Chapter 13: Continental Concerns (again)

The middle of January began with another meeting between the membership of the European Over council and the Council of Wizards. For some reason Reggie couldn’t (or didn’t want to) attend. And as usual there was the standard opening from the Europeans.

“Sir David, our concerns regarding this Lambert entity remain. How certain are we that the dialog between Clan Lambert, the Catholic church and the kingdom of the Fae is not going to unmask the world of Wizards, mages and hedge witches?” The cool confident tones of Sir Robert Barron were not used to being refuted or refused. After all, all of the people in this conference were like minded Englishmen.

“Robert, I doubt that there is anything that I could say or that Hank could do that would assuage your concerns or those of your friend Thomas.” David Drummond replied. “As I have said before, this tit for tat conflict with you and Lambert is the risk for us all. Your insistence in dabbling into the affairs of a peaceful group of mages and warlocks is what is the danger of revelation. Nothing that Hank has done had caused any publicity or any risk to any of us. But your jealous interference in his day-to-day activities and your persistent seeking of my help in this attempt to do the same is rather tiresome. I say again, until Hank has done something that brings about publication of our existence to either Governments or the public at large, this issue and your repeated complaints are over.”

“Not entirely over. Do you know that the Queens Prosecution Service is seeking warrant’s against Lambert et all, and desires him to be brought before the bench to answer charges?” Thomas Heatherington shouted. “And that agents sent to serve these warrants have disappeared?”

“I’m probably more familiar with that then you would like. For instance, I understand that the formal request was rather politely handed back to the minister of Justice with the comment “ ‘You have to be kidding me.’ “ David replied. “It was stupid enough to go back to a World War II case to attempt to have English Justice levied against a peaceful American citizen, but the witchcraft prosecution was the largest joke in the Justice and State departments in America. There was a question of the sanity of this action being taken at all.”

“Nevertheless, it was a valid charge”

“Not in America. And if it was ever published that you sent people to enforce this, the English justice system would be the joke of the month globally. What idiot signed the order for seizure? Some low level hedge witch with delusions of grandeur?”

Silence followed for several moments.

“Or was it Thomas Heatherington currying favor with someone in your organization? Like You?” David continued. “Something like this is kind of an indicator of poor discipline.”

“Such measures wouldn’t be necessary if you would simply enforce discipline on your own people and send this criminal to us.” Thomas angrily retorted.

“So far, I think that Hank Lambert and his clan have demonstrated excellent discipline as they are residents and citizens of the United States, members of the United States association of Mages and have exhibited no actions that were unwarranted, including actions that were based on warrants from your own organization. What I do see is a constant train of attempts to interfere with the careful conducted business of an American Mage and Wizard in cooperation doing economic business that is out of sight of the pubic. Continuing to whine to me will gain nothing. Continuing to attempt to attack him and his associates will result in a diminished image of the mage population in Europe. I think that you have better things to do then to continue this farce of English/European assault on the most impressive Mage in the new world.”

“Very well. We will continue to explore our own alternatives.” Sir Robert Barron said as he disconnected.

“I think I need to let Hank know that things are not settled.” Sir David thought to himself. Reggie found he was agreeing with him. Eventually, the Europeans will do something new.

April Fools?

The last three months had been busier than any time in my life. More complicated, and more satisfying.

Complicated. Karen. She was a mass of complications. Our discussions after the Conclave had centered around “What do you want to have in a relationship with me?” And Cindy politely locked herself out of listening into that while we hammered out what we expected of each other, and when, and how. And boy was it an interesting conversation. Between bouts of very energetic sex.

Most “Mage Consorts” were Batteries. They were an ample reserved of energy that a Mage (or Wizard) could draw upon if they felt that their personal energies were becoming diminished. There were exceptions to this (Peter and Grace for instance) where both partners were Mages. But that was the exception. Add to this that “Mage Consorts” usually had a shorter life expectancy then the Mage they were partnered with, and it was the standard for Europeans to go through several successive “Consorts” during their life. Add to that the possibility of a “Consort” becoming overdrawn and die in the “Service” of the “Partner.” This was the European norm.

Where partners were equal (Very unlikely in the European model) there was a sharing of energy between partners. And if one had an artifact, it was sometimes possible to share with the partner during times of high demand. However, usually, one of the partners would be sacrificed to fill the needs of the other. And thus the remaining partner needed a replacement. (This was how Abigail Anders stayed in business for over two hundred years that we had records of. She made a fortune on replacement of “old and worn-out Batteries” to Europeans. And others.) This “master/consort” model was the common and accepted one in all of Europe, middle Asia, and the far east.

