"Blinded By the Light"
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dochermes"Blinded By the Light"
11/22/1998
I.
As soon as Bane stepped out of the dark green Mustang and the headlights snapped off, he was attacked by a Mandinka warrior from 16th Century Mali. The West African was a wiry muscular man below average height. Instead of the tribal garb one might expect, he wore regular modern clothing... shoes, slacks and a white polo shirt. In his right hand was a war club of fire-hardened ebony with a curved handle and a round head that had a pick-like point on the business end.
Fast and stealthy as the Mandinka was, his onslaught had no element of surprise. The Dire Wolf's senses were sharpened by two decades of Kumundu training. He side-stepped just enough to let the war club whistle past his head and he met the man's charge with an elbow to the forehead that used the Mandinka's own momentum to add more impact. The Preincarnated warrior slumped to his knees, dropping his weapon and making an incoherent dazed noise. He fell onto his face and his outline shimmered as his body reformed into an older American black man with a bald spot and a pot belly.
Emerging from the passenger side, Garrison Nebel had fastened the full length cloak of heavy gold material to drape over his white tunic and pants. In both hands, he held the Eyeless Helmet. "The Preincarnation effect dissipated when he passed out," said the blind mystic. "He is no threat to us now."
"First, there was the Samurai, then the Viking berserker, then the Aztec with his obsidian knife," Bane grumbled. "These guys are getting on my nerves." At forty years old, the Dire Wolf was a gaunt active figure dressed in the all-black field suit with its waist-length jacket bristling with a dozen weapons in various pockets. He closed the car door and crouched over the stunned cultist for a moment. "Pulse is steady, breathing is easy. I don't think he's completely unconscious even now, only dazed. He should be all right."
Turning toward the long redwood house at the end of that gravel driveway, Nebel frowned. "I sense overwhelming gralic force up there, Jeremy. Malice and cruelty combined with powerful magick."
The Dire Wolf tugged under his sleeves to loosen the matched silver daggers sheathed beneath them. "That's what we're here for, Garrison."
Coming out of the back seat was a petite woman in blue work shirt and jeans, with a short denim vest. Her dark blonde hair was tied back in a thick ponytail. As she stood up, Cindy kept a hand on the car door. "Jeremy, something's wrong..."
Bane flashed over to take her arm. "Are you okay? What's going on, Cin?"
The most gifted telepath of her era shook her head and sagged back against the Mustang. "I couldn't pick up on that Preincarnator who jumped you," she said. "My powers are fogged up. I can hardly think straight. It must be the menace Gary picked up on... the gralic aura is so strong that it's messing me up."
"I've never seen you affected like this," the Dire Wolf said. "Get back in the car. We can take you back to base just to be cautious."
"No, no, I'll be all right," she insisted, "But I don't think my telepathy is going to be much help on this mission. I can still help."
"Garrison, what do you think?" Bane asked with a rare edge of indecision in his voice.
The blind mystic had lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over head. Forged ages ago by the immortal Eldarin, the golden Sagehelm had a featureless face plate with only outlines etched in the metal where eyeholes would normally be. With the helmet on, Nebel stood straighter and his voice assumed a deeper, more resonant quality. "She is in more danger than you or I, captain. Her mind is more receptive to malevolent thoughts."
"I can DO this," Cindy insisted. "Jeez. I was at the Invasion of Maroch. I stood up to Angdros. I put John Grim in a coma! You guys are going to need me."
The Dire Wolf was silent for a long minute, then sighed. "I wouldn't order any member to stand down without good cause. Cin, hang back a little. If you feel like you're going to lose it, go back to the car. We're dealing with a worse threat than we normally have to face."
"Don't I know it!" she replied. "Somehow Vidimar has ramped up his Preincarnation spell to ridiculous levels. In the past two years, we've fought Achilles, Prospero, Gilgamesh and even freakin' Aladdin. Each one he resurrects is worse than the one before. We have to stop him while we know where he is."
Bane turned back to his other teammate, "Gary, you've got the Helmet. Give us a status report."
"Truth is not a tool I may use," Nebel answered in his distracted way. "The light of Elvedal passes though the helmet and reveals what it will. I can detect that there are only two living beings in that house. One is near death, as we speak."
Drawing the anesthetic dart gun from its holster at the small of her back where the denim jacket concealed it, Cindy made a show of checking its mechanism. "Okay. I'm wearing the full suit of Trom armor under my clothes and I have a protective Eldar talisman on an ensalir chain around my neck. Good to go."
