“For those of you who do not know what this is, it is the Light of Souls. It is a famous and secretive concoction made by the Synod of the Church of Light. They tear the essence out of ten thousand faithful souls of the Church, and use it to make this abomination of an elixir. It increases the chances of making one’s Sage Ascension to over fifty percent, particularly important to those who have tried and failed before.

“Grandfather traded his loyalty to the Synod for this about eight years ago, but never managed to make half-Sage to attempt to use it. His talent has never been very high, and his mind has begun to fade with age. Most of the moves started by the elders of the Dow Family against Coralost were encouraged by him and his handlers as a result of this deal.

“To say Coralost was not surprised by this arrangement would be quite accurate, as the Synod has made some other arrangements with the Families of Michigan this way. The interesting thing about the Light of Souls is that it automatically gives you the Light Element if you succeed in Reaching for Sagedom, and then the blind faith of ten thousand souls murdered to provide you that boost becomes yours, turning you into a fanatically faithful servant of the Church and Lords of Light.” Cameron’s eyes slid over his aghast, motionless grandfather to his great-grandfather Herbert H Dow, Junior, who was staring hungrily at the Light of Souls. “If you drank this, great-grandfather, I would kill you myself.”

His great-grandfather looked over at him, the frustration of being denied Sagedom despite two attempts at it burning in his blue eyes... and then it slowly faded away into bitter regret and crushed ambitions that had never really left him.

“So easily we were picked apart and turned against our own,” the Family’s Patriarch murmured, looking about the table at his descendants. His eyes lingered only on his grandson Henry, who had no true responsibilities at the table, left out of any dealings and decisions because of his inability to rein in Cameron.

Treating a loyal Archmage of the Family so. How well that choice had turned out...

It was Cameron’s Uncle Edward, the former heir apparent, who finally spoke up into the gloomy silence. The handsome elder looked about at the disgraced members of the table who had all undoubtedly lost their positions. Only his cousin Franklin was due to be removed by relationship, still grappling with the fact he was about to become prey to the same nepotism that had gotten him his position in the first place. He certainly didn’t have the magical skills to guarantee him a different position, his branch of the Family not known for their magical talents.

How did a mere Adept Yale lawyer compete with an Archmage who was also a Harvard lawyer?

“It appears that you have the table, Cameron,” the Dow Archmage admitted quietly. He had been in an extended, unspoken struggle with his younger brother Henry to become the main branch of the Dow Family, but that struggle had now ended. While he had hopes of rising to half-Sage in time, and that once would have been good enough to inherit the Family, he could not say the same now.

Uncle Edward waved at the contract just as Maria finished redacting it, her expression cold. “That is obviously no longer going to be valid. Who at this table would deny you your place, on any terms you care to name?” he went on.

“Indeed.” Cameron’s expression grew only more amused. “The sheer hubris of thinking that a Sage would come into place with less status than a half-Sage is quite hilarious, Uncle Edward. I assume this was Grandfather’s idea. Perhaps his handlers even thought they could use Family loyalty to turn me against Coralost?”

Herbert H. Dow III seemed to shrink in on himself even further, looking older with each passing moment. He was the father of four people at the table, two of whom were now discredited, and looking worse by the moment. It was plain to everyone that his days as chairman of the Council of Elders for the Dow were completely over, and with it his influence in the Family.

Likewise, what good was a Patriarch position given to a half-Sage, outranked in power by one of his descendants?

“I see I am leaving the Family in excellent hands.” Nobody spoke a word in denial to the old man there, the centenarian who still held basically all the true power in the Family. “Without using any magic, he has proven his worthiness to stand here. Does anyone have the slightest hesitation in returning him from his exile?” Herbert Jr. asked with an air of formality that really wasn’t.

Nobody said anything, the almost completely-redacted contract slapping down on top of the file and Light of Souls in the quiet. Maria’s face was a picture of ridicule as she stored her pen away smoothly.

“What, I won’t have to annotate every page of that ridiculous document? How wonderful!” Cameron exclaimed into the quiet.

“Your exile from the Family is formally lifted, Cameron. Your status as Sage is acknowledged, and I cede my place as Patriarch of the Dow Family to you,” Herbert H. Dow Junior stated firmly. “I will begin the formal handover of our business interests and Family assets to you tomorrow. My dear, you should be there to witness and inspect all the paperwork,” he inclined his head to Maria, who simply nodded back to him, as if it was a given.

“Excellent. Uncle Jacques, there is a woman named Inaza waiting outside the doors to the mansion. She is a razor-minded Psychic with a fascinating ability to read people, and an expert on security in all forms, a talented protégé of Coralost’s Head of Security Burt Pendalve. You will surrender your cellphone, your pager, and your wristwatch now, please place them on the table, and go out and accompany Inaza to your retirement debriefing.

“Given your record and the hold you’ve had over the Family, in addition to the games you’ve played, I expect that debriefing will last some time. We will inform your family that you will be occupied for a time.”

His face absolutely colorless, the former head of Family Security silently pulled out the aforementioned devices and set them on the table. Under the eyes of everyone, he rose from his chair and headed for the door, where the Garciaz siblings were waiting with hard eyes to escort him to Inaza, a Burt-trained and dangerous hardnosed woman who was going to be enjoying a promotion soon.

