Otto Linke
Acolyte
Samuel Gower lived in an apartment over a set of storefronts, just off of Charring Cross road, south-west of the British Museum, with underground parking for those few residents who owned vehicles and convenient access to the Leicester Square tube station. For the purposes of an aging academic with a modest income from his research at the museum and frequent lectures at universities, a taste for live theater, and a budding addiction to casino poker, it was the perfect location for a bachelor flat. Unfortunately for Oliver, the situation of the apartment directly between two major cultural institutions and a prominent bank meant that every approach to Gower’s apartment was thoroughly covered by the London closed circuit monitoring apparatus.
“Got a plan of how to get in?” Remiel asked him as they walked past the door to Gower’s apartment, keeping their heads straight ahead as they both counted the white boxes mounted on building exteriors up and down the street.
“Not exactly. We’re getting more of these surveillance setups in the States, but I’m not exactly experienced at the business of home invasion. Most of my work is done in places so remote I’m lucky to get a network connection.”
Remiel nodded. She had suspect as much. “You are certain that you need Gower?”
“No, but I want him.”
“I’m not going to help you get revenge for turning you in, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Oliver’s mouth twisted into a vicious smile, but he shook his head. “Don’t worry about that, I’m not really the vengeful sort.”
“Then what do you want with Gower?”
Oliver shook his head and paused beneath the wide blue awning of an Italian coffee shop, crammed into the tight street front beside a crowded Chinese noodle bar. He gestured to the signs and said, “Which do you want for lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well I am. It’s been a hell of a day and the last thing I consumed was a beer almost eighteen hours ago. If we hadn’t grabbed my things from the hotel before coming here I’d look like I’d been kidnapped and nearly drowned.” He paused for a moment, still surveying the local dining options, as a wicked grin spread across his lips. “Oh, wait, that is what happened to me. Thanks for not raiding my room, by the way.”
“Our resources aren’t that extensive,” Remiel commented.
“Could have fooled me. How about some pizza?” Oliver nodded up the street to a pizza shop which had a vacant seat in the window, from which they could watch the door to Gower’s apartment.
“Fine.”
An hour later Oliver had satiated the gnawing pain in his belly and said precisely ten words to Remiel. The anger that had surged through him when she had informed him that Amber had been targeted by Zedekiah had faded, leaving behind the almost pleasant glow of a large stockpile of bitter ammunition for sardonic remarks. Amber was safe, he had received a text confirming her departure for places unknown before he reached London, and the thrill of adventure was beginning to take hold of Oliver’s spirit.
Meanwhile, Remiel had picked at her significantly smaller serving while watching Oliver intently from across the table. It did not surprise her that a man like Oliver, who was so obviously given to strong emotion and had an insatiable hunger for knowledge, might be accepted by the spirit that dwelled within the heartwood. Many corrupt men had come before him, serving the purposes of the greater good despite their innate flaws, and just as many truly good men had been duped into advancing the cause of evil. Still, there was something about his cavalier attitude that bothered her more than she might have anticipated.
Finally, she could take it no longer. “Why do you do it?”
“Do what?” Oliver asked, settling back into his seat and inspecting her face, while carefully avoiding eye contact.
“Look for the shards of the mechanism.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Maybe because I saved your life.”
“You’re not the first.”
Remiel flushed, then felt her face color a deeper red as she grew angry at herself for letting Oliver get to her. “I’m just trying to understand you.”
“Stick with me through this mess and you’ll know me as well as anyone.”
“If you won’t tell me about yourself, then what about Gower, what do you want with him?”
Oliver crossed his arms on the table in front of him and leaned across the table, then whispered, “I will, but first I have a question of my own for you.”
“Fine.”
“Why did Gower sell me out to you?”
“How should I know?”
Oliver rolled his eyes and waved at the street outside the window. “Please. You knew where to find Gower.”
“Gower is Zedekiah’s acolyte, not mine. I’m not privy to their private communication.”
