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sealieBy Sealie and LKY
Warnings and disclaimers in Part One
“Toast for breakfast. No eggs? Bacon? Maple syrup.” Jim poked the piece of thinly sliced brown bread.
“Count yourself lucky we’ve got toast – we meant to go to the supermarket last night, but plans changed, didn’t they?” Blair said pointedly.
“We’ve got to go to supermarket – asap,” Jim said ignoring the unspoken question. “They do have supermarkets here, don’t they?”
“It’s England not the Developing World – of course they’ve got supermarkets,” Blair said acidly. “Actually, I noticed road signs to a market when we were at the Keep. We’ll go there see if we can get any fresh, organic fruit and veg. Eat your toast – you need something on your stomach.”
“Yes, mom.”
Blair glowered and the fight was on. Toast and coffee at five o’clock approaching rapidly.
Blair’s finger stabbed the air as he spoke. “So shoot me for being concerned. This is more than jetlag, do you want to tell me what the hell is happening?”
Not particularly, no
“You saw something in the Keep, didn’t you?”
Yeah, floating orbs.
“But it was more than once. There was something freakin’ you out in the Great Hall. But in the catacombs it was more,” Blair hunted for a word, “present? Yeah, present.”
I went on a trip. Without the help of pharmaceuticals.
“So what happened? Jiiiiiiiim?”
Jim shrugged.
“And last night? What the hell happened last night?”
I…don’t actually know where to begin…
“Oh, Jim,” Blair said sympathetically. “Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”
Heaving a deep sigh, Jim launched into what he had seen.
~*~
Blair slumped back in his seat, mouth opening and closing without sound as he mentally started to say something, decided against it, thought of something else, changed his mind and then repeated the whole process over again.
“Ah!” Blair brightened. “Mr. Coates saw them as well, you’re not nuts. Not that I ever thought you were, but you were thinking it. So now you know you’re not.”
Jim held up his hand.
“Orbs?” Blair continued ignoring him. “Wow, an electromagnetic phenomenon? You probably can see further in the light spectrum. But orbs, I remember Naomi saying that they were paranormal phenomena. “
“You mean ghosts,” Jim grated.
Blair shrugged massively, his entire body engaged in the motion. “Could be. But I’m more interested in the psychometry.”
“The what?”
“The ability to read the history of certain objects by holding or touching the object,” Blair defined. He leaned forward across the kitchen table. “Have you done this before?”
“Hallucinated…”
“Had a vision,” Blair interrupted.
“After touching something?” Jim clarified.
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Blair probed.
“I think that I would remember, Chief.”
“Oh, so speaks Mr. Memory.” He grinned cheesily as Jim glowered at him. “Okay, I’ve got a few ideas. I don’t know why it’s happening now. Maybe there’s more ghosts per capita in Good Ol’ England? Or maybe you’re only responsive to really old ghosts, they’ve gotta be like hundreds of years old or maybe they have to be sentinel-related ghosts. But we’ve gotta go with this. I wonder how the dream thing worked? It wasn’t like you were touching anything. Maybe you’re just switched on, man. You’ve moved up another level in the sentinel thing?”
Jim now leaned across the table until their noses were almost touching. “So, Darwin, How. Do. We. Switch. It. Off!”
Blair gave Jim that look: part disappointment, part amazement, part anger, part sympathy.
Jim hated the sympathy part.
"Sandburg, don't start."
But he might as well try stuffing toothpaste back into the tube.
"Jim, this is not something you want to get rid of. You have a gift, okay? And gifts come with responsibilities. I know you're scared--"
"I am *not* scared!"
“--but there's nothing to fear, man. Your visions are just that, pictures. Now we need just a few props." Blair was moving around the room, poking into drawers and dusty bowls the professor kept on shelves. "Here we go."
While the kid's back was turned, Jim beat a hasty escape to the living room; with luck he could find a game on TV. They played Football in England, didn't they? Blair followed holding a tarnished chain and a crystal pendant. The room was warming up. A gas fire had been started. Outside the rain softly pelted the glass panes.
