Episode 7: The Worst Version of Himself, Chapter 1

"You have to go."

"Just tell me exactly what you saw."

"Quickly: he's coming!"

"Not until you tell me what you're hiding!"

"There is nothing more, I swear!"

"There must be something!"

"I can hear his footsteps. You have to go!"

"I will come back."

"It would be better if you did not. For everyone."

"I don't accept that."

"I know. But you must. And you must go. Now!"

The whispered voices faded into silence, culminating in a sharp blue flash. Alone, she crept out of the ancient antechamber, picking a worn leather-bound volume up just as the owner of the footsteps rounded the open door of the room.

"Grandfather," said Seonaidh, with a slight inclination of her head.

"How go your studies?" Galeas asked tersely, his eyes flitting about the tower room.

"Your handwriting is difficult to decipher," replied the young woman, the ice in her voice easily apparent.

"I cannot catalogue the myriad possible sightings of our enemies and spoon feed you your own family's history," he snapped. "Perhaps you might find it easier to concentrate on these ledgers without distractions."

"I have been stuck in this room for days," retorted Seonaidh. "There are no distractions here."

"Do not lie to me, girl," barked the old man. He crossed the room in a few swift strides and pushed aside the curtain of the antechamber, returning with a small heart shaped corn dolly. "You forget: I know this place. I built this room, centuries ago, long before this modern contrivance was erected over and around it. Long before your grandmother persuaded the architect to move this floor of the tower, stone by stone, to the level it now occupies. I know how I linked it to the Library, in its Oxford days. And I know that the thief has found the relics of that time in my laboratory. Do not attempt to tell me he is not using them. My writing may be difficult to decipher after six centuries, but that does not explain why you would be reading a chapter you yourself explained to me just this morning."

Seonaidh shut the book. It landed on the wooden desk with a dull thunk, sending ripples through the glass and jug of water nearby. "He merely wants to know what I am not telling him," she sighed, folding her arms and turning to face the old man, her chin jutting forward stubbornly.

"He knows all he needs to," replied Galeas, with a dismissive wave. "You do not."

"But I do now have plenty of time to learn," she sniped back.

"You do not know how much time you have!" Galeas retorted, his voice rising. "The forces that attacked this castle are far stronger than you, and they are bent on destroying this world. If you do not do this... If you are not ready for them the next time we meet... None of us may survive what is coming. Not you. Not me. Not even the thief. If you want to stand a chance of saving him, you must be ready."

"If my grandmother could not fight these demons with all of this knowledge already a part of her," shot back Seonaidh, "what chance do you expect me to have?"

Galeas' jaw tightened. His brow darkened. "Your grandmother made a mistake that I will not permit you to make," he replied, his voice sinking to a low growl. "She allowed her feelings to distract her, and that mistake cost more than you will ever know. If you think you would stand little chance of winning such a battle with all her knowledge, try to imagine what chance you would stand without it."

XXXX

"Please tell me you actually have something," begged Cassandra, her head snapping up as Jones stumbled through the door.

"She still won't say," he shook his head. "He has her learning all this ancient lore stuff. Like journals he and Flora wrote way back. Other than that, either she doesn't know any more, or she's not telling. And she definitely knows more than she's saying."

"Jenkins wouldn't deliberately keep us out of this," Flynn yawned, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and sitting up from the pillow of books on his desk. "There must be something we're missing."

"Flynn," cut in Charlene, her unusually quiet tone demanding attention. "I get that you don't want to consider this possibility, but I think we have to. Jenkins just lost the most important person in his life. Someone he had been planning on returning to for six hundred years, near enough. Someone he knew he would only have limited time with when he did, but whom he thought he'd have the time to say goodbye to properly. They thought they'd have years once the next Cailleach showed up. Maybe decades. He could retire from the annex, move all his things there and spend her last years as any elderly retired couple, albeit one with a considerably larger back yard and fewer holidays. He thought she would have a slow, peaceful death, by his side. Not a sudden, painful one, by his blade. The Serpent Brotherhood didn't just steal those years from him, they used his own armour and sword to do it. I don't know what enchantment they're using, but it must be pretty powerful if it can possess the armour of the perfect knight, when the knight himself is still alive and kicking."

"It has to be the same spell used at my parents' house," shrugged Cassandra.

"Probably," nodded Charlene. "And Jenkins probably knows that. Definitely knows that, I'd say. We cannot discount the possibility that he is going after them himself. He knows he's the hardest out of all of us, bar possibly da Vinci, to kill. If he can get his armour, and his own sword and shield, back, he would be a force to be reckoned with. Especially if he's out for revenge."

"All the more reason to work out our newest riddle," cut in Eve, appearing at the mezzanine balustrade. "Stone has the translation."

