Episode 9: Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler, Chapter 1
Cassandra and Jacob jumped apart, as guilty as teenagers, when the office door burst open to admit Flynn and Eve.
"Are you okay?" Cassandra asked, her eyes flying wide at the sight of Flynn's face.
"Physically, he's fine," Eve answered for her husband. "I just said something and he was off. Like a bloodhound on a trail."
"What'd you say?" Stone half chuckled, his grin freezing when he got a good look at Flynn's antics.
The Librarian was flicking through book after book on a shelf and tossing them to the ground in a manner any librarian only concerned with books would have wholly disapproved of. Interestingly enough, Stone noticed, there was a faint blue tinge around each book as it landed; and each book, as it landed, pulled itself miraculously into a neat pile. He kissed the top of Cassie's head softly and was not at all surprised to see her attention still focussed on the growing pile of books as her lips curled into a smile.
"What's he worked out?" Charlene demanded, walking in with Jenkins at her back.
"Hasn't said yet," reported Eve.
"Say something?" Charlene enquired.
"Yep," replied Eve.
"Know what?"
"Nope."
"Joy!"
"Charlene, what exactly did you do before you worked for the Library?" Cassandra wondered aloud, eyes still locked on the growing stack of books by Flynn's side but mind glancing back to a conversation deep in the bowels of Dunvegan Castle.
"Classified."
"Thought so," hummed Cassandra, one eyebrow arching despite its owner's concentration.
"Flynn?" Eve tried, to no avail. She glanced at Charlene.
"Don't look at me, soldier; you married him!"
"Flynn, talk to us!" Eve persisted. "Let us in. What is it?"
No response.
The Guardian walked over and dragged her Librarian round to face her. "Flynn!"
Eyes, deep brown, puppy dog eyes, now filled with the light of epiphany, came up to meet hers. "Apotheosis! Transfiguration! There's more than one!"
"Back it up!" Eve ordered. "More than one what? What did I say?"
For the first time, Flynn seemed to see the others in the room. He looked around in momentary panic, then a thought struck him and he blinked. "Where's Ezekiel?"
"Up here."
Flynn and the others looked up to the bannister of the mezzanine to find the thief looking curiously down at them.
"I thought you were going to be in the reading room?" Jenkins smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
"I was," countered the thief. "I heard the commotion and came out to see what was going on."
"You have amazing hearing!" Flynn enthused.
"Focus, Librarian!" Eve ordered, turning Flynn's face to hers. "What did I say and why did it mean something?"
Flynn took a breath, and the rest of the room could almost hear the brakes in his brain screech in an effort to slow things down. "We were talking about what the Eye of the Zhulong could do," he began, "and you said it could show a person's true nature. True nature! Eve, my love, my heart, my all, that's something that could be used in a transfiguration spell! Every spell, all magic, requires three things: power, focus, effect. Something that reveals the true nature of someone, or something: that's something that could be used as a focus for a spell like that. Like the one they used, tried to use, with Loki's Spear. The Spear was the effect part of that spell, but we got it back. The Eye could be used as a focus in a similar spell, but not for Loki. Don't you see? He was a trickster! A Shapeshifter! Anything that revealed the true nature of something would lock Loki down to one form. They can't be wanting to use it on him! There must be another! Probably more!"
"But we knew that already!" Cassandra pointed out, her brows flicking together in confusion.
"We thought it," corrected Flynn, waggling a finger at her. "We theorised from what we knew. Now we know! This proves there has to be more than one avatar to trigger the twilight of the gods. Probably a whole cast of minions just waiting for a role in Ragnarok! With Loki at their head!"
"No."
The voice floated down gently, but had the effect of a lead balloon.
"No?" Flynn frowned.
"Not Loki. Not at the head," continued Ezekiel. "He was a big part of it, and one of the leaders, but he didn't lead the charge. His daughter did. Hel. The half-blood with two faces."
"And who do we know who fits that description?" Charlene murmured, looking round to Jenkins.
The old man's jaw tightened.
"It would explain how they knew so much," murmured Cassandra, reaching the same conclusion. "Although I can think of someone else who fits the descriptions of a two-faced, ice cold…"
"Neither of whom seem interested in pulling their punches when their own blood's in the room," cut in Charlene.
An uncomfortable silence fell across the room. All eyes turned to Jenkins. This had just entered the realm of 'family'. Amidst the whispered rustling of the books, only one pair of eyes was not focused on the recently bereaved knight. Instead, Eve was looking up to the mezzanine where the knuckles of her youngest charge were standing out a stark white against the balcony balustrade.
