"Excuse me...my servant?" Max Wright said. He couldn't have heard her right.

The woman-Sybil, she called herself-was smiling, and her very presence seemed to have a calming influence on him. "Well, strictly speaking, I might be your servant. I believe we must talk first."

"Talk about what?" Wright said.

"About why I've brought you here."

"And where is 'here', again?"

"The Hall of Heroes."

"O-kay...so, that's like where the Vikings went when they died, right? What's it called?"

"Do you mean 'Valhalla', Sir?"

"Yeah, that's it! So this is Valhalla?"

"It is not. The name 'Hall of Heroes' has been given to this place for different reasons."

"So it's not in Asgard or anything?"

"No, it's not."

"Well...is this the Afterlife then?"

Sybil smiled wider. "Now I understand your confusion. No, it's not the Afterlife either."

"So...I'm not dead?"

"No, Sir. You are not dead."

Wright's mouth twitched, then a quick smile formed and faded on his face, then he grinned, chuckled, then let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding as he broke into elated laughter. He took Sybil by the shoulders and said. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that! Dying's bad enough, but for a minute there I was worried I'd have to spend the rest of Eternity in a Library!"

Sybil offered a polite smile in response. "I'm glad that you are happy, Sir, but I'm afraid we must get on with the business at hand. Time grows short."

At that, Wright stopped laughing. "What does that mean?"

"It means we have very little time to talk before you move on."

"Move on to where? I thought you said I wasn't dead."

"Not as yet, but you are severely wounded, and the Fates may ultimately decide that your time is at hand."

Wright winced and shook his head to clear it. "Okay, let's try this again: Where Am I?"

"You are in between Life and Death. Your mortal shell is in the Mortal World where it might be tended to. If your healers are skilled in their craft, you might yet survive your ordeal. If not, then you may indeed go on to Valhalla, or any other paradise set aside for Heroes. Until either happens your Astral Form rests In Between, and while it is there it may be contacted by those adept at the mystic arts. I am such an adept, and I have been given permission to bring you to this Hall of Heroes to speak with you, but the amount of time you spend here is not up to either of us. Though I cannot tell you what the Fates have in store for you, I do know that their moment of decision is at hand."

I'm dreaming, Wright thought. He'd come to the conclusion that he was comatose somewhere and he was dreaming all of this, though he couldn't understand what the woman was doing in his dream (He was partial to redheads) and why he was in a library of ANY kind (the last time he'd bothered to step into one was a year and half ago, and he was working a case, not looking for anything to read.). Still, since it was a dream he guessed there would be no harm in playing along. "So...what do you want?"

"Let me show you what is here." Sybil said, then started walking. Wright followed about a step behind her as she went on. "The writings you see collected on either side of us, in books, in scrolls, on tablets, are a history. They are a record of the lives and adventures of every Hero that walked the Earth, from the time Men first started marking down events for posterity. Before he died, my creator, Merlin, bade me to complete the collection and watch over it until such time as the power it represents might again be needed in the Mortal World."

"Merlin? You mean the wizard from the King Arthur myths?"

"Lord Merlin was no myth, Sir! He brought me to life, and I served him through some of the World's darkest times."

"Sorry. So he made this place?"

"He created several repositories of magic, to be exploited in the event the World faced a threat that Science would not help it defeat."

Wright stopped walking. "Are we facing that kind of threat now?"

Sybil stopped and turned to face him. "Yes." She said.

Wright looked around again at the materials on the shelves. "How can any of these things be of any use?"

"Every story here is charmed. Each contains a tiny bit of the soul of the hero it describes. The right person, if he be worthy, would be able to use these tomes to channel the qualities that made the names inscribed here into Legends."

Wright looked back at her. "And you brought me here...because you think I'm worthy?"

"Quite so. What you did today demonstrated that."

"That? Really? No, I was just doing my job. There are lots of others who..."

"There are none other that I might have an audience with at this time. There are none who have the same potential to meet the challenge I'm about to put before you. Your actions today show that you have the makings of an epic hero, one on a par with Odysseus, or Beowulf or King Arthur himself. You are the right person, and you are here just when I need you."

Wright let that sink in for a moment. "What do you want me to do?"

"The World needs a Champion, a defender that can protect it from ancient, unspeakable Evil. You, Maxwell Wright, have it within you to be that Champion, if you so choose. Accept this task, and I will be your servant. Through me you will be able to cross the Earth in a footstep, see great danger before it can be perceived by other mortals and have at your disposal the strengths and skills of all the Heroes of Antiquity."

"What if I say 'No'? Will it affect whether I live or not?"

