She sighed. “The Seal's impact shattered magic. It still exists, as do creatures fed by it obviously. The fey, as we call them, are a shadow of their former power. Even the Tormentor can be contained because of the Seal. The Seal is weakening though and will eventually give out. We can't say when. There is no gauge to measure magic. It's always leaked. We think that's how the fey continue to appear but really don't know. Lately, it's been getting worse. But here's the thing. It's been quiet now for months. Very little activity. We know the Seal is weakening so activity should be on the rise, not decline, and the higher-ups are split between being worried over it and thinking the fey are going extinct."
“That’s enough of a history lesson. I've given this speech so many times I'm bored of it. Let’s focus on why we’re here right now. You need to learn so let’s get to it,” she told him.
#
She was known for her skill in training. She was very good at finding the right approach and using it to hone people. She sized up Sebastian as a shy type. He was well educated, he would never have made it to the Academy if he wasn’t. She could catch him occasionally sneaking a peek at her ass but always trying to hide it. He was bashful, and she had to break that. Bashful didn't work in the field. He would have to be hardened to survive.
They arrived on the restricted upper floors and she led him to a training area. She took off her uniform, stripped down and started putting on clothing more apt to exercise, stopping after she put on her sweatpants. Sebastian blushed and turned his head and she laughed at him.
"If the site of tits is going to do you in, you're not going to make it far. Now, get into your sweats and grab a bokken," she ordered, staring at him while he changed. "You've got to get over the embarrassment. We're a team here and we have no secrets from each other." She saw his arousal and smiled. "It seems some of us keep big secrets," she said, doing her best to make him uncomfortable as she put on a sports bra.
He picked up the bokken and turned to face her. As he turned, she hit him in the face with hers.
"I wasn't ready," he said, noticing a bit of blood from his nose.
"Always be ready. It doesn't matter if you're asleep, in the shower, on the toilet, in the middle of sex, you have to always be ready. When we hunt, many of the creatures we pursue don't eat, don't sleep and don't stop. We don't have that luxury, so we have to be ready while we do those things. Can you do that? Can you have that level of focus regardless of what you're doing?" she asked him.
"Yea, I can have that level of focus," he told her, rubbing his reddened jaw.
She continued "You have to. Your life and mine and the lives of who knows how many innocent people might depend on it and you'll never get my approval to be in the field if you can't prove it. Now show me how well you handle that big stick you're packing," she said intentionally trying to keep him embarrassed and off guard.
They spent the next few hours training with various weapons. He was good, of that there was no doubt, but he was fighting from a textbook for the most part. He wasn’t ready for things that didn’t follow the rules and forms in the training manuals. He took a beating, but she held back on his first day. She gave him some bruises, a few shocks from the stun weapons and some minor muscle strains but didn't do any real damage.
#
Later that evening they showered up. She made it a point to be as sexual as possible while showering just to keep him nervous and he kept trying to avoid obviously looking in her direction. She laughed at him. "You're going to have to get used to this. We all share this training facility and this shower and it's communal. Turn around, look at me. I'm a woman. I have girl parts. You're a man. You have boy parts. There is nothing embarrassing about them and you have no reason to feel shame. We have each other’s backs and not one single person on this team, from the Coordinator down, is embarrassed to be in here with their teammates. So, get over it," she said.
"It's just that I... uh..." but she stopped him.
"You're turned on. I get it. You can't really hide it. Today is your first day and you still see a woman you find physically attractive, assuming you do find me attractive of course," she said.
"Oh, I do. I mean...I, uh," he said stammering.
"It's okay. Today you want to fuck me but after a few days of training with me, you'll want to kill me instead. Trust me on this. You're going to learn to hate me but until then," she said and walked over to him. She reached down and grabbed his manhood and started to kiss him. Then she kicked his feet out from under him and shoved him. Between the wet soapy floor and his momentum, he landed with a thud. "What did I tell you about always being ready?" she said laughing and went to dry off.
#
That night, Squire Sebastian arrived at the Dragon's Roost. The party was already in progress and several of the higher-ups that personally knew Facilitator William were in attendance. He saw Lady Chelsea over at the bar and walked up. "Sebtianan! Join us! Barkeep, mead for my squire!" she said sounding a bit tipsy and butchering his name.
"No, thank you, I don't drink," he said.
"You do now. Barkeep, whiskey! Two shots and leave the bottle," she said, a bit wobbly on her bar stool.
"Lady Chelsea, I just wanted to say, about the shower earlier," but she put a finger to his lips.
"Squire, here we are equals. I am not Lady Chelsea, I am Chelsea and you are not Squire Abastiananian, you are Squire because it has less syllab... syllalala... sybalyls... parts to it and is easier to say. No shop talk. Only drinking," she said with a slur and handed him a shot of whiskey.
She reached one of her legs out and wrapped it around his own leg, then slowly moved her foot up and down.
“Now drink," she ordered.
He felt her rubbing her leg against his and tried to remain professional, then took the drink and downed it.
"You don't drink and downed whiskey without choking. I think someone is fibbing," she said giggling.
