novelraw Chapter 543 - It's Calibanication
Chapter 543 - It's Calibanication
San Francisco.
Union Square.
Dominic Lorenzo, formerly of Her Majesty’s Sixth Cabal, was no stranger to localised cataclysms such as outbreaks of Undead.
As a reporter, first as a freelancer, then the Editor-in-Chief of the METRO, he had seen and experienced more catastrophes than most soldiers of Her Majesty’s Men at Arms have recharged Wands.
Even so, Lorenzo recognised that the images he would capture tonight would plant a terrible seed in the hearts of men and women living in Britannia’s former colony.
This was because his “Missus Boss”, the Prophet of Profits, Saviour of Shalker, Warden of the World Tree, Defender of Deepholme and Niece to Dragons, was now leaving a bookmark on the virgin imagination of the Americas.
Upon her arrival at the battered heart of the city’s symbolic centre, the Square was already a carnival of chaos. Police patrols, terribly undermanned, shuffled terrified inhabitants back toward the Tenderloin. A single SFPD Golem was erecting barricades with blasts of Shape Earth, performing a terrible job of controlling a panicked crowd that was clearly out of control.
Simultaneously, a troop of well-armed private security in military-issue Mage Plating stood guard with batons and wands outside of Macy’s, while the store itself became a fortress of Wards and Walls of Force, still staffed and perhaps, still fulfilling orders.
To Lorenzo’s trained eye, the chaos was superficial, but the sound of anarchy was real. In stark contrast to the draconian protocols used by the Commonwealth, the free-for-all of citizens, the screaming of sirens from almost every conceivable direction, and the conflicting Clarion Calls of troopers on the ground gave Union Square the quality of an apocalyptic Hollywood illusionist special.
That is, until a woman with a tenderness for the Tenderloin had arrived.
Floating onto the scene, the recently deputised Regent of Shalkar hovered through the chaos, gracing the Square wearing nothing but a halter-neck blouse and a floundering skort that dramatically caught the humid, fetid wind.
A few stopped to watch, because even in a cataclysm, the Bay’s citizens enjoyed a good show.
“EE–EEEEE—”
With a shriek that pierced glass and concrete with equal ease, her Kirin materialised above the Square’s centre, resplendent and white, illuminating the darkening public space with its pulsing, runic halo.
“EE—! EE—!” cried the Kirin, its golden light suffusing every window and space, illuminating the interiors of the brownstone buildings surrounding Union, spreading a tangible warmth unto all who beheld the divine vision. Everywhere it touched, the panicked, distressed, agitated, frightened, and confused Humans seemed to suddenly come to their senses, their madness inexplicably expelled.
Eyes, suddenly alive with induced hope, locked their orbs onto the glimmer lady, making herself known in the middle of Union, alighting lightly until her arched heels kissed the Corinthian column’s zenith.
Many years ago, before its defacement, when the structure was first erected, Nike, the Goddess of Victory, shorn golden and gleaming at its apex. Now, the Regent of Shalkar was that gleaming Goddess, her pale nimbus suffusing the square with an electric halo of sanctified calm.
Click—Click—Click—
Lorenzo’s fingers danced through the air.
His Lumen-devices flew this way and that, capturing snapshots of living history.
Calmly, with a determination that was borderline unnerving, the crowd moved toward her, gathering at the base of the monument.
“Give me some space,” her voice filled every space, and the crowd, growing from the hundreds into over a thousand, parted as children at an assembly.
She waved her hand and—
Lorenzo’s Lumen-shutters clacked.
With a single swing of her arm, the Regent has blessed her audience with America’s favourite wartime produce—SPAM.
There was… so much SPAM.
Pallet after pallet, box after box of SPAM still in their factory packaging.
When a second space was cleared, Gwen once again emptied out her generous Storage Rings, this time with pallets of…
Lorenzo’s eyes watered.
It was beer.
Caskets and caskets of the stuff.
The barrels were embossed in Dwarven Runes that her audience could not read, but if there was one thing that could transcend language and culture, it was the sight of oaken kegs stacked on pallets, straight from the brewery.
