As someone not quite so well versed in dresedn lore as you are...WHICH culture's concept of maiden is being used, exactly?
Endless Pantheon: God's Blood [Stargate/Dresden Files]
- Thread starter Todeswind
- Start date
As someone not quite so well versed in dresedn lore as you are...WHICH culture's concept of maiden is being used, exactly?
As someone on DLP pointed out, it looks like Ammit threw her symbiote at the Brute Squad wizard Nanami rather than Muminah (see the quote below). Which would be all sorts of complicated -- we don't know how much is left of those captured by Koschei as the narration talked about her "terrible emptiness" where once she had been vibrant, but if she retains her memories then Ammit will not only be the only other Goa'uld with a magical host, but one that knows about Harry Dresden.
...I technically did not say the symbiote was thrown at Muminah but I did overlook that it was close to Nanami where the intestines fell. If any of Nanami still exists in there then I could see a conflict arise with Harry being forced to chose either to betray his ideals or keep Ammit loyalty. The reason I felt Muminah could end up hosting Ammit is due to the characterization we have seen of the Priestess' alongside canon knowledge of lo'tars is that Muminah would likely jump at the chance to become the host of god within Harry's Pantheon unless he forbid it which runs counter to what he has been teaching the people and the fact he stillneeds Ammit.
- Location
- Germany
And again I would point to the fact that Heka, who was taught by Koschei, broke the previous Winter Lady to the point the the mantle got PTSD from it,
And given how Heka raised/treated/used his female mortal priests it implies all sorts of things towards the breaking of the Winter Lady, among which is the absoluteness of these rules like the 'not sexually touched' thing
Oh man
, ok it's my headcanon now that Ammit didn't throws her symbionte for the sake of survival but for a final attempt at murdering Koschei, even if it means biting out his windpipe as a larvaeBut no worry Goa'uld hosts don't work like that unless one goes the Tokra route and somehow Ammit doesn't strike me as the Tokra type, given that her preference for hosts are Unas
And even then it would require quite the leap of logic to assume that Dresden is currently in control instead of assuming the much more logical idea of just having discovered the Lord Wardens hosts past self, which given her awareness of his time traveling accident would be a distinct possibility
Chapter 42
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
Putting myself into a meditative state isn't something that I'm great at. I have an entire ritual for clearing my mind and spirit that I normally go through for complex and dangerous magic. I wash, I strip naked, I light candles, and do hours worth of preparation to remove distractions to minimize the potential for unexpected elements to interfere with the magical forces at work. When you're casting dangerous magic you've ideally limited every possible variable that might distract you at a crucial moment.
One does not, for example, try to translocate between places in a forcible summoning ritual when one is exhausted, listening to the thundering echoes of space ships bombarding the city in which you're standing, hopped up on dubious fairy magic, and terrified that the person you're trying to reach is being actively tortured. And all of that was ignoring whatever power was being used to screw with time.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to tap into that seemingly endless sea of echoing voices. I growled in annoyance as Maeve caressed my chin and purred, "Concentrate, beloved."
"You know what would help my concentration?" I replied irritatedly. "Silence."
"You are tense, beloved." Maeve continued her hyper-sexual whisper as she pressed her armored body up to my own. My eyes bugged open as she ran her icy talons over my armored crotch and I felt them as though her bare hand were upon my flesh. "I find that men tend to forget their tensions when appropriately motivated."
"I'm good on motivation." My voice didn't crack like a teenager at the sudden sensation of contact. Nope, I was entirely manly and Maeve's lusty cackle was entirely underserved. I continued to speak in a voice that was just as manly. "Shouldn't you be saving my minions."
Maeve pouted. "But I'm helping you, aren't I, beloved? Haven't you already lost track of the things that seemed so important a moment ago?"
I had, damn it, but it was the principle of the matter. It had been a long time since anyone distracted me in that way and wasn't going to break my streak with a lunatic, supernatural, schlong-jockey like freaking Maeve. It was no wonder that Mab hadn't allowed the Winter Lady to visit my court, killing Heka had to be the closest thing to viagra for one of the Fae. I'd dealt a blow to her hated enemy, killing him in a way that tortured him with his greatest desire in life.
I wasn't sure what was more potentially terrifying, Maeve's obligation to me or my obligation to her mother given the former. Being Maeve's beloved seemed like it was potentially as dangerous as being her worst enemy. The love of a fairy noble of Winter was the sort of thing that was generally part of a horror story rather than a romantic comedy. If I survived this, I would be dancing on eggshells to figure out how to decline her advances without incurring the enmity of Winter.
"Maeve, I would take it as a kindness if you would help my friends sooner rather than later." I replied as diplomatically as one can reply to someone using fairy ju-ju to grope you. "Please."
"Very well, beloved." Maeve kissed my cheek as she let go of me. "Do please make Uncle suffer."
"Obviously." I snarled, the star flecked pits of my eyes crackling with crimson lightning and spite. Rage focusing me as surely as lust had only a moment ago. Stars and Stones - Maeve was playing me, using the Winter she'd put in me to direct my emotions as she needed them to be. She was "helping" me as she felt was best.
Freaking fairies.
I closed my eyes again and reached out for the legion of minds I knew to be praying for my guidance. It was blinding and deafening, there were so many sources of prayer that I could hardly tell them apart. I muttered to myself. "Listen Harry. You just need to listen."
I exhaled slowly and tried to focus on the words coming to me. I just needed the nearest source of sound, the physically closest. It took a moment for me to recognize Muminah's prayers. Her voice was squeaky - distorted by the shifting tides of time separating me from her to the point that she was virtually part of the Chipettes. But it was her.
Motes of starlight started to flow from me as I focused on her need, her desire for me to be in her presence. At its most basic level, a summoning spell is just a request made to the universe for something to be there that wasn't. Names have power in such rituals because you are begging their presence. It wasn't much go off of, but it was enough.
I let my mantle subsume the power of Winter given to me by Maeve, shadows and starlight dissolving Winter's frost in a single poignant spell using an inversion of my preferred summoning ritual.
And then I screamed.
In case you'd forgotten, summoning hurts. But I wasn't just summoning from point A to point B. I was allowing Muminah to summon me through Kochei's spells of time manipulation and an entire city's worth of ancient wards. I don't know how exactly I screamed when I stopped having lungs and became a compressed point of starlight shoved through a morass of time and offensive wards. But since the pain never stopped, I never felt the need to stop screaming in pain.
And then, the pain stopped.
I'd never given much thought to the pentagram tattooed on the bellies of the priestesses of Nehkeb. It had just been one more ward in a body made into a magic resistant work of art. Koschei clearly hadn't considered it of particular relevance because when I erupted out of it and smashed him in the face with my staff it came as an utter surprise.
I had enough time to observe the room before Koschei's bell unrung.I was in a place twice as large as the arboretum had been, a large hexagonal space made from multifaceted surfaces of naquadah with inlaid crystal. The presumptive bridge of the city judging by the glowing consuls and the raised chair at the center of it. If I had to guess we were several levels above the arboretum at the direct center of the snowflake. The Gate Builders apparently valued theater above practicality in their architecture but ritual significance above all else.
The Son of Winter staggered back from my blow, slightly cross eyed as he tried to reconcile his reality with the sudden appearance of a man in his Throne Room. He stared at me, open jawed, and asked, "Who the hell are you?" before looking down at my blade and screaming, "Who the hell are you?"
I had barely a moment to raise my shield before a wave of shimmering silver liquid came from his figers like mercury. It splashed against my shield, shimmering and spitting against the dome of energy I raised around my high-priestess and I. I reacted in horror to the face staring back to me, a skull wreathed in star-flecked black flames - only for that face to react in equal and opposite. Oh, hell's bells - summoning myself through the wards had flensed me.
"Lord Warden?" Muminah asked in shock and horror, reverently addressing me as the silver liquid rolled off the shield and congealed into eight of the massive, prehistoric looking Ghouls I'd faced before the arboretum. "How did you defeat the monster's magic?"
"You prayed. I was able to use that to get to you." I wasn't sure if my grin came off as manic anymore - mania was sort of hard to convey without lips or cheeks. "Wasn't going to let this asshole take one of my people."
"I thought you didn't listen to prayers." Muminah jibed in amusement as she stood up from the ground. There was a dark patch of skin on her face from where Koschei had hit her that was still bleeding and had already started to bruise.
"I don't require prayer. I never said I didn't listen." I replied, dropping the shield and driving Clarent into the belly of the nearest ghoul. The Ghoul's belly erupted into blue-green fire where the blade hit it, cursed energy erupting out from the creature's skin as he cooked from the inside out. Ok - not what I'd intended, but I'd take it.
The other seven Ghouls took a step back, looking from Koschei to me as though trying to determine which of us they'd rather anger. I didn't give them the opportunity to make that choice.
I'm ok with a sword. I'm no Michael Carpenter, but I'd trained myself in the use of a blade just in case. I'm tall and I've got a longer reach than most people. Give me a long blade and I'll hold my own. Even if I'm not the fastest blade on the planet, you'd have a heck of a time getting in close enough to do me harm even before got the Goa'uld super-strength package. Clarent was a weapon that could probably have been considered a longsword if not for the hand and a half grip attached to it.
Heh, I suppose the Sword of Cowards really couldn't have ever been anything other than a Bastard sword. I don't know if I would have been able to even lift Clarent one handed before becoming a Goa'uld, but it moved with the ease and fluidity of my sword cane. The super-ghouls didn't know what hit them.
Ghouls mostly rely on their preternatural strength and healing to protect them in a straight up fight. There isn't much that can hurt them enough to keep them down. When it comes to sharp objects a Ghoul will generally elect to let themselves get stabbed so that they can go for the kill with their teeth and claws. So, when it comes to defending yourself from a sword - they're amateurs.
In as much time as it took for the closest Ghoul to screech, "Mercy!" I'd already took long swipes at all seven super-ghouls. I only managed to graze their flesh, but that was all it took. All seven Ghouls died screaming, curse-flame immolating them as I strode towards the Deathless.
"You fool." Koschei snarled. "You've doomed yourself even if you win this day. By binding yourself to that blade you will suffer its destiny. You cannot understand the war you've entered."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Oooh - another war. I've never started one of those before."
"Give me the blade, child." Koschei snarled, black smoke billowing from under his garments. "Give me the blade and I will consent to taking you as my apprentice."
"Join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son?" I shook my head. "Honestly man, I get that offer so damn much that I'm getting tired of even making that reference. You don't get it - do you Koschei?"
"Enlighten me." Koschei snarled, his black smoke billowing out around the floor. I summoned fire into my staff, silver-white spellfire flickering up its length. His hideous malevolence shied away from the staff's light. Koschei snarled in irritation, summoning more black smoke to choke out all light in the room except the small pool of light around me. We became so choked in darkness that Muminah disappeared from view behind me. I could just barely hear the malevolent darkness sizzling against the protective wards tattooed on her flesh.
"Two things." I glared back at him. "The first - you aren't a person as far as I'm concerned. Hell, you're strong, you're fast, and you're powerful - it will be a bitch to kill you. I get that. But you died the second you took a freaking child with the intention of torturing her, you just haven't stopped moving yet."
"Arrogant whelp." Koschei purred. "I will enjoy killing you almost as much as I will enjoy destroying all that my mother has made with the Archive's knowledge. I tire of this, boy, tell me the second thing so that I might slay you."
"You vastly underestimate women." I made another attempt at a skeletal grin as the sizzling mass of burning shadow jumped out from behind Koschei and ripped the man's sack from his belt, throwing it at me. I sliced the bag in half, disgorging everyone trapped within. Koschei howled his tea-kettle screech of horror, trying to reach out for the sliced fabric only to fly back as a warded foot connected with his jaw - sending him back into the crystalline surface of his throne.
