Chapter 27

27.
         During the night, Agent Two received a visitor.
         He had managed to dim his glow to a faint pinkish haze, and it made him feel like a nightlight. By siphoning a small portion of his power for a brief second, he had been able to return the royal bed to its former state, though repairing the wall was still out of his power. He had set up a light shield in its place to keep the cold of the air out, though solid objects could pass through with little trouble. Agent Two hoped that a bird wouldn't fly in during the night.
         With reassurances like that, the king and queen spent the night in their bed. Agent Two had politely turned to face the wall, though his vision only encompassed the vague reddishness of the shield over the hole in the wall, allowing him to see outside. Not one for sleep, he figured he'd spend another night staring out and watching fluffy clouds pass by. A gentle touch on the mind meant that the king and queen would have a much better sleep than they thought they would. He wished he could extend the effect over the entire sleeping denizens of the castle but with most of his power devoted to holding the castle up, he couldn't afford to stretch himself too far. So to speak.
         The crawling feeling was the first thing he felt, like a million insects snaking their way inside his being. Black tendrils slithered all over him. Not one to get cold, he found himself barely supressing a shiver. He knew this feeling, had felt it recently, at one point the feeling becoming so strong that it was all he had known in his world.
         "So here we have the valiant Magent, standing watch over his liege and his queen, keeping an all night vigil out of a sense of duty." The crawling feeling increased, reached a crescendo and two red slits appeared in the darkness near the wall. There was the faintest shape of a tall gaunt body there, but even his eyes couldn't detect it fully. Like the shadows had become deeper, darker. Perhaps they had.
         And then the Shadow stepped out of the darkness, revealing himself. "I can see your power, Agent, it pulses from you in strings." The Shadow paused, seeming to stare at visions that normal eyes could never experience. "But there are only strings, Agent and if I so desired, I could simply . . ." and Agent Two felt a horrible tugging in his being, like something sawing against his soul.
         For a brief moment he blazed brighter. The Shadow didn't even flinch at the hint of power. Agent Two knew that scare tactics weren't going to work here. Not after the Shadow had worked him over like a punching bag.
         "You must want something," Agent Two said in his hoarse voice. He talked in a somewhat lower tone than normal, so that passerbys didn't get curious and stop in. The Shadow probably wouldn't have much trouble killing a few innocents just to show the Agent how helpless he was. "You're not normally one for social calls."
         "Oh, I'm not?" the Shadow replied in a deliciously false tone of surprise. He gave the Agent a mocking bow, sweeping his cape out before him with one outstretched arm. "Perhaps I was just coming to apologize for my terribly rude behavior from before."
         "And I'm going to take this castle into space and use it to play bumper cars with asteroids," Agent Two said dryly. "I think we're both adults here, how about we not play games?"
         "You're oddly direct, Agent," the Shadow noted. "Is the strain of recent events making you a bit impatient?"
         Agent Two shrugged as best he could. "I'm not one for word foreplay, to make it simple. So you can drag this conversation out with all the ornately decorated sentences you can think of, but I'm not playing that game tonight. Go find my brother, if you want that."
         "Very well," the Shadow told him smoothly. He turned to stare out the hole in the wall, his hands clasped behind his back under his cape. It slid over the floor like liquid darkness. "Interesting that you mention your brother," the Shadow said after a moment. Turning to look over his shoulder, he continued, "Since right now I don't think he's in much shape for talking at all."
         "Yeah, he'll be in a bad mood when he manages to put himself back together. Especially when he finds out what you used him for." Agent Two made a face. "You know, that was pretty sick, even for you."
         The Shadow gave a chuckle that made the king shout softly from a sudden, intense nightmare. "Would you believe that the Dark Lord thought of that last part himself? I was merely content with dispersing your brother, but the Dark Lord thought using him to burn the forest down would be more useful."
         "I'm glad you're getting the boys into the act," Agent Two drawled.
         "You do not seem concerned for your brother," the Shadow pointed out.
         "Oh, I'm sorry," Agent Two blinked in mock surprise. "I forgot the traditional angry outburst and swearing of vengeance. Hold on." He took a deep breath, rolled his eyes to stare at the ceiling and spoke in a monotonal lecturing voice. "Shadow, you are a fiend for performing such a diabolical act upon my brother. You are the lowest scum imaginable. In the name of my fallen brother, I shall take great pleasure in making you see the error of your ways, even if it takes me until the end of time itself. I shall hound you like the dogs of war and death, until you shall fear to find me in the very shadows you once thought you called friend." Agent Two finished his speech and grinned broadly. "I liked that last part. Are you writing this stuff down? I want to know if I ever repeat myself."
