Doctor Strange, page 6
Strange stared out his window, and his eyes fell on the watch that still lay on the sill. He walked over and picked it up with his trembling fingers.
Time will tell…
He picked up the tablet computer that was on the small desk and opened his e-mail. Slowly, laboriously, he moved his twitching fingers over the keyboard and typed:
Christine, I know it’s been
He deleted the line.
“How,” he said out loud, “am I supposed to explain this?”
The air was crisp with the coming of fall, and Strange found himself once more atop the roof of the Kamar-Taj compound. He was with Mordo, training, as usual. Mordo had removed his shirt, revealing a quilt of scars and—were those bullet wounds? What happened to Mordo? Strange wondered. What brought him here, to The Ancient One?
“So no one really knows her name?”
“No one,” Mordo said, lacing up his leather boots.
Strange tugged at his robes. The ones he wore now were red—the color of an apprentice. Strange had learned much in the days… weeks… months… since he’d arrived at Kamar-Taj.
“How ancient is she?” Strange asked.
Mordo looked at Strange and said, “Would you believe she was born from a Hebridean rowan tree over five thousand years ago?”
Strange recoiled from Mordo in disbelief. And yet maybe…
“From a tree? What does…? How can…?” Strange fumbled.
Mordo laughed loudly. “I’m kidding. Truth is, she was a hiker who came here ten years ago and never left.”
“What… really?” Strange said, falling for it.
Mordo smiled. “Look at you, Doctor I-Don’t-Believe-in-Fairy-Tales—ready now to believe anything I say!” Mordo chuckled. “Nobody knows the age of the Sorcerer Supreme, when she inherited the title, or from where exactly she hails. All I know is that she’s Celtic, from traditions remembered now only by her. She simply is, and we are all the better for it.”
As Strange absorbed his words, Mordo thrust a quarterstaff into his hands. The weapon crackled with tangible energy.
“What is this?” Strange asked.
“It’s called a relic,” said Mordo, readying himself. “The manipulation of dimensional energies puts a strain on our minds. Some magic is too powerful to sustain, so we imbue objects with it, allowing the object to take the strain we cannot.”
In a flash, Mordo was on his feet, raising his own quarterstaff, facing Strange.
“This,” Mordo said, motioning to his quarterstaff, “is the Staff of the Living Tribunal.”
SMACK! The two began to spar, their staves cracking into each other, unleashing a torrent of sparks.
“Other relics include—”
SKRACK!
“—the Wand of Watoomb, the Pincers of Power, the Hoary—”
VRAACK!
“—Hosts of Hoggoth, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, the—”
Strange lowered his quarterstaff, laughing. He was practically doubled over.
“What?” asked Mordo, not in on the joke.
“Who names these things?”
Mordo pondered the question, throwing Strange a stern look. Then he shrugged. He didn’t know.
“I haven’t even mentioned the Brazier of Bom’Galiath yet.”
SKRACK!
Once more, Strange and Mordo clashed in their practice battle. Mordo was big and fast, strong and agile, and he had the edge of experience. Who knew how long he had been studying under The Ancient One?
But Strange was a quick study. Slowly, he began to get the upper hand.
SKRRRIIIKKK!
Strange batted aside Mordo’s quarterstaff with his own. He was winning. “Elizabeth!” Strange shouted.
“What?” Mordo asked, confused.
“She looks like an Elizabeth!”
Strange’s confidence was mounting, enough to let his sense of humor creep in, just as it had done when he had faced difficult surgeries. But Mordo still had experience on his side. His boots began to glow, and suddenly, as Strange watched, helpless, Mordo vaulted over his head.
While Strange hesitated for only a second, Mordo took that moment to press his advantage. He slammed the end of the quarterstaff into Strange’s body, sending him to the floor. Mordo swung the staff toward Strange’s head, a killing blow.
He stopped an inch from Strange’s face. “Fight like your life depends upon it, because one day, it may.” Strange panted. He nodded. Mordo was right.
“And,” Mordo added gravely, “she looks like a Catherine.”
CHAPTER
19
Strange was fighting as if his life depended upon it.
It did. Mordo had been right.
