We landed.

You know how I go on, so you’re probably surprised in that I really don’t want to talk about it.  Maybe that says a lot about the way we landed.  The words, “In the event of a water landing,” may now be triggering for me.

On the other hand, I can now say with confidence that the lake being was pretty darn male, because there was at least five seconds (more than adequate time while gliding) of total crotch scenery.

See?  Now we can share some scars.  Don’t go and get yourself tattoo’d with anything, but I’ve heard that shared pain is lessened.  I feel so much better now knowing I can use the correct pronoun.

Artur reverted to tree-thing as we ran down the hill.  Nikolai made a yelp-like sound and joined us at a run.  This pleased me, as I had worried about what had happened to the hound.

I mentally added a monthly gym cost to my slim bank account.  You know what would be cool?  A gym set up kind of like the library.  Um, I’m busy running so I can’t explain what I mean by that, but if they’re concerned about obesity in this country, they should make health a heck of a lot cheaper.  [Without being political, of course. Practitioners have the regular run of political variety, but there was a symposium a few years ago I attended that considered why there were so few in public office (all jokes about pacts with the infernal aside.)  I was unsurprised to find out that few cared about “mortal law,” and disappointed to see how few were registered to vote.  Honestly, I don’t think we’re a big enough franchise to move numbers across the board, but politicians don’t really cater to our demographic.  Besides, what kind of issues do we have that are specific to our needs?  More troops to guard our metaphysical borders?  A citizen can dream, can’t he?]

“That was the throne.  The entrance is directly across, just not in the same scale,” I managed.  If that indicates I wasn’t running as fast as I could because I could spit words out, that had more to do with the fact that in text it looks a lot more like a coherent sentence.  It was more of an exaggerated William-Shatner-reading-breathy-porn delivery.

Although, really, that whole seven-league-step thing kind of made our adrenaline-hyped dash quite silly in retrospect.  I think mostly it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Artur grunted – he could make more distance in each stride, but I was pleased to point out that while it moved him quickly, my feet rose and fell more so we were fairly well matched.  Nikolai was dashing, but he had four feet to ours, so as long as he had the stamina, we wouldn’t have to sacrifice him to whatever was following.

Which was…nothing.  Apparently the splashing we had heard was a matter of the lake king deciding to go back to sleep.  Frankly, I didn’t know whether or not to be chuffed about it.  I mean, he could have crushed us with tons and tons of water at any point, but I would have preferred all that running to have been for a reason.

We slowed down after a few minutes and turned around.  I decided to flop back on my back for a moment and just breathe loudly.  Nikolai kept sniffing around.  He actually moved away in order to shake off some of the water, so I was only hit by a fine mist.

“In answer to your question,” Artur wheezed, “I thought the area between the cliffs was a good choice.”

“Oh.  So that’s why we,” hack, cough, wheeze, sit up, lay back down, “headed that way.”

“And it was the only way out…”

“Practical.  What was that thing?”

“I think it was a son of the Morskoi Tsar.”  He translated for me.  “The Water King.”

“Oh.”  I was ready to put the name into my phone, and then sat up with a curse.  “I hope Prince Lake Monster didn’t just void the warranty with his shower,” I grumbled.  I was soaked, but I had worn my jacket, and the phone seemed to be fine, and my pockets waterproof.  Not bad for a thrift store find.  I was getting kind of low on battery, but I expected that.

“So.  Not the way to the dragon.”  I sighed.  “Did Ivan lie?”

“Pravda?” Artur laughed.  I remembered the word from elementary social studies classes, so I followed his meaning.  “He’s a sorceror.  Therefore, he lies.”

“Bigot,” I called him on it.

“How many sorcerors have you known?” Artur asked.

“Irrelevant, but I will agree that this hasn’t been a good example for the group.”  I frowned.  “I liked him.”

“Of course you do.  He is like Jack.”

I caught myself before I said I didn’t know Jack.  “Which Jack?”

“All the Jacks.  He is an Ivan, and Ivans are clever and likable.  They are also butchers of friends.  There should be a saying.  `It is easier to be butcher of friends, for goats are more suspicious.'”

I laughed until I coughed some more.  “I will try to remember that and use it someday.”   I finished coughing and stood back up.  Artur had somehow rooted into the ground, and was looking fairly refreshed.  “What are you, anyway?  Some kind of ent?”

He seemed put out.  “I’ve lived in the U.S. most of my life.   I watch at least four hours of television a day.  But what do we talk about?  The things that make me different.  My father was not an elderberry bush.”

“So your mother wasn’t a hamster.  What, do you want to talk about sports?”

“I’m a Broncos fan.”

“Uh, football, right?”  I grinned.  “Now that I can breathe again, how about how we are going to find this dragon?  I don’t suppose you know the Questor, do you?”

“Oh, sure, but I have a better suggestion.”  He sighed.  “We’re going to have to talk with Vasilisa the Wise.”

“Where can we find him?”

Artur just chuckled.  “That reminds me of a story…”

If I put just enough swagger and move my eyebrows like a muppet I might be able to deliver the line, “I could tell you about big,” ignoring the kind of gravitas that the moment deserved.  My eyebrows are distinctly unmuppet, at least in this stage of my evolution, and I’m not the swaggering type.

Let me put it this way: I had been thinking small.   Not so small that I could describe the naiad as some kind of lymphocyte small, but small in that the creature that represented Ivan in the gate transfer (Ivan wasn’t a small man, if you recall) could quite easily eat a me and my lost simulacrum for a snack and still want a couple dozen pizzas before its belly stopped complaining.

And it worked for the gate requirement.  I was happy about that – only Doloise has broken my personal rules, and she had a reason.  I mean, I had wanted to mention that the mountains were far larger than molehills, but since I’m from Colorado I try not to brag.  There’s only a few groups of people who understand why we stay in the state (and not just because we’re addled from the altitude) for the mountains.  Going just about anywhere else, and you get, you know, hills.  Soft rounded things that don’t have the presence our part of the range does.  So I hadn’t been impressed with the shiny mountains and their purple flowers, but again, it’s all about how you describe the environs.  Artur in the trollish form he showed in the kitchen of the restaurant was big, bigger than Ivan, but this thing (and I really wanted a name for it and an entry in some kind of Monster Manual to know its capabilities) put Artur and the lesiye’s ent-like ways to shame.

I was feeling kind of small for a moment.  And wet from splashback as the island creature (too human to dub it Krakoa) shook itself loose, catching me in a giant hand (oh, call it three quarters my size) before I fell back into the water.

“Hmmmm?” it asked.  I think it was hmmmming, at any rate.   Its head still kind of looked like a cave, and the scales looked very much like living water.   It had caught the naiad in its other hand, and seemed to ignore Artur and Nikolai completely.  Apparently, the second obstacle was a necklace.  You know, the usual kind of fire charm you’d give your sentient lake boyfriend.

