The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 745

A tower cannot simply declare war in the United State of Magic.

It can say the words. Ashe said them, and by noon the next day they were in every hall in the city. But saying them starts a clock, not a war, because the government has to ask why first — and the government has done it the same way for four hundred years.

They hold a banquet.

Seven tower masters. Ten elders each. And every tower brings its brightest young ones, because the whole point of the tradition is that the next generation watches their elders try to solve something without killing anyone.

The invitation reached the White Tower at four in the afternoon.

Elias read it twice and looked up.

"They want the master of the White Tower."

"Then they'll get him," Alex said.

...

The hall was older than any of the towers in it.

Long table down the middle, dark wood, and above it a screen of pale glass the size of a barn door — the recording glass, which had hung there since before anyone's grandfather. Everything said in that room went into it. Every word. It had settled six wars and started two.

The Minister of Magic was a small, tired man named Penn who had held his post for nineteen years and had buried four tower masters in that time.

He didn't sit down.

"Black Tower has declared war on the White Tower and on Regent Group," he said. "The state has not permitted it. Before the state permits anything, Black Tower will tell this room why."

Dorren Ashe stood.

"The White Tower is arming Regent Group," he said. "And between them, they have murdered eighty of my people."

The hall went very quiet.

Alex sat further down the table with Elias on one side of him and nine White elders on the other, and he let the silence run four full seconds before he stood up.

"That's a serious thing to say out loud," he said.

"It's a serious thing to have done."

"Then prove it." Alex spread his hands. "We didn't attack anybody. Not one person, not one night, not once. You are standing in front of the Minister of Magic and seven towers inventing a story, and I would like to see what it's built on."

"You know exactly what—"

"Proof," Alex said. "Names. Dates. A body. Anything at all."

Ashe didn't answer.

He couldn't. To prove that eighty of his people had died in the Regent building, he would first have to explain what eighty of his people were doing in the Regent building at eleven o'clock at night.

Alex waited long enough for everyone in that hall to watch him not answer.

"All right," he said. "Then let me try it your way. Black Tower attacked a hundred of my people last month."

Ashe's head came up.

"That's a lie."

"Prove it isn't."

"You can't just—"

"That's my point," Alex said, and sat down.

...

It was the Brown Tower's master who spoke first, and she spoke to Ashe, not to Alex.

"Elder Ashe. This room has a rule and you have known it since you were twenty. You accuse, you prove."

"Brown—"

"Blue agrees," said the man from Blue.

"Green agrees."

"Yellow." The Yellow master's voice was thin. Yellow had lost thirty magicians in a factory eight weeks ago and had never been told a straight word about why. "Yellow agrees. Prove it, Dorren."

Red Tower said nothing at all.

Garrick Vail sat with his hands folded and looked at the table, and Alex watched him do it and understood exactly what it meant.

Ashe was going under.

And a drowning man will grab anything.

...

It was one of the younger Black elders who broke — a man about forty, sweating through his collar, who stood up without being invited.

"We sent them," he said.

Ashe turned.

"Sit down."

"We sent eighty of our people into the Regent building. Two nights. Thirty, then fifty." His voice was climbing.

The hall came apart.

Not shouting. Worse than shouting. Forty separate conversations starting at once around a table where nobody was supposed to be surprised by anything, and above all of it the recording glass taking down every syllable.

Alex let it run.

Then he stood up again, and the room came down because everyone wanted to hear what he'd say.

"Why did you attack us?"

Ashe had gone a strange colour. He'd been cornered in front of six towers and a minister, and there is a point past which some men stop trying to get out of a corner and simply plant their feet in it.

"Because I can," he said. "Black Tower has moved against whoever it chooses for five hundred years. I don't need a minister's permission and I don't need yours."

Somewhere down the table, a young magician from Blue made a small sound and got an elbow for it.

Penn didn't move a muscle. He didn't have to. The glass had it.

"Good," Alex said pleasantly. "Then we agree on the facts. You sent eighty people to attack us."