"You comfortable?" Blair asked when Jim sat on the sofa facing the television.
Jim tilted his head up. "If I say yes, would you leave me in peace for an hour?"
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the sofa, Blair ignored the question. Bits of toast crumbs still clung to the corner of his mouth. "Okay, relax. I want you to concentrate on this crystal."
"I'm not sure your professor approves of feet on the furniture," Jim protested lamely.
Blair twirled the quartz. A quick roll of the eyes as he smiled. "Nice and easy, Jim. Deep breaths. I want you to picture an ocean scene. We're going to count the waves together as they slide onto the beach. Hear them, Jim?"
Damn it. Jim could. His eyes caught the light tossed out by the crystal.
Blair's voice was melodic. "I'm counting backwards from ninety-nine. Watch the waves and count with me in your mind."
Jim relaxed, clear pictures of the waves on his mind.
"We're going to start with the first vision you saw. Think back to that first time, Jim."
Ever the obedient sentinel, Jim followed the instruction to the letter.
Sorta
“Go back to your first vision.”
‘K… I can do that.” Jim breathed in slowly over a count of seven and then exhaled with the same rhythm.
“James, don’t jiggle.”
Jim looked up at his Father, who was scowling down at him with that face that meant that a smack was going to happen in the near future. Jim hung his head and looked at his sandals. He clearly heard Father knock once, twice sharply on the wood panelled door.
“Mother,” Father said as the door opened.
“William. James.” Grandmother said, her voice as smooth as cream. “Please, come in.”
Dutifully, Jim trooped forward enjoying the twinkle of the buckles of his sandals as he walked along the sunlight great hallway.
“An Ellison walks with his chin in the air, James.”
Jim straightened. “Yes, Grandmother.”
“So Grace chose not to visit?”
William answered, “You’re going to be a grandmother again, Mother.”
A tiny smile crossed Grandmother’s face. “Excellent.”
“Grace was feeling tired.”
“Somewhat understandable. James, don’t touch the Jade. If I see any fingerprints you’ll be in charge of cleaning the Dragon.”
Jim snatched his hand back. Rocking from foot to foot, he pushed his hands deep in his shorts pockets. Grandmother had her back to him, but Jim knew better than to tempt her slipper.
“There’s a glass of milk and a cookie in the parlour, James.”
Jim shot off.
~*~
“Jim, where are you?”
~*~
Jim pushed his nose up against the glass and peered into Grandmother’s cabinet. Breath misted the polished glass. The fog whispered away. Jim nibbled on his cookie as he looked at the little dancing man, the tiny glass box with the different coloured pieces, the teddy bear with one eye. There was a thin key in the lock. Jim stuffed his half-munched cookie in his pocket. Keys turned. He knew that. Carefully, he tried it. It moved a bit but then it stuck. Growling, Jim tried to force it. The cabinet stayed shut. Jim ran his fingers over the fine grain until he found the right spot. He pressed against the tiny flaw, shifting the warp and the weft of the wood and the key turned. The door popped open.
Jim chortled. Grandmother’s mother’s knickknacks -- as Grandmother called them -- filled the shelves.
The music box. Grandmother had never let him touch it before. This was the “peerc d restintance” of Grandmother’s collection. It opened and the fairy stood up and began to dance. Jim rocked from side to side to the gentle chimes. There were more goodies in the soft lined box. A gold ring sat in the middle. Slowly, Jim reached in, wanting to feel the smoothness.
*AH*
~*~
“Jim, think about the vision.”
~*~
“Of course we will go. I would not miss a Progression along the Mall.”
“Edith, dearest, your young American suitor will be there. He asked father if he could have your hand. I believe he will propose.”
~*~
“Jim?”
“Whoa.” Jim sagged back onto the cushions of the couch. The sense of great grandmother’s wedding ring was rich. Delicate knot work was engraved as a band along the centre. Silence, amazement, there was a hollowed out feeling in his guts since he knew the truth of the vision.
