P I and Magic Book II: The Gods Return
Copyright© 2005 by Volentrin
Chapter 8
I watched as Marcus came forward. I still carried very hard feelings for this man. He had been a family retainer, who had betrayed his trust and tampered with my memories. He had screwed with me for some time on earth, sicking an NSA off shoot organization onto me.
While I had decided not to seek any further punishment or actions against him, I was still angry and hurt at what he had done to me. Ok, so he had aquited himself well during the war with Salvadi, but, damn it!
He came to a stop, and bowed to Mirwanna. She nodded and looked at him curiously. He had asked for this meeting. I frowned at him.
"Your Highness. I bring word of an infestation of demons. I have been, as you know, stationed on the border with Landkur and the Feronis kingdom. I was doing a standard monitoring, when I saw a flare of a portal.
"I sent a spell of seeing, and saw several demons coming out before they saw my spell, and ended it. Your highness, Feronis has been invaded," Markus said with a sad sound in his voice.
While I did not really like Marcus as I once did, I was sure that he was telling the truth. He was a strong magic user, and if I knew one thing about him, he rarely made a mistake when casting a spell. If he said he saw demons, then you could take it to the bank.
Our meeting immediately broke up into individual groups. Darla was there, representing her new house. Fithian and Vostich had been here earlier, but they had both had to go in answer to some obscure and arcane spell they were working on, at the castle.
There were representatives from several other houses, all objecting to my creating a bank. It seemed that some of the merchant houses were upset with my cutting into what they deemed their, "Business."
Ok, while it was true that the larger merchant houses had acted as banks and foreign currency exchanges, I wanted to establish a central bank for all. They were all here to ask Mirwanna to block my, "Ill conceived," move to create this bank.
While it was not an official meeting in the throne room, it was interesting. I liked these meetings, lately. I looked up in time to see Markus coming my way. I did not really want to talk to him, but it looked like I was in for it. I sighed.
"Why the big sigh?" Darla asked me.
"Markus is coming this way. I could really not speak to him for... oh say, forever, and not be offended."
"Paul!" Marcus said a bit loudly.
I turned to face him. "Marcus," I said with a nod.
"Paul. It has been some time. I hear you are doing good things within the city," he said to me.
"Yes. It was bound to happen. I stumbled into good things," I said curtly.
He sighed a deep sigh. "Paul, I'm very sorry for what I did. I thought it was the only thing I could do. If there is anyway, anyway at all I can make this up to you, just ask," he said seriously.
"Markus? I hope you don't take this any other way than as I mean it; but, I would not trust you as far as I could throw you," I said gritting my teeth.
I felt rage go through me again, at his betrayal of me and my family. I watched as his shoulders slumped. He nodded, and turned away.
"Paul!" Darla hissed at me. "He is making every effort to resolve this between you two. Get over yourself, and accept his apology. You would want forgiveness if you did something wrong, wouldn't you?" She said in a low tone.
"It wasn't me that tampered with HIS memories. It wasn't me that did everything in his power to sick the US government on me. I'm sorry, but while I understand his stated reasons, I still feel very uncomfortable around him. He BETRAYED me and my family, Darla," I finished a bit loudly, my anger rising.
I glanced up as I said this, and saw that Markus had heard my statement. Hell, everyone around me heard my statement. Markus actually flinched as I said what I did. I felt a bit of compassion at that, but firmed my resolve. I was not going to have anything more to do with Markus if I could help it.
I was sitting at my desk in my apartment an hour later and was musing. I got up and went to a small storage room. There was my cloak and my staff. I had not had them out or used them in sometime. It was time I made sure they were in top working condition.
I started by charging my staff. After I got lines of energy feeding power into it, I turned my attention to my cloak. I stripped down all the spells that had been placed on it, and started over. I wanted a good solid base on it.
I had just finished my second layer of protections when Mariel came in.
"Paul. We need to talk," she said in that voice I was learning meant I had done something wrong.
"Certainly. I am at your disposal," I told her with a slightly worried smile.
She laughed at me when she saw my smile.
"Silly. I want to talk to you about your treatment of Markus," Mariel stated firmly.
I stiffened. I am sure my face assumed a look of, well, intense distaste.
"While I understand your dislike for Markus, you have to know that he was doing his best for you. I remember when father threatened you," Mariel told me.
"Threatened me? I have no memory of any threats, except when I was first training with the dragons," I said, frowning.
"No, I mean earlier. I found a... record of father's discussion with Markus. Father kept good records of that time. He kept Minoril recording crystals, and recorded everything, for some reason," Mariel told me, as if that meant anything to me.
"I am not familiar with that type of crystal," I told Mariel.
"It is a crystal that retains images and sounds spoken around it. They were once many, but over time, they have become lost, destroyed, or misplaced. None know how to make them, nor do we know where they were mined, if they were mined," Mariel said in a lecturing voice.
I smiled at her. She was positively blooming when she could pass information on to people whom she thought of as her betters, or more knowledgeable than herself. I silently cheered her on.
"Well, I shall have to see if I can find one of these crystals. In the meantime, I really don't want to talk about Markus. It raises hard feelings within me," I told her.
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