March 1070

Hashing out a variety of different matrices for Rowena to test took us well into the evening, with a little break for supper. Dinner. Whatever. Then, during the break, I wrote down what I "remembered" of the Way from the Hidden Halls to Constantinople for Salazar to check out.

Once things wound down, Helga and Salazar both left – separately – and I was expecting Rowena to do the same, go out and look for an inn to stay in. Instead she asked, "Do you have anywhere I could sleep?"

That made me pause for a moment, then consider my own hypocrisy. I mean, I'd already spent a night in her tower, this wasn't that different.

"I have a guest bedroom, since I had the space for it. It's got a bed, and furs, and that's it. Might also be dusty, I only go in there once every two weeks."

"That's sufficient, thank you. Will we be leaving tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yeah. Once I get a horse for you and meet up with everyone from the castle," I said.

Rowena cocked her head slightly. "We won't be going alone?"

"I promised my apprentice she could come along if she passed a test, which she did, and I asked her to bring her brother and some guards along so it doesn't look like I'm just running off with her."

"Ah. Yes, I suppose that would be a concern for you." She paused for a moment, then asked, "Do we have go by horse?"

I frowned slightly. "I mean, we don't need to, but it's much faster. Why?"

"I… can't recall the last time I rode a horse. I must have, at some point, but that would have been… shortly before or after I came into my power," she said.

"So I need to get a docile horse, then," I said. "I'll keep that in mind."

Rowena looked apprehensive, but she slowly nodded. "If you're sure," she said uncertainly. "Good night." She paused again. "Where is your guest bedroom?"

"Up the stairs and turn around. Door's unlocked. Door on the left is a bathroom I'm still trying to set up," I said. "Speaking of which, if you have a bath or bathroom in your tower, how did you handle the water supply?"

"My… hmm. How can I put it…"

"You can't say?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. "It just happens."

"Yes, I think that's the safest way to put it," she replied.

So she had brownies do it. Huh. Hadn't considered that.

"I assume the water is sourced from the local river," she added.

"Well… thanks," I said.

"I could… hmm, no, I couldn't negotiate for you, but I could… I might be able to arrange a meeting," she said. "To facilitate whatever housekeeping you need."

"I'll think about it, thank you," I said.

She nodded, then turned around. A few seconds later, she asked, "And where are the stairs?"

"Why don't I just show you where to go," I said.

Once that was done with, I went back downstairs to clean the dishes, then headed off to bed myself. Alone, before anyone wonders.

Morning involved a quick breakfast and the discovery that Rowena got up even earlier than I did. After we ate, I packed my usual traveling supplies, with a lot less food than usual considering London was a day's ride away, and after locking down my house we went to go rent a horse for Rowena. I'd been on good terms with the local horse trader since last September. A few thieves had managed to snag some of his horses, and by the time the owner realized what had happened the thieves were gone. Tracking the horse thieves down had been a bit of a chore and somewhat of a race, but they'd surrendered their stolen horses very quickly when their attempt to stick knives and other implements in me all bounced against my shield.

Rowena once again walked around with her SEP-veil, which was interesting because I don't think something like that is easy to project for someone that isn't a natural mind mage. I guess she really likes her solitude.

Eva, Cuthbert, and the trio of guards split off from Eadric's fyrd were waiting in the courtyard by the time I got to the castle. Rowena preempted me and extended her veil to cover them all before we really approached, so we had to deal with only a minimum of "who is this strange woman that I just realized was right next to me?"

Eva, though, furrowed her brow and frowned slightly as she looked between Rowena and me.

Cuthbert didn't like me very much, I could tell that much. I wasn't sure if it was because I was supposed to be looking after him, because his sister spent a lot of time around me, if he shared Eadric's general dislike of me, or a combination of the above, but he didn't really say much to me, or Rowena for that matter. When he asked her who she was though, he seemed pleasantly surprised at her accent, and treated her politely.

That was good enough for me.

Eva or Cuthbert or someone else had secured horses for the guards, so the seven of us rode out through the south gate. We didn't really talk about much on the ride over, except for, well, the alliteration.

After Rowena finally got used to the motions involved in riding a horse, she stopped holding the reins in a death grip and reached into her robes to pull out a small notebook.

"I have more ideas, Harry," she said.

"Oh please no," I groaned, already knowing what she was going to ask.

"You've declined place names and derivatives, so I think we need to settle on a descriptive name, one that captures some of your key qualities."

"My name is Harry Dresden. It doesn't need changing," I said.

"It's not alliterative!" Rowena cried.

"What isn't?" Eva asked.

"His name," Rowena replied. "Everyone else in our group happens to have an alliterative pair of names, but not only does Harry not have that, he also has… well, that second isn't relevant I suppose."

"Alliterative pair… like Rowena R, Helga H, and Salazar S?" Eva asked.

Rowena nodded and looked intently at me. After a few seconds of this, I sighed and said, "Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin. And I don't need a new last name."

