Fic: Best of All Possible Worlds -- Chapter 8; Harry Dresden; Reason
Title: The Best of All Possible Worlds
Chapter Title: Chapter 8 -- A Bit of Rhyme and Reason . Chapter 1 is here; Chapter 2 is here; Chapter 3 is here; Chapter 4 is here; Chapter 5 is here; Chapter 6 is here; Chapter 7 is here.
Fandom: The Dresden Files (Bookverse and TV-verse)
Characters: Harry, Hrothbert of Banbridge, Winifred, Ancient Mai, the Council
Prompt: #2 Reason
Word Count: 3619
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry gets his heart's desire, and something he'd rather not have along with it. Spoilers, in this section, for "Things That Go Bump."
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files most emphatically do NOT belong to me. The series belongs to Jim Butcher, ROC Books, the SciFi Channel and Lionsgate Entertainment. No profit is being made, nor is any copyright or trademark infringement intended.
Author's Notes: The name that Bob suggests for the character that Valerie Cruz plays in most of "Things That Go Bump" is the name of a fantasy story by M. Lucie Chin which was published in 1981. The words are defined in Chin's story as they are here. Thanks to shiplizard for beta-ing and darktrent182 for brainstorming.
Table: Conjure at Your Own Risk
***
I managed to turn my gaze away from Hrothbert as the horror of Winifred's destruction started to repeat itself. Small wonder Hrothbert hated me; it would have been a little hard not to notice the resemblance between me and the tall, dark-clad warlock who had transformed his Winifred into a thing and driven her to madness. The wonder was that the man was sane at all after seeing that story play out in his memory for the past eight hundred years or so. I wondered how many horrific deals he'd had to make to survive for nearly twice a wizard's normal lifespan, and if he'd done so primarily to get his hands on the warlock he'd mistaken me for.
I stared down the hall for a few minutes, struggling not to retch. Yeah, I've seen worse. I've seen a lot worse. But this had happened to a friend-one who was, in my heart, family. He'd been tortured for more than eight hundred years. That in itself put me in a "HULK SMASH!" kind of mood.
Hrothbert looked down at me. "You are not Morningway," he said reflectively. "At least...most of you is not."
"No. Most of me isn't. I'd prefer that all of me wasn't him, but this isn't exactly my timeline at the moment." I took a deep breath. "What happened after Winifred died? I think it could be important."
He turned away, barely speaking in a whisper. "I don't know. The torture seemed to go on forever. Eventually, I suppose, I passed out. And Morningway left me there to take the blame."
I let the identity of the warlock go for the moment. Another question-a more pressing one-was worrying me. "Why didn't you end up taking the blame? No, I don't mean that you should have. But the Council was sending someone, right? And the Council doesn't like you. So why weren't you blamed?"
Hrothbert sniffed imperiously. "I did, after all, send the missive to the White Council informing them of the danger."
"Which wouldn't have cut any ice with the Council," I retorted. "Look, I've told them when things are going off the tracks back in my own timeline, and they never believe me. To them, I'm the usual suspect. It doesn't matter that I've got a story-or even evidence-that someone else is responsible; in the eyes of Morgan and Ancient Mai, I'm just trying to shift the blame. And judging from that glimpse I got of your imprisonment and release, the Council doesn't like you one bit better than they like me. They didn't want to let you go. They didn't even understand why they did."
"I...yes. This is true." Hrothbert seemed somewhat at a loss.
"How long did it take for the Council's representative to arrive...wherever you were?"
"Galicia, and about three months after I sent the letter off with a messenger."
"I don't know where Galicia is." Medieval geography had never been my strong point. Or, in fact, a point I possessed at all.
Hrothbert sounded like-well, like a teacher giving a lecture. That was familiar, at least. "It was and is a region in northeastern Hungary."
"And you sent the letter to...where, exactly?"
"England, of course!" He glared down at me; I was still sprawled cold and naked on the hallway floor. "Why are you asking such ludicrous questions? I have no time to waste on this--"
Okay. That hit a nerve. I was suspected that I knew why, too. "Just a few more questions, Bob-I mean, Hrothbert. How long would it have taken a letter to get from northeastern Hungary to England in the 1200s? On average."
His face flushing with rage, he lifted his staff. "You DARE...!"
I grabbed his wrist. "Bob, listen to me. Something is deeply, profoundly wrong with that memory. It doesn't hang together. And you'd have figured that out ages ago if it weren't for the fact that every time you come close to one of the aspects that doesn't make sense, you get angry. So angry you try to shove it away. You attack whoever and whatever makes you think about that memory...or its inconsistencies.