"I did."

"And you say we killed them."

"I say you killed them."

"Then give me their names." Alex's voice didn't rise at all. "Eighty men. If they're dead, you'll have a list. Names, faces, the lot. Put it on the table."

...

Ashe had come prepared for exactly that.

Of course he had. It was the strongest thing he owned — eighty real men with eighty real families, and the moment those names went into the record, White Tower was a slaughterhouse and Regent was its butcher.

A Black elder brought the folio down the table and set it in front of Penn. Two hundred pages. Names, portraits, tower registration numbers, service years.

"Eighty," Ashe said. "Every one of them a magician of this country. Every one of them walked into a building owned by Regent Group and was never seen again." He turned to the room. "You want proof? There it is. Eighty faces. Ask the White Tower where they are."

Elias did not stop.

He went through eleven of them, one after another, matching a portrait to a face on the glass, and by the sixth the hall had stopped being shocked and started being something much worse for Black Tower, which was amused.

A young magician from Green laughed out loud and didn't bother apologising for it.

By the eleventh, Dorren Ashe had both hands on the table and was holding himself up with them.

"That's not—"

"Would you like more?" Elias asked. "There are sixty-nine to go."

...

Alex turned to the Minister.

"Minister Penn," he said. "Nine weeks ago, Black Tower told this country our products were spiritually contaminated. They had no evidence and they said it anyway. Today they've come to your table with eighty names, asked for permission to make war on a school, and confessed to attacking a private company because — his words, and they're in the glass behind me — because he can."

"And his eighty dead men are drunk in a brothel two streets from his own gate."

Alex sat down.

"Black Tower is not asking you for justice, Minister. Black Tower is shopping for a reason."

...

The hall didn't erupt. That was the thing Ashe would remember afterward, lying awake.

It went cold instead.

Brown withdrew her tower's position first, in nine words. Blue followed. Green didn't even speak, just turned her chair a few degrees away from the Black delegation, which in that room was louder than a speech. Yellow's master looked at Ashe for a long moment and said, "You brought that folio in here on purpose," and then nothing else at all.

And Garrick Vail, who had pledged Red Tower to a war ninety seconds earlier, sat very still and said, "Red withdraws its support pending clarification," which was the sound of a man climbing out of a burning carriage while it was still moving.

Ashe stood in the middle of all of it.

He had walked into that hall holding the only card that mattered — eighty men, eighty faces, eighty families — and he understood now, far too late, that somebody had let him keep that card for exactly this long on purpose.

He had been allowed to bring the folio.

He had been allowed to name them.

He had been allowed to demand a war in front of six towers, a minister, and four hundred years of recording glass, and every step of the way somebody had been standing quietly at the other end of the table, waiting for him to finish.

Ashe looked down the table at Alexander.

Alexander was already gathering his papers. Then he stopped.

"Minister, the Black Tower has leveled false accusations against us," Alexander began. "If the White Tower decides to defend its honor and formally declare war, can you authorize it?"

Minister Penn studied him closely. "On what grounds?"

"The Black Tower spreads lies about our products and claims we slaughtered eight of their people," Alexander said, his voice hardening. "In truth, they ambushed us first—and treated the bloodshed as sport. We are not so weak that we will suffer these insults and strikes in silence. We must protect our pride."

Dorren Ashe scoffed. "So you want to wage war against us? Do you truly believe the White Tower stands a chance alone?"

Alexander rose to his feet. "Alone, perhaps not. But justice is on our side." He turned his gaze across the council chamber to the remaining factions. "And we will hire the Green, Blue, Yellow, and Brown Towers to fight alongside us. We are prepared to finance this entire campaign."

The Blue Tower's commander smirked. "If you hold the moral high ground and your coin is good, consider our blades yours."

"Count the Green Tower in as well," their representative agreed.

"The Yellow Tower will mobilize for the right price," their envoy added.

"The Brown Tower stands ready, provided payment is upfront."

Alexander locked eyes with Dorren Ashe. "Then let there be war."