I really did not want to speculate on what that made the first obstacle.  Alas, my brain does not always obey my every whim, but this time it kind of went crazy and suggested it was um, a familiar.  Like a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder.

I would like to state for the record that I did not pee my pants, but honestly, it would have been completely reasonable to do so.  I did not mostly because my body had seized up in a fashion that decided any additional moisture would have to be Enemy.

Air whooshed around me, and the roaring of a giant waterfall all but made the “Hmmmm?” sound like a cavern taking a deep breath.  I was soaked now just from the ambient water in the air.

I hate it when my socks get wet.  But it’s not like you can go all over the universe in adequate footgear without  life sometimes just handing you giant island men.  Or women – but “humanoid” only goes so far, you know? And I’d like to say it saved me from having to take another shower as soon as I got home, but “ambient” only goes so far, too.  I couldn’t find a way to ask for soap in “giant island thing language.”

“It wants to know who and what you are,” the naiad shouted.  Besides the necessary volume, she was looking completely relaxed in the thing’s hand.

“It first!” I wanted to shout back, but my better sense actually blocked it.  Of course, I wasn’t getting anything better prepared than, “I am me!” but that’s fine, because Artur showed up again, doing something to the hand of the creature like a special pressure point and having it release both of us.

Falling wasn’t “fine,” by any means.  I’m not afraid of heights (but I don’t test it, either) but falling, falling wasn’t getting me to my happy place.  I had complete and total empathy for Bilbo Baggins and his wanting a good hot breakfast after a night’s rest in his own bed.  Well, except for the part of me that was screaming, “We’re going to die!”

Artur didn’t look worried.  Oh, he was pulling a Kyra.  It’s a “Dark Crystal” reference, and shouldn’t count as a spoiler anymore.  Well, the flying squirrel version of showing he had wings.  I didn’t know the limits of his transformations, but I was pretty impressed.

And pretty worried.  Why hadn’t he taken out Nellie?  I know this wasn’t a matter of “needing mortal blood” or any such silly ruling.  If she was more powerful than this son-of-a-lesiye, I better have something hidden like Zaphod in my brain and be able to pull out some kind of Heart of Gold improbability.

Of course, I’d been sitting on my living room couch with something that could all but obliterate Artur without much effort, and she, too, had been snatched by a Dragon.

See?  I would like to take this moment to refute the common refrain.  Size does matter.  Scale is important.

I wasn’t quite at the point that I cancelled my “I’m not dying from falling,” happy, but I was beginning to wonder if I could eat what we were biting off.  This wasn’t even at more than I could chew stage, this was, bigger than my giant island thing’s head.  When did I order the “mess with metaphysical things beyond my ken,” buffet?

I will not eat green eggs and dragon, no matter the size of the wash-it-down flagon.

When you’re worried about a comment someone has made, you ought to consider the one who is saying it.  I considered the source, and, well, wizards think differently than other people.  They’re not normal.

I tried not to chortle at the understatement.  Instead, I prepared myself for a run.  I did a little stretching, although I was never sure if I was doing the right kind or how much to do to warm up.  I did learn it in high school gym, and I’d never pulled a muscle (although I get enough stitches in my side to need a tailor.)  He nodded.

“Now.”

“Now” is like a magic word by itself – it signifies so much in the way of building pressure suddenly being relieved.  It features in a lot of porn, but even beyond that, it takes the idea of being ready, being prepared, and suddenly overcoming an obstacle.  In this case, it meant my running across with noises that weren’t quite splashes, and weren’t quite thuds.  More flappy-slappy noises.  I barred my mind from thinking of where I’d last heard similar sounds.

I recommend ignorance.  Ignorance is bleepin’ bliss.

Artur did not so much stride across the surface of the water as act as if he were wearing some kind of snow shoes.  I was moving too quickly to really see if he had accomplished this by fact of transformation of himself, or of another spell.  I had assumed he would run with me, but maybe he was ready to feed me to the sharks.

Sharks, of course, would be quite rare in freshwater ponds.  The only sharks I tended to run across were warm and buttery, which doesn’t lend itself well to fear.  It’s kind of hard to respect  something of whom you can use the same words to describe a cinnamon roll.

Nikolai just dove in after us, and paddled the way dogs are known to do.  Kind of iconic, really.

So, as I sailed blithely along with a kind of thuddy pace, it wasn’t until we were about a quarter of the way across that the first obstacle made itself known.

It wasn’t a shark, I’m glad to tell you.

I almost wish it had been.  The thing rose up with tendrils across our path, invisible except for the sheer mass of water it moved with it.  I couldn’t tell if it was a gelatin cousin of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or if it was just some sort of water weird.  It lashed out and I managed to duck underneath, getting soaked.  Nikolai barked, but was set on the whole swimming business.  I paused and started to sink.

At least it would be a slow, suffocating death, unless the elemental managed to pull me out of Artur’s spell to do whatever such a beast is raised to do.

The arc of electric light that left ozone behind it came from Artur.  Ah, wizards at play.  I wished for a seat on shore and some popcorn, because this magic was better than any industrial light show.  The creature, detecting something that was really a threat split in a kind of osmotic fashion, most of its bulk headed back towards Artur.

I remembered what I had in my pockets.

I was running faster as the creature dissolved in some agony, not unlike a slug when gifted with a shower of salt.  I had never stopped moving, which is what kept me from the quicksand effect.  It’s a lesson you can learn from video games, too, especially the dance kind.

I was rapidly running…out of energy.

Trust me, nothing inspires you to get to the gym like the release of a nifty gadget for tracking purposes or the wet sodden mass of a monster after you.  They’re both kind of high up on the list.

So I ran right into the second obstacle, and this one was brilliant.  It was a ring of fire, and I wasn’t a Johnny Cash fan, however you describe it.  It was like elemental lava, ignorant of the arguments water has had with fire.  It flowed from the water, and flames danced across its surface.

However, the designer of this obstacle had not anticipated Artur’s spell design.  I leaped over it with a prayer for my continued lucky streak of uncharred manhood and kept going.  This obstacle left Nikolai behind.

So, two of my party down.  I thought the rule was you only had to run faster than the halfling?  If there was a third obstacle, I was in trouble.

Of course there was a third obstacle.

She was beautiful, about my height, and her skin was faintly transparent.  She surfaced just like Venus from the clamshell.  She looked at me and smiled a mouth full of beautiful shark-like teeth.

I was ready for that, though.  I kept moving toward her, like I was some sex-obsessed sailor.

She wasn’t ready for the Doctor E punch.  Hey, I’d used it on Sylvia, so apparently I have a track record for knocking the breath out of pretty girls.  I don’t think I’d get away with it twice, but she was just solid enough, and I was just quick enough that I made it onto the island while she recovered.

