I left a tip anyway, which just meant the extra cash was burning a hole in my pocket.  In a figurative sense, of course.  It was too late to hit the comics shop, and I definitely didn’t have enough time to browse comfortably for some new books, so I just ushered Doloise into the car and headed back to my place.

“The Lord’s House,” I said aloud.  “Not `the House of the Lord,’ because you’re not a church.  Not `the House of Lords’, although maybe you are a parliament.  The real question then is who is the Lord of the Gillikins?”

Doloise did not look at me. 

Unlike a lot of the stuff you read about allergies to cold iron and names of Deity and all that, well, Doloise was first a construct, so although it was definitely of fey energy, she did not have to suffer thoroughly from their weaknesses.  (Which is something to remember if you irritate one of them – they can send all sorts of Renfields at you, if not Tohrus.)   The truth of the matter has to do more with how energy from the Outside interacts with items of the Inside.  If you could condense Truth as a skewer against Illusion, it might be made of iron, and if you’re fighting Illusion, you want at least some amount of Truth in your weaponry.  (Although they’re not direct opposites, if you ask me.  Would you use Truth to destroy Art?  Is Allegory merely a seasoning or a main dish?)

Reality has a lot to do with the observer.  It’s a quantum thing, but it implies something a little scarier, too – truth and reality do not have to be in agreement.  Both are mutable, and often they drift.  My reality freaks me out everytime I go to bed in the dark after turning off the light, and I see the television screen slowly draining its luminescence because it reminds me so much of open doors.  Your reality may never have noticed, may not have cared, might even have admired it from a scientific standpoint, thinking of all the neat things it implies.  But what’s the truth?  That if given enough Will something could use that moment and that energy to go Walking from somewhere else, or that it’s just science on display and nothing to fear?

Both.  Both are just as true, because it’s a matter of Will, and Will is shaped by observation, knowledge, perception, all those bits that make our psyches as unique as possible and thus our particular fingerprints when touching the world(s) around us. 

“A mixture of the physical and ephemeral.”  I did know a little about them, and it was difficult for them to breed without Reality as well.  Not that some didn’t enjoy the related acts as lasciviously as any of the -cubi, but I wondered if the Realm was so far off as to think of independence.  I mean, if it takes a Village, maybe the Village could also be a Child?

Guide and Guardian, she said, but she also had her own volition, her own goals in this.  I wondered if the blueprint showed pretty pictures or if it was a bunch of magical incantations moved to print.  (Written magical languages, outside of runes, are another subject of study altogether.  It all looks like advanced mathematics to me.)  Maybe it was just a big picture of a tree.  I didn’t really need to see it, but I was curious.  It was an opportunity to learn.

“The Lord is a Dragon,” she said, finally, while I was turning towards the parking lot.

I mulled that one over.  In the eternal game of finding where the Kings were in the deck, what Dragons were left were pretty much on top.   Of course, it’s not a standard 52-card deck… you didn’t think we were playing with a full one, did you?  There are Knights and Kings who hunt them, but those don’t come along often, and Dragons have Princes of their own.

Of course, I use the ones I understand with the capital letters.  If her family was in league with a Dragon why did they need a mortal to give a push to a deity?  Dragons ate more gods than I did waffles, or at least, they used to…when we had gods like waffles, and I bought syrup.  (It goes through phases.  Creating gods isn’t a hard thing to do, all told.  Again, why I’m not much for religion.)

What did Dragons mean to Ivan?  I recalled the amulet Nellie had used.  Could you have an undead Dragon?  That would be my next point of research.