The Man With A Thousand Faces: Sixteen
by redmoon
Sixteen
16 April, 2000, Chamdo, Tibet
Logan turned around, looking down at himself as Whistler admired his work. “Good God, you’re kidding me,” was all Loki said as the white silk ruffled in the breeze off the Mekong.
“You look sharp, kid,” Whistler said appreciatively. “Don’t know about those pants, but I could only arrange to get the shirt made before your flight,” he added, looking at the khakis Logan still wore, which had originally gone with his blazer. Now his blazer was gone but his pants weren’t, thankfully.
“I would look more inconspicuous dressed as a monk.” The two stood near the silk shop, a stone’s throw from the muddy Mekong. It was still quite cold, though not so cold as it had been four months ago when the two had been here last.
“When was the last time you were in the good ol’ U.S. of A?” Whistler raised an eyebrow. “American fashion ain’t what it used to be.”
Loki looked down as his wrist watch began to beep madly. “Ah, that would be my cue,” he said, deciding the shirt would have to do. “My flight leaves in an hour,” he elaborated. “Chamdo to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to New York.”
“You’ve got the new look,” Whistler acknowledged, “but are you ready to confront this?”
Loki made a small laugh. “You’re mister All-Seeing-Eyes of destiny, why don’t you tell me?”
“I’d been pretty much focused on making you look good, didn’t think to check.” He drew his hands smartly down his jacket then tucked his hands back into his pockets. “You better hurry, you’ll miss your flight.”
Loki chuckled and turned for the airport. He had everything he needed; he had better be ready. Besides, he thought resentfully, there was nothing left for him here.
5 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet
Logan pressed the gauze to the girl’s wrist. Soon the bleeding lessened. The water was dark and empty now, the clay pot holding nothing of value for the first time in centuries. The water that remained there was still dark in the shadow of the lamp, and still red with her blood, but the life was gone from it.
His hand circled her wrist quickly, wrapping the bandage snugly over the gauze. She still made no sound. Always she tugged at his heart. Always she looked like his Hanna, moved like his Hanna, cringed like poor Hanna. She winced as he adjusted the gauze under the bandage, allowing her at last to cradle the wound to her chest with her other hand. She was more than Hanna now, he thought. More than the image of a person, more than the shadow of a life: She was the Key now.
He looked up quickly as the great door opened with its groan of neglect. Haargan entered, followed by three monks in brown. The trio behind the master soon circled the still inwardly-cringing girl, pushing Logan rudely out of the way.
Loki’s eyes flashed and his grip tightened on the knife he still held when Haargan’s gentle hand came down on the conjurer’s shoulder. He gently pulled the angry man away from the triangle of now chanting monks. Logan recognized the chant. Not the words, but the tone and verse and focus of those involved were familiar to his ears. It was a displacement ritual. They were preparing to move her somewhere. Somewhere far, far away.
“Where are you taking her?” Loki hissed to the master, referring to the Key for the first time as its new form. “Tell me, my friend,” he said bitterly. “You owe me that.”
“It is true,” Haargan nodded slowly, his eyes trained on the three chanting before them. “We owe you a great debt of gratitude. The world does as well. None here possessed the skill of the craft needed to fashion such a...” he shook his head as he eyed the girl, “such a realistic imposter.” He removed his hand from Loki’s shoulder and folded it with the other at his waist. “And if she is discovered it means ruin for us all, yourself included.”
Loki eyes the old monk suspiciously. “According to you, the Key was possessed originally by a demon. It didn’t manage to do a great deal of damage then.”
“The Beast, as you are well aware, is no ordinary demon. It is godlike. It seeks not to master the... surgically precise potential of the Key, but instead to unleash it, utterly and with no thought to the consequences.”
“What are the consequences?” Loki asked, taking his eyes momentarily from the chanting three.
Haargan slowly turned his head to face the conjurer, his face stoic but his voice heavy. “Hell on Earth.”
Logan’s head whipped back to the trio as a bright pulse of light emerged from the floor and engulfed the terrified girl. The chanting abruptly ceased. “What happened? Where is she?” Loki looked quickly from the triangle to the master and back.
“She is in the ether,” Haargan said calmly. “She will be called back when the monks in Czech perform the parallel ritual. There she will be given a name, an identity and a memory, ready to enter the world as if she always was.”
“And the world she enters?” Loki raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Won’t it notice she’s the new girl on the block?”
“No,” Haargan replied simply. “We have prepared her world in a similar fashion, adding her presence to history from afar, allowing her to create her own effects on the world, create her own memories in others. Soon the two worlds shall meet seamlessly and no one will notice the transition.”
“If you can alter history,” Logan hissed as the monks slipped past them out of the room, “why not just prevent the Beast from coming here in the first place?”
“You are young,” Haargan said with a hint of patronization, “so I will forgive your ignorance. The Order of Dagon has spent a thousand years protecting the Key. It has been threatened countless times by forces which seek to use it and those who seek to destroy it. Even the descendants of Alexius’ knights are in pursuit of it, convinced it is treacherous and must be destroyed.” Logan tensed at the thought of his precious Key in peril. “We have learned through hard trials and often deadly errors that meddling overmuch in the history of things can work against us as often as it can work for us.”