Which at least left firm ground beneath me, so the danger of drowning was at least delayed.

The elemental was outmatched by Artur, but it was a close thing.  I took a moment to watch Artur’s legs as they moved through the water.  He had added bulk and height again, and his legs were more like two tree trunks, kind of ent-ish, really, as he moved through the lake.  He picked up Nikolai (who had swam back and had gotten a few tentacles with his doggish teeth) and gently tossed the dog over the obstacle of fire.

And then the naiad made landfall, on a gentle swell of water and I had to pay attention to my own problems.

“There is no welcome for you here.”

“So if I had a glossy, engraved invitation, you wouldn’t drown me?”

Again, that toothy smile.

I moved back a few steps.  The rules of portals, the ones I had made at least, said that I would enter in a place not unlike the one I had just left.  There’s a continuity.  What was the continuity between the throne set up Ivan had made and the mountains?

I felt the rumble as the so-called solid land beneath me began to awaken.

Of course, it wasn’t my relationships that were the pressing issues right now, but exactly what bound Ivan and Nellie together, and what made up this little pocket universe we were in, presuming, of course, we weren’t somewhere in the so-called “real world.”  I halfheartedly wished I had a way of telling, because not knowing the rules of a place meant you didn’t know what kind of Hospitality you could expect.  On the other hand, after this little jaunt to face down a creature of real Power and ask nicely for my fairy back, I very much hoped to stay in the world that included my bed, my books, and my small attempts at keeping the barriers of the world intact from small intrusions.  I would have kept the alliteration going, but “band-aided” didn’t sound quite right.

Artur continued a fairly fast pace down the mountainside that left me always on the edge of having to catch up.  Nikolai took it as a jaunt in the sunshine.   It wasn’t too bad except for that constant nagging paranoia that said, “Any minute now, the earth is going to open up into a sarlacc pit, or we’re going to be dive-bombed by a previous invisible dragon that will eat our face.  Either one, it’s going to happen.”  (My little internal voices are quite specific about the risks I am likely to incur, which doesn’t make them accurate, just determined.)

I think the difference between a phobia and a regular fear is the ability to think your way through it.  A phobia doesn’t let you relax and say, “Hey, what are the odds that both Ivan and Nellie love Star Wars the way they love each other?”  I am from the generation that has an irrational fear of the sarlacc, and, of course, lurkers above.   Of course, the part of my brain that tries to look at the bright side suggests, “If they have that stuff, maybe they’ll have lightsabres, too!”

We don’t listen to that part of our brain very much, because we suspect in our deep-down darkest selves, that we run faster on panic than with glee.  So it’s much more likely that that shadow in the doorway is something that wants our pain with a side of flesh and blood than it is something waiting to ambush us and give us presents.  Alas, poor Santa Claus, we believed in you well.

So what was this place? The suffering romantic in me wanted to think it was a little love getaway for the Dragon and her death talker.   It’s a lot less atmospheric (so to speak) than a graveyard and mounds of treasure, but why stereotype?  After all, from my copious research on the topic, Dragons like knowledge, royal maidens, acquiring treasure, breathing fire, crunchy people with or without ketchup, strawberry ice cream, and long walks on the beach under the moonlight.

Um, maybe not the last two, but I wouldn’t put it past them.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said, breaking the silence.

“A dishonest vocation,” retorted Artur.

“But occasionally rewarding, and it holds great potential for amusement,” I suggested.  “I had thoughts that might be relevant to our situation.”

“Do you want to share them or brag about them?”

If we survived this, I determined that I would introduce him to my ex-.  It was only fair – neither of them credited me with the rudiments of intelligence, and if mocking me was at least one thing in common it’d be a better relationship than some I’d seen.

“They’re ill-formed and only half-fitted without your input, of course.”  I left off the, “Oh mighty fleshy lesiye one,” in hopes this conversation would get somewhere.  “Let me start with a conjecture.  Where are we?”

Artur stopped.  “The air is thinner, and less full of things I can breathe,” he said.  “I presume it is a shard of a place significant to the both of them, and that we will need to find another portal, perhaps on that island, it being the only protected outlet, that will lead to where the beast makes its primary lair.”

That made some sense.  “How do you propose getting to the island?”

He glanced at me.  “I should make you swim.”

I parsed it so that he wasn’t going to, which was good of him.  Honestly, I can wade and paddle a bit, but I’m no real swimmer.  I spent my summers at the pool with a less-than-subtle eye towards girls in bikinis and trying not to think about the huge gaping drains and the fear that fed them.

For what it’s worth, ladies, I can hold my breath for a very long time.  I learned that in the summers, too.

“You know, every time you refer to `the beast, ‘ I keep thinking we need to stab it with our steely knives.”

“That didn’t work in the song, either.”  Artur grinned.

I wondered what the “passage back to the place we were before,” was going to look like, and then quashed the thought quickly so as not to dwell on it.

We reached the shore, and another artificial aspect of this place hit me – no matter how much people say water is tasteless and odorless, it isn’t.   Water from all sorts of places has its own bouquet.    This wasn’t so cold as to lack vegetation, which has its own smell in water, too.   Except here.   Not a gnat or other nasty no-see-‘um in sight – that’s another good sign you aren’t in the real world.  I started to make a list while my battery held.

Artur leaned down and touched the place where the water lapped at the earth, and said some words.  I could feel the power radiate from his fingers a little.  The waves became somehow thicker, more like a non-Newtonian fluid than, well, any liquid outside a milkshake I was likely to drink.  He seemed to put some effort into it, although, for me, it was like something magical.  I love watching wizards at work, really, because magic really is there to break the rules.

“You’ll have to move quickly,” he said.  “We’ll make it to the island, provided there aren’t any spell-eating vermin within the lake.  There ought to be, because no portal should be left unguarded.”

I hadn’t thought of that as a truism, but maybe I’ve just been lucky.

The rules of Hospitality are such that as much as I wanted to replay the loop of, “No, no, after you, I insist,” with Artur all would still know it as procrastination.  So I took a step forward.  Nikolai whined and pushed at my right leg with his nose.  Another step, and I could feel the sound buzzing slightly.  My synesthesia is not entirely metaphorical; after all, sound waves are physical, measurable items.  A third step and I and Nikolai were through into the cold, thin air, falling perhaps half a meter in surprise between there and here.

I said something unintelligible at the time, moving forward so Artur could come through and not crash into us.  Nikolai found a place to heel beside me.  I couldn’t speak for the dog, but I was getting pretty tired of all the travelling.  I close these darn things, and at that, I thought portals short-lived and relatively rare.   Now I find that they’re kind of the whoopie-cushion of wizards or some other practical joke.  “Here, pull my finger, and I’ll open a gate to Stenchlandia!”   “Pick a card, any card, and I’ll portkey you to Spadesville, Ace!”