Oliver believed that, but he decided to press a little harder, just to see what he could learn from Remiel while she was on the defensive. “And you don’t have any acolytes of your own to call upon?”
“None that will help in this situation,” Remiel said. Privately, she wondered if any of her acolytes would remain faithful to her when word of her betrayal spread through the ranks of the Watchers. Fortunately, the very same diffuse, highly isolated nature of their network, which had frequently frustrated their efforts, would now work in her favor by preventing Zedekiah from reaching out to the other watchers.
“So that’s it? There’s nothing you can tell me about why so many people are desperate to get their hands on the folio.”
“Nothing in particular. It’s certainly ancient, but I’m not any sort of expert in Norse religion, so I can’t tell you if any of the content is revelatory.”
“Then what good are you to me, Remiel? Seriously, I’m grateful to you for breaking me out of that place, but if you can’t bring in any backup, if you don’t have any insights to offer, then maybe we should just separate now.”
Remiel shook her head. “No, I can help you Oliver.”
“How?”
She shook hear head again. “No, not yet. It’s your turn to answer a question.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. As far as he was concerned, asking questions was not the best way for Remiel to earn his trust, but there was a strange, cold magnetism to her that made him want to confide his deepest secrets. He hated that, thought of it as a failure of his will, to feel this sudden irrational connection to a woman he had just met, especially since she had initially been his captor. He pushed against it with all his might, endeavoring to bury the unwanted emotion beneath a sardonic detachment, but could still feel the warm fingers slipping through the barriers and wrapping bands of hot iron around his throat.
He cleared his throat, flashed a cocky grin that he knew came across as false, and waved for her to go ahead.
“Why do you need Gower to translate the folio for you? Don’t you know enough of the old European languages to translate it yourself?”
“I could manage by myself, but I want an outside perspective.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s an expert in Norse religion and languages. He can tell at a glance details that would take me hours, even days of research to notice.”
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“I don’t know, Remiel. Maybe it has something to do with being hunted by angry Norse gods and kidnapped by psychopathic guardian angels.”
Remiel had to smile at that. She opened her mouth to bite back, but stopped when Oliver raised a hand between them.
“Here he comes.”
Oliver and Remiel watched as Samuel Gower shuffled up the street from the tube station, carrying a small briefcase in one hand and a cheep plastic bag from a Chinese takeaway shop in the other. He passed by their table, not even glancing up to see them watching him through the plate glass window, and paused a dozen yards down the street, waiting to cross to his apartment door.
“Ready to share your plan yet?” Remiel asked.
“Just keep up and don’t get in my way,” Oliver said, rising from his seat and turning towards the door. “Oh, and try not to look suspicious for the cameras.”
Remiel scrambled to follow after Oliver as he darted out the door, down the sidewalk, and crossed the street right behind Gower. They caught up with him just as he finished pressing his security card to the electronic sensor beside the door and bent to pick up his dinner bag, which he had set on the walkway while he fumbled with his wallet.
“I’ll get that for you, buddy,” Oliver chirped, stooping to grab the plastic bag of food.
Gower started and, when he saw Oliver’s grinning face, nearly collapsed against the brown painted brickwork. “How... What...” he spluttered, glancing rapidly from Oliver to Remiel and back again. “Why is she...”
“Invite us up and I’ll explain everything,” Oliver said, maintaining a smile that told all passersby and the ubiquitous surveillance cameras that he was nothing more than a friend of the old man who hadn’t visited for a long while. “It’s been too long since we sat down for a chat. And of course you know my friend here, she’s a friend of Zedekiah.” Oliver gestured at Remiel as he twisted the handle with the hand holding the bag and nudged the door open with the toe of his boot.
“But Zedekiah...”
“Please, Mr. Gower, can we go inside to discuss this?” Remiel said, nodding to the open door.