And like everything else, Clan Lambert broke it. First with Paula and Jeffery. (With the help of a Fumeral that went up three stories into and through their bedroom.) And again with Karen. We shattered it. Like a plate glass window, leaving small chunks on the floor. Tiny chunks.

Karen had an artifact. One that was enhanced for TWO users. And it now only had one. Karen. Add to that she was a power redirector (like Paula) who could siphon power for a spell from any magical source, have it flow across her from her left arm to her right arm, and then project it with amazing accuracy without ever having to absorb it, and you had a broken model compared to other Mages and Wizards, who first had to gather and then direct it. Paula and Karen did both in one fell swoop. And at the same time had significant energy within themselves.

I could do much the same, and my internal stores had grown to over fifty joules without any artifact enhancement. I could absorb power into myself and then force it into a spell, or a projection. But unlike Paula and Karen, I could not easily let it flow across me from source to target. Both of these “Power Ladies” could do exactly that. The only person who we had any information on who could do the same was Morgana. Who all wizards and Mages were totally frightened of. We think that Paula could naturally, and that Karen acquired it with her amulet.

In any event, both women were power projectors and Senior Wizards of Power.

Which still left me with the question of “What do you want a partnership to look like? And for how long?” We had a lot of discussions on that subject. Peter and Carol had been together for over a hundred years. Since the Civil war. And there was no possible partnership I had seen like them other than my parents. (Who often finished each other’s sentences. I often thought of mom and dad as a single mind in two bodies.) Peter and Carol had a century of experience in that relationship, and obviously Karen and I with only six months had nothing like that. But we were often close. The question was “what did we want?”

The ancestry research into Karen found out that she was a middle child of a middle child of a woman who was (quite probably) a sales item from Ms. Abigail during the early nineteen hundreds. Yep. She was an Owens brat. Via Sweden. And she fell into my life like a bomb. Which added to the question about “Kids, progeny of Mages?”

Kids. Yep, With Paula and Jeffery’s two rascals, we all were interested in what the progeny would look like. Or be like. The accepted rule was that the later children (middle of the pack) had the highest tendency toward Magic manipulation. But why? Cindy and Wendy were working very hard on the Genetics of Mages, but finding what made a mage was harder to identify then what made blue eyes. Add to this the great need for secrecy to avoid alphabet interests and involvement (CIA, NSA, DOD, KGB, British Intelligence, et all) and you see all sorts of challenges. (What combination of genes makes a Mage? And how can you express it in a newborn?)

All of this was added to the simple sort of life determining questions like “Do you like oatmeal in the morning?” “Who takes out the garbage?” and other domestic challenges. Life is tough enough without witchcraft. Add it, and things get complicated. All of which Karen and I were sorting out as we got to the end of three months of massive work.

The End of March Madness

No, not the Basketball kind. Nor the opening season for the Braves (which everyone here seemed to be interested in). No. I am talking about the collective projects of Clan Lambert both in Augusta and in Albuquerque. And the issues of buying property in areas bordering the Indian reservation properties in Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho. We were looking to cultivate the same sort of relationships that I had with the tribes in Arizona and New Mexico.

Purchases of much of the “Reservation border” lands were tightly constrained by too many government agencies, tribal councils, and more than a few Green Peace people who were wondering what we were going to be doing with large acres of potentially mineral wealthy lands. Natalie and I had reached out through the contacts we had in New Mexico and Arizona and were working to get to the right people, but we ran into the conflict of well-meaning agencies and peoples wanting to make sure we were the best for the environment. Counter this with people (both in the tribes and outside of them) who wanted to make the largest buck possible from lands bordering the tribal property and you see the conflict.

Natalie and Peter were handling that with a lot of “Hank what do you think” feedback from me, and I admit that they were going great guns. Good enough that I was able to be paying attention to my other project (s).

I don’t think I will quit trying to find a way to get even with Arno for his getting me “Involved” with the resettlement challenge of Fae Creatures. Some he absorbed quite readily. (Orc’s and Ogers and Trolls were amazing, and Arno let them work with me whenever I needed any construction help).

Goblins and Dwarves and Elves (usually) went much the same way. Some joined Clan Lambert, seeing what we had with respect to people management. Which was good. Others were not so easily assimilated into either group.