"So work with me here, Bob. Get past the rage to the memory, because that's the only way we're going to figure out what really happened."
"Bob. Again." He studied me for a moment. "What is my other self to you?"
"My teacher. The one who protected me and guided me when my uncle was doing nothing but damage. My best friend." My father, when my biological dad couldn't be there any longer.
Hrothbert sighed. "You want him back, I imagine."
"Yes." Well, I couldn't deny it. "What I really want is to get the timelines separated so that you're separate from Bob and I'm separate from Blackstone." The name just popped out, I swear. "And then I want both of you free."
"You said that before," Hrothbert said, his eyes pale winches. "What did you mean?"
"Let's leave that one for the moment," I hedged. "Let's figure out what happened first. It would have taken months to get a letter to England, wouldn't it?"
His face twisted up as if he were in agonizing pain. "Yes. Six to-to eight months, perhaps."
"Uh-huh. What season was it when you sent the letter?"
"Mid-winter. It was January."
"And the representative arrived when?"
"Early April."
I did some quick ciphering in my head. "Wait a second. So the letter couldn't have reached England before June at the earliest. In order for a representative to get to Galicia in April, he or she would have had to have started out in November. Maybe September. Before the Council knew anything was wrong. Before the letter was written."
He was gazing at me in anguish. I wasn't certain how much was getting through. I decided to press my luck. "Who did the Council send?"
I held my breath. If the answer was wrong, I'd have a hell of a time proving my theory. If the answer was right...
"Mai," he replied, the word scarcely a puff of breath.
I grinned at Hrothbert. "I think you just won the lottery."
"I don't understand," and he sounded as if he were suffering so much that I thought it might be better to give him a moment or two to recoup his strength.
"I'll explain in a few minutes," I promised him. "In the meantime, do you have any clothes I could borrow?"
***
He did, as it happened. Unfortunately, the only thing he had that halfway fit was a set of crimson robes of pure silk, and on him they probably looked elegant. On me...well, let's put it this way. I couldn't get the robes to close all the way across my chest. Plus, I'm three or four inches taller than Bob...or Hrothbert. Consequently, I looked like I was wearing an red polyester bathrobe that had shrunk some in the wash. It was better than being bare-assed naked. Marginally.
Once I was semi-clothed, he led me to a small, fire-lit chamber and sat me down next to the hearth. "Now," he said. "Would you mind explaining yourself?"
I smiled and stretched out my legs. "Once upon a time there was a very ambitious dragon, and her name was Mai.
"Now, for reasons that I don't know, Mai broke with the dragons and emigrated to the world of human wizards. I'm guessing that she wouldn't have done that if she hadn't felt that hiding among humans was the best way of ensuring that she was safe. And disguising herself as a human-that was a snap for a shapeshifter."
"Which dragons are," he murmured. "Go on."
"Well," I said, "she didn't stop being ambitious just because she was in hiding. She couldn't just take over-that would have been too blatant even for her-so what she did was make friends and influence people. A ruling member of the Council here, a Warden there...the numbers added up, after a while. It probably wasn't hard. She's smart and she's powerful. Most wizards would be willing to listen to her. More than willing, if her advice would help them grab the top spot."
Hrothbert looked like a thundercloud. Hurriedly, I went on with the story.
"She got in a position to influence the head of the Council by the 1200s. You realized that yourself. You kept thinking about how Aethelwold and Mai were thick as thieves-that he was practically her spokesman. You were Aethelwold's only rival; you were more powerful than he was, and, more importantly, you knew what Mai was, even back then. 'Mai Draconigena' you called her when you were in prison. Mai the Dragon-Born.
"So Aethelwold was jealous and scared. And Mai was angry and scared. The last thing she wanted was a powerful sorcerer standing up and announcing that hey, Dragon Lady is totally pwning the entire Council. Also, I think that all of her manipulations might have attracted the attention of an old enemy. One of her own species, who wanted to see her dead."
"You saw a draconic foe in our soulgaze?" he asked, his laser gaze slicing through me. "I have never heard of such an...entity."
"Neither had I until a couple of months ago." And I gave him a brief summary of Mai's illness, my apartment building being hijacked to Hell, the lethal darkness that kept invading my home and killing people...and the dragon who was Mai's mortal enemy.
He mulled over this for a while. "It is your contention, therefore, that Mai felt threatened, both by her draconic rival and by me."
