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Kaecilius came to her, broken and looking for healing.
When he tells her of his daughter, his Nadia, gunned down by men looking for vengeance against him, the Ancient One does not look at him with pity. No, it is empathy he sees in her eyes, an understanding of his pain and a desire to see him healed and made strong again.
Strength does not come easily. He weeps at night for sweet, dark-haired Nadia and her bright eyes and wide smile. In those first days, part of him still yearns for death so that he might be reunited with her, hold her once more. Another part of him begs for the peace of a man who has learned to accept life’s hardships with good grace, to treasure the good memories and shun the bad.
He was arrogant before, that was how he found himself in trouble with the wrong sorts of people, and how his only child, his only family ended up buried in a shoddy casket in a field behind their house. Sometimes the arrogance bleeds through: He asks too many questions, spits too many unwise words, he implies criticism and distrust in the Ancient One’s teachings.
But she is patient, knows the turmoil in his grief-stricken heart and soothes him as best she can. “All things come to an end,” The Ancient One tells him. “Nothing lasts forever. Your daughter has come and gone, as do we all. When your life is through, you will join her on the journey we all must one day take. But until you take that journey, you may use your time in this world to do something meaningful.”
Kaecilius listens, and he believes. He well and truly does believe in the Ancient One, even if his tongue is too sharp at times.
He becomes one of her best pupils. He excels at everything he does at Kamar-taj. Others look up to him as a mentor, and his softest spot is reserved for the young girls who would be nearly Nadia’s age. It soon follows that he is deemed a master, affording him a certain level of respect and privilege within the Sanctum.
And he uses it well, by furthering his knowledge.
The librarian is a mild fellow and doesn’t think twice about allowing Kaecilius to look through the Ancient One’s collection. No knowledge is forbidden in Kamar-taj, but he has restricted himself from these books in the past, a show of humility to the Ancient One to make up for his occasional bouts of arrogance.
It isn’t until he gets to Cagliostro that Kaecilius’s suspicions come forth again.
He tries to send them away; it doesn’t matter what the text says, it doesn’t matter if there is such a terrible coincidence in the Ancient One’s long life and the manner of time-manipulation set down in this book. The implication that the Ancient One could be drawing power from the Dark Dimension is laughable: She has spoken, again and again and again, how these things are forbidden.
No knowledge is forbidden in Kamar-taj, but practices are.
But still, Kaecilius cannot silence that nagging, hissing voice in his head, what of this? Will you ignore this too? Should she not explain the things in this book? Should she not offer up some kind of reason for how she’s lived so long?
There are students loyal to him.
And in time, when the voice becomes too much to bear alone, he tells them, one by one.
First are Hanna and Dreya, then Lucas and Abioye, and then more and more as time goes by: They speak with him, discuss their theories and all of them, every single one, agree that the Ancient One must be hiding something. How else could she prolong her life as she has? If she is human, as they all are, should she not age and die as they do? Why has she not?
“What would you have us do, Master?” Dreya asks, mouth set in a firm line, a soldier awaiting an order.
Kaecilius thinks.
And then he says, “No knowledge is forbidden in Kamar-taj. Only rituals.” He looks at them all, his loyal followers. “So we will take the knowledge from Kamar-taj, and do the ritual elsewhere.”
They will speak with Dormammu.
There is danger in channeling the dark one, the one they are told will swallow the world and everything in it if the Sanctums were to fall. Kaecilius leads his followers to Dormammu with trepidation, watching the dark cloud unfold in the middle of the room, listening to the cold, dark voice that emerges from within.
And finally, finally Kaecilius sees.
The dark realm is not to be feared- Dormammu seeks not to destroy the world, but to give it and all who inhabit it everlasting life within his realm. The heat-death of the universe will not come for humanity when they reside with Dormammu. No father may stain his hands with his child’s blood in that place where life is everlasting.
And then Dormammu says what Kaecilius never thought he would hear:
“I will reunite you.”
He chokes on his happiness, his gratitude.
Nadia.
“We will pave the way for you,” He promises, followers similarly enraptured by Dormammu’s promises. “We will bring down the Sanctums so that you might save this world and its people.”
“Good,” Dormammu purrs. “Good.”
He brings them to the library, creeping across the courtyard in the night, hoods up. The librarian sees Kaecilius, but thinks nothing of it at first, until Aya and Rakhi have bound his arms and legs and have him suspended in midair.
The librarian is not a bad fellow.
Kaecilius beheads him quickly.
The Book of Cagliostro is right where it should be, tucked neatly in its chains. He rips the pages out and means to leave.
“Kaecilius,”
He freezes.
She knows. As she always does.
“That ritual will bring you to ruin.”
They run.
Kaecilius and his followers are not yet ready to engage the Ancient One, not until they have received their strength from Dormammu. They run through the portal to London, ignoring staring pedestrians who snap pictures with their phones and honk their car horns at them.
They turn down an alleyway-
-and find themselves in the mirror dimension.
The Ancient One blocks the way they came.
And then, right before his eyes, she moves her hand, and the buildings to her left warp and twist and turn accordingly.
“Hypocrite!” He spits at her.
He is right! She has taken power from the dark realm and is using it for her own purposes- all whilst preaching that it is forbidden to everyone else!
How dare she? How dare she, who has probably never watched a spouse wither away and die in their bed, never came home to find her only child riddled with bullets, once bright eyes now staring dully up at the sky? How dare she hide this knowledge from him, knowing what he has lost? What he could regain, and prevent from happening to anyone else?
Who does she think she is, to keep this power for herself?
Kaecilius is betrayed. They are all betrayed.
The Ancient One punishes those who tangle with the dark realm all whilst using it herself. He must receive Dormammu’s power: With it, he may yet hope to defeat her, to end her reign of selfishness, of control, and bring the world into Dormammu’s loving embrace.
She kills half of his followers, crushing them between the warped buildings. There was a time when that may have surprised him, but he is all too aware now of her cruelty. If she can allow him to suffer as he has, she can inflict such suffering directly.
We will meet again, Kaecilius thinks as he opens a new portal, his remaining followers jumping in ahead of him. We will meet again.
And when they did, he would end the tyranny of her rule once and for all.
-End