Chapter 23: The Old World
Shadow Realm, January 19th, 2017
Buffy Summers knew her friends were preparing a 'Surprise Birthday Party'. It was hard to hide anything from her Slayer senses - especially in such a small location like their camp in the shadowy dimension. She could smell fresh cake whenever she got a little too close to Jim's camper. More importantly, she couldn't hear anything from Willow and Tara's camper, and Dawn hadn't been complaining about the Internet connection for hours. And Giles had been making a rather transparent attempt to keep her busy with another lesson about demons she would likely never encounter until she had told him she needed to hit something and left.
And, of course, her friends had been trying to pull this on every birthday of hers for years. Ever since that birthday that she wouldn't think about. Which she just had done. Damn it.
She shook her head as she walked over to the training dummy they had set up in the sparring area. It was her twenty-first birthday. She could now legally drink alcohol. Not that it would do much for her unless it was demon beer or something. And the last thing Buffy wanted to do on her birthday was turning into cavewoman-Buffy and embarrassing herself. Well, second-to-last thing. Sleeping with your boyfriend and turning him into a psychotic mass murderer was the last thing, and… she had thought about that birthday again. Double-damn.
Frowning, she lashed out with a kick that hit the target dummy flat in the centre. Any normal wooden post would have shattered, but troll target dummies were made of tougher stuff. They probably had to, given what kind of damage trolls did. Or Trollhunters.
She took a deep breath - and wasn't thinking about that horrible day four years ago - and hit the dummy with a combo of two strikes and a kick. And another kick. Uppercut. Axe kick. Mule kick. Spin kick. Two jabs with her right, one straight left, drop into a leg sweep, roll over her shoulder, kipp-up and - jump kick!
She pushed off the dummy's head and landed in a crouch, then shifted into a horse stance. The dummy still wasn't broken. Buffy felt the urge to destroy it. Smash it to pieces. Her hammer would do the job. Show the thing who was…
She shook her head and sighed. Sometimes, being a Slayer was a pain. The Slayer Spirit just wasn't made for the twenty-first century. She was much too direct. Slay, eat, dominate. And - she felt her cheeks heat up a little at the thought - have sex. Which she wasn't. Having.
And that was perfectly fine. She was in the middle of a dangerous battle against a skanky hell-goddess, hiding - staging - in a shadowy dimension, and giving in to this particular urge would only cause trouble and threaten the slaying part of the whole thing. She couldn't go clubbing - patrolling - anyway and cruise for cute boys. Or should that be men now that she was twenty-one? Not that she would cruise for boys anyway; that was what Faith would do. Had done.
She clenched her teeth. She wasn't going to think about the other Slayer, either. She wasn't Faith. She was Buffy Summers. She wasn't going to give in to her stupid primal urges. And even if she wanted to, there was no way to do so here. If she went after Xander, Anya would probably revert to a Vengeance Demon just to curse her. Giles was… She shook her head. Nope. You didn't go after men who had slept with your mom. You just didn't. And you didn't go after married men, either. Or girls. Not that any girl was available, either. If Buffy were interested. Which she wasn't. Really not.
She sighed. Why was she stuck here and not in L.A.? Wait, L.A. meant Angel. Mister 'fate calls me away, it's not you, it's fate'. Damn jerk.
"Slayer?"
She tensed. Spike. She turned slowly. He was lighting a cigarette, about ten yards away. And she hadn't heard him coming closer. Sneaky. Or she was sloppy. "Yes?"
"We're having a planning session and need you," Spike said, sounding about as bored as... well, like someone really bored. "Unless you want to hit the dummy a few more times."
And if she hadn't yet known that her friends were preparing a party, she would've now - Spike, not asking if she wanted to spar against him instead of hitting a dummy? That would've been suspicious like hell. She snorted - she could ask him to spar, see how he would react, caught between his desire to spar and Willow's orders to fetch her.
"What's so funny?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Nothing." She grinned. A spar against him would be fun. He didn't hold back - the only thing that kept him from trying to kill her for real was a tiny little chip in his head. And he knew his stuff. He wasn't a fancy martial artist, but he was amongst the best fighters Buffy knew. As good as a Slayer. Perhaps almost as good as she was. It would be fun indeed - that kind of danger added something to the whole experience, and…
She buried that thought deep, deep inside her. Another thing she wasn't going to think about. "Let's go. We don't want them to start planning without us."
