Jack pulled the light travelling cloak tighter around his shoulders, nearly tripping over the ends of it as he did so. He stumbled and then regained his balance.
"Damn," he muttered.
Since when did it become so hard to move around in trailing clothes? He did it all the time back when he was human!
He kept walking, ignoring the few curious stares he was getting from onlookers in the busy Arendelle city square. He briefly wondered if it was because of his white hair that looked so out of place on a boy who was biologically eighteen years old. Or if people were curious as to why such a young person was carrying a staff. Or if he just looked like an idiot stumbling around town in garments he should be used to.
Either way, he kept going, and turned to quickly dodge down a side street.
He had a mission after all, he had been sent here to 1845 for a reason. Moving further down the narrow alleyway, he noticed how isolated this little part of the kingdom was.
No one was in sight, and even the rooftops above him arched in such a way to block out the sun. Feeling a little nervous, he took a small crumpled piece of paper out of one of the many pockets in the cloak.
The Secretum,
77 Oldware Street,
Arendelle.
Jack peered up the darkened cul de sac and saw what he was looking for at the far end of the narrow lane. A small, gloomy shop was sandwiched between two larger buildings, both boarded up and long forgotten. The shop had one large window where black curtains hung, secluding itself in even more darkness and shade. A splintered board above the door proclaimed that it was The Secretum.
Shaking off the massive sense of the creeps the place gave him, Jack crept forward and rapped his staff twice against the worn oak door.
After a few seconds, it slowly creaked open to reveal a small, dusty room. And no one in sight.
"Bit of a cliché," Jack mumbled to himself, decidedly unimpressed with a door opening by itself.
He stepped inside and was immediately hit with an aroma of must and old soil. The room was mostly bare, except for two mismatched chairs placed on either side of a small, round table. Beyond them there was only a worn, wooden counter, with a door behind it leading off into some further back room. As Jack took in his surroundings, the door swung itself shut behind him and he jumped.
"Ha!" a man's voice rang out from behind the counter. "Might be a cliché but it still made you leap out of your skin!"
Jack instinctively held his staff up in a battle stance, ready for whatever strange attacker might pounce at him in this odd place.
"Put down your weapon, you're in no danger," the same voice said, and the door behind the counter opened.
A tall, thin aging man strode out, dressed in a billowing set of beige robes. His hair was brown but quickly collecting greys, as was the neatly trimmed beard around his mouth and chin. When he stepped out, he looked first straight at Jack and then eyed the staff he was still holding up defensively.
"Oh," Jack said, suddenly realizing. "Sorry."
He lowered it and the old wizard smiled approvingly.
"That's better," he said in favourable tones.
With a sweep of his robes, he lifted up the hinge of the counter, strutted out and motioned to the two chairs by the table. Jack hesitated for a beat, and then sank down into the nearest one while the other man arranged himself in the other chair, draping his long arms over the rests.
"Now," he said conversationally. "If you're here, you know who I am. I'm Axness Fossum, wizard, psychic, grade A warlock, telepathic-in-training. And if my prediction skills haven't gotten completely abysmal yet, you're Jack Frost, one of the guardians. You were sent back in time from early 2014, correct?"
Jack nodded.
"Right. Hey, how did you...?" He trailed off, gesturing to the door behind the counter.
The wizard glanced back and then smiled.
"You think I can see a hundred and sixty-five years into the future but not through a skeletal, old door?"
Jack let his hand fall back onto his lap and nodded awkwardly, feeling stupid.
"Makes sense," he admitted, chancing a shamefaced smile.
The wizard returned a broader, friendly one.
"Why are you here Jack?" he asked. "My powers make it easy to see fact and action but hard to see one's desires. What are you doing here?"
"I was sent back by the other guardians to stop Gulsvig," he explained. "What he does now has terrible effects for people in the future! Really, it's horrible. And I was told to come here to Arendelle to talk to you and get some advice on how to fight another wizard."
Axness raised a confused eyebrow.
"Gulsvig? Kjetil Gulsvig, the fire spiritual? What does he have to do with anything?"
Jack looked down at his hands, cleared his throat, looked back up and opened his mouth to speak again.
"Right now, in your time, Gulsvig is working on something," he began. "Something big. He's using black magic to collect the very essence of fire and encase it in a stone. For the next hundred and sixty years, that stone will keep concentrating the fundamental nature of fire, making it more and more potent, helping its strength to grow. And then by 2014, it's powerful enough to destroy entire cities by Gulsvig just pointing it in the general direction."
Axness' face was made up of shock and a sort of sickly curious horror.
