ASH: ASH #115 - A Fire Afar Off Part 2: Those Who'll Play With Cats

[Dave Van Domelen]

     [The cover is styled to look like a daguerrotype of a late 19th Century
military leader descending a staircase in front of an official building as a
man outside the building points a pistol at him.  Drawn in more traditional
comicbook fashion is an overlay of a twisted giant standing where the gunman
is.] 

 .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED presents ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #115
--X------------------------------------------------------------------------
 '|`  /|(`| |   A Fire Afar Off Part 2 of 4 - Those Who'll Play With Cats
     /-|.)|-|        copyright 2011 by Dave Van Domelen
___________________________________________________________________________

                       ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL

CODENAME       REAL NAME                POWERS                   ASSIGNMENT
--------       ---------                ------                   ----------
Solar Max      Jonathan Zachary         Spacetime Control        AMERICA
                 "JakZak" Taylor
Meteor         Sarah Grant-Taylor       Superspeed               AMERICA
Scorch         Scott Handleman          Pyrokinetic              CANADA
Centurion      Salvatore Napier         Strength, Regeneration   MEXICO
Fury           Arin Kelsey              Concussion Blasts        MEXICO
Contact        Aaron Zander             Psi, Mind-over-Body      DIPLOMATIC
Breaker        Christina Li             Telekinesis              DIPLOMATIC
Essay          Sara Ana Henderson       Gadgeteer                VENUS
Peregryn       Howard Henderson Jr.     Elemental Mage           VENUS
Beacon         George Sylvester         Living Light             VENUS
Geode          Unknown                  Living Crystal           VENUS
Lightfoot      Tom Dodson               Velocity Control         TRANSIT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[November 25, 2026 - St. Louis, Missouri Sector]

     "I presume your question is something that Mr. Walters considers
important, for him to allow you to connect your system to the mystic
interface," Peregryn arched an eyebrow.
     "Oh, it's firewalled to the hilt, the old man's gotten a lot more touchy
about computer security since, well, you know," Weapons Master smirked.  That
cyberpunk kid hacking into the Babbage engine had been a real embarassment
for the IT guys.  "But yeah, it's important.  You probably know that I
inherited the magic sword of Don Quixote..."
     "I believe I heard news to that effect, yes," Peregryn nodded.  
     It was so weird to be talking across interplanetary distances with no
time lag, but that's magic for you.  "Well, it's been acting a bit strange
lately.  I've started working through the diaries of the previous owners, at
least the ones that it's safe to read," the conservators weren't even happy
that he'd leafed through the last Quixote's diary, and they were fussing over
the older ones like mother hens, "but I figure the Wanderer probably had
something to say about the sword."
     "And since I inherited *his* diaries, you wondered what I knew?
Unfortunately, I don't recall if he wrote anything on the subject.  And those
documents are currently inaccessible, due to my banishment from Earth,"
Peregryn frowned.  "Nor could I have someone fetch them for me, before you
ask.  Their containment was designed to be secure against all but me, and
should an Anchor attempt to defeat it, the pocket dimension containing the
artifacts would simply be lost forever.  I am frustrated by the quality of my
own seurity measures," he shrugged.
     "Great.  Hopefully the Quixote diaries will have something in them."
     "The strange behavior of the sword...would it happen to involve the
release of energy?" Peregryn asked.
     "Um...yes?  Why?"
     A number of date codes appeared in the crawl at the bottom of the
screen.  "I felt pulses of energy from the direction of Earth at those times
recently.  Do they match up with times your sword was misbehaving?"
     "Oh, crap.  They do.  You could feel that from Venus?"
     "Only because I have been carefully observing Earth for reasons of my
own.  But, yes, the fact I could sense them is cause for concern.  Especially
since it means that every sensitive on Earth probably noticed them as well,
although they likely would have had no more idea than I did what the energies
came from."
     Chuck suppressed a scowl.  A mage on Venus would have trouble narrowing
down the location to a particular spot on Earth, but one already on Earth
might have a better shot at it.  And given how badly Walters had alienated
most of the mystic talent available, it was pretty likely that at least some
of the "sensitives" would decide that mystic pulses coming from St. Louis
were worth exploring, if only to be able to rub the billionaire's face in it
when something exploded.
     "I have been interviewing for an apprentice lately, something I'm sure
your employer is aware of.  I will send you the names of some of the
candidates I believe might be useful in this, even though they did not meet
my needs.  Be warned, none of them will want to join your 'Freedom Alliance,'
but they will all be people I believe would be willing to freelance if you
impress upon them the potential danger of the situation...."