A large group of confused women spilled out across the floor of Koschei's throne room, disgorged in the state they'd been in when Koschei had first tossed them into the sack. Holy crap, Koschei had been a busy boy. I swear he must had kidnapped every beautiful woman who hoved into his field of view. In addition to conservatively seven Brute Squad Wardens, there were half a dozen female Russian soldiers and women he'd taken from every country between Archangel and Cairo. I honestly wasn't sure how many justifiedly terrified women were in that pile.
My heart soared as I caught sight of Ivy, the little girl looking alarmed but none the worse for wear. She glowed with the light of powerful protective spells, anyone who tried to touch her without her permission would regret it. Trusting that she was knowledgeable enough to get to safety, I continued direct my focus at Koschei as he attacked my High Priestess. He was furious at having been robbed of his prize.
"Hateful bitch!" Koschei screamed. He cupped his hands over his mouth and pulled forward like a sword swallower. I felt almost sick to my stomach as I watched him vomit into his fingers, transmogrifying his blood flecked sick into a spear of mordite. He stabbed down at my high-priestess, gouging furrows in the floor with the newly minted deathstone weapon.
I interposed myself between koschei and my high priestess, blocking his spear with my crossed staff and blade. Koschei spat acid at me, binding me as it melted through exposed bone. I staggered back, grunting as he repeatedly stabbed me in the chest - sending green spellfire into the wound as he did so.
"I have had enough of you!" My sight returned as Koschei screeched, my head re-forming from the dissolved mass of calcium it had been. I groaned as I caught sight of a purple globe congealing in his palm. Even if I could surive Koschei's black-hole spell, I was confident that I wouldn't want to. "Now you - AHG!"
Koschei's spell disappeared as his concentration was broken by a massive, leonine paw. He staggered back in confusion, turning to face a chimeric monster the size of an elephant. Motes of brilliant green flame billowed out from the creature's eyes as the crocodile-head of a creature I recognize as Ammit's legendary form bit off Koschei's head. Koschei, slowed but not stopped by his decapitation, furiously stabbed at the elephantine creature.
My memory flashed back to the glowing green blood around Warden Nanami's lips. Ammit - Eater of Sin - had switched hosts. I wasn't sure if "god of stubborn survival" was one of her formal titles, but it really ought to have been. I practically wept with joy as Ammit tore into the deathless one with her teeth and jaws, rending him into meat and vapor.
The vapor grabbed the spear, billowing up onto Ammit's back. The re-formed Koschei drove his spear into Ammit's flank, riding rodeo on the Eater of Sin. Ammit spun and bucked, trying to remove the Prince of Winter as he cast magic in every direction. I don't even know if there are words to describe the spells he used, entropy, elemental magic, and transmogrification blasting out in combinations I hadn't known were possible.
The Brute Squad Wizards were able to block some of them, preventing the worst of them from reaching the confused women who were screaming and trying to flee. But there was too much chaos to protect them all. Women died left and right, dissolving into ash, melting in extreme heat, or worse. One unfortunate woman had an ensorcelled badger claw its way out of her belly before it bit into a Brute Squad Wizard's leg.
And then the Archive reminded me of exactly why a small child is considered a peer to the White Council of Wizards. She opened her backpack, pulling a steno note-pad with sparkly stickers on the front and a wand almost as long as her arm before going to war. She blasted Koschei from Ammit, sending the Deathless one and his spear to the ground and forcing to choose between defending against Ammit and defending against the unending rainbow of offensive magic she was flinging at him.
I joined them, flinging silver white fire and stabbing at him whenever he tried to advance with his spear. There was a panicked, desperate look to him as he splayed his fingers spraying a wave of silver liquid to wash across us. Another thirty of the massive ghouls appeared and started attacking everyone at once. Damn it - I could take the super-ghouls easy, but there were too many people.
"I've got this, Warden." Ammit snarled turning from Koschei to the Ghouls. "Get that bastard!"
The Archive and I continued our assault on him, refusing to give him an inch to even think as we blasted him with every spell we had. Koschei was burned, frozen, melted, electrocuted, and every other "ed" that the two of us could force that misogynist son of a bitch to feel. But it was pointless, all we were managing to do was to irritate him.
"How do we kill this bastard?" I snarled over the sounds of battle. Gunfire ripped across my shoulder, friendly fire from one of the Russians.
"We can't." Ivy replied. "Mother Winter was the one who cursed him with Immortality."
"She cursed him with immortality?" I groaned. "How is the curse broken."
"If I knew that I would have killed him ages ago." Ivy groaned, tears welling in her eyes. "Just - keep fighting and I'll figure something out."
Oh crap. The Archive was monumentally powerful, but she was still just a kid. She could cast magic to make the world tremble, but it was attached to someone not physically able to ride in the front seat of a car. She must have been pretty much running on empty even before she'd been casting protective magic on herself for three days.
And then the Archive said a word that children probably shouldn't know, eyeing the crystal that Koschei pulled out of his belt. "Warden don't let him -"
But it was too late. Koschei smashed the crystal on the floor and there was a wave of orange sparks that washed out and across the throne room. Spells can be stored up to use them in a pinch. My kinetic rings, for example, stored up a little bit of force so that I could unleash that force at a moment of my choosing. But Koschei hadn't used it to store up force, Koschei had stored up the chronomantic power he'd used to stop Kincaid cold and trap me in the Arboretum.
I reflexively lashed out at the wave of orange light washing across the room with Clarent - and to my immense surprise, it worked. It hadn't been enough to stop the entire blast of the chronomantic grenade, but it had protected me and the woman immediately behind me. Muminah - my high priestess looked out at the sudden tableau of bodies frozen in time in a way that reminded me that there was no way in hell I was making it out of this trip without another damn holy book written about my exploits.
The Archive was already starting to return to normal speed. Her counterspell only seconds from casting away Koschei's magic. Her small body glowed blue as she forced the laws of physics to operate normally.
"No matter." Koschei hissed, eyeing me with contempt. "You are no match for me. I will cast you into the Nevernever and be done with you."
As he ripped open a wide path to the world beyond the world I couldn't help but smile my skeletal smile as I caught sight of where it opened up to. Rather than whatever he'd been hoping to find, Koschei opened up his throne room to a massive crowd of men in red armor. Jaffa of Nekheb, lead by Ul'tak. And immortal or not, several hundred staff blasts fired at close range hurt.
Bless that beautiful, decapitated pervo - Bob had come through and done what I asked him to do in my message. I hadn't been sure if the Erlking was going to be quite as able as my godmother had been to follow me everywhere - I certainly hadn't made it easy to keep up with me. I'd been more or less convinced it had been a wasted effort after several jaunts through the Nevernever hadn't revealed my re-enforcements on the other side.
"Protect the Warden!" Bellowed my first prime as he charged Koschei, advancing at the head of my personal guard. Koschei, suddenly on the defensive stabbed at my Jaffa killing three of them before falling to the ground - loosing his footing, literally.
He dropped as Clarent separated him from his feet, eyes mad with terror as the Jaffa blocked him from grabbing the severed limbs. The black smoke that had healed him from seemingly any wound didn't come from his feet, green spell flames having cauterized both sides of the wound. As the Jaffa encircled him, continuing to fire staff-blasts into the disabled monster as I pitched the severed limbs through the barrier of the Nevernever to land on the loamy grass.
And in that simple gesture I had worse than killed the Prince of Winter.
A hand reached up from the Moon's surface, large enough to envelop the entire city of Buyan in its fingers. I watched as pale, blue flesh worn and aged like shoe-leather covered all the windows.
Everything went to black as the impossibly huge fingers of Mother Winter dragged us into shadow.
One does not, for example, try to translocate between places in a forcible summoning ritual when one is exhausted, listening to the thundering echoes of space ships bombarding the city in which you're standing, hopped up on dubious fairy magic, and terrified that the person you're trying to reach is being actively tortured. And all of that was ignoring whatever power was being used to screw with time.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to tap into that seemingly endless sea of echoing voices. I growled in annoyance as Maeve caressed my chin and purred, "Concentrate, beloved."
"You know what would help my concentration?" I replied irritatedly. "Silence."
"You are tense, beloved." Maeve continued her hyper-sexual whisper as she pressed her armored body up to my own. My eyes bugged open as she ran her icy talons over my armored crotch and I felt them as though her bare hand were upon my flesh. "I find that men tend to forget their tensions when appropriately motivated."
"I'm good on motivation." My voice didn't crack like a teenager at the sudden sensation of contact. Nope, I was entirely manly and Maeve's lusty cackle was entirely underserved. I continued to speak in a voice that was just as manly. "Shouldn't you be saving my minions."
Maeve pouted. "But I'm helping you, aren't I, beloved? Haven't you already lost track of the things that seemed so important a moment ago?"
I had, damn it, but it was the principle of the matter. It had been a long time since anyone distracted me in that way and wasn't going to break my streak with a lunatic, supernatural, schlong-jockey like freaking Maeve. It was no wonder that Mab hadn't allowed the Winter Lady to visit my court, killing Heka had to be the closest thing to viagra for one of the Fae. I'd dealt a blow to her hated enemy, killing him in a way that tortured him with his greatest desire in life.
I wasn't sure what was more potentially terrifying, Maeve's obligation to me or my obligation to her mother given the former. Being Maeve's beloved seemed like it was potentially as dangerous as being her worst enemy. The love of a fairy noble of Winter was the sort of thing that was generally part of a horror story rather than a romantic comedy. If I survived this, I would be dancing on eggshells to figure out how to decline her advances without incurring the enmity of Winter.
"Maeve, I would take it as a kindness if you would help my friends sooner rather than later." I replied as diplomatically as one can reply to someone using fairy ju-ju to grope you. "Please."
"Very well, beloved." Maeve kissed my cheek as she let go of me. "Do please make Uncle suffer."
"Obviously." I snarled, the star flecked pits of my eyes crackling with crimson lightning and spite. Rage focusing me as surely as lust had only a moment ago. Stars and Stones - Maeve was playing me, using the Winter she'd put in me to direct my emotions as she needed them to be. She was "helping" me as she felt was best.
Freaking fairies.
I closed my eyes again and reached out for the legion of minds I knew to be praying for my guidance. It was blinding and deafening, there were so many sources of prayer that I could hardly tell them apart. I muttered to myself. "Listen Harry. You just need to listen."
I exhaled slowly and tried to focus on the words coming to me. I just needed the nearest source of sound, the physically closest. It took a moment for me to recognize Muminah's prayers. Her voice was squeaky - distorted by the shifting tides of time separating me from her to the point that she was virtually part of the Chipettes. But it was her.
Motes of starlight started to flow from me as I focused on her need, her desire for me to be in her presence. At its most basic level, a summoning spell is just a request made to the universe for something to be there that wasn't. Names have power in such rituals because you are begging their presence. It wasn't much go off of, but it was enough.
I let my mantle subsume the power of Winter given to me by Maeve, shadows and starlight dissolving Winter's frost in a single poignant spell using an inversion of my preferred summoning ritual.
And then I screamed.
In case you'd forgotten, summoning hurts. But I wasn't just summoning from point A to point B. I was allowing Muminah to summon me through Kochei's spells of time manipulation and an entire city's worth of ancient wards. I don't know how exactly I screamed when I stopped having lungs and became a compressed point of starlight shoved through a morass of time and offensive wards. But since the pain never stopped, I never felt the need to stop screaming in pain.
And then, the pain stopped.
I'd never given much thought to the pentagram tattooed on the bellies of the priestesses of Nehkeb. It had just been one more ward in a body made into a magic resistant work of art. Koschei clearly hadn't considered it of particular relevance because when I erupted out of it and smashed him in the face with my staff it came as an utter surprise.
I had enough time to observe the room before Koschei's bell unrung.I was in a place twice as large as the arboretum had been, a large hexagonal space made from multifaceted surfaces of naquadah with inlaid crystal. The presumptive bridge of the city judging by the glowing consuls and the raised chair at the center of it. If I had to guess we were several levels above the arboretum at the direct center of the snowflake. The Gate Builders apparently valued theater above practicality in their architecture but ritual significance above all else.