"How many," Eve asked aloud, to anyone in the room, but especially to the person she knew had just been reading up on Ragnarok. "We thought four, didn't we? Do we still think that? How many avatars do they need? And what do they need to make them?"
Ezekiel looked up, catching her eye and spotting other faces turn expectantly towards him. He looked down, focussing on the book he had just been perusing. "That depends."
"Depends on what?" Stone queried, turning, arms folded, to face the balcony.
"If they want just the major players, probably six, not four: Hel and her hound, Garm; her father, Loki; her brothers, Fenrir and Jormungand; and Surt the giant."
"Surt as in Surt that I was researching?" Stone asked, turning to Flynn and the others.
"That's why we were researching him," Flynn reminded him. "Anyone that could have anything to do with Ragnarok: we went after any relic related to them. We just didn't know for sure that they were going to use more than one. It was just a theory, after all."
Eve looked back to her beloved. "How do you know they haven't just switched from Loki to another avatar?"
Flynn shrugged. "Whatever item they had for 'focus' with Loki would work just as well with any other character associated with Ragnarok. They would only need a second one if they were attempting a second transformation. Besides, Ezekiel's right: Ragnarok was led by Hel, not her father. It was heralded by the howl of her hound. We're not looking for the man who would be king. We're looking for the woman who would be queen, and quite possibly a whole half dozen of underlings under her."
"Seven," Ezekiel corrected him, again. The thief smirked a little at the expression that flashed across Flynn's face. "If they use more than just the major players."
"Hey, Houdini," called Charlene. "What did you mean by 'major players'? Who else might they want?"
Ezekiel shrugged. "The legend talks about two wolves devouring the sun and the moon. It's one of the markers of the beginning of Ragnarok. That's all the wolves do, but they might want them all the same."
"Okay," breathed the Colonel, and all eyes turned to her, "here's what we're going to do. Ezekiel: you make a list of all the players in decreasing order of importance. Two lists: one for the good guys, one for the bad guys. And I want a breakdown of who fights whom and who wins or loses each fight and why. Charlene, Jenkins: I want the list of everything the Serpent Brotherhood stole, checked off against everything we got back, and a list of everything da Vinci stole or swapped out while he was here. Cassandra and Stone: I want you two to focus on the how. How are they going to use the things we know they already have to pull this off? What are they missing? How will they fill the gaps?"
"And I, my love?" Flynn smiled, watching his wife in action. "What would you have me do?"
"You're with me," nodded Eve, head inclining to their shared desk. "And you're helping me work out how we fight this."
"And when you say fight…"
"Oh, I have a few ideas on that score, Librarian!"
XXXX
He knew the path he was on was a difficult one. Every mission he had accepted, both in his career as a soldier and as a part of the Serpent Brotherhood, had been dangerous. Potentially deadly, even. This, however: this was something else! It had taken a spell and a portal just to get to the path and now, with every step he took along it, the colour seemed to drain out of his surroundings until what surrounded him now reminded him of some weird digitally remastered daguerreotype. Grey slivers of mist curled and danced around him, dissolving and reforming as he neared and passed them. An undulating streak of black snaked into sight ahead of him. The river. That, at least, ought to be simple and straightforward. He paused. No. Not so simple. There were five rivers, not one. Five that wound throughout the realms of Erebos, cutting off the living from the lands of the dead, and an ocean marking the edge of the underworld itself. What he saw before him was certainly a river, though. He could rule out one river: the fiery Phlegethon. Even in this washed out landscape, it would stand out, burning on its route to the pit of Tartarus. That left four.
The soldier closed his eyes, dragging his memory through the briefing he had been given. It was hard to think here. The air felt thin. It tasted stale. It burned in his lungs. He focussed on the rivers. There was one that wailed with the mournful cries of the dead: the Cocytus. Another that would rob the memory of any who drank its waters: the Lethe. The Lethe bordered the fields of Elysium, though. That was the paradise realm, and nothing on either side of this looked anything like what he would call paradise. The remaining two were the most similar, at least mythologically, she had said. The Acheron and the Styx. Both were reputed to require crossing via the boat of Charon. A purse of coins jingled at his belt for the purpose. Part of his own purpose there was to retrieve a sample of one of those two rivers. Would it matter which? Perhaps. His orders said the Styx. What difference was there, then between the appearance of the Styx and the Acheron?
The river drew nearer, a high-prowed boat waiting by a short pier coalesced before him, as if emerging from the mist. A tall, cloaked figure waited in the small, shadowy vessel, as monochromatic as everything else around him. As the soldier approached, the figure unfurled a gaunt hand towards him. Simmonds paid the ferryman and sat down in the boat.
