Chapter 17

17.
         In the blink of an eye, two things happened.
         The first was in darkness.
         The second was not.
         Just when the whistling of the falling castle cutting through the nonsupportive air had grown to a fever pitch, to the point where Tristian felt his brain was going to never stop screeching and never stop hearing the Dark Lord laughing, everything stopped.
         The theory of inertia states that an object in motion remains in motion unless acted on by an outside force. In the semi-darkness Tristian saw a vaguely human shape throw its arm to the side and grunt painfully. That's when the screaming fell away and the castle stopped moving. However, the force that had stopped the castle was not enough for those inside.
         Tristian learned that a second later that he was not being acted on by an outside force when his body slammed brutally into the unyielding floor. In the whirling second that followed, perhaps with a short period of blacking out, several things came to his attention, even as he tried to think through a suddenly throbbing head.
         One was that the castle had stopped moving. Unless it had reached terminal velocity and those inside would experience no motion at all, he couldn't sense any motion. Tristian's eyes were still closed, as he tried to fight his headache off. Beyond him he could hear a gentle grunting and a softer moaning. In the distance there were fires and frenzies and furnitures all intersecting in a cacophony of sound. There was a smell too, of old dank stone infested with rotting fungi, the crisp angular stench of burning wood, the pungent odor of sweat and fear. All this entered his brain in those same seconds, to be processed.
         In that same moment, he also realized that he had indeed hit the floor. Which either meant that the Dark Riders who had been holding him were no longer doing so, having been knocked to the floor in that same jolting instant, or they had vanished entirely. Part of him wanted them to be there, so he could take out his slowly bubbling fury on them. The other, perhaps more rational part of him realized that with their dread work done, the Dark Riders would flee to enact whatever part of their plan was left.
         All of that happened in the darkness.
         Let there be light.
         He opened his eyes just as the light came back on again. Before him, Agent Two stood almost immolated, red and crimson flickering around his body, running up and down the contours and tatters of his robe. His arms were thrown out to the side and his face would have suggested ecstacy except that it was clearly under strain. The light threw contrasts on everything, creating shadows of blood. Tristian took a second to stare around. There were no Dark Riders in sight. Damn. His body felt tense, trembling, the near death experienced had pumped unused adrenaline in his body. He wanted a fight. Needed it. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down. It was hard.
         Slightly beyond him, Agent One was kneeled over something. His light was softer but his face was no less intense. The body he seemed to be bending over was a man's. Johan's. He remembered the Dark Lord, cackling even as he ripped a slash in the man's throat. Bleeding himself all over the floor. Just beyond that he could see a woman's head, the rest of her body lost to shadows. Michelle. She seemed to be breathing and that thought brought some hope back into his soul. The rest of the room was bathed in shadows, but he could see the shattered remains of furniture, the ghosts of wood and glass. It was so quiet, like the world was holding its breath.
         Getting to his knees, he found that movement was painful. His world was moving in abstract lines, he felt so strange. Sliding toward the Agents, he somehow found the words to start a sentence.
         "Johan . . . is he . . ." not wanting to complete the thought and perhaps make it real. If he was dead, at least he would hopefully be with his wife. They wouldn't have been apart for too long. It was so morbid to think that way, Tristian never wanted to believe that he would ever think strings of thought like that. To believe that living was worse for Johan because he would have to suffer through the rest of his life to see his wife again. He never thought like that, he was always on the side of hope, always fighting even when it felt like there was nothing left to fight for.
         Or perhaps that had always been the case and now he was just admitting it.
         Agent One didn't appear to hear him at first but then his face relaxed a bit. Without turning around, he said to Tristian, "For the moment I think I have him stable. I just have to close the throat wound up and make sure that his vital functions are fine." He shifted slightly from his position on the floor to address his brother. "Sure you don't need help with that?"
