Modern Magick

Royalty and Ruin: 8

He was right; that didn't make sense.

I was silent, for another question was swirling about in my mind. If the parasites existed still in the fifth Britain, and had in fact grown stronger down the ages... why had there been no Farringale incident here? Why were they still accounted only as pests, not as disasters?

How was it that the things had suddenly grown so all-powerful in the 1650s as to wipe out Farringale within a year?

I was beginning to realise that this was in no way normal.

I relayed these thoughts, and Alban's frown deepened. 'Their Majesties believe it to have been something along the lines of a natural disaster,' he said. 'Tragic, but no more preventable than a hurricane or a volcanic eruption. Perhaps they're wrong.'

'If so, this could be a lot more complicated than simply clearing out the ortherex,' said Jay. 'We need to make sure they stay gone — and that means we need to know how they got there in the first place, and how they proliferated so fast.'

Maybe Their Majesties had more of an inkling than Alban suspected, for had I not asked myself why they had involved Jay and me? We were human. The ortherex of our Britain left humans alone, or so Baroness Tremayne had said. The king and queen couldn't send people like Alban back into Farringale; they would be in terrible danger. But the Society's members mostly weren't trolls. Were we to be sent back to Farringale, once we'd found the way to fight the ortherex? I felt a flicker of excitement at the idea. This was hero-tale stuff.

Anyway. Focus. Answers first, heroics later. 'Alban,' I said. 'How much is known of Farringale's history directly before its demise?'

'Not as much as you'd think. Those who fled the city salvaged what they could, but they were fleeing for their lives. It wasn't all that much. Most of the library was left behind, as you saw, and those who founded Mandridore weren't necessarily scholars. They were too busy building the new Court to produce detailed accounts of what they'd left behind them, or so we assume. It's a hazy period.'

'I am beginning to wonder if there wasn't something else going on,' I said. 'Did the Court have enemies?'

'It was a supremely powerful Court. Of course it had enemies.'

'Any among rival powers?'

Alban looked thoughtfully at me. 'Interesting question, Ves.'

'Those were brutal times. The non-magickal folk were chopping the heads off their own kings. Who's to say what the Fae Courts might have been doing to one another?'

'Interesting, hideous question, Ves.'

'Where can we go to get more answers?' I said. 'Mel, you implied there is a Farringale in this Britain.'

Mel. How charmingly brief.

I'd heard the dragon, Archibaldo, address Melmidoc as "Mel," but perhaps I had not yet earned that right. Fair.

'Mr. Redclover,' I amended.

The air rippled with amusement. It is indeed the case that Farringale reigns on over the fifth.

'And is it still a centre of learning?'

Some even believe that it rivals Whitmore as such.

Melmidoc obviously disagreed.

'What have you got here?' interjected Jay. 'Anything good on the ortherex?'

After a short silence, Melmidoc said: I do not recall that the scholars of Whitmore have made a specialty of the study, but I am certain something can be found to interest you.