Chapter 126

Morgana spoke at length to the silent Council as she went over the events that led to the fall of the Drow and of Oonagh. She pointed out, unflinchingly, the good and the bad, the successes and the mistakes. She was flanked throughout by myself, her team leaders, Seer Jemima, Seer Simone and the Bureau heads, save for Mage Maria, who sadly had been too far gone to be administered the toxin cure in time. Her replacement Mage Christina was still sorting out various issues in her Bureau, though sent word that she fully endorsed Mage Morgana’s actions.

At times Morgana had to fight hard to keep her tones even and the anguish from her voice as she spoke of the deaths and injuries our side had incurred. Her tears flowed almost immediately and were a constant indication of her sorrow in victory.

“So we won?” Simon finally questioned.

“Indeed we did, my friend. Oonagh is no longer a threat to the civilised Earths,” Morgana replied. “She’s currently incarcerated in Keldravan under Verenestra’s care in a Null room while the Fae and one of our teams study the cuffs the Angels gave us as well as the method used to remove the suicide ability.”

“And just what was the cost in this foolish endeavour?” asked Mage Clarence, getting more than a few looks of disgust from the other Mages in the chamber.

“Oh, get off your high horse, you odious little twerp,” Mage Sofya interjected. “You, who never once attempted to understand why we were fighting, nor offer any alternatives save only that we stop and allow a bunch of barbarians to overrun the known Earths. Casualties were high because the Drow were in a fight for their very survival as well as defending the one-time Queen. They knew they had to win or go under and they fought tooth and nail, showing little or no quarter.”

“Indeed, Mage Sofya,” Morgana acknowledged over the now spluttering Clarence. “In total we lost three hundred and sixty Mages, two hundred and thirty-six of them High Mages; three hundred and sixty-five Æsir; one hundred and ninety-two Murians; three hundred and forty Craebh Ruadh; one hundred and sixty-five Azurans; sixty-two Rutasi; seven Maraú-Uxuí and thirty-four Veda; sixteen Nosferatu, four Gorgons and twelve wolves. More than the total losses taken in the liberation of Tír na nÓg.”

“You wasted that many lives?” Clarence screeched.

“Wasted, no; spent, yes. All to permit John the opportunity to fulfil his destiny with Heaven, something that I rather doubt we’d ever have been in a position to stop, what with the Higher Powers being involved in the situation,” Morgana replied steadily.

“Pah, there’s no such...” whatever Clarence had been about to say was cut short by Father Bryce decking him with a well-aimed uppercut to the jaw.

“Sorry, can’t have the boss being dissed,” he said with a grin whilst many Mages hid a chuckle and many laughed outright.

“This destiny was fulfilled?” Simon asked me.

“Yes, Mage Simon. It is finished.”

“Do we know what it was about?”

“No, Mage Simon. Though I suspect it was the closing of a chapter and the beginning of another.”

“Patrick?” Simon said, looking at the Theurgist.

“I believe John has the gist of it. Humanity and others move in stages. You’ve moved from division to co-operation. Had Oonagh won you’d have remained in division, at least until Heaven decided another challenge was warranted. That said, His plans are manifold and several outcomes were likely achieved.”

“Seems rather a lot of deaths to do that,” Simon stated wryly.

“I can’t really speak for God, but such things never come easy, nor do they come often,” Bryce said apologetically.

“I call upon this Council to censure the rogue Mage, Morgana, for her reckless wasting of Mage lives!” Clarence screamed through bloodied teeth.

“Save your breath little man. I’m handing in my notice anyway. My job is done, there are no more enemies and I’m sick of this stupid point scoring and looking at your pug ugly face,” Morgana replied. “Push it hard enough and I’ll demand satisfaction too.”

There were a lot of concerned murmurings in the Council at Morgana’s statement; her resignation that is. A lot of Mages appeared to think a challenge to Clarence was warranted. Most however, like Mages Simon, Julia, Rowenna, Cixi, Zola and Sofya, nodded acceptance of the resignation.

