Now I can show you what happened to Iscalio. Out of game, his player left because Jessie was getting sick of his 'sense of humor.' In game . . . well, he ran into trouble in a way only Iscalio can. This story takes place almost simultaneously to the events in Chapter Eleven, while the rest of the party was at Bonaventure Cemetery with Michael.
If you don't want to read this whole, long thing, feel free not to. It is not directly related to the main plot, but it helps tie up a loose end.
Midsummer's Eve
“Damned fluorescent lighting,” Iscalio muttered to the empty room loudly. He threw up his hands in frustration, rustling the fronds of one of his many potted plants, now all dying in the air-conditioned, unnaturally-lit catacombs that the bureau referred to as his ‘office.’ His ghost fox growled behind his leg, unnerved along with Iscalio.
To Iscalio’s eyes, the ghost was almost as white as he was. He was always a bit nervous when going through the Bureau compound that some other knight would mistake his albino skin and red eyes for some type of ghoul or something. Though he was pretty sure anyone would go pale if they stayed in this place long enough, with it’s fake lighting, no trees, no open spaces, no wild animals. Iscalio and his fox growled again.
“What the hell do the Elves do in this place? God!”
Iscalio sighed and slumped his shoulders, sitting down at his desk. He had a report to write. After nearly killing a couple of civilians in a failed attempt to save the poisoned Dragon businessman, Dornankanir, his superiors had decided that, unless he could explain himself, the Bureau would have to transfer him to the Monster Hunters’ Department. Out of the general Agent Department he and his brother Cai had been collaborating in for the past month. The Brothers Maxwell no more.
He opened up Microsoft Word, grumbling to himself. Of course an all-encompassing organization intent on supressing the truth of magic from the rest of the ‘idiotic’ society would use Windows. The ‘Bureau for the Management of Magicks,’ his ass. More like the ‘Big-brother Masterminding with Magic.’
His fox was hungry. He could feel the ghost’s hunger in the pit of his own stomach, though he somehow knew it wasn’t Iscalio that was hungry, but that incoporeal Ranyard who never seemed to be able to give him the magic he needed. For a bonded spirit animal, Iscalio was left with the feeling that it ought to at least be able to heal his plants.
Several minutes of frustration passed as Iscalio related the reasons he had leaned out of the window of the car he and his brother had stolen and fired several shots into the tires of an adjacent car. The car had been blocking their way, and he had only been following orders. After Dornankanir had passed out from poisoning, his brother had taken command and ordered them all to stop the ambulance. It would not have done for the doctors to have witnessed the Dragon reverting out of his assumed human form on the operating table.
He left out the part where his brother, usually the violent one, had tried to stop his crazed, gun-toting nature mage of a brother from shooting at a few extra cars along the way.
Iscalio was revising the description, adding on extra details about his diligence in trying to save the Dragon’s life, when a knock sounded from his door. Iscalio looked up at the plastic-looking door, grumbling again that the whole complex looked like it was made from white, black, or grey plastic.
He stood up from his ergonomic plastic chair and walked toward the door, sighing. The headquarters of the BMM, secluded in the fairy world, a world of magic and mystery, looked like an iMac. He made a note to requisition a wood finish for his entire room. Then at least his dying plants would have friends.
He silently opened the door to the hallway outside and was greeted with a nervous face. A man of about forty, short brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a labcoat, stared at Iscalio, then around his room.
“You’re the druid, right? Maxwell?”
Iscalio muttered. At least the old man wasn’t calling him a hippy like that Indian chick. . . . Though when Iscalio thought about it, the man in front of him might have been old enough to have actually been a hippy.
“Druid works, yeah. You’re who?”
“Kenneth Malcom,” the man said brusquely, glancing from side to side down the hallway. “Can I come in? I need to tell you about some of your coworkers who you shouldn’t be trusting.”
Iscalio shrugged and let the man in, then closed the door behind him, trying to thump it ominously, hoping to get a scare out of the man. He didn’t flinch, though, and seemed intent on mumbling a song under his breath.
“Hey, that’s that Turtles song, right? So Happy Together?”
Kenneth Malcom nodded, standing in the center of the cramped office, made even smaller by the dozens of long-leafed, wilting bushes and ferns. The AC made the air too dry, especially when Iscalio had almost gotten used to the humidity in Savannah, where his brother operated his dojo.
The lab-coated man leaned against the wall and stopped mumbling his song. “You’ve been working on the Dragon murders case, right?”
Iscalio harrumphed, glancing angrily at his computer. The fox growled as well, silent and invisible to Iscalio’s guest. “Yeah, that’s me. Not really much of a case. Somebody just has it out for a bunch of Dragons. I’ve met two already, and I can see the logic behind killing ‘em off. God! What egos!”
Malcom frowned. “I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about, but I do know that someone in the bureau’s involved somehow. Some files I’ve been working on vanished suddenly earlier today. Files pertaining to some close autopsy scannings of that body your brother drug in here about a week ago.”
Iscalio chuckled despite himself. His brother Cai had shot out the base of a statue in one of Savannah’s cemeteries and let the thing collapse on top of some nut who’d attacked him and some of the other knights they worked with. Iscalio hadn’t been present.
“What about him?” Iscalio asked, shaking his leg to keep his spectral fox from getting too close.
“Well. . . ,” he glanced around nervously, “as the preliminary autopsy report showed, there wasn’t any residual spirit energy left in him, so . . . so he couldn’t have been using magic like your brother and his fellow knights claimed.”
Iscalio shrugged out of boredom. “My ghost gets nervous around strangers. Make it quick, okay?”
Malcom nodded, looking around as though he could see the ghost. Without stopping his search of the room, the man continued. “When I examined his um . . . his brain matter, thinking perhaps it had been telepathic intrusion, I found microscopic distortions. It’s the physical remnant of . . . damn, sorry. I’m just a little nervous.”
Iscalio shrugged helplessly. “Sorry I can’t help you. You can skip the science and just tell me the problem, though. What’s got you spooked?”