         "Not . . . a problem," Agent Two said with forced cheerfulness through gritted teeth. "I mean, it's only . . . a few thousand tons of . . . rock and stuff . . . no big deal . . ."
         "Glad to hear it, I wasn't sure I'd would have made it here in time," Agent One responded, seemingly not noticing his brother's distress. He faced Tristian now. "Normally I would have gone right for the castle but the Dark Lord did this to Johan as a taunt, to make me choose." His face grew grim and his voice was unnaturally harsh. "I couldn't let that bastard have the last laugh."
         "Then he's going to be . . . okay?"
         "Oh yes, I think I've gotten him stable enough so that I can end my bodily meddling . . . let me just . . ." the glow around Agent One and Johan increased, and motes fluttered in the air, apparent byproducts of a process that Tristian's mind could never grasp. He had seen healing before but in this dim light, in this quiet time, in these situations, the whole circumstance seemed to be brimming over with . . . magic.
         "Ah . . ." Agent One said after a moment, and the glow faded to the barest of flickers. He leaned back on his hands in an all too human gesture and bent his head back, working apparently stiff neck muscles. "I think that should do it, he'll rest for a bit." Then, like he was made of rubber he leapt into a crouch and spun to check on the unconscious Michelle. "Let's see you as well."
         "Agent . . ." Tristian asked slowly, and Agent One turned slightly to face him, "if you were the only one here . . . if there wasn't anyone else around and you were faced with the same choice, either the castle or Johan, would have you have . . ."
         "Saved Johan?" Agent One finished for him. He was holding Michelle's head in his hands, gently. Little red lights were dancing around her face, highlighting the tension behind the eyes, the cut on her forehead. It all seemed so red. Blood ridden. "I'm sorry, Tristian but probably not." His voice was soft, quiet. "I have the entire castle to think about. I would have tried both but . . ." he shrugged. "I can't let everyone die just to save one person. I think you would understand that."
         "Yeah, I . . ." Tristian shook his head, "these days I think I'm starting to."
         "Trust me, Tristian," Agent Two rasped from his uncomfortable looking position, "with our abilities, we've got an obligation to help as many as we can, you know? I mean, face it, do you really think that after hours of endless torture, the first thing I want to do when I get back is hold up an entire floating castle by myself-"
         "I would have helped if you had asked," Agent One murmured without turning from his examination of Michelle.
         Agent Two grinned. "Quiet, you're ruining my lament. The point is, I've got the means to do it and as much as I would really like to be somewhere else right now, or even switching places with my dear brother."
         Tristian furrowed his brow. "Why didn't you switch places, since you were probably weaker after the . . . torture-"
         "As weird as this sounds," Agent Two responded, "holding up a castle is infinitely easier than saving someone. All I've got to do is overcome gravity. My brother had to outrun death, who tends to fight back. Right now, all I'm good for is standing in one place and glowing, pretty much."
         "You flatter me," Agent One said, gently laying Michelle's head down on the floor.
         "Yeah, well don't let it go to your head, or you'll see just how damn heavy this place is. Geez, I wish I could sweat."
         "Complaints, complaints," Agent One responded with the ghost of a smile on his face. He addressed Tristian, "Michelle is fine as well, the Dark Riders struck her to knock her out so that she couldn't use her magic, and she was well on her way to suffering a bad case of fatigue. She'll rest for a bit, too."
         "Good," Tristian said, feeling sincere for once. Emotions were so hard to come by these days, everything he did felt like going through the motions. Maybe that was the whole problem. Everywhere he went he saw the same patterns. "But now what, where do we go from here? We've saved the castle, but the Shadow seems to hold all the cards. Hell, he even kidnapped you and had you at his mercy. We've been playing catchup the entire time, how are we going to get one step ahead of him?"
         "By not giving up," Agent One replied. "And through a bit of quick thinking. The Shadow didn't win here, Tristian. A lot of people died but a lot more were saved. More than you might think."