               *              *              *              *

[November 25, 2026 - Mexico City, Federal Sector]

     As she progressed through airport security, Esmeralda reflected on how
much it was like a magical ritual...albeit one performed by a normal, with
little chance of truly working.  Workers and officials made the motions and
said the words, but "success" was most often a matter of there being no true
hazards to detect.  Simply having the various talismen of protection was
enough to protect most passengers, but just as a locked door will not stop a
determined intruder, there were dozens of ways to defeat airport security
should one be of a mind to do it.
     This was not to say that it was all useless.  Far from it.  The chemical
sniffers and backscatter X-ray machines and even more elaborate technology
developed by studying the super-science of previous eras was quite good at
finding anything that shouldn't be on an airplane full of innocents.
Smugglers knew better than to try sending through drug mules, for instance,
as the resources required to defeat the scanners would be better spent on
alternative transportation that could also carry larger and more obvious
cargo.  But a suffuciently motivated person would expend the resources.
     Esmeralda's own experience was special, though.  They didn't bother
sending her through the checkpoint with the regular travelers, because she
was on a very special list.  A list of known mages.  Had she wanted to, she
probably could have devised a spell to let her carry a cartoon-like ticking
time bomb through security without anyone raising the alarm...and they knew
it.  So her purchase of the ticket was flagged, and DSHA officials met her at
the airport.
     All very polite, of course.  She was known to be a favorite of El
Caballero, and even if the officials weren't inclined to treat a mage
properly for her own sake, the reflected glory worked in her favor as it had
in many cases before.
     "The purpose of your travel, Senorita?" a thin man with a thinner
mustache asked, holding his computer pad as if it were a staff of office and
glancing down to it occasionally, even though he must have known the list of
required questions by heart.
     "I am following a mystic portent," she smiled serenely, although it was
difficult to hide her surprise when the man simply nodded and checked off a
box on his pad.  Apparently they had a form for everything at the Department
of Super-Human Affairs.
     "Do you have reason to believe this portent is of events that pose a
threat to public safety or the integrity of the North American Combine?  And
if so, have you reported your findings to the Division of Non-Causal
Investigation?" 
     "No, and no," she shook her head.  "To the best of my knowledge, this
merely relates to my personal development as a mage.  Should matters
escalate, I will contact the appropriate authorities," she nodded towards
where her whitecel sat on a nearby table.  A hard-faced and heavyset asian
woman was going over her baggage and personal items with a number of
elaborate sensors, performing her own set of protective rituals.  Esmeralda
didn't take offense...while she herself was under no particular suspicion,
she'd helped irritate a number of powerful men around the world in the past
year or so, and it was conceivable that one of them would have arranged to
have a part of her kit replaced with something that would send her and dozens
of innocents crashing to the ground in an "accident".
     The questioning continued in that vein for a while, including a number
of items Esmeralda suspected were intended to unveil any shapeshifting
impersonators or signs of mental domination.  Not only were superhumans
intrinsically more dangerous to have around, they tended to attract
additional threats of a more exotic nature than those your typical air
traveler would be liable to.
     Finally it was over, and she was allowed to join the other passengers
waiting to board the jet bound for St. Louis.  At first glance, the aircraft
at the other end of the boarding tube would have looked perfectly normal to
someone at this airport fifty years ago, even though under the skin it was
considerably different.  The rich and important had their futuristic-looking
helijets and suborbitals, but the basic shape of a jetliner was more than
adequate for the hoi polloi's travel needs.  Why change what needs no change?  
     Of course, Esmeralda herself expected to change quite a bit once the
true meaning of her augury made itself clear.  Fire always changed a person,
even a fire afar off....

               *              *              *              *

[November 25, 2026 - Khadam]

     "A pity she wasn't the obsessive diarist that most mages are," Glyph
sighed as she paged through the limited documentation in front of her.
Valkyrie's teenaged years had involved a great deal of mystic exploration,
all of which she had kept notes of, but little of that had been fruitful.
Mostly the same sort of emotional teenager tripe that you'd find in a million
other diaries.  And once she'd become the sworn of Odin, she'd either stopped
writing, or had kept her journals in a form that could not be...acquired...
post-mortem.  
     Still, some of the girl's later insights filled in a few gaps in Glyph's
understanding of the Nordic gods and their works.  And while Valkyrie said
little herself, she had apparently told her parents a great deal on the eve
of the Dimension Z invasion, in case she did not return, and her parents had
written it down.
     To most people, Dimension Z was just another interdimensional invasion,
albeit the first one of significance...and the last until the Third Age
started.  But a few people knew that the shape-shifting giants of Dimension Z
were actually an offshoot of the giants of Jotunheim, divine creatures in
that vague realm between superhuman and godly.  The fact that they could be
killed, even if it took a potent magic sword to do the job, was sufficient
proof that they were not true Pureblood mages, although they once might have
been.  The legends of Jotuns were clearly Aesir-promulgated propaganda, and
Glyph knew enough of how the games of gods worked to suspect that the Jotuns
were like Q'Nos, former gods who had been defeated and reduced in stature
from infinite to merely "very powerful".
     For instance, she was fairly certain in light of recent events that the
axe held by Justice of EUROPA was of Jotunish make.  On the other hand,
nothing she knew of the provenance of Don Quixote's sword suggested an origin
outside of Iberia, which marked it as a very interesting anomaly.  It had
clearly been made to combat either Jotuns in general, or the "Z-lien"
offshoot specifically.
     "Yesss," she hissed faintly to herself.  This sword would definitely be
fruitful to examine.  She looked down at her rainbow-scaled hands.  "But I
will need some sort of disguise, Samuel Walters has little love for anyone
not of America, no matter what I might offer in trade...."

