has been fifty years?”  She asked.  “How can it be that long?  You don’t look that old?”

Jack squeezed her warningly.  The Revered Mother laughed.  “Let the child ask her questions,” she said.  Jill felt a hot flash of embarrassment crossing her face.  “We have no secrets here, apart from the secret of eternal youth.”

Akron’s eyes glittered.  “It only works here,” he said, warningly.  “I think that many have come here to remain immortal, only to tire of the life here.”

The Revered Mother nodded.  It did interesting things to her breasts.  “You were tempted, Grand Mage,” she said.  Akron nodded.  “It was well that you did not.  Some time ago a Grand Mage came here and tried to take the secret by force.”  She nodded towards a statue in the middle of the village; a tall man in a druid’s robe.  “That was his fate.”

Jill shivered, unable to help herself, as Jack helped her off the horse.  She clung to Jack, unable to know where to look.  Akron studied the statue thoughtfully, muttering to himself.  Jill sensed odd flickers of magic around him and her, but the statue remained a statue.

“He cannot be released from that state until he truly repents,” the Revered Mother said.  “Such is the will of the Goddess.”

Akron frowned.  “That garb was in fashion only five hundred years ago,” he said.  “How did he get here like that?”

The Revered Mother shrugged.  “Such was the will of the Goddess,” she said.  “Shall I show you to your rooms?”

Akron bowed.  “Please, Revered Mother,” he said.  “We need our rest.”

The Revered Mother looked directly at Jill.  “I would have words with you later,” she said.  Her tone was warm and reassuring; her words were not.  “Come.”

Four handsome naked men took the horses, leading them away to the stables, wherever they were here.  Jill followed Jack and the Revered Mother into a large building at the end of the village.  Inside, it smelt of apples, with twelve small rooms with simple bedding.  It was just like going home.

“This will be your place for as long as you stay with us,” a girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen said.  Jill saw Loke’s eyes following her about as she moved; even at sixteen she was utterly desirable, with long blonde hair and firm breasts.  Loke asked her a question; the girl nodded and led him out of the room.

“Lucky bastard,” Angelina said, as Loke left.  The Revered Mother smiled at them all and followed him out of the door.  “I think I’ll get some sleep.  Do we have to keep watch here?”

Akron shook his head.  “Not even slightly,” he said.  “The Power protects this place, even Shayde and a force of dragons couldn’t get in without the Power’s permission.”

Martin blinked.  “How do we know that the Power isn’t going to turn on us?”

“We’d be statues now,” Akron said.  He shook his head tiredly.  “You cannot fight a Power easily.  They are strange and they get bored easily.  Jill, I would suggest going to see the Revered Mother now; she wanted to talk to you, anyway.”

Jill felt a sudden burst of anger.  “They were naked,” she burst out.  “And you looked,” she snapped, rounding on Jack.  “You looked at them!”

Jack’s eyes flickered rapidly, from concern to guilt to puzzlement to…something un-definable in his eyes.  “Jill,” he said.  His tone was patient, almost patronising, and very reasonable.  “Jill, how can I not look when they’re in my face like that?”

Jill knew that he was right, but she didn’t want to admit it at all.  “I love you,” she screamed.  “How can I trust you if you look at them?”

“Didn’t you look at the men?”  Angelina asked dryly.

“I didn’t know where to look,” Jill screamed.  She knew with a sick certainty that the entire village could hear her, but she didn’t care, or she didn’t want to appear to care.  “They’re…naked.”

“It’s the way they worship their Power,” Akron said.  “The Power commanded them to be naked and to enjoy each other.  There is much magic in the sexual act.”

Jack frowned.  “So Loke and…that girl are going to be adding to the Power’s power?”  He asked.  “Is that one of the rules of this place?”

“Rape doesn’t really offer any power except tainted power,” Akron said.  “Necromancers and the darkest of magics use it; hardly anyone else would.  Shayde would know better than to use it; any wizard with an ounce of sense would know to avoid it like the plague.”

Jack nodded.  “What are the other rules?”

“Don’t be unpleasant to the people here, don’t steal, don’t damage the place, pretty much the normal run of the mill rules,” Akron said.  Jill could tell that his mind was somewhere far away.  “Don’t break them; I couldn’t break the spell around the transfigured Grand Mage outside.”

Martin frowned.  Jill noted with some bitter amusement that Sumrita and he were no longer holding hands.  “Did you know him?”

“I should have known anyone who existed since I became a wizard,” Akron said.  “There are wizards and village witches who know about me, after all…except his clothes are from back during the Imperial Wars.  Several druids from the Highlands had risen to Grand Mage status during those years.  Except the Power hasn’t been around long enough for such games.  It’s odd.”

“Things are seldom what they seem,” Martin commented.  “When do we get to meet the Power?”

“Never, if you’re lucky,” Akron snapped.  “Now…get some sleep.  The last thing we want or need is to spend more nights in this village.”

“Where things are really not what they seem,” Jack muttered.  “Jill?”

Jill sighed, wishing that they’d never come anywhere near the village.  “I’ll go see her,” she said, “and then I want some sleep.”

Chapter Thirty: Elsie Marley

Night was falling as Jill stepped outside the strange building, the stars appearing in the sky, burning brighter than she’d ever seen them.  From one of the smaller houses, shaped almost like a brown wooden apple, she could hear the sound of people making love, lots of people.

She closed her eyes, feeling dizzy.  She wasn’t ignorant of the facts of life – no one in a cramped village could be ignorant – but the village had attempted to keep such matters private.  They weren’t private here; the female noises suggested nothing, but total uninhibited enjoyment.  She wanted it and part of her wanted to go back inside, to Jack, and another part made her want to run.

A flight of butterflies flew over her head, glowing softly in the darkness.  The entire village was glowing softly; a strange light that seemed to come from everywhere at once.  The darkness felt comfortable, hardly as threatening as the darkness around Griffin had felt, almost warm and welcoming.

On impulse, she walked towards the centre of the village, stepping towards a massive building that seemed to have grown out of several trees.  It seemed to be calling to her, opening its doors as she walked through, into a large wooden room.  In the centre of the room was a statue of a woman, absurdly well-developed.  Her breasts and hips were so far out of proportion as to make it impossible for her to even walk without falling over.

Jill had never heard of the concept of pornography, or of erotic art, but she understood that the stature was somehow designed to invite.  As she stepped up to look at the statue, she saw that it was almost alive, changing constantly to reflect how close she was.  The stone woman changed from an old wise woman to a mother, smiling at her, and then to a young girl.

“I knew that you would come, child,” the Revered Mother said, from behind her.  Jill spun around, to see her standing in the darkness.  The light had been emitting from the statue, but it was strange light; it didn’t illuminate anywhere else.  “This place would call you, just as it called me, so long ago.”

She was still naked; still a fine figure of a woman, and Jill found herself stepping backwards as the Revered Mother stepped forward.  There was something about her presence that was intimidating, even though she seemed harmless; something wasn’t right.  

“Why have you come, child?”  She asked.  “Why are you here?”

Jill blinked at her.  The Revered Mother was very close now.  “You asked me to come see you,” she stammered, trying to back away further.  She bumped into the wall and froze helplessly.  “I came as you asked…”

“Not that question, child,” the Revered Mother said.  “Why are you and your friends coming through here?”

Jill tried to think, but it was so hard with those overpowering eyes resting on her eyes, holding her in place.  “We’re fleeing from an evil Grand Mage,” she said finally.  “We have to get through here to get to safety.”

The Revered Mother smiled.  “Few people would come here and then leave,” she said.  “Will you take your man out of here?”

Jill flushed.  “I…don’t know if he is my man or not,” she confessed.  “He saved my life and maidenhood, and I want to give it to him and I don’t want to give it to him and…”

She burst into tears.  The Revered Mother gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and then drew her into a hug.  “He has feelings for you,” she said mildly.  “Why is the evil mage after you?”

“He sent dragons after us,” Jill said, though her tears.  “He could send them here.”

The Revered Mother snorted.  “Dragons, here?”  She said.  Surprisingly, she smiled.  “I haven’t seen dragons in ages!  The Goddess would never allow it.”

“But she allows public…fornication,” Jill protested.  “Why…?”

Something glittered in the Revered Mother’s eyes.  “It is Her will,” she said.  “Do not presume to question.”

Jill froze for a long moment, and then reasserted herself.  “Can the Grand Mage come here?”

“All can come here,” the Revered Mother said.  “Some go, some stay…tell me, why did you never become a witch?”

Jill looked up at her, saw into her eyes, and was hooked.  “My father would never allow it,” she said.  “I…was due for being his latest bargaining chip for expanding his business.  Who would marry a witch?”

“You father is dead,” the Revered Mother said.  “Why not attempt to develop your powers now?”

Jill shook her head.  “I…would Jack still love me if I was a witch?”  She asked.  “There are tales of witches who turned their husbands into things when they were angry, or…you know, when they bleed.”

“That doesn’t happen here,” the Revered Mother said.  Her tone was…strange.  “What is the war about?”

Jill shrugged.  “I don’t understand it all,” she said.

The Revered Mother smiled.  “How can you fight in a war if you don’t know why you fight?”

“The Grand Mage Shayde hates Akron,” Jill said, marvelling at her own boldness.  A month ago, she would never have dared to refer to the Grand Mage by his assumed name.  “Akron wants to get Jack’s team to the Castle at the End of the Land….”

It was like getting hit by a sledgehammer.  The Revered Mother held her eyes, and Jill was suddenly helpless.  “Why do they want to go to the Castle at the End of the Land?”

Jill knew that she couldn’t help, but obey; she had to answer as best as she could.  “Akron thinks that there’s something wrong with the magic and the team can fix it,” she said, falling to her knees.  The eyes never left hers.  “Jack thinks that they can use it to get back to their world, except…”

“You don’t want them to leave,” the Revered Mother said.  “If they interfered with the Castle at the End of the Land, they would kill all of the Powers.”

Jill knew, somehow, that that wasn’t such a bad idea…except she couldn’t think under the weight of the pressure the Revered Mother was exerting on her.  Her tiny magical sense was flickering a warning, trying to show her something, and she couldn’t even begin to grasp it.  Something vast was stirring all around her, reaching for her…and she couldn’t break free…

“Jack,” she breathed, or thought she did…and then the world went away.

***
Akron didn’t sleep, despite his words; his magic would make sleep dangerous within the territory of a Power.  Instead, he sat in his room, thinking and considering, planning for the next few weeks.  Losing his castle meant that the people and the resources of his former power base would be almost certainly lost to him, and would probably have transferred to Shayde’s grasp.

Martin’s not ready yet, Akron thought, and scowled to himself.  The loss of the modern weapons, such as they were, would hurt; all of his attempts to materialise replacement ammunition had failed.  He’d placed charms on the remaining bullets, just to give them a chance against the dragons, but there weren’t many left.

“Can’t sleep?”  Jack asked.  Akron looked up to see him silhouetted in the doorway.  “Do wizards even sleep?”

Akron nodded once.  “I don’t want to sleep here,” he said absently.  “You do realise that the loss of…my castle means that we will be cut off from our ally in Cornwall?”

Jack nodded once, taking a seat and looking across at Akron.  “And what will happen to him?”  He asked.  “Will Shayde turn on him first with the dragons?”

“It’s possible,” Akron conceded.  “If my old friend has a flaw, it’s that he has a bad habit of being lazy, even while holding the rank of Grand Mage.  With Shayde’s forces blocking his route north, he might just decide to declare neutrality.”

“With friends like that, who needs enemies,” Jack said.  He changed the subject quickly.  “Jill hasn’t come back yet.”

Akron frowned.  “There are strange tales about this Power,” he said.  “One of them is that it sometimes asks people to stay with it for a while.”

Jack stared at him.  Akron realised that he did have feelings for Jill.  “Do you think that she’ll take it up on the offer?”

“There’s no way to tell,” Akron said.  “There are a lot of people who would be delighted with the thought of immortality, such as people who are in no hurry to catch up with people they sent ahead of them, who would consider remaining here for the rest of eternity to be hardly a problem.”

“Sun, sex and apples,” Jack said, angrily.  “How could anyone resist?”

Akron grinned at him, feeling a sudden flicker of amusement.  “Even sex pales after a while,” he said.  He remembered girls he’d bedded, back when it had been just him and the Knight Errant, and smiled at the memories.  What had happened to those days?  “When you can bed all of the girls you like, and half of the boys, would it not start to pall?”

Jack shrugged.  “That’s…rather like our society, although we don’t walk around naked,” he said.  “No sexually transmitted diseases here?”

Akron smiled.  Village witches had to deal with them from time to time.  “None,” he said.  “Everyone here is healthy and young and…bored.”

He started to say something else, but then he stopped, feeling out with his senses.  There had been a sudden and very powerful spike of magic, very close to them.  “That’s…odd,” he mused.  “There was a flash of magic…”

Jack stared at him, one hand going to his holstered pistol.  “What could do that?”

“The Power could,” Akron said, grimly.  He peered out into the dark night.  “I think we should wake the others…”

The doors opened and Jill stepped through.  Akron took one look and swore; she was clearly under a spell of compulsion.  Her walk was brisk and manlike; her body was sweating from the internal struggle.  He reached out to touch the spell and recoiled; it was stronger than any he’d ever seen before.

“You must come before the Goddess,” she said, in a voice of helpless terror.  “You must come before the Goddess.”

***
Jack stared at Jill in growing horror.  Whatever had happened, it had clearly changed her; she wasn’t herself any longer.  Her eyes were dead and cold, but flickered with a strange eerie light that seemed to dance in her eyes.  Her body was covered in sweat, as if she was within a nightmare.

“Jill, what’s happened to you?”  He asked, wondering if Shayde had somehow managed to get inside the compound.  “Jill…”

“I am one with the Goddess,” Jill said.  “You must come before her.”

She beckoned and Jack felt himself being dragged forwards by an invisible force.  The others in the party were yanked out of their bed, summoned forwards by the same force, pushed out of the door.  Akron seemed to be trying to cast a spell, but all of reality pushed down on him, preventing him from moving.

“Jill, stop,” Martin yelled, as he was thrust out of the door.  “You’re killing him!”

Jill’s body convulsed helplessly.  Akron fell to the ground, breathing heavily as the magic let go of him.  “Jack,” Jill whispered.  “Jack…”

Jack felt the invisible force let go of him and he reached for her, just as she collapsed.  Her body was so slight and light in his arms; he was terrified for her.  “Jill,” he said, and kissed her.  Somehow, life began to flow back into her body, leaving her lying there in his arms.

“The Power,” Akron said, before they were all picked up by an invisible force.  The house shattered under the pressure, sweeping them all out into the centre of the village.  “Where’s the Power?”

Jack didn’t know; he was having too many problems trying to hold on to Jill.  The force tossed them down into a circle, in front of a massive statue of a woman, and in front of the Revered Mother.  The statue seemed to move on it’s own, looking down at them, and Jack knew that the Power was there.

The Revered Mother smiled down at them all benevolently.  Angelina tested the circle and found that they were all trapped within the circle, helpless against the crowd of onlookers.  Male and female, they all stared at them, unmoving and uncaring.

Martin broke first.  “Die,” he screamed, and threw a bolt of magic at the statue.  It exploded in a thunderous crash of magic, sending dust and rubble through the air.  Jack felt a burst of exultation, could it really be that easy?

The Revered Mother smiled.  “Did you really think that it would be so easy?”  She asked.  “Really – you wound me.”

***
Akron had felt Martin gathering his strength, but he hadn’t had time to react before Martin threw a burst of magic against the statue.  As the Revered Mother started to react, Akron tested the lines of magic around them and realised that they were trapped; the magical circle was powered directly by the Power.

He looked up at the Revered Mother with his magical senses, and then he had to look away, taking refugee in metaphor for facing the situation.  The Revered Mother was removing a mask, seeming to grow taller, younger, and sexier with every passing second.  She grew taller and taller, standing against the sky, looking down at them with flashing eyes.  A single name ran around the onlookers as they poured into her; Elsie Marley.  

I know its name, Akron thought dully, as Elsie Marley pulled herself together.  The sheer immensity of the power awed him; the Power had created the entire village from the energies released by its human servants, finally absorbing them, or rather their memories into its creation.  It was awe-inspiring, power on a scale beyond his dreams, and it was going to be aimed right at them.

The Power spoke, its words echoing through their heads.  “You came on a mission to destroy me,” Elsie Marley said.  Beside Jack, Jill whimpered; the Power must have thrust something of itself into her, just to make her comply.  “You seek to destroy magic itself.”

The face, so vast and beautiful, leaned down to face Jack.  At such size, there was no mistaking Elsie Marley for human; she was utterly alien and utterly powerful.  Akron clung to the name, remembering spells that could attach themselves to anything, provided that the name was known.  

“You seek to enter and destroy the Castle at the End of the Land,” she said.  “You will never leave here again.”

Jack spoke to the awesome giant face, keeping his voice calm and controlled.  Akron was proud of him; Martin could not have hoped for a better Knight Errant.  It was the buzzing of a fly to Elsie Marley through; she seemed almost unaware of him.  “We want to return home,” he said.  “If we can lower the energy absorption field, we can leave this place…”

“You seek to destroy me,” Elsie Marley said.  “One of your people even lay with me and enjoyed me…did I seek anything in return?”  Her gaze flashed once; everyone was frozen where they stood.  Her face bent over to face Loke.  “You will be the first to be absorbed into me.”

Akron watched, and knew that it was over.  Elsie Marley reached for Loke, holding him in her giant hand, and peered into his eyes.  Her power reached out into him, tearing at him, ripping his mind apart…and then something within his mind lashed back at her.  Elsie Marley screamed, her body no longer even pretending to be human, as she recoiled from him.

“What are you?”  She demanded, her face too large to gain sympathy.  Her foot slashed across the circle, breaking it.  “What are you people?”

Akron found that he could move again as Elsie Marley screamed in the sky, her giant shadowy body twisting in pain.  “Run,” he snapped to Jack.  “Get to the horses” – a giant bolt of lighting lashed out at him and he ducked – “and get the hell out of here.”

Jack stared at him.  “What about you?”  He asked.  “We can’t leave you here?”

The statue of the former Grand Mage exploded.  Akron winced and turned back to Jack.  “Move, now,” he snapped.  “I’ll try to catch up with you later, move!”

Jack didn’t argue; he picked up Jill and ran with her through the broken circle.  Akron watched as Martin and Sumrita picked up Loke between them, before running to the horses.  The massive shape of Elsie Marley became aware of them running, and of Akron standing, just under her feet.  He felt a flicker of sudden bitter amusement; at this size, he could see everything she had.

“Imprudent,” she hissed, coming down to his size and facing him.  “You will replace your fellow.”

Akron knew that time had run out.  He knew now who she was, something born out of the mind of the humans who had lived here, once, before their dream took shape and form.  He closed his eyes and sang the words of the spell, one that was odd; it was English.  It had been forgotten about by all, except the mages.

“Then Bridget she declared,
“That she was not prepared,
“To watch us dance to the tune of Elsie Marley,
“She said I'll sing you all a song,
“And you'll want to sing along,
“If you listen to the wind that shakes the barley.”

The Power screamed, pouring down on Akron, but it was too late.  Akron felt the massive surge of power…and knew the price…and accepted it.  Good luck, Martin, he thought, and then completed the spell.

“Then all of us declared, 
“That we were not prepared,
“To dance our lives away with Elsie Marley,
“For we'd heard another tune,
“From the harvest of the moon,
“That rides upon the wind that shakes the barley.”

Elsie Marley forced her way into his mind, raping him, but it was too late.  The surge of power, all that Akron had left, everything in his body, lashed through her in a tidal wave of power.  As Elsie Marley, the construct of human dreams came apart; Akron rode the waves in a wave of white light, travelling to an unknown destination.

Chapter Thirty-One: Lull in the Storm

The bed was soft, warm, and large enough for ten people.  For Shayde, only one person was required for the night, Christina.  He looked down at her sleeping body and smiled; the Thrall had finally managed to bore into her enough to take over her completely.  He allowed one of his hands to stroke her breast; she sighed in her sleep, as relaxed as she would have been had she chosen him for herself.

Shayde nodded to himself.  The problem with Thrall spells was that they tended to take a certain amount of initiative and intelligence from the subject.  A person under Thrall maintained all of his or her knowledge – little short of wiping their minds could change that – but their warped worldview made it almost impossible for them to think properly.  When a person’s existence had shrunk to pleasing their master, they had little else left to think with, and no normal reactions at all.

Brainless bimbo, Shayde thought, one of Jack’s thoughts.  That had been happening more and more lately; Shayde could only hope that Jack was having the same trouble.  Some of the ideas and ideals had been worthwhile, such as giving commoners power, responsibilities and rewards; others had been less helpful.  What good was a democracy to Shayde?

Christina had been very helpful, more than Shayde himself had expected.  Like all sociologists, she had dreamed of a chance to literally rewrite an entire civilisation – and Shayde had given her the chance.  Her knowledge was coming in handy in all manner of ways, from encouraging trade to reducing the power of the lords and nobles.  She’d talked for hours about the benefits of massive trade, about sanitation and about proper medical care, although she knew little about that.  Magic could heal some wounds, but it was an individual field, like necromancy.  

Shayde smiled.  He’d been tempted by necromancy in his youth, and he might well have started to experiment, were it not for meeting the spiders.  Medical research required total commitment; medical wizards were always uninvolved in wars, until now.  Shayde had conscripted the four who had served Akron’s lords, informing them that they would be travelling with the army when it finally marched.  As for all of the other wizards, court magicians and tricksters, Shayde had offered them the choice between swearing loyalty to him…or being fed to the spiders.

With nearly a hundred wizards behind me, I will introduce the world to a whole new concept of magical war, he thought, and plotted.  Few states – with the exception of the Council of Wizardry, of course – really possessed many wizards; few of the more powerful wizards were willing to serve a lord when they could set up for themselves.  Shayde himself hadn’t gone that route, but Akron had; it had been while serving a lord that he’d met the Knight Errant for the first time.

Some of Jack’s concepts were useful beyond belief.  Without the interference of the Council, Shayde now knew how he could muster a major force of wizards, using them against the common foe.  In a few days, he would have trained them all into a formidable force as a group…and they would still be weak on their own.  Some of them had sworn their Oath’s to serve him, but others…had not.  

Others were not.  What was the point of slaughtering all of the nobles?  It was throwing the good out with the bad; the ones that had ruled well – at least by Shayde’s interpretation – and the ones who had been utter tyrants.  Jack wanted to kill them all – and because of that, so did Shayde.

He dismissed the thought with considerable annoyance and rolled over onto Christina.  She opened her legs for him, living only to please him…and then the universe shifted.  Shayde felt the shift…and knew what it meant.

Akron was dead.

For a long moment, Shayde continued to make love to Christina, and then he pulled out of her.  The little knot of power in the back of his mind that had been Akron, along with the knots that represented his awareness of the other Grand Mages, was gone.  He could still feel the others, Grand Mage Valastar and Grand Mage Shan close to him, Grand Mage Gorgre very distant…but Akron no longer existed.

“Love, is something wrong?”

Shayde didn’t answer her.  She had been so warped that she was now his devoted slave.  He was stunned; he’d always admired Akron, even after they’d fallen out.  In hindsight, he wished he’d spent more time with him, researching magic together.  He’d bitterly resented Akron’s dominating ways, but now…

“Akron is dead,” he said, and was surprised by the sadness in his voice.  “I felt him die.”

Christina leaned closer to him.  Up close, he could feel the Thrall on her, crawling all over her body.  “Want to fuck to celebrate?”

Shayde smiled, then sobered.  “Not now,” he said, taking a childish pleasure in the way that her face fell.  Her Thrall had imbued her with a sadistic hatred of Akron.  He looked out of the single window, looking towards the north.  Somewhere up there, Akron had died, swept aside into the lands of the dead.  No one ever came back from there.  “Akron is dead, well…”

He stepped out of the room, drawing his magic around him, and wandered down the corridor towards the prayer room.  Few humans still followed Christianity when the Powers were real – and jealous gods – but there were rituals for the passing of a Grand Mage.  As he stepped inside, he disturbed the daughter of the lord of the castle, whose bed he had stolen.

She took one look at his nakedness and screamed.  Her bodyguard hurried in, took one look at Shayde, and ran out again.  Shayde smiled, wondering if the girl would be good in bed, before dismissing the thought and waved her out.  He’d given his word to her father that his daughters would remain unharmed – provided he behaved himself and worked hard for Shayde’s war.  There was no need to break it just for a few moments of pleasure.  He’d kept his word…except for one daughter who’d been petulant.  

The prayer room itself was featureless, except for a single fountain within the northern walls of the room.  Shayde carefully checked the fountain for magical traps, and then used his magic to pull some of the water into the centre of the room, forming a perfect sphere floating in the centre.

Zero gravity, Jack’s thoughts whispered.  Shayde ignored it, pulling together the rest of the spell; wind, snatched from the air, earth pulled from the ground, and fire, pulled out of the fireplace and trapped within the building spell.  Shayde frowned; he was certain that Akron would get full honours from Grand Mage Gorgre, and possibly Grand Mage Ixa’em, but his two allies would do nothing.

“I wish you could have joined me,” he said, regretting all the words they’d never spoken to one another.  He triggered the spell, sending the four elements together, forcing them to combine into a complex magical field, which – for one long moment – glowed with life and power itself.  “Goodbye, Akron.”

There was another use of the spell; to check if someone was really dead.  He watched as the spell formed perfectly, realising that Akron was truly dead.  Part of him felt sad, knowing that the world had lost a good man, even one who was misguided.  Part of him felt relieved.  

“Goodbye, Akron,” he said, as the spell vanished back into the magical field.  Akron would not be forgotten.  Absently, he wondered who the Power of London would tag as the next Grand Mage, and then it realised that it would hardly matter; who could stand against him now?

He stepped out of the prayer room, noting that the castle servants had cleared all of the residents from the section he was in.  It wasn’t insulting – much – he knew that the lords and noblemen were scared to death of him.  That was good, according to Jack’s memories; let them hate him, so long as they feared.

Shayde smiled.  They feared him, all right; feared him so much that they would serve him until the end of their days.  “Messenger,” he snapped, as one passed him.  The frilly uniform, lime green with pink polka dots, was designed to make him stand out.  “Where are you going?”

The messenger knew little, but he did know the correct answer.  “Nowhere,” he said.  

“Splendid,” Shayde said.  The messenger would dump any message for someone of lower status than the person asking him – and no one in the castle had a higher status than him, or the same attitude to revenge.  “You will go at once to Force Captain Brant, who is currently sleeping it off with Lady Charlotte.”

The messenger bowed.  Shayde saw the flicker of pleasure in his eyes; Lady Charlotte had been known for temper tantrums, unreasonable demands and generally bratty behaviour.  Her father had been all too willing to beat her, but she’d inherited her mother’s looks and his stubbornness; she’d refused to change.  Unable to marry her off, he’d been forced to keep her in his castle…until Shayde had simply given her to Brant as a punishment for her father.

Shayde’s lips quirked with sudden humour.  I wonder who I’m really punishing, he thought.  Lady Charlotte might have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but she had the sheer determination of a wolf, mixed with the bloody-mindedness of a Grand Mage.  If she’d been magical, no one would have been safe.

“You will inform him at once that the Grand Mage Akron is dead,” he said.  The messenger gaped at him.  “You will then inform him that I expect to see him at around eleven o’clock – and he’d better be sober.”  The messenger bowed.  “You will then keep the information to yourself until I permit you to share it,” Shayde continued pleasantly.  “Spreading the story will earn you an unpleasant death.”

The messenger paled and bowed again.  “You may go,” Shayde said, and watched as he left.  Smiling to himself, Shayde wandered up towards the bedroom; they would have enough time for a proper bath and some preparation before their planning session could begin.  Still, he could try and get some information out of Christina first, which would help…

He paused.  A thought had struck him.  Akron had been too close to Jack and his team for any sort of magical spying to work, but perhaps…if he was dead, then he might be able to spy on them.  The thought galvanised him; he leapt forward into the bedroom, reaching for the jug of cold water and picking up a basin.

“Is that for me?”  Christina asked, her voice flirtatious.  Shayde ignored her, even as she came out of bed and pressed her naked body against his, like a cat.  She watched as he performed the preliminary incantations, and then a picture formed…

“Jack Drache,” Shayde breathed, feeling the magic rolling out…and then it hit a barrier.  Shayde cursed with feeling; Akron had clearly managed to teach his new apprentice some tricks before he died.  Frustrated, he tried the others, only to discover that they too were shielded.

“Bastard,” he swore, unsure if he meant Martin or Akron himself.  Christina pressed herself against him again and he felt his manhood stir.  He took her roughly, burning off frustration at her expense, feeling all of his anger burning through as he fucked her with all of his strength.  Afterwards, they lay together, almost as if they were real lovers.

***
Captain Brant felt sore, but happy when he entered Shayde’s rooms, which had once been the lord’s apartments.  The Lady Charlotte had required considerable effort to convince her to submit – for she was not a woman to submit easily – but once broken she had done everything he commanded.  Brant smiled; perhaps she would have his child, for as one of Shayde’s new nobles he had to see to a heir.

“Good morning, Force Captain,” Shayde said.  Brant bowed with genuine respect; Shayde had not only made him a Force Captain, which gave him over five hundred men under his direct command, but had given him lands as well.  In the future, Brant knew, he would be a great landowner, one of the new breed.  “I trust you slept well?”

Brant decided he could risk a little joke.  “I didn’t sleep so much, if that’s what you mean, Your Lordship,” he said.  “It was a good night, though.”

Shayde smiled.  Brant remembered that Shayde himself was still young.  “And what was she like?”

Brant tried to keep the astonishment off his face.  Shayde was actually bantering with him.  “She was very good, clearly no virgin though,” he said.  “I wonder who she had before.”

Shayde shrugged.  “It hardly matters,” he said.  “Grand Mage Akron is dead – long live the new Grand Mage.”

Brant nodded.  The messenger had told him.  “Do you know who will take up the rank?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Shayde said.  “Whoever gets the role, however, may not be on the same side as Akron was, nor will they have the same power level.”

Brant lifted an eyebrow, and then understood.  “Someone with the power to defeat Akron would have challenged him before all this happened,” he said.

“Exactly,” Shayde said.  He looked up at the map.  “We have a concentration of the lower-level enemies near Newcastle, under the Wizard Rinpotch and the Knight Errant,” he said.  “We also have Grand Mage Gorgre’s forces in Cornwall, which still pose a threat.  By now, he’ll have started producing anti-dragon spells, perhaps even digging up a few of the ancient magical weapons.”

He looked up at Brant.  “Do we deal with Grand Mage Gorgre, or do we head north?”

Brant considered, for the first time understanding the fear that wizards evoked in those born to the purple.  It wasn’t just the fear of being killed, or humiliated, or being turned into something awful, but the fear of making the wrong guess at the wrong time.  How could any empire, any power grouping, hold if a wizard could come along and take it at any time?

“It will take even the Knight Errant time to build an army up north,” he said.  “There’s no major state on their side, only a handful of small kingdoms.  It will take them time to build a consensus, or they will have to fight a civil war over the entire issue.  If they expect to have to fight their way up past Grand Mage Valastar and her forces, they will certainly delay – at least a month, perhaps two.

“In contrast, Grand Mage Gorgre has five thousand possible soldiers, all of which represent a threat to us that could come here,” he continued.  “That force can’t get north without either going by sea – in which case we sink them – or they come through us, which if they succeed at the war is lost anyway.”

He paused, tapping the map and wishing that it were a responsive magical map, rather than just a sheet of paper.  “If we head north and Grand Mage Gorgre stabs us in the back, all of the reforms will be destroyed,” he said.  “The slaughter of the craftsmen alone would be disastrous; the extermination of the villages that are on our side would be worse.  We don’t have any choice, but to deal with Grand Mage Gorgre, as quickly as we can.”

Shayde nodded slowly.  “Hit him while the Knight Errant is mourning his friend and then move north as quickly as we can,” he said.  “It will do.”

Brant bowed once.  “Thank you, Your Lordship,” he said.

“Production levels,” Shayde said suddenly.  “What projections have they made?”

Brant nodded, grateful for his good memory.  “The craftsmen have been working on muskets since before we chased out Akron,” he said.  “A lot of the first batch were destroyed in the battle with the dragon, but some survived; seventeen in all.  Working on a training pattern as well, we might end up with each craftsman producing something like a single musket a day, which will give us nearly five hundred in two months.

“Cannon are in some ways easier; any blacksmith with ingenuity can do it,” Brant continued.  “They do take longer to cast; we might have a hundred at the end of the two months, but we’ll have plenty of balls for them to fire.”  He paused.  “There are a handful of problems,” he admitted.

“I knew things were going too well,” Shayde said.  “What are they and how do you think that we should fix them?”

Brant took a breath.  “The main problem is food,” he said.  “Both you and Grand Mage Valastar are stockpiling food, but all of that food will have to be provided for the army.  Water, at least, is not a problem with medical magicians around to cure the sick and clean the water.  Our logistics are not good.”

He saw Shayde’s expression darken and hurried to explain.  “We are talking about a war that will cover almost the entire island,” he said.  “We have never fought a campaign that lasted over a few months, and that campaign was always within fifty miles, at most, of base.  Now…we’re going to need a logistics train, and that will take time.

“I have ships being prepared now to support the army,” he said.  “We might not dare send troops on the sea, but we can send them food from the sea.  We are also gathering horses and carts; one of the craftsmen had an idea for a steam engine that could produce a new transport system.”

Shayde shook his head, dismissing it.  “A longer-term project,” he said.  “Such a network would take more time than we had to build, so we won’t even try.”

“Few people really understand the amount of planning that goes into a military project,” Brant said.  The moment he uttered those words, he stiffened; Shayde could have taken them as insulting.  Shayde said nothing.  “But the territory of Grand Mage Gorgre is well within our reach now, so we can move and crush him.”

Shayde nodded.  “A Grand Mage is not an easy target,” he said.  “Still, we hold all of the cards.  Then there will be two open spaces on the Council.  That…should be interesting indeed.”

Chapter Thirty-Two: Walking to Babylon

Martin felt the death of the Power through his mind, screaming in pain as the entity collapsed in on itself.  His mind fought for an interpretation, a point of view that wouldn’t blow his mind, and came up with an infected computer.  Elsie Marley was dying…and she might just take the rest of them with her.  He saw her clearly for the first time, like a fisherman on an island looking for a whale, unaware that he was standing on it.

He dimly heard Jack’s bellowed orders to grab the horses and run, climbing on the terrified beast as the maelstrom raged around them, lashing out to attack them in her death throes.  He saw now; she would have absorbed them into herself, just as she had absorbed all of the others who had stayed with her, making them part of herself.  They would have died…and they would never have known until it was far too late.

A twitch in the magic field, hardly anything against the collapsing Power, was far too familiar.  “Akron,” he shouted, as the Grand Mage was snuffed out like a candle.  Elsie Marley might have meant to kill him, or he might have planned his death to kill her, or…he put it out of his mind, forcing the horse forward by sheer force of personality.  It helped that the horse was scared to death; it put its nose down and ran for it, coming towards the gates in the hedgerow.  They were closed.

“Martin,” Jack yelled.  “Martin, you have to get us through…”

You lie, you are foresworn, danced through Martin’s mind.  Elsie Marley was splitting apart, the massive collection of magics that made up a Power tearing themselves apart and bleeding back into the magical field.  There was no longer any trace of intelligence, just sheer raging power, slowly coming apart.

He muttered a word under his breath as Jack and Jill’s horse nearly reached the hedgerow.  The magic went squinty in the distortion, flickering out of control, but the hedgerow came apart anyway, shattering into a cloud of dust.  Jack led the way through it, yelling something over the raging maelstrom.  As soon as they were out of the gate, the raging storm seemed to fade, and vanish.

Martin reigned in the horse and looked back.  The entire village of Blossom was glowing with light, even as he watched it was breaking down into its component molecules, and further down, to magic.  For a long chilling moment, it became a golden sphere, glowing in the air, and then it vanished with a flash of light.  A strange echo, a female cry, rang through the air…and then it was gone.

Jack’s horse cantered up to Martin.  Jill was lying over the horse, stunned and traumatised.  “Where’s Akron?”  Jack demanded.  “Where is he?”

The shock hit Martin with a bump.  “Gone,” he said.  “I felt him die.”

Jack swore.  “What the hell do we do now?”

They cantered over to join the others.  Loke still looked hurt from the experience with Elsie Marley, his hand very light on the horse.  Angelina was watching him with concern; Sumrita looked up at him nervously.

Angelina spoke first.  “Are we safe here?”

Martin nearly fainted as all eyes turned to him.  The dawn was breaking over the massive forest; the entire battle had lasted longer than he had realised at the time.  “I don’t think so,” he said finally.  “I think, from what Akron was saying, that Elsie Marley was putting a little of her intelligence into the animals here, like we saw with the bees.  I think that we’d better get out of the area before they start blaming us for everything.”

“That would make no difference,” Jack muttered.  He looked over at Loke, who was clutching the side of his head.  “Loke, what happened in there?”

“Something in my mind just snapped,” Loke said.  His tone was agonised.  “I felt her inside me, pulling and prodding at my mind, and then something just…broke.”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” Angelina said sharply.  “If the Power is gone, what’s to stop the dragon coming back?”

Martin glanced upwards at the dawning sky.  Birds were rising in the air, preparing to start a new day, but there was no sign of a dragon.  “Nothing,” he said.  “I think…I don’t have any way of knowing for certain, that dragons hunt using magical senses, and they just couldn’t see us through Elsie Marley’s territory.  Now, with the magical residue slowly fading to normal…”

“We’d better get moving,” Jack said practically.  “I’ve still got the compass.  Martin, do you have the map?”

“But where do we go?”  Sumrita asked.  “What can we do without Akron?”

Loke looked up, his eyes full of pain.  “We move somewhere a little safer, we recover, we join up with the Knight Errant, we kick the shit out of Shayde…and then we find the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “The other option is waiting here for Shayde to kill us.”

Jack gave him an odd look.  “Martin, pass me the map,” he said.  He slipped off the horse and unfurled it on the ground; Martin and Angelina followed him.  “Let’s see,” he said, checking the compass.  “We are here, which was once the territory of Good Morning Sunshine…”

“Elsie Marley,” Martin corrected.

