“On his way to the White House,” Wilkinson said, from behind me. I refused to give him the satisfaction of jumping. He looked like a deeply worried man. “You two are coming with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
People who develop emergency plans always seen to leave out the emergency.
-John Ringo
In all my years as a Guardian, I had never been to the White House. It wasn't surprising. The Secret Service tended to have a collective fit of hiccups at the thought of allowing any magician near the President, not without reason, as they had already lost two Presidents to magical attack. They hadn’t been popular with some sections of the country and…well, there’s no shortage of people willing to pay for someone to strike from a distance, like a coward. There were a handful of War Mages on their staff, but War Mages aren’t as good as Guardians, or they would be Guardians.
“They’re watching us closely,” Aylia hissed in my ear. She was probably wasting her time. The Secret Service had directional mikes and other devices trained on us at all times. They might even have watched what we did in the toilet. “Don’t they trust us or something?”
“No,” I answered, flatly. Magic-users tended to become more and more eccentric the more they used their powers, and even Guardians were not immune to the problem. The Secret Service’s worst nightmare was a rogue Guardian passing unnoticed through the wards surrounding the White House to assassinate the President and even paid a Warden to remain in the White House at all times. The poor bastard might have been paid through the nose, but it wasn't much of a life. I certainly didn’t envy him. “Try not to take it personally.”
I had hoped that we would be going into the Oval Office, but instead they took us down several flights of stairs into a bunker that no one is supposed to know about, although I was fairly sure that anyone with a working brain would have deduced its existence. It was a combination of a panic room and situation room, where the President could hole up and continue to direct the defence of the United States while the enemy was at his very door. I had the uneasy feeling that it might well become a tomb if the field draining electric power – or whatever the hell it was doing – expanded from New York down to Washington. The wards would make using magic to escape very difficult.
“The President has been in meetings ever since the first reports got out,” Wilkinson said, as yet another Secret Service man checked us with a combination of magic and science. “He’s on the verge of panicking and ordering something drastic, so…”
The door opened, revealing a long table, surrounded by computer screens displaying images from all over the nation. A handful of them were showing New York from the air, fed directly from satellites or high-flying aircraft, taking the risk of closing with the draining field. Others were showing images from streets around the nation, including panic in a dozen cities, or the location of various military units. New York was cloaked in shadow. No one, it seemed, had established contact with any military unit within the zone. Anything could be happening there.
“This is Guardian Glass,” Wilkinson was saying, “and Miss Aylia Faye.”
“Charmed,” the President said. He shook my hand firmly – he didn’t show any trace of the fear some mundane people had when they came face to face with a magician – and spent a little longer with Aylia’s hand. Her father, after all, was one of his largest contributors, although I had a feeling that he was going to regret that little connection. “Thank you for attending.”
I studied the President as he waved the three of us towards comfortable chairs. President Rutherford was an older man in his late forties, showing signs of thinning down as the stresses of his job sank into his mind. At one time, America had been the most powerful nation in the world, but now large tracts of American land were under enemy occupation, and the nation was being pushed to the brink. A weaker man might have broken, or ordered attacks that were doomed to fail, but President Rutherford had hung on, somehow. God alone knew if he would prove worthy today.
“General,” the President said, finally. “Please give us your report.”
I smiled. I had known General Hawthorne from my Army days. He hadn’t coped well with the concept of magic, or how it could be used in war, but he was a good man and cared deeply about his soldiers and his country. He was a massive black man, with a rare smile that lit up his face, but he wasn't smiling now. He, too, looked rather worried.
“The field encompassing New York seems to stretch out for around thirty miles, with the epicentre at Central Park,” he began. “I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that nothing above a certain level of technology appears to work within the field. The effects defy rational explanation. Guns work; jeeps and tanks do not, nor do radios, laser targeting systems or anything else requiring electric power. We have attempted to fire small rockets within the field and they launch…and then fade out, to put it simply. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently adapting some of our vehicles to start without electric power, but I am advised that that may take some time.
“We have no direct communication with the city of New York, but refugees have been streaming out for the last hour,” he continued. “Under the Emergency Powers Act, we ordered the units near the city we could contact – mainly National Guardsmen and various smaller Army and Air Force units – to attempt to seal off the city. Refugees are being rounded up and sent to camps, but we need to move them somewhere sealed before night falls. We have sent several platoons of volunteers into the city to attempt to make contact with the Mayor and trapped military units, but we’re reduced to using bicycles for transport. What we do know, however, is worrying.”
