The sun was draped just half-way below the wooded Yorkshire hill that stood stalwart for many long centuries before maybe even man himself had come to this place. The sky was filled with color of the likes that felt special in a way that could not be placed. The violet and orange of twilight looked like a watercolor painting in the wide country-side horizon that seemed - to a young lad - to go on forever and ever. When one is young, and doesn't know any better, rarely is the weather, beyond good or ill, ever truly observed. But years in the unforgiving Mexican desert, the arid West Texas Plains, and the humidity of the American South, had made the very idea of the most pleasant, mildly cool breeze of a Yorkshire spring seem heaven in one's own memories. He could still see the bending reeds at the creek bed bow ever so slightly to the wind. In his mind the odd whistling noises they made to add to the chorus of the rustling leaves of ancient trees still called to him.

Everyone else had gone home. Sybbie and Marigold went back to Downton to get ready for a royal presentation after dinner at the Abbey. They had been overjoyed and nervous, leaving early at a trot to get on their "Glamorous" new frocks, have their hair done by Anna and Baxter, and most excitedly, they were both to have their very first tiny stitch of make-up. Meanwhile, everyone else of the village had the usual Friday dinner with their family. At the end of the day, the young boy found himself sitting alone, filled leather pack with blanket rolled under flap next to him. His Grams and Dickie were off on business, so there had been no one there to greet him when he had come home from the latest sea expedition with the Captain and his crew.

Grams would make a fuss when they got home, would be incredibly apologetic. She hated to forget things, and after the baby … well, she was a lot more self-conscious. He had heard Anna say something about his Grams and Dickie missing even the Royal Family to go for a visit to the hospital in York. But with one sharp look from Bates, she caught herself and changed the subject. The young boy didn't need anyone to tell him that his Grams was sick, but at the time he had no idea just how bad it was. And till this day the thought, the knowing, yet the ignorance of the severity of it - after eight years gone - still bothered him some nights.

It had been a long time since he had heard anything about Grams.

What he remembered about that evening, beyond the colors, the setting sun sinking below the tall trees atop Spectacle Rock, was weighty existential conflict. He had much on his mind, rubbing a thumb over silver trinket in hand that he had not let go of since it had been given to him. It looked a fob watch now, but to his memory that was not what it was when he had first seen it. And ever since their escape with what few treasures from the submerged kingdom of Westernesse, his mind was occupied by questions that came in the return to the world he had left a month ago.

He thought of nothing but the things he had seen in that lost place forgotten to all knowledge, the city, the marble tombs at the foot of a large mountain under countless fathoms of ocean. In his mind he could still see the great spire that seemed holy, reverent, and not easily dismissed as something lesser than any other wonder he had seen on the expedition. Somehow witnessing those ruins, the architecture of the like unseen in the world, the sunken statues, it had all made a boy of his young age contemplative of many things that no other boy in the village of Downton would even be aware of. Yet, ancient trinket in hand, his gaze went out to the long distance, on the peak of the ancient hill that overshadowed Downton Abbey, and there for the first time, after a million overlooks, he saw it.

The great church, the mighty citadel to protect an abbey, or was it the sacred tomb of lovers long ago? It was a tall Roman fortress, added upon, expanded, by many architects in the millennium and half since. From his spot by the creek, he could see the ivy wrapped columns, the trees that grew wild in the courtyards of stone, and the moss growing in the cratered curtain walls that were shielded by wild branches which cover symbols and carvings unknown. The Old Fortress – the once seat of power to the Lords of Downton, the ancestral home of the House of Grantham. But what had happened there? Why does no one go there, speak of it any longer? It had been here for so long, been a part of the land, the people, that they had forgotten. The once stone Roman road that had ever led into the wild wooded hills beyond the estate had been lost, reclaimed by nature.

Now, no one cared.

They did not see it. But once, long ago, it had meant something, something important to everyone who had been here, who had walked these lands. But those people and their descendant's descendants were now no more than dust the he walked upon, its memory, the tribute of the sacred place upon the wooded hill, but a moldering old collection of stone that no one cared to question. What secrets did it hold? Would it even matter if he were to climb that hill tomorrow and find out for himself? Would he enter that place of wonder and mystery ever knowing, truly, what its special meaning was or how dear and sacred were the artifacts that had been left behind?

He remembered the sunken city of Armenelos, the sunken continent of Westernesse. He could still see the domed buildings, the tall statues of maiden's fair, of great kings with plated armor and winged helmets crowned. He had walked the streets and saw the tall skeletons of a many thousand, perhaps even millions, of years old. He held their treasures grimly. With his own hands, the boy had picked up their rotted texts. He had watched the accumulation of great wisdom and knowledge that has been long forgotten to humanity slide out of the moldy leather-bound spine and splat about his feet like soaked mulch. He had seen their tombs, their decaying pearl white marble halls filled with opulent and Resplendent statues of the likeness of their kings and queens at the peak of their power. Strong and beautiful faces that seemed to live forever by those who remembered them at the height of their glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. Now their stories, their descriptions, were something that Sybbie scoffed at, that Marigold only nodded and smiled when he told the provincial and sheltered heiresses of wealth and privilege of such wonderous and mysterious things he had seen by their spot next to the creek.

Since that day in the High King's tomb at the bottom of the very ocean, the boy wondered, pondered, if it was possible that perhaps there would come a time when …

He thought about everything that had happened since that Christmas years ago. How strongly it had changed everything in his life. How deep a pain welled that he could never be rid of, only endure. How long since he had been cast out of his home, sent to live in his father's house with his Grams and Dickie. He did not know what went on at Downton anymore, fore Sybbie did not seem to pay attention - her extravagant and privileged life unchanged. But deep down, the child knew that they all remembered the baby so vividly. Sometimes he could still hear her when he sleeps in his father's old room … or his room now, he guessed. Sometimes he still felt wrong in not checking the nursery in a house he no longer lived in. It seemed so real, so pervasive, this pain, this loss. It overtook his life and his existence, it made him who he was now, and maybe who he would ever be to those who, probably, did not love him any longer.