"I grew up on my family's farm. My dad brewed his own whenever he was home and we drank together at every holiday. I don't drink because I don't want to dull my senses, but I've had my share in my life. Whiskey is like water next to dad's homemade stuff," he said.
She smiled and shoved him. He started to back up from it, but he forgot for a moment she had her leg around his and she tripped him up and he hit the floor. She smiled at him. "I don't drink to the point of inebriation either. You let your guard down. Where's that focus you promised me?" He was starting to hate her.
An older man walking towards them offered him a hand up. The man looked at him. The man had huge scars going across his face and several more on the side of his head. Much of the hair on the left side of his head was missing, scar tissue where the follicles used to be. One of his eyes was synthetic. "What happened to your face boy?" he said noticing the bruises and scrapes on Sebastian from the earlier training session.
"Hi Dad, thanks for helping me up. I started my facility assignment today. My instructor is just making sure I'm ready for the field," said Sebastian. The old man cleared his throat and glared. "Oh right, we're not at home. Sorry, Director Abraham sir," he said.
Chelsea's eyes got wide and she spoke quickly. "Director Abraham sir, I am this recruit’s trainer and responsible for his injuries," but he stopped her.
"Beat the sissy out of his ass. Little pussy always was a pushover so whip him into shape, literally if you have to but, the old man paused smiling at her, “I'd rather whip you into shape and I've got just the whip if you want a private demonstration little missy," and she giggled. "I know what field work is like. You think I got these scars from a rough night in a whore house? Come to think of it, I do have scars from a whorehouse but they're not visible. I can offer you a private viewing if you want to see them," he said laughing. "Now pour us all a shot of that watered-down piss you have there and let's enjoy this celebration. That's an order."
Chelsea looked at Sebastian. "I think I love your dad."
#
Chelsea, Abraham, and Se
bastian sat at a table laughing and drinking listening to Abraham’s stories of his field days. "And so, the damn thing came at me from behind. My partner was already down and bleeding out, so I had to hurry. It had claws six inches long and sharp as razors they were. That thing caught me and nearly ripped the side of my head off. I had huge gashes and was pouring blood."
Sebastian interjected. "Dad, I don't think Chelsea wants to hear about your injuries."
She laughed at him. "Man up boy and let your papa talk. This is what it's like out there, so you'd best listen," she said replied.
Abraham continued, "So there I am. I'm holding my skin in place with my left hand. My nose is nearly cut off and blood is choking me. My left eye is gone. All I had remaining was my blade. That fey moved like lightning but back then, so did I. It lunged at me again and I caught it with an upward stab through its chin and out the top of its head. I yanked that blade forward cutting through the front of its skull and out its face and blood and brain matter went everywhere. It took about a thousand stitches and several pieces of metal to put my face and head back together, but you can't kill a Warden that easy," he said laughing and took another drink from the nearly empty bottle.
She looked at the older man. "Damn. I am impressed. I've taken down a rougarou but there were three of us and it still put up a hell of a fight. That's no easy feat."
The three of them talked for some time until the bottle ran dry.
#
After the party died down and speeches were made, a short ad hoc roast of William took place then the bar started emptying out. Sebastian and Chelsea were still talking, his father having left some time ago needing to return to the headquarters in London.
"You've fought one of those things that nearly killed dad?" he asked her.
"A rougarou?" she asked. "Yea, once. There were reports that people in a small town in France were going missing and found days later, mauled and sometimes only pieces of them left. It was me, William and Robert. Robert was the Facilitator before William but is no longer with us. They were both field agents back then. That's probably been ten years ago. I was the junior agent on the team in those days and was sent to tag along with the two senior agents to learn.”
“Can I ask you something?” she asked Sebastian.
“Wardens have no secrets and the only way to get an answer to a question is to ask it,” he replied using one of the clichés drilled into students heads at the Academy.
“Please understand, I don't mean to insult you. It's just that new recruits coming straight to Facility 14 is unheard of and now I found out your dad is a member of the Directorate,” she said.
“And you think I was handed this post. Nothing could be further from the truth. He doesn't even want me in the Wardens and wasn't too pleased when I accepted the post at Facility 14 with its reputation for dangerous hunts. He wants me to have a safe desk job somewhere. I think he's afraid because of what happened to him and thinks it will happen to me,” he replied.
“That's good to know. Not the part about your dad not supporting you, the part about how he didn't force your assignment here.” She paused, then asked, “Have you ever wondered why we don't use last names as a Warden? We have a title and a first name. Your last name is your family and you never bring your family into the fold and by never using your last name, we never know your family. I'm surprised you have a relative in the Wardens."
Sebastian thought about that. "He fought me tooth and nail to keep me from joining. I was a little kid when he was hurt and forcibly retired from field work due to his injuries and though he hides it well he still suffers from them. He has multiple plates holding his face together as he said but he also has extensive nerve damage in his neck. I think the drinking is to help him hide the pain. I never knew why he didn't want me to do what he did. He's always so proud of his service but was adamant I never follow in his footsteps and he went berserk when he found out I joined anyway," he told her.
