The Locket

What are you supposed to do with the weight of the world upon your shoulders?

Plant your feet

-Justice League Unlimited-

Chapter Nine

Felicity stared at the shattered guiding orb on the floor. Shit, damn, she cursed. "Fuck," she said aloud, and repeated the word a few more times.

But the pieces of glass did not mend, and the fluid inside leaked out and disappeared into small cracks in the floor. For the millionth time in her life, Felicity felt anger at the fact that she could not use her magic to help her. The small marking on her hip burned as it if knew her thoughts. "I can't do anything," she said bitterly. "You've seen to that." Great, I'm talking to a tattoo, she thought.

It was easy for the mind to wander as the winding corridors of the temple were navigated for her by the soft glow of the orb. But now that it was broken, Felicity realized that she had absolutely no idea where she was. A thought struck her, and she dipped her fingers into the remaining fluid on the floor. It glowed a soft blue on the tips of her fingers, faint, but visible. "Ha!" she said. "Nothing like simple ingenuity."

She tried to make out her surroundings in the semi-darkness. There were three paths, and she took a few steps down the rightmost one, holding her fingers aloft. The blue light glowed dully. Retreating to her original place, she shut her eyes and took a few steps down the middle path. She opened her eyes to the dull blue glow and her heart sank to her stomach. Great, she thought. The fluid is the light. It's the damn orb that actually navigates. Fighting a rising sense of paranoia, she dragged herself back to the shattered orb.

I could stay here and wait for someone to find me. She stared at the raised arm of the Hindu deity Kali, the cause of her sudden fall. . Her effigy could be found throughout the temple, and Felicity had learned who she was soon after her arrival. Or maybe you could provide some divine assistance, since you got me in this mess to begin with.

Her stone eyes stared back emotionlessly. No, I didn't think so. She turned back to the statue and made her choice. She looks ahead. Maybe that's the path I need to take. With a deep breath, she plunged ahead into the hall.

She had been walking for a few minutes when she was presented with another set of hallways, and this time there were four. Damn it, she thought, as she picked one and continued.

Twenty minutes and countless twists and turns later, Felicity was started to feel truly afraid. She knew that she was more valued as a slave for her natural sharpness, but even that was not worth a search to find her. But Nott wanted me back, she thought. They have to find me. But a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that Nott had wanted her unharmed as well. And look how well they listened. No, I must find my own way out.

The servants who had been to the temple before spoke in hushed tones about the maze of hallways. Two stories up, and four more below the ground, they had told her. And all of them dangerous without a set path. Felicity had been incredulous. A temple was a place of peace and worship and she had voiced her opinions. So it was, but this particular temple is cursed. None visited before your wizard lord came, and its dark curse appeals to his evil. The bit about the curse had intrigued her, but no slaves would tell her any more and they all cautioned her to hold her orb carefully.

"I haven't seen a damned thing," she said aloud. Yes, because it's too dark, you idiot, she thought. The soft blue glow on her fingers picked up the edge of a tapestry on a wall just ahead of her, and she moved forward to get a better look. You again, she thought as her fingers lit up the image of Kali dancing on top of her vanquished foes. Felicity sat down in front of the tapestry, sinking her back into it.

After a few moments thus, she had made up her mind to scream for help, consequences be damned, when she felt something at her back. Swallowing her fear, she forced herself to turn and inspect the wall. The dim light of her fingers showed a space at the base of the wall, where a small gust of air had been the source of her surprise. Jumping to her feet she pulled aside the tapestry. It was not obvious in the dark, but her paltry light could make out two grooves about a half meter apart on the wall, running from the floor to slightly above her head.

No way, she thought, forgetting her predicament for a moment. I know what this is. Nott had a small hidden staircase in his Manor that led to a small laboratory. Felicity had been in there a few times, to help him stock ingredients and occasionally prepare them when he was in an especially good mood.

There has to be a sensor somewhere, she thought. For Nott's room, there was a small hole in the wall that could sense the presence of magic, even if the individual could not use that magic. It was how Felicity knew that she had any magic ability to begin with. She had been fifteen years old, two years into service at the Nott manor when he had taken her to carry a box of beetle wings to his lab. He had uncovered the hole and left here there for a moment while he went to his study to fetch a book he had forgotten. In that moment, she had placed her hand into the hole, not knowing what compelled her to do so. As the circle around the whole glowed red, Nott had reappeared and yanked her arm roughly. She felt that it was the first time he had truly noticed her, and the memory of his dark eyes boring into hers made her shudder even now.

