Chapter 13

In the month following his special visit, he had been carefully monitoring things as the new magicians had started taking up their duties.

He was amused by the comments about the satchels when he and Jean had been walking around different cities. Apparently, many of the new novices and the old ones considered wearing them as a badge of office. He had sewn a special pouch into each satchel that held crystals for them to draw power from. After Renita and Palene had been taught how to do this, they had passed the knowledge on.

People were getting things fixed again, and they were delighted. Many also wouldn’t tolerate the mages being harassed in any way, shape or form. It soon became apparent to the unlawful that they were out of bounds. The fact was that unless they managed to knock the mage out and then kept them that way; the damn mages had a tendency to disappear on them.

Little bags of crystals had magically turned up on the desks of the bosses of many companies that repaired or made items that used them. A note told them that they could buy more from the Guild. Mark had made sure that both Guilds had supplies.

The Guilds also had the right not to sell them if they believed the person was up to no good. The fact that the person had to enter the Guild Hall to buy them helped in this manner. If the Hall didn’t like them, the spells repelled them. Sending in innocents to buy them also didn’t work, because they had to explain how the crystals were to be used.

The income from the crystals didn’t hurt either. They had set a modest and affordable price for them. The wizards had been able to do refurbishments and could afford to feed and house new members during their initial training periods. They also had more money to help the poor, sick and infirmed, and new mages to help get them back to good health.

The reintroduction of the crystals had caused a stir in several quarters. Within two weeks of both Guild Lords receiving their wizard’s boxes, they had received summonses by their Queens to explain why their people couldn’t buy the crystals. They also wanted to know where they were coming from.

Palene and Renita both told them they didn’t know. On random days, a new bag would appear on their desks. Neither volunteered the information that they were now wizards and not just mages. They were both surprised and worried that neither Queen even realised that they had changed status in this regard.

The mages refused to help with anything they believed had to do with war preparations. When Vasari was informed that after several of the Army’s Carriers were fixed, no one carrying a weapon could get in them, Raita was again called to the palace and told to remove the spells from the vehicles.

Renita replied, “I’m sorry your majesty, but I don’t understand how the spells could have been put on the Carriers. I don’t even know what spell it is and I can’t remove it.”

Vasari ranted and raged at her and threatened to have her locked in the dungeons. Renita smiled, “You can try, but I don’t see how you expect to keep me there.”

She then blinked and went home. She didn’t hear from the Queen for several weeks. After her next visit, however, she had to call Mark. “Mark, I know you have other plans, but we seem to have a major problem at the Palace.”

“Why what is going on?” he asked.

“Your kids are playing up,” Renita told him. “They have refused to allow the Queen to visit them for a week now. She isn’t allowed near them without them screaming.”

“Do you have any idea why they have had this sudden change in their behaviour? They have previously been very receptive to Vasari,” Mark replied in concern.

“It is probably because the stupid woman has removed the girls from their mothers. She has claimed them as her wards. My people are trying to find out what happened to the mothers. Vasari wouldn’t tell me, she just wanted me to spell the girls to make them behave. I don’t think she was happy when I looked at her in disgust and blinked,” Renita told him.

“What on earth is that woman playing at? How can she legally take the children from the mothers?”

“If they desert the children for three months, then she can do this, or as I mentioned to you, she could buy them. I’ll call you back when I know more, but you may have to step in,” Renita said.

Mark paced as he talked to Jean about the situation. Jean was flabbergasted. “Mark, we can’t let her get away with this. She will try to hold them to ransom over you when you come back. Even if we produce our children, she won’t let you be free. What is wrong with her to behave in this fashion?”

“She is dying, and she knows it. I think that with the new crystals and items floating around, she is hoping to force me to give her better items too. I think she knows that the Guilds have become strong again, because of me and by having me, she thinks that she can control them. She is not happy that the Guild is resisting her and that they have become independent of her.”

“She is trying to force me out in the open because she can’t control me if she can’t find me. I don’t think she knows that you are alive or about our children. I’m sure if she did, then she would find some way to use you and them to force me to be subservient. She is really starting to piss me off.”

“Palene said that Robina hasn’t interfered with her Guild in any way. She has moved new troops into the pass and has only asked the mages to fix the spells so that merchants and travellers have safe passage. Her troops are only patrolling to the mid-way shield. They even ask merchants to wait until Vasari’s troops come back before letting them over the border.”

“Vasari’s troops have been doing the same. Palene and Renita even reinforced the shielded area over the borderline so merchants and troops could safely wait until the changeover. Palene had reported that things have been very peaceful in the camp. It has become a meeting place.”

