Title: London is Strange

Disclaimer: I own no rights, I make no profit.

Chapter 2 – The Sanctum

It took several hours but John managed to make a rough survey of the London Sanctum house from top to bottom. By the time he was done he repaired to the study seriously puzzled. The house, while warded to the hilt, just didn't seem at all like a Sanctum. In fact, it appeared to be just a normal house albeit with furnishings that would have fit nicely into the collection of the V&A. There were quite a few magical bits and bobs scattered about but nothing of the caliber of item that John would have expected to find in a Sanctum. This didn't even touch the fact that there was no damage at all that he could see. There was no indication at all of the destruction Strange and Wong had watched through the portal when Kaecilius had breached the Sanctum and killed its protector.

"Would you be willing to go to London and take control of the Sanctum there?" Stephen had asked him some weeks ago.

"I thought the London Sanctum was destroyed by the Kaecilius and his Zealots."

"So did I," he replied. "The explosion should have taken everything out in a half block radius but the house is still standing, apparently intact."

"But I'm nowhere near trained enough for this," John had objected.

"There's nothing more that you need to learn which would require the intensive environment of Kamar-Taj," Strange had replied. "I think anything else you'd be liable to need you'll be able to get with self-study or just wing it now that you've got the basics down."

"Fun and joy; just what I needed, another residency!"

Stephen had smiled at that, "Exactly! At least with this one you'll have a shot at getting a decent amount of sleep."

"Why does that not reassure me?"

"I know, I know. To be honest we are a little short of trained sorcerers right now." Strange said ruefully. "I've had to over-staff Singapore. Since that was Dormammu's access point it's now a thin spot. Seems like everything, and their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts who want to gain a foothold here are trying to use Singapore to move in."

"Wonderful," John replied. "Why don't we have the same problem in London?"

"London was an attack both to and from this plane. I'm not sensing any weakness there. However, I'm sensing some intermittent fluctuations in general from the UK so I'd feel better if we had an idea of London's status just in case."

"Which brings us back to the initial question," John stated, "Why me?"

"Wong has been doing research and the one thing that he's found consistently in the records is that the London Sanctum is considered a bit finicky. It seems to function just like the other Sanctums when a master in residence but there are indications, especially in the older records, that there's something different about it." John must have made a face because Stephen continued, "It's not like you are going to be out of touch. There are such things as cell phones and in a pinch you're only a sling ring portal away from here."

"Yeah," John muttered, "If I could only get one to open up consistently in the place I aim for not somewhere else, like halfway up Everest."

Strange had ignored that last comment and merely replied, "Besides, I have a feeling about this."

John stood in the study and tried to think it through. He knew that the house had been known as the Sanctum for quite a while, at least from the Victorian era. He also knew it looked like the Sanctum, at least in the mystical warding sense, from the outside. However, given that Kaecilius didn't attack the house directly and there was no external damage to speak of; logically the main part of the Sanctum must be elsewhere. That meant that what he was looking for was a magical access point connecting the house to the actual Sanctum.

The only magical access points John was familiar with were the mystical gates used to travel to Kamar-Taj and the windows in the New York Sanctum. He was aware that neither of those constructs radiated much magic unless they were in active use. Suddenly, all the small magic items strewn all over the house made a lot more sense. After all, the best place to hide a red fish was in a pond full of other red fish. An inactive magic doorway or window would radiate less than the umbrella he'd found in the stand in the hall which was charmed to lessen the intensity of rain in its general vicinity. John sighed and sat down in an overstuffed wing back chair. This was clearly going to take a bit of mental work to isolate the doorway's magical signature from those of all the other items. He opened his senses to the mystical and started in.

John woke up. Judging from the light coming in the windows it was late in the afternoon. Jet lag had clearly caught up to him. For the umpteenth time in the last 48 hours John cursed the fact that he'd had to use mundane travel to get home. He then reminded himself, again, that given his interception at the airport, doing things the quick way would have raised many more questions than he was prepared to answer, especially from the British Government.

John decided that he needed to get back to his task and suddenly realized he knew where the doorway was located. He had to smile about it. Even though the access point most likely had been there since the house was built he still found it funny that the doorway to the magical world was the cupboard under the stairs. He wondered if this was a case of literature imitating life and then discarded it. If that had been the case the access point would have just as easily been located in the attic, the basement, or maybe even a wardrobe.

It was relatively easy to find the door which in and of itself did not look terribly remarkable. John opened it carefully only to see what he would normally expect to see, a set of shelves containing storage boxes. He shut the door and looked at it again. Placing his hand on the door jamb he sent a small pulse of magic into the wood. Previously invisible runic writing started to glow all around the door frame. Unfortunately, it was in a language that John couldn't read. He looked at it and attempted to memorize at least a few of the runes so that he could see if someone at Kamar-Taj or elsewhere knew what they were. As he watched though, the runes seemed to waver and morph into something that looked similar to Latin. Now that John could work with. Keeping his hand on the jamb he read the Latin silently. Nothing happened. John then murmured the words out loud, just in case it happened to be an incantation. Sure enough, the door felt different. Opening the door again he found that his hunch had proved correct because instead of the storage cupboard there was now a stairway leading down.