"You break the symmetry," Rowena said. "Now Dresden sounds Germanic in origin, so I'll start there. Hardwin or Hartwin, a combination of hard and win for 'brave or hardy friend.'"

"Do we really need to do this?" I asked.

"Yes," Rowena said bluntly.

"No," I replied.

"I… win is friend, right?" Eva asked.

"Eva, no," I warned.

"It is, yes," Rowena replied, ignoring me.

"I don't know if that works, then. Generally, I mean," Eva said.

"Mmm, I see your point."

I groaned and looked back over my shoulder, seeking some level of solidarity and sympathy in Cuthbert. He looked back at me, confused, and shrugged.

"If we keep the first part, hart, we can put mann on the end for 'brave or hardy man'," Rowena suggested.

"Then that's too general."

"Uggggghhhhhh," I groaned, then added in Sumerian. "God please save me."

"Hmm… Heidrich, heid and ric, for 'kind and mighty'?"

"Doesn't ric also mean 'ruler'?"

"Yes, it does," Rowena said. "How do you know that?"

"Elfleda taught me," Eva said. "We sometimes talk about languages and names."

"Ah, interesting. So is that a no?"

"It could be misinterpreted…"

I don't even know why I'm transcribing this. Which I guess means I may as well stop.

I think they eventually settled on 'Hunfrid', or 'peaceful warrior', which I admit isn't a bad option, but I like Dresden and I'm not changing it for anything.

And yes. That went on for hours. Which only reinforced my decision to not bring Elfleda, honestly; it could only have gotten worse if she'd come along.

I was relieved when we finally reached London, even if the time meant we immediately had to go look for an inn to stay in, which took a while. By the time we found a place to stay, twilight had passed and night had fallen. We had a slightly early supper, dinner, whatever, and Eva turned in early in anticipation of a long day of shopping. She nagged her brother into doing the same, while the guards decided to engage in some light drinking.

That left me and Rowena sitting alone at a table, and with the way she veiled the both of us, she clearly wanted to talk.

"Can you finally explain the 'somewhat' answer you gave me back in York? About being a Denarian?" she asked.

I sighed and crossed my arms. "Yes. There's… a progression to being a Denarian, a sliding scale. Kind of. You start by touching a Coin. In my case I did it somewhat unwittingly. Someone threw a Coin right in front of my friend's son, a toddler, and I reached for it before he could. Once you make that choice, knowingly or not, that gives a Fallen a window, a way to influence you. I immediately went home and buried the coin six feet in the ground under layers of wards, but that wasn't quite enough. This was because, in the moment of contact, the Fallen essentially duplicated itself and split off a lesser copy of itself, a mental shadow. It's that copy, that shadow, that I interacted with. I never took up the Coin itself."

"So what happened to the shadow? Is it still in your head?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, she… sacrificed herself for me, blocking a mental assault."

Rowena blinked. "A copy of a Fallen angel… sacrificed itself for you," she said slowly.

"She," I insisted.

"Alright, she," Rowena said. "I find that hard to believe."

"I'm not surprised. But we should differentiate between the Fallen and the shadow. The Fallen, I think, can't meaningfully change like that. You could, I guess, develop some kind of twisted facsimile of symbiosis with one, but if they were willing to be selfless like that then they wouldn't be Fallen. The shadow, though, isn't part of the Fallen once it's formed. It exists in your head, as part of your brain. And since the human mind is malleable that meant the shadow was too."

"And so… she's gone, leaving you with what she taught you," Rowena said.

"Sort of, and not really," I said. "I never really engaged her for knowledge. Not much of it, anyway. The only thing I really learned from her was a pain suppression technique. What I used her for was… memorization. She could remember everything I'd seen or heard in perfect detail and play it back to me, point out things I'd missed or overlooked, that kind of thing."

"So then you don't know that much," Rowena said, sounding supremely disappointed. Then she frowned. "But you know how to perform alchemical transmutation. Which… I thought you learned that from the shadow, but I suppose that means you knew it already? Or learned it afterwards?"

"No, that… when she died, I thought that meant she was gone, completely. Eradicated. But… now I'm not sure. I started getting these recurring headaches within months of her death, and now that I've actually looked back over my life I can tell they were intensifying somewhat. Then… did "Helga tell you about Avalon?"

"Yes, she did. She also said you did not know how you got there, which I find curious. But how is it related?"

"I'm not entirely sure. But after my escape from there, the headaches were different. They were still present, if less intense, but it was no longer just the headaches on their own. I could remember things, things I hadn't learned, things I hadn't done. I figure they're bits and pieces of her memories."

"So what you're saying is you have all the knowledge of an angel locked inside your head," Rowena said, sitting up very straight.

"I don't know about all. And it's not always safe to access. It's like… it's like a mirror broke into a million of shards of glass. And if I want to reach in and take out a particular shard, I have to get cut along the way. Only in this case, it's headaches and migraines and possibly aneurysms. Which isn't ideal."

Rowena made a frustrated hmph. "Do you still have recurring headaches?"

