I scan the room, the entire building. I sense that, as I'd come to suspect, Mrs Fulcher is border-line empathic, and several other patients and members of staff have untapped psionic talents - and there is the slightest mental "scent" of Darkhawk and Bekalth on this floor, from an earlier encounter - but there is no concealed force, no secretive presence that Tony could be experiencing. This has to be something else.

The boy suddenly grabs my arm. "Please, Mane-of-Night - they... they're cutting me again...!"

His arm suddenly goes limp. "There it is again", says an anxious Doctor Cassidy. "Sequential paralysis - the left arm, then the left and right legs, now the other arm. He must be visualising the sensation as this hallucination of dismemberment..."

"Or someone is genuinely cutting him to pieces", I add, to looks of disbelief from everyone, even O'Halloran. The treatment has clearly interfered with Tony's link to his Dominium crystal body, and that has now fallen into the hands of an enemy. I turn back to the boy: "Tony? Tony, where is Captain Dominion? Are you still in contact...?"

"I'm trapped!, he shrieks. "Not there, not here - both at once! I can't move!"

"Leave him alone!", cries Mister Fulcher. "He... he's just a boy...!"

Mrs Fulcher has her hands on her husband's shoulders, and she gently keeps him from jumping up to pull me away from their son. She also seems curiously calm throughout, and all she says is "Who - who is Captain Dominion...?"

Good - she's coming to terms with this, the first step to understanding. Tony is going to need all the help we can muster. "Tony, I need you to focus on the other place", I instruct the boy. "You don't need to see me, just hear my voice. Look beyond me, and tell me what, and who, you see..."

"I can't", he sobs. "I... I don't want to..."

I'm in very definite danger of losing the boy - I have to be more forceful, despite my reservations. "Captain Dominion! Darkhawk commands you to obey!", I snap at him. "All you are, you owe to the Mistress of Dominion! Now tell me what you see!"

"A room - a laboratory!", wails Tony. "There - there are people... human people, not aliens... they have tools, like doctors' tools - is that my arm over there...?"

I feel a surge of confusion and fury from Mister Fulcher, but again, the hands of Mrs Fulcher restrain him. I'd be anxious, too, confronted with a child's pain, and that makes me all the more determined to free Tony from this otherworldly ordeal. "What else do you see?", I ask the boy - I can link with his mind if I have to, but the psychic turbulence caused by these "synthetic neuro-transmitters" could ensnare me as well. "Writing, symbols - the sky...?"

"A bird...", he pants, on the edge of panic. "A bird, flying. An eagle, or a hawk...!"

"Vaggtshaersken", I murmur. It has to be...

"Yes!", exclaims Tony. "I - I heard that word! Can't - can't remember the rest..."

The "Hunting Hawks", now disowned by the MDI, have Tony's Dominium "hero body", and they're trying to find out how he works - possibly unaware that the crystal contains the mental essence of a living person, now trapped. But how much damage can that body sustain before it can no longer contain a spirit?

"Tony, I need you to look closer, at the bird symbol", I murmur to him, my mouth closer to his sweat-drenched ear. "Do you see writing, or symbols that could be words?"

"Lines", he mutters. "Vertical lines, in groups..."

Narthani numbers - that's just what I need. "Describe them to me..."

A few moments later, I rise, step back from a quite exhausted Tony Fulcher, and look to Major O'Halloran. "Get me a comm-link to Dominion One", I instruct him. "Captain Dominion is being held in MDI territory, at a Vaggtshaersken facility number six-seven-zero-three..."

I hope it's enough. I hope I'm in time to save this young man.

My part in this played, to the best of my ability, I stay true to my word, taking a chair from the corner of the room and manoeuvring it beneath me as I move to sit. I'll stay with the boy until this is done, one way or another.

I'm deep in thought, but not so deep that I don't sense Mrs Fulcher taking a seat beside me. I don't react to her presence until she speaks: "I don't understand", she says softly, "but I'd like to."

The woman puts her hand on mine, and I feel obliged to answer. "Your son is a super-hero", I tell her. "While his flesh-and-bone body lies here, his mind is elsewhere, experiencing wonderful things. He has saved lives, fought terrible battles..."

Journal entry ends.

From The Tales of The Traveller...

"All right - here we go..."

The Traveller adjusted his shirt collar, checked his cuffs were buttoned, smoothed back his hair and opened the external doors of the Endless Sunrise...

"Now this is a spaceship", murmured Pratisha Westerly as she followed the adventurer out into a high-ceilinged corridor, every dark red marble surface decorated with inlaid gold, forming the outlines of great flame-wreathed birds, interlocking to infinity.