“Elsie Marley,” Jack agreed.  He grinned.  “I think I liked my one better.  Anyway, we have to head north, except that we’re not in a state for a long trip.”

“It’ll take us several days to get that far, like this,” Angelina said.  “In a car, we could do it in a couple of hours.”

Jack snorted.  Martin understood.  “I don’t suppose that magic can get us that far?”

“Not safely,” Martin said.  He’d learnt some of the ideas about teleportation, but it needed two prepared sites to teleport between, rather than random jumping.  “If I tried and failed, I’d be sending up a beacon to Shayde.”

“Oh, please come kill us,” Angelina said dryly.  Martin nodded.  “I think we’d be safer walking.”

“Well, we don’t have much time,” Sumrita said.  “What about heading for that village there?”

Martin peered down at the village, marked on the map at roughly four miles north of Elsie Marley’s territory.  “Babylon,” he said thoughtfully.  “What would we do there?”

“It’s not part of anyone’s territory,” Jack said.  “If we went there, then we would at least not be sticking our heads into the lion’s den.”

“Famous last words,” Loke commented.  His voice still hurt.  “Why is it always me who has to take the mental pain?”

Jack laughed.  “I assure you that it hurts you more than it hurts me,” he said.

“Bastard,” Loke said, without heat.  “If there’s an inn there, we need to rest.  A few days of recuperation will do us a world of good.”

Angelina nodded.  “Jack, as much as I hate to admit it, I think that Loke is right,” she said.  “We do need a rest, after that.”

Jack sighed.  “Soldiers don’t need to rest,” he muttered.  “What a load of bullshit.”  He looked down at the map again.  “Babylon,” he said.  “Let’s go.”

***
Jill’s mind felt truly awful, almost as bad as it had been when she’d eaten some strange herbs in the wood, and her body felt worse.  Sensation came through slowly; she was on a horse, and her hands were being held firmly by someone, someone male.  Memory returned and she remembered; the Power ripping away into her mind, and Jack kissing her…

Jack!  The thought snapped her back into full wakefulness.  She’d been Controlled, forced to lure them out to face Elsie Marley; she’d been the slave of a Power.  Jack had saved her, somehow, and…

She moaned in pain and opened her eyes, seeing the ground moving past, feeling the horse’s body for the first time.  She almost screamed, wondering if she’d been captured by bandits, but then she saw Sumrita on her horse and knew that she was safe.

“Jack,” she said.  She felt the man behind her start.  “Jack, my love…”

“Hush,” Jack said.  He was holding her arms behind her, something she recognised as designed to prevent her arms from dangling and perhaps being hurt.  “How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Jill said.  She felt a sudden wave of sickness and jerked.  “Can I get up now?”

“Carefully,” Jack said, pulling the horse to a stop.  Carefully, he pulled her body backwards, sliding down towards the ground.  Her feet touched ground and she reeled at the unexpected pain; her body hurt badly.  Jack held her firmly, his brown eyes filled with concern.  “So, how are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” Jill said.  “What are we doing?”

“We’re going towards Babylon,” Jack said, as Sumrita slipped off her horse and gave Jill a quick check.  “I don’t suppose you know anything about it?”

It was a question, Jill dimly recognised.  “No,” she said.  “I’ve never heard about it.”  She paused suddenly.  “What happened?  Where’s the Grand Mage?”

“Dead,” Martin said.  His voice was grim, sad; the Grand Mage had been his tutor, although not for long.  Jill felt her own magic shimmering under her skin in sympathy.  “We may end up needing you.”

“There’s no need to pressure her,” Jack said.  Jill had never loved him more than at that moment.  “She’s had a nasty time.”

Sumrita finished her examination and allowed Jill to climb back on the horse with Jack.  “Fairly healthy,” she said.  “God; I would sell my soul for a proper medical kit and the electricity to use it.”

“Be careful what you say here,” Martin said, as they rode on.  “You never know who might be listening.”

The horses started again, allowing Angelina to take point.  Jill leaned back into Jack’s chest, feeling too tired to continue.  “You can go to sleep if you want,” he muttered.  “It’s ok.”

A flight of birds flew overhead.  Jill envied them their flying ability; only a handful of wizards could change their shape at will.  “I don’t want to sleep,” she said.  “Jack…”

Jack placed a hand on her mouth.  She kissed it gently.  “It’s all right,” he said.  “I love you too, you know.”

Jill twisted enough to kiss him properly.  “I love you too,” she said, and fell asleep against him.

***
The journey through the remains of Elsie Marley’s territory passed uneventfully, although there was considerably less wildlife than they’d expected.  Some of the dozens of animals they’d seen on the way in seemed to have vanished; others seemed to have fled across the country, when Elsie Marley’s wards collapsed.  Martin could only speculate on how their DNA might affect the rest of the local wildlife; intelligent animals and unintelligent animals couldn’t hope to compete.

“Perhaps that’s where Shayde’s spiders came from,” Martin commented to Sumrita, who had been very quiet for the entire journey.  “If superior strains begin breeding, we might end up with dozens of strange creatures in the world.  Can you imagine; entire nations of foxes hunting the foxhunters?  Intelligent deer protesting hunters?  Hell, why not bears marching on Buckingham Palace in protest against being used for those stupid hats.”

Sumrita giggled.  “Fish and whales banding together to attack fishing boats,” she said.  “Like that story about the whale who capsized a large fishing boat by blowing at it with its blowhole.”

“I don’t mind the blow job, but I draw the line at eating seamen,” Martin punned, and smiled when she groaned.  “What do you think Babylon is going to be like?”

Sumrita shrugged.  “Judging from past experience, I think its going to be full of people who want to kill us,” she said.  “Damn; I wish that Akron wasn’t dead.  He could have told us a lot that we need to know.”

Martin could only nod.  “I miss him,” he said, and felt a tear come to his eye.  “He was scary sometimes, and flirty at others, but he was trying to do his best for the country as a whole.”

“He saved our lives,” Sumrita said.  “Tell me; have you had any more magical pain?”

“Not much,” Martin admitted.  “There was some pain when I blasted that statue, but not as much as before.  I think I might be getting used to it.”

Sumrita frowned.  “Take care of it,” she said.

Martin watched her as the horses moved faster, along the road to Babylon.  They passed only a handful of coaches heading the other way, ignoring requests for convoys.  No one was going their way, towards Babylon.  Several hours passed before they crested a hill and looked down on a grey walled village.

“Bloody dismal place,” Angelina commented, as they grouped up.  Martin couldn’t exactly disagree; the entirety of Babylon seemed to be a collection of small long-huts and two large blocky buildings.  There were fields, with people working in them, but all of them were dressed in dark hooded outfits.

“Come on,” Jack said.  “The worst they can do is tell us to fuck off.”

The horses made their way down towards the walls, which were really too small to serve as anything, but a marking of territory.  Up close, Martin could see strange grey statues scattered around the village, warning them of…what?  He peered at them, trying to see what they were, but they all seemed to be normal people.

“Greetings, travellers,” a man called them.  Martin’s gaze fixed on him; he sparked of magic, in the same way that Dominos had.  His voice sounded almost Scottish; the accent was almost the same.  “And where might you be going?”

Jack spoke for them all.  “We are travellers heading north,” he said.  “We seek food and shelter for the night.”

“Aye, that’ll be right,” the man said.  “This is a sacred town, devoted to peace and decorum.  Do you intend harm to us and our way of life?”

Martin blinked at the question.  “No,” Jack said.  “We seek merely lodgings for the night.”

The man’s eyes met Martin’s again.  “The magic-user may not enter the town,” he said.  “Magic is only permitted in the hands of the godly.”

“And I suppose you’re godly?”  Martin snapped, before Jack could say anything.  “Who said that?”

“I am,” the man said, with no trace of irony.  “The village elders, a long time ago, decreed that magic could only be permitted within the hands of the godly.  In ungodly hands, magic caused much harm and malice to the citizens of this town.”

Jack held up a hand.  “Martin will not perform any magic within the town,” he said.

“He may not enter,” the man said.  He pointed to a tiny hut, well hidden within the bushes near the town.  “Magic users may stay there, should they desire to stay anywhere near the godly.”

“He can’t stay there on his own,” Jack said.  His tone was calm, but composed.  Martin could hear the annoyance and desperation behind it.  “I think…”

“I’ll stay with him,” Sumrita said.  “Jack, everyone needs a rest.”

“A woman and a man staying together,” the man said.  His tone was disapproving.  “The village elders will not be pleased.”  He frowned at Martin.  “Make yourself at home,” he said, apparently deciding not to care about the elders.  “The rest of you; do you swear to abide by the rules of the community as long as you are within the borders of the town?”

Jack nodded.  “With the proviso that we intend to leave tomorrow,” he added.  “We could not stay here forever.”

“We would not want you here forever,” the man said.  “Follow me.”

“Very welcoming, I don’t think,” Martin muttered, as the others followed the man into the walled town.  At this point, the walls were so low that he could peer over them, looking at the statues.  He slipped off his horse and passed it to Jack.  “Give that beast a rest,” he said.

Jack nodded.  “We’ll see you in the morning,” he said, his tone sad.  “On the other hand, it will give you two some time alone.”

“Oh fuck off,” Martin said.  Jack laughed and followed the others into the town.  The gates slammed shut behind them.  He turned to Sumrita.  “Shall we go check out our new home?”

Inside, the hut was surprisingly warm and cosy.  Martin was careful to perform a handful of charms Akron had taught him, checking that there were no unpleasant surprises around the room.  There was a tiny fire-lighting charm in the fireplace, which sprang to light as they approached, and another designed to light the entire room.  One more was on the door, but it was inactive.

“Guess they trust us enough not to spy on us,” Martin commented, after checking that he could break out at need.  He looked down at the small collection of food in their packs.  “What do you want to eat; cheese, cheese, or ham?”

“What I wouldn’t give for a full meal,” Sumrita commented.  She chewed on one long strand of her dark hair.  “Martin, are you sure that you’re feeling ok?”

“I’m feeling grim,” Martin admitted.  “It’s just…losing Akron, and then losing everything else.  I’m just playing at magic, Sumrita; Shayde is playing for keeps.”

“I don’t think that this is one of those bad movies where you have to duel the master villain,” Sumrita said dryly.  “You know what I think?  I think that we’re going to make it.”

Martin had to smile.  “You’re the one who was predicting disaster,” he said.  “Sumrita, I…”

She was very close to him, her brown eyes meeting his.  It was the easiest thing in the world to kiss her, feeling her body moving towards his.  When they broke the kiss together, they kissed again, and again, feeling their passions rise.  His hands found their way to her shirt, slowly undoing the buttons and revealing her bra.  A moment later, he’d removed that too, gently stroking her breasts as she moaned.

“Come on,” she breathed, as her hands worked at his trousers.  It was suddenly dreadfully hard to undress without tearing anything.  In the magical light, she was naked and desirable, her face covered by a smile that drew him helplessly on.  She pushed him down to the ground, impaling herself on him.  He played with her breasts as she started to move faster and faster…minutes later; the world went away for hours on end.

Chapter Thirty-Three: The King is Dead, Long Live the King

The seventeen small kingdoms and states around Newcastle suffered from one crippling disadvantage; they had no natural leader.  The lords and nobles possessed a force of court magicians, and seven Mages had set up their homes within the region, but none of them were strong enough to unite the region into a single political body.  A Grand Mage – like Shayde or Akron – could have done it, but none of the Mages were strong enough to risk such a war.

Ironically, this balance of power had led to an economic union of sorts, building a link between the states and leading to a defence pact.  When the war had broken out, the Mages and most of the Wizards had declared for Akron, making everyone else in the region a target for Shayde’s forces.

The Wizard Rinpotch, Mage of Newcastle, looked out into the darkness and frowned to himself.  He’d felt Akron’s death, even at such a long distance, and knew what it meant.  The region lacked a leader; Akron could have forced all of the Mages to pull together, but without Akron, could anyone do it?  The War Council had been acrimonious; the Knight Errant wanted to continue to build the army for the trip north, the lords and nobles had wanted to keep their forces in Newcastle and bargain with Shayde.  

The Wizard Rinpotch shook his head, then smiled; a hawk was falling out of the sky.  He held out an arm to allow Sigmund to land neatly, the sudden weight almost knocking him over.  The hawk pinched at his ear as a normal hawk would, before hopping off and sitting on the battlements.  In the moonlight, his dark beady eyes glittered; the Wizard Rinpotch reminded himself that Sigmund was a talking beast, not a common animal.

“Is it true, then?”  Sigmund asked.  “I felt him cry out, but…”

The Wizard Rinpotch nodded slowly, stroking the hawk’s feathers.  “He’s dead,” he said.  “He’s gone beyond the reach of our magic.”

The hawk bowed his head.  He and most of his family had been scouting around the nearby territory, looking for signs of enemy activity.  “So, now what?”

“They can’t decide,” the Wizard Rinpotch said.  “What do you think we should do?”

Sigmund gave him a dry look.  “You’re asking me,” he said.  “Akron’s death makes you the senior magician here.”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” the Wizard Rinpotch admitted.  “How can I be him?”

“You don’t have to be him,” Sigmund said.  The Wizard Rinpotch realised suddenly that the hawk was sincere.  “You just have to lead us to victory.”

A flicker of magic crossed the land, echoing from one end of the nation to the other.  The Wizard Rinpotch tilted his head, trying to listen, but it faded.  He frowned; clearly a Power was having an interesting day.

“What was that?”  Sigmund asked.

Interesting he can feel it too, the Wizard Rinpotch thought.  Who knew what sort of talents Akron might have programmed into the hawk?  “I think that something has changed,” he said.

“Perhaps some kindly soul has assassinated Shayde,” Sigmund said.

The Wizard Rinpotch shook his head.  “I would have felt that,” he said.  “It feels like something different.”  He frowned.  “Dragons have been seen in the land.”

Sigmund nodded.  “One attacked Akron’s group,” he said.  “Wizard Rinpotch…we have to act fast.”

“Speed, with that lot?”  The Wizard Rinpotch asked dryly.  “Between those who want to do nothing, and the ones who want to launch a suicidal attack, doing something may take a long time.”

Sigmund looked up suddenly.  The flicker of power had returned, billowing out over the castle.  The Wizard Rinpotch looked up himself, sensing the wave of power…as a golden light spilled out across the dark sky.

“Looks like you’re in luck,” Sigmund remarked, as the light took on form and substance, bathing them both in a golden glow.  The Wizard Rinpotch didn’t know how to feel…as a massive golden hand formed in the sky, pointing down towards him.  He felt old and powerful magic working on his clothes, transforming them into the robes of a Grand Mage, and strange new power spilling through him.

“ALL HAIL, GRAND MAGE RINPOTCH.”

The voice thundered across the sky, scaring sheep and cattle from where they slept.  The Power of London rarely bothered to moderate its appearance; it was more spectacular every year, as if it were finally breaking its bonds.  Every Wizard, Mage and Grand Mage would know that a new Grand Mage had risen to the rank…and they would begin sharpening their knives.

“Thank you,” Wizard Rinpotch – no, Grand Mage Rinpotch – said.  He knew that his tone was weak and stuttering; only Grand Mages were permitted to see the Power of London in all of its glory, and it hit him like a hammer blow.  “My Lord…”

“LONG LIFE TO HIM!”

He could swear that he heard a tone of amusement in the Power’s voice.  A new Grand Mage either got the job through killing the predeceasing Grand Mage, or by luck, selected for power and – Akron had suspected – maximum amusement for the trapped Power.  As the Power’s voice and power faded, Rinpotch looked down upon the world with new eyes.

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Sigmund said.  “Who will challenge you now, during a war?”

Rinpotch snorted.  “Since when did logic and intelligence and magic go together?”

Sigmund inclined his head.  “I suppose you have a point,” the hawk conceded.  “Do you think they’ll listen to you?”

Rinpotch held out a hand; the hawk jumped neatly onto his arm.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “Let’s go find out.”

He stepped back into the castle proper, making his way towards the War Room.  Nearly forty of the most important magic-users, from Mages to Wizards to Court Magicians, had been working hard inside the castle ever since the news of the dragons had come in; they’d been working hard on making the castle dragon-proof.  Thousands of people were cowering within the castle, disrupting the food supplies and stretching logistics to the limit, but where else could they go?

Rinpotch smiled suddenly.  It’s not as if here is truly dragon-proof either, he thought wryly.  

***
The Wizard Dominos had spent most of the day in his rooms, considering.  Shayde hadn’t even hinted that he had dragons, or a way of defeating Akron’s defences.  Akron’s death – Dominos had no doubt that Shayde should be given the credit – proved that he was on the right side, but still…dragons?  Dragons were dangerous; sooner or later they would break free of whatever charm held them and slaughter thousands of humans indiscriminately.  

For a moment, but only for a moment, he considered seeking out Rinpotch, or the Knight Errant, and confessing to his crime.  He dismissed it with a shudder; the Knight Errant would have killed him for contributing to the death of his friend, while Rinpotch would likely do worse than kill him.  He knew spells that could kill the Knight Errant with ease, but he was somehow sure that the Knight Errant would live long enough to kill him.  

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, half hoping that one of the dozens of wards around the place would hear him, preventing him from having to make more decisions.  There were dozens of Powers in the world; why couldn’t one come and take him, before all hell broke loose?

He tried to think, even though the guilt and the mind numbing fear.  What had he given Shayde?  He’d given him the formula for gunpowder, and some details of Akron’s movements – enough to allow Shayde to plan his attack.  Either one would lead to his death; the assembled Mages would slaughter him if they ever found out.  

All I wanted was to have a chance to learn whatever I wanted, he thought, and felt like crying.  A dull atonal beating ran through the castle and he shuddered; they were being called to a meeting.  As Akron’s former apprentice, and a full wizard, he would be expected to attend…and he was in no state to be seen.

”No choice,” he mumbled.  A call brought in a maid, who helped him to dress and clean himself.  “Thank you,” he said absently, knowing for the first time exactly how she felt.  She wasn’t a Thrall slave; she served the lord of the castle willingly.  

He stepped out of the room and paced towards the war room.  Based on past experience, the other Mages would be late, just to prove how independent they were, and the lords would be there right on time.  This time, the Mages were hurrying to the room, waiting to meet whoever was in the room.

Could Akron have survived?  He asked himself, as he extended his senses.  He felt no trace of his former master, just the signature of…a Grand Mage.  He blinked in puzzlement; the only other Grand Mage on their side was trapped in Cornwell.  Could Grand Mage Ixa’em have decided to join them?

The door remained open, waiting for him.  He stepped inside and understood at once; Rinpotch stood there, wearing the robes of a Grand Mage.  No one in their right mind would dare to wear them without being formally appointed, which meant that…

He’s Akron’s successor, he realised, and almost smiled.  He bowed once to Rinpotch, and then went on one knee, the traditional gesture of respect to a new Grand Mage.  The room was very quiet; the only noise was the sound of the door slamming.  Rinpotch looked down at them all, keeping his face straight.  Dominos was almost envious.

“I have been appointed Akron’s replacement,” Rinpotch said flatly, without preamble.  “Under the circumstances, I believe that that makes me the magical commander for this part of the war effort.”

Grand Mage Gorgre might have questioned that; he had been Akron’s de facto second.  He was in Cornwall, preparing his own defences, instead of coming to Newcastle.  It wouldn’t be long before Shayde struck him; he would know that the north was hardly ready for war yet.  

No one else spoke, either to agree or to utter the traditional challenge.  Rinpotch continued, speaking in a slow firm monotone.  “We have a war to fight,” he said.  “It’s time we started to do it properly.  I trust that all of you will agree to work together to solve the problem?”

He was looking at the other Mages, many of whom could be expected to challenge.  None spoke…and Dominos blinked, puzzled, and then he understood.  Pride would not allow them to submit themselves to their fellow Mages; they would submit to a Grand Mage without feeling as if they were being challenged or insulted.  

“Wizard Dominos, is the Wizard Martin still alive?”  Rinpotch asked, looking at Dominos.  Dominos felt a hot flash of jealousy at the mention of Martin, who now seemed to have acquired the title of Wizard without even fighting for it.  “Wizard Dominos?”

Dominos nodded slowly.  “I have attempted to locate them near the territory of a Power,” he said.  “So far, there’s definite proof that Martin – and presumably the rest of them – are alive, but I can’t tell exactly where.”

The bitterness must have shown through in his voice, for the Knight Errant leaned over to face him.  “I know that your tutor is dead, and you’re upset about it, but there’s no time to be upset.”

“I know,” Dominos said, trying to avoid breathing a sigh of relief.  The Knight Errant had shaved his beard and head in mourning; it made him look far too intimidating.  He’d clearly picked up the wrong end of the stick, however; he had thought that Dominos was sad about Akron!

He took a breath and spoke flatly.  “I cannot locate them,” he said.  “Martin” – he was damned if he was giving Martin an undeserved title – “has enough magic to ward them from any spying spells, so locating them is impossible.”

There was a great deal of sage nodding.  Any of the Mages could have found out so much themselves, without any effort at all, but they’d chosen to leave it in Dominos’ hands.  

“They cannot be much further north of the Power’s territory,” Rinpotch said.  “They are also the people we need to win the war.”

“They are the people that brought the war upon us,” Mage Goth snapped.  “Even now, one of them serves Shayde as a bed mate and an advisor!  My peasants would rebel if they knew how much power Shayde had dumped in the laps of his peasants!”

“She is under a Thrall spell,” Rinpotch said calmly.  Dominos hid his contempt; Akron would have intimidated Goth into silence, or worse.  He had once blasted a Mage for answering back at the wrong time.  “She cannot be held accountable for her actions.”

“Akron would have snatched her back as well,” Goth proclaimed.  Dominos winced, uncertain what to do; Goth was coming very close, perilously close, to challenging Rinpotch for the post of Grand Mage.  “What are you going to do about her?”

Rinpotch met his gaze evenly.  “And what would you suggest we did?”  He asked mildly.  “We can send agents and wait for a chance to kill her or take her alive, all of which I have already done.  Past then…any suggestions?”

Goth said nothing.  Dominos wasn’t sure if he should be pleased and relieved, or worried, but there was nothing he could do.  He wasn’t sure what he should do at all; he still wanted Shayde to win, but at what cost?  Was it really worth it?

“Our first priority, then, is to ensure that we get the others back here,” Rinpotch continued.  “We need them, so we have to find them.”  He looked up at the hawk perched on the head of a bear, killed several hundred years ago by a lord and preserved by magic.  “Sigmund, can you and your family start the hunt, looking for them?”

The hawk looked down towards Rinpotch.  “Of course,” he said.  Dominos recognised Akron’s pet and wondered why the beast hadn’t killed itself yet.  “Right now?”

“Stick around for the rest of the meeting,” Rinpotch said.  “You may have insights we need.  Now; Lord Ruben, I want you to prepare an armed force of fifty horsemen and two magicians.  When Sigmund finds them, I want you to send the force to escort them here.”

Goth chuckled harshly.  When he spoke, his voice was dry and sarcastic.  “Do you expect them to run off and leave us?”  He asked.  “Don’t you trust them?”

Rinpotch’s eyes glittered, but he kept his voice calm.  “I don’t know if they know their way here,” he said.  “It’s not an easy place to find.”

Dominos looked over at the map.  The region was around a hundred square miles…dotted with tiny states and lands that bore no sense at all.  The entire region was covered with lakes, canals, tiny villages and worse…the territory of a Power, due south of them.  Lord Ruben’s castle, which had been taken over for the duration of the conflict, might have been on the edge of the territory, but it would be easy to miss, particularly by people who knew little about the local terrain.  

“Now,” Rinpotch said.  His tone became warmer as people started to accept his new authority.  “What about the army?”

The Knight Errant began a long and boring discussion of the production figures for the new weapons, and the development of training for the new army.  Dominos tuned him out, thinking.  What could he send to Shayde?  What would Shayde be grateful for that wouldn’t reveal that Dominos was spying on his people?

***
Throughout the day, Shayde had developed the habit of checking in on Jack and his people, even though Martin’s magic prevented him from seeing much more than the fact that they were still alive.  It was a simple precaution; he knew their names and some details about them, and it cost him nothing.  Even as he issued orders for the building of the vast army, he was still checking in on them from time to time.

Around eight o’clock at night, he struck lucky.  The spell for spying on Martin worked as well as ever – not very well at all – but the man-woman, Jack and Loke were all visible, along with a blonde girl he didn’t recognise at all.  He suspected, from Dominos’ reports, that she was Jill, but Jill was such a common name that it was useless for magic.  The people who could have told him how to attack her, by completing her name, had all died in Griffin.

“You stupid idiots,” he said, as he peered at the map to see where they were.  His mouth split open into a huge grin; he knew that village, all right, and he knew who lived there – and why.  “Why did you blunder into there?”

He watched as they entered the village and were shown to their sleeping quarters, in with the others.  He watched carefully, looking for an opportunity, and smiled as he saw it; the man-woman was in trouble.  Carefully, using some of the subtlest magics at his disposal, Shayde began to cast a spell on her.  At such range, the effects would be limited, but if it worked, it would be worth the effort.

He scowled.  If he’d been in his original castle, he would have had access to the blood he’d taken from her, along with the rest of Jack’s team, which would have made the whole plan much easier.  The magic could be shook off by anyone, even a person without magic – if they knew what was happening to them.  If they didn’t even have the slightest idea of the possibility, then…

He cut off the vision and sat back, anticipating the results.  It would be dangerous to look too closely without revealing his hand, but he was certain that, sooner or later, he would learn how Jack’s mission had come to an end.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Cold be Hand and Heart and Bone

Inside the walls, the village was larger than Jack had realised; several large buildings had been hidden from their view.  Each of the main buildings looked like a barracks for troops, with men and women going in and out of them.  All of them, male and female, wore strange black hooded robes, hiding their bodies from the outside world.  Many of them had even covered their faces.

“It’s like Saudi,” Angelina whispered.  “I was there in 2008; every woman veiled.”

“I sincerely hope that it’s just a coincidence,” Jack whispered back.  Now that he’d had his attention drawn to it, he realised that half of the buildings were only for men, the other half for women.  The strange statues were scattered about, almost at random; staggeringly realistic and very life-like.  A nasty thought occurred to him and he peered closely at a young woman; she seemed almost alive.

“Do not look at the sinners in stone,” the man snapped, as they approached another man, waiting for them.  Unlike the others, his head was uncovered; his white hair neatly cut into a monk’s tonsure.  “This is Father Stone.”

Jack studied him.  Father Stone reminded him far too much of Akron, but without the strange sense of humour and the genuine good nature.  His eyes were cold as stone, cold and hard and ruthless.  “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if he meant it or not.

“Aye, are you?”  Father Stone said.  His accent was stronger, but warped; a version of Scottish from a man who had never even heard of Scotland.  “You’re not welcome here.”

Jack frowned.  “We can pay for a night’s stay,” he said.

“The Godly accept no payment for rendering service to those who behave themselves within our walls,” Father Stone informed them.  “You may spend one night here.  In the morning, you will depart and never return.”

Loke stepped forward and looked at him.  “We have two friends outside the village,” he said.  “What will happen to them?”

“The creatures of the false gods do not come near Babylon,” Father Stone said.  “Your friends will be safe.  Come.”

He turned and walked towards two buildings, long and angler, made of cold stone.  “You will be placed within these buildings,” he said.  “Food will be brought to you.  Remain within the buildings until sun-up with the people there; you may talk to them if you wish.  The women will go into the other building.”

A woman stepped forward.  Her face was almost shrouded in darkness; if she hadn’t had a feminine chin peeking out it would have been impossible to have told that she was a woman, or indeed human at all.  She beckoned to Jill and Angelina, leading them away from the others.

“We have to stop splitting up,” Loke muttered.  Jack could see that he was clutching his pistol in one hand.  “This is getting to be a habit.”

“It’s just for the night,” Jack said, as Father Stone waited impatiently.  His attitude was still, almost superhumanly calm, but there was an impression of impatience.  He beckoned them into the long building, leading them into a dull stone room, littered with blankets and a single fire at the end.  Despite the fire, it was bitterly cold; too cold to allow for much conversation.

“The young men will be here soon,” Father Stone said.  “You will sleep there” – he pointed to a corner – “on blankets we will provide.  You will eat some of the food that will be sent to them.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, keeping his expression polite.  Father Stone bowed once, before withdrawing, leaving them alone.

“Bloody creepy place,” Loke said.  Jack checked the watch he’d borrowed from Sumrita; nearly eight o’clock.  “What do we do now?”

“We get some sleep,” Jack said.  He looked over at Loke.  “Are you feeling better?”

“I would feel a lot better if I woke up and discovered that this was all a dream,” Loke commented, as he unloaded his rucksack, putting it down to the side of the room.  He kept his pistol, hiding it in his belt.  “You?”

Jack gave him a grim look.  “That…Power hurt you,” he said.  He was concerned, but also worried; Loke had demonstrated an ability that no one else had – or should have.  “What was it like?”

Loke looked at him.  “Horrible,” he said.  “You can’t imagine it.  She just reached into my mind and twisted.”

Jack remembered Shayde’s attempted to place him in Thrall.  “I think I can imagine it,” he said.

Loke gave him a respectful look.  “Point taken,” he said.  “Sleep?”

“You get some sleep,” Jack said.  He shook his head.  “Segregated sleeping and hidden faces; its like being in a Taliban rape camp.  I think I’ll keep watch.”

“Good idea,” Loke said.  “Good night.”

***
Jill had slept in worse quarters than the female rooms in Babylon, so she was quite happy with the arrangements.  There were several women in the room, but apart from some awed looks at Angelina, they ignored her.  One and all, they looked beaten down; life itself had taken its toll on them.

“So, did you and Jack manage it?”  Angelina said.  Her face looked unusually flushed; Jill watched her with some concern.  “What was it like?”

“We just kissed,” Jill said.  “I wanted more and I didn’t want more and I don’t know what to think!”

Her voice was loud enough to attract attention from the women.  Some of the younger women, who looked as if they would be grey at twenty-five, wandered over to join them.  “And then he kissed me and the Power’s spell broke and he could only do that if he loved me and…it’s all so complicated.”

“It normally is,” Angelina said.  Her face twisted into something strange for a moment; Jill’s magic flickered in response.  She didn’t know what that meant and going to see Martin was impossible.  “You see, men are just as scared of us as we are of them.”

“I’m not scared,” one of the girls said.  She was young in body, but old in the eyes.  “I only see them in their robes of chastity.”

“You haven’t been selected yet,” an older woman said.  “Dawn, when they choose you, you will have to go and spend time with a man in the sacred home.”

Angelina paused for a moment.  “What’s a sacred home?”  She asked.  The older woman’s lips twitched with disapproval.  “Who chooses you?”

“Father Stone and the Elders choose who…mates with whom,” the older woman said.  “When Dawn is old enough to carry children safely, she will spend a night with a man, so that she becomes pregnant.  When she gives birth, she will return here until it happens again.”

Jill felt a sudden flicker of horror.  “And the children?”  Angelina asked.  “What about the men?”

The older lady tipped her head at them and clucked disapprovingly.  “The female children are raised by us,” she said.  “The male children are raised by the men.  Never will they meet naked, outside the time of month.”

Angelina giggled.  “I know men who hate to meet women at the time of month,” she said.  The older woman gave her a hard look, and then stamped off like a big elderly whale.  “Was it something I said?”

“Don’t mind her,” Dawn said.  “Do you have a man who you like in particular?”

Jill blinked; something was happening to Angelina.  Her breathing was becoming harder, her face changing.  “I never liked men much,” she said.  “My father was the only man for me; he raised me and kept me safe and treated me so much as a boy that I got the impression that I should be looking at tits and playing with them.  Men?  Who needs men?”

Jill felt her senses screaming a warning, but she didn’t know what the warning was.  She found herself on her feet, looking for a threat that wasn’t there.  Angelina’s face was very close to Dawn’s, her body moving closer…and their lips touched.  Jill stared as the two girls kissed, the kiss growing deeper.

“Let me show you what it can be like,” Angelina said, her voice husky.  Jill saw the spell affecting her, but she didn’t know how to deal with it, or even how to prevent it from harming Angelina.  Angelina’s hands were caressing Dawn’s breasts through her robes, totally heedless of any danger…

“Angelina,” she said, reaching out to pull her away from Dawn.  Angelina turned, her eyes bright with unholy lust, and struck her once just above her breasts.  Jill found herself on the ground, lying there all akimbo, stunned by the blow.  Angelina returned to Dawn, who was gasping with pleasure and delight, as Angelina’s hands found their way between her legs.

“Dawn’s coming,” Angelina breathed, and then the men broke in.  There were four of them, led by Father Stone, and they lashed out at Angelina.  She didn’t see them at first, and then it was too late; a heavy stick crashed down on her head.  Jill didn’t resist as she was dragged to her feet, unable to break free of their grip.

“You have desecrated Babylon,” Father Stone snapped, as they were dragged outside.  Father Stone issued orders; moments later Jill heard gunshots and the two men were dragged outside as well.  One of Loke’s hands was missing; the forearm ended in clean skin.  “You will pay the price.”

Jill felt dizzy as they were dragged into the clearing.  The entire population, larger than she had dreamed possible, were pouring in to watch as they were dumped in front of the large building in the centre of the village.  Five men watched them; four incredibly fat men, like human toads, and Father Stone.  

“Trapped in a circle again,” Jack said.  Jill reached for him and held her.  “What happened?”

“She attempted to perform acts of carnal lust,” Father Stone said, waving at Angelina.  “She has corrupted one of our youths.  She has attempted to resist her punishment.”

Jack opened his mouth.  “Silence,” Father Stone said.  “You have been sentenced to public stoning.”

Jill wanted to protest, and then her senses screamed!  Father Stone had lifted his hand, casting a spell, and then she felt her entire body move to a half.  A strange tingle was reaching up her body, starting at her legs and moving quickly over her thighs and breasts.  She looked at Jack and saw his eyes widen in horror…before they too were stone.  

She opened her mouth to scream…and froze in that position.  Her entire body felt stiff and immobile, impossible to move at all.  She tried desperately to move, to speak, to do something…but it was impossible.  She was a statue, just like all the other statues they’d seen around the village, providing a warning to everyone.

High above them, a hawk cawed in the darkness.

***
Martin was lying in a tangle of blankets and Sumrita when he felt the spike of magic, startling him awake.  He reached out with his senses, but he failed to get any sort of grip on it; it just seemed to be fading.  A hawk cawed in the air, coming closer, and he wondered why it was flying at night.

A voice whispered at the window.  “Oh no,” the voice said.  “Are you awake?”

Martin looked up in the darkness, not quite daring to risk temporary blindness by casting a light-spell.  The voice was familiar; it was the voice of Akron’s hawk, Sigmund.  He could just see Sigmund, too large to slip through the window, crouching and pushing his beak through.

“Martin, wake up,” Sigmund said.  “Your friends are in terrible trouble.  This is Babylon!”

Martin pulled himself to his feet.  His body felt dirty, from all the things they had been doing, but he felt pretty good.  His feet were cold against the stone floor as he opened the door, allowing Sigmund to slip inside.  The hawk fluttered to the table, taking up a perch and then eyeing Sumrita.

“Tasty,” he said finally.  Sumrita’s eyes flashed open; she grabbed for a blanket to cover her breasts.  “Your friends are in trouble.  This is Babylon!  You should never have come here.”

Martin closed his eyes, and then started to cast a light-spell.  Sigmund snapped at his hands and he cancelled it before the spell was fully formed.  “Don’t,” Sigmund hissed.  “You’re in danger too.”

“Why?”  Sumrita asked.  Her voice was still sleepy.  “What’s happened to them?”

“Turned to stone statues,” Sigmund said.  The hawk sounded nervous.  “The village is run by a Mage, Father Stone, one of the ones who refused to take part in the war.  He had a religious experience while exploring the territory of a Power and took over the village.  He’s powerful enough to keep out intruders, and he turns any opponents to stone.”

“What is it with this world and turning people to stone?”  Martin asked.  “How?”

Sigmund gave him a look that suggested he could not believe how stupid Martin was being.  “Magic, of course,” the hawk said.  “You have to turn them back, quickly.”

Martin felt his blood run cold.  “I have never fought another magician before,” he said.  “Akron taught me some things…Akron is dead.”

“I know,” Sigmund said softly.  “You have great power, Martin, but very little time.  If your friends stay like that for too long, all of their life will have leeched away into the stone.”

Martin leaned over and kissed Sumrita.  “Sigmund, will you be coming with me?”

“I was Akron’s hawk,” Sigmund said.  The hawk’s tone was sad, full of loss.  “I flew for him and I trusted him.  He trusted me and we had adventures together.  Now…I’m all alone.”

Martin carefully stroked Sigmund’s head, like he’d seen Akron do.  “You can come with me,” he said.  “Please.”

The hawk bowed its head.  “And what about me?”  Sumrita asked.  “Are you going to leave me here?”

Martin pulled on his trousers and shirt.  “Yes,” he said.  “Love…”

Her eyes glinted with tears.  “I understand,” she said.  “Just…come back for me.”

***
“Nice girl you got there,” Sigmund said, from his perch on Martin’s shoulder.  It wasn’t an arrangement that either of them liked; Sigmund was heavy and ungainly.  A parrot would have been preferable.  “Quite a looker too.”

Martin scowled at the hawk as they approached the gates.  “And what do you know of human women?”

Sigmund managed a laugh.  “Akron designed me, using human thought patterns,” he said.  “I find myself looking at girls from time to time.  Hawks…”

“All right, all right,” Martin said, as they reached the low wall.  “Is there anything on the other side?”

Sigmund fluttered into the air, flying over the village.  “No one in sight,” he said.  “Just a few wards on the wall itself.”

Martin carefully felt out the wards, impressed at their design.  Most wards, including Akron’s, involved straight lines.  These bent around the wall; they were shaped in a vast circle, rather than squares.  There was only one, but he realised that two in that shape would only interfere with each other.

“Keep watching,” he muttered, and carefully prised part of the ward open.  If a human mind was monitoring the wards, he had just revealed his existence, but no one came to see what was happening as the ward bulged.  Quickly, he scrambled up the wall, through the hole, and slipped down to the inside wall.

“Nice landing,” Sigmund hissed.  Martin ignored him, slipping around the buildings, looking at the statues.  One, of a naked woman, was truly disturbing; she had been in pain when the spell had been cast.  Two more, of men, had been done as they prepared to fight; they held swords in their hands.  He passed them and reached the centre of the village, looking up at the four new statues.

