The creation of the Celtic Knot as ward and limiter for the ley-lines was not met without incident. A stirring in the water, undetectable at first became a furious boil of whirlpool and wave. A funnel spout foreshadowing the arrival of someone powerful.

The Cernunnos' actions had reworked the ether of magic, restoring balance and harmony to the valley. This restoration had a rippling effect, the balance pulsing, and with each pulse spreading.

The changes could not go unnoticed, and it was not long before curiosity required satisfaction and what the Aspen and Pine created was investigated. He was a Ranked Earl Roane. A Selkie that lived in the adjacent sea, his ability to shift into walrus or seal allowing him to master and claim the water's depths.

He was very close to breaking through to Duke Rank, and the ripples of powers that the Cernunnos had released called to him. His power over his domain was formidable, and if he could find a way to harness the changes in the ether, it might be the impetus he required to Rank up. I'd not considered that a Selkie city might exist beneath the waves close to the valley I had selected, but I should have.

These creatures eschewed land, preferring isolated islands when they had no choice. They, instead, built vast underwater cities that were enclosed by formations that maintained and monitored air quality, allowing surface dwellers to visit, even making their homes in those cities. They needed cities that could maintain air pressure because Selkie took a twisted pleasure out of seducing Seelie men and women. Their ability to seduce and ensnare had caused them to often become confused with Sirens and mermaids.

Their charms could be withstood, but when that happened, their wrath was released, and they were quick to transition from seducer to enemy. Love and Hate. Two-sides of a coin was the heritage they received with their two forms. They were genetically predisposed to mate or kill, and the formidable tusks they wielded in walrus or seal form aided them in battle when their love was spurned.

I had barely gotten time to identify the Roane before he attacked. The water funnel that had been the harbinger of his arrival making landfall. Its power ripping the ground asunder, great rifts of turf and soil destroyed in its path.

"I will deal with this, Your Majesty," Duchess Wynne said before moving to intercept not only the funnel but also the Roane.

I knew intellectually that Knockers were powerful. As a Ranked Duchess, she was a heavyweight, no less powerful than Seelie of similar Rank and Level. She had probably been discounted for most of her life, too often the Knockers had been overlooked or dismissed because of their size. That was a mistake.

I'd had no chance to test her abilities or see a demonstration of her powers. The events in CERN had precluded any kind of confrontation. We had made peace and alliance almost at the moment of our meeting. Danu witnessing those Oaths would probably be the most satisfying and significant event of Duchess Wynne's House. Ever.

The events since we had returned had called for direct action on my part. The issue with the Seelie in Blayney's office might have been left to her. If I hadn't been consumed by rage. But her offer here, allowed me to step back and see a demonstration of her talents and battle strategy. Additionally, her offer reminded me that those Benefices and Vassals that had sworn were not ornaments, they held Power and should not be coddled or protected.

The Duchess was fast. I wasn't able to tell what elemental affinity or domain she was proficient in from her opening attacks, unlike my fire and ice, her actions seemed more militaristic, more physical. She had summoned a bow and was quickly firing arrows imbued with nihility. The arrows should have made minimal difference to the waterspout, instead. The results were significant.

Each arrow that made contact with and breached the water construct destroyed that area, delivering nothingness as the arrow pierced the construct. The arrows didn't explode or disrupt the waters screaming vectors; they introduced entropy, removing all kinetic energy instantly. The water and twisting motion of the spouts lost all motion, before cascading to the ground, energy drained and arrested.

The Law of Conservation argued that her actions were impossible. I began examining the arrows with my perception and watched as the kinetic energy that had been exploited by the funnel was absorbed and siphoned by insubstantial tethers that existed between the arrows and the Duchess.

The energy that was disrupted was collected and stored by the Duchess in mechanical devices. Tinkered and engineered constructs that she had adorning her body. Not jewelry, or weapons, they were metal spheres and cubes that had no obvious purpose, items crafted that appeared to work like lightning rods, harnessing the kinetic and destructive onslaught of the waterspout through the intangible tethers that linked arrow to Duchess.

The Selkie Lord roared in fury, injecting more of his magic in sustaining the funnel while creating another and then a third. His mistake may have been that he staggered their approach, sending them at the Duchess as they were formed, instead of waiting for each and attacking in mass.

The Duchess' reaction was simply to continue releasing arrow after arrow. Arrows that I realized were magical constructs and not stored ammunition. Each containing the smallest chip, almost micro-circuitry that sustained the trailing tether and channeled the kinetic forces back to the Duchess.

Once fully powered, the Duchess began flicking out the mechanical spheres and cubes. As they leaped from her hands they began to expand, mechanism grinding, the small devices growing and taking form. Windmills that tamed the winds, jetties that silenced the sea, each device grew to become an edifice that was uniquely suited to tame the elemental fury the Selkie Lord had unleashed.

And as those elements were tamed, the devices fed nanoparticles that comprised the building materials of each device, giving the mechanical tools plant-like abilities. Roots sprouted and burrowed into the ground, reaching for and connecting to the ley-line Nexus. The elemental fury from the waterspouts was grounded, the energies siphoned, and fed into that vast tide of organized chaos contained within the Nexus.

Realizing that he was wasting time and magics on his elemental attacks, the Selkie changed tactics. As a creature of the sea, perhaps the most powerful of any for this inland body of water, the Roane Lord held sway and dominion of all the denizens that inhabited the deep waters and hidden trenches. Stretching forth his hand, he summoned those he commanded and directed the most powerful of those denizens to provide aid.

His actions made no sense. He hadn't bothered to demand a challenge or call for a sanctioned duel. He had been so absorbed with the fluctuations and harmony of ether that he attacked, hoping to destroy us without first gauging our strength. His drive to gain Levels and Rank, to break the bottleneck and become a Ranked Duke was ill-advised at best.

I thought it likely that the System announcement that had allowed those who resided in Aingeal Geamhraidh to know the location of the new capital may have also influenced his actions. When he saw how close Saor was to the territory he ruled, when he felt the changes to energy, he relied on the superiority that Sidhe possessed, believing that his power made him a Power equal to contend with a Ranked King.

There was probably a bit of strategy involved in his decision to attack. He would have the first chance to contend with the new King. The battles location would allow him to make use of his domain and call upon those loyal to him if necessary. And by attacking early, the battle would occur out of sight of Court and could be concluded before the sycophants and idealists swarmed the new Monarch pledging loyalty and fealty.

There were very few life forms on Talahm that could make the waters of the deep their home, yet still, traverse the boundaries of the land. The Unseelie Selkie. The Seelie Kelpie. And the Sidhe Coinchenn.

Coinchenn was cousin to the Slaugh, where the Slaugh had dominion over the air, the Coinchenn were the true masters of the deep. Tentacles and maw reminiscent of Cthulhu, they were few. Unwieldy on land, their sheer size made their passage catastrophic, creating earthquakes and destruction whenever they deigned to leave the waters.

This Coinchenn, although massive, was not Ranked high. A Lord, probably a Vassal of the Selkie. Even with the power of its size and the ferocious destructive capabilities of tentacles and maw, it should be of no real danger to the Duchess. Which made me wonder why the Roane was bothering with something that could be easily defeated.

That was until the next Coinchenn rose from the depths. And then the next, and the next, and the next. Until over a hundred Lord Ranked Coinchenn had risen. The inlet that met the water's edge barely large enough to contain the size and breadth of so many leviathans.

Duchess Wynne was powerful, but I wasn't sure she was powerful enough to combat a legion of Lord Ranked giant Coinchenn.