Chapter 10
The Great Expanse
Author's Note: first update of this month. I'm reserving this month mostly for my original fiction, but figured Consequences of a Huntress could use a bit of an update. As I didn't want to tackle the Council of Elrond just yet as that chapter is going to be long and I need to study it for a bit before I can start it in earnest I also wanted to write another chapter featuring Brianna's peeps and what they're doing to try and find her in Arda. Enjoy!
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and He called the darkness "night." Evening came and then morning: the first day," Loki read from the open book before him.
Contrary to the content recited it wasn't The Bible. Artemis had read the author's name before Loki opened the book. Maf had written it back in the early twentieth century. One of his favorite ways to present ideas was to quote things. The Bible was one script he typically chose from. Beside her Matt eagerly leaned forward eyes as bright as a super nova.
"The expanse," Matt breathed, "This is it, isn't it? Maf's explanation about inter-galaxy travel! They won't even let me read that yet!"
Loki peered at him over the edge of the book and fixed the young wizard with a reproachful gaze, "That's because you're not disciplined enough to try it. It is easy for those of us who have the knowledge, but you're not ready. It is why Mafortion and Ailya were able to depart for Arda and you were not."
"But you're here," Karen pointed out from where she sat near the fire of their New England parlor.
Loki cleared his throat, "I'm here because I'm not particularly good at landing and need the professor to steer."
"Oh aye? I ken that by your atrocious driving," Karen quipped.
The notorious trickster closed the book and leaned forward. Karen didn't so much as blink out of place. This caused a grin to slowly stretch across Loki's face.
"I thought you enjoyed atrocious driving seeing as your aim is always so erratic," he replied.
"Alright, stop flirting with The Who-knows-how-old Raiphahim, Karen! You're impeding valuable research!" Matt complained.
Artemis shook her head. When did they revert back to a pack of teenagers? She wondered.
Loki always seemed to have that effect on people. Well, most people. People who didn't look, speak or act like her. It wasn't even as if Artemis didn't have a sense of humor. She did, but the time waisted by such an inconsequential exchange irked her.
A fire flickered behind the ancient beyond ancient beings and created a kind, playful, look about his features. Gas lamps burned on a low flame near the door on one end of the room and the window on the other. The room was dim and filled with old dusty books and complicated science equipment. Maf's office was the only part of the manor that was rarely used. He moved about the world so often that the only thing Artemis could do was work to keep it relatively the same as he had left it.
Artemis had purchased the property in Boston around the time after the French and Indian War. It was in a relatively quiet neighborhood at the time surrounded by people who mostly kept to themselves. In the two hundred years following that purchase the neighborhood remained virtually the same. It was why they were there. Whatever Loki needed to do to transport them from Earth to Arda would go unnoticed.
"I don't get it," Artemis said, "How is Genesis one an example of time and space?"
"It's recounting a moment of creation that does not involve the earth, itself, but a time long passed when the world was remade. Only Ailya and I remember this occurrence," Loki explained.
Matt gaped at him in awe. Artemis merely sighed and crossed her arms. Inevitably something always referenced the second creation. A time long before her's and only shortly before Professor Moruni's.
"Well, I don't see how this is relevant," she said.
Loki grinned, "It's not."
Artemis felt the beginnings of a headache form along her temples. She punched the bridge of her nose. There was a reason the Norsemen always referred to him as the god of mischief. It was frustrating to say the least.
"Loki, do we actually need to be here?" She snapped.
"I thought it would be educational."
Her hand grabbed the first thing she could think of – a small couch pillow – and launched the thing at the man. Loki snapped his fingers and moved the pillow from one space to another so it could hit the opposite wall harmlessly and tumble down to the floor.
"If I don't have to be here, can I please leave?" She asked in a voice that promised doom.
Loki chuckled, "If you don't wish to be educated run along little Huntress."
She grunted in response and stood. She stormed out of the room as quickly as she could before completely losing her temper.
The halls were long and inviting. On this particular floor each door led to a different training room put together long ago by the idiot in question. The archery range was the last one nearest the staircase and a large window that looked out over the old neighborhood. She entered and picked up a training bow and tip-less arrows and took aim at an unmoving target. A breath. Release. The arrow zipped through the air and struck the target with a loud thud.
"Program seven: Operation Mutant," She called out.
The lights in the room dimmed. A city scape appeared and she was positioned on a tall roof. Boston was a good place to make headquarters, but Artemis always used New York City's Manhattan burrow to train students in archery and riffle shooting. There was an occasional operation for close quarter archery and hand gun fighting she threw in to mix it up and that was what she needed that moment.