She looked at him and he saw the actual emotion in her face, not the hard ass she was at the Facility. "Because Sebastian," she said in a low voice. "I'm training you to die. We all train to die. Warden field agents have a very high mortality rate and I bet your father doesn't want to outlive his son. That's why we live how we do. We enjoy what time we can to the extent we can because any given day might be our last."
#
The man sat at a table reading over a tome. A dreb, an ancient species of fey stood beside him. They were like humans in size but had the skin of a lizard, with scales covering their bodies and their hair often to their waist or lower. This one had blue-black scales and silver, almost translucent hair braided with gems and pieces of precious metals woven into it.
"My lord," said the creature, its voice sounding like crackling flames. "What are your orders?" is asked as the man looked up.
He placed a bookmark and closed the tome and looked around the large library, filled with ancient books, scrolls and other implements of an age long passed. "Do you know why I read the original texts?”
“I do not. It would be more efficient to copy them to a computer to make cross-indexing faster,” the creature replied.
“Computers. Databases. The tools of modern idiots. You can copy a page, but you can't feel the power of it. This book, Librum Inmortuus Factus Creaturae Dei, or, A Treatise On The Creation Of Undeath if you prefer English, was at the Library of Alexander. It was the last work of a dark wizard whose name history has forgotten. He was among the first to chronicle the spells and rites needed for the creation and control of a lich. He had the goal of living forever,” Mordred chuckled a bit at that, “but only managed to turn himself into an abomination. It worked, after a fashion. The moron sleeps in the courtyard even now. This is the first copy, penned by the wizard himself. He mixed his own blood with the ink and the binding was made from the flesh of a virgin sacrificed some dark god or another, which one is irrelevant. The craftsmanship is extraordinary. You can feel the pain of the maiden's death. You can feel the darkness of the author's soul. You can't get that from a screen. You can get the words, true, but not the feeling of them. It is personal. It is pure,” the man replied.
“I believe I understand, my Lord,” the creature replied.
“No, you do not but it matters not. You're too young and magic too weak for you to feel it as I can. My orders are simple. Continue as you have. Find them and bring them here. I need to drain any arcane essence they have. I'm so close to breaking it I just need more energy and their essence will provide it," the man told the dreb.
"Yes, Lord Mordred. As you command," said the creature. It bowed and then left the room.
Mordred stared at the tome. "So very close," he said to himself.
#
“Master Merlin this is not a good idea. This isn’t some wayward beast you’re going to face. This is a dragon. They’re the most dangerous creature on this planet and despite your power, you might be rushing to your death,” the young Master told him.
“I know this. Am I not the one who taught you about them? Dragons are powerful but not unbeatable. Masters have faced them for centuries and defeated them. They are magnificent beasts but are little more than powerful animals and this animal is starting to feed on villagers which I cannot allow. Were you or Morgana stronger, I would seek your assistance but either of you rushing into this would be certain death. This is my task and mine alone,” Merlin replied.
“At the very least wait for Arthur and the knights to return from their mission to Scotland. This is a better task for armored warriors,” Alexander requested.
“Do you think me old and feeble? Have you not listened to a single one of my lessons, boy? Power is not measured by the strength of your back or sharpness of your blade,” the old man said then continued. “Besides, I have Morgana’s gift. While her talent for direct magic is only fledgling, her skill at the creation of artifices is great. This staff amplifies my power significantly and will allow me to thwart this monstrosity with ease.” He showed
the staff to Alexander.
“Merlin, I beseech you. Do not kill this creature. They are rare and once they are gone they can never return. Scare it away, don’t kill it,” said Morgana, sounding distraught.
“I will do what must be done for the greater good. If the beast’s life can be saved then all the better but it must be stopped,” the man said.
With that, Merlin walked to the entrance of the tower and whistled. A steed came to greet him. He mounted the horse and it galloped off at an unnatural pace. Morgana watched him ride off as a single tear ran down her cheek.
“Don’t fret Morgana. I’m certain he will be fine,” Alexander told her.
“It’s not him for whom I mourn,” she said and walked up the stairs.
Merlin made a quick pace on the enchanted horse, reaching the last sighting of the dragon in mere minutes. He preferred to simply teleport, but it scared the villagers too much. He walked into the village and the locals rushed out to him, bowing to show their reverence to their Master. The town’s elder, hesitant and scared, approached him and bowed.
“Master Merlin, thank you for coming. We are in great need of your power,” the man told him.
“You are terrorized by a dragon and your village is under my protection. It is my duty to defend you. What can you tell me of the beast?” Merlin asked.
“We don’t know much. Only that it comes from the mountain pass to the north. It appears every few days and takes our people and livestock. It has been happening for several weeks now. At first, it was only a few heads of cattle or sheep but lately, its hunger is no longer sated, and it has been taking people. We have lost nearly a dozen now, my own son among them,” the man said, the sorrow in his voice evident.
“I will remove this scourge and make your village safe again. You have my word,” Merlin told him.
“Have several of your strongest follow behind me after a few minutes wait. They will need a large wagon, two if you have them, saws and several teams of strong horses,” Merlin told them then mounted the steed again then rode off in the direction of the north pass. He knew the area and knew exactly where to wait for the beast.
The Seal of Solomon Page 3