The stairway was dark but someone had left an old fashioned metal torch hanging by a leather strap from a hook on the wall. John grabbed it and much to his surprise it not only worked but produced a decently bright beam of light. He chose to interpret this as a good omen and proceeded to carefully descend until he reached another door.

John tried the same trick with the lower door jamb only to find that nothing happened. The jamb didn't glow and the door wouldn't open regardless of what he tried. Frustrated he looked around and noticed that the door at the top of the stair was still ajar. I wonder if this is the magical equivalent of an air lock, he thought to himself. Only one way to find out, he concluded as he trooped back up the stairs to close the door. This time around the lower door obliged with glowing runes, a different incantation and entrance into what, John presumed, was the actual London Sanctum.

From the state of the room, John could see that this was where the explosion Stephen and Wong had witnessed had happened. The damage was extensive. There had been a main explosion emanating from the area opposite the door and partially taking out walls into the adjoining rooms on either side. Judging from both the debris and the magical residue this had once been and area for item storage. There were blackened spots in a variety of places on the ceiling and the remaining walls. Kaecilius had grabbed what he'd wanted from the rooms then had somehow ignited any unwanted items which had survived the initial. It wasa testament to the original builders of the Sanctum that the damage had been limited to three rooms and whole area hadn't collapsed in on itself.

John moved into the destroyed area playing the torch over the floor. A thunk behind him made him turn. The door he had entered by had closed and disappeared. He went back to examine the wall. Visually the door wasn't there. Tactilely it was right where he had expected it to be. He experimented. The second incantation made the door reappear at least until he took his hand off it which made it promptly disappear again.

Interesting John thought. The entrance door had been at the point of a triangular room. The explosion had originated at another point. He could see that the adjoining rooms had also been triangular. John moved through to the adjoining room to the right. Examining the walls as he went he discovered the remnants of some rather substantial magical protections. John's admiration for the original builders went up another notch. Whomever had designed this area had anticipated a potential explosion, at least from the inside, and planned accordingly. Logically this meant that there may be more to the Sanctum than just this storage area.

John carefully began picking his way through the rubble trailing his hand along the wall. It didn't take long for him to find another door which he could feel but not see. He tried the second incantation again. Nothing happened. He tried the incantation for the door at the top of the stairs; still nothing. Remembering the alleged finicky nature of the Sanctum John decided to try something.

"Please let me in?"

The door appeared. John figured that politeness would be in order.

"Thank you," he said and opened the door.

The room beyond was also triangular in shape. It was furnished as a comfortable reading room in a mish mash of Victorian to 1950's style. As he moved into the room he realized that there was very dim indirect lighting not caused by his torch.

"Lux?"

The lighting brightened to the point that the contents of the room were clearly visible. John walked up to a chair with what looked like a lamp beside it. The lamp obligingly turned on. He looked carefully at the lamp; there was no cord. Even Kamar-Taj had electricity and wi-fi. Only in the depths of the Library was magical lighting still used, primarily to protect the ancient tomes stored therein. Despite the furniture John reasoned that this place was old enough that the builders did not want the books and other manuscripts damaged by candles or oil lamps which, at the time of its construction, left magic as the only option.

Since another door was clearly visible John decided to continue exploring. Three triangular rooms later John exited what he had begun to think of as the library into what looked like a workshop. There were two workshop rooms. The door from the second workshop exited back into the area that had been destroyed. By this point John was beginning to get a mental picture of the shape of the complex. If he was correct then all these triangular rooms were arranged around a center which was most likely shaped like a pentagon.

You can't beat the classics when you are trying to protect something, John thought to himself. He'd bet his sling ring that the heart of the sanctum was in that center area. All of which meant that the door he needed would most likely be located directly opposite the door to the stairs. The biggest problem was going to be finding it.

It turned out not to be a problem at all. By the time John had worked his way back into the library room that was directly opposite where he had entered there was a door visible that John knew he hadn't seen the first time.

"Thank you," he said aloud.

John wondered briefly about the nature of the Sanctum. He knew that many of the very powerful ancient magic items tended to be at least somewhat sentient and, in effect, picked their wielder. Stephen's cloak of levitation was an extreme example. The thing had attached itself so closely to Strange that he had a hard time getting it to stay home on the rare occasion he needed go somewhere without it. Stephen even joked that he thought the thing might be in love with him. At this point John was beginning to suspect from the behavior of the doors, the historically documented "finicky nature" of the Sanctum might just be due to the fact that it, in and of itself, was a powerful at least partly sentient magic item.

Could be dangerous, John thought as he opened the door to the center of the complex.

The room did not, as he had expected, have 5 walls. Instead it was circular with a dome arching several stories over the center of the floor. The floor itself was also interesting. It seemed to be a circular ring of flagstones that gave way to a grassy circle. Of course the thing that drew the most attention in the room was the rough-hewn standing stone that stood in the middle of the grass directly under the center of the dome. There was some sort of light source in the dome that shed a circle of light down directly on the grass and the stone while leaving the flagstone circle in partial shadow. The temperature was balmy like a pleasant summer day in contrast to the 10 degrees normally found in an underground structure.