         "Yeah," Agent Two added, "during your little ride outside, you might have noticed a city below us. That was the reason for the Shadow wanting to drop this castle to the ground, he figured he'd kill two birds with one very large stone."
         "So now he only has to kill them manually," Tristian said, shifting his weight so that he lay more on his side, though still upright. "But why all the killing, why all these deaths? The Shadow always has a plan, he's not about needless killing." Tristian blinked as he remembered something the Shadow had once said. "Guys, he said, the Shadow said that this land was the key to everything. What did he mean about that?"
         Both Agents glanced at each other, sharing worrying looks.
         "We're not exactly sure-" Agent One said slowly.
         "Bull," Agent Two interupted, "we know exactly why." Agent One shot his brother a hard look but Agent Two kept talking, "Don't give me any of that secrecy stuff, the only two people it could really affect are out cold, and the boy's got a right to know, if you ask me. He's mixed up in this now even more than we are."
         "Very well then," Agent One said a bit coldly, "would you prefer to tell him then, or were you just going to leave that to me."
         Agent Two smiled sweetly. "Remember how much better you always said you were explaining things? Take it away, chuckles."
         Agent One sighed. "Why does this not surprise me?" He glanced back at his brother. "Oh and I might as well give you formal permission to interject at any point, since we both know you're going to do that anyway." He gave a half hearted shrug. "Just thought I'd get that out of the way."
         "Nyah," Agent Two taunted.
         Agent One made a face and then turned to Tristian. "As you've probably noticed, Tristian, this place has different properties than your home."
         "The magic," Tristian observed.
         "Exactly," Agent One confirmed. "As it turns out, we're no longer home Tristian in any conventional sense of the term. Right now, you've never been farther away from home."
         "Then . . . this isn't another dimension," Tristian asked, eyes narrowing. He was speaking in a low whisper, since it felt wrong to speak of such things in front of Michelle and Johan, who seemed blissfully unaware of those concepts. Perhaps they were named differently here.
         "Far from it, this is another Universe entirely, Tristian. A parallel one, where things turned out very similar. The only difference of course being that the laws of physics are subtlety changed, so that things such as magic are not only possible but commonplace."
         "Also why our powers are a bit wacky," Agent Two interjected. "Which is why the Shadow was able to take me out so easily."
         "The first part of what my brother says is absolutely correct," Agent One continued smoothly, implying that the second part might not be right, talking over his brother's attempts to protest that implication. "We're affected by it as well, even more so because of what we consist of, which is energy."
         "Okay then," Tristian said, rubbing the back of his head, trying to get a picture in his mind of what the Agents were talking about. While in college he had studied things like this but only in theory. The thought of ever having to put it into practice had never occured to him back then. "But how does some different physical laws make this place any easier to take over."
         "Oh, other than it doesn't seem to have a parallel equivilent of us to constantly throw monkey wrenches into the Shadow's plans, it isn't really any easier," Agent Two replied. "But then the Shadow is trying a bit harder than normal."
         "This place is the key, Tristian, but in a most devious fashion," Agent One broke back in. "This place is only the first step to his plans." He leaned forward and his voice was insistent. "Think about how we got here, Tristian, think about that."
         "We . . . didn't really teleport," Tristian said slowly, after a moment, almost not trusting his memory of the event. It had happened so quickly and things had escalated so much when they had gotten there that he hadn't had time to think about it. "We just sort of . . . shifted here. Does that make any sense?"
         "That's the key," Agent One said softly. "This Universe doesn't lay separate like the Vortex Creatures' Universe, it . . . lays over our own for lack of a better term. We can perceive it normally because it exists on a different level . . . are you following this?"
         "Almost," Tristian said after a moment. Allowing himself a small grin, he shook his head. "Still, right now you'd be making a lot of people I knew very happy if I could tell them about this. My relativity is a bit rusty but I think you're saying that the fabric . . . vibrates on a Universal scale differently than ours."