Jim held his finger and thumb up, finger width apart, as he studied the ephemeral ring. Great grandmother had small hands.
“Jim?”
“My Grandmother had a cabinet containing her mother’s favourite possessions,” Jim said dispassionately. “There was a music box which fascinated me. The day I figured out how to turn the key, I got in and opened the box. When I touched Great Grandmother Edith’s wedding ring, I saw the day that Charles Ellison the Fourth proposed.”
Blair’s mouth fell open. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jim smiled without any humour. Back then it hadn’t been anything special, he had returned to the Magic Cabinet as often as possible. “Why do I forget this stuff?”
Blair smiled sadly. “When Bud died, I think that you locked everything away. This would have been part of it. You did it after Peru. It’s a survival mechanism, Jim. I understand; you do it ‘cos you have to.”
Jim clicked his fingers and the ghostly wedding ring dissipated.
“It was only your Great Grandmother’s things which gave you visions, eh?” Blair asked.
“Yeah.”
“Was your Great Grandmother a sentinel?”
Everything froze and then his memories toppled and images like a shuffle of cards walked before his eyes: Great Grandmother’s trip on the giant steamship across the Atlantic Ocean; her amazement the first time a sea squall rose in the west and moved towards the vessel, the wind on its wings bringing scents that she had never smelled.
“She was a sentinel,” Jim confirmed.
“The genes may be carried on the X-chromosome,” Blair mused. “This is fascinating; you have a predisposition to pick up images from sentinels. I can’t begin to explain it, but perhaps you -- sentinels -- have a higher electromagnetic payload, you impress your essential self onto elements with the right resonance: metal, stone--”
“I thought that you hadn’t any theories,” Jim said waspishly.
“Hypotheses,” Blair corrected. “And the matrix retains the experience and you’re tuned into the sentinel phenomenon, so you can read it.”
“And the orbs?”
“You didn’t get any messages from them, did you? It’s related but different. It’s about seeing beyond natural sight into the preternatural. Your psychometric experiences are sentinel orientated. But seeing other phenomena is about being sensitive. You are sensitive. You said ‘this place is full of ghosts’- maybe if enough ghosts knock at the door, you eventually see them.”
~*~
Jim’s thoughts still echoed Blair’s words as they parked a few blocks down from the Keep. Light rain fell, harmlessly coating their jackets and kissing their faces as they climbed the ancient steps to the fortress.
The problem was clear. He didn’t want to see orbs and get bushwhacked by dead memories of people, even it they were sentinel forefathers. His life had enough drama. Reality was rich with danger for a Major Crime detective.
Why did this stuff have to happen to them?
“What?” Blair demanded.
Jim blinked. He’d been following Blair as they’d wound down the stairs and navigated the low doorways and arched corridors to the musty treasure room. Admittedly, his mind had not been taking in the surroundings until Blair’s sudden outrage.
“What is it, Sandburg?” Jim asked.
Blair spun, his disbelief shining clearly. “He said it’s gone! Someone broke in last night and took it.”
Two men - one the old man from yesterday, Coates, and the other a business man in a gray tailored suit - stood among the crates and packing material. Jim scanned the artefacts, comparing his memory to what he was seeing. The plaque no longer rested on the floor in the corner, leaning against the wall. A small box that had been filled with bits of armour was gone. Other items were missing from a low work table.
“Have you reported this to the police?” Jim asked Coates.
The old man nodded. “You just missed them. We’ll be getting a report for sure, not much else from that lot.”
“Nonononono,” Blair moaned, pulling his hair back from his face in fists. “Oh, god. Why didn’t I make a rubbing? I didn’t even take pictures. This can’t be happening.”
The stranger crossed his arms. Jim didn’t like the way he pursed his mouth or the narrowing of the man’s eyes.
“You seemed pretty interested, I hear. We never had a break in until you showed up out of the blue yesterday worming your way into the Keep. Are you certain you don’t have any information about the whereabouts of our artefacts?”
“Huh?” Blair’s mouth dropped open.
“And you are?” Jim stepped forward, commanding this joker’s attention.