Malcom buried his face in his hands and shuddered. Then he looked up into Iscalio’s eyes. “Normally a ghost leaves a spiritual imprint, along with a physical imprint. Magic can detect one, science the other. Well, this man your brother killed didn’t have any spiritual imprint, but he had the physical signs of a ghost. Like . . . where the ghost moved around the furniture so it’d be at home in his head.”
Iscalio nervously ran a hand through his short white hair. “So his ghost is gone?”
Malcom nodded. “It . . . it left entirely, instead of dying with him. The only thing that I can think of that can totally . . . totally steal a spirit is a telepath, the same way one could switch minds with you.”
Iscalio’s eyes went wide. He’d agreed to the occasional loyalty test mental scan by the Bureau, to make sure he wasn’t possessed by a demon or something, but he hadn’t been told the telepaths could suck his brains out. “So someone stole the man’s ghost, then hacked into your computer and deleted your files? Hunh. It might’ve been Tagin. He’s a hacker, and he’s got the hots for that telepath chick. Of course, I think she’s hot too. Hmm.”
Malcom shook his head. “No, I forgot to tell you. It couldn’t have been a hacker. I was using my laptop. It wasn’t connected to the Bureau server at the time. Someone deleted it directly.”
Iscalio shrugged. “No biggie. I mean—”
“I never let the laptop out of my sight,” Malcom said bluntly. “The only person who could’ve deleted it would’ve been me. . . .”
“Oh ****, man,” Iscalio exclaimed. “They were talking about that whole Legion thing, with it possessing people and jumping from body to body. Oh ****. You mean somebody hopped into your head and-?”
Nervously twitching his fingers, Malcom nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep whoever it is out of my head by doing the usual. Singing songs, doing math, picturing lurid images to maybe disgust whoever’s trying to read my mind.”
The somberness of the problem helped Iscalio suppress his desire to laugh. Solemnly he asked, “So, what now?”
Now Malcom shrugged, sighing. “It looks like someone’s trying to steal magic. Killing Dragons, stealing ghosts. And it looks like it’s a telepath who’s doing it.”
“J’Qwuan? The tentacle-guy?” Iscalio asked, nervously glancing at the door as he began to recite a Nine Inch Nails about animals in his head. “Or Autumn? I mean, how many telepaths do we have here?”
Malcom shook his head and fiddled with the dying fronds absently. “I don’t know. But there aren’t any that I know of who can create fireballs, which is how some of the Dragons were killed. So it means a conspiracy.”
Iscalio coughed out a nervous chuckle. “So where do we start?”
Malcom put up his hands, his attention back on Iscalio. “I’m not getting involved anymore. I just told you because you’re the only one from your group who’s still in the complex. I’m going to file a report as soon as I get done here. Hopefully,” he tapped the side of his head, “no one’s been listening in.”
Iscalio stood up straight. “What do you mean, I’m the only one here? Where’s everyone else? They should be back by now.”
“I checked,” Malcom said, rubbing the sides of his arms to warm himself. “Apparently they were sent to find another knight. Michael Dunne, I think you know him.”
Iscalio crinkled his nose at the thought. Smacking his lips, he walked over to his computer and sat down again. “I’ll send an email to Cai and ev’rybody else, just in case. Do you have any leads as to where we should start looking?”
Malcom walked over beside Iscalio and looked at the monitor. “Once you finish the email, check on . . . um, check up on the statuses of the telepaths in the Bureau. See if anyone’s missing. Especially if several went missing at once.”
Iscalio nodded, but he was busying typing the letter to his brother. “D’you mind hanging around for a few more minutes? Just to be safe in case our telepath is still interested in you?”
“Sure,” Malcom said weakly. “Where else do I have to go?”
Iscalio chuckled. “And by the way, thanks for letting me in on this. You just made my life so much easier.”
Half an hour later they hit upon a lead. A high-ranking telepath and several knight bodyguards had been assigned to long term duty at a forest in England. They weren’t reported as missing, but their last status report was from weeks ago. It was their best lead, with the only close runner-up being a concern in New Orleans that earlier in the afternoon several Goblins had been speaking too-fluent English, and that it was the hometown of Dalavar Keneil, the half-Elf telepath who’d gone nuts during Iscalio’s last mission, then vanished mysteriously this same afternoon.
“Neil was with us in Atlanta when the Dragon was poisoned,” Iscalio explained. “It’s more likely that he was just a victim, though, and the Goblin thing’s just a coincidence. Too bad for the guy, though. It sounded like he went really bonkers.”
Malcom frowned in concern. “Wait. You were in Atlanta earlier today?”
Iscalio mumbled, “Yeah,” as he quickly checked his email.
“At the party where the Dragon was poisoned. . . . That’s where they found my gremlins. I thought they were caught before they could’ve done any damage. Maybe they . . . maybe they ate him.”
“Man, you are not making my day any brighter,” Iscalio complained. “You can borrow the computer to type your report as soon as I’m done telling my mom what I’m up to. Let me just log out of Juno.”
A few moments later Kenneth Malcom was typing his reported with nervous bursts of speed punctuated by moments of brow-furrowing worry. Iscalio’s fox was asleep, though, so the albino nature mage wasn’t afraid of any intruders. Instead, anxious to get to work, he tapped Malcom on the shoulder.
“Hey, when you get a chance, could you tell me how to get to England? Where would I get a key? As soon as my brother gets back, we’re going to go hunting.”
“We have . . . there are some generic keys. . . ,” Malcom admitted, his typing pausing whenever he spoke, “keys that go to any door, not just one, but they’re mostly for higher-ranking knights. Once we tell the chief he should be . . . be able to, well, help us out there.”
Iscalio felt reserved and nervous, and he ran through his concerns while the background noise of Malcom’s typing became droning. Iscalio reasoned that the fewer people who knew about what he planned to do, the more minds a telepath would have to scan to find it out. He was in no great rush, so the airport just might work.