Like the Half-breeds. The result of Humans with Dwarves and Elves and Gnomes. These people were readily accepted by Clan Lambert as unique people, and we worked hard to find a fit for the talents that those people had. The fact that we were making money hand over fist and that these people (Not creatures. People) had very few needs and (for many of them) nowhere else to go added to our work at finding what they did best, what they wanted to do and then getting them there. An amazing amount of them wanted to return to farming and landscaping. Ogernaut headed up this effort and was a very busy person, and had to get his own manager, since it overloaded Natalie. But these were relatively easy to integrate in to different fields. Providing them with Glamor artifacts let them blend into the populations and become successful in art, crafts, and other things as well as farming.

Fae Creatures, on the other hand, were not so easily assimilated. Beginning with Sprites, the perpetual positive people who flew about, nurturing plants, delivering packages, and watching whoever we asked them to. And who were the world’s best and most accurate messenger service. And no glamor could hide them as a person in the general population. But they were simple compared to others such as:

Grass eaters. Sort of an intelligent Iguana. With powers of flight, speed, and some magical ability, who were totally transformed by giving them collars or other artifacts that had gems of power to give them both defense and offense. And the ability to look like innocuous pet cats or very small dogs. Acceptable to be in public as companion animals. And possessing mental acuity far in advance of the creatures they imitate.

Gargoyles. Grey in natural state, grainy in appearance, and easily mistaken for yard ornaments, these were our first “Fae Creature”. And I felt I owed them for their defense of Clan Lambert, and their loyalty to everyone within our Clan. My “Palace Guards”, they were the perfect sentinels who asked for nothing and provided order.

Dragonets. Medium sized alligator-like creatures that were Dragons in miniature. With the ability to project fire and energy, and who preferred to mentally attach to someone as a familiar. And when energized with powered artifacts, they were extremely powerful persons of defense and capable of taking offense against those who attacked them. Ideal companions. The perfect Guard/Attack dogs in large lizard form.

And finally, there were the Dragons. With Aine being the first adopter of the Lambert Clan charter, he formed a base for all dragons to embrace our membership. Aine was the Base Commander, and head quartermaster. Every Fae creature gave him the honor as being “the Groundskeeper” for the Arch Parks. (All three of them).

Deamonous became the tactical leader. And the Dragon Corp was totally engaged in training. They were coordinating maneuvers and planning to defend our People, our places, and our existence. “We came, and no one saw anything. We Fought and won, and no one saw anything. We cleaned up the mess, and there was nothing to be seen afterward. We were never there.” Was the Mantra that The Dragon Corp believed in.

Adding these creatures to the growing Clan Lambert really wasn’t that hard. In the beginning. When there were just a few. (Do you hear the “but” coming?)

In late January in Iceland, we found seven Dragonets. And two Dragons. All were borderline starved and were amazingly shocked to be seen, fed, cared for, and moved to “temporary quarters” in Georgia. We had to widen the entry to the animal preserve behind Arch Park and bring the waters of the creek back up to flow through to the larger lake. And we had to work like fools to place thorn barriers and avoidance geas and spells around the entire area. But it gave everyone room to run around and have exercise in the Georgia sun. And the larger ones alternated to spending time with Lumi and Lotan in New Mexico.

Which was just a small preview of the work needed for the Russian Prison. In the middle of February, Jeffery led some of our people and they entered the Russian prison. There were many Trolls and Ogres there. But we also found five Dragons, fifteen Dragonets, a dozen grass eaters, and a host of other Fae Creatures. All of them on the border of starvation. We ran out of quartz to get them fed and so we moved them back to Arch Park to recover there. My favorite creek was shore to shore a mass of alligator-like creatures living and recovering from starvation and abuse. All under the watchful eye of our “Groundskeeper”.

With more dragons to move around and keeping the five in on standby in Augusta’s Arch Park, Deamonus felt he was able to alter his rotation a little bit. Three teams on deck. Two teams in training. Two teams in Sunshine on Leave. And he extended it to a week at a time for each “Tour of Duty”. That seemed to be very acceptable to the “people” and everyone else

Deamonous became a person with a mission. He adopted almost all my fathers known “leadership lectures” and was almost as bad as I was when talking to “his” people. And they listened. The initial acceptance of food from us to the starving creatures led to a lot of listening and a lot of acceptance of what the “Dragon Corp” had to offer. And the offer was a lot to them. We gave all of them:

Power artifacts. Power artifacts tuned to their own bodies and use. Items which were theirs and theirs alone. All of them had been scrambling for sustenance and fighting for it all their lives. Until they came to us. “And we drank deep from the generous Mages who fed us, clothed us, and took us to where we were warm”. Those actions seemed to be the winner on imprinting the massive population of Fae Creatures. (Who became Our People”)

Shields as part of the artifact. Which protected them from the likes of people seeking to harm them. “If possible, You will not bleed for Lord Hank. He will dress your wounds and see that you are cared for. He wishes to protect you and give a mission in life”. (Phew. Did I say that? Or did Aine paraphrase me? Or did I repeat something that Dad had said, and someone heard it and wrote it down?)