He frowned at her for a moment, then snorted himself and followed her towards the camp.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Buffy! Happy birthday to you!"
James Lake Jr sang along, smiling, as he set down the cake on the big table in the middle of the camp, twenty-one candles lit on it.
"Make a wish!" Willow all but yelled.
"Wish for Glory's death!" Dawn blurted out.
"Can we do that? Or would that get us bad karma?" Xander asked.
Jim couldn't tell if they were serious.
"Well, my former co-workers might not be up to the task of dealing out vengeance to a hell-god," Xander's girlfriend, Anya, replied with a frown. "I would've tried, I think, but I don't think many others would do so."
Right. She was a former Vengeance Demon. And a former Viking witch - Norse witch, Jim corrected himself. Vikings, as he had been told a couple of times now, wasn't the name for the people but for the raiders sailing off to plunder foreign shores.
"Don't say the W-Word," Willow cut in, "and we should be fine!"
"Wait! Does it work now or not?" Xander asked. "'Cause if birthday wishes work, I'll have to make a list. And no more joke candles!"
"It's not a magic ritual," Willow told him. "Not that we'd know, at least. But if it were a valid ritual, I doubt Cordelia would've made it to graduation."
"Cordelia?" Claire asked.
"Stuck-up cheerleader leader and resident Queen Bee in Sunnydale High," Dawn replied. "And the source of Willow and Xander's trauma."
"Not just trauma," Xander said. "We have some good memories, too." He smiled until Anya elbowed him. "Ow! And bad ones. Mostly bad ones!" he quickly added, rubbing his side.
Anya scoffed. Until Xander leaned over and whispered something into her ear, after which she was beaming.
Jim looked away.
"If we're all finished…" The Slayer gave everyone - even Jim, who hadn't taken part in the discussion - the evil eye.
Willow winced, and Xander mimed zipping his lips shut.
"Good." The Slayer nodded and took a deep breath. As expected, she blew out all the candles at once.
"Yes! Cake time!"
"Dawn! Birthday girl first!"
"Girls! Behave!"
"Yes, Mom!"
"She started it!"
Seeing her antics, it was hard to believe that the Slayer was twenty-one years old. She seemed much younger. Then Jim saw her wince when she bit into her piece of cake. Had he messed up? "Is the cake… bad?" he asked.
"No, no!" the Slayer said. "Just… my thoughts went wandering.
"Oh." Willow bit her lower lip. And Xander looked grim. Even Spike pressed his lips together, Jim noticed.
"Yeah, old history," Dawn said. "Long since gone, all over, yadda yadda - more cake!" She held out her plate, already empty while Jim hadn't even started on his slice yet.
"Dawn! You'll end up fatter than a hippo if you eat so much cake!" the Slayer protested.
And Toby was wincing, Jim noticed with a frown. Great. They couldn't even hold a birthday party without hurting each other. He took a deep breath and spoke: "So, how's the cake? I tried a slight variant of my usual recipe, but I've never used the camper's oven, so…"
"It's good," Mrs Nuñez told him with a nod. Her husband nodded. Both were even smiling at him.
"It's excellent, Jim!" Claire added, leaning into him while holding onto her own plate. And the Nuñez stopped smiling.
"Yes," Toby chimed in. "Very good!"
"It lacks certain troll favourites, but it's quite edible," Blinky said.
"Troll favourites?" Dawn asked.
"A few screws would not go amiss. Stainless steel adds a piquant flavour," Blinky explained. AAARRRGGHH! nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I think I'll take my birthday cake without screws in it," Buffy said with a grimace.
"Or screwing," Anya said, nodding. "At least not with Xander."
"Anya!" Xander hissed. And Willow glared at the woman. As did Tara.
"What?" She frowned at him. "I'm just telling her you're not available."
"Buffy's very much aware of that!"
"And Buffy's right here and can hear you," the Slayer cut in. "And there won't be any birthday's screws." She blinked, then groaned. "Oh, God! Kill me now!"
"Buffy!" Mrs Summers shook her head - slowly and carefully; she still had a bandage on her temple.
"I doubt there's a need for such drastic measures," Mr Giles spoke up. "Let us enjoy the occasion."
