Chapter 10 – Retaliation

“The light touch isn’t working,” Archmage Janry said flatly. The other mages sitting in his study looked uncomfortable, but they didn’t deny it. He wouldn’t have thought that the American Alliance would have had any political acumen at all, but they’d been successful in fending off the indirect action Janry had been directing. Not to mention wooing away some of the Houses via the Guild of Enchanting, which was an organization that Janry didn’t dare try to break just yet. Too many Houses were part of it, including his own, but he could order other action.

“I’m not sure what else we can do without instigating a full war,” the representative of cadet house Leshiel said after a moment, her lips pursed in thought. “The fae seem to be anxious for that but most people don’t have an interest in inviting a direct attack from Archmage Taisen or Archmage Hargrave.”

“The Earth side has reason to avoid outright conflict, but we don’t,” Janry said. “They care more about preserving secrecy and they are, quite frankly, outnumbered. We need to take advantage of that and push. Just dare them to escalate.”

“Beyond killing one of the Princes of the Seven Lesser Courts?” the cadet house Horan representative asked.

“The fae don’t care,” Janry waved it away. “It’s all fair play to them. That kind of assassination isn’t really something they get mad at. Not like the Houses would if Wells went after an archmage, and he knows it.” If House Fane had more allies, or people had really appreciated the danger Wells posed, the entire thing would have broken open years ago, rather than ending up in the current morass.

“Attempting to assault House Hargrave would be a fool’s errand, and we don’t even know where House Taisen is,” Magus Leshiel pointed out. “The only people we can really move against are the fae enclaves and Alpha Chester.”

“And Alpha Chester’s the center of the whole damn American Alliance,” Janry said grimly. “We should have just removed him earlier.”

“Easier said than done,” Magus Horan muttered. “Do we just bring a bunch of mages and sink the place underground?”

“Yes, I have decided that would be for the best,” Janry said. “Take the DAI, bring a bunch of mundane agents to tie their hands, and then have them all arrested. Either they fight back against the mundane government, which breaks their power, or they don’t, which breaks their power. It doesn’t matter if we actually kill him if we can remove him from play.” His lips quirked and he inclined his head toward Horan. “And then we sink his place underground.”

“You’re not worried about other people? Like Wells or, say, Archmage Wizzy?” Magus Leshiel asked as she dutifully noted down his orders.

“Not necessarily. Like I said, they don’t want to start a war. They’d have to strike our Houses directly, and even Wells would have trouble with that.” After seeing how he’d approached the other assassinations, they’d altered security enough that he was confident Wells couldn’t simply stroll in. Not to mention acquiring proper jamming equipment to block off his access at any time. Fortunately he’d had the foresight to get the equipment before the Guild of Enchanting had embargoed his House.

“There’s also one ally we’ve been forgetting.” Janry held up a finger and looked around. Though it was supposed to be a meeting, he was really only giving marching orders. “The dragonblooded have been the ones most opposed to open war, and while they claim that’s for neutral reasons, it actually benefits the Earth side most. I don’t see any reason we should leave them in play.”

“Archmage Fane found that properly killing a dragonblooded was an issue,” Horan said. “I’d be afraid of opening another front.”

“I don’t intend to open another front,” Janry said. “I’m going to take a page out of Wells’ book. We aren’t getting any benefit from keeping the dragonblooded around, so why not drop a few tons of rock onto their portal? That should be enough to close it.”

“That seems precipitous,” Horan said cautiously. “Wells closing the vampire portal was what allowed us to get all the Houses to rally behind us.”

“And what good has it done?” Janry demanded. “Yes, words and material support are fine, but without direct action it means nothing. Everyone tiptoes around the dragonblooded, but since they’ve taken care not to get too engaged with people, nobody is going to be too miffed if we remove them.”

“As you say, Archmage,” Horan said, exchanging glances with Magus Leshiel. “When did you want to do this?”

“As soon as may be. We need only delay long enough for our fae allies to join in.” Janry stood up and gestured to the door. “Go ahead and give DAI their orders. I’ll take care of the portal myself, now.”

“Yes, Archmage Janry,” Horan said, automatically standing when Janry did. “It will be done.”

Janry waited until they left and then strolled through the House grounds to the Earth portal. GAR at the very least still fulfilled the purpose of giving the Houses a proper Earth-side infrastructure, and despite the American Alliance spreading beyond the bounds of that particular country, most of Europe and China still hewed to its hierarchy. The people gave him the proper respect when he strode in, though he didn’t stay.

