Chapter Fifty Nine: Still in the Dark?
"Are you sure it happened at the same time?" asked Willow. "At exactly the same time?"
"I don't know about exactly but that's just about when the force coming out of the Hellmouth stopped broadcasting. I'm sure of it," said Cordelia. "And it wasn't anything I did, it just stopped."
"Well I certainly didn't do anything," said Willow looking around at the others. Anya, Kennedy, Wesley and Gwen added a chorus of "me neither."
"So Eve has been playing games," said Wesley. "If this force stopped just at the time she disappeared then it's likely she had something to do with it operating in the first place. But why stop it now? And why start it up in the first place?"
"Has she got that sort of power?" asked Willow. "You guys know a lot more about her than I do but I didn't think she had any magic power. I thought she was just some sort of Wolfram and Hart lawyer type person."
"She's not a witch," said Cordelia. "She shouldn't even be able to disappear like that."
"Or not as far as you know," said Kennedy. "She could have been hiding her powers."
"That might be why she was recruited by Wolfram and Hart in the first place," said Gwen. "She could be a powerful magic user and didn't want us to know it."
"There's another possibility," said Anya. "That might not have been Eve. It could have been something from out of the Hell Dimension that was pretending to be Eve. Eve could have be captured or killed when she was on her own down there. That might have been a shape shifter pretending to be Eve."
"I don't know. A shape shifter can look like somebody else but acting like her, sounding like her and knowing the things she knew. That's a different thing altogether," said Wesley. "And she must have been much more than just a shape shifter if she was sending out that force into space. She teleported herself without any sort of magic spell, not that I noticed anyway. She's either got some sort of natural ability or a lot of raw power."
"Well there's one person we know of who fits all the criteria," said Willow. "Who is it who lives in a Hell Dimension? Who is known to have spent some time in another identity? Who knows enough about Earth to pretend to come from there and who has a lot of raw power?"
"Are you saying that Eve is Glory?" asked Cordelia.
"And Glory is Eve," said Anya.
"Either that or Glory has done something to Eve and taken her place," said Willow.
"You don't think she's after Dawn again do you?" asked Anya. "You don't think that's why Dawn's disappeared?"
"I don't see why Glory should have anything to do with Dawn any more," said Willow. "She wanted to use Dawn to get home. As far as we know she went home when the Sunnydale Hellmouth was shut down. Why should she want Dawn now?"
"Power," said Wesley. "That's what it's always about, power. Creatures like Glory can never get enough power. Back on Earth everybody thought the Key couldn't be activated again. Now we know differently. Glory might think she can use Dawn to make herself even more powerful. Or she might be doing what the Goa'uld have been trying to do; get control of a world of witches."
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Another library! Whatever did the human race do before it invented libraries, before it invented writing thought Dawn? Had a lot better memories I suppose. Dawn smiled as she visualised an image of a stone age Giles in a Fred Flintstone setting, chipping away at a stone slab instead of writing in a book.
Dawn had paused briefly in her search through the available written records of the community. She had been trying to discover something which made sense of her present predicament and give her some idea of how to return back home or at least back to present day Kallistien.
There were some books in the library of the 'Seekers' but they seemed to be something of a new innovation. Most of the library consisted of shelf after shelf of scrolls, all rolled up, tied in ribbons and gathering dust. Indexing and cataloguing seemed to be rudimentary so the research was proving to be a long and tiresome business, even with the help of Mooren.
Things would have been a little easier had Dawn known what she was looking for. Well she did know but there was hardly likely to be anything like a detailed guide to time travel. So she had had to be more creative in her thinking. At the moment she was facing a large pile of scrolls which had been categorised as 'The use of power in its many forms' by the local librarians.
The discard pile had quickly grown because the category covered such diverse subjects as how to build a windmill, political revolutions and a great variety of religious beliefs. If only she could find some reference to the Key and what it was all about. If it, if she, really was this all powerful artefact there must be some way to use that power to put things right. Just so long as she stayed human when she did it.
Dawn had so far come up with one good idea. She had reasoned with Mooren and the Magister that her appearance and the simultaneous disappearance of Lisabet must be linked. The most likely link was that Lisabet had been swapped with Dawn. If they helped Dawn to get home they would most likely get their Lisabet back. The Magister had now left but he had promised to see what he could find out about the Key and any related matters as soon as he arrived back at his own community.
"How about this?" asked Mooren interrupting Dawn's little break from reading. She pushed the scroll that she had been reading in front of Dawn. "It says here that in the days of the Tau'ri the paths were open but in these later days everybody must stay where they are because of the danger of the Enemy."
"The Enemy?" asked Dawn. Could that be a reference to the Goa'uld or somebody even worse she wondered. Were the paths the Stargates? She had asked about the Stargates but nobody knew anything about them. More importantly they did not know of anything that looked like a Stargate.
"Who knows," replied Mooren. "I don't really know who the Tau'ri were, let alone their enemies."