"Yes! More cake!" Dawn demanded. When everyone gave her a look, she pouted. "What? I'm a growing girl!"
"Growing into one direction, at least," Buffy said with a glare.
"Yeah, up," Dawn retorted. "How's the air down there?"
"Girls…"
"Sorry, Mom!"
"She started it!"
"Did not!"
Jim chuckled almost against his will. In a way, this… banal, normal bickering was almost comforting. As if they were at a regular birthday party and not in the Shadow Realm, where the sky never really turned day or night.
"It's almost like a normal party," Claire echoed his thoughts.
"It is a normal party," Buffy told them - when he'd she moved around the table? "Just normal for us."
"Which is pretty abnormal," Xander added.
"How so?" Anya asked. "And that's not my fault; you never tell me the rules before I break them!"
"'The rules'?" Mrs Nuñez asked. Right, she didn't know about Anya.
"The rules. Like what's allowed and not, how to react to insults, when you can gut someone…" Anya shrugged. "A lot's changed since I became a demon."
"A demon?" Mrs Nuñez stared at her.
"Anya's not a demon any more. She's a perfectly human girl - a perfect girl," Xander said.
"Anya's just adjusting to a world where Vikings are a thing of the past," Willow added. "Which takes some time."
"It would be easier and quicker if those rules were written down."
"Who reads any more? We've got TV for that!" Buffy exclaimed.
"I tried that. It didn't work."
"Don't watch the Syfy channel for knowledge about how normal people act," Willow said.
"Don't watch Syfy, period," Dawn corrected her.
"Hey! They've got some decent shows!" Toby protested.
"Really? Name one!"
As the bickering continued, Jim gradually relaxed. This party had been a good idea.
As far as birthdays went, this one wasn't too bad, in Buffy Summers's opinion. She might even break her streak of bad birthdays. The cake was great - and she had had a Slayer-worthy slice, not the tiny little 'I'm on a diet and so are you' slice like you usually got at other parties. More importantly, no mass-murderers or other trouble had shown up out of the blue - Spike had an invitation, after all.
And everyone seemed to be having fun. Dawn was half as annoying as she usually was at Buffy's birthdays - probably because she had kids her age to annoy. Mom was feeling better and also had people her age to talk to. People other than Giles. And they even had shared interests, of sorts. And Buffy's friends were joking as usual. Which was kind of dark and black-humoury, but that was pretty normal - they were fighting a hell-goddess, after all. And a skanky one, at that.
But overall, the party was fine. Fine-ish. Xander and Anya were making up by making out in their camper after 'going to fetch more drinks', Willow and Tara were talking about how organic cake was, and Giles was… staring at his phone? "What's up, Watcher-mine?" she asked as she sidled up to him.
"I have a message from the Council. To call them on a secure line," he told her with a frown.
That wasn't a good thing, in Buffy's experience. "'A secure line'? Is that one of the secret agent recruits talking?"
Giles snorted at her joke. "I assume so - I was surprised that they were using text messages. However, this means that I need to ask Willow for her assistance."
"Oh, I can show you how to use a computer, Giles!" She grinned. "You first push the big power button."
He didn't chuckle at that joke. "Very funny, Buffy."
"I'll take my victories about knowledge and lack thereof where I can get them," she replied. That sounded almost Giles-y!
He sighed in return. "Willow? Might ask you for a favour?"
"Oh? What kind of favour?" Willow perked up.
"Not the owing kind," Buffy explained before Giles could. "He needs a secure line to London."
"Oh!" Willow was already moving. "That must be important!"
"I wouldn't assume too much," Giles said. "Once, Wesley sent me a coded message to ask about the best shop for fish and chips in Los Angeles."
"But that's Wesley," Buffy said. "This is the Council."
"Indeed. I was merely cautioning against getting our hopes up."
"Alright!" Willow announced. "I'll route the call through a few dummy relays so no one can track it - well, they know we're near Arcadia Oaks, anyway, but others might not. I wish I could do some encrypting as well, but you already have pretty good codes, and cracking them just to replace them is probably a little rude." She still looked hopefully at Giles.
"Quite, yes." He shook his head, and she pouted for a moment before typing furiously on her computer.
After a few minutes, she nodded. "Your cellphone is now secure."