"And by the possibility of an alliance," I said with a nod. "Mai thinks in terms of alliances; she'd automatically think of how much worse things could be if two powerful enemies joined forces. She had to separate you immediately, and ensure that you'd never hook up."
"A word in Aethelwold's ear, a suggestion that it might be best to get me out of the way...yes. She could have done that," he admitted, his tone grudging. "But why?"
"I think that she was hinting at getting rid of you under cover of law," I said. "Outright murder isn't Mai's thing. Whenever I've dealt with her, she's always made a point of the fact that she's acting for the Council, in accordance with the Laws of Magic. But Aethelwold was thinking in terms of assassination, not authority-and he sent a killer after you.
"She must have been so pissed when she found out.
"It was just her luck that the assassin killed the wrong person...and that you would rather break the Laws than live without the woman you love. Not that I blame you, by the way."
His lips curled slightly in what might have been called a smile. "Thank you. But I gave her a target, didn't I? For I had become a necromancer and an apostate, and had to be destroyed."
"Right. And this is where the two timelines start going kerflooey. In my time, you were executed and...cursed." The last word came out in barely a whisper.
"Cursed?" He practically pounced on that.
"You're not going to like it..."
"I already don't like it." He broke off, scowling. "What am I to call you? I cannot call you Morningway. You are not he."
"Mostly," I reminded him. "Call me Harry. Everyone does. Or Dresden."
He gave me another ruminative glance. "Indeed. Tell me about the curse."
The was the tough part. How do you tell a guy that in your reality, he was beheaded and cursed with eternal obedience and eternal slavery? I got the words out. Somehow. But I couldn't look at him while I did so.
When I was done, he stared at me for a long time. His expression was sickened; his eyes, appalled. "Mai did not understand why the Council felt compelled to free me..."
"Nope. But I do. The timeline was altered. Not just once, but a number of times.
"Here's what I think." I stood and began pacing back and forth; it was eitehr that or jump straight out of my skin. "I think that Mai was doing something in the 1200s she didn't want anyone to know about. In my timeline, you were executed before you could discover anything. In this timeline, you found out."
Hrothbert was clearly at sea. "But...interfering with time? Why?"
"Oh, come on, Bob!"
He glared at me. "It is not that I find the concept of such interference incomprehensible, particularly in view of the potential power. But she had to know that if she were caught, the penalty would be immediate execution."
"You scare me sometimes, do you know that?" I ran a hand through my hair. "And no, she wouldn't have been executed. Not if the Council was following its own laws. Dragons-or dracoforms, if you like the official term better-have never signed any treaties with wizards. And the Laws of Magic are specifically designed for human casters. Anyway, if Mai was able to remake time to her specifications regardless of paradox, all she would have to do is rearrange time so that her actions were in accordance with the Council's wishes."
"So she risked nothing," he whispered. "And she stood to gain everything."
I nodded. "I think that she was further along with her time experiments back in my world. And her rival-stars, I don't even know what to call her--"
"Lan Lung," Hrothbert suggested. "It means 'dragon ghost.'"
"Okay. So say Lan Lung found out in my world what Mai was doing, but the person who could have exposed Mai was already dead and bound by the time she discovered what her enemy was doing. She does some scouting, gets some intel work done, and learns, surprise surprise, that your skull is in Chicago, owned by a crazy Don Quixote type. Mai is also in Chicago, very much still in power, and very not friends with the crazy guy who owns the skull.
"But Lan Lung needs to see how Mai and I interact. So she stages an attack. Not a killing attack, mind you. Something just bad enough so that Mai has to retreat to a cave, metaphorically speaking, and lick her wounds. She attacks Mai in a park near my house, knowing that there's nothing closer that's even remotely defensible, magically ."
"And slipped in before the wards were up and the apartment building was moved," Hrothbert said, frowning. "But her attempt got her killed."
"I don't think so," I said, staring at the ceiling. "What would be the point of just walking in? It would be tantamount to suicide. Worse, it would be stupid. She knew Mai would be defended. Hell's bells, she needed me and Mai to survive for her plan to work."
"I don't follow."
"It's just---there are a lot of legends about dragons. Most of them say that dragons are pretty tricky, too. I keep remembering stories about Jason in Greek mythology sowing a field with dragon's teeth that turned into warriors, and a story of two dragons fighting and humans springing from the blood of both. Then I think about the legend of the Monkey King, and how he could create a clone of himself from one of his hairs-and that doesn't sound too different. Just...more voluntary."
