The Sunken Tower

by J A Campbell

  “You like me,” Marcus teased.

  She balled up her fist and glowered at him.

  That only broadened his grin. He was either Arctic chill or a flirtatious brat. She wasn’t quite sure how to take either. The real man was no doubt tucked away behind those masks. Elise and Hagatha both had the privilege of knowing him, but she was still learning who he was.

  “We should be getting back to the JM,” Elise said from the doorway.

  Marcus nodded and rose. He gestured a WayGate open. What a lovely crossroads. Melanie wished she could get on the carousel with the real fantasy animals—until the unicorn opened its mouth and exposed a gaping maw that her whole head would fit into with one bite. She shook her head; even steerage class on a plane was looking good after so many trips through the madness.

  The JM’s almost clockwork bustle was quite a contrast from the peaceful English estate.

  “Ladies,” Marcus said calmly, indicating they follow him. Melanie fell into step beside Hagatha, rolling her eyes up to the taller woman, who hummed a bit of a funeral march—ironically on-key, for once.

  “We have some unfinished business,” he said briskly. “Please follow me.” In no way did Melanie think this was optional.

  He led them into his office and gestured for Elise to sit in the desk chair. Then he pulled up a guest chair sat down across from her. For a moment, he just looked into his daughter’s eyes.

  Melanie swallowed, her breath catching. Her first impression of the man had been that he was stone cold. Now she understood why his daughter loved him so well and could not understand why she did not. His expression was gentle and concerned as he looked at Elise’s slender wrist, swollen to near twice its size, and blackening with a bruise from the break.

  “This is going to hurt,” he said. “But you’ll have use of your wrist instead of it being in a cast mending for weeks. It is your choice to take the pain all at once or parcel it out...”

  “I need my wrist. I will take the pain.” Elise said. Melanie stepped to her side and laid a hand on the shoulder opposite of the wrist Marcus was going to heal. Hagatha stationed herself at Elise’s other side.

  Marcus gently took hold of the hand and straightened it. Air and light filled the room. Elise’s jaw set with the pain. Her breath hissed, and Melanie could feel her muscles as tight as piano wires; then she leaned back against the chair with a long exhalation as the pain eased.

  “Daughter,” Marcus spoke firmly. “This does not give you carte blanche to use your hand injudiciously. At least for the next twenty-four hours, you should rest your wrist, and be careful with it. Should you re-break the bone now, it will undo the magic and take much more than my skills to heal you. You do not want to go to Lady Brighid with such a wound. She would scold you until you skin peeled.”

  Marcus rang a bell, and a pair of uniformed maids appeared, their eyes shifting to Marcus for orders. He gestured toward Elise, who rose and moved to join them.

  “Please allow the servants here to tend to you. If you have need of something they cannot procure, do not hesitate to summon me. Is that understood?”

  Elise’s lips firmed in what Melanie suspected was rebellion, but whatever expression Marcus wore stopped her.

  “Yes, Lord Marcus,” she answered, not sounding quite like an errant child, but Melanie suspected she might possibly feel like one.

  “Very good,” Marcus said. “You will be needed at your best for the trials, which should commence tomorrow.”

  “I’m going with Elise,” Hagatha said. “To make sure she’s got plenty of tea, and I can read to her or…”

  She hastened out, even before Elise could leave with the servants. Smart woman. She’d just tidily avoided her own share of the scolding.

  Merde! Melanie offered Marcus her best innocent expression.

  He grinned, shook his head at her, and gestured for her to sit in the guest chair while he took his own back. “Love, now would you care to explain what you said about not having learned anything?”

  “It’s not Elise and Hagatha’s fault,” Melanie said quickly. “They have been excellent hostesses and they’ve done their best to teach me. I don’t know whether I’m just inept at magic or…” she spread her hands in a gesture of futility.

  “What have you tried?”

  Melanie went through her lessons with him listening intently. He waited patiently and asked questions throughout the long, painful narrative. She paused before the last epic failure. Killing trees was almost too painful to discuss.