We were let out at a mountainside of amethyst and gold.  The purple mountains’ majesty, if you must.  I don’t know plants, but the colour was made of little flowers in yellows and violet, living symbiotically, or at least as good friends, on unnaturally shiny ground.  Thick golden seeds went unharvested at the base of the petals, and their stalks seemed to sprout symmetrically from the same base.  The flowers were kind of star shaped.  Very desert twee.

Nikolai moved to water the flowers as Artur came through.  The gate’s exodus on this side was anchored by a bronze and indigo treefall that had been impeded by a large rock that looked made of pyrite or an exceptionally golden mica or something else.  I was trotting out all the geological terms I knew, except for the cleavage jokes because there weren’t any girls here.

Looking down (the direction we were pointed in) showed a yellow brick road in the distance.  I couldn’t actually tell if it was brick, and it looked more like a pale mud than yellow, but I was feeling snarky.  Of course, we’d already sung the, “We’re Off to Meet the Wizard” in the last pocket universe we visited.  There were some other hills in the distance, some quite butte-iful.  (I like big buttes, Sir Mixes-his-metaphors-a-lot?)

“Which way lies the beast?” Artur asked.  He hadn’t spent the last minute hopping and cursing his ankle.  Of course, I had been far too suave to do that either, but I was kind of hoping.

I sighed and started climbing up.  “The Dragon can fly.  Start remembering to look up.”

“If you believe magical beings to be evolutionarily savvy,” he said, with no trace of an accent, “you’d know that’s highly unlikely for a creature born of the treetops.”

“Born of the treetops?” I asked, without looking at him.  I patted my stomach.  “This here, was born of the muffin-tops.”

“You’re awfully irreverent for a wizard.”

“Must be why I haven’t gotten the union card.”

“What would you call yourself then?  A doctor?”  He scoffed.

“I call myself `me,’ just like in the song.  What’s a lesiye anyway?  Sounds like part of a zombie, but only if you add the ‘f’ in front of it.” 

“A…fleshy.  That one’s good.  Oh look, there.”  We had reached a bit of summit, and he pointed across a large puddle of shimmery water.  Well, I called it a puddle because from this height all I could do was guess how deep it was, so other than it being water I could splash in, it was a mystery.  Plus, not being a cartographer, I didn’t know what the rules were to naming it a pond, lake, mere, loch, sea, or whatnot.  (But I took a moment to make a note in my phone to look it up later.  No, I didn’t have signal.  It’s a market ready to happen, though, although I decided that looking up my service representative and suggesting it was not on my to-do list.)

The lake (I took a wild guess) itself reflected gold and green, depending on the winds.  On an island in the middle was a cave that, were this a videogame, practically screamed, “click on me to enter!”  I made the appropriate motion with my index finger, and then smiled to myself.

“When she was Naul, she was brown with the talons of an eagle, and wings of garnet and copper feathers,” Artur said, and it sounded like he was reciting a piece of scripture.

“Eagles build their nests high, I thought,” I said.  “Not on islands.  But I thought she might actually be elementally connected to water, which would indicate the cave, maybe?”

“Water eagles?” Artur asked, skeptically.

“Sea eagles.  Ospreys?”  I shrugged.  “The coat of arms for Russia has a double-headed eagle.  And doesn’t it also have a dragon slayer?” 

“Point, although that’s within the last millenia.”

“Full of relevant timely trivia, that’s me.  I’m fun to have at parties.”  I watched the skies, but except for occasional wisps of clouds, there was nothing about, and no noises to indicate invisible things flying about our heads.  Unless they were inaudible, and, well, had no wind resistance either, in which case it could still be sylphs, but I think of having them as being just a little less likely than having a social disease.  Which meant that I would have to have, you know, a social life.

We picked our way down the mountain carefully, and quietly, which gave me time to ask myself the question I had been avoiding.  Would I have gone this far for Maggie?  I told myself I would have for any damsel in distress, and maybe even a couple good male friends.  But I might have been lying to myself, I mean, how would I have ever known?

Yellow.

Do we use a changed child?  He would not like a child, I think.  He would not be ruled by the urge to mate, sensuously.  I like curls. Yellow. Here, this art will do to clothe it.  Her. A  woman.  Tall.  Tall means to take attention.  She should have a pretty voice.  Do not give her the voice of a siren as it distracts from the message.  I want green eyes.  Take them, then, but she will wear all of ours, depending on which of us holds her hand.  Skin of gold? Skin of fair, or Angharad will be jealous, but weave gold into her hair.  I like curls.  But does he?

Amber.  Saffron.  The shield of yew.

Are you sure he’s the one? The Shadow would fight a mage, and taste a mortal. This one walks between worlds. A man on the threshold, but not a trickster? He sees, but does not have to touch, he wants, but not too much.  A trickster thirsts for change.

Goldenrod.  The ochre pelt of lions.

I wonder if he likes the taste of daisies. Should she unfold, she can taste of cobwebs and the reddest stolen cherries.  I would have her spin the moon into quiet dreams.  She will smell of meadows and orchards, of wind, and rain, and coloured birds.  But our lord’s tastes are for brimstone and leather, my love.

Daffodil for the arts.

Draw salt into her bones, and silver into her blood, silk to the touch, and gold unto her hood.  Paint her pretty parts the pink of petals, and have her dance upon a pin, give her seldom laughter for it ill benefits a man.

Lemons and mustard, maize and cream.

Silly rhymer.  Would you name her?

No, to name her would be dolose.

A heart of ice, a tongue of dirt?  She is a force for this world, give her gifts in three times three.

She shall be Guide once, to a land unafraid of steel.

She will be Guardian twice, once to protect, once to guard the gate.

She will be able to learn fear, but not have it attract or repel her.

She will know the tongues of those she meets, and when told secrets, those she keeps.

Canary.

She should be able to dance and move like serpent and sparrow, ox and eagle, otter and silly-nilly porcupine.

She will draw a lake from a drop of rain, and with swift glamour, back again.

She should be able to ride the steeds of this world, though they be iron or black smoke, and swiftly, as if she had wings.

She should learn quickly that which is taught in good faith.

She should sit where and as a cat sits, and always spot our kind.

I want her to have curls.  Behave, fractious child!

We have our three times three, our nine to the world and so it be.

But in undoing her, how shall we weave?  Perilous fate and dungeons for the overbold?  Silence and the holly king’s yearly sacrifice, should she melt to flowers, or freeze to ice?  A maiden shall she fall?  Or to borrow our friend’s verses, not at all.  She can go in battle, or by neglect.  A breach in Hospitality?

Sunglow.

She’s a pretty poppet, and see her curls?  A bit fairer than asked for, but that’s true of all girls.

