Chapter 18

18.
         The news was taken with . . . mixed emotions.
         "What?" Michelle nearly screamed when she was informed where they might be heading next. She was saying this to Agent One, and the subject appeared to distress her enough that she had forgotten who she was talking to. Agent One, to his credit, wasn't bothered by that fact at all. The Agents were never ones to stand for protocol, anyway. "You can't be serious! That's insane!"
         Her and the Agent were facing each other, while Johan was sitting against the wall, curled up for comfort. He had mostly kept quiet throughout the exchange so far but Tristian had seen a flicker of surprise race across his face when they were told.
         Agent One merely raised one eyebrow at her. "Insane? Really, do I strike you as crazy? I didn't think so."
         "No, it's not that . . ." Michelle rubbed the bridge of her nose, obviously trying to calm down so she could remain coherent. "I'm sorry, you've been away for a while, you . . . don't know."
         "Don't know about what?" Agent One asked, seeming a bit confused by her statement. "Are things not well with you and the fairy kingdoms?"
         "Sort of . . ." Michelle answered slowly. She had added her light to the room as well as the Agents', making it a bit easier to see, though Tristian found the shifting mix of blue and red lights bordering on the psychedelic, not that anyone else in the room would have gotten that reference. "You see, a few years back, the fairies . . . severed relations with the human kingdoms."
         "Ah, I see," Agent One replied, bowing his head to think this over.
         "But how bad are we talking here?" Agent Two asked, still standing in the same place as before, his arms outstretched. He didn't seem tired at all. "Are you folks just not talking to each other like an old married couple or is this something a bit more serious. I mean, we can probably handle a bit of frosty relations, probably even get you all to start talking again. How hard can it be?"
         "We are at war," Michelle replied softly, and that was all she said.
         Tristian bent down to talk to Johan, having tired of hearing the conversation between Michelle and the Agents. "What do you think about all of this?" he asked the other man. "I know you weren't in the center of things at your village."
         "Right," Johan replied, nodding. "But we heard about it, or at least the results from the bards that traveled through the villages. We were told to stay out of the forests, especially at night." He shrugged. "Some people thought it was just a lot of talk, until they went into the forest." He drew his legs up and looked out through his knees. "One man, a friend of mine, went into the forest, two years ago. I haven't seen him since." He looked back up at Tristian. "Whatever happened between Cloudion and the fairies, it was serious. They mean it."
         "We, I mean not me, I was an apprentice at the time, but the other mages at Cloudion, they were involved in discussions about the exchange of information with the fairies." She gave a small laugh. "I've never seen any actually, they're good at hiding. Even when the delgates stayed here, you could never find them, it was always a tiny laugh, a rustle, and some shadows and they were gone. The couple times I walked past the rooms where they were negotiating, all I heard were the mages talking." Then her face turned serious again. "But something broke down, I'm not sure what happened, nobody really wanted to talk about it. They attacked the castle first, and some of the people I talked to seemed to think we deserved it . . . but they nearly brought this place down." Crossing her arms, she looked at Agent One. "Maybe if you had been here, it wouldn't have happened. The fairies respect you, I know they do."
         "Indeed," Agent One murmured, "though I doubt our presences would have made much difference, in fact I've found that we often make things worse just by being here."
         "Hey speak for yourself, bud-"
         "Quiet," Agent One snapped, and then continued talking to keep his brother from speaking again. "I wasn't expecting this, you see, alas we seem to be at the mercy of bad timing."
         "What do you need the fairies for?" Michelle asked. "The Shadow is trying to destroy all the humans, it's us they're attacking. The fairies wouldn't want to get involved anyway."
         "Everyone," Johan suddenly said from the other side of the room. Even Tristian was startled to hear the other man speak.
         "What did you say?" Michelle asked, spinning to face him.
         "The Shadow wants everyone dead. He said it, I don't know why he wants that, but he's not going to stop until everyone who won't join him is dead. Eventually that'll include the fairies. They can't hide their heads and hope this passes them by."
         "Quite right," Agent One said, and his brother nodded in agreement. "The problem is, they're going to think that way."
         "Why is that?" Michelle questioned. "They die just as easily as everyone else. The mages I talked to said just as much."
         "Except they're effectively immortal otherwise," Agent Two replied, twisting his neck to address her. "Have them sit in one place and they can live for centuries, run a sword through them and they're toast. And the problem with that is that you tend to think fairly slowly when you live for a long time, it could take the fairies years before they decide on a course of action."
         "Years none of us have," Johan mumbled, scrambling to his feet. "So we have to convince them."
         "But how?" Tristian asked. "They don't appear to like any of us whatsoever."
         "They'll listen to the Magents," Michelle stated plainly. "They have to."
         "Except that the Magents have been a bit cagey about this entire thing so far. Haven't you?" Tristian said, focusing his last sentence on the Agents. Saying their new name still felt weird but he wanted to keep us appearances. He didn't even know if these people used the word "agent". "You two have been awfully reluctant to mention stuff about the fairies, I have a feeling you were counting on us to do all the talking."