"Add Tau'ri to the list of references to look out for in these papers," said Dawn. "But doesn't the Magister have something to do with them?"
"I suppose so. But the Magisters and the Matres are like the Keepers. They don't say anything about themselves unless they really have to," said Mooren. "But I'm sure they'll help if they can," she added quickly.
I wonder if that's true thought Dawn. Could they be the ones who brought me here in the first place? Are they up to something they don't want to tell me about? And if they are is there anything I can do about it anyway?
All at once Dawn began to feel hot, very hot. She pulled off her sweater but it didn't help, she was sweating buckets and feeling very odd indeed. Abruptly she found herself sitting on the floor.
"Are you alright?" asked Mooren from her position of standing over Dawn. It sounded as if Mooren was at the other end of a long tunnel. Dawn could barely hear her but it briefly crossed her mind, before she lost consciousness, what a ridiculous question to ask somebody who felt the way she did.
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"And I say we wait. Things are a little calmer now so what's the rush? When somebody tries to rush you into doing something it's generally to stop you from thinking about it too much," said Lorne. "Fools Rush In..." he added in song.
"Rush? We've been sat here for how long waiting to do this?" said Amy. "We've talked it through every which way. When somebody keeps on trying to delay you from doing something it's because they don't want you to do it at all."
"Guilty! I don't think this is a good idea at all," said Lorne. "I've not been able to 'read' those Wolfram and Hart people who were here yesterday because they were not going to burst into song for my benefit. And if they did it would just make me more suspicious anyway since I expect they've got some sort of protection. But I do know smug satisfaction when I see it. If we go ahead and do this we'll be playing into their hands. Whatever they've really got planned you can be sure it's all bad news for our side."
What Lorne didn't mention again was the recent fiasco of his reading of the other persons present in the HQ. The result had been a total blank, in all cases. It might be that something or somebody was stopping his talent from working in that particular area. But it might be that everybody in the building had no future destiny to speak of and they were all headed for disaster.
But Lorne thought the reason for his inability to make readings was because things were on a complete knife edge. They were all poised between calamity and success and nobody had a certain destiny at this point. Lorne had mentioned the first and third possibilities but not the second. If the second was true it would do no good at all for everybody to worry about it.
"So what are you suggesting, that we sit here like Mister Macawber waiting for something to turn up?" asked Fred. "Because according to the Whitelighters the longer we delay the worse things are going to be. This isn't something that's gonna heal itself. We broke it so we've got to help fix it."
"Don't forget that whole lose the world, save the universe thing," said Gunn. "I'm still not really sure about that and I don't think the Whitelighters are either."
"It's times like these when a vision from somebody would be a help," said Wood who, together with Vi, had joined the others at the slayer HQ.
"Yeah, we did have a whole host of people with the vision thing," said Gunn. "But none of them are here now, not even the slayers with their weird dreams."
"Can't witches scry the future or something?" asked Vi looking at Amy. "A powerful witch like you must know some way of reading the tea leaves."
"I suppose I could try to bring forth an oracle," said Amy.
"I don't like the sound of that," said Wood. "All the oracles I ever read about give cryptic answers that you can interpret pretty well any way you please. You only know you've got it wrong when it's too late."
"The oracle I have in mind is a three question oracle," said Amy. "People go wrong because they don't ask clear enough questions. We should be able to work out something suitable to ask ahead of time. And anyway we can still ignore the oracle if we don't understand it."
"That's not generally the problem," said Wood. "The biggest mistakes were made by people who thought they did understand the answers but overlooked quite different meanings. And some oracles are deliberately cryptic so they can claim they got it right whatever happens."
"Well I say go for it," said Gunn. "I don't want to pull the trigger until we know there's no other way. It's not like we'd get a second chance if the world went to hell."
Amy looked at Fred who nodded. Wood shrugged.
"Why not?" said Vi. "Find out as much as we can. I can't see how that could be wrong, so long as it doesn't take too long."
"OK, But I've got to get some supplies from the shop," said Amy. "I'll be back here in a hour or two. In the meantime you guys think about what three questions you want to ask."
"No black magic," said Wood.
"Who's the witch here?" replied Amy with a glare. "Either you leave this up to me or you do it yourself." Black magic! She thought as she left the room. Now everyone's an expert.
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Nobody noticed exactly when Piper Halliwell disappeared. Her sisters, well mainly Prue, were talking to the senior Kallistien witches, explaining about what needed to be done to finally get rid of the Goa'uld. Piper was glad to leave them to it and had gone to look out of the window at the city outside. She was beginning to feel very home sick and was wondering when she would be able to get back to Leo.
The witch HQ was one of the tallest buildings in the city and the meeting was taking place near the top of the building. Piper therefore had a good view of the city laid out before her. One of the more obvious features of the view beneath her was the smoke that came from a large number of different places over the northern horizon on the outskirts of the city.