Speak for us, poppet, and give us your name.

“I do not know my name.”

Your troth in this?  For we did not give her the gift of true speech.  We could speak as her in need, but I fair like the idea of the challenge of her finding her own words.  Find the healer, pretty thing.  The one who sutures the worlds with silver string.

Straw.  Icterine.

The doctor.  They call him a doctor.

“And when I find this man?”

He is mortal, he will do.  We have a Shadow at our gate, and he seeks souls for battle.  I would tell you more but it is not mine to tattle.

“What is he like?”

What does it matter?  He is mortal and he fits our diviners survey.  He speaks no poetry, sings no songs, but has an edge of the light anyway.  No stolen child, he.   Our fair Thomas once spoke of him.  Do not get weepy over tragic Thomas. We remember one mortal’s name why not another?

Fulvous.

“Am I to be with him?”

Do not eat him.  But mortal flesh has its own rewards, however you try it.   Have you tried mince pies from youngling’s thighs?  Mad mad Thomas, he would only ally with our Shadow thing, our Shadow King.

Ecru.

“Why will the doctor do what we ask?”

Because we will kill him if he does not?  The idea of incentive has reached the wild lands, so why do you insist that it is only on point of the knife that one should choose?  Old pleasures die hard.  We will gift him.  No, we will give him a boon.

Beware Peredur.  The red of the gold goblet, the shadow at sun’s height.  He wakens.

“Is that my lord?”

Apricot.

His breath brought life to you, but it is made of thorn and ashes.  Do not ask to be pricked upon the blackthorn’s tip, or for you who reminds him of his fair, you may lose more than your maidenhead. [much shared laughter]

Shush.  Hush like the blanket of clover.  Our Realm here should be turned to the mortal’s world, tuned like an instrument to play its game like a tale.  Isabelline, draw the Court’s eyes and see as our poppet sees.  Gelsey, draw open the bridge.    Oren, music to soothe our lord so he does not see the beauty in what we have wrought and desire it before it comes into its own.

“But what is my name?”

Ill luck to name you.  You are no child born, no woman of real flesh.  You are our tool, magnificent in gift until we have need of our component pieces.

“Then ill luck I shall be named.  Doloise Mallory.”

Dandelion.

Artur leaned forward on one knee.  “I will accept your surrender,” he said to Ivan.

“Ho, ho!” Ivan said, and I turned to keep from smiling.  “To that I did not agree!  It is the phrase you push your luck,” he pointed at the cobalt blue creature.  “I could still raze your forest, and make every living thing there turn to stone.  I could turn the trees to bone, and then salt the earth with fire!”

Eh, well, I got what he meant, anyway.  It was a mixed metaphor, but at least it hadn’t been so injured as to need to find a place away from its family to die.  Because I knew what that was like.

“And I could still twist off your head,” Artur explained, bringing his giant hands around to demonstrate.  Viktor merely coughed, and the two of them looked a little sheepish.

“It is not a time for men to say merely what they may, but what they will do.  Little girls, they play at relationships over false tea.  They point their littlest fingers up and celebrate imaginary birthdays.  We are magic!  We are not made of little tea parties.  Is it your will to destroy Artur’s home, Father Ivan?  No, or you would have done.  Is it your will, Artur, to squish our Ivan’s head?  No.  It is born of frustration and tastes like false tea without cream and sugar.”  He shrugged.  “So be men of magic born, and not little girls.”

I felt like defending my sister on principle, but the honour of little girls was not mine to bear.  Especially as both Ivan and Artur looked shamed.

It’s serious business, willpower.  Viktor had spoken well, reminding them that their errant thoughts were still significant by their being wizards.  I was small potatoes, here, not even really one of those french fries that you kind of see at the bottom of the paper container and kind of shrug off instead of eating.   I was good with that.  Survived me a shot of “wizard-kill,” which sounded nasty whatever it was, no matter what Peredur intended.

“And you,” Viktor turned around.  “You seem to have made friends with my spell.  I believe you are the one with the new pet,” he smiled.

I frowned.  My place isn’t set up for the four-legged.  I’d have to walk him and let him out, and not to mention I was courting ramen – I didn’t want to have to share dog food with anyone. Hey, I had almost forgotten!  Provided I survived a walk into the Dragon’s cave, the Red Poets had promised to pay me. And wizards, despite the absentminded stereotype, had long memories.

Seeing my reluctance, Viktor wavered.  “He is not a gifting.  You may borrow him.  Who knows, maybe he will put his teeth into a Dragon’s tail.  I will make a place for him at home.”

I nodded.  Nikolai was still ambivalent, standing and waving his tail between the two of us.

“Well?” I asked Artur.

He frowned, and concentrated, closing his eyes for a moment.  I watched him shrink down, further and further into the adolescent male I had met both in this world and in Ivan’s refuge, complete with jeans and leather jacket.

“Come on, old man,” Artur said.  “Let’s get on with it.”

Ivan frowned.  He stepped over the quiescent form of his burnt self.  “Must bring the masters out to take care of that, and our restaurant guests.”  He gestured out of the kitchen.  “Come, let us do this where I can sit my tired bones.”

We followed.  I saw light through the tinted windows of the restaurant.  The sign had been turned around to “closed” on the door, which I didn’t do.  In fact, I remembered seeing that it was open from the bus stop, which put me on guard.

Viktor caught my eye and shook his head.  “None without power could pass through the doors.”

I almost said, “I did,” but that would be disingenuous.  I replayed the words in my head and realized it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a comfort.

Nikolai made a bit of a whine, and I saw a shadow move across the window.  I bristled along with the dog, concerned.  Viktor made a pass with his right hand.  “You need not see the masters,” he said.  “But they obey Ivan here, as with his household, and they will clean up some of what has passed in the night.”

I decided he was right, and I didn’t need to see them.  Household spirits could be quite creepy, even when they didn’t boggart on you. I focused on Ivan, instead, as he moved some tables and booths around.  I took heart in that things were quite clean, but honestly, he had magical help in keeping to the health codes.

He sat himself in a bench in the middle, kind of like as if he sat on a throne.  I watched as Ivan sighed, and then addressed us.  “I cannot wish you luck without it being a lie.  You go to confront a most different creature, and a woman besides.”   He grimaced, almost a smile.  “Hah!  Should you return and I still take breath, we are quits.  Kaput.  I will not be following you for favours, and you will not be making my doorstep dark!”

I looked as if I would interrupt, and Viktor nodded.

“We have agreed to make payment for the service,” he said.

Ivan tilted his head.  “Not with the spell dog?”

“No,” Viktor said, sounding a little aggravated.

“Oh.”  Ivan shrugged.  “It will be done,” he said, half to me.  He sighed again and stared at a place on the carpet before him.  He was quiet for a minute.

