Pt. 21
"What does your brother want with this Box?" Alwyn asked, his eyes on Gideon's face.
Marianne shrugged, unconcerned. "Probably wants something new to torment. Those Anubis dogs that raid the outlying borders of our world get boring after you've killed them a few dozen times."
"Anubis dogs?" Sarah asked, skeptically.
"Don't ask," Andre responded with a smile. "You really just don't want to know."
"Is anyone else in the least bit interested in knowing more about our guests?" Max asked, exasperated. "I mean they appear out of no where - seemingly unchanged after over two hundred years – and no one wants to know how they did it?"
"No Max, no one is the least interested in hearing their story," Gideon snarled, glaring at the archeologist.
"I admit to a certain curiosity," Alwyn replied coldly. "But my first concern is Galen."
"Not much we can do there," Andre admitted, ruefully. "If Damien sent him into the Dreaming then Damien has to get him out of it." He glanced down at his sister who was leaning back comfortably in her chair and staring at the Box with an air of speculation. "Want me to tell them a story sis or will you?"
"Go ahead," she replied dismissively. "You're a better storyteller than I am and it looks like we've got time to kill."
Andre smiled then waved his hand again in the air beside him. A glow appeared in front of the bulkhead then coalesced into a tall bar stool. He hopped up on the stool, bracing one foot on the floor. "Okay – Draco family history 1.0 goes like this. Once upon a time…"
"You're going to tell us a fairy tale?" Sarah asked, wryly.
"Something like that," Andre admitted with a smile. "Only like most good stories this one has some truth to it. Once upon a time there was a land where magic was the norm, not technology. All types of magic, including the Dark Arts, existed there. It was a happy enough place – at least until they realized that there were other worlds beyond there own."
'Other worlds or other dimensions?" Alwyn asked, interested despite his concerns.
"Other…places," Andre replied, shifting in his seat. "Let's just leave it at that. The people discovered that other people lived who didn't do magic and some of those magic-users thought it would be a good thing if they went to these places and set themselves up as rulers – or Gods. Mostly this was the opinion of those who didn't do great magic but thought that they did. This didn't go over well with everyone on his or her world. Many mages believed that the fate of other beings wasn't any of their business. Others thought that allowing their fellow mages to become "Gods" to primitive people only fed a dark desire for power in their people, a desire that might be turned against the world of magic. Kind of like your Shadows and Vorlon – only with even more attitude. Still others feared that leaving their world would allow holes in their defenses by which creatures of Dark Magic – which had been kept at bay for millenniums – to return to the world and destroy it. Sadly, this argument was the least heeded and the one that ultimately came true. A Civil War of sorts broke out with different factions maneuvering for positions of power. Some left the world and traveled to other, more primitive places as they had threatened only to discover that their powers were not as strong there as they had been at home. Instead of being gods they were perceived as monsters and were hunted down by the primitives they tried to rule. Those that stayed behind in the world of magic found that they were diminished by their comrade's defections, and soon the Dark Lords were able to rob what little magic was left from the people and set themselves up as Masters of the world."
"An old story," Alwyn looked from Gideon to Marianne, who was dancing her fingers along the table top in front of the box, teasing it they way he had seen children tease a caged bear. He frowned at the girl, who looked up at him and grinned unrepentantly.
"Most stories these days are old ones," Andre admitted. "But this one is a little more personal to my sister and I then most. Both of us are descended from the same pair of mages who came to a little known world that the natives called Earth. Generations of mating with mortal men and women had – till our births – pretty much buried any of the gifts of magic this couple might have started out with. We, Marianne and I, were just a pair of guns for hire when Damien found us."
"Guns for hire?" Gideon replied, finally tearing his eyes away from the Box. "You were mercenaries?"
"Not exactly," Marianne stopped teasing the creature in the Box for a moment and glanced at the Excaliber's captain with a frown. "We weren't in business for ourselves – our services belong to one of the major national powers of the time. The Agency had raised us from childhood to be the perfect weapons. We each brought a specific talent to the table – martial arts in Andre's case and a mastery of firearms in mine – which the government used to deal with issues of security. As teenagers we were quite effective – no one ever suspected what we were capable of until it was too late. Then, one day, we ran into a wealthy young man by the name of Damien Draco." She stood up and moved to her brother's side, leaning on his shoulder. "It was a strange meeting. We had never met the man yet we all seemed to know each other's thoughts as though there were our own. It was like the first time I met Andre only Damien was a little spookier than my foster brother and a lot more arrogant. We saved him from a rather sticky situation and in return he had us released from our organization's control and took us into his house. That's when we learned what was in our blood, the gifts we both carried in our DNA."
"I thought you had been raised by the Draco family" Max commented, glancing briefly at Gideon.
"Sort of yes, sort of no. We were teens when we were adopted into the family, but it just felt like we had always been there."