Tactics. No one had ever taught tactics of coordination and cooperation among dragons, dragonets, gargoyles, sprites and others before. Initially, it was hard for most of these very independent “people” to accept at first. But they saw the value. And they embraced it with vigor. With the mission to protect, and to control the fields of conflict, they became students of the art of Fae at war. Tactics that would overcome even current Human tactics. And it permeated from Dragons, to Dragonets, to Gargoyles, to Sprites and to Elves, Dwarves and Ogres.

Pride of membership. Each one of these creatures had a sense of pride. And we worked hard at grooming that into a sense of partnership with Clan Lambert. Fear of doing the wrong thing or not enough became paramount to them. We fought this with the first rule. “There are no mistakes. Only learning experiences. And experience to use in the future”. This became the mantra. And everyone in the Corp took it to heart.

Our results were impressive. Jeffery said that “these people are Marines. They just have a different skin and built in better weapons.”

The newcomers from Iceland and Russia surprisingly quick to fit in with the ones that we already had. Morale was very high in the Corp, and it showed. The rotation schedule was seamless, and the training was going very smoothly. Jeffery and Deamonous were both reading history of every land battle and sea battle they could find to pick out the mistakes in intelligence, and signals and actions that different adversaries had done. We were becoming our own “War College”

At the end of March, we did a census of our creatures. The total was fourteen Dragons. Two were Chinese and had limited ability to fly. The others were more traditional European. This meant that we had to form slightly different “Squads” to take advantage of the different creature profiles. (Yea, that was Jeffery talking to Deamonous. And boy did they come up with interesting different profiles.)

We had thirty-eight dragonets. Some were quickly adopted, but many were waiting for that chance. And they adopted the roles of “Team big gun” for each and every team.

We had eighteen grass eater creatures, two of which were already adopted. These were the most easily attached escorts for our people. A grass eater on your arm was small, looked cute, and still had more than enough energy to defend and protect any member of Clan Lambert. And they knew that their job was to keep their charges alive long enough for the rest of the Dragon Corp team to arrive.

Gargoyles we had a plenty. And they rotated throughout 1030, The Arch Park I and II, The America Mage headquarters (Reggie had six rotation through there every week) And two in the Fae Palace outside of Arno’s door.

The Sprite count was holding (so far) at seventy. All of whom were eagerly doing whatever tasks we asked them to do. Wanting to be adopted by some Mage or hedge witch, we kept them as our public face to the mage and wizard community. The Arch Park looked like a massive fairy playground. And that was without the Gnomes, Elves, Dwarves and others who were normally there. Summer was going to be a massive traffic jam, if I didn’t get more property to spread out into.

What was really the problem was that all of the larger fae creatures needed to exercise their wings on occasion. And exercise their ability to project energy. Putting bracers on chests with artifact and spells pumped everyone up, and who does not want to play with new toys when you get them? I had seventy (70) different assorted flying fae creatures needing to exercise and wanting to practice formation flying. And you cannot do that in a airspace over a small (20 acre) playground. We needed space. And movement between spaces.

The Sprites began doing the discovery and area intelligence capture which helped a lot. We found large areas in Montana and Wyoming and southeastern Idaho that were excellent with few people, open space and a population that was not too concerned about “flying lights”.

I have to admit that Chris provided a vital piece of computer search software for that. He had grown a lot since Paula trapped him with the keyboard. His connection to Cindy grew every day and he became a Wizard at the keyboard. He designed three Role Playing Games that were personally very profitable for him and his friends. They also included some computer objects that passed on silent spies which looked for key words like “Clan” and “Lambert” and “Mage” and “Wizard”.

Thanks to his penetration of government computer networks, we were able to find out reports of “sightings” very quickly and move from place to place to where there were not any detected. So far, we had avoided both the Air Force and the commercial airline traffic lanes. We had two gnomes attached to Deamonous doing air traffic control management.