Chapter 23: Events

The party after the election was massive.

It may sound a bit anti-climactic, but I was happy with the outcome of the election. The clerks that I was happy to see promoted were. The candidates I felt would be voted in were and the candidates I felt would take Clerk jobs did.

Most importantly, Vaughn shoed it in. I wonder how many people noticed the ring on Vaughn’s finger. Yeah, he got two promotions. I had found him after I’d dealt with Dale and his spouses. I also collected Anna, Nat, Warner and Jean Horn-Bay Junior.

I was delighted Jean won her seat, so was her mother. Jean is also taking over her mother’s department, so she has plenty of help. She had been acting as Jean Senior’s clerk, and with a bit or urging, she’d agreed to run.

The items I handed out were a mixed bag. Most were two gem sets of, a medallion and a ring. Vaughn actually received a three gem set. Neither of us was surprised Nature was his primary discipline. I wasn’t surprised that Lore was his second but Energy did surprise me.

His set had the three major items and as far as I knew that made him the second most powerful mage on the island. This didn’t bother me. His items were clean, and Vaughn’s aura was healthy. Vaughn had very defined principles as to right and wrong.

He also had a compassionate nature, but he wasn’t a pushover. He was a nice bloke, and we were fast friends. Handing Horn City over to Vaughn with the other new novices to help him, I felt it was now in good hands.

The androids told me they too were happy with the new councillors and could work with them. I was amused that as far as the androids were concerned, they had been assigned to the Departments. I knew the new councillors were delighted that they would be keeping their androids.

I’m not sure how many of them knew that if they stepped out of line and the androids found out, then I did too. As long as they behaved, they wouldn’t hear from me other than me telling them that they were doing a great job.

Back to the party, the vibe in Horn City after the election was electric. I did get to shake a lot of hands and meet a lot more of the locals. I had a ball. I’d never needed a lot of people around me. I’ve always been perfectly happy with my own company.

I was amused to realise as I wandered around that I’d become a bit of an extrovert since I put the mages items on. I did notice that the girls tried to make sure I had an hour to myself in the evenings. I still needed a bit of alone time, but I think most people do.

The rest of the time, however, I seemed to be surrounded by people. Greta told me that people gravitated to me. I was already wearing the items when she and I had gotten together, so she didn’t really understand how much of a loner I had been before.

When we had gotten back to Cavil’s homestead after we had been herding, I had been dragged into her family. The fact that Cavil had taken a liking to me beforehand was why she didn’t realise that in my home, I had been an enigma.

The trip to Federation had opened me up a lot more to dealing with people. Captain Hail and his crew had helped a lot. While they didn’t crowd me, they were happy enough to talk to me, and give me space when I needed it.

Cora’s outgoing nature was infectious, and she became my teacher even if she never knew it. I learned a lot from her on how to deal with people. It was in Federation that I learned I had a bit of a quirky nature and love of little jokes.

I should thank Lady Di for teaching me a lot as well. From her, I learnt how to recognise people like her and my grandfather. She also taught me how your actions deem how other people view you and treat you in turn.

Sometimes you have to see the bad to appreciate the good. As much as I’ve not enjoyed some of the bad things that have happened to me, each situation taught me something. I believed I was a stronger person from dealing with what life had thrown at me so far.

Dale was another good example. I had a lot of respect for Dale. He’d been through some really bad shit. To see him now with his thickening belly and his two spouses, you’d be fooled into believing his life had been all sweetness and light.

His easy going nature hid a backbone of steel. I suspect if he had been older before Sony got her hands on him things at the Roan property would have turned out differently. Yet, he has come out his experiences stronger for them, just like I had.

I was standing in the middle of the park wool-gathering and just soaking up the atmosphere when a woman of indeterminable age approached me. She stood in front of me and glared at me. Her hate pulsed off her like flames.

I looked down and met her eyes. Fuck, they were scary eyes. I was wondering if she was insane. Oddly, I didn’t fear her. My medallion wasn’t warm. I felt sadness that she was a twisted soul. I didn’t think our encounter boded well for her.

“Can I help you?” I asked her softly.

“Help! You have buggered everything. I worked so hard to be someone, and now I’m no one. You took everything from me. You! You’re nothing but a little boy with visions of grandeur. You are barely out of nappies,” she barked at me with contempt dripping from her words.

“You think that just because you’re a Horn, everything should be dropped at your feet and people should bow and scrape to do your bidding. Your grandfather was the same. He learned differently. You will too. You will be mine to wield,” she said with menace.

I felt her form the spell. I grabbed her chin and pulled her face up so that her eyes locked with mine. She blinked in surprise and met my eyes. “No,” I said softly.

She screamed in frustration and reeled away from me. “How can you do that?” she spat at me as she held her head. “No, no, there are no High Mages. You’re just a boy. You can’t gain that level of power at your age. It takes years of study,” she ground out in disbelief that I had cancelled her spell so easily.

“Sorry, but I am what I am. Why didn’t you leave with the councillors, Mary Blackthorn?” I asked with compassion.

“This is my home, my City. You can’t drive me away. I won’t let you. I had the others at my beck and call. I ruled, and I will rule again. That idiot Higgins and even your grandfather were my creatures. I had it all, and you will not take it from me,” she screamed at me.