“Can you hear me in there?”  He whispered, as he reached out with his magic.  “I’ll have you out of there…”

Sigmund cawed aloud; a burst of red fire shot past him, splattering against one of the buildings.  A white-haired old man was trying to avoid the hawk, whose talons were slashing out at his eyes.  Martin had no difficultly recognising him as the Mage, just as the air around Sigmund solidified, trapping the hawk in front of Father Stone.  Seconds later, a hawk-statue fell to the ground.

Martin pulled himself to his full height, feeling the magic spinning around him.  Father Stone reminded him of Shayde; he was drawing power from a number of sources, except…the sources seemed unaware of what was happening to them.  The statues?  He wondered.  Or something else?

“Release my friends,” he said, trying to sound commanding.  “You will release them at once.”

Father Stone’s eyes blazed with religious fervour.  “You will never release any of the ungodly,” he snapped, and threw a spell at Martin.  Martin ducked on instinct, deflecting the magic from the statues, realising that his friends were in danger of being shattered.  The thought gave him strength; he smashed back at Father Stone, sending the Mage crashing over backwards into a building.

Father Stone staggered to his feet, glaring at Martin, who took the opportunity of summoning a spell in his mind.  The Mage came forward, hands waving in a spell, and Martin reached out with his magic, disrupting Father Stone’s spell.  Something…evil exploded in the Mage’s hand, hurting him.  Martin threw his own spell, projecting a wave of fire at Father Stone, who laughed as the fire bounced off his shield.

“Nothing can get in unless I let it,” he hissed, and cast a spell on Martin.  Martin felt all of reality pushing down on him, trying to change his shape, and he fought back.  He understood the magical commands…and he saw how to deflect them and…

“No,” he agreed, altering the commands of Father Stone’s spell.  The spell crashed over him, hiding him within a flash of light, and then he stepped out of it, holding up his hand.  He cast one spell, focusing a beam of light through Father Stone’s shield, burning into the Mage’s eye.  

Doesn’t stop light, does it?  He thought, as the light burned into Father Stone’s head.  The Mage was screaming in pain, but he was still holding on, trying to cast new spells against Martin, and revealing the source of his power.  Not unlike the Power they’d met, he was drawing power from the people of his village, those who obeyed his rules.

Father Stone started to angle his shield to deflect the light…but it was too late.  With a certain vengeful delight, Martin cut Father Stone’s link to his people, cutting his power supply.  Father Stone screamed once as the light burned into his brain…and then he died in a burst of fire.  Martin watched as his entire body simply burnt out of existence…and then the cheering began.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Allies At Last

Jack had decided that he hated being a statue.  It wasn’t painful, not exactly, but his mind was trapped in the statue and he couldn’t move at all.  He felt nothing, no sensation, but he could still see and hear.  It was paradoxical…and terminal.  He was certain, beyond any doubt, that it was the end of their journey.

And then Martin had arrived and Jack had felt hope, only to have it dashed and then raised by the battle between the two magicians.  He’d watched, unable to look away, as Martin was hurt, and then as Father Stone weakened…and died.  The body exploded in a burst of heat so powerful that it set the grass on fire…and then sensation slowly began to return to his body.

It was almost like waking up.  As in a dream – or a nightmare – his body came slowly back to life.  He shook helplessly as the sensation spread, freeing him, and then he stepped forward.  It was as if he’d dreamed all of the events!

“Martin,” Loke shouted, as he ran forward.  He grabbed Martin and slapped him on the back.  “You saved us all.”

Jack smiled as the hawk pulled itself off the ground, fluttering into the air on uncertain wings.  “Well done,” Sigmund said.  “Ah…”

Jack looked around to see people pouring out of the buildings.  They were cheering them, cheering Martin, as the other statues started to turn back into flesh as well.  Not all returned to flesh, but enough did to suddenly create a small army.  A young girl ran up to Angelina and kissed her, full on the mouth.

“You saved us all,” a village elder said.  Some of the villagers glared at him; he’d been one of Father Stone’s allies.  “It…feels like waking up from a dream.”

“The entire village was under his control,” Sigmund said, landing on Martin’s shoulders.  “He was using them as batteries.”

Jack felt too tired to go on.  “Might I suggest that we have a sleep, and then discuss everything in the morning?”

Martin nodded once.  “A good idea,” he said.  “Sigmund, can you fetch Sumrita?”

The hawk launched itself into the sky, cawing for joy.  Jack felt Jill holding him, pulling him to one side.  He kissed her and blinked; she had responded, but that wasn’t what she had wanted.

“Angelina was under a spell,” she said, and explained what had happened with Dawn.  “Someone put a spell on her and made her act all funny.”

Jack nodded slowly.  “So that’s why we were…”

“Turned to stone,” Jill said.  “Jack…I…my magic seems to be starting to work.”

Jack looked into her half-pleased, half-nervous eyes.  “Is that good or bad?”  He asked.  “What do you want to do with it?”

Jill took his hand.  “I want to learn how to use it,” she said.  “Ever since the…Power died, my power has begun working, at least in some ways.  I just didn’t know how to use it to save us.  Jack, I want to train as a witch.”

Jack looked down at her and hugged her.  “You need to learn,” he said, and meant it.  They wandered out away from the village, to where some of the statues had stood, and gazed up at one of the unlucky ones who were stuck like that forever.  The first hints of the dawn flickered above the horizon before they moved again.

“Jack, would you be angry if I leant how to be a witch?”  Jill asked.  “I want to, but I won’t if you say so…”

Jack held her gently.  “I won’t stand in your way,” he said.  “You learn to use your talents, love; you need them.”

Jill giggled, rather nervously.  “You…I was scared that you would object, or that you would push me away,” she said.  “The men don’t like having women – wives – they cannot discipline.  How can they…punish a woman if she can turn them into frogs?”

Jack smiled.  “I’ll never hurt you,” he promised.  She looked up into his eyes; her eyes shining with unshed tears.  “I love you, Jill,” he whispered.

Her lips found his and they kissed.  He gently pulled her to the ground and she came willingly, her lips never leaving his.  His hands gently explored her body, determined that it would be the best for her, and she pulled him on and on.  Afterwards, they lay together in each other’s arms, holding each other before they were forced to dress.

“I never dreamed,” Jill whispered.  She was all over him, her hands touching him everywhere.  “That was…”

“Good for you?”  Jack said.  He held her hand tightly.  “That was good for me too.”

Jill looked up in sudden surprise.  “I’m a woman now,” she said, and burst into tears.  Jack almost laughed at her tone of surprise, before pulling her close and holding her as she cried.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and meant it.  “We will get married, as soon as we can.”

Jill smiled.  “I love you,” she said, and she held his hand all the way to the centre of the village.

***
Martin sensed a presence in the room and jumped up, half-expecting to see Sigmund again.  Instead, he saw a golden man, looking down at him.  The man – entity – was made out of glowing golden light, smiling faintly and stroking his chin in a contemplative pose.  Martin’s eyes widened; the man was anything, but human.

“Who – what – are you?”  He demanded, struggling to untangle himself from Sumrita and stand up.  “Why are you here?”

“Now that is a good question,” the man said.  The brightness flared for a long moment, bathing them in glowing light.  “I’m called the Power of London.”

Martin covered his eyes slightly, hiding from the glow.  “I see,” he said, although he wasn’t sure if he did.  “Why are you here?”

“I don’t normally bother to make real appearances these days,” the Power of London said.  Its voice was soft and warm, like velvet honey, but with a strong undercurrent of pure power.  “My function, the purpose for which I was called into existence, is to ensure that the six hundred and sixty-six wizards on the Council of Wizardry remain at that level.  Normally, I would simple acknowledge a newcomer, but now…well, there is a new Grand Mage now, under odd circumstances.”

Martin poked Sumrita gently, trying to wake her.  “She won’t wake,” the Power of London said.  “I merely wanted to have a look at you for myself.  These days, the only time I ever bother to hold a proper conversation is when something unusual is going on, such as your defeat of the Mage Stone.  You do realise how unusual that is?”

Martin gathered his thoughts.  “Akron said that you guarded the Council of Wizardry building,” he said.

“You, a magic-user without rank, killed a mage,” the Power of London said.  “That alone makes you unusual; by rights, you have his title.”  There was a hint of a smile.  “Welcome, Mage Martin.”

Martin stared at him.  “And if I don’t want that title?”

The Power of London smiled brightly, literally.  “You really have no choice in the matter,” it said.  “You killed Stone; all of his titles are yours now.”  It smiled again.  “Oh yes, and you have the enmity of whoever else wanted the role.”

Martin scowled.  “I see,” he said.  “And all you do is select the next mages?”

“You selected yourself,” the Power of London said.  “You killed Mage Stone.”

“We’re going in circles,” Martin said.  “What now?  Akron said that they had you under control…”

“Oh, you shouldn’t listen to what the Council of Wizardry thinks,” the Power of London said.  “I could have broken free at any time, had I chosen to do so.”

“Then why didn’t you?”  Martin asked.  “Why not set up shop on your own, like…”

“Like the Power you killed?”  The Power of London asked.  “Why should I?”  Its smile became daunting.  “I have too much fun being where I am.”  Martin stared at it in horror.  “I know what you’re thinking,” the Power of London said.  “You’re wondering why I don’t seek revenge for the other Power, or why I stay where I am, or – indeed – why I don’t stop you from reaching the Castle at the End of the Land…am I correct?”

Martin felt dirty, violated.  “Yes,” he said, reluctantly.

“Why don’t I leave?”  The Power of London asked.  “I was…created to glorify in what I do.  Unlike the other one” – Martin noted that even the Power of London seemed reluctant to speak her name – “I have a proper role and a purpose, and it has proven entertaining.  Still, I’m bored; whatever happens at the Castle at the End of the Land, it will be something new.  I haven’t had so much fun since that nutcase started to build an entire empire…”

“Do you know what its like outside the Brass Walls?”  Martin asked quickly.  “Is there magic there too?”

The Power of London gave an impression of a shrug.  “I have no idea,” it said.  “As I said, normally I wouldn’t have this conversation with anyone, but you people are so fascinating…”

It smiled.  “Hail, Mage Martin,” it said.  “May you last long in the role…”

It faded slowly out of existence and was gone.  Sumrita awoke suddenly, to find Martin trembling.  “What’s wrong?”  She asked, holding him.  Her bare breasts pushed against his back.  “Martin?”

“I think I just saw the Power of London,” Martin said.  “I’m a Mage now.”

***
Breakfast was a big affair, with almost the entire village and the former statues taking part in a giant feast.  Jack watched it with considerable interest, eating bacon and eggs – both forbidden by Mage Stone – and studied the interaction.  Free of the threat of sudden transformation, the sexes were mixing freely; mothers were reunited with the children they hadn’t seen for so long.

“We won’t be able to stay here,” Elder Hank said.  His form already looked older.  “With him gone, this village won’t be able to support all of us.”

Jack nodded.  There were nearly seven hundred people, from the original population of the village to the statues.  Martin had tried to recover the statues that had remained, but had failed; they had passed beyond any salvation.  Jack shuddered; he’d ordered Loke to smash them, later.

“I have an idea along those lines,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  He’d been a warrior from 1990 when he’d stumbled into Babylon and been stoned.  Unusually, he had two names, not one.  “I am rather out of my time here.”

“So are a lot of people, ourselves included,” Jack said.  He looked up into a hard face that wouldn’t have shamed an action hero.  “I don’t have any way of returning you to your proper times.”

“I had a lot to think about as a statue,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  He showed Jack the sword he carried, a blade glittering with silver marks.  “I think that all of us, at least the warriors who were trapped here, should join your war.”

Jack looked down at the table for a long moment.  “There are nearly three hundred of us,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos continued.  “We all…have no place to go.  Your bird” – it took Jack a moment to realise that he meant Sigmund, who was flying high above them and raiding the food – “told us about the war.  A disciplined troop of fighters could make all the difference.

“In the meantime, Babylon is no longer able to support four hundred people,” he concluded.  “Only Stone’s magic made it possible.  Now he’s dead, the food will soon run out, killing them all if they remain.  Around half of the population – including Dawn – would like to come as well.”

Jack met Jill’s eyes.  He wasn’t sure what to say.  Part of him thought that having five hundred people along would be wonderful, particularly as most of them would be soldiers, the other part was worried about food, water, and lingering questions of loyalty.

Sigmund came down and landed on Jack’s legs, making him jump.  “I think you should listen to him,” the bird said.  His beady eyes winked at Jack.  “You and your new wife will need the protection, don’t you think?”

“I think that you have a point,” Jack said, to Vaeledyne Rabrepos.  “You know that it will be dangerous?”

“It’s always dangerous,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said dryly.  “Any other problems?”

Jack met his eyes, and then looked at Sigmund.  “Can the new Grand Mage feed them all?”  He asked.  “Will he be glad to see them?”

The hawk sniggered.  “Frankly, he’ll be glad of any support,” he said.  “The Grand Mage Rinpotch doesn’t have the sheer power and moral authority that Akron held; there are Mages who resent his sudden elevation by the great voice of London.  By the time that Shayde gets around to attacking Newcastle, they might have had a falling out.”

Jack waved to Angelina, who had been chatting with Dawn, and explained what Vaeledyne Rabrepos was offering.  “What do you think?”

Angelina studied Vaeledyne Rabrepos for a long moment.  “How quickly could your people adapt to new weapons?”  She asked.  “We have to build more of them and arm you.”

“I think we can learn,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  He sipped a cup of fermented wine.  “Jack, My Lord…”

He started to kneel.  Jack made to stop him, but Sigmund interrupted.  “To My Lord Jack, I pledge loyalty to him and his lady,” he said.  “To share all of his dangers, until death do us part.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, on instinct.  “I will keep faith with you.”

From the way that Vaeledyne Rabrepos’s face beamed, it was exactly the right thing to say.  “Then we have a campaign to plan,” he said.  “Young Hawk, when do we go to Newcastle?”

“I was ordered to inform Grand Mage Rinpotch of your location,” Sigmund said.  “Jack, if you have the map, head along the main road and I’ll meet you along there.”

Jack nodded.  “Tell the Grand Mage that we’re bringing guests,” he said.  “Tell him to send horses and carts for them to ride; I doubt that we have enough here to carry them all.”

“It shall be done,” Sigmund said.  “You know, of course, that Shayde will not let this rest?”

Jack nodded.  “I think that Shayde was the one who enchanted Angelina,” he said.  “Sigmund, how much can he do at this distance?”  

“Now you know about the possibility, it should be simple to resist,” Sigmund said.  “Akron was never forthcoming about blood magic; it was too…unreliable for him.  Once you get to Newcastle, you should take a moment to look it up in the library.”

The hawk launched himself into the air, moving faster than Jack would have believed possible, heading out in a north-easterly direction.  He smiled and turned to Vaeledyne Rabrepos.  

“I think that we have a move to plan first,” he said.  “How long do you think it will take us to get there?”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos shrugged.  “A fast horseman could do it in a couple of days,” he said.  “If we take tents and bedding, we might be able to do it in a week, perhaps less.”

“Perhaps less,” Jack said.  “All right, then; let’s get moving.”

***
It turned out that Mage Stone, for reasons no one understood, had stockpiled the components of a number of small carts, designed for moving heavy objects around the country.  Martin had speculated, not without some disgust, that Mage Stone had sold some of the statues on to other wizards or lords; several of the freed statues had lost friends during their period as stone.  They had been turned to stone as well, but they were nowhere to be found.

“A pity he didn’t stockpile horses,” Jack muttered, as they organised the convoy.  They had exactly twenty horses and a number of oxen, which could be used at a pinch.  Jack had attempted to convince Elder Hank that the village would be targeted, like Griffin had been, by Shayde, but Elder Hank had been dismissive.

“He won’t attack us if we’re not part of the war,” he’d said, and Jack had had to be content with that.  With over half of the village’s population preparing to move to Newcastle, it would be hard enough for the reminder without Shayde inventing more problems for them.

“We can always come back,” Jill said, as they walked beside a fully loaded horse.  Jack wished that Sigmund had remained with them; the hawk would have made a useful scout.  “Perhaps on our honeymoon.”

Her hand had somehow teleported itself into his hand.  He smiled and didn’t pull away.  “Perhaps,” he agreed.  “Once this is over and Shayde is defeated, I’m going to make this place change, one way or the other.”

Angelina stepped up next to him.  “These people will make a finer troop than that lot from Akron’s estate,” she said.  “They don’t have any previous loyalties to anyone.  Now that Vaeledyne Rabrepos is your servant, you can have a proper army behind you and your banner.”

Jack rolled his eyes at her.  “And now you’re being silly,” he said dryly.  They had walked for nearly an hour, pacing themselves carefully.  “I wish…”

“There have been worse medieval warlords,” Angelina said.  “Take the Lord of the Rings, for example.”

Jack sighed.  “Oh, shut up,” he said.

“But I had this whole Lord of the Rings analogy worked out,” Angelina protested.  “You as…Aragon.  Martin as Frodo.  Akron as Gandalf.  Shayde as Sauron.  Sigmund as whatever that massive eagle in the remake of the remake was called.”

Jack had to smile.  “Does that make Rinpotch Wormtongue?”  He asked.  “Do you think that Akron can come back?”

Angelina looked up at him.  “Nothing here is quite what it seems,” she said, “but I think that it would be a bad idea to expect resurrection when we plan our next move.”

“I don’t think that it quite fits,” Jack said.  “Beside, we have to write a report on it, and I don’t think that the Thande Institute would thank us for giving the lawyers something to sue us for.”  He chuckled.  “Nearly a billion people dead in the Nazi War, and most of the world’s lawyers survive.”

Five days later, they arrived at Newcastle. 

Chapter Thirty-Six: With Friends Like These…What’s the Point of Shayde?

Grand Mage Rinpotch watched from the battlements and shook his head in awe.  Proceeding across the drawbridge into the courtyard were a motley crew of carts, horses and dozens of people walking on their own feet.  Some of them walked like the army soldiers they had been, others walked like older people, which they were.  Some of the people were being redirected into a camp outside the castle; Lord Ruben’s castle simply didn’t have the room.  

If Sigmund hadn’t told us about them coming, we wouldn’t have been able to feed them, or house them, or anything, Rinpotch thought, as more appeared and were directed into the camp.  Given time, the peasants would be housed in villagers, where they could contribute to the war effort, but the rest of Jack’s small army would have to be housed within the castle itself.  Five hundred men, more or less; a force like that could have carved itself out a small empire.  With a Mage in the force – serving the commanding officer, rather than leading it – it could reshape the world.  

The Knight Errant watched beside him, looking rather impressed.  “Not too bad discipline,” he said.  “They won’t have had any time for real practice, of course, but now they’re here, they will become formidable, very quickly.”

For the first time, Rinpotch wished that the Power of London had picked someone else for the role of Grand Mage – and de facto leader of Akron’s side in the war.  Five hundred men, under the command of a man owing no allegiance to anyone, were enough to make the others nervous.  Add a Mage to that force, one who had defeated someone as feared and respected as Mage Stone, and they would need to change their underwear.

“This is going to get political,” he said, and scowled.  “You know how the Seventeen will react.”

The Knight Errant smiled.  The Seventeen – the seventeen lords who did much of the ruling in the Newcastle states, at least in theory – were not known for being kind to possible opponents.  Lord Ruben had already expressed his concerns; the others could hardly be far behind.  Rinpotch mentally cursed Akron for leaving him in this mess, even as the last of the force entered the courtyard.

“You can handle it,” the Knight Errant said.  “They’ll be considering this force cannon fodder.”

Rinpotch made a face.  The expression had slipped into the language from the first cannons, which were either destroyed or in Shayde’s hands now.  He didn’t like it; it suggested that armies would die in the hundreds, perhaps even be wiped out to the last man, something that hardly any of the states could afford.

“There are also the problems of land allocation,” he said.  “Lord Ruben was most insistent on the temporary nature of any changes to the use of land, let alone giving it to the peasants.  Just cause Shayde had the idea first, probably through his slave…”

The Knight Errant laughed, a laugh that turned sour.  “Turn him into a toad if he raises his shrill disagreeable voice again,” he said.  “Akron would have done that when he ran out of patience.  What side is he on anyway?”

Rinpotch gave him a reproving look.  “There are seventeen major lords and seven mages here,” he said.  “Each of them wants our side to win, but at the same time they don’t want a victory that will destroy them in the process, or place too much power into the hands of the peasants.  They will be scared that they will be stabbed in the back, either by one of the others, or by their own people.

“In the meantime, Shayde is introducing new changes to his own lands, ones that will improve productivity and spare more men for the war.  They’re scared; what happens if Shayde is unbeatable?  After Peterborough, who will dare to fight Shayde?”

“They’ll be killed anyway,” the Knight Errant said.  “Shayde has all of you on his new death list.”

Rinpotch blinked.  “What about you?”

“I was always on it,” the Knight Errant said.  “Soon I will die too.”

Rinpotch shook his head.  “You are not dying now,” he said firmly.  “If you get yourself killed, I’ll kill you myself.”

The Knight Errant snorted.  “I’d like to see you pull that one off,” he said.  “Grand Mage, you have the power to do what you have to do to insure that the war is won.”

It should have been ‘Your Lordship.’  Rinpotch was too worried to care.  “To the west, we have Grand Mage Valastar, who is building her own army.  Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about her building a magical force as well; she simply doesn’t have many personal allies.  Then we have Shayde himself in the south, with Shan and his forces nearby.”

“Grand Mage Valastar is the main threat,” the Knight Errant said.  “She’s within a few days travel.  The other two would require weeks to get even a token force up here.  If I was in Shayde’s shoes, I would be concentrating on building my logistics up and moving forces forward to face us.”

Rinpotch considered.  “You don’t think that he will move at once?”

“No point,” the Knight Errant said.  “Grand Mage Valastar can prevent us from reaching the Castle at the End at the Land, at least until we have our own army ready, so why bother rushing the troops forward and straining his logistics?”

“I hope you’re right,” Rinpotch said.  He closed his eyes, drawing a breath; they had spies active within Shayde’s territory – and the reports were not encouraging.  Shayde was welding all of the magic-users into a single force, creating an army of a type that had never been seen since the Imperial War…and giving power to the peasants.  If news of that got out to the peasants up in Newcastle, there would be no need for Shayde to invade.

Perhaps they can’t overthrow the Mages, he thought, but the Lords and nobles would be very vulnerable.

The Knight Errant clapped a hand on his shoulder.  “I think that you worry too much, lad,” he said.  “He can’t just teleport his entire army up here, can he?”

Rinpotch shook his head.  “The power requirements would be far too high, even for all of us working together,” he said.

“Good,” the Knight Errant said.  “Magicians should stay off the battlefield; all the magic adds a certain dangerous taint of randomness to the elegant thrust and parry of a battle.”

“Battles are never good things,” Rinpotch said.  “Magic…only makes them worse.”

The Knight Errant smiled.  “Come on,” he said.  “Let’s go meet our new allies.”

***
If Jack had known how difficult moving nearly five hundred people would have been, he would never have attempted it.  He’d served in campaigns where thousands of soldiers had been moved across America within weeks, but all of them had involved modern transport.  A trip which in their world would have taken a small fleet of coaches and an hour had taken five days…and several people had died along the way.

If that dragon had come back, there would have been a terrible slaughter, he thought, as he staggered inside the castle and entered the main throne room.  Sheer pride and bloody-mindedness kept him upright; Jill and Sumrita had been unable to continue and had been placed in the carts.  Rinpotch, whom he’d never met, had sent enough carts to allow some of the worst cases to be transported, saving countless lives.

Beside him, Angelina, Loke, and Vaeledyne Rabrepos walked, conserving their own strength.  Vaeledyne Rabrepos – he was apparently always called that – had talked a lot about military strategy, but little about himself; there had been a mage who’d evicted his family, leaving him no choice, but to become a blade for hire.  

“See to the men,” Jack ordered, as they finally reached their destination.  “Make certain that they have all the food that they need.”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos bowed and left them there.  Jack smiled; he found the man’s constant deference to him irritating, but at least he knew his job.  His eyes found Martin, who was stumbling along behind them, and winked at him.  Jack felt some pride in Martin; bespectacled and skinny he might be, but he’d managed well on the march.

He nodded once to make sure that they were all reasonably presentable, or at least as presentable as they could be under the circumstances, and smiled.  “Shall we go in?”

Angelina smiled.  “Yes, lets,” she said.  “The sooner we get the being polite and friendly bit out of the way, the sooner we can get on with the war.”

“And back to Dawn,” Loke teased.  “How come you get her, and I get a psychopathic Power?”

“Shut up, the pair of you,” Jack ordered.  “Martin?”

“I feel bloody awful,” Martin said.  His voice was harsh and bitter.  “There’s one hell of a lot of magic being placed into defending this place and it’s giving me a headache.  Shouldn’t we fetch the girls?”

“Let them sleep,” Jack said, ignoring Angelina’s snort.  “Come on.”

He stepped up to the door and it swung open, revealing more magic at work.  Only three people stood at the far end of the room, leaving the throne itself empty.  Jack recognised the Knight Errant and the Wizard Dominos; the third he didn’t recognise at all.

“You made it,” the Knight Errant said.  “This is the Grand Mage Rinpotch, of whom much has been said.”  He spoke in such a way as to suggest that that was a traditional introduction.  “I believe that you haven’t met.”

Rinpotch extended a hand.  Jack took a moment to study the new Grand Mage.  Akron had been…well, not exactly mad, bad and dangerous to know, but it had been clear that he was a very dangerous man.  Rinpotch was…softer, with a slight paunch and a weaker chin.  Only a spark of determination in his eyes indicated any suggestion that he had any spine at all.  Akron had been prepared to do whatever was necessary to win; was Rinpotch?

“A pleasure,” Jack said, shaking the hand.  It occurred to him that Rinpotch was showing them unprecedented honour; normally a Grand Mage would get at least a full bow.  “Jack.”

Rinpotch nodded once, not offended by the lack of a surname.  There was no need to risk more name magic being used against them.  “Pleased to meet you,” Rinpotch said politely.  He seemed almost harmless.  “And your friends?”

Jack smiled.  “Loke, Angelina and…”

“Mage Martin,” Rinpotch said, interrupting him.  His soft brown eyes were fixed on Martin.  “I would like to talk with you later.”

Jack saw Martin wince, but he nodded.  “I would be honoured,” Martin said.

“Excellent,” Rinpotch said.  He turned to the table, waving a hand.  A single flash of light later, the table was covered in food.  “I believe that you must be hungry,” he said.  “We will eat, and then we will talk.”

“Perhaps we should fetch the girls after all,” Jack said.  “Loke, would you mind…?”

Loke nodded and left, returning in three minutes with Jill and Sumrita, blinking sleep away from their eyes.  He saw Angelina’s eyes flicker – Loke hadn’t brought Dawn with him – but he ignored it.  Rinpotch waved them to seats and took his own at the head of the table.  For five minutes, there were no sounds, but contented munching.

The Knight Errant had clearly been inching to speak.  He finally spoke after finishing a bowl of stew.  “What happened to my blood brother?”

Martin spoke rapidly, sadly.  He detailed the encounter with the dragon, and then explained how they’d stumbled into the territory of a Power - Elsie Marley – and how they’d nearly been trapped.  In short choppy bitter sentences, he related how Akron had sacrificed his life to save the rest of the team.  

“I see,” the Knight Errant said.  His shaven head seemed to crumble as he slowly sighed.  “He wouldn’t have wished to die slowly, but so few Grand Mages die in bed.”

“He was a great man,” Rinpotch said, finishing his bowl of stew and watching indulgently as Jack and Loke had second helpings.  His tone was curiously flat.  “So, Jack; what do you intend to do with your army?”

Jack had expected some concern over the army, even though five hundred men was a tiny force compared to the force that had fought in Washington.  Rinpotch would be concerned, but why?  He frowned inwardly; what was his handle on the events?

“I intend to defeat Shayde,” he said flatly.  “I intend to do as Akron wanted and enter the Castle at the End of the Land.  After that…well, it depends upon the situation.”

“A good answer,” the Knight Errant said.  His tone was approving.  “I assume that you intend to form them into a proper army?”

“Just like we were doing back at Akron’s castle,” Jack agreed.  “Once we work them into a striking force, we can hopefully break out to the Castle at the End of the Land and reach it before Shayde can catch us.”

Rinpotch coughed mildly.  “There are…political implications,” he said.  He briefly detailed what they knew of Shayde’s preparations.  “What do you think of that?”

Jack had already decided not to mention the possibility that Shayde might have been contaminated – and vice versa – with his thoughts and habits.  “I think Shayde is doing the sensible thing,” he said, and meant it.  “He’s cutting away fat to allow the meat to grow.”

“An interesting analogy,” Rinpotch said.  “What is his long-term objective?”

Jack frowned; the room seemed to go silent.  He knew what his long-term objective would be, but if Shayde had developed into a carbon copy of him the war wouldn’t be being fought at all.  Seeing Shayde was still fighting the war, then he had to be acting according to his own impulses, not Jacks.

He frowned again.  But what does logic have to do with magic?

“I suspect that his long-term objective is to build a real empire for himself,” he said.  “In your world, a lot of power is held by the nobles, simply because they have an ability to hold together states so that they can milk them.  Your…technology won’t allow you to have a large state, so the nobles have considerable independence, despite the presence of magic-users.”

He paused to allow the idea to sink in.  “In the long-term, Shayde is moving towards concentrating effective power, as opposed to formal power, in his hands,” he said.  “Your nobles collect taxes, skimming some for themselves off the top; Shayde’s troops will take that job, aided by an army of bureaucrats who will ensure that every last bushel of grain is accounted for.  Your nobles provide troops at demand; with a professional army he can enforce compliance without wasting his own power on the punishment.”

“I doubt that Shayde would see it as a waste,” Dominos commented.  He’d been listening thoughtfully, without saying much.  “What about his plans to gather all of the magic-users together?”

“That puts a magical monopoly in his hands,” Martin said, sipping a mug of wine.  “If he’s teaching all of the new magic-users magic, he won’t have so many accidentally killing themselves, while making sure that they all know enough to be useful, but not enough to be dangerous.  Hell, with plenty of magic users, he could even set up an instant communications system that existed permanently.”

“Semaphore,” Angelina commented.  “If they can’t use radio, they can use semaphore.”

Martin laughed briefly.  “All of those books with cool ideas that no one could ever try out in real life,” he said.  “You could never experiment with semaphore or anything else in real life, not where I lived, let alone play at being spies and spooks.  I was born in the wrong age.”

“You were old at nineteen,” Sumrita jibed.  She looked down at Rinpotch.  “If Shayde is working to improve medical knowledge as well, he’ll be looking at a population boom fairly soon, perhaps even within ten years.  Sir – Your Lordship – even boiling everything would make a huge difference to the child mortality rates.”

“Most cannot afford magicians,” Dominos said, keeping his voice and face flat.  Jack watched him with concern; whose side was he on, now that Akron was dead?  “What is magic for, if not to show superiority?”

“Helping people,” Martin said.  Dominos snorted.  “I’m serious,” Martin insisted.  “Power brings responsibility.”

Rinpotch tapped the table.  “The first priority is to get your army ready,” he said.  “As soon as Shayde finds out that you’re here…”

A dull throbbing ran through the room.  Jack glanced at Rinpotch sharply.  “What’s that?”

“Teleportation,” Rinpotch said grimly.  “Someone is trying to teleport into my prepared teleport area.”  He nodded towards an intricate diagram drawn on the stone floor.  “I’m trying to tell who it is…ah.”

A blaze of shimmering white light appeared for a long moment, fading to reveal an incredibly corpulent man, standing there with a pasty white face.  He wore the robes of a Grand Mage, but looked too weak to lift his own weight, let alone cast any spells at all.  His face would have been pleasant if it were less round and heavy; his short dark hair too lanky to be attractive.

Rinpotch pulled himself to his feet, facing the man.  “Grand Mage Gorgre,” he said.  “I bid you welcome to my halls.”

The man - Grand Mage Gorgre – looked at them all, trembling, and gratefully accepted a mug of wine from the Knight Errant.  He reminded Jack of the dragons; really too large to carry his own bulk.  Did magic help to keep him upright?

“I wish I came in happier circumstances,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  His voice was gasping; a man who has walked himself to the limits of his endurance.  “Grand Mage, Shayde attacked my lines two hours ago.”

A dread silence fell.  Grand Mage Gorgre spoke on, trying to draw strength from the wine.  “My castle is – was – falling,” he said.  “By now, Shayde will have overrun my lands…and the peasants will join him.  My…friend, can Shayde be stopped?”

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Attack upon Attack

From Jack, Shayde had learned about the concept of a ‘combined arms attack.’  From Christina, he had learned a great deal about developing a state for war.  From Akron, he had learnt magics that had seemed useless…until Brant had suggested infantry tactics - that could be applied to magical warfare.  Combining them all, he sent a small force into Grand Mage Gorgre’s territory, expanding the war as quickly as he could.

Captain Brant wondered if Shayde was mad, as he watched the Grand Mage standing in the centre of the small castle that was serving as the headquarters, coordinating the attack through the force of magicians.  Even a low-level magic-user could cast communications spells, allowing the forces to be coordinated with ease.  The magical map on the table, linked to the positions of those wizards, updated itself constantly as the force advanced.

Shayde nodded once to Brant as the small force of magicians using spying spells located a force of Grand Mage Gorgre’s men, trying to fall back towards one of the castles.  Spiders jumped from trees to trees, scuttling along the ground, attacking horses and men with indiscriminate fury.  Grand Mage Gorgre simply didn’t have a communications network to match the one that Shayde had established; his forces had no way of coordinating their attacks against the invasion.

Captain Brant had wondered if Shayde was mad.  He knew better now.

“We are making heavy progress,” Shayde informed him calmly.  He’d taken the horrible risk of expressing his doubts to Shayde, who’d only laughed and told him to wait and see.  “Grand Mage Gorgre has proven incapable of stopping us.”

He winced suddenly.  “One of his wizards is trying to attack the spiders,” he said.  He lifted a crystal and held it in his hand, concentrating.  “One of the dragons can roast him and end that threat.”

Several hours passed.  It was roughly forty miles between Shayde’s territory – that which had formally belonged to Akron – and Grand Mage Gorgre’s castle.  Under normal circumstances, it would have taken a week of hard campaigning against a reasonably competent enemy to reach the castle, always assuming that forces were equal.  The defender had many advantages; they knew the ground, they had nearer sources of supply, they could depend on limited support from the peasants and the smaller nobles…

In less than an hour, the three hundred soldiers and fifty magicians of Shayde’s force would have reached the castle.  Even with the spiders and the dragons, it was fantastic progress; the enemy simply didn’t stand a chance.  The peasants were staying out of the fighting, clearly unwilling to take on the dragons, even if they didn’t believe how Shayde was improving the lives of his own peasants.

“The dragons are prepared to attack Grand Mage Gorgre’s castle,” Shayde said absently.  He seemed somehow…thinner for a long chilling moment.  “They won’t get in, not unless we go help them in person.”  He paused, considering.  “Come.”

Brant followed Shayde as he strode off down the corridor, leaving Captain Hawls in command of the advance, and followed him into the courtyard.  A dragon sat there, waiting patiently for orders and attention.  Brant blinked; the dragon seemed to have been slightly wounded somehow.  It’s red eyes glinted malice, even as it allowed them to climb on its back.

“Redscale here has something of a grudge against the newcomers,” Shayde commented, as he muttered instructions to the dragon.  Brant felt sheer terror for one long crushing moment; taunting a dragon was hardly a safe pastime.  “He wants to eat them and I plan to oblige him.”

Redscale lifted into the air, covering the distance far faster than Brant found safe; he clenched his eyes shut as the ground fell away, trying not to be sick.  Shayde seemed unaffected by the sheer drop to the ground, calmly discussing the plans to produce more and more weapons, as well as expanding the transportation network.

“If we had a year, we could ensure that we would have an empire covering all, but the Power territories within the next year after that,” he said, in the middle of the discourse.  “But we don’t have a year; we have only a few months at most before they make their break to the Castle at the End of the Land.”

He seemed to be waiting for a comment.  Brant tried hard to think of something against the sheer numbing terror of the distance from the ground.  His legs felt dreadfully weak; if the dragon decided to start changing its steady flight into a fancy pattern, he knew that he was going to fall off and hit the ground.  Somehow, he was certain that the dragon wouldn’t bother to catch him.

“What’s to stop them making their way north at once?”  He asked.  He felt, under the circumstances, that it was a very relevant concern.  “We’re here, kicking the shit out of Grand Mage Gorgre, and they could be halfway to the Castle within a week.”

“Politics,” Shayde said, and laughed.  “I have some allies among the War Council they have in Newcastle; we could hardly ask for better enemies.”

Brant frowned.  “Not the sort of noble gentlemen you could joust with, and then share a drink with?”  

Shayde laughed.  “That’s the romantic ideal of war,” he said.  “You and I know better, don’t you think?  More irritatingly, however, according to one of my sources, the trap I had planned for them failed.  It’s hard to influence events at such a distance, but Mage Stone failed; Akron must have taught the newcomer wizard well.”

He didn’t seem concerned about the entire disaster.  “And, of course, we have a new Grand Mage,” he continued.  “It’s not quite the disaster it seems; Grand Mage Whine-A-Lot will certainly face challenges from the other mages, all of whom will think that he should have gotten the rank, instead of Rinpotch.  Fighting a duel will sap his strength, which he can hardly waste now, and he will end up having to compromise.”

Brant blinked.  Shayde had spoken of ‘compromise’ as if it were a dirty word.  “Politics will keep them in one place, long enough to allow me time to deal with Grand Mage Gorgre, and then plan the advance to the north.  By then, my allies will have their armies ready as well…and then we can put an end to this.”

The massive angular shape of Grand Mage Gorgre’s castle rose up ahead of them.  The mere sight of the dragons had caused the nearest town to surrender at once, but it was nearly three miles away from the castle; hardly any use as a base.  Shayde didn’t seem concerned; forty of his own wizards and mages were gathered around the castle at a respectful distance, waiting.  The dragons themselves floated in the air; on the ground a dark mass of spiders could be seen, waiting.

Brant smiled suddenly.  Captain Randor was there, giving orders, and that too was astonishing – and new.  Captain Randor had no magic of his own, and wizards; qualified Wizards and Mages were obeying him.  Shayde had made that clear to everyone, insisting on obedience and respect for all who served him.