“EE—!” Ariel’s halo once more rang out, its shrill chime purifying the muggy air.
The displaced people of Geary, Mason, Market and Van Ness carefully approached, caught in a strange, feverish dream. A brave young man was the first to slice open the SPAM boxes.
He did not take the first can for himself, but turned to hand the gleaming can with the likeness of the Regent to the child beside him.
Click—Click— The Lumen-recorder missed nothing.
The child, her eyes full of longing for the sweet, salty meat, likewise passed it onward.
Click—Click—
Can by can, a great train began, soon conjoined by its neighbours, a dozen men who had scaled Keg Hill to dispense the delicious oaken barrels unto their fellow man.
Click—Click—Click—Click—
The stock quickly diminished, but his Regent’s stores were prepared for the salvation of a city of Dwarves. A mere thousand or two, or even ten thousand of the Tenderloin’s displaced people were mere drops in a proverbial beer bucket. With an unmistakable sound, someone pulled the aluminium tab, filling the steamy air with the scent of smoky pork shoulder, dipped in an excess of oil and fat.
For a second, Lorenzo wondered if a sudden choir would start, or someone might fall to their knees in supplication. Instead, his Regent instructed her refugees to form neat squares, to help one another, to align parents with children, siblings with family.
“Drink and partake,” the smoky voice of his Regent caressed every ear in the square. “Come daylight, we shall return you to your homes.”
Next came the sound of kegs being tapped, a procedure that came naturally to the Americans. Selflessly, the Mages in the crowd had volunteered to operate the Magi-tech mechanism that released the sweet, boozy nectar of life within, all secretly laced with the Regent’s Golden Mead.
To Lorenzo’s amazement, the officers of the law no longer wielded their Wands and truncheons but became patient paragons of community policing, guiding the placid crowd into lines of relaxed, laughing picnickers. More terrifying still, the militia guarding Macy’s left their posts to help.
There was no more looting, no argument, no eye.
There was only beer, SPAM and vibes.
Lorenzo fought down a sudden shiver. He had only witnessed such an atmosphere at the Vatican, under the auspices of the Dean of the Cardinal College, leading the Mass at the centenary. But there was no body of the Nazarene here. No bread. No wine.
Only beer and SPAM.
“Fear not the creatures that shall come hither to aid you.” Gwen’s voice once more passed like a refreshing breeze through a hot, sweltering night.
On the edge of Union Square, facing the Tenderloin, blinding rents opened one by one.
Morden’s Lightning Hounds, each more Draconid than canine, pushed their way through the fabric of the Elemental Planes to enter the Prime Material.
Soundlessly, Lorenzo’s Lumen-recorders marked their marks.
One… two… three… four…
Nine
Kirin Hounds, each the size of a sedan and bearing the signature horns and hues of their parent, soon patrolled the square, radiating a facsimile of Ariel’s near-tangible aura. As the clamour died, Lorenzo heard renewed screams from the Tenderloin.
The screams of victims who did not know salvation was a block away.
And the hunger of those who had already fallen victim.
Like a spilt flask of viscous ink, the new arrivals flowed inward from east Geary.
The crowd parted, their natural fears making them clutch the SPAM ever closer to their chests.
Civilians who could still run fled into the crowd, who gently received them without prejudice.
The figures that remained, the dozen of them, were bloodied and dishevelled, armed with fang and claw, their complexion pallid and gaunt, stunned by the Kirin’s aura. Before Lorenzo could advise his Regent, Gwen was already exercising the next stage of her diplomatic catastrophe.
“Caliban,” she announced to the general air. “Come forth.”
With a trained eye, Lorenzo’s mechanical lenses traced the surge in mana until it was a thousand paces away from the beery worshippers below Gwen’s pastel-pink heels.
In front of the subway and opposite Macy’s lightless lobby, her Void fiend sang itself into existence.
“Shaa—aa—aa—aa—”
What slipped into reality from the rent in the Prime Material wasn’t the familiar infamy of a Death Worm Familiar, but a figure intimately familiar to Lorenzo’s METRO.