“Listen, Malcom, I think I’m just gonna do this the low-magic, high-tech way for a change and—”
His fox was growling, and the constant noise of keystrokes suddenly died. He looked down and saw that Malcom had stopped typing, his fingers stopped mid-action. A line of H’s were scrolling across the screen, the only movement in the room. Malcom had even stopped twitching, stopping singing his songs.
Iscalio swore and shoved Malcom sideways, trying to knock the chair over. Malcom snapped out of his trance and caught himself as he fell, giving Iscalio a chance to pull open his desk drawer and retrieve his cel phone and his gun.
As the druid turned to look at Malcom, the scientist’s hand lashed out and punched Iscalio in the groin, grazing a sensitive area. In his momentary shock he loosened his grip on his gun and cel phone, loose enough that Malcom’s chop to his hand knocked the gun to the floor.
Iscalio kicked at Malcom as the telepathically-controlled man went for the gun, but missed, and as a last defense Iscalio smacked his hand across Malcom’s temple to try to stun him, smashing his cel phone into the scientist’s face. Malcom grimaced but picked up the gun regardless, firing off a shot before Iscalio could even consider surrendering.
The bullet tore through his shirt at his shoulder, and Iscalio fell back, scrambling toward the door. He lunged for his staff and toppled to the floor, ducking several more blasts of gunfire. As Iscalio hit the floor, he felt a sting of pain in his belly, followed by the warm spread of blood.
With a quick mental command, the tip of Iscalio’s metallic staff lit up with an emerald glow and extended to a blade. Rolling to his feet he leapt forward and slashed sideways as Malcom continued firing. The shooting stopped in a spray of blood as Malcom fell forward, clutching his throat.
Iscalio extinguished his scythe and staggered forward, grimacing at the pain in his stomach. He dropped the staff and ran to the desk, where Malcom lay bent-over, face down. He wasn’t moving.
Iscalio cursed silently, hurt by the effort of breathing. Unable to help Malcom (and wary of the idea of trying it), Iscalio looked down at his spirit fox. The totem animal nodded warily, and slowly the pain eased in Iscalio’s abdomen, the wound now healed. Iscalio paused, surprised. He had never been shot before.
Sighing in frustration, Iscalio looked around the blood-spattered room. His cel phone was broken, his gun empty of most of its bullets. Fighting back mild disgust, he picked up the blood-dripping pistol and tucked it into his pocket.
Another quick glamer hid his blood-stained clothes, changed his face, and dulled the smell around him, for a while at least. Not waiting for others to come in and give the telepath more ammunition to try to kill him with, Iscalio slipped out the door and closed it behind himself. In the hallway, quiet and disturbingly deserted, Iscalio listened to his own heart pumping, to the pitter patter of his fox’s paws.
And to a feminine voice singing in the distance. As the words became clear, Iscalio grimaced in fear, turning to run the opposite direction.
“Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you day and night, it’s only right.”
Iscalio ran down the halls, taking turns at random, hoping to lose his pursuer. He was fairly certain he had recognized that voice. Autumn. He quickly nixed all affection and attraction he had held for her.
Generic keys, Malcom had said. He needed to get to England, and quickly. If Autumn already knew, she’d be able to alert whoever else she was working with there, but if Iscalio could get a key to take him directly to England, he might be able to cut her off. Who knew how far a telepath could send a message?
Generic keys. Malcom had said the Chief had some. Hopefully the Chief wouldn’t be home.
Iscalio was about to turn a corner to head try to find the Chief’s office when a calm feminine voice announced throughout the complex an alert for Iscalio Maxwell; his description followed: “Albino human male, carrying a lightblade scythe. He may be magically disguised.”
Cursing, Iscalio broke into a run and turned a corner, then stopped short at the sight of two knights only a dozen feet away.
“God dammit,” Iscalio said loudly, realizing that the two had already recognized him. The glamer had changed his features, but it couldn’t hide the large metal pole in his hands, and another magic-user would recognize that he was enchanted.
The larger of the two, dressed in casual clothes, took a step back and began to concentrate. Iscalio could feel the magical energy surging into him.
The shorter man, likewise casually-dressed, slipped a pair of daggers out from his long-sleeved shirt and advanced cautiously.
Iscalio smiled nervously. “Listen, guys . . . I didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t have to worry about me.”
The dagger-wielding knight nodded, stopping about five feet away. “Alright then. Put the weapon down and we’ll let you talk to the Chief.”
Iscalio’s natural reaction was to avoid dealing with authority, but he needed to find the Chief, and he was lost in this end of the Bureau. Sighing sincerely, he shrugged and dropped the pole of his scythe to the floor, then kicked it over beside the knight.
“This is all a mistake, you know,” Iscalio said, to which the two other knights exchanged glances. The tall magic-user gestured for him to go in the lead, and, nervous under their gazes, the albino Maxwell obliged. “You know I’m lost. Just tell me where to turn.”
Several minutes later, after passing by a few dozen other knights and ending up with an entourage of four knights total, Iscalio was beginning to wonder what exactly his plan was. His fox was being no help, despite being supposedly a ‘cunning’ beast. Regardless, Iscalio kept the appearance of control.
“Take a left. The Chief’s waiting for you.”
Iscalio looked at the inconspicuous door, then back to his escorts. Matter-of-factly he said, “That’s not his office. And I thought I was lost.”
One of the knights sighed and opened the door, pointing inside. “Chief doesn’t have an office, but he’s waiting in there.”
Iscalio shrugged away his ignorance and walked into the room, smiling back at his escorts until he was inside. Once he passed the doorway, he turned to face inward.
The Chief sat behind a desk at the opposite end of the office, staring at him sternly. Half-sitting on the edge of the desk, her legs crossed demurely, Autumn smiled mockingly back at Iscalio. He felt a chill run down his back.
“Close the door, son,” the Chief said, but Iscalio could see Autumn’s smiling lips mouth the same words a moment before the Chief. Shuddering, Iscalio nervously closed the door behind him, leaving him alone in the room with the telepath and her puppet.