"Have you seen it happen?" he asked in morbid eagerness.
Jack shook his head.
"No, not me. But North saw it destroy a small town in Lapland."
Jack frowned, each crevice and wrinkle of his face holding a great deal of pain and thought.
"He said it was awful. Just loads of people running and screaming...and Gulsvig miles above them, just laughing and - "
"Wait," Axness cut him off. "Gulsvig? In 2014? How?"
"Oh, I forgot to explain that part!" Jack cried. "Yeah, so Gulsvig isn't just storing the essence of fire in the stone, but his own spirit too."
"My Lord," Axness looked almost torn apart by disbelief. "That would take incredibly complex and dangerous dark magic...and if his own essence stays in the stone for over a hundred years, he -"
"He becomes more powerful too," Jack concluded grimly. "Right."
Axness stayed silent for a beat, seemingly rendered speechless.
"Well then, there isn't a moment to lose Jack!" he said, standing up and rushing back behind the counter in a flutter of robes.
He disappeared back through the door behind the counter and returned a moment later, holding a very old, very tattered book. He slammed it down onto the counter and flicked through it quickly.
Jack rose slowly from his chair and peered over at the book curiously.
"Ah!" Axness cried out suddenly. "Here Jack, come look!"
Jack hurried over, squinting down at the ragged pages.
"To capture the essence of any element – earth, water, wind or fire – one must extract it using the root of the Quondam plant."
"Quondam plant?" Jack repeated. "What's that?"
"An extraordinarily rare plant that grows in the mountains near here...about once every five hundred years."
Jack grinned in relief.
"So if I just get it before Gulsvig does - "
"Assuming of course that he hasn't already gotten it," Axness said gravely. "Wait one moment."
And with that, Gulsvig closed his eyes and was completely noiseless for a long, tense moment. When he opened them again, it was quite sudden and he did it with the gasp of a man who had been submerged in water for a very long time.
"It's not too late!" he cried keenly. "Gulsvig is currently getting ready to leave his own home in Crea to retrieve it. It's a race now Jack, you get to that plant and destroy it and Gulsvig doesn't stand a chance!"
"Alright! Thank you so much!" the guardian laughed, a huge weight having just been lifted off his shoulders. "So where is it? How do I get to it?"
"It's just north of Arendelle, beyond the castle. You have the upper hand, you're closer to it already!"
"Further than the castle, huh?" Jack said, suddenly distracted. "Say, on the topic, is there another person around here with the same powers as me? I've heard some townspeople talking about an ice queen or something? I -"
"Yes, yes, Queen Elsa," Axness answered abstractedly, still flicking through the book. "She was born with the powers to conjure, command and manipulate snow and ice. She – Ahh, look at this Jack! It says here that the Quondam is a very delicate plant! No magic is required to destroy it, you just have to sever the root!"
"Really? Great!" Jack whooped excitedly.
Well, this is turning out easier than I thought!
"Don't get so cocky," Axness said immediately. "You still have to get to it."
"Hey, how did you - ? Wait," Jack gave a half-smile and rolled his eyes impishly. "I forgot you're a telepathic."
"In training," Axness reminded him, still carefully studying the book's pages. "I can't read all thoughts but I can certainly read a thought as transparent as that. Now," he suddenly ripped a page from the book and handed it to Jack. "Here's a map to the plant. It'll be ripe in three days, which is exactly how much time Gulsvig will need to get to it. It's the only one in the world that'll be ripe in the next a hundred years or so. So once you destroy it, Gulsvig doesn't have a chance at carrying out this plan!"
Jack stared at the map in awe for a moment and then let out an deferential little laugh.
"Seriously, I can't thank you enough for this Mr Fossum. The Man In The Moon said you'd help me but I never thought you'd give me so much - "
But Axness was already waving his hands dismissively.
"No need for thank yous, just get going!" he said. "It all depends on you now Jack. Get to that plant and get to it quick!"
"Yes sir!" Jack banged his staff resiliently against the floor and went to stride assertively out of the shop.
But then he paused, hesitated, looked back.
"Hey, Mr Fossum?"
"Mmm?" Axness was still flicking through the pages of the book, wearing a frown of concentration.
"Do you think...Queen Elsa could help me at all?"
Axness looked up, blinking.
"The queen? Well, I'm sure she could give you supplies and things," he thought out loud. "Give it a try if you like Jack. And good luck overall!"
The wizard then returned all his attention to the book.
"Thanks," Jack muttered leaving the shop, and suddenly very glad that Axness' investigative psychic powers didn't reach that of his desires.