Come to think of it, John mused, this entire area is warmer than I expected given the fact that it appears to be completely subterranean. I wonder if this is the reason.

Well, Stephen had told him to wing it so John didn't hesitate for long. He took off his shoes and socks then walked carefully across the grass and put his hand on the stone.

At first nothing happened then John found himself immersed in his own memories. Training in Kamar-Taj, the battle of New York, the fall, meeting Sherlock, getting shot, training, medical school, university, protecting his sister from his alcoholic father; in short, everything that had made him into the person he was now was laid bare in quick succession. It left John gasping but he did not remove his hand from the stone.

The images started again. This time it seemed to be a mix of people and historical events. Some he recognized like Lestrade and the Olympic opening ceremony others he didn't. There was a night of fire and terror that John thought might be the Blitz. There were reunions of soldiers returning from the trenches of WWI. A fancy wedding and some sort of lower class family celebration were shown in turn as equally important. Each image appeared to be older than the previous and there seemed to be just as many people shown as events. A couple of gentleman in Victorian era attire walking arm in arm caught his attention before they were gone. A bit further on he saw someone in Elizabethan style dress working by lamp light in a garret room on some sort of manuscript. The images were fast and relentless. John felt like he was being force fed history via an old fashioned video tape on rewind.

Just about the point where John thought he couldn't take any more the images ceased. John opened his eyes. He was still standing on grass with his hand on the stone. That, however, was where the similarity ended. The stone and its grassy circle seemed to be in a ring of trees starting just beyond the flagstones. The air smelled clean and fresh with a hint of wood smoke. John had just enough time to look around when he heard someone talking.

"Yes, Yes, I'm coming," the male voice said. "I understand you need to show me something. I'll get there momentarily."

John looked in the direction of the voice and spotted what looked like a man through the ring of trees. He had on what John could only surmise was ancient clothing. At least it looked sort of like the kind of things people wore in that TV series about the detective monk. John tried to remember when that had been set and vaguely remembered it had been allegedly sometime in the 1100's. Of course that presumed that the producers had been somewhat accurate in their clothing depictions.

John knew exactly when the man spotted him. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at John for a moment before moving onto the flagstones and into the grassy area. He came to a stop about six paces in front of John.

"Hello," he said.

There was a slight echo John noted. It sounded a bit like when you were midway between two speakers and they were slightly out of sync with each other.

"Hello," John replied and thought about moving away from the stone.

"I don't think you want to let go of the stone," the man said before John could move. "I have no idea what would happen not to mention that she'd be a bit perturbed at both of us since she has gone to such trouble to allow us to speak to each other."

"Ok," John replied befuddled. "So if I might ask, who are you? Who is she? And what the heck does she want us to talk about?"

The man laughed and he suddenly looked much younger. John's estimate of the man's age dropped from the mid-30's to mid-20's.

"Sorry," the man said, "I seem to be doing things arse backwards as usual. To answer your questions; I am Emrys, she is Londinium and I have no idea at all as to what she wishes us to talk about."

"Wonderful," John muttered under his breath. "I'm John, nice to meet you," he continued in a conversational tone. "I have no real idea what the heck is going on except I was having a series of visions going backwards in time until I stopped here."

It seemed to be Emrys' turn to mutter something under his breath before continuing. "From whence did you start?" he asked.

"Probably a thousand years or so from now plus or minus."

"Hmm," Emrys seemed to take that statement in stride, "Have the Gods returned?

If this was really the past and not just some elaborate hallucination, John wondered if Emrys had the gift of prophecy. That would explain his lack of surprise from John's clothing and statement. The other alternative was some sort of alternative dimension or parallel universe. John had seen some other dimensions and knew about the multiverse but they all had a vaguely unreal feeling; this didn't. It definitely wasn't that bizarre construct that was the mirror dimension, where anything could happen and usually did. He supposed it could be an entirely parallel universe; such things did exist although he'd never heard of anyone who had traveled to one. Given the rewind effect John decided to continue with his time travel hypothesis and answer accordingly.

"A couple of the Asgardians who were once worshiped as such have shown up. There are also a bunch of people with unique abilities who might have been considered god-like in times past."

Emrys pursed his lips, "Are there sorcerers still who protect this plane?"

"Yes."

Emrys' gaze grew distracted. It was similar to the look Sherlock had on his face when he was making a foray into his mind palace.

"I see," he said clearly not to John. "This is the beginning then. Yes you were correct." His eyes cleared and Emrys addressed John again with a smile, "Good luck living with Londinium, I am relatively sure that we will eventually see each other again and you'll need to tell me how it goes."

With that cryptic message the clearing waivered and John could see the walls of the room in the center of the sanctum coming into focus just at the tree line. Right before Emrys faded from view John thought he saw a very familiar looking chain around the man's neck.

Well that explains a lot, John thought just before he slumped down the stone and everything grayed out for a moment.