Exhausting Malevolence

Stephen Louie Arthur George, the Bastard, had an exceptionally low public profile. No one at court would have recognized him. He had intentionally dissociated from his eminent grandsire since his days at Cheatum Preparatory when his famous last name was intentionally left off his records and kept missing from every introduction.

But he was painfully aware of his lineage. He knew how pervasively hated were the robber baron ancestors he lamented being related to. He himself abhorred how the living descendants of those captains of industry and power-mongers of politics sold out the peasantry, generation after generation.  

Slag – the nickname he chose for himself -- worked clandestinely to neuter his incessantly corrupt, indiscriminately cruel, incomprehensibly incompetent grandfather, and the crown prince, his own father created in the image of a wanna-be king.

And so this afternoon he gathered the other outcast members of the family in secret. “We are members of the Old Line, and once again we are called upon to save the homeland. Individually of course, we have already nearly extinguished our personal strengths.

“Working tirelessly for years, small victories have been won. Many of the esoteric clans have joined the fight. Small but important sabotages have occurred. We know they have been successful by the royal temper tantrums they have stirred. But this is not enough.

“We must command the occult forces who have in all times of great national need raised a Grand Coven to block the evil that walks among us. In the recent past Lammas Night was the chosen time. We cannot wait that long. Ostara must be time. The moon will be waning gibbous them, perfect for rendering exhausted the malevolence of the king and his cronies.”

Slag studied the deathly tired faces of the kindred spirits before him. One by one, renewed determination replaced disillusionment. There might be a small group here, but each person present had their own magickal group, whose members also had students and followers and families.

As Slag hoped, there would be power in numbers. Coordinated in planning, acting in concert, the occultists of the country would call on the goddess of renewal and awakening to change the addled minds of the Destroyers.