But there's no such thing here, she thought. She pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture she had unconsciously picked up from Vincent. But this one doesn't look exactly the same. It has to be a physical mechanism. She slapped at the wall, pressing and stroking the stones with varying speed and softness. Her arms felt the first stabs of fatigue when she heard the soft crunching sound, like wheels turning against the stress of years of dirt and debris. And as she suspected, the wall dropped down in segments, forming a dark, narrow staircase. Felicity realized that her mouth was hanging open, and shutting it, she took a few tentative steps, making sure to drape the tapestry behind her. She waited for a few moments in the soft blue glow of her fingers. When nothing came at her from the darkness above, she lunged ahead.

~~~

Voldemort was sitting on his favorite chair on top of the raised dais. The throne, the Dark Knights called it amongst themselves. The Dark Lord had a strange fondness for it, and transported it wherever he chose to go. At the old Ministry of Magic, he had another copy, even larger and finer than the one he used now.

Surya entered the room quickly and dropped to her knees before Him. It was a great source of contention between her and the other followers - they saw it as a paltry means to win favor. Luckily for her, Voldemort knew otherwise.

It's tradition, she had told him when they had met for the first time. Amongst the Al-da'wa Al-jadida it is custom to kneel before the superior. All in our sect kneel before me, and I must thus kneel before you. He had seemed somewhat pleased at her explanation.

The other summoned Dark Knights filed in and stood in the space behind her. She could not see them, but she could feel them as they shuffled and muttered amongst themselves. It didn't matter - her attention was mostly focused on the wizard sitting before her.

Surya hated the smell of the Dark Lord. She did not know whether or not the other Dark Knights ever noticed, but then again she did not much care to ask. Many years ago, when she was not quite twenty, she had gone into a small rural hospital for an assignment. The doctor she had been sent to kill had apparently performed some procedure a certain high ranking official did not want remembered. She had not known the details, and preferred it that way. In any case, the hospital was more aptly termed a hospice for the poor, as the patients in there were beyond hope. There was a particular smell to the place, a cloying miasma that remained in her senses for weeks afterwards. Standing near the Dark Lord reminded her of it.

From her kneeling position on the carpet, she looked carefully at the woman standing on the other side of the Dark Lord and suppressed an urge to roll her eyes. The woman is like a bitch in heat, she thought.

Bellatrix Black was not a young woman anymore, and had not been for some time. Yet her face was still unlined and her hair was still long and full, though its darkness was starting to streak with white. In a way, it enhanced her beauty and emphasized the feverish gleam in her eyes, which took on a glazed-over expression whenever she was in close proximity to her Master. Surya had once interrupted a couple in the midst of a tryst, and the glazed expression in the woman's eyes was replicated almost exactly on Bellatrix . Before I opened her throat, anyway.

The entrance of the last summoned Dark Knight was signaled by the heavy thud of the stone door . By this time, a table had been conjured, and those present had taken their usual seats. Surya remained at the foot of Voldemort's chair, and Bellatrix remained by his side. The Dark Lord raised a skeletal hand, and the hushed murmurings instantly silenced.

"My servants have done well," he said. Surya could almost hear the added 'for once'. Although since the defeat of the Potter boy, things had gone as planned more frequently than when he had been alive.

"...him, and he will be here shortly," Voldemort was saying. "So we will interrogate this man, this..."

"Bikram Das, My Lord," Surya replied.

"No, the man I fetched was another," said a voice in the back. Surya recognized the piping lilt of Ritchie Coote, a pleasant-faced, but weedy looking man.

His words brought a sinking feeling to the pit of Surya's stomach. "Another?" She heard herself say. "Who?"

"I forgot the name you gave me, so I went through the papers at your desk." He must have seen the involuntary twitch of her shoulders, because he hastily added. "Zabini said it would be okay. In any case, I saw your notes right away, it was right on your desk. The name was indicated clearly - you had circled and highlighted it. So I looked for and Arjun Kamath. I think you gave me the wrong name earlier."

Surya ears were filled with a curious ringing and her vision was clouded with white. No, no, no, her mind screamed. How could I have been so careless. She did not make mistakes, especially such stupid ones. Every sneeze, every blink, every smile - everything must be for a reason. These words of her last teacher buzzed through her mind, and after over twenty years of following such a rigorous standard, she had failed in the simplest and most devastating way of them all. And I cast the wards on his door, she thought bitterly. I prevented his escape. An unfamiliar sensation pricked at her eyes, and with horror she realized they were tears. Let them fall, she thought. I have failed.

Surya felt herself pitching forward and threw and arm forward to prevent it. She looked up to see Bellatrix regarding her with a mixture of surprise and glee. "Did the little sand-shitter eat something nasty?" she hissed. "Or does your incompetence surprise even you?"

Her words were exactly what Surya needed. A perfect plan is not free of mistakes, her first master had told her, rather, it is fully prepared for all of them. Her resolve and determination flowed through her, giving her strength. I know what I must do. She smirked and met Bellatrix's eyes. "A perfect plan," she said, "is not free of mistakes, but prepared for all of them. In the event that one man could not be found, I had readied a list of several. All those in the non-magic community are the same." She shrugged. "It didn't matter to me which one was brought first."

"Filthy mudbloods," Bellatrix spat, flecks of her saliva issuing forth. "Passing strange how you avoid the phrase."

"When you have something meaningful to share with the Dark Lord, other than your spittle, you may use whichever turn of phrase you wish," Surya replied mildly. "May I continue, My Lord?"

Voldemort inclined his head, but his expression remained impassive. Bellatrix looked quite the opposite, though she didn't dare say anything.

"In any case, I will be ready to do what needs to be done," she finished. The end of her statement was punctuated with the stone door heaving opened once more. The man who walked in removed the hood from his head and stood beside Surya in a few long strides.

"My Lord," Nott said, his brown hair sweat-stuck to his forehead and the sides of his neck. "I apologize for my lateness. I did not think I was needed at this gathering. I came as soon as I received your summoning."

The Dark Lord had a fondness - if one could call it that - for his new Potions Master. Nott had certainly been quite imaginative in his development of potions for efficient interrogation techniques, something Voldemort found quite indispensable. Surya knew that there had been a potions master before Nott, but she never knew what became of him. Probably killed in the War.

"The man is here; I will want him drained of anything he knows," Voldemort replied. "And as Surya has others, feel free to try any experiments of yours." She barely suppressed an involuntary shudder at his words. I need to act, and quickly.

