South.  “As the Dragon Flies” sounds more like the name of a soap opera than a measure, and honestly, I thought physics had arguments about dragons on the wing as it was.  Some of the anatomy was in dispute; did they have gas bladders, magical assistance, exoskeletons, or did they simply break the rules?  My notes suggest pixie dust and happy thoughts, but I think I sided with the explanations that said they were tied strongly to the pure elements, whichever half a dozen you wanted to name.  (I like metal and wood but we could refer to the paraelemental items and see if anyone got the joke.)

South.  What was south and how far?  So many possibilities, including that it simply gated out somewhere.  I was certainly in no capacity, spun about and tossed like pizza dough as I was, to have closed a portal at the time.  So Doloise could be anywhere, and finding her was doomed to ruin.

I wasn’t going to think like that.  Honestly, I could put my finger on some places she wouldn’t be.  She wasn’t back home because the Gillikins weren’t going to break the laws to bring her, and she may have fulfilled Guardian in keeping me in one relatively uninjured piece, but she would still need to affect Guide.  She hadn’t given me direction.

That meant I needed to do research.

I stopped pacing and went online.  Hmmm.  I had mail.

I would like to be able to brag that I’m able to close down spam portals, too, but those devious deliveries put my daemons in despair.  I don’t get very much, but then, I’m nowhere so concerned about it since I can hit delete with the ease of, um, pressing a button.  I took care of correcting my filter for yet another bizarre attempt to alter my anatomy, and sorted through some very mundane transactions.  I checked the forwards my mother sent against some sites that nip ridiculous rumours in the bud.  I saved some silly LOLmeerkats in a folder to print out for Doloise.

Wait.  Guardian and Guide.  I had a message from the Questor, inviting me to dinner.  With his wife and kids.

It would be a drive, if I had a working vehicle.  I could see if one of the witches was able to work something up for the bike, but it would be a very long drive on that.  Taking a plane wasn’t actually unreasonable, if it weren’t just dinner.   Maybe some particularly powerful being from another dimension would show up and want to gate me there and back?  Hey, it’d happened once.

I got a knock at the door.  Given that it was some ridiculous hour in the morning, maybe I wasn’t thinking straight in going to answer it.  Of course, it’s awfully awkward to pretend you’re not home when they can see the light through the window, and they’ve gone to such great lengths to visit.

Maybe it was Doloise, I told myself.

I looked through the peephole, but I hate that whole fisheye thing.  I’m no mer, man.   (Heh.)  I didn’t recognize the gentleman who stood behind the door, so maybe it was a neighbor.

I opened the door with a sigh.  “Yes?”

It was the presence that hit me, first.  While the fellow in front of me was probably three inches shorter than myself, if you’d asked me immediately I would have pegged him at eight, maybe nine feet tall.   It was the same feeling I had woken up with, the same feeling of dread that wrapped itself like a thick veil around my spinal cord.  His eyes were red and black, like fire and smoke together.  His hair was the exact same colour as Doloise’s on the first, outward layer, and a glossy black on an inner layer.

“What have you done with my Realm, wizard?” he asked.  It was a soft voice, with gentle chords, and a faint rasp.

I smelled a faint hint of smoke, and while it was chilly outside, I know it emanated from the gentleman (in a velvet jacket cut just a bit above his knee, long black boots, and a set of pants that were the colour of blood in moonlight) because I knew who and what he was.

I congratulate myself in that I did not use that moment to slam the door shut.