Part XXII
Shazam closed his eyes, his lightning bolt insignia glowing brighter as his expression turned inward.
"Guys, I think we made it," he said, looking back at his companions from the top of the stairwell. "The Throne Room should be on this level."
"That's great news," Zatanna said, still catching her breath after their long climb up from the prison levels. "Just give me a second…"
The magician stepped toward the craggy exit while Batman – who didn't seem winded at all – tapped at his Bat-Scanner, the pair of them doing a quick sweep for hidden traps, physical and mystical, before announcing, "Clear."
"Thanks," Mary said, and the team moved ahead, out of the torch-lit darkness and into the largest, brightest level they'd yet come across. "Whoa, where are we…?"
"Holy moley!" Shazam gasped. As the rest of the team joined him, he moved further out into the vast expanse of concrete and metal, staring around in disconcerted disbelief. "This place… It can't be…"
"It's a subway station!" Freddy exclaimed, rising a few feet off the ground to get a better view of the gleaming tracks and creepily dark tunnels. "Guys, it looks just like the ones back in Philly!" He sniffed, getting only the misty, mineral tang of the air in the Rock of Eternity. "Sure doesn't smell like them, though. And it's so quiet!"
The small group stood on a tiled platform between two sets of sunken tracks, lit from above by what looked like electric light fixtures – a welcome, if eerily incongruous, change from the rough stone and yellowed, flickering torchlight of the many spooky, mysterious levels they'd had to pass through as they climbed toward the Throne Room. Between thick support poles, a board of wrought iron and glass displayed a colorful map. It stretched across the center of the long platform while, in the distance, some metal stairs and a wrought iron bridge led across the tracks into darkness.
With a leap, Superman flew past the bridge to inspect the rubble of what looked to be the remains of a giant collapsed arch, heavily boarded up and wide enough to once have housed a long row of tunnels and tracks.
"It looks like there might have been a cave-in over here at some point," he noted before circling back to rejoin them.
"Seriously, this place keeps getting weirder the higher up we get," Mary said, staring at the tattered remains of posters and platform numbers that had long since been worn away. "But, if this platform is here, it has to mean something." She looked up at her brother. "Billy, you said when the Wizard first brought you here, you came in a subway train. Is this where… Billy?" She moved to touch his arm. "Captain, are you OK?"
But, Shazam didn't seem to be listening. "Does anyone else feel…"
He turned with a sudden jerk to face the stairwell they'd just left. Hidden in the shadows there, a cat's eyes gleamed green, but Shazam's attention was fixed on the gaping tunnel to the side, curving away into darkness.
"Stay here," he said distractedly and, before anyone could protest, he dashed off the platform into the tunnel. His golden boots were almost too large to let him edge along the curving walkway, but he pressed his back and arms against the slippery tiles, feeling his way through darkness lit only by his glowing insignia until the wall opened up behind him, revealing a small maintenance bay. And in the far corner of that narrow alcove…
"Holy moley, it's here. It's still here…" he whispered. "I can't believe…"
"Billy!" Mary called, her echoing voice strained with apprehension. "Billy what are you doing! Where did you go!"
"I'm here!" Shazam replied, clearing his throat to keep his adult voice from trembling. "Stay where you are, I'm coming back!"
Clutching his find to his chest, he flew back into the light of the platform, his thoughts and feelings a confused whirl.
"Billy!" Mary and Freddy rushed to meet him, followed closely by Superman and Zatanna. Batman observed from a distance, his attention seemingly focused more on the map and his Bat-Scanner than Shazam's strange behavior.
"Captain, are you all right?" Superman peered worriedly into the taller man's face. "What did you find back there?"
