Strange Aeons [Book 1]

21. That ship has sailed [part I]

There was a heavy atmosphere around the Council table that morning. They had chosen a place that could mirror it: the Leshrac Castle in Australia. It was a completely out-of-place establishment, out in the Outback, teleported there by the family nearly three hundred years before. From the outside, a powerful illusion masked it as a ranch.

The banquet hall still had its throne installed. It was of a dark, cool stone, with braziers that kept warm and lightened up the room enough.

Around the great wooden table, the silence was difficult to lift.

«First of all.» Giorgio Della Rovere took the floor first. «I think we should open this meeting by renewing our deepest condolences for your losses, Zachariah.»

The middle-aged Councilman had suddenly aged twenty years more

«I just don't understand. If one thing we cover well, those are the Academies. How could they get to one?» the red-haired man had his voice broken by long hours of talking with relatives, and even more meetings.

«This is a severe leak.» Della Rovere's eyes turned towards Viceroy, Cavanaugh, Shaquana, and Jägermann.

«We know they've infiltrated mortal police, who knows who they got under their talons. Not all of our students are model citizens.» Shaquana pointed out.

«We know that they can Dispel. Could they dispel the security spells we put on the Academy locations?» Viceroy asked.

«Those are serious mind-control spells, and the memory-erasing failsafe is always active. If they can dispel that...» Cavanaugh raised both his hands in surrender. «We might as well renounce magic and just shoot as we see them because they could dispel anything. Moreover: if they have done it to the Archangel Gabriel, what's next? How many of our Academies do they know about?»

«We should shift them all.» Shaquana intervened. «We do what we have discussed so many times: no schools at all. We put portals in various establishments in the key cities and every portal leads to only one class.»

«Shaquana, if we never gave the ok on something like that it's because it's madness.» Manuela Luisita Pordelada Dos Santos stood up and got everyone's attention. «The logistics nightmare that such a solution would ensue would not be worth the while.»

«Who cares about logistics when lives are at stake?» « Shaquana snapped

«You start caring for logistic quite rapidly when it doesn't work.» Manuela Luisita Pordelada Dos Santos glared at her. «The only reason why we didn't lose more than sixty people that day is because they were all in that place. The teachers were all together, and they managed to fend off the attackers to let the students escape. The more experienced students fought alongside them. So, tell me Shaquana, what happens when the werepeople find a portal brilliantly hidden in a Chinese restaurant where the same people come and go at eight in the morning and don't come out till four o'clock in the afternoon? And in that portal there are but one teacher and fifty inexperienced students?»

«There's no use in shifting and changing people around, now. On the contrary, we risk exposing our secret locations even more.» Wao-Fong started talking, with a peaceful, deep tone of voice. «They could be counting on that. This is terrorism at his basics. We just have to endure, and go on with things as they are.»

«Are we not going to fight back?» Zachariah jumped up, now, his voice raspy but decisive. «Are we going to let them think that we're too weak to blast them, after something like that?»

«Calm down Zachariah...» Jägermann said, in a hushed tone.

«Fuck you!» the red-headed man snapped at him. «They massacred my family there. Calpernia was seventeen!»

«As were many of the departed, Zachariah, nobody here wants to diminish your grief, but many families have lost so much.» Della Rovere tried to bring order and calm around the table. «Of course, we're going to fight back, but we have to do it with brains, as mages always have done.»

«I sense a plan, Della Rovere.» Balakrishna said.

Della Rovere exchanged a glance with Angelina Casadei.

«There is no way that the werepeople have gotten to the school without someone informing on them.»

«It has happened before.» Viceroy interrupted him. «Many mages think that if we only put our heads together we could find a way to reverse the Curse put on the werepeople and stop this madness altogether.»

«Yes, but they usually just try to steal books or artefacts for their attempts. The most serious actions had been trying to kidnap someone of the Council to try and blackmail us into cooperating. This is different, Viceroy. This is pure and gratuitous violence and mayhem. How does that help the werepeople?» Shaquana pointed out.

«It gives them leverage. We're surely scared now. Zachariah is.» Viceroy ignored the heated glare the man shot at him. «What if they just wanted to show us that they could hit us even when it hurts the most, to make us think about their needs in a more... focused manner?»

«If gratuitous violence would ever have worked, we would have capitulated under the Witch Trials or any other peak of attacks they had concocted over the years. Even if the target this time is particularly sensitive, it is not the most sensible. Remember: they wiped out the whole Council, once.» Cavanaugh reminded him.

«The point is.» Della Rovere beat on the table with his walking stick's diamond, lightly but decisively. «I can't really see a Mage sacrificing students, even for the werepeople's sake. There were kids as young as eleven years old there. I refuse to believe we could get this low. So, while Zachariah launches an inside investigation of the Order...»

«... and you'd bet, if someone has pissed out of the jar, I'll nail the bastard with fire...» Zachariah intervened. Della Rovere ignored him and went on.

«... I would follow yet another path no-one really wants to think about.»

The whole Council stared at him.

«You can't be serious...» Blair passed a hand on his face, already dreading the obvious future sentence, even without Reyansh's powers.

«They could have been helped by the Undertide people.» Della Rovere tried to keep the order, while the Councilors all started talking at once, in a furious exchange of yelling and swearing.

«The Undertide people hate the werepeople's guts! They're neither fish nor fowl, and the Wylde Hunt especially loathes them because they see them as a pale parody of them!» Zachariah stood up. «There is no way they have chosen to help them over us. We have a history of centuries of dealing with those people. We're not even sure the werepeople can contact them!»

«Yeah, because finding summoning circles for demons is so difficult, isn't it Zachariah?» Viceroy raised an eyebrow.

«Demons would know better than play something like this on us. Mainly because it's so obvious it would be them, huh? But that's easily solved: I perfectly know who to ask.» Zachariah was beaming hatred from a distance, now.

«Let's not be hasty. Of course, Zachariah, you'll be welcome to ask your sources, but I'd prefer you'd concentrate on this side of the Tide. As per the other side, I'm preparing a full operation. We're going to contact everyone. We can. And just hope everyone answers us.»

«You know that the Pearly Gates will remain closed, don't you?» Viceroy said, extremely serious. Giorgio sighed.

«If they do, we'll make do without their help, as usual. But we at least have to try. A war is brewing, gentlemen, and gentlewomen.» Della Rovere sat back down. «It's time to set the field.»