Gower blinked uncertainly and glanced up and down the street, as if he expected someone to sweep in and rescue him, then shook his head and turned to the doorway. He preceded them up the narrow steps, between narrow walls papered in cheery blue and yellow flowers, to the second story landing, where he again pressed his security card against the sensor beside his apartment door. Oliver pushed him aside, gesturing for Remiel to remain in the hall, then entered the apartment ahead of the others and scanned the entranceway, cramped kitchen, and living room for any obvious weapons. Once he was reasonably certain that there were no guns, swords, or bottles of pepper spray within easy reach, Oliver waved for the others to enter.
“What right do you have to come barging into my home like this?” Gower blustered as soon as Remiel had pushed the door shut behind him.
Oliver slid the bag of takeaway onto the passthrough counter of the kitchenette with measured care, waited just a second until he heard the soft intake of break that heralded another outburst from Gower, then rounded on the old man and grabbed him by the collar. He propelled Gower back, through the cluttered living room, and shoved him back towards the tattered black couch. The back of Gower’s legs hit the coffee table and he fell, arms wavering feebly, and landed on the couch at an awkward angle with his feet splayed out on the table.
Oliver leapt over the table and straddled Gower’s legs, dropping down so his full weight rested on the man’s thighs, pinning him down. He grabbed the lapels of Gower’s jacket with both fists and bent until his face was mere inches from that of his old professor. “You sold me out, Sam.”
“No...”
“Yes.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I do. You’re an acolyte of Zedekiah, right? What does that mean, Sam? Do you worship him or just hold him in reverence as your own personal conduit to god?”
“Oliver, I...”
“He’s dead, Sam.”
Gower’s face twisted into a confused mask as his eyes darted from side to side, seeming to seek a place where they could see past Oliver’s head, perhaps to see how Remiel took this news. Oliver moved his head to the side and let Gower get a look at Remiel, who stood behind them, watching impassively.
Oliver put one finger on Gower’s chin and guided his face back to look at his own. “That’s right, Sam. I killed him myself. You always looked down on me for putting my quest for the truth above the stuffy academic worship of long dead facts, but look where it’s got you. I’m alive and your master is dead.”
“Please, Oliver, you have to be lying. I’ll do whatever you want, just stop lying and tell me the truth.”
“He’s dead. Look into my eyes when I say it and tell me if I am lying. I shot Zedekiah at least ten times in the chest and left his body at the bottom of a lake.”
Gower began to tremble as the truth of Oliver’s words began to seep into his mind. Oliver moved away from him and settled into a wide recliner that was set between two overflowing bookshelves across the room from the couch. Gower pulled himself up into a more comfortable position, then dropped his hands to his lap and sat with his chin on his chest, weeping quietly. Remiel took all of this in with stoic silence, then pulled a straight backed chair from the dining table, which was cluttered with papers and books, and sat down off to one side, where she could see both men at once. Oliver’s sudden, violent outburst had surprised her, but she knew that she had to trust him and see where all of this was going.
Gower sniffed a few times, wiped his eyes with a trembling hand, and looked up at the other two. “So, you’ve come back to kill me for turning you over to Zedekiah, like you killed him?”
“No, Sam, I’m not going to kill you.”
“What then?”
“Well,” Oliver mused, savoring the word as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, his fingers twined and pointing towards Gower. “I could do to you what Zedekiah had planned for me. Any idea what that was?”
Gower shook his head, but Oliver caught a glint of fear return to his eyes.
“Zedekiah, the divine master who you turned me over to, planned to cut me into little bits and mail those pieces home to my family until one of us revealed the location of a relic that I tracked down last month. How about it, should I do that to you? I bet you could still translate the Wagner folio without your big toes.”
“No! Please, Oliver, don’t hurt me. I didn’t know that Zedekiah would harm you, I really didn’t.”
Remiel cleared her throat and Gower flinched as if he had been struck, then darted his eyes towards her. He ran a trembling hand through his gray hair, then mopped tears from the corners of his eyes. Remiel lounged in her chair with her right foot propped on her left knee, idly tapping a finger on the side of her shoe as she said, “You know who, and what I am, do you not?”
He nodded and gave a soft whimper.