But looking out at the ruin on the hill, it bothered him. It wounded him to know, for the first time, that things end. That in five hundred years no one would ever remember the baby, that no one would care. That someday this place would be as forgotten, taken as meaningless, to whoever trod this fair ground as they saw the Old Fortress that overlooked an ancient abbey. Then, it would be over, and it would seem meaningless - a footnote in some text that another boy on board a science pirate's clockwork submersible vessel would translate as part of his advanced education. When that would happen who would care that the sweetest of innocence had been taken? Who would care that a boy, her own brother, did all he could to make up for what he could not when it truly mattered?

Who would care?

There was a lonesome whistle in the wind that picked up, tussling his blond curls, stinging his glassy eyes that looked out to the horizon. The first of the night's stars glimmered and glinted on the surface of the trickling creek that ran through the swaying reeds. The light in the sky dimmed, as the last rays of the sun touched the broken stained-glass of the Old Fortress. It seemed that darkness had descended on the land and his heart as he looked down at the fob watch in his palm. He was unsure what it was, only that it had meant something to someone once. That it had been entrusted to him, chose him, from the very neck of the High Queen upon her sunken throne. He only knew that if someone were to find a picture of the baby, thousands of years from now, he would wish only that they'd treat it with care, with love, as he did this mysterious item that had been clutched in his hand preciously.

With a shuttered breath he forced himself up. The soft glow of night squeezed down the last of dusk's paints to but a thin strip on the horizon. But as he got to his feet, breaking cover from the reeds at full height, he paused. Fore, he saw a figure wandering the far bank of the creek. She was a sleek and elegant piece of silk. The tall woman's rich chocolate hair was styled glamorously . She wore a jade beaded circlet with matching satin elbow gloves, and a satin dress of dark blue with gold roundel designs. Her skin was the purest ivory, nearly glowing in the starlight above. When the young explorer stood up, slinging a jangling pack full of wonderous ancient treasures over a shoulder, he was caught by surprise to see her in the distance. She did not seem to see the young child staring at her as she glided by the bank, her eyes cast out toward the horizon, arms hugging herself.

To the boy, it was like a weight that had fallen on his heart. She shined and shimmered in the starlight. The last light of the day sparkling off her fine eveningwear and jewels. Her footsteps elegant and measured, and her beautiful face relaxed with a touch of sorrow that dimmed the light in amber eyes that had been almost snuffed out. It had been months - over a full year now - since they had last seen one another. He had almost forgotten what it had been like, what it used to be like to see her, to know what it was to be near her with the certainty that everything would be alright. She had once been his beautiful protector, defender, who wasn't afraid of anything, who did not balk at naming him her heir, her everything. And in times like these, after everything he saw and thought recently, there was still a part of him that reached for that relief that would come of feeling her arms around him.

He remembered the wind dying down, the quiet evening falling still, and a woman turning in old instinct of being able to know when her child was near. There, she softly whirled around and looked upon a young child who wasn't recognizable by his common clothing with surprise and wonder. He wore a brown double-breasted suede jacket whose sleeve was newly mended from catching a falling statue as a sacred chamber was swept away in a torrent of thundering seawater from a collapsing air bubble. Gone were the little suits with shorts, the long-collared sailor outfits they wore to match. His hair was unkempt, a head of thick waving curls of blonde whose roots were just starting to blacken to a Levinson raven. But it was the eyes, she knew him by the same eyes that bore the same implacable courage that had been found that one fateful Christmas. She saw now that courage – along with the boy himself - had only grown stronger since then.

Mother and child were caught in a snapshot in time as they held one another's gaze from across a starlit creek at the edges of twilight.

Newport, Rhode Island

1935

They were already in a bad mood by lunchtime. It was dark, there wasn't a hallway corner or end table that didn't like a good toe, and there was dust everywhere. The moldy smell of sea salt mixed with thick clouds of filth created a constant strain in many men's chests. Everyone had a headache that was throbbing as their sinuses were clogged from a palatal manor house that was long neglected and forgotten from all walks of life. So, now - an hour later - the thugs that infested the old fairy castle to a world of tomorrow hated just about everything of the marble halls and polished tile of the gilded spectacle that seemed to have no rhyme, reason, nor purpose. They even hated the portraits on the wall. The serious, realistic, and expressionist, paintings of people and romantic classical scenes of mythology and biblical record.

It was a question that awed them when they first saw it, knocking over the green and warped front gates, battering the abbey doors from Austria for an hour with a makeshift ram. Now, they asked the same question after a never-ending mess of head splitting sinus pain, sneezes, bloody noses, and startles at every turn and or blind spot checked. It was a question that was asked in awe, in daze, in frustration, in anger, and then flat out rage. A query that echoed with the shatter of a cobwebbed vase that was flung into a cavernous European room that had no furniture, no tables, no purpose but a large open space with suits of knights' armor, balconies, and renaissance master works of Greek Mythology on the walls. Before long the question of all questions seemed to pound away like a sledgehammer at their own sanity as they tripped with a hard slam and a cloud of dust over some sundry table for a third time …

'What the Mutha'fuck is the point of this goddamn place … FUCK!'

It was a popular and existential question that plagued most. It was big, a compound, a sprawling campus, part home of the future, part European palace of antiquity. Sometimes it was a museum, a room filled with nothing but art of the old world. Sometimes it was a tribute to the future, with gadgets and dioramas of a world of tomorrow that seemed just around the corner … fifty years ago. Then there were rooms that didn't host anything, tall and empty tile and chandelier mini ballrooms with odd gilded patterns on pearl white walls and checkered tile. Balconies with iron railings that looked down, but with no seeming way to get up to them. It was a confusing, frightening, and empty labyrinth whose design was all style and no substance.