Watching her and Nebel, the Dire Wolf said, "I wish there was time to gather a few more of our team. We could use Sulak or Valera for some muscle. It's times like this I really miss Khang."
The hollow voice beneath the Eyeless Helmet offered, "You yourself have told us that we cannot accept only the easy fights, Jeremy."
"Heh. So I did. All right, let's go in there and nab Vidimar before he flees the country. Our contact told us he was seen buying a ticket at Newark Airport this morning." Strapping on his own visored black helmet, Bane started up the gravel driveway at a quick easy lope, with Nebel close behind him, gold cloak waving in the midnight breezes. Neither of them saw Cindy Brunner stumble and only catch her balance by holding out both arms.
II.
Before they got halfway to the house, Bane slowed to a stop. The air felt heavy and oppressive, as if a thunderstorm was about to break at any second although the night sky was clear. He kept jumping as he thought he heard strange noises but nothing was in sight. The nearer they approached the house, the more resistance he felt. Despite the air being still, it felt as if he was walking against gale force winds. Despite the fact it was a mild mid-May night, he felt chilled.
Uncertain for one of the few times in his career, the Dire Wolf turned to his partners. "You're not alone, Cin. I think I feel it, too."
Still wearing the ancient Eldar helmet which increased perception, shrouded in the protective gold-cloth cloak, Nebel said, "We face great peril, my friends."
"Wait, stop!" Cindy yelled. She leaped forward and swung around to press her hands against their chests. "We have to go back. This is crazy. We need to get reinforcements, every KDF member and Tel Shai knight we know. Let's go, we can come back with an army."
"I've never known you to want to turn back," Bane said, not in criticism but bafflement. "But.. I feel the same way."
"Let's go, then."
"No. No, I won't back down." The Dire Wolf smacked his left fist into his open right palm. "This is some sorcerer casting a fear spell or something, but I am too stubborn to let it stop me."
"That's you, all right," said Cindy. "But honestly, my mind is boiling from the hateful thoughts intruding. I feel like my head is going to spontaneously combust."
Nebel rested a gloved hand on the little blonde's shoulder. This was so out of character for the blind mystic, who always avoided physical contact, that both Cindy and Bane found it reassuring. "Your courage has been proven many times, Cindy. Right now, your telepathy is making you more vulnerable than Jeremy or I. Your power has become a liability."
"Cindy, you should stay here," Bane said. "See those round rocks by the side of the driveway? I want you to sit down on them and wait for developments. If we come hurrying out, run ahead and start the car for a quick getaway."
"Maybe that's for the best," she admitted. "I feel like a complete wuss, though."
"I'm only pretending to be brave," Bane said as he started toward the house again. "Garrison, you want to circle around the back and wait a few minutes before you enter?"
"That approach has worked well for us in the past," Nebel said. The helmeted mystic strode quickly along the edge of the driveway and ducked over into some white birches before vanishing from sight. For someone dressed in white, wearing a glossy golden cloak and burnished helmet, he could be amazingly stealthy. His gralic perception was not as detailed or as subtle as true eyesight, but he had learned to make the best of his situation.
Giving Cindy a reassuring salute, Bane continued marching toward the house. It took more will power than he had thought he could summon. His mind tried to interpret the repelling aura as conditions it had known before. It felt like walking up a steep incline against a stiff wind. Even though he could see the perfectly level ground beneath his feet and tell there was not even a breeze, that was how the spell appeared to him. The Dire Wolf pressed on, squinting his eyes to try to lessen the effect.
As he stepped onto the stone flagged patio with its picnic table and bench, Bane caught the briefest glimpse of movement behind an elm tree. Instantly, he swiveled to face the attack he knew would be coming. A Spanish conquistadore complete with breastplate and crested helmet rushed toward him with the long thin sword extended. But in that split-second before contact would be made, something inexplicable happened. Red shimmers ran over the man's body and he dropped to his hands and knees as a normal modern man in a flannel shirt and khaki pants. Already moving to intercept, Bane pulled his downward hammer punch to try to avoid killing the Preincarnator, but he still struck way too hard for an opponent without a helmet. The cultist's head smashed face down into the patio slate and it seemed clear he would not be getting up again.
Straightening, the Dire Wolf felt the unnatural fear drop away before the rising of his fighting spirit. The Preincarnator had transformed back to his modern persona without being made unconscious first. That could only mean that source of the spell had ended. Bane moved toward the front of the house. Dr Leopold Vidimar must have died just then.
III.