               *              *              *              *

[November 27, 2026 - St. Louis, Missouri Sector]

     As Chuck left the common room, Brightsword was still trying to explain
to GLADI8R why a Christmas parade was held on Thanksgiving, although at least
the mech-man hadn't done anything too embarrassing at the parade in St. Louis
yesterday.  With New York City having gone to the dogs, nothing had really
replaced the Macy's parades Chuck remembered from his own (more distant than
his teammates suspected) youth, but Walters was putting a lot of effort into
turning the local parade into the successor.  Free-standing holographic
floats instead of balloons just seemed like cheating to Chuck, though.
     But now it was time for Chuck to open his Christmas presents early, or
at least one of them.  The conservators had declared the journals of Carlos
Quixano from the 1870s to be in good enough condition for a "wear white
gloves and be CAREFUL" reading, and they awaited him now.  Fortunately
Chuck's Spanish was pretty good, although the Castillian stuff sometimes gave
him trouble.
     It did seem almost suspicious how Walters was giving him first access,
and that was setting off all sorts of alarm bells in Chuck's hindbrain.
Worst case, the billionaire had finally dug deep enough to figure out that
Chuck wasn't the son of the original Weapons Master, but was in fact the
original in the flesh.  In that case, he'd clearly see Chuck as the best
qualified to analyze the diaries and solve the short term problem of the
exploding sword...but long term could get quite dicey.
     Chuck suppressed a shiver and set to work on the slim volume on the
table in the reading room.

                    *                                  *

30 December, Year of our Lord 1870

     A great man died today, and for all my efforts I could neither prevent
it nor reveal the truth of what happened to any but my closest family.  In
truth, I may simply have gone mad from the shock of seeing General Juan Prim
gunned down before my eyes, and made the fairy stories passed down from my
grandfather into my reality, being unable to bear the true madness of the
world in which I live.
     What all in Spain must know by now is that the General was shot outside
the chamber of the Cortes two days ago.  The assassins were not apprehended
or identified, although it is assumed that the motive was disagreement over
the election of our new king.  I know more than anyone else alive, and yet I
am still mystified at the motivations.
     For, you see, the killer was a giant.  And while it did not turn into
a windmill, it was a near enough thing.
     In the chaos after the gunshots, it seems only I saw the true form of
the gunmen.  I now think it is due to the ancestral sword I carry at my side,
the stories of its magic must be true.  To all others asked, there were two
unknown gunmen, who fled and managed to elude capture.  But as everyone else
looked one way at something I could only perceive as the faintest of shadows,
I saw the gigantic villain stroll away in the other direction.
     Some call me a coward for not giving chase with the others, nor staying
at the General's side, but I knew I must follow the giant.  When it realized
I could see it, the monster fled in earnest, but whatever spell it cast on
the others must have required its attention, for it stumbled through the
street like a drunkard, and I soon had it cornered in a dead alley.
     This was a mistake that could have ended my life.
     Out of sight of others, it must have decided it was safe enough to cease
its spellcrafting, and it turned on me with demonic ferocity.  My pistol did
nothing to slow its charge, and in a panic I drew the ancestral sword,
wounding it terribly with a wild slash.
     It stumbled into the street and against a stack of crates, changing
before my eyes into one of the crates.  Clearly, concentrating on but a
single illusion made it strong enough to affect me, but I could still sense
its true nature through the glamour, and I thrust the sword home.
     And then the crate was simply a wooden box.  It must have been a shaping
spell rather than an illusion, for the giant did not reappear upon death.
Its corpse became the truth to its seeming.  I broke the crate open, clearly
making those around think me mad, but it did not stop being mere wood and
shavings.
     Either I am mad, or our illustrious ancestor of La Mancha was quite
saner than Cervantes portrays him.