         "That was highly . . . amusing, Agent. If inconsequential."
         "Good to hear," Agent Two quipped. "Are you going to leave yet? Or are you going to give me a chance to insult you as well? It's only fair."
         "Mock me not, Agent, at your full power I bested you with little trouble. In your current diminished state, I can disperse you for millenia if I so desire." The Shadow had turned around now and his eyes were blazing distantly.
         Agent Two smiled thinly. "Sorry, threats ain't working here, tall and dark. I know how this play turns out and it doesn't involve me being reduced to atoms."
         "And you're so sure about that?" the Shadow asked, not even bothering to veil his threat.
         "Anytime you're ready," Agent Two smirked.
         The Shadow just stared at the Agent for a minute and then crossed the room to stand directly in front of him. The two immortals faced each other. Agent Two could feel the Shadow's power curling all over his body, a million little prickles. It repulsed him but he didn't want to show any signs of fear. Not that it really mattered but he had a personal record to pay attention to.
         After a moment, the Shadow turned away again, pacing the room in that slow, light fashion that he had. "Your use of the word `play' is a apt metaphor, Agent, for I feel that we have entered the final act of this play." Pausing for a moment in his rounds about the room, he glanced at the Agent. "Your host has entered the underground. It shall not be long before he finds what he is looking for."
         "Except he doesn't know what he's looking for," Agent Two said, his brow knitting in concentration. "Or that he's even looking for something."
         "He think he's looking for something that shall stop me and mine." The Shadow turned to stare down at the ground below. His head pushed against the field like it was cellophane and Agent Two held back a gasp as he got some of the feedback from the Shadow's power. "Even now my armies are raging over every place. Every creature of ill bent I have gathered, placing my Dark Riders at the head of each army. I can feel each one, they are constantly in contact with me, even now I am giving them orders. Any creatures that do not follow my lead are eradicated. Even those that do follow my lead will eventually be destroyed as well." Stepping back from the gap in the wall, he faced Agent Two. "Tristian is looking for a force that does not exist. A force great enough to stop me. Or so he think that is what he's looking for."
         Agent Two said nothing, just watched the Shadow pace and think outloud even as the gears were turning in his own mind.
         "No, Tristian shall not find the weapon he seeks," the Shadow continued, his voice barely masking his interest. "Instead, he will realize that what he is looking for is an answer. He is involved in a futile battle, trying to hold back a force that cannot and will not be resisted. Deep down he knows this and yet he keeps pressing forward, even though he has no real reasons to do so. His companions are defending their homes and their lives, Tristian does not even share the same Universe as them. Yet he forges on, striving, straining, until he wants to break." The Shadow held out his open palm and slowly closed it, purely for effect. "What he wants to know, is why. Why he does such things, why he drives himself so?" The Shadow stepped back into the darkness, his body blending in discreetly, almost seeming to melt right into the velveteen shadows. "Your brother shall provide him with the clue, but time will tell if Tristian can provide himself with the answer."
         A faint snore was the response from Agent Two. His head was tilted to the side and his eyes were closed. His nostrils flared with every breath.
         "Do not mock me, Agent. That is the wrong thing to do." The Shadow's voice held muted anger for the first time during his visit.
         Agent Two blinked rapidly, as if just waking up and looked around blearily. "Oh . . . oh! Why, I didn't even realize you were still here. Could you be a doll and just give a brief massage over here, I have the worst crick in my neck ever, you've no idea what standing in this position does for your posture, I-"
         "You heard me, Agent," the Shadow threatened, and a whiplash of black energy speared the air in front of the Agent, hovering there right in front of his eyes, quivering slightly. "Do not make me repeat myself."
         "I heard you," Agent Two replied calmly. His eyes glanced at the tendril of power and then back at the Shadow. "So now you hear me. You were allowed your little fun back there because that's the way the ball bounces." A wolfish grin spread across his face. "But one is all you get, pal. I'm sure you don't want to attract the attention of the big bosses. As aloof as they are, they tend to frown on their creations being kicked around like an unripe fruit." Agent Two shrugged, not even starting to wither under the Shadow's dangerous gaze. "Unless of course, you're confident enough that you can stand against the LORDS. Now, if you were to ask my opinion, I'd say you'd last, oh, about a second if you were lucky. But if you think you'd be on the winning side in that fight, you just go right ahead and start annhilating, Shadow, because you might turn me into atoms but there won't even be that much left of you when they're finished."