The Chief continued speaking, this time without the Elvish telepath’s direction. “It seems like we have nothing but problems with you, son. We’ve had our eye on you from the beginning, but none of the insubordinations before ever amounted to anything. I want to believe you have a good reason for this, so I’m going to give you a chance to explain yourself.”
Iscalio coughed into his hand, then looked down as he adjusted his clothes.
“Well, you see,” still looking down, “a scientist, Malcom, came and—”
“Kenneth Malcom. The scientist you ki—”
At a sudden whim, Iscalio screamed and snapped up his pistol then fired at Autumn. Though Iscalio hoped the attack had been sudden enough for the telepath not to see it coming, the bullet rang out, but then deflected away, inches from Autumn as she cringed to cover her face. The Chief was stunned for only a moment, and then he shoved back from his chair and stood. Iscalio hurled his gun at Autumn, then ran for the door. To his surprise, though the bullet had been deflected, the gun itself hit her squarely in the chest.
Iscalio yanked the door open and leapt out, dodging between the four knights trying to stop him. He staggered away, lashing out with his fists at the knight holding his staff, then kicked him in the groin as he yanked away his weapon.
As Iscalio sprinted away, he heard the Chief ordering them to stop him. He rushed down the corridor, activating his scythe with a laugh of triumph. He spun around a corner and sprinted away just as a lightning bolt slammed into the wall beside him and exploded the plastic and metal into a blinding cloud. Coughing and staggering, Iscalio bent forward and ran on.
As he cleared the cloud of debris, he recognized a welcome scent. Trees. His fox guiding him, he sped down the hallways toward the smell, sucking in ragged breaths as he sprinted away from his pursuers.
A more urgent alert reverberated through the halls, warranting use of deadly force if necessary. Behind him, he could hear one set of footsteps getting closer, and with a glance back he saw the Chief running effortlessly after him.
A doorway blocked his way, but with one slice he tore through it. Leaping through the mangled metal, he tumbled across the ground, rolling to his feet and standing to face the Chief. He smiled as he quickly glanced around his surroundings. An arboreum, in the middle of this facility of lifeless plastic and metal. Apparently the Bureau did keep a place for the Elves to go.
Iscalio took a few cautious steps backward into the large forest as the Chief reached the door. Stridently stepping into the cultivated forest, the Chief shook his head and held out a hand.
“I’ll give you one more chance to surrender.”
A few heads of fey forest creatures appeared at the edges of the trees, staring out at them, watching the confrontation with curious eyes.
Iscalio inched away slowly, nervously. “You don’t happen to have any generic keys, do you? I need to get to . . . New Orleans,” he lied.
The Chief broke into a quick run, leaping forward at Iscalio with an aerial kick. Iscalio leapt away sideways, then flung out a hand at the ground as the Chief landed and spun around. Roots snapped out of the ground, and grasses stretched upward to reach for the Chief’s legs, but the black-dressed man simply leapt over them and toward Iscalio. He landed stradling Iscalio as the druid tried to stand back up, but with one swift punch to the back of Iscalio’s head, he slammed the druid back down.
Groaning, Iscalio tried to scramble away, but the Chief stepped sideways and said one word in the language of magic. Iscalio felt his limbs begin to turn hard and rigid, but he felt his fox mentally blocking the magical binding. Rolling away, Iscalio shook off the holding spell and kicked to his feet, snapping his scythe off the ground with his foot. He caught his weapon and slashed at the Chief, but the off-balance attack only barely caught the chest of his suit.
But through the rip, Iscalio saw what he wanted. A key, in the chief’s breast pocket.
The Chief rushed for him, and Iscalio switched the scythe into a parry, blade out. With a leap, the Chief bounded sideways and kicked off a tree, then angled in from above and the side, around Iscalio’s parry. His foot smashed into Iscalio’s chest, knocking him back and onto his side.
As the Chief stalked forward, Iscalio slashed at his feet, then rolled away and shoved out with the end of his scythe. The Chief stepped sideways and in closer, then reached out and chopped with his hand into Iscalio’s forearm. Crying out in pain, Iscalio lost his grip and dropped the scythe, then punched out for the Chief’s chest.
The older man caught Iscalio’s fist in his hand and twisted the druid’s arm behind his back, bending him over into a pin. With a kick to the back of Iscalio’s legs, he forced him to the ground, then began to bend his arm farther than the joints were meant to go.
“You brought this on yourseld, son,” the Chief sighed, applying more pressure on the druid’s arm.
Iscalio gave a brief shriek, then turned his head and glared up at the Chief. “Establishment bastard!”
With a scream of pain, Iscalio jerked his body around, dislocating his own shoulder and pulling out of the hold. He lashed his legs into the Chief’s, tripping him, then stretched out and yanked the key free from the Chief’s jacket. He kicked away to his feet, then thrashed out a foot, connecting with a face, a stomach.
Iscalio almost fell when the Chief tried to grab his leg, but he hopped away and growled in pain. His fox channeled energy into the surroundings, and from the trees emerged dozens of squirrels, skittering toward the Chief as the man tried to stand. They leapt upon him, scurrying up his sides and to his face, blinding him, if not actually hurting him.
Several shots rang out from the doorway to the forest, and Iscalio turned to see the other pursuing knights clearing the mangled door. Gritting his teeth at the pain of his dangling dislocated arm, Iscalio ran for his scythe. He tucked the key into his belt and snatched the scythe from the ground, then sped away into the forest, leaving the squirrel horde to keep them off his trail.
He ran for less than a minute until he collapsed against a tree, out of breath. He deactivated his weapon and laid it across his lap, then pulled the key out of his belt. He could hear the shouts of the knights as they scoured the forest for him, like hounds for a fox.
Looking at the key, Iscalio swore. He hoped his brother could find him soon.
Concentrating on the key, he envisioned England, knowing there had to be a gate there someplace. A door opened before him, brightly shining, but dark on the other side.