The awful truth of the matter was that no one could really explain the point of Levinson Manor, fore the answer was baffling. And that was that the home was, in itself, the answer. Mr. Levinson and his daughter commissioned the home, mostly, because they could. It was dreamt of, conceived, and built with no purpose but one that felt more like a whim than prophecy. The house by the sea was the soul of arrogance, of decadence, and the narcissism of those who did not have wealth at the beginning of life and had too much of it by the end. Most people who felt a touch of prophecy chase it for most of their life, but it was the rare few who had the means and immaturity to build a temple to this supposed destiny. Therefore, years, and millions of dollars spent on a project of mythic proportions seemed empty when a girl of twelve, who demanded it, only lived five years in its marble halls. In the end, when Cora Levinson was named Viscountess of Downton Abbey, there was nothing for it.

Once more, a girl of exceeding beauty and wealth had gotten what she always wanted, and then left everything behind - including her fairy palace. This masterpiece of art and architecture suddenly became disposable like most of what was bought at expense and cast aside as cheap when the amusement ran out by this brand-new generation of a self-made upper class. The beastly palace cost a fortune, nearly a shareholder's entire year's profit just to maintain. For a long time, it was but a novelty that was sparsely bothered, and only cleaned up as a fairground, a storybook castle, for lovely aristocratic granddaughters who would come to visit. They'd be given grand balls by all of Newport and New York society upon milestone teenage birthdays that they would remember forever as if they were princesses in fairyland. But in the long stretches of times, it was not maintained at all, a large and exceedingly expensive tax write off. And when the stock market fell, no one noticed, or cared, fore no one had stepped foot inside the manor for many long years before even then.

So, the question of what the point of Levinson Manor was could not be fully answered, unless one gave up their own understanding of substance and realistic practicality in order to see the world in a bubble of elitist, esoteric, post-modern concepts of art and symbolism. It was something that neither thug nor bounty hunter could wrap their head around. Yet, Cora Levinson's own heir and grandson, who could understand it - having long known his mother and adopted sister's remarkable sense of self-importance - found the whole business an incredible waste of time. To him, the home on the hill was an insurmountable exercise in frivolous use of wealth to make a statement that a simple 'who cares what those knickerbocker hags think' seem much more fitting a response than to build this fairy palace of sheer excess. As far as proving points were concerned to the young adventurer, Levinson Manor would always hold a picture in the dictionary under the world "overkill".

It was a word that would cross his mind but once this day … and that would be continuously.

Thugs were tossing over table, observing paintings, tugging on flasks, and snorting mucus from their nose onto the ragged plush carpets, when they paused. Just in time, a figure in a beaten leather peacoat of mahogany and motorcycle boots appeared at a terrific lick unto the corridor from around a corner. He slid perfectly to a stop as a baker's dozen of mostly Italian and Sicilian eyes darted up from their destructive man hunt to see the figure in multicultural rags halt on a dime. There was a silence that was as deafening as a foghorn. Every one of them eyed the fleeing raven-haired figure. With two steps backward, the youth cleared his throat and nodded a casual greeting at the frozen gangsters.

"Nope!"

("Ballroom of Romance" – Celtic Woman)

The moment George Crawley turned and began sprinting back the way he came, there was an explosion of movement. A dozen thugs with billy clubs stopped all of what they were doing. Then, after long frozen beat of confusion, they all began giving chase with angry cries and shouts. Their feet thundered down the echoing corridor as they charged after the fleeing figure with a beautiful Worth wedding gown slung tightly against his lower back. His feet kicked up clouds of dust as he fled right through the pitch black. It would seem a perilous journey for those who had not been trained by one of the greatest martial arts masters for three years in New York City, as well as having spent a year in the endless darkness of Saltillo.

George purposely played chicken with end tables and statues, allowing the mob of angry gangsters to follow the sound of his echoing feet. As he smoothly avoided obstacles, his feints and deceptions were rewarded by the sound of angry cries of surprise as figures piled the narrow corridor when someone fell over a table or unintentionally tackled statue or bust. He wouldn't say that he had any 'homefield advantage' beyond having traversed these halls for a week now, looking for a treasure that had a value that was three times the whole worth of Grantham County and Downton Abbey itself.

As he exited the mouth of the corridor, he made a rolling stop to see that the smooth talker and matchstick man were making tracks and were in range. Their faces were a mask of rage and humiliation after being so thoroughly tricked by the young adventurer. One might have said that most people would've died from asphyxiation from such a heavy gaslighting. Though slowed to off speed, the youth was quick of both body and mind, and being his mother's son, inheriting her absolute athletic prowess, the youth quickly gave a 360-degree spin in evasion of the two other gangsters. Quick and smooth as White Lightning, the youth's slick move caused a five-way collision between smooth talker, matchstick man, and the remaining thugs that had made it out of the 'briar patch' of unseen hall decorations. They fell in a heavy cloud of cussing and angry jerking limbs. George stumbled out of the spin, using both his hands to brace his balance on the floor, before using the push off to rebuild momentum as he sprang away.

"Come'here, come'here, ya slippery Limey fuck!" A fitful voice came down the hall by unseen and oncoming reinforcements.

He took the opposite way from the 'Princess Tower' back to the grand staircase near the front of the manor. On his way, he narrowly escaped a leaping surprise tackle, taking a sharp corner turn, causing a slide tackling figure to give a flying graze of his back shoulders before hurling down an adjacent hall to a crash of decorations. The teen paused only a moment when he saw a breakaway group sprinting down the narrow path right in front of him. Quickly - seemingly cornered - the youth shouldered right through a door with a smash. The entrance was revealed to be a darkened staircase with a soft dimness of an opening room in the distance. The youth descended the stairs quickly as the sound of dozens of shoes whose number was growing were catching up in haste. At the edge of the stairs was an open cove of stone that was carpeted in blue with woven golden fleur-de-lis. At the end of the cove was a vast opening held back by a rusty iron bar barrier. There wasn't a hesitation - not even a second of doubt - when the youth accelerated to the iron railing.

