Chapter 28

“You led us a merry dance, Clarence,” Morgana stated to the man as she and Verenestra approached.

“I merely sought to prevent a war that you idiots appeared to be determined to cause,” he sneered.

“By disobeying a direct order from the Council not to interfere in the mission?”

“My conscience would not allow it. Whereas the likes of you would appear not to have one.”

“A strange conscience that permitted you to use your friends to associate with the Falians and the Coalition, along with yourself and the Daoine Sidhe rebels,” Verenestra stated.

“Misdirection only, they will soon be released.”

“I rather doubt that in Fen’s case. She did try to murder Mage Hermes after all,” Morgana stated. “As for Atomus, he’ll no doubt not enjoy the next twenty years of Kurukshetra in the nulled sections for assisting in treason.”

“Hermes is injured?” a shocked Clarence blurted out.

“Yes, stabbed seven times by that rabid cow, Fen, as he tried to persuade her not to commit treason,” Morgana replied.

“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason,” Clarence spat back, quoting John Harrington.

“Three lunatics conspiring, is not prospering,” Arch replied with a shrug.

“I’m sure Hermes will forgive her,” he pompously replied, blanking Arch totally.

“He has, but the Council hasn’t and probably never will,” Morgana shrugged.

“You’re too late anyway, Morgana. The Daoine Sidhe, seeking peace and understanding with the Yr’ch, have sent emissaries to speak to the Most High.”

“Is this true?” a clearly incandescently angry Verenestra asked the two Akmonii who had been guarding Clarence.

“Y ... yes, your Majesty,” one of them finally blurted out, clearly terrified.

“Arch, go to the Council and report. This imbecile may just have permitted the enemy to march to our gates!” Morgana ordered, watching him flicker out immediately.

“Pah! The Yr’ch will receive them as ambassadors and treat them with respect,” Clarence sneered.

“You goddamned fool; the Orcs don’t understand the concept of ambassadors. They conquered the world of the Enterlech, the last race who approached them, after torturing their ambassadors to find out where they were from, according to the records we got from their database,” I rebutted him.

“I believe you to be wrong,” Clarence shrugged. “Just an overreaction to a mistake or error of judgement no doubt.”

“Who are these so-called ambassadors?” Verenestra asked the remaining Fae of the Akmonii faction, including Ginfio’s wife.

“Talus and Bandra of the Martia families,” Ilvana replied. “Though unlike what this human says, I do not believe they have left yet, as Yinbor had not passed on the co-ordinates for a portal, wanting to check their veracity as the Maraú-Uxuí notation is obscure and this human was of little help as he did not understand it any too well either.”

“Talus was that idiot who stood on the speaker’s podium of Keldravan and denounced you as a usurper and without honour, my Lady,” William added. “He did not like being pelted with rotten fruit either, come to that.”

“Nevertheless, I want them both in custody as of five minutes ago,” Verenestra replied with a grim smile as several Drow ported out to do her bidding via the Seers’ direction.

“We may have dodged a bullet?” Jukar asked.

“Yes, Jukar. Daoine Sidhe risk aversion to the rescue,” Morgana sighed as Simon, Julia and Tara ported in with Arch.

“Well done, my friend,” Simon spoke to Morgana after the formal greetings.

“I had good help. How is Hermes?”

“He’ll live, as Rowenna confirmed. He’s now out of danger.”

“Thank God for that. I felt awful, endangering him like that, as he was the only one amongst us without armour.”

“He did volunteer,” Simon commiserated.

“True, and he does want the occasional special investigator role like this one if anything comes up that the Council thinks might be in his line,” Morgana nodded.

“He’ll get it, I’m sure. No doubt we’ll ask you to help again if something along your line comes along as well.”

“It was good to get my hands dirty again,” she replied with a smile. “But now I hand over to you, the idiot Clarence. A man whose stupid pride would have brought the Orcs to the city gates bent on conquest.”

“Ah yes, truly a pity that the Council will lose a great weathervane,” Simon chuckled.

“At least I won’t have the blood of billions on my hands when you attempt to destroy the Yr’ch without even a formal declaration of war,” Clarence pompously stated.

“As far as I’m aware, the Orcs don’t go in for declarations of war either,” I shrugged.

“Neither does the Council, come to that,” Julia added with a smile.

“Can’t say that house Skarlett ever declared war against house Oddrassi either. Oonagh came back, declared herself Queen and both courts took it upon themselves to attack her, which ended in an utter fiasco as you well know ... until you came to our aid,” Verenestra replied, looking fondly at William.

“So, there you go, Clarence, Mages and their allies do not declare war. Neither did the Coalition, the Nephilim or the Daoine Sidhe,” Simon stated. “Nor do we normally attack first. Despite your imbecilic claims. Nor will never stand by whilst genocide is committed, save only where we are constrained by binding arrangements.”

“We Drow don’t either,” said one of Verenestra’s guards. “Only an idiot gives away their intentions against an overwhelming foe.”

“Well said, Linita,” Verenestra replied.

“You attacked the Orcs first. Do not deny it!” Clarence snarled.

“To save the lives of others, yes,” I replied. “Was that so wrong?”