“Doctor Richard Thurston Appleworst. I’m in charge of the northern district of the English Tradition Foundation. Certainly you’ve heard of us. Sayville Row London? *The* English Tradition Foundation?”
Jim didn’t care if this twit was Prince Big-Ears.
Blair squeezed in, gently forcing Jim to take a step back. Hostility snapped the air around them. “Hey, we’re just as freaked out about this as you are. I *need* that plaque.”
“Obviously,” Appleworst quipped accusingly.
“Listen, Mac,” Jim started. A flash of light out of the corner of his eye jerked him up short. He turned.
The orb was back.
Somewhat mischievously the orb ambled up to brush past his cheek. A whisper away it hovered before his nose effectively excluding his view of the snooty boffin and most of the room. Jim huffed nosily through his nose blowing it back a hairsbreadth.
“I believe that we should inform the police that we have a *potential* suspect,” Appleworst said.
“i… I … I’m a student for God’s sake. I’ve got papers, this was all arranged. “If I was a criminal do you think that I would be stupid enough to announce my presence and fly over here with my own passport in cattle class?”
The orb drifted purposely to the back of the chamber where it bobbed up and down. Jim sensed mocking, but couldn’t place who or what was being mocked.
He swallowed convulsively. Emotions? Now he was picking up emotions?
The orb sort of rolled and then passed right through the dork, who remained completely and totally oblivious. Arrowing forwards it bisected Blair.
“I…!”
Blair shivered convulsively as if someone had walked over his grave.
“Oooh.” Blair looked around.
The orb darted up the spiral staircase. Jim shot after it. Corridor after corridor, grey stone staircase. He pounded after the chortling ball and it always stayed just in sight.
Jim skidded to a halt on a smooth marble floor, realising, belatedly, that it was leading him. At the far end of the display lined hall the orb stopped realising that the chase was over. It bobbed to the left and then back, pointing the way.
They hadn’t explored this chamber before. It was an annex to the museum section. Jim slid forwards, senses extended, trying to discern why the orb had led him here. Angling around the orb, he viewed the display or to be more accurate the entrance to the mock up of a Temple of Mithras. The orb winked out.
Jim stepped slowly into the dark Mithraeum.
It was dark, and warm. Stone benches, piled high with white furs were set along the walls to his left and right. Before him stood a chest high pillar. A top of it sat a guttering torch – a mock up of a low watt bulb and red tissue paper, surrounded by a cone of brown cardboard.
Jim smiled.
He slipped around the guardian pillar into the temple. The torch might not be real but the rest of the temple was filled with ancient stones that resonated.
At the back of the temple, three small columns sat before a large mosaic that dominated the whole room. The picture was brutal: a swarthy, black haired man exposed the throat of a giant white bull, knife poised.
Drawn, Jim drifted forward. Stooping, he looked at the commemorative inscription at the bottom of the middle pillar. The stone was etched with Latin, the trials of wind and weather rendered them almost invisible.
A translation had been provided.
“Altar to Mithras, of the Prefect of the first cohort of Batatavians, Vindolanda’s Own. Lucius Simplicus Proculus.”
Not of his own volition, Jim reached out and touched.
~*~
He strode over the damp dew wet grass, hands handing loosely at his side, ready to pull free his short sword at the slightest provocation. The region of the most Northerly Wall of the Empire was a barren place of rolling moors, twisted banks of copses- heather, oaks, willow and beech. It had its own austere beauty. The lush land of home was more green and verdant. Each had their own special magic.
His tour would be up soon, and then he would return home, or perhaps go with Marcus to Syria.
“Sir.” His adjutant saluted as he strode through the main gate.
The stone city brought a sense of order to these northern lands. Functional streets with gutters to catch the never ending rain and well-built homes for the soldiers and even the civilians that served their purpose within the walls. All this proved that the Romans knew how to organize. The barbarians to the north were fools to turn away the Empire.
A young kid ran up and saluted him. "Sir, the Primus Pilus is looking for you."