“You are sure of this, my friend?” Simon asked Morgana.

“Yes, Simon. I’m so, so tired of all this. I’ve lost too many friends, seen far too many of them fall willingly for this cause and I just wish to mourn, recover with my Jude and begin anew,” Morgana replied, tears coursing down her face.

“I am still going to demand an accounting of you!” Clarence yelled.

“Knock yourself out,” Morgana replied dismissively. “See if I care.”

“You wish to propose some measure, Mage Clarence?” Simon asked icily.

“Yes. I know it will be voted down by your lackeys but it will still be on record for future days when sense returns to this forum,” he stated pompously.

“My God, I do believe he actually believes Amity can make a comeback,” Mage Julia added caustically.

“He does. He can’t accept that he’s one of the prime reasons it fell from grace,” Sofya replied. “Plus no doubt, he’ll attempt to place Hermes on the list for Assassin Prime.”

“I propose Mage Morgana should face official censure for her reckless waste of Mage lives in her personal vendetta against the Daoine Sidhe. I also propose that her resignation is not accepted and that she be dismissed with dishonour from this Council,” Clarence proposed above the ongoing private conversations happening in the chamber over Morgana’s resignation.

“Do we have a seconder?” Simon asked caustically.

There was silence. Not a single voice was raised, even from the two other known members of the Amity Caucus who looked, as many others did, in utter disgust at Clarence.

“Proposal will be stricken from the record, as any such proposal is when it cannot be supported by even a single vote,” Simon finally announced as Clarence appeared to be arguing vehemently with his supposed allies, neither of whom looked as if they wanted to give him the time of day any longer, such was the anger and contempt in their tones.

“I propose this chamber offers a vote of thanks to Mage Morgana and her teams for finally ridding us of a threat to all the civilised Earths and wish her well on her resignation,” Julia proposed.

“Seconded!” Rowenna followed up, the clearest voice amongst many.

“A proposal has been made and seconded. I call for a show of hands,” Simon announced. “Vote is eighteen for, one against, motion passes. This Council thanks you for your efforts, Mage Morgana, and wishes you peace and time during your withdrawal from your duties to heal from your obvious grief at losing so many.”

“Thank you, my friends,” Morgana said with a formal bow to all. “I will, of course, remain and assist during the transition period and to answer any questions during the investigation and report of the final battles.”

“It is we who must thank you, Morgana. You’ve removed the two most serious threats to both this Council and our Earth. You’ve aided in the forging of alliances across the civilised Earths; assisted in neutralising, to an extent, the Tuatha Dé Danann and have left this Council with far fewer problems than it had when you arrived,” Simon announced, getting a few calls of ‘hear, hear’ from the assembled Council. “There may come a time when you wish to return to us. Rest assured, I for one will not stand in your way.”

There were other seemingly endless accolades and Morgana took them in her stride. She also did a little bit of politicking for Mage Tara to take her place as Assassin Prime, most of the Vanguard Entente faction, who were still in the ascendant on the Council, agreeing that she would make a good choice.

I was also busy, though in this case it was sorting a schedule with Mage Zola to assist various candidates for emergence. In addition I was informed of several of the lady Mages on, or associated with, the Council who were now pregnant, though this wouldn’t take up any of my time until the children reached a state of mental maturity.

Finally though Morgana and I were permitted to teleport to our respective homes and, for us, it seemed the war was over.

A year passed peacefully and I now had a son from Róisín who was potentially in the position of being spoiled rotten by his associate mothers. As soon as Mark had been born and named, the fight between my wives started as to who was to become the next mother. In this I was smart and kept well out of it as did Róisín, her only comment on the matter being that she would support the winner, other than that it was up to them to sort it out, though currently Abi had declined the ‘honour’ but was stirring the pot nicely.