He nodded towards one of the satellite images. “That’s New York,” he said, dryly. “We have a live feed from one of the most secret systems we have developed and it is reporting that there is…something within Central Park, but we have been unable to identify it. The most advanced cameras in the world have been unable to register it as more than a blur and, of course, we have nothing closer to take a better look. The techs say that the effect is not unlike similar effects observed near Faerie Mounds and that the object may simply be incompatible with our technology. We believe, however, that it is the item causing the field.
“New York itself seems to be in a state of complete chaos,” he continued. “There are several large fires burning out of control and open warfare on some parts of the street. We have been unable, however, to communicate with anyone within the field, so we are unable to tell what the NYPD or the military is doing about it. The field may be hampering their efforts to coordinate a response.”
He looked over at the President. “And that, Mr President, is all that we know,” he concluded. “The nerds on my staff believe that this could be the next shot in the Faerie war against us, and one that could drive us to the brink of extinction. If the field expands a hundredfold, it will envelop half the country…and that will be the end of America. We will be smashed back down to a feudal state.”
There was a long pause. “Thank you,” the President said, finally. “Guardian?”
I took a deep breath and started to speak. I told them what had happened to Cecelia Faye and how I had hunted for her with the aid of her sister. I told them of the enigmatic warnings from the dragons and centaurs, and of how we had misinterpreted them. I told them about how I had intended to stop Vincent Faye from carrying out the ritual, only to fail at the last moment…and about how the Forsaken had spoken directly to me. There was a dead silence in the room as I told them everything.
General Hawthorne broke the silence. “But this is wonderful news,” he said, in delight. He was smiling again, somehow, as he rounded on the President. “Mr President, we can allow the Forsaken to destroy the Faerie and remove them from our world! No more magic, no more threats to our very existence…we would finally be rid of them.”
“I’m not sure that we dare,” I said, carefully. I didn’t want to contradict my old superior, or embarrass my current superior, but
I had no choice. “The Forsaken admitted that he – it – would be reshaping parts of our universe to allow it to exist. The field surrounding New York may be the first part of its expansion into our world, but it won’t stop there. The nearest Mound is in Virginia. What happens when it expands the field through Pennsylvania and into Virginia? Or, for that matter, what about into New England, or the Mounds in Canada, or…”
I paused, trying to find the right way to express it. “Think of us as being caught between two superpowers, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and serving as their battleground,” I continued, grimly. I couldn’t let them just stand aside and allow the Forsaken their way. “If they fight, we will be destroyed in the crossfire, a fight that could take years of our time. We might not have very much of a world left after the victor finally emerges and declares victory. How long will it be before the battles are all fought and won?”
The President frowned. “You spoke directly to one of them,” he said. “Do you think that we could find room to negotiate?”
“I doubt it,” I admitted. The memory of my grandfather’s face and voice was still painful, but the centaurs had warned me – specifically – not to trust him. I considered going back to Mirkwood – Yellowstone – and demanding explanations, but there was little point. The centaurs only heard hints and flashes of the future, or so they claimed. “I think that the fragment I faced was intent on destroying the Faerie at all costs; I think, in fact, that it wasn't really intelligent at all, in any way we would understand. I don’t really think that it would care if we were in the way or not.”
“You don’t know that,” the General said. “Surely we can make an agreement…”
“You can’t bargain if you don’t have anything to bargain with,” I said. “The Faerie and the Forsaken are so different from us that one barely bothers to acknowledge our existence and the other has to speak to us through shadows. The very concepts that guide them are profoundly different from ours. I don’t think that the Forsaken fragment is capable of comprehending that we are individual humans, or that we cannot evacuate the entire world. The Faerie, of course, wouldn’t care if we all dropped dead tomorrow.
“But even if they did care, they might not be able to prevent our universe from altering radically because of their battle,” I continued. “What we’re seeing in New York, I think, is the first change in the natural laws of science, preventing us from using most of our technology…”
“That could be encouraging,” the General said. “Why would they bother denying us our technology unless they had a reason to fear it?”
I paused. He was right. “Good point,” I admitted, “but we don’t know if they meant to deny us technology or if it’s just a side effect of their manifestation in our reality. If the former, then maybe we can threaten them, but if the latter…we might well be insects buzzing around their feet.
“But I think that our priority should be to stop this intrusion before it gets too far out of hand,” I continued, carefully not admitting that it was already out of hand. “The world works the way it does because of a series of interlocking principles – the introduction of magic was merely overlaid on those principles; it didn’t try to replace them – that define our reality. If those principles were to be altered, intentionally or otherwise, the results could be devastating. The Forsaken could do far more harm to us than the Faerie, just by being here.”
