by Petra Landon
“Why did some wizards believe that Lady Bethesda was being persecuted by the First Wizard?” Duncan inquired curiously.
Sienna, silent for the duration of the conversation, shifted abruptly where she sat beside Tasia and Hawk on the floor, with her back to the wall. Jason directed a glance brimful of warning and reassurance at her before he turned his attention back to Duncan. The implication of that look was not missed by the Shifter and wizard who flanked Sienna.
“When the office of First Wizard was originally created for the wizard who would represent our kind on the CoC, it was universally agreed that a Guardian should occupy the chair. Five Guardians threw their hats into the ring, so to speak, although only two amongst the five were thought to have a real chance – the wizards known to the world as Lady Bethesda and Lady Esmeralda.”
Raoul shot an enigmatic glance at Tasia on the floor beside Hawk. Thanks to her, he was already privy to this bit of information, something the rest of the non-wizard world were unlikely to be aware of.
“So this was about who would represent the wizards on the CoC?” Hawk piped up, a note of incredulity in his voice. “Lady Bethesda held a grudge against the First Wizard because she lost the election to her.”
“No” Jason shook his head. “There was no election in the end. Lady Esmeralda was chosen by unanimous vote to be our First Wizard.”
Jason looked around at the puzzled faces staring at him and sighed silently. These were Shifters who understood little about what drove wizards. The Shifters had been lucky to have Faoladh. There had been unanimous agreement amongst Shifters on who would represent them on the CoC – no one had challenged the decision. Unlike the wizards, who’d come close to splitting apart at the seams before saner minds had prevailed.
“As the other candidates slowly withdrew from the upcoming election, the two ladies’ campaigns amongst their fellow Guardians heated up” Jason explained. “The Guardians would eventually decide who spoke for the wizards on the newly formed CoC. The two wizards had differing visions on how to lead their people into this new world and it started to split the GCW. It got so acrimonious that eventually a well-regarded Guardian, respected by both sides, invited the two ladies and other influential Guardians to his home in an attempt to mediate and make them see sense. It was felt that asking the Guardians to choose between the two wizards would create divisions in the GCW that would be very hard to recover from. The meeting was called to persuade the ladies to sort out their differences. The hope was that one of them would step aside as a contender in favor of the other. This way the GCW could unanimously elect the First wizard and hopefully put to rest the acrimony of the election campaign. Everyone who was present that night has been tight-lipped about what actually went down at the meeting. However, the next morning, Lady Bethesda was gone. She had withdrawn her candidacy to walk away from her family and the GCW. Lady Esmeralda was elected First Wizard and nothing was heard from Lady Bethesda until about eight months later when the first murmurs of her activities started wafting into the GCW.”
Raoul stared at the Guardian, the candid words jogging his memory from that night in Alberta when Faoladh had asked him for assistance on this matter.
“The prophecy” he exclaimed softly, recalling Faoladh’s words. “The Oracle made a prediction that night at the meeting – the one that’s known simply as The Prophecy, before Lady Bethesda walked away the next morning.”
“You know about The Prophecy!” it was Jason’s turn to exclaim in astonishment. “How?”
“Faoladh told me about it when he asked me to help investigate the break-in at The Vault for the First Wizard.”
“What’s this mysterious prophecy about anyway?” Hawk asked the question on everyone’s mind. “And what does it have to do with Lady Bethesda?”
“Need-to-know again?” the Alpha inquired casually to the young Guardian with an arch of his brow.
“Yes” Jason sighed. This was a very slippery slope that they were on. He was being asked to spill more and more secrets that the wizards would rather keep to themselves. He understood that the First Wizard needed the Shifters’ help but this way was madness. What happened when this investigation was over? What would prevent the Shifters’ gossiping amongst themselves! One set of loose lips was all it would take to spread such juicy news to high heaven. Or perhaps, someone intent on showing the wizards their place in a future argument would decide to use this information to his advantage.
“I’ll make this easy for you, Guardian” Raoul countered softly. “You don’t need to spill any more wizard secrets here. I will inform my team of what Faoladh has shared with me in confidence. He’s promised the First Wizard his assistance and I intend to keep that promise. We cannot help unless we understand the different players in this and what motivates them.”
Jason resigned himself, directing another brief glance at Sienna, still silent by the wall. This particular glance held compassion in spades. Tasia, who knew nothing about this particular prophecy, did however know what crimes Lady Bethesda had been accused of. She felt a wave of compassion for the other woman who sat mutely beside her.
“A wizard, famed as a seer and known as the Oracle, made a prediction the night that the wizards met to hash out who would be their first ever First Wizard” the Alpha set out to provide a brief and succinct explanation to the room. “The wizards refer to this particular prediction of his as The Prophecy. The Oracle had made many successful predictions in the past. One of his most notable prophecies had been a decade earlier about the formation of the CoC. He had foretold of a Chosen body, with one representative each to speak for the four major Chosen factions, that would help usher in a new era of inter-Chosen co-operation. His foresight on this had garnered him respect and followers once the CoC looked likely. The wizards believe that his last prophecy will eventually come to fruition too, although no one knows when. The Oracle was also a Guardian and Lady Bethesda’s husband.”