He rubbed his chin and thought for a bit. "You believe that Lan Lung sent in a decoy disguised as Ms. Murphy. A clone, with many of Lan Lung's own powers, but capable of being defeated."
"And Mai would owe the people who saved her a debt whether she admitted it or not. So Lan Lung would have a perfect excuse for dropping by in the guise of Mai and offering to repay that debt. No one would suspect it was Mai's enemy. After all, Lan Lung was officially dead."
"But what did she want with you?"
I sighed and stuffed my hands in the pockets of Hrothbert's robes. "She wanted me to make a wish. Specifically, a wish about you. And I obliged. I wished for you not to be cursed. Or trapped. Or damned. Not ever. She interpreted that not as 'the curse no longer exists' but as 'the curse was never implemented in the first place.'
"That's why you were sprung from prison; Lan Lung forced the issue. She made sure that you were alive to harm Mai. She probably used some kind of mental magic to guide you to that area of Galicia, too. She needed you in place so that you could witness what Mai was doing. Because then you might be amenable to an alliance. You might even help her destroy Mai."
"But I did none of that!" Hrothbert protested. "If those were her plans, they failed miserably."
"For good reason," I replied. "You were in place to spot Mai, sure. But Mai is a bit paranoid. She spotted you first-her enemy, the guy she did NOT want to form an alliance with Lan Lung. I think that she decided that if you were going to hate anyone, she'd pick the target.
"And she did. A target you couldn't help but hate. A tall faceless warlock, foe of the entire Council, who tortured your wife to death in front of you. This made Mai not just another enemy, but the cavalry that got there too late. You hate and distrust the Council-I don't doubt that for a minute-but you've spent centuries plotting your revenge on that warlock, searching for every scrap you could find about him. You stopped thinking about Mai long ago." I shook my head. "It was a brilliant piece of misdirection."
Hrothbert folded up and collapsed into a nearby chair. "All orchestrated? All?"
"All," I confirmed. "So Lan Lung made a timeline-altering move to prevent Mai from controling time, and Mai made a countermove. Lan Lung made one more move, though. Over the centuries, she must've heard about this warlock you were looking for, and decided it might be a good idea if the warlock really existed. Because if he did, he'd be an enemy of the Council. He could kill some or most of the ruling members-including Mai. And he wouldn't be a threat for long; you were guaranteed to go after him sooner or later.
"And when you did, he'd die. Mai would be dead, the warlock would be dead and you-maybe she'd take you out of the game. Maybe she'd use you as a pawn. It wouldn't matter. And everyone who knew that someone had been meddling with time would be dead...or under Lan Lung's control, if she wanted to do what Mai had been doing.
"I don't know how she created H. Justin Morningway," I added, gazing down at him. "Maybe it was not having you as a teacher that made me turn evil. Maybe she did it by ensuring that my late and unlamented uncle adopted me when I was a baby. Maybe she just merged two parallel timelines into one. The point is, she did something. And if it weren't for my fairy godmother, I wouldn't be in a position to deduce any of this. Because I wouldn't be driving at the stage. Morningway would be in charge."
Hrothbert didn't appear to be listening. "My whole life is a lie and a cheat," he murmured. "I have been no more than a pawn for two greedy dragons ever since I left prison. Even my existence is no more than a trick."
I placed both hands on his shoulders. "I know part of you is Bob, just like part of me is my evil twin. So listen up, Hrothbert and Bob. I wanted you to be free. To not have to serve anyone against your will. To move on, if you wanted. To be free to go to heaven. I didn't expect you to be brought back to life. But I'm not sorry you were. And I'm glad you got some extra time with the woman you love. Not enough time-it's never enough, when it's someone you love. But--"
He looked up at me, and his eyes were swimming with tears. "I've threatened you, paralyzed you, hurt you, imprisoned you and tried to kill you. Can you truly be glad that I live?"
There was only one answer to that, and happily it was true. "Yes." Honesty compelled me to add, "I'm not saying you haven't screwed up a lot, but..." I had a sudden vision of a teenaged girl being seared by black fire. "So have I."
He nodded. As little as possible.
I waited until the silence between us had grown long and awkward before I spoke again. "So. Do you know where either a Knight named Michael or a thug named Marcone live?"
He frowned. "Why?"
"Well," I said, "you said you'd contacted the remnants of the Council. I'm guessing that they-and probably Lan Lung, too-- know that I'm here by now, and that they aren't all that fond of me. And my godmother already told me that I only had seven days to fix the timeline-it must be closer to six days, now.. I think we're going to need every minute, too.
