Telling everyone I had been hoarding secrets for several hours that could affect us all seemed daunting, but it seemed most understood. We were all high on the aristocratic food chain, even our lovers, so that wasn't that hardest part.
No, it was keeping the secret of my future son's coloring to myself. Saying it now would only hurt my wolves and Malachai's dragons. It was going to bad enough when it happened, but I could only pray that at that future date no wolves or dragons killed either one of us.
Everyone wanted a private conference. Val wanted to talk to me alone, so did Marcus, but Shin-0Zan wanted a private meeting between me and the council, while Malachai wanted me to meet with him, his advisors, and the council, after we met alone.
I insisted on some privacy and after a brief discussion with my wolves I thought Valerius might be the best one to approach. Pierre once more accompanied me and I was glad for it. I knew Andre had Julian doing research on the computer he'd made me summon after lunch. I hated to admit it, but in these tensest of moments I liked having Pierre with me. I had no doubt that he could be the fiercest warrior on the battlefield, but there was that sunshine to him that attracted me like a sunflower.
We found the council member in his suite and he invited us in, fairly hopping on his bare feet. Val's Hawaiian shirt that day was blue mostly, and open revealing a sculpted chest that belonged on a runway model, not what I considered a grandparent of sorts.
"Uh, can you button that up? Having an ancestor around looking like you is kind of disturbing. I hadn't realized it because the wierding-me-out-scale is awfully full as of late."
"I'm sorry," Val apologized qiuickly, fixing his shirt and hiking his jeans up comically high. "Is that better?"
I smiled, not quite able to laugh. "Nice, gramps."
"Have a seat. I'm brimming with ideas, theories, guesses."
"It's too early for that, Val."
He sat down and raised a dark eyebrow. "Then why did you come?"
"Well I guess starting at what are the terms of the current truce with sorcerers is as good a place to start as any."
"Uh...you saw yourself travel through time and work magic you don't even yet understand to kill the vampires and then later you have a baby despite all your protestations and you want to know what?"
"I'm not just figuring out why I will fuck with the timeline, but what this new world is like. I have a long way to go. I mean, for all I know I will go back and help kill the vampires, but I'm not the one fucking with the timeline. In order to know exactly what it is I will do, I need to know why, which means I need to know a hell of a lot more than what I do."
"What made you think the two things were linked in the first place?"
"Uh, Pierre, do you remember that fainting spell I had in our suite?" I waited for his nod. "Aggie, the first witch, my first ancestor, she called me back to her time. She told me the answer to what I sought was at Chengzhou, and to ask Shin-Zan about it."
Val stared at me for a long moment, clearly puzzled. "She...spoke to you?"
"Pulled my consciousness back to the good ol' hunter-gatherer days."
"My god! To my knowledge no other queen has ever visited with her! It has never been allowed, the most powerful ward prevents us from going back that far."
I couldn't help but blush, and think on an old Japanese saying: the nail that sticks out the most is hammered the hardest. Most people assumed it enforced conformity, but what I had always assumed it meant was that being special was never going to be a good time. "Shit."
"It's amazing! We have to tell the council, you need to recall every-"
"Val," I said firmly, "Later. For now give me some good groundwork of understanding our world."
He sat back, still dazed and excited. "You want to know about the balance of magic then. It's better I start at the beginning."
"Oh goodie, story time," Pierre whispered in my ear and I stifled a giggle.
"From the records we know that it was roughly twelve thousand years ago somehow, the magic in the world came into contact with wandering humans. There is a place where magic began, the place modern religions believe humans began, the place in the middle east where a war of minds still rages to lay claim.
"Once it was a lush oasis, one that beckoned a tribe from modern Europe long lost from home, escaping a famine. The stories of that time are now merely legend, there are no facts here, only beliefs of a thousand colors woven together to form the tapestry we now teach our children."
"You know Val, you could have been a poet."
He half smiled. "I published three volumes in the eighteenth century alone. Now, the magic was wild and free then, almost a living thing, and it was most curious about the humans. It chose two, twins. The boy was dark of coloring, mischievous as a child, for parsimony let us just call him the classic bad-boy as a man. The girl was fair, all dreams and hopes and cheer, and that sweet sunshine, our...Aggie.
"They were consumed with their new powers, it was too much. The twins were forced apart, the tribe split into two, and he wandered east, she wandered west. Still, the magic filled them overmuch, and soon they knew they had to share it.
"Our first queen devised a series of tests, the same kinds of tests we now each face. She tested their ability to know their place in the world, their ability to understand the world and magic at large, and the ability to control their appetites and let love rule. Ten women of her tribe passed the tests, and beneath the burning sun at midday, she gave them equal shares of her magic, her own remained at thrice what they held.
"Light magic found balance, and in balance there is strength. Legga, also known as Lee, the first king, felt this. IN a dream he knew what our great queen had done and so he sought to find his own heirs. He chose poorly, at random, a total of fifteen of his favorites.
"They were weak, so dark magic was weak, unbalanced. But dark thrives on chaos and disorder, and it flourished despite this. Our queen decreed that the first child born of her ten would be the next in line. If it was a boy, then for all future generations the heir would be male, the same for female. Balance and order, eleven lines, and this would continue for a thousand years.
"Dark was different. It was the strongest child of each sorcerer who inherited the magic, but at the first new generation yielded only ten. Dark found balance and peace reigned between both sides for a millennia. They did not mingle but traveled, explored the world, learned of their powers.
"At first witches sought to protect humans, but that is a fool's folly if ever there was one. So the witches turned away from humans and sought other magical creatures. There really were none, so Aggie combined her beloved wolves and humans and made werewolves. She called only men and women who volunteered, who passed their own tests.
"Aligned to us, our magic grew, and the eleven lines had to split into thirty to handle the load. Magic became horrible imbalanced. Aggie made a grievous error and decided that her brother would simply know and understand and do the same.
"The increase in light magic called the magic of night, of things dark to the king. He responded by making his ten lines more powerful, and himself. He knew less of the nature of magic, given to more sensual pleasures. There is nothing wrong with that...on paper. Sometimes humans find their own magic and all too often it is with blood, sex, death, the things night rules over. Love, earth, and the places in between are our magic, and because we are more tied to the earth we understand it better.
"Lee's mistake was not understanding why magic was still unbalanced. He could have consulted his sister, divined what had happened, but instead he learned she now commanded thirty lines, and a war began.
"Both sides believed it was over balance. That has been the only time it was about balance, Anna, make no mistake. For nearly seventeen hundred years they fought, many died. Witches were called and tested at unseemly ages, our tests were greatly modified, of course," Val added eyeing the way Pierre and I held hands.