End of Part Five
Part Six
Warnings and disclaimers in Part One
“Toast for breakfast. No eggs? Bacon? Maple syrup.” Jim poked the piece of thinly sliced brown bread.
“Count yourself lucky we’ve got toast – we meant to go to the supermarket last night, but plans changed, didn’t they?” Blair said pointedly.
“We’ve got to go to supermarket – asap,” Jim said ignoring the unspoken question. “They do have supermarkets here, don’t they?”
“It’s England not the Developing World – of course they’ve got supermarkets,” Blair said acidly. “Actually, I noticed road signs to a market when we were at the Keep. We’ll go there see if we can get any fresh, organic fruit and veg. Eat your toast – you need something on your stomach.”
“Yes, mom.”
Blair glowered and the fight was on. Toast and coffee at five o’clock approaching rapidly.
Blair’s finger stabbed the air as he spoke. “So shoot me for being concerned. This is more than jetlag, do you want to tell me what the hell is happening?”
Not particularly, no
“You saw something in the Keep, didn’t you?”
Yeah, floating orbs.
“But it was more than once. There was something freakin’ you out in the Great Hall. But in the catacombs it was more,” Blair hunted for a word, “present? Yeah, present.”
I went on a trip. Without the help of pharmaceuticals.
“So what happened? Jiiiiiiiim?”
Jim shrugged.
“And last night? What the hell happened last night?”
I…don’t actually know where to begin…
“Oh, Jim,” Blair said sympathetically. “Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”
Heaving a deep sigh, Jim launched into what he had seen.
~*~
Blair slumped back in his seat, mouth opening and closing without sound as he mentally started to say something, decided against it, thought of something else, changed his mind and then repeated the whole process over again.
“Ah!” Blair brightened. “Mr. Coates saw them as well, you’re not nuts. Not that I ever thought you were, but you were thinking it. So now you know you’re not.”
Jim held up his hand.
“Orbs?” Blair continued ignoring him. “Wow, an electromagnetic phenomenon? You probably can see further in the light spectrum. But orbs, I remember Naomi saying that they were paranormal phenomena. “
“You mean ghosts,” Jim grated.
Blair shrugged massively, his entire body engaged in the motion. “Could be. But I’m more interested in the psychometry.”
“The what?”
“The ability to read the history of certain objects by holding or touching the object,” Blair defined. He leaned forward across the kitchen table. “Have you done this before?”
“Hallucinated…”
“Had a vision,” Blair interrupted.
“After touching something?” Jim clarified.
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Blair probed.
“I think that I would remember, Chief.”
“Oh, so speaks Mr. Memory.” He grinned cheesily as Jim glowered at him. “Okay, I’ve got a few ideas. I don’t know why it’s happening now. Maybe there’s more ghosts per capita in Good Ol’ England? Or maybe you’re only responsive to really old ghosts, they’ve gotta be like hundreds of years old or maybe they have to be sentinel-related ghosts. But we’ve gotta go with this. I wonder how the dream thing worked? It wasn’t like you were touching anything. Maybe you’re just switched on, man. You’ve moved up another level in the sentinel thing?”
Jim now leaned across the table until their noses were almost touching. “So, Darwin, How. Do. We. Switch. It. Off!”
Blair gave Jim that look: part disappointment, part amazement, part anger, part sympathy.
Jim hated the sympathy part.
"Sandburg, don't start."
But he might as well try stuffing toothpaste back into the tube.
"Jim, this is not something you want to get rid of. You have a gift, okay? And gifts come with responsibilities. I know you're scared--"
"I am *not* scared!"
“--but there's nothing to fear, man. Your visions are just that, pictures. Now we need just a few props." Blair was moving around the room, poking into drawers and dusty bowls the professor kept on shelves. "Here we go."
While the kid's back was turned, Jim beat a hasty escape to the living room; with luck he could find a game on TV. They played Football in England, didn't they? Blair followed holding a tarnished chain and a crystal pendant. The room was warming up. A gas fire had been started. Outside the rain softly pelted the glass panes.