There was punching, a flurry of blows thrown by both sides. Some landed, some didn’t. Mostly, Strange’s didn’t. Kaecilius had set the rules for this game, and he was beating Strange. Through a haze, Strange saw an ax on the ground—a relic, he guessed. He reached for the ax, only to find the cloak pulling at him once more, away from the object of his salvation. What was the cloak thinking?
The cloak stopped pulling, and that’s when Strange saw what it wanted him to see. Mordo had mentioned them in passing; Wong had talked about them. Strange recognized them from all the reading he had done in those late nights at the Narthex.
The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.
Strange threw them at Kaecilius. Snarling, Kaecilius tried to duck the Bands, without success. Quickly, the Bands wrapped themselves around Kaecilius, shackling his arms, his waist, his body, his mouth—binding him to the floor. He struggled.
“The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak,” Strange said. “Forged by the smithies of Babylon three thousand years ago. Strong stuff.”
A hush fell over the Sanctum. For the first time since Kaecilius had arrived, all was quiet. Strange looked at his fallen foe, then, with a gesture of his hand, removed the shackle from the Zealot’s mouth.
Kaecilius began to chant, but Strange didn’t recognize what he was saying.
“Stop it,” Strange commanded. The Zealot didn’t. “I said stop it.”
“You cannot stop this, Mister Doctor.…” Kaecilius sneered.
The Cloak of Levitation fluttered around Strange as he circled Kaecilius. “I’ve already stopped you, and I don’t even know what ‘this’ is.”
Kaecilius looked at Strange as if he were a child—unknowing. “It is the end and the beginning. The many becoming the few becoming the One.”
“Look, if you’re not going to make sense, I’m just going to have to put the muzzle back on,” Strange said, brandishing his hand.
“Tell me, Mister Doctor—”
Strange let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, let me at least get one thing to make sense. The name is Doctor Stephen Strange.”
“You’re a doctor. A scientist. You know the laws of nature. All things age. All things die. In the end, our sun burns out. Our universe grows cold and perishes. But the Dark Dimension, it is a place beyond time.”
The Dark Dimension.
Strange felt a gnawing fear grip his mind, an unsettling feeling that made his senses scream.
CHAPTER
20
He was wearing the blue tunic and pants, the robes of a disciple of The Ancient One. A sling ring dangled from his belt. It was a cold December day. It was raining, and the drops beat down upon Stephen Strange’s forehead.
Drop. Drop. Drop.
Time will tell.…
Water, cold. My hands?
As was now the norm, he carried a thick stack of books across the courtyard. He passed the ancient tree, the one whose blue flowers had been so welcoming in spring. The tree was now barren, its vital essence locked for the winter.
He headed for the Narthex.
Strange took a bite of an apple, the crunching sound penetrating the stillness of the library. He made an oops! face, and looked around to see if he was disturbing anyone. Like Wong. Especially Wong. He was surrounded by a stack of books, sprawled out on a table around him.
He flipped through the pages of The Book of Cagliostro. Something on one of the pages caught his eye. Rather, it was an eye, or it looked like one, anyway. There was a drawing of an amulet. Beneath it, Strange read the descriptor: The Eye of Agamotto.
He looked up and saw Mordo. And Wong.
They were looking at him as if he had done something wrong. Had he? Immediately, Strange felt the need to apologize.
“I have a photographic memory. It’s how I earned an MD and a PhD at the same time,” he started. Mordo and Wong stared at Strange in disbelief. Had he really read all those books? And understood them?
“You were born for the mystic arts,” Mordo said. There was admiration in his voice, but something else, too. Envy?
“And yet my hands still shake,” Strange said quietly.
“For now, yes,” Wong said solemnly.
“Not forever?”
“How should we know, Strange?” Mordo sighed. “We’re not prophets.”
“Then what are we?” asked Stephen Strange.
Mordo looked at Wong, Wong at Mordo. “He’s ready,” Wong finally said. He clicked a nearby pedestal, and suddenly the ceiling came to life with light. There appeared a luminous map running the length of the ceiling. Strange looked up in wonder.
Taking a deep breath, Wong motioned at the three of them. “The true purpose of a sorcerer is to safeguard this world against other-dimensional threats.” Three cities on the map began to glow. Entranced by the map, Strange continued to gaze toward it while Wong and Mordo did the same to Strange.