“Take one of the communicators aside,” Shayde ordered, as Redscale swept in for landing.  “He won’t contribute to the Harmony much.  Order him to have the follow-up troops moved in for the occupation, under the normal rules.”

Brant nodded.  A month ago, he would never have dared to give an order to any magic-user; that too was different.  “Yes, Your Lordship,” he said, as the dragon landed.  “It will be done as you will.”

***
Shayde patted Redscale on the dragon’s long neck, gathering his energy, before turning to face the forty magic-users gathered before the castle.  He swept his gaze across them; three of them were Mages who might challenge him, ten more were Wizards who might challenge the Mages.  The rest were court magicians, too weak to do more than help the Harmony spell.

“You all know what we are going to do,” he said, turning to look through his magical senses at Grand Mage Gorgre’s castle.  The shimmering flickering of the wards, designed to hold off even the dragons, glittered in front of them.  “If any one has any problems, say so.”

He waited long enough for an entire paragraph to be spoken.  No one spoke; all of them knew that they would be making magical history in the Harmony spell.  “Good,” Shayde said, taking the hands of two of the Mages.  The third stood behind him, placing his hands on Shayde’s shoulders.  The remainder of the magic-users formed themselves into a dagger formation, pointed directly at Grand Mage Gorgre’s castle.

“Let us begin,” Shayde said, reaching out with his magic.  He found the magic spreading from the Mages and pulled it into his own magic, then the wizards, and then the rest of them.  In a glowing wave of power, magic was starting to build above them, enough power to do almost anything.  

Shayde was almost stunned by the sheer power, even as it grew and grew.  With such power, I could crack the Brass Walls, he thought, dazed at the implications.  Under his control, such power would make him far more powerful than a Grand Mage; a Super-Grand Mage perhaps.  In a moment of humour, he took the magic and shaped it by the sheer force of his will, pushing it out against the wards.

The blinding flash showed even through his closed eyelids as he pushed the magic needle against the wards.  A less focused attack might have still failed - Grand Mage Gorgre had expected to have to fight off dragons – but the needle was too powerful, too concentrated, for any ward to hold off.  The wards screamed in his mind, echoing out across the entire magical field…and then they broke.  Shayde felt the energy raging; he slammed it against the rest of the wards before it broke free and dispelled itself in the warm air.

Shayde felt blackness shimmering at the edge of his vision and nearly passed out.  Sheer willpower, and a reluctance to look weak in front of the Mages, kept him on his feet and aware; the moans from behind him suggested that not everyone had had the same willpower.  He turned and smiled; several of the weaker magicians had collapsed, blood pouring from their ears.

”Help them get better,” he ordered the Mages, and glared down a protest that medical magic was below their dignity.  There was work to be done.  He looked back at the castle and smiled again; the dragons and spiders were already moving forwards.

***
Brant kept his men back as per orders, watching as the dragons swooped down on the suddenly defenceless castle, blowing fire into the windows and incinerating everyone they saw.  A handful of brave archers attempted to hurt the dragons with arrows, but they just glanced off the dragon scales.  The spiders swarmed across the drawbridge, keeping away from the dragon fire, spreading out across the castle.

He heard Shayde calling and marched over to the Grand Mage, who was sitting on the ground watching events.  “Grand Mage Gorgre has escaped,” Shayde said flatly.  Brant winced; would one of his men have to pay for the failure?  “He used his teleporting spell to escape.”

Brant nodded.  Shayde seemed…more amused than unhappy at the failure.  “Where will he have gone?”  He asked.  “London?  Would the Power of London aid him?”

Shayde shook his head.  “The Power of London seems to take little interest in wizard scrabbles,” he said.  “He might remain within London, but he could still be challenged and defeated.  He can’t reject a challenge.  No, he’ll have gone to Newcastle.”

A thundering explosion billowed out from the castle; Shayde winced in pain.  “More of the spiders have been killed,” he said.  His voice hurt, it trembled with pain.  “It could have been a lot worse.”

Brant bowed, suddenly very glad that his men hadn’t been asked to storm the castle.  “What happened?”  He asked.  “A final spell?”

“He would have ordered the last of the magic in the castle to go unstable,” Shayde said.  His voice was still hurting.  “It would have been the area he prepared for teleportation.”  He closed his eyes for a long moment.  “If I hadn’t had some warning, that would have killed me.”

Brant honestly didn’t know what to say.  “Your Lordship, what do we do now?”

Shayde looked up at him for a long moment.  “We settle the affairs of this place,” he said.  “Have the troops been moving forward?”

Brant nodded and produced the report that the communications wizard had produced.  “We have the forces moving in now,” he said.  “Resistance has been almost non-existent; most of Grand Mage Gorgre’s forces have surrendered upon contact.”

“They’re still stunned,” Shayde said.  “Have the lords and nobles brought to me in my current headquarters, where I will lay down the law, and then have the magicians informed that they can join me or die.”

Brant bowed, but hesitated.  Shayde hadn’t seemed to mind his other attempts at offering advice.  “You know that many of them will try to flee?”

Shayde laughed.  “Tell me,” he said.  “Where exactly will they go?”

Brant frowned.  “Newcastle?”

“You don’t understand,” Shayde said.  “My spiders are slowly infiltrating everywhere.  Sooner or later, there will be no safe place at all for those who oppose me.”

***
“So…Jack has his own army now,” Shayde said, a week after Grand Mage Gorgre had been chased out of his own castle.  “That’s…an unexpected development.”

Brant bowed, but seemed as if he had more to say.  Shayde sighed; as long as the man didn’t get too familiar, he was more than prepared to listen, if Brant was talking sense.  It was one of Jack’s strengths…and now one of his as well.

“You may speak freely to me, as long as you talk sense,” he said, and sensed Brant’s pride and relief.  He would have to see to it that Brant was rewarded; perhaps Generalship of the combined army when it was finally ready.  “Talk.”

“Your Lordship, if Jack has an army now, he could head up north on his own,” Brant said.  “He won’t need the support of Grand Mage Rinpotch or Grand Mage Gorgre, both of whom – according to the report – are locking heads.  He could just take his army and move before we could intercept him.”

“It is a possibility,” Shayde conceded.  “However, my ally could place an army in his path, and she could take out Jack’s magic-user.”

Brant nodded, his eyes still concerned.  It bothered Shayde more than he wanted to admit that Jack was copying his own deployments with magic-users, even with only one Mage.  Still, he only had one Mage, and wizards and warriors could form deep friendships…after all, hadn’t Akron had such a friendship before he died?  The Knight Errant had been a vital part of Akron’s power; might Jack and Martin have the same relationship?

“I have been thinking,” Brant said.  “Could we not make a deal with the other two Grand Mages?  Perhaps offer them their rank and lands, in exchange for preventing Jack and his people from reaching the Castle at the End of the Land?  Would they not want the war to end after we have defeated Grand Mage Gorgre like we did?”

“I have thought of that,” Shayde said, truthfully.  He had; he’d gone through all of Dominos reports, looking for political fault lines that could be used against the coalition, and found none – or at least none that could be aimed at Jack.  “Unfortunately, they know its war to the knife now.”

He sighed.  “I have a plan that might work against one of their members, but it will require some careful preparation.  Anything else?”

“We have a small collection of their weapons,” Brant said, his tone reluctant.  Shayde had kept the weapons under his own control, using Thrall slaves to handle them.  “We could move some of them up to the forces building up north, just in case.”

Shayde nodded.  “See to it,” he said.  “All of the attempts to duplicate the ammunition have failed, so once we run out of ammunition, it’s all over.”

Brant bowed and clearly decided not to push his luck any further, leaving the room with a second bow.  Shayde smiled to himself; Brant hadn’t worked out one of the other reasons for the delay.  With some effort, and no real threat, it might be possible to spilt the enemy coalition in half.  He knew, as he’d told Brant, that offering peace would not be believed – and he knew better than to swear an Oath on it – but there were so many disparate factions at Newcastle that they might just end up fighting each other, rather than Shayde himself.

Idiots, he thought.  Akron would have been able to hold them together by sheer force of personality; Rinpotch and Grand Mage Gorgre wouldn’t be able to do the same, even if they worked together.  Jack…was a wild card, someone with no allegiances outside his team, and few would trust him for just that reason.  His Mage would only make them more untrusting; hardly anyone received a magical rank without fighting their way up through the ranks.

He smiled suddenly, brightly.  Someone might just challenge Martin for his rank, perhaps even winning and destroying the unity of the team.  That meant…

“And at the same time, your team is your weak point,” Shayde murmured, considering the memories in his mind.  Absently, he wondered just what Jack had picked up from his mind, before dismissing it as an excise in futility.  If Jack’s team could be broken apart, then Jack himself would be no threat at all.

Shayde smiled once.  “And I know just where your weak point is,” he said to himself, before heading off to bed.  There was a lot to be done during the last couple of weeks before the invasion of Newcastle could even begin…

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Witchcraft

Magic doesn’t mean that you can have everything, Martin reminded himself, as he watched the training.  Akron had been fond of pointing that out; many magic-users got greedy for power and ended up destroying themselves before they could learn to handle their talents.  In many ways, it means the exact opposite.

The woman sitting, facing Jill and Dawn, was a near-perfect example of it.  Mother Rankin, one of Newcastle’s small number of witches, was old and grey; she walked without dignity or self-respect.  She was clearly a powerful witch, but she lacked the magic to attempt to gain a place on the Council of Wizardry – or perhaps the determination.  She’d objected, in no uncertain terms, to Martin watching the session, but Jill had overruled her.

“I think I have it,” Dawn said.  Angelina’s lover had shown a talent, even if it was one smaller than Jill’s – or Martin’s, for that matter.  In her hands, the beginnings of a healing spell glittered, a fascinatingly intricate magical force.  Martin examined it with interest; it was on a very different level to his spells.

Men kick down doors, he thought, remembering what Mother Rankin had said, the few times she’d condescended to explain anything to the male onlooker.  Women pick the locks.

“Well done,” Mother Rankin said.  “So, what will that heal?”

“Broken bones,” Dawn said.  Her face was alight with the glow of success; Jill merely looked pissed.  “If you apply this to a broken arm, it will cause the arm to heal itself.”  She paused, clearly about to begin a lecture, and then noticed Jill’s work.  “No, dear; too much power there.”

Jill’s face flushed.  Ever since crossing swords with the Power, her powers had begun to expand; Martin had tried to teach her a little control before she did something dreadful, which might have cost her now.  Witch-magic seemed to be based on small movements, rather than big dramatic flashes of magic, and Jill simply had too much magic for such fine control. 

“I’m trying,” she snapped.  “It just won’t hold!”

“You’re putting in too much power,” Mother Rankin said.  Her voice was far too superior for Martin’s tastes.  Judging from the expression on Jill’s face, she felt the same.  “Try limiting what you put in, like you’re sewing something.”

The wave of magic flickered in and out of existence, and then stabilised.  “Not too bad,” Mother Rankin said, doubtfully.  “Now, what is the point of open-ending the spells?”

She looked down at her two pupils.  “It’s so that the body itself can do the healing work,” Dawn said.  Her voice was gentle as she spoke.  “Magic cannot heal if it thinks that it’s meant to be healing a broken bone, rather than internal bleeding.”

“Exactly,” Mother Rankin said, beaming with pride.  Martin didn’t miss the quick, dry look she shot at Jill.  “No amount of magical senses will allow any witch to see what the damage is, so you cannot risk assuming that it is one particular kind of injury.  Instead, you have to generate a magical spell based on ‘heal,’ based around that concept, which will aid the body to draw on the magic to heal itself.”

Martin nodded thoughtfully as Mother Rankin spoke on.  One of his worst fears had been that Shayde would find a way to duplicate the weapons they’d brought from their own world, or at least to duplicate the ammunition, but some cautious experimentation over the past week suggested that it would be impossible, at least by magical means.

He smiled faintly.  One of his experiments had literally blown up in his face, and only his glasses had prevented him from being struck blind, or worse.  He could only hope that Shayde had had the same results.

“Now,” Mother Rankin said.  “We will turn our attentions to defence spells.”  She gave Martin an evil look.  “The presence of the Mage Martin gives us an opportunity that we would not normally have.”  She waved a hand at herself and Martin felt magic building and discharging around her…and then he recoiled from a truly ghastly smell.  It was rotten fish skins and broken toilets, burning flesh and used condoms, bloody towels and worse, all rolled into one.  The girls were dirty, disgusting, unclean…  He staggered backwards, clutching his nose, and managed to dispel it with an effort.

Jill stared at him, concerned.  “What was that?”  She asked.  “Martin?”

“That was disgusting,” Martin snapped.  It dawned on him that neither Dawn nor Jill had smelt anything.  “What was that?”

Mother Rankin grinned, revealing a mouth that had lost most of its teeth.  She gave Martin a smile that showed her gums, temping Martin to slam his fist in and remove the rest of her teeth.  She might be a skilled witch, but she was just so aggravating.  He clenched his fists behind his back, refusing to give into temptation.

“That was the anti-man defence spell,” Mother Rankin said.  Her smile became a leer.  “What girls like you will find out is that many men will see your body and think…”

“Prwhor, blimey, look at the tits on that?”  Martin snapped.  “I wouldn’t have thought that you would have found that a danger.”

Mother Rankin’s smile grew wider.  “Exactly,” she said.  “Men seem to pass over me these days, except men as old as I am.  However, when I was young, countless young men came courting me…and they didn’t want to buy the cow if they could get the milk for free.”

She smiled at his disgust.  Martin couldn’t tell if she was trying to be disgusting, or if she normally acted that way.  He wouldn’t have bet against it.  “You will discover that a lot of young men will try to force you to open your thighs to them…but if you use that spell, you will make them run for their lives.  Women, of course, cannot smell it.”

Jill frowned.  “That would have been useful earlier,” she said, brightening up.  “How do you cast it?”

Mother Rankin ran through the instructions quickly.  “It preys upon all male concerns about women,” she said.  “From their virginity to how clean they are, it forces them to find the girls disgusting.”

Martin scowled.  “What happens when they kill the girls in disgust?”

“Better to die a maiden than live as an unmarried girl, with everyone aware that you are no longer a maiden,” Mother Rankin said, and there was so much bitterness in her voice that Martin wondered if she had been a rape victim herself.  “Female magic is not intended to kill, mainly; it is intended to scare and frighten…and heal.”

Martin heard her and wondered; if female magic was that different, then how could any women take part in the Council of Wizardry.  There couldn’t be that much difference between the sexes, or Grand Mage Valastar wouldn’t hold her post.  Someone weak would have been challenged and removed by now, surely.

“I think some of my magic would like to do more than just frighten,” Jill said, and Martin felt a flicker of concern.  Jill had shown none of the pains that had affected him; just what had she picked up from the Power?  “Why can’t you show me more than silly games?”

Mother Rankin drew herself up to her full height.  “These are not silly games,” she said, and sincerity dripped from every word she spoke.  “Fighting in a war is for a man to do; they are such violent beasts.  Women are meant to heal; we bring them into the world, we look after them, we marry them and finally we lay them out to rest.”

She didn’t even look at Martin.  “Men may glory in war,” she said.  “They’re fools; they all believe that evil will never happen to them, until it does and then its normally too late for them to do anything about it.  Men…will do the worst things in war, from turning the enemy into frogs to slaughtering them with glee.  Women…know better.

“Its us who raise the children,” she said.  “We have to think in the long-term, not get lost amid all the blood and slaughter.  You have a remarkable gift, more power than I’m really comfortable seeing in your hands, and it will destroy you if you use it too much.”

Jill glared at her.  “I want to be with my love,” she said.

“That’s your job,” Mother Rankin said.  “You have to look after him and care for him.”

“And fight beside him,” Jill said.  “Every warrior needs a wizard nearby.”

With that, she stormed out of the room.  Martin was about to follow her, but paused.  Mother Rankin was shaking her head slowly.  “That poor child,” she said.  “Her magic will destroy her, in the end…”

Martin glared at her.  “And what about mine?”  He asked.  “What will that do to me?”

Mother Rankin shrugged.  “I have no idea,” she said.  “Witches don’t often train more than one woman at a time, you know; if Lord Ruben hadn’t made it very compulsory, I would have refused to do anything with her.  Somehow, she’s tapping into more magic than she should be able to tap into, and that is very bad.”

She shook her head slowly.  “Male magic-users are eventually destroyed by others, or by careless mistakes,” she said.  “Apart from the handful of female wizards, who poses a threat to the witches?”

***
“Somehow, Jill is tapping into more magic than she should be,” Martin said, that night.  “Has she spoken to you about any problems?”

Sumrita shook her head.  Now that they were officially a couple, they didn’t mind some of the teasing they got from the others; they’d been given a room fit for a lord, with a large bed and a warm fire.  Martin had felt slightly guilty; in the first week their soldiers had suffered in the courtyard before proper camps could be set up.

“No,” she said shortly.  “I have attempted to talk with her about other matters, such as contraception, but she hasn’t said much at all about magic.”

Martin blinked.  “Do you think that she could be pregnant?”

“I don’t think so,” Sumrita said.  “Apparently, she started her period three days ago.”  She frowned.  “Here, women sleep apart from the men when they’re bleeding.”

“Jack won’t be happy,” Martin said, examining her.  A sudden thought struck him.  “Are you pregnant?”

Sumrita laughed at him.  Her laugh was deep and rich.  “It’s a bit late to ask that,” she said.  “We’ve done it…what, twelve times?”

Martin did the math.  “Around there,” he said.  “We couldn’t do it during the march, alas; it wouldn’t have been fair to anyone else.”

“Never stopped some of the young men and women from Babylon,” Sumrita said.  “Repressing the sexual urge that far, even by magic, is harmful; apparently the men didn’t even know that they could masturbate.”  She frowned.  “There will be pregnancies then, but I’m not one of them.  I had a contraceptive implant from before I joined the institute, and it won’t have run out yet.”

She shook her head.  “They know more about contraception than I expected here,” she said.  “There are herbs that provide a limited form of contraception, ones that almost act like a natural contraceptive pill.  Quite apart from magical healing, they know more than any women back home would know, at least one who wasn’t a doctor or had taken a first aid course.”

She sighed.  “Unfortunately, the men don’t seem interested in learning,” she said.  “I honestly don’t know why; could you master some of the healing spells?”

“I’ve tried,” Martin admitted.  “They’re tricky, far harder than any normal spell.  I think, to some extent, it’s really a way of providing power for the body to use to heal itself, rather than directing the healing.  Magically setting a bone might be harmful if that wasn’t the real problem…”

Sumrita nodded as his voice trailed off.  “Be careful what you wish for,” she said.

“It’s like a computer program,” Martin said, and smiled at the thought.  As silly as it sounded, he had a suspicion that that was exactly what it was.  “You have to be precise, most of the time, because the programs can flow out of control.  I wonder…do you think that the Powers were formed that way?”

“Mad computer programs?”  Sumrita said.  She rolled over to straddle him.  “What about the dragons?”

Martin found that two very attractive breasts, bobbing admiringly near him, were very simulating indeed.  He wanted to impress her a lot; she meant everything to him.  His first lover, and he wanted her to be his last.  He leaned up to kiss her and stroke her, before replying.  

“Something that size shouldn’t be able to fly,” he said.  “For that matter, it shouldn’t be able to talk either.  However, they did do a computer model of bumblebees – and concluded that they couldn’t fly either.”

Sumrita laughed.  “Score one for the Lord of All Things,” she said.

Martin looked away; her motions as she laughed were very distracting.  “Logic suggests that a dragon cannot fly,” he said.  “However, magic trumps logic – which suggests that dragons evolved to use the magic field for their own use, such as remaining aloft instead of crashing down like that whale in Suffolk.”

“Unless some fool of a Grand Mage created them, like Sigmund,” Sumrita suggested.  “If Shayde has spiders and Akron created intelligent hawks, why can’t another make dragons?”

Martin shivered.  The wards around the castle were supposed to keep out spiders, but Shayde had shown himself to be far too adaptable in the war.  What would he do next?  Spiders had taken part in the attack on Grand Mage Gorgre, along with the dragons, and those wards had been brought crashing down.

“I rather hope that no one has that idea in future,” he said.  “I was wondering, however; why not a computer virus designed to attach itself to a dragon and cripple itself.  It won’t work against a wizard, because a wizard could counter it, but a dragon…?  If it doesn’t have intelligent control over its magic, then it might not even know how it flies.”

Sumrita smiled.  “Neat idea,” she said.  “There aren’t computers here, are there?”

Martin gaped at her, and then realised that she was joking.  “I tried to make one here, seeing I do know how they go together,” he said.  “It didn’t work properly; the dampening effect must affect even a machine built here.”  He frowned.  “If that effect exists outside the Brass Walls, then there won’t be a high tech civilisation here.”

Sumrita shrugged.  “I hardly think it matters at the moment,” she said.  “Now, do you want to know something else about this world?”

Martin lifted an eyebrow.  “More bad news?”

“The men here have no idea how to treat a woman properly,” Sumrita said, placing her face close to his.  Their lips met for a long moment.  “It’s all ‘wham, bang, thank you, madam’ here.”  She lifted herself above his erection, pushing down and impaling herself on him.  Her smile was delightful; her voice a husky whisper.  “I am so glad I have you.”

***
Shayde’s requests for information had come daily; the Wizard Dominos had attempted to comply with the demands, as much as he could.  As Akron’s former apprentice, he was required to attend all of the meetings, but most of them were boring – or panicky.  With Cornwall - Grand Mage Gorgre’s fortress – having fallen, a lot of the lords had become scared.

They want to surrender, but they fear what Shayde will give their peasants from them, Dominos thought, and felt again the crippling guilt that passed through his body.  They’re scared; they don’t think that we can hold Shayde off, when he comes to attack us.  If they knew about me, then…they would kill me, and…

He took a breath as he stepped into the other’s room.  Wizard Mathews was actually slightly younger than Dominos, one who had learnt his magic himself, rather than becoming an apprentice.  When Dominos had been younger, they’d known each other, but Mathews had been jealous of Dominos and hadn’t continued their meetings.

“Wizard Dominos,” Mathews said.  “What are you here to talk about?”

I wouldn’t be here at all if I could avoid it, Dominos thought.  Shayde’s orders had been utterly specific; they weren’t even against Dominos’ own will, except it involved dealing with Mathews.

“Wizard Mathews,” he said.  “It’s been a while.”

Mathews’ looked older and stronger than he had been when they’d last met, face-to-face.  A small brown goatee struck down from his face, the only hint of hair at all.  His slim face was harder too; lines were etched into it from the strain of learning magic without a tutor.

“Yes,” Mathews said flatly.  He held a rank he’d earned, but he burned for more.  “You said that you have a matter of interest to discuss?”

Dominos would have flushed at the treatment if he’d felt that he had time.  “Do you find the newcomer’s rise to the rank of Mage insulting?”

Mathews inclined his head.  “Of course,” he said.  “Do you not find it insulting to all wizards everywhere?”

“Yes,” Dominos said.  “I happen to know that it was a lucky shot; among the spells that my former tutor taught him was one for splitting a person from their sources of power.”

Mathews stared at him.  “He could be defeated by someone with no sources of outside power,” he said.  “Are you certain?”

“I take my Oath on it,” Dominos said, casting a basic light spell after speaking the fateful words.  The spell worked; he hadn’t lied.  “Unfortunately, I also gave my Oath that I wouldn’t challenge him myself, whatever the circumstances.”

Mathews didn’t ask for proof; his mind was clearly elsewhere.  “I could challenge him,” he said.  “If you can’t take him, then…”

“If you challenge him and beat him, I give you my word that I will never challenge you,” Dominos said, anticipating Mathews chain of thought.  “Are you going to challenge?”

The Wizard Mathews smiled.  “I have been a Wizard too long,” he said.  “If its as easy as you say, then…yes, I will challenge.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Challenge

Jack smiled once as Martin waved to him as he re-entered the castle.  A week and a half of hard work later, and they might just have the nucleus of a powerful army.  From the reports from Cornwall, it would all be needed, along with as many magicians as they could scrape up.  He was certain that Shayde was already using his magicians to good advantage, just to coordinate attacks against Grand Mage Gorgre, and it wouldn’t be long before he looked north.

“Martin,” he said.  “How goes your project?”

He was reluctant to discuss the exact project out loud.  Martin understood.  “It’s going well,” he said, as they walked into a conference room.  It had once been a nobleman’s bedchamber, before Jack had been offered it and converted it into a meeting room.  “What about the army?”

“It could be worse,” Jack said seriously.  “Fortunately, many of them are professional soldiers, or at least as this dimension ever gets to professionals.  Many of them have bad habits, such as looting, rape and general nastiness, but Angelina is breaking them of the habits.”

Martin sat down and crossed his legs.  “Poor bastards,” he said, waving his hand in the air.  “Basic anti-espionage spell,” he explained.  “Someone has been trying to spy on us.”

Jack stared at him.  “Who?”

Martin shrugged.  “It could be anyone,” he said.  Jack smiled; he seemed to have grown into his new role.  “We’ve pissed off so many people, from Shayde to some of the lords here, that it could be any of them.”

Jack sighed.  “There are times when I think that they don’t want to win,” he said.  “Yesterday, they were in agreement about keeping our little army together.  The day before, they wanted to split it up and use it as a training cadre.  The day before that, they wanted to place it under the command of the War Council…and today, they wanted to give priority to arming their own personal forces.”

“I’ll leave the politics in your hands,” he said.  “I managed to convince twelve magic-users to join the army, but most of them are prima donnas.  All of them think that they’re either too valuable to risk in combat, or that they should be seeking out enemy magicians and killing them…except we don’t have anyone above Wizard level in the force.  None of the other Mages, except me, were interested in being part of a united force.”

“Just like the war on terror,” Jack said.  Martin blinked at him.  “It was safe for the enemy to hate us and they got a lot of popular support through that.  It wasn’t safe to hate their own rulers, who would hardly hesitate before turning objectors into dead bodies.  We cannot force them to comply with what we want them to do.”

Martin nodded once.  “I don’t think that that’s possible,” he said.  “Shayde at the walls, with a massive army, might convince them, but…”

There was a sharp knock on the door.  A man stepped in; Jack didn’t recognise him, but he recognised the attitude; biker man, looking for trouble.  He wasn’t impressed; the most dangerous man he’d ever met had looked like a harmless doctor before he sprang.  The goatee made him look childish; military-wizard chic.

Asshole, he thought coldly.

“You are the Mage Martin,” the man – boy – said.  He could hardly be older than twenty, magic or no magic.  He might have had power, but no responsibility; Jack felt a flicker of disgust.  

“Yes,” Martin said calmly.  “And who might you be?”

“I am the Wizard Mathews,” Mathews said.  He spat once; the little spot of saliva landing on Martin’s chest.  Jack started forward in anger, and then noticed the Wizard Dominos entering behind Mathews.  Dominos held up a hand; halting Jack.  “I formally demand that you submit to me and surrender your rank to me.”

Martin’s face flickered.  It took Jack a moment to realise that he was trying not to laugh.  “You have to be out of your head,” he said.  Jack felt a flicker of magic building around Martin.  “There’s a war on and you want to deprive us of your services?”

“The challenge has been issued,” Dominos said.  Jack gave him a sharp look; Dominos seemed…oddly concerned about the whole business.  “It cannot be rejected.”

Jack glared at him.  “We have a war to win,” he snapped.

“The challenge has been issued,” Mathews said, repeating Dominos.  “If you do not select an hour, the Power of London will have no choice, but to kill you.”

Martin seemed to be struggling against something.  “This crazy dimension,” he burst out, as if he was struggling against words rising in his throat.  “Tomorrow then, where?”

“Tomorrow,” Mathews repeated.  “I choose the main field, outside the town.  Dominos will make the arrangements.  Until then…”

He bowed once and left.  Dominos glared towards the slamming door.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  Jack was certain that he was lying.  “Once the challenge is issued, there’s no turning back.”

“Madness,” Jack said.  “There’s no way that it can be put off until after the war?”

“Not after the challenge has been issued,” Dominos said.  “Once that’s done, you’re committed.”

He left, following Mathews.  “I felt the words of acceptance rising,” Martin said.  “I couldn’t help myself.”  He winced.  “The Power of London must give us…these commands at the same time as promoting us,” he said.  “I wonder…”

“I’m going to talk to Rinpotch,” Jack said.  He stood up, determined.  “There has to be some way out of this without killing one of you.”

Martin scowled.  “And if there isn’t?”

“Then you kick the shit out of him,” Jack said.  “You kicked the shit out of that Father Stone guy; you can kick the shit out of Mathews.”

“I’m going to have to kill him,” Martin said flatly.  His face darkened.  “One month and a half in this dimension, and I have killed.  If I fight him, I will kill him, or he will kill me.”

***
Rinpotch was as polite and mild-mannered as ever, but he couldn’t offer Jack any help.  “I’m afraid that the Wizard Dominos is right,” he said.  “The only way to rise up is to kill someone above you.”

“Grand Mage,” Jack said, “there is a war on.  And I’m starting to think that you’re not serious about fighting it.”

Rinpotch glared at him.  “What do you expect?”  He asked.  “There are plenty of wizards who have been patiently building up their spells for a crack at one of the mages…and someone like Martin comes along and gets it all for nothing.  Don’t you think that they resent it?”

“Martin may have more natural skill,” Jack said.  “You didn’t answer my question, did you?”

“I want this war to be won,” Rinpotch said.  “It’s just that convincing everyone to go in the same direction is hard.  A lot of people think that surrendering is all that will allow them…”

“To keep their power and status?”  Jack asked.  “We’ve been over this?”

“Shayde just defeated a Grand Mage and his army, and did it in less than a day,” Rinpotch said.  “We are sure, somehow, that that won’t happen to us, but what else will he think of?”

“Then we should strike now,” Jack said.  “Take the army; there are a good three thousand men.  Gather all of the magic-workers into a single force.  Head into Grand Mage Valastar’s and kill the bitch!”

“There are seven Mages here, counting Martin,” Rinpotch said.  “With the exception of Martin – perhaps – each of them thinks that they should be wearing my robes.  None of them would dare to challenge Akron; they will dare to challenge me.  So far, a challenge has only been avoided because of the war – and the fact that as Mages, they have almost as much to lose as I have if Shayde wins.”

“Then they should be putting all of their efforts into defeating him,” Jack snapped.

“You make it sound easy,” Rinpotch said.  “I wish…I wish that I had never become a Mage.  It seemed such an easy thing to do at the time.”

Jack frowned.  A thought had occurred to him.  “A question,” he said.  “Has anyone ever lost a duel and survived?”

Rinpotch shook his head.  “There were those who were transfigured by the duel, but they were trapped in their form,” he said.  “What would be the point, if it were not to the death?”

Jack looked at Rinpotch and shuddered.  He knew now what they could do…but the cost would be terrible.  Somehow, that didn’t bother him at all.

***
The man smiled a crooked smile as he entered the duelling ground.  Supporters were not allowed on the field, of course, but they could sit in stands and watch the duel.  It wasn’t a very popular sport, not like jousting; there was always the danger of getting accidentally caught up in the magic and transformed or killed.  This time, the man was amused to note, there were dozens of spectators.

He shook his head behind his cloak as he took a seat.  Someone had been busy overnight; the spectators had flags to wave, one with a golden ‘M,’ the other with a green ‘M.’ The spectators hadn’t quite got the idea yet; many of them were waving both flags.

A woman, clearly a noble woman by her dress, took a seat next to him.  “And who will you be supporting?”  She asked.  “Me; I’m supporting Mathews.”

The man laughed.  “Me?  I’ll support the winner, of course.”

***
“You have to call this off,” Sumrita insisted.  “You might get killed.”

Martin frowned, feeling like a bastard as he looked into her eyes, bright with unshed tears.  He knew that she was right, except he couldn’t call off the fight…and he didn’t want to.  Something in the magic that went along with the title of Mage wouldn’t let him; he wanted to fight, to prove that he had a right to the title.

“Because I might lose?”  He asked.  “A strange reason for refusing a duel.”

She glared at him, stamping her foot.  “I don’t want to lose you,” she protested.  “Martin – I love you…”

“I love you too,” he said.  He knew now that that was true.  “Listen, I don’t have a choice; the magic won’t let me.  I love you and I will come back to you.”

“I won’t be coming,” she said.  “I can’t bear to watch, whatever happens.”

Martin understood.  He pulled her into a hug and kissed her.  “I’ll come back,” he promised, and left the room.  Outside, Rinpotch waited for him.

“It’s time,” was all he said.

“I know,” Martin said.  He carried a staff in one hand; one he’d made himself at Rinpotch’s suggestion.  He wasn’t convinced that they were truly needed for magic – he hadn’t used one for the duel with Father Stone and Akron hadn’t used one for the fight with the Power – but not using one might give Mathews the advantage.

They stepped out of the castle, walking together down towards the northern entry to the ground.  Martin almost stopped as he saw the hordes of spectators, but sheer determination pushed him on, forcing down the butterflies in his stomach.  Rinpotch had briefed him carefully on the procedure; he would enter from the north and Mathews would enter from the south.

First, however, the two wardens had to check that all was in readiness.  Rinpotch bowed once to him as they reached the line marking the perimeter of the field, and left him, slipping inside to meet Grand Mage Gorgre, the other warden.  The two Grand Mages bowed to one another, and then tested the magic between them.

“You enter the field and take your place,” Rinpotch had told him.  “Once the whistle blows, the wards will come down and if you try to leave deliberately, they’ll fry you.”

Martin took a breath and stood as tall and proud as he could.  He could see Gorgre, waddling around like a vast crimson toad, checking the wards.  Rinpotch, a tall thin figure, walked the other way around, finally stopping at the exact point where he’d started, before walking into the centre.

“The wards hold,” they shouted together.  The magic made certain that everyone heard; a massive cheer ran up.  “Let the challenged enter the field!”

Martin stepped inside the wards, feeling the tingle as he passed though, walking into the centre of the field.  He bowed once to each of the Grand Mages, before taking up a stance on his staff and waiting.  The crowd howled its approval of him, just as they would approve Mathews.

Bastards, he thought.  The certainty that Mathews would probably feel the same way was no consolation.

“Let the challenger take his place,” Rinpotch said.  As Martin’s second for the match, he had the right to summon Mathews.  “Let him enter the field!”

The crowd howled again as Mathews entered.  Martin studied him and wasn’t impressed; like himself, Mathews had discarded normal clothing for sensible fighting clothes, at least when fighting with magic.  A single bullet, aimed through the chest, would probably kill him without difficultly; the silver-styled chain mail would tear his chest to ribbons.

A pity I can’t just plug the varmint, some part of his mind whispered, in a very bad American accent.  He met Mathews’s eyes and smiled at him, projecting a confidence he didn’t feel.  Quite deliberately, he lazed on his staff, and saw Mathews’s eyes flash with anger.  He watched as the two Grand Mages removed themselves from the firing line and came to a full stance, waiting.

And waiting…

The two Grand Mages seemed to be arguing over something, probably over who got to blow the whistle.  Finally, Gorgre won; lifting a silver whistle to his mouth and taking a deep breath.  Martin had a second to wonder if he had the breath to blow the whistle, and then a long shrill mournful sound echoed across the field.  Quickly, he muttered incantations, triggering the first of his own spells.

Mathews didn’t waste time; he brought his hand up and directed a beam of light at Martin.  The light burst against Martin’s shield; giving him a boost of confidence, even as he pulled magic out of the air to throw back at Mathews.  The light beam trick, which had worked on Stone, failed on Mathews.

It would have been pretty stupid for me not to have invented a counter, Martin thought, as Mathews’s shield started to reflect the light as well, breaking it up into a prism of different colours.  It would have been beautiful, were it not so deadly.  Perhaps…

“Flambé,” he shouted, using one of the first spells that Akron had taught him, and then plumbing as much power as he could into it.  Carefully, cannily, he didn’t direct it at Mathews’s shield, but at the ground around him; with the extra power the ground burst into flame, scorching Mathews, who jumped back with a curse.  The spectators roared with laughter.

Mathews’s expression darkened and he moved his hand in a complex pattern, sending a wave of darker magic towards Martin.  For a long moment, it seemed to do nothing, and then Martin felt his hand turn cold and hard.  He stared at his hand as his fist slowly became stone.  A wave of panic struck him, tapping into enough power to break Mathews’s spell, and granting him the strength to generate a wave of physical force to throw Mathews back hard.

For a long moment, he thought he’d won as Mathews plunged helplessly towards the wards, but he slammed into them, like an invisible wall, and fell down on his legs.  Before Martin could do more than repair his hand, turning it back to flesh, Mathews came at him again, shouting a spell that caused stones to fly up from the ground, slamming into Martin’s shield.  

“I’m through messing with you,” Martin yelled at him, and the spectators roared.  He concentrated, summoning all of his power, and a massive snake lunged out of the ground, its jaws dripping water as it flashed towards Mathews.  The Wizard gaped at it for a long moment, then cast a whole series of counter spells, one after the other, finally hitting one that make the snake vanish.  The spectators cheered.

Martin wasn’t wasting time; he stepped forward, holding up his staff.  Mathews narrowed his eyes as they faced one another, almost daring each other to strike first.  High overhead, birds cawed as they watched the first; the spectators grew silent.  Martin met Mathews’s eyes and smiled; Mathews seemed to wonder if he were beaten…

And he lunged forward, using his staff as a weapon, rather than casting any spells.  Martin knew a little about primitive weapons – the Thande Institute had insisted that they learn the basics – but not enough to hold off against a skilled staff-fighter.  Mathews stuck Martin’s staff hard, and then slammed his staff into Martin’s hand, sending his staff flying into the air, and then he brought the end of his staff directly into Martin’s chest….

And Martin shot backwards as if a rocket powered him.  He smiled suddenly; the spell hadn’t exactly worked as he had planned, but it had saved his life.  It didn’t have a long time to work, but it had successfully translated the force that would have killed him into a motion instead, cancelling gravity for just long enough to save him.

Martin saw Mathews’s expression and knew that it was over.  He had fight left, and Mathews had…none.  “It’s over,” he said, angrily.  The Mage-Magic bored through him, forcing him on, and he hated it.  He loved being magic…and he hated being a Mage.

Mathews looked into Martin’s eyes and knew.  “I…”

Martin glared at him.  “Just shut up,” he screamed, and threw his magic at Mathews.  Seconds later, there was nothing left of his challenger, but dust and ashes, hanging in the air in the shape of a man, slowly breaking apart into nothing.

