“What do you mean you lost the trail?!”

The voice was calm, no inflections or hints of passion, but it was enough to make the figure hunch over as though afraid they would be struck.

The room was a small one, not really much more than a shed, but sufficient for the purposes it was intended for. Each wall was adorned with symbols, some runic, others geometric. All of them were painted with dark rusty red paint which seemed to glow in the dim lighting. The small fire that burnt in a bowl at the centre of the rooms floor was the only source of light, and it had been from this fire that the voice had spoken.

Prostrated before the small flame was the room’s only occupant, a figure so wrapped in robes, despite the hot atmosphere, that it was impossible to determine their height, age or even their gender. They were on their knees, their gloved hands pressed to the concrete floor of the room as they bowed their hooded head. They made no sound, spoke no words, but the voice from the fire responded to an unheard reply.

“It must be found once more! We know that she has faded from your vision before, but always she has returned. Continue to monitor for her, even if she only appears for a moment. Every scrap of information you gain on where she might be could prove invaluable!”

Again, there was no reply; instead the robed figure simply shuddered in place.

“We suspected that she had been gifted with the form of one of Yahweh’s servants, but your report confirms it. It is hardly a surprise that her light would be sufficient to blind your sight if such is the case.”

There was a momentary pause, then the voice continued.

“Your skills may not be able to find her trail once more; you will require aid to do so. Another of my servants will be sent to aid you. Wait and take no further actions until they arrive, it should only be a matter of hours before they can join you. Once you are together combine your abilities to find her once again. Once she has been located, steps shall be taken!”

The robed figure pressed their shrouded face into the concrete, their entire being seemingly focused upon expressing their fear and acquiescence. For a few minutes they simply remained that way, frozen in supplication. Then the fire died away and the glow in the symbols did likewise. Still the figure remained on their knees for a while longer, even as the dark swallowed up the small room.

Eventually they became convinced that the voice from beyond the fire would not be returning, at least not any time soon. Laboriously the figure climbed to their feet and turned to exit the small room. The door revealed a narrow staircase going up, the stairs carved crudely from rock and illuminated by flickering electrical lights. Step by step the figure made their way up, until they came to another door. Gloved fingers reached out and pressed down on a specific spot on the doorframe. There was a click, and then the door swung slowly open, letting in the sunlight from the room beyond.

The door that had just been opened was actually a large bookshelf, one which swung back and clicked back into position. Once returned there was no sign that the shelf of tomes had ever been anything other than what it appeared to be. Slowly, as though wading through tar, the figure moved over to the room’s sole chair and collapsed into it. For a time, all the figure did was sit there, motionless as they regained strength. As they did so their concealed eyes flicked about the chamber they were in.

The walls had no windows, but the room was flooded with natural light from the unusual roof design. This allowed more room for the bookshelves that seemed to line every available surface. Of course, those shelves were needed for the books.

So many books, some modern, others so old that they were bound in leather and written on parchment. It was all books. Indeed, in some places there was no more room on the shelves, and the books were piled up in columns, small monuments to the almost desperate greed of their owner for knowledge. Some of the covers could be seen and, were an individual observant enough, they would have been able to note a certain common element to all the books. Some had covers in Latin, Greek, Arabic, all sorts of other languages ranging from Italian, to Russian, to some written in old Egyptian hieroglyphs. There were such titles as; ‘Ashmort’s Treatise upon the Practical Applications of Mesmerism’, ‘Russian Studies into Psychokinesis’, ‘Science Once Thought to be Magic’, or ‘Truths That Have Been Forgotten’.

Each and every one of them was related to power, the sort of power that would once have been called magic

When the Black Sun had occurred more than just the Legends returned. Energies from the other realms had seeped back into the mortal plane, igniting dormant powers, Awakening the planet as profoundly as if it had been a demigod coming into their immortality. Mana had begun to flow once more, sleeping forces roused to activity and swept through the world. Magic, it had returned and was there for those with the skill, will and patience to learn to use it.

The figure . . . this had been someone that had invested vast amounts of time and resources into the study of personal power. They had not wanted the transitory power that came with wealth or position, nor had they been interested in the petty power that could be gained through expertise in violence or weapons. What they had wanted was the power to make the world bow to their will, to make others kneel before them in fear and awe, and they had spent most of a lifetime pursuing it.

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What they’d wanted was personal power, something that was theirs alone, not bought from others with money and influence, but wasn’t as crude as mere strength or skill with violence. They had studied such arts as hypnosis, brainwashing, mental tricks to make others doubt and fear, but that had been too limited, barely more than what could be achieved through simple charisma and an overwhelming personality. Not the sort of power they wanted.

