Chapter 56

Morgana called together all those who had been in the battle and gave them her personal thanks for the efforts they had made to stem this incursion.

“Our losses were not as bad as I’d expected,” she stated. “But, that does not make the hurt and anguish I feel for each life lost any less. Nine wolves of the Zielona Gora Lycana, six Nosferatu of the Clan Juwes, two Loegrians and thirty two Mages were lost to stem this evil tide, yet stop it we did. Earth armies would be handing out medals for such a noble sacrifice, yet I have none to give, simply my heartfelt thanks and my word that a favour is owed from the Council of the Wise to you, your clans and your leaders.”

Morgana then stepped forward to personally thank each and every one of us for our efforts and at times there were tears streaming down her face, particularly when she spoke to close friends and comrades of those who had fallen. Yet finally it was done and all that was left was to open various portals to allow our comrades-in-arms a way home. Apart from that, a few Mages remained to make sure the captured Nephilim were guarded whilst Jerhz and Mergna sorted the sheep from the goats before allowing the majority transport back to New Azurana with a promise to contact their families and if possible help them escape.

Morgana also took the time to speak to Marja and Nell to pass on thanks to Jacob and Richard for their aid and also specifically to offer the Zielona Gora Lycana access to their own hunting grounds on a new world.

“We can even leave a working portal for you to this world near the Dach to allow you access to both worlds and allow other clans access to the new world,” Morgana offered.

“We’ll let Jacob know of your offer, Mage Morgana. I’m pretty sure he’ll find it acceptable, assuming there are no added strings to the offer,” Marja replied.

“No strings at all, just an opportunity for the Council of the Wise to show their thanks for the bravery of your wolves,” Morgana acknowledged.

Marja nodded and gave Morgana an embrace before leading her people through the portal back to Poland.

“Is there anything we can offer clan Juwes, Nell?” Morgana requested.

“Simply your support in our dealings with the Drăculești, Mage Morgana. Your name and position carries great influence and our Clan is elevated due to this,” Nell replied.

“That you will always have so long as Richard remains Țepeș,” Morgana acknowledged.

“Then all is well with us, friend Morgana,” Nell said formulaically.

“All is well, friend Nell,” Morgana replied.

Morgana spoke to the Loegrians next and gave them thanks for coming to the aid of our Earth and promised help for each individual if their circumstances ever needed the attention of a Mage.

“You know who we are and what we can do ... well a pretty good idea anyway,” Morgana went on. “Contact us via the Advanced Medical Facility in Troianova and if we can help, we will.”

After that we saw to the return of the Mages to their bureaus and us to the Council and a debriefing from the Council which admittedly didn’t take too long.

“I rather think that the Sidhe as well as the Nephilim are going to leave us well alone after this,” Morgana said to me when we were finally alone in her office.

“I hope so my Mage, but the upper ranks of their leadership hardly seem rational,” I replied.

“Rational? No, I suppose not, but they aren’t stupid either. That plus I’m going to contact various governments via Julia and start training their special forces to work alongside our Mages should something like this ever happen again,” she stated.

“Well if anyone can keep a secret it will be them,” I mused.

“I expect so, now go and rest, from tomorrow you’ll be showing Olmer and Dorry around this planet, I expect it will take at least a month,” she chuckled.

“Yes, my Mage,” I grinned. “Where are they staying?”

“My Manse, I’ve sorted out a programmable portal for your use and I expect they’ll want to spend a bit of time relaxing too. Oh yes, the children are here too,” she chuckled. “Good luck.”

I spent an uproarious couple of months showing Olmer, Dorry and their two children around the planet, they loved the Caribbean, somewhere on their Earth they’d never hoped to ever see, such was the hostility of the states around them to the freedoms Loegria the nation had. Róisín and Abi also took some well-earned time off to spend it with us too and extracted promises from me to invite them again as soon as possible.

Yet all good things come to an end and work beckoned in the way of Loegria again, seems the scientists had finally eliminated all the problems in changing the brain frequency of a Mage and making him react as a normal human and they were ready to test it for real as opposed to the various prototypes that had been used in the past.

So it was that I, Róisín, Abi, Morgana, Jemima and Arch went through a portal to Kurukshetra and hence to Loegria with the intent of bringing back the working model of the frequency changer with a mind to testing it out on one of our prisoners. Taking Dorry, Olmer and the children back home to their land of birth.

We were welcomed by Journeywoman Liliya once we were through the portal and exchanged a bit of gossip and greetings as Rowenna came to greet us.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you all again and under much better circumstances,” Rowenna exulted once the formal greetings were out of the way.

“Benjamin not about?” enquired Arch.

“He’s meeting with Archon Joras, his granddaughter has epilepsy and good as Loegrian medicine is, it’s still causing the young girl some grief. Well, it will have, past tense, once Benjamin gets to work,” Rowenna explained.

“Rank has its privileges,” I mused.