         Agent One shot Tristian a look but Agent Two sighed and said, "Yeah, guilty as charged."
         "What . . . but how?" Michelle exclaimed, shocked. "You two are the most powerful magicians ever, your history with this land stretches back before records were kept. If there's anyone they can trust, it has to be you."
         "Except that the fairies see us as interfering buffoons, needlessly stepping into human affairs. As fellow immortals and magicians, they believe themselves to be on par with us."
         "But they're nowhere near as powerful as you are," Michelle interupted, somehow managing to make that statement appear sincere without seeming fawning. "You're in a totally different class, the mages here realize that."
         "I wonder . . ." Agent One whispered, almost too softly for anyone but Tristian to hear. Then, louder: "Except that doesn't matter to them. Their strongest mages are far more powerful than anyone you have here, but they rarely involve themselves even with fairy affairs. It's still a question of philosophy, they never liked dealing with you humans either, they saw any dealings as a matter of expediency, no more. Whatever you people did to them caused them to now turn their back on that idea entirely."
         "What I can't understand is why you need them so damned much?" Tristian suddenly asked. He was starting to see this discussion as pointless and couldn't get his mind off the people that might be dying all over. Even now his ears could hear the clangs and screams of battle raging all over the castle, albeit less intensely than before. If they weren't going to do anything other than talk, he wanted to make some use of himself elsewhere.
         "Because those fairies can raise one hell of a ruckus, Tristian," Agent Two told him. "They've got all sorts of connections with nature, and they're everywhere."
         "Mm, the reason the castle is up here I suspect is to get away from them. They were never too fond of heights, if I recall. Also, the Dark Riders are going to attack everywhere at once, if they follow past patterns. For the king to keep an army organized we're going to need a swift communications network. They can provide that, with some help from us. Lastly, as the ground soldiers can probably tell you, they are very efficient at hit and run attacks, just the thing we need to harry an army and break its morale."
         Tristian waved his hand, already having heard enough. "Okay, okay, objection withdrawn." He looked around at his friends. "I don't know about you two but I'm getting tired of sitting here and doing nothing. We know the fairies don't like any of us, but we're their best hope just as much as they're ours."
         "He's right," Johan chimed in, "right now the Shadow is concentrating on us, but if he succeeds, they'll be nothing to stop him."
         Michelle whirled on both Agents. "They have to listen to us and you. They don't have a choice, they have to agree to a temporary truce."
         "A truce in a war you started," Agent One pointed out.
         Michelle narrowed her eyes. "We can deal with that when the time comes. We have to try at least, don't we?"
         "She's got you there," Agent Two remarked with a grin.
         "She has nothing on me," Agent One replied a bit darkly. "This is the course of action I wished to pursue originally, it's just that things have become more complicated now."
         "You can't plan for everything, pal. Just roll with the punches. That's what I do, or did you think I liked being the Shadow's personal punching bag?"
         "You raise a good point, however crudely put," Agent One agreed. He was silent for a few more moments, the only sounds the persistent distant threats of battle and the gentle flickering of the different colored lights in the room. Finally, he looked up and stared at all of them. "We're going," was all he said.
         Michelle didn't look relieved by that at all, especially given the revelation of facts in the last few minutes, but she managed a small smile. Tristian didn't know how much of the strain of the past day she was feeling, how much she was hiding from the rest of them. Johan's face was expressionless, as it tended to be more and more lately. It wasn't that the man didn't feel anything anymore, it was just that he didn't know how to show any of it. Emotions raged and swirled inside of him, but he seemed to want none of it to penetrate the surface facade. Tristian could sympathize with that feeling. Lately, he had wanted to go hide in a shell but he didn't feel he had good enough reasons to do so.
         For him, he felt tired as he soldiered on. All in a day's work they say. Somedays he felt like it was his job to continually save the Universe, or in this case, everyone else's Universe.
         "Will you be all right without us?" Agent One asked his brother, a spark of concern flashing across his face.
         "Yeah, yeah, you kids go on now," Agent Two replied earnestly. "I could use the peace and quiet anyway. This castle will stay right where it is . . ." he trailed off when he saw Johan's face. Tristian couldn't see anything different in the man's face, but the Agent must have read something there.
         "I did all I could, Johan," Agent Two said with simple and uncharacteristic seriousness, "and she still died. There's no reason for you to forgive me, but I won't let anyone down. One person is more than enough. Okay?"
         Johan just stared back at him, not saying a word. Finally he turned away harshly, saying in a too loud voice, "Can we leave now?" Tristian thought he saw the man's eyes shining for a second but he wiped tiredly at his face and the moment was gone.
         "If we're all done then . . ." and the Agent trailed off for a second just to make sure nobody else had any business to discuss. When nothing else transpired, he sighed and waved his hands. The bright red glow became brighter, brighter still and then filled everyone's vision until they could see no longer.
         When it cleared, after what seemed an instant and an eternity, they were standing someplace entirely different.