"Thank you, Willow." Giles looked at the others, which were crowding Willow and Tara's camper. "Would you mind?"
Xander frowned. "But this could be vital information!"
"Of which I shall inform you at once. But the Council does expect some compliance with requests for discretion."
"Which means no cracking jokes where the old fogies can hear them," Willow added.
"Or calling them old fogies," Giles added. "Which, I might point out, is somewhat redundant."
"They're so old fashioned, it needs to be said twice. They make you look hip, Giles!" Willow retorted.
"Why, thank you" Giles was dipping heavily into the sarcasm.
"Oh, I meant… I didn't mean…" Willow trailed off, blushing - but still smiling.
Buffy laughed. "So, call them! Xander's going to sit on his mouth."
Giles raised his eyebrows at her but finally started dialling.
"Rupert?" That was the Head of the Council. This was probably important.
"Quentin?"
"Yes. We have some crucial information for you." And no asking about the weather or other stuff old people talked about. Definitely important. And urgent.
"Yes?" Giles looked very serious and not half as annoyed as he usually did when talking with or about the Council.
"We have a good lead on the location of the Slayer's Scythe."
"Oh!" Buffy pressed her lips together under Giles's glare. The Scythe. Her Scythe! What a birthday gift!
"I thought its location was lost." Giles frowned.
"It seems it was merely misfiled, so to speak. We're trying to find out if it was deliberate. But the Scythe is apparently being kept in England and wasn't last used in Ancient Greece, as we assumed."
"I trust people are already moving to recover it," Giles stated.
"We've got people working on pinning down the exact location. However…" Travers trailed off and sighed - Buffy heard it clearly over the phone. "It seems only the Slayer can wield or draw it."
"That is hardly a surprise," Giles replied.
"It isn't. But the Scythe seems to have been secured in a way that only a Slayer can recover it."
"I have to travel to England?" Buffy blurted out. It seems her birthday streak wasn't broken at all!
Trollmarket, January 19th, 2017
"...and this is the gyre!" Blinky beamed at them, then at the contraption. "It travels underground at great speed through a network that covers the entire world! Well, most of it - the network requires dedicated stations - but you can be around the world in less than an hour! Without a doubt, it is one of the most amazing inventions of trollkind in the last two hundred years!"
James Lake Jr wasn't really listening to Blinky's gushing explanation. He had heard it before. And he wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the thing as Blinky was. It was too fast. Too wild and bumpy. And it tended to transport him into lethal danger. The last was probably his personal bias talking. Though in this case, it might transport him out of lethal danger, seeing as Glory was - probably - still in Arcadia Oaks. They hadn't spotted the hell-goddess since the attack on the school, but he doubted she had given up or moved on.
"Oh! It looks like General Grievous' bike! If you squint a lot," Willow said. "A gyroscope bike! How neat!"
"Indeed!" Blinky nodded enthusiastically. "A marvel of troll engineering!"
"And that can take us to Merry Old England without us having to take a plane?" the Slayer asked.
"As I explained, the network covers the globe - and this beauty will transport us faster to our destination than any plane!"
"Great." Willow smiled. "So, let's go. The longer we take, the crankier Dawn will be for not having internet access."
"And we absolutely can't have that."
The Slayer's sarcasm needed some work, in Jim's opinion.
"As long as it transports us reasonably close to London, it will be satisfactory," Mr Giles said. "In fact, even a distance a little farther away might still benefit us greatly - Transit times from Heathrow can be murder during rush hour."
The Slayer snorted. "Well, that's obvious - you drive on the wrong side of the road!"
"That is entirely a matter of perspective, Buffy."
"And my perspective is right!"
"That would be a very egotistical stance."
"Well, most of the world drives on the right side," Willow remarked. "Although majority rules isn't a good argument in this area."
"It so is!"
Jim cleared his throat. "How about we board the gyre?" While everyone followed Blinky, he turned to Claire.
She pressed her lips together. "I should go with you," she said.
He was tempted to nod. He wanted her with him. Where he could protect her. And her portals could come in very handy if they encountered trouble. Which Jim expected to happen. But if something happened to Claire in England, their families would be stuck in the Shadow Realm. Possibly forever. Or long enough to starve or die from thirst if they didn't find other sources of food and drink in the realm. So, Claire had to stay in Arcadia Oaks.