I nodded. "They've been getting steadily more intense, I think, as I've dug into more. Sort of like scar tissue building up, I guess."

"Which means there's a limited amount of information you could retrieve before dying." Rowena sighed. "That's annoying." She took a deep breath, huffed, and folded her hands together. "So the ideal solution would be to reorganize and reassemble that part of your mind."

"Uh… I guess so," I said. "I'm hesitant about letting anyone into my head though."

"Why?" Rowena asked, blinking. "You have a treasure trove in excess of any dragon's hoard locked inside your head."

"People have messed with my head way too much over the years," I said. "And your enthusiasm's off-putting, no offense."

Rowena pouted. "Fine. But you need to treat the headaches somehow, at least."

"I suppose," I said slowly.

She sighed. "Well I haven't practiced mind magic beyond the accepted range of suggestions and mental veils, but you could teach me how to do it, couldn't you?"

"I could try, but I could also kill myself in the process of digging out all the psychomancy I would need to pass on," I said. "I'd rather save that for an absolute last resort."

"Ugh," Rowena groaned. "Alright. I could… I could start practicing on animals. It wouldn't be an ideal match, but it would be a start. Or I could look into how to heal that kind of damage. Or… no, no, that's too risky."

"What?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Never mind. It's dangerous and not important." She sighed. "This is really frustrating. All that knowledge and just… ugh!"

"Yeah," I said, leaning back from her slightly.

I mean, I got it. If Lash's memories were mostly intact and I could actually get to them, that represented an obscene amount of magical knowledge practically unknown to wizards or humankind. It was the kind of knowledge that made two-bit sorcerers like Quintus Cassius into major threats. And it was all right there, in my head, past the barrier of a possible aneurysm.

But Rowena didn't need to be so creepily enthusiastic about cutting into my head.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked.

"Of course," she replied.

"You have journals from the time of Camelot, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"Are they Merlin's journals?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Someone else inherited them, to my knowledge. I'm not sure who."

Interesting choice of words, but they only made sense to me later. In the moment, I was just relieved that there was zero chance of me somehow ending up my own great-great-grandfather or something like that.

"Okay, well, you use the Ways sometimes, right?"

"Sometimes," Rowena confirmed.

"Have you ever run into a haphazard mix of roads and buildings and fortifications?" I asked. "I went through a region like that on my way to York. When I was intercepted by the Leanansidhe, she called it a graveyard. Does it have anything to do with Camelot or Merlin? It's definitely not natural."

"Ah, yes. That region has a few names, I believe the most common is the City. And you're right, it is related to Merlin. Specifically, he made it."

"Why?" I asked.

"To facilitate travel throughout the Kingdom of Britain. Not for Merlin or his apprentices or King Arthur or his Knights, but for Arthur's soldiers, his army."

I furrowed my brow. "Wait, what?"

"Arthur wanted a way to move his troops around his kingdom quickly, in response to foreign invaders, and also to expand his lands. The idea was to maintain a small, well-equipped, elite force of men that could cross the kingdom in a day and respond as necessary, freeing up the people to keep farming and trading and so on. And thus Merlin made the City. Or, if we use its actual name, Camlann."

I frowned. "Isn't that where Arthur and Mordred fought and died? I thought that was in the actual England outside the Nevernever, here in the south somewhere?"

"It was a mix. Arthur responded to Mordred's rebellion through Camlann, but was surprised by the force Mordred had mustered. They fought in… Camblana, somewhere along the River Camel, which I suspect is responsible for part of the confusion. They fought, Arthur started retreating, and Mordred pursued. Then they died."

"Huh." I leaned back in my seat. "How do you know all this? How did you get the journals of… I guess one of the Knights? Are you descended from one of them?"

"No, I am not," she said. She fell silent for a few moments. Then she furrowed her brow, and slowly said, "I'm the great-at-least-five-times-over granddaughter of Morgana LeFay."

It was my turn to blink. "I… really," I said.

"Well, I think," she said. "I'm certain I'm the descendant of Morgana through her daughter's son, but regarding the actual line of inheritance, I'm just guessing. I believe it's through my great-great-grandfather Algar Ravenclaw, but it could've come in later, perhaps even as recently as my mother. What I am confident about is that Morgana's magical lineage faded at some point before me, which is why I inherited her journals. She made some arrangement that would pass them on to her heir, and I ended up the beneficiary of that arrangement."

I blinked a few more times. "I… don't know how to respond to that," I said.

Rowena shrugged. "Neither do I, really."

"Does anyone else know? Like your master?" I asked.

"I taught myself using the journals," she replied. "Eventually I did encounter the Council and was accepted as a member, but I've only been to Constantinople once, to be tested and receive my stole. After that, no one really bothered me until Helga."

"And she doesn't know," I said.

"It was never relevant." Rowena cocked her head. "Though, I am considering telling her now, just to see the look upon her face."

Author's Note: I would like to state for the record that since Arthurian Mythology is basically a bunch of fanfiction anyway, I don't find any issue in making things even more convoluted.