Chapter 43

The next couple of years were busy but uneventful from my strictly personal view, although I did finally manage to figure out how Morgana fixed the coordinates of her Manor in my head so that I couldn't recognise or read them. It was quite simple in principle in that the pattern or matrix was hidden within a generic memory and thinking of the 'Manor' activated it from the visual context. No, Morgana would not tell me how she did it, that apparently was my next challenge and was proving to be a hell of a one as every attempt so far merely gave me a massive headache as she wouldn't let me practice on anyone else, although she did tell me that it was possible to do it on myself.

Mary, Ceridwen and Alcina were transferred to Loegria on Rowenna's say-so and the four other 'survivors' were allowed to return to their former lives after a little mental editing of themselves as well as their family and friends.

The biggest changes were in the Council itself, Marcus and Patrick had attached themselves to the Enforcement Office, presenting the Council with somewhat of a fait accompli as there was simply no way for the Council to keep them out; something which rankled the more 'conservative' members of the Amity caucus than the now dominant Vanguard entente. Simon, as far as I could tell, merely took the presence of the Theurgists in his stride and allowed them to do what it was they had come to do. Morgana was happily cooperating with them and they would often go off to assist the various Bureaus on whatever took their fancy or higher power requested.

The world of the mundanes was slowly changing too, Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union and the winds of change were beginning to blow. For the first time I began to see cracks appearing in the Coalition's control of Russia proper. Much of this had been down to our success in eliminating many of the Coalition's more capable Mages and leaving the rest to try and control their increasingly rebellious underlings, many of whom were chafing at the high handed measures used by the Coalition to control them. A lot of the current Council discussions were as to whether the time had arrived for direct intervention, the consensus however was that a few more years would be required for the political situation to collapse, allowing the Council to be able to act without the Coalition having the power to have the Soviet Union's own forces turned upon us.

The situation with the Sidhe and Nephilim had settled somewhat as a confederation of Mages from various worlds had them contained. It was somewhat like the agreement over the doppelgangers, in that all agreed to eliminate the threat, but after that we all went our own ways about it. The only direct agreement our Earth had was with the Æsir and we continued to supply them with cheap weaponry, made mostly by the Soviet Union and their allies. The Æsir told us and our ambassador confirmed it that the Æsir now had the upper hand and were driving the Nephilim back on all fronts and not taking too great casualties doing it, though certainly more than the Nephilim who were fighting a defensive action.

The really good news we had was that the scientists of Loegria had finally made a breakthrough on the brain frequency limiter and wanted to try it out on a test subject which is why Róisín and I had been permitted by Morgana to portal into that world to be lab rats as I put it.

"John, Róisín, it's good to see you," came the accented tones of journeywoman Galina.

"Hi Galina, got you on door duty?" I asked before we exchanged hugs.

"I volunteered, keeps me busy and I get to know what's going on," she giggled.

"Ah, you get to know first," chuckled Róisín.

"Yes, why else would I do this, plus the MAGES jobs are too easy as we appear to have the traitors cowed for the moment, though we are currently chasing a bunch of assassins all over Loegria," Galina admitted.

"How's the training coming?" I asked.

"Much better now, your Mage Morgana was true to her word and rotated a lot of her staff from the European Bureau through here and we have learned much," she said with a beaming smile.

"Is Mage Brianna still in charge?" I asked.

"Of training and as liaison to Dorry who is Ketty's coordinator, yes. She will be delighted to see you both, especially you, John," Galina said with a smirk.

"Goodness knows why," I muttered.

"Leave it, he really doesn't know," giggled Róisín to Galina's raised eyebrow, leaving me as mystified as ever at women and Mage women in general.

We strolled through into the medical courtyard where we were greeted by Rowenna who, as ever, was delighted to see us. She was soon joined by others we knew and an almost party atmosphere ensued as we talked, ate and drank the night away until our meeting with the scientists at Troianova's prime university. I ended up spending a lot of it chatting to my old friend Mage Benjamin and his apprentice Callum who was eager for news of both the Council and our war against the Coalition.

"Rowenna can't really talk to me about it, but I gathered from her that you have no such restrictions as you aren't a member," Benjamin chuckled.

"Well, keep it quiet as there are some who would move to close such a loophole if they discovered it," I replied with a grin.

"Don't I know it. Fortunately none of that group have even the slightest idea where Loegria is, even if they may have heard the name," he stated.

"The name itself hasn't been mentioned as far as I'm aware, though I'm not privy to all the discussions going on," I mused.

"I think if they knew they'd try to make a case for exposure in the full Council," Callum said proving that he was politically savvy, if still somewhat shy.

"You're probably right Callum, but at the moment Marcus and Patrick, the Theurgists, have all their attention," I chuckled seeing both Benjamin and Callum grinning in return.

"They're a good distraction and a necessary evil ... for lack of a better term," Benjamin added.