With one quick look around, he stood and headed for the door. As he passed through, he was bathed with chill, pre-dawn air. The doorway snapped shut behind him, dropping the area into darkness again.
Iscalio looked around, in awe at the massive stone pillars forming a ring around him, pillars he had seen both in his dreams, and on the Discovery channel. He turned, facing the whole structure, feeling the energy of the shrine to nature. Stonehenge flooded him with warm, divine energy, sympathetic to his pain. Smiling, Iscalio slumped against the central stones and let out a sigh. The scattered patches of dewy grass were cool, and the pain in his arm was soothed by the aura of the Druid shrine.
He took in a full breath, smiling at the fading stars overhead
“Ah. Home at last.”
Iscalio awoke with a start as his fox growled a warning. In the early morning sun streaming between the pillars of Stonehenge, Iscalio could make out a humanoid shadow moving toward him, standing in the shadow of a tall stone at the edge of the ring. Iscalio’s ghostly fox darted away, deeper into the megalithic structure, and Iscalio followed suit, slipping away to avoid being discovered.
He hid in the shadow of one of the tallest stone pillars, leaning against it for strength while he considered his options and his health. His arm still hurt, but the brief rest in the aura of Stonehenge had fit it back into joint. The bruises from the beating the Chief had given him were faint, but still stung enough to teach him a lesson about insubordination. Next time he’d have to run faster.
Iscalio heard a car drive past on the road only a few hundred feet from the ancient shrine. Suppressing an angered mutter about the lack of respect for nature, he tuned his hearing to try to discern the approach of the man he’d seen. Then a voice sounded from the other side of the pillar, a husky British voice.
“He’s not ‘ere. And I can’t scan for ‘im b’cause of the field aroun’ Stone’enge. Don’t worry. ‘E won’t be a threat to our project. I’ll send out the rangers to find him.”
Iscalio pondered this, standing still, his albino knuckles turning whiter as he clenched the shaft of his unignited scythe. After a few minutes of waiting, his ghost relaxed, and Iscalio peered around the edge of the megalith to see a clunky English car driving off.
Iscalio cursed. He needed to follow that car, but he’d never be able to keep up, and he would have to risk being caught. He turned to his fox, intending to ask for a healing spell to give him the stamina to chase a car, but the fox was standing curiously, its head raised as it looked about with wide eyes.
“What’s up?”
The fox did a doubletake as it sniffed the air. Iscalio could sense that the fox recognized this place. He pondered that for a moment, then realized it made sense that the fox spirit of a Druid would come from England.
At Iscalio’s feet, the fox looked up at him, emoting that he should follow. Iscalio frowned, puzzled, but did follow when the fox bounded off across the grassy hills, heading for the nearest treeline. He had no better leads, and his fox seemed to be onto something. In fact, as Iscalio left the overwhelming field of magical energy that surrounded Stonehenge, he could sense another magical force in the direction the fox was leading him.
They traveled for almost ten minutes before Iscalio began to grumble to himself. They had passed through a few small groves of trees, but the fox did not seem keen on stopping soon. So Iscalio stopped for them, knowing that the ghost could not move far from the one it had bonded to.
“Alright red, I know you’re dead and everything, but I still have to eat. I’m not Scottish, so I don’t plan to eat grass, and I’m not Irish, so I don’t plan to eat dirt.”
The fox turned and growled at him, sneering its small mouth, revealing tiny sharp teeth. Iscalio shrugged.
“Growl all you want; you’ll just make me like the British even less. And dammit, I’m hungry, so use that nose of yours and point me to the nearest tavern.”
The fox stared at him bitterly, then turned and curled into a ball on the ground, as if to sleep. Iscalio had the sudden urge to kick the small animal, but he knew he couldn’t touch it. Instead, he shrugged and headed in the direction he guessed the road to be. After a few dozen feet, he heard his unhappy spirit rouse it self off the ground and unwillingly follow.
It had taken Iscalio about half a minute to realize he didn’t like the English very much. He had found a small town tavern, but they looked at him oddly and chuckled about his accent, and the ‘pub’ wasn’t anything like the stereotype he’d expected. He’d wandered into a small town expecting an ale, but instead they offered him some damned blend of Starbucks coffee. In Iscalio’s mind, nothing better represented the cultural-leeching of globalization than Starbucks. Instead he had ordered a Coca-Cola.
Having wasted two hours sidetracking to find a town, when Iscalio let the fox again guide him, he was even angrier, though he could not decide what exactly he was angry at. By the time the fox had led him back to where they had departed from the trail, the sun had nearly risen to noon. The time difference was throwing him off, so he felt almost pleased that he had had to give up his watch to the bartender.
Iscalio had forgotten that England doesn’t use dollars.
The trail continued for hours more, and Iscalio followed resolutely, only swearing occasionally whenever he began to get sore from walking. He was bolstered by the fact that the faint feeling of magic was growing stronger the longer they tracked it, so he remained relatively quiet throughout the temperate afternoon.
Finally, about an hour before the sun would set, they came upon a fresh set of tire tracks cutting across a field, heading toward a nearby forest. He and his fox followed the tracks, trying to stay low and use the hills as cover. After several minutes of skulking forward, Iscalio spotted the car, the same one he had seen driving off earlier in the day. It was parked amid the sparse trees at the edge of a large forest, easily hidden unless you were close enough.
A cautious check for magical auras revealed the car unoccupied, but Iscalio could still feel a strong aura coming from the forest beyond the car. His fox scampered forward, and Iscalio followed, letting the fox lead him into the woods. They followed a light foot trail to a small river flowing through a shallow ravine. Light from the late afternoon sun filtered through the canopy of leaves, concealing Iscalio’s movements, and the soft bubbling of the stream drowned out the noise of his steps. He followed the fox spirit down into the streambed, letting the water cool his sore feet. Crouching behind a bush, he whispered to his fox, “What now? You recognize this place?”
The fox nodded, and Iscalio widened his eyes in surprise, not used to seeing such clear reactions from his ghost. “You and I need to start talking more often.”