“Do the Queens know the merchants, travellers and the soldiers are being immunised in the camps at the starts of the Pass?” Jean asked Mark.

Mark grinned, “No, I don’t believe so. It was lucky for us that those kids had the Red Fever as you people call it. Your added healing spell worked very well on taking care of it. The doctors and nurses who the Guilds moved to the camps near Morton and Lakeside, have been doing a marvellous job at convincing people that they need to be immunised.”

“It does goad me that Alina is benefiting simply by proximity, but until we present at Court, we can’t announce your success. Are you sure you wish to wait until summer?” Mark asked her.

Jean looked at Sammy who had finished feeding. The twins were already a month old, and they were thriving. For her, the six months she had spent in the mountains with Mark had been the most wonderful time of her life. If she had her way, they would stay exactly where they were.

However, she knew that they couldn’t. She looked up when Aye came up to her and offered to take Sammy. She handed her sleeping daughter to the creature that Mark said was an android. He had made Aye first and then Bee.

He had spent a lot of time building them in-between his trips to check on how his influence was affecting the two countries. She had been on many of the trips with him. They often only spent about three to four hours away in the afternoons, so she didn’t miss feeding the twins. She had loved meeting Renita, Gralin and Grace. Then she got to meet Palene and her partner Nathan.

They had even taken the twins a couple of times, and she felt a real kinship with the couples. The fact they were Mark’s wizards and apprentices probably had a lot to do with it, but as far as Jean was concerned, they were thoroughly nice people.

Aye and Bee, once Mark was happy with their construction and programming as he called how he had them learn, had taken over many of the household chores. They even helped the flickers with keeping their home clean.

Mark and Jean had both been amused when they found various baby flickers happily riding around on the androids. Aye and Bee even encouraged them. While Mark said they were machines, Jean often wondered if that was strictly true. They were very caring and gentle with the flickers and her babies.

It didn’t take long before the androids were simply part of the family. Cee, Dee, Eee and Eff were made next, but she didn’t see them often. Aye and Bee had helped Mark make them and then they were shifted to the Mine. He had also made a machine he called a recycler and the Mine crew, as he called the other androids, had taken over the mining and feeding the machine.

He had also taught them how to collect different gems he had found, and they simply stored them in one of the many caverns of the mine. He even had a tunnel that led to the mine in the valley below them from their home. The tunnel was nearly 4km long from the lower cave he called his workshop to the cavern in the valley.

He had made small Autos that had Flatbed trays that the androids drove in the tunnel. In James Valley, he kept the Flatbed they had purchased, in a large open cavern that formed the opening of his mine. Mark had the androids store different minerals and products in other caverns that fed off the main tunnel.

He had built a large shield over the entrance and half the valley. No one could enter his valley or the mine without his permission. The androids made sure the area under the shield was free of the aracnzi. They recorded where they found any webs and Mark collected them.

Jean found the androids interesting in that Mark had designed them to look like tall Pix. They stood 140cm tall. Their skin was actually soft and warm to touch and had a pale pinkish tone like the Pix people. They each had very human like faces that were each slightly different so that they were easily recognised.

The lack of hair, human looking eyes and feet, since they didn’t have individual toes, were a giveaway that they weren’t human but even so, it wasn’t something she dwelled upon. They wore boots and even a form of a coverall, soft cloth hats with short brims and glasses that Mark called ‘sunnies’. The sunnies hid their eyes but didn’t affect their excellent vision.

She knew that if they left and headed to Villas, the flickers and other animals would be well taken care of by the androids. Even though the flickers did venture out of the shielded area during the day, now that it was late spring, they still returned each night.

The mining crew would keep doing what Mark had designed them to do. He had planned on building a warehouse from where he could get merchandise picked up, but for the moment, he hadn’t quite gotten that far. He wanted to build a couple of homes and find a human foreman to take over deliveries and orders, but this too, was still on his to do list.

Jean sighed. She was going to have to go face her great-grandmother and hope that she and Mark didn’t get caught up in her schemes. Resigned, she finally answered Mark, “I guess we had better go shopping for court clothes.”

Mark grinned at her and wiggled his finger in a ‘come here’ fashion. She put out her hand, and he helped her up. She had already regained her slim form, although her breasts were bigger. Mark certainly had no complaints, and neither did Jean with the attention he lavished on them.

The first time he had made love to her, after the birth of the twins had been a night to remember as far as she was concerned. He hadn’t been as gentle as he had been in the last month of her pregnancy and she hadn’t wanted him to be.