“You, you started this war!”

“Actually, that would have been Ilzik, Taqual’s son. He did operate the claymores after all,” I replied with a wry smile, seeing the Drow grin in return. “Of course, we could have let them kill us and the Akhhlognuisi, I suppose.”

“Yes, John, however doing that would have allowed the Orcs biogenetic material and evidence of our presence on Nansack, something the mission parameters forbade,” Simon agreed. “Or we could have just allowed innocents to be butchered, according to the oh so wise, Clarence.”

“Hence, we prevented them from gaining such material.” I replied with a nod in Simon’s direction. “And, prevented a massacre of innocents.”

“And yet you, Clarence, took it upon yourself to provide those who despise us with the necessary evidence to send ‘emissaries’ to the Orcs, risking them being taken and vivisected by a hostile regime!” Simon snarled, showing anger in my presence for the first time ever.

“You cannot know that!” Clarence blustered.

“No, I couldn’t, but, it is far better to err on the side of caution than to give a potential enemy biological samples, particularly when they have used genetically tailored plagues to decimate a population in advance of an invasion, you utter fucking moron!” Simon raged. “You might just have endangered the entire Fae population, allies of ours, with destruction!”

“We have Talus, Bandra remains at large my Queen,” Astrid announced.

“Find him, use any means at your disposal. The potential survival of my race may depend upon your success,” Verenestra commanded.

“Yes, my Queen,” Astrid replied, her eyes blanking out, a sure sign she was in contact with the gestalt of Seers on Tír na nÓg.

Seconds later, twenty Seers of Earth were surrounding us, followed by several Vǫlvæ from the Æsir, plus ten Beanfeasa from the Craebh Ruadh. All in the room nearly fell to their knees at the sheer wave of power then transmitted from the assorted Seers and I felt a headache brewing that might take days to clear, magical healing notwithstanding.

‘We have him, ‘ came a mental voice made up of the voices of over thirty women.

“Here if you please,” Verenestra replied as within a second, a male Fae was dumped unceremoniously on the floor before us.

Bandra immediately reached for a weapon, only to find it wasn’t there, before blanching (as much as a Fae actually could) and raising his arms in surrender as he saw all the weapons pointing at him.

“Please ask the Clan Lords of Aila and Martia to present themselves to my court to explain the actions of several scions in their ranks,” Verenestra commanded Astrid as the rest of the Seers winked out without a word, whilst the Drow pounced upon Bandra.

“Done, my Queen.”

“To Kurukshetra with Clarence,” Simon requested of Arch and Róisín. “There will be a trial before the Council in due course. Your people are welcome to attend and add your grievances, Queen Verenestra,”

“Thank you, Mage Simon,” she replied. “Is it finished?”

“From the point of view of capturing Clarence, yes, I believe so,” Morgana replied as Arch and Róisín cuffed Clarence and winked out. “As to what or who has this knowledge within your Daoine Sidhe rebels still, I cannot say.”

“Yes, we will investigate thoroughly and report back with our findings as soon as possible,” Verenestra nodded. “I should have a preliminary report ready tomorrow, if you can schedule a meeting?”

“We’ll have the information from a ‘capped’ Clarence to add to the mix as well,” Julia added.

“Very well, 24 hours from now,” Simon agreed. “All of you who were involved, if you please,” he added, looking at who was left on our team.

“Relax, Jukar. They won’t bite your head off,” I chuckled at my fretting wife as we waited in a comfortable room next to Tara’s office in the Council headquarters.

“He’s right, they won’t be after the blood of the investigation team,” Morgana confirmed. “We’re just there in case they need some details or insights.”

“Wonder who’ll get Clarence’s job,” Róisín asked out loud.

“Tricky, none of the Bureau heads have enough experience with the Council, save Mage Vera and she doesn’t want it,” Arch replied.

“Plus, my Mage and Hermes outside the Council don’t want it either,” I added.

“Actually, I spoke to Jude about it last night and we agreed that a role as an ordinary member wouldn’t be too onerous for me as it’s normally not that demanding, save when tasked with a mission,” Morgana replied, surprising us all.

“I can child mind for you if you like?” Jukar offered.

“Thank you, Jukar. That’s very kind of you, plus they like being around Mark too.”

“OK it with Imelda first,” Róisín admonished.

“Just did. She’s OK with it as I’m past the hurting others stage with my training,” Jukar replied.

“Good, just remember to always ask her first,” Róisín nodded. “It gets easier to find the time to do other things the further you go with your training, but you need to remember that that comes first, you have obligations to uphold with Imelda.”

“Yes, Róisín, sorry.”

“No problem, it was a nice offer anyway and I didn’t expect Imelda to have a problem with it as she’ll rope you into helping with her new arrival soon enough.”

“Five months yet,” I added.

“It’ll go quick enough,” Morgana stated.

“Has already, barely two months into this campaign, yet it seems like yesterday we went through the portal at Nansack.”

“They’re ready now,” Tara announced from the doorway.

“Let’s go people,” Morgana stated.

It was a meeting of the extended Council, in that all the ambassadors were present as well as the Bureau chiefs, though in the case of the Fae, Verenestra and William were present alongside Jolint.