There was a stunt like front flip of acrobatics to build momentum mid-air as the youth leapt up and off the railing, somersaulting into the vast chasm of a large room filled with paintings of mythology and suits of knights' armor. With an aggressive and sharp jangle of crystal, the shadowed silhouette of a large chandelier swung back and forth with massive sounds of swirling stale air as George Crawley held onto it, dangling over the checkered tile room. Immediately, he jerked and ducked his head as his dangling and swinging was harassed by cussing men in zoot suits who chucked loose items and their clubs at him in a hail of debris when he drifted in range.

He put more and more weight on the chandelier till he felt, heard, and knew that it was giving way. Then, moments before the collapse, the youth let go. With a tuck and roll, he landed on the checkered floor and somersaulted to his feet, dashing toward one of three exit doors on the same side of the expansive room. The poignancy of the sharp and unpleasant sound of the chandelier crashing aground was highlighted by the clear and visible taunting middle finger that the teenager shot at the gangsters above while he exited the room, kicking the door open from behind him.

The lead thug, holding his side, sweat pouring down his face, breathed heavily in rageful frustration, slapping his feathered fedora on his knee.

"Goddamn, Erol Flynn, mutha'fuck'a …" He panted with a shake of his head in disbelief at the swashbuckling feat he just saw. "Come on, ya mooks!" the out of shape gangster wheezed, motioning the rest with his hat to follow him to double back.

FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!

When the tremor died down, he was on his feet, and moving to the one place that he didn't want or plan to be. He had to shave time off or he wasn't going to make it. He had been in more heavily guarded places than this and had gone unseen. But now that he was on a time limit and the entire man hunt was onto him, he was going to have to brute force it. His timetable moving up exponentially if he was going to make his escape before the "demolition". Instead of stealthily moving down another corridor. The adventurer charged for an occupied staircase where a new set of mobsters were still trying to get their bearing.

The man in regular fedora startled, making a wild haymaker swing with a black painted policemen's club. George ducked the first swing which whipped the air with a wicked slice. At the second swing, the youth took a fighting stance and evasively leaned back, letting it whiff across him and crack loudly against the aged painted wall. Now over extended, the young man pinned the gangster's baton arm. With a worn boot toe, he jammed the back of the thug's knee sending him kneeling on the uneven access stairs. Grabbing a handful of black oil slicked hair, the youth gave the man three forceful slams against the wall by the head till he slumped. George snatched the police baton from his hand, before giving him a kick down the stairs.

Three of the five gangsters were able to avoid their falling friend, though hard pressed as a pile of broken bones and painful growls lay at the foot of the steps. The staggered figure in front of George gave a wild and blind defensive swing at the youth who held his baton upside down against his forearm. He caught the fist with an absorbing clack of wood, redirecting his force and countering with a right cross and a heel kick to the diaphragm that sent another figure tumbling. This time the remaining figures avoided their comrade and the two gangsters attacked, one with a club, the other with a snub nose revolver in the back of the onslaught.

George pressed the assault close - as close as possible - to avoid giving the firearm wielding foe a clean shot. There was a tooth gritting clack of baton and club meeting in cross parry. The youth's padded fingerless gauntlets absorbed the vibration, something that the gangster did not have. The man made a painful cry at the bone grinding reverberation from the force of the collision that went shooting through his hand. It was enough for the young adventurer to strike the thug across the face with a backhand swing. Dazed from the baton strike, George shielded himself behind the thug's shoulder and swiped the revolver out of his other adversary's hand with a metallic clank of wood on iron, sending the firearm flying over the stair railing. Grabbing the stick weapon from the dazed mobster's hand he crossed baton and club into a scissor position across the thug's throat.

Like a puppet being controlled through strings, George slammed the thug headfirst into the stair wall, before shifting him to the other side, twisting him over the railing where he landed hard on the revolver that caused something to painfully explode in his lower stomach. There was only a flickered hesitation in the sudden lone gangster who stood unarmed against the very last master of the lost art of Baritsu. The youth gave a tight twirling spin of both baton and club with expert handling of flashing hands, daring the last combatant to make the first move. A simple jab from the mobster was parried and resulted in the thunk of hard wood smacking against skull and rib. After a blind haymaker was caught and the cause of a hyper extended arm, the last was added onto the pile of writhing thugs with a shattered elbow.

Having won the descent, the figure vaulted over the pig pile of broken and shattered limbs five deep. As he turned to leave, he leapt against the wall and threw the club at a crippled figure with snub nose revolver who still had enough pain tolerance to try and get a shot off. Instead, he got a tight spinning missile to the face that sent him hurtling into a black oblivion. Kicking away the revolver under broom closet door, the figure leapt over the fallen thug and used a short cut maid's access door through an old cleaning chemical's closet and out into a pitch-black hallway. There, he was two feet from a narrow corridor of six thugs that startled at the surprise and forceful barging into the once dead silent hallway.

Before they could even react, the youth already had cracked one of the gangsters across the head, sending him spinning mid-air before smashing an end table with the stone bust of Nike upon it. George left a literal trail of dust behind him as he began running once more down a dark hallway. In pursuit was now fully enraged mobsters that hadn't signed up for sinus infections, creepy Rhode Island manor houses, and getting pummeled by a folk hero. They cursed and sprinted on hundred dollars' worth of shoes not made to chase down adventurers with old wedding dresses rolled on their backs. The youth turned and flung the cracked baton at the feet of his lead pursuer, causing the man's legs to get tangled in the piece of wood and sending him down in a cloud of dust like a heavy flour bag. The youth didn't turn back to watch another pile up as he turned the corner.