"So. Wanna come save the world...again?"
Chapter Title: Chapter 8 -- A Bit of Rhyme and Reason . Chapter 1 is here; Chapter 2 is here; Chapter 3 is here; Chapter 4 is here; Chapter 5 is here; Chapter 6 is here; Chapter 7 is here.
Fandom: The Dresden Files (Bookverse and TV-verse)
Characters: Harry, Hrothbert of Banbridge, Winifred, Ancient Mai, the Council
Prompt: #2 Reason
Word Count: 3619
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry gets his heart's desire, and something he'd rather not have along with it. Spoilers, in this section, for "Things That Go Bump."
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files most emphatically do NOT belong to me. The series belongs to Jim Butcher, ROC Books, the SciFi Channel and Lionsgate Entertainment. No profit is being made, nor is any copyright or trademark infringement intended.
Author's Notes: The name that Bob suggests for the character that Valerie Cruz plays in most of "Things That Go Bump" is the name of a fantasy story by M. Lucie Chin which was published in 1981. The words are defined in Chin's story as they are here. Thanks to shiplizard for beta-ing and darktrent182 for brainstorming.
Table: Conjure at Your Own Risk
***
I managed to turn my gaze away from Hrothbert as the horror of Winifred's destruction started to repeat itself. Small wonder Hrothbert hated me; it would have been a little hard not to notice the resemblance between me and the tall, dark-clad warlock who had transformed his Winifred into a thing and driven her to madness. The wonder was that the man was sane at all after seeing that story play out in his memory for the past eight hundred years or so. I wondered how many horrific deals he'd had to make to survive for nearly twice a wizard's normal lifespan, and if he'd done so primarily to get his hands on the warlock he'd mistaken me for.
I stared down the hall for a few minutes, struggling not to retch. Yeah, I've seen worse. I've seen a lot worse. But this had happened to a friend-one who was, in my heart, family. He'd been tortured for more than eight hundred years. That in itself put me in a "HULK SMASH!" kind of mood.
Hrothbert looked down at me. "You are not Morningway," he said reflectively. "At least...most of you is not."
"No. Most of me isn't. I'd prefer that all of me wasn't him, but this isn't exactly my timeline at the moment." I took a deep breath. "What happened after Winifred died? I think it could be important."
He turned away, barely speaking in a whisper. "I don't know. The torture seemed to go on forever. Eventually, I suppose, I passed out. And Morningway left me there to take the blame."
I let the identity of the warlock go for the moment. Another question-a more pressing one-was worrying me. "Why didn't you end up taking the blame? No, I don't mean that you should have. But the Council was sending someone, right? And the Council doesn't like you. So why weren't you blamed?"
Hrothbert sniffed imperiously. "I did, after all, send the missive to the White Council informing them of the danger."
"Which wouldn't have cut any ice with the Council," I retorted. "Look, I've told them when things are going off the tracks back in my own timeline, and they never believe me. To them, I'm the usual suspect. It doesn't matter that I've got a story-or even evidence-that someone else is responsible; in the eyes of Morgan and Ancient Mai, I'm just trying to shift the blame. And judging from that glimpse I got of your imprisonment and release, the Council doesn't like you one bit better than they like me. They didn't want to let you go. They didn't even understand why they did."
"I...yes. This is true." Hrothbert seemed somewhat at a loss.
"How long did it take for the Council's representative to arrive...wherever you were?"
"Galicia, and about three months after I sent the letter off with a messenger."
"I don't know where Galicia is." Medieval geography had never been my strong point. Or, in fact, a point I possessed at all.
Hrothbert sounded like-well, like a teacher giving a lecture. That was familiar, at least. "It was and is a region in northeastern Hungary."
"And you sent the letter to...where, exactly?"
"England, of course!" He glared down at me; I was still sprawled cold and naked on the hallway floor. "Why are you asking such ludicrous questions? I have no time to waste on this--"
Okay. That hit a nerve. I was suspected that I knew why, too. "Just a few more questions, Bob-I mean, Hrothbert. How long would it have taken a letter to get from northeastern Hungary to England in the 1200s? On average."
His face flushing with rage, he lifted his staff. "You DARE...!"
I grabbed his wrist. "Bob, listen to me. Something is deeply, profoundly wrong with that memory. It doesn't hang together. And you'd have figured that out ages ago if it weren't for the fact that every time you come close to one of the aspects that doesn't make sense, you get angry. So angry you try to shove it away. You attack whoever and whatever makes you think about that memory...or its inconsistencies.
