Chapter 18 – Assault

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the fae representative told Archmage Taisen.

“I see,” Taisen said. It meant that the fae had closed ranks to obscure whatever had happened to Ray Danforth. He didn’t know why, either. While he was unwilling to let the fae get away with kidnapping one of his men, he could hardly start a war with the Seven Lesser Courts all at once either.

The click codes Ray had sent over his scry-comm before vanishing implied that it had been a fae that had taken him, not some random beast that had been “accidentally” allowed to wander into the territory between the Houses and Garrison One. There was a reason he drilled the codes into everyone, even though he’d never really expected to need them. Something that could be directed with pure vis, likely unnoticeable even to fae kings, was an incredibly powerful emergency option.

“I would appreciate it if your sovereign would contact me with any information should he find it,” Taisen said, knowing he couldn’t press too much. Not while he was still in Faerie. Even for him, that was a dangerous proposition.

If they had been on Earth, it would have been a different matter. Taisen would have had no compunctions using whatever force was necessary if he’d been able to lay his hands on a fae who might know. It was the sort of mess that reminded him why he’d never wanted to be an Archmage or head of a House to begin with. He wanted to be out solving problems with direct action, not arranging things and tiptoeing around other people’s sensibilities.

“Of course, Archmage Taisen,” the representative said insincerely, and bowed. Taisen scowled and turned away. The fae wouldn’t help, but he was on good terms with a few of the Houses that lived on Faerie. He’d fought alongside Archmage Caledon at Garrison One, before Caledon even was an archmage, and the man had been a strong supporter ever since.

He flew out of the diplomatic post, just outside human territory, and shot toward House Caledon. It would be good to renew those ties, and maybe ask a few favors. If the fae felt that they could move against him, he might need allies there sooner rather than later.

***

Archmage Duvall would have been perfectly happy never hearing about Callum Wells again. It wasn’t like she didn’t have other things to be doing — she had a life completely independent of all the drama going on with GAR and the Earth in general. She would admit to a grudge — but an Archmage had better things to do.

Other people were more invested, from the presence of Teller Janry in her front room. House Janry was generally polite to her — as they should be after she’d stabilized over a hundred acres for their Faerie estate! But she mistrusted them being in charge of the Department of Acquisitions — or any other places they’d gotten their hooks into.

“We’re certain it’s Wells,” Teller said, sipping tea in exactly the proper manner for someone of his background and station — manners she appreciated. Duvall had been seated across from him, but restlessness at the thought of dealing with Wells again had driven her to her feet and she found herself pacing next to the window. “Given how slippery he is, we haven’t approached the area directly, but we interviewed all the mundanes. Among other things, the reports definitely sound like brand of gravity magic, even if they didn’t see him directly. Besides, there’s nobody on record in that area.”

“That’s all well and good,” Duvall said. “But what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Lock him down,” Teller replied. “Like I said, he’s slippery. But you can stop him from teleporting around, right?” There was a hint of challenge in his voice and Duvall scowled.

“Of course I can,” she said. It was obvious Wells could do some things she found difficult to grapple with, but she’d seen his magic and was more than confident she could counter anything he did – Wells was no Archmage.

“Then GAR is officially requesting your presence to counter any potential spellcraft,” Teller said. Duvall frowned. She did have her own bone to pick with Wells — what she’d found about his portals was disturbing. There was nothing at all on the other end, just some terrible void — it was heresy, plain and simple, and could not be allowed to continue. So long as they weren’t expecting her to go into actual combat with Wells, it was probably worth her while.

“Very well,” she said. “The particulars?”

“With Archmage Taisen’s departure, we have fewer battle-ready mages, but we do have a squad from DAI who will be backing up a combined force of fae and vampires,” Teller said. “The site is unfortunately close to Portal World Six, so we have to be a little careful, but Archmage Wizzy doesn’t seem to be involved.”

“I can open a portal directly if you’re going to stage somewhere,” Duvall said with a grunt. She knew that was what they wanted anyway. “What about Archmage Janry? He could just sink the area into the ground if they want to get Wells.”

“It’s unlikely the Archmage could do anything fast enough to prevent Wells from escaping, and given Wells’ particular talents a more direct approach seemed best,” Teller said – just excuses. More likely Janry was just scared of the man who’d already killed an Archmage and a Fae King, not to mention whatever he’d done to remove Constance.

“Fine,” Duvall said. “But I want at least half the squad with me. As you said, Wells is slippery. On the off chance he’s got something I don’t know about, I want to be properly protected.” She had faith in her shields, more or less, but under the circumstances she wanted to be protected by people with faster-than-human reflexes.