“No, Mary. This is now my City. If it was yours, why did you hide? Why did you let me take it from you so easily? Every action you have tried I have countered. Petty, very petty actions at that. You didn’t have as much control here as you deluded yourself into believing,” I told her in a conversational voice.

“Those fucking androids, you can’t spell an android. They are not people. I should have destroyed them after you left. I knew I should have,” she bemoaned.

“So why didn’t you?” I asked with interest.

“They were fixing things that would be useful to me. I wanted to control them. I just needed a bit more time, but you came back before I was ready. You fucked up everything with your charming little boy act.”

“And these saps ate it up. The Wonder Boy was making things better. You just flashed that cheeky smile, and they sucked up to you like leeches. Then they bow and scrap at your big feet,” she railed at me.

I had to look at my feet. I looked back up at the woman and gave her the cheeky grin that she so hated, “Your right, I do have big feet. You know what they say about big feet?”

She blinked at me in confusion. I saw her eyes drop to my crotch. She couldn’t seem to help herself. Her eyes flashed back to mine in anger. She was pissed that I had distracted her so easily.

“Look, Mary, you don’t have a lot of options. I will take that medallion before we finish this conversation. If you had left when you were given the option, you could have kept it. But now that I know you have it, you have lost that option.”

“I will put the separation anxiety spell on you, but I’ve been told that it won’t totally dispel the loss of a magical item.” I pulled a band from my pocket. She looked at it in horror and then at me.

“Rose said that if I put this on a person who had misbehaved and lost the right to their items that it does help. Something to do with the fact it is a magical item. You won’t be able to use magic anymore, but the effects of having no magic are nulled.”

She started stepping back from me shaking her head from side to side. I could see her silently mouthing the word ‘no’. She turned to run. I winced when she smashed into a metal chest. Two metal hands grabbed tops of her arms.

Rose looked down at the small woman. “I was not happy to be locked up when I had work to do, Mary,” Rose told her. “You are a bad mage. The wizards of old took the corruption of magical items seriously. Corruption of magic was what started a war that decimated this world.”

“We androids are spelled. The spell you tried on Garnet could not work because it both conflicted with her programming and the spell that protects us from coercion spells.”

“We have known of your whereabouts, but we couldn’t observe you doing wrong, so we couldn’t interfere. However, you changed that directive when you tried to spell Bron. This wasn’t very smart of you. We did tell you that he is a High Mage.”

“A novice, even with your training can’t place a spell on one such as him. The simple fact that his aura shines so pure, you should have worked this out yourself.”

Rose looked at me, “You may do your spells, master.” Rose turned Mary around and held her away from herself.

“I’m sorry Mary,” I said sadly. I dropped the cuff on her wrist and removed her medallion when it appeared after I did the spells. She whimpered and cried softly when I removed it from her.

She was broken in so many ways it saddened me further. Her mind was not a pretty place to be. I added a spell that I wasn’t happy to perform. Taking away someone’s memories invaded their rights as far as I was concerned.

Mary’s memories of her early adulthood were gruesome. She had been badly treated before she came here from Federation. An image of Lady Di flaying Mary’s chest and laughing as she did it, flashed up in Mary’s mind.

The intense anger I felt caused Mary to flinch. I gently pulled her into my arms and smothered her in my compassion. She wept against my chest in heart-rending sobs as I rubbed her back. I wanted to cry with her.

“She will pay Mary. I vow it to you, here and now. I knew Di was evil, but I was never exposed to her true nature. When the time comes, she will pay,” I told her in a hard voice.

I placed my hand on the back of Mary’s head and gently pushed the bad memories into a corner of her mind and locked a door on them. I left her a key in her mind. When she felt she could deal with them, she would be able too.

If she never wished to open that door, then she didn’t have to. I felt I had to give her this option. We must all fight our demons, but sometimes the horror robs us of the ability to find a way to deal with them and retain our humanity.

Mary had tried by being like her tormentor. It wasn’t a happy solution as it had only extended her pain. I left her the happy young women who lived in another corner of her mind. They were her most precious memories and who she was before she went to work for Lady Di.

I felt her relax in my arms and she looked up at me with that woman’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly. She reached up, kissed me softly on my lips and then gently removed herself from my arms.

“Now that I can think more clearly, I need to find a way to redeem myself. Thank you, for not letting me forget what I have done or those whom I have hurt. I do need to deal with those demons first. They are my actions.”

I smiled softly at her, “That is all I can ask of anyone, Mary.”

She nodded at me and turned to push through the crowd that had formed around us. While I was dealing with Mary, I had totally blotted them from my mind. I looked at the people in surprise.

One of the men said, “Now that is how a mage should behave. This is one lucky city to have a mage like you, Bron.” I blushed as others also showered me with praise.

Rose and I happily settled onto the grass and talked to the people around us. We joked, and we talked about the election. We discussed what was going to happen in the future amongst many other topics.

At some stage, Greta found me to drag me home. Rose chuckled at my ‘Yes dear’, and said that she needed to recharge, and went her way.

The people we had been having fun talking to also realised it was very late and headed home too.

Greta scolded me.

They had been looking for me for ages. The androids had been naughty and simply said that I was happy and doing my job. They wouldn’t give up my location.