“Ivan?” Viktor asked.

“Silence!  I am concentrating.”  He took off his apron, and revealed his chest.  The silvery darkness shimmered.

“It is a devil’s mark,” Artur hissed.

Viktor agreed with a nod.  I do not know from devils, but it was certainly still a gate.  Not the same one, as the sound was different.  It was more hesitant, a minor chord, but with tenor undertones.  As the gate coalesced, I realized that the anchor was in the way Ivan set up the tables and chairs, as they were painted with the almost hematite hue of his open heart.

“After you,” Artur said, gesturing at me.  He winked.

Anger can allow you to feel pretty heady about your impromptu speeches.   Its real advantage is that it turns off the internal edit button. 

In the end, though, it comes back to poker.  Well, at least in part.  You see, I can’t bluff.  I’m no good at it.  I can watch my various “tells,” and develop some fake ones (like playing with my chips) but while I can maybe fake some low-level players out, the truth is I know I’m bad at telling lies.  That’s why I’m so ecstatic whenever I get away with something; I keep expecting my opponent to call me on it and watch as I’m left with an eight as my high card.  (Did I mention that luck is at best a fickle ally of mine?)

The fact that I could actually end Ivan’s life wasn’t just my hole card, but the only card I had to play.  I mean, if I was a math guy (I happen to know there’s a fairly specialized wizard working at, say, 538) I might be able to give you the identity of my other cards.  They’d read, “location,” and probably “opportunity,” and I might get a slight bonus for being a “friend of Nikolai”‘s if that was tapped for the encounter, but while Artur and Viktor were players, Ivan was my focus.  He could get me what I wanted, and, if they took a moment from wanting to flay his wizardly buttocks, he could probably solve their issues as well.

“I grow tired of this,” Artur said, and dumped Ivan onto the floor.  The big man was relatively graceful in how he landed, I mean, given the situation.  “I have claim on the wizard.  He will give me the creature Naul.”  He leaned over, ready to pick Ivan back up, but Viktor intervened, giving Ivan a hand to help stand.

“A redress for long ago wrongs will not give you the honour you seek,” Viktor said.  “Your masquerade should become fact, instead.  Be Artur the sorceror, not just another lost son of a dying race.”

It sounded like my kind of story, or at least one in my genre.  A bard’s tale in the making.  “The Story of Artur the Lesiye-born,” and it would discuss the journey of how he came to be here, and what other adventures he had had.  I had a feeling that it took a little more than a plane ride and Tuesday nights at the library.

Those things rightfully shouldn’t discount it, though.  Everyone has their stories, it’s just that some people prefer to squash them in terms that make them seem more, well, landish.  (If “landish” is the term for something that isn’t, well, “outlandish.”)  Any time humans interact can be a drama or a comedy, although it might take the right person to portray it in the angle with the best spin.  That’s what a good author does, though, right?

How would a good author describe this scenario?  The five of us (one of us a canine), and Ivan’s discarded husk on the floor in a kitchen of a small restaurant.  Artur, so tall that he with his horns and pointed ears brush the ceiling and have to adjust to not tangle themselves with the hanging lights, Viktor in his lumberjack clothes, loaded to the gills for metaphorical wolf, Ivan, the necrolocutor, sullen wizard with a stained apron and white jacket, considering seriously razing half the city in order to protect his lover, a dragon, me, and the dog, Nikolai.  If it was television, something or someone would have to blow up pretty soon to keep the drama fairly unreal.

The only question was…who? 

Ivan growled and his hands went together in something not quite a thunderclap.  The smack of his hands covered up the sound of his speaking a Word, and the lumbering form of his husk stood up and ran clumsily towards Artur. 

I grabbed a hanging pan and ducked out of the way.  Artur smacked the zombie into a wall with a lazy backhand, and I heard the queasy way the flesh had excess air slammed out of it.  I really hate those moments when I remember I’m made of meat.

Nikolai chose the better course of valour or whatnot and ran towards where I stationed myself under the sink.  Viktor prepared a course of bright blue fire and drew a chur around himself.  (It’s a boundary line, a kind of border that can lead to portal-making, or as kind of a protective circle.  Not a language guy, but I know the words for my specialty, alright?)

“Drop your erestun,” Artur yelled at Ivan, as Zombie-Ivan collected itself, smashed front and all, and began its return lumber.  “This is over, Ivan.  Who are you protecting?”

Viktor’s chanting drifted towards me.  I could feel the pressure developing as his spell began to develop, and I was not sure the kitchen sink was likely to protect me and the shivering puppy. 

“I am sworn to her,” Ivan said in English, and then followed it up with something that was probably Russian.  I wasn’t able to follow it, but I kind of got the gist, anyway, which was Ivan’s whole argument; not that he was a thrall, but that he had willingly chosen her side.

Bleepin’ dragons.

Viktor shouted the last few words, and a whip of blue fire wrapped around from his hand to Zombie-Ivan.   Several strands of fire grew from it, kind of like lightning, and maybe a bit more organic as with a gesture like pulling a cord on a light switch, Zombie-Ivan fell to the ground, the various cords of magic causing the undead creature to twitch and moan, but it appeared neutralized.

“You too, Viktor?” Ivan asked turning around.  He could probably see me under the sink, I realized.  I had chosen a place where I could see the action and determine if I had to run, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Your magics have darkened, old friend.  It is touched by a devil, whether it be your friend in dragonskin or your despair at your lost love.  I would not have you go to the Lesiye, but send Artur and E,” he used my name again and gestured behind himself at me, like he knew exactly where I was. “Nellya must defend her own sins.”  It was an eloquent speech, and had the least amount of accent in it I had heard from him.  I expect it was partly for my benefit.

Or maybe it had to do with Nikolai?  I realized I had my hand on the dog, petting it nervously.  A spell to kill metaphorical wolves might have a sympathetic translation form within it, especially if it was to understand its owner.  That was plausible.

“It will likely end me,” Ivan said.  I really missed his “Ha Ha!”s now.  He held his hand over his heart.  “I did not want to die.”  That was to me, I realized.  And it was in English, for sure.

I pulled myself out from under the sink.  “I don’t want to kill you,” I said.  I really don’t know how to lie, so it had to be the truth.

“They say.”  They say a lot of things, unless, of course, “they” are a bunch of monkish types who have taken a vow of silence, at which point I don’t know if they’re allowed to text or otherwise make anything quotable.  (If Eco’s The Name of the Rose is at all accurate on the point, they’re allowed to illustrate, but it’s kind of hard to make epigrams from, like, icons.  Although I’m sure the technology will be there someday.  We’ll just walk around with complex emoticons coming out of our foreheads like lasers.  Oh wait, we’ve got those already… they’re called “facial expressions.”  Nevermind.  You know, they say everything old sometimes becomes new again, or at least, becomes the new black.  Which is where we actually begin our story.)