He didn’t trust the teleport to the Dragonlands portal, especially not after what Wells had done with Fane. Unless Duvall personally verified the connection, it was safer and easier to move himself the old-fashioned way. The moment he stepped outside the office in France, he sank into the ground and shot off toward Switzerland.

The earth welcomed him like an old friend, rock shifting and bending and helping him along. His control had long become instinctive, and the only issue was finding landmarks — something that was less common deep underground. Instead he pulsed his vis to map out the landscape, navigating by his familiarity with Europe’s terrain and rock strata.

The Matterhorn was fairly easy to recognize from underneath, and he aimed himself to emerge from side of the mountain. His temperature foci kept the chill away as he lifted himself into the air, flying the last few feet to the outpost. While he could have erased it just as easily without emerging from the ground, he had some pieces of equipment to detect more subtle mana variations just in case, and those needed a clear line of sight.

He could feel the sheer amount of mana pouring from the portal, and while it would be a shame to lose that, he was sure that Duvall could generate a replacement in time. Or if not, permanently weakening Earth was not so terrible a thing. The mana had always been thin anyway, compared to his House estate in Faerie, so frankly it would hardly matter.

The subdued blue sky of the Dragonlands was visible through the portal, but it wouldn’t be for long. Janry stretched out his earth manipulation framework, and pulled down thousands of tons of rock. Wind whistled out of the cave as it shut with a juddering boom, the portal framework shearing and crushing stone. But the mass of the mountain was inevitable, and the mana began to fray and unravel under the sheer mass of rock.

Another few seconds and the portal destabilized, collapsing into itself. He was a little surprised that no dragonblooded tried to stop it, but then, there likely wasn’t much they could have done. Even if they threw all their power against preventing his rockslide, that much vis would probably disrupt the portal all by itself. Just before the connection vanished completely he thought he caught a flare of something from the other side, but it was too late.

Snow cascaded down in an avalanche from the shift in the rock and the sound, but his shield deflected it without issue for the few moments that he was above ground. Satisfied that he’d done what he came for, Janry sank back into the earth and headed back to Paris. It was so easy that he half-wondered why nobody had done it before. True, the dragonblooded had tremendous wealth and knowledge, but in the end, what did that matter if they wouldn’t be of use to him?

***

“We’ve tracked the fae influence to the Department of Arcane Investigation,” Ray said, looking into the camera pickup on one of Callum’s remotes. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. Felicia wasn’t the only fae they employed, though I don’t think anyone quite measured up to her.” Beside him, Felicia chuckled softly.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” Callum frowned. “Really, I should have looked at disassembling DAI and, frankly, all of GAR earlier. As soon as I had this fortress, probably.”

“I wish I could disagree,” Ray sighed. “It had problems when we were there but now it’s just an apparatus for Janry’s policies. In a way I’m surprised they haven’t openly declared themselves to the mundane governments.”

“Most mages are a bit more conservative,” Lucy pointed out. “A lot of the people leading the Houses remember the days when they had to hide out because they just weren’t powerful. Convincing them to change a hundred-whatever years of policy takes time.”

“That said, all it takes is one unilateral action,” Ray replied. “And GAR is being run more centrally than it used to.”

“Well, we can’t let it stand,” Callum said, glancing over at Lucy. “We’ve got plenty of carrots for the other Houses, right? Private portal worlds, multiple spatial connections…” he ticked off the items on his fingers.

“Private intranets, safe connection to Earth networks and proxies for mundane good deliveries,” Lucy added. Callum added those items to his fingers and then closed the open hand that resulted. “I think maybe it’s time to apply a stick in addition to the carrots.”

“Probably not something to spring on people,” Lucy said. “Maybe it’d be better to have the people on our side give an ultimatum? I dunno, maybe that’d just make them dig in their heels.”

“It’s not like I intend to just kill everyone in GAR,” Callum said, tapping the table as he thought. “I was thinking more just disassembling the infrastructure. Take all their archives and records and vaults and hand them off to Taisen and Hargrave to be disbursed back to the Houses. A bureaucracy is more infrastructure than people, anyhow. And Felicia, I guess you could take the fae? I’m not entirely certain how that works.”

“Talk about unilateral action,” Ray muttered, but looked at Felicia for the answer.

“I would have to absorb GAR’s fae anyway, at some point,” Felicia admitted. “Either under their own prince or directly.”