My training was being kept current by Morgana and her network of friends in the Council, the Bureaus and personal friendships all over the world as well as Loegria. For all she’d ‘retired’, I knew Simon, Rowenna and Julia were regular visitors to her home to discuss ongoing issues and to seek her advice. Occasionally Mage Tara visited as well, though her workload along with that of the Bureaus was much reduced, all the Bureaus having absorbed their enforcement arms into their security details.

My villa, being much larger than Morgana and Jude’s house, was also the scene of a series of visits from citizens of other Earths. Therefore it was enlarged to a certain extent to include a small conference room where meetings between the various representatives could be carried out in an unofficial manner. It was a place where everything could be discussed, but nothing officially sanctioned. Morgana usually chaired these meetings and frequently had the assistance of Ketty, who was bringing up her two children by Niras and had a third on the way. It was Ketty’s political brain that Morgana valued and her ability to cut right through to the heart of a problem and offer up a solution. Many representatives chose to have her sort out other disagreements, ones that weren’t part of our Earth’s problems but which could be sorted on what was, for them, neutral ground.

Did the Council know? Yes. Did they interfere or spy? Well, Morgana said not and I reckon she’d know.

The other ongoing issue in the Council was the final demise of the Amity Caucus to just being Mage Clarence. The final two other members now joining Mage Sofya in voting with the Discutere Symposium, which was a far more moderate version of Amity and less inclined to get involved in action, though realising that some things required a direct response, not endless debate.

The small community of Mages in our patch of New Zealand was growing as well. Arch and a now very pregnant Jemima had moved into the local area and settled in as had Rowenna and Benjamin when they weren’t resident on Loegria. I also believe Pierre and Dorry intend to move near to us once Dorry is out of her apprenticeship. Currently she resides with Simone in Australia, but travels as often as she can to see Ketty and Niras and their children. Occasionally she also travels to Loegria to observe her family, though she never lets them see her; these visits are tapering off as doing so causes her a lot of heartbreak.

Now that I no longer worked for the Council ... so to speak, I found myself looking for work. Róisín was OK on this, Arch now worked for Mage Tara, so she kept her job. So it was that Jukar, Niras and I set up our own I.T. service provider company for a small and very select set of customers, guaranteeing them data protection and backup services 24/7. Niras being the one who designed our server hardware with occasional adaptions to take Loegrian standard equipment. In this we were assisted occasionally by Róisín in her secondary job as a software analyst, though mostly the few issues we had were not terribly complex, particularly when you take into account that as Mages we could read the data stream directly without any need for interpretation and could correct it in situ without recourse to loading a backup. Mostly the problems we had were of our customers’ own making, often from opening malware via attachments to their emails. These we could resolve on the fly as our data-protection was of Loegrian standards due to the adaptions Niras added to the servers.

For all we had a good few offers to expand, we kept our customer base small and exclusive, only taking on another client if one decided to go elsewhere. We were expensive, but, we were a hell of a lot more reliable than our competitors, particularly in our response to threats. Our ability to use magic helped of course and we never had hardware issues as the servers we used were protected by a variety of spells to keep them cool, functioning and tamperproof, no matter the conditions around them. The only real issue we had were the mundane intelligence agencies trying to crack our coding. In this Jukar allowed them to see a version of what was going on, but not penetrate the actual data and software. What they saw, however, only bore a slight resemblance to the actual data. It was simply enough to let the intelligence agencies think that they had a back door into our system, which they most certainly did not.

Jukar and I are married now, even if it cannot be officially recognised anywhere, save in the Mage community. Naturally enough the whole thing was quite tasteful and enjoyed by all that attended. In some circles though, getting involved with an apprentice is a massive scandal, but Jukar was determined to get to the stage where she could get what she wanted and my wives agreed that it was OK.

Her training is going very well, the effort she put into getting her body ready for me has carried over to her other studies and she studies voraciously. Imelda reckons she’s years in advance of many typical apprentices and in this Morgana agrees with her, comparing her to my inquisitive abilities ... and knack of getting in over my head in trying things well before I was ready.