  “You have done well to remember the commands and the basic structure of magic, despite having quite a series of mishaps in the practice.”

  Melanie smiled at praise she wasn’t entirely sure she’d earned. He knew well she had an eidetic memory. She needed only to hear the commands once and remember them no matter what the circumstance. She looked away and tried to summon the courage to continue.

  “There’s more,” Marcus said. He waited quietly while she sorted out her thoughts.

  “Hagatha found a dead tree in the forest near her tower. It was lovely. She thought it would look excellent petrified on the edge of the forest. So she gave me the words for the spell, urged me to add strong emotion—I picked the wrong feeling, and I blew up an acre of forest. It was dreadful, Marcus. They were scarcely fit for kindling.”

  She rested her aching head in her hands, crying. “Da would be so ashamed of me. He’s a self-described tree-hugging hippie—and, well, so am I.”

  Marcus’ gentle hand rested on her shoulder. “Milady, you are still learning. That spell is complex, involving quite a bit of processing, without adding emotion to it. And what emotion could possibly wreak such devastation?”

  Melanie raised her eyes to his. “I was angry at you for knowing everything and telling me what to do like I was a child… Then I realized you’re seven hundred years old, at the church... I suppose I am a child, and I certainly was behaving like one…”

  “I’m a good deal more than that, love,” Marcus said. “Your life so far is a beautiful blink of an eye to me, but that does not make you either a child or foolish. Please accept my apologies. I hope that we will be able to forge a partnership and remain together for many centuries. We can’t manage a functioning partnership if I’m treating you like I’m either your superior or your parent. So please forgive me—and do not hesitate to speak with me if you have problems.”

  Melanie nodded, swallowed, and continued. “The same spell blew up the green constructs that tried to attack us when we took a WayGate out of the refugee shelter in the Med. It’s like the magical words for petrify mean something entirely different in my head.”

  “Same emotion behind it?” Marcus asked.

  Melanie shook her head. “No, I was frightened of the creatures. Elise hit one, and three took its place. I thought the petrify spell would work… It did.”

  “Curious.” Marcus looked thoughtful.

  “I feel like a failure.” She looked at him, trying not to cry. The only subject she’d had so much trouble with was Calculus, and she’d eventually gotten that.

  Marcus shook his head. “No one’s failed here, milady. You’ve been such an excellent student throughout your academic career, I doubt you’d apply yourself less to magical endeavors. The difference is perhaps language or something related to your lineage. You’re quite adept at modulating your power to share in very delicate situations, so I think it’s going to be simply a matter of learning how to reach your gifts correctly.”

  Melanie nodded, feeling a bit of tightness in her shoulders easing. “Every time we run into a problem, both Hagatha and Elise say you’re the one to solve it.”

  “I’ve got a good deal more experience than just about anyone else—and I have taught many mages, including both of them.” He paused and looked at her. “You have had to cope with quite a lot of changes in these past few months. It must be a shock.”

  “It’s been chaos, with Colonel Dirkson’s death and inheriting Grayson, th
en Rusty’s death and the band being gone for good…and then the magic and the engagement. I need a break…” She slumped in her chair. Marcus moved to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, leaning his cheek against hers. Strong hands massaged her shoulders, easing the tension in her back and neck. Her arms encircled as much of him as she could. She wanted nothing more than to just stay there and hold onto him.

  A pound at the door elicited what sounded almost like a snarl from Marcus. They moved apart.

  “Enter,” Marcus called. A liveried servant bustled in, his expression anxious.

  “Milord, your attendance is requested most urgently with the dragons.”

  House Macrow’s seats for the Justicariate Magus were on the front row of the gallery. Hagatha sat between Elise and Melanie, all three clad in the black House robes with the odd, ghostly emblem on the right breast. It was going to be a long day requiring testimony from the three of them on more than one issue. She’d snuck a package of cookies into her bag, even making sure they were in paper so the wrappers wouldn’t rustle. Dragons had nothing on Marcus when he noticed misbehavior, and he was not in the best of moods.