Gwen, pale and faceless, featureless and eyeless, with a full head of fine tendrils, and pale, bloodless feet, stepped onto the asphalt.
For some unexplainable reason, Lorenzo could suddenly smell the ocean.
Granted, they were only a few blocks from the coastline, but the usual smells of Union and the Tenderloin habitually drowned out all acknowledgement of the nearby bay. Now, he could smell the deep brine, the stink of piscine offal, and kelp at low tide.
Lorenzo’s gaze pivoted to confirm with his Regent this latest, strangest development.
He was met with Gwen’s suddenly scarlet face, then the afterimage of a spontaneous Dimension Door.
A split-second later, an enormous coat of flaming leaves covered Caliban’s still-shifting body, moving as a living thing until its shame was completely hidden by a trailing cloak.
Lorenzo’s Lumen-recorders drank deep from the well of forbidden Page Threes as his Regent returned to her post.
“Shaa—” the nightmarish figure of Cali-Gwen turned to face him with its eyeless mien, guaranteeing that Lorenzo would suffer from wholly undiscovered schools of PTSD. Though there were no orbs in its concave sockets, Lorenzo felt ten thousand eyes, all hungry and predatory, judging his mortal body and finding its nutritional value wanting.
A tiny rent, almost an axe wound, appeared between the creature’s collarbones.
“SHAA—!”
From beneath Caliban’s bone china feet, slick Void Hounds wetly birthed from shadows that grew suddenly gravid. Each by each, the faceless war dogs, more mouth than body, shook off the splattering goo that lubricated their entry into the Prime Material.
Nine was the number, now clad in black.
“Shaa—shaa—shaa—” Cali-Gwen’s giggle was an invitation for mischief.
“EE—! Ee––!” Its brother admonished it from far, speaking a tongue Lorenzo’s Ioun could not translate. The black dogs split and bolted, quick as peregrines, into the alleyways and side streets leading toward the Tenderloin.
Busy as bees at a split jar of nectar, Lorenzo’s Lumen-recorders followed the Hounds, while others turned to the petrified Undead still standing in the middle of Geary.
In quick succession, the Editor-in-Chief of the METRO and USA TODAY observed the glimmering Regent’s distribution of forty pallets of SPAM and beer; he especially noted the Kirin overhead performing crowd control; and the adjacent silhouette of the Night Walker, compelling the zombified citizens to her side.
Click—Click—Click—Click—
He recalled, a little despairingly, that his actual suggestion was for Gwen to save a cat from a Ghast, then give it to a suitably adorable child...
The Union.
West Coast.
Salesforce & Partners Tower
On the sixty-first floor, Cèsar Magnusson, Tower Master and CEO, stood behind a vista of force panes, his gaze fixed on the city of San Francisco. Below his all-seeing, grey-blue eyes, Union Square flared and flashed, conjoined by intermittent blue-red blimps all over the city.
Usually, his half-dozen aides operated dozens of Lumen projectors, updated Magnusson on the flow of commerce across the United States, especially that of Salesforce’s principal opponents—Gilt and the Empire Tower of the East.
Presently, there were no tables, charts, numbers, nor innovative “PowerPoint(™)” presentations in his field of view.
Tonight, he was not interested in the colourful fluctuation of stock shocks spreading across the southern states. His attention was firmly captured by the uninvited presence of his invited guest, the Regent of Shalkar, performing a craft that the world knew only as fiction and hearsay.
The CEO of Salesforce was not, by his own admission to Time magazine, a religious man.
“I am not a firm believer in the Nazarene, no—” his PR team had quoted, putting his words in bold italics under a handsome portrait. “But every now and then, when I make a deal with the Walton Family, it seriously makes me consider the existence of Satan.”
Then the Regent brought out the SPAM.
Pallet after pallet of SPAM.
“This makes no sense. Katie, does the Regent… own Hormel stock?”
“She was… given stock by the owners, Sir,” A voice from the dark replied.