"So work with me here, Bob. Get past the rage to the memory, because that's the only way we're going to figure out what really happened."
"Bob. Again." He studied me for a moment. "What is my other self to you?"
"My teacher. The one who protected me and guided me when my uncle was doing nothing but damage. My best friend." My father, when my biological dad couldn't be there any longer.
Hrothbert sighed. "You want him back, I imagine."
"Yes." Well, I couldn't deny it. "What I really want is to get the timelines separated so that you're separate from Bob and I'm separate from Blackstone." The name just popped out, I swear. "And then I want both of you free."
"You said that before," Hrothbert said, his eyes pale winches. "What did you mean?"
"Let's leave that one for the moment," I hedged. "Let's figure out what happened first. It would have taken months to get a letter to England, wouldn't it?"
His face twisted up as if he were in agonizing pain. "Yes. Six to-to eight months, perhaps."
"Uh-huh. What season was it when you sent the letter?"
"Mid-winter. It was January."
"And the representative arrived when?"
"Early April."
I did some quick ciphering in my head. "Wait a second. So the letter couldn't have reached England before June at the earliest. In order for a representative to get to Galicia in April, he or she would have had to have started out in November. Maybe September. Before the Council knew anything was wrong. Before the letter was written."
He was gazing at me in anguish. I wasn't certain how much was getting through. I decided to press my luck. "Who did the Council send?"
I held my breath. If the answer was wrong, I'd have a hell of a time proving my theory. If the answer was right...
"Mai," he replied, the word scarcely a puff of breath.
I grinned at Hrothbert. "I think you just won the lottery."
"I don't understand," and he sounded as if he were suffering so much that I thought it might be better to give him a moment or two to recoup his strength.
"I'll explain in a few minutes," I promised him. "In the meantime, do you have any clothes I could borrow?"
***
He did, as it happened. Unfortunately, the only thing he had that halfway fit was a set of crimson robes of pure silk, and on him they probably looked elegant. On me...well, let's put it this way. I couldn't get the robes to close all the way across my chest. Plus, I'm three or four inches taller than Bob...or Hrothbert. Consequently, I looked like I was wearing an red polyester bathrobe that had shrunk some in the wash. It was better than being bare-assed naked. Marginally.
Once I was semi-clothed, he led me to a small, fire-lit chamber and sat me down next to the hearth. "Now," he said. "Would you mind explaining yourself?"
I smiled and stretched out my legs. "Once upon a time there was a very ambitious dragon, and her name was Mai.
"Now, for reasons that I don't know, Mai broke with the dragons and emigrated to the world of human wizards. I'm guessing that she wouldn't have done that if she hadn't felt that hiding among humans was the best way of ensuring that she was safe. And disguising herself as a human-that was a snap for a shapeshifter."
"Which dragons are," he murmured. "Go on."
"Well," I said, "she didn't stop being ambitious just because she was in hiding. She couldn't just take over-that would have been too blatant even for her-so what she did was make friends and influence people. A ruling member of the Council here, a Warden there...the numbers added up, after a while. It probably wasn't hard. She's smart and she's powerful. Most wizards would be willing to listen to her. More than willing, if her advice would help them grab the top spot."
Hrothbert looked like a thundercloud. Hurriedly, I went on with the story.
"She got in a position to influence the head of the Council by the 1200s. You realized that yourself. You kept thinking about how Aethelwold and Mai were thick as thieves-that he was practically her spokesman. You were Aethelwold's only rival; you were more powerful than he was, and, more importantly, you knew what Mai was, even back then. 'Mai Draconigena' you called her when you were in prison. Mai the Dragon-Born.
"So Aethelwold was jealous and scared. And Mai was angry and scared. The last thing she wanted was a powerful sorcerer standing up and announcing that hey, Dragon Lady is totally pwning the entire Council. Also, I think that all of her manipulations might have attracted the attention of an old enemy. One of her own species, who wanted to see her dead."
"You saw a draconic foe in our soulgaze?" he asked, his laser gaze slicing through me. "I have never heard of such an...entity."
"Neither had I until a couple of months ago." And I gave him a brief summary of Mai's illness, my apartment building being hijacked to Hell, the lethal darkness that kept invading my home and killing people...and the dragon who was Mai's mortal enemy.
He mulled over this for a while. "It is your contention, therefore, that Mai felt threatened, both by her draconic rival and by me."
