City of Snakes - Book 2 The Council of the Light

-Twenty One-

Happy. That was the word that best fit the feeling. The scent of dirty smoke clung thick to the walls of the Inner Sanctum. New World Order soldiers swarmed the halls of the Leprechaun Complex, and yet he was happy.

Clarence hadn't expected to feel so light, so radiant or so relieved. Yet here he was, sat on the corner of his bed, looking out towards the broken remains of the Salisbury Henge Stones. The sky was dark with fire smoke, part of the Witch Complex was burning, and he was happy.

Somebody unlocked his door and a number of guards marched in, then spread out to reveal Bobbin Granville in the centre. He studied Clarence with the same arrogant confidence he always possessed but when he saw Clarence's relaxed smile he frowned.

"You can wipe that off your face," he said. "You lost."

"Hello Bobbin, I did wonder when you would pay me a visit."

The pirate turned leader of the Humanist Movement clicked his neck and moved into the room. He went to the window and admired his work. "As we speak the NWO is securing Salisbury City. The Witch High Queen is dead, as is the Windlord High King. The Humans are with the NWO, the Shapeshifters gave us their allegiance last night too. Under your wife's rule a good number of the Leprechauns will back us. A secondary army has taken Avebury and is currently marching on Stanton Drew- The NWO has won, Clarence."

Clarence got up and came to join him by the window, the light glinted in his eyes but it warmed his face. "Look at it burn."

"Quite beautiful really." Bobbins hand relaxed on the hilt of his sword. The sunlight turned the brown ringlets of his hair hews of gold and red.

"I dreamed of this so many times as a child." Clarence told him, as he looked out over the smoke hazed sky to the bright orange glow of the sunset. "I used to sit in my window and picture the Council of the Light on fire."

"Then why didn't you help us?" Bobbin's voice was dry. His face was full of accusations.

Clarence went back to the bed and picked up his tobacco pouch. "You never understood, and you never will."

"But you wanted us to win. That is evident from the way you act now."

"It wasn't about winning and losing."

Bobbin chucked his hands up in frustration. Clarence licked the paper closed and went across to his fire to light the cigarette.

"The thing that always made me hate you Clarence, was your utter lack of sense. You had the opportunity to be a High King and you wanted to be a pauper. You find happiness in defeat. You are the literal definition of a madman."

Clarence sat back and studied the smoke that issued from his mouth, he released it slowly so it curled into the air.

"When I was a child I was told to 'play with the High Prince'. You are five years younger than me and I was terrified. We walked through the woods by the palace and I felt tongue tied, like every syllable that I uttered was mud. I had no idea how to address you or how to entertain you. I thought I would die if you came back crying or reported you had grown bored. The fact I could feel like that, purely by being in somebody's presence was deplorable. From that moment on your mother made me your fool. I listened to you gripe and moan for years. Yet I knew that any other person saying the things you did would be hung. What annoyed me most was your inability to use your power. You never saw the benefits it could bring."

Clarence listened to Bobbin without stopping him or arguing with him. Every sentence proved just how right Clarence had been. Bobbin didn't understand, and he never would.

"I became what you could not Clarence. A leader of men. You may have been ill attentive to your tutors but I soaked up every single thing they said. Every historical account and political move, every language lesson and military strategy. I soaked it up and I fed it back to the cause. I taught them the tricks of the Leprechaun Court, the language of Politics. Later, when Rose and Grendal saw that my family were dismissed, I went to sea as a Humanist. I served on ships that were Humanist ships and I made a strong network Clarence. My army was formed long before the NWO approached me."