“I see.” Magnusson saw but did not see the significance of SPAM. Perhaps… Perhaps that was all the Regent had on hand? But why would anyone in their sane, rightful mind keep so much SPAM in priceless Storage Rings?
Before the Tower Master could self-narrate a sensible theory, the Regent brought out the beer.
“What the hell…” Magnusson fought the throb in his temple. “Jonathan, is that what I think it is?”
“... Beer, Sir. It's a lite Dwarven Weissbier... A bit fruity, but pairs well with salty meat. Extremely heady, if drunk quickly…”
“You know this, how?” Magnusson grew suspicious.
“Er… they sell it downstairs, at the lounge,” the meek voice replied from the dark. “Shalkarian Import, very expensive.”
“... Send a keg up,” Magnusson commanded. “... Find me some SPAM as well.”
As his aides processed the offer of SPAM and beer, Magnusson furrowed his brow, mindful that at his age, even the best Transmuters in the country could not erase the wrinkles that kept reappearing. He couldn’t help but recall the strange, irrational reports of Mermen who worshipped cans of SPAM, going so far as to trade Creature Cores for boxes embossed with the Regent’s likeness.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
While they waited for the late-night snack, Magnusson continued his investigation of his business partner.
“Move the Clairvoyance Closer,” he informed the bleary-eyed Diviners who had been working since the news of the infestation broke. “Scan the Caliban creature.”
His Master Diviner complied, and Tower’s Eye of Divinity shifted its focus from the goddess in the halter-neck top to the disturbing figure of Pale Flesh nested above Macy’s glass-front entrance.
This fiend, this “Caliban”, was reportedly a Mongolian Death Worm, a shape-shifting devourer. It was meant to be, at best, a humanoid version of her Void Hounds, a black and sinuous thing with spindly legs and a multitude of mouths, a slavering, primitive predator that struck fear into the hearts of monsters and men alike.
So what was this?
This pallid and guileless creature, its silhouette leaving little to the imagination and clad in a cloak of living autumn? Its cream-like complexion, where visible, was not ivory, as a viewer might suspect from afar, but translucent and semi-opaque, beneath which Magnusson could see tiny capillaries of circulating Negative Energy.
Every few seconds, an indent or protrusion would make itself known, suggesting that whatever was beneath the porcelain skin was trying to break out of an unpleasant mould. Clearly, this serene visage of the Pale Goddess was not its true form, but a skin-cage that held its maleficence in check. The result was a sickening juxtaposition of allure from afar, until the observer acknowledged the sanity-wilting reality of the Pale Goddess from up close.
What disturbed Magnusson more was the movements of this “Caliban”. It shifted its body like a stringed porcelain mannikin. As it observed the world with its eyeless face, barely-perceivable halos of psychic energy radiated from its dainty feet, calling to inexplicable beings from the great beyond.
“Sir, you need to see this…” one of his aides brought up a series of Lumen-screens that were studying the situation in the Tenderloin.
Magnusson moved the centre screen to the corner of his eye as the new development floated into prominence.
“Are those…” The Master of Salesforce Tower touched a hand to his chin. “The Undead?”
“The readings correspond, Sir.” The same aide displayed the spectrometric markers for Magnusson’s perusal.
The Tower Master stood back to consider the vision that would soon make its way around the states, then the world. Magnusson was a known patron of the arts, and he owned enough Raphaelite masterpieces to know the significance of a radiant woman dispensing beer and SPAM while holding back both darkness and the dead. Many Mages could “Turn” the Undead, but none practised it like the Regent of Shalkar.
Magnusson pondered his stance on religion. In attaining independence, the United States had always considered itself secular. The reality, however, was that the native and colonial people who made up their new nation had always possessed a predilection for supplication.
Centuries ago, the indigenous peoples worshipped their Land Gods and were converted by the Wand to worship the Nazarene. Centuries later, the Pilgrims exchanged temples for malls, but the imprint of worship never left America.
The worship of idols.
The worship of trends.
The worship of the American Dream.