The Son of Winter staggered back from my blow, slightly cross eyed as he tried to reconcile his reality with the sudden appearance of a man in his Throne Room. He stared at me, open jawed, and asked, "Who the hell are you?" before looking down at my blade and screaming, "Who the hell are you?"
I had barely a moment to raise my shield before a wave of shimmering silver liquid came from his figers like mercury. It splashed against my shield, shimmering and spitting against the dome of energy I raised around my high-priestess and I. I reacted in horror to the face staring back to me, a skull wreathed in star-flecked black flames - only for that face to react in equal and opposite. Oh, hell's bells - summoning myself through the wards had flensed me.
"Lord Warden?" Muminah asked in shock and horror, reverently addressing me as the silver liquid rolled off the shield and congealed into eight of the massive, prehistoric looking Ghouls I'd faced before the arboretum. "How did you defeat the monster's magic?"
"You prayed. I was able to use that to get to you." I wasn't sure if my grin came off as manic anymore - mania was sort of hard to convey without lips or cheeks. "Wasn't going to let this asshole take one of my people."
"I thought you didn't listen to prayers." Muminah jibed in amusement as she stood up from the ground. There was a dark patch of skin on her face from where Koschei had hit her that was still bleeding and had already started to bruise.
"I don't require prayer. I never said I didn't listen." I replied, dropping the shield and driving Clarent into the belly of the nearest ghoul. The Ghoul's belly erupted into blue-green fire where the blade hit it, cursed energy erupting out from the creature's skin as he cooked from the inside out. Ok - not what I'd intended, but I'd take it.
The other seven Ghouls took a step back, looking from Koschei to me as though trying to determine which of us they'd rather anger. I didn't give them the opportunity to make that choice.
I'm ok with a sword. I'm no Michael Carpenter, but I'd trained myself in the use of a blade just in case. I'm tall and I've got a longer reach than most people. Give me a long blade and I'll hold my own. Even if I'm not the fastest blade on the planet, you'd have a heck of a time getting in close enough to do me harm even before got the Goa'uld super-strength package. Clarent was a weapon that could probably have been considered a longsword if not for the hand and a half grip attached to it.
Heh, I suppose the Sword of Cowards really couldn't have ever been anything other than a Bastard sword. I don't know if I would have been able to even lift Clarent one handed before becoming a Goa'uld, but it moved with the ease and fluidity of my sword cane. The super-ghouls didn't know what hit them.
Ghouls mostly rely on their preternatural strength and healing to protect them in a straight up fight. There isn't much that can hurt them enough to keep them down. When it comes to sharp objects a Ghoul will generally elect to let themselves get stabbed so that they can go for the kill with their teeth and claws. So, when it comes to defending yourself from a sword - they're amateurs.
In as much time as it took for the closest Ghoul to screech, "Mercy!" I'd already took long swipes at all seven super-ghouls. I only managed to graze their flesh, but that was all it took. All seven Ghouls died screaming, curse-flame immolating them as I strode towards the Deathless.
"You fool." Koschei snarled. "You've doomed yourself even if you win this day. By binding yourself to that blade you will suffer its destiny. You cannot understand the war you've entered."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Oooh - another war. I've never started one of those before."
"Give me the blade, child." Koschei snarled, black smoke billowing from under his garments. "Give me the blade and I will consent to taking you as my apprentice."
"Join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son?" I shook my head. "Honestly man, I get that offer so damn much that I'm getting tired of even making that reference. You don't get it - do you Koschei?"
"Enlighten me." Koschei snarled, his black smoke billowing out around the floor. I summoned fire into my staff, silver-white spellfire flickering up its length. His hideous malevolence shied away from the staff's light. Koschei snarled in irritation, summoning more black smoke to choke out all light in the room except the small pool of light around me. We became so choked in darkness that Muminah disappeared from view behind me. I could just barely hear the malevolent darkness sizzling against the protective wards tattooed on her flesh.
"Two things." I glared back at him. "The first - you aren't a person as far as I'm concerned. Hell, you're strong, you're fast, and you're powerful - it will be a bitch to kill you. I get that. But you died the second you took a freaking child with the intention of torturing her, you just haven't stopped moving yet."
"Arrogant whelp." Koschei purred. "I will enjoy killing you almost as much as I will enjoy destroying all that my mother has made with the Archive's knowledge. I tire of this, boy, tell me the second thing so that I might slay you."
"You vastly underestimate women." I made another attempt at a skeletal grin as the sizzling mass of burning shadow jumped out from behind Koschei and ripped the man's sack from his belt, throwing it at me. I sliced the bag in half, disgorging everyone trapped within. Koschei howled his tea-kettle screech of horror, trying to reach out for the sliced fabric only to fly back as a warded foot connected with his jaw - sending him back into the crystalline surface of his throne.
A large group of confused women spilled out across the floor of Koschei's throne room, disgorged in the state they'd been in when Koschei had first tossed them into the sack. Holy crap, Koschei had been a busy boy. I swear he must had kidnapped every beautiful woman who hoved into his field of view. In addition to conservatively seven Brute Squad Wardens, there were half a dozen female Russian soldiers and women he'd taken from every country between Archangel and Cairo. I honestly wasn't sure how many justifiedly terrified women were in that pile.
My heart soared as I caught sight of Ivy, the little girl looking alarmed but none the worse for wear. She glowed with the light of powerful protective spells, anyone who tried to touch her without her permission would regret it. Trusting that she was knowledgeable enough to get to safety, I continued direct my focus at Koschei as he attacked my High Priestess. He was furious at having been robbed of his prize.
"Hateful bitch!" Koschei screamed. He cupped his hands over his mouth and pulled forward like a sword swallower. I felt almost sick to my stomach as I watched him vomit into his fingers, transmogrifying his blood flecked sick into a spear of mordite. He stabbed down at my high-priestess, gouging furrows in the floor with the newly minted deathstone weapon.
I interposed myself between koschei and my high priestess, blocking his spear with my crossed staff and blade. Koschei spat acid at me, binding me as it melted through exposed bone. I staggered back, grunting as he repeatedly stabbed me in the chest - sending green spellfire into the wound as he did so.
"I have had enough of you!" My sight returned as Koschei screeched, my head re-forming from the dissolved mass of calcium it had been. I groaned as I caught sight of a purple globe congealing in his palm. Even if I could surive Koschei's black-hole spell, I was confident that I wouldn't want to. "Now you - AHG!"
Koschei's spell disappeared as his concentration was broken by a massive, leonine paw. He staggered back in confusion, turning to face a chimeric monster the size of an elephant. Motes of brilliant green flame billowed out from the creature's eyes as the crocodile-head of a creature I recognize as Ammit's legendary form bit off Koschei's head. Koschei, slowed but not stopped by his decapitation, furiously stabbed at the elephantine creature.
My memory flashed back to the glowing green blood around Warden Nanami's lips. Ammit - Eater of Sin - had switched hosts. I wasn't sure if "god of stubborn survival" was one of her formal titles, but it really ought to have been. I practically wept with joy as Ammit tore into the deathless one with her teeth and jaws, rending him into meat and vapor.
The vapor grabbed the spear, billowing up onto Ammit's back. The re-formed Koschei drove his spear into Ammit's flank, riding rodeo on the Eater of Sin. Ammit spun and bucked, trying to remove the Prince of Winter as he cast magic in every direction. I don't even know if there are words to describe the spells he used, entropy, elemental magic, and transmogrification blasting out in combinations I hadn't known were possible.
The Brute Squad Wizards were able to block some of them, preventing the worst of them from reaching the confused women who were screaming and trying to flee. But there was too much chaos to protect them all. Women died left and right, dissolving into ash, melting in extreme heat, or worse. One unfortunate woman had an ensorcelled badger claw its way out of her belly before it bit into a Brute Squad Wizard's leg.
And then the Archive reminded me of exactly why a small child is considered a peer to the White Council of Wizards. She opened her backpack, pulling a steno note-pad with sparkly stickers on the front and a wand almost as long as her arm before going to war. She blasted Koschei from Ammit, sending the Deathless one and his spear to the ground and forcing to choose between defending against Ammit and defending against the unending rainbow of offensive magic she was flinging at him.
I joined them, flinging silver white fire and stabbing at him whenever he tried to advance with his spear. There was a panicked, desperate look to him as he splayed his fingers spraying a wave of silver liquid to wash across us. Another thirty of the massive ghouls appeared and started attacking everyone at once. Damn it - I could take the super-ghouls easy, but there were too many people.
"I've got this, Warden." Ammit snarled turning from Koschei to the Ghouls. "Get that bastard!"
The Archive and I continued our assault on him, refusing to give him an inch to even think as we blasted him with every spell we had. Koschei was burned, frozen, melted, electrocuted, and every other "ed" that the two of us could force that misogynist son of a bitch to feel. But it was pointless, all we were managing to do was to irritate him.
"How do we kill this bastard?" I snarled over the sounds of battle. Gunfire ripped across my shoulder, friendly fire from one of the Russians.
"We can't." Ivy replied. "Mother Winter was the one who cursed him with Immortality."
"She cursed him with immortality?" I groaned. "How is the curse broken."
"If I knew that I would have killed him ages ago." Ivy groaned, tears welling in her eyes. "Just - keep fighting and I'll figure something out."
Oh crap. The Archive was monumentally powerful, but she was still just a kid. She could cast magic to make the world tremble, but it was attached to someone not physically able to ride in the front seat of a car. She must have been pretty much running on empty even before she'd been casting protective magic on herself for three days.
And then the Archive said a word that children probably shouldn't know, eyeing the crystal that Koschei pulled out of his belt. "Warden don't let him -"
But it was too late. Koschei smashed the crystal on the floor and there was a wave of orange sparks that washed out and across the throne room. Spells can be stored up to use them in a pinch. My kinetic rings, for example, stored up a little bit of force so that I could unleash that force at a moment of my choosing. But Koschei hadn't used it to store up force, Koschei had stored up the chronomantic power he'd used to stop Kincaid cold and trap me in the Arboretum.
I reflexively lashed out at the wave of orange light washing across the room with Clarent - and to my immense surprise, it worked. It hadn't been enough to stop the entire blast of the chronomantic grenade, but it had protected me and the woman immediately behind me. Muminah - my high priestess looked out at the sudden tableau of bodies frozen in time in a way that reminded me that there was no way in hell I was making it out of this trip without another damn holy book written about my exploits.
The Archive was already starting to return to normal speed. Her counterspell only seconds from casting away Koschei's magic. Her small body glowed blue as she forced the laws of physics to operate normally.
"No matter." Koschei hissed, eyeing me with contempt. "You are no match for me. I will cast you into the Nevernever and be done with you."
As he ripped open a wide path to the world beyond the world I couldn't help but smile my skeletal smile as I caught sight of where it opened up to. Rather than whatever he'd been hoping to find, Koschei opened up his throne room to a massive crowd of men in red armor. Jaffa of Nekheb, lead by Ul'tak. And immortal or not, several hundred staff blasts fired at close range hurt.
Bless that beautiful, decapitated pervo - Bob had come through and done what I asked him to do in my message. I hadn't been sure if the Erlking was going to be quite as able as my godmother had been to follow me everywhere - I certainly hadn't made it easy to keep up with me. I'd been more or less convinced it had been a wasted effort after several jaunts through the Nevernever hadn't revealed my re-enforcements on the other side.
"Protect the Warden!" Bellowed my first prime as he charged Koschei, advancing at the head of my personal guard. Koschei, suddenly on the defensive stabbed at my Jaffa killing three of them before falling to the ground - loosing his footing, literally.
He dropped as Clarent separated him from his feet, eyes mad with terror as the Jaffa blocked him from grabbing the severed limbs. The black smoke that had healed him from seemingly any wound didn't come from his feet, green spell flames having cauterized both sides of the wound. As the Jaffa encircled him, continuing to fire staff-blasts into the disabled monster as I pitched the severed limbs through the barrier of the Nevernever to land on the loamy grass.