Pulling the screen door open, Bane drove the heel of his palm above the lock on the inner door and it crashed inward. He vaulted into a huge open room from which all the furniture and furnishings had been removed. Light blazed from four iron braziers burning some acrid-smelling fluid. Hanging by one ankle from a silk cord fastened to the ceiling was the naked body of a fat old man, his arms and free leg dangling limply.
Vidimar had not been granted a painless death. His pale flabby body was covered with tiny cuts and burns and bruises. His fingernails and toenails and eleven teeth were arranged in a circle on the blood-splattered floor where he would have seen them after they had been yanked out. Blood had pooled in his staring eyes, coating them red.
But gruesome as the corpse was, Bane hardly noticed it. All his attention fastened on the tall thin figure who stood with folded arms and returned his stare with a smile of unbearable cruelty. The Dartha was dressed in dark green silks, the long-sleeved tunic and leggings and mantle of his kind, with esoteric symbols woven into the fabric in white. In a face white as snow, beneath long fine white hair, oblique cat-green eyes watched the sudden entrance of this man in black.
"Tollinor?" whispered Bane. "That idiot Vidimar! Of all the billions of being who have ever lived, he brought back Tollinor Kje."
The Firstmade of his Race, the most dreaded warlock in Midnight War history raised a slim hand in a languid gesture. The entire room turned lurid deep red and a bolt more potent than real lightning detonated to throw Bane back against the far wall. Even with his flexible Trom armor and with the silver daggers on his forearms, that blast nearly incinerated the Dire Wolf. He bounced off the wall and slumped forward without trying to break the fall.
"So. Tel Shai still exists in this era, still sending out its knights on hopeless errands," Tollinor said in a voice smooth as silk and deadly as cobra venom. "Very well, there is much I must learn. That fool Vidimar told me that my Race has declined and that most Humans do not even know the Darthim exist. They will learn to their bitter regret who the natural rulers of this world are."
With infinite effort, Jeremy Bane got his hands flat on the floor beneath him and raised his head. For one horrifying moment, he thought he was blind but then he realized that the visor on his helmet had been seared black by that blast. He struggled with the strap beneath his chin. Eventually, he yanked the helmet off entirely and took a deep unsteady breath.
Watching all this, Tollinor remarked, "I believe I recognize that daggers. Ensalir, ensorcelled by the proud Elzulang himself. You can have no idea how much history those blades have seen. Ah, well, certainly I can not weild them but perhaps one of my slaves might put them to good use against my enemies." The begetter of his Race turned to a low table on which an assortment of bloody tools of torture lay... thin scalpels and needles, pliers, hammers, all dainty instruments made of the red Gremthom.
As Tollinor decided which tool to pick up, Bane found that he could not rise. His legs would not obey him. The Dire Wolf had always expected to die in combat someday, and he felt a cold sinking realization at the thought that was it. He was up against an enemy too powerful to beat, he had no tricks or ruses up his sleeve. He should accept death when it came, Teacher Chael had told him.
No, he thought. No. Bane pushed his upper body up off the floor and started to drag himself toward where one of his daggers lay out of reach. It doesn't matter if I have crawl over to Tollinor and sink my teeth in his throat, he told himself. Surrender was not in his nature. He glimpsed the taunting leer on that bone-white face and it just increased his determinaton. Another few inches... maybe touching the ensalir blade would help him throw off the damage.
A door closed softly. Tollinor Kje turned his head without moving his body. For the first time, his long face with its sunken cheeks and green eyes showed shock and even dismay. He recognized the Eyeless Helmet.
IV.
His body concealed by the gold-cloth cape and his face hidden beneath Sagehelm, Garrison Nebel seemed to be an unmoving pillar of gold in the flickering light from the torches. He did not speak.
Recovering his poise, the Firstmade of the Darthim chuckled in a forced way. "Sagehelm has survived all these ages as well? I wonder if my sword Hellspawn still exists? You are no Eldar, but a measly Human. Have you nothing to say before the screaming and begging begins?"
Nebel threw back his cloak and stood with his gloved hands folded before him, bearing no weapon but the Truth which the helmet channeled. "I did not expect to feel such pity for you, Tollinor," the blind mystic said at last. "You lost so much on that day so long ago. When Draldros burned away all empathy and compassion from your spirit, he took from you all that is best in the Human nature. There is a great emptiness within you."
"Spare me these sermons," the Darthan warlock scoffed as he held up one thin hand. Deep red gralic force crackled in a nimbus around those pale fingers, coiling itself to strike as it had struck down Bane.