“Then you should believe me when I tell you that this man is not one to be trifled with. However you remember him as a student, just consider that when Zedekiah struck me down for my rebellion and I lay wounded and defenseless, Oliver Lucas stood unflinching before your master’s power and shot him down. He is a dangerous man, yet I have seen the blessing of God upon him, so I have thrown in my lot with him and will not prevent him from doing whatever he deems necessary to complete his quest.”
Oliver jumped back in to the conversation then, saying, “Which is her polite way of telling you to talk, now. I want to know why you handed me over to Zedekiah and what is so damn special about that folio.”
Gower glanced back and forth between his two interrogators a few times, then wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve and nodded. “Can I have my tablet? It will make this easier.”
Oliver strode over to where Gower’s briefcase had fallen, tossed the battered leather case onto the table, and clicked it open. Inside he found a stack of papers and the same battered tablet computer that Gower had been using to read in the pub the night before. Has it really been only a day? Oliver shook his head, feeling the weight of the last twenty-four hours beginning to settle over him.
He carried the tablet back to the couch and set it on the coffee table, then stood beside Gower and said, “There you go. Start talking.”
Gower unfolded himself from between the couch cushions and settled into a more comfortable position perched at the edge. He began tapping on the tablet, unlocking it, pulling up a research organizer that Oliver recognized from his own phone, and swiping through several nested layers of notes until he reached his objective.
“Here, look at this section of the translation that I started last night.”
Oliver picked up the tablet and began to read. He immediately noted that Gower had sketched a rune, or in some cases two, above each stanza of the poem:
(ANSUZ)
In the days before his creation,
When the bones of earth were yet young,
Lord Odin dwelt in the land of Värmd.
A leader he was, and fine, strong of hand and deep of mind.
(BERKANO)
Maidens flocked to his bed,
Like crows settling upon fresh laid seed,
Mead they drank, sweet and strong, until
each left him, forever satiated of their hunger for men.
(URUZ)
The mightiest of warriors he,
Son of giants, fist of iron, spear like lightning.
The lord Odin ruled with strength.
The lord Odin commanded all that he saw.
(PERTH)
Across the ribs of the giant,
Over the giant’s blood, clouds cowering in the ripple of his bow,
Not until he arrived at the shore did Odin perceive:
The Wanderer come to Värmd, wrapped in his night cloak.
(WUNJU PERTH)
He made his way to the hall of Odin
Wherein the mighty feasted, gorging themselves
Venison, fish, bread, and mead, heaped upon the tables.
The Wanderer entered Odin’s hall and the winds howled around him.
(ALGIZ)
“Mighty Lord Odin!” cried he, standing tall
The cloak, black as night, danced in the winds around him
“None here can best you in strength, nor any in the world
Like a plow horse you are, in strength of arm, leg, breath, and loin.”
(ANSUZ)
So hearing, the mighty Odin arose,
His breast, swelled with pride, heaving
His face, flushed with mead, glowing
His manly virtues, aroused at the truthful flattery, proud.
(WUNJU)
“What brings you to my joyful hall?”
Bellowed he, the strong one, the lord Odin.
“Such dour continence ill fits one so
Blessed by the gods to enter this place of feasting.”
(PERTH)
The Wanderer opened his mouth,
A gaping hollow, redolent of decay. As flesh
Abuzz with flies, heaving with the maggots within
So did his tongue cleave black lips to speak:
(HAGALAZ)
“Strength of arm, virile might, respect of men, all
Pass away in the withering of time. So shall it be,
For you, mighty Odin.
The Worm awaits, his jaw agape, to consume all mortals.”
(ANSUZ)
Within his breast Odin stirred,
Desire for life, for knowledge, for staying the hand of death.
He stepped from his throne and cried out,
“Do you bring nothing but ill words?”
(PERTH OTHILA)
Again the wanderer spoke, his words as gilt iron:
“To know the lay of all mankind, wherever they may stand
And stave off the maw of death, however grievous the wound,
I offer these to you, great lord Odin.”