But, this time, there was no light. George had reached the manor's foyer overlook. But there was no view from the gallery down upon the great hall of the old marble and gilded home. A large and thick velvet curtain of crimson was hung heavily over the railing, blocking not just the view but all light. But that didn't stop the hunted figure from sprinting for the staircase that led to the trident configured grand staircase of plush crimson carpet with golden bordering that lay over white marble. But before he could get to it, he slid to a halt. There, in overwhelming force, came the contingent that he thought he had escaped with his acrobatics at the art gallery.

They were all red faced, sweating, and wild eyed. The youth quickly changed directions, beginning to head back the way he came. But when he did, George saw the shadowed silhouettes of the other party that he had just eluded. He slid to a stop, hitting the brakes with the help of both his hands on the ground. By instinct, he shifted gears to flee again, but he saw the other group advancing. In that moment, it did not escape his notice that he looked the very image of a trapped animal. He teased and feigned both sides, drawing them closer. In a flash of hyper awareness, he knew there was only one way out of the situation.

"PICKLE!"

The spirited shout from the thoroughly worn out and overweight gangster of a baseball and stickball term was as good as a cavalry bugler blowing the charge. Then, both parties from either side of the gallery overlook gave a cry and charged at the single figure in between. However, at the last moment, the youth hit the deck and covered his head. The eleventh hour move in the darkness caused what one could only describe as a headlong collision of the most epic proportions. Thugs, gangsters, and other assorted street mercenaries bought by an old Ottoman noblewoman, collided violently, slamming into one another at full speed. Bodies flew everywhere or caved at the center of the overlook in a mountain of flailing and punching limbs that viciously and ill-temperedly attacked everyone in their reach. At that moment it did not matter who they were hitting, they had enough of this house and this situation. They attacked and struggled as their own tempers flared out of control in this terrible place.

Over foul words uttered in English, Italian, and tongues not understandable, a lone figure clawed his way out from underneath the pile with a cough and wheeze. Covered in dust, George Crawley pushed past the absolute melee. Yet, instead of moving past them - seeing more figures rushing up the stairs from the ground floor - the youth leapt up onto the railing and then jumped off, grabbing onto the velvet curtain.

From the grand hall of Levinson Manor over a dozen mercenaries with a much more professional, hardened, and disciplined look frowned at the noises they heard from upstairs. They stood in stalwart sentry, trusted to guard the exits. They'd allow the 'street trash' to smoke the "Wolf's Head' out and force him to fight his way against former Pinkertons and other soldiers of fortune being paid by the King of Iran himself as a gift to his aunt - the former Princess. They almost found it comic to see the stretching, puffing, and shuffling velvet of the drawn curtain that accompanied the mass shouting and cursing. They were reminded of the Keystone Cops from the "Flickers" of their youth.

"Ho shit!"

But the smirks of amusement on their scarred and hardened faces faded quickly when metallic snaps and the shocked and concerned voice of George Crawley heralded the entire heavy curtain giving way. It came on like a slow and inescapable torrent, the wave fell forward. The careening shadow darkened the bright sunrays that streamed through the smashed open abbey doors and tall windows at the main entrance of the manor. Like a great tidal wave of fabric, the crimson and gold velvet crushed over most of the great hall and foyer in a loud rush of air and dust - sweeping mercenaries under its destructive wake before they could even think about running from it. George had swung from the material in the hopes of climbing down behind it and slipping out. But after fifteen years, the railing couldn't take the weight and snapped. He looked quite the wiped-out surfer as he felt himself tumble and slide over the wave of dusty and filth covered curtain a story down to the very descent of the massive and ornate staircases at the end of the mighty grand hall of the manor house.

He barely had time to get his bearings before he heard voices calling out. Putting his hand up to shield the bright sun and coughing on the mixture of the fresh sea air that invaded lungs that had been breathing dust and neglect for a week, he saw that a squad of mercenaries had escaped the reach of the velvet curtain. Armed with Thompson Submachine Guns, they pointed out the dazed figure on a bed of red crushed velvet looking around wildly at tall and wiggling lumps under the crimson material. The trapped figures blindly dove under the heavy velvet to escape from their aim. Quickly lowering his goggles and began crawling.

RATATATATAT!

Three Tommy Guns opened fire in his wake, indiscriminately knocking down fellow hired guns, riddling them with bullets. After a flat roll, the youth began to crawl on his stomach, disappearing into obscurity in a dark and dusty abyss that was scored by angry, frightened, and strained noises from other trapped souls trying to find their way out. Meanwhile, in the chaos, the gunmen that were firing without hinder, found that it was not without consequences. From underneath, their fellow mercenaries mobbed them in mass out of sheer survival. They - like the mobsters before them - quickly turned on each other. They fired their guns point blank. Or otherwise, like wraiths, the curtain clad figures draped and dragged their comrades to the floor, fighting and rolling around in feral and animalistic chaos.

However, from the scrum and bloody firefight only one figure ducked out from underneath the curtain. With a panting wheeze, desperate for fresh air, George Crawley lifted his dusty goggles to his forehead and basked in the naked sunlight after a week in this graveyard of an undreamt Tomorrowland. Yet, he hardly had time to enjoy a moment's reprieve before he startled. He breathed in frustration and alarm as he turned and quickly sped across the four-pointed star tile seal at the center of the grand hall . His thunderous claps of boot soles mingled with the sound of gunfire and two distinct brawls his deceptions and quick thinking had started amongst greedy criminals of every walk of life.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" He swore as a collection of silhouettes sprinted in chase, their shadows tall and long with the sun at their backs.

"There he goes, there he goes, there he goes!"