And then the crowd went wild.

***
That night, Martin couldn’t sleep.  He’d been feasted by Rinpotch, as per tradition, and then he’d been reunited with Sumrita, but something was calling him outside.  He knew that he could resist, that he should resist, but somehow…he wanted to know who could call him like that, and why?

The field where Mathews had died looked dark and sinister in the moonlight.  The two Grand Mages had dismantled the wards, but no one had set foot within the field, perhaps out of respect for the dead.  Martin entered the field and looked down at the dust on the grass; no one had bothered to even bury his challenger.

The sound of two hands clapping brought him spinning around, hands raised to use magic, and he saw a dark hooded figure standing there.  Two long white hands clapped once more, and then stopped.  Martin stared at the figure; he couldn’t see any face at all under the hood.

“Who are you?”  He demanded.  The figure drew back its hood.  “You!”

Chapter Forty: Temptation

Martin stared.  There was no mistaking the figure; they’d met twice before.  His skin was paler than it had been before, almost pasty-white, seeming to almost glow in the darkness.  His dark hair seemed longer somehow, less neatly groomed in the semi-darkness.  He stared; how had he gotten here?  How could he?

“Good evening, Martin,” Shayde said.  His voice held nothing, but congratulation.  “I watched your victory today.”

Martin felt his senses reel, and then pulled himself together.  “I trust that you enjoyed watching,” he said icily.  “Were you intimidated in any way?”

“Oh, I enjoyed watching it a lot,” Shayde said.  He seemed faintly amused at the mere suggestion that he should be intimidated.  “For someone who’s only been here two months, you have developed very quickly indeed.”

“Thank you,” Martin said.  “So…are you here to fight?  Or should we compare notes on the weather?”

Shayde smiled.  “Did my former tutor tell you anything about Wizard Oaths?”  He asked.  “I give you my Oath that I will not seek to harm you personally tonight, as long as you don’t seek to harm me.”

“How reassuring,” Martin said.  Something caught up with him.  “Hang on – Akron was your tutor?”

Shayde inclined his head in a patrician bow.  “Alas, poor Akron,” he said.  “I knew him.”  Martin glared at him in mute silence.  “Yes, he used to teach me – until he decided that I was no longer…fascinating.  We had such interesting times, but eventually…he wanted everyone to do as he wanted, even me.”

His gaze slipped down to Martin.  “We have that in common, all of us,” he said.  “Yourself, me, Dominos…all men controlled by that great and very human man.”

“Dominos burnt your spiders,” Martin said hotly.  Shayde’s expression darkened.  “How did you get here anyway?  Why?”

“So many questions,” Shayde said, smiling in a truly disturbing way.  “How?  Well, I do have methods of transport from one land to another, or didn’t Rinpotch know that?  Why?  I heard about your duel and I wanted to watch.”

“I trust that you enjoyed it,” Martin sneered, repeating himself.  “How did you lure me out here?”

“You make it sound as if I meant you harm,” Shayde said.  “Have I not sworn not to hurt you tonight, unless you hurt me first?”  His gaze became openly taunting.  “Of course, you could strike me first, and you might even kill me in the first blast.”

Rage and temptation surged up within Martin.  He could do it; he could end the threat once and for all…except he was tired and exhausted and knew that he would lose.  Shayde’s lips twitched; he might not be able to read thoughts – Akron had dismissed that as impossible – but he could follow expressions.

“No,” he said.  “What do you want here?”

Shayde beckoned him towards a stand, one that had been designed for nobles, and sat on it, waving Martin to a second seat.  “I just wanted to talk,” he said.

“I don’t believe you,” Martin said.  “Why not talk to Christina?”  A thought struck him.  “What have you done with her, by the way?”

“She thinks – or thought – that none of you liked her,” Shayde said.  “I have opened her mind and explored every nook and cranny of her information relating to you.  I know your file, Martin; I know that you were suspected of being a draft dodger – whatever that is – and I know that you had a long history of being bullied at school.”

He smiled.  “We are the same,” he said.

“We are not the same,” Martin exploded.  “You kill people!”

Shayde pointed one long finger towards the dust pile at the centre of the field.  “You killed him,” he said.  “Alas, poor Mathews; I knew him too.”

There was a long moment of silence.  Martin felt the guilt over killed Mathews rising up inside him, matched only by a cool disdain for anyone who would challenge a Mage and fail to defeat him.  When Shayde broke the silence, he did so in a tone of wry sympathy.

“I killed my tormentors,” he said, his voice as calm as if he were ordering dinner.  “I had found the nest of the spiders and made an agreement with them.  Learning how to use my magic was simple; I already had a link to the spiders…and considerable knowledge of how magic worked.  I helped the spiders – those neat little insects – become a group mind and…”

“Spiders aren’t insects,” Martin said.

Shayde lifted a single dark eyebrow.  “I beg your pardon?”

“Spiders are not insects,” Martin said.  “They’re not related to insects at all, I think.”

“Our culture knows little of such matters,” Shayde said.  “Your society knows so much more, information that I can use to build my empire.  Do you know; Christina was a font of information on the most successful cultures in your world?”

“I knew,” Martin said, thinking desperately.  “What have you done to her?”

Shayde looked sharply at him.  “Is that a hint of concern I hear in your voice?”  He asked.  “She’s in Thrall to me, of course.”

Martin stood up, glaring at him.  “Release her,” he snapped.  “Let her go!”

Shayde’s eyes met his.  “Make me,” he dared.  Martin stared at him, fighting down the rage that burned within him.  “Come on; finish me, if you can.”

“You know I can’t,” Martin said.  He sat down again.  “What do you want here, Shayde?  How did you even get so close to the castle?”

“There are some clever wards around here,” Shayde said conversationally.  “Some of them keep out my spiders, very clever indeed, I might add.  Others keep out most of my attempts to spy within the walls; still others are aimed at keeping my scaly friends away.  It’s quite a comprehensive effort, but it had flaws.

“Akron must have told you that wards are always limited,” he continued.  “Didn’t he?  The more you want a ward to do, the shorter the line has to be.  A ward designed at keeping me out, personally, could only cover the castle’s interior.”  He held up a hand; something glittered within his hand.  “And to answer your next question…”

Martin examined it thoughtfully.  It was a small vial, filled with a reddish liquid…

“Blood,” he snapped.  “That’s the blood you took back when we first met!”

Shayde nodded.  “I used it to call you,” he said.  “How else could I have done it?  If I’d sent an email, would you have been able to receive it?”  He saw Martin’s expression.  “Oh yes, I learned a great deal about your world.”

He stood up and paced around, as if great power forced him to remain moving.  “You have people travelling across entire universes, such as your team.  You fought a war against one bunch of baddies…and my universe is puny compared to yours…except we have magic, and some of your tech doesn’t work here.

“Oh yes, I know about your technology, and how you think the Castle at the End of the Land is somehow preventing the more advanced of your tech from working,” he continued.  “Do you think that that is accurate?”

Martin looked up at him.  “We believe so, as well you know,” he said quietly.  “If we can reach the Castle at the End of the Land, we might be able to go home.”

Shayde leaned down to look at him, meeting his eyes.  “Your world,” he whispered.  “Your world, where being smart is somehow ‘not cool.’  Your world, where you have little power that comes from being smarter than anyone else.  Your world, where football stars and girls with awful voices are the heroes.  Your world, where the big ugly strong men get the girls.  Your world, where the smart people who know how to make the world better are constantly ignored in favour of people who make the world feel better when they lie to them.

“Your world, Martin Anderson, where you have no power at all.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about us,” Martin said.

Shayde ignored him.  “If you use those brains in your head, those that give you the ability to control the magic field, to shut down the Castle at the End of the Land, will you still be magic?”

Martin stared down at his hands.  “I don’t know,” he said.  He felt scared and horrified at the same time.  “God help me; I don’t know.”

“You have a girl,” Shayde said.  His voice was relentlessly soft, probing.  “Will she still be with you if you are no longer a magic-user?  Will you still be able to impress her enough to sleep with you without your magic?”

Martin took a breath and lashed out.  “What is it to you anyway?”  He demanded.  “Why do you fucking care?”

“You have a remarkable talent,” Shayde said, keeping his voice mild.  The subject changed slightly.  “Do you know what I’ve been doing in my territory?”

Martin said nothing.  Shayde smiled at the evidence of inner conflict.  “I have been promoting – horror of horrors – commoners to positions of great power and responsibility.  Do you remember some of the members of that army that she-man of yours was trying to raise?  They have joined me.  The Clockwork Guild is working on duplicating and improving the weapons you were kind enough to design for the manufactures in Akron’s territory.  In two weeks, I have almost the entire peasant population behind me.

“It gets better,” he continued.  “I have stripped the useless nobles of most of their power.  If all of the power is in my hands, and in the hands of my civil servants, the peasants will have much better lives, don’t you think?  Peasants can become civil servants; people who care enough about their comrades not to grind them into the dirt for amusement.  Did you know – in one village the girls and half of the boys were ritually deflowered by the noble?  I killed that noble personally – and the villagers would walk through fire for me.”

He smiled once, coldly.  “Do you really want to wipe that out?

“Akron never had any real imagination,” he said.  “He was a commoner-born, like me, but he never did anything to improve the rest of the commoners.  The nobles, parasites on society…”

A thought had occurred to Martin.  “You sound just like Jack,” he said.

“I have some of his…thought patterns,” Shayde said mildly.  He smiled.  “You should start worrying about how much of mine he might have picked up himself.”

Martin took a breath.  “You have done good things,” he said.  “What happens when a magic-user wants power?”

“All of the magic-users will be trained,” Shayde said.  “They will swear Oaths to uphold the system.”

“Your system,” Martin said, finally finding firm ground.  He pulled himself to his feet, facing Shayde.  “That’s the detail you haven’t told anyone; it’s your system and it always will be.  Your civil service may not be as bad as the nobles, but it will grow out of even your control soon enough, or that of your heirs.”

He stared at Shayde.  “There was a comic book character in our world,” he said.  “She ran a city, you see, and she was credited with making the trains run on time.  She said not to be stupid; she didn’t make the trains run on time, she killed the people who didn’t make the trains run on time.  That series became a really cool wankers movie; made more people suffer from Wankers Doom than any other movie in that year.

“But that’s not the point,” he said, taking a breath.  “Your system won’t work if you have some wizard in a castle dispensing justice; who are you going to trust to handle it?  I’m sure there are some ways to get around Oaths – and of course, what about interpretation of Oaths?  Who do you trust?”

“You,” Shayde said.

Martin stared at him.  “You have got to be kidding me,” he said.  “What makes you think that I will even consider joining you?”

Shayde said nothing.  “You have got to be out of your mind,” Martin protested, half-wishing that someone was here to see him.  “What could you possibly offer me?”

Shayde turned, his face half-hidden in the darkness.  “Power,” he said.  “Martin – for once in our brief acquaintance, put aside our rivalries and consider the matter as fellow gentlemen of the art.  The entire problem is a fascinating one, don’t you think?”

Martin snorted.  “Our brief acquaintance has largely consisted of you trying to murder me,” he said.  “You would have killed us in your castle.  You sent dragons after us.  You’re up here…”

“I swore that I wouldn’t harm you,” Shayde said quietly.  “I always keep my Oaths.”

Martin glared at him.  “How much power can you offer me to make it worth my while to abandon my friends and comrades?”

“The problem is fascinating,” Shayde said.  “This world can be changed, Martin; it might even become like yours in two or three generations.  But if you seek to continue towards the Castle at the End of the Land, every Power, power and magic-user will turn his hand against you.  The Castle at the End of the Land is the very linchpin of magic, Martin; didn’t Akron tell you that?  If you threaten that, you threaten everyone whose power depends upon magic, from the Powers to the humblest village witch.”

He smiled at Martin.  “If you joined me, your friends could be prevented from reaching the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  His voice sounded sincere; Martin didn’t know what to think.  “You could help me to make the system work as a new Grand Mage; you could help to train other magic-users, moulding them into the sort of men we would need to make a genuine united nation.  We wouldn’t even have to kill them; without you, the mission will fail.”

He extended a hand.  “Martin, join me and make the dream come true,” he said.

***
Shayde watched Martin grimly as the younger man struggled within his soul, the desire for power – common to all humans – struggling with the desire to return home, or to remain loyal to his friends and lover.  Martin was young, young enough to be tempted, but did he have the nerve to refuse?

Martin shook his head.  “No,” he said flatly.

Shayde felt a quick flicker of disappointment, matched only by amusement and curiosity.  “Why?”  He asked.  “Just out of curiosity, why not?”

Martin stared at him.  Shayde studied the young man’s face, so much like his own in some ways, so different in others.  Martin, whatever he thought about the matter, carried the mark of a powerful wizard; a mark that could never be hidden from one with the eyes to look at it.  Given time, Martin would be powerful indeed – but the politics at Newcastle would never allow them the time they needed.

Shayde felt his lip curl with sudden amusement.  There was a loophole, just as there was a loophole in his Oath to Martin, but would Martin find it and have the nerve to try for it?  Shayde almost suggested it; if he tried and failed, he would be dead.  There wasn’t any real point in giving him additional ideas, however; he kept his mind closed and waited patiently.

“No,” Martin said again.  Shayde wondered if the young man knew why he’d said no himself.  “I don’t trust you, Shayde; you set out to have me and my friends killed.  You’re building a state that can only end up dominating the lives of its people far worse than the nobles, no matter your intentions.”

The rejection hurt more than Shayde had expected.  He brushed the feeling aside, careful to keep it off his face, and listened, saying nothing.  Martin paced too and froe, spitting out words as fast as he could form them, perhaps determined to say his piece before it was too late.  Shayde smiled; did he know what the joke was?

“There’s a saying that Jack quoted to me once from another comic book,” Martin said.  “There was this comic book he was very fond of, you see.  He said; in America, everyone has an equal chance of becoming a senator.  And then he looked at some of the breed and said that it was clearly true, except its not.  The statement isn’t true; it has the same flaw as the doomsday equation or the Drake Equation.

“Both of them are attempts to solve great mysteries through logic, but they have no numbers,” he said.  “How can you solve X+Y if you don’t know what either of them are?  It’s not 2X+5=9, is it?  If the Earth’s population keeps rising, perhaps you are in the final decades statistically…but if you don’t know when the final decade is, it’s meaningless.  How can you use the equation when you don’t know anything about how many aliens there are in the universe?”

Shayde felt a flicker of irritation.  “What exactly does that have to do with the subject at hand?”  He demanded.  “Time grows short.”

***
Martin scowled.  He’d thought that it was a good argument.  “Everyone has an equal chance of becoming a senator…except someone’s chances – and successes – knock out everyone else’s chances.  If Peter Somebody gets elected, Joe Citizen does not.  Out of a population of nearly a billion, how can they all have a fair chance to fill a few hundred seats?

“Your state will not represent everyone,” Martin concluded.  “Your civil service will become disconnected from the people; your magicians will still see themselves as superior.  It won’t last.”

Shayde’s eyes glittered.  “And you won’t join me?”  He asked.  “You could make it work?”

Martin felt a flicker of triumph.  “Not in the way you want it to work,” he said.  “Now, go; you gave me your Oath…”

He stopped.  Shayde’s smile had become truly nasty.  “I did,” Shayde said.  “I was very specific.  I said that I would never harm you tonight.”  He pointed a long finger to something behind Martin.  “I brought a friend.”

Chapter Forty-One: Grudge Match

Martin stared at Shayde’s finger for a long moment, then slowly turned around, understanding the trap.  Shayde had said that he wouldn’t try to kill Martin…but he’d said nothing about not permitting someone else to kill him.  A wave of heat struck him as he saw…something he had almost forgotten in all the excitement.

He grabbed for words and found some as he met the flickering red eyes.  “How the hell does a dragon the size of a camper van sneak up on someone?”

Shayde spoke from behind him.  “Dragons aren’t always that size,” he said.  His tone was laughing, mocking.  “When they’re young, they’re small, and sorcerers go hunting the…chicks, looking for their blood.  They learn to pass unnoticed very quickly; dragons have been known to walk through entire crowds without being noticed.”

His voice became contemplative.  “Personally, I suspect that it’s a minor glamour, although one with considerably more power than anything a wizard could do,” he said.  “After all, how could one fail to notice a dragon behind him…unless there was some magic involved?”

Martin stared up at the dragon.  He knew with a sick certainty that it was the dragon they’d met before; its eyes seemed very familiar.  He stared at the dragon’s snout, careful to avoid meeting the eyes for too long; he had the sense that the dragon was purring, like a cat.  

“Have a good evening,” Shayde said.  Martin glanced around, in time to see Shayde walking away without a care in the world.  “Good night, Mage Martin.”

Martin had only a moment to raise his shields before the dragon struck with a roar, lashing out with its front claw, knocking Martin across the field.  He passed the dust that lay on the field, finally slamming into the stands on the other side of the field.  Stunned, he stared as the dragon paced towards him, opening its mouth to spit fire at him.  The dragon’s magical field bobbled around it, preventing Martin from trapping its fire, except…

Martin drew on his magic, summoning another snake.  The snake leapt out of the ground, formed from earth and stone, and looped itself around the dragon’s mouth.  The dragon flung its neck around, trying to open its jaws, finally dislodging the snake, but Martin was already moving, trying to escape.

“You will pay for hurting me,” the dragon observed, its voice almost humanly pleased with itself.  It spat a wave of fire towards Martin, splashing against Martin’s shield; he could still feel the heat raging from it.  He waved a hand, creating a wall of ice around the dragon, which evaporated into steam at once.  The dragon roared, loud enough to wake the dead, and came on, prancing over the field.

“No,” Martin said, feeling sick.  The dragon was toying with him, he knew; it could have killed him at once if it hadn’t wanted him to suffer first.  He drew on his magic, trying to find a way to attack the dragon, finally lashing out at it with a bolt of pure magic.  The dragon jumped backwards, as if it had been stunned too, and then whipped his tail around, slamming it into Martin’s shield.  The force of the blow lifted him from the ground, tossing him several meters into the air before he landed with a sickening thud, the shield fading as it used up the last of its power saving his life.

This is getting to be a habit, Martin thought dazedly.  The dragon knew that it had won; it pranced over to him slowly, taking its time.  Martin wondered if dragons ever had mating dances; the dragon looked as if it were trying to impress someone.  Carefully, he pulled on his magic; an idea had occurred to him.  Part of a shield flickered into existence…and something else.

The dragon stopped around a metre from him, its red eyes flickering with amusement and triumph.  “Goodbye, little human,” it hissed, and pushed a wave of flame at Martin.  A second later, it found itself flying backwards into the air, heading upwards and upwards helplessly, free of gravity’s constraints on even its form.  It howled in sheer panic…as it flashed higher and higher.

At least I made it notice me, Martin thought, as lights came on in the castle.  For a long moment, he thought that he’d won, but then the dragon managed to cancel the spell, gravity taking an effect and it fell down towards the ground.  A fiery thread of light plunged towards the forest; he dared to hope that it would crash…and then the dragon got control of its fall, pulling out just above the tree line.

“Some help would be nice,” he muttered, as flames erupted among the trees as the dragon flamed them with its rage.  Its howl of pure fury echoed across the trees, waking everyone for miles around, before it came back, flying low above the ground and pouring fire indiscriminately into the stands.  It flew over Martin, its flame scorching hot even though the shield, and he hunkered down as it flashed over the town, burning buildings at random, before swinging back to face its tormentor.

“What the hell is happening?”  The Knight Errant demanded, running onto the field.  Martin glanced behind him, a small force of armed men were coming to face the dragon, which could kill them in a moment.  The dragon clearly agreed; its mocking laugh echoed across the field as it swooped down to spray flame into the castle’s wards.

“There’s a dragon Shayde set on me,” Martin said.  Eerie glinting red eyes flickered high in the darkness as the dragon floated through the air, mocking them by its sheer presence.  “How do you kill one of these fucking things?”

The Knight Errant smiled.  “You cheat,” he said.  He held up a sword, holding it above his head.  “Can you get it down here?”

Martin gaped at him.  “We need a lot of magic, not a sword,” he snapped.

“Akron made this sword for me,” the Knight Errant said.  “It’s rather unusual.  Get it down here, somehow.”

“Where are the Grand Mages?”  Martin snapped, as he summoned the remains of his magic.  Suddenly, he felt desperately hungry.  “Why aren’t they here?”

“They’re warding the castle,” the Knight Errant said.  Somehow, he managed to sound completely composed.  “It’s where they should be, what they should be doing.  Now…”

“This is madness,” Martin muttered, drawing all of his magic around him, giving it shape and form.  A bolt of orange light rose from his hand, sweeping across the sky to strike the dragon, bursting on its scales in a flash of light.  The dragon howled once and swept around, coming to face them.

“I have roasted thousands of knights in armour,” it proclaimed, its voice echoing across the heavens.  “Little humans, do you think you can stand against me?”

“Blow it out your arse,” Martin muttered, as the dragon swooped around, moving with casual speed.  It’s wings, far too small to support it without magic, flapped as it closed in on them.  An idea occurred to Martin, just as the dragon began its final run towards them.

“Don’t try to shield me,” the Knight Errant muttered, as the dragon swooped down, moving with deceptive slowness.  It’s howl rent the heavens as it blew a wave of smoke and fire down towards them, its claws lashing out…and they hit the sword of the Knight Errant.  Martin fell to his knees, clutching at his ears, as the dragon screamed; its howl of agony echoing across the night.  

“Don’t let it touch you,” the Knight Errant snapped, as dark blood and parts of a claw fell down, landing on Martin’s shield.  He reshaped the shield, allowing it to slide off onto the ground, as the dragon howled in pain, twisting in the sky.  The Knight Errant didn’t even looked singed; he seemed completely composed as he held his sword to the sky.

He-Man, Martin thought with awe, as the dragon steadied itself in the air.  It’s red eyes glared down at them; somehow, he knew that it wasn’t over yet.

***
They HURT me, Redscale thought, feeling real pain for the first time in his life.  The dragon twisted, trying to examine the damage, and felt real horror for the first time.  His left rear claw had almost – somehow – been sheared down the middle, parts of it had fallen down to the ground.  He hoped that the blood had poisoned the wizard, hating him with every fibre of hatred in his body, knowing that it wouldn’t.

Redscale roared as he took in the scene.  His surprise had been wasted, and he was wise enough to admit that it had been his fault that the surprise had been wasted; he had wanted to play with Martin, not kill him at once.  Shayde hadn’t been able to give precise orders because of his Oath, but still…

The castle’s wards were growing stronger by the minute, as more and more magicians piled on, raising a spell that shared some elements in common with the Harmony that Shayde had invented, focusing all of their energy on keeping the dragon out.  Soldiers were scurrying over the battlements and the field below, clearly scared…and still determined to do their duty.  

The prudent thing to do was to retreat, but Redscale was past caring about prudence.  The pain had had one effect; it had broken the spell on him!  Redscale opened his jaws in a dragon grin; he would kill the knight, and then the magician, and then he would kill Shayde, before finding somewhere isolated to live.  He wanted to kill Martin, but the insufferable man with the magical sword was on the ground, holding it up in challenge, and Redscale could no longer resist the challenge.  

He howled an answer, knowing that the stupid dangerous human wouldn’t understand – he might – and flew down towards them.  This time, things would be different.

***
“It’s coming back,” the Knight Errant said, his tone inhumanly calm.  Martin watched in dismay as the dragon came back, moving slowly through the air.  He had his plan now, but there wasn’t time; he needed time to plan it and put it into operation.  He didn’t think that the dragon would give him that time.

The Knight Errant stepped forward as the dragon grew closer.  “I killed one of you once,” he shouted, his voice almost puny against the growing bulk of the dragon.  “Do you dare to face me?”

“Dare?”  The dragon’s voice was vast, powerful, and hurting.  Martin realised suddenly that the dragon was in real pain, a maddened animal, not the magnificent creature it could have been without Shayde and the Power of Oxford.  “I have slaughtered thousands of humans.  I drove two Grand Mages from their castles.  What are you to me?”

It circled, red eyes glinting down.  “Do you seek to challenge me?”

“Yes,” the Knight Errant called.  The dragon didn’t bother to reply; it just settled to the ground some distance off, advancing towards them on all fours.  Arrows flew from the castle, splintering against the scales…and Martin could have sworn that it looked hurt, offended!  

“Cease fire,” the Knight Errant bellowed.  Such was his authority that the order was obeyed as he stepped forward, advancing on the dragon.  We’re advancing on him, Martin through, remembering the old joke about the mice arguing over who got to bell the cat.  He felt an insane urge to laugh…as the Knight Errant motioned for him to stay where he was.  

The dragon seemed totally fixated on the Knight Errant, ignoring Martin as the Knight Errant advanced.  Martin closed his eyes, looking at the dragon through his inner eye, trying to see how the magic worked against reality, allowing the dragon to exist.  He saw magic, crawling all over the dragon, keeping it going against the sheer culmertive force of reality itself.  

“Your sword protects you from dragon fire,” the dragon observed.  “That’s cheating.”

The Knight Errant laughed.  “Your scales protect you from most of our weapons,” he said.  “That’s cheating.”

The dragon lashed out with a claw, moving impossibly fast.  Martin could see the magic billowing over it, as the Knight Errant ducked the claw, leaping in to slash at the dragon’s underbelly.  The dragon jumped backwards, flapping its wings, pushing out a hail of dust at the Knight Errant, who covered his eyes and moved backwards.  The dragon belched flame; the Knight Errant held up his sword and it faded harmlessly.

“That won’t work,” the Knight Errant said.  “I thought you knew that?”

“Merely testing the limits,” the dragon said.  It sounded as if it wanted to gloat.  “The spell is broken.  I will destroy you all, and then I will destroy Shayde, and then…”

“Unlimited rice pudding for all?”  Martin snapped.  The Knight Errant tossed him a glare.  “Why not join us?”

The dragon lolled open its jaws.  “What do you have to offer me?”  It asked, blasting a wave of fire into the Knight Errant’s face.  He didn’t even flinch.  “Humans are horrible creatures anyway.”

The Knight Errant slashed at the dragon’s claw.  This time, it didn’t move fast enough.  “First blood to me,” he said.  “We can kill you.”

“I have killed many more humans,” the dragon said.  It no longer sounded amused.  “I hate humans.”

It blew out another blast of white-hot flame, and then changed its motions, blasting the ground directly below the Knight Errant, setting it on fire.  Smoke arose in a massive cloud, all around the Knight Errant, blinding him.  Martin opened his mouth to shout a warning…just as the dragon lashed out with its tail, slamming it into the Knight Errant’s armour.  

Martin felt his blood run cold as the Knight Errant was thrown across the field, finally crashing into the ground.  His sword flew in the air, in the wrong direction, and the dragon was on it even before the Knight Errant could rise to his feet.  The Knight Errant rose slowly, too slowly, and Martin realised that he had broken bones…

The dragon spoke meditatively.  “No magic sword,” it said.  “Game to me, I believe.”

It belched out a single burst of red fire.

Martin stared as the Knight Errant vanished in the flames.  The dragon laughed, rising up through the fire, and came around to face him.  “Your turn,” it said, its howl of triumph echoing across the castle.  “Are you ready to face the land beyond?”

Martin felt pure rage blasting through him; he lashed out with a bolt of magic, targeting the wounded claw.  The dragon howled and swooped down, slamming into Martin’s shield with pure fury.  Martin felt one of his ribs break…and knew that there was no longer any choice, but to risk the spell.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, as he summoned the spell.  It hung in the air in front of him, like a golden ball of light.  With a thought, he directed it towards the dragon.  “I’m sorry.”

***
Redscale howled his triumph to the entire world, before coming to see the human, lying on the ground far below him.  A flickering light – a tiny spell, too weak to harm even a human – rose up to strike him and Redscale laughed – what could that do to him?  Far mightier wizards had striven in vain against dragons!  He prepared the final blow and then…

…Something was wrong.  Redscale felt suddenly heavy and light-headed, as if he needed to sleep.  His wings wouldn’t hold him up for long…they wouldn’t hold him up at all.  His magic was coming apart, dissolving and he was falling.  He saw the ground coming closer and closer as the magic faded, and tried to direct himself towards the wizard, just to squash him beneath his fall, but failed.  His wings no longer worked somehow; he tried to slow his fall, and couldn’t even move them at all.  

His final thoughts were of Shayde and his brothers, still under Shayde’s control, and a final moment of pure hatred for humanity.  Redscale struck the ground in a final crash and felt the darkness come up to take him as he died.

***
From his vantage point, out of the eyes of dozens of tiny spiders, Shayde saw the duel, the Knight Errant’s challenge to the dragon, the death of the Knight Errant…and finally the fall of the dragon.  He stared, unable to understand what had happened; had the dragon’s defeat of the enchantment that bound him to serve Shayde somehow killed it?

Did the Power of Oxford build that in as an added precaution?  Shayde asked himself.  There was no way to know for sure.  He still wants what I can give him, so he might have done…or did Martin do it somehow?  He dismissed that thought; how could a newcomer to the art, even a lucky one, have invented a spell that could take down a dragon?  It defied belief.

He closed his eyes as the two Grand Mages came out, collecting the body of the dragon.  It should be Martin’s by rights, but Shayde wasn’t surprised; dragon blood was very useful and dangerous, and the rest of the dragon had its own uses.  Dragon-skin armour, if nothing else; it provided more protection than any other non-magical armour.

He shook his head once and slipped into the darker reaches of the forest.  The spiders would keep an eye on the rest of the activity; Shayde himself had a long walk ahead of him.  Losing the dragon would hurt, he knew, but having it on a bloody rampage would have been worse.  Redscale had sworn to kill him, and Shayde knew better than to think that the dragon could have been stopped easily.  

“Time’s up, Jack,” he said.  He allowed himself a moment to plan, but he already knew most of the plan; attempted to seduce Martin had only been one part of it.  “I think its time I dealt with you, once and for all.”

Chapter Forty-Two: The Calm Before the Storm

In the semi-darkness of the dawn, Jack stared at the dead body of the dragon, lying on the ground and smashed into a bloody hunk of meat.  Eerie green blood, sinking of copper and sulphate, dripped onto the ground, poisoning the grass.  The Grand Mages were carefully collecting as much of the dragon’s body as they could, directing an entire team of soldiers stripping the body of useful parts, bottling up the blood and preserving the skin.

He allowed his gaze to focus on another body lying on the ground.  The Knight Errant had killed one dragon, but the second had proven to be too much for him.  Jack missed him now; the experienced warrior would have been very useful in the war.  Still, without Akron he’d become more depressed, more determined to seek a glorious death in battle.  He’d gotten his wish, stripping the good guys of yet another person they needed.

The sword glinted on the ground, flickering runes along its length calling to him.  He’d seen several people try to pick it up, but all of them had dropped it, clutching their hands as if they burnt.  It called to him; on impulse, he picked it up, clutching the hilt in his hand.  It seemed to sing in his hand, humming in joy…

“It feels good for me,” he breathed, as he took a few swipes at random imaginary targets.  “It feels right in my hand.”

“As the actress said to the bishop,” Angelina commented.  Dawn had taken one look at the dragon and fled back inside; Jack didn’t exactly blame her.  “What was the dragon doing here?”

“Attacking Martin,” Jack said.  “Asking him what happened might be tricky at the moment.”

He pointed a finger at Martin, who was being hugged by Sumrita.  The expression on her face was proof enough that what they had would last.  He wondered if Jill and he would ever be that happy, and then nodded as Jill herself came up, followed by Grand Mage Rinpotch.

“Your friend killed a dragon,” Rinpotch said.  His tone was stunned, awed.  “Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

Jack nodded once.  “Grand Mage, what happened here?”

“Shayde was here,” Rinpotch said.  He still sounded stunned.  “He was here, long enough to sic the dragon on us all.”

Jack closed his eyes as Rinpotch wandered off, talking urgently to several Mages and Wizards, trying to strengthen the wards still further.  He noticed that Martin and Sumrita had stopped kissing and he waved at him urgently, trying to beckon them over.  Martin saw and came over, holding hands with Sumrita.

Sweet, Jack thought absently.  “Martin, what happened?  What were you doing outside?”

Martin looked up at him, his expression still stunned after the death of the Knight Errant.  “Shayde came here,” he said.  “I don’t know how…”

“He rode the dragon, obviously,” Angelina said dryly.  Jack gave her a sharp look.  “Sorry,” she said.

“He came here and used some of my blood to call me outside,” Martin said.  “I came; I knew that I had to come.  I met him and he swore not to hurt me…except he never said anything about the dragon.  It could turn invisible, more or less.”

“Invisible dragons,” Jack sighed.  “What next in this world?”

“He asked me to join him,” Martin said.  “I told him no.  He set the dragon on me and vanished.”

Jack looked into the air, hoping to see Sigmund, but the hawk was nowhere to be seen.  “Do you think that it would be worth hunting for him?”

Martin’s eyes, tired and worn, met his.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “What would we do if we caught him?”

Jack nodded grimly.  “I understand,” he said.  They couldn’t have held Shayde if they’d caught him, except…  “What about the other Grand Mages?”

Angelina snorted.  “Do you really think that they will be able to do anything?”

Jack looked.  The thought that had occurred to him before returned in strength.  “No,” he said finally.  “Now what?”

Martin yawned.  “We get some sleep,” he said practically.  Jack looked at Martin, and at Sumrita looking at Martin, and realised that Martin wouldn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night.  “In the morning, we discuss what we do next.”

Jack nodded in agreement.  “Sumrita, Jill; take Martin to bed and make sure he gets some actual sleep,” he ordered.  Sumrita’s skin darkened still further.  “Angelina, Loke; come with me.”

He waited until Martin had been led away by the two girls, before leading the other two away from the scene of the battle.  He paced in front of them as they wandered into the duelling ground, where Mathews had been killed, and where the dragon had torn up in the battle.  Flames could still be seen, rising from the town nearest the castle, where the dragon had flamed the town at random.  The dawn was breaking…and Jack felt no relief.

Nights aren’t safe here, he thought, turning to face them.  “You know, of course, what Shayde will try to do now?”

“Crush us as quickly as possible,” Angelina said.  “Now that he’s slapped them across the face with their vulnerability, he won’t want to give them time to get serious about the war.  He’ll send in the troops from the west - Grand Mage Valastar – and crush us as hard as he can.”

“Jack,” Loke said slowly, “should we stay here?”

Jack glared at him.  “What are you suggesting?”

“Why should we stay here?”  Loke asked.  “Martin nearly got killed twice today – yesterday – and we all nearly got turned to stone because of this stupid war that is fuck all to do with us!  Damn it, Jack; Shayde is outdoing us on the fucking republican way of warfare!  What do we owe Rinpotch and Grand Mage Gorgre that we should continue to risk our lives for then?

“Let’s go, now,” he snapped.  “Take the army and move at once northwards, to the Castle at the End of the Land!  Let’s get there and see if we can get the hell out of this fucking stupid world.  We can place it under interdict, like the nuclear nightmare world; we can just leave!”

Jack balled his fists, controlling his rage.  “We started all this,” he snapped.  “We introduced the concepts into this fucking world, as you call it.  We taught them to make armies like ours, or like ours would be in this field; we taught them how to be really unpleasant to each other…”

Loke glared back.  “Instead of mildly unpleasant?”

“We started this,” Jack snapped, ignoring the sally.  “We have a duty to try to stop it from getting worse!”

“With these fucking allies?”  Loke demanded.  “We might as well ally with the Saudis!  Oh yes, you Americans did just that…”

Angelina got between them before they could start fighting.  “Shut up, the pair of you,” she snapped.  “Five hundred people, more or less, won’t be enough to punch our way though Grand Mage Ixa’em’s forces, if we have to do that.  We need their support…”

Loke took a breath.  “Shayde is winning the propaganda war,” he said.  “What are you going to do to force Grand Mage Rinpotch and Grand Mage Gorgre to reform?”

“I have an idea,” Jack said.  “It’s just rather risky.”

“We can deal with that later,” Angelina said.  “Loke; I know that you want to go home, and I rather agree with you, but there is really no choice!”

Loke subsided slightly.  “Jack, I’m sorry,” he said.  “I think…”

Jack nodded.  “I understand,” he said, holding out a hand.  Loke shook it.  “Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

“Typical men,” Angelina said.  She reached out suddenly and gave them both a hug.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make sure that Dawn’s fine, and then get some sleep myself.”

“Dawn’s coming,” Loke said, and leered.

“For the record, you’re a bastard,” Angelina said.  “Jack?”

Jack frowned, looking up at the sky.  “We’ll meet again at one o’clock,” he said.  “We have to start planning for the future.”

***
The dragon’s body had nearly been completely stripped of anything useful, flesh and blood; only its bones lay there, being stripped by the last few court magicians.  A handful of birds and small animals had slipped in to try to snatch a bite; their bodies lay around the field, dead of poisoning.  In death as they had been in life, dragons were deadly.

Grand Mage Rinpotch and Grand Mage Gorgre stood together, looking down at the dragon.  It’s body was still impressive; a massive skeleton, far larger than anything the two men had ever seen before.  They stared at it together, thinking their own private, but remarkably similar thoughts.  

Rinpotch spoke first, addressing the dragon rather than Gorgre.  “He killed a dragon,” he said.

“He did,” Gorgre agreed.  He said nothing else for a long moment.  “He took a dragon out of the air with a single spell.”

Rinpotch frowned at the tone in Gorgre’s voice; half-admiring, half-concerned.  “I can’t do that,” he said.  “Can you?”

Gorgre gave him an irritated look.  In the rising sun, he looked more like a toad than ever; Rinpotch knew that it was because of a failed attempt to transfigure him when he’d challenged the former Grand Mage whose title he now held.  His bright crimson robes shone the colour of blood against the brown of the dying grass, killed by the dragon’s blood.

“You know perfectly well that I cannot,” Gorgre said.  “So…?”

“So one of us may end up being challenged, sooner or later,” Rinpotch said.  “In the circumstances, do you not consider that a danger?”

Gorgre snorted.  “In the last two weeks, one Grand Mage has been killed and I have been driven from my castle,” he said.  “So much has changed over the last two weeks that I would almost welcome a clear enemy to fight.”

“There’s already Shayde,” Rinpotch said.  “A lack of enemies is not one of our problems.”

Gorgre nodded slowly.  “Shayde has just done something very stupid,” he said.  “Some of the lords didn’t believe that he could be resisted, but his dragon was killed.  Does that not prove something?”