"I'm OK, really," Shazam assured them. "But…this place…" He glanced at his siblings, his friends, and pinched his lips together. "When I was small," he said, "I lived on the streets for a while. And this platform – it looks exactly like the subway station where my friend Old Talky and I would go when the weather got bad." He looked back at the tunnel, his gaze distant with memory. "Down in that tunnel, there's this sort of maintenance bay where we used to camp out. That's where I went just now, just to see…"
He turned to his friends, his eyes wide and serious.
"Look, I know this all sounds super weird, but I swear, the place was exactly the same as I remembered. The blankets were still there, my sleeping bag…the beat-up satchel Old Talky used to carry around everywhere… And this."
He opened his big hand, revealing a realistic looking plastic tiger covered in very short felt-like fur.
"It was my birthday present," he said quietly. "My tenth birthday. I was telling Freddy… Old Talky never did know his real birthday, so I decided to let him share mine. I saved up for weeks to buy us a special cake, with real chocolate and cherries and whipped cream. And, he got me this."
He held the little tiger close, his jaw tightening as he stared past his friends to the brightly lit platform.
"I just… I don't understand. The last time I went back…years ago… The place was empty. Old Talky…my stuff… Everything was gone. How can this be here?"
"Could it be magic?" Mary asked warily.
"Dude, what if it's part of the villains' trap?" Freddy suggested. "It could be a scheme to manipulate us. Throw us off their scent. I mean, we all lost time in that casino, and those psychic-attack nightmares brought back some pretty old memories. If Sivana's figured out a way to, like, access those thoughts, those images—"
"What, you mean that creep might literally be able to read our minds?" Mary exclaimed in horror. "Oh my god – does that mean all this could be, like, an illusion projected from the Captain's memory? The platform, that toy tiger…?"
Zatanna shook her head.
"No, no," she hurried to assure them. "This whole place is saturated with mystical energy, but I'm not getting a sense of any particularly strong concentrations in this area. Nothing like the levels required for psychic manipulation on the scale you're talking about. May I?" She reached for the little tiger.
"Oh yeah, sure," Shazam said, handing the toy over to her. She examined it closely, then handed it back.
"Yeah, from what I can tell, that plastic tiger is exactly what it appears to be."
"OK, great. But what does all this mean?" Shazam asked, working hard to hold back his rising frustration in front of Zatanna and Superman. "Is this platform supposed to be a replica of the real station? If it is, why would the Wizard want a copy of the Philly subway platform where I used to camp out fou—" He caught himself with a little cough. "I mean, like, twenty or whatever years ago? Even down to my sleeping bag and birthday present!"
"Well, you are the Wizard's chosen Champion," Zatanna said. "Maybe old S.H.A.Z.A.M.! was watching over you, even then."
Freddy frowned sharply.
Shazam smirked. "Somehow, that's not exactly comforting," he said and rubbed his arms, suddenly feeling an odd, tingling chill, as if they really were being watched.
"Guys, did you just—" He turned in place, focusing his sharp stare on the shadows within the stairwell. But, there was nothing. Apart from their group, the station seemed completely empty. "No, never mind," he said awkwardly.
Zatanna and Superman shared a frown.
"Captain, if you think there's—" Zatanna started, but Shazam shook his head, feeling his face grow warm as he ran a hand over his swept back hair.
"No, it's OK. This place is kinda getting to me, that's all. It all looks so familiar, I almost expect to see Old Talky sitting on the bench back there." He swallowed hard and gave the toy tiger a little squeeze before tucking it into his belt.
"The design of this platform may be more than coincidence," Batman said, his grim voice drawing the team to where he stood by the map board at the center of the room. "This map diagrams what seems to be an interdimensional transit system. If that is the case, this platform represents only one section of what was once a much greater hub, linking the Rock of Eternity to dozens if not hundreds of different vibrational realms."