Slowly, Nebel raised his own hands and lifted the Eyeless Helmet from his head. The somber ascetic face revealed held a pair of brown eyes with opaque white pupils. Just as deliberately, the mystic took three steps forward and held out Sagehelm in offering.
From where he had managed to rise up on one knee, Bane shouted, "Gary, no! Have you lost your mind? Don't GIVE it to him!"
Tollinor had lowered his hand as he eyed the helmet. Greed and suspicion fought each other in his mind. Only a handful of talismans were potent enough to merit his attention, Sagehelm being one of them. But why was this mortal fool holding it out for him to freely take?
After a long breathless silence, when it was clear that Tollinor was hesitating, Nebel smiled ever so slightly. It was the implied triumph in that smile that spurred the Firstmade to act. He snatched the helmet from the mystic's hands and lowered it over his own head with the finality of the executioner's axe descending. At once, Sagehelm turned transparent as glass, blazing pure golden light as if the dawn had been captured within it.
Tollinor screamed and convulsed wildly, falling to his knees as he wrenched the Eyeless Helmet off. He had shrunk visibly, become less imposing, and the oppressive heaviness in the air had been cleared away by that sunburst. Trembling, the Dartha lowered his hands from his face. Shockingly vivid against the white skin, both of his eyes were completely black as if burned away within their sockets. Angry red streaks circled those dead eyes. No longer Tollinor but again the modern Dartha who had been Preincarnated, the suffering being lurched to his feet and stumbled along one wall until he was fumbling at the front door. Nebel did not try to prevent his escape.
Instead, the blind mystic went to assist Bane up. With the toxic aura of Tollinor gone from that drawing room, Bane's enhanced healing had begun to kick in again and he felt increasingly stronger. "Let me help you, captain," Nebel.
"Thanks, Garrison," the Dire Wolf said. He flexed his shoulders painfully and touched where the front of his field jacket had been scorched by the gralic blast. That fabric was hot. "Whew. It's a good thing you came along on this case. I'll be honest, I was out of options."
"Your lifeforce is becoming even, " Nebel said, supporting his captain with an arm across his shoulders. "You will recover shortly."
"Yeah, I'm feeling better. So what about that Dartha who ran out of here with his eyes burned?"
"He will not get far." Nebel went to bring a plain wooden chair from the adjoining room. He did not explain how he even knew of its presence and only the careful way he walked retracing his steps hinted that he was in fact sightless himself.
Bane sat down gratefully and wiped his sweat-streaked face with the back of a hand. "Thanks again. I suppose we better cut Vidimar down and cover him up. I can't feel sorry for him. He's spent the past ten years resurrecting the worst threats out of history and making money off them. Bringing back Tollinor Kje...! So stupid. That was really asking for it."
"Here are your daggers," Nebel said. "I know how much you prize them. They are not damaged."
At that point, Cindy Brunner came running in through the door that had been kicked open. In her hand was one of the anesthetic dart guns. "Are you guys okay? Oh hon, look at your face, you're all sunburned somehow." She holstered her weapon and hurried over to kneel before Bane and examine him worriedly.
The next few minutes were a confused babble of Bane and Cindy both talking over each other as they explained the situation to each other. She had been out in the driveway, forcing herself step by step to get closer to the house when she had seen two flashes of light that glared out through the windows. The first had been reddish in tone, followed by a thunderclap. As she dragged herself up to the front of the house, a second flare dazzled her but this had been a rich gold in hue and she immediately felt the suffocating weight in the air drop away. Drawing her dart gun, she was just in time to nail a fleeing man who turned out to be a Dartha with facial burns. He was lying tranquilized where he had fallen.
"So I came rushing in," she concluded. "Oh my God, that's Leopold Vidimar hanging from the ceiling. What's left of him. Ugh, what a sight. I guess I've seen worse after some of our battles. Still, we should get him down and show a little respect for the dead, huh?"
"Yeah." Bane stood up and dragged the chair over so he could get up on it and cut through the cord suspending the late sorcerer. "I need a minute or two. My legs are still wobbly. I hope this is the end of the Preincarnation cult. Unless Vidimar taught the spell to a few of his followers, we shouldn't be seeing any more monsters out of the past."
Cindy stood next to her man, with one hand resting against his back. She turned to regard Nebel with a quizzical expression. "So. Gary, I'm guessing that somehow you knew your helmet would do that to Tollinor? You were counting on it?"
The mystic had retrieved the Eyeless Helmet and he was holding it in both hands, touching its gleaming surface gently. "It is no coincidence," he said, "that I am blind."