"You comfortable?" Blair asked when Jim sat on the sofa facing the television.
Jim tilted his head up. "If I say yes, would you leave me in peace for an hour?"
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the sofa, Blair ignored the question. Bits of toast crumbs still clung to the corner of his mouth. "Okay, relax. I want you to concentrate on this crystal."
"I'm not sure your professor approves of feet on the furniture," Jim protested lamely.
Blair twirled the quartz. A quick roll of the eyes as he smiled. "Nice and easy, Jim. Deep breaths. I want you to picture an ocean scene. We're going to count the waves together as they slide onto the beach. Hear them, Jim?"
Damn it. Jim could. His eyes caught the light tossed out by the crystal.
Blair's voice was melodic. "I'm counting backwards from ninety-nine. Watch the waves and count with me in your mind."
Jim relaxed, clear pictures of the waves on his mind.
"We're going to start with the first vision you saw. Think back to that first time, Jim."
Ever the obedient sentinel, Jim followed the instruction to the letter.
Sorta
“Go back to your first vision.”
‘K… I can do that.” Jim breathed in slowly over a count of seven and then exhaled with the same rhythm.
“James, don’t jiggle.”
Jim looked up at his Father, who was scowling down at him with that face that meant that a smack was going to happen in the near future. Jim hung his head and looked at his sandals. He clearly heard Father knock once, twice sharply on the wood panelled door.
“Mother,” Father said as the door opened.
“William. James.” Grandmother said, her voice as smooth as cream. “Please, come in.”
Dutifully, Jim trooped forward enjoying the twinkle of the buckles of his sandals as he walked along the sunlight great hallway.
“An Ellison walks with his chin in the air, James.”
Jim straightened. “Yes, Grandmother.”
“So Grace chose not to visit?”
William answered, “You’re going to be a grandmother again, Mother.”
A tiny smile crossed Grandmother’s face. “Excellent.”
“Grace was feeling tired.”
“Somewhat understandable. James, don’t touch the Jade. If I see any fingerprints you’ll be in charge of cleaning the Dragon.”
Jim snatched his hand back. Rocking from foot to foot, he pushed his hands deep in his shorts pockets. Grandmother had her back to him, but Jim knew better than to tempt her slipper.
“There’s a glass of milk and a cookie in the parlour, James.”
Jim shot off.
~*~
“Jim, where are you?”
~*~
Jim pushed his nose up against the glass and peered into Grandmother’s cabinet. Breath misted the polished glass. The fog whispered away. Jim nibbled on his cookie as he looked at the little dancing man, the tiny glass box with the different coloured pieces, the teddy bear with one eye. There was a thin key in the lock. Jim stuffed his half-munched cookie in his pocket. Keys turned. He knew that. Carefully, he tried it. It moved a bit but then it stuck. Growling, Jim tried to force it. The cabinet stayed shut. Jim ran his fingers over the fine grain until he found the right spot. He pressed against the tiny flaw, shifting the warp and the weft of the wood and the key turned. The door popped open.
Jim chortled. Grandmother’s mother’s knickknacks -- as Grandmother called them -- filled the shelves.
The music box. Grandmother had never let him touch it before. This was the “peerc d restintance” of Grandmother’s collection. It opened and the fairy stood up and began to dance. Jim rocked from side to side to the gentle chimes. There were more goodies in the soft lined box. A gold ring sat in the middle. Slowly, Jim reached in, wanting to feel the smoothness.
*AH*
~*~
“Jim, think about the vision.”
~*~
“Of course we will go. I would not miss a Progression along the Mall.”
“Edith, dearest, your young American suitor will be there. He asked father if he could have your hand. I believe he will propose.”
~*~
“Jim?”
“Whoa.” Jim sagged back onto the cushions of the couch. The sense of great grandmother’s wedding ring was rich. Delicate knot work was engraved as a band along the centre. Silence, amazement, there was a hollowed out feeling in his guts since he knew the truth of the vision.
Jim held his finger and thumb up, finger width apart, as he studied the ephemeral ring. Great grandmother had small hands.