“That can be arranged,” Teller said, which meant Duvall probably could have asked for more. She sighed and turned to face him.

“When were you intending to do this?”

“The sooner, the better,” Teller replied. “Local night is in nine hours. That would be the first window.”

“American time,” Duvall sighed, glancing at the grandfather clock ticking away against the wall. “Fine. Where exactly are we going?”

“Mexico,” Teller said. “We’ll meet at the Mexico City branch office an hour beforehand.”

“Very well.” Duvall looked at the clock again. “I will be there.”

“I appreciate your assistance in this matter,” Teller said, draining the tea and standing up to offer her a bow. “I look forward to seeing you tonight.”

Duvall saw him to the door while a servant cleaned up, and then pulsed her vis to teleport down into the armory. Not that she used combat foci, but there were still extra tools that she didn’t want to do without. A couple of fae trinkets that she actually trusted, reinforced under-armor with kinetic protections, and a few extra sensory foci.

She let her seneschal know where she was going to be as she prepared for the excursion — her own guard would have been preferable, but they weren’t quite as powerful or trained as she would like. Considering Wells’ track record so far, they’d only be at risk for little gain, especially since there was going to be a DAI squad there anyway.

When the appointed time came around she made sure she was appropriately dressed, double-checked all her foci, and reached out to the House’s teleporter. She pulled herself through it to the GAR hub, and then pulsed her vis to locate the appropriate anchor. Two more teleports brought her from the hub to the Mexico City branch. Which was not very large, merely a few rooms and offices beyond the teleporters.

To his credit, Teller was already there. He stood to greet her as she stepped out of the teleporter, dressed in a combat uniform with an arcanorifle slung across one shoulder — a weapon he probably didn’t know how to use. At least he cut a good figure.

“Any updates?” She demanded, not wanting to waste any time.

“No, we’re just waiting for the rest of the squad to arrive.”

“Give them this.” She took an anchor from her bag, a lightweight plate about six inches in diameter. “I can bring them through when we need to.” If they were mages there’d be no issue, but extending flight to a large group of vampires was not easy for anyone who wasn’t of air affinity to begin with.

“Fantastic,” Teller beamed, and handed her a scry-comm. It was one of the newer, military models, and she clipped it to her shoulder, feeding it a thread of vis from her shell and shaping the resulting spell form around her ear and mouth. She liked her normal scry-comm better — but she wasn’t so stupid as to insist on different communications for such an operation.

She pulled out a chair and sat, knowing she was earlier than expected — but resenting the waste of her time anyway. The squad came in all at once a few minutes later, all in combat uniform with DAI logos, mostly vampires with one fae. He didn’t look any different from the rest — but Duvall was an Archmage. She could tell the difference.

The non-mages were in a ten-man squad, with some kind of internal grouping that she didn’t care about. So long as they were competent enough to protect her. Frankly she would have preferred Taisen’s soldiers, even if Taisen himself had suspect allegiances. He didn’t do backroom deals — the one thing about him she respected.

There were four additional mages as well, none of whom seemed particularly powerful but probably represented a range of aspects to cover all contingencies. There was a reason every House tried to have a variety of aspects — though almost every House was known for one. But they probably wouldn’t be too useful in an actual fight. Wells didn’t function like a typical combat mage.

Teller started giving some sort of briefing that she mostly ignored. She already knew the history with Wells, what he had done and what he could do. All his abilities required that he be able to use his own magic, though, and with no other mage of note around – Teller hardly counted – she should be able to suppress Wells. Teller ended the briefing by handing the anchor to the fae, and Duvall stood, ready to leave.

“I’ll notify you through scry-comm when Archmage Duvall is ready to bring you over,” Teller concluded, and Duvall grunted affirmation. The sooner they started, the sooner it’d be done.

With that, they went outside and took to the air, Duvall following Teller even further south. The sun was almost behind the horizon, and the lights of mundane cities faded as they went further out into the country. It reminded her of the last time she visited the Portal World Six site, for maintenance — she couldn’t fathom why someone would live so far out in the middle of nowhere. Unless they had to.

Wells was too dangerous to get close to without preparation. He had shown he had quite the sensitivity, but even he couldn’t sense miles away without resorting to active vis pulses. Which was something she would recognize and could deal with. But even from a distance the lines of a glamour were visible to mana-sight, marking the presence of a mage dwelling.

Duvall pulsed her vis straight downward, finding a road and aiming for it. That time, Teller followed, and when she touched down she conjured a few lights — she felt better with their surroundings illuminated. Then she reached for the anchor, activating it so she could pulse her vis through to the other side.