A gangster in solid grey suit was wheeling his fedora in hand in encouragement as he pointed out the fleeing figure. One by one, then two and three abreast, tall men ran through the main entrance. They wore snappy and highly tailored suits. But they were bearded, copper skinned, and had fierce dark eyes. Upon their head were black silken turbans with adornments of the highest honors in the Shia Islamic tradition. In their hands were not clubs, snub nose pistols, nor even submachine guns. Instead they carried with them long and curved blades adorn each with symbols of old noble families of the ancient Islamic Caliphate. They - in spirit - represented the Old Sultan's Janissaries in their height, savageness, and use of the ornate blades of tradition. But they were, in reality, men loyal to the Mullahs of Iran.

Long ago, a once bejeweled Persian beauty - dark hearted and bitter in grieving - turned to the religious leaders of her brother's kingdom, begging for Allah's vengeance. In exchange for much, it was decided from that day forward that Princess Fawzia Fuad Pamuk would be granted vengeance for her son's death. And it was on the Ramadan of 1921, that it was decreed by the Mullahs of Iran and in every Shia Mosque that a Fatawa would be called down upon the last heir of the House of Grantham. Even as he lay in his shared crib with the daughter of a Chauffeur and Great Lady, Allah would call for vengeance upon him.

At first, many other religious leaders of the many scattered and colonial occupied Arab Kingdoms doubted such a bombastic claim. They would sooner foment all out rebellion than sanction such an action against a baby, much less an heir to a Great House of the British Imperium. But when the word of Matthew Crawley's death on the day of his son's birth spread, they had no choice but claim it a sign of Allah that he was against the House of Grantham, and that punishment to the murderer and harlot Lady Mary Crawley was a divine cause. Since then, for fifteen years, it was the policy of all true followers of the Prophet's word that for the life of Kamal Pamuk, that George Crawley must die in order to punish Lady Mary for her sinful beauty and temptations used to defile a beloved son.

Thus, the death of the 38th Lord of Downton was not revenge, but a bought and paid for Islamic religious imperative.

The ground floor corridors were much wider. The atmosphere was much more spacious and filled with light as often the rooms were both the most used daily and to show off during mass swaths of company. The halls were marble white with gilded vine work that still glimmered - even a half a century later. From the tall and high windows there ever shined sunbeams down upon the walkways. Overhead were sloping sunroofs with hanging ivy through broken panes - like spilling entrails - which lined the white halls with sunray spotlights. Behind the youth, angry religious fanatics with tall and thick swords gave chase, chanting prayers. For them this was a holy cause, and one that had been a long time coming.

They had spent half of George Crawley's life trying to kill him. They had nearly poisoned him to death when he was a small boy. Yet, the boy had somehow survived the ordeal, and the consequence was merely that - out of fear- that neither nurse nor nanny would risk attending to the House of Grantham as long as George Crawley drew breath. There had been plenty of other times in which the Pamuk Princess had come close, but could never quite finish the job, including locking the boy in the deepest and darkest cell of an ancient criminal asylum and throwing away the key. Yet, a year later, the hardened youth escaped.

Now, after losing another long-devoted servant to George Crawley's Westernesse knife in a fight at the Fort Worth Stockyards, the old Princess was desperate to see justice be done upon the House of Grantham. She cursed its silken whore for the wrongs she had done to her beloved boy. But no matter how hard she tried; she could not rid the world of the pale harlot's son. So now came the deluge, the storm, everything she could find she threw at the youth. An army of borrowed gangsters from New York, top tier urban mercenaries, men from her nephew's own household, and even the greatest swords of the Mullahs.

Princess Fawzia Pamuk had declared that in the name of Kamal Pamuk, her only child, that this day she would finally put an end to George "The Comet" Crawley.

This was far from lost to the young adventurer as he burst into the main drawing room of Levinson Manor. The expansive space was much more like a moderate convention room, with several collections of furniture around three large fireplaces. The tall ceilings were turquoise colored with golden designs that twisted down and wrapped around columns that stood randomly throughout the large spacious room. It had the feeling of a French or Italian library or study from the Enlightenment or perhaps Versailles itself. All around were brown and grey rotted leaves that covered the resplendent designs on the beige and green tile. The withered husks of foliage remained the decades old corpses of many autumns that had spilled forth from checkered medieval windows decorated with the odd square of stained glass. At the open sills were hills of old leaves that had accumulated over the years, the winter winds blowing them inside at a scattering, year after year.

The youth had only time to scan the room for only a moment, before he rolled evasively from a bejeweled scimitar that hacked a sixteenth century Viennese chair clean in half. Moving fluidly from somersault to his feet the youth vaulted over an end table between sofa and love seat, giving himself momentary guard at the flanks by the v-shaped arrangement of the decor of the drawing room. In the process he knocked over a silver frame of two women. one had been a middle-aged southern belle with flaming red hair, and the other was a beaming teenage beauty in silk and lace. In the younger's arms was a small baby girl with lace cap, tiny baptismal dress, and amber eyes that had a red tint. But the picture of three generations of Levinson women was destroyed forever by the flickered curved blade of the extremist that cleaved it to pieces along with the Milanese end table from the eighteenth century.

George sprang to the center and larger fireplace. There upon the mantle, there was a picture of a dashing and rather handsome man in a British officer's uniform. He was the picture of gentlemanly dignity and soldier's gallantry. On the other side of the mantle was the picture of the same young man, some decade and a half later. Now he was in Edwardian tails, his tight English curls were feathered as he kept a serious face while sitting in chair. On either side of him were young tweeny girls. One tall, fair, with deep amber eyes. She had long glossy drop curls supported by a large white bow. On the man's other shoulder was a young blonde tween in brown and white dress. She was not as physically elegant nor naturally beautiful as her sister. Her eyes betrayed an unsure and quiet anxiety as she tried to hide under an Easter bonnet tied with a golden ribbon. Finally, upon the man's knee was a young girl of eight or nine. She was overly a match for her eldest sister in terms of beauty - even for one so young. She had doe cerulean eye that seemed to glow even in black and beige. She had long and thick raven curls that spilled down the back of her matching lace dress to her eldest sister. But there was not anxiety on her face, nor a self-important look of confidence either. Instead there was only joy, love, and kindness. She smiled much like her mother, while her papa and sisters remained stoic. Even at a young age, the lovely and angelic Lady Sybil Crawley was born to stand out.