~~~

The bruise on her elbow was painful. She had hit it in the sensitive spot where the right force would send a queasy, intense pain up the rest of the arm. Selene hissed through her teeth as she prodded it with a tentative finger. How she had longed to snatch a fork and give the woman a scar to match the one on the side of her face.

I wonder where Felicity is, she thought. The pallet beside her was still empty, and she knew that Sabina was not the most demanding Mistress, though she was not an easy one either. I hope that idiot didn't lose her orb. Or break it.

She had felt a stab of regret with being so harsh with Felicity after 'the incident', which was how she had mentally termed Felicity's treatment at the hands of the monster, MacNair. But she needs to know that her life has been soft. She unconsciously touched the scars on her arms. Far softer than mine has been, she thought bitterly.

The tortuous pathway of thoughts long-suppressed suffused her mind thoroughly. She didn't even notice the goosebumps prickling on her skin, summoned by an encroaching coldness. Only when she noticed the wisps of her breath made visible did she start from her pallet with a harsh indrawn breath.

"Are you alright there?" It was one of the other slaves, still awake and staring at her, one eyebrow raised.

"I forgot," she mumbled, rendered half insensible by fear. "Wallbat, I forgot to lay the wallbat traps." She lurched to her feet and stumbled from the room.

In the late night, the corridors were deserted and Selene straggled along, one hand upon the wall for support. She was feeling colder than ever, though she knew the temple was quite the opposite, as evident by the rivulets of sweat running from her neck and arms. The frosty needles were engulfing her, as though she was being slowly immersed in an icy bath, numbing her limbs and making any progress impossible. She finally collapsed, her body completely numbed as her mind was made more alert, more sensitive, more receptive. Where are you when I need you, Mother? her mind managed to scream before it was silenced. And then she threw back her head in a silent scream as the message came to her.

Author's Notes

A big thanks to my beta, Meucci Warlock for his remarkable editing.

So Surya is head of Al-da'wa Al-jadida. Now I'm no history buff, I take things that I find interesting and bend them to what I want for the purpose of this fic. But Al-da'wa Al-jadida is believed to have existed, also by the names hashashin, or hassassin. It was an organized system. The word 'assassin' in believed to have derived from it. Anyway, I feel that a system of this sort would appeal to Voldemort, and especially that their leader is magical in nature, he would have no qualms in using their talents.

What's the deal with Selene? That will come out more and more in later chapters. I'd be interested to hear your guesses though!

Sorry I haven't updated in so long. I've written about twenty chapters, but they need lots of editing, and school has been keeping me rather busy.

Please, please read and review!!