"Alternate realities." Superman nodded, narrowing his eyes at a colorful, complicated map hanging beside the transit system diagram. This map displayed a system of spheres laid out in concentric rings like a medieval geocentric depiction of the solar system. Only, instead of the Earth, the Rock of Eternity marked its center, surrounded on all sides by a branching cross-section of worlds both separated and hemmed in by shimmering walls of primordial energies. The Speed Force Wall… The Source Wall…
"It's possible each of these platforms was designed to blend in with the world they linked to," Batman said. "Not unlike the system of boom tubes we use to link our home cities to the Watchtower."
Superman cupped his chin. "That's not a bad comparison. Strange thing, though – according to this map, it looks like most of these interdimensional links have been sealed. I suppose that cave-in up there blocked off the rest of the tunnels."
"Maybe some of them," Mary said thoughtfully. "But, what if these interdimensional links don't all look like subway tunnels?"
"What do you mean?" Superman asked.
Mary frowned, and turned to her brothers.
"Freddy, do you remember the first time we came here? We were running from Sivana, looking for our way home, and we came across all these strange doors. Some were locked, some were way, way out of reach, hanging in the air like something out of Harry Potter. But the ones we could open—"
"Right!" Freddy said excitedly. "Those doors – they were portals! Passageways to other worlds. I suspected it before, but this map confirms it: each of those doors led to a different reality!"
"What about the Magic Lands?" Shazam said, his face as somber and serious as his siblings had ever seen it. "Francesca said I'm supposed to defend them, but I don't see them on any of these maps. They're not even mentioned in the key!"
"That's because the Seven Magic Realms exist on a separate plane. Sealed off from the rest of reality by the Wizard himself," Zatanna said.
"How do you know that?" Freddy asked.
"There's another map down here," she said, and the team quickly clustered around her to see.
"Looks like blank paper to me," Freddy said, squinting.
"Not blank. Blanked out," Zatanna said, and spoke a few backwards phrases. As they watched in amazement, the aged paper filled in like an animated prologue to a fantasy movie, revealing an aerial view of dense forests and circular clearings. Each clearing housed a city, though none of the cities seemed to be connected. There were no shared rivers, no main highways, no clear paths through the trees. Each realm looked to be an isolated bubble unto itself.
"There," the magician said. "It still looks a little faded, but I did my best to restore the image."
"It looks like the main menu of an old video game," Freddy commented with a smirk. "Choose the level you want to play: The Wildlands, the Gamelands—"
"The Wozenderlands!" Shazam read, pointing to a realm of playing card buildings and greenish towers that looked a lot like the Emerald City. "Mary, that was the name of the game you were playing back in Vegas, remember? It was so weird: when you cashed out, the game seemed to change, and the title shifted to 'Wonderland'."
Mary furrowed her brow. "Yeah… I remember you telling us about that, but I don't really remember it happening."
"Hey, look at this," Freddy said. "There really is a place called the Funlands! And, if this map's right, it has roller coasters!"
"That place does look pretty dope," Shazam admitted. "But these other realms don't look so fun. The Darklands looks like someplace Jack Skellington would hang out."
"Seriously," Freddy agreed. "And the Monsterlands are like Skeletor's Snake Mountain got mashed together with Mordor!"
"But that's only six Magic Realms," Shazam said. "Anyone see lucky number seven?"
"Maybe this is it," Mary suggested, pointing to a boxed off section near the bottom of the map. It showed a realm that seemed separate from the rest, the image more like a satellite photograph than a cartographer's drawing.
"The Earthlands," Freddy read. "Hey, Cap, you think that's us? Our reality? That city kinda looks like Metropolis."
Batman grunted. Superman moved closer to check it out.
Shazam shivered and stepped away to pace agitatedly along the platform.
"I don't know. I feel like I don't know anything right now," he said, and slapped his fist into his palm. "Man, it just sucks feeling like we're always in the dark on everything, you know? Especially here. I mean, the Rock is supposed to be our lair, right? The Wizard's Throne Room is meant to be our base. If these Magic Lands are so important, if we're supposed to be their protectors, why didn't the Wizard tell me about them when he had the chance? Why did he have to crumble away and die before I could ask him anything that actually matters!"