The itching feeling of magic in the air suddenly began to thrum, pulsing in the air, making it thick. Several hundred feet ahead, the streambed curved and descended into a deeper ravine. But an odd light seemed to glow there where shadows should have fallen.
The sun was setting, and Iscalio knew better than to let night fall, because that would be when the Bureau agents would be doing whatever it was they were doing. Somehow, he hoped, this place had to have a connection to Legion, something linked with Autumn.
Iscalio ran forward, bent over to keep low, staying near the ravine wall for cover as he neared the strange glow. Around him the forest seemed to grow quiet, with the steady hum of insects, birds, and small animals draining away the closer he came to the unnaturally bright bend in the river.
Then, noise blossomed again, several voices talking in a language he did not recognize, but that he guessed was Latin. He could identify at least three different voices, all male, echoing through the ravine from about twenty feet away. Iscalio fingered the metal shaft of his scythe nervously, steeling himself for combat. Then suddenly his fox tensed beside him, and Iscalio followed its gaze upward in time to see two burly men leveling automatic pistols at him.
Iscalio lunged to the side to avoid the gunfire, and behind him he heard a spray of bullets tear open the riverbed. Iscalio ignited his scythe and swung high, but his attackers were out of reach. He could see that both of the dark-clothed men had swords at their hips, but they were not kind enough to get close enough to use them.
Unable to hit back, Iscalio broke into a run, heading further downstream toward the glow. More bullets zinged past him, one flying within inches of his face before ricocheting off the glowing blade of his scythe.
When he rounded the corner of the ravine, he saw the source of the light. Bright halogen lamps had been set up to illuminate a dig site in the middle of the river, and the course of the stream had been deflected by a small levee. Four men stood around the dig, the light from the lamps illuminating their combat-ready visages, and the sword hilts at their hips.
“Wait!” shouted the closest of the men, holding up his hands in warding. He was unarmed, and Iscalio recognized his voice from earlier in the morning. “Don’t shoot ‘im. He’s the fugitive!”
Iscalio did not let their kindness distract him, and he kept running on, closing the gap quickly. He swung his scythe at the unarmed man, but the instant before his attack would have struck, his target disappeared and reappeared a foot further away. As Iscalio readied his scythe for another attack, a red hot pain seared into his mind, and he staggered back, momentarily stunned, hallucinating flames before his eyes. When the flames cleared from his vision, Iscalio saw one of the knights rushing toward him, holding a long-bladed lightsword.
Iscalio feigned dizziness for a moment longer, sending a thought to his fox that he needed help. Then, as the opposing knight leapt to tackle Iscalio, the druid simply hopped out of the way, surprising the knight that he was no longer stunned. Iscalio dropped into a fighting stance, ready to face the knight, when the hair on the back of his neck began to tingle, and a thick mist rose up from the waters, filling the ravine and blocking vision. The other knights and the two gun-toting guards behind him all began to shout in dismay, and a few fired stray shots into the mist. Iscalio smiled, glad that his fox was holding up its end of the bargain.
He could only barely see the white gleam of his opponent’s light sword, but he used that as a target to aim his attack for. He closed and slashed, seeing the vague silhouette of his opponent as the long scythe blade dug into the man’s body. Over the din of the rest of the guards, the knight’s cry of pain sounded clearly.
In the grey mist, Iscalio dueled quickly and recklessly with the knight, using the superior reach of his scythe to keep his opponent at bay. As the sound of the guards grew closer, attracted by the noise of humming light blades, Iscalio attacked desperately, catching his opponent’s blade in the hook between the scythe and its shaft. With a twist of the scythe’s shaft, Iscalio locked their weapons together. The knight tried to pull his blade free, but Iscalio’s long scythe gave him better leverage, and he tore the lightsword out of the man’s grip.
A gunshot rang out too close for Iscalio’s comfort, so before his opponent could recover, the druid lashed the blade of his scythe in front of the man’s eyes, blinding him for a moment. In that moment, Iscalio slipped around him and pinned the man’s neck with his forearm. With his spare hand, he pressed the blade of his scythe against the man’s gut, digging in slightly.
“None of you Latin-speaking cockswain idiots move,” Iscalio shouted, “or I kill him!”
With a mental command, the fog began to fade away in wisps, letting the bright halogen illumination fill the ravine again. Before him, standing in the streambed, the Bureau men had fanned out to try to cut off his escape. He counted two generic toughs, two more knights holding light blades, and the leader, a middle-aged man dressed casually. Their leader fingered a small crystal prism in his hands as he stared at Iscalio with intimidating eyes.
The man spoke, his deep voice filling the ravine. “It’s you, then? Aye, ‘ey said you’d be here. Been in the Bureau too long, boy? Looks like ye could use some sun. And it’s not Latin, it’s Gaelic.”
The other guards chuckled, but the man Iscalio had pinned gulped, his voice coming out nervously high-pitched. “Um . . . don’t get him angry. I know you aren’t the one with a bloody sword to your gut, but try to understand me situation.”
Iscalio tightened his pin against the man’s neck to shut him up. “Alright, all of you be quiet. I don’t know what you’re in on, but whatever you’re up to, it’s gonna come to an end.”
The leader frowned at him, smirking slightly.
Ignoring him, Iscalio continued. “Alright. Now first you’re gonna get your double-Y chromosome brutes there to back the hell off, and then you’re gonna tell me what you know about ‘Legion.’”
A moment of hestitation later, the guards stepped back a few feet, but the two knights stayed close to their leader. The taller of the two knights looked Pakistani, and the other was a short, slender Asian man. Compared to the linebacker Iscalio had taken hostage, though, neither looked particularly threatening.
The leader of the group continued to stare at Iscalio, and again he felt the hair on his neck raising, but this time it disturbed him. He could see his fox spirit circling the legs of the group’s leader. The fox growled at him, but could do nothing.
“Well, dammit,” Iscalio shouted nervously. “Talk! What the hell are you doing here, and what’s this Legion?”