  She had no idea how they’d decided the docket order. The Council agreed to commence with the dragons, saving Lord Clarion for the last. Scuttlebutt had it that several strike-force teams were out in the field searching for Valonna. If she was not found, they would try her in absentia based on Clarion’s testimony and the evidence related to Agatha Macrow’s death, which Valonna herself had provided. Just add that to the other offenses they had against the woman that they could not make stick before. This time, they had ghostly testimony of her murderous acts to add to the older charges. This time, they would stick. Some said she’d taken refuge in Faery, which was going to require even more people to search, and at a greater risk. Considering she had no friends or allies there, though, Hagatha wasn’t sure that was so.

  A bell sounded, indicating the cases were to commence. The court’s Justiciars cast a truth spell. That same bell would ring if the person testifying was being untruthful. Strange irony, the term “ring of truth” did not apply in JM cases.

  Uniformed JM officers led the living dragons, in human form, to the defendants’ area. Hagatha wondered which ones were which. The blonde with the supercilious sneer almost had to be the snide gold dragoness, who’d given them so much trouble. Hagatha resisted the urge to sneer back at her.

  Lord Clarion gasped when a dark-skinned woman with the features of a Grecian statue and long wavy brown hair followed at the end of the line.

  “Larissa!” Clarion’s voice rang in the silent room. He was seated between two heavily-armed guards in the defendants’ section of the gallery. None of his House members had taken a seat even proximal to his. Hagatha didn’t know whether any of the House had been involved in his plotting. For all she knew, Paolo Clarion could be their Valonna. He’d certainly done his best to discredit the younger members of House Clarion who showed promise with their gifts.

  The woman raised her eyes in Clarion’s direction. Unlike her defiant and angry-looking companions, her face was sorrowful. The blonde woman sneered at her.

  “Hello Paolo, it has been a long time…” Her voice was low and sweet, full of regrets.

  “What is she doing among those vermin?” Clarion rose, struggling against his restraints. He landed with a solid plop in his chair. “How is she even alive?”

  “Silence!” The bailiff approached him. Clarion’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged when the bailiff waved his wand.

  Hagatha glanced at Elise and mouthed, “We have ways of making you not talk.”

  The trial recommenced.

  When it came to the woman Lord Clarion had identified as Larissa, the woman spoke in a musical foreign accent in response to the Justiciar’s questions.

  “I am half dragon and a member of the House Mnemone,” she said. “I believed I could leave my heritage behind and remain on the land, so I did not share that information once I escaped the church at Curon and joined the humans. I accompanied Lord Macrow and my fiancé at that time, Lord Clarion, on their mission to Curon Venosta in the hopes that I could convince my kindred to cease their plundering and live in peace. Instead, they captured me and kept me in my draconian form all these years.”

  “Have you taken part in any of the three raids?” the Justiciar, an East Indian woman, inquired.

  “I did not,” Larissa said. “My job was to tend the hatchlings. I was freed from my imprisonment when the JM raided the tunnels and found me.”

  Hagatha held her breath for the bell to sound. She heard nothing.

  “Move to sever Larissa of House Mnemone from the other defendants,” the Justiciar who represented the dragons called out.

  Hagatha glanced up to the judges—in this case, the entire nine-member JM Council would sit on the trials because of the dragons’ import for so many centuries. She noted with a sense of pleasure that Lord Ulvi Mataraci had taken his place among them in Lord Clarion’s place. He was seated next to Cousin Marcus, who she knew had sponsored Ulvi’s nomination and would act as a mentor to him. The Turk was a decent man, and she suspected he would work to bring the Council into this century.

  The vote was unanimous. Larissa would not stand trial with the other dragons. They were not holding her responsible for the dragons’ escape, nor the deaths of people in the recent shipwrecks. Larissa stepped away from the other dragons and joined her former House. The members—including Stauros the Seer, who sat on the Council—welcomed her with hugs and offered her a seat among them.