The Runestone had changed two days ago, on da Vinci's watch. It had been moved into the reading room and was never left without at least one person on guard. It was the second such change since the catastrophe at Dunvegan. Whether the first change had coincided with Flora's death or not, none of the group could say as, in the panic and distraction cause by the attack and its immediate aftermath, nobody had been watching the stone. The message had been simple enough. It read 'The ship of the dead sails'. Flynn had spotted it while removing the last of the Serpent Brotherhood's artefact duplicates. From then on the team had decided it should never be left alone.

The group in the atrium of the office ascended the stairs and followed Eve into the reading room, where da Vinci and Stone were arguing over whatever was scribbled on a pad of paper beside the Runestone.

The carvings on the stone were different this time. The angular Futhark runes had been replaced by the even more angular scratches of something it had taken half a day just to identify. Both artistic genii and Flynn had been studying the message from the moment of its discovery, with only minimal breaks. The Library had even provided an extra sofa in the room for sleeping on. Finally a breakthrough had arrived. The writing on the stone was ancient Sumerian cuneiform pictograms, of the Uruk style, and the oldest form known. It went back over five thousand years, predating even the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs. Right back to the very birth of the written language. That hadn't been the end of it either. There were few enough examples of early Sumerian, even with the Library's impossibly diverse resources. Not every Sumerian pictogram had an ordinary, understandable counterpart. Once the writing itself had been translated, as far as possible, into the modern Latin characters, the language of the resulting message still had to be deciphered from the original dialect into English. Finally, a day and a half later, it seemed the task was complete.

"Please tell me we know what this means now," sighed Flynn, slumping down into a sofa. "The language of the birds took less time to translate than this!"

"You had nothing else to do on the plane at the time," Charlene reminded him. "And you knew what you were trying to decipher."

Flynn returned a tight-lipped smile and remained silent, reaching up to take the hand Eve had quietly placed on his shoulder and kiss it.

"Tell us," said the Colonel. "What does it say this time?"

"It's a riddle," warned Stone, casting a glance around team gathered in the room. "There's still a few bits that are guesswork, but what we think it says is this."

"Where the bridge between realms first found a home," recited da Vinci, "the giants of the fire world will cross to ours."

"We think the 'fire world' is what the Norse called Muspell," Stone pointed out. "And the bridge between worlds..."

"Is the bifrost, the rainbow bridge," finished Jones. Stone gave him a weary look and the reformed thief shrugged. "I've seen 'Thor'. Marvel's awesome."

"This ain't a comic book movie Jones," grumbled the overworked art historian, trying to stifle a yawn. "If it was there'd be some clue as to where this bridge actually first touched down."

"I guess we could ask around," shrugged Cassandra, flashing a look over to Eve. "We do have a few contacts. You know, in New York?"

Eve pulled a face and nodded. "You know, I guess we do. Why don't you take Jones this time, though. Flynn and I have a contact of our own, out in Norway."

As tired as he was, Flynn sat up at this, his eyes widening. "We do indeed, my love. And I'm sure Hervor, like any good Valkyrie, would be an expert in travelling between this world and others."

"Hey, what about me?" Stone chipped in. "I did all the hard work here, me and Flynn and Leonardo, anyway. How come Jones gets to go!"

"You did do all the hard work," agreed Eve, "and now you're dead on your feet, Stone. Look at you: you're so tired you can barely stand. I need that brain of yours in good working order if we're going to win this one. Cassandra and Jones can handle New York. Flynn and I can take care of Norway. You and da Vinci go get some proper rest. I'm sure Charlene can look after things here."

"That I can," Charlene nodded, plucking a book off the shelf at random and settling herself in an armchair. "Go on, all of you. I have some reading to catch up on and this is the reading room."

XXXX

The man known as Simmonds stumbled through the halls of the subterranean labyrinth. His body was battered and bruised but, once again, he had returned to his queen from a successful hunt. The ingredients for his own transformation had long since been gathered. Now he brought the last item for an altogether different transformation. He picked his way into the chamber known as the holy of holies. It was not the only temple he had visited with such a chamber. Most of them had one somewhere. It was the first he had visited that had been carved out of the living rock though. On a raised platform, the queen sat, a picture of dark elegance on her throne. She raised a hand at his entrance and the room fell silent.

She looked down at the wounded man as he dropped to his knees before her. "Do you have it?"

"I do my queen," answered her acolyte with a nod.

The queen beckoned to a grey suited man in the shadows. "This relic is for your benefit, Grisholm. Take care that it reaches the bridge intact."

The grey man stepped forward and received the item from its bearer. He turned to the queen and bowed. "I shall guard it with my life, my queen."

"A noble sentiment," smiled the queen. "Though less of one when a failure to do so means that you would share its fate."