“Aunt Sealie, your cellphone and purse. Family Security will remand you to chambers with no electronics. In the morning, you will be meeting with Callista Connors of Agbold & Sash, who are forensic accountants of some ability, and she is also a Psychic. I expect some of the revelations on how you have allocated Family funds to be most entertaining.” Cameron snapped his fingers and pointed casually; the shrunken woman obeyed automatically, scarcely aware of what she was doing as she stood up and also headed for the door, almost stumbling on the way.

“Aunt Sylvia, if you want your children to ever rise above middle management, I suggest you tender your resignation to me tomorrow, citing the wonderful task of helping care for your grandchildren. Your authority to make any moves in personnel is revoked immediately, and you are not to return to your offices. And yes, all personnel in the company are being informed of these changes as I speak.”

He reached out, and the Light of Souls zipped over and slapped back into his hand. Everyone’s eyes followed it, the value of the thing worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions to the desperate, and simply held it up.

A circle of silver light appeared in the air next to him. A slender hand with dark skin in a loose-sleeved blouse reached out, plucked it from his palm, and withdrew in only a few seconds, the circle popping closed as the glowing crystal vanished. Everyone gaped at the abruptness of it.

“Ten thousand innocent, faithful souls of the Church of Light were murdered to make that elixir. We are going to be making sure that they pay for them,” Cameron declared quietly, but the very air trembled with Void Magic rippling out from him. The eyes he had on his grandfather shrank the old man back further into his chair. “You are removed from your position of chair, and all Family authority, Grandfather, including your security clearance. Family Security will escort you to your rooms here, given your condition, and will be debriefing you about your relationship with the Church of Light and the moves you’ve made on their behalf in the morning.

“My guess is that your time is numbered, and you should make best use of it. I suggest writing down your last goals and wishes before the Synod activates their failsafe and you die, and the Family will see about getting them accomplished when they execute you for your failure.”

The old man stared at Cameron, but the heat in it was broken and couldn’t match the will of his grandson. If he could have made half-Sage, he could have grasped for greatness, perhaps even another century of life!... but it was not to be.

And the Synod had indeed left safeguards in him after they had given him the Light of Souls, insurance on their investment. He had not spoken anything about them, but if he did, he knew those safeguards would be activated, and his time was indeed limited.

Such was the price of treachery and weakness in the pursuit of power...

---------

“Wow,” I muttered to Sama, glaring at this, this monstrosity of Light in my hand. The rage bubbling up in me as I looked at it was starting to simmer in Markspace, and the default Chord around me was developing a murderous edge. “And the Dows are one of the NICE Families...”

Sama reached out and plucked the abominable thing out of my hand in a blur of motion, stowing it away in her Portable Hole. “Let Glenn and Ruronalee have first crack at finding more of the things. If we can track more of them down, we can cripple them, and you don’t need to be involved in that. If they need you, they’ll call for you.”

My eyes were boiling with silver light as I met hers, the utter inhumanity of sacrificing faithful, innocent believers in your own Church and turning them into a tonic to make fanatically devoted Sages pushing all of my buttons at once. Gods, it summed up the Church of Light so well!

It was a nice test for the two Diviners, too...

“Fine,” I rasped back, sitting back down, glad it was out of my hands. I would not have been able to hold back on my power if I pursued that. “Tell them not to press. Who has them will be almost obvious if we can just narrow down the area, and if it’s not, we can use other spells once we are close enough to Locate the things.”

“Duly informing them,” she agreed calmly. Word of the existence of the Light of Souls was spreading among the Mages and Archmages of Coralost, and word would trickle down from there. The revulsion and horrified disgust at its very existence was starting to spread, and doing nothing good for our image of the Church. “We couldn’t spread word of this thing without a sample of it, so good show. How long before we make it public?”

“Why don’t you scare up as many of them as you can, and reveal them with the identities of those who possessed them?” I replied curtly.

“You know, that sounds like a marvelous idea! I’m glad I thought of it!” Sama grinned, her smile ready to chew blood and souls with all eight canines faintly shimmering for a moment, a startling and dangerous thing to see. It meant she was ready to tear something’s throat out.

“Do we know who is in charge of making the things?” I asked with great false calm, my eyes closed as I controlled my temper.

“Remiel makes the containment crystals, but all the Archangels contribute souls from among those they’ve had to silence for one reason or another, or allowed to die.”

“Remiel and his Makers,” I said, opening up my eyes. “You mind if I drop him and his servants right into the Netherworld?”

“Not unless you want to kick off the endgame. That’s basically a direct strike by the Netherlords against the Nirvanans if you send him off there.”

I gnashed my teeth. “Ahg! Gods-damned apocalypse scenario gets in the way of bloody everything!”

“It’s like they arranged all the roads to lead to inevitable confrontation or something,” Sama said with artful casualness.

The endgame was something I timesighted VERY carefully, highly unwilling to alert either party to the fact I could look through Time’s possibilities that way. They were always one-upping one another that way, they didn’t need to know there was another party around trying to mess things up... not that Briggs’ Source Aura wasn’t playing merry havoc with those possibilities, and leaving all options we were handling completely invisible to them!