"I thought you said those gifts had been pretty much diluted," Sarah commented thoughtfully. "How could Draco know about them?"
"Damien was a throw-back, a genetic anomaly," Marianne replied. "He was born with the full force of his gifts flowing through his veins. His father, who also had some of the old magic in his system, realized his son was born with his gifts "turned on" as it were and had him taught from day one to use them and to recognize the signs of the gifts in others. Later, as Damien got older, he taught himself to enhance the gifts of others, to essentially change their DNA to more closely match that of their ancestors. That's what happened with Andre and myself. He switched on Andre's power first. Not a big issue since Andre's gifts were mostly on anyway. Then he tried to do the same with me. Problem with me is my gifts are gifts of limitations."
"Limitations?" Alwyn's eyes narrowed as he stared at the strange pair. "What type of limitations?"
"I'm something of a null field for magic. If I touch a thing influenced by the Power, or speak to a person who tries to wield the power against me, their gift fails, at least for a while. I also have the gift of being able to hear the truth in all its forms and recognize a lie whenever it's told to me. Neither was a very active gift but one that served my brother well when we finally went to the home world to face down the Dark Lords."
"These are very pretty stories but how does this help Galen?" Dureena asked, impatiently.
"It doesn't," Marianne admitted ruefully. "But it did kill some time. And besides, your friend did ask."
"Your man will come out of the Dreaming when he has seen what he needs to see," Andre slid off the chair and gestured towards it causing it to disappear in a puff of smoke.
"Will it tell him why your brother and your guardsman hated one another so much," Alwyn asked pensively.
"It's that obvious, is it?" Marianne glanced at her brother with an unreadable expression on her face.
"The expression in the Swordsman's eyes leaves little to the imagination," Alwyn responded.
"Probably," Marianne replied with a sigh. "It's the one thing you can read in his eyes. Mostly he's pretty walled off. If your friend is seeing the battle we waged in the village of Ainsbury, then he is seeing the beginning of a long, cold hatred that exists even today. Which makes me wonder even more what that bird-brained brother of ours is up to."
Marianne steeled herself not to flinch as the demon hobbled past her, coming much to close for comfort. The Swordsman stood at her back, a dark and silent figure in the midst of the mad activity in the dinning hall. "Don't have many visitors do you?" she asked, glancing down the plain table settings being put out by the slaves.
"None so interesting as you," the demon replied with what he must have thought was a charming smile. To Marianne it looked as though he was suffering indigestion.
She glanced back at her shadow for a second then marched to her place at the table and sat down. "You flatter me, old devil. But I've been flattered before. Let's see what else you've got to offer."
The demon seated himself awkwardly on his throne at the head of his table and motioned impatiently for the Swordsman to take his position behind the chair. "Did you like your accommodations?" he hissed, snatching a turkey leg from a tray as the slaves began to set the food on the table.
"One room looks pretty much like any other," she replied vaguely, poking at the half-done fowl on her plate. She reached for her goblet and looked at its contents doubtfully then glanced up at her host. "Red wine with turkey? You really don't do much entertaining, do you?" She raised the glass to her lips, her eyes on the Swordsman's face. His expression remained unchanged yet there was something in his eyes that warned her not to actually drink the liquid in the cup. She laid the goblet back on the table with a sigh. "I never did care for red wine."
"Perhaps you will find our entertainment more to you liking." The Jinn chuckled cruelly as he reached for his whips. Suddenly the sound of loud voices filled the chamber, with a woman's angry voice rising above the rest.
"I must speak to the Jinn!" A man and woman, clad in rich furs and hoods, strode forward into the Jinn's hall, thrusting aside any slave foolish enough to try to bar their way. Marianne smiled coldly as she recognized the voice of the girl from the marketplace, the one responsible for the Swordsman's fate. "Jinn, I demand your help. See what has happened to me!" She pulled her hood back to reveal her scarred face. The scratches had deepened and festered even more with the skin torn away in places to reveal the bone. One eye was filmed over from the infection and the other was bloodshot from tears of rage and pain.
"How dare you demand anything of me, mortal!" the Jin roared angrily. He glared at his guest for a moment then motioned his guard forward. "Remove this whore from my presence."
"You made a deal with me!" the girl screeched, enraged. "I and my father would destroy the Sheriff and bind his son to your service in return for eternal wealth and power for my family and youth and beauty for me. I lived up to my part of the bargain."
"Sounds like she's accusing you of going back on a bargain, old beast. Should I be worried you'll do the same to me if we reach an agreement?" Marianne reached across and lifted her goblet from the table, swirling its sickly sweet contents around and around the interior of the glass while she watched the encounter unfold in front of her.
"You!" the girl screamed, maddened by pain and rage. "You were there when this happened. You were looking right at me. You must have done this – no one else in town would have dared!" She lunged forward towards Marianne's still form.