The girl stopped halfway down an old stairway, timidly looking around the room below. She had followed a man wearing a turban, trying hard not to be noticed. She watched him continue walking away, about to turn the corner into a dark hallway. She turned around and started back up the stairs, then changed her mind. She wasn't going to back out now. The dust was beginning to bother her throat, and she tried unsuccessfully to stifle a cough. The girl ducked behind the stairs as the man stopped, but she breathed out gently when he didn't turn around to look behind him. Just when she was sure he hadn't heard her cough, the man spoke.

"You shouldn't have come here. But like your father, you have a way of being in places where you are not invited. You have come seeking understanding about him," he said, as he stared directly forward in the darkness.

"How did you know . . ." the girl began. She was now standing at the bottom of the stairway, on the verge of bolting back up them.

"You may soon find out, if you have been chosen. Or you may wish you were never born," the turbaned man now turned to face her.

"I know one who wishes that," she said, now feeling more resolve and walking toward him. His face softened, though his voice lost none of its seriousness.

"That I cannot help you with. But you may find something here that can. Now that you have come, you must be tested, just as your father was . . . ."

- - - - - - -

He woke up drenched in sweat and breathing hard as though he had been running cross country the last few hours instead of sleeping. Moaning inwardly, he untangled himself from the silk sheets and crawled out of the bed. It was extremely early in the morning, and the only reason he was awake was because of the dream he had just had. He sighed as he closed the door to his room and turned on the light, feeling strange because he couldn't remember ever dreaming before, at least not that vividly. He had always attributed it to the fact that he only slept for a few hours each night, but this dream, if that was what it had been, had ended that for him, at least for that day.

As he put on a black turtleneck and dress pants, he suddenly became aware of how uncharacteristically he was behaving. I can't believe I'm actually going to go out and do this because of a dumb dream. Maybe I'm not really awake . . . To him, what he had seen in his sleep, seemed more like a vision than just some pointless dream. And it was very unlike his usual logical nature to be thinking that as well.

He was careful to turn out the light before opening the door of his room so that no one else would be bothered by it and woken. He walked down the hallway, out the front door of the house, and onto the street. He knew exactly where he was going, how far to walk, where to turn and which way. But he was completely unfamiliar with any of the streets or alleys that he came to. As he reached his destination, he realized that he was being incredibly unsafe. He reached into the pocket of his pants to retrieve his cell phone before it dawned on him that he had not brought it. I really am out of it. I'm never this stupid. Better make this quick. If it's not even there . . .

His hand felt along the brick wall at his eye level. When he didn't feel any of the bricks move, he sighed in relief, that the dream had proven wrong. Until his hand slid forward as the brick he had stopped on shifted a great deal. Oh, great. Reluctantly removing the protruding stone from its place with his right hand, he threw a stone in the remaining hole. When he heard nothing except the muffled echo of the stone hitting another brick further back, he reached in with his right hand, feeling around the cavity until he pulled out a slightly dusty thin rod. He frowned as he wiped it off with his sleeve, but then grinned slightly as a thought occurred to him. If this really works . . .

Holding the rod out, he willed it to take him back to his room, not really believing it to be possible. Then he disappeared.

Finding himself back in his bed less than a second later, he heard a knock at his door.

"Big brother? You okay?"

"Fine," he mumbled, trying to sound like he normally would instead of as excited as he felt. As his brother turned around, he took out the rod from its hiding place under his pillow and directed it at the young boy's back. With an almost undetectable flash of light, the boy immediately left. A few minutes later he returned with a glass of ice water for him. "Go back to bed," the older brother commanded, releasing the younger one from his trancelike state. He listened for the sound of his brother's door closing, and then holding out the Millennium Rod, he laughed softly to himself, a grin forming on his lips that was much less than pleasant.