“I’m ready,” she told Teller.

“Give it another few minutes,” he said, looking at the sky. It was still purple, not quite into the black of night. “We want our people to be completely ready.” Duvall shrugged, finding herself more and more annoyed by the time it was taking. Every time she had to deal with direct action she spent most of her time doing nothing — a complete waste.

Duvall tapped her foot, waiting impatiently as Teller talked with someone over the scry-comm. While she was tempted, she didn’t try to pester him into going before he was ready — she didn’t like combat, but she wasn’t stupid. Let people who actually knew how to carry out an operation do their thing.

Finally he gave her the nod, and she tapped the anchor again, using it to snap open a portal frame. The squad blurred through, equipped with rifles and blades both as they assembled on the road. Teller said something else that she didn’t really listen to, but they divided themselves so three moved into guard position around her and the other seven got into some kind of formation ahead.

“I’d really prefer to do more surveillance first, but we can’t risk Wells noticing and rabbiting.” Duvall thought he was explaining for her benefit, but she wasn’t sure — maybe he just liked to hear himself speak. She was convinced enough that it was Wells, and if it wasn’t, GAR could deal with the apologies.

“Archmage, if you could teleport us in and lock down the area?” Teller said, turning to her. She sighed, and then pulsed her vis out as far as it would go. Unlike some other aspects, the spatial active sense didn’t give much more than outlines and densities, but it worked well enough for her purposes.

It bounced right off the house itself, since of course that was more tightly warded than just the glamour, even if at a glance the wards weren’t great, but her pulse did find a number of suspicious bits and pieces of enchantment and metal. She selected a clear space outside the house and wrapped everyone in vis, overpowering their resistance to drop everyone in a clear space in front of the house — and quickly, because she knew he would have noticed the pulse.

At the same time she pushed out her vis from her shell and spun a stasis net over the area, her magic freezing space. Not that it stopped anyone from moving through it, but any attempts to teleport around would be difficult. Let alone open any kind of useful portal.

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The squad of seven rushed forward, and she felt a push back against her stasis net — nothing that she couldn’t handle. She was an Archmage after all, and it was proof that it was Wells. But her satisfaction was short-lived as some her vis simply vanished. It wasn’t broken or overpowered, it was simply gone.

It was a sensation that she’d only felt once before and would never forget.

“Wait⁠—” she managed to say, but that was all she could get out before it was too late. Their targets vanished and the horrible emptiness ballooned outward, just in front of the squad smashing through the back door, and then continued to grow and grow as it devoured her vis — worse, invalidated it entirely, as if her magic didn’t exist at all.

The wards around the house were snuffed out as a veritable explosion of null magic burst outward from a portal that had to be the size of a person, a spear pointed directly at them. The vampires and fae went limp, all the animating mana stripped from their bodies, as Teller conjured a stone wall that did nothing at all to impede the progress of the spreading nothing. It smashed into her shell and her shield fizzled and vanished as it tried to activate. The vis shell itself was proof against the null trying to erode it — she was an Archmage. But she was still defenseless, and with Wells wielding that kind of weapon, she was not going to stay.

Duvall pulled a strand of vis from her shell and fed it into herself, where a paired teleportation core was entrained in her very flesh – something she had been inspired to create after Wells’ disappearance from a heavily warded room. It wouldn’t do for the Archmage of Space to be less adept than a heretic. It energized and pulled her away, all the way back to her estate in the Deep Wilds. She appeared in her saferoom, where the other half of the teleportation core was etched into space itself, so it would never degrade.

She staggered over and dropped into the luxurious chair, panting from sheer nerves. Wells was absolutely insane. Null magic was exactly why she refused to try and open new portal worlds; not only did it eradicate any mana and most vis it touched, it could even permanently cripple a mage if their vis shield failed. She didn’t know why or how he had that spell form so ready to hand, but it was proof that he was far too dangerous to handle.

Serena Duvall prided herself on knowing when an obstacle wasn’t worth the effort, and she promised herself she’d have nothing to do with Wells ever again.

***

For better or worse, it turned out that paired portals worked across dimensions even if the dimensions weren’t connected. It took quite a few tries, but eventually he found a portal world that seemed to at least vaguely match ordinary physics and didn’t have massive creatures swanning around in space. It was still a vacuum, and the stars were partially obscured behind spiderweb-like filaments, but there was only empty space and a small featureless planetoid nearby, so he took the risk of putting one of his space drones through.