         The tendril shivered in front of him, seeming to strain in the last few brief inches that separated it from the Agent. Then, with a suddened that made him blink, it fell back into the Shadow.
         Agent Two's grin turned deadly. "I didn't think so."
         The Shadow had retreated completely back into the darkness now, until only his eyes were showing again. "Be brash and bold, then, Agent, if you so desire. In the end of this little drama, there can still be only one outcome. You know that. We shall not speak again."
         "Yeah, yeah go blow it out your-" but there was no need to speak any further for the eyes had faded into the darkness as well, leaving the Agent alone. He stared into the darkness, as if trying to see something there and his face, although it looked the same as before, also looked impossibly old as well. Ancient and ageless were the words.
         The queen murmured something in her sleep, turning and twisting. Agent Two glanced at her as she settled back into slumber, getting a glimpse of the dreams she had in her head. The world being drowned in fire. All life, discarded. Standing there, he could feel the pulsings of all those in the castle. Their hopes and dreams and fears. And the overriding feeling that even though things looked dire, with the aid of the Magents, even the impossible was within reach.
         Agent Two sighed and bowed his head. "Dammit, why was this the one time he had to be right . . ." and the strain evident in his voice strangled away all other words, and he spoke no more.

* * * * *
         The tunnel, oddly endless curled and twisted upon itself dozens of times, until Tristian felt that they hadn't gained any distance from where they had started. The ceiling and walls were close by, so that they almost had to walk in single file to make their way down the paths. But at the same time it gave him a closed in, buried alive feeling and he had to constantly fight down that sense of panic that surged in him. He wasn't one for phobias or frights, but the sheer thought of tons of solid rock sitting on their heads, held up by barely anything, with nothing to stop it should the tunnel decide to collapse, it was a nagging fear that snapped at the back of his mind. And yet he didn't give in. He couldn't.
         There were odd depressions in the rock at seemingly regular distances, and in those depressions were small, gauzy lights. They were barely enough to provide light to see by, they mostly gave him a sense of the contours of the tunnel. Spaced at distant intervals, most of the time there were brief patches of almost pure darkness before they reached the radius of another light. To combat those sections of blackness, Michelle used her magic to create a light that floated with them, giving everything a bluish cast. Which in the end was better than the alternative.
         "These lights . . ." Michelle muttered, pausing to get a better look at a glowing orb. Her hair was plastered to her head from sweat and she kept squinting, as if trying to catch something in the far distance that the others could barely see. "These lights aren't powered by magic, or anything that I can tell. They're like a . . . natural extension of the rock."
         "This whole place is weird," Johan noted, his voice even and somewhat emotionless. The faint blue light gave his skin an even more unhealthy cast than usual, highlighting the worst profiles of his face. "Did you say that you knew something about where we were?"
         "I thought I did . . ." Michelle replied, frowning. The only other sound besides their conversation was the scuffling of their boots as they strode upon the small stones that were scattered along the floor. Something one of them would trip slightly but easily caught their balance. Michelle glanced over her shoulder at Johan. "But now I'm not so sure. The old books are so piecemeal and full of rumor and legend that you can't separate fact from fiction half the time." She gave a graceful shrug. "So I really don't know where we are."
         This place reminded Tristian of a place he had been before, but he didn't think that Michelle or Johan had ever heard of a city placed in an asteroid called Comitis. It was almost poetic, walking around in this facsimile, stumbling around in this dim darkness trying to find the way. Wasn't that what he was doing all this time, trying to find the way back to the Tristian that had first shed blood on Comitis, not too many years ago? Trying to find himself amongst the stones of where he began. Poetry based on metaphor and rhythm, the kind he had never liked. Give him a poem with plot any time, let the verses fall where they may, let the phrases dance like bent letters, but give it a direction, give it shape and form. Perhaps other poems had that and he just couldn't sense it. Perhaps that was his problem with everything else.
         From the back of the line, Johan was the first to hear it. Tristian heard his feet scuff and stop on the path. "Did you hear that?" came the man's voice. Tristian stopped, turning as he did so that Michelle didn't walk into the back of him.
         "Hear what?" he asked softly, so as not to disturb his own hearing.
         Michelle cocked her head to the side, face radiating concentration. "I . . . hear something. Almost like a mumbling."
