#15 - Sun in the Eyes

By Gary Dreslinski

Asp jumped to one side as an energy blast blew a hole in the ground where she had once been standing. She jumped, and wondered how it was that she had gotten herself into the situation in the first place.

It had all been so simple, the Black Knight and Sersi had fallen into her hands, and she had used the Knight to set up a series of meetings that would, hopefully, unite a portion of the underground powers in common cause. To that end, she had kept his lover, and fellow Avenger and Pendragon, Sersi under a constant flow of the venom, to keep the Eternal under wraps. Having a man with a sword out in the field was one thing, he could be manipulated into doing what was needed. Having a head-strong woman with the power to relocate mountains, who’s temper wasn’t a very well hidden secret out there, that was quite another.

She had kept Sersi, and promised the Knight, Dane Whitman, to keep her safe. What Asp had not counted on, was that someone might be out there who wanted Sersi dead. Even more to the point, she had not factored in what might happen if one of those people happened to track her down to her current location.

Which meant that Sersi, drugged by venom and helpless, could not defend herself. Which meant that Asp, bound by a promise to keep the woman safe until Dane’s return, found herself under attack. And dodging some sort of energy blasts by a raving lunatic calling himself Quark.

She tried to keep out of the middle of the firing range, to draw away the fire, and allow her people enough time to get Sersi out of the room. The longer she was there, the more of a chance that she could get hit by a stray blast. Or have something collapse on her. Asp looked around, everything was in pieces. She mentally calculated what she was going to do to the Knight once he got back. He was going to pay, once she had gotten rid of Quark.

Quark watched the strange woman as she dodged blast after blast, wondering who was she and why she wanted to protect his enemy. He had never seen her before, nor did she seem to have any sort of abilities that might be a threat to him. Sooner or later, her athletic ability would fail her, she would tire, and he would cut her in two. Or, he would step forward and crush her skull between his gauntlets, and that would be that. Or, he would unleash the power of the sun that now dwelled inside his breast.

Lugh had saved his life, adding to his power, and to his purpose. The Kree Empire owed Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, a debt that would be repaid in his foul blood. Lugh’s people, the Faerie, owed Sersi the same sort of debt. Quark would be the vessel for both people’s rage, for both people’s vengeance.

He had tracked Sersi down first, to repay Lugh’s gift. He would kill her, and drag whatever was left to the Faerie for whatever purpose they had for her remains. Striking her down would also be a blow against Whitman, her lover. He would make Whitman pay, by taking away the one thing he loved, much in the way that the Black Knight had tried to take the beloved Supreme Intelligence away from the Kree.

There didn’t seem to be any sort of pattern in her movements at all, other than to keep him from hitting her. Had she been Kree, she would have surely come up with a better plan than that. It was as if she was just buying time. But for what, he had no idea.

She flipped off to the left, and over another blast, bringing her almost within arms length. He reached out with his arms, his powerful arms. He would grab her, destroy her, and then take care of Sersi. Sersi… he looked around. She wasn’t in the room any longer. It was as though…

He fixed his hatred upon the woman in front of him, who seemed delighted in his confusion. She would pay. He vowed it….

That was when she hit him with some sort of sticky liquid, right in the arm joints. He stopped grabbing for her, and started wondering why he couldn’t feel his arm.

Dane Whitman wasn’t sure what to ask first. He’d come in search of the mystical Oracle that had appeared in Paris, believing it to be similar to the ones that he had read about in Greek Mythology. Instead, it was something entirely different - the severed head of his friend and former protégé Sean Dolan. Stranger still was that the head was talking to him, atop a ghostly form, and was about to tell his future, if he asked the right questions.

"I can’t hang around here forever Dane," Sean warned, "I do have places I need to be. You need to be there too, at some point. So the longer we hang out and not talk, the less time we have for all that stuff in between."

Dane grabbed a hold of that, "We have someplace we need to be?" "Yes." Sean answered, matter-of-factly. "Where?" "England." "Why?" "To stop a madman." "There’s a madman in England?" "Isn’t there always?" "Do the Pendragons know?" "Of course they do." "Will they help us?" Sean’s smile faded, "No." "Why not?" "Because they want him to succeed." "That doesn’t sound like them." "Hey, what can I say. I’m an Oracle, not an impressionist."

"When are we going there?" "When the time is right." "When will that be?" "When we go. Geez Dane. You concentrate on the strangest things… Don’t you want to know about Sersi?" "Of course I do. How is she?" "When? The Past? The Future?" "Now." "This instant?" "Yeah." "I can’t tell you that Dane… come on, get with it, Oracle. Past, Future. Not right now." "What about that last second? Or a second from now." "Well yeah. She’s fine there." "So I’m going to save her?" "I didn’t say that." "I’m not going to save her?" "No, you’re not."

"Are we going to be happy?" "Who? Me and you?" "No, us… Sersi… me… are we going to be happy?" "Eventually." "I don’t like the sound of that." "Then you really don’t want the details."

"Is the barrier going to come down?" "Yes" "Will I play a part in that happening?" "Yes" "Does it happen soon?" "Reply fuzzy. Ask again latter." "You’re just making that up!" "Well of course I am. I can’t tell you that bit of information." "Why not?" "Because I’ve seen us having this conversation before, and since I didn’t give it to you then, I’m not going to give it to you now. Less problems that way."

