July 9, 2005

The sky overhead loomed unbelievably high, a depthless blue that seemed unduplicated anywhere else in nature. The sun beat down, and it would have been oppressive, had Xavier not been standing at the edge of a 100 meter cliff. Sprawled out below him, lay a wide valley full of fields, and dotted here and there with farmhouses. Very sparsely. The Europeans seemed to have a way of grouping their dwellings tightly, and lone farm houses were a rarity. He had been in Germany for three days now, and all the book studying in the world hadn't prepared him for the ancient majesty of the country.

His characteristic glasses were darkened in the bright sun, but behind them, his brown eyes saw two scenes.. the here and now that was laid out before him, and the memories of what had brought him here. Ironic, that it had all started in a dank and musty basement in The Princeton University library, as he worked on research for his dissertation. A long forgotten account, written in it's original Latin, by a General of the Fourth Roman Legion. How it had ended up down there, he had no idea, and why it had sparked such interest in him, was beyond him as well. But it had. And here he was.

The General "Lucius Scirrassus" by name, had written an account of the defense of The Northern Frontier, as the Empire had begun it's decline in earnest. The military dronings, and recountings of strategies, logistics and tactics bored him beyond belief. What had caught his attention was the retelling of the defense of some fortification, and a physician, who had come North from Rome to help. According to Gen. Scirrassus, the man had worked miracles, healing men who had been pierced with arrows, or had their heads stoved in by large rocks in only a few minutes, sending them back to the walls as fast as they made it to his infirmary.

Fascinated. That was the word for how he felt... Roman Generals weren't likely to fabricate something so outrageous. He had even learned that the physician was known as Armicus. After his graduation, Xavier had petitioned the Vatican, to peruse their records of the period, and having been able to pull a string or two, was granted permission. He flew to Rome, in Feb of this year and spent the Spring in Italy, poring over hundreds of other accounts from the period. Thats where he found his break, Armicus and Gen Lucius were both at a fortification in Southwestern Germany, at the same time, that had to be it.

So He took a train through the Alps, into Deutschland, and found himself in the City of Worms. One of the oldest towns in the country, it had started off as a Roman fort, and the city sprang up around it and thrived. He could have spent the rest of the year there, just looking at the architecture, and sampling the food, and reading everything he could find in their libraries. But he didn't. He had to find the old fortress where Lucius and Armicus had held the line against the Saxon Hordes. A brat and a beer with a local historian, and he had his answer. Falkenstien Castle.

It wasn't too far from Worms, near a hamlet called Rockenhausen, a short train ride, And he was standing on the ruined battlements, looking down the nearly sheer cliff, where a millenium before, Roman Legionaires had stood off the Barbarians at the gates. How the place had been built was beyond him. His rental car had labored hard up the steep switchback road that climbed back and forth through a tiny village that seemed carved from the cliffs as much as built. Ancient, Old beyond reckoning, almost. It was as if he could feel the power of the place rising up through his feet.

He walked around the battlements, what was left of them, anyway, a tower, and a wall really. Each light brown stone seemed to have some secret to tell, some deep power hidden behind it. It had to be his imagination.... There was an entrance to the tower, but it was gated, an iron portcullis set into the stones...  after all the research, and the travel, and the money he'd spent, he was foiled by a stupid gate. Out of frustration, he grabbed the gate, intending to rattle it, and to his shock.... it swung open noiselessly in his hands.

What the hell? He thought... someone had left it unlocked.

Taking a quick look around, he saw no one about, so he shrugged and slipped in. He knew full well he was trespassing, and the thought of that sent his heart pumping. In his whole quiet life he had never so much as Jaywalked. And now, he was going to trespass on a German National Historic Site. He was out of control... this was out of control... It was just a story by a General who had probably gone insane on the front lines, afterall.

He quickly found himself in the absolute darkness of the guts of the ruin, and fished for his keychain, it had a small maglite on a ring, powered by a single AA battery, the only time he had ever turned it on was to find his housekey once when he had forgot to leave his porchlight on....

Deeper and deeper he walked, suspecting that the fortification was underground as much as above, anterooms, and side chambers opened up to either side, and after quickly sweeping the beam of the tiny light through them, he moved on. Stairs down... then another hall. Then a spiral stair... how deep was he, anyway?

Thats when he noticed the strange marking. The thin beam of his light had barely touched it, carved into the living rock of the wall. He stepped forward, and his curiosity and gift for languages clicked in, and he recognized it, an egyptian hieroglyph...

What in the world, is that doing here??  The thought had scarcely formed, when he spoke the word aloud.

Ereccadyus.

It meant holy chamber, or healing chamber, depending on whom you asked... but Xavier had always ascribed to the opinion that both were correct.

Thats when he heard the cracking sound. Nearly deafening in the dead silence of the tunnel. A dust cloud erupted from the wall, and he coughed, the dust obscuring the light from his flashlight. He considered running, but he had come too far, and this was too much... he reached out blindly for the wall, and his fingers found only space...

A door had opened, and he stepped forward, not sure what lay beyond. His steps were tentative, and it was only a minute after he had spoken the word, that the dust began to clear. Some hidden ventilation shaft, sucked the dust out like smoke through a chimney. He swept the torch around the chamber, and stopped dead. In the center of the room, on a stone stand, shaped like a birdbath, an ivory scrollcase lay, sealed in wax.

He knew he shouldn't open it, he knew he wasn't qualified to document the discovery, or even to know what should be done, in this situation. He knew these things, and ignored them. This had to have been Armicus' infirmary, and that had to be Armicus' scrollcase. All good sense fled him, and he popped the stoppered end off the Ivory tube, and delicately pulled the vellum scroll from it. The writing was a mixture of Latin, Greek, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and on it lay the secrets of Armicus' miracle healing.

Appeals to the universe, and otherworldly powers, chants and incantations, the power to use the natural energies of this world, to force flesh and bone to knit itself as good as new, without a scar...

Magic.