"We learn as we go," Batman stated. "That's how life works. What matters is what we do with the knowledge we gain. For now, we need to stay focused on the objective at hand."
"Right. Right, you're right. These questions can wait," Shazam said, and glanced at his siblings. "Our main objective right now is to figure out how to gain access to the Throne Room and free our Family."
"Remembering to keep a look out for those creeps Sivana and Ibac," Freddy added, rising into the air again. "So, which way do we go? Looks like the only way out is over that bridge."
Superman fixed his penetrating gaze in that direction, and they realized the Kryptonian was staring right through the tiled wall.
"There's a long hall on the other side of this wall," he told them. "Edged on both sides by several caves and alcoves. It's pretty dark, and there's a lot of mist, but I can just make out a raised dais at the far end of the hall."
"That sounds like the right place," Mary said. "The Seven Thrones will be at the top of that dais."
"That's where the bad guys will be probably be lurking in wait," Freddy said and rubbed his hands together. "OK, how do you suggest we make our approach? Do we split up, or charge the hall as a group?"
"How about we start by checking the hall for traps," Zatanna said. "Batman?"
Batman nodded, leading the way up the metal stairs and across wrought iron bridge out of the gleaming station and over a single set of tracks to another platform – this one hewn from the same rough rock and lit by the same flickering torchlight as the Throne Room itself.
"Guys, this is it," Shazam whispered. "This is where the subway let me off when the Wizard first brought me here. The Thrones will be through that chamber, just ahead."
Batman raised his Bat-Scanner and tapped the screen. Then he tapped the screen again.
"What's wrong?" Superman asked, peering over his shoulder.
"I'm not getting anything," Batman grunted. "No readings at all."
"There's a mystical shield in place," Zatanna said, raising her hands as if touching an invisible wall. "Extremely powerful. It's not a perception filter, but it's interfering with my revealing spells." She squinted and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I haven't encountered magic quite like this before. We should be able to get through, but we'll need to stay alert. This whole hall could be a trap."
"If that's the case, then maybe we should split up," Shazam said. "There are corridors behind each of these alcoves. If we split into three teams, two could take the side passages and one could take the middle. We could converge on the Thrones from three different directions, and if there is a trap or an ambush—"
"We wouldn't all be caught at once," Freddy said. "Good plan, Cap. I call Superman for my team!"
"I'll stick with Zatanna," Mary offered.
"Batman?" Shazam asked.
Batman frowned darkly.
"I don't like us going in blind like this," he said. "But with no way to anticipate what may be lying in wait, we'll try this your way. Keep close to the shadows and stay in contact. If you find the captives, or if anything should happen—"
"We know what to do," Freddy said, already lifting into the air. "So, Supes, which way do you want? Left, right or center?"
Shazam glared sharply at his brother.
"Freddy, you and Superman go left. Zatanna and Mary, take the passage on the right," he said. "I'll take the main hall with Batman. If Sivana wants my attention, I'll let him know he's got it."
Batman regarded the taller man, and Superman clasped his arm.
"Good luck," he said.
Shazam nodded. "Yeah, you too," he said, and set his jaw. "All right, team. Let's do this."
To Be Continued…
References Include - Shazam! (movie); Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, by Jeff Smith; Justice League Action; Shazam! (1981); Shazam! (1974); Batman The Brave and the Bold; Shazam! Volume 1, by Geoff Johns; Shazam! #1-11 by Geoff Johns; The Multiversity, by Grant Morrison; He-Man and the Masters of the Universe; The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien; The Wizard of Oz; The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Stay tuned for more updates, coming soon! Next in line: "Croaked," then "Alternative Data." And I'm going to keep working on the next chapter for this story too! A big confrontation is just ahead, so there'll be some action and maybe a twist or two. Thanks so much for reading, and all your comments! Please let me know what you think! :D