Vampires scaled the fire escapes and she shot two before whisking another arrow from its quiver and stabbing a vampire behind her in its neck. Then she spun and smacked three more in their mouths with the tip of her bow before rolling away and shooting them with three arrows at once.
She continued this dance for a good half hour before the operation was finished and the room returned to its original appearance. A sigh escaped her lips and she threw the bow to the ground and jerked the quiver's strap over her head to toss it away. If she was honest with herself, she was jealous of Maf. He did have the power and the knowledge to cross into Arda, but he wasn't family. She was Brianna's aunt. It should have been her that left for Arda.
"Fuck!" She groaned.
I'm the daughter of Zeus! I should be able to do something, she thought.
It was foolish to think so. She knew this. Many years ago when Aries ruler briefly as king she had been able to do little about it. It took Athena's return before stability returned to the elven race as a whole. So much more happened since then to both add to their peace and then abruptly take it away.
Tears pricked her eyes. Brianna was both her biggest failure and her proudest accomplishment. Both a prized student who excelled at almost everything against the odds imposed on her by her betters. Then, when finally faced with the ability to use magic shortly after turning one hundred, she had excelled at that as well, though Artemis hadn't helped in Brianna's instruction. Then there was the day she was crowned queen. That had been her proudest moment just to know Brianna could even make that step. Despite this the years when Brianna had struggled to make friends, the days when the deaths of those close to her became too much for her niece to bare, and when she finally had to step aside from the throne for a time and place Landion as regent - all of this had broken Artemis' heart.
Was this what it felt like to be a parent? She had never truly considered herself as one. A protector of sorts back when she was a bastard of Zeus to the girls and occasional boy who needed her help, but never a parent. She had forsworn such unnecessary attachments long ago. Children were what she considered as an impossibility given her vows were so severe.
But I raised Brianna, she thought, and I had to treat her as a subordinate and then a queen. I couldn't be her mother. She never really had one.
"Cussing the room out isn't going to help her. Nor is acting pitiful. I thought you were better than this, girl?"
Artemis turned and nodded a small greeting to Laurel Moruni in an attempt to not reveal she had been taken by surprise. Laurel was good at sneaking up on people and taught her niece that skill with gusto. Brianna had returned to OLIMPUS in the short time before her brief coronation and then more permanently after she had attempted to abdicate. These later years saw a much more mysteriously savvy Huntress with the added bonus of being able to use magic.
All of that success could be positively attributed to the good Professor.
"It makes me feel less aggravated," she huffed.
Laurel nodded, "It worked?"
"No, no it didn't. I'm frustrated that Maf and Ailya were able to go after her already, but I'm stuck here waiting for Loki to figure out how to send a multitude there in one go without doing something stupid like materializing in the middle of the damn ocean," Artemis grumbled.
"That's because Loki was never good at such magic," Laurel replied.
Artemis sighed and moved to completely deactivate the training room. The lights dimmed and were replaced with the targets once again. She stared at them and noted with some satisfaction the multiple arrows penetrating their centers. The professor nodded to her with no small amount of pride.
"You were always the best archer I'd ever known and I've known many in my lifetime," she remarked.
Artemis shrugged and replied, "It didn't help Bri in the end, did it?"
"No, she's old enough to help herself," Laurel replied with a certain finality that chilled Artemis to the bone.
It had been a while since the professor spoke to her ex-ward. If she had then she would have known what Brianna had been going through after her failed attempt to abdicate the throne. The amount of self-loathing, anger, and self-destructive behavior almost made Artemis refuse to allow her to return. After thinking about it for a night she had done so anyway. Better the impulse she could control than the free agent she could not and Artemis had stamped some of it out.
But not enough, she thought forlornly.
The professor watched her for a good long moment, turned and opened the training room door, "I'm going out. Maf and Loki are engrossed in their little math equation. It's time to grab a bit of dinner. Want to come?"
Artemis nodded, "Might as well. Give me a chance to clean up and I'll meet you in an hour."
Maf wasn't sure where Ailya had gone. Their separation was intentional as was their purposeful distance from each other. It was only Maf's luck to appear in the middle of a wooden city with soldiers pointing their spears at him. A tall man stepped forward and removed his helm. The people around them tittered. Maf wasn't one to typically refer to people as peasants, but the people in this particular village could be described as little else.
He met the gaze of the knight. Tall, blue eyed, and blond haired – he wasn't anything Maf hadn't seen before. In fact, he seemed a little too boring for his taste though he supposed everyone needed something to work with.