There was a short silence in the room while they pondered this news.
“What did this prophecy predict?” Elisabetta inquired curiously.
“That three powerful Chosen sisters, born of different fathers, would one day come together to facilitate great change in our world.”
“That doesn’t sound too nefarious” she remarked. “There’s nothing there to cause Lady Bethesda to suddenly walk away from home and hearth.”
“I don’t think anyone associated this particular prophecy with her leaving home. Not then. Months later when the allegations about her started piling up at Wizard Headquarters, only then did the wizards suspect that her actions might have something to do with The Prophecy. She was accused of killing Chosen children” the Alpha said quietly, his words falling into the silence of the room like the pinpricks of a knife.
A collective gasp speared the room. Chosen had a tough time procreating and every Chosen child was regarded as a miracle by the entire community. An accusation of killing one was a crime that no Chosen, irrespective of his alliances and beliefs, would condone.
“When the wizards eventually investigated the allegations, they found that in almost all the cases, the victims were girls with female siblings born to another father.”
“You mean children that met the criterion of her husband’s vision?” Elisabetta whispered, aghast at this cold-blooded killing of children as the means to an end.
“Yes” Raoul confirmed baldly.
“She was trying to ensure that The Prophecy would never come true” Luis remarked.
“I believe that is what the wizards concluded.”
“Why?” Hawk asked bluntly.
“No one knows” this time, it was the Guardian who responded. “Perhaps she was mad at her husband or it was something else entirely that we don’t know about. Some wizards even believe that The Prophecy has nothing to do with it – that it is a red herring. The truth is that we don’t quite understand what drove her, even after all these years. The coincidence of the allegations against her with the Ora
cle’s last prophecy was a little hard for the wizards to ignore, so we’ve never completely discarded the theory of it being somehow related to her actions.”
“As you can imagine, the First Wizard found herself walking a thin line on this when the allegations first surfaced” Jason continued after a short pause. “This was the most serious crisis of her short tenure then. She was being pressured by the other CoC Representatives to take action against Lady Bethesda even as the GCW urged caution. Eventually the other Representatives gave her an ultimatum. She was told in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t act soon, then they would. That is when she convinced the GCW that it would be better for the wizards to tackle Lady Bethesda before the other Chosen stepped in. The GCW agreed but insisted that investigating the allegations against Lady Bethesda fell under their purview. The First Wizard concurred and the GCW started its overtures to Lady Bethesda.”
“What does the Oracle have to say about this?” O’Brien inquired with an apologetic glance at Sienna.
“He was part of the Guardian contingent to Chicago and perished in the explosion with the others” Jason disclosed quietly.
There was a moment of silence as the room digested this new information. Few had known about Lady Bethesda’s Guardian husband perishing in the same explosion presumed to have sent her to a fiery grave. Sienna watched Jason even as she sensed the surreptitious glances of others in the room – mostly a mix of varying degrees of sympathy, compassion and curiosity. Little did the Shifters know that Jason had suffered equal heartbreak at the very same Registry where he now investigated the explosion that had cost him both his parents!
“Alright” Raoul interjected decisively. “So if the bomb itself is a dead end for us, perhaps it’s time to come at this from a different angle. From what we know, everyone present in the Registry is known to have perished in the explosion except one person.”
“Lady Bethesda.”
“Exactly! So how did she escape the explosion? Are we even sure that she was inside the building when the bomb went off? It stands to reason that if she was the one responsible for the bomb, then she’d make herself scarce before it went off.”
“The Registry investigation is pretty confident that she was in the building when the bomb went off” Jason responded. “In fact, it’s highly probable that she was actually in a room with the two Guardians dispatched to question her. Their meeting started at three that afternoon and the explosion occurred a little after four.”
“So how did she escape alive?”
“Beats me! That’s why I never truly believed that she was alive until now.”
“They must have discovered her remains in the building after the explosion” Duncan suggested. “Were her remains identified during the investigation?”
“I don’t know” Jason answered thoughtfully. “I can certainly verify that tomorrow. I’m sure the Registry investigation will have some information on it.”
He paused for a moment to reflect before continuing.
“I do know that the GCW investigation identified all ten of the Guardians’ remains in the rubble to bring them back to their families for a proper burial” he said soberly.
“Could she have left the building on some pretext before the explosion?” the Alpha inquired.
“I’ll take another look at the Registry reports tomorrow to see if there’s anything new in there. But frankly, I don’t see how she’d have managed it. The GCW was receiving live updates from one of the Guardians in the Registry building. His last communication at three thirty indicated that Lady Bethesda was co-operating with the two Guardians sent in to question her while the other Guardians were being feted in the hall next door with hors d’oeuvres and wine.”