And in that simple gesture I had worse than killed the Prince of Winter.
A hand reached up from the Moon's surface, large enough to envelop the entire city of Buyan in its fingers. I watched as pale, blue flesh worn and aged like shoe-leather covered all the windows.
Everything went to black as the impossibly huge fingers of Mother Winter dragged us into shadow.
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
"Stars and Stones - Maeve was playing me"
Well, yes. She is a fairy after all. What else were you expecting?
Fae are gonna fae, the trick is to try and get as much benefit out of being manipulated as possible without getting screwed over.
Which is far easier said than done. Because fae cheat by being better than you.
Ammit is a pretty smart Goa'uld, I expect she would have been pleased with either outcome. If she hits Koschei, she gets to tear out his throat with her own teeth, if she misses she gets to survive and escape. Win\win!
Well, yes. She is a fairy after all. What else were you expecting?
Fae are gonna fae, the trick is to try and get as much benefit out of being manipulated as possible without getting screwed over.
Which is far easier said than done. Because fae cheat by being better than you.
Oh man
Ammit is a pretty smart Goa'uld, I expect she would have been pleased with either outcome. If she hits Koschei, she gets to tear out his throat with her own teeth, if she misses she gets to survive and escape. Win\win!
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Ouch. That one hurts. In the soul...
Which is why I find one of the best ways of dealing with them is being so straightforward, honest and just generally genuine it downright hurts. Most of them simply will not be able to even fathom someone who's true both in word and spirit.
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
I remember someone calling this a while ago.
I'd look, but I'm too busy laughing my ass off about how much this is going to cement Maeve's obsession with Harry. Especially since...
He did exactly as she requested of him of his own free will.
Itsune
Eldritch horror, Ship's Cat, Emergency Gunner.
- Location
- Somewhere in King County Washington
The thing I like about Fae is that when one of them Screw Up, they Can not do so in a small way.
It's not just their current Failure that does them in, it's that when one of the Fae Fall, all debts are called in and accounted for. from Debts to the High King Oberon, to the little girl Who's Doll you stepped on and broke.
Every one that A Fae has interacted with for good or ill, gets their piece. Kushiel may end up being reverted to infant hood , and handed to Mother Winter to be raised again. Or he may simply be set to spin in the Void...
It's not just their current Failure that does them in, it's that when one of the Fae Fall, all debts are called in and accounted for. from Debts to the High King Oberon, to the little girl Who's Doll you stepped on and broke.
Every one that A Fae has interacted with for good or ill, gets their piece. Kushiel may end up being reverted to infant hood , and handed to Mother Winter to be raised again. Or he may simply be set to spin in the Void...
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- Location
- Oblivion
Well, there goes any minimal hope I still had that Janus wouldn't wake up from this...
I guess that means the next thing on Harry's docket is going to be a war with super powered cyborgs lead by a crazed ancient.
subsider34
Forum Lurker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Houston, TX
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You know, it occurs to me. Perhaps Mother Winter was upset about a bit more than just her missing staff when she came after Dresden with a cleaver.
I can't imagine she'd be pleased at being forced to punish her unruly son again.
I can't imagine she'd be pleased at being forced to punish her unruly son again.
Chapter 43
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
Shadows consumed me, whisking me away from the throne room to an empty void. I blinked as a pillar of light formed around me blinding after the utter emptiness I had been in. I poked my staff into the shadow outside the pillar and watched as it melted into utter blackness. Pulling it back into the light I sighed with relief as it returned to the light, apparently undamaged. I wouldn't have put it past Mother Winter to strand me in a void of endless, caustic shadow and just wait for me to go mad and off myself. It would have been her style.
"I know you're there, Mother Winter." I spoke to the void, reasonably confident that I knew where I was. But it would do me no good to show fear. Mother Winter was the predator among predators, Winter's frozen heart. She was the cool hard need to survive, an unforgiving force of pure nature. "I thank you for this unexpected invitation."
"Well, well, well - Wizard, or do I call you god now?" There was glint of sparks in the darkness as Mother Winter's iron teeth ground together. "What do I do with you?"
"Nothing, I believe." I replied, willing my speech not to quaver with the fear I actually felt. I mean, come on - the woman had just grabbed a city out of the sky on a whim. I wasn't even in the ballpark of being able to do anything to stop her if she meant me harm. "I have done you no wrong, Mother Winter."
"Haven't you?" I could hear the sounds of a cleaver being sharpened against a leather strap - though I couldn't place where exactly. "I believe it was you who tossed my son's feet across the threshold of my kingdom - forcing him to break my Law."
"He had already defied your law, my Queen." I replied firmly. "He stole the Archive from Nevernever."
"He never stepped foot on my realm though, did he. You stepped his feet in for him." I could hear the sound of the cleaver being struck against something wooden, a table or cutting board perhaps. "Some might assume that a mother would do most grievous harm on behalf of her child. Some would assert she ought to."
I actually laughed. It was a manic thing, as fearful as mirthful but it was a genuine laugh. "Sure - but not you. Koschei was defying you, he was flaunting the fact that he could disobey you without actually disobeying you. I just forced him to actually face the music on this one."
There was a loud thwack of a cleaver on wood that sent shivers down my spine as I heard someone shuffling towards me. Granny cleaver's face glowed hideously at the edge of the magical pillar of light, her iron fangs spread wide in - holy crap - she was freaking smiling. "Yes, Harry. You did."
Oh, Crap.
I suppose it would have been too much to hope that Granny Winter didn't know who I was. But I really had hoped. And then several thoughts connected in the back of my head which had been percolating for the past several days. "It was you. You're the one to ordered Queen Mab to tell Titania that I killed her daughter. You're the one who arranged for the Archive to know who I am. You're the one who ordered Titania to make sure that the Archive would bring me back to Archangel."
"Am I now?" Mother Winter's teeth sparked as she chuckled. "And why would you assume something like that. My daughter is always going off and doing things without consulting with me. What makes you so important?"
"I was the only one with even half a chance. I'm the only one who can take mordite to the skull and shake it off - at least I was until Ammit god a wizard host." I groaned, realizing how stupid I'd been. Mab had basically done everything but have a marching band walk through Nekheb with banners saying "it's a trap" and I'd just blundered into it because I was terrified to Titania. I'd never even considered that Mab might not be the one pulling the strings here. I mean, it's freaking Mab. "It didn't matter to you how much collateral damage would happen, you knew that once Koschei escaped and kidnapped a child his days were numbered."
"That is certainly one way to interpret what has happened. I do not deny that reigning in my son's treachery brings me joy." She smiled her horrific, gangrenous grin - smiling with all the joy of a rotting corpse as she continued to speak. "But I have yet to decide if the good done by dealing with my miscreant of a son is balanced out by my obligation to protect family, even if that family isn't of fairy."
She held up her hand, displaying a small glass globe containing a single snowflake. As she rotated it between her fingers I realized that it was Buyan. An entire city and she was rolling it on her palm like some tawdry bauble. She looked from me to the glass ball, following my gaze. "Do you like my new toy, Warden?"
"I like a number of people in it." I replied cautiously. "I would prefer that they not be damaged."
"And what would you do if I gave it to you?" Mother Winter's voice was daggers and frost as she clutched it. I winced as her fingers tightened against the glass - not enough to break it but enough that the popping of her arthritic knuckles terrified me that she might. "Would you do something so tawdry and mortal as taking it for your own? Do you plan to take responsibility for those within it?"
"I bear responsibility for the welfare and survival of the people on that city, yes." I replied, unable to tear my eyes away from the glass ball. "I would see to their safety and welfare, yes."
"Do not just say it. Swear it to me." Mother Winter replied. "Swear that you will take responsibility for the people in Buyan."
"I swear it." I replied breathlessly.
Mother Winter's smile grew crueler than I could have possibly imagined as she tossed me the glass bauble. "Then take it, Lord Warden."
I grabbed the glass bauble in confusion, catching it in my hands and cradling it between them as though it might break at any second. "You're just giving it to me?"
My blood chilled as Mother Winter replied to me. "Warden, I cannot think of a punishment more fitting than the responsibility you have just elected to take."
There was a click of arthritic fingers and suddenly the space I was in flooded with light as soot was cast off the windows of a small, medieval cabin. I looked over at a long wooden table to the cleaver. Apparently the horrific, fleshy sounds I'd heard only moments ago had been root vegetables of all things. The wizened crone of winter didn't seem to like the light, but she tolerated it so that she could be seen.
"Um - what do I do with it now that I have it?" I'll admit it wasn't a particularly articulate question but damned if I could figure out how to return the city to its normal size.
"You toss it into the air, obviously." Mother Winter rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Honestly, you're barely a god at all."
There was a creak of ancient hinges as a door swing inward, the smell of Autumn's last breath caressing the air with the smell of mulled wine and spices. A cheerful woman entered the cottage, the lines on her face and hands caused by laughter rather than hardship. Mother Summer arched a brow at me, looking to her contemporary and asking. "As he is not dead and in a stewpot I am left to wonder, why is there a Goa'uld in my house? Why is the architect of my granddaughter's death not in pieces."
"Because Aurora's death was necessary and we both know it." Mother Winter replied firmly. She walked over to the root vegetables and grabbed from the table, carrying them over to the stewpot. "Family is held to a higher standard."
As she lifted the lid off the boiling pot I was greeted by the piteous screams of Koschei. I closed my eyes, looking away as though not seeing him trying to climb out from the boiling vessel would save me from his cries. "Mommy, please mommy don't - don't do this to me mommy - I love you. I love you!"
I shuddered as the top slammed back down, silencing Koschei as he his atavistic bellow of "Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me!" pierced my very soul.
That was going to haunt my nightmares for a while yet to come. I looked to Mother Winter as she stared at me, her face unreadable. "Pardon me for asking, Mother Summer, but weren't you the ones who told Wizard Dresden all he needed to know?"
"Speaking about one's self in the third person is a sign of madness." Replied Mother Summer.
Double crap. I pressed the issue anyway. "That doesn't answer my question, your highness."
"Necessity does not divorce me from my love for my grandchild." Mother Summer replied. "I am guided by the wisdom of the heart. You're right that it is foolish to feel anger, but I would be lying to say that I have forgiven you for this necessity."
"He has taken custody of Buyan." Mother Winter replied, stoking the flames before pointing to Clarent with her red-hot poker. "And Clarent."
Mother Summer's eyes narrowed in incredulity as she looked from the first object, then to the second, then back at me. "Oh, you poor child."
You know. Eventually I'm going to make a deal with the Fae where I'm the one who screws other the other party. I mean statistically it has to happen at least once.
"I apologize for my rudeness, Mother Summer, but I have an appointment with your daughter. I promised Eldest Gruff that I would turn myself into him to negotiate the terms of my surrender." I looked from her to Mother Winter. "May I take my leave?"
Mother Winter waved me off. "Go, godling. You will not have the stomach to endure what comes next."
Mother Summer considered me briefly before opening the door. "I believe your transportation has already been arranged."
I all but fled the cottage. I didn't what to know what Mother Winter had in mind for her baby boy if boiling him alive was the part she felt suitable for public consumption. My hands shook with fear and my legs buckled under me as I reached Mother Summer's herb garden. I bit back bile in my throat, not wanting to vomit in the cottage garden for fear that Granny Cleaver might use it for some ritual.
A pair of thick leather hunting boots appeared in front of me as someone huge jumped off a stag. I looked up to see the Erlking. "Greetings Lord Warden."
"Morning Earl." I took his outstretched hand, noting that he'd wrapped it in mortal fabric to allow himself to touch my ferrous gauntlet. "I see you managed to get my guys to me."
"Indeed, Lord Warden. How could I resist the urge to help men to go on such an auspicious hunt. And one for Mother Winter's own table, no less?" The Erlking laughed without any mirth to it, though I knew it passed for joy as far as he was concerned. "Would that I were able to join you Old Hunter."