“Jim?”
“My Grandmother had a cabinet containing her mother’s favourite possessions,” Jim said dispassionately. “There was a music box which fascinated me. The day I figured out how to turn the key, I got in and opened the box. When I touched Great Grandmother Edith’s wedding ring, I saw the day that Charles Ellison the Fourth proposed.”
Blair’s mouth fell open. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jim smiled without any humour. Back then it hadn’t been anything special, he had returned to the Magic Cabinet as often as possible. “Why do I forget this stuff?”
Blair smiled sadly. “When Bud died, I think that you locked everything away. This would have been part of it. You did it after Peru. It’s a survival mechanism, Jim. I understand; you do it ‘cos you have to.”
Jim clicked his fingers and the ghostly wedding ring dissipated.
“It was only your Great Grandmother’s things which gave you visions, eh?” Blair asked.
“Yeah.”
“Was your Great Grandmother a sentinel?”
Everything froze and then his memories toppled and images like a shuffle of cards walked before his eyes: Great Grandmother’s trip on the giant steamship across the Atlantic Ocean; her amazement the first time a sea squall rose in the west and moved towards the vessel, the wind on its wings bringing scents that she had never smelled.
“She was a sentinel,” Jim confirmed.
“The genes may be carried on the X-chromosome,” Blair mused. “This is fascinating; you have a predisposition to pick up images from sentinels. I can’t begin to explain it, but perhaps you -- sentinels -- have a higher electromagnetic payload, you impress your essential self onto elements with the right resonance: metal, stone--”
“I thought that you hadn’t any theories,” Jim said waspishly.
“Hypotheses,” Blair corrected. “And the matrix retains the experience and you’re tuned into the sentinel phenomenon, so you can read it.”
“And the orbs?”
“You didn’t get any messages from them, did you? It’s related but different. It’s about seeing beyond natural sight into the preternatural. Your psychometric experiences are sentinel orientated. But seeing other phenomena is about being sensitive. You are sensitive. You said ‘this place is full of ghosts’- maybe if enough ghosts knock at the door, you eventually see them.”
~*~
Jim’s thoughts still echoed Blair’s words as they parked a few blocks down from the Keep. Light rain fell, harmlessly coating their jackets and kissing their faces as they climbed the ancient steps to the fortress.
The problem was clear. He didn’t want to see orbs and get bushwhacked by dead memories of people, even it they were sentinel forefathers. His life had enough drama. Reality was rich with danger for a Major Crime detective.
Why did this stuff have to happen to them?
“What?” Blair demanded.
Jim blinked. He’d been following Blair as they’d wound down the stairs and navigated the low doorways and arched corridors to the musty treasure room. Admittedly, his mind had not been taking in the surroundings until Blair’s sudden outrage.
“What is it, Sandburg?” Jim asked.
Blair spun, his disbelief shining clearly. “He said it’s gone! Someone broke in last night and took it.”
Two men - one the old man from yesterday, Coates, and the other a business man in a gray tailored suit - stood among the crates and packing material. Jim scanned the artefacts, comparing his memory to what he was seeing. The plaque no longer rested on the floor in the corner, leaning against the wall. A small box that had been filled with bits of armour was gone. Other items were missing from a low work table.
“Have you reported this to the police?” Jim asked Coates.
The old man nodded. “You just missed them. We’ll be getting a report for sure, not much else from that lot.”
“Nonononono,” Blair moaned, pulling his hair back from his face in fists. “Oh, god. Why didn’t I make a rubbing? I didn’t even take pictures. This can’t be happening.”
The stranger crossed his arms. Jim didn’t like the way he pursed his mouth or the narrowing of the man’s eyes.
“You seemed pretty interested, I hear. We never had a break in until you showed up out of the blue yesterday worming your way into the Keep. Are you certain you don’t have any information about the whereabouts of our artefacts?”
“Huh?” Blair’s mouth dropped open.
“And you are?” Jim stepped forward, commanding this joker’s attention.
