Alex Archer - Mystic Warrior

“Inside the scrying crystal?” Krauzer scoffed.

“The manuscript Julio Gris left indicates that the message is concealed somewhere inside.” Annja moved the flashlight and the crystal at the same time.

The diffused beam of light shone through the crystal and onto the first manuscript page.

“You need to be careful with that,” Krauzer warned. “That’s one of a kind. I can’t replace that crystal in the movie. I’ve shot too many core scenes with it.”

“If you got a 3-D modeler, you could make one of these on a 3-D printer,” Orta told him.

“Movie audiences can tell when something’s real these days. They like real stuff in their movies.”

Annja looked at him. “This is supposed to belong to an elf witch.”

“Hey, viewers want to believe in elf witches and hobbits and dragons. I’m not going to argue with them. I’m going to give them what they want. In fact, I’ll give them bigger dragons than they’ve ever seen before.”

Ignoring the director, Annja continued to shine the light across the pages. She wasn’t frustrated yet, but her options were limited. And she was constantly aware of Krauzer growing more and more impatient.

“Did Julio Gris tell you to shine a flashlight through the crystal?” Krauzer asked smugly. “Because that right there would tell you that manuscript is a fake. They didn’t have flashlights back when Juan Cabrillo sailed to California, right?”

Annja ignored the question.

“Right?”

Knowing Krauzer wasn’t going to let up until he was answered, Annja said, “Right.”

“So we’re all done here? I’ve saved you from wasting more time. I can take my scrying crystal and get back to the studio, and you and the professor can look at old crap to your hearts’ delight.”

“Gris suggested using natural light or a candle flame to reveal the message,” Orta said. “We’re using a flashlight because it’s more accurate and it’s not daylight outside.”

Krauzer folded his arms. “Shining a light through a crystal sounds really stupid, if you ask me.”

“Have you ever heard of a magic lantern?” The frustration in Orta’s voice turned his words ragged.

“Of course I have. ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.’ Aladdin’s lamp. Even Uncle Scrooge McDuck went looking for a magic lamp. That stuff’s all old.”

“A magic lantern,” Orta said in a louder voice, “was an early precursor to filmmaking.”

“So were hand puppets.”

Orta sighed. “I’m just saying that there was a basis for this use of the scrying ball.”

“Okay, but I’ve got to take that crystal and scoot. We’ve got an early shoot planned tomorrow. Morning sunlight doesn’t last forever.” Krauzer tapped his watch, then answered his ringing phone again.

Annja was thankful. The man was too accustomed to being in control. She rotated the crystal and shone the light through the other flat spots onto the pages.

Her back ached from the combination of constant bending and anticipation. Something had to be here. Unless the scrying crystal was not the one mentioned in the manuscript.

Or if the manuscript was a hoax.

Krauzer punched his phone off and returned to observe. “Well, that was good news.”

Neither Annja nor Orta bothered to ask what the good news was.

“That was Rita, my personal assistant. She had to wait until the cops left, but she got my gun back.”

Annja straightened and reconsidered the problem.

“So, you’re satisfied there aren’t any secret messages in the crystal?” Krauzer asked. “I can get back to the studio?”

The director’s words turned the possibilities around in Annja’s mind. She glanced at Orta. “I think we’ve been going at this wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Orta asked.

“Maybe the message is inside the crystal.” Annja pressed the flashlight onto one of the object’s flat areas. The light caused the crystal to glow softly as the illumination diffused through the twists and turns of the sparkling latticework contained within the thing.

“There’s nothing inside that crystal.” Krauzer shook his head and looked grumpy. “You’re wasting my time.”

Annja continued her search, but she became quickly discouraged when nothing turned up. The light caught various facets and reflected through the glass ovoid, squirming through to another side in some places and stopping in others. Occasionally, the light snaked back on itself and became looped.

Nothing made sense.

Pausing again, Annja glanced at the manuscript pages. They have to be part of this, she reasoned .

Krauzer sifted through the food cartons and muttered in displeasure. At least he was being somewhat quiet about his irritation.

A new thought struck Annja and she glanced up at Orta. “Let’s get the pages over here.”

Orta picked up the first page. “Shine the light through the pages?”

“That’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”

“The plastic protectors might interfere.” In spite of his misgivings, Orta held the first page against one of the flat spots on the crystal.

Annja placed the flashlight lens against the laminated paper and slowly guided the manuscript page along so that every square inch was covered. After covering nearly the whole page, her hopes steadily sinking while Krauzer continued to stew, Annja blinked to clear her vision when she spotted writing in the lower right corner.

She lowered the flashlight and raised the page to examine the surface with her naked eye. Even holding the manuscript up to the overhead lights didn’t show anything. The striations within the crystal somehow translated the image, probably through various degrees of refraction.

“Did you find something?” Orta stood at her side, his chest resting slightly against her shoulder.

“Yes,” Annja answered. Her voice sounded quiet in her own ears, but her excitement thrummed like a live thing inside her.

“You’re imagining things,” Krauzer insisted. “You’re tired and you want something to be there.” Still, he came to stand on her other side and peered at the crystal. “See? Nothing’s there.”

“Look inside it.” Annja replaced the page over the flat spot and shone the flashlight against the page so the beam shone into the crystal.

Inside the crystal, the neat handwriting stood revealed, almost too small to read. The penmanship was delicate, ornate and so small. Each space between words was carefully designed.

“I don’t see anything,” Krauzer challenged.

Annja nodded to Orta. “Hold these.”

Silently, enraptured by what he was seeing, Orta held the flashlight and the page. He experimented by pulling the flashlight lens back from the paper. “I can get the writing a little larger, but pulling the light source reflects back too much and throws off the focus, causing it to disappear.”

Annja opened her backpack and took out her tablet PC and a small digital camera. She slipped on an equally small macro lens. “If someone had read the manuscript pages in that crystal all those years ago, they couldn’t have put a candle flame up against the paper.”

“Someone built this crystal to hide the message inside the manuscript pages.” Orta shook his head. “But the crystal looks so real.”

“The crystal is real. This is old, probably grown over time. I’d like to find out who created it, as well.” Annja left the tablet PC on one of the tables and brought the camera to the crystal. She experimented with angles and found the one that best revealed the message within the depths of the crystalline latticework. She snapped images.

“I see it.” Krauzer bent so low and so close that his breath temporarily fogged the crystal. Looking embarrassed, he leaned back. “You know, that’s pretty cool. I could use something like this in A Diversion of Dragons .”