(ANSUZ)
Then did mighty Odin invite the stranger to sit.
Hospitality to the wandering man he did order.
A place prepared, mead poured, women to sing.
Together they supped and spoke of the secret ways.
Oliver looked up from the tablet and saw Remiel and Gower watching him expectantly. He handed the device over to Remiel and waited in silence, watching her as she read the translation. He thought he caught the slightest twitch in her expression, but it might have been nothing more than confusion at the imperfect meter of the translated rhymes.
When she had finished she shrugged and passed the tablet back to Oliver. “This is what pushed you to turn Oliver over to Zedekiah?” she said, leaning back in her chair and looking skeptically at Gower. “I’m glad that you don’t have anything against me, if you turn people over to be tortured on such paltry evidence.”
“But don’t you see it?” Gower demanded. He lifted the tablet and pointed at a stanza. “This clearly depicts Odin as receiving his godhood, not through divine birth, but as a gift from a wandering stranger. I have not completed the translation yet, but later he is described trading his eye to Mímir in exchange for a nugget of gold, which he put in his head in place of the missing eye.”
“Yes, it’s typical mythological claptrap. Next you’ll tell me that the Prose Edda is a truthful account of how the European continent was formed.”
Oliver burst out with a sardonic laugh. He shook his head and said, “You’re one to talk, Remiel. Living proof of divine intervention in the affairs of mankind, and you mock Sam for claiming to see evidence of magic in an ancient text. Hell, if I’m putting the pieces together correctly, this text describes the very same magical object that your order is sworn to protect.”
“I’m not claiming that the shards do not exist, only that it is foolishness to presume that someone can gain immortality by shoving a shard into their head, let alone that such an action would become the basis for an entire religion.”
Oliver contemplated Remiel’s words for a long while, looking fixedly at her until she shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. It still struck him as odd that this woman could be so ignorant of the details of a mystery that she had helped to perpetrate for thousands of years. He wondered if the process of reincarnating, which she had mentioned as an option for Zedekiah if his body did not recover from being beaten, shot, and drowned, might possibly bring with it some memory loss. Perhaps that could explain why Remiel was so maddeningly obtuse at times. Of course, there was always the distinct possibility that she was lying to him.
“If I may interject,” Gower whispered, his head resting in his hands as he stared forlornly at his feet. “I contacted my master because I knew that Oliver had dedicated his life to finding something remarkably similar to the secret device which the Watchers have long protected. I had considered calling him as soon as Oliver contacted me, but decided to wait, in hopes that Oliver would bring me word of some other quest that had distracted him. Only when I read this portion of the folio did I determine that, to all appearances, Oliver was once again in pursuit of one of the mysterious shards that so captivated him as a student.” As he finished he looked up, did his best to straighten his shoulders, and looked to Oliver. “Please, Oliver, just leave well enough alone. You don’t understand the powers with which you are meddling.”
Oliver gave Gower a half smile and shook his head. “No, Sam, I’m not going to stop. The best you can do is help me interpret those runes so that I don’t go blundering into a crevasse in a cave somewhere.”
“Why do you need him to translate for you?” Remiel asked.
“Sam here wrote half the books worth reading on Norse culture. I could blunder my way through it, probably come up with the right answers in the end, but I don’t have time for that.”
Gower seemed to brighten some at that. He sat up and nodded along with Oliver’s assertions, then added, “I taught this boy all he knows about Scandinavian culture and language, and he isn’t even an especially good student. Always drifting off to some other culture or scrap of history, this lad. No true depth to his nature.”
“Sam, don’t make me reconsider not cutting off your toes,” Oliver snapped, only half joking.
Gower flinched at that, but it seemed that he had gotten over the initial shock of Oliver’s assault and the news that his master was dead, and was settling back into his accustomed role of Oliver’s professional gadfly. He tottered upright and said, “If you’ll excuse me, this ancient bladder needs relief and my dinner is growing cold. I cannot be expected to perform forced translation services under these circumstances.”
