Chapter 61

1996 brought about some major changes for the Council; the end of the cold war had given way to the beginnings of the war on terror, though at the current state of affairs everyone was still slightly euphoric in the sense that the two main contenders in the cold war were now no longer planning on unleashing nuclear warfare on each other. The Coalition however had other plans and were upping the ante in the Shia/Sunni civil war within Islam which had been an ongoing niggle since Djadjamahnk had killed off the fourth Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, in an attempt to keep control of things under his protégé Muawiya, who would found the famous Umayyid Caliphate. As ever when meddling with humanity, an arrogant Mage got it wrong and started a split between Shia and Sunni that has never healed.

Essentially Elymas and Merlin were playing both sides to the extent that they began covert and occasionally overt support to the more extreme sects of the two with Elymas encouraging the state sponsored terrorism of Iran and Merlin the more radical Wahhabist sects of Saudi Arabia and the oil money behind their expansion. Either way, this was to mean trouble for the rest of the world. The Coalition used this to re-extend their influence over a far wider area than their numbers would generally account for by using extremist dupes to create tensions in Council territories.

Not that the Enforcement Office or the Bureaus took any hand in counter-terrorism actions or activities, save only where one of the Coalition broke cover. Most of their efforts were now being expanded in diplomacy between the other Earths and, occasionally, their non-human occupants in an attempt to forge a genuine association against the Daoine Sidhe/Nephilim alliance that was creating waves amongst many of the Earths who did not have a strong tradition of military activity. The Council were secretly training many of our Earth’s special forces to integrate with Mages in dealing with Nephilim incursions, not that there were a great deal of them at the moment. The Sidhe and Nephilim seemed to have written us off as an easy target and had moved their attacks to more fertile ground on Anasazi, Nazca, Phaëtoni and Tiamati where their technology coupled with the Daoine Sidhe magic was causing havoc. As far as we were aware, the Sidhe and Nephilim had completely failed on Æsir, Rutasi, Craebh Ruadh, Mazdan and the Vedic commonalty. The Tuatha Dé Danann had claimed victory, however disturbing reports had come from Mazdan sources stating that the Tuatha Dé Danann were seeking an alliance of sorts to fight an unnamed foe and were offering to cede half of Finias in return for help. The Mazdani had apparently laughed them off their world, having no desire to involve themselves with an ally that no-one in their right mind trusted. That they’d bothered to tell us merely demonstrated how highly the Mages of Earth were now viewed by the non-human races.

This was the first time our Council had decided to involve itself in a war with others, mostly in a supporting role but with the likelihood of it becoming involved in actual fighting as plans were being laid to aid our weaker neighbours and drive off the Nephilim and Sidhe back onto Tír na nÓg and then back into the outer realms if we could not destroy them completely.

In this we were now being aided by our own Nephilim Caddiysh army recruited from Jerhz’s rebels and Commander Hinnit’s reformed Azuran Caddiysh fighting band, Samyaza. We’d already agreed with Jerhz and Hinnit that any honourably surrendered Nephilim would be handed over to them and permitted to settle on New Azurana if they’d had their fill of fighting. Somehow or other Jerhz and Mergna had gotten word out into the field and to the Nephilim Caddiysh that sanctuary could be found and many were beginning to desert on worlds where Mergna in particular had set up counter-insurgency cells to get the ordinary Nephilim away from the hard line Malakha and Caddiysh.

Slowly but surely an anti-Sidhe alliance was being forged, including some very unlikely allies such as the Maraú-Uxuí and the Veda, neither of whom had any great love of humanity, yet the old adage the enemy of my enemy held sway here.

The binding glue in this were the Mages of Earth; Julia’s diplomatic/espionage Office was working overtime with the Bureaus of Earth to make sure that all was well between the various races. Lines of communication were being held open despite some infuriating gaffes and outright racism from some of our allies.

My involvement in all this was minimal of course; Morgana had me busy on another project along with Róisín and our resident Theurgists Antonelli and Bryce. Seemed the British government in some form of reformist zeal had decided to let slip one of the more fundamental objects of power in its possession in that it was going to return the Stone of Scone back to Edinburgh as a sop to the Scottish Nationalists.

As ever there is a lot of mythos over the stone. Some of it deliberately put about by Mages and Theurgists to hide what the stone essentially is and what it does. Naturally the idiot politicians in the UK hadn’t a clue and simply handed it back from its warded and protected throne as the wards only worked against magic users.

Dealing with the stone had become part of the Department of Investigative Studies’ duties and had been retrieved by Mage Arch when a bunch of idiot students had stolen the thing back in 1950, intending to bring it back to its supposed rightful home. Fortunately Arch had made a switch when the Department was alerted to an early attempt the day before when one of the thieves got caught by a night-watchman. This was just as well for the world as the idiots broke in the next night and dropped it breaking it into three pieces which they had repaired in Glasgow with a brass rod and a mysterious piece of paper. No-one knows what’s written upon it, Morgana removed and replaced it with one saying ‘this way up’. When I asked her what was on the original note, she refused to answer, just gave me an enigmatic smile.

Why would Morgana be involved?