"What do you call yourself and why have you come to these lands?" The man asked.
Maf raised an incredulous brow. It was close to Middle English, but the language had some interesting variations that made him pause to consider the question for a moment. How to word this?
He shook his head and decided to wing it, "I️ am Mafortion the Grey. I️ bring healing and advice should anyone wish to acquire it. No charge, of course, that would put a damper on our relationship."
He was mostly speaking to stall for time. The time he needed to build the well within consisting of the Fifth Element – the building blocks and unseen force that drove nature forward – so he could implement what he needed to in order to mend his current situation. It wouldn't be painful, only necessary.
"Are you an agent of the Dark Lord?" The man asked.
Maf blinked. Dark lord? Oh yes! Sauron! The eye wreathed in flame!
"No, never met the… uh… individual," Maf replied.
The knight drew back from him. Now he looked perplexed instead of defensive. It was a positive sign in Maf's book. His men looked just as unsure as their leader and didn't relent their defense.
"You say you are not affiliated with The Dark Lord, yet here you are who appeared suddenly falling from the sky. What are you?" The knight asked.
Maf has lived too long a life to ignore subtle hints. He picked up on one now from the tone of that clearly troubled man. There was only one thing to be done in such situations. Stick it with the pointy end, as the young humans liked to say these days, he thought.
"I, young man, am an outlander from a world far from this. I have traveled in hopes of finding my apprentice. She has a habit of wandering off," Maf said sagely.
The men began to whisper. The word "outlander" was spoken amongst them several times in the proper modern English pronunciation. He didn't smile at that, but allowed himself a moment for self congratulation. It always pleased him to be able to teach people something useful.
Their young captain seemed to relax, "An outlander. And what is it you do, sir outlander?"
Maf met his gaze. Yes, he thought, there will be no need for false memories here.
He smiled and folded his hands against his belly. It was a toned belly with defined abdominal muscles he'd worked hard on keeping toned over the many years of his life. One never knew when the need would arise for him to make a great escape.
"I seek out dark thoughts and chase them away," Maf replied.
The captain swung himself off of his horse after strapping his spear to his horses saddle to keep it in place. The horse remained remarkably docile about such treatment and Maf's interest piqued. Such a fear was certainly an accomplishment.
With a steady gate the young man walked up to him and held out his hand. Maf grinned and took the offered hand in his abs both men shook.
"I am Eomer, son of Eomund, Third Marshal of the Riddermark. I bid you welcome, Outlander if the light," he greeted.
"I am known as Maf to many. What service may I render to you in return for not skewing me with your spear?"
Eomer smiled, "A service that requires discretion and rooting out the darkness in my home."
The wizard beamed. At least his time spent waiting would be time well spent.
"By all means lead the way, Third Marshal! And tell me all about this darkness plaguing your house," he replied.
Eomer turned to his stunned men calling for a horse. Maf watched him with hooded eyes. It hadn't taken much magic, but enough to ease away the least pleasant conversations in favor of a warm bed at night. Besides this little job sounded interesting.
Ailya's arrival in Arda had been uneventful. She appeared exactly where she wanted to be - away from a great multitude of people - and managed some time to herself carefully planning her entrance into this large city fortress built on the side of a mountain. Her sight improved tremendously after arriving. She knew it would. The sight was a shadow of the omniscience of the Triune and could only mimic it and not be it. Now she saw enough around her to know that she appeared far too early in the elven queen's time to chance running into her so early on. It would take several months for her to journey to this… Minas Tirith…
What a strange name! Though I suppose it has been a long time since the old days and there is much even I have forgotten. This world's has strong roots in those days. Clear strong roots, indeed. And the magic! A world created through song! Who would have ever thought? She considered.
No matter her feelings and interests. Entering the city was imperative if she was to gain a foothold in the Steward's house. Demurely Ailya reached into her pack and drew out plain clothes meant for older times. Her simple white dress was far too regal for these people to be able to stand. Once dressed differently Ailya wandered around the mountains and made for the gates. She reoriented her sight to expand her vision. The dark creatures before her and around her shook her very being. Whatever the Morrighan began it started close to here.
I will be needed in this city, she thought with certainty.
She moved like a shadow across the rocky terrain of the mountain. As she drew closer to the great city Ailya adopted a different gate. Her feet became less certain and she allowed herself to reach her left hand out to the side and seek feelers. Anyone who beheld her would see a blind elf down on her luck needing shelter. The closer she came to the city the more she allowed her blindness to be apparent, but not too much. She needed to seem disabled, but unimpaired by it. It had worked in the past and something told her that t would work again.