[10/4/1987- Rev.1/1/2019]
11/22/1998
I.
As soon as Bane stepped out of the dark green Mustang and the headlights snapped off, he was attacked by a Mandinka warrior from 16th Century Mali. The West African was a wiry muscular man below average height. Instead of the tribal garb one might expect, he wore regular modern clothing... shoes, slacks and a white polo shirt. In his right hand was a war club of fire-hardened ebony with a curved handle and a round head that had a pick-like point on the business end.
Fast and stealthy as the Mandinka was, his onslaught had no element of surprise. The Dire Wolf's senses were sharpened by two decades of Kumundu training. He side-stepped just enough to let the war club whistle past his head and he met the man's charge with an elbow to the forehead that used the Mandinka's own momentum to add more impact. The Preincarnated warrior slumped to his knees, dropping his weapon and making an incoherent dazed noise. He fell onto his face and his outline shimmered as his body reformed into an older American black man with a bald spot and a pot belly.
Emerging from the passenger side, Garrison Nebel had fastened the full length cloak of heavy gold material to drape over his white tunic and pants. In both hands, he held the Eyeless Helmet. "The Preincarnation effect dissipated when he passed out," said the blind mystic. "He is no threat to us now."
"First, there was the Samurai, then the Viking berserker, then the Aztec with his obsidian knife," Bane grumbled. "These guys are getting on my nerves." At forty years old, the Dire Wolf was a gaunt active figure dressed in the all-black field suit with its waist-length jacket bristling with a dozen weapons in various pockets. He closed the car door and crouched over the stunned cultist for a moment. "Pulse is steady, breathing is easy. I don't think he's completely unconscious even now, only dazed. He should be all right."
Turning toward the long redwood house at the end of that gravel driveway, Nebel frowned. "I sense overwhelming gralic force up there, Jeremy. Malice and cruelty combined with powerful magick."
The Dire Wolf tugged under his sleeves to loosen the matched silver daggers sheathed beneath them. "That's what we're here for, Garrison."
Coming out of the back seat was a petite woman in blue work shirt and jeans, with a short denim vest. Her dark blonde hair was tied back in a thick ponytail. As she stood up, Cindy kept a hand on the car door. "Jeremy, something's wrong..."
Bane flashed over to take her arm. "Are you okay? What's going on, Cin?"
The most gifted telepath of her era shook her head and sagged back against the Mustang. "I couldn't pick up on that Preincarnator who jumped you," she said. "My powers are fogged up. I can hardly think straight. It must be the menace Gary picked up on... the gralic aura is so strong that it's messing me up."
"I've never seen you affected like this," the Dire Wolf said. "Get back in the car. We can take you back to base just to be cautious."
"No, no, I'll be all right," she insisted, "But I don't think my telepathy is going to be much help on this mission. I can still help."
"Garrison, what do you think?" Bane asked with a rare edge of indecision in his voice.
The blind mystic had lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over head. Forged ages ago by the immortal Eldarin, the golden Sagehelm had a featureless face plate with only outlines etched in the metal where eyeholes would normally be. With the helmet on, Nebel stood straighter and his voice assumed a deeper, more resonant quality. "She is in more danger than you or I, captain. Her mind is more receptive to malevolent thoughts."
"I can DO this," Cindy insisted. "Jeez. I was at the Invasion of Maroch. I stood up to Angdros. I put John Grim in a coma! You guys are going to need me."
The Dire Wolf was silent for a long minute, then sighed. "I wouldn't order any member to stand down without good cause. Cin, hang back a little. If you feel like you're going to lose it, go back to the car. We're dealing with a worse threat than we normally have to face."
"Don't I know it!" she replied. "Somehow Vidimar has ramped up his Preincarnation spell to ridiculous levels. In the past two years, we've fought Achilles, Prospero, Gilgamesh and even freakin' Aladdin. Each one he resurrects is worse than the one before. We have to stop him while we know where he is."
Bane turned back to his other teammate, "Gary, you've got the Helmet. Give us a status report."
"Truth is not a tool I may use," Nebel answered in his distracted way. "The light of Elvedal passes though the helmet and reveals what it will. I can detect that there are only two living beings in that house. One is near death, as we speak."
Drawing the anesthetic dart gun from its holster at the small of her back where the denim jacket concealed it, Cindy made a show of checking its mechanism. "Okay. I'm wearing the full suit of Trom armor under my clothes and I have a protective Eldar talisman on an ensalir chain around my neck. Good to go."