Well ... the stone actually belongs to her, not the Scots and certainly not the British. One of the names the stone has is ‘Stone of Destiny’ and has a counterpart with the Lia Fáil in Tara, Ireland, (which also means Stone of Destiny) which has links to the High Kings of Ireland in Tara. As the ‘agreements’ between the Sidhe and the Council of the Wise are known as the ‘Tara Accords’ you may now have a clue as to where this is going. No, the stones are not the same, there are two. The phallic style one in Tara is the main and acts as a balance to the active stone which is the one that caused all the fuss.

The Stone of Scone was the altar seat where binding agreements are made between parties and such agreements cannot be broken without consequences. Hence it was used as a coronation stone, binding a king to the land and its people. However, the Stone of Scone left Tara in AD 500 when the High King of Ireland, Murtagh MacEirc, loaned it to his great-uncle, Fergus (later known as Fergus the Great), for the latter’s coronation in Dal Riata. Fergus’s sub-kingdom, Dal Riata, had by this time expanded to include the north-east part of Ulster and parts of western Scotland.

Morgana after the collapse of the Arthurian Kingdom had ended up in Dal Riata and had become an elder there due to her skills in healing, but also because of her political acumen gained at her father’s court at Duntagel. Although she left the Kingdom to become Simon Magus’ apprentice, she remains the last guardian elder of Dal Riata and hence is the keeper of the Stone of Destiny which, because of its links back to the High King of Ireland as well as the Kingdom of Scotland and hence the kingdom of the United Kingdom, makes her the supreme ruler of the British Isles (don’t all bow at once).

The problem with the (real) Stone of Scone is that it cannot be locked away for any lengthy period of time. In order to keep all binding agreements it must be on public display. Hence Morgana was more than willing to allow it (within reason) to be transported over Scotland to Scone and hence to Westminster where she arranged to have it remain in a warded throne. What she didn’t bargain for was the rise of Scottish Nationalism, attempts to remove the stone by mundanes and the potential unravelling of a lot of binding agreements between our Earth and the other Earths including Tír na nÓg.

There is an old saying which goes ‘words have power’. In the case of the Stone of Scone this was most definitely true and had the idiots who broke the fake one Arch had substituted broken the real one, the resulting explosion would have taken out most of Europe as well as the northeast coast of America.

And now the UK government were planning on handing the stone back to Scotland where it would be kept at Edinburgh Castle and not on ‘holy’ ground where bindings could not be made or broken due to the agreements in place with the higher powers (or so Morgana and Antonelli told me).

One major disadvantage of dealing with the Stone was that most magic did not work upon it; it couldn’t be teleported or reduced in weight by gravity control. Hence we were going to have to go to Westminster Abbey and steal the bloody thing and put the broken one back in its place. Antonelli and Bryce were going along to make sure that the Abbey itself was not damaged as it was under the protection of the Church and the higher powers and that meant a negotiation with a Theurgist from the Church of England who frankly wasn’t any too happy about having the Stone there in the first place, but didn’t want it damaged either (for obvious reasons).

The four of us trooped into Westminster Abbey after hours to meet up with the senior Theurgist of the Church of England, a woman called Hilda.

As ever going into a ‘holy place’ (as opposed to a church) put both Róisín and I immediately on the defensive, despite being warned by Antonelli that the power involved was not aimed at us, but in protecting those who did God’s work from its auspices. Mages are singularly aware of any use of power around them and we do not adapt too well to a power we neither understand nor control. Hence our issues with Higher Powers and Theurgists.

“Marcus, Patrick, how wonderful to see you again,” came the voice of a woman whom as ever I couldn’t scan or read. “And you’ve brought Mages with you, how nice.”

“Good to see you too, Hilda,” Antonelli replied before sweeping the woman up into a hug.

“Hi Hilda,” said a grinning Bryce.

“Greetings, Hilda,” both Róisín and I intoned with a formal bow.

“Oh pooh, you aren’t going to be bloody stuffy like that right up their own arse Council of yours are you?” Hilda said with an infectious grin.

“Only at first, it’s sort of ingrained with us,” I chuckled and held out my hand only for Hilda to ignore it and pull me in close for a hug and a massive kiss on the lips.

“Er...” I began only to realise Róisín had received the same treatment and both Antonelli and Bryce were struggling to contain their mirth at our non-plussedness.

“Ooh, I like him,” Hilda chuckled. “Much nicer than that God awful Abelard who had the hots for me back in six sixty-four.”

“He’s er ... dead now,” I replied, completely out of my depth here.

“Good riddance, the man was an utter bigot as well as a damned nuisance. Couldn’t keep his hands to himself if he tried,” Hilda announced loudly.

“Er yes...” I began.

“Not that there aren’t moments when a little hands-on action isn’t welcome,” Hilda went on with a smouldering look.

“Are you sure she’s a Theurgist?” I asked plaintively.

“Oh most definitely,” chuckled Antonelli. “Was a saint once, but has come down a little in the world.”

“I thought there were rules?” I asked.

“There are,” said Hilda. “I just choose to ignore the ones that don’t suit me, bit like Marcus. I lived a good and holy life until my supposed death and elevation. Afterwards I got to do some real smiting, but needed a little recreation time afterwards to recover.”