"It will not. As I said before, the Fates must make that decision, regardless of what transpires here."

"So I could say 'No' and still live..."

"Or you could say 'Yes' and die anyway. This must be by your will, Sir, or not at all."

"How long do I have to think about it?"

"Not very long. The danger is immediate, as is the moment of the Fates' decision."

"Then there really is no choice. I'll do it."

Sybil smiled and bowed reverently. She'd said it was up to him, but she wouldn't have chosen him if she thought he might decline. When she stood back up she extended her right arm to Wright. The sleeve of her vestment slid back to reveal a fragile gold bracelet clasped around her thin wrist. Dangling from the bracelet was a gold charm. The charm looked like a tiny, open scroll, marked with lettering Wright couldn't recall ever seeing before.

"This charm is The Sybil, the portent of the future, Merlin's guide to the impending dangers that would befall mankind in his lifetime and beyond. It is the symbol of Me. Take it from my wrist and our pact is sealed. I will be bound to you until the danger has passed, and I shall do all that I am capable of to assist you in the task of fighting Evil."

Wright just looked at the charm for a few seconds, wondering if he'd jumped to accept too quickly. He believed her when she said it didn't matter to his physical survival in any way, so why did he decide to do as she asked? Maybe it was for the same reason he joined the FBI. Maybe it was simply the desire to do the most good for the most people that he could before his number came up...whenever that might be.

Eyes still on the charm, Wright reached up with his right hand and grasped it, holding it tight. With a small tug he realized the gold chain it was attached to would break easily. He took a deep breath, braced himself and pulled hard on the charm.

The bracelet seemed to disintegrate in slow motion. Wright felt an odd buzzing in his hand as he pulled it back, and a bright light shone from inside his fist. The light grew in intensity as he watched until it overwhelmed his vision. Everything around him began to fade away, including Sybil.

"Thank you, Milord." She said to him just before he felt the floor slip away from under his feet. There was the sense of motion, as if he were flying through space. He didn't resist, letting whatever had him keep pulling him away faster and faster until the world finally went black.

He was lying on his back when he regained consciousness. The darkness was still there, but he realized it was just because his eyes were closed. He tried to open them, but the light that came in assaulted him, and he had to blink several times while his vision adjusted, and even then he had to squint. He moved his head left and right, trying to take in his surroundings. He knew he should recognize where he was, but his mind hadn't woken up fully yet.

His tongue felt dry and his throat felt ragged, and his first few attempts to speak failed. Finally, he gathered enough strength to say "Is Anyone There?"

It didn't actually sound like that when it came out, but it didn't have to. The noise itself brought Tess Wright out of her sad reverie. She'd been camped out at Max's bedside ever since he came out of surgery. She'd been sitting in a chair next to the bed, holding his left hand and sobbing. Now she looked at him in shock, her face wet with tears. "Max?" She said, hope plain in her voice.

"Where am I?" This time it sounded more like what Max Wright intended.

"The hospital." Tess said. "You're in the hospital, Max."

"Tess?" He said, his voice getting stronger.

She smiled and started crying again. "I'm here, sweetheart, I'm right here." She said as she squeezed his hand.

Max turned his head toward her voice, and Tess was euphoric when she felt him squeeze her hand back, weak though his grip was. "Had the weirdest dream..." he said.

Tess's next impulse was to jump on the bed and hug him to death, but a more rational part of her prevailed and made her grab the emergency buzzer in the bed beside him. She squeezed the button hard and didn't let go until a nurse came into the room. "He's awake!" She said. "He's talking!"

"Agent Wright? Can you hear me?" The nurse said as she came over to examine him. Trina Rader entered the room a second after the nurse, and all three women's eyes were focused on the patient as the nurse tried to talk with him and did her job.

None of them noticed the small, gold, scroll-shaped charm that rested in the open palm of his right hand.

The Old Medicine Man sat on a lonely outcropping in the desert, puffing on a pipe and listening to the Earth as his fellow escapees returned to their respective homes. Chaos would reign across the globe in the next several days, and he welcomed the return of the Days of Old, where gods and demons walked the Mortal World and Humanity knew its place. The Old Man smiled, sure that there was nothing anyone could do to stop what he'd set in motion.

Of course some would try. Already, the Sorcerer's mystical slave had found a pawn of her own to send into battle against him and those he had unleashed.

As he turned his consciousness to watching the new hero recover from his battle wounds, the Old Man felt a sense of peace and belonging...a sense of certainty that he'd missed for a very long time.

The Great Game was on again, and this time he was sure he could lead his side to victory.