Instead of telling her that - she knew it, after all - he hugged her. And they kissed.
"Come on! Let's get this show on the road! Or off the road, in this case. Unless tunnels qualify as roads," the Slayer interrupted them.
"Well, street tunnels do. But this might be more of a high-speed rail network, what with needing stations. So… perhaps they do?" Willow replied.
"As fascinating as your discussion is, we really should get going."
Jim sighed and hugged Claire more tightly before releasing her. "Take care of the others."
"Of course."
He wanted to say 'and stay away from Glory', but he knew Claire wouldn't. Not if others were in danger.
They had to finish their business in England as quickly as possible and return. Hell, if they didn't need a Trollhunter for their trip for what Blinky called 'diplomatic reasons' - so someone could be blamed for transporting humans who wasn't Blinky, Jim privately thought - Jim would stay in Arcadia Oaks himself. Sure, officially he was representing the Trollhunters, but he was just a glorified plane ticket.
He snorted at the thought as he boarded the gyre. Blinky was already at the controls, looking giddy as a schoolgirl.
"Hold on to your seats!" Blinky told them. "And we're off!"
The screaming started right away. Although, Jim realised after half a minute, the Slayer and Willow sounded excited rather than frightened.
"Wheee!"
"This is great!"
"Dear Lord, it's worse than I feared."
"Where is your sense of adventure, Giles? Wheee! Double turn!"
"I must have left it with our luggage. And my common sense."
Well, there were worse ways to travel. If Jim were stuck with them in an aeroplane for hours…
Dwoza Station, England, January 19th, 2017
Blinky was rather subdued when they stepped off the gyre, Buffy Summers noted. She wasn't an expert on trolls by any measure, but the guy who had been cheering all the way through their rollercoaster-like ride was now sighing as if someone had killed his favourite… well, whatever favourite pets trolls had. Not cats - they ate cats.
Willow, on the other hand, must have missed it since she exclaimed: "This is great! Where are we?"
"In the ruins of Dwoza. Well, ruins might not be entirely correct - most of the buildings still stand since we abandoned them hundreds of years ago," Blinky explained.
Oh. "That was your home in the old world, right?" Jim asked.
"Yes, Master Jim." Blinky sighed again. "Leaving was the correct decision, and I don't miss it, but who could ever forget their childhood home? Well, I guess in a sort, I do miss it."
"And where are we in relation to London?" Giles asked.
"We're close to Camelot," Blinky said. "Or where Camelot stood. At the coast."
That wasn't very helpful. "England's an island - it's all coast," Buffy pointed out. "So…"
And Giles cut her off! "Camelot? King Arthur's mythical residence?"
"I would debate about its mythical quality. It's an impressive piece of architecture, or so I was told by humans - I am by no means an expert on human architecture, mind you. Although it has been kept hidden since Arthur's death at the Battle of Killahead Bridge by a spell cast by Merlin himself, as he, too, was already mortally wounded, so perhaps 'mythical' wouldn't be a wrong description. Humans haven't entered it in centuries, after all - at least to my knowledge," Blinky explained.
"Why would Merlin do that?" Willow asked.
The troll shrugged. "I wasn't privy to his thoughts, and he, as he said at the time, had better things to do with his last hour than explaining things to bystanders. Which, mind you, was quite the insult since I fought at the Battle of Killahead Bridge. Not very effectively, I have to admit, but to each according to their means. Is someone braver merely because they are more skilled at the arts martial? Or is he who fights despite not having trained their life for it not as brave? Or even braver?" Blinky rambled as they went up a set of stairs.
Troll-sized stairs - not tall enough steps to force anyone to climb, but just a little too high to be comfortable to climb. At least if you were normal-sized like Buffy.
"In any case, Camelot was sealed away, and…" Blinky trailed off as they reached what was obviously a troll village. An abandoned troll village. Or was that a ghost troll village?
Buffy looked around. The houses and caves stood, but dust covered almost everything, and much of the fabric stuff - curtains and such - had rotted away. And other stuff, like stalls, lay where they had collapsed.
"So that was your home, Blinky?" Jim asked.
"Yes, Master Jim."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. We left to have a better life, after all. We were not driven from our homes or forced to flee - it was our choice. And I have never regretted it. Well, except for the time on that ship, which was truly awful for any troll used to having solid ground under their feet, but I do not think that should count."