Watching her and Nebel, the Dire Wolf said, "I wish there was time to gather a few more of our team. We could use Sulak or Valera for some muscle. It's times like this I really miss Khang."
The hollow voice beneath the Eyeless Helmet offered, "You yourself have told us that we cannot accept only the easy fights, Jeremy."
"Heh. So I did. All right, let's go in there and nab Vidimar before he flees the country. Our contact told us he was seen buying a ticket at Newark Airport this morning." Strapping on his own visored black helmet, Bane started up the gravel driveway at a quick easy lope, with Nebel close behind him, gold cloak waving in the midnight breezes. Neither of them saw Cindy Brunner stumble and only catch her balance by holding out both arms.
II.
Before they got halfway to the house, Bane slowed to a stop. The air felt heavy and oppressive, as if a thunderstorm was about to break at any second although the night sky was clear. He kept jumping as he thought he heard strange noises but nothing was in sight. The nearer they approached the house, the more resistance he felt. Despite the air being still, it felt as if he was walking against gale force winds. Despite the fact it was a mild mid-May night, he felt chilled.
Uncertain for one of the few times in his career, the Dire Wolf turned to his partners. "You're not alone, Cin. I think I feel it, too."
Still wearing the ancient Eldar helmet which increased perception, shrouded in the protective gold-cloth cloak, Nebel said, "We face great peril, my friends."
"Wait, stop!" Cindy yelled. She leaped forward and swung around to press her hands against their chests. "We have to go back. This is crazy. We need to get reinforcements, every KDF member and Tel Shai knight we know. Let's go, we can come back with an army."
"I've never known you to want to turn back," Bane said, not in criticism but bafflement. "But.. I feel the same way."
"Let's go, then."
"No. No, I won't back down." The Dire Wolf smacked his left fist into his open right palm. "This is some sorcerer casting a fear spell or something, but I am too stubborn to let it stop me."
"That's you, all right," said Cindy. "But honestly, my mind is boiling from the hateful thoughts intruding. I feel like my head is going to spontaneously combust."
Nebel rested a gloved hand on the little blonde's shoulder. This was so out of character for the blind mystic, who always avoided physical contact, that both Cindy and Bane found it reassuring. "Your courage has been proven many times, Cindy. Right now, your telepathy is making you more vulnerable than Jeremy or I. Your power has become a liability."
"Cindy, you should stay here," Bane said. "See those round rocks by the side of the driveway? I want you to sit down on them and wait for developments. If we come hurrying out, run ahead and start the car for a quick getaway."
"Maybe that's for the best," she admitted. "I feel like a complete wuss, though."
"I'm only pretending to be brave," Bane said as he started toward the house again. "Garrison, you want to circle around the back and wait a few minutes before you enter?"
"That approach has worked well for us in the past," Nebel said. The helmeted mystic strode quickly along the edge of the driveway and ducked over into some white birches before vanishing from sight. For someone dressed in white, wearing a glossy golden cloak and burnished helmet, he could be amazingly stealthy. His gralic perception was not as detailed or as subtle as true eyesight, but he had learned to make the best of his situation.
Giving Cindy a reassuring salute, Bane continued marching toward the house. It took more will power than he had thought he could summon. His mind tried to interpret the repelling aura as conditions it had known before. It felt like walking up a steep incline against a stiff wind. Even though he could see the perfectly level ground beneath his feet and tell there was not even a breeze, that was how the spell appeared to him. The Dire Wolf pressed on, squinting his eyes to try to lessen the effect.
As he stepped onto the stone flagged patio with its picnic table and bench, Bane caught the briefest glimpse of movement behind an elm tree. Instantly, he swiveled to face the attack he knew would be coming. A Spanish conquistadore complete with breastplate and crested helmet rushed toward him with the long thin sword extended. But in that split-second before contact would be made, something inexplicable happened. Red shimmers ran over the man's body and he dropped to his hands and knees as a normal modern man in a flannel shirt and khaki pants. Already moving to intercept, Bane pulled his downward hammer punch to try to avoid killing the Preincarnator, but he still struck way too hard for an opponent without a helmet. The cultist's head smashed face down into the patio slate and it seemed clear he would not be getting up again.
Straightening, the Dire Wolf felt the unnatural fear drop away before the rising of his fighting spirit. The Preincarnator had transformed back to his modern persona without being made unconscious first. That could only mean that source of the spell had ended. Bane moved toward the front of the house. Dr Leopold Vidimar must have died just then.
III.