For the people of this nation, “worship” was a bone-deep itch that its people could not help but scratch.
And if the Regent were to bundle profit with worship in a single package…
“Sir,” a voice from the dark derailed Magnusson’s train of thought. “The SPAM and beer have arrived…”
Union Square.
Gwen Song, the recently rebranded avatar of Nike, had opened her bid with a plan.
It was a good plan because its components were all tried-and-tested mechanisms from her eventful past.
Ariel, when empowered with the World Tree’s ley-Essence, exhibited an aura comparable to Gunther’s irradiance.
Caliban, in its Nightwalker form, held dominion over any Undead not under the explicit and effortful control of a Necromancer.
SPAM was a proven source of community and nourishment.
And the Beer was the same special brew given to the Dwarven Iron Legions, possessing enough of her Essence to purge the body of malaise, both physical and metaphysical.
When all four were combined, there was no reason why an uncontrolled Phage in an area of a mere dozen blocks could not be reasonably contained. Her concern, before things got weird, had been what she would do with the lower-tier Undead once they were stacked like bundled crabs at a seafood stall.
But then things did get weird.
Under her purring Kirin’s radiance, the pilgrims from the Tenderloin and the surrounding apartment blocks ate their SPAM and biscuits, drank the distilled beer, and peacefully took part in her psychically-induced, open-air picnic.
Across from her, past the subway entrance by Geary, stood Macy’s, and a modest horde of Ghasts, every single one a cold-turkey potion-fiend looking for a fix, meaning the flesh of their former friends.
Yet, there were no screams.
No howls.
Not even curiosity.
The Humans stuck to one side, and the Ghasts, Ghouls and gaunts to the other, separated by the apartheid of life and undeath.
Then someone, perhaps too drunk to think straight, crossed the aisle and handed over an opened can of SPAM. The Ghast took one long, hungry look at the smiling man, then took it. The SPAM.
Gwen had no idea why the Undead also took part in the SPAM, or if it even nourished them, but it was happening.
The people presently under her care may be too innocent to find this impossible occurrence weird, but veterans like Lorenzo and herself knew very well how deeply unsettling the whole scenario seemed.
What was normal was a chaotic battle line where the Ghasts leapt at the living from the buildings’ brutalist shadows and the gutters. Police and Militia would form a barricade to beat back the Undead. The Regent would ride in on a storm of Elemental Lightning, slinging electricity like a Macy’s float dispensing confetti… and there would be cheers, applause, and amazing television.
Whatever this was… was all Greek to Gwen, who could only turn to her compatriot for advice. Her apparently talking dogs were scouring the Tenderloin for survivors and sufferers, and the lines of refugees, both dead and Undead, kept growing.
“What now, Lorenzo?” she asked her Media Manager. “Did you get your pictures? Is this enough for a story?”
Dominic Lorenzo, spy-turned-journalist, spun the data-slate in his hand with a deft Mage Hand. “My Regent. Oh… my Regent… You have no idea...”
The Tender Protector of the Loins
by Eleanor Hall, USA TODAY
Lumen-pics by Dominic Lorenzo
The Regent of Shalkar, Gwen Song, made history last night at Union Square, using a deputised position to offer aid and protection to the inhabitants of the notorious Tenderloin. Previously, Magister Song, the highest-ranking executive officer of the Isle of Dogs Norfolk Conglomerate and the Shalkar Trade Consortium, had made headlines by offering credit swaps to West Coast corporations such as SLATE, Wells Fargo, Amgen, and United Traders.
When interviewed, the Regent of Shalkar said that although she had recently arrived in the United States, the Regent holds permanent residency through her extensive investments.
“I think it's only right that I do right by the people whose home I will soon re-develop into California’s most desirable commercial hub,” the Regent said on a live Message exchange with USA TODAY. “For my people to have a future, it is proper that I secure their present.”