“Oh we’re a renowned medical centre in all of Loegria now and do help a lot of the Loegrii with certain conditions, but not miraculous cures ... well, not openly anyway. It’s helping a lot of the journeywomen to understand the healing process and get those who have the talent into training,” Rowenna replied.

“That’s wonderful Rowenna,” Morgana praised.

“We can act a little more openly here, so long as we don’t use the ‘m’ word,” Rowenna chuckled.

“Hello John, Róisín,” came the voice of Mage Brianna.

“Mage Brianna,” we both greeted her formally as she in turn then greeted the four senior Mages.

“Pleased to meet you too, Mage Brianna. I’m Journeywoman Seer Abi,” Abi chipped in at Brianna’s raised eyebrow.

“The honour is mine, Abi,” Brianna replied. “I so rarely get to meet a Seer.”

“Not quite a Seer yet,” Abi giggled.

“No, but one day I’ll be able to boast about meeting two when most never get to meet one,” Brianna chuckled.

“And she’s your partner too, John?” Brianna asked.

“Yes, Róisín chose her after she chose me,” I chuckled.

“You have him well trained,” laughed Brianna to Róisín and Abi.

“Mostly, he still has suicidal tendencies when it comes to dealing with our many foes,” Róisín replied with a grin.

“Doubt you’ll ever change that. He is a man after all,” Brianna stated.

“Tell me about it,” chuckled Morgana. “Some of the things he’s done still make me cringe at times. And he’s getting worse with age as he tries things no sane Mage ever would in ways that many Mages would never have considered.”

“One does ones best,” I murmured with a wry smile on my lips at the banter.

We were then allotted quarters and sorted out our unpacking whilst Dorry and Olmer returned to their home, promising to meet up with us once we’d settled in. After we had unpacked we descended to the large day lounge to go over our itinerary.

“One of the reasons we’re all here,” Morgana explained to Rowenna. “Is that we also wish to test the device on a Seer as well as a fully trained High Mage.”

“Julia agreed to this? I mean it’s not like we have ever had an instance of a rogue Seer,” a startled Rowenna replied.

“We need to see if it works on all Mages of all abilities,” Morgana confirmed.

“I see, though the risk to a Seer...” Rowenna replied.

“Dangerous I know, but both Jemima and Abi have volunteered,” Morgana added.

“I’ll let Artello and his people know as they’ll probably have to take some baseline measurements of you,” Rowenna replied to both Jemima and Abi who simply nodded, their eyes slightly glazed as they scanned in gestalt a magic free (sort of) world for the first time.

“Fascinating,” Jemima said at long last, her eyes focussing again. “Higher powers, but no magical creatures, save the Mages working in and about Troianova, and with Abi here we were able to range across this world.”

“We looked everywhere, Mage Morgana,” Abi said with a grin. “Really weird and so peaceful too.”

“Well, after the Sidhe incident I wanted to make sure,” Morgana replied.

“Definitely no Sidhe, no nothing unless it’s very well hidden,” Jemima added.

“I’d have expected something from the over-masters before now if there was anything truly inimical to us here,” Morgana replied before relaxing.

We were then joined by Mage Benjamin with journeyman Callum in tow who greeted us warmly.

“Joras’ granddaughter?” Rowenna enquired.

“She’ll make a full recovery over the next year or so, nothing to point to me or even the centre,” he replied. “Though I’d like you to take Callum over the healing regime as he understood a lot of the factors I was using a lot better than I’d expected.”

“Well, well, well,” murmured Rowenna as she eyed the now blushing Callum.

“Might have found your forte, Callum,” I chuckled.

“I’d like to think so,” he replied with a shy grin. “A lot of it is to do with being around medic Mages all the time though.”

“Don’t sell yourself short young man,” Arch chuckled. “It’s a truly worthy calling ... if you can do it.”

“I find it fascinating, though I have no idea how Mage Benjamin does what he does with people’s minds,” Callum admitted.

“Well, Mage Benjamin is in a class of his own when it comes to that,” Arch chuckled.

After that we settled down to a light lunch, as well as catching up a little with events in and around the nation of Loegria, which for the most part appeared to be going through a period of stable growth. This was also coupled with an increasing share of the export markets in over-master territories as their production costs were far lower than their competitors. The only blot on the horizon from Loegria’s point of view was the civil unrest going on in Scoterra and there was a very lively at times debate as to whether they should interfere by coming down on the side of the rebels. Currently the majority opinion was that the rebel leadership were no better than the over-master leadership currently in charge of Scoterra, simply power hungry demagogues who were relying on the fact that the over-masters were reluctant to use their orbital weapons as they knew that would provoke a response from Loegria probably in the way of an invasion.

“All in all I suspect Joras and the committee know they’d get bogged down in civil strife in much the same way as the over-masters are if they go in,” Rowenna explained. “The people there have to free themselves and the current lot leading the unrest are a bunch of gangsters and would lead them to disaster both economically and governmentally. Which is why so far the committee have turned down their requests for aid.”