Sovereign Mage


 
 Paranoid Mage Book Five: Sovereign Mage
 The portal to the Night Lands is closed, and vampires are barred from Earth, but at a high cost. Not only does Callum have to deal with the fallout of the vampire race’s final spasms, but the political consequences of demonstrating his ability and willingness to attack portal worlds directly. The forces that were moving to control a weakened GAR have come out into the open, and Callum has to deal with stakes much higher than his personal freedom.
 It's time to join with his allies and move to open conflict. Even the secret of supernatural presence on Earth is at play, and the Archmage’s Council and the Seven Lesser Courts threaten the very concept of human sovereignty. Everything comes down to removing the would-be tyrants, and so preserving the Earth as it should be.
 
 Foreword
 This book would not have been made without the tireless work of my editor, Kaorin, and the support of my many patrons and readers.
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 Reclusive Mage Copyright © 2023 by InadvisablyCompelled
 Table of Contents
 
 
 Chapter 1 - Exploration
 
 
 Chapter 2 – Faerie
 
 
 Chapter 3 – Redoubt
 
 
 Chapter 4 – Maneuvers
 
 
 Chapter 5 - Clashes
 
 
 Chapter 6 - Planning
 
 
 Chapter 7 - Dispatch
 
 
 Chapter 8 - Investment
 
 
 Chapter 9 - Dividends
 
 
 Chapter 10 – Retaliation
 
 
 Chapter 11 – Retreat
 
 
 Chapter 12 – Wizzy
 
 
 Chapter 13 – GAR
 
 
 Chapter 14 – Summit
 
 
 Chapter 15 – Demands
 
 
 Chapter 16 – Proliferation
 
 
 Chapter 17 – Consolidation
 
 
 Chapter 18 – Alliance
 
 
 Chapter 19 – Blitz
 
 
 Chapter 20 - Nuclear
 
 
 Chapter 21 – Revelation
 
 
 Chapter 22 – Reality
 
 
 Epilogue
 
 
 Afterword
 
 
 Chapter 1 - Exploration
 “Any luck?” Lucy asked, as Callum opened his eyes.
 “Not yet,” Callum said.
 “Maybe the moon just isn’t the best place to find somewhere livable,” Lucy suggested.
 “I suspect you’re right,” Callum agreed. “It can’t be coincidence that there were so many portal worlds that had perfectly breathable atmospheres on Earth’s surface. In the grand scheme of things, the surface takes up basically zero percent.”
 Up to that point, he’d only been opening portals from the far side of the moon, thanks to the portal nexus he’d put on the moon’s surface, or in the dragonlands. There was no way he was risking the Earth with a passage to some terrible hellscape. Which had been the right choice, back when he’d first started. Now that he had some grasp of the subtleties of dimensional portal creation, it was probably time to experiment somewhere closer to home.
 “Then we can stop crashing at Chester’s place,” he muttered, but Lucy just laughed.
 “It’s not too bad here,” she said. “I like the house better, but not without water, or when it’s...” She pursed her lips. “Well, perched on a big dirt patch in the middle of nowhere.”
 “Yeah,” Callum sighed. After GAR had found out where his bunker was in Mexico, he’d needed to move the entire house and cave-cache, but that meant there was no water or sewer. The electricity still worked, since he could feed his infinite-portal setup from the portal world connections. At least Chester’s people had repaired the damage from when the GAR hit squad had broken through the back door and wall.
 “Alright, I think I’ve got enough juice for two more today.” Callum rubbed at his temples. He’d been wringing himself dry trying to find a useful portal, and even though it’d only been three days since he’d closed the Night Lands portal he was frustrated by his lack of progress.
 The old adage was that when it rained, it poured. Callum had managed almost two years of relative quiet, time enough to train his own magic and learn a few tricks, but with the closure of the Night Lands portal everything was happening at once. He had to find new and useful portal worlds, he had relocate his house and his family, and he had to worry about the forces that were stirring in Faerie.
 All that was almost too much to handle, but just handling it wasn’t enough. If all he did was react to their moves, he would never get anywhere. There were thousands of mages, entire Houses, and the Guild of Arcane Regulation that were still arrayed against him. Worse, they had no compunctions about targeting ordinary people, even if it was just to punish him.
 There was an enormous amount to do, both for himself and his allies, but it all started with the portal worlds. An untouched but habitable portal world would be an unassailable redoubt for him and, potentially, his allies. If he could find multiple
 ones, even better.
 “For luck,” Lucy said, leaning over to give him a kiss. He held her close for a moment, then released her and focused on his spatial perceptions.
 The moon nexus had grown to fifteen connections. Three were connected to space drones – one of which was actually in the dragonlands – and one each to a drone located in the Night Lands and the Deep Wilds. The rest were in more conventional remotes scattered throughout the world.
 If he tried to run his senses through all of them it’d overwhelm him instantly, so for the most part he restricted his passive perception to his cave cache and whichever drone he was working with. That did run the risk of someone happening across one of the drones while he wasn’t paying attention, but they were all parked somewhere normally inaccessible. Inside a duct, in a space between walls, or inside some forgotten junction box on an overgrown