"Any more of that", snorted The Traveller, his feelings bruised somewhat, "and you'll be walking home..."

The Traveller was, in part, joking. Pratisha had every right to be awestruck, for he couldn't imagine there being a more lavish, breathtaking vessel that this - Dominion One, flagship of The Fleet, personal starship of Darkhawk, Mother of Dominion. He almost felt ashamed to be soiling her decks with the dirt from his boots...

"Are you okay?", asked Pratisha. The Traveller had stopped in his tracks, staring at the floor.

"One of those moments", he replied, with a suggestion of a sigh. "Knowing your witching background, I'm sure you must've had one, too. A moment where all you believe in just... crystallises before you..."

"Dancing naked on Griffin's Tor in a thunderstorm", she replied, quite truthfully, yet knowing her revelation wouldn't fail to shake him awake. "Now come on - you don't want to keep your goddess waiting."

The pair didn't have far to go, for The Traveller had been able to "dock" at a doorway just around the corner from the Chamber of Reverence - much to the adventurer's dismay, for that gave him little time to ready himself for meeting with Darkhawk. He'd met her before, and been quite comfortable at the time, but on this occasion things were different; the moment he'd seen the live feed from Trayseer Axxillae, and witnesses the final fall of Bekalth, he'd known to expect and entirely different Darkhawk...

The Traveller and Pratisha came to the great temple doors all too soon, and before the adventurer could advise his companion on protocol, the doors swung open of their own volition. Inside, there seemed to be no-one, the only suggestion anyone had entered recently being the dim amber glow of downward-facing light fittings and round the walls, and the two explorers waited for long, tense seconds to be invited in before taking it upon themselves to enter.

They had each taken no more than four steps when the far end of the temple started to fill with light. A female figure, seated cross-legged like an ancient mystic, started to form at the heart of the expanding golden light; a figure half again as tall as either of the adventurers, with golden skin and red hair tinged with living flame. The face was that of Darkhawk, but the rest of her cried out "goddess" more than The Traveller could ever recall, and the sight of her made him even more reluctant to advance in her presence.

"Come forward, Child of The LifeLight", Darkhawk instructed, extending a beckoning hand, gloved in metallic red-gold, towards The Traveller. "Do not be afraid - you are honoured, the first of my people to see me as I have become..."

The Traveller could feel it, the closer he came to Darkhawk, the moment he heard her echoing voice. She radiated LifeStar energy, nourishing and refreshing his body far more than the reservoirs on the Endless Sunrise ever could. "F-forgive me, My Lady", he managed to stutter.

Legs clad in red-gold near crotch-length boots unfolded, and Darkhawk "touched down", then went down on one knee, her eyes coming closer to being level with those of The Traveller. "That's not necessary", she told him. "If anything, you should be forgiving me. I laid down the Laws of Dominion, and those Laws made you an unintentional exile, endangering your life."

"I survived", he replied. "My desire to find a way home made me an explorer, and I am eternally grateful for that."

"Maybe so", said Darkhawk with a gentle smile, "but still, a debt is owed. Accept, now, the Breath of Darkhawk..."

The radiant woman exhaled in The Traveller's face, a warm, fragrant breeze, and the adventurer felt it penetrate deep into his being. ***May the LifeLight within you never dim, Traveller***, said Darkhawk, mind to mind. ***I free you of your chains - but Dominion will forever be your home, the LifeStar the one sun to truly warm your spirit...***

The Traveller staggered backwards, hands rising to clutch at his chest. He almost expected to run into Pratisha, or have her catch him, but the witch-woman was several paces back, lingering on the very edge of Darkhawk's light. Before he could ask Pratisha why, Darkhawk again made herself the centre of his attention.

"Captain Dominion is a prisoner of the Vaggtshaersken, the outlaw branch of MDI military intelligence", she informed him. "The MDI have confirmed that Facility Six-Seven-Zero-Three is four light years from here. I need you to go there, and retrieve him."

"With pleasure, My Lady", he replied, offering a shallow nod in place of a bow, "but - well, my ship isn't exactly a fighting vessel..."

"That's shouldn't be a problem", said Darkhawk, and she looked to one side, into the deeper shadows. Out of the darkness came several scaly shapes - a tall woman, skin the colour of dried blood, with horns on her head, shoulders and elbows, and a serpent-like tail that divided into two halfway down its length, and a number of other creatures that were more reptilian, a mix of woman and dragon, with wings instead of arms, and partially clad in polished, technological armour.

"Miss Westerly, may I introduce you to The Hellion, Mistress of Dominion, and members of Enhanced Squadron 'Warstorm'", announced The Traveller. "It looks like we're going to war."

...to be continued...