Piper knew that there was still some fighting going on there against some of the Jaffa left on the planet. She didn't know whether they were Jaffa left behind by Apophis or some holdouts from Marduk's forces who had not obeyed the order to surrender. The Kallistians insisted that they were continuing to make progress and would soon eliminate the last of the invaders currently on the planet. This of course assumed the success of the spell to provide protection against Apophis's fleet which would ensure that the Jaffa were not reinforced and supported by the massive firepower that it could supply.
"It looks a lot different to the last time I saw it," said a familiar female voice from behind Piper.
"You mean back in the past?" asked Piper without turning. As she spoke Piper realised who was speaking to her and turned. Before she could react in any other manner she felt a hand on her arm. Her vision was now filled with white light, stopping her from seeing anything at all. The person in front of her was now just a silhouette.
As the silhouette gradually became clearer Piper realised she was in a quite different place. It looked like a room in one of the local hotels. She raised her hands ready to use her power if she needed to protect herself.
"We need to talk," said the other woman as for the first time Piper confirmed in her own mind who it was. "And put your hands down. You're not in any danger from me and you can't destroy me anyway."
"Don't be too sure of that," said Piper but she put her hands down anyway. "When I'm really pissed off I can do a lot of damage, even to the likes of you. Anyway what do you want? I haven't seen you for, well at least hundreds of years."
"But not hundreds of your years," said the other. "You just got back from the past right?"
Piper nodded. Has she been waiting for us to get back she wondered. Does she remember all that happened back there?
"So you remember how we were all on the same side back then?"
"Uh huh," agreed Piper. "But I've been told some of the things you did before... uh afterwards... oh whatever. You know what I mean. Anyway why should I trust you now?"
"Just listen OK? Just hear me out and don't lose it because..."
"Because I'm not the person who nearly lost a sister or a girlfriend because of you," said Piper.
"That's all over and done with. Just listen. You and the rest of the people from your world will all be leaving soon."
"That's the plan, if it works," said Piper who then wondered if she should have said that.
"Let's say it does work. You must tell your people not to shut down the Hellmouth in the hotel before you go."
"Why exactly?" asked Piper.
"Your last little effort didn't work out too well did it? If you shut this one down you might cause more of the same trouble."
"Try again," said Piper. "This is a new Hellmouth. Well the Kallistians say it's new although it's in the same place as that Hellmouth in the past. Why should it stay open now when it hasn't been open for so long? Don't you mean it's convenient to you to have this Hellmouth stay open?"
"I reopened this Hellmouth myself. A lot of Hellmouths have been opened in all sorts of places recently to try to reduce the pressure that's been building up. That's the only reason your world and mine and a lot of others haven't been blown away yet. Think of it as an emergency safety valve. You shut down this Hellmouth and you make everything a lot worse. You might destroy your own world."
"I'll tell everybody what you said," replied Piper. "That doesn't mean they'll agree to do what you want. I know a lot of them don't trust you. But wait a minute. If you're the one who opened the Hellmouth are you the one who pulled in all those spaceships? Are you the one who sent those demons and whatever through to this planet?"
"Once a Hellmouth is open all sorts of demons will come through on their own. You know that. This is a world of witches. The Kallistians will just have to set up their own watch on it."
"And the force?" asked Piper.
"Yes, that was me. If you think about it you'll be able to work out for yourself why I did that. You know the way your spell against the Goa'uld worked. You don't want this lot of Goa'uld getting away before the spell is done by the Kallistians. They'll only find a way to come back again with even greater force. I simply kept them hanging around up there until you guys got back. I don't like the Goa'uld. I don't want any of them to get away."
Maybe she doesn't know we didn't kill off the Goa'uld last time thought Piper, we just drove them away. Wait a minute that doesn't make sense. "Why don't you..." began Piper with yet another question.
But before she could finish the sentence the other woman took her hand and the white light was back again. When it disappeared the other woman was gone and Piper was back in the room where her sisters were still talking to the Kallistians. Nobody had known she had been missing! Piper walked over to the others and started to explain what had happened.
Not very far away the woman who had been speaking to Piper materialised back in the hotel room. It was in another tall building overlooking the central area of the city. As she appeared she saw that another woman was waiting for her.
"And just who are you," demanded Glory who was the woman who had been waiting. "Why are you pretending to be me and what exactly are you up to?"
Glory watched an exact replica of her own face break out in a smile, followed by a laugh, a very familiar laugh, her own laugh.
"You know nearly as much as I do about what's going on and you still ask that," said the mirror image woman. "Just give it a few moments thought and you'll work out who I am."
With that the woman disappeared, effortlessly defying the power that Glory had been applying to prevent her from doing just that. Not only did she disappear but Glory was unable to trace where she had gone. As the mystery woman had suggested Glory began to think about who it was who was impersonating her.
It was ridiculous. Nobody had as much power as she did, not now she was back to her full power as a Hellgod. Nobody... Oh, thought Glory, of course. That's who she must be! And with that the Hellgod disappeared herself.