"So Camelot has been sealed away," Giles spoke up.
"Yes. Preserved from the ravages of time, a monument to mankind's ideals. Or something like it. Merlin's apprentice claimed to be quoting Merlin's last words, but the lad may have misunderstood the wizard. It was a rather turbulent time, especially for the humans."
Buffy could imagine that. "So, the sword was returned to the stone?" she asked.
"Pardon?" Blinky blinked. With all his eyes.
"That is a legend, Buffy," Giles told her.
"Oh, no. It was actually a sword in a stone," Blinky told them. "I didn't see it, but everyone I asked who had seen it confirmed it. As did Merlin. Of course, Merlin could've just invented the story to add legitimacy to Arthur's claim to the throne, but I think he would've gone the extra mile and created such a sword."
"Wait! You mean Merlin made up the legend about the sword in the stone by inventing the sword in the stone so he could put Arthur on the throne?" Willow blurted out.
"Or he created an actual enchanted sword that would choose a worthy king," Blinky replied. "As Arthur was, mostly, a worthy king, does it matter either way?"
"'Mostly'?" Giles cocked his head.
"Well, he had an unfortunate and unfounded hatred for all things magic - which included trolls - for a period of time following the death of his wife. It was quite harrowing - we could not leave our homes and enter the forest without risking capture or death by the Knights of the Round Table." Another sigh followed. "Fortunately, things improved once Merlin created his amulet, and the first Trollhunter was chosen."
"Good." Jim smiled and ran a hand over his amulet.
"Unfortunately, that was shortly before the Battle of Killahead Bridge, which explains why most of my contemporaries, including Vendel, have a somewhat mixed view of humans."
Buffy nodded. That would explain the troll mayor's cranky attitude.
"Ah." Jim sighed as well. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault, Master Jim. You've been working admirably to improve human-troll relations."
"Thanks."
Buffy cleared her throat. "So… back to Camelot: We can't sight-see the castle?"
"Not unless you have a way to breach the seal of Merlin," Blinky told them.
"And what would be an example for such a way?" Willow asked. Eagerly - Buffy could tell from the way her best friend leaned slightly towards the troll.
Although Giles had the same expression, Buffy realised.
"I don't know." Blinky smiled. "It is, after all, Merlin's work - the greatest wizard of all time."
Willow pouted. Then she wrinkled her nose. "But it's been centuries. Someone should've come up with something Merlin didn't know."
"If they did, they never matched it against his seal."
"How do you know?" Jim asked. "Do you regularly check Camelot?"
"As a matter of fact, we do check it every few years," Blinky replied. "With the Gyre, such a trip is, as you have seen, quite quick. It's why we built a station here, to be honest. Although accounting for the different time zones can be tricky - once, a troll was almost turned to stone for venturing out of the village since they forgot that while they left at midnight in Trollmarket, they arrived after the sun had risen already in England."
Buffy nodded. Time zones could get confusing.
"But you raise a good point. Since we're already here, we should check up on the castle and save a trip next year."
James Lake Jr wished he could console Blinky as they walked through the remains of Dwoza. His friend might claim that he was happy in Trollmarket, that he didn't regret the decision to emigrate, but it was clear that the sight of his old home pained him. But short of awkwardly patting Blinky's back, he couldn't think of anything that would cheer up Blinky. And nothing that wouldn't expose Blinky's mood to the others in the group - especially the Slayer and her supernatural hearing. And that would embarrass Blinky.
If Claire was with them, she would have an idea about how to solve this, but she was back home. Jim was the only Trollhunter here, with Blinky.
And, he realised, he was in England. "This is weird," he said as they approached what looked like the village's gate, "I don't even have a passport, but I'm in England." He blinked. "Uh - that won't be a problem, would it?" What if they ran into cops? English cops were called bobbies, weren't they?
"It shouldn't be a problem," Mr Giles told him. "Unless we run afoul of the police in circumstances that would grant them the right to check our identity." He turned his head to look at the Slayer.
"Hey! I'm law-abiding-girl here! Totally not going to do anything illegal! And why are you looking at me and not at Willow? I bet she's breaking the law by hacking some computers as soon as we get a signal!"