"Fine…" Dane thought about it for a moment, before meeting Sean’s unearthly gaze, "Am I going to find my father?" "Yes Dane… you will." "Is he still alive?" "Um… I think I need to go now. We’ll talk again later… just remember, when he comes, you’ve got to mention me as one of the people to bring along. That’s how it all happens." "What about my father." "You’ll see… you’ll see. But just tell them about me. Ok? You need to do that." "Why? Who is coming and why do I have to tell them about you?" Sean grinned mischievously, "Oh come on, if I told you that I wouldn’t be an Oracle, I’d be a Spoiler!"

"Shush love. Don’t move."

He had gone through a lot to be here, holding her in his arms again. It was one of those moments in life that he wished would last forever. Her head was resting in the crook of his arm, as he gently swabbed her forehead. She was slowly coming out of whatever the Asp had done to her, he could feel her flickers on the edge of consciousness.

She had called out to him in her delirium. He had allowed his pathways to open again, to accept her love into him, and he had heard her. It wasn’t a matter of tracking down where she was being held, he just knew.

The Asp’s people had brought her out of harm’s way, or tried to. He had been waiting for them. She was under his protection, now and forever. He was her knight. Her champion.

That was the way it was supposed to be. He understood that now… the talk had made all the difference.

So many things he hadn’t understood before, now clicked.

Sersi was his one true love, now and forever. He brushed his lips against her forehead.

"Dane?" she asked, her eyes barely opening, still in a fog.

"Yes love, " he answered, petting her arm tenderly, "I came back. You knew I wouldn’t leave you…. I’d never leave you…"

Sersi’s mouth turned up into a smile, and through her haze he knew it was the right answer, it was the one that made her happy. There was nothing more important in the world than making Sersi happy, Proctor repeated to himself, nothing more important in the world…

Deep in the heart of Sycorp, Bennet du Paris, the man called Exodus, allowed himself a smile, as another piece fell into place.

She had tricked him. He knew that now. She had gotten close enough to get her… whatever it was… some sort of venom… she had gotten close enough to hit him with it.

The numbness was spreading now… he could barely stand up straight in the armor. It had gotten in the cracks of the armor… But there were no cracks in the armor of the Mighty Kree. Kree manufacturing specifications did not allow for such faults. The Quark armor was space-worthy. Had there been a crack, he would have died in the vacuum of space.

Had Lugh, in helping him, introduced the fault? Why would he have done that? The improvements he had accepted to the armor, to himself… they were for the good of everyone concerned! Dar-Veen could not believe it. The lord of the Fair Folk had stood before him, had placed his own hands upon the dying Kree’s chest and spoke of revenge and the great things they would accomplish with each other.

Clearly there was some other reason for the crack then. Had the woman done anything else to weaken his armor? Some sort of first strike that he had missed…

That had to be it, but he couldn’t remember any.

It was getting so hard to think… he just felt cold… but the fire inside of him. The fire of Lugh… it would keep him warm… he swore it would keep him warm…

She was watching him. He knew it. Watching him, on his hands and knees. She was laughing at him. He knew it. They were all laughing at him.

He had been the best and the brightest, the most loyal to all that which was Kree.

In the end, it had not been enough.

The Kree that was Dar-Veen, the man who was Quark, collapsed in a heap, and did not move ever again.

"Hang on in there!" he shouted, as he jumped through the hole in the wall, the Sword of Light blazing in his hand. Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, had arrived as quickly as he could after leaving the Oracle. He still had quite a few questions, but he also knew that Sersi was in some sort of danger. If he could save her, if he could prove the Oracle wrong about that, than maybe there were other things he could avert as well.

He did a double take at Quark, lying on the floor unmoving. Dane looked over to where Asp was standing, her arms calmly folded in front of her. He started to ask, but then thought better of it. She would probably just lie anyway. Or worse, she would tell him a truth he didn’t want to hear.

Instead, he asked the obvious question, "Where’s Sersi?"

The Asp started to shrug, he noticed, before she stopped herself. "She’s not sure." He told himself. "No matter what she says, she’s not really sure."

"My people took her someplace safe. Somewhere this lunatic couldn’t get at her." "Where?" He could see the wheels in her head turning. There was a potentially angry man with a sword in front of her. Yet, she had just taken down a dangerous man in some sort of high tech armor. Did she still have enough venom to take down Dane as well if she gave him an answer he didn’t like? Did she have enough to do it no matter what?

Apparently she wasn’t too sure herself.

She nodded over to a door half concealed behind a curtain. The curtain had completely covered it before, but apparently part of it had been grazed, and had started to burn. A fair part of the room was on fire. But neither he nor the Asp seemed to be paying too much attention to that fact. There were other matters to concentrate on.

He got to the door before he felt something wrong… something very wrong. It cut into the depths of who he was… something very, very wrong…

His hand went away from the door, and wrapped itself around his sword again, pushing the door open with the blade itself….

Asp screamed…

Dane turned just in time to see Quark coming at him, eye-slits blazing with the hatred of a Faerie Lord.

Author Notes

I apologize. There is nothing more to say than "I apologize". I have a couple back-ups at various stages of being finished, but neither of them felt right for this issue. The back-up features will return soon, or be combined for a special issue. Either way, you'll see them soon enough.

A special thanks to Barry Reese, without whom I probably wouldn't be writing fanfic at all, much less this title, for all that nice things he's been saying about my run on the title.

Thanks as well to Gary Halpin - who went through all the trouble of writing up a "Previously" blurb for this issue, only to have me go ahead and post without it!*g*

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