“Doctor Richard Thurston Appleworst. I’m in charge of the northern district of the English Tradition Foundation. Certainly you’ve heard of us. Sayville Row London? *The* English Tradition Foundation?”
Jim didn’t care if this twit was Prince Big-Ears.
Blair squeezed in, gently forcing Jim to take a step back. Hostility snapped the air around them. “Hey, we’re just as freaked out about this as you are. I *need* that plaque.”
“Obviously,” Appleworst quipped accusingly.
“Listen, Mac,” Jim started. A flash of light out of the corner of his eye jerked him up short. He turned.
The orb was back.
Somewhat mischievously the orb ambled up to brush past his cheek. A whisper away it hovered before his nose effectively excluding his view of the snooty boffin and most of the room. Jim huffed nosily through his nose blowing it back a hairsbreadth.
“I believe that we should inform the police that we have a *potential* suspect,” Appleworst said.
“i… I … I’m a student for God’s sake. I’ve got papers, this was all arranged. “If I was a criminal do you think that I would be stupid enough to announce my presence and fly over here with my own passport in cattle class?”
The orb drifted purposely to the back of the chamber where it bobbed up and down. Jim sensed mocking, but couldn’t place who or what was being mocked.
He swallowed convulsively. Emotions? Now he was picking up emotions?
The orb sort of rolled and then passed right through the dork, who remained completely and totally oblivious. Arrowing forwards it bisected Blair.
“I…!”
Blair shivered convulsively as if someone had walked over his grave.
“Oooh.” Blair looked around.
The orb darted up the spiral staircase. Jim shot after it. Corridor after corridor, grey stone staircase. He pounded after the chortling ball and it always stayed just in sight.
Jim skidded to a halt on a smooth marble floor, realising, belatedly, that it was leading him. At the far end of the display lined hall the orb stopped realising that the chase was over. It bobbed to the left and then back, pointing the way.
They hadn’t explored this chamber before. It was an annex to the museum section. Jim slid forwards, senses extended, trying to discern why the orb had led him here. Angling around the orb, he viewed the display or to be more accurate the entrance to the mock up of a Temple of Mithras. The orb winked out.
Jim stepped slowly into the dark Mithraeum.
It was dark, and warm. Stone benches, piled high with white furs were set along the walls to his left and right. Before him stood a chest high pillar. A top of it sat a guttering torch – a mock up of a low watt bulb and red tissue paper, surrounded by a cone of brown cardboard.
Jim smiled.
He slipped around the guardian pillar into the temple. The torch might not be real but the rest of the temple was filled with ancient stones that resonated.
At the back of the temple, three small columns sat before a large mosaic that dominated the whole room. The picture was brutal: a swarthy, black haired man exposed the throat of a giant white bull, knife poised.
Drawn, Jim drifted forward. Stooping, he looked at the commemorative inscription at the bottom of the middle pillar. The stone was etched with Latin, the trials of wind and weather rendered them almost invisible.
A translation had been provided.
“Altar to Mithras, of the Prefect of the first cohort of Batatavians, Vindolanda’s Own. Lucius Simplicus Proculus.”
Not of his own volition, Jim reached out and touched.
~*~
He strode over the damp dew wet grass, hands handing loosely at his side, ready to pull free his short sword at the slightest provocation. The region of the most Northerly Wall of the Empire was a barren place of rolling moors, twisted banks of copses- heather, oaks, willow and beech. It had its own austere beauty. The lush land of home was more green and verdant. Each had their own special magic.
His tour would be up soon, and then he would return home, or perhaps go with Marcus to Syria.
“Sir.” His adjutant saluted as he strode through the main gate.
The stone city brought a sense of order to these northern lands. Functional streets with gutters to catch the never ending rain and well-built homes for the soldiers and even the civilians that served their purpose within the walls. All this proved that the Romans knew how to organize. The barbarians to the north were fools to turn away the Empire.
A young kid ran up and saluted him. "Sir, the Primus Pilus is looking for you."
End of Part Five
Part Six