The wall loomed overhead. Before she could reach it and begin the process of acting as if she didn't know where the gate was avoids called down to her.
"You there! Who is it that approaches Minas Tirith?"
She looked into the direction of the voice. A young man. She seen flashes of him before, but had been unable to settle her sight on him for too long.
"An elf seeking a tempura home! I have traveled far and wide and this city is the first I happen upon!" She called.
"How do we know you are not of the enemy? Strange elves are about in these troubled time, Lady, and we cannot afford to be overrun from within," the guard said.
"Your caution does you credit, but I can assure you I am harmless. My sight is gone. All I have to recommend me are my skills as a healer," she said.
This always intrigued people. A blind healer? How did such a thing happen?
"How are you able to heal if you are blind?" The Guard asked.
"I listen!" She called in reply.
"Stay where you are and I will come and get you!"
Her sight saw him disappear from the edge of the wall. Ailya allowed herself a long drawn out breath before settling as comfortably as possible against the wall. Everyone needed healers. Such a thing did not change no matter the time or the world.
Professor Laurel Moruni had never known the Old World where the borders between time and space had relative meaning. From those who had survived the physics of such a world had been strange. Elves, angels, dragons, immortal Fae were able to pass between worlds at their leisure and populate the great expanse beyond. Science and wonder beyond anything the human race could ever hope to achieve quickly in the short lives they'd been given.
Then Heylel Ben Shachar began his rebellion and the war which followed devastated everything they'd built up to that point. Following that war access to such easy travel was no longer available to anyone with a fleshly body. The elves could do it, but only those with great power and control over that power. Certain conditions always had to be met. Laurel knew this as she had been the first elf in thousands upon thousands of years to actually cross worlds. She had first gone to Arda in those early days of travel and she had taken careful note of all that she had seen. Never once had she sought to make it public to others.
Yet the enemy has made contact with them all the same. Why? What has changed? She wondered gazing at her many bookshelves in the Boston house's study.
Artemis always reserved a place for her in every property she purchased for OLIMPUS Hunters. She extended this courtesy to all of the Eldar as she worked tirelessly with them to maintain as much peace and order as possible. The days were growing darker in that regard. The work of Ba'al had awakened many a dark thing from their thousand years of slumber. The Morrighan merely finished his work.
Laurel was the watcher of this New World. When she walked among the peoples she heard their whispers of joy, fear, pain and peace. Fear and pain replaced it all and a culture of violence, selfishness and conceit took root among the human populace. It leeched into elven, dwarven, dragon and fae society and turned people further into the clutches of the enemy.
And now the enemy has decided it needs help from another world. My apprentice alarmed them after what she did to their old leader, she thought and smiled.
Brianna's soul was damaged from everything that monster had put her through, but the justice she enacted upon him was far more satisfying than it should have been. Laurel hadn't quite brought herself to the point where she could ask Forgiveness for such feelings. It would pass in the end and her center would soon return.
The door to her study creaked open to reveal a slightly sheepish Loki. Laurel raised a brow in order to convey her irritation at being interrupted from her thoughts. The trickster took this as an invitation- many people did though she couldn't fathom why - and entered her space.
"Matt and I have begun the process of mapping out the preliminary preparations. Your council would be welcome," he said.
Laurel snorted, "No it won't! I hold the fifth under my breast. I don't need a great fanfare to do what I need to do."
Loki sniffed and replied, "Yes, I'm sure you don't need to think too much to cross over, but the rest of us cannot. I haven't done this since before Laurealasse was queen and Matt has never done this before. Help would be appreciated."
She sighed. The moment of reflection had clearly ended and Laurel rose from her chair and stood tall and broad across from the diminutive Loki. Sometimes it surprised her how short and thin he was in comparison to her.
"I'll do my best to advise you in the right direction," she said dryly.
The great expanse. Humans called it space and measured the distance of stars in light years. They didn't understand how shallow their scratch was when it came to delving into the science of space. It was their final frontier and the elves wild, unkempt woods untrodden for many ages. If only they knew that space was more than a vacuum. It was a wall that kept as many bad things out and in as it could. The enemy had torn several holes in it. They had pushed the elven Queen through it. It was imperative they work to fix all the terror these things were bound to cause. The great expanse. Space. The final frontier.
Damn humans and their Star Trek! It's almost as bad as Brianna quoting the litany against fear just to snuggly prove a point, Laurel thought and cast all others aside to focus on the task at hand and she entered the parlor.