Pulling the screen door open, Bane drove the heel of his palm above the lock on the inner door and it crashed inward. He vaulted into a huge open room from which all the furniture and furnishings had been removed. Light blazed from four iron braziers burning some acrid-smelling fluid. Hanging by one ankle from a silk cord fastened to the ceiling was the naked body of a fat old man, his arms and free leg dangling limply.
Vidimar had not been granted a painless death. His pale flabby body was covered with tiny cuts and burns and bruises. His fingernails and toenails and eleven teeth were arranged in a circle on the blood-splattered floor where he would have seen them after they had been yanked out. Blood had pooled in his staring eyes, coating them red.
But gruesome as the corpse was, Bane hardly noticed it. All his attention fastened on the tall thin figure who stood with folded arms and returned his stare with a smile of unbearable cruelty. The Dartha was dressed in dark green silks, the long-sleeved tunic and leggings and mantle of his kind, with esoteric symbols woven into the fabric in white. In a face white as snow, beneath long fine white hair, oblique cat-green eyes watched the sudden entrance of this man in black.
"Tollinor?" whispered Bane. "That idiot Vidimar! Of all the billions of being who have ever lived, he brought back Tollinor Kje."
The Firstmade of his Race, the most dreaded warlock in Midnight War history raised a slim hand in a languid gesture. The entire room turned lurid deep red and a bolt more potent than real lightning detonated to throw Bane back against the far wall. Even with his flexible Trom armor and with the silver daggers on his forearms, that blast nearly incinerated the Dire Wolf. He bounced off the wall and slumped forward without trying to break the fall.
"So. Tel Shai still exists in this era, still sending out its knights on hopeless errands," Tollinor said in a voice smooth as silk and deadly as cobra venom. "Very well, there is much I must learn. That fool Vidimar told me that my Race has declined and that most Humans do not even know the Darthim exist. They will learn to their bitter regret who the natural rulers of this world are."
With infinite effort, Jeremy Bane got his hands flat on the floor beneath him and raised his head. For one horrifying moment, he thought he was blind but then he realized that the visor on his helmet had been seared black by that blast. He struggled with the strap beneath his chin. Eventually, he yanked the helmet off entirely and took a deep unsteady breath.
Watching all this, Tollinor remarked, "I believe I recognize that daggers. Ensalir, ensorcelled by the proud Elzulang himself. You can have no idea how much history those blades have seen. Ah, well, certainly I can not weild them but perhaps one of my slaves might put them to good use against my enemies." The begetter of his Race turned to a low table on which an assortment of bloody tools of torture lay... thin scalpels and needles, pliers, hammers, all dainty instruments made of the red Gremthom.
As Tollinor decided which tool to pick up, Bane found that he could not rise. His legs would not obey him. The Dire Wolf had always expected to die in combat someday, and he felt a cold sinking realization at the thought that was it. He was up against an enemy too powerful to beat, he had no tricks or ruses up his sleeve. He should accept death when it came, Teacher Chael had told him.
No, he thought. No. Bane pushed his upper body up off the floor and started to drag himself toward where one of his daggers lay out of reach. It doesn't matter if I have crawl over to Tollinor and sink my teeth in his throat, he told himself. Surrender was not in his nature. He glimpsed the taunting leer on that bone-white face and it just increased his determinaton. Another few inches... maybe touching the ensalir blade would help him throw off the damage.
A door closed softly. Tollinor Kje turned his head without moving his body. For the first time, his long face with its sunken cheeks and green eyes showed shock and even dismay. He recognized the Eyeless Helmet.
IV.
His body concealed by the gold-cloth cape and his face hidden beneath Sagehelm, Garrison Nebel seemed to be an unmoving pillar of gold in the flickering light from the torches. He did not speak.
Recovering his poise, the Firstmade of the Darthim chuckled in a forced way. "Sagehelm has survived all these ages as well? I wonder if my sword Hellspawn still exists? You are no Eldar, but a measly Human. Have you nothing to say before the screaming and begging begins?"
Nebel threw back his cloak and stood with his gloved hands folded before him, bearing no weapon but the Truth which the helmet channeled. "I did not expect to feel such pity for you, Tollinor," the blind mystic said at last. "You lost so much on that day so long ago. When Draldros burned away all empathy and compassion from your spirit, he took from you all that is best in the Human nature. There is a great emptiness within you."
"Spare me these sermons," the Darthan warlock scoffed as he held up one thin hand. Deep red gralic force crackled in a nimbus around those pale fingers, coiling itself to strike as it had struck down Bane.