  The adult dragons were tried and found guilty of theft and murder. The JM offered them each a chance to rehabilitate as long as they chose to do no harm to humans in the future. They would have to renounce their thieving ways, cease wrecking ships for treasure, and find some means of gainful employment. Each one refused. The blonde woman huffed at the notion that they should become like simple humans.

  Hagatha caught her breath as the Council stepped out of their seats and went into private session. Their expressions were grave.

  Hagatha opened her bag and passed out cookies. It was definitely going to be a long day.

  “There are rules about non-human species,” Elise explained to Melanie, who, despite all the crap the dragons had done to her, still hoped for some kind of rehabilitation. “They are not subject to the same penalties as humans if they do not have a human understanding of crime and punishment.”

  “That makes sense,” Melanie said.

  “They have to be measured for intellect and humanity,” Elise said. “I suspect they will pass the former, though I don’t know about the latter.”

  Hagatha took a breath. Under her birth name, she possessed a doctorate in neuro-psychology and served as a contractor to the JM in cases like these. “I tested them last night with Dr. Dylan Mentis of House Mnemones checking my results. They pass both.”

  They’d scarcely gotten a second cookie before the Council returned. Hagatha wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad. It’d taken such a short amount of time. As usual, they all wore poker faces; even Ulvi Mataraci managed to keep his expression unreadable. They handed their findings over to the Justiciar, who read them in a sonorous voice.

  “Death,” the Justiciar announced after the Council returned. “The adult dragons have no remorse and no desire to make amends. Their intent is to use their magic destructively, which will harm all of magekind.”

  Hagatha felt Elise’s hand convulse on hers. Her cousin was nearly shock white. Darien would be tried with the hatchlings, but the verdict against his parents would be painful to him.

  Elise’s heart hammered in her chest. She couldn’t summon enough courage to ask Hagatha what the results of the tests on the hatchlings had been.

  The hatchlings strode up to the crescent of chairs the lords stat in, holding hands. They were close as siblings, though they had different parents. According to Darien, the clutch had hatched within hours of each other, and they were r
eared in the nursery by his mother, the light green dragon—who Elise now knew was Larissa. They’d severed Larissa from the other dragons, so she would not face the death penalty. But would her raising be enough to counteract the other adults?

  “Have you taken part in the robberies?”

  “No,” they answered in a group.

  Darien spoke up. “This is not entirely true, milords. We profited from the robberies.”

  The room went silent. Then, the hiss of accusing whispers. Elise forced herself not to turn and stare balefully at the gossipers.

  “Would you care to explain that, young man?” Lord Mataraci asked. The Turk’s face was calm for one who’d nearly lost a ship to the dragons’ predations.

  “Yes, milord.” Darien stepped forward. “We were too old to be palatable to our parents when we were all freed, so they forced us out of the passageways. My mother, Larissa, foraged the items the adults caught in their nets that they did not consider treasure, so we could have clothing to wear and things to sell in the town. She bade us escape and get as far from our parents as we could.”

  “Were you aware you were receiving stolen goods?” Mataraci stepped down to the floor to face the younglings. He was a small man, but powerful, and he drew eyes as he moved about in his flowing, black robe with a sea wave and a dolphin depicted on the right breast.

  “At first, we believed it was salvage,” Darien said. His head dropped when he continued. “Then we saw the…television…and realized where the items came from.”

  “What was your reaction?”

  “We were ashamed, but by necessity we sold the items we had, and we sought employment in the town,” Darien said. “I do not think we can make amends to the people the things were stolen from. I regret we sold Lady Hagatha’s stones and caused her so much grief.”

  Elise felt her kinswomen on either side of her gripping her hands. Melanie nodded, which she took as a good sign. Darien was well-spoken, and he stated his case honestly. The bell had not even shifted.

  Her eyes rose to her father on the bench, his expression as neutral as the wall behind him. Marcus never gave a thing away. The others were watching Darien. Lord Phoenix looked down, turning the pages of a thick law book.