rix_scaedu

This runs to 792 words and I hope that you enjoy them.

Elliot Simpson was sitting in a one man shelter on the southern Tasmanian coastline conducting a marine life survey when his phone vibrated. The phone's screen told him that the call was from "Mum." He let the call go to voicemail and wondered what she was calling about. His parents' relationship was volatile, although they were each other's most ardent supporter they also disagreed strongly with each other on a regular basis, and while those arguments were at that their peak, they stopped talking to each other. Last he'd heard, his parents weren't talking to each other. When he and his siblings had been children, that had been the cue for one parent or the other to leave home for a while on a research trip. As an adult he was glad that he didn't have to understand their relationship, but he suspected that they should never have married each other. Indeed, he suspected that his mother had married his father just so she could change her surname - after falling foul of a vengeful penguin spirit she had placed an avoidance on her name, and he still had no idea of what either her given name or her maiden name were.

When the voicemail message notification came up, he plugged his headphones into the telephone and played the message. It said, "Give me a call back, please. I need your advice."

He left the headphones on and called her back. His mother answered almost immediately. "Thank you for calling me back so promptly. Where are you? I tried catching you at your place, but obviously you're not home."

"Down on the southern coast, Mum. I'm doing a marine life survey."

"Is that part of your degree? Are you warm enough?" His mother sounded both interested and concerned, and he knew that she didn't trust scientists in general to have the common sense to come in out of the rain.

"I've got myself a nice little spot here, all set up to keep the sun, rain, and wind off," he assured her. "This is a personal project - I don't think any of my marine biology professors believe in sea serpents."

He could hear his mother take in a deep breath across the ether. "You're out on a sea cliff, counting sea serpents as they go past you?"

"Not quite," he admitted. "I'm counting the numbers in the breeding site that I'm overlooking right now. What did you want to talk to me about?"

She took a deep breath, "Well, it's Richard Ashgrove's funeral today, so nominations for Grand Master of the Most Far and Further Diaspora Circle open tomorrow. Your father and I are both thinking of putting our names in, but if we do, we'd make our friends and allies have to choose between us, reducing the possible vote for each of as. Given that, we decided that only one of us should nominate. What do you think?"

He looked at the potential relationship chasm opening up in front of him and went with, "I think you'd both be good at it in different ways, as long as it didn't involve disagreeing with each other."

His mother laughed. "Fair enough. Is there anything you think might separate us as candidates?"

Elliot paused, then replied, "What name would you put on your nomination paperwork?"

"That was the point your father and sister both made," she admitted. "Which is why it's your father who's filling out the nomination form. Would you be able to fly up to Sydney in the next few days, once we've got it signed by the nominators, and hand it in at the head office? Just to make sure it gets there?"

"Of course," he agreed readily. "As well as doing this job for you guys, I can talk to Terry James about those Coral Sea scaleback sightings off Sydney Heads. Maybe even see one myself."

His mother said cautiously, "I thought you said they are a tropical species. What would they be doing in Sydney?"

"We think they're coming down on the Eastern Australian current. Let me know when you want me to collect the nomination form?" Elliot wrote down a new observation on his sheet, easily done because it was a new species for today.

"Of course," his mother agreed, "and because you're doing us a favour, we'll pay for the return flights. I'm sure I can do something to get you good flights and seats, even if they're not readily available. I'll call you soon."

"Looking forward to it already," Elliot acknowledged. As his mother ended their call, he hoped that she was only going to try for a little extra good luck and not a guaranteed result because sometimes she went a little overboard.

The...space, because it wasn't really a room just the volume between supporting slabs of stone, was swirling with woodsmoke as well as the smoke from the torches and candles.  Illusion was certainly a skill held by many of those present but at this meeting the use of illusion would have been considered several sorts of insult, and so the space was just a space and the occupants were themselves, revealed as they rarely were even to themselves.   The swirling smoke and patchy, flickering light repeatedly veiled and unveiled a multiformed gathering, united only in the possession of a magical nature.

It wasn't the seniormost or the most powerful among them who spoke, but the one who had chaired such meetings ever since they had become necessary.  It was a matter of tradition and custom, and those things were important in this meeting.  Almost as important as blood and contracts.  "The Guardian and Keeper of the Stone has died," said the small, brown skinned, white haired figure, "and the new one has not yet been chosen."

"Was it by violence?"  The question came from a tall figure leaning against a stone slab, just on the edge of a pool of torch light.

"Nay."  The bogle shook his head and the wispy white hair floated around him in its agitation.  "Old age.  He was a hundred and six, which is a great age for a human."

"Indeed," the tall figure inclined its head in acknowledgment of this truth. "And he held the Stone well for a long time.  Do we know when a new Keeper might be picked?"

"It will depend on when they hold the funeral rites," remarked a female voice.  The speaker was both far older and far sharper than she normally allowed the world to see.  "Once the formal acknowledgment of the last Keeper's death has been completed, the Stone will choose the next Keeper."

"Can we influence that choice?"  The speaker was one of the youngest of the assembly, a youthful being of leaf and roots.

"We cannot," replied the sharp female who had spoken earlier.  "The nature of the binding on the Stone means that it must choose a Keeper, but it also means that we cannot guide or steer that choice."

"If it was still in this country," said the tall lean figure, "we could...remove potential Keepers we did not care for."

"If it was still in this country, then it would be far closer than any of us would be comfortable with," barked out a dark, low slung figure that had a tail and went on all fours.  "The wisest thing we ever did about the Stone was make sure that Johnathen Wishart took it with him when he went to the other side of the world.  If it was still here, then there would be very little we could do to stop a Keeper from finding what else it can make us do.  The ones who access it now are happy with what it gives them - let's not wish for things to change."

"True," said the bogle.  "They call upon every compact we have ever made with man, but they understand that there is price to be paid for each service and they do that willingly.  In the main."

There was a murmur of assent from the assembly.

"If I might ask," this speaker was male, maned and gilled, "has anyone here been tasked to harm a human by anyone reaching out through the Stone since the third Keeper after Wishart died?  Or heard of such a task?"

"Not even the darkest of the unseelie," replied the tall lean figure.  "Mostly the requests are for a little extra power to push into a spell that does something we could do."

"Or to help them find something," added a dry voice.  "A sharing of skills to the other side of the world.  Can these human practitioners have become afraid of hurting each other through magic?"

"Or lost the knowing of how to protect themselves from their own actions," put in another voice.  "On the other hand, humans can believe many strange things, and these ones are on the other side of the world - who knows what they're doing?  Perhaps it is a religious thing?"

"Humans and religion," went on the low slung speaker.  "What did the gods ever do to deserve them?"

The Master of the Circle of Shadows was pontificating.  There was no other word for it - he was sitting in a throne-like chair and was lit from above by an angled light that left most of his face shadowed by the hood that hung low over his forehead.  The rest of the Circle were facing him in an arc, the seven Initiates seated on their padded footstools and the five Acolytes kneeling on cushions behind them.  All of them wore black robes made on the same pattern as the Master's, with the Acolytes' unadorned, and the Initiates' illuminated with silver embroidery.  The Master's robe, of course, was picked out in gold and silver thread.  Laurence Boyle, one of the Acolytes, privately thought that the Master had taken the Emperor Palpatine aesthetic rather too much to heart.  He'd also come to the conclusion that the Circle of Shadows was as much a personality cult as an arcane society, and was trying to plan a gentle exit on his own terms.  At the moment though, the Master was saying something interesting and perhaps useful.