The deep-voiced man chuckled. “Such language. But no, I canne tell ye about any ‘Legion,’ because I don’t know about it. Now you’re going t’come with us, so we can clear away some of the delusions the Bureau’s been puttin’ in yer head.”
Iscalio grimaced and pressed his scythe slightly into his hostage’s stomach, sliding it slightly to cut a line across his flesh. The man groaned in pain, and Iscalio warned, “You’ll back the **** away unless you want to be bringing along your friend in a pair of body bags.”
The hostage whimpered, but the leader calmly shrugged. “He won’t do it.”
“You don’t know me,” Iscalio replied.
The leader again smirked, tapping his own forehead with his pointer finger. “Yeah I do. I know ye won’t kill a man if ye can help it.”
“A telepath?” Iscalio groaned. “Dammit, I hate you people.”
The telepath was about to speak again when the air began to thrum once more with magical energy. The halogen lights dimmed briefly, and the telepath clutched his head and moaned in pain. Seizing the opportunity, Iscalio shoved his hostage forward and into the telepath, knocking them both to the ground.
The air thrummed like it was filled with a heartbeat of magical energy, and the two other knights nervously stepped forward to flank Iscalio, holding their swords ready for combat. Iscalio faced the short Asian one, feinted a slash, then lashed out backward with the butt of his scythe to catch the brown-skinned Pakistani in the stomach. The Asian leapt forward, swinging his blade around Iscalio’s defense. The knight’s sword slashed low along Iscalio’s thigh, and the man’s advance drove him backward.
Iscalio turned to run, slamming the shaft of his scythe into the Pakistani man’s face, then slashing him along the chest. The tall man fell to the ground, clearing Iscalio’s path to run, but as he began to sprint away the Asian knight’s sword dug into his leg, and Iscalio nearly tripped. Stumbling away, he concentrated on the magic flowing through the ravine, focusing it toward his attackers.
The ground burst open with roots and weeds leapt up to entangle the two knights, the telepath, and the generic guards. The Asian knight slashed through the roots that tried to cling to his leg, and he advanced easily toward Iscalio.
The albino druid backed away, toward the dig site. He held his scythe ready to parry, nervously trying to split his attention between the warrior at his front, and the pit he was quickly being forced into. He felt the soothing cool of healing magic mending the tears in his legs as his fox channeled positive energy into him, but again, Iscalio feigned weakness. When the knight attacked again, Iscalio parried slowly, trying to lull the man into making a mistake. Iscalio was just about to begin his own attack when again fire filled his body and mind, and memories flooded his mind, recalling the agony of dislocating his shoulder and of being beaten up once when he was younger.
When Iscalio finally forced his mind through the telepathic attack, he found himself falling backward into the pit of the dig. The knight, who had apparently shoved him in while he had been helpless, glared at him cooly as he fell away into the darkness.
Iscalio hit bottom only fifteen feet down, but the floor was hard and rough, and he could barely see. He realized to his dismay that he no longer held his scythe.
Looking for a way out, knowing that within moments the telepath would be free to fry his mind, Iscalio scanned the walls and floor. The walls were plain dirt, supported by wooden pillars, but too loose and wet to climb. The floor, however, was stone, and against one wall leaned a crumbling stone cross, three feet long. Set in the middle of the floor, in the middle of a cross-shaped depression, was a black rock. No, Iscalio realized after a moment’s longer glance. Not a rock, but a crystal. A crystal the size of his fist.
From the top of the pit came the telepath’s voice. “I’ll give yer smeggin’ arse one more chance to surrender ‘fore we ‘ave to beat it int’ ye.”
Iscalio pressed his back against the wall, trying to concentrate on ways to escape. He was willing to do anything if only to avoid being brought back to the Bureau.
Iscalio almost choked for a moment, unable to breathe through the thickness in the air as a powerful surge of magical energy burst invisibly from the black crystal on the floor. He stared down in shock at the darkly gleaming stone, and without hesitating he grasped it.
He whispered to it desperately, “Are you Legion?”
A rush of voiceless words filled his head, drowning out the noise of the world around him. I am trapped. Promise to free me, and I will grant your wish of safety.
Iscalio frowned at the object. “First vampires and ghosts, and now a genie? A genie in England?”
Promise to free me, and I will reveal all.
Iscalio felt heat growing on his face, on the insides of his eyes, and he focused his willpower to keep the telepath’s attacks away. Glancing up, he saw the telepath staring downward at him, blood running from the man’s nose. The heat began to itch across all of Iscalio’s body, and he looked down at the dark crystal in his hands.
“Yes, I’ll free you! Just get me out of here!”
Overhead, the knights gasped, and one shouted a warning. Iscalio felt an intense burning on his hands, and he dropped the black gem in shock. He ducked to try to catch it before it could shatter on the stone floor, but at that moment an incredible heat washed over him, and the dark pit filled with brilliant orange light from above. The gem hit the ground and rolled safely without cracking, but Iscalio ignored it, cowering in the corner of the pit as screams sounded from above and outside the pit, accompanied with the hissing sound of boiling water.
The screams soon abated, but the sound of roaring flames continued. Iscalio meekly reached out to touch the black crystal, grasping it in his hands when he realized it was no longer hot.
“What the hell did you do?!”
You should know that there is no hell, Druid. All that matters is that you are free. And soon I will be too. Quickly, climb. Do not question your freedom.
Iscalio stared blankly at the stone for a moment, shocked, but then he turned to the nearest wall, ready to climb. He hurled the crystal upward and out of the pit, then clawed his way up the crumbling dirt of the riverbed pit. His fox snarled at the top of the pit, and roots tore through the dirt wall, providing handholds. He frantically clambered to the top, pulling himself onto a dry, baking-hot streambed.
Smoke filled the air, and Iscalio coughed, standing weakly and staring around in shock. The woods were aflame all around him, burning blindingly bright. He scoured the smoking streambed for the crystal, and saw it lying next to the charred body of the telepath. Shuddering, Iscalio considered leaving the stone, but then he reached forward and pulled it off the ground.