"Tell you what, Earl. The next time an insane, nigh-immortal, power mad gate-builder ends up trying to kill me, you're welcome to join me in kicking his ass." I stood up woozily. "In fact I insist that you help."
"I will hold you to it, Old Hunter." The Erlking's mirthless laugh of joy continued. "But for now, business. You have a debt yet owed."
"Yeah, I know." I replied. "How do we play this."
"First there is the matter of the Bane you carry with you." The Erlking gestured to, well, everything I was wearing. "You dare not enter negotiations with the Summer Queen bearing that much of the bane."
"I'm supposed to go there unarmed and unarmored?" I sighed, protesting even though I knew he was right.
"If you are forced to fight where I'm taking you, there is no amount of the Bane that will save you." The Erlking replied, pulling a leather sack from his stag. "Place your belongings in this bag and you have my word that they will be returned to you if you survive your meeting with Titania."
"Let's just get this over with." I replied, already suspecting where he would take me. I stripped off my armor and weapons, tossing them into the Erlking's sack. Though ensorcelled to take many items within it in spite of it's relative size, it was apparently not of fairy make. Iron did it no harm. I reticently placed Buyan into the sack. I'd spent a lot of time keeping the people in my care out of sacks today. It felt weird to put them back in one. But in the sack I had the Erlking's promise that my belongings would be returned to me.
That was something at least.
I was naked and unarmed, but if this went wrong that was the least of the indignities I would suffer today. Most of the flesh on my body seemed to have remained, though there were irregular rips across my chest, legs, and arms exposing bones and starlight. I allowed the Erlking to help me onto his stag.
We didn't talk as the stag went through the Nevernever. Earl wasn't the talkative sort and I was too busy figuring out exactly what to say. I didn't have as much time as I would have preferred. The stag moved through countries and continents of fairy so fast that it was virtually teleporting.
I had formed my half a plan into at least something resembling a plan by the time we reached a small wooded glen. Though seemingly inconspicuous, as we breached the glamors surrounding it, it was readily apparent that my suspicious had been correct. We were heading for Titania's seat of power.
Unlike the Winter Court, Summer had no permanent stronghold. They followed the seasons through the Nevernever, relocating the Summer Court to whatever portion of the Nevernever was closest to Summer's warmth at the moment. As a consequence the structures and defenses of the Summer Court moved. Some were more traditional structures like wooden caravans or palinquins on a grand scale moved by giant beasts of Summer. Titania's great fortress, however, was a massive tree on the scale of most cities that dragged itself along the forest floor with octopus like roots that would gently move any intervening trees and rocks out of the way, re-planting them where they wouldn't be obstructions.
All manner of creatures made their home in the traveling caravan of Summer. Satyrs, centaurs, elves, sprites, and creatures of every description, they were all as bright and beautiful as the creatures of Winter were cold and calculating. But the Kingdom of Summer was not a place of song and joy - not today.
Today Summer was in mourning for the loss of their beloved lady.
And I was the one who killed her.
Yay me.
A horde of monsters did not descend upon me when first we landed, which was at least something. The Erlking let me down from his stag and said, "I will wait for you here, Warden. This is something you must do alone."
"You sure about that?" I groused. "Because I'd feel more confident with you and a goblin army with me."
"You have agreed to surrender." The Erlking replied firmly. "I would not dare to interfere with you completing a bargain. Nor would I tolerate you breaking one. I am standing in for your godmother, after all. I could not allow a charge in my care to do something so… rude."
That… ugh… freaking fairies. I'd been hoping if this went tits up that I could at least rely on the Erlking to back me up. He'd done it before against summer. But that was before this became a matter of fairy honor. It was probably physically impossible for the Erlking to allow someone to break their word.
Here's to hoping that plan "a" worked. Yeah - sure. That would happen. After all the universe loooves Harry Dresden.
"Warden." A wizened voice brayed out from the entrance to the Summer Palace. Eldest Gruff stood, waiting. He looked me up and down as I walked up to him, his lips curling back in a smile. "Generally when one comes to surrender they only divest themselves of their weapons, not all worldly possessions."
"I didn't want the Satyrs to feel left out, what with always being naked and all." I shook the Gruff's hand as he offered it to me. "Seemed the best way to avoid someone assuming I snuck a weapon into the Summer Court."
"While the sentiment is wise, the Satyrs are perhaps not the sources of wisdom I would look to in a delicate negotiation." Jibed the Gruff, though his eyes still glinted with anger.
"Well I just got done kicking Koschei's ass and I'm tossing myself bare ass naked to Titania's mercy." I snorted. "I don't know how their wisdom can be any worse than mine is."
"How did you know?" Asked the Gruff.
"Huh?" I answered lamely.
"How did you know what Aurora was going to do?" Replied Eldest Gruff. "How did you know that she had gone mad."
"I've seen it happen before." I replied, omitting that the "previous time" had also been Aurora. "Kind of hard to miss once you've been through it once."
Eldest Gruff nodded once. "And why did you not inform the Summer Court rather than setting the mortal Wizard against my Queen?"
"By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to fix her." I gestured to myself. "And let's be real. I'm not a credible source."
Eldest Gruff tilted his head in the slightest of nods. "I believe you."
"Well at least somebody does." I exhaled, looking up at the massive tree. "Not that it matters."
"Doing what is right always matters, especially when one can expect no reward for doing it." Eldest Gruff disagreed. "Come, Warden. Titania has agreed to listen to your terms."
"Uh, she has?" I blinked. "I half expected her to have you eviscerate me when I walked through the door."
"Oh, I would have." Eldest Gruff replied. "If you'd lied to me."
Ge-he-freaking-rate.
"I know you're there, Mother Winter." I spoke to the void, reasonably confident that I knew where I was. But it would do me no good to show fear. Mother Winter was the predator among predators, Winter's frozen heart. She was the cool hard need to survive, an unforgiving force of pure nature. "I thank you for this unexpected invitation."
"Well, well, well - Wizard, or do I call you god now?" There was glint of sparks in the darkness as Mother Winter's iron teeth ground together. "What do I do with you?"
"Nothing, I believe." I replied, willing my speech not to quaver with the fear I actually felt. I mean, come on - the woman had just grabbed a city out of the sky on a whim. I wasn't even in the ballpark of being able to do anything to stop her if she meant me harm. "I have done you no wrong, Mother Winter."
"Haven't you?" I could hear the sounds of a cleaver being sharpened against a leather strap - though I couldn't place where exactly. "I believe it was you who tossed my son's feet across the threshold of my kingdom - forcing him to break my Law."
"He had already defied your law, my Queen." I replied firmly. "He stole the Archive from Nevernever."
"He never stepped foot on my realm though, did he. You stepped his feet in for him." I could hear the sound of the cleaver being struck against something wooden, a table or cutting board perhaps. "Some might assume that a mother would do most grievous harm on behalf of her child. Some would assert she ought to."
I actually laughed. It was a manic thing, as fearful as mirthful but it was a genuine laugh. "Sure - but not you. Koschei was defying you, he was flaunting the fact that he could disobey you without actually disobeying you. I just forced him to actually face the music on this one."
There was a loud thwack of a cleaver on wood that sent shivers down my spine as I heard someone shuffling towards me. Granny cleaver's face glowed hideously at the edge of the magical pillar of light, her iron fangs spread wide in - holy crap - she was freaking smiling. "Yes, Harry. You did."
Oh, Crap.
I suppose it would have been too much to hope that Granny Winter didn't know who I was. But I really had hoped. And then several thoughts connected in the back of my head which had been percolating for the past several days. "It was you. You're the one to ordered Queen Mab to tell Titania that I killed her daughter. You're the one who arranged for the Archive to know who I am. You're the one who ordered Titania to make sure that the Archive would bring me back to Archangel."
"Am I now?" Mother Winter's teeth sparked as she chuckled. "And why would you assume something like that. My daughter is always going off and doing things without consulting with me. What makes you so important?"
"I was the only one with even half a chance. I'm the only one who can take mordite to the skull and shake it off - at least I was until Ammit god a wizard host." I groaned, realizing how stupid I'd been. Mab had basically done everything but have a marching band walk through Nekheb with banners saying "it's a trap" and I'd just blundered into it because I was terrified to Titania. I'd never even considered that Mab might not be the one pulling the strings here. I mean, it's freaking Mab. "It didn't matter to you how much collateral damage would happen, you knew that once Koschei escaped and kidnapped a child his days were numbered."
"That is certainly one way to interpret what has happened. I do not deny that reigning in my son's treachery brings me joy." She smiled her horrific, gangrenous grin - smiling with all the joy of a rotting corpse as she continued to speak. "But I have yet to decide if the good done by dealing with my miscreant of a son is balanced out by my obligation to protect family, even if that family isn't of fairy."
She held up her hand, displaying a small glass globe containing a single snowflake. As she rotated it between her fingers I realized that it was Buyan. An entire city and she was rolling it on her palm like some tawdry bauble. She looked from me to the glass ball, following my gaze. "Do you like my new toy, Warden?"
"I like a number of people in it." I replied cautiously. "I would prefer that they not be damaged."
"And what would you do if I gave it to you?" Mother Winter's voice was daggers and frost as she clutched it. I winced as her fingers tightened against the glass - not enough to break it but enough that the popping of her arthritic knuckles terrified me that she might. "Would you do something so tawdry and mortal as taking it for your own? Do you plan to take responsibility for those within it?"
"I bear responsibility for the welfare and survival of the people on that city, yes." I replied, unable to tear my eyes away from the glass ball. "I would see to their safety and welfare, yes."
"Do not just say it. Swear it to me." Mother Winter replied. "Swear that you will take responsibility for the people in Buyan."
"I swear it." I replied breathlessly.
Mother Winter's smile grew crueler than I could have possibly imagined as she tossed me the glass bauble. "Then take it, Lord Warden."
I grabbed the glass bauble in confusion, catching it in my hands and cradling it between them as though it might break at any second. "You're just giving it to me?"
My blood chilled as Mother Winter replied to me. "Warden, I cannot think of a punishment more fitting than the responsibility you have just elected to take."
There was a click of arthritic fingers and suddenly the space I was in flooded with light as soot was cast off the windows of a small, medieval cabin. I looked over at a long wooden table to the cleaver. Apparently the horrific, fleshy sounds I'd heard only moments ago had been root vegetables of all things. The wizened crone of winter didn't seem to like the light, but she tolerated it so that she could be seen.
"Um - what do I do with it now that I have it?" I'll admit it wasn't a particularly articulate question but damned if I could figure out how to return the city to its normal size.
"You toss it into the air, obviously." Mother Winter rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Honestly, you're barely a god at all."
There was a creak of ancient hinges as a door swing inward, the smell of Autumn's last breath caressing the air with the smell of mulled wine and spices. A cheerful woman entered the cottage, the lines on her face and hands caused by laughter rather than hardship. Mother Summer arched a brow at me, looking to her contemporary and asking. "As he is not dead and in a stewpot I am left to wonder, why is there a Goa'uld in my house? Why is the architect of my granddaughter's death not in pieces."
"Because Aurora's death was necessary and we both know it." Mother Winter replied firmly. She walked over to the root vegetables and grabbed from the table, carrying them over to the stewpot. "Family is held to a higher standard."
As she lifted the lid off the boiling pot I was greeted by the piteous screams of Koschei. I closed my eyes, looking away as though not seeing him trying to climb out from the boiling vessel would save me from his cries. "Mommy, please mommy don't - don't do this to me mommy - I love you. I love you!"
I shuddered as the top slammed back down, silencing Koschei as he his atavistic bellow of "Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me!" pierced my very soul.
That was going to haunt my nightmares for a while yet to come. I looked to Mother Winter as she stared at me, her face unreadable. "Pardon me for asking, Mother Summer, but weren't you the ones who told Wizard Dresden all he needed to know?"