“I’ll call everyone up,” Lucy said. “Don’t want to surprise people with a job,” she said, poking him in the side.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, fending her off with a smile. “It’s not me that’s making more work for everyone else.”

“Right, we’ll be in contact pretty soon,” Lucy said to Ray and Felicia.

“And thank you for following up on that government compulsion stuff,” he added. “I definitely appreciate it.”

“I agree with you that the separation of powers is necessary for any supernaturals who are going to live on Earth,” Felicia said somberly. “Fae rules for fae, and mortal rules for mortals.” Callum winced slightly at the term ‘mortal,’ but it was the right attitude regardless.

He wasn’t looking forward to more meetings, but this wasn’t something he could just do and damn the consequences. Not that he expected anyone to disagree with it, as such, but there was preparation to be done. Plus there probably were people that deserved to be removed, at the very top. In truth a good amount of GAR had probably done stuff that deserved death, but ultimately it was the organization itself that was the greatest problem.

Before any such meetings could happen, though, he got a call from an unexpected source. While he hadn’t actually forgotten his promise to the dragonblooded, he’d been somewhat preoccupied by all the other things he needed to do with his portals. Not to mention that he wasn’t entirely certain how to make a dimensional portal permanent, though he had a good idea. So when Shahey called him, Callum had braced himself for at least a mild scolding.

“Someone closed the Dragonlands portal,” Shahey said instead. “I’m holding open the link you gave us just so we can keep connection to our avatars, but that will only work for so long.”

“Oh, hell,” Callum said, his heartbeat spiking, while Lucy just blinked. It really shouldn’t have taken him by surprise — and in fact, he would have to worry about someone doing that to the Deep Wilds portal, too. The dimensional portals were obvious weak points for any supernatural alliance, and while there were shifters in Europe that were on the side of GAR they might be considered acceptable losses. He’d have to relocate the Deep Wilds portal soon.

“I suppose the question is, are you ready to open full, permanent portals yet?” Shahey said.

“I have no idea,” Callum answered honestly. “But I suppose I’d better find out.” He looked over to Lucy. “Give me some time to get all my notes squared away and I’ll see if I can open another portal.” It had to be an oversized dimensional portal, since his normal portals required a physical connection, and using a paired enchantment would be vulnerable to degradation and disruption.

His accidental discovery with the oversized anti-mana portals made him suspect the key to duplicating the Dragonlands dimensional portal was to fully duplicate it, size and all. The structure just didn’t work right any smaller, and since none of the other natural portals were small, he had to imagine that was true in general. The only exception might be the Mictlān portal, and that one was weird enough he hesitated to make any conclusions about it.

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“You know where to find me,” Shahey said, and hung up.

“What the heck,” Lucy muttered. “At least he doesn’t seem panicked? Kind of extreme for that to happen though.”

“We’re a half-step short of actual war,” Callum sighed, trying to shove aside his own anxiety. “Could you warn Chester about a possible threat to the Deep Wilds portal while I’m getting my notes? In fact, when we look into shaking up GAR we need to take control of the Deep Wilds portal away from them. That only leaves Portal World Five to worry about, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Taisen already has control of that one.”

“Will do,” Lucy said, and turned back to her laptop.

The Dragonlands portal was, fortunately, the one he’d studied the closest and the one he’d used for modeling most often. In theory he had the entire structure recorded, but that didn’t guarantee it would work like he wanted. Especially since he wouldn’t be able to punch through to the Dragonlands from just anywhere in the world.

“Ah heck,” Callum said. “The Matterhorn isn’t where the portal was originally. We can try but I don’t think we’ll get the Dragonlands from there.”

“Oh right, it was in China someplace,” Lucy said. “Wonder if I can dig that up from the GAR servers. Not that there’s much new stuff on there,” she muttered. “People barely use the forums anymore, even. I spent a lot of time setting those up!”

“Well, they helped me at least,” Callum said. “And a lot of Houses are going to want that for themselves, the big ones anyway.”

“Yeah, and I guess we can’t tap all of them,” Lucy grumbled. “H’okay, I’ll see what I can dig up.”

While Lucy sorted through document archives, Callum sorted through his own files and thought about trying to instead open a portal from the Dragonlands to Earth, but he’d not had any luck with that kind of experiment so far. While location mattered, it was also a hazy concept inside a portal world. The space inside wasn’t fixed to anything in particular, as shown when he’d formed the first portal to his redoubt. It really shouldn’t have been falling at the same speed as the islands if space magic really conformed to the scientific concepts of the same.