(no subject)
Ten years. Ten years without days to mark the time, the seconds stretching to infinity when they don't have any context. He contemplates everything he's learned, everything he hopes is happening. Surely Dave has a new master by now - someone must have noticed the young boy with the dragon ring. He hopes Dave had the good sense to hide the Grimhold. Anything two powerful sorcerers were fighting over so violently is worth keeping hidden. He really hopes Dave's writing ability improves at some point in the next ten years.
For some reason, he really wants a cinnamon roll.
Every once in a great while he gets the sense that Horvath is near, but that is the only real point of reference other than Dave's papers in the tiny little world he has trapped them in. It's reassuring - if Horvath is here, he can't be causing trouble somewhere else.
He can hear a voice. A voice he knows, from somewhere outside his prison.
"Our ten years are up, Balthazar." And suddenly, he cannot remember which one of them fell into the urn first... and he suspects it wasn't him. That voice is full of cheerful confidence, and that just isn't a good thing. "When I get the Grimhold from young David, I'll tell him you said 'hello'."
He can sense movement. He must be close to being released, but the urn hasn't released it's hold on him, his world just a shadowy cavern with no sign of an exit. But there's movement, and the sound of something sliding...
"Cheerio, Balthazar." Desperately he tries to force his way out of his prison, because while Horvath getting his hands on the Grimhold is bad, Horvath getting his hands on Dave is disastrous. He very much doubts Horvath will stay ignorant of what Dave really is for long.
Suddenly, laboriously, he's pulling himself free from the urn, the wind whipping past his face and through his hair... That thought registers fully a moment later (he's still pulling himself together, after all), and he realizes the strange sensation of falling is not from being released from the urn, it's from falling. The cement sidewalk is approaching at an alarming rate, and he's still stuck half-inside the urn. Immortality spell or not, hitting that sidewalk is not going to do good things to his state of health. With a desperate lunge, he snags a window ledge as it flies past, wrenching his arms and causing his rings to dig painfully into his fingers. Suddenly free, he looks down to see the urn smash into tiny irreparable pieces, just a few floors down.
It takes more effort than it should, clambering back up onto the window ledge and forcing the window. He's been forced into inactivity for far too long. And he's fairly sure that the poor young man he's interrupted is going to develop a complex that will severely hamper his hopes for his own children in the future. Ah, well. There's more important things in life.
Still feeling dazed from the fall and the sudden re-emergence into the normal flow of life, he hurries down to the ground floor and out into the street, casting a glance at the crowd growing around the broken urn. It's magic is done now, there's no harm in the shards, so he leaves it. He has to hurry - if the Prime Merlinian is lost, everything is lost.
He really should have made sure Horvath went in second. How, he's not sure, but he really should have. At the time there didn't seem to be much of a choice. His last memory before the urn was seeing Dave retreating, the Grimhold in his arms and Merlin's ring on his finger, and that seemed good enough.
His car. He should get his car and... no. Too slow, who knows what traffic is like now, and he still has to find where the Phantom has gotten off to - it should still be impounded, if it was taken legally, but if it was stolen there may be a longer search. There's the subway, but that could take even longer. He has no fare on him for a taxi, and he doesn't even know if the boy is still in New York - that could get expensive quickly.
Then he smiles, staring down the street and up. The Chrysler building stands gleaming in its own light, the eagle statues at all four corners staring fiercely into the night. Never mind. He has a better idea.
New York City hasn't changed that much in ten years - one running man doesn't elicit much reaction from those he encounters - he could pass as just another person late for a bus or a train or an appointment, yet another soul in this enormous city. No one has bothered to modify the wards on the Chrystler building either, which is somewhat disappointing and disconcerting - surely news of his disappearance has spread, surely if the New York Merlinians are training the boy they've increased their security. But the doors to the towering skyscraper open easily under his hands. Never mind that. He has an eagle to catch.
For some reason, he really wants a cinnamon roll.
Every once in a great while he gets the sense that Horvath is near, but that is the only real point of reference other than Dave's papers in the tiny little world he has trapped them in. It's reassuring - if Horvath is here, he can't be causing trouble somewhere else.
He can hear a voice. A voice he knows, from somewhere outside his prison.
"Our ten years are up, Balthazar." And suddenly, he cannot remember which one of them fell into the urn first... and he suspects it wasn't him. That voice is full of cheerful confidence, and that just isn't a good thing. "When I get the Grimhold from young David, I'll tell him you said 'hello'."
He can sense movement. He must be close to being released, but the urn hasn't released it's hold on him, his world just a shadowy cavern with no sign of an exit. But there's movement, and the sound of something sliding...
"Cheerio, Balthazar." Desperately he tries to force his way out of his prison, because while Horvath getting his hands on the Grimhold is bad, Horvath getting his hands on Dave is disastrous. He very much doubts Horvath will stay ignorant of what Dave really is for long.
Suddenly, laboriously, he's pulling himself free from the urn, the wind whipping past his face and through his hair... That thought registers fully a moment later (he's still pulling himself together, after all), and he realizes the strange sensation of falling is not from being released from the urn, it's from falling. The cement sidewalk is approaching at an alarming rate, and he's still stuck half-inside the urn. Immortality spell or not, hitting that sidewalk is not going to do good things to his state of health. With a desperate lunge, he snags a window ledge as it flies past, wrenching his arms and causing his rings to dig painfully into his fingers. Suddenly free, he looks down to see the urn smash into tiny irreparable pieces, just a few floors down.
It takes more effort than it should, clambering back up onto the window ledge and forcing the window. He's been forced into inactivity for far too long. And he's fairly sure that the poor young man he's interrupted is going to develop a complex that will severely hamper his hopes for his own children in the future. Ah, well. There's more important things in life.
Still feeling dazed from the fall and the sudden re-emergence into the normal flow of life, he hurries down to the ground floor and out into the street, casting a glance at the crowd growing around the broken urn. It's magic is done now, there's no harm in the shards, so he leaves it. He has to hurry - if the Prime Merlinian is lost, everything is lost.
He really should have made sure Horvath went in second. How, he's not sure, but he really should have. At the time there didn't seem to be much of a choice. His last memory before the urn was seeing Dave retreating, the Grimhold in his arms and Merlin's ring on his finger, and that seemed good enough.
His car. He should get his car and... no. Too slow, who knows what traffic is like now, and he still has to find where the Phantom has gotten off to - it should still be impounded, if it was taken legally, but if it was stolen there may be a longer search. There's the subway, but that could take even longer. He has no fare on him for a taxi, and he doesn't even know if the boy is still in New York - that could get expensive quickly.
Then he smiles, staring down the street and up. The Chrysler building stands gleaming in its own light, the eagle statues at all four corners staring fiercely into the night. Never mind. He has a better idea.
New York City hasn't changed that much in ten years - one running man doesn't elicit much reaction from those he encounters - he could pass as just another person late for a bus or a train or an appointment, yet another soul in this enormous city. No one has bothered to modify the wards on the Chrystler building either, which is somewhat disappointing and disconcerting - surely news of his disappearance has spread, surely if the New York Merlinians are training the boy they've increased their security. But the doors to the towering skyscraper open easily under his hands. Never mind that. He has an eagle to catch.