The Regent is renowned for delivering transformational infrastructure projects worldwide. Her Dyar-Morkk project, a joint operation with Deepholm, has revolutionised freight across continental Europe, Asia and Oceania. The Shalkar Trade Consortium has likewise, through its Low Way service, enabled trade with Demi-humans such as Elves and Dwarves, as well as Mermen. Fillings with the British Commonwealth indicate that the volume of inventory moved through the Dyar Morkk reached 1.7 billion HDMs, affording the Shalkar Exchange Fund close to 50 million HDMs of liquidity, a source of funds independent of the balance sheets of the Consortium itself.
At Union Square, the Regent offered a display of her well-known generosity, gifting the temporary refugees of the Tenderloin over 11,000 HDMs of food and nourishment from the Consortium’s coffers.
“If it wasn’t for the Regent, we would have all died at the hands of the Monsters,” Erica Stout, local resident and HOA President of 501 O’Farrell, spoke for herself and her tenants. “It was dreadful… all that screaming and looting, and then it all stopped. We have the Regent to thank for this. However she wishes to improve the Tenderloin—we’re all for it.”
Critics of the Regent have also emerged in the wake of her unauthorised intervention in the city’s security affairs, in particular the surrender of over two hundred infected individuals.
“We sent patrols to Pacific Heights because of the Regent,” Police Captain Jim Crockett has stated in an official statement. “Instead, the Regent left the Heights after coercing Sgt McKenzi for a deputised position. The city cannot allow this gross violation of our protocols. We are thankful to the Regent, but certain legal lines cannot be crossed, certainly not by a Commonwealth War Mage.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Sergeant McKenzi, but has yet to receive a statement from the Mission Rock central precinct. Likewise, the Mayor’s office has not commented on whether the infraction will impact the Regent’s redevelopment of the Tenderloin.
Concurrently, both San Francisco and the nation itself are reeling in the face of an unforeseen outbreak.
Biomancers from the CDC have reported that the outbreak is likely a man-made event called the “Phage”, a term coined by the Commonwealth Foreign Service. The Phage was initially utilised in incursions by the Cult of Juche. The CDC has created an urgent task force to investigate the extent of the Phage’s spread.
In response to the Regent’s sparing of the Undead at Union Square, calls have been made by the Latter Day Defenders of the Nazarene’s Nevada Branch to launch a Congressional investigation into the Regent’s demonstration of high-Necromancy.
“America is the Nazarene’s house. America is a community, and that community shall not entertain a Witch from the Wildlands,” stated First Counsellor Copperson.
The Commonwealth’s Foreign Office has responded with a lawsuit, filed through Ellison-Dibson Dunn, for mislabelling the Regent’s unique Arcanistry.
Gwen lowered the paper on her desk.
Two days after the Day of the Loin, the Regent of Shalkar was keen to affirm the degree to which she captured or offended the imagination of the American audience.
“The Regent…” she read out loud to her audience of bemused advisors. “Wore a Tryfan-Hermes Saint Germain Limited Edition, priced at three thousand four hundred and sixty-five HDMs at Sotheby's July Jubilee… The creature Caliban’s full-body cloak is of unique Tryfanian living-weave, not yet available on the market…”
She looked up at Dominic Lorenzo. “Really?”
Her Media Manager made an exaggerated shrug. “You picked those shoes. I saw you do it.”
Gwen pinched her brows. “I mean, THIS is what they care about? No one wants to talk about the Necromancy? This is how we sane-wash Caliban?”
“It’s a relatability thing.” Lorenzo’s smile was genuine.
“They relate to… my shoes?” Gwen’s nose wrinkled, hoping that this wasn’t a viral feet thing.
Opposite, Slylth subtly hid a smile.
“You may act like a Goddess,” Lorenzo shared the Red Dragon’s mirth. “But how can you be a Goddess when all it takes to buy your shoes is the Gold-tier Membership at the Consortium? How monstrous can Caliban be if we put the cloak to market? Now that Caliban is famous, we should merchandise Cali-toys and dolls alongside Ariel. Much like the Commonwealth, the public doesn’t know or care outside of what the news tells them. All we need to do is seize the initiative before our opponents.”
Gwen could only nod.