"And by the possibility of an alliance," I said with a nod. "Mai thinks in terms of alliances; she'd automatically think of how much worse things could be if two powerful enemies joined forces. She had to separate you immediately, and ensure that you'd never hook up."
"A word in Aethelwold's ear, a suggestion that it might be best to get me out of the way...yes. She could have done that," he admitted, his tone grudging. "But why?"
"I think that she was hinting at getting rid of you under cover of law," I said. "Outright murder isn't Mai's thing. Whenever I've dealt with her, she's always made a point of the fact that she's acting for the Council, in accordance with the Laws of Magic. But Aethelwold was thinking in terms of assassination, not authority-and he sent a killer after you.
"She must have been so pissed when she found out.
"It was just her luck that the assassin killed the wrong person...and that you would rather break the Laws than live without the woman you love. Not that I blame you, by the way."
His lips curled slightly in what might have been called a smile. "Thank you. But I gave her a target, didn't I? For I had become a necromancer and an apostate, and had to be destroyed."
"Right. And this is where the two timelines start going kerflooey. In my time, you were executed and...cursed." The last word came out in barely a whisper.
"Cursed?" He practically pounced on that.
"You're not going to like it..."
"I already don't like it." He broke off, scowling. "What am I to call you? I cannot call you Morningway. You are not he."
"Mostly," I reminded him. "Call me Harry. Everyone does. Or Dresden."
He gave me another ruminative glance. "Indeed. Tell me about the curse."
The was the tough part. How do you tell a guy that in your reality, he was beheaded and cursed with eternal obedience and eternal slavery? I got the words out. Somehow. But I couldn't look at him while I did so.
When I was done, he stared at me for a long time. His expression was sickened; his eyes, appalled. "Mai did not understand why the Council felt compelled to free me..."
"Nope. But I do. The timeline was altered. Not just once, but a number of times.
"Here's what I think." I stood and began pacing back and forth; it was eitehr that or jump straight out of my skin. "I think that Mai was doing something in the 1200s she didn't want anyone to know about. In my timeline, you were executed before you could discover anything. In this timeline, you found out."
Hrothbert was clearly at sea. "But...interfering with time? Why?"
"Oh, come on, Bob!"
He glared at me. "It is not that I find the concept of such interference incomprehensible, particularly in view of the potential power. But she had to know that if she were caught, the penalty would be immediate execution."
"You scare me sometimes, do you know that?" I ran a hand through my hair. "And no, she wouldn't have been executed. Not if the Council was following its own laws. Dragons-or dracoforms, if you like the official term better-have never signed any treaties with wizards. And the Laws of Magic are specifically designed for human casters. Anyway, if Mai was able to remake time to her specifications regardless of paradox, all she would have to do is rearrange time so that her actions were in accordance with the Council's wishes."
"So she risked nothing," he whispered. "And she stood to gain everything."
I nodded. "I think that she was further along with her time experiments back in my world. And her rival-stars, I don't even know what to call her--"
"Lan Lung," Hrothbert suggested. "It means 'dragon ghost.'"
"Okay. So say Lan Lung found out in my world what Mai was doing, but the person who could have exposed Mai was already dead and bound by the time she discovered what her enemy was doing. She does some scouting, gets some intel work done, and learns, surprise surprise, that your skull is in Chicago, owned by a crazy Don Quixote type. Mai is also in Chicago, very much still in power, and very not friends with the crazy guy who owns the skull.
"But Lan Lung needs to see how Mai and I interact. So she stages an attack. Not a killing attack, mind you. Something just bad enough so that Mai has to retreat to a cave, metaphorically speaking, and lick her wounds. She attacks Mai in a park near my house, knowing that there's nothing closer that's even remotely defensible, magically ."
"And slipped in before the wards were up and the apartment building was moved," Hrothbert said, frowning. "But her attempt got her killed."
"I don't think so," I said, staring at the ceiling. "What would be the point of just walking in? It would be tantamount to suicide. Worse, it would be stupid. She knew Mai would be defended. Hell's bells, she needed me and Mai to survive for her plan to work."
"I don't follow."
"It's just---there are a lot of legends about dragons. Most of them say that dragons are pretty tricky, too. I keep remembering stories about Jason in Greek mythology sowing a field with dragon's teeth that turned into warriors, and a story of two dragons fighting and humans springing from the blood of both. Then I think about the legend of the Monkey King, and how he could create a clone of himself from one of his hairs-and that doesn't sound too different. Just...more voluntary."
He rubbed his chin and thought for a bit. "You believe that Lan Lung sent in a decoy disguised as Ms. Murphy. A clone, with many of Lan Lung's own powers, but capable of being defeated."