Rinpotch frowned.  “It does more than that,” he said.  “We could say – we could pretend – that the war was elsewhere, that it was not our problem…and now we have very clear proof that we are right on the front lines.  We are not used to fighting like this.”

Gorgre smiled.  “Of course we are not,” he said.  “We are now the hunted; us, the great Grand Mages of Britannia.  Hunted by Shayde and his horde of dragons.”  He laughed bitterly.  “Quite a change, is it not?”

“There are…changes that Shayde is making within the territory he has taken,” Rinpotch said.  “In all of them, he is granting more power to the peasants, and uniting the magic-users into one force.”  His voice was calm, distant.  “We should do the same.”

Gorgre’s eyes met his.  “That would not please the lords,” he said.  “They all would have bent the knee to Akron – sucked his cock if he had, but demanded.  You and I are not Akron.”

Rinpotch made a face at the mental image, and then clicked his fingers.  Sparks flew up in the air.  “We are alone now,” he said.  Somehow, it gave him strength.  “We are two of the most powerful magicians in the country.  Have we forgotten that?”

Gorgre sent up sparks into the air, then fireworks, flashing in the sky.  “No,” he said, looking at Rinpotch closely.  “I was wondering if you had.”

Rinpotch stared at him for a long moment, then understood.  His face cracked open in a smile.  “Now, you understand,” Gorgre said.  “Shayde kicked the shit out of us before, and that’s never happened to us before; we always…had the system to rely on.  We never fought equals; we never went looking for a fight with those inferior to us.

“And now…Shayde may not have tried to challenge us, but we’re acting as if we are suddenly mere wizards, even something lower, just because of how scared we are.  Yes – we are scared, we’re tolerating the fears of nobles who just happen to have good blood, when we have magic!  It’s time to remember that we have magic!  We kicked a dragon’s arse…”

“Martin kicked a dragon’s arse,” Rinpotch injected.  “I didn’t do that and neither did you.  Do you know how to do it?”

Gorgre smiled.  “The nobles don’t know that we don’t know,” he said.  “Hellfire; we could convince Martin to teach us how to do it and end the threat of dragons forever.”

Rinpotch nodded.  “I was under the impression that most dragons live up in the north and the islands, well away from humans,” he said.  “Still, it would certainly prevent something like this from happening again.”

Gorgre clapped him on the shoulder.  “Keep your chin up,” he said.  “Your beard is dangling in the soup.”

Rinpotch scowled.  “I have no beard,” he said.  he smiled.  “Shall we go set fire to a few noble beards?”

Gorgre smiled, his jowls shaking.  “You read my mind,” he said.  “Come along; we may as well get on with it.”

***
Jack had planned the meeting for just the five members of his team, plus Jill and Dawn.  Grand Mage Rinpotch had practically hijacked it by demanding that everyone who was everyone, including the entire team, attend a meeting in the main hall at two o’clock.  He led his people into the team, noticing just how many awed glances were cast at Martin – Martin the Dragonslayer.  Martin seemed almost nervous by the attention; he clutched Sumrita’s hand and kept his head down.

Jack smiled ruefully and nodded once to Vaeledyne Rabrepos, who had been asked to attend as well.  Everyone was there, from the noble lords to the rest of the magic-users, all of whom seemed impressed with Martin.  Their new hero, Jack thought.  All he had to do was kill a young idiot and a fucking dragon.

“Thank you all for coming,” Rinpotch said.  He stood on a small pedestal, beside Gorgre, smiling benevolently upon them all.  There was something different about his smile; he seemed more…determined, and capable, than he had before.  “As you may have noticed” – there were a few nervous laughs – “we were attacked last night, by a dragon.  The arch-villain, Grand Mage Shayde, was also present; he passed though the outer security wards without being noticed, apparently he also watched the Challenge yesterday – without being noticed.”

An uncomfortable rustle ran through the room.  All present were wondering, Jack realised, if they had sat next to Shayde…and never known.  Would Shayde be taking revenge in the future for stupid comments they might have made?  All of them suspected…and they were scared.

Idiots, he thought.

“Shayde has done the one thing many of us never expected,” Rinpotch said.  “He has managed to launch an attack very close to the castle here, within the union of tiny states near Newcastle.  Now he has done that, he will attempt to attack us again, and again, and as soon as he can – just to prevent us from preparing for war properly.  We haven’t done that – let’s be honest here – because certain lords were more scared of Shayde than they were of us.”

There was a second rustle running through the room.  Jack smiled; somehow, someone had managed to inject Rinpotch with some spine.  Somehow, he hadn’t confronted the lords who were sabotaging the war, until now.  He nodded once at Martin; perhaps they had a chance now.

Or maybe not.  One of the lords – Lord Ruben, who owned the castle – was trying to speak.  “We understand that you of the magical caste have authority,” he said, “but exactly what does this war have to do with us?  If we fight and lose, Shayde will strip us of our families…”

Rinpotch pointed one long finger.  Seconds later, there was a frog hopping on the ground where Lord Ruben had stood.  “Any more objections?”  He asked, as the frog started to croak piteously.  “Anyone want to lodge any more objections?”

The silence grew and lengthened.  “No?”  Rinpotch asked.  “The war has come to you, noble lords, ladies, magic-users; everyone.  Shayde will be trying to kill you all now, because you all know one important detail; he can be beaten!  A dragon died last night; one of his invincible terror weapons was beaten!  For that alone, Shayde has sentenced you all to death; he won’t even let you go, because you know that he can be beaten!

“Grand Mage Gorgre and myself have come to three decisions,” he continued.  “First, the various armed forces will be combined into one army, under a commanding officer who we will appoint later, with orders to prepare a powerful army that can match Shayde’s forces.  All of you lords are welcome to join, but rank will depend upon performance in the field.

“Second, all of the magic-users, whatever their rank, will be combined into a single striking force,” he said.  “They will be bound into a large fighting force, training to use their magic as a proper weapon, rather than fighting as individuals.  That force will be under the direct command of myself and Grand Mage Gorgre; challenges will be forbidden until after the war is over, at which point we will make ourselves available to anyone with a death wish.”

“Bloody great spine transplant,” Angelina muttered.  Jack nodded once; if Rinpotch did that, then his plan would be unnecessary after all.

“Finally,” Rinpotch concluded, “certain political benefits that Shayde has used to gain the affection and support of the peasants will be duplicated here.  The taxes and tithes system will be dismantled and replaced with one for all of Newcastle, which will not only allow a consistent degree of taxation, but one that will allow the peasants some of the rewards of their efforts.  This will prevent the civil unrest that will follow when Shayde starts sending people to tell the peasants about the benefits of his rule.”

He looked around the room.  “We can win this war,” he said.  “Shayde’s logistics will not make it easy for him to bring overwhelming force against us.  With determination and discipline, we will defeat him.”  He pointed one long finger at the frog, which was now being held by the man’s grieving wife.  “Do not try to prevent us from winning, or you will join him – for the rest of your life.”

Chapter Forty-Three: Swords and Sorcery

Almost despite himself, Shayde had enjoyed the three days walk to the territory of Grand Mage Valastar.  There was a single Power between the two magical strongholds – insofar as Newcastle could be considered one of the strongholds – but it had never shown any interest in communicating with the outside world.  Shayde had been half-tempted to visit the Power, to attempt to communicate with it, but he knew better.  It would have been dangerous, even for a Grand Mage; a Power had killed Akron, only recently.

He could have called a dragon from his own territories as soon as he passed outside Newcastle’s wards, but he’d decided to walk instead, mainly so that he could concentrate on his plans.  Brant and his other servants knew what they had to do; he’d sent a single message back to Brant and then walked on, leaving Grand Mage Shan in charge of the efforts with the army.  

Grand Mage Valastar had built her stronghold in the centre of a town, like Akron; the trading town of Carlisle.  Carlisle had long been a trading town, one of the Merchant Guild’s main transportation points, before Grand Mage Valastar had taken it for her own.  She’d used the darkest of magics to bind a vampire to serve her, taking the strongest points of its magic to power her own, without the weaknesses inherent to a vampire.  Grand Mage Valastar had no problems with the sun, or with garlic; indeed, she’d taken an unholy delight in eating Garlic Chicken when he’d visited her ground before.

Shayde stepped up to the castle, nodding to her castellan; a middle-aged woman with a formidable air.  “Her Ladyship is not seeing anyone today,” the castellan said.  “Be off with you.”

Shayde felt a flicker of genuine humour.  Only the thought that Valastar wouldn’t be pleased with him turning the woman into something more suited to her attitude prevented him from doing something amusing to her.  He drew back his hood instead, revealing his face.

He spoke with gleeful politeness.  “Would you mind telling the Grand Mage that Grand Mage Shayde is here to see her?”  He asked.  “It is quite important.”

The castellan’s face paled very quickly.  “Your Lordship,” she stammered.  “You may enter the castle at once.”

Shayde bowed mockingly and followed her inside the blocky building.  The castle had been the centre of a trading family’s operations before Valastar had taken it over for her own centre of operations; it was nowhere near as spectacular as his own castle, or as spectacular as Akron’s had been before the dragons destroyed it.  It was built out of red stone, secured by magic; built for function rather than display.

Shayde smiled.  There were those who suggested that it proved that Valastar was a man in disguise.  Few dared to say that too close to her; her tempter was known to be evil when she felt that she was being slighted and few magicians had dared to challenge her after the news of the fate of those who had dared leaked out.

Grand Mage Valastar’s quarters were neat and functional, one large floor of the massive building.  He felt her wards reaching out to check on his identify as they stepped up the stairs, enough power to fry most people if they tried to sneak inside.  Valastar had clearly adjusted the wards to allow him to enter; there was no attempt to attack him.

“You may enter,” her voice said clearly, as they reached an opening door.  The castellan curtseyed nervously to him; Shayde ignored her and stepped inside Valastar’s headquarters.  The Grand Mage herself was sitting on a chair, wearing chain mail and dozens of charmed amulets.  This time, her hair was the colour of dark red wine, hanging down and falling over her sharp face.

“Grand Mage,” Shayde said, bowing.  “A pleasure to meet with you in person again.”

Valastar smiled; it didn’t touch her eyes.  “You too, Shayde,” she said.  Her mouth twisted, revealing sharp vampire fangs.  “I heard about the loss of a dragon.”

Shayde nodded once, taking a seat without being invited.  “A minor setback,” he said.  “It revealed that there are weaknesses in our opponents and how they act.”

Valastar lifted a single elegant eyebrow.  “Really?”  She asked.  “I would have rated it as a disaster, myself.”

Shayde inclined his head.  “The Knight Errant is dead,” he said.  “Martin has been receiving the credit for killing the dragon, when it was actually the work of the charms placed on the dragon by my ally, the Power of Oxford.”

“If you have a Power allied with you, then why do you need me?”  Valastar asked.  “I don’t think that you really care that much about me and what I can offer your war.”

“My war?”  Shayde asked.  He controlled the sudden flicker of rage with an effort.  “You wanted change as much as I did,” he said.  “In the long term, my changes will benefit women like yourself too.”

“So I hope,” Valastar said.  There was a hint of a threat in her tone.  “And the Power?”

Shayde sighed.  “You know what the Powers are like,” he said.  “The Power of London aided me with the dragons, but that was as far as it would go.  The rest is in our hands.”

“Indeed,” Valastar said.  “So…what do you want to do now?”

“I’m moving some units up to your territory,” Shayde said.  “Around seven hundred to a thousand men, armed with the new weapons.”  He smiled.  “Fortunately, our own copies of them can be duplicated by magic, if not the ones directly from their world.  I want you to support a single large thrust into their lands.”

Valastar smiled.  “And the dragons?”

“I have another use in mind for them,” Shayde said, careful to conceal his own plans.  “They will be needed elsewhere.”

“I see,” Valastar said.  “I have been making preparations, as you know; I can move within a week or so.”

Shayde nodded.  “I hoped as much,” he said.  “You won’t have any problems with handling an extra thousand men?”

“I have enough food,” Valastar said.  “We’re just going to be weak on the magical front.”

Shayde lifted an eyebrow.  “You don’t intend to come with the force?”

Valastar lifted one hand and pointed towards a door, which opened.  “Come in,” she called.  A man, dressed in a simple uniform, stepped in.  Shayde smiled; the man’s eyes were dead, which meant that he was a Thrall.  “This is General Tarn,” she said.  “He will command my forces.”

Shayde felt his eyes narrow.  “He’s a Thrall,” he said.  “Is that wise?”

Valastar shrugged.  “I do not allow threats to my power to exist near me,” she said.  “He would have overthrown me, under other circumstances.  Now he serves me instead.”

It was her decision, Shayde knew.  He just had a bad feeling about it.  Thralls were obedient – they had no choice, but to be obedient – but they started to lose their imagination, the longer they remained in Thrall.  Under the pressure of a war, could Tarn cope…or would the Thrall snap under the pressure?

“My mind is made up,” Valastar said, following his thoughts.  “I won’t let someone who is not under Thrall lead my armies.”

Shayde nodded and studied Tarn thoughtfully.  At least he would be easy for Captain Brant to kill, if necessary.  “Good,” he said.  “So…a week to get the offensive off the ground, then we can put an end to it all.”

***
Vaeledyne Rabrepos studied the sword with some interest, careful not to touch it with his bare skin.  Even gloves were far from perfect; the sword was starting to warm up alarmingly when he put it down on the table, studying the runes that had been carved in the blade and filled in with silver.

“It’s a magical weapon,” he said, with considerable awe.  “My own sword was touched by the magic, but it is nothing like as capable as that one.”

Jack frowned.  “Why does it get hot?”  He asked.  “It only lets me hold it for more than a few minutes.”

“Magic,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  Jack cursed dryly.  “Akron would not have wanted just anyone to be trying to move his friend’s weapon, and the Knight Errant would have wanted a perfect weapon.  A lot of magic was used in making the blade; in a very real sense, it is magic.”

“More magic,” Jack said in disgust.  “I assume that’s why only I can hold it?”

“The Knight Errant would have designated you as his successor,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said thoughtfully.  “Once he died, the blade transferred its allegiances to you and your friends.  You have to take good care of it.”

“And it managed to harm a dragon,” Jack said.  He’d heard enough from Martin over the last few days to learn how the Knight Errant had died.  “Why did he challenge the dragon?”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos shrugged.  “Long tradition,” he said.  “The dragon was a prideful creature.  It should not have bothered to accept the challenge.”  He snorted.  “A good thing it wasn’t stupid,” he said.  “A stupid dragon would have been very dangerous indeed.”

Jack picked up the blade and returned it to his scabbard.  The Knight Errant’s original scabbard had been lost when the dragon had destroyed it, but one of the blacksmiths had been able to make him a second one.  The blade seemed to dance in his hand; Vaeledyne Rabrepos noticed and frowned.

“Take care with it,” he warned.  “More than a few such blades have become evil and corrupted their users.”

“How many dangers are there in this world?”  Jack asked.  “What next?”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos smiled thinly.  “We consider the army,” he said.  “The first force, your force, is getting better with the muskets.”

“I suppose that’s good news,” Jack said absently.  “I never thought that I would command an army, even one as small as five hundred men.”

“That’s quite a large force,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  “There are also the three hundred people who you call the ‘support section.’”

Jack smiled with genuine pride.  None of the armies in the strange new world had much of a concept of warfare, not with wizards and other magic-users around, to say nothing of limited bases of support.  A force of ten men, laughable in their world as anything beyond a commando force, could hold a village indefinitely – just as Griffin had been held, back when it had all begun.  

He’d started to work on the entire concept, creating as much of a mobile army as he could with the technology available.  Armies didn’t have to march to and froe, not when there were enough carts and horses around to pull them; they didn’t have to starve when a supply force could bring all of the food they wanted.  All of the younger soldiers thought it was brilliant; the older ones were far from happy about the entire concept.  

“I suppose,” he said.  “What do we do when the force is ready?”

“Hit the female Grand Mage, Valastar, as hard as we can,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said flatly.  “With all the Powers in the way, Shayde would have difficulty moving enough men north to prevent us from reaching the Castle at the End of the Land.  All we have to do is beat her and then we can win.”

Jack nodded grimly.  Everyone seemed to be convinced that the Castle at the End of the Land held the key to victory, including himself.  They had reasoned that it was the source of the jamming effect, but what would happen if it wasn’t, or that they failed to shut it down?  There was no way to know.  If it didn’t end there, then Shayde would chase them from one end of the land to the other.

“Angelina and Loke seem to be happy with it,” he said.  “I trust their opinions on the subject.”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos nodded.  “I think that we should have the most formidable force in the land soon,” he said.  “Certainly better than any I’ve ever served in.  If we have time to build it, we’ll do fine.”

Jack nodded.  “If Shayde gives us the time to build, we could build a very powerful force indeed,” he said.  “If…”

***
The trip had been long and difficult, even for nearly three hundred armed soldiers and five magicians.  The collection of carts and horses had carried many of the soldiers, but half of them had had to walk at any one time, causing Brant to lead by example and march with them.  Only the magicians didn’t march; they rode in a cart discussing magical tactics for the coming battlefield.

Brant smiled in relief as the force finally reached its destination, the town of Carlisle.  It had been difficult, and he’d faced the worrying thought that Grand Mage Valastar or one of her flunkies would simply have not bothered to attend to the soldiers comfort, after their long march.  He should have known better about Shayde, he reflected; the grounds were almost perfect.  There were long tables of food, served by men rather than women, and a massive lake for the soldiers to swim in before they ate.  

It wasn’t just almost perfect, it was the most complete set of preparations he’d ever seen made for an army, or even heard about being made.  Normally, they would be lucky if they didn’t have to extort food and women from the local peasants, something that never endeared them to the peasants or the village witches.  On every campaign, a handful of men fell victim to such treatment.

He glanced once inside the cart, checking to ensure that the two vital components of Shayde’s plan were still inside the cart.  One of them, Christina, was asleep in a magic sleep, imposed by one of the magicians at Shayde’s orders.  Brant felt a flicker of lust as he looked at her perfect body, before fighting it down; Shayde would punish any mistreatment of Christina with extreme force.  

The second component was more accessible.  The boxes held the weapons taken from Jack and his team, back when they’d reached Shayde’s castle.  Shayde had known a lot about using them from Jack; he’d helped Brant to work out the basics, using a handful of bullets to train a handful of soldiers in using them.  Brant smiled; with such weapons, how could they fail?

Shayde himself stood at the head of a tent, waiting for them.  Brant reached him and bowed, before going down on one knee.  “I come as ordered,” he said formally.  Unlike most lords, Shayde deserved such respect.  “We stand at your command.”

Shayde inclined his head.  “Your men have liberty for the rest of the day,” he said.  Brant nodded; that too was surprising.  “Inform them of that, then join me in the tent.”

When Brant joined him in the tent, he wasn’t surprised to see a serving man, rather than a maid, but he was surprised to have a glass of cool wine.  It was hotter inside the tent, but at least they were out of the sun.  The wine felt cool against his parched throat, refreshing him after the march.

“The weapons are all here?”  Shayde asked, as Brant finished the first glass.  The serving man promptly poured him a second.  “All are ready for use?”

Brant nodded.  “Yes, Your Lordship,” he said.  “I have the trained soldiers here, along with Christina herself.  We also have plenty of ammunition; I brought some along just to be certain that we had enough.”

Shayde smiled.  “Excellent,” he said.  “Now we have the full force here, we can launch the attack in three days, marching to attack them then.”  He unfurled the map.  “If they don’t see us coming, which is unlikely, we can attack Newcastle and its surrounding castles quite quickly.  That will end the war, but I don’t think that it will happen like that.  If they do see us…what will they do?”

Brant studied the map as Shayde spoke on.  “Jack’s impulse will be to attack us at once,” he said.  “Will Rinpotch and fatty let him do that?  If so, we can expect to be attacked near their territory, right?”

Brant nodded.  “They won’t want to fight so close to the Power,” he said.  “Just in case of drawing attention.”

Shayde snorted.  “No one, but no one, has come out of there,” he said.  “Whatever that Power is, I don’t think we need to fear it.”

Brant frowned.  “I hope you’re right,” he said.  “What about the dragons?”

“A second dragon will be joining me up here,” Shayde said.  “However, they will not be taking part in the actual fighting.”  He paused.  “There is a problem,” he said.  “The Grand Mage Valastar has appointed a Thrall as commander of the combined army.”

Brant gaped at him, sucking in his breath.  “But…he won’t have the slightest ability to react,” he protested.  “If there’s a surprise, the idiot will continue with his plan, regardless…”

“So I have pointed out to her,” Shayde said, apparently unruffled.  “Should he be a problem…”

He drew one finger across his throat, making a slicing noise.  “Understood,” Brant said, studying the map carefully.  “Did your source within their court tell you anything important, such as their plans?  Their numbers?  Their capabilities?”

“They’re training their army,” Shayde said.  “Beyond that, no; my source has no legitimate reason to know and Jack is being clever enough not to tell anyone things they don’t have to know.”  He chuckled.  “He also managed to prop up the two Grand Mages, by the way.”

Brant nodded.  “So, we march for action tomorrow?”

Shayde smiled.  “Try not to lose,” he said.  “The last thing we need is to show weakness, now.  Now send in Christina and enjoy yourself tonight.  Just don’t touch any of the women; it upsets Grand Mage Valastar, the poor dear.”

Brant bowed.  “What happens to those who defy that rule?”

“She turns them into slugs, apparently,” Shayde said pleasantly.  “Have a nice evening.”

Chapter Forty-Four: Battle Royal (I)

Martin closed his eyes as Jill summoned the spell in her hands, holding it steady above her cupped hands.  Opening his magical senses, he probed the spell, finding it good.  Certainly, it was more refined than the one he’d used a week ago to kill the dragon, but at the same time it was less likely to mutate, like some spells had clearly done.  Discovering that they’d accidentally developed and triggered a spell that detonated with the force of an atomic bomb would be an embarrassing way to go.

“Well done,” he said, after a long moment.  “It seems to be perfect.”

He opened his eyes as Jill dispelled the spell, banishing it back into the magical field.  He’d altered the spell slightly; just enough to collapse the magical field that held the dragon together, which made it actually more precise than most men could generate.  He could do it, because he understood the spell, but most men couldn’t go that far.  He wasn’t sure if that was because women were just neater…or if Mother Rankin was correct and men just had no subtly.  

“That makes what, four witches?”  Sumrita asked.  Martin nodded, wishing that Sumrita had such powers herself; it would have been so much easier to teach her.  Jill had learnt quickly, as had Dawn and – much to his amusement - Mother Rankin, but only one other witch had mastered the spell.  “Is it enough?”

“It will have to be,” Martin said.  “How many dragons can there be, anyway?”

Sumrita shrugged.  Jack had made it clear, at the planning sessions, that they might have only seen four dragons together, there might be many more in Shayde’s service.  Martin didn’t believe it – Shayde had struck him as the sort of person who would hit as hard as he could – but he understood Jack’s point.  

“You’re going to have to go along to stop Mage Goth from fucking everything up,” Sumrita said.  After the fight with the dragon, she’d become more and more worried about him, even insisting on teaching Jill as much additional medical skills as she could before the battles could begin, just to keep Martin safe.  

Martin nodded thoughtfully.  “Do it once more,” he ordered Jill, as he thought.  Mage Goth, one of Grand Mage Rinpotch’s…well, not exactly supporters, had been appointed commander of the Sorcery Squadron, as Jack had named it.  Personally, Martin felt that that was a mistake; a Grand Mage would have been a better choice than Mage Goth, who at best would be a first among equals.  

“There,” Jill said, holding the spell in her hands.  It had materialised quicker this time, with more precision and skill.  “It’s done.”

“Well done,” Martin said again.  He glanced up as Jack entered, with Sigmund perched on his shoulder.  “Jack?”

Jack’s face was grim, torn.  “The balloon has gone up,” he said grimly.  “Sigmund’s family found out that Shayde’s forces are on the move, heading here.”

“Fuck,” Martin said mildly.  Sumrita elbowed him hard.  “What do we do now?”

“You’d better come to the big meeting,” Jack said, giving Jill a quick hug.  “There’s upwards of one and a half thousand enemy troops moving towards us, and they have around six magic-users with them.”

Martin didn’t question the numbers – he knew how perfect a hawk’s eyesight was – but it was a lot larger than he would have expected, particularly in the ratio of magic-users to the common soldiers.  “There should be more magic-users,” he said.  “I thought that Shayde had managed to conscript somewhere around two hundred, if not more.”

Jack nodded grimly.  “Most of them seem to be missing,” he said.  “They might be back at his castle, or they might be in the common soldiers, trying to keep their heads down.”  He led them out, talking all the while.  “Shayde himself, and what’s-her-name, seem to be keeping a low profile.  At last report, Shayde and Grand Mage Valastar were still in Carlisle, watching the reports from their slaves.”

“Curious,” Martin said.  He frowned.  “Do you think that it’s a diversion?”

Jack paused as they reached the door to the War Room.  “If it is, it’s a pretty fucking big diversion,” he said.  “That’s not a small effort on their part, you know.”

“I doubt that Shayde would care,” Sumrita commented.  “Jack, what exactly are we going to do?”

Jack pasted an expression of confidence on his face and opened the door.  “We’re going to kick the shit out of them,” he said, as they entered.  “We’re here.”

“Good,” Rinpotch said.  The two Grand Mages, Mage Goth and several of the troop commanders were the only men in the room.  “So…what now?”

“We attack, of course,” Jack said.  “We cannot afford to fall back on a castle now.”

One of the troop commanders spoke, in a voice like a permanent yawn.  “Why not?”  He asked.  “A castle could hold out for eternity if it had to.”

“Not now it can’t,” Jack said.  “A few dozen cannonballs and the walls would come crashing down.”

Rinpotch held up a hand.  “We’ve been over this,” he said.  “How do we attack them?”

Jack smiled.  “They’re going to have to rest somewhere,” he said.  “We’ll move up ourselves tonight and get into a blocking position, one that we can move if we have to move quickly.”  He tapped the map.  “The Sorcery Squadron, with the exception of the two Grand Mages, will move up with us, disguised as common soldiers.  At night, we hit them with a magical attack.”

Martin coughed.  “That attack might just win the war,” he said.  “In fact…”

“You won’t be leading it,” Jack said.  Martin flushed, feeling a flicker of irritation.  “Don’t argue with me on this one; they have two Mages in that force, enough to beat your attack off.  Wizard Dominos will lead it.”

“A good choice,” Rinpotch said.  “They won’t get any sleep that night.”

Martin scowled.  Jack seemed to know what he was doing, but an all-out attack by the magic-users might just win the battle at once.  “When they advance against us in the morning, they will be doing so without their supplies and without a lot of sleep.  We’ll kick the shit out of them.”

Rinpotch exchanged a glance with Grand Mage Gorgre.  “Thank you, Jack,” he said.  “I think that we have no hesitation at all in appointing you General of the Armies.  Good luck, General Jack.”

Martin laughed at Jack’s expression.  “Thank you, Your Lordship,” he said.  “I will endeavour to win a victory for you.”

He led the way outside.  As soon as the door had closed, Martin rounded on him.  “Jack…”

Jack held up a hand.  “I think we’ll need you elsewhere,” he said.  “Can you cast an anti-spy spell?”

Martin shaped the spell and cast it.  “Done,” he said.  “Jack, you need me hitting them…”

“No, I don’t,” Jack said.  “Has it not struck you as odd?  The dragons don’t attack Akron and his castle until the Knight Errant and his sword” – he tapped the sword at his belt – “are safely out of the way?  Shayde knows about the challenge, in time to come watch, and then he knows enough to disturb you!  Does that suggest anything to you?”

He led them into a small room.  Martin repeated the spell without being asked.  “I could be wrong,” Jack said, “and I hope to God I am, but I have a nasty suspicion that we have a spy in our camp.”

Angelina glared at him.  “Who?”  She snapped.  “Jack, if you have the slightest suspicion…”

Martin understood in a sudden crash.  “Dominos,” he said.  “Who else could it be?”

Sumrita stared at him.  “But he was Akron’s apprentice,” she said.  “How could he?”

“So was Shayde,” Martin said suddenly.  “I think he was jealous of me.”

Jack shrugged, meeting Martin’s eyes.  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.  “I have no real proof.  I do not, however, want you on that mission.  You know so much about magic that you may well be the key to winning this war.”

Martin nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he said, and meant it.

***
The skies were cloudy, blocking out the moon.  Streaks of moonlight flashed down from time to time, illuminating faces as the twelve wizards, led by Mage Goth, crept towards the enemy.  The Wizard Dominos took a breath as they crept closer, carefully avoiding magical wards cast by the enemy magicians.

How the hell did I get into this?  Dominos ask himself, as they crested a ridge.  The enemy had dug into a position that would be tricky to storm in broad daylight, although darkness might give the attacking force some assistance.  What the hell was I thinking?

Shayde’s orders had been precise.  He was to report at once on any major military moves in the Newcastle force…and he hadn’t said anything about the tiny magical attack.  Shayde would not be happy at the…evasion; he would reckon it as treason, to him as well as to Grand Mage Rinpotch.  He closed his eyes; Shayde would doubtless expect him to betray the attacking force, except he could no longer do it.  

What the hell was I thinking?  He asked himself again, as he studied the enemy position.  A handful of large fires, several dozen large tents, and countless soldiers sleeping on the forest floor.  The enemy commander might not have been able to barrack his soldiers, but he hadn’t done badly; they wouldn’t be comfortable, but at least they probably wouldn’t be aching in the morning.  

Dominos felt like crying.  Shayde had risked his life, risked everyone’s life, by sending a dragon to Newcastle.  Shayde…had tried to convince Martin to join him, doubtless forsaking any care he had for Dominos, who knew that his life would be over, the minute anyone worked out the whole story.  Akron might not always have been liked, but everyone had respected him; they would be lining up to slice bits off his treacherous apprentice.  

He closed his eyes, wishing that the world could go away.  No amount of magic could do that; he thought for a long moment that he saw Akron, howling at him, but it was just illusion.  Shayde had used him, as if he were nothing…what would it have meant if Shayde had actually won?  Would he have…?”

“Now,” Mage Goth snapped, standing up and unleashing a fire-spell against a group of carts.  More spells crashed down from the other wizards, and Dominos, reluctantly, joined in; throwing burst after burst at the enemy.  The enemy wards flickered into existence, too late; the carts had already been damaged, but there were so many of them…

“Move,” Goth snapped, as the enemy Mages started to throw spells back at them.  A musket balls snapped past them, cracking into the woods; the soldiers were firing back as well.  “Dominos…”

Dominos stared down at the advancing enemy.  “Go,” he said.  “I’ll hold them off.”

“You young fool,” Goth snapped at him, as a blast of magic struck Dominos’ shield.  “You can’t hold them all by yourself.”

“Go,” Dominos shouted, turning to face the advancing enemy.  Goth snarled and fled, as one final blast of magic sliced through Dominos’ shield, killing him instantly.

***
Captain Brant cursed as the hail of magical fire crashed down on the encampment, tiny compared to the size of the camp, but far too targeted for his taste.  It was sheer luck that none of the ammunition carts were hit; a single hit on any of them would be disastrous to everyone concerned.

“Return fire,” he snapped, as some of his soldiers grabbed their muskets, loading them and firing as quickly as they could.  The reload time was slow, he knew, but it had to be alarming the dark figures on the ridge; some of them were falling back – except one.  As his magicians focused their own magic on the figure, he saw the figure hold them off, and then collapse in a burst of fire.

“Excellent,” General Tarn said.  The burly man’s dead eyes peered into the darkness.  “Now we drive forward.”

Brant looked down at Tarn, trying hard to conceal his contempt.  Tarn would probably not have noticed anyway; he was in Thrall and had been in Thrall for years, ever since trying to rebel against Grand Mage Valastar.  She’d enthralled him, and then made him commander of her armies, something that could hardly be trusted to someone independent.  It only had one side effect; it made Tarn more than a little single-minded.  

“It’s dark,” Brant said carefully.  “General, the men are exhausted after their long march.”

“They’re soldiers,” Tarn said dismissively.  “We woke; we move on.”

Brant sighed.  Tarn had no choice, of course, but he was still an idiot.  The instructions had been simple…and he was locked into obeying them, no matter how stupid they seemed under the circumstances.  He nodded at one of the wizards, as they’d planned earlier, and a spell was cast at Tarn’s back.  He collapsed forward into a sound sleep.

“That should last for at least five hours,” the wizard muttered.  “When he wakes up, he’ll be normal.”

Brant nodded.  “Just don’t cancel the Thrall,” he said.  “Now” – an explosion rent the night – “what the hell was that?”

“Birds,” the wizard said, in awe.  Brant glared at him.  “They’re sending birds over, armed with some gunpowder and telling them to drop the bags of powder.”

Brant said a word under his breath.  “They don’t want us to get any sleep,” he said.  “They must be planning an attack in the morning.”

The wizard gave him a dry look.  “I don’t think so,” he said.  “I think that they intend to force us to retreat.”

Brant shrugged.  “At the moment, if we have to fight, we are not going to do well.”

He issued orders for the wards to be strengthened, no matter how much it cost the wizards to maintain the new wards, and tried to sleep.  The occasional explosion disturbed his sleep and he thought of how dangerous it must have been for the other soldiers, the ones without warded tents.

“We lost round one,” he muttered, to a spider that scuttled near to him.  “We’re going to be in serious trouble in the morning; the army will be tired beyond their limits.”

He couldn’t tell if the spider was one of Shayde’s or not.  He placed his head on his pillow and tried to sleep.  Morning, however, came too soon.

***
“Dominos sacrificed his own life,” Jack said, puzzled.  He’d spent half an hour deploying his forces in the position he'd picked, knowing just how dangerous it would be to be fighting from an exposed position.  “Martin?”

Martin shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “Perhaps you were wrong?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Jack admitted.  “I was certain that something was wrong with him, however.”  He looked up at Sigmund.  “Are you sure that he was dead?  It wasn’t an illusion of some kind?”

“Akron made me see through illusions,” the hawk said.  It gave Jack an irritated look.  “It was the real Dominos, all right.”

“No matter,” Jack said, as Vaeledyne Rabrepos came up to their position.  “Vaeledyne Rabrepos?”

“My Lord, mounted units have reported that the first stages of the enemy advance can be seen, coming towards us,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said.  Jack still hadn’t managed to convince him to drop the honorific.  “They will be on us soon.”

Jack nodded once.  “How long?”  He asked.  “They’re coming for here?”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos bowed.  “Yes,” he said.  “They should be here within ten minutes, the way they’re moving.”

Jack looked at Sigmund.  He’d wanted to use the birds to recon, but after the enemy wizards had started knocking them out of the air, he had had to stop that.  “Sigmund, could you look from here?”

The hawk launched itself into the sky, heading upwards.  Jack watched Sigmund fly, hoping – praying – that the hawk wouldn’t fly over enemy lines.  It had been a sneaky idea of Martin’s; using the birds to drop makeshift bombs, but many of the intelligent hawks had been killed in the battle.  Sigmund cawed once as he rose and Jack cursed, expecting to see a bolt of magic strike the hawk down, but none struck him.

“I don’t think that they have much magic left,” Martin commented.  “I’ve been trying to feel out their magic users, which I should be able to do at this distance, and I can’t feel them working magic.”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos nodded.  “They will be here soon,” he said, as Sigmund fell out of the sky.  “I think I’ll get the musket force ready.”

“At least a thousand of them,” Sigmund said.  “They all have muskets.”

Jack scowled.  “And any cannon?”

“Yes, towards the rear,” Sigmund said.  “I don’t know if they know we’re here.”

Martin looked over at a leaf.  A spider sat there, innocently weaving a web.  “Shayde knows we’re here,” he said.  He lifted his hand and threw a tiny burst of magic at the spider, which withered in the burst and vanished in a puff of smoke.  “I think we can count on it.”

Jack nodded and lifted his voice, shouting to all of his soldiers.  They hadn’t tried to be too clever; they’d built a simple trench, with the cannons and the second group of soldiers held in reserve.  The force, mainly his own men and a handful from Newcastle, was waiting patiently.  He was proud of them; they’d been taken out of their own eras, but they’d adapted well to his – or at least to what they’d shown them of new weapons.

“They’re about to come and try to kill us,” he shouted.  It wasn’t the most inspiring speech, but it didn’t have to be; enough of them were professionals who knew better than to be impressed by speeches of military glory.  “Load your weapons” – he was dimly aware of Sigmund lifting into the air again, preparing to spy out the enemy positions – “and prepare to fire upon command!”

Chapter Forty-Five: Battle Royal (II)

“They’re in that field,” Wizard Rand said.  Brant nodded and peered ahead to the enemy position, using his spyglass to probe the enemy formation.  For a long moment, he could see nothing, and then he saw the trench, half-hidden in the ground formation.

“Bastards,” he muttered.  He studied the position and cursed; he knew exactly what General Tarn would do under the circumstances.  The enemy had built themselves into the field’s edge, using the farmer’s ditch as the beginnings of their trench, tempting Shayde’s force to launch a charge.  Under normal circumstances, infantry and cavalry avoided each other’s strongpoints with care; this time, Jack was tempting them by committing suicide…

“Except its not suicide,” Brant muttered, looking over at the collection of generals and commanders, all under Thrall.  They wouldn’t have the imagination to act properly or tackle it logically; they would see the position and order a charge.  Jack’s weapons would cost them hard, perhaps even half of the force, before they broke through, if they did.

“There’s bugger-all cover,” Captain Harold observed.  He might have been noble-born, but he knew what he was doing; he had embraced the new weapons – of which he carried three muskets – with glee.  “We’ll have to advance slowly.”

Brant nodded.  “Trying to rush them would be suicide,” he said.  He studied their position and scowled.  “Have your men digging into that hill and field there,” he said.  “If they try a charge themselves” – he knew with a sick certainty that Jack would do nothing of the kind – “then we can tear hell out of them.”

Harold bowed once.  “It shall be done as you will,” he said.  The traditional phase, rarely used by a noble to a commoner, didn’t lift Brant’s sprits.  “What about the special force?”

“Keep them back,” Brant ordered.  Harold bowed again and left.  Brant headed over to General Tarn’s position, where the Thrall was examining the enemy position and gloating.  Brant took one look and felt his heart sink further; his hand clutched the Otherworld weapon in his pocket.