         "So by changing our vibrations, if you would, we merely sidestep into this other place. It's the same going back." Agent One gave a sly smile as he saw Tristian's eyes widening. "Now you're starting to see."
         "My God," Tristian whispered. "If the Shadow can secure this place, he can take over everything back home."
         "He can prepare undetectable armies that can merely shift into the places he wishes to attack instantly, and then shift back when the attack is over. No warning, no defense other than constant paranoid vigilance."
         "Which plays right into the Shadow's hands anyhow," Agent Two said, "so you're still screwed."
         "But the Naxgul-"
         "Can't affect a vibrational shift," Agent One told Tristian. "Even if the LORDS were so inclined to have them do that. I won't say we'd lose automatically but the fighting would ravage everything."
         "Everything," Tristian repeated softly. He imagined the battles he had seen over the years, now multiplied on a Universal scale, constant carnage, neverending warfare. All art, music, everything turned toward fighting, generations lost to the dance of combat.
         He looked down, shivering slightly at that thought. These recent years he had felt that his efforts were for nothing, that things weren't getting any better. Now here was definite proof that he could make a difference, that he could stop things from spiralling down into a forever degeneration. Here was a chance to get something done. It was what he had been waiting for.
         Eyes shining in the semidark, he looked back up at both Agents. "Where do we start?"
         "All right," Agent Two grinned at him.
         Agent One stood up, cupping his chin in his hand, deep in thought. "There are several options, but probably a twofold attack would work best. Mobilize the people, all of them, and demoralize the Dark Riders' armies, the Dark Riders themselves will keep fighting but there probably aren't that many here. Get rid of the army, you cut the legs off." He paced around a step and looked down at the two unconscious companions. "I would like to consult with Johan and Michelle on this as well. They know the land far better than me or my brother and much has probably changed since we were last here. Besides," and his voice dropped, "we're doing it for them, and the people like them." His gaze flickered from Michelle to Johan and lingered on the other man for a long time.
         After a moment he turned to his brother. "Mari . . . didn't make it. I'm sorry."
         "So am I," Agent Two replied, sorrow evident on his normally amused face. "I felt her die . . . the Shadow taunted me with the knowledge. He . . ." Agent Two trailed off, and then after a moment faced Tristian, his face still serious. "Even we can't save everyone, Tristian, and I have a poorer excuse than you ever will. But don't think it won't haunt me, you just can't let it consume you."
         "Or Johan," Agent One added.
         "I know," Tristian said quietly. Crossing his arms, he let his vision stray down to his two friends. "But why did she have to die? What was the point?"
         "Despair," Agent One said. "The trade that the Shadow traffics in. Johan had his wife killed in his most vulnerable moment, thinking her safe with the most powerful being he had known. If something could so easily take his wife away from him under those circumstances, then what would be the point in fighting? And, to have her so easily taken from us, with all our power, he means to throw it in our face, show us how helpless we really are. He . . ." Agent One took a deep breath, pressing his hands together. "He means to use your own doubts about yourself against you. Your fear of not being fast enough to save someone." His eyes blazed at Tristian. "You can't give in to that, that goes for all of us. If we give in, then we've lost, the same if he chops our heads off."
         Tristian continued to stare at his friends, thinking of Johan, who had lost so much and yet continued to fight the Dark Lord until the last second, even when death loomed. And Michelle, who had exposed herself to great danger without fear, without remorse. Johan, he was so brave and Michelle, brave and . . . and beautiful as well.
         "I won't let you down," he whispered, not sure if the Agents heard his words. They seemed to be conversing amongst themselves.
         "Mm, just what I thought as well," Agent One said in a normal tone of voice. Smiling slightly, he turned to Tristian, saying, "I think we've decided on our next destination."
         "Oh?" Tristian asked, almost afraid to know.
         "Have you ever wanted to meet a fairy?" Agent One asked him, still smiling.
         Tristian wasn't quite sure what to say to that.