"That they are and Hermes and the Amity caucus hate their guts," I said, knowing I could discuss Council politics here as both Benjamin and Callum were probably here for as long as Rowenna was going to be here. Besides, I'm pretty sure that some mental editing would be done on Callum if Rowenna perceived a problem.

On our visit we were accompanied by Mage Brianna who had been delighted to see us both last night and who had made us feel especially welcome as the party had got underway. She was also the Mage who had control of the experiment, although tended to delegate it out to the other journeywomen who also worked for Ketty and the Loegrian government on occasions.

"I went over their results," Brianna said. "It looks very promising, though I've been loath to allow them to experiment on an actual Mage so far."

"That's why I'm here, to let them have a go at me," I replied.

"Are you sure, John?" Brianna asked, concern written all over her face. "They say it won't be permanent, but they have not really tried it out."

"I have an ace up my sleeve," I chuckled.

"You have? And what kind of ace would this be?" she asked.

"The sort which I'm not allowed to discuss, save only that I have been told I have a destiny sort of thing," I chuckled.

"Say no more, John. I probably don't want to know anyway," Brianna replied with a sigh, followed by a grin.

"Trust me, Mage Morgana forbade me to enquire and I live with the man," giggled Róisín.

"And what my Mage wants, she gets," I chuckled.

"True, she also forbade me to tell you where she lived," Róisín giggled.

"She wanted me to figure it out for myself," I said.

"Best way to learn that sort of thing," Brianna added.

"True, if a tad frustrating," I replied.

"Oh, thank you for persuading Mage Morgana to send Mary, Ceridwen and Alcina our way. Their skill set has made the training of the journeywomen a lot easier and eased the burden on Benjamin and myself," Brianna acknowledged.

"It's the best place to keep people we really don't want the Coalition getting their hands on," I replied.

"Yes, every time I even think of our Earth I find the mental discipline to stretch out in the direction I know it is to be excruciatingly difficult," Brianna stated.

"And a good thing too," said Róisín. "The Coalition would love to get their hands on this place."

"As would the Tuatha de Danaan and a few other realms I could think of," Brianna added.

"How's Ketty doing these days?" I asked changing the subject.

"Stressed, overworked and planning to retire," Brianna replied with a smile. "You'll be seeing her tomorrow or the day after, no doubt to give her her top up and she'll want to thank you again for what you did for Niras."

"Do the people of Loegria know she's planning to retire?" I asked.

"Yes, she's already chosen her successor and he's been vetted by the MAGES. Nice guy and will keep things going nicely until we think Olmer will step into the breach," Briana explained.

"Olmer? As in Dorry's Olmer?" Róisín asked.

"Yes, he's quite politically savvy and Dorry is a big help to him. They're rising stars in the weird political alliances they have here," Brianna replied.

"Good for him, would love to be a fly on the wall when he discovers magic is real," I chuckled.

"You may well get the chance tonight," she said with a grin. "The other thing you missed was the collapse of Albany to the North due to a people's revolution and the annexing of the territory into Loegria's sphere of influence at the request of the interim government there," Brianna said.

"Take it Ketty moved the shield to cover them?" I enquired.

"Yes and sent the MAGES in to remove traitors and the corrupt from various key posts in their land," Brianna replied. "They're now a self-governing province and the people seem content and have changed their bio-soldier labs over to medical research."

"Bet that went down well with the over-master clans," Róisín giggled.

"Oh, like a lead balloon," Brianna giggled in return. "But other than an attempt to try and break the shield with some form of laser, they just had to suck it up and accept that they'd lost another land."

"So the Loegrians now control ... in a manner of speaking ... what we would consider the UK mainland?" I asked.

"Yes and Scotia to the West is looking likely to be the next target as the people there see the Loegrians and now the Albanese living with peace and sharing the wealth of the nation fairly," Brianna explained. "Got the over-masters so worried they're piling in troops to try and hold the place, but it's just causing them more problems as the Auskaleriksi, Turenallia and the Keltogallan's along with sundry others who are stationed there do not like each other at all."

"Ketty playing the long game then?" I asked.

"Yes, Loegria's trade with the world goes from strength to strength despite the odd trade war. The Loegrians are simply better and cheaper than the forced labour factories of the over-masters," Brianna replied. "Ketty can afford to wait, they simply can't."

"Seems we did a lot of good here after all," I said, pleased with the way things were working out.

"Yes, John. Not bad for a rebuke from Mage Morgana," giggled Róisín.

"Too true," I chuckled in reply.

We were met by the head of the scientific team we'd requested to look into the brain frequency problem, a neuro-technologist called Artello who was pleased to see us.

"John, Róisín, I'm glad you could come. Brianna here refused to allow anything other than observation ... which is not too surprising, admittedly," he said with a friendly smile.

"This is John's program, it's for him to evaluate and test," Brianna replied.