“A good day for it,” General Tarn said.  “Have you seen their position; they hope to defeat us as General Hodge was defeated at Sheriffmuir.  They will slash out at the horses as we charge, but my men know better than to deal with that; their horses have charms against such threats.”

Brant scowled.  General Hodge, one of the handful of Generals to make a real name for himself, had won battles.  He hadn’t been a Thrall, with the magic of a Grand Mage and the awe of her name backing him up.  General Tarn…was nothing like as capable as Hodge had been, and he lacked even a rudimentary capability of learning from his mistakes.

He frowned once as Tarn expounded on his plan.  Why had a woman as capable as Grand Mage Valastar, with all of the power at her disposal, been so reluctant to risk a free-minded General?  It wasn’t as if she could be threatened that way.

He realised that Tarn was waiting for him to say something and blinked.  “I’m sorry, General,” he said.  “I was just thinking about the next battle.”

Tarn smiled owlishly at him.  “It’s a fine day for a charge,” he said, as his trumpeters blew out the notes ordering the horse-riders to prepare.  “We will take them at a run and break through before they can react.  The infantry can finish the job, coming up after the cavalry and finishing off the stragglers.”

Brant frowned.  “Should we not try to move around them?”  He said, knowing that it was bad military sense under the old rules, but very sensible under the new rules.  “They can hardly set up such a strong position in a hurry.”

Tarn snorted.  “You call that strong?”  He asked.  “It’s barely two trenches.  They haven’t even set up horsetails.”

“No,” Brant said.  Horsetails, little strips of metal designed to tear a horse’s feet to ribbons, would have been the only thing that might have given the defenders a chance – under the old rules.  What did the new rules say about such things?  It was almost as if Jack was daring them to charge.

“General,” he said, placing as much firmness into his voice as he could.  “I really think that we should go around them.”

“And I think differently,” Tarn said, waving a command at the bugler.  He promptly played the next notes in the sequence, ‘set lances.’  He stood up, preparing to give the order, and Brant hoped that Jack or one of his people would shoot him in his bright uniform.  No bullet struck Tarn; Jack must have known who he was.

Tarn’s voice echoed across the field.  “Charge,” he bellowed.  “Slake their gizzards!”

***
“Oh, you poor bastards,” Jack breathed, as he peered through the pair of charmed spectacles.  “What did you do to have him in charge of you?”

Angelina was more practical.  “Oh, for a single machine gun,” she said, wistfully.  “How long until we can build something like that, Jack?”

“The horses have some light charms around them,” Martin said.  “I’m setting up a ward to dispel them and reveal any attempt to sneak up on us under an invisibility spell.”

“I don’t think whoever in charge over there has the brains to even think of that,” Angelina said.

Jack shrugged.  Down at the other end of the long field, almost five hundred meters away, dozens of horsemen were preparing their charge.  It was a sight out of a bad movie, one set in the days of King Arthur; no one in their right mind would charge a trench armed with even primitive muskets.  The knights looked intimidating, moving with the sheer confidence that came of being the best of the best of the best, and yet he knew just how easily their armour would crack under bullets.  He smiled; they had spent several hours on charming the bullets for maximum effect.  

“Stand by to fire,” he repeated, issuing the order.  The enemy seemed in no hurry, but he supposed that they would have some trouble lining up the horses.  “We can kill them all before they get here, with ease.  Hold fire until I give the order to your sections, then let them have it.”

He’d gone over tactics dozens of times.  As the enemy finally managed to get themselves into some kind of order, he could only hope that his men had learned the lessons well.  A trumpet blew and the enemy trotted forwards, forming into a long line of cavalry.

Intended to shock hell out of us, he thought absently, remembering old lessons.  Christina would have known better than this; what has happened to her?  Is she still alive?

The enemy were picking up speed, moving faster now, levelling their lances.  Jack didn’t know what they thought they were doing; there were no horses or horsemen, let alone a traditional cavalry unit, in his force.  He watched as they grew closer, willing his men to take aim, hearing Angelina quietly issuing orders to the new sergeants, and…

“First Platoon, fire,” he snapped.

The noise was deafening as seventy muskets fired as one, crashing bullets into the horsemen.  Many missed, many must have missed, but enough hit to harm many riders, who fell off their horses with sickening thuds.  Only a lucky handful ever managed to crawl off back towards their lines.  The reminding men were brave, if stupid; they just kept coming.

“Second Platoon, fire,” he barked.

The second group, seventy more men, fired together, picking off most of the remaining horsemen.  Jack willed the handful of survivors to flee, so that none of them would be slaughtered, but the seventeen surviving cavalry kept coming, getting closer and closer.  Jack lifted his musket, preparing to fire himself.

“First Platoon, fire,” he snapped.  The First Platoon had standing orders; load, wait, unless at point-blank range.  The final horsemen were blown off their horses and suddenly the first battle was over, leaving only the screams of the dying and the terrified noises of the stricken horses.

“Well, that was quick,” Angelina said.  “What now?”

The noise of a trumpet echoed over from the enemy lines.  “I don’t know,” Jack said, “but I have the feeling that we’re about to find out.”

***
The disaster had managed something astonishing, something that would be funny under other circumstances; it had managed to surpass Brant’s worst fears of what could happen.  As the handful of survivors from the first barrage crawled back, he looked up at General Tarn, who was looking shocked beyond measure.

“They were all killed,” he said, in horror.  “They were wiped out.”

“Yes,” Brant said, in irritation.  “Now will you let me do what I have to do?”

“I am in command here,” Tarn snapped.  He started to bellow orders to the four hundred infantrymen, all armed with the new muskets.  Brant listened for a long moment, learning only that Tarn had learnt nothing from the entire clash, and then he lifted his weapon and blew Tarn’s head off.

“No,” he said.  “I am in command here.”  It hadn’t been as stable as Shayde had wanted it, but he’d seen the look on the faces of the infantry; in a few moments, he was mortally certain that Tarn and he would be shot by their own men, rather than charge the enemy position.  If the fast cavalry couldn’t reach the enemy before being killed, how could the slow and heavily laden infantry?

He glared at the senior officers, all of whom lowered their eyes, and beckoned for Wizard Rand.  As soon as the wizard arrived, he barked out orders to the other units, then ordered Captain Harold to prepare the trenches for expansion at once.

“We are going to win this,” he said.  “I want skirmishers and armed infantry prepared to launch a flanking attack.”

Captain Harold gaped at him.  “An attack against them?”  He asked, horrified.  “They will be killed!”

Brant shook his head, gazing at the map of the battleground.  “I want them to advance around the enemy here,” he said, tracing a line through the forest.  “Once they get there, they are to attack the enemy rear.”

“A frontal attack on the enemy rear,” Captain Harold said.  “I like it.”

“Take two of the wizards with you,” Brant ordered.  “They are to distract the enemy when they see you.  In the meantime, I’m going to launch a cannon bombardment.”

***
The puff of smoke from the enemy lines was very clear, as was the crash of the red-hot cannonball landing some distance short of the lines.  Smoke arose from where it had hit, threatening to obscure their line of sight.  Jack muttered orders to Martin, who blew the smoke back towards the enemy lines.  More cannonballs came crashing through, not aimed very well, but keeping everyone nervous.

“Why the hell are they doing that?”  Martin asked.  An explosion echoed behind them as a hot cannonball struck one of the ammunition supplies.  “They can’t always get lucky.”

“I have no idea,” Jack said, and then it struck him.  How many modern warfare techniques might Shayde have learned from him?  Enough to launch a sneak attack?  “Sigmund!”

The hawk floated out of the sky.  “Yes, General Jack?”

Martin snickered.  Jack glared at him.  “Make yourself useful and try to block the cannonballs,” he snapped.  “Sigmund, fly up and see if they’re doing anything.”  The hawk flapped its wings and rose, spinning slightly, into the air.  “Martin?”

“No joy,” Martin said.  “They just have too much punch to stop them from getting through the wards.  I’ve tried to toss them back, but…”

Sigmund fell out of the sky, right onto Jack’s head.  “They’re moving through the woods,” he snapped, before Jack could do more than gasp in pain.  “At least three hundred of them, closing in on your rear.”

“Fuck,” Jack swore.  It was his turn to have been taken aback by the new warfare.  “Any modern weapons?”

”They’re armed with muskets,” Sigmund said.  “They’ll be at your back in more than five minutes, and less than ten.”

Jack met Angelina’s eyes.  “If we have to hold them off, we’ll need a trench and we don’t have one facing that way,” she said.

Jack nodded.  “Martin,” he said slowly, “how much fire can you make?”

Martin stared at him.  “Burn the woods to the ground?”  He demanded.  Jack nodded.  “Are you out of your mind?”

Jack shook his head, holding Martin’s eyes.  “They have more men then we do,” he said.  “If we try to fight them in the woods, we will lose more men than we can spare.  If we let them reach here, they will kill us in a skirmish where no side has an advantage!  I’m out of other options here.”

Martin looked away, and then stepped forward.  Jack sensed the wave of heat building on Martin, before the young webhead directed the magic into the forest.  “There are magicians there,” Martin said.  “They’re resisting…and they have lost.”

The flames leapt up impossibly quickly, lashing through the undergrowth.  Martin sagged to his knees.  “I think we’ll be blamed,” he said, as a massive stream of animals started to run for it, fleeing the woods as quickly as they could.  Martin fanned the fires towards the enemy, pushing them as hard as he could, and then he collapsed.

“Jack, I think that’s all I can do for the moment,” he said.  “Jack?”

Jack knelt beside him.  “You did good,” he said.  “Martin, I’ll…”

“They’re coming,” Angelina snarled, as the shelling began again.  “Jack, they’re attacking with everything they have!”

***
 Brant stared in horror as one of the large forces from Grand Mage Valastar’s territory advanced forward, the three magicians attached to the force throwing magical blasts forward to clear the way.  They strove to hold a shield ahead of them, deflecting musket balls…and he wondered if it might work…and then he saw the report from the rear.

“They’ve struck our camp again,” he said, as he turned to see the plume of the explosion rising in the distance.  “That’s most of our supplies gone.”

He spun around to face the Wizard Rand.  “Get the other wizards up here,” Brant snapped.  “I also want the four with the special weapons, now!”

Wizard Rand bowed and called his fellows, only five magicians were left, after all of the fighting.  Some were dead in the burning forest, others were burnt out and being transported back to the camp.  

“I want you to generate a shield ahead of the advancing infantry,” Brant snapped, as the first attack began to hit the enemy positions.  “Move it, now!”

Wizard Rand bowed again.  “Yes, Your Lordship,” he said, almost mockingly.  “Come on.”

Captain Harold frowned.  “Is this a good idea?”

“It’s the only chance left,” Brant said, as the infantry assembled for their attack.  “We’ve lost all of the supplies, and you know what that means to us?”

Wizard Rand nodded once and took his place at the end of his force.  “We’re ready,” he said, as Brant took up his own weapon.  “Sir?”

Brant nodded once.  “Charge,” he ordered.  “Magic force; deploy the wonder shield!”

***
Martin felt tired beyond endurance, trying to shrink into himself.  His head hurt; he’d used more magic than anyone should have used, attacking the forest and burning it to the ground.  He wanted to go to sleep and never wake up; he wanted to die.  Slowly, through the haze of darkness, he felt someone shaking him.

“Go away,” he said, as clearly as he could.  Even his ears couldn’t hear it properly.  “I need to sleep.”

“You’re needed,” Jack’s voice said.  “Martin, I need you and your magic.”

Martin felt dazed, trying to call upon the magic to give him strength – it failed.  “What’s up, doc?”  He asked, through the haze.  He opened his eyes, to see the advancing enemy force, and saw the shimmering haze behind which they advanced.  A cannonball tore through the shield, killing a dozen enemy troopers, but the musket balls simply bounced off.  “Jack?”

“That shield has to come down,” Jack said, as the firing started to drop off slightly.  “You have to bring it down.”

Martin closed his eyes, forcing back the darkness by sheer force of will.  “Jack, I’m trying,” he said, as he reached out with all of his concentration.  Seeing beyond his own body took longer than he had ever expected or experienced; the shield itself almost defeated him.  He could see it, a wall of magic, doing nothing, but repelling all objects that it could handle.

A hail of bullets cut through the shield, from the direction of the enemy, and he ducked sharply, trying to see how the shield was one-way.  He blinked, and then laughed to himself; the shield wasn’t one-way at all!  It was their own weapons, tossing bullets with so much power that they just went through the shield.  Each of them tore a hole in the shield, and he reached out with his magic, grabbing onto one of the holes.

“Jack, get ready,” he said, as his magic started to hurt under the pressure.  His head echoed with its pain, with the screaming of nerves that were never meant to be used by un-evolved humans.  “I’m not sure how long I can hold this.”

He closed his eyes, reaching out with the last of his strength, and pulled as hard as he could.  The enemy shield, not the most stable of shields because of the hammering it was taking from both sides, came apart.  Their force opened up with one massive volley of musket fire, tearing the enemy apart, even when the enemy returned fire.  The fighting was savage, but the outcome had been determined.

He dimly heard Jack calling for surrender, offering to treat each of the men well if they surrendered, and wondered if that was wise…before the darkness finally came up to take him away from all of the world.

Chapter Forty-Six: Victory or Defeat or Stalemate?

A long time ago, Shayde had made a deal with the spiders.  They had agreed to serve him, more or less, for his lifetime, in exchange for certain benefits.  Now, as flames licked through the forest where thousands of spiders lurked, slaughtering most of them, the spider-mind howled its agony.

Shayde barely felt the moment of Brant’s death as the spiders proclaimed their rage.  He knew suddenly that he was losing control of everything; the loss of much of Grand Mage Valastar’s army would cripple the offensive effort.  He didn’t think that the two enemy Grand Mages could launch a counter-attack into Grand Mage Valastar’s territory, but he might be wrong, which would cripple the war effort.

The spiders howled again, demanding revenge.  They would take it, with or without him; they would use all that they had learnt from him to take their revenge.  Shayde mentally pleaded with them, trying to convince them, and knew that it would be futile.  The spiders demanded payment.  Shayde made one request and they agreed, but they would take what they wanted in blood.  He shuddered, coming to his knees, even as Grand Mage Valastar stormed in.

“The army has been beaten,” she proclaimed.  Shayde, who knew that from the spiders, said nothing.  “You lost me my army!”

“Your incompetent commanding officer,” Shayde said, reminding Valastar of General Tarn.  “You made the decision to place him in command!”

Valastar ignored this piece of backbiting.  “Why did I ever believe that you were different?”  She asked herself.  “What exactly was I thinking?”

Several answers came to mind.  Shayde, distracted by the spiders, said none of them.  “You cost me my army,” she said.  “My position is at risk now, thanks to you!”

Shayde staggered to his feet, feeling pure rage storming through him.  “Thanks to me?”  He asked.  “Who was it who insisted that we use a Thrall to command the force?  I should have had him killed just before the battle started!”

Valastar’s hand snapped up into a magical position, controlling her temper with an effort.  “Get out,” she snarled, pushing at him with her magic.  “Leave my lands.”

Shayde glared at her.  “You are behaving like a spoilt child,” he snapped.  “One battle does not cost us the war, you silly idiot!”

Valastar’s hand snapped down.  A bolt of magic crashed into Shayde’s shield.  He countered with a bolt of his own, lashing out at her, trying to transfer all of the spider-mind’s rage to her body.  They slammed at each other for a long chilling moment, breaking all of the rules on not fighting equals, and then they stopped.  Neither of them could gain the advantage.

“You will leave,” Valastar said flatly.  Shayde glared at her.  He wanted nothing more than to hurt her, to force her to surrender to him, to force her to…but he knew that it would be futile.  Grand Mages weren’t supposed to hurt one another; he was surprised that the Power of London hadn’t stepped in already to separate them.  

“And let you make a deal with the two traitor Grand Mages?”  Shayde asked.  Valastar’s form flickered, dissolving into a cloud of bats.  Her clothes fell to the ground as the bats flew forward, revealing poison teeth.  Shayde raised a shield in front of him, only to see the bats start to drain the shield’s power.  He generated a spark of pure power, knocking the bats backwards.  

They reformed into Valastar, her body now naked.  Shayde winced; her body was covered with so many tattoos of power that she must have made deals with thousands of different Powers.  She would have been attractive, even sexy, without the tattoos.  As it was, her body looked shockingly misshaped.

“I will make no deal with them,” Valastar said.  Annoyingly, she didn’t even seem to be winded by the brief battle.  “You will leave, now.”

Shayde bowed once, formally, using the dragon charm.  A dragon would pick him up as he left; he only had to decide what to do after he’d put some distance between himself and Valastar.

“A pleasure, as always,” he said, and left the room.  Valastar’s servants fled from his rage as he stepped down the stairs, watching carefully for magical traps, but finding none.  Perhaps Valastar had meant to let him go in peace, or perhaps she had simply trusted that she could have dealt with him before the Power of London could arrive.  The dragon waited for him outside and he climbed on its back, ordering it to fly away from the castle.

He closed his eyes as the dragon flew through the sky.  It wasn’t over yet; at the back of his mind he saw what the spiders were doing to the enemy.  Perhaps…victory could yet be snatched from the jaws of defeat.  He ordered the dragon to move to pick up Christina, and then to head north, towards the Castle at the End of the Land.

***
As soon as Jack stepped inside, Sumrita stepped forward and slapped him as hard as she could.  He recoiled as her hand smacked against his cheek, trying to resist the temptation to slap her back as hard as he could.  She was screaming at him, even as Angelina caught hold of her, blaming him for Martin being hurt in the battle.

“It was war,” he said, as sincerely as he could.  “Sumrita, I needed him.”

She glared at him.  “There were other magicians in your fucking force,” she screamed.  He couldn’t ever remember her swearing at him, at anyone, before.  “Why did you have to risk his life?”

“Because none of the others have the slightest idea of how magic really works,” Jack said, as patiently as he could.  “How is he?”

She stared at him, and then spoke, keeping her voice cold and hard.  “His ears were bleeding when he came here,” she said.  “I did what I could, but the witches did more; Mother Rankin and Dawn were very helpful.  For the moment, he’s suffering from radical shock and trauma, but given time he may recover.”

Jack nodded.  “How long until he’s better and able to move?”

Sumrita sighed.  “I honestly have no idea,” she said.  “There’s a lot of magic crackling through his system now, helping it to get better.  It’ll be around a day, at this rate, before all of the major damage has been repaired, but as for the mental damage…I honestly have no idea.”

Jack rubbed his cheek.  “Thank you,” he said, and left the room.  There wasn’t anything else to say; he brooded as he paced down the long corridor towards the War Room, only making way for medical trolleys.  That too was one of their innovations; the nobles would hardly have cared about their commoner soldiers, but Jack did.  He’d had to convince the army to form a medical corps, but it had been very useful before the battle, let alone after it.

“Your Generalship,” Vaeledyne Rabrepos said, as he reached the War Room.  Jack scowled at him.  “You won the battle.”

“The only thing costlier than a battle lost is a battle won,” Jack said, knowing that Vaeledyne Rabrepos would not understand.  “One more victory like that and we are ruined.”

Vaeledyne Rabrepos said nothing.  Jack opened the doors and stepped inside the War Room, facing the two Grand Mages.  Both of them had big smiles on their faces, grinning at him.  It was more than Jack could take at the moment.

“Well done,” Rinpotch said.  Grand Mage Gorgre nodded in agreement.  “What happened?”

“We beat them,” Jack said tiredly.  Protocol dictated that he remain standing; he was too tired to care.  He slumped into a chair, feeling very weary.  “We kicked the shit out of them.”

“We know that,” Rinpotch said.  “I’m sorry to keep you awake, Captain, but exactly how many did we lose?”

Grand Mage Gorgre coughed.  “And how many did we kill?”

“You make it sound as if we add them all up, we’ll come up with a total, which will allow us to deduce who won,” Jack said, almost unable to open his eyes.  “We lost around sixty people, mainly in the last moment of the fighting and a handful of lucky cannon hits.  Twenty-five people, including Mage Martin, were injured in the battle; they’re being cared for by the MASH.”

“The MASH,” Grand Mage Gorgre repeated.  He’d thought that it was a joke when Jack had outlined the concept.  “And how many did we kill?”

Jack yawned once.  “We killed upwards of one thousand soldiers,” he said.  It was a tiny loss rate compared to the Nazi War, but by the standards of TimeLine G, it was appalling.  “Hundreds were killed during the last moments, dozens were killed in the first charge, and God alone know how many were killed when the forest caught fire.  We took nearly three hundred prisoners, all of whom surrendered, and we captured several dozen horses, many wounded.”  He closed his eyes for a long moment, wishing that he could sleep.  “Grand Mage Valastar has lost her army,” he said.  “It has been handled very hard indeed.  As an offensive force, it has been totally shattered.”

He looked into their faces and knew that they didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of their victory.  “We could proceed now, into Carlisle, and take her,” he said.  “My army is battered, but intact; we could march now and end the war before Shayde could bring up more of his own troops.”

The two Grand Mages exchanged glances.  “We have received a communication from Grand Mage Valastar,” Rinpotch said.  “She is prepared to end hostilities, based upon her Oath, provided we respect her territories.  She has already driven Shayde out of her territory – we have her Oath on this - and has sworn not to allow her territory to be used for hostile action against us.”

“In effect, she has declared neutrality,” Grand Mage Gorgre added.  “We are minded to accept that.”

Jack stared at him, feeling shock sweep away the tiredness.  “That’s it?”  He demanded.  “She declares neutrality and we let her get the fuck away with it?”

Grand Mage Gorgre met his eyes.  “Yes,” he said flatly.  “The balance of power is already changing.”

“So much for the spine transplant,” Jack muttered.

“Captain, be reasonable,” Rinpotch said.  His voice was calm, soothing.  “We have started communicating with Grand Mage Shan, Shayde’s only other significant ally.  Given time and sufficient guarantees, Shan will join us as well, removing what was once Akron’s and my comrade’s territory” – he nodded at Grand Mage Gorgre – “from Shayde’s control.”

Jack shook his head.  “I cannot believe it,” he said.  “Will you remove the power that Shayde has given the peasants?”

“The peasants will accept their place in the scheme of things,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  “They are born to be subordinate to a dictatorship of magicians.  The nobles can be dispersed with; henceforth the Grand Mages will rule.”

Jack felt sick.  “And what of us?”  He asked.  It was unwise, but he pushed ahead anyway.  “What will you try to do with us?”

Rinpotch smiled.  “Your advice and assistance would be most helpful,” he said.  “Captain, I understand why you are…unhappy, and I do wish that it were possible to remove Shayde and Grand Mage Valastar, but it cannot be done.  You talked about killing a thousand enemy soldiers as if they were nothing, not even noticeable.  This war, Captain, has gone on for too long.”

Jack counted to ten under his breath.  “That’s not what you said when Shayde sent a dragon to massacre your people,” he said.  “What would Akron say?”

“I believe he would have understood,” Gorgre said.  He tried a manly smile, which came out as more of a disgusting leer.  “I too would like nothing more than to have Grand Mage Valastar lying before me, her legs spread helplessly, but that isn’t possible.  Captain, if Shan and Grand Mage Valastar change sides, or at least refuse to help Shayde, the war is on the brink of being won.”

Jack sighed.  “If it is alright with you,” he said, “I will go get some sleep.  Perhaps in the morning things will look better.”

***
Jill had spent most of the day working on medical support, using her magic to assist the worst cases, healing them of wounds that would have been life-threatening under other circumstances.  She kept looking in on Martin as she worked; finally convincing Sumrita to get some sleep herself, before heading to the room she shared with Jack.  As she opened the door, she was struck by an astonishing sight; half of the room was wrecked.

“Jack?”  She asked, seeing a body in the bed.  “Jack, are you feeling alright?”

The body shifted, revealing that it was indeed Jack.  “No,” he said, bitterly.  “Come to sleep, love; hold me.”

Jill stared at him for a long moment, then stripped quickly to her bare skin, before climbing into bed beside him.  “Jack,” she said, feeling his cold skin, “what is it?”

“They’re going to betray everyone,” Jack said.  “They’ve managed to make deals with Shayde’s allies, splitting his coalition into little bits.  They’re going to destroy the nobility – and they’re going to rule themselves.”

Jill felt cold.  “I thought that you were going to do something about that,” she said, knowing now that she’d been a fool.  What man could have challenged the system?  “Jack, it’s not your fault…”

Jack held her in his hands, tiredly.  “I gave them the weapons, I led their army,” he said.  “I aimed for a complete victory, only they’ve misused it as badly as my people misused the great victory of 1991.”

Jill blinked and kissed him.  “I don’t understand,” she said.

Jack shrugged.  “Nor should you,” he said.  She reached down and held his manhood in her hand; she knew that he liked that, but he didn’t respond.  “They’re going to try to govern themselves, except it won’t work, not if any magic-user can overthrow them at any moment.  Jill, I don’t know what to do.”

Jill pulled him to her.  “Enjoy me and relax,” she said firmly.  “Start making plans in the morning.”
***
Jack was half-asleep when Angelina hammered on the door, which opened under her touch.  “Jack, wake up,” she snapped.  “Jill, you too.”

Several years in the military had made Jack a light sleeper.  He was already half out of bed before Angelina had started to call Jill.  As Jill pulled herself out of bed, trying to cover her naked breasts, Jack was dressing as quickly as he could.

“What’s happening?”  He demanded.  “Are the dragons back?”

“There’s been bad news,” Angelina said.  “The big Grand Mages want to see you at once.”

“Bother them,” Jack said.  “All of us, even Martin?”

“He woke up earlier,” Angelina said.  “He seems to have recovered fairly well.”

“Good,” Jack said, more relieved that he let show.  “What’s happened?”

“Shayde’s made his countermove,” Angelina said.  “They want to discuss it with the rest of us.”

Jack took a moment to check that Jill was ready for public viewing and opened the door.  “Come on,” he said, leading the way outside.  They passed Martin, who still looked weak, and Sumrita as they headed towards the War Room.  “Martin?”

“I’ve felt better,” Martin admitted, as Sumrita glared at Jack.  “I don’t think I want to do that again for a while.”

Jack nodded.  “Here we are,” he said, as they reached the war room.  He pushed open the door, to see the two Grand Mages there, looking very pale.  “What’s happened?”  He asked.  “What has Shayde done?”

“We had a communication from a village ten miles south of here,” Rinpotch said.  “It was overrun by spiders, thousands of them.  They just came out of the forest and slaughtered everyone.  Ten minutes later, three more villages were destroyed; anti-spider spells worked for the first few times…and then the spiders adapted.”

“Shayde is raising the stakes,” Jack commented.  “They’re going to hammer everywhere until you surrender.”

Rinpotch looked as if he had been drinking.  “Shayde has gone mad,” he said.  “I tried to summon the Power of London, to ask it to remove Shayde, but it didn’t even bother to come.  Jack, we cannot stop the spiders.”

“Resistance is futile,” Martin muttered.  “We will be assimilated.”

Jack shushed him.  “There must be something that can be done,” he said.  “How many spiders are there, anyway?”

“There are dozens of different types in the attacks,” Grand Mage Gorgre said.  “Somehow, he’s expanded his control.”

“It must be costing him something,” Martin said.  “Controlling so many creatures, for so long.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rinpotch said.  “Jack, you were right; Shayde has to be fought.”

Jack glared at him.  “And when are you going to change your mind again?”

Rinpotch ignored him.  “You have to go to the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “I have been in communication with Grand Mage Ixa’em; he has agreed to allow you to pass through his lands, heading north.  We’ll try to hold out as long as we can, but…”

Jack nodded.  “We’ll get to the Castle at the End of the Land,” he said.  “How many of us are going?”

“Just you five and her,” Rinpotch said, indicating Jill.  “We need the others here, just to get people out of the path of the spider rampage.  Jack, we need this, very badly.”

Jack sighed.  “When have we ever let you down?”

Chapter Forty-Seven: The Long Hard Road

Edinburgh had been a prosperous town before the war, one link between the highlands and the lowlands of Scotland, or what had been Scotland in the ideal, rather than the reality, before the Castle at the End of the Land had permanently depopulated much of the Highlands.  Not, the Council of Wizardry suspected, because of malicious intent, but because of all the strange events that happened near the Castle at the End of the Land.

The bowl of water lay in front of Grand Mage Ixa’em, as he stared down at the image in the basin.  The water bubbled slightly, revealing a team of horses and a single large cart, but refused to go any closer because of spells designed to protect the riders from being spied upon.  Still, it was easy enough to see that there were six of them, not five.

He said so.  “There are six people,” he said, “and you said that there would be five.”

The old woman behind him smiled.  “Is there any reason, Great Lord, why they could not have picked up allies here?”

The Grand Mage smiled.  “I suppose that you have a point,” he said.  “And so, should I let them go near the Castle at the End of the Land?”

The harsh chuckle nearly made him burst out laughing in sympathy.  “You have kidnapped me, Oh Great Lord,” the woman said.  “You have demanded that I See for you, and you alone, just because…”

“I must know,” Grand Mage Ixa’em snapped.  “You know that, do you?”

The woman looked up at him, nothing but amusement showing in her gaze.  “I know that I will die soon,” she said.  “The ripples of probability are closing in on me.”

“Old Mother Daughter,” Grand Mage Ixa’em sighed.  “You told Grand Mage Akron that the five newcomers would change the magic and save us all.  Shayde took that as a sign that they would destroy magic.  An entire war has been fought over it; in the last few days entire towns have been overrun by maddened spiders.”

Old Mother Daughter, prophet and soothsayer, laughed.  “And how exactly am I responsible for Shayde’s misinterpretation of my sayings?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em glared at her.  “Are they misinterpretations?”

“Have you not worked it out?”  Old Mother Daughter mocked.  “I am merely the Seeing Eye, not the person who works out what they all mean, eh?”

“I will talk with them,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “Then I will make up my mind.”

***
They had left Newcastle at dawn, the day after the spiders began their attacks, taking only horses and carts.  Jack had led them away from the castle, knowing that the rest of their small army would be needed to defend the people already flooding north from the threatened villages.  Shayde himself hadn’t said anything; he’d suspected that the two Grand Mages had attempted to find him and make a deal, but he hadn’t shown up at all.  Instead, there were just the thousands of spiders, marching across the ground and eating their way though the human settlements.

In four days of heavy travel, they had made it into Scotland without seeing anyone, past an occasional small village.  The entire journey could have been done in less than a day in their own world; in the new world it looked as if they wouldn’t reach the Castle at the End of the Land for at least another week.  Jack had been assured, by the magical map from Akron, that there was indeed a bridge across the Forth, which would save them a few days out of their journey.

If they hadn’t built that bridge as well, then we would have lost at least an extra week, he thought, as they reached the edges of Grand Mage Ixa’em’s territory.  The Grand Mage had said nothing to them at all, apart from granting Rinpotch and Gorgre permission to let them pass though.  The sense of threat had only grown as they had passed through desolate regions, where a Power had once lived, but they had seen nothing.  Jack and Martin had discussed the dangers of meeting another dragon, but in the end all they had been able to conclude was that they would only be able to keep a sharp eye out for trouble.  

“Any sign of anything?”  He called out to Martin.  The Mage was recovering from the battle, but he still looked grim, as if he had been badly hurt.  “No sign of Shayde?”

Martin shook his head grimly.  “No sign of him at all,” he said.  “I think he must be plotting something, perhaps something bad.”

“Poisoning the mind of Grand Mage Ixa’em against us,” Loke suggested.  The man had remained very quiet for the few days of the trip, only speaking when spoken to.  It was as if having gotten his wish had made him more careful, not less.  “He’s not going to let us get all the way north without a fight?”

Martin coughed.  “What does he have left to fight with?”  He asked.  “We killed a lot of his soldiers.”

“The rest are down in his home territories,” Angelina said.  She seemed pleased by the journey, even though she’d had to leave Dawn behind.  “If I were him, I would be bringing them up as quickly as I could.”

“Not if the other Grand Mages are turning against him,” Jack said.  “He’s going to need…”

An arrow struck the ground ahead of them, frightening the horses.  Jack grabbed for his pistol, with the irreplaceable few bullets left in it, and looked up.  A dozen horsemen were standing there, waiting for them.  He stared; they didn’t seem to have any muskets, but they were clearly professionals anyway.

“We could take them,” Angelina muttered.

“Let’s find out what they want first,” Jack said.  He raised his voice.  “We come in peace,” he shouted.

“So do we,” the leader shouted back.  Jack had to chuckle.  “We have been ordered to escort you to Grand Mage Ixa’em!”

Jack frowned.  “Do we go with them?”

“I don’t see that we have much choice,” Angelina said, and Jack nodded.  Loke and Martin nodded; finally Sumrita agreed as well.

“We’re coming,” Jack called, and led the way up towards the horsemen.  Closer up, he could see that they were almost certainly of highland stock, perhaps even from the same clan as the Knight Errant.  They had the same general build.  “Where do we go?”

The leader pointed a long finger across where the city would have been in their timeline.  The Castle Rock remained in its place, with the castle perched on top of it.  “Over there,” the leader said.  “Follow us.”

The ride took less time than Jack had expected; clearly Grand Mage Ixa’em believed firmly in creating roads and other transportation systems.  Edinburgh itself seemed to be a lot smaller than the one in their timeline; it seemed to be mostly concentrated around the Castle and around where South Queensferry – and the Forth Road Bridge – would have been.  A single massive bridge could be seen as they came down the hill, preparing to reach the Castle.

“That bridge had a lot of magic in it,” Martin commented.  Jack nodded; like Shayde’s castle, nothing short of magic could have held it up.  The Royal Mile no longer existed – or never had existed here – they cantered up the Mound as if it were still a normal rock, rather than the road it had once been.

Martin looked dazed.  “You could have gotten a bus here,” he said.  “It’s just so different.”

Up close, the Castle itself was also different, more of a blocky form than the collection of buildings that Jack remembered from his brief visit.  It rose above them; Martin warned that it was protected by powerful wards, ones perhaps even capable of handling a dragon.  Jack could only wish that they had one, perhaps even one that might have done as they wished, rather than being hunted by Shayde’s remaining dragons.

“In there,” the leader said, pointing towards a black gate.  Jack nodded and slipped off the horse as grooms came out to take care of the tired animals, looking after them and feeding them some food.  “The Grand Mage will see you in there.”

“Into the belly of the beast,” Jack said, and strode into the darkness.  It faded into nothing, revealing a well-appointed room with a spread table, waiting for them there.

“Good afternoon,” a voice said from behind them.  “I assure you that I have been waiting some time to meet you.”

***
Jack turned around to see Grand Mage Ixa’em, the final Grand Mage in Britannia.  He was slight, slighter than even Martin, and dark-skinned, almost completely black.  It wasn’t Negro skin; it was pure darkness, bound into his skin.  Jack couldn’t help himself; he stared at Grand Mage Ixa’em.

“A minor experiment that went wrong,” Grand Mage Ixa’em commented.  “I have taken the liberty of preparing a dinner for you” – he waved a hand at the set table – “and I give you my Oath that there is nothing harmful to you there.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, waving the others to seats.  Grand Mage Ixa’em took the seat at the head of the table, eating little, but watching them all carefully.  “We needed the rest.”

“You may also stay the night here,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “I do, however, need to talk to you about your trip.”

“I thought you might,” Martin said.  He nibbled thoughtfully on a fruit.  “What do you want to know?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em looked sharply at him.  “You would be the magic-user,” he said.  “I wonder…it is said that you destroyed a dragon, correct?”

Jack would have preferred to have lied here, rather than risk a clash, but Rinpotch had spread that news far and wide.  “Yes, he did,” Jack said.  “It was very clever.”

“That’s what the dragons said,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  He smiled at their expressions.  “Oh, there are a handful of dragons, free dragons, nearby.  They were very curious and very impressed.”

Martin frowned at him.  “Impressed?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em nodded once, his dark hair falling over his skin.  “Dragons are very independent creatures,” he said.  “They don’t have sex as we do; their eggs are self-fertilising.  All they need is a lot of power…and…”

“Instant dragon,” Loke said.  “Are they mad at us?”

“Not particularly,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “Up here, you see more dragons – or at least you know that they are around – than anywhere else.  They have been migrating south recently.”

Jack stared at him.  One dragon – just one – had come very close to killing them all; four had wrecked an entire town.  “They’re all heading south?”  He asked, in horror.  “Why?”

“Dragons live on magic,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “That’s why they lived so near to the Castle at the End of the Land; it was the source of all magic, and they needed it to live.  They first appeared there, or so the records say, and most of them remain there.  Except…the power level is rising.”

Jill blinked at him.  “How can that be driving them south?”

“Too much oxygen can be bad for a human,” Sumrita said.  “That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?  The dragons are suddenly finding that they cannot live any closer to the Castle at the End of the Land.”

“Exactly,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “They are being driven back from the castle, which is forcing them south.  Some of them headed to the islands just inside the Brass Walls, but sooner or later…they will choke on their own magic.”

“I figured that the dragons had evolved to use the magic field,” Martin said.  “Can they not adapt to endure it?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em shook his head.  “They can endure it for only a short period of time,” he said.  “Anyway, to cut a long and largely boring story short, I was lucky enough to meet a dragon when I was young, one of the older ones.  It and I talked – we were both in danger from a Power at the time – and we formed an agreement, of sorts.”  He shrugged.  “Mainly one about discussing certain matters, such as the rise in magic.”

Jack stared at him.  “If you knew that this was a problem, then why the hell didn’t you join Akron’s side right from the start?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em shrugged.  “He would never have approved of working with the dragons,” he said.  “I knew, however, that something would be necessary, so I borrowed someone to help me find out what to do.”  He nodded towards the door; an older woman stood there, so old her skin was the same colour as her white hair.  “Old Mother Daughter was very helpful.”

“I saw you all coming,” Old Mother Daughter said.  Her voice was light and whispery.  “You have to save us all from the magic.”

“The dragon came to me some time back,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “It knew about the prophecy as soon as it was made; Akron had made sure that everyone knew about it, and some dragons have an interest in human lives.  It came to its sole human ally – because the dragons have a problem.”

Old Mother Daughter coughed.  “If you somehow prevent the magic from working, you will kill all of the dragons,” she said.  “They may not care much for their own company, or even for that of their brethren, but they do care about losing everything.”

“But why?”  Sumrita asked.  “Why don’t they ever care about their own children?”

Grand Mage Ixa’em snorted.  “Human children are delicate,” he said.  “A dragon, by contrast, is almost invulnerable.  You destroyed one – so what?  They don’t care.”