"I would not!" Willow protested. "I don't know which computers we would have to hack - the Council's aren't really connected to anything useful. I suspect that they are just a front so no one thinks the Council's weird for not having any computer presence. Although I would have thought that such old 'clubs' wouldn't be weird for acting as if it were still the 19th century, seeing how Giles has computerphobia."
"I do not fear those infernal machines," Mr Giles retorted. "I merely do not see how they are supposed to aid more than hinder proper research. And I am not so blind as to miss how much reading comprehension and attention spans have suffered since the advent of the Internet."
"A book is a book, a text is a text, no matter whether you read it on paper or an e-reader or a phone!" Willow shot back.
"Form defines function. A book doesn't come with built-in distractions, nor will it ever run out of power - or break when it falls to the ground."
"Hey! That only happened, like… six times?" The Slayer frowned.
Fortunately, they had reached the gate, and Blinky used his horngazel to open it. Outside, it was dark.
"Right, time zones," he heard the Slayer mutter behind him.
"Just let your phone connect to the local cell towers, and it'll synch," Willow said.
"It does that?"
"I did your options."
"But that could get very confusing if we travel a lot with those rollercoasters - how can I know what time it actually is if we keep moving through time zones?"
"That's why the Greenwich Mean Time exists," Mr Giles said. "Which, incidentally, is also the standard time in the United Kingdom."
"Yeah, yeah - because it's so old, it was invented back when Britain mattered," the Slayer grumbled.
"I would hardly say that Britain doesn't matter any more!"
"Careful, Buffy, don't hurt Giles' patriotism too much. It's fragile, like the United Kingdom."
"Now really, I…" Mr Giles trailed off when they stepped into the woods. "Now this is a proper forest," he said. "It must be centuries old."
"It is," Blinky replied. "It was our home for millennia and even after we left, it remains protected by age-old enchantments."
"I didn't know you were a hiker, Giles," the Slayer commented. "I thought you only cared about trees if they got turned into paper for books."
"Really, Buffy, I do enjoy a stroll in the woods - provided the woods aren't infested with various demonic creatures attracted by a Hellmouth."
"You can take a stroll through the forests around Arcadia Oaks," Jim told them.
"I might take you up on that offer - once this business with Glorificus has been settled."
"I might join you. Coming here reminded me how much I liked a little ambulatory trip through a dark forest," Blinky said. "But now, let us check on Camelot!"
"Oh, yes!" Mr Giles sounded eager.
Their trek through the woods was quite peaceful - if you ignored Buffy and Willow's chatter about GPS, signals and British IT infrastructure - and they soon reached the edge of the forest, overlooking a cliff.
"Behold: Camelot!" Blinky announced.
Jim looked around but couldn't see it.
"Where is it?"
"Is this some 'only true British people can see it' thing?"
"Oh, I forgot. The enchantment would block you from seeing it. Just a moment!" Blinky rummaged in his bag and pulled out a small pouch. "Sprinkle a pinch of this on your eyelids! Just a pinch, mind you, or you'll be seeing things for a day! Happened to me once - not very pleasant, I'll tell you. Also, don't sprinkle it into your eyes. It'll itch for days!"
"What is this?" Willow asked.
"Dust of True Sight."
"That sounds like a wondrous item from Dungeons and Dragons," Willow said.
"Really? I wasn't aware."
Now that she said it, it really did, Jim admitted. But he was already grabbing a pinch. He carefully closed his eyes, then rubbed some dust on his eyelids. He felt like a light breeze caressing his eyes - and only his eyes.
And when he opened them, he was staring at the most impressive castle he had ever seen.
Camelot.
Tall, oh so tall, walls, almost shining white in the moonlight. Turrets, ramparts… even the flags were still flying. And the sheer size of it! It looked as if it was taken straight out of a movie, one with a huge budget. For a moment, Jim imagined people on the walls, but a blink later, they were empty again. "It's…"
"...neato," the Slayer said. "Very cultural. Say, do cameras work on that?"
"Let me check!" Willow pulled her phone out and quickly snapped a picture. "It doesn't work. Oh - I should've expected that. If cameras could see the castle, satellite imagery would've detected it long ago. We would've seen it on Google Earth!"
"Can you sprinkle some dust on the phone and make it see?"