It had been a mad dream, but they had known that there was some truth to the old myths. There had been stories passed down through their family line, and then there had been the strange things they had found in the secret catacombs beneath the ancestral family estate. For years the robed figure had been certain that magic, that the kind of power they sought, was not some illusion or delusion, and they had poured themselves into finding it.

And then came the Black Sun.

Suddenly those spells they had learnt, those diagrams they had copied again and again, those rituals they had committed to memory, all of them began to work. It had been a slow process, and while they hadn’t gained the power to break armies or enslave nations, it had been an auspicious beginning.

Feverishly they had begun going over everything once more, trying to discern what actually worked now. They had been one of the first of the purely mortal to grasp the power of magic that had once been the weapon of humanity, but even so they were still far from equalling the great practitioners of the past. Their efforts had not gone unnoticed though.

One of the legends had come to them, one of the ancient powers that had returned to the world. They had made an offer, the figure’s service and loyalty in exchange for knowledge and power. There had been weariness of submitting to another, but the offer had been too sweet, too tempting. They had accepted and entered the immortal’s service.

It had been the best decision that they could have made, with the backing and tuition that their patron offered they had been able to accelerate their learning in leaps and bounds. They had gained power, regained their lost youth, and harnessed some of the forces of the returned supernatural world to their will. In the entire world there could only be a handful of other mystics that were their equal. It was a heady sensation, knowing that they were among the strongest of all mortals, and it had made all the sacrifices and effort they had put into their work worth it.

But then this new assignment had come, and the practitioner was beginning to feel uncertainty creep into their heart. According to their patron as the new order of the world began to settle a number of powerful demigods would begin to make themselves known. These children of mortals and immortals would be powerful, and would aid in establishing the shape of the world that was to come. Their patron was unwilling to leave the shaping of the future in the hands of these children, so they had set out to bring these new demigods under their direction.

Other agents had been tasked with finding the others, but the robed figure had been charged with monitoring the European continent. Though it was a massive area, the spells taught by their patron and their patron’s own allies were more than sufficient for the task. They had needed to learn to ignore the gods that shone like suns to their spell’s sight, but it had been within their expertise. They had watched and searched, and then they had sensed a blooming of power that had been like the birth of a star. The soul that had emerged had not been the equal of a god, nor that or an angel or a demon, but it shone amongst the ranks of humanity like a firefly in the night.

They had learnt that it was the returned soul of the Maiden of Orleans, an agent of the Abrahamic god, and not one of his angels. The magic user’s patron had been certain that she was meant to find one of the demigods that they sought, so the figure had been charged with tracking her wherever she went. For days and then weeks it had been devilishly hard to keep track of her, even with the most potent spells that could be brought to bear.

She would disappear for days, only to be found in some out of the way village in Spain, then disappear again only to emerge in Germany. Tracking her had taken vast amounts of time and energy which had not yielded as much success as would have been desired. However, a few days ago something seemed to have changed. The spells they had been employing had locked onto the resurrected heroine and managed to remain in place as she slowly moved across France towards the England. The spells had maintained their hold as she had crossed the channel and made her way through the countryside in a rather meandering path.

Then she’d disappeared again!

It had been enough to make the robed figure want to scream in frustration. All that effort, all that energy and the returned saint seemed to have evaded them once more. They knew that whatever the interference was it could not be from Joan of Arc herself. This level of disruption was too sophisticated. The saint herself simply didn’t have the skills for it. Certainly, she had power, divine power that had been bestowed upon her, but it was inherent, not learnt. Such power could only be used in ways in keeping with its nature. It could not work in the ways that this cloaking effect did.

Perhaps it was Yahweh, that was as good a possibility as any. The Lord of the High Heavens was unquestionably the most powerful god of all, but his very nature constrained what he could do. However, assigning one of his angels to keep this agent of his concealed was something that could be done with relative freedom. It would also explain any number of other things, such as why the protection seemed to be intermittent. Angels were powerful, but they were not infallible. If one was tasked with shielding the saint, then the periods she was detectable might be explained by moments of weakness on the part of the angel as they grew inattentive or exhausted.

It was a plausible theory, but there was no way to be sure.

Rising from the seat the figure moved more easily over to the door out of the large study. Their rest had restored their lost energy, and that meant that they were now able to move more freely. That was good; preparations had to be made for when their sponsor’s agent arrived. Yes, there was much that had to be done.