She was a businesswoman and an economist, but in the end, it was consummate professionals like Lorenzo who truly knew how to market a Lovecraftian horror as a lovable plushy.
Nonetheless, there was trouble brewing over her Familiars. Unlike the Commonwealth, whose stakeholders had watched Ariel grow into divinity and had directly benefited from Caliban’s consumption of more Necromancers than could fit into a college dorm, her US audience responded with every emotion from abject horror to hopeful worship.
The revelation, Lorenzo said, was just the first step. After all, they haven’t even brought Almudj, her Tower, or the World Tree into play. If she were to lay down a “branch” of Shalkar somewhere in the continental USA, that would be a moment for history books.
For now, the nation’s reception was divisive, but no one has called for her removal other than the fanatics from the Bible Belt. The reason was that her economic branding was far more important than her role as a strategic tent pole for the immortal, de facto caretakers of the Prime Material.
Nonetheless, America had been the last place she had expected to jostle the jimmies of a theocracy.
“Regarding the Latter Day Saints. Surely they understand that they’re not…” Gwen moved her hand around her lavish boardroom. “The literal centre of the Prime Material?”
“Ah, it's complicated.” Hawthorne wagged a finger at her. “A true map of Human history would go against the basic tenets of their teaching. They must have faith, even if your Dragons and Bloom in White make an appearance. Especially if they make an appearance."
“They won’t believe I am real?” Slylth raised both brows. “Would a PowerPoint(™) help?”
“They won’t believe you’re important, at least, not until that meteor of yours hits,” the Count was blunt in his summation.
“The fortress of faith must have no crack.” In visualising American theocracy, Gwen could only borrow from Miller.
“Precisely!” the Count’s eyes twinkled. “Mycroft was right. You really have a knack for expression. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t tread on their beliefs. Subvert? Of course. Openly deny? Never. Exceptionalism is the very foundation of this nation.”
“Maybe next time, we can prepare shoes for her Caliness… something to go with the cloak,” Lorenzo’s eyebrows were suddenly alive and Italian. “Whatever your choice, you'll on the hook for the dog and pony shows for the next two weeks. Maybe wear a different pair for each occasion?”
Gwen sighed. “Very well then. For now, shoes. If that’s what it takes.”
“Should… should I sell something?” Slylth asked them seriously. “Maybe a Red Dragon figurine?”
The men laughed while Gwen, a little conscious, tucked her open-toed sandal behind the oaken chair legs.
“SHAA—!” from inside her Pocket Plane, Caliban wholeheartedly agreed.
“Enough of that.” Gwen no longer wished to talk about shoes. “So, what’s the go with McKenzie? Have you spoken to the Mayor?”
“I have,” Hawthorne bowed his head a little. “For our service to the city, meaning our significant monetary investment, the Tenderloin has been negotiated as a new Precinct, with our Corporate Security and the city’s keepers of the law working in tandem. I have recommended that Sergeant McKenzi be released from his position at the SSFPD to that of Captain at the new Tenderloin Precinct. His service records demonstrate he is more than capable, even if he makes a poor politician.”
“Who will be heading up Corporate?” Gwen eyed the data slates arranged on the breakfast desk. “Some new names here.”
“Master Huang has recommended these individuals. They are from… Miss Natalia. Or so he says. They are very loyal, and very… skilled, the note says, for keeping an eye on things.”
Gwen scanned the names, then nodded. She knew their faces, from when Natalia had brought her compatriots to Shalkar for their “Freedom”. It had taken some time to remove the Russian Geas, and now Richard was keen to put his and Natalia’s pet project to the test. For Gwen, the ethics of supernatural loyalty remained firmly in the grey zone, but at least she slept soundly knowing that Natalia’s birds could choose to be engineers, chefs, craftsmen or even artists, rather than what Shalkar demanded of them.
“I see. If that is their choice,” Gwen signed off on the assignments. “What now?”