"I don't think so. The dust seems to expand your, well, sight on a metaphysical level. Cameras don't have anything to expand. Other than memory, but not the metaphysical thingie. Unless they were possessed, I guess. Then they might be able to take pictures of Camelot."
"Like Moloch?"
"Ew."
"Sorry."
Mr Giles cleared his throat. "Children! We're not going to look for a demon to possess your cell phone - which, I suspect, is halfway there already - just so you can post Camelot to Instagram."
"How do you know about Instagram, Giles?" the Slayer asked.
"We wouldn't post them to Instagram - it would be derided as photoshop, anyway. Like demon pictures. That is, pictures of demons, not pictures taken by demons," Willow said.
"I had to check a report about demons… Willow!"
"Uh… it was just a test! I didn't really try to lure demons on the site so I could track them electronically!"
"We can do that?"
"Well, it wouldn't be too hard… although luring demons on the Internet might lead to them getting into the Internet…"
"Ew."
"We're looking at Camelot! The founding myth of the United Kingdom, so to speak. Proof that King Arthur was real!" Mr Giles shook his head. "Show some decorum!"
"You started talking about Instagram!"
"Oh for… Mr Galadrigal, you have my heartfelt thanks for granting us this incredible opportunity. Ah, I don't think there's a chance to enter the site, is there?"
"Unfortunately - or fortunately, given the slightly larcenous tendency of some of my compatriots - no. Merlin's seal has held for centuries." Blinky shook his head.
Jim sighed. He was half disappointed, half relieved. Wandering the same halls King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table had wandered… it would've been great. But what would those heroes have thought of him entering their castle? Jim wore the armour, but he wasn't a knight. He was just a teenager chosen as Trollhunter, doing his best not to screw up. It would feel… he'd feel like a fake, a poser, there. He shook his head and sighed again,
"I'm sorry, Master Jim," Blinky told him. "If I could lift the seal, I would. But we can only gaze upon that which was lost, not enter it."
Jim slowly nodded. Blinky didn't know. And he didn't have to know. "It's OK. It's… enough."
"Don't those seal things come with an ending clause? Like, 'he who is worthy may enter'?" the Slayer asked.
"That's common in myths," Willow added. "But… this isn't a myth. Well, it is and isn't a myth."
"I'm afraid I don't know about any such clause - Merlin's apprentice didn't mention anything when he informed us about what had befallen the wizard - and Camelot," Blinky said. "It was a very hectic time, you know - all the refugees from Camelot fleeing all over the place, the burials, the wounded…"
"Refugees?" Willow asked. "Oh, of course! I'm an idiot - the castle would've housed tons of people, not just knights and soldiers! Servants, crafters, families…"
"All who fled once they knew their king and his army had fallen," Blinky said.
"Why?" Jim asked. The castle would've been their home. "Why would they flee?"
"They had lost their protectors. They knew the other kingdoms would jump at the opportunity to conquer them - and that Camelot would be their first target," Blinky explained. "Although I suspect Merlin might've, ah, 'nudged' them along. He was a great mage, but he was more fond of simply doing what he thought was right than explaining himself so others understood his reasons."
"I know the type," the Slayer muttered.
"He forced them out of their home?" Willow gasped.
"It's merely a theory," Blinky quickly said. "In any case, Camelot lies deserted and untouched, as always." He nodded. "I'll mark this down as a check."
Jim shook his head, letting his gaze sweep over the castle again. White walls, almost polished, shining in the light of the moon… Wait! Was that a light in one of the towers? He blinked, and it was gone. He snorted. Another figment of his imagination.
He blinked again. The caste was fading from view.
"Hey! It's disappearing!"
"That's the magic of the dust fading, Lady Slayer."
"Call me Buffy. And really? It doesn't last longer?"
"Alas, no. It serves well to battle invisible foes but is not truly applicable when dealing with invisible riddles or books."
"Too bad. On the other hand, London's calling!"
Right. They weren't here to visit Camelot. They were here to find the Slayer's Scythe. Or Mʔ, according to Mr Giles, Jim reminded himself. "So, how do we get to London?" he asked.
"Call a cab?" the Slayer suggested.
"Blinky wouldn't fit into a cab," Jim pointed out.
"Right. This might be a little tricky," the Slayer said.
