by The Eurostar
The secret headquarters of the Cloaks, somewhere in France:
Deep in the network of caverns that lay below ground level under the manor, a small spring of crystal water was used by the magic brotherhood as a source of images. Sometimes it showed the future, sometimes it showed things from far away. Every time, it made you wonder.
Now bending over it was an old man garbed in the traditional wardrobe of the order: a seventeenth-century wardrobe and an ample purple coat.
Another man entered.
"Magister Aurochs, still at the pool?"
"Dominus!"
"You have been away for months, much more time than the length of your usual absence. Where have your travels brought you this time? I am still waiting for your report."
"So... sorry, Dominus. I still have to truly understand what I experienced. I am searching my own mind. I will report soon."
"You had better do so. Otherwise, the mind-scanners are ready to take care of you, Aurochs. I hope I will not have to awake them from their dreams."
"Don't worry, Dominus. I will be ready in days, if not in hours."
The other man exited the room, then paused just outside the massive oak door, turned back, and looked at Aurochs with burning eyes. "It had better be ready, Magister, it had better.
When the man finally left, the discipline Aurochs was imposing over himself evaporated like snow under the sun. He turned red and began sweating hard.
What can I do, now? he thought. This situation was exactly what he had tried and managed to avoid for all these years. Not once had his superiors arrived near the truth. Not one of them suspected that Aurochs was hiding something, that he was living another life, that he was using the magic for something different than the mission. But now they were only inches from the truth.
If he remained silent, they would use the mind-scanners, the sleeping magi able to trespass all the mental barriers that every Cloak was thought to create to shield his own mind. And everything would then be known to his superiors, the gambling, the money, the women, and the young men. They would know that he was obsessed with the lust for immortality, that he worked for a tycoon that promised him a way to reach immortality, that he found himself the slave of an immense evil, trapped in the Castle of the Crossed Destinies to fight a bunch of weirdos for who knows what purpose.
And they would known that he had experienced a most traumatic future, a future where the Hoods had won, and the designated heir to the Hoods empire, the Serpent, was alive and well.
Although in his vision he, Aurochs, had won, fighting along an MBL comprising the most incredible members, he knew that could have been only a crossed destiny, a twisted version of what would really happen: the Serpent winning, and Aurochs sent to Hell.
For days, since his return, he had stayed at the pool, trying to see that same future from the perspective of this reality. But nothing good came out. And also, it was indeed a strange moment for future sighting, because a few months before, a strange thing happened, and the pool was not giving any vision from the future, and the oracles stayed mute.
It was like the future went blank. But it lasted only for a few days, and then it began to grow again, diverting at each turn, at each key event, branching out like a giant tree. But of THAT future, the one to avoid, the one where the Hoods had the lasting victory, there was no trace.
Yet he saw it. He experienced it. He lived in it.
It was too big, too much to sustain by himself, a secret too enormous to bear. He knew he must reveal it.
He would not give any details about his secret life, nothing about his first battle with the MBL, but what went up in the Castle must be revealed. Because the Serpent was alive, and went under the name of Edulcore Cicciotto.
Edulcore Cicciotto:
There are three suns in the sky. No, that's not possible. This is Mars. There should be only one sun. How come...?
"Edulcore, patatone, why are you standing there?" It's a young woman talking to me. "Microtrends is looking for us. We must find a place to hide!"
All becomes fuzzy...
A bearded man with a long hook on his right arm is standing in front of me. He is handing me a medallion. "It's the sundial amulet, Euro. It's yours. It should have been since a very long time ago." My hand moves to reach the medallion, and I see that I am wearing a long black coat.
All becomes dark, black as the coat.
I am sitting on the top of a dome, there is a trumpet in my hand, it's cold, and it's night. A star-filled sky barely lights a desert around me. A voice comes from behind. "Strikeforce 5 ready for the mission, sir." I turn... and there is only mist.
I put my lipstick on. I just made love with that man, because I was ordered to get a sample of his semen. Sometimes I just hate this line of work.
Wait... lipstick? What the hell...?
HELP!
The mental scream hits my mind as a wall of bricks falling over me. I awake immediately.
I am on the shoulder of the giant Russian. What's his name? Dark Wolf? Werewolf?
"Put me down! There's someone in water!" I shout.
"Comrade, you were KO. We have saved everyone."
"No, Dark Wolf, there still one..." I say, running back to the shore. UFO!
"It's Blackwulf." The voice of the Russian is long behind me, while the flying saucer, appeared from nowhere, beams me up inside.
I sit on the floor, relieved. I feel pain all over my body. I have almost no feathers on my arms, all taken away by the fierce power of the wind. But the UFO flies fast and steady among the hurricane, protected by a bubble of null gravity, whatever that means (and however the notion was planted in my mind).
The man in the ocean is there. It's the newcomer, the young one: Phil.
He's fighting with the waves, but the battle must have been long and depleting, because now he disappears below the surface.
Beam him up, UFO.
On the floor, in front of me and cold and wet, Phil Smith smiles.