"Speaking about one's self in the third person is a sign of madness." Replied Mother Summer.
Double crap. I pressed the issue anyway. "That doesn't answer my question, your highness."
"Necessity does not divorce me from my love for my grandchild." Mother Summer replied. "I am guided by the wisdom of the heart. You're right that it is foolish to feel anger, but I would be lying to say that I have forgiven you for this necessity."
"He has taken custody of Buyan." Mother Winter replied, stoking the flames before pointing to Clarent with her red-hot poker. "And Clarent."
Mother Summer's eyes narrowed in incredulity as she looked from the first object, then to the second, then back at me. "Oh, you poor child."
You know. Eventually I'm going to make a deal with the Fae where I'm the one who screws other the other party. I mean statistically it has to happen at least once.
"I apologize for my rudeness, Mother Summer, but I have an appointment with your daughter. I promised Eldest Gruff that I would turn myself into him to negotiate the terms of my surrender." I looked from her to Mother Winter. "May I take my leave?"
Mother Winter waved me off. "Go, godling. You will not have the stomach to endure what comes next."
Mother Summer considered me briefly before opening the door. "I believe your transportation has already been arranged."
I all but fled the cottage. I didn't what to know what Mother Winter had in mind for her baby boy if boiling him alive was the part she felt suitable for public consumption. My hands shook with fear and my legs buckled under me as I reached Mother Summer's herb garden. I bit back bile in my throat, not wanting to vomit in the cottage garden for fear that Granny Cleaver might use it for some ritual.
A pair of thick leather hunting boots appeared in front of me as someone huge jumped off a stag. I looked up to see the Erlking. "Greetings Lord Warden."
"Morning Earl." I took his outstretched hand, noting that he'd wrapped it in mortal fabric to allow himself to touch my ferrous gauntlet. "I see you managed to get my guys to me."
"Indeed, Lord Warden. How could I resist the urge to help men to go on such an auspicious hunt. And one for Mother Winter's own table, no less?" The Erlking laughed without any mirth to it, though I knew it passed for joy as far as he was concerned. "Would that I were able to join you Old Hunter."
"Tell you what, Earl. The next time an insane, nigh-immortal, power mad gate-builder ends up trying to kill me, you're welcome to join me in kicking his ass." I stood up woozily. "In fact I insist that you help."
"I will hold you to it, Old Hunter." The Erlking's mirthless laugh of joy continued. "But for now, business. You have a debt yet owed."
"Yeah, I know." I replied. "How do we play this."
"First there is the matter of the Bane you carry with you." The Erlking gestured to, well, everything I was wearing. "You dare not enter negotiations with the Summer Queen bearing that much of the bane."
"I'm supposed to go there unarmed and unarmored?" I sighed, protesting even though I knew he was right.
"If you are forced to fight where I'm taking you, there is no amount of the Bane that will save you." The Erlking replied, pulling a leather sack from his stag. "Place your belongings in this bag and you have my word that they will be returned to you if you survive your meeting with Titania."
"Let's just get this over with." I replied, already suspecting where he would take me. I stripped off my armor and weapons, tossing them into the Erlking's sack. Though ensorcelled to take many items within it in spite of it's relative size, it was apparently not of fairy make. Iron did it no harm. I reticently placed Buyan into the sack. I'd spent a lot of time keeping the people in my care out of sacks today. It felt weird to put them back in one. But in the sack I had the Erlking's promise that my belongings would be returned to me.
That was something at least.
I was naked and unarmed, but if this went wrong that was the least of the indignities I would suffer today. Most of the flesh on my body seemed to have remained, though there were irregular rips across my chest, legs, and arms exposing bones and starlight. I allowed the Erlking to help me onto his stag.
We didn't talk as the stag went through the Nevernever. Earl wasn't the talkative sort and I was too busy figuring out exactly what to say. I didn't have as much time as I would have preferred. The stag moved through countries and continents of fairy so fast that it was virtually teleporting.
I had formed my half a plan into at least something resembling a plan by the time we reached a small wooded glen. Though seemingly inconspicuous, as we breached the glamors surrounding it, it was readily apparent that my suspicious had been correct. We were heading for Titania's seat of power.
Unlike the Winter Court, Summer had no permanent stronghold. They followed the seasons through the Nevernever, relocating the Summer Court to whatever portion of the Nevernever was closest to Summer's warmth at the moment. As a consequence the structures and defenses of the Summer Court moved. Some were more traditional structures like wooden caravans or palinquins on a grand scale moved by giant beasts of Summer. Titania's great fortress, however, was a massive tree on the scale of most cities that dragged itself along the forest floor with octopus like roots that would gently move any intervening trees and rocks out of the way, re-planting them where they wouldn't be obstructions.
All manner of creatures made their home in the traveling caravan of Summer. Satyrs, centaurs, elves, sprites, and creatures of every description, they were all as bright and beautiful as the creatures of Winter were cold and calculating. But the Kingdom of Summer was not a place of song and joy - not today.
Today Summer was in mourning for the loss of their beloved lady.
And I was the one who killed her.
Yay me.
A horde of monsters did not descend upon me when first we landed, which was at least something. The Erlking let me down from his stag and said, "I will wait for you here, Warden. This is something you must do alone."
"You sure about that?" I groused. "Because I'd feel more confident with you and a goblin army with me."
"You have agreed to surrender." The Erlking replied firmly. "I would not dare to interfere with you completing a bargain. Nor would I tolerate you breaking one. I am standing in for your godmother, after all. I could not allow a charge in my care to do something so… rude."
That… ugh… freaking fairies. I'd been hoping if this went tits up that I could at least rely on the Erlking to back me up. He'd done it before against summer. But that was before this became a matter of fairy honor. It was probably physically impossible for the Erlking to allow someone to break their word.
Here's to hoping that plan "a" worked. Yeah - sure. That would happen. After all the universe loooves Harry Dresden.
"Warden." A wizened voice brayed out from the entrance to the Summer Palace. Eldest Gruff stood, waiting. He looked me up and down as I walked up to him, his lips curling back in a smile. "Generally when one comes to surrender they only divest themselves of their weapons, not all worldly possessions."
"I didn't want the Satyrs to feel left out, what with always being naked and all." I shook the Gruff's hand as he offered it to me. "Seemed the best way to avoid someone assuming I snuck a weapon into the Summer Court."
"While the sentiment is wise, the Satyrs are perhaps not the sources of wisdom I would look to in a delicate negotiation." Jibed the Gruff, though his eyes still glinted with anger.
"Well I just got done kicking Koschei's ass and I'm tossing myself bare ass naked to Titania's mercy." I snorted. "I don't know how their wisdom can be any worse than mine is."
"How did you know?" Asked the Gruff.
"Huh?" I answered lamely.
"How did you know what Aurora was going to do?" Replied Eldest Gruff. "How did you know that she had gone mad."
"I've seen it happen before." I replied, omitting that the "previous time" had also been Aurora. "Kind of hard to miss once you've been through it once."
Eldest Gruff nodded once. "And why did you not inform the Summer Court rather than setting the mortal Wizard against my Queen?"
"By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to fix her." I gestured to myself. "And let's be real. I'm not a credible source."
Eldest Gruff tilted his head in the slightest of nods. "I believe you."
"Well at least somebody does." I exhaled, looking up at the massive tree. "Not that it matters."
"Doing what is right always matters, especially when one can expect no reward for doing it." Eldest Gruff disagreed. "Come, Warden. Titania has agreed to listen to your terms."
"Uh, she has?" I blinked. "I half expected her to have you eviscerate me when I walked through the door."
"Oh, I would have." Eldest Gruff replied. "If you'd lied to me."
Ge-he-freaking-rate.
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Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
Harry wat you doing.
Harry stahp.
Ok, what kind of big landfill fire can we expect with Harry basically loudly claiming that Buyan is his to every single factions out there?
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Presumably, much like Demonreach, there's some really nasty stuff in there that he is now responsible for making sure remains in there.
In fact, given that Demonreach was made by Merlin in canon, that would make it an Alteran artifact as well. Possibly even some kind of variant City-Ship. And if the Alterans imprisoned a bunch of Outsiders in Demonreach, I can easily see them doing similar with Buyan. And if Koschei was sitting on an Outsider prison, that would explain why everyone was willing to tolerate him until now.
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Itsune
Eldritch horror, Ship's Cat, Emergency Gunner.
- Location
- Somewhere in King County Washington
Wouldn't that also include any surviving Ghouls?
...
Maybe he can convert them into something better, like male Hyena's?
Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
More importantly isn't MAEVE still in Buyan?!!
Taking responsibility can mean many things after all....
RichardWhereat
Feanor did nothing wrong.
- Location
- Australia
What?
You fucking idiot Harry. You should have first found out who was in there before taking responsibility for them. Maeve might be in there.
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Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
Do you mean the typo?
Or you mean the host? For the latter, Ammit's hitching a ride in Warden Nanami now.
- Location
- Oblivion
There is like ten thousand Ancients in various stasis pods in the city isn't there?
Yup... Ancients in Stasis Pods...
I don't think Ghouls count as "people" in the Dresdenverse, as they lack souls.
What's the deal with Ancients in this story? I know they have the magic tech, but are they supernatural in some way? I assumed they were just sort of amoral wizards.
RichardWhereat
Feanor did nothing wrong.
- Location
- Australia
I meant both of those things. Thanks for clearing it up, because when I realised there was a typo, I had no idea what it meant.
Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
Chapter 44
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
I caused something of an uproar when I entered the Summer Court after Eldest Gruff, naked as a jaybird with my head on fire. I heard an endless chorus of stage whispers as Sidhe nobles and fairy creatures gibbered and cawed - clearly discussing the open secret of the Goa'uld in their midst. The monster who'd engineered Aurora's death, come to face Titania's judgement of his own free will. I was reasonably certain that everyone in Summer had shown up to watch the spectacle.
Well, screw it, they wanted a spectacle - I'd give them a show they'd remember forever. I let my mantle into me as I crossed the ballroom floor of the Summer Court, my naked footsteps burning into the living wood of the Summer Fortress as I approached the Throne of Summer. Titania sat imperiously upon a throne of living birch, still wearing the ornate fairy armor she'd been wearing at the battle for the table.
I knew what she was. I'd seen her with my wizard's sight at that battle. She was something great and terrible and beyond my ability to comprehend. Whatever I'd become as a result of the ritual of Necromantic Ascension - I was still small potatoes compared to her.
And she hated me. Rage and spite were warring on her face as I approached her. As the crowd of nobles parted, I got a clear view of what was in front of her throne. A pale body, covered in bloody cuts, it was a girl who'd died a slow painful death. A woman who was little more than a child, it was the corpse of the Summer Lady, Aurora.
I froze at that, staring at the blue white pallor of death upon her.
I hadn't really looked at Aurora's body after she died. I'd been so tired that I'd been all but comatose when her mother took her. I'd seen her die, which had been horrific in its own right, but to stare at that lifeless remnant of femininity was horrible in an altogether new way that was only expounded and compounded by the utterly hopeless grief of the mother.
I had taken away Titania's baby girl. God, I'd known it - I'd known it ever since I killed her but I'd never associated that simple fact with the magnitude of how much I'd hurt the Summer Queen. I'd suffered no retribution as a consequence of my actions at that battle. Sure, it was the custom of Winter and Summer to treat agents as the weapons of the one who wielded them but there was nothing to say that Titania couldn't have decided go go scorched earth on the one who dared to touch her daughter. A Queen of Summer wouldn't have to stretch too far to justify taking action against me.
Which meant she hadn't, which meant something had stopped her. And in that moment I knew how I would accomplish that - I was going to twist a mother's grief for her child into a weapon against her and I hated myself for it.
But I couldn't afford to be a victim of Titania's righteous retribution. There were too many people counting on me to lead them, too many people who would die without me there to fight for them. Maybe one day that would be enough for me to forgive myself for what I was about to do.