“Now, we must wait for the seeds to germinate.” Lorenzo collected his notes with a wave of his fingers. “After the interviews, you can travel. Mister Tao has recovered, even if Oakland hasn’t. Thanks to our actions in the Tenderloin, there has been minimal resistance to our offer of employment, relocation, and future residency. Below ground, our Engineseers will need several weeks to expand the low-way node into a hub-space. Above ground, our credit contracts will take weeks to materialise, even with the legal team working double shifts. Mr Wozniak is on his way to Shalkar’s Foundry to learn from the Master Engineseers, so don’t expect him for the next few months.”
“Actually, this just came in,” Hawthorne picked up a data slate. “Remember our earlier conversation? The Latter Day Saints want a face-to-face with our heretical witch. I’ve left it because I am not exactly sure what to do here.”
“What does that mean?” Gwen took the slate and gave the Message a one-over. “Oh, apparently I am a competitor.”
Hawthorne exhaled loudly. “Its not easy dealing with these folk. Their Presidency is a living prophet. Their Quorum of the Twelve are… apostles, I suppose. The organisation makes a mockery of our Knightly Ordos, but their Faith is real. The Colonists may have fled England, but they did not leave behind the Old Rites.”
“These folk aren’t rubes,” Lorenzo added his two cents. “Several of the Twelve serve as the heads of major corporations, including Exxon-Chevron and subsidiaries of the Walton Conglomerate. Another is a sitting senator of the state of Texas. All of them have chairs on the boards of a dozen corporations. His First Presidency, Henrik Christianson, is concurrently the Attorney General of the State of Texas.”
“Go too far, and you’ll get pitch-forked by the poor and sued by the rich. Good luck dealing with the East Coast’s Empire Tower after that,” Hawthorne took a long sip of his English Breakfast. “Not to mention, we will need to cross the heartland at some point. So many resources there, mostly untapped…”
“We need at least one city in Florida to give us land access to the Second and Eighth Vel, both in the Gulf, and off the coast,” Lorenzo spoke, then drained his latte. “All a stone’s throw away from the wonders of Tenochtitlan’s Holy War.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” Gwen asked. “More than our initial evaluation?”
“I believe you are the better judge of that, Lord Regent,” Hawthorne gestured to her chest. “You hold titles we can never attain, as an Emissary of Tryfan, and Kin to more than one Dragon.”
Gwen looked at Slylth.
The Red Dragon coughed. “The Quetzalcoatl isn’t on Council, though the Feathered Thunderer is known to us. In fact, the Coatl is closer to your Patron than it is to Kin, if you didn’t know. While its present incarnation is a young Elemental Prince, its lineage is far more ancient, tied to the formation of the land.”
Gwen nodded. She had spoken to Solana before she left for the States, and the Elf Queen had informed her that the young Quetzalcoatl wasn’t “A” Coatl, but “THE” Coatl. It survived because, past the Primordial Age, the surviving Dragons no longer held enough interest to enter into existential battles with Land Gods in an attempt to claim ley-nodes. Like Almudj, the Prime Material itself was what gave Quetzalcoatl its form, meaning one could very well slumber for a millennium, then be suddenly and rudely awakened by a pissed Coatl spawning from the very earth, air or water itself.
She had also considered telling the Americans this simple fact, wondering if it would stop the war.
Ravenport’s mocking answer was that the war was the point. A Humanist nation needed an external enemy to focus its boundless energy and grievances, and the Quetzalcoatlserved as a wonderful, eternal foe that could never cower or surrender out of self-preservation. This was why the pie-in-the-sky the Corporations sought was never the cities of Neo-Tenochtitlan, but access to the infinite resources of South America’s virgin headlands, with Amazonia as the ultimate prize.
Taking Neo-Tenochtitlan would make America the cat that caught the dot, or the dog that caught the car. They simply had no idea what to do with their prize, and the internal pressure of their own inter-state corporate politics would rapidly erode the high-minded corporate evangelism into civil conflict.
Then, in the ensuing chaos, the true actors of anarchy would make their move.
As the Guardian of the World Tree.
As a Magister.
As a sister.
And as herself, it was her personal, moral and existential prerogative to stop them.