Slowly, Nebel raised his own hands and lifted the Eyeless Helmet from his head. The somber ascetic face revealed held a pair of brown eyes with opaque white pupils. Just as deliberately, the mystic took three steps forward and held out Sagehelm in offering.
From where he had managed to rise up on one knee, Bane shouted, "Gary, no! Have you lost your mind? Don't GIVE it to him!"
Tollinor had lowered his hand as he eyed the helmet. Greed and suspicion fought each other in his mind. Only a handful of talismans were potent enough to merit his attention, Sagehelm being one of them. But why was this mortal fool holding it out for him to freely take?
After a long breathless silence, when it was clear that Tollinor was hesitating, Nebel smiled ever so slightly. It was the implied triumph in that smile that spurred the Firstmade to act. He snatched the helmet from the mystic's hands and lowered it over his own head with the finality of the executioner's axe descending. At once, Sagehelm turned transparent as glass, blazing pure golden light as if the dawn had been captured within it.
Tollinor screamed and convulsed wildly, falling to his knees as he wrenched the Eyeless Helmet off. He had shrunk visibly, become less imposing, and the oppressive heaviness in the air had been cleared away by that sunburst. Trembling, the Dartha lowered his hands from his face. Shockingly vivid against the white skin, both of his eyes were completely black as if burned away within their sockets. Angry red streaks circled those dead eyes. No longer Tollinor but again the modern Dartha who had been Preincarnated, the suffering being lurched to his feet and stumbled along one wall until he was fumbling at the front door. Nebel did not try to prevent his escape.
Instead, the blind mystic went to assist Bane up. With the toxic aura of Tollinor gone from that drawing room, Bane's enhanced healing had begun to kick in again and he felt increasingly stronger. "Let me help you, captain," Nebel.
"Thanks, Garrison," the Dire Wolf said. He flexed his shoulders painfully and touched where the front of his field jacket had been scorched by the gralic blast. That fabric was hot. "Whew. It's a good thing you came along on this case. I'll be honest, I was out of options."
"Your lifeforce is becoming even, " Nebel said, supporting his captain with an arm across his shoulders. "You will recover shortly."
"Yeah, I'm feeling better. So what about that Dartha who ran out of here with his eyes burned?"
"He will not get far." Nebel went to bring a plain wooden chair from the adjoining room. He did not explain how he even knew of its presence and only the careful way he walked retracing his steps hinted that he was in fact sightless himself.
Bane sat down gratefully and wiped his sweat-streaked face with the back of a hand. "Thanks again. I suppose we better cut Vidimar down and cover him up. I can't feel sorry for him. He's spent the past ten years resurrecting the worst threats out of history and making money off them. Bringing back Tollinor Kje...! So stupid. That was really asking for it."
"Here are your daggers," Nebel said. "I know how much you prize them. They are not damaged."
At that point, Cindy Brunner came running in through the door that had been kicked open. In her hand was one of the anesthetic dart guns. "Are you guys okay? Oh hon, look at your face, you're all sunburned somehow." She holstered her weapon and hurried over to kneel before Bane and examine him worriedly.
The next few minutes were a confused babble of Bane and Cindy both talking over each other as they explained the situation to each other. She had been out in the driveway, forcing herself step by step to get closer to the house when she had seen two flashes of light that glared out through the windows. The first had been reddish in tone, followed by a thunderclap. As she dragged herself up to the front of the house, a second flare dazzled her but this had been a rich gold in hue and she immediately felt the suffocating weight in the air drop away. Drawing her dart gun, she was just in time to nail a fleeing man who turned out to be a Dartha with facial burns. He was lying tranquilized where he had fallen.
"So I came rushing in," she concluded. "Oh my God, that's Leopold Vidimar hanging from the ceiling. What's left of him. Ugh, what a sight. I guess I've seen worse after some of our battles. Still, we should get him down and show a little respect for the dead, huh?"
"Yeah." Bane stood up and dragged the chair over so he could get up on it and cut through the cord suspending the late sorcerer. "I need a minute or two. My legs are still wobbly. I hope this is the end of the Preincarnation cult. Unless Vidimar taught the spell to a few of his followers, we shouldn't be seeing any more monsters out of the past."
Cindy stood next to her man, with one hand resting against his back. She turned to regard Nebel with a quizzical expression. "So. Gary, I'm guessing that somehow you knew your helmet would do that to Tollinor? You were counting on it?"
The mystic had retrieved the Eyeless Helmet and he was holding it in both hands, touching its gleaming surface gently. "It is no coincidence," he said, "that I am blind."
[10/4/1987- Rev.1/1/2019]