“But if we try – and succeed – to force the Forsaken back out of our world, what about the Faerie?” The General asked, coldly. “You would have us defeat one potential menace over allowing it to destroy a very real menace. You know the situation better than I, Glass; the country has been at war for the last fourteen years. The national production of food has been dropping for the last five years and we are on the brink of having to ration food or admit that we cannot feed our own people. What happens if the magic continues to grow in strength? How can we deal with the Faerie? We can’t even touch them!”
I winced. Again, he had a good point, but I knew that he was wrong. “We may be able to unlock the secrets behind magic and use them to deter the Faerie from expanding further, or even…encourage them to seek out another refuge,” I said, slowly. “We may not be able to destroy them, but we can seek a better – a more favourable – balance of power. We won’t get that chance if the war plunges us back into the Dark Ages, or wipes us out altogether.”
The President held up a hand. “I need to think about this,” he said. “Did the Forsaken give you any idea how much time we had?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not even sure they understand the concept of time as we do. It even said that we could call them the Timeless Ones.”
“I see,” the President said. “Which leads us to one final question. Do you know if we can defeat them?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I know a man who does.”
The President’s lips twitched. “Please wait outside,” he said, signalling one of the Secret Service men. “Boris, please show them both to a restroom where they can freshen up and then see to it that they’re fed. We’ll call when we need you.”
“Nice of him,” Aylia said, outside. I wasn't surprised to discover that the White House had excellent facilities for guests, including the offer of whatever we wanted to eat. “Glass…are you sure that we can beat them?”
“Maybe,” I said. The plan that was forming in my head was becoming crystal clear, yet I couldn’t have put it into words, or at least words that anyone could understand. The concepts the Forsaken had showed me, the magical knowledge I had amassed over the years…and yes, the laws of science, had all combined to show me how the Forsaken had broken into our world. We could use the same principle to put it back where it belonged.
It also wasn't something I could explain to Aylia, or the President. If they knew what I had in mind, they would never let me do it.
“Order us something to eat,” I added, as I dug into my pouch. “Choose whatever you want from the menu. I have a call to make.”
I was kicking myself for not having thought of it earlier, but I did have a link to Cowboy, in New York. The small image of him was part of a set of photos, providing a way to reach out and speak to him. I pulled it out, stared down at it for a moment, and then worked the charm. There was no reply and I feared the worst, until I heard his voice in my mind.
“This isn’t the time, Glass,” he said. I winced. The charm didn’t have anything like a volume control. It sounded as if he were bellowing right into my ear. “What do you want?”
I had a fleeting sense of a riot, of him struggling to hold back the tidal wave of chaos. “I need you to do something for me,” I said, grimly. I had to convince him how important it was that he did as I said. “I need you to find Brother Andrew and get him out of the city.”
“Damn it,” Cowboy swore. “There isn’t time…”
“Do it,” I snapped back. “We need him to put an end to this!”
I closed the link and rubbed my ears. “I hate doing that,” I muttered, to no one in particular. Aylia had ordered, much to my amusement, pizza and water. It was extremely good. Nothing, but the best for the politicians, I decided. Their power might not matter any longer if the field expanded to the point where all of America was powerless. “Eat up. We have a long trip ahead of us.”
It was nearly an hour before we were called back into the meeting room. “We’ve come to a decision,” the President said. “You may attempt to destroy the Forsaken intrusion if humanly possible. If not…we will attempt to seek an accommodation with it and provide what assistance we can in destroying the Faerie. You will be acting on your own. Do you understand me?”
“The concept of being a deniable assert is not unfamiliar to me,” I replied, dryly. “I won’t let you down.”
The Secret Servicemen wanted to show us out the rear entrance – by then, the reporters had realised that something was badly wrong in New York and were surrounding the White House – but I wanted to use the lawn. I
didn’t tell them what for. Armed Marines, their faces grim and worn, were patrolling, but they moved back on my command. I wanted the lawn clear.
“All right,” I said, feeling slightly silly. What if I were wrong? “I know you’re there. Show yourself.”
A moment later, Drak Bibliophile manifested above me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hannibal’s plans never work right. They just work.
-The A-Team
“Easy,” I said, as the Marines lifted their weapons. None of them had been prepared for the sight of a dragon, certainly not one as large as a massive jumbo jet. “He comes in peace.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Drak Bibliophile observed. “Why did you call on me?”
I wasn't going to play this time. “I think you know perfectly well why I called on you,” I said. “We need your help.”
“You had all the help dragon society would provide,” Drak Bibliophile observed. There was a trace of faint…amusement in his voice, a hint that something wasn’t quite right. “What more do you want?”
Guardian Glass Page 33