They say that in the beginning there was darkness and then light was brought to it with a word.  Does that mean in the end there will be nothing but light and we will bring ourselves once more to the safety and sinecure of the darkness?  (Darkness is easy.  Light takes energy.  I think this is the basic physics equation that powered too much in the way of ecclesiastical thought.  You’re making it too complicated when you talk about desire, because yes, we as humans crave light.  We push fear into the shadows and should thus find strength in what is revealed.  Except we don’t, which is why so much guilt and pleasure and fear and joy and intellect versus instinct is fused into a confusing knot that we tie around our psyches.  Trust me, while some on the Outside get themselves into bindings, they’re almost nothing on what we do to ourselves and our own.)

While I was laying in the dark, and speaking of confusion of the psyche, I was trying to remember who had shot me.  I had thought it was Ivan, but it was Viktor’s weapon, and it was pretty confused.  It took me a few minutes to realize the point was almost irrelevant because if I was arguing it in my head, I probably wasn’t dead.   Probably, unless I was in a philosophical holding cell in the afterlife. Actually, I wasn’t in any pain at all.  I mean, I still had a bit of a twinge from where the stitch in my side from following Viktor had begun, but nothing like I thought being shot would feel like.

I could have been in shock and total system shutdown, except I was breathing easy.  I must have been feeling good, though, if I wasn’t concerned as to being shot.  The darkness could have been from my keeping my eyes closed.  I had closed them because of all the light.

A lot of mysteries come together and we use the metaphor of pieces fitting into a puzzle.  These were more like drops of rain completing a puddle.  Maybe I had bumped my head as the bolt had pushed me backwards, but no, the being that was Artur had grabbed me, and the spelled hound had rushed forward at my attacker.

Sound came in a shockwave that would have bowled me over if I hadn’t already been lying down.  It was almost like I had suddenly tuned into the world around me, and my supine form had been lazily channel surfing until the connection could be made.  Sound, sight, smell…

“–dead,” Viktor was arguing.

There was a dog panting next to my ear, and I could smell his lovable puppy breath.  (Much better than “New Car” but still not as good as “baking cookies.”)  I was on a cold, hard surface, so I wasn’t home.  Which was good, because I hadn’t invited anyone inside and I didn’t know if I had enough table settings, Hospitality being what it is.

“Nikolai?”  I was rewarded with a slight change in the panting pattern.  Opening my eyes, I saw it was indeed my temporary bodyguard, who was, in fact, guarding me.  I was on the floor of the kitchen at the restaurant, laid out like Ivan, although in much, much better shape.  The huge blackened hole through his chest was evidence bolstering my opinion.  Hey, that was a win, right?

“He may chew me, perhaps, but he will find me a hard morsel to swallow,” argued another Ivan, as he was held partially upside down by Artur’s new form, a large trollish figure with a beak, goat’s feet, and long claws.  This Ivan was in much better condition, even considering the circumstances.

I pulled myself up.  I didn’t find the lingering aroma appetizing, at least.  There was no sign of Viktor’s other dogs, and I could still hear the faint thrumming of the gate linking Ivan to my goal.  So, won some, lost some.  My movement seemed to change the argument some, so I tried to pay attention.

“He apologizes for shooting you,” Viktor said immediately.

“That’s a good start.  So, um, what’s going on?”

Viktor pointed to Artur.  “The Lesiye-born claims a right I challenge.”  I filed the name to look up later.  “Ivan will not give you his Nellya.  You have somehow turned a spell into a real borzoi, after being shot with wizard-kill.”  He shrugged.  “We are going to fight.”  It seemed like a completely reasonable next action to him, but then, he could kick a man hard enough to break ribs, although he wasn’t kicking a man at the time.

“One thing at a time.”  I used my fingers to remember the arguments.  “Artur claims what right?  The right to kick Ivan’s vodka-enhanced rear end?  He can have that right, but no one’s killing anybody.  Ivan will give me Nellie so I can pry my Guide and Guardian out of her temperature-indeterminate draconian fingers.  Part three, I guess that means you have a puppy.  Congratulations.    I’m not a wizard, which is good because someone here has to show some sense.”  I resolved not to shake my finger at the three of them.

“You are not a wizard,” Artur hissed.

“So what?  I don’t have any say?”  I went up to him and poked him in the arm.  He blinked at me with his cold blue eyes.  They matched his skin, a dark azure more like some kind of elemental gemstone than a colour I was used to seeing outside cartoons.  I did not hum the Smurf’s theme, and not just because I was afraid he’d recognize it.  His grasp of Americana was better than the rest of the Red Poets.

“Do not try me, mortal.”

“Didn’t intend to, creature.”  I tried to put the same kind of scorn into it that he had put into “mortal.”  “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you all owe me.  You dragged me into this thing and you took my fairy.  I had another Dragon breathing down my neck in the middle of the night over this, and you know what?”  I took a step back.  “I don’t care.  You took my fairy,” I repeated.  “She liked meerkats and chocolate and wanted to be a real girl.  She’s worth a dozen of you, at least to me, and I am going to get her back.  So take your schoolyard bullying attitudes and get this straight.”

I looked directly into Ivan’s eyes.  “I could cut that gate right this second, and it would kill you.  Yes, even you, master wizard.  You and I alone have that ability.  If you want to get into some kind of sorcerous battle with the big mean nasty monster, and if Viktor wants to get in a couple licks, too, I don’t want to hear it.  Your mistress is unhappy with you.  You could have cleaned up your own house, but no, bring in the Doctor and complain when he wants to give you a bit of his medicine.”  I sighed and moved back to lean against a food-preparation station.  “And you shot me, which didn’t seem to hurt me, but that’s not the point.  The point is, you shot me, so unless you want to become lesiye chow, let’s make a new plan.”  I eyed all of them, including the dog.  “Are you okay with this?  Because I am officially ready to start plan B.”

Or was I on “C” now?  “Get Her” (classic Plan “A”) just hadn’t worked.  Going inside to walk between the worlds had been interrupted.  This, and it was close to my original idea, was probably “C” but I didn’t want to amend my speech given that I had gotten so worked up over it.  I wasn’t even shaking, yet.

So, I shot him.

You’re not surprised.  You know what an amateur with a gun is like, and, well, in the words of Xander Cage, “I had my leg in a cast for about three months. All I did was play first-person shooter video games.”

Which isn’t true, but it’s kind of relevant to the story, because a lot of what I know about shooting I learned from beating all the versions I can of “House of the Dead.”