He sputtered for words, his mind reeling at the death around him. Finally he blankly shouted out, “All I wanted to know about was Legion! What’s going on here?”
The stone replied without a moment’s hesitation. The ancient Legion of Rome fell centuries ago, but this new Legion likewise must be powerful for you to have such fear of it. I sense in you thoughts, subtle and unrealized, of war between magi and man. This war is inevitable, ordained from the time I was imprisoned, but you still have time to choose your side. Take me with you, and you will have the freedom to choose. Without me, you will be merely a pawn.
“What, you don’t know who Legion is? Then what the **** is going on here? Who were those guys?”
Knights of the Round, descendants of Arthur’s warriors, and my enemies. They killed the Knights of your Bureau who wished to free me. If you sought this Legion, then you have followed the wrong trail, but that does not mean your quest is fruitless. I can aid you.
Iscalio shook his head, not understanding, and too shocked by the flames searing the forest around him to think clearly. He was only safe in the riverbed, but he wanted to be nowhere near this mad, murderous crystal. Iscalio started to drop the crystal, but the words tried to force themselves into his mind.
You cannot leave me. Your Bureau wanted me, and I can help you.
“Dammit, get out of my head! What the hell are you?”
I am Halcyon, tranquil for centuries, but no more. Now I am maccabre, alone, sought only for my power. In the thousand years of separation, nothing has become tranquil. The war is coming, and I can be your ally.
Iscalio felt his will failing, could not stop his body as his hand moved to drop the stone into his pocket. Iscalio growled, but he could not fight the overpowering magic of the crystal.
A flaming tree at the edge of the ravine cracked, sundered from the heat. Cascading downward, it fell into the streambed and smashed into Iscalio’s shoulder, forcing him to the ground. The gem was knocked from his hand, and it skipped across the ground, falling back into the pit.
Iscalio lay under the flaming tree for a moment, unable to move, only feeling the heat searing his back. Then the heat’s pain dulled, and Iscalio heard the low whimpering of his fox spirit. He opened his eyes wearily, focusing on the spectral creature staring desperately at him. He could feel it expending all its energy to keep him from passing out, and slowly, fighting against his body, Iscalio pulled himself out from under the fallen tree.
He lay on the dry streambed for perhaps a minute more, collecting his strength as the heat of the burning forest around him tried to tear his breath away. He finally pushed himself to his feet, then walked purposefully to the edge of the pit and spat into it. Even that little effort nearly sapped the strength from his legs, so he quickly found his scythe and used it as a walking staff to support himself. The thundering of collapsing trees and heat-shattered rocks overcame his desire to check the bodies of the incinerated knights for some clue as to what he had stumbled into. Instead, he desperately forced himself to hobble along the streambed toward safety.
As soon as he cleared the actual dig site, he turned to look back, feeling a tug, a pull from the crystal, offering him power and safety. As he unwillingly listened to the call, his eyes scanned the burning forest, as if his vision was trying to tell him something through the steady cadence of the crystal’s tempting words. Then he saw it, and the chill that shook his body forced away the crystal’s intrusions.
As the flaming trees fell away to ash, on the ridge above the pit in the ravine, a ring of heavy stone megaliths refused to fall, unaffected by the incredible heat of the fire. The tall pillars of stone overlooked the ravine, surrounding the burial site of the ancient crystal and warning any who might dare to come near it.
As Iscalio turned and rushed away, he praised the wisdom of the Druids in trying to bury the infernal thing.
An hour later, Iscalio lay on the cold night grass, watching the still-burning forest through drowsy eyes. The forest was so far from any settlement that probably it would be years until someone would notice it had burned down.
“Okay red, the way I see it, that gem had nothing to do with me. I mean, I’ve heard about ‘things man’s not meant to know,’ and I can accept that now, y’know? There are supposed to be spirits in the earth here, so maybe that stone was just an evil spirit. Either way, I’m sick and ****ing tired of people trying to tell me what to do.”
His fox looked at him, then glanced at the smoking remains of the burned-down forest. Iscalio could feel its worry.
“Alright then, I’ll make you a deal. I’m gonna come back here and bury that thing again if I have to. It said it’d been here for a thousand years, so maybe that’s a clue. I dunno. You know anyone who was trapped in a piece of crystal?”
The fox lowered its head as if disappointed, and Iscalio groaned.
“Oh, c’mon. I said I’d take care of it, but first. . . . Cai’s probably in trouble. I need to handle this first problem first. Legion, whatever the hell that is. This was a dead-end, so maybe something will turn up in New Orleans. What day is it, June 19th? A bit late for Mardi Gras. Ah well.”
He sat for a moment longer, then sighed, unhappy. “Knights of the Round. I remember hearing about them, but they’re supposed to be against the Bureau. I think I really ****ed up.
“Alright, I’m vowing now to find some way to make sure no one finds that damned Halcyon Maccabre crystal again.”
Iscalio slept through the night, warmed by the embers of the forest fire. As he slept, his dreams were filled with the toneless, voiceless words of the crystal, warning him that he would regret his mistake. Iscalio didn’t care.
Early the next day, Iscalio returned to Stonehenge, following his only remaining lead. With his spirit fox at his side, he opened the gate. He turned to look down at the fox, which appeared somehow burned despite its incoporeality.
“Last night,” he said quietly, letting his words echo through the Druid shrine, “I was really damn lucky that tree fell when and how it did.”
The fox stared at him, then winked. Iscalio chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Alright, red. I owe you. I take back all the mean things I said about you . . . and the Irish . . . and the Scots. You know, the British aren’t all that bad.”
Through the dimly glowing gate, Iscalio could see the darkness of late night New Orleans. Smiling down at his fox, he stepped through, emerging into an alley illuminated by bright electric signs advertising beer, strippers, and music. Iscalio winced at the brightness and sighed. “Damned neon lighting.”