         "Voices," Johan said, and Tristian could only see his mouth moving in the darkness. Blue and white teeth.
         And then he heard it, from behind. A low wave of muttering, not rhymthic like chanting but constant. Conversation. People talking.
         He spun, feeling like they were right behind him. There was a breath on the back of his neck and he swatted at it, heart pounding, all senses alert for anything out of the ordinary. Except everything was out of the ordinary here.
         "Something isn't right here," he said, slowly, looking to his friends for confirmation. They just stared back, confusion in their eyes. Again they were faced with the unknown. Again they were dealing with myth personified, having to work out the truth from legend.
         Motioning for the rest of them to stay back, he moved forward a bit, coming to a place where the tunnel made a sharp left turn. As he got closer he was aware of the flickering light striking the opposite wall. Of the shadows shifting and waving.
         There were three human shaped shadows ghosted by the light. Wavering.
         The muttering resolved itself clearer.
         ". . . can't be time . . ."
         ". . . passed through the door . . ."
         ". . . heard the news, it's just like the old . . ."
         ". . . going to die . . ."
         ". . . but you see, that's the whole problem . . ."
         ". . . long live, that's what I say . . ."
         And then he turned the corner abruptly and found nothing there. Even the shadows were no longer there. There was a skittering noise above him and he glanced up but saw nothing but intractable darkness. This was beginning to get unnerving.
         Footsteps behind him tensed him up for a second until he realized it was Michelle and Johan.
         "What happened, what did you hear?" Michelle asked him.
         Tristian only shook his head. "Nothing that made any sense, it was just random voices." An idea popped into his head, something from a book he had once read. "Are there any races that tend to live underground, like . . . dwarves or something?"
         Michelle gave him a puzzled look. Johan had come to stand between and beside them and he was staring off at something far down the tunnel. Tristian saw something glistening in the corner of his vision but paid no attention to it.
         "Dwarves," Michelle said, saying the word slowly, as if trying it out. "I've never heard of such a thing. What are they supposed to be?"
         "Uh . . ." Tristian had assumed such beings existed here. Obviously he had thought wrong. "Short men, long beards, tend to mine and craft things out of stone . . . they live underground."
         Michelle shook her head, trying to hide some sense of amusement. Johan had slipped past the two of them and was heading down the tunnel a little ways. "I've never seen anything even remotely resembling that description. Where did you hear of something like that."
         "I read a lot," Tristian replied, feeling a bit silly. That was the last time he got his information from a bestseller. "But maybe they went underground ages ago and that's why nobody has ever heard of them."
         "It's possible, I guess," Michelle answered, her tone indicating that she thought the entire premise was highly unlikely. Johan was now staring intently at something, bending down on one knee to get a better look at it. It seemed embedded in the wall.
         "So where did you hear of these . . . dwarves?" Michelle asked playfully, moving closer to him, obviously enjoying his mild embarressment.
         "Just forget I asked," he muttered. He was looking for a way to change the subject when Johan kindly provided the change.
         "Tristian! Michelle! Come look at this!" he nearly shouted, his voice too large to be contained by the small space and rebounding off it. "There's something embedded in the rock . . ." he peered closer at it as Tristian and Michelle moved closer, "I can see it . . . it looks like . . . a body!"
         And as they all pondered this fact the lights in the tunnel suddenly flared painfully bright and then dropped off completely, plunging them all into instant darkness. Tristian immediately put a hand out to steady himself. Michelle's light suddenly blinked out, probably due to surprise. He could feel Michelle's warmth as she involuntarily stood closer to him. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant thing, he had to admit, before firmly setting his mind back on the current situation.
         Then they all heard the skittering and scuffling of footsteps. Near him, Michelle tensed and Tristian wanted to do much the same thing. In these close confines, total darkness felt almost suffocating, like they really were buried alive.
         "Tristian," came Johan's voice, too soft, quavering ever so slightly.
         "I'm over here," Tristian said, in way of reassurance.
         "We both are," Michelle added.
         "Tristian, there's . . . there's someone here . . . with us . . ." Johan's voice sounded two seconds away from cracking completely and he seemed to be barely controlling it. "I can hear him, he's standing . . . standing really close to me . . . breathing . . . I can hear him breathing right in my . . . ear, oh lord . . ." Johan's voice was drowned out by a sound not unlike a shriek, and it took Tristian a few seconds to realize the sound had come from Johan.
         Then he felt a cool, dry hand on the bare skin of his own arm and he didn't know what else to do.