“Kamar-Taj is bound to three Sanctum Sanctorums, each guarded by its own master. Secret, holy places where the world’s meridians of power intersect. The first Sorcerer Supreme, Agamotto, united these lines of energy.” At those words, lines began to illuminate on the map above.
Wong continued, “He created the Constant, and it is the Constant that keeps us safe from extra-dimensional forces. The yellow lines represent the protective ley lines. The purple dots are the Sanctum Sanctorums.”
Strange nodded, taking a step closer.
“What would a red dot mean?”
Wong looked at Mordo. “That would be bad,” Wong replied.
“Uhhhhh… how bad?” Strange asked.
A sinking feeling developed in all three men as they looked up at the map. There was a small red dot directly over London, home to a Sanctum Sanctorum.
There was terrible danger in London. The world was in terrible danger.
Mordo activated a gateway. It glowed, then opened.
A second later, a man whom Strange did not immediately recognize ran through the gate, his face a mask of blood and panic. This, Strange would find out later, was Sol Rama, the master of the London Sanctum Sanctorum. Before Wong and Mordo could help him, a shard of crackling energy flew through the gateway, spearing Sol Rama in the chest.
The man dropped face-first onto the floor of the Narthex. The doctor in Strange took over, and he rushed to Sol Rama’s side. Kneeling beside the fallen master, Strange looked up at the gate.
He could see two people in robes. There was something wrong with their eyes. They were gesturing wildly. The Zealots Wong had mentioned. The ones who followed Kaecilius. Wong knelt down next to Sol Rama, across from Strange. His muscles looked coiled, as if he were ready to pounce.
Mordo waved his hands, summoning a weapon to his side. He ran toward the gateway.
Then came the explosion.
The room shook, and Strange was blown backward, through a gate.
At least, that’s what Strange thought had happened.
He found himself inside an unfamiliar stone room, his ears ringing. He felt pain everywhere. Pain—he was used to that. He pushed himself up off the ground, wobbling on his feet, trying to regain his balance. Was he in shock? Maybe. He took several deep breaths: inhale, exhale.
He looked around and saw a gateway, now closed. The gateway back to Kamar-Taj.
Strange was cut off from Wong, Mordo, and The Ancient One. He was stranded here, wherever “here” was. The enemies of Kamar-Taj were on the move.
“Hello! Anyone else here?” Strange called out. No response.
There was a door, Strange noticed. He walked through it. He found himself inside a large foyer, then turned to the front door.
Strange drew in a deep breath as he opened the door and surveyed in his surroundings. There was no mistaking it—this was New York City’s Greenwich Village. Bleecker Street, to be specific. (Thanks, street sign.) The telltale brownstone apartment buildings and coffee shops were a familiar sight to Strange, who used to live in this place, the city that never sleeps.
How did I get here? Strange asked himself.
The Beginning
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Stephen Strange is a skilled surgeon–one of the best in the world.
Christine Palmer works with him at the hospital. Their relationship is complicated, in part because of Stephen’s arrogance.
After a horrible accident, Stephen is no longer able to perform surgery. His hands tremble when before, they moved with grace and precision.
He travels across the world to Nepal to find a cure for his injuries and crosses paths with a man known as Mordo.
Mordo takes Stephen to Kamar-Taj, a city known for its miracles, and introduces him to The Ancient One.
She is a mystic with great power.
The Ancient One shows Stephen that everything he thinks he knows about the nature of the universe is a mere layer in the greater Multiverse.
His mind opened to possibilities, Stephen trains in the mystic arts, both physically with Mordo…
…and mentally with Wong.
He soon learns of a great threat: Kaecilius and his followers.
Formerly pupils of The Ancient One, these zealots are in search of even greater and more dangerous knowledge than she was willing to teach.
On the cusp of their first battle, Stephen is thrust through a portal that takes him to the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City.
Here, he must accept his role and use all his training to overcome Kaecilius’s attack and fulfill his destiny as Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme!
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Photos
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
© 2016 Marvel.
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First ebook edition: October 2016
ISBN 978-0-316-31413-8
E3-20161129-JV-PC
Marvel, Doctor Strange
