A Silverback's Discovery

Fifteen: Nightmares

As it often happened, Han had the idea in the middle of the night. He awoke from a nightmare, one he could barely remember, except for the feeling of panic that was rooted deep in his chest. Minutes after he had awoken it still lingered. 

So he thought of other things. Everything. 

And that's when it occurred to him. He sat up suddenly and reached for his phone.

"Hello?" Orion's groggy voice answered after the third ring.

"Orion? I had a thought."

"Are you okay? What time is it?"

Han glanced at the clock on his bedside table. "Uh, it's 3:30 in the morning. But listen, I have an idea."

Orion gave a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, hold on." The line went quiet for a minute, and then Orion came back on. "Okay, go ahead, I'm ready."

This wasn't the first time Han had called Orion up out of the blue with one of his thoughts or ideas. Orion had learned to roll with it now, no matter what time it was. Han knew he had gone to get a pencil and paper to write it all down.

"Okay, so, we know Orsini made a deal with Los Malos, to bring them here in exchange for some kind of ancient weapon."

"Right."

"And we know that Orsini was most likely after the Asari diamond, an ancient artifact that even the Asari vampires don't quite know its purpose."

"Right again. Can we jump to the new thing?"

Han stood, unable to sit anymore while his brain was working so quickly. He paced the length of his room as he spoke. "Now we have this necklace that Sidney was wearing. And the language on it is so old that even the Collective can't translate it. And if Nikolaas's suspicions are right, Orsini seems to be interested in her as well. These things all have something in common. They're ancient, and obscure." Kyle's words rang through Han's mind. "So ancient and so obscure, that even the Collective doesn't have records of them."

"The Great Betrayer will seek his power..." Orion began quoting the prophecy.

Han jumped ahead. "A forbidden weapon, an untethered well of magic, a beacon, and the most powerful mage." 

"Well if Los Malos had the weapon. Then that means the diamond, and possibly even Sidney, could be one of the other three things."

"Exactly. And if it's all so unknown to the Collective, that means whatever spell he's trying to do, whatever he's trying to accomplish to seek more power...."

"We're in the dark," Orion finished in a somber tone. 

It was a sobering thought, and greatly diminished the excitement Han had at originally putting the pieces together. 

"It just means we have to work that much harder to figure it out," Orion said after a quiet moment, his voice determined.

"Yeah. We can do this. We won't let him win."

With that, they hung up. Han lay back in bed, now completely awake and wired. Was it possible that Sidney was one of the three remaining things on the list? The most powerful mage? That one was unlikely. The most powerful mage was the Merlin, and the Collective would have known if Sidney was it. The Merlin, in all their reincarnated forms, usually worked with the Collective for the side of good. No one knew where the Merlin was now, but they would recognize him or her when they revealed themselves.

So unless the prophecy meant it metaphorically, it was unlikely that Sidney was the most powerful mage. That left the beacon or the well of magic.