"And Mai would owe the people who saved her a debt whether she admitted it or not. So Lan Lung would have a perfect excuse for dropping by in the guise of Mai and offering to repay that debt. No one would suspect it was Mai's enemy. After all, Lan Lung was officially dead."
"But what did she want with you?"
I sighed and stuffed my hands in the pockets of Hrothbert's robes. "She wanted me to make a wish. Specifically, a wish about you. And I obliged. I wished for you not to be cursed. Or trapped. Or damned. Not ever. She interpreted that not as 'the curse no longer exists' but as 'the curse was never implemented in the first place.'
"That's why you were sprung from prison; Lan Lung forced the issue. She made sure that you were alive to harm Mai. She probably used some kind of mental magic to guide you to that area of Galicia, too. She needed you in place so that you could witness what Mai was doing. Because then you might be amenable to an alliance. You might even help her destroy Mai."
"But I did none of that!" Hrothbert protested. "If those were her plans, they failed miserably."
"For good reason," I replied. "You were in place to spot Mai, sure. But Mai is a bit paranoid. She spotted you first-her enemy, the guy she did NOT want to form an alliance with Lan Lung. I think that she decided that if you were going to hate anyone, she'd pick the target.
"And she did. A target you couldn't help but hate. A tall faceless warlock, foe of the entire Council, who tortured your wife to death in front of you. This made Mai not just another enemy, but the cavalry that got there too late. You hate and distrust the Council-I don't doubt that for a minute-but you've spent centuries plotting your revenge on that warlock, searching for every scrap you could find about him. You stopped thinking about Mai long ago." I shook my head. "It was a brilliant piece of misdirection."
Hrothbert folded up and collapsed into a nearby chair. "All orchestrated? All?"
"All," I confirmed. "So Lan Lung made a timeline-altering move to prevent Mai from controling time, and Mai made a countermove. Lan Lung made one more move, though. Over the centuries, she must've heard about this warlock you were looking for, and decided it might be a good idea if the warlock really existed. Because if he did, he'd be an enemy of the Council. He could kill some or most of the ruling members-including Mai. And he wouldn't be a threat for long; you were guaranteed to go after him sooner or later.
"And when you did, he'd die. Mai would be dead, the warlock would be dead and you-maybe she'd take you out of the game. Maybe she'd use you as a pawn. It wouldn't matter. And everyone who knew that someone had been meddling with time would be dead...or under Lan Lung's control, if she wanted to do what Mai had been doing.
"I don't know how she created H. Justin Morningway," I added, gazing down at him. "Maybe it was not having you as a teacher that made me turn evil. Maybe she did it by ensuring that my late and unlamented uncle adopted me when I was a baby. Maybe she just merged two parallel timelines into one. The point is, she did something. And if it weren't for my fairy godmother, I wouldn't be in a position to deduce any of this. Because I wouldn't be driving at the stage. Morningway would be in charge."
Hrothbert didn't appear to be listening. "My whole life is a lie and a cheat," he murmured. "I have been no more than a pawn for two greedy dragons ever since I left prison. Even my existence is no more than a trick."
I placed both hands on his shoulders. "I know part of you is Bob, just like part of me is my evil twin. So listen up, Hrothbert and Bob. I wanted you to be free. To not have to serve anyone against your will. To move on, if you wanted. To be free to go to heaven. I didn't expect you to be brought back to life. But I'm not sorry you were. And I'm glad you got some extra time with the woman you love. Not enough time-it's never enough, when it's someone you love. But--"
He looked up at me, and his eyes were swimming with tears. "I've threatened you, paralyzed you, hurt you, imprisoned you and tried to kill you. Can you truly be glad that I live?"
There was only one answer to that, and happily it was true. "Yes." Honesty compelled me to add, "I'm not saying you haven't screwed up a lot, but..." I had a sudden vision of a teenaged girl being seared by black fire. "So have I."
He nodded. As little as possible.
I waited until the silence between us had grown long and awkward before I spoke again. "So. Do you know where either a Knight named Michael or a thug named Marcone live?"
He frowned. "Why?"
"Well," I said, "you said you'd contacted the remnants of the Council. I'm guessing that they-and probably Lan Lung, too-- know that I'm here by now, and that they aren't all that fond of me. And my godmother already told me that I only had seven days to fix the timeline-it must be closer to six days, now.. I think we're going to need every minute, too.
"So. Wanna come save the world...again?"