Oliver rose as well and produced the gun he had taken from Zedekiah’s acolyte and displayed it to Gower. “Don’t try anything stupid, Sam.”
The old man coughed a bitter laugh. “Please, mister Lucas, it would be quite foolish of you to fire that in the center of London. The surveillance network would pinpoint you to this building before my body hit the floor.”
“I’m not sure I believe that, Sam, whatever your public service announcements say. Just don’t go calling the police or digging an old ‘collectable’ weapon out of your bedroom. Give me what I want and I’ll be out of your thinning hair before you know it.”
Gower harrumphed and moved slowly across the room on popping knees, then disappeared into a doorway on the short hall to the side.
“Can you trust him?” Remiel whispered, rising and stepping close to Oliver.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “At least as much as I can trust you. Do you really think I buy that whole act you just put on?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend with me. I don’t know what you’re hiding, but I can’t believe that you don’t think Sam is right about a shard being connected to the origins of Norse mythology.”
Remiel’s mouth tightened and she raised her eyes to meet Oliver’s, but he turned away to pick up the tablet from the coffee table. He wouldn’t allow himself to be put under her spell, whether it was genuinely a magical effect of her supernatural origin, or merely an incredibly strong chemical attraction that he had towards her. He brushed past her and began clearing off the dining table so that he and Gower could begin working out the meaning of the runes.
Remiel watched him for several minutes, wondering how much Oliver had intuited from what she had told him of the Watchers, and how much of their purpose he had gathered from his investigation of the organization he had called “the Creed.” When Gower emerged from the bathroom and shuffled into the kitchen to unbox his Chinese takeaway, Remiel picked up the leather satchel from beside her chair and carried it over to the table where Oliver sat, engrossed in Gower’s translation of the folio.
“Do you need this?” she said, pulling the folio out from the bag.
Oliver took the folio without comment and began unfolding it on the worn surface of the hardwood tabletop. He placed the tablet beside the folio, then pulled out his phone and swiped through the reference works Hank and Amber had uploaded to him until he found Hank’s notes on the next opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
“What are those annotations?” Remiel asked, pointing to the darker, handwritten lines between the fading printed text of the folio.
“Wagner’s notes,” Oliver said.
“You mean he wrote on this?”
“Yes. It wasn’t quite so valuable to him as it is to us. To him it was just one among many old texts that he consulted when researching German mythology in preparation to write the Ring Cycle. According to my sources, Wagner reached out to every connection he had while he was living in Zurich, using the influence of more successful composers and the influence of a few well-connected friends to track down a variety of sources for German folk literature.”
“I never took you for an aficionado of continental opera,” Gower muttered, settling himself in a chair to Oliver’s left with plate of steaming rice and vegetables drenched in a thick brown sauce.
“I’m not.”
“Fascinating then, that you know so much about Richard Wagner. One might even suspect that you had been planning this theft for a long time, preparing a little background research, perhaps.”
Oliver jerked his head towards Remiel as she sat in the chair opposite Gower, “Like I told her, I have a source.”
“And this source told you that Wagner used this manuscript as source material for das Rheingold?”
Oliver shook his head and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and looking critically at Gower. “No, my source doesn’t even know about the folio. I put that together based on the fact that I stole the folio from an exhibit of German mythology that had just been completely reworked to display the folio as the centerpiece. Oh, and the handwritten notes that Wagner made on the folio.” He raised his eyebrows and waited, a part of him hoping that Gower would press the argument.
The old man shook his head, shoved a forkful of rice and veggies into his mouth, and chuckled deep in his throat as he chewed. He swallowed and looked at Oliver and Remiel thoughtfully for a few long seconds, then waggled his fork at Oliver and said, “I think you’re right, mister Lucas. I still don’t like you, but you came to the same conclusion as I, and I can respect you for that.”
“I can read the folio and notes, Gower, I just need your help getting this done fast.”
“And you shall have that help, once I have eaten my dinner.”