Yet, both pictures clattered and shattered in frame as their young heir ripped the item that both pictures were on either side of from the mantle. There was a sharp ring of steel upon steel, causing the Shia to halt in a moment of hesitation. From its scabbard, the young adventurer drew forth a British Officer's saber. There were still splotches of rust on the blade, but they found it rather clean after fifty years. The blade's edge was sharp and without blunt. It seemed that, needing more to take his mind off many things in the night rather than reading old, forbidden, harlequin novels hidden under his Granny's mattress and her most personal teenage diaries. The youth had taken to cleaning and sharpening Lord Grantham's old saber, left as some inside joke that only Robert and Cora understood, as well as to impress visitors with the Grantham name and prestige during the summer seasons in Newport.

The extremists began to stir, carefully advancing, keeping a wary eye on the figure who dumped sheath and wedding gown on a couch and began twirling the saber in a lifetime's expertise. They had heard stories of George "The Comet" Crawley's prowess as a master swordsman. Yet, for now, they had convinced themselves that was all they were – stories. Expunging all doubt and replacing it with a fundamentalist's absolute fervor, a group of swords probed the myths and rumors, charging forth. The youth engaged, holding his ground.

He fought the men; the sound of clashing metal rang in echoing cries which reverberated through the tall pale corridors. It was like a dance, the youth twisting and sidestepping, parrying and countering two, three, swords at once. He blocked one swing, to duck another, then continue to press his fight with the first. He stonewalled the second with a cross parry, and then let slip a flurry of sharp exchanges with two at a time, all the while keeping an eye on the others circling for an opening. His footwork was learned, plotting, and strategic. Leaves fluttered, crunched, and rustled as the five men moved to the rattle and snap of clashing metal. Till finally, the youth took three scimitars against his saber blade.

The men put forth all their power while the rattling swords had ground together in a locked struggle. But in the end, while they had their extremist devotion, the second and third sons of nobility lacked the sheer aggression, fire, and dark memories of George Crawley. It was a demon's madness that fueled his strength with a bottomless pit of shame, rage, and hatred for all that had befallen his life since the day he was born. With a snarling growl, he put forth all his strength and tossed the men backward. One of the Shia slipped on leaves and fell to the ground. The others staggered heavily, before regaining their feet.

Again, those not engaged went at the youth, the three clashing in a swift back and forth with curved Islamic blade sweeping like a scythe against the straight edged and deliberate fencing of the saber. But in the end - as with most sword fights - it was the tiniest mistake that took a life. The extremist had over-lunged, and George, in one slick disarmament, took the scimitar from the fanatic's hand in a twirling and twisting flowing motion. Blood splattered when Robert Crawley's saber slipped through the Muslim's neck and out the other side.

As the man fell, the other swordsmen halted, a look of indignation and rage darkened their gaze. they watched as George, now wielding duel swords, began to twirl and flip them in expertise, waiting, taunting them with the smooth showmanship. What had just happened was as good as blasphemy. Holy and righteous blood of Allah's chosen few had been spilt by an infidel, an enemy of Islam's hand. Their hearts were ablaze in fervor as they slowly created a ring around the youth, who twisted and turned, flipping and twirling saber and scimitar, holding his blades forth in point to measure and bar their advance as they slowly closed.

Yet, they hesitated from moving in, for a deep and chilling cold was reflected in the young man's glowing blue eyes. A lifetime of being hunted for the youthful sin of a mother many years before his birth burned hatefully in his heart. Neither had he so idly forgotten the kidnapping and tormenting of his uncle in Mexico, nor the original plans to take Sybbie as captive to enslave and violate. And never shall he ever unsee, unhear, nor forget the madness and horror in the echoing halls of stone in which he had been cast into the deepest, darkest, dungeon by the malice of their religious dogma. Even now that same madness and terror of the endless darkness had taken hold of him in his vengeful musings of all the evils that had been dealt by one old woman's call for vengeance in the name of a foul seducer and rapist of young aristocratic women. There burst forth a white, almost translucent, flame that burned within with a power and hatred that was terrifying to behold.

Saber met scimitar, and then scimitar met scimitar in a moving and lightning fast display as four of the greatest swordsmen of the Islamic world went after the great enemy who proved more than their equal. Their attack was relentless, but The Comet's defense was impenetrable. He swatted and caught curved blades, twisting back to parry away blows from behind as if he had eyes upon the back of his head. The circle kept discipline, not breaking as they moved across the leaf strewn drawing room. But, somehow, as the fight raged, they found that they were quickly shifting to defense as the youth went after them aggressively. Their morale began to fall when the oldest member of their sacred order's swing was ducked and the holy blade of their fallen brother ran across his gut, opening his bowels upon the leafy floor.

The adventurer held his ground, his twirling and twisting blades ringing and glancing off their desperate and vengeful assault renewed. Their captain's blade got caught in a sleek twisting mirage before the sound of something snapping exploded painfully in his nose. Blood flowed from catching an angled jab of a saber's handguard. He staggered away, holding his nose. Meanwhile, his companions - of those who remained - fought bitterly. But they were met with a highly studied and experienced swordsman of a more advanced and ancient skill lost to time. A blow parried was then opened for an extremist's neck to be caught betwixt straight saber and curved blade. He was cut through beard, skin, muscle, and sinew, right down to the bone. The last of the captain's Islamic brotherhood was suddenly, fully, burdened with the wrath of George Crawley's counterattack. The demon possessed figure was no longer on defense. In a blur of flashing metal, the back of the curved blade severed the suited man's hamstring. He fell to the knee, but before he could say his peace - whether to beg or defy - a saber slashed his throat.