It didn’t prepare me for the feeling of pulling the trigger, the sudden way time stood still (I grasped “bullet time” in a way “the Matrix” hadn’t prepared me for) as the projectile (what was in that spell, Viktor?  An arrow of Apollo and Artemis?) did this crazy shimmery rush towards the Wolf (it was coming at me – that gave it the capital letter) and my instincts suddenly made war on each other, one set demanding, “This isn’t real fighting!  You need to engage!  Go bite it!” and another saying, “Run!  Run while you still can, doughboy!” as well as an actual moral objection, “You’re going to hurt something!  Something that lives and breathes!” along with a dash of, “Wow, it looks like your aim wasn’t that bad,” hubris, and all the mundane bits like, “Whoa.  That had a kick,” and catching my breath from the pace Viktor had taken into the valley, and another beat of Ivan’s ailing heart as his domain began to fail, and well, I was overwhelmed.

Only for an instant, less than a heartbeat, and then some victor was declared in my head because I started running toward and shouting at the beast.  I don’t even know if I had managed words in my first exhale of noise, but I did see Viktor turn, surprised.  I ended up yelling, “You stupid mage! It’s a waste of a good talent!  Why are wizards such idiots?”  I went on in that vein, as the inky darkness of the wolf started to shrink, black shadow turning into black hair, white teeth into drawn skin, only the eyes remaining the same until they closed in pain.

“Stupid sorcerors,” I muttered.  Yeah, I lapse perilously close to alliteration when I’m grumpy.  Or should that be “annoyed and angry?”  Nevermind.

Viktor just grunted. “You spoke his name,” he said. He stared at Artur.

“And he appeared?  That’s not one of my usual tricks,” I said.

“It is a signature of demons,” Viktor corrected.

“It’s a small world,” I pointed out.  “Besides, you have to speak it with will and purpose.”

“It is, as you say, a small world.”  He looked out.  “It gets smaller.”

A lot can happen in a heartbeat, they say.  “What did I shoot him with?”

“It is, as they say, complicated.  A simple enough spell, but it draws on many sources.”

Artur managed something.  I didn’t recognize it, and hoped Viktor understood it.  He nodded.  “He said, `If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go into the woods.'”

“`If you can’t stand a cooked man, don’t go into the kitchen?’  It’s not going to make it into a book of phrases.”  I looked down at Artur.  Then I kicked him, hard, in the side.

“What was that for?” Viktor looked confused.

“They say never to kick a man when he’s down.  I disagree.  It’s the best time to kick him because he’s near my feet.  Besides, I can’t hold him.  I couldn’t explain to the police why there’s a bunch of dead bodies in a restaurant down the street and how Artur, here is involved.  But I can make him take me to Nellie, and I will if I have to kick him every step of the way.”

Artur raised an eyebrow.  “Art going to kill her?”

I shook my head.  “No one’s going to kill anybody.  I’m still sick in the gut from what I’ve seen and done tonight. ”  I kicked him again, and he groaned.  I was making sure to kick him where the shot broke his spell.  “But I’m human and my real power is in adapting to change, so no promises.”

Artur curled up a little, and I aimed for him a third time before Viktor put up his hand.  “Enough!  He is in no pain from your kicking.  He has lost his sense of connection between forms.”  The huntsman looked at me.  “We still must find Ivan.”

Artur started spitting out something more, but Viktor only kicked him in a way that made him really curl up.  Yeah, I was a bit of a wuss.  Viktor didn’t seem worried about say, breaking a few ribs.

“Do you want to stay here?” Viktor asked, ignoring Artur’s whimpering.

“Unless I can leash him, I don’t want to go where I can’t see him.”  I glared at Artur.

“I can leave him with the hounds, but we must hurry.  If he is to be believed,” he gestured to Artur, “Ivan is not far, but he is in not good shape.”

“Hurry back,” I decided.  “Do you have any more of those guns?”

“The wolves, they will have dissolved with Artur’s spells.”   Viktor pointed at one of the borzoi and gave it some commands.  “This one, I named Nikolai.  He will protect you.  Whatever Artur is,” and he showed teeth, “Nikolai will rip out his throat if needed.”

I felt a little better.  “Like I said, hurry.”

Viktor nodded and was gone.

I got out of where I judged was Artur’s reach, and crouched down a little.  “So,” I said.  “In English, this time, are you a demon?”

Artur grimaced.

“Not much of an answer.  Guess you weren’t needing that throat, which means to me that yes, you’re an Outsider.  Humans like that not-bleeding-from-the-jugular thing.”  I started to get up.

“No.”

“So many things you could be answering, but not very helpful.  Nikolai?” I asked, and I pet the hound as he came near me, eyes never straying from Artur’s form.

“No, I am not all demon.  I helped you.  I thought you would see the beast for what she was and close her gate.”  His words were punctuated with gasps for air.

“I was working on it.  Not all demon, so, what, vampire?  Cursed?  I just ask out of curiosity.”  Well, curiosity and because it meant something more to research how to stop.

“Scry says you were eating with…” he breathed out a few words.  “Witches, not working.”

“My work habits don’t leave innocent folks drained of life force.   Besides, I don’t like people scrying on me.  I’m entitled to my privacy.  It’s in the Constitution, I think.”

He managed an aborted chuckle.  “No innocents.  Ivan called them to trap me.  Took shadows to shape, look like people.  He speaks with the dead.”

I had to admit, it was possible.  I didn’t poke at them and do any lab tests or anything.  “I heard that.”

“I’m… hunter.  He has…bad heart.”  I couldn’t tell if it was any easier or getting worse for Artur to speak.  I wasn’t coming any closer, though.  I’d seen, like, at least one horror movie in my life.  Artur convulsed, and his skin started to crack and peel like flakes of…

Oh, bleepin’ demons.

He was beginning to burn.  “Nikolai, pee on him or something.  I need him alive!”

The dog looked startled, and moved away from me.  I followed the direction he was going, in part not to watch Artur.  It was a good thing I did, because I saw Viktor and Ivan returning from wherever the huntsman had been fetching the necromancer.  Yeah, that’s probably the term for it.

I saw Ivan’s eyes smoulder, literally, from where he was leaning on Viktor.  He looked…old and grey.

“No, seriously, the gate’s still open.  Ivan, don’t–”

He pulled away from Viktor and I saw one of Viktor’s guns from where he had hidden it behind the other sorceror.  It was small in his hand.  He smiled at me, and pulled the trigger.

A lot can change in a heartbeat.

Like Viktor slugging Ivan, and Artur shedding his skin, and the bolt was still coming at me, and I saw it, it was so slow?  Why couldn’t I just move out of the way?  And then as the last of Artur’s skin came loose, and my eyes wanted to make sense of the being underneath it, but then he grabbed me, and Nikolai licked my hand, and I saw all of the light – so much light, light that blinded rather than illuminated, and I felt the gate open and all of us being swallowed, as if the gate was something alive…

…and in my head, all I could hear was a single heartbeat.