I made my eyes flash with crimson lightning as I forced my voice to echo with the cruelest tones of Goa'uld fury and glee I could manage. "I see you have discovered my handiwork, Queen Titania."
"Yes." Replied the Queen and I staggered under the sheer weight of that single word. Titania's anger was a living force that rippled through the air and sent Sidhe nobility screaming from the room. Ears bled and eyes watered as that single syllable echoed through her hall.
Hells Bells - she could do that? Well - I needed her too angry to think straight for my plan to work, I just needed her to not kill me before I pulled it off. Who knows - I might even manage it.
"My Queen! Perhaps an interlocutor is in order." Suggested Eldest Gruff, shouting to be heard over the echoes. "It would not do to harm your nobles by accident."
The Queen glared at Eldest Gruff, briefly furious that he'd interrupted her rage before it occurred to her that there were people in pain. She picked a noble from the crowd, seemingly at random, and summoned him to her side. The lithe green sidhe danced across the floor, shimmering over to his Queen in moments. He knelt in a pile of leaves, moss, and pale green flesh next to her as she placed her palm upon his forehead. "Your console is, as always, wise Eldest Gruff. We have much to speak about with the new King of Nekheb. He who has seen fit to not only murder my daughter, but to come gloat about it."
An interlocutor? Well - that would at least save me from dying from her voice as I continued to piss her off. "Not gloat, Queen Titania. Aurora's death was necessary but not something of which I might be proud. I take no pride in killing the incapable."
"You have the unmitigated gall to insult my child at her wake?" Titania gripped the Sidhe's head so tightly that the interlocutor gasped in pain. "How dare you."
"We both know that whatever else happens as a result of your negotiations, you plan to kill me. At this point the best I can hope for is a speedy death." I shrugged disinterestedly. "You'll pardon me I I feel inclined to have your urge to kill me overpower your urge to torture me."
"I have the power to do things to you that would make the depths of Hell tremble, Lord Warden." Titania's interlocutor hissed with his Queen's rage, even as blood ran down his face from where she clutched his face. "And I will see my revenge fulfilled upon thee."
"Not before hearing my terms, Queen Titania." I replied sitting Indian Style on the ground in front of Aurora. "We must agree to the terms of my surrender."
"Speak your terms, Lord Warden. And I will consider their value." Titania's interlocutor spoke the words as though they were a spiteful joke. "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement that suits all parties involved."
The collected Sidhe laughed in utter malice, the people of Summer united in their hatred of me. "Firstly - I do not want your troops to use the death of Aurora as an excuse to betray my forces. The terms of war against Chronos stand. He is a menace that need to die and my men need to be able to rely on the honor of your armies. Even if I die or am imprisoned, I expect those Summer Fae who are involved in the war to be allies to my troops against Chronos."
Titania considered the matter, tapping her index finger on the man's head. "I have no agreement with you, my forces fight as guests of Winter simply because it suits their mood."
"Which is precisely why they would become an easy weapon against my men." I shook my head. "The Jaffa bear no responsibility for my actions."
"This - term, is not beyond reason." Titania conceded. "And Chronos is owed retribution for past wrongs to my court. I would not see innocents harmed."
"Along those lines - the humans, Goa'uld, Unas, Jaffa and other species living in my dominion have no knowledge or responsibility for my actions. My choices are mine and mine alone. If I am to suffer for what I have done, so be it, but there will be no actions taken against them for what has happened to Aurora." I lifted a single finger. "This is non-negotiable."
"Nor need it be." Titania's servitor sighed in exasperation. "Do you intend to discuss every mundane possible factor in an effort to extend your life?"
"The thought had occurred to me." I joked in reply, actually earning some laughter from the Sidhe noblilty around me for that. "What with the plan to kill me and all, it seemed fitting."
"This will do little to save you from pain in the long run." Snarled the queens intermediary as literal fire flicked out from Titania's nostrils.
"Nothing will save me." I replied calmly. "Being saved isn't the point."
"Oh?" Replied the intermediary in a voice of contemptuous curiosity. "Then what pray tell are you here to do?"
"The right thing - obviously." I shrugged. "That's all you can hope to do before you die."
"That is an odd sentiment for a Goa'uld." The interlocutor replied in a voice that clearly told me that Titania thought I was full of shit.
She was right but not about how. I snapped my fingers as though trying to recall something. "The Mortal Wizard in Mab's service - the one she used as an actual weapon. What was his name?"
"Dresden?" Replied the interlocutor. "You are referring to Harry Dresden?"
"Yes - Wizard Harry Dresden of Chicago, the one Mab used as a tool. I do not want him harmed as a consequence of what has happened tonight. I will have your word that the forces of Summer will do no harm to the Wizard or any of the creatures in his service as a consequence of the events leading to Lady Aurora's death, either through action or inaction. Any knowledge learned about him today cannot be used to his detriment by anyone in Summer nor can it be traded or given to those who aren't bound by Summer Law." I considered that for a moment. "Oh - and for the next twenty four hours Summer will give Harry Dresden their pledge of safe passage back to his home if he asks for it."
Titania arched her brown but nodded once, her interlocutor speaking in exasperation. "As is our custom Warden. I tire of discussing terms already covered by Summer Law."
I held in the urge to do the Snoopy Dance of joy as the Summer Queen effectively agreed to let me go once we finished talking, and then realized that anything else I discussed was just bonus at this point. Given that I'd already won, lets see if I could actually profit from this interaction. I smiled as a thought occurred to me. "I want you to help sneak women away from Moloch to places of safety."
Titania actually titled her head at that. Her interlocutor seemed actually confused as he asked. "What?"
"It was something I never quite figured out how to do, not reliably anyway. I want to get at least some women away from his core worlds and to places where they can be happy." I gestured to the body of Aurora. "I would have been able to save at least a few of them. I want your people to steal women who Moloch kidnapped."
"How many?" Titania's interlocutor replied in curiosity.
"As many as your people are willing to save." I replied calmly. "As many as Aurora would have wanted you to save."
"Done." Titania's interlocutor grinned malevolently. "It would have pleased her greatly to vexx Moloch."
"I have a number of children in my care. They require a governess who will see to their education, love them, and protect them from harm. I worry that I will be unable to see to that role." I gestured to the girl in front of me. "I want them to know that I loved them. That I cared for them as you cared for your child. From tomorrow onward I want the Sidhe lady best suited to care for them and protect them from my enemies to serve as my governess until all children in my care are old enough to care for themselves."
"You ask much Warden." Titania's interlocutor growled.
"Grant that, and I will ask for no other terms." The crowd of Sidhe erupted into excited whispers when I said that. The mad god of Nekheb had killed the Summer Lady, waltzed into the Summer court, seen to his affairs and requested seemingly no protection against her retribution. It was the sort of thing that the courts would gossip about for centuries to come - and they didn't even know the twist yet.
Titania blinked in apparent confusion. She considered the terms I'd spoken, trying to find the trap in them, but I knew she would find nothing that wasn't already effectively custom of Summer Law or the reasonable requests of an honorable ruler. She could deny them to give herself a chance to find the trap but only if I gave her the chance to think rationally.
So I didn't give her that chance. God forgive me. "A pity she had to die. She was almost pretty enough to join my clergy - but I doubt she would have made a worthy sacrifice."
"Your terms are law - so mote it be!" Titania bellowed, not bothering to make use of the interlocutor as she pulled a glittering blade from her waist. The elegant fairy blade unfurled into a glittering leaf of fairy metal, singing through the air as she swung it towards my throat. It stopped a fraction of an inch from my flesh as she struggled to drive it into my flesh.
I stood up slowly, stretching my arms and legs as the Queen of Summer failed to stab me. I grinned at the collective fairy nobility as the infuriated Queen bellowed in apoplexy. The hottest fires of summer scorched the ground around me, a corona of power hotter than the sun - unable to touch me thanks to Summer Law. As the supernova of summer heat abated, I looked back to the horrified Summer Queen and calmly asked. "If you would be so kind, Queen Titania, I would like to go home to Nekheb."
Titania's eyes bulged as she tried to resist what she'd agreed to, her nature as the Queen of Summer waging war against a mother's love.
Summer won.
It would probably have been kinder for me to just kill her along with her daughter. Titania's eyes welled with tears as she opened a way through the Nevernever to Nekheb. Her nobles fled her sorrow, scattering in every direction as the living palace shook in sympathetic sorrow - an earthquake of utter grief as I looked at a clear view of the grounds in front of my palace. Before I walked through the way I pointed to Aurora's corpse and said. "Titania - for what it is worth, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt her or you."
Then I fled before I suffered the further wrath or sorrow of a grieving mother. I had just hurt a woman more deeply than any I could have ever hoped to hurt - but I could see no alternative that didn't end in greater death. The oppressively hot air of Nekheb hit my face as I walked out into the courtyard in front of my palace, nearly tripping over a familiar leather sack as I did so. Apparently the Erlking had made good on his promise.
I felt the familiar presence of Traitor's Bane in my mind as my foot hit the sand - blinking as shock as she gave me a report of what she considered to have been important over the past week. I groaned as she showed me the highlight reel. "Bob, when you get back - I'm going to kick your bony ass."
I kneeled down, resisting the urge to be mad given that everything seemed to have turned out for the best as I fished through the leather bag for the glass bauble. It took me a while and I made sure to repeatedly assure Traitors Bane it wasn't a threat before I tossed it into the air. She was likely to react poorly to the sudden appearance of a city in her airspace.
As the bauble soared into the sky I watched it expand into a massive snowflake, looming over the city of nekheb with it's long spires and iron surfaces. I rarely noticed when Traitors Bane summoned a soldier to give me a status report on what had transpired over the past couple days. It was common practice for her to do so. Less so for her to send a human auxiliary than a Jaffa Officer, but it made sense given the complications of the past week on Nekheb.
I turned around as two figures entered the room, a smartly uniformed man and a woman who'd been stripped naked and bound with thick iron shackles. She was a fair haired woman with hard eyes and a proud face. Her discomfort at what appeared to be her forced nudity was nothing in comparison to my discomfort at the uniform her compatriot had elected to wear.
I was barely able to recognize what he was saying as words as my brain struggled to reconcile the fact that I was looking a fucking Nazi, SS uniform and all. "Mine Zaubergottkaiser, I am Dieter Hermann of the Schutzstaffel. I have brought General Winter to face your judgement. She is guilty of conspiring with the Tau'ri and allowing them to escape justice. I await your wisdom, oh noble Lord of Nekheb."
I looked at the naked and beaten woman in utter shock for all of about ten seconds before punching him in the goddamn face. He went out like a light, apparently swastikas come complete with a glass jaw.
I looked down at the woman and asked, "Are you a Nazi?"
"Not any more." She replied diplomatically.
"Good enough."
Today had really been a remarkably strange day.
Well, screw it, they wanted a spectacle - I'd give them a show they'd remember forever. I let my mantle into me as I crossed the ballroom floor of the Summer Court, my naked footsteps burning into the living wood of the Summer Fortress as I approached the Throne of Summer. Titania sat imperiously upon a throne of living birch, still wearing the ornate fairy armor she'd been wearing at the battle for the table.
I knew what she was. I'd seen her with my wizard's sight at that battle. She was something great and terrible and beyond my ability to comprehend. Whatever I'd become as a result of the ritual of Necromantic Ascension - I was still small potatoes compared to her.
And she hated me. Rage and spite were warring on her face as I approached her. As the crowd of nobles parted, I got a clear view of what was in front of her throne. A pale body, covered in bloody cuts, it was a girl who'd died a slow painful death. A woman who was little more than a child, it was the corpse of the Summer Lady, Aurora.
I froze at that, staring at the blue white pallor of death upon her.
I hadn't really looked at Aurora's body after she died. I'd been so tired that I'd been all but comatose when her mother took her. I'd seen her die, which had been horrific in its own right, but to stare at that lifeless remnant of femininity was horrible in an altogether new way that was only expounded and compounded by the utterly hopeless grief of the mother.