Then, there was one.

The Islamic Captain let the blood run freely over his bristled black mustache and down his beard. He stood at full height, having been leaning on his scimitar. He looked over his fallen comrades, before turning to the young man that was twirling the swords, repositioning himself. Something cold and dreaded fell down the man's spine. It had been a personal jihad of the former Persian Prince. He had hated his cousin - so effete, so soft, and sinful to the offense of Allah himself. But he had loved his aunt, and though she herself was more European than a faithful Muslim, corrupted by the Westernized Ottoman Imperial court of the last Sultans.

Yet, when their family was offended, humiliated in such a terrible way, he was the first to take on the burdens of honor. But the Captain saw now that it would be in vein, fore there was something dark and ominous about the youthful figure that was stalked by the cold hands of death. He perceived that a great doom was placed upon George Crawley. And in these fey ponderings, his family's plight became as clear as the twilight upon the evening hours. The Prince saw in that opulent ruin that it was not by any weapon of craft that the Mullah's of the Islamic world possessed which would fell this master of doom. Yet, the fate that Allah did so assign to the captain was not plotted for no purpose. And for his glory, he would martyr himself at the feet of their great enemy.

"Allahu Ackbar!"

The greatest of the Mullahs' captains charged forth. But in the figure's outrage, he took a high strike downward, which was met at its apex by a cross blocking saber. Before he could ever recoil, a curved holy blade was plunged deep into the Persian's bowels. His eyes were hollow in shock, as the youth looked coldly at a once exalted young prince. The Adventurer glared with a deep black hate, before driving the curved Muslim blade deeper into the fanatic's stomach. In a moment of perilous cruelty, the youth drove the sword up to the man's chest inch by inch. In the youth was the site of completion of an arc that could only be appreciated by one who had been hunted by men such as this since he was born. Finally, when the captain stopped shaking, his eyes darkened, the youth let go of the hilt and let the last of the sacred Islamic order fall. The prince lay limply, a Saracen sword still impaled through him.

Then, there were none.

There, for a moment, was the shadow of madness and bloodlust of battle upon the young man. In him was a powerful hatred that was savage and black as tar. For a time, he had eyes like his captain, his tutor, and his master in the way of the blade. He was a terror of a man, who lived in the endless dark of the many leagues below the waves, in his clockwork vessel. Mad, tyrannical, remorseless, and a mind beyond any that walked the earth, the Sikh was a villain of old - cruel, and cunning. A prince of a kingdom long ago - just and good - till it fell to betrayal and The East India Trading Company.

For neigh over a century he haunted the waterways, ever a black hearted corsair that sought the greatest of treasures. Though his desires went beyond gold, silver, gem, and jewel. He alone coveted technology, science, and the future. And through his great sorrow, his bouts of madness, there was only one of whom he taught of the world, of his prejudices and praise, lore of the lost antiquity that was even beyond that to the forgotten ages of man. But, above all, he instructed his only apprentice in the many mysteries of the ancient disciplines of the sword.

FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!

The earthquake and explosive roar from below were deep and violent, creating a wave of bass that shook in his chest with a cavernous vibration like it was the top of a cathedral ceiling. There was something sobering, almost divine, in its intervention in the young adventurer's heart which was captured in a spell of darkness. With sobering breaths, he felt a wave of regret overcome him at the mess that was about his boots. The dead Islamists lay strewn, butchered, and horrible to look upon. Their lifeblood had mixed in drifts of leaves and stained the old tile, trickling through the trenches between. Cleaning the blade on an end tablecloth, the youth sheathed the saber and slung the rolled Worth wedding dress against his back once more.

But when he crouched to retrieve the black and white picture of Lord Grantham and his little girls, he found the frame smashed, the picture invaded by a rolling river of fresh blood. He gave a steady breath, with heaving chest, as he looked upon the last blasphemy - the defiling of one last family memory through violence that had followed him all his life. For a beat, he reached down to touch it, to save his family's history. Yet, he stopped himself, retrieving the groping hand to cover his eyes in a shameful sigh. It had not been the fight nor the enemy that had broken the photograph of his family in happier days. In his anger, in his aggression, he had destroyed it. His blood lust for vengeance against a lifetime of fear, of having to leave his rightful name - his father's name - behind when he stepped onto Columbia's shores.

George Crawley had been associated with daring, gallantry, fear, and wonder. But of the name, it had never been associated with him. He had been the nameless rogue, the bold rover, and wayfaring stranger for so long in the eyes of those who gave him not a second glance as he passed them on the street or country road. He was a figure who had no name, wandering many a wood, plain, and mountain without a home to call his own. His purpose, his history, and his identity had been taken from him long ago, hidden away for his own safety or in shame of all that he wasn't one Christmas morning. But when he had finally stopped running, held his ground, boldly proclaiming himself in the silver and blue of Grantham, he found only bloody butchery and the ruin of what would've been held dear to the last …

And all of it from his own hand and no others.

So long now had the name George Crawley been put aside, and so much had there been pain and doubt that came from it, that even his own name felt more a curse placed upon a child long ago. And about him did he see the working of such a terrible doom. This palace of marble and gold, which was foolhardy in building, but still remained a work of sheer beauty and wonder - even at its bitterest end - was forever desecrated to see blood spilled in its fair halls. Not even its ruin and surrender to the ravages of time had it suffered such the greatest of indignities. And there was shame in the quiet sorrow of the figure who stood to full height, taking saber in hand when he left in flight to the sound of feet and cries rushing down the hall. Yet, even as George sprang away, the photograph he mourned was overtaken ...

It was then that the fair figure of the beautiful Lady Mary Josephine Crawley disappeared in a river of blood.