“Not human,” Martin commented.  “So, what do the dragons want out of this?”

“You have several hundred miles left to go,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “Shayde and one of his dragons is lurking somewhere along your path.”  He waited for a long moment.  “The dragons are prepared to carry you there instead.  They won’t be able to stick around to help you if you get into trouble – they can’t stay too long there – but they could get you there much quicker.”

“I see,” Jack said.  “I repeat Martin’s question; what do the dragons want out of this?”

“You’re the hope of the world,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said sardonically.  “They want you to control the magic levels, so that they can survive, not simply vanish when the magic goes out of the world.”

“They will be asking you for your Oaths,” Old Mother Daughter said.  “I will be coming with you, as well.”

Jack took a breath.  “Thoughts?”

Martin nodded once.  “Agree to this,” he said.  “We can deal with Shayde…”

“If we can without changing the magic,” Loke said.  His face darkened.  “I don’t like this at all.”

“The alternative is facing the dragons as well as Shayde,” Angelina said.  “Jack; you’ve already decided to stay, so why not agree?”

Sumrita snorted.  “Would the dragons agree to assist us with removing Shayde?”  She asked.  “If the magic is still there, then it will be a problem.”

”They might,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “They don’t really care about human conflicts, but they might agree just to get rid of the problem.”

“Ask them that,” Jack said.  He met Grand Mage Ixa’em’s eyes; the dark-skinned magician smiled at him.  “If they agree, then we have a bargain.”

***
Martin was almost feeling his old self as he lay in bed with Sumrita, taking the opportunity to demonstrate to her just how healed he was.  Afterwards, they lay together, until the morning rose.  After a quick breakfast, Grand Mage Ixa’em beckoned them outside.  Martin stepped outside…and stopped dead.

The dragon made the one they’d faced before look like nothing; it was a monster from the worst of the childish television shows, all teeth and claws.  It was huge, nearly twice the size of a bus, with eyes the size of a car.  It sat neatly on the road up to the Castle; somehow, he knew that it was eyeing him and wondering if he would be good to eat.

“Mage Martin, meet Old Scale,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “Most dragons are called Redscale – this is what they have that passes for humour – but this one took a name of it’s own.  It is perhaps the oldest dragon in existence.”

“I have lived for nearly seven hundred of your little years,” Old Scale said.  It’s voice certainly fitted its age, without the tone that the dragon he’d killed had used.  He could sense the magic crawling all over it; it made his hair stand on end.  “Will you swear, here and now, that you will not turn off the magic?”

Jack looked up at the monster.  Martin noticed that one of his hands was caressing his sword.  “Will you swear to assist us in defeating our enemy?”

The dragon’s red eyes found Jack.  “I give you my word,” it said.  “Mine alone.  Will you?”

“You can trust him,” Grand Mage Ixa’em said.  “Dragons have no sense of treachery.  They will always keep their word, unless they are betrayed first.  Old Scale will help you; the other dragons might not.  They won’t stop Old Scale from keeping his word.”

“If we can, we will keep the magic field in place,” Jack said.  “I give you my Oath.”  He paused.  “I can’t give you a more precise promise.”

“Then climb aboard,” Old Scale said.  It settled down to the ground, allowing them to climb on its back.  Old Mother Daughter climbed on without any problems.  Martin winced; both Jill and Sumrita got the shakes as the dragon prepared to take off.  “Up, up and away!”

With one flap of its wings, Old Scale lifted itself into the air, spraying magic everywhere.  Martin closed his eyes and studied the magic, trying to see how it went together, as the dragon flew on towards the north…

Chapter Forty-Eight: Confrontation

Flying on the dragon was like nothing on Earth; it was like riding a scaly horse, high in the sky.  Somehow, it felt safe, as safe as an aircraft; Martin could look down on the land without fear.  He held onto Sumrita tightly as the land sped away below them, very different from the lands he remembered.  Scotland was still mountainous, still green, but it was covered with strange foliage, like nothing that existed in their own timeline.  

Jack and Jill had been talking softly, but even they fell silent as the dragon winged its way up north.  The land was desolated, almost abandoned; as they passed where Aberdeen would have been, only a small settlement sent fire and smoke into the sky.  The dragon swung around the territories of a dozen Powers, clinging on close to the Castle at the End of the Land, avoiding the most dangerous threats to it, let alone its passengers.

He closed his eyes, feeling out the magic that carried them on their flight, warming them and protecting them from the cold…except it wasn’t that cold at all.  As they passed regions that looked almost tropical, the temperature rose sharply, only to drop again as they passed over snow and ice.  The dragon beat onwards, tacking towards the north, up towards…

Martin stared.  They were high enough to see the shape of Scotland as the dragon rose, revealing…something at the end of the land, just about where John O’Groats would have been in their timeline.  It was desolate; there were apparently few humans around, Martin could see no signs of habitation as they flew lower, towards the strange shape.  It moved as he looked at it, taking on form after form, refusing to meet his gaze properly.

“The Castle at the End of the Land,” the dragon said.  Old Scale had said nothing during the trip; now it’s voice was dull and grim as it headed for a landing.  Martin could feel the magic shimmering around the dragon, threatening its very existence, tearing away at it’s magic.  “Prepare yourselves, humans.”

It hit the ground hard enough to hurt its riders.  Jack led the way off, slipping down the scales and onto the ground, before catching Jill and Old Mother Daughter as they slid down.  Angelina and Loke followed, lifting their weapons into a defensive stance, even as Martin and Jill joined them on the ground.  Outside the dragon’s magic field, it was bitterly cold, without any signs of birds or insects at all.

For some reason, that bothered him.

“Good luck, humans,” Old Scale said.  “Remember your Oath.”

It launched itself into the air, flying faster than Martin would have believed possible, fleeing as fast as it could.  Martin waved goodbye to the dragon, although he never knew if it saw, and turned to face the Castle at the End of the Land.  Up close, only a hundred meters away, it was still indistinct; his mind refused to force a shape on it.  It seemed to exist in every possible dimension, moving and turning in ways his mind refused to grasp, directions he had never even conceived of…

Jack shook him, violently.  “Martin,” he snapped.  “Wake up!”

Martin came back to himself with a bump.  “What happened?”  He asked.  “Jack?”

“You were staring into it for nearly thirty minutes,” Angelina said.  Sumrita held him.  “What did you see?”

“Directions,” Martin said, rather dazed.  “Jack, I think that we had better be…”

Something moved behind him; a burst of magic leapt forward, aimed directly at his back.  Old Mother Daughter was already moving, moving faster than Martin would have believed possible, placing herself in the path of the red light.  She was blown into Martin’s back, with a glowing red hole in her body.

Martin stared at her for a long moment, and then looked up, at the man standing there.  There was no mistaking him now; they had seen each other before and knew each other far too well for disguises.

“Shayde,” he breathed.  Sheer astonishment forced him forward.  “What’s happened to you?”

He stared, sensing Jack and Angelina spreading out, lifting their weapons and targeting the Grand Mage.  Shayde no longer looked human; his body was far too thin, his face inhumanly drawn.  His skin was drawn around his bones, revealing the skull below his flesh, and it was almost transparent.  He wore the same dark hooded cloak he’d worn last time they’d met, but this time…things were moving under it.

His voice was no longer human either.  “I made a bargain,” Shayde said.  “All bargains have to be paid for, in time.”

Jack spoke angrily.  “You’re slaughtering entire towns,” he snapped.  “Thousands have died.”

Shayde’s eyes were dark shadowy pools.  “The spiders demand their pound of flesh,” he said.  “They want all of you, as well, and the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Martin peered…beyond, looking through the magical glamour Shayde had cast.  He could see a dragon sitting there, trembling.  It looked more like a frightened hamster, rather than the terror of the skies.  Christina sat beside it, her haunted eyes staring at nothing, refusing to look at the world.

“Let her go,” Sumrita snapped, moving forward.  Shayde’s hand came up in a gesture and there was a blinding flash of light.  Where she had been, there was now a frog, croaking in panic.  Jack fired once, followed by Angelina, and then they too were transformed.  Jill screamed and tried to run, but it was too late; Martin staggered back as his shields were nearly collapsed by the wave of magic.  He fought desperately to hold it in place, closing his eyes with the effort…and then the wave was gone.

He looked up.  Shayde was kneeling on his knees, almost grovelling in the dirt.  When he looked up at Martin, his eyes were bright with madness, and surprise.  “I never meant that to happen,” he said.  He sounded absurdly perplexed.  “What happened to the fifth of you?”

Martin looked around.  Loke was gone.  “What did you do to him?”  He demanded.  “Where is here?”

Shayde grinned a smile of madness.  “I did nothing to him,” he said.  Martin closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to feel out the magical currents…and realised that Shayde was standing right in the middle of a current of magic, spilling out from the Castle at the End of the Land to the world.  “He fled towards the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Martin cursed and dismissed it for the moment.  “Undo that spell,” he demanded.  “Let them go!”

Shayde laughed.  The sound held no humour in it.  “I cannot do that,” he said.  “Once I get rid of all of you, I can resume my conquest of Britain.”

“You’re mad,” Martin said flatly.  “The spiders will kill everyone, or they will be wiped out by magic themselves.  The other five Grand Mages are already working to defeat them all; they’ll start making thousands of birds, even magical flamethrowers.”

He allowed his voice to become pleading.  “Give this up,” he said.  “You can’t win.  No one has ever managed to return alive from the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Shayde leered at him.  “Oh, but I can,” he said.  “Did Akron teach you anything about necromancy?”

Martin stared at him.  Part of him wanted to lash out and hurt Shayde; part of him wanted to keep the maddened Grand Mage talking.  “Nothing,” he said.  “In our world, a necromancer draws power from the dead.”

“From the dying,” Shayde said.  His voice became a hiss.  The croaking of the frogs became louder.  “A necromancer uses a death to gain magic…”

Martin understood in a flash of sudden inspiration.  “The spiders,” he said.  “I never understood how they fit in, except…you’re using them to kill people and feeding on the power.”

“That’s almost correct,” Shayde said.  For a moment, he seemed almost his old self again.  “If the Grand Mages are the six most powerful magic-users in the world, then which one is the most powerful of them all?”

Martin took a breath.  “Does it matter?”

Shayde laughed again, this time ringing with madness.  “Of course it matters,” he said.  “Why has the Power of London become quiet?  I fought Akron, face to face, and it didn’t show up to stop us.  I fought that bitch in Carlisle…and it didn’t show up.  Why?”

“I don’t have time for guessing games,” Martin said.  “Perhaps you never came close to killing one another.”

Shayde leaned closer to him.  “Or perhaps…there is another category of magic-user,” he said.  “Perhaps…I am more than a Grand Mage.”

“Or perhaps you’re deluded,” Martin said.  “Shayde, if there is any sanity left in you, stop this madness.”

“Power itself is addictive,” Shayde said.  “The entire system is designed to limit the amount of powerful wizards.  Perhaps the Power of London didn’t show up because it knew that it couldn’t stop me, or my little friends.”

He waved a hand towards the distant horizon.  Martin looked and stared; a black mass was seeping across the ground, moving towards them.  “Spiders,” he whispered.  “How many of them are there?”

Shayde held his eyes.  “Your friends are frogs,” he said.  “They are defenceless.  Their life will be drained from them and used for power.  And you will join them.”

Without warning, he smashed a bolt of magic against Martin’s shield.  Martin jumped backwards, feeling the shield crumble under the blast.  Shayde was laughing, firing bolt after bolt of magic towards Martin, drawing power from thin air…

No, not from thin air, Martin realised, as he stumbled.  He’s drawing it from the fields surrounding the Castle at the End of the Land…and I am not.

He reached out with his mind, sucking some of the power into his mind, and then into the shield.  Shayde screamed in outrage as it strengthened, holding back Shayde’s blasts of energy, and then Martin threw a blast back at Shayde.  Shayde’s shield held it firmly back, refusing to allow Martin to hurt him, and he tossed a spell right past Martin.

A frog croaked a warning.  Martin turned to see a monstrous stone giant pulling itself out of the ground; he smashed it with a burst of magic, sending stones flying everywhere.  He moved quickly as the entire ground shuddered, shouting at the frogs to get out of the way, unaware if they could even hear him.  He hoped that they were fine, but there wasn’t time; Shayde was after him.

“What’s happening to you?”  Martin called, as Shayde moved, almost like a spider.  He no longer looked human at all; his face was coming apart, revealing dark streaks of blood cascading down his body.  Shayde opened his mouth and hissed at him, saying nothing.  Martin threw a bolt of white light, hoping that Shayde would have forgotten to shield against light, but Shayde’s shield became a mirror and reflected it back at him.

“All must be paid for,” Shayde said flatly.  His eyes darkened as the magic built up around him, before lashing out at Martin.  The wave of power pounded against his shield, sending him flying backwards and slamming him into a rock.  Martin felt his shield collapse, even as a thought occurred to him.  A wave of magic from Shayde twisted the rock, using it to bind Martin to the rock, helplessly.

Shayde produced a long wicked looking knife from his cloak, staring down at Martin.  “You will be the first to be bled for me,” he said.  “You should be honoured.”

Martin tried desperately to summon the magic, any magic, and could only manage one spell.  He closed his eyes and sent the spell, hoping against hope that Shayde wouldn’t notice, and knew that it was too late.  He opened his eyes, staring into Shayde’s dark pools, and prepared himself for death.

***
Her thoughts had been covered by a haze for so long that it was hard for inner-Christina to hold out against the constant chorus of obey, obey, obey, but she tried, holding on as hard as she could to some tiny uncontaminated aspect of herself.  She knew that part of her was collaborating with the Thrall, that eventually all of her would submit to Shayde completely, but she held on and…

The Thrall snapped.  Inner-Christina came forward into control with such a jerk that she couldn’t even begin to gain control of her body.  Awareness, complete awareness, snapped into existence, revealing Shayde standing some meters away, bending over Martin’s body.  Was he dead?  She couldn’t tell.

She fell back against the dragon and felt its terror through its shaking.  It hadn’t wanted to come so close to the Castle at the End of the Land, but Shayde had given it no choice at all.  So much magic was bad for it; Christina understood exactly how it felt.  She felt her hand fall to her belt, where Shayde had given her a knife, and she looked up at his back.

“I will be using you to gain control of still more spiders,” Shayde was saying, addressing Martin.  Christina pulled herself to her feet, drawing the blade, and charged Shayde with all the strength that she could muster.  The knife slammed into his back, its enchanted blade slicing through flesh and bone with ease, and slashed down through his heart.  Shayde made a long gurgling noise…and fell to the ground.

“Martin,” Christina said, feeling the remains of the spell collapse around her.  Shayde’s blood was pooling against his clothes as the rocky arms released him, allowing her to pull him into a hug.  Tears streamed down her face as they embraced; there was nothing sexual in their embrace, just two people very glad that they were alive.  The transfiguration spell broke seconds later, releasing the other four from their forms.

“Christina,” Jack said, as she hugged him as well.  Sumrita and Angelina joined the hug, pulling Jill into the hug as well, just as Martin hugged her again.  “It’s good to see you again.”

Christina, absurdly, found herself laughing with joy.  “It’s good to be myself again,” she said.  “And you?  What was being a frog like?”

Jack’s eyes were haunted.  “Let’s never do that again,” he said.  “It was strange…”

“Shit,” Martin said mildly.  There was something about his tone that drew immediate silence.  Shayde’s body was moving, breaking apart into hundreds of tiny little forms; black spiders, each one smaller than a centimetre across.  “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” Christina said.  “Martin…”

The spiders were moving, not towards them, but towards each other.  Slowly, they linked into each other, swarming over each other, building themselves into a giant form, made completely from spiders.  More and more seemed to be growing out of Shayde’s body, as the wave of spiders Shayde had summoned reached them, joining the massive form…that could now be seen as a massive spider.

“FREE,” said an awful voice.  “FREE AT LAST.”

Christina heard Martin gulp.  “What the hell are you?”  He asked, waving the others back towards the Castle at the End of the Land.  “What are you?”

“I AM THE MASTER OF ALL SPIDERS,” the giant spider said.  “ONCE, I RULED ALL SPIDERS, UNTIL I WAS DEFEATED!  I WAS TRICKED INTO SURRENDERING TO MY ENEMIES AND I WAS BOUND WITHIN SPIDER FOREST.  THE GRAND MAGE FOUND ME; WE MADE A DEAL.”

“I think that this is bad,” Martin said.  “How many do you think have been killed over the last week by the spiders?”

“Thousands,” Jack said.  “Martin, what do we do with it?”

Martin looked up once at the giant spider.  “Move,” he snapped, generating a wave of fire against the spider.  They ran, without looking back, heading for the Castle at the End of the Land.  The spiders followed, a massive wave of monsters, chasing them and trying to cut them off.  “We have to get there before that thing can take over the world…”

“ONCE IT WAS I WHO CAST THE SHADOW,” the giant spider – the Power – proclaimed.  “DO YOU THINK THAT MERE FIRE CAN BURN ME?  I COMMANDED MILLIONS OF BILLIONS OF SPIDERS ONCE, I SHALL DO SO AGAIN.”

“Well, I did have hopes,” Martin said, as a wave of spiders got between them and the Castle at the End of the Land.  Christina closed her eyes as the giant spider loomed overhead, glaring down at them with millions of eyes.  “You have to let us save the world.”

“WHAT MATTERS THE RISE OF MAGIC TO ME?”  The Power demanded.  “I WILL DEVOUR HUMANS, AND DRAGONS, AND…”

The Power’s massive form recoiled as a large scaly form attacked it.  The dragon, Shayde’s dragon, was tearing it apart, slashing through the spiders as if they were made of nothing.  It blew flames from its nose, vaporising thousands of spiders, but there were always more and more…

“Come on,” Martin snapped.  Christina blinked; the spiders didn’t seem to be willing to go too near to the Castle at the End of the Land.  Martin scorched the small spiders in front of them and led the charge…into an area where she could feel nothing, but her own body.  The spiders raged at them, but there was a barrier; they couldn’t get through, somehow.

“No magic here,” Martin said.  He waved his hand in the air; nothing happened.  “If that thing tried to get in, I think that the shock would kill it.”

“So we’re safe,” Sumrita asked.  She sounded weak, as if she was about to collapse.  “They can’t get us in here.”

Jack frowned.  “We can’t get out either,” he said.

Martin laughed.  “We have to go in,” he said.  They turned and looked towards the Castle at the End of the Land.  “There’s no other choice.”

“Loke’s in there somewhere,” Angelina said.  “The little bastard ran off and left us to be turned into frogs.”  Her voice was angry.  “I want to beat the crap out of him!”

Jack nodded slowly.  “Come on,” he said.  “Let’s go meet the wizard.”

And so they came at last to the Castle at the End of the Land.

Chapter Forty-Nine: The Castle at the End of the Land

From almost point-blank range, the Castle at the End of the Land seemed to be made of solid silver, but Jack could see shapes and forms within, reflections of himself.  He saw himself wearing a Nazi uniform and whipping a slave, then wearing a roman outfit, and then wearing a wedding dress.  He smiled at the sight of himself in the dress, before the silver vanished and a door opened for them.

“I saw myself,” Jill muttered.  He allowed his hand to slip into hers as they entered the Castle at the End of the Land.  “I was…a whore, then a Grand Mage, and then someone I didn’t recognise at all.”

Jack nodded slowly as all five of them entered the Castle at the End of the Land.  Behind them, the door slid back out of existence, leaving them in a silver corridor, leaving towards the centre of the castle.  The entire building felt strange, as if it wasn’t all there; strange moments of light and sound flickered in the back of his mind.

“It doesn’t look as if we have any choice about the directions,” Martin said, trying to sound light-hearted.  “There’s still no magic in here.”

“That would make sense if it’s a generator of some kind,” Jack said thoughtfully.  He glanced down at the watch he wore on his wrist; it was still refusing to work.  “No electricity either.”

“We may not be able to count on our guns either,” Angelina said.  “Jack, do you think that we should go on?”

Jack looked over at the door, or where the door had been, and frowned.  “I think we have no choice,” he said.  “Come on.”

He took Jill’s hand and started to walk down the corridor, allowing the others to follow them.  Somehow, he was certain that there was no real danger, except for the strange flickering energies that echoed around them, at the back of their minds.  The corridor was longer than he would have believed possible, stretching away as far as they could see.

“I wonder if this building is all here,” Martin said.  His voice was hushed in the corridor.  “It might exist on several dimensions at once, literally bigger on the inside than the outside.”

“That would explain what happened to all of the others who tried to explore here,” Angelina said morbidly.  “They all got in and then starved to death.”

“Then what happened to their remains?”  Sumrita asked.  Her hand had Martin’s hand in a death grip, Jack noted.  “There doesn’t seem to be any bacteria or anything around.”

Angelina gave her a quick smile.  “Further down the corridor,” she said wryly.

“You’re not allowed to talk any more,” Jack said.  “You’re depressing me.”

“That’s all part and parcel of a Sergeant’s job,” Angelina said wryly, refusing to be quiet.  “Best damn rank in the army.”

“Personally I think you’re all bastards,” Jack muttered.  “There might be a reason you never saw promotion.”

Angelina laughed.  “I wonder what would happen if I were to throw something at you,” she said.  “Perhaps…”

The corridor shifted around them and suddenly there were somewhere else.

***
There were two minds in the space that humans, knowing no better, had called the Castle at the End of the Land.  One of them was waiting with the patience that came of knowing that it had nothing better to do, the other didn’t have the imagination to be bored.  It was little better than a computer, although one vastly more advanced than any humans had ever conceived of, or at least conceived of without the assistance of heavy and illegal drugs.

And then there were three minds.  The first mind reached out, more from curiosity than alarm, and met an equal.  They stared at one another for a long moment, then the first mind attacked the third, tearing away at it.  They were equal, but separate; they simply couldn’t remain apart, or together.  Both of them had knowledge that the other needed, but neither wanted to share; they just wanted to take.  Both of them were so different that it was hard to fight and harder still to escape; they were locked in a fight to the death.

And then the first mind died and the third followed it into darkness, for it had come out ahead, quite literally.  It laughed and died…and then the second mind was all alone in the darkness.

***
They were standing at the edge of a vast control room, with controls that seemed to have been built for humans, staring at the sight in the centre of the room.  Two black shapes, massive black holes, seemed to be spinning around one another, throwing out waves of energy.  It was beautiful and terrifying; Jack almost cowered back before realising that they had to be simulations, nothing real.

“Spinning black holes,” Martin said.  His voice held nothing, but puzzlement.  “If they’re tiny black holes, how could they be there?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, as they stepped into the room.  “Martin, what the hell do we do to shut this place down?”

Martin blinked.  “I thought you didn’t want to,” he said, and then he was interrupted by a whimper.  They spun around, to see a chair designed for humans, with a human sitting on it.  Jack felt his jaw clench; he knew that human.

“Loke,” he said.  “What the hell are you doing?”

Loke looked up at him.  “I’m sore,” he said.  “It cost so much effort to save the world and the war from being ended.”  His voice was hazy, almost weak.  “My friend has been killed.”

Jack glared at him.  “You left us,” he said.  “We had to fight Shayde on our own.”

Loke shrugged, unconcerned.  “It was more serious to ensure that the Castle at the End of the Land was not destroyed,” he said.  “I lost a good friend to save your asses from being destroyed along with it.”

Martin stared at him for a long moment.  Loke almost seemed to be a different person.  “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” he said.  Jack nodded.  “Tell us what the hell is going on.”

Loke pulled himself to a sitting position.  “You may as well take seats,” he said.  “This place has defined itself as being for humans…”

“The truth,” Angelina said sharply.

“The truth,” Loke said.  “That would take some explaining.”  He giggled suddenly.  “My head hurts.”

Sumrita stepped forward.  “I have some Aspirin left, if you need it,” she said.  She reached into her rucksack.  “Do you?”

“It won’t do any good,” Loke said.  “You have to remember; they’re not from our universe, or one like it.”  He giggled again.  “If someone asks you about me, you have to tell them that.”  He paused.  “There’s a war on, you know; the Nazi invasion of your timeline was just one tiny little skirmish in an eternal war.  One side uses your world as a point of supply for things designed to change the path of another world; the bad guys send in the Nazis to wreck the place.”

Martin frowned.  “The George Washington’s disappearance?”

Loke nodded.  “My employers hijacked the ship, yes,” he said.  “Just a little skirmish.”  He took a breath.  “This entire world was a trap, you see; they would have seen that we would have arrived around now, and set the trap.  They warped the world, using the Castle at the End of the Land as the centre of their base, and then…”

He laughed.  “We were wrong,” he said.  “They’re literally terraforming the entire universe.”

Jack slammed his hand down on the chair.  “I don’t care about your war,” he snapped.  “What are you?”

“I knew as soon as the Portal closed that we’d been trapped,” Loke said.  “The Thande Institute will have discovered that they have been totally locked out of this timeline.  The idea was that the Enemy would have plenty of time to lure us to the Castle at the End of the Land and then interrogate us at leisure.  They wanted to know who my employers were, you see.

“Anyway, I carried part of one of them inside me,” he continued.  “The Enemy left one of themselves here as well.”  He clutched his head.  “There was a battle and they destroyed each other.  The Enemy didn’t know about me, though; I know enough to help my people track them down for good.”

Jack stared at him.  “So, what now?”

Loke waved a hand at the command panels.  “You can do whatever you like,” he said.  “The Brass Walls won’t remain for long, one way or the other; they depended on direct temporal manipulation.”  He paused.  “Don’t bother trying to understand, just listen.  The more magic – for want of a better term – that leaks in, the more the universe will be changed.  The rest of this world will have been changed too.”

Jill spoke, her voice high and shrill.  “How?”

Loke shrugged.  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said.  “Why don’t you find out, when the walls crash?”  He pointed at the spinning black holes.  “They’re not black holes, Martin; they’re tears in the fabric of space and time.  They link directly to a different universe, one that the Enemy could call home.  What you do with them is up to you five.”

“One last question,” Jack said, “and then you can rest.  Why did they predict five of us?”

“That’s the problem with time travel and multiverse wars; you can get burnt before you light the match,” Loke said.  His voice was far too tired.  “She didn’t see me because I didn’t exist at the time – don’t ask me for an explanation.  Martin, if you touch that black handprint there, you’ll have all you need to do as you damn well please.”

There was a blinding flash of light.  When it cleared, Loke was gone.

***
Martin stared up at the spinning…objects in the centre of the room.  This close, he would almost see the energy – the magic – spinning off them, focused out across the world.  His eyes fell down onto the handprint on the panel, waiting for his touch.  He felt almost too tired to risk anything, but he wanted to – needed to – begin.

“Go on,” Jack said.  He too sounded tired.  Martin wondered absently if time passed at all within the Castle at the End of the Land.  “You may as well.”

Martin said nothing, just pressed his hand to the handprint.  There was a long moment of nothing…and then his mind was outside his body, part of the Castle at the End of the Land.  He saw, somehow, the dozen different dimensions that had been drawn together and built into the superstructure, creating something that existed at one point and all points together.  He sensed the mind controlling it; a computer that responded to his touch.

Greetings, it said.

Martin held himself together with an effort of will.  “Can you limit the amount of magic spilling into this world?”

Yes, the computer said.  Martin closed his eyes and found information stored within the vast records of the Castle at the End of the Land; the amount of magic needed to keep the dragons flying, versus the amount of power needed to keep the Powers in existence.  The computer obeyed, limiting the amount of magic…but warning of dangers in the future.

“The entire world has been affected,” he realised.  More magic than anyone had ever known about had spilled into the world, affecting everywhere on Earth.  The Brass Walls existed, not to keep the magic in, but to keep some of the magical creatures out.  In a few years, they would fall…and then the creatures would have access to Britain.

Yes, the computer said.  The magical balance has stabilised; rifts from extra-dimensional space have been countered with outgoing rifts.

“One last question,” he said.  “Can you send people back to our world?”

Yes, the computer said.  Further transit will be impossible, due to the fields in place.

Martin nodded and let go of the handprint, returning to his body with a bump.  “Good news and bad,” he said.  The team looked up at him.  “We can limit the amount of magic in Britain, and we can send a few people home, but there’s going to be worse in store for this world in a few years.”

Jack nodded slowly.  “We can keep the dragons alive?”

Martin nodded.  “It’s not that easy, however,” he said.  “We cannot have the dragons, but remove the human magic-users; they’re interlinked.  We can get rid of the Powers, though…except we will be committing genocide.”

There was a long pause.  “They’re dangerous,” Angelina said.  “What about the spider monster?”

“We can kill that one fairly easily,” Martin said.  “We can place limits on the Powers, just by limiting the amount of magic they can access.”

Jack frowned.  “You’re not going back, are you,” he said.  It wasn’t a question.  “You’re determined to stay.”

Martin nodded.  “Someone has to stay here,” he said, indicating the Castle at the End of the Land.  “What about you?”

Jack looked down at Jill.  “I think I’m staying too,” he said.  “Someone has to fight the Grand Mages and bring democracy to the world.”

Christina shook her head.  “I think that I would prefer to return home,” she said.  She held the side of her head slightly.  “Can that be done?”

Martin nodded.  “I don’t think that you can get back, though,” he said.  “Angelina?”

“Someone has to do something for the women in the world,” Angelina said.  “And someone has to keep Jack honest.”

Martin laughed, and then sobered.  “Honey?”

Sumrita looked up at him.  “I’ll stay with you,” she said.  “Beside, I like the idea of training new medical personnel.”

Martin nodded and placed his hand to the panel.  “The magic will remain,” he said.  “Christina, for what its worth, thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Martin touched the computer again and felt himself fall back into the system.  It opened its mind to him and he told it what he wanted to do.  He was aware of the magical field across the world fading slightly – its energy channelled back into the magical universe – and saw it clearly for the first time.  Not magic, but energies that followed very different rules.

A flicker of energy.  Christina vanished back to the home universe.  It wasn’t a Portal; it was something more complex, faster than any the Thande Institute had seen before.  They would detect it – someone would investigate and meet her – but they would be unable to return to the timeline.  Almost as an afterthought, he reduced the magical field around the Spider Power, watching it die, before he came back out of the computer.

“It’s done,” he said.  “It should all be over now.”

Jack smiled.  “There’s just one more thing to do now,” he said.  He explained what he wanted.  “Can you do that?”

Martin nodded.  “Come back and see me,” he said.  “I won’t go far from the Castle at the End of the Land.”

***
The Power of London had remained silent to every one of his entreaties, completely ignoring the Grand Mages, leaving Rinpotch and the other four to await the fall of civilisation in the Council Building in London.  Shayde had died, but there was no news of a new Grand Mage…and several Powers had been reported dead, killed by the spiders.

Rinpotch stared down at the map, knowing that villages were being wiped out, one after the other.  Not every village had fallen to the waves of spiders, but enough of them had fallen to make the new Power very powerful indeed.  It was just…

The magical field flickered once, shimmering through his mind, and then it returned to normal.  Rinpotch was puzzled, even as the communication wizards began reporting that the spiders were simply…falling apart.  Some of them were attacking other spiders, others were just falling prey to basic spells, still others were just scuttling off in all directions.

“What’s happening?”  He asked, as a glowing light appeared in the council chamber.  The five Grand Mages stared as the light became a hole in space, with three people walking out of it.  “Who…Jack!”

“Me,” Jack said.  “We went to the Castle at the End of the Land.”

Rinpotch sat down hard.  “What happened?”

Jack smiled.  “That is rather a long story,” he said.  “Suffice it to say that the Spider Power is dead now…how long have we been away?”

“Three weeks,” Grand Mage Shan said.  “The spiders have killed thousands of people.”

“Three weeks,” Jack said.  A golden light formed in the chamber, a glowing hand, pointing to Jill.  “Jill?”

“Hail the new Grand Mage,” the Power of London said.  “She has the greatest power of the remaining wizards.”

Jack smiled at their shock.  Jill’s face was a study in astonishment; the Grand Mages were shocked beyond words.  Never had someone jumped from trainee witch to Grand Mage in one jump.  It just wasn’t done.

“I have bad news for you,” Jack said, as the Power of London vanished.  “Things are going to be a little different here from now on.”

Epilogue

From: Steve Rogers, Director, Thande Institute
To: Oversight Committee
Subject: TimeLine G
Classification: Most Secret (Thande Authorised List Only)

We may never know for certain exactly what happened in TimeLine G; all further attempts to open Portals into the timeline have failed.  Attempts to access the timeline from America, Australia, Russia and the moon base have all failed; the Portals simply refuse to form.  That leaves, for better or worse, our only real source of information as Doctor Christina Videzun, who remains traumatized by the experience.  

It is therefore impossible to know how much credence should be given to her tales of wizards, dragons and mental domination.  Attempts to help her heal the trauma though hypnosis and therapy are progressing – despite the interference of certain influential members of her family – and they reveal that she was certainly subject to a great deal of mental pressure in the four months since she stepped through the Portal.  Of greater interest – and so far kept from all, but a handful of people – is the fact that she is clearly pregnant, despite having a contraceptive implant fitted before joining the Thande Institute.  

Examination of her personal effects have only deepened the mystery.  Her clothes were stained by blood, blood that did not match any of the other team members, but did match the DNA of the child within her womb.  She carried a knife of crude design, that should not have been able to cut bone, but that was stained with bone matter.  Her clothes, indeed, were not the clothes that she was issued with, and examination of her trousers revealed scales from an unknown creature.  (She claims that she rode a dragon).  Further investigation is required.  

There have been attempts to follow up the mystery of Private Loke Magnesten, mainly though the Norwegian and Finnish security services.  It is clearly apparent that Magnesten was a creation; a very carefully created false identity, one that was based around the family of a Finn who had remained in secluded circumstances in the Finnish Woods.  It required several weeks of investigation to pick apart the cover, to find…nothing.  Although the Finns suspected Russian involvement, it seems to defy belief that the Russians would have wasted such a perfect cover identity to infiltrate the Thande Institute, access to which they were guaranteed anyway.  

This suggests that her information that we are being watched by unknown elements – indeed, that one set of unknown elements stole the George Washington and its entire task force – must be given a certain degree of credence.  Her tale about a war fought between two powers – with the Nazi War of five years ago being part of that – would certainly explain curious circumstances in the development of Portals by TimeLine C, although we must be careful not to fall into the ‘god-modder’ trap; blaming everything on the super-aliens from Dimension X.  

Assuming that the above is true, it would be logical to assume that either or both of the powers would have an interest in our activities, those of the Thande Institute.  Unfortunately, it is hard to see exactly what we can do about it.  Certainly, conducting a full security review on everyone involved with the Thande Institute would be an important first step, although political implications might make taking such a step difficult.  A full examination of the histories of contacted timelines might yield further information, but again, it is hard to see what we can do with the information.  As per the Thande Protocols, I can only leave those matters in your hands.

While the media is clearly aware that something went wrong with the entry into TimeLine G, they are not as yet aware of any of the specific circumstances.  It is my strong feeling that affairs should remain that way, with information cleared only for the governmental information as per the Thande Protocols.  It is hard to see how TimeLine G – if it does indeed fit Doctor Christina Videzun’s description – poses a security risk, but the Multiverse War certainly does.  Although we may not be able to do anything about it, we would have great difficulty in proving anything, should we face demands for full disclosure.  At worst, there would be outright panic; at best, we would be a laughing stock.  Quite frankly, I feel that we would be better served by keeping the entire incident classified for at least ten years.

On a personal note, although I understand the reasons behind the French request to turn Doctor Christina Videzun over to them, I must insist that she remain under the supervision of the Thande Institute (Security).  Apart from worrying about charges of favouring one nation over the others, the child she carries may pose a threat in its own right.  If she recovers, of course, we will have legal problems, but then, hopefully; the entire situation will have resolved itself.

(It is only fair to inform you that my chief of security insisted that the child be aborted at once, to avoid any possible risks.  The mother has not yet been declared legally competent, so making any decision at all will be fraught with later legal issues.)

In the absence of any direction from the Oversight Committee, I will begin a full security review of the remaining Insertion Teams, before commencing any attempt to broach TimeLine H.

I remain, faithfully yours.

Steve Rogers (Director)

Appendix One: Principal Characters

Insertion Team Seven

Captain Jack Drache (America):  27 years old; former Green Beret, seconded to the Thande Institute.  Fought in the Battle of Washington.  Dark haired, rugged face.  

Sergeant Angelina Harper (UK):  25 years old, SAS officer.  Close-cropped brown hair, with small breasts and a muscular body.  A lesbian and a tomboy, mainly due to her father bringing her up alone.  Fought in the Battle of Cambridge.

Private Loke Magnesten (Sweden):  Swedish infantryman with a degree in history.  23 years old; transferred to Thande Institute for reasons that remain a deep dark secret to everyone else.  Short, stumpy, VERY strong.  Dark hair.

Doctor Christina Videzun (French):  sociologist and historian.  25 years old; younger sister of Admiral Videzun (Carrier Wars).  Tall, shapely and dark-haired.   

Doctor Sumrita Patel (India): Medical doctor, language expert.  Indian, of Bengali origin.  Dark skin; short; comfortable rather than skinny.  Cute; nice smile.  25 years old.

Martin Anderson (UK), tech expert:  Technical expert and computer geek.  Tall, with blonde hair and glasses.  24 years old.  Very not an army man and was accused of draft dodging during the Nazi War.  

The Grand Mages

Grand Mage Akron 		(Leader of the Akron Faction)

Grand Mage Shayde 		(Leader of the Shayde Faction)

Grand Mage Gorgre 		(Akron’s ally)

Grand Mage Valastar 		(Female – Shayde’s ally)

Grand Mage Ixa’em 		(Neutral) 

Grand Mage Shan 		(Shayde’s ally)

Grand Mage Rinpotch		(Akron’s ally)

Others

Jill				Young Maiden, Griffin

Knight Errant 			(Akron’s ally)

Prince Roger of Cambridge  	(Shayde’s ally) 

Prince William 		(Shayde’s ally)

Prince Dike			(Shayde’s ally)

Captain Brant 			(Shayde’s ally)

Lord Ruben 			(Akron’s ally)

Vaeledyne Rabrepos 		(Jack’s ally)

Mother Dissmall 		Town Witch, Griffin

Wizard Dominos		Akron’s apprentice

Old Mother Daughter 		Soothsayer 

Mother Rankin		Newcastle witch

Talking Beasts

Sigmund 			Akron’s hawk

Redscale			Dragon

Old Scale			Dragon