I had taken away Titania's baby girl. God, I'd known it - I'd known it ever since I killed her but I'd never associated that simple fact with the magnitude of how much I'd hurt the Summer Queen. I'd suffered no retribution as a consequence of my actions at that battle. Sure, it was the custom of Winter and Summer to treat agents as the weapons of the one who wielded them but there was nothing to say that Titania couldn't have decided go go scorched earth on the one who dared to touch her daughter. A Queen of Summer wouldn't have to stretch too far to justify taking action against me.
Which meant she hadn't, which meant something had stopped her. And in that moment I knew how I would accomplish that - I was going to twist a mother's grief for her child into a weapon against her and I hated myself for it.
But I couldn't afford to be a victim of Titania's righteous retribution. There were too many people counting on me to lead them, too many people who would die without me there to fight for them. Maybe one day that would be enough for me to forgive myself for what I was about to do.
I made my eyes flash with crimson lightning as I forced my voice to echo with the cruelest tones of Goa'uld fury and glee I could manage. "I see you have discovered my handiwork, Queen Titania."
"Yes." Replied the Queen and I staggered under the sheer weight of that single word. Titania's anger was a living force that rippled through the air and sent Sidhe nobility screaming from the room. Ears bled and eyes watered as that single syllable echoed through her hall.
Hells Bells - she could do that? Well - I needed her too angry to think straight for my plan to work, I just needed her to not kill me before I pulled it off. Who knows - I might even manage it.
"My Queen! Perhaps an interlocutor is in order." Suggested Eldest Gruff, shouting to be heard over the echoes. "It would not do to harm your nobles by accident."
The Queen glared at Eldest Gruff, briefly furious that he'd interrupted her rage before it occurred to her that there were people in pain. She picked a noble from the crowd, seemingly at random, and summoned him to her side. The lithe green sidhe danced across the floor, shimmering over to his Queen in moments. He knelt in a pile of leaves, moss, and pale green flesh next to her as she placed her palm upon his forehead. "Your console is, as always, wise Eldest Gruff. We have much to speak about with the new King of Nekheb. He who has seen fit to not only murder my daughter, but to come gloat about it."
An interlocutor? Well - that would at least save me from dying from her voice as I continued to piss her off. "Not gloat, Queen Titania. Aurora's death was necessary but not something of which I might be proud. I take no pride in killing the incapable."
"You have the unmitigated gall to insult my child at her wake?" Titania gripped the Sidhe's head so tightly that the interlocutor gasped in pain. "How dare you."
"We both know that whatever else happens as a result of your negotiations, you plan to kill me. At this point the best I can hope for is a speedy death." I shrugged disinterestedly. "You'll pardon me I I feel inclined to have your urge to kill me overpower your urge to torture me."
"I have the power to do things to you that would make the depths of Hell tremble, Lord Warden." Titania's interlocutor hissed with his Queen's rage, even as blood ran down his face from where she clutched his face. "And I will see my revenge fulfilled upon thee."
"Not before hearing my terms, Queen Titania." I replied sitting Indian Style on the ground in front of Aurora. "We must agree to the terms of my surrender."
"Speak your terms, Lord Warden. And I will consider their value." Titania's interlocutor spoke the words as though they were a spiteful joke. "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement that suits all parties involved."
The collected Sidhe laughed in utter malice, the people of Summer united in their hatred of me. "Firstly - I do not want your troops to use the death of Aurora as an excuse to betray my forces. The terms of war against Chronos stand. He is a menace that need to die and my men need to be able to rely on the honor of your armies. Even if I die or am imprisoned, I expect those Summer Fae who are involved in the war to be allies to my troops against Chronos."
Titania considered the matter, tapping her index finger on the man's head. "I have no agreement with you, my forces fight as guests of Winter simply because it suits their mood."
"Which is precisely why they would become an easy weapon against my men." I shook my head. "The Jaffa bear no responsibility for my actions."
"This - term, is not beyond reason." Titania conceded. "And Chronos is owed retribution for past wrongs to my court. I would not see innocents harmed."
"Along those lines - the humans, Goa'uld, Unas, Jaffa and other species living in my dominion have no knowledge or responsibility for my actions. My choices are mine and mine alone. If I am to suffer for what I have done, so be it, but there will be no actions taken against them for what has happened to Aurora." I lifted a single finger. "This is non-negotiable."
"Nor need it be." Titania's servitor sighed in exasperation. "Do you intend to discuss every mundane possible factor in an effort to extend your life?"
"The thought had occurred to me." I joked in reply, actually earning some laughter from the Sidhe noblilty around me for that. "What with the plan to kill me and all, it seemed fitting."
"This will do little to save you from pain in the long run." Snarled the queens intermediary as literal fire flicked out from Titania's nostrils.
"Nothing will save me." I replied calmly. "Being saved isn't the point."
"Oh?" Replied the intermediary in a voice of contemptuous curiosity. "Then what pray tell are you here to do?"
"The right thing - obviously." I shrugged. "That's all you can hope to do before you die."
"That is an odd sentiment for a Goa'uld." The interlocutor replied in a voice that clearly told me that Titania thought I was full of shit.
She was right but not about how. I snapped my fingers as though trying to recall something. "The Mortal Wizard in Mab's service - the one she used as an actual weapon. What was his name?"
"Dresden?" Replied the interlocutor. "You are referring to Harry Dresden?"
"Yes - Wizard Harry Dresden of Chicago, the one Mab used as a tool. I do not want him harmed as a consequence of what has happened tonight. I will have your word that the forces of Summer will do no harm to the Wizard or any of the creatures in his service as a consequence of the events leading to Lady Aurora's death, either through action or inaction. Any knowledge learned about him today cannot be used to his detriment by anyone in Summer nor can it be traded or given to those who aren't bound by Summer Law." I considered that for a moment. "Oh - and for the next twenty four hours Summer will give Harry Dresden their pledge of safe passage back to his home if he asks for it."
Titania arched her brown but nodded once, her interlocutor speaking in exasperation. "As is our custom Warden. I tire of discussing terms already covered by Summer Law."
I held in the urge to do the Snoopy Dance of joy as the Summer Queen effectively agreed to let me go once we finished talking, and then realized that anything else I discussed was just bonus at this point. Given that I'd already won, lets see if I could actually profit from this interaction. I smiled as a thought occurred to me. "I want you to help sneak women away from Moloch to places of safety."
Titania actually titled her head at that. Her interlocutor seemed actually confused as he asked. "What?"
"It was something I never quite figured out how to do, not reliably anyway. I want to get at least some women away from his core worlds and to places where they can be happy." I gestured to the body of Aurora. "I would have been able to save at least a few of them. I want your people to steal women who Moloch kidnapped."
"How many?" Titania's interlocutor replied in curiosity.
"As many as your people are willing to save." I replied calmly. "As many as Aurora would have wanted you to save."
"Done." Titania's interlocutor grinned malevolently. "It would have pleased her greatly to vexx Moloch."
"I have a number of children in my care. They require a governess who will see to their education, love them, and protect them from harm. I worry that I will be unable to see to that role." I gestured to the girl in front of me. "I want them to know that I loved them. That I cared for them as you cared for your child. From tomorrow onward I want the Sidhe lady best suited to care for them and protect them from my enemies to serve as my governess until all children in my care are old enough to care for themselves."
"You ask much Warden." Titania's interlocutor growled.
"Grant that, and I will ask for no other terms." The crowd of Sidhe erupted into excited whispers when I said that. The mad god of Nekheb had killed the Summer Lady, waltzed into the Summer court, seen to his affairs and requested seemingly no protection against her retribution. It was the sort of thing that the courts would gossip about for centuries to come - and they didn't even know the twist yet.
Titania blinked in apparent confusion. She considered the terms I'd spoken, trying to find the trap in them, but I knew she would find nothing that wasn't already effectively custom of Summer Law or the reasonable requests of an honorable ruler. She could deny them to give herself a chance to find the trap but only if I gave her the chance to think rationally.
So I didn't give her that chance. God forgive me. "A pity she had to die. She was almost pretty enough to join my clergy - but I doubt she would have made a worthy sacrifice."
"Your terms are law - so mote it be!" Titania bellowed, not bothering to make use of the interlocutor as she pulled a glittering blade from her waist. The elegant fairy blade unfurled into a glittering leaf of fairy metal, singing through the air as she swung it towards my throat. It stopped a fraction of an inch from my flesh as she struggled to drive it into my flesh.
I stood up slowly, stretching my arms and legs as the Queen of Summer failed to stab me. I grinned at the collective fairy nobility as the infuriated Queen bellowed in apoplexy. The hottest fires of summer scorched the ground around me, a corona of power hotter than the sun - unable to touch me thanks to Summer Law. As the supernova of summer heat abated, I looked back to the horrified Summer Queen and calmly asked. "If you would be so kind, Queen Titania, I would like to go home to Nekheb."
Titania's eyes bulged as she tried to resist what she'd agreed to, her nature as the Queen of Summer waging war against a mother's love.
Summer won.
It would probably have been kinder for me to just kill her along with her daughter. Titania's eyes welled with tears as she opened a way through the Nevernever to Nekheb. Her nobles fled her sorrow, scattering in every direction as the living palace shook in sympathetic sorrow - an earthquake of utter grief as I looked at a clear view of the grounds in front of my palace. Before I walked through the way I pointed to Aurora's corpse and said. "Titania - for what it is worth, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt her or you."
Then I fled before I suffered the further wrath or sorrow of a grieving mother. I had just hurt a woman more deeply than any I could have ever hoped to hurt - but I could see no alternative that didn't end in greater death. The oppressively hot air of Nekheb hit my face as I walked out into the courtyard in front of my palace, nearly tripping over a familiar leather sack as I did so. Apparently the Erlking had made good on his promise.
I felt the familiar presence of Traitor's Bane in my mind as my foot hit the sand - blinking as shock as she gave me a report of what she considered to have been important over the past week. I groaned as she showed me the highlight reel. "Bob, when you get back - I'm going to kick your bony ass."
I kneeled down, resisting the urge to be mad given that everything seemed to have turned out for the best as I fished through the leather bag for the glass bauble. It took me a while and I made sure to repeatedly assure Traitors Bane it wasn't a threat before I tossed it into the air. She was likely to react poorly to the sudden appearance of a city in her airspace.
As the bauble soared into the sky I watched it expand into a massive snowflake, looming over the city of nekheb with it's long spires and iron surfaces. I rarely noticed when Traitors Bane summoned a soldier to give me a status report on what had transpired over the past couple days. It was common practice for her to do so. Less so for her to send a human auxiliary than a Jaffa Officer, but it made sense given the complications of the past week on Nekheb.
I turned around as two figures entered the room, a smartly uniformed man and a woman who'd been stripped naked and bound with thick iron shackles. She was a fair haired woman with hard eyes and a proud face. Her discomfort at what appeared to be her forced nudity was nothing in comparison to my discomfort at the uniform her compatriot had elected to wear.
I was barely able to recognize what he was saying as words as my brain struggled to reconcile the fact that I was looking a fucking Nazi, SS uniform and all. "Mine Zaubergottkaiser, I am Dieter Hermann of the Schutzstaffel. I have brought General Winter to face your judgement. She is guilty of conspiring with the Tau'ri and allowing them to escape justice. I await your wisdom, oh noble Lord of Nekheb."
I looked at the naked and beaten woman in utter shock for all of about ten seconds before punching him in the goddamn face. He went out like a light, apparently swastikas come complete with a glass jaw.
I looked down at the woman and asked, "Are you a Nazi?"
"Not any more." She replied diplomatically.
"Good enough."
Today had really been a remarkably strange day.
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- Location
- Germany
I think I need context.
A lot.
Like what the fuck.
But aside from that, with General Winter in captivity, could someone win a landwar in Russia now?