“I don’t understand,” Logan grumbled, following the aged master to the lamp where it was blown out with aged breath.
“You are familiar with the concept of paradox?” The monk asked, closing the old door behind them as they exited the room never again to be entered.
“Of course,” he said irritated, “but I’m sure if you were careful-”
“Our actions are a millennia’s learned care and discreetness,” Haargan interrupted. “Were we to simply kill the form of the Beast before it became a threat to us, as you suggest,” he lectured, “then by the time history had reached the present, we would have had no need to ever perform such a ritual, thus reversing our efforts.”
Logan sighed dejectedly. He had to admit, the monk had a point. “Believe me, my friend,” Haargan went on, “this is the most effective defense possible.”
“Where are we going?” Logan asked after a moment as they walked down another set of adjoining corridors long forbidden to him.
“I told you that we owe you a great debt of gratitude,” Haargan said confidently, “perhaps you cannot have that which you so covet, but there are many powers in this world. And after a thousand years of searching for them...” He clicked the handle to the much used door and opened it noiselessly.
Logan’s eyes grew wide in wonder. The room was laid out with display tables and shelves, each filled with all manner of relics. Some were glowing, others were glistening, and still others were dusty and leather bound.
“Skulls of saints,” Haargan said with pride, “the Lost Arc of the Covenant, the Talisman of Yassim, the Scepter of Solomon, the Orb of the Durgaii...” He trailed off as Logan moved reverently into the room, his eyes at first moving over the room at random but finally coming to rest upon the display case directly ahead. “And the Five Spheres of Dagon,” Haargan concluded, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. Logan certainly had an eye for things of importance.
“What are they?” Loki extended a hand and drew his finger tips slowly down the glass of the case, his eyes alight with the glow from behind. “Not usual orbs. I don’t remember them from any ancient text.” His voice was quiet and respectful.
“They appear in very few texts; only those I have written myself,” the master explained. “They were each created separately, by the monks of this order, for different purposes.”
The Spheres were each a different size, arranged on the black velvet from least to greatest. The largest was the size of a basketball and was completely black, giving no reflection from its surface. “This,” Haargan indicated the greatest of the five, “was created first. It was used to vanquish a legion of vampires by night. When left in the sun for six days, it acquires at first a glow and then a brilliance equal to the sun.”
Loki raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You mean like a solar powered flashlight?”
Haargan frowned, a little offended. “It was a marvel eight hundred years ago.” The next smallest sphere, about two thirds the diameter of the first, was smokey red and glassy on its surface. “This is the source of the Order’s ability to alter history,” the monk continued. “All events through time and space are fed through here, moving from the future to the present to the past. It is the physical manifestation of the instant that we exist in time. It is now.”
Loki frowned, squinting into his reflection in the sphere. He saw nothing. Whether it was because the sphere required some special ritual to activate it, or because he was a specter, Loki didn’t care to know.
“The next sphere,” Haargan said, lifting the glass case in order to examine the object in question more closely, “is of vital importance. Now more than ever. It must follow the Key at any cost.” He gently removed the glowing yellow sphere from its place at the center of the lineup, holding it easily in one hand. It was about the size of a grapefruit, Logan thought. “This sphere,” Haargan continued, “was created to repel the Beast.” He hefted it and turned it over, inspecting its flawless surface. “It is powerful, but it is not infallible. Nothing is, against such power as the Abomination.”
“You call it the Beast, the Abomination,” Logan pondered, gazing at the yellow glow, “what is its name? Or do you not know it?”
“Its name is sacrilegious to utter; is spoken with nothing but terror by those who witness its passing; is the last death knell of too many good men and has no place in this house of God.” Haargan placed the Dagon sphere back into the indent in the velvet, as if to finalize all discussion on the matter.
“The next sphere,” Haargan indicated the silver one the size of a tennis ball, “is the reason myself and none of the monks of Dagon must fear the ravages of age. It was created second, when several of our wisest and most dedicated brothers fell to the decay of time, including Tarnis himself.” Haargan lowered his head for a short moment, unwillingly recalling the many who had died in the service of the order, some peacefully... some not.
“What’s this little guy here?” Loki plucked the glass ball from the velvet, rolling it around in his palm. It was no bigger than a golf ball.
“Little more than a trinket, I’m afraid,” Haargan responded, unconcerned with the cavalier way Loki was tossing the small object between his hands. “It is a meditative centerpiece, used for decades to aid in the achievement of higher states of consciousness.” The master sighed. “At least, that was the intention. It has been used in the past, sadly, as little more than a paperweight.”
Loki looked down at the little thing between his thumb and index finger. “Aw, you just need a little magical tune-up, don’t you, little guy?”
Haargan straightened. “For your help in our time of need, the Order offers you any one thing from this room, brother Logan, excepting of course this-” He took the yellow Dagon Sphere and slid it into the inner folds of his robe. “Choose wisely.”
Loki was tossing the small crystal sphere into the air and catching it, as if it were a baseball. “I think I’ve picked my favorite,” he said with a happy smile. “I feel meditatively centered already.”
Haargan raised an exasperated eyebrow and sighed. “Very well,” he said at last. The two left; the thousand year old monk, with his hands in his robe, walking as solemnly as when he had entered; the comparative child walking with a little skip in his step, tossing and catching the littlest Dagon sphere.
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