• The tour group was made up of a mix of individuals, bearing backpacks and clipboards and cameras. There were a couple of families with young children, several older adults come as a crowd and a few teenagers and younger adults who looked more studious. They stood next to a sign in the bustling museum, waiting for their tour to begin – which it did when a tall talkative man approached.
    “Good afternoon, good afternoon…you’re all here for the 3:30 Mosaic of History tour? Good-good – let me introduce myself first. I’m a memory keeper from the House of Rose Quartz, and a curator for this museum. Now before you I show you the rest of the museum I’ll take you up the corridor that details our nation’s long past. The mosaics are centuries old, built by the House of Crystal and are one of the finest depictions we have of this time…”
    The curator, dressed in rich browns but with the pink-striped/embroidered mages’ cloak of his family, led the large group into a wide museum corridor that contained a famously tall ceiling. He had a remote control in his hand, with which he switched on one set of lights, illuminating the first of several large stone-cut pictures hung on the wall.
    “The history of our planet is mostly warfare, several factions fighting for the same thing, as you would expect. But the foremost war we had was nothing like the others, which have been mostly trade wars, over resources and such – yes, like the Ametrine War, sir. This was the Long War, fought for the throne of our planet.”
    He liked it when his audience gave clarifications of their own, so now he was on a roll. “Now millennia ago, we didn’t have the thirteen Great Houses like we have today. There were but four named, and the rest were just ‘the general populace’. Three of the four were known back then as the White Houses, as you can see from the first mosaic.”
    The plaque showed representations of three people, standing on a green surface with a pale background, each with a white gem above them. The leftmost showed a woman with flowing white hair and dress, the gem above her bathing her in more colourless light. The rightmost was very similar, except the figure was male, dressed in grey with silver hair and with silver light. The centre, and the only darker-skinned one amongst them, was decked out in all colours of the rainbow, his black hair tipped with colour and surrounded with the same. All three wore long cloaks that trailed to the floor behind them, coloured the same way they were and edged with a plain silver band.
    “The Houses of Crystal, Diamond and Opal. These three families warred for the throne for generations. All three set down the foundations for how we live now, though for some time it was mostly the same – although there are accounts from this period, giving us some details of life back then. Anyway, the fighting eventually gave rise to the founding of the other Houses – called the Coloured Houses way back when.”
    The second mosaic, smaller than the first, showed the three representatives on their hill, and a multitude of tiny chips below could be grouped into the families known by so many today.
    “The Coloured Houses may have been founded, but they were still nothing more than peasants, people to take advantage of. They were grouped then as they are now – as half the population were Mages, so they and their relatives were segregated into non-related family groups, or the Houses, by the element they controlled. All three White Houses used them for whatever purpose required.”
    Red and blue.
    “Even then the Houses of Ruby and Sapphire, as they came to be known, were renowned fighters over the land and sea respectively. No Sapphire ship would sink when captained by a water mage, and entire armies of fire mages were notorious in those old days. Beautiful mosaics these, yes ma’am, worked by the House of Crystal…there are individual House ones, yes, on the opposite wall to you…”
    Aqua and orange.
    “Yes, you have a question? I see. Well, the Coloured Houses were really known by their names from the offset, although they were more addressed as their cumulative whole. These people were merely talented peasants to the White Houses, their families forcibly shoved together into what must have been very awkward gatherings. Even the Houses of Aquamarine and Topaz, scientists and teachers all, as well as the wind and the light, were afforded only the same treatment as their elemental peers.”
    Yellow and green.
    “It wasn’t a very equal society back then, no, you’re right sir. If you go in the Celestine Room after the tour, you can read the more individual accounts from this time. Even the farmers back then were used surreptitiously, though everyone required the services of the medics…partially a reason why the House of Emerald is a rich house nowadays. Still, even the House of Citrine also made good allegiances that last today, considering their bearing over the earth and their first partners’ working of the plants.”
    Purple and light pink.
    “Of course little would be known if we hadn’t had scribes back then, partially why the Celestine Room is good for any other members of the House of Rose Quartz that may be among us. I particularly like it, as you may have guessed. Good to have two families in mind-working, both awake and asleep. Plus in the eras of peace the House of Amethyst – yes, I don’t doubt that sir – settled any arguments and drew up the enduring tenets…”
    The curator turned to go to the next mosaic along, remembering to flip the lights using his remote. A young brown-haired girl skipped forwards to tug at the man’s embroidered cloak, causing him to stop suddenly and his tour group to nearly stumble.
    “Yes – thank you, little one. She’s clever, she’s been counting; and two Houses are unaccounted for. The House of Stone remained then as it is now and has always been – the ungrouped, the folk whose ambient magic in everyday items and crafts couldn’t be sorted reliably like the elementals but who have proved timeless and invaluable. The symbolic army of the previous have brown demantoid chips in, if you look carefully – the White Houses used them just as everyone else.”
    The next mosaic was even smaller, heading onto the next large scene the group could see, even unlit. The small frame showed the representative of the last family, a dark man with his cloak swathing round him, his midnight hair hiding much of his face. The gem above him, emulating the style of the first plaque and of the ones the other side of the corridor, was a deep black.