         A chill wind was blowing around them. They seemed to have teleported into a clearing of a gigantic forest. Trees loomed all around them and the air was filled with the distant and ominious calls of birds, echoing and vanishing into nothing.
         Not only were they standing in a clearing, but a sort of stone construction in the clearing itself. Tristian stepped around a bit, seeing the giant stone monoliths set up in a pattern vaguely reminding him of a circle. The stones were grey and old, seemingly chipped out of the earth itself, though Tristian could see barely any seam between them and the ground, like they had been grown from there. Sigils and runes of various types decorated the rocks. Michelle was peering at the writings on one of the rocks curiously. The ground itself was hard and Tristian heard his boots click on it when he stepped, like there was rock underneath the thick grass. He looked at the sky above, it was overcast, with what appeared to be dark clouds moving in from the west. How fitting, he thought wryly.
         Agent One was standing near a very polished marble slab in the center, running his hand over it. A red flicker was left where his fingers had touched, however briefly. "Funny," he said, as Tristian and Johan wandered over, "I didn't plan on teleporting here. Could I have been redirected?"
         "What is this place?" Tristian asked. "Some sort of fairy shrine."
         "The only thing the fairies worship is nature and magic, which they equate as the same thing anyway. A construction like this wouldn't be out of character but I don't remember any last time I was here."
         "There were rumors," Michelle said from the side of the structure. Tristian noticed that the monoliths has a gossamer like curled rock capping and connecting them. That seemed to be faintly glowing in the light. "But we were never able to check."
         "What would they use a place like this for?" Johan wondered outloud, frowning slightly.
         "To focus their power maybe," Michelle replied.
         "But you'd think they wouldn't need it," Johan remarked. "Unless they felt they needed more power during the war . . ." he finally just shrugged. "I should stop pretending I understand any of this."
         "Guys," Michelle suddenly said, and everyone turned to face what she was indicating. "We've got company."
         They came out of the woods, the trees seeming to bend sideways to accomodate their passage. Marching silently, they came one by one, their steps making precious little noise. Faces and almost even hands were hidden by their grey robes, though Tristian thought he caught something shining in the dark recesses of the hoods. The lead one was the tallest and he carried a gnarled staff in his hand, though he didn't need it to walk, almost outpacing his somewhat slower comrades.
         The chanting was low and monotonous. They brushed past Michelle without even paying attention to her. She jumped back, like she had been shocked. The runes of the rock near her started glowing and she backed away from that as well. The blue light that suddenly surrounded her meant she had put a shield up. Tristian could understand that, the sudden appearance of these monklike figures was unnerving, to say the least. Again, he wished for his hated laser sword, even if only for reassurance.
         The monks came in and split in two as they walked, flowing around the altarslab like water parting. Facing it, they joined hands and continued their chanting, though now it was louder and unmistakeable.
         "Darkness falls over us."
         "It threatens every corner."
         "It dims the light."
         Tristian felt a chill run through his spine at those words.
         "The darkness has a name."
         "But we cannot say the name."
         "Names have power."
         "And the darkness has too much power."
         "But there are names we can say."
         "Names that can stop the darkness."
         And then they went through a litany of words that Tristian would have torn his throat out trying to say. Johan was pale as he stared upon this, while Michelle was now expressionless, either studying this or too worried to be curious anymore. Agent One was merely staring at them through hooded eyes.
         "But there is one name above all."
         "One name to guide us."
         "A savior to stop the darkness with his light."
         "Each of us knows the name."
         "And so we call him."
         All this time the altar was glowing faintly, now the glowing was brighter, more distinct.
         "In our hearts we feel the name."
         "In our souls we know the name."
         "In our minds we shout the name."
         Now something vaguely human was forming on the altar, laying down. But the features were covered by the light. Tristian felt that he couldn't see the figure even if it became clearer and so he started moving closer.
         "With our power he will come."
         "With our courage he will come."
         "With our hope he will come."
         The figure blazed brighter now and Tristian had to avert his eyes from the light. But Johan apparently could see and his expression was fearful.
         "That can't be!" he shouted, taking a step forward. "This must be some sort of trick!" He seemed particularly excited by whatever he was seeing. Michelle didn't seem to be able to see either, because she was moving forward to get a better look.
         But by this time Johan had moved to the nearest monk and had grabbed him by the shoulder. Tristian saw the man's hand close into a fist around the cloth and his startled expression of surprise. "Just what is going . . . on?"
         "Johan, no!" Agent One yelled, stepping forward almost in a blur, but perhaps it was too late already.
         The cloth fell up and away, revealing nothing underneath. Seconds later, with the chanting still low and evident, the other monks suddenly collapsed, their robes falling to the floor. There appeared to never have been anything in the robes, nothing under the hoods.
         And then, in a dizzying sort of slow motion, he saw Michelle and Johan spiral and collapse to the ground in a pantomime of dance. Even as he felt a buzzing in the base of his brain and the world slid and split and went completely black.