Oliver rolled his eyes and leaned forward to examine the folio again, eager for the translation to be complete. As he scrolled through the description he began to wonder if there might be a connection between the sequence of events described in the poem that Gower had translated and the plot of the opera. He grabbed a thick book from the corner of the table and flipped through the pages until he found a chapter on the rune known as Othila, the one which was drawn beside the first stanza of the poem Gower had begin translating. He skimmed over the pages to refresh his memory on the meanings of the rune, then returned to reading about the operas, searching for plot elements that might be related to the concept of inheritance, which the rune represented.
“You’re taking the easy way, mister Lucas, even though you know it will only lead to disaster.”
He shot an angry glare at Gower, who pushed another forkful of food into his mouth and chewed slowly, meeting Oliver’s gaze with indifference. Oliver knew he was just toying with him, but he took the bait anyway. “What should I be doing, then?”
“Certainly not paying too much attention to the runes written at the beginning of each stanza.”
“Then what would you suggest I pay attention to?”
“Those runes are little more than honorifics, intended to place the reader in the appropriate mood to read each stanza, based on the author’s perception of the events described. At least whoever completed this middle translation had the good sense to leave those runes intact instead of translating them.”
Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply. He had already been awake far too long and endured far too much in the last few days, but he would have to simply let Gower’s words pass over him, or he would never learn how to access the roots of Yggdrasil. “What should we do then?”
“I’d say that you need to pay attention to the actions of the characters in the poem. If you do that, then associate those actions with an appropriate rune, then you might find the answer you are looking for.” Gower pushed aside his plate and pulled his chair closer to Oliver. “Get ready for a long night, mister Lucas. We have a lot of reading to do.”
Over the next several hours Remiel watched in relative silence as the two men, one young and full of fire to track down a relic beyond his understanding, the other gray with age and clearly eager to be rid of his unwelcome visitor, worked through the night and well into the next morning to unlock the meaning of the ancient runes. Gower drank one cup after another of strong black tea and Oliver alternated between tea and cans of energy drinks delivered to the apartment with a large order of Chinese takeaway shortly before midnight. At first she did her best to appear interested in their work, interjecting questions into their discussions, peering over Oliver’s shoulder at the books he flipped through on the tabletop or the glowing screen of his phone, and leaning to peer at the folio as they worked, but eventually she gave up and retreated to the couch.
She lay on the worn cushions, closed her eyes, and slipped into the meditative state of mind that came to her as naturally as falling asleep. In her mind’s eye the disparate pieces of her situation hovered like elements of an especially intricate child’s mobile, each twirling in empty space and moving according to her imagined prediction of where the future might carry them. This was her native realm, a place of spirit and thought, unhindered by the confines of mortal flesh, but which she could only access when she relaxed control of her physical body. She examined the situation, trying to determine just how much she should divulge to Oliver, and how far she should allow him to go on this mad quest to capture more shards of the mechanism. She was especially concerned about the contents of the folio which, if accurate, could lead Oliver into places as dangerous as the shards themselves. If only Zedekiah had listened to reason, she whispered to herself, in that empty space. We could have worked together to bring Oliver into our fold, to harness his drive and find a way for him to help us protect humanity from the evil we have guarded for so long. But it was too late. Zedekiah had chosen to make an enemy of Oliver, despite his divine approval, and had fallen to him in battle. That, too, gave her pause. No matter how often she reminded herself that Oliver had clearly been chosen for some holy purpose, it was brutally obvious that he was a man of violence. Such had been used before, she knew, but rarely did their tales end in joy.
Distantly, she felt a hand fall on the shoulder of her incarnate body. Remiel reeled her consciousness back, wincing at the constriction of the carbonic mind as she wrapped herself in it, then opened her eyes of flesh and saw Oliver bending over her. A thick scruff of red stubble traced the line of his square jaw and dark shadows of exhaustion hung beneath his eyes. Despite the obvious signs of exhaustion, she saw a gleam in his eye as he stood upright and said, “We’re going to Sweden.”