                    *                                  *

     The next several years would have made for interesting light reading,
and a good series of movies could definitely come from it, Chuck thought, but
they mostly considered the political situation in Spain and its deterioration
as the giants sowed chaos in King Amadeo's land, contributing to the events
that led Amadeo to abdicate.  Quixano ended up tanking his military career
because he spent so much time secretly fighting the giants, but the sacrifice
seemed to be worth it.  Within two years, he'd almost single-handedly pushed
back what Chuck realized was the vanguard for the same sort of invasion that
had been tried in Detroit in the 1970s.  And, for all the damage the giants
had tried to do, Spain probably wouldn't have been much more stable without
them, as far as Chuck could tell.
     Finally, near the end of the volume, the topic of the sword's nature
came up again....

                    *                                  *

September 18, 1873

     The gypsy sorceror left today, claiming he had to be over the mountains
before the snows came.  I knew better by now than to ask why he had to leave
so early...there is no guarantee that the self-styled Wanderer meant the
Pyrenees.  Or any range in Europe, for that matter.  But he did assure me
that if the battle against the giants was not yet won, it was within my power
to win it now, and his help would no longer be needed. 
     Last night he asked to examine my ancestor's sword, something he hadn't
done in the months I've known him.  Obviously, his arcane knowledge let him
know much about it without ever touching the metal, but there was a last
piece he wanted to put in place.
     He said the magics of the blade were Moorish and Christian origin, that
he recognized the work of what he called the "Toledo School" on it.  Fine
swordmakers, that I knew.  But I had not know the city was famed in other
circles for its wizardry.  The Toledo mages had clearly crafted the sword as
a weapon to fight the giants, stripping them of their ability to change forms
and locking them into defenseless disguises to render them easier to kill.
Sadly, as I have found to the ruination of my career and reputation, while
this makes it possible for a mortal to defeat them, it also makes it
impossible for that mortal to convince anyone that he is not a madman who
sees giants in windmills.  My illustrious ancestor was no doubt as ill-
treated in life as he was in the fiction of Cervantes.
     The Wanderer also finally gave me a name for the giants, a name
whispered among mages of the Toledo tradition.  The Kingdom of Z.

                    *                                  *

     Chuck quirked an eyebrow.  "So, Dimension Z wasn't something Alessandro
made up, eh?"  Still, Carlos clearly didn't have access to the older writings
that the conservators downstairs were fussing over, those must have been
collected in one place later on, perhaps by Alessandro's father.
     "Papa Quixano, I hope you managed to find the books from when the sword
was made, or we're going to have to find a way to get at the Wanderer's
journals," Chuck sighed, carefully placing Carlos's journal back in its
protective case.
     Chuck's graycell pinged.  Some wag in marketing for one of the telecoms
had decided that if blackcels are ultra-secure quasi-legal devices and
whitecels are consumer-level trash, then an intelligent phone that's
reasonably secure would naturally be a graycell.  Chuck could remember when a
mobile phone made for a good brawling weapon, and now he kept something in
his hip pocket with more computing power than the entire NSA had back during
his first superheroic career.
     "Yes?" he flipped the 'cell open.  The tone of the ping told him it
wasn't anyone he needed to suck up to or put on the I'm A Superhero act
with. 
     "Weapons Master?" it was one of the security detail, a go-getter who'd
actually volunteered to work Black Friday.  "There's a woman at the entrance
claiming to be a mage, and wanting to talk to you about your sword...."

=============================================================================

Next Issue:

     More mysteries of the sword are revealed, but portents of doom abound,
in ASH #116, A Fire Afar Off part 3, "Like Fire At A Distance"!

=============================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Apologies to any expecting the Edouard thread to be picked up here, the
issue title is based on a quote from Cervantes, "Those who'll play with cats
must expect to be scratched."  And for cats, substitute mages.  There are
many similarities between the two, of course.

     If you've had the typical American education in history, Spain pretty
much vanishes from the story by 1776, with only the occasional reference
prior to the Spanish-American War (which was mostly fought in places that
didn't really like to think of themselves as belonging to either country),
then vanishing again until the Spanish Civil War...itself generally only
mentioned as a prelude to World War II.  To some extent, if you studied
French history during the same few centuries, though, Spain's will feel
somewhat redundant.  Decaying monarchy, revolution, attempts at democracy,
reinstated monarchy, lather, rinse, repeat.  General Juan Prim was tasked
with finding a man willing to be elected King of Spain.  He didn't think much
of his chances (nobility didn't like democracy very much, you see), but he
succeeded with Amadeo of Savoy.  Unknown assassins killed Prim shortly before
Amadeo was sworn in.  Amadeo didn't last too long, though, abdicating in
February of 1873 in disgust.  Even without Jotuns messing with Spain's
affairs, they were pretty unsettled in the 1870s.  They did settle down a bit
with the rise of Alfonso XII, and his son Alfonso XIII did pretty well for
himself until that whole Spanish Civil War thing.

     The Wanderer is Romanian, and so would likely be considered a gypsy
based on both his ethnicity and the fact he's a wandering wizard...even if he
has no specific links to the Rom.

============================================================================

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