“She could still have turned hostile and left before the bomb went off at four.”
“She could, of course, but in that case, one or more of the Guardians would’ve gone after her. They were under orders to bring her back to Wizard Headquarters for more formal questioning unless she was able to answer their initial queries satisfactorily. They would never have let her walk away from the building before they were done questioning her.”
“Since all ten of the Guardians’ remains were identified in the rubble, they were presumably still in the building. Ergo, Lady Bethesda must have been in there too” Duncan remarked.
“Precisely” confirmed Jason.
“Did the GCW investigation also verify Lady Bethesda’s remains at the site, separately from the Registry investigation?”
“No. Unlike the Guardians sent to bring her in, the GCW did not recover her remains from the site of the explosion. The Registry offered to give her a proper funeral and the GCW, reeling from its losses, accepted their offer gratefully.”
There was a short silence. The Guardian’s measured tones and sober responses was slowly bringing it home to the Shifters how much devastation and damage the events from twenty-four years ago had caused the Guardians, the Chicago Registry and the general wizard community. The Shifters and the wizards had very different organizational structures, even before the formation of the CoC. The Shifters had forcibly been organized into hierarchical Pack structures by their most powerful Alpha. But the wizards were a monolithic organization with the GCW responsible for general policing in the community, with local Registries in the various cities handling the wizards’ day to day concerns in their respective jurisdictions. This system had worked for the wizards for centuries. When the Council of Chosen had been formed, there had suddenly arisen the need to choose a single wizard to speak for the community as a whole. This had created schisms within the community as they found themselves suddenly fractured by the differing philosophies of two strong and powerful candidates who could both call upon strong support from their fellow Guardians.
“Hmm” Raoul broke the silence abruptly. “When I confronted the Guardian at the San Francisco Registry, he used some kind of magic shield to protect himself.”
“Magic armor” Jason breathed in reverence. “That is very strong magic that only the very powerful and very experienced of wizards can deploy correctly. If you managed to penetrate Anderson’s armor, Alpha, then you’re either very good or he bungled it by creating defective armor.”
“Oh, I’m very good” the Alpha responded promptly, accompanied by the smiles of his Shifters in the room.
Tasia studied him with renewed awe for she, more than most, knew the power and magic of such an armor deployed by an experienced Guardian. Jason stared at the Alpha with a half-smile, his eyebrow arched in good-natured inquiry.
“His armor wasn’t bad but his focus on holding it could’ve been better” the Alpha remarked cryptically.
“Aah.”
“Could such a magic armor be powerful enough to protect Lady Bethesda from an explosion?” Raoul inquired.
“It could” Jason answered thoughtfully, a tad surprised by the Alpha’s query. “Although the armor would have to be very good, almost perfect in fact, to weather an explosion of that magnitude at such proximity. I mean, she had to have been right on top of the bomb. And even a moment of distraction would prove disastrous that close to the explosion.”
“But it is possible?” the Alpha pressed.
“It’s very possible. She was a very powerful wizard, after all. That’s why she had so many supporters in the GCW. Her power and the muscular wizard leadership at the big table that she promised to provide were what attracted her supporters.”
But … Lady Bethesda’s magic had already been sacrificed at The Vault in preparation for her disappearing act. How could she have created a magic armor of any kind?
No sooner had the thought crossed Tasia’s mind than Hawk opened his mouth to point out the same. Duncan directed a glance pregnant with warning at Hawk, who subsided sheepishly. There was no way to disclose Lady Bethesda’s activities at The Vault without revealing how they’d gotten the information – Tasia’s powers. Something Hawk knew that the Alpha had no intention of revealing to anyone outside the small
circle aware of it. The Alpha had presented the information to Faoladh but it had taken some ingenuity and circuitous logic and even then, it had been offered as a likely theory.
“Sooo” Duncan drew out the syllable conversationally, directing his comment at the Alpha. “It begins to look like our theory might not be valid after all.”
“I guess not” the Alpha responded easily. “Although it would seem that we weren’t that far off in guessing her ultimate goal. It certainly prompted Faoladh to look at and successfully track down Lady Bethesda’s whereabouts after the explosion.”
He paused, the cynosure of all eyes in the room.
“After our visit to The Vault, we came up with a theory that we presented to Faoladh” he explained. “We think that Lady Bethesda made elaborate plans to disappear much before she walked into the Chicago Registry to meet with the Guardians. Even her daring break-in at The Vault was a means to an end - to lay down the foundations for this very plan. Faoladh rightly surmised that if her plan all along had been to walk away from the explosion, then our best bet was to trace her right after the event before she disappeared from Chicago for good. That’s what led his Shifters to trace her to the airport and the flight she caught a few hours after the explosion.”