    “The House of Obsidian. The only other House that existed from the very beginning, alongside the White Houses. They tried for the throne a few times too, but failed early on, just after the founding of the Coloured Houses. So they changed their modus operandi and offered their services of the darkness to which family paid highest. Their shadowmancy was used by all sides in the Long War, especially on the coercion front. It might be distasteful, ma’am, but it’s part of their culture, their history…indeed.”
    Perhaps a little too distasteful, as he led them to the fourth mosaic, showing the next scene.
    “The fighting, the taking of and the losing of the throne continued for millennia, starting far before any records began. But as our people developed, significant changes started coming to light. It started in LW 495 when the House of Crystal was defeated utterly, losing forever their chance of ruling.”
    The white-clad woman from the first mosaic took up most of this plaque, on her knees before the two other men. The myriad of coloured chips remained still in the background, but her supplication to the remaining White Houses was obvious. Several of the tour group’s eyes drew to the symbolic cloak she still wore, knowing its significance to come; many of the audience wore similar cloaks themselves.
    “Luckily for them the House of Crystal was an adaptable family, if slightly naïve, and the first of the long-lasting allegiances were made. Everything before had been made in war, and easily broken; this was the first that lasts to the present day. As if to unite the new loser to the old, The House of Obsidian made them a proposition that was accepted.”
    The next mosaic, smaller again, showed simply what was said in coloured tile form.
    “Now if we were going to go by a lot of popular fiction nowadays, the two united Houses would have overthrown Opal and Diamond by themselves. But no, ladies and gentlemen, they didn’t. They used their allegiance and waited, watching from the sidelines.”
    Mosaic number seven was entirely in shades of grey, the lightest and the darkest forming a border as the grey-clad men fought on their hill surrounded by the chips of folk temporarily sworn to their service.
    “They endured the next centuries of even worse combat, now the throne was fought over by two factions instead of three. Obsidian watched with cold calculation, while Crystal forged minor links with every other House she could reach. What they were doing was not simply observing, oh my no: Obsidian was going to choose who would ultimately win this long war.”
    The lights changed again, and several smiled; this was the part of the story they liked best. The only round mosaic of the collection had all female figures, dressed in many colours and billowing cloaks and surrounding a multi-hued character.
    “Obsidian made their decision, and sent representatives of the House of Crystal to visit one of their old equals: Opal. She carried a proposition, and it is assumed to have guaranteed them victory. By now Crystal was on a level field with the rest of the Houses, and Obsidian went along the links forged and gathered up a mage of suitable power from them all, save Stone.”
    Here the guide nodded, knowing the next part of his lecture and aiming to make the tangent as short as possible. “Now you all know the told differences between the genders when it comes to magery, I assume? Not quite? Well, a male mage has the scope, and a female the focus. A man, fully-trained, may wield control over every aspect that his House’s power grants him. The most powerful of any male mage can know that within his power he can do anything he needs.” Here he swallowed. “A female mage, on the other hand, did not possess such scope, and instead only could work a few different types. But her emotions lent such strength to her magic that merely focusing on her work could call up a display far removed from anything a male mage could do. The most powerful mages in terms of the sheer power they could control had always been female, in all of recorded history.”
    He turned back to the mosaic, breathing out and in from his quick speaking. “The current head of the House of Opal sent her princess, herself a powerful mage in her own right, to unite with this small army. They were known as the Ten, the first equal-footing loyalty ever, and at the head of Opal’s armies, they marched on the House of Diamond.”
    While the next plaque revealed this huge army converging on the small silver tent, the last mosaic remained in darkness. Several of his audience shifted uncomfortably.
    “Finally our war was over. Diamond was defeated more completely than Crystal ever was, and the Ten continued to put down any insurgents, enabling the House of Opal to take the throne for good. Our planet was renamed Opelaiux, and the House of Crystal built their palace which was named for them in their honour. The Ten had brought peace, a peace that endures to this day, but they had inadvertently shown what needed to be done to uphold it.”
    The final mosaic, in brilliant, brutal colour, revealed exactly what price had to be paid.
    “Women mages had been behind ever major turning-point in every course of the Long War, simply because of the astronomical power they wielded. So female magery was forbidden, and punished by death. But many say that if the price of enduring peace, comfortable living and glorious family trade is simply that women can no longer wear the mages’ cloak, it is a price worth paying.”
    The crowd murmured its assent, and as the lights all came on slowly dispersing to visit the rest of the museum. A bunch of children giggled and chattered away as they went back to the beginning of the corridor to take photos. But only one of the crowd, her long white hair tied in twin bunches trailing to the floor, remained in her place, staring up at the last mosaic.
    Her ancestors had made it, and she gazed sadly at a more distant ancestor as she was burned to her death.
    Eventually her silver eyes lowered and she left the corridor, her spirit aching as it always did when she heard the tale of the bravery of the Ten. A bravery she wished she had been a part of.