I flinched.

“I don’t try and make enemies.  I, um, have a Dragon on my metaphorical tail.  Peredur wants me for something, Naul probably has a legitimate beef with me.  I don’t know if Peredur counts as hostile, though, given I lost him his pretty fairy.  I was paid by some old-fashioned Russian sorcerors, but that doesn’t mean they were happy with my services.  My ex- runs a coven who is in the middle of a witch war and she seems to have some kind of vendetta against me.  I was set up against the Shadow King.   I staked a vampire out in the sun for a while to get some answers.  She might hold a grudge.  Some -cubi have my worst interests at heart.  My could-have-been-an-ex- is officially dead, although her phone called me and I haven’t called it back.  I’ve been told her death was a ruse.  That’s just in the last few months, let alone days,” I sighed.

“You keep busy,” he said, nodding.  He held back the slip of paper to me.

“Oh, you know, it’s important to keep a hand in,” I said, hoping the sardonic tone explained everything.  I took the slip and put it back in my pocket.  “What is it?”

“Minus one handbasket, I’d say it was a pretty sincere threat.”

I took it right back out of my pocket and placed it on the armrest of the couch.  “You mean…”  I put it into context, and then took it back out. “That’s a floating place?”

“Marlowe’s Doctor may have had the right of it.”  He shrugged.

“I say we make our own torments,” his wife said, coming back into the room and the conversation.  She had something in her hand, a strange rock-like thing with an edge, kind of micro-obelisk-ish.  If that’s a word.  (Saying it aloud is hard to do after eating crackers, I bet.)

“I don’t know if it’s a path I could set anyone upon,” the Questor half-smiled.

“Don’t mind him,” his wife said, sitting next to me.  “He’s an atheist.”

I couldn’t help but make a surprised laugh.  “I think you’re looking at a bigger picture than I can,” I said, finally, to the Questor.  “Not that I’ve dealt really with non-manifest Powers.  I just hear stories.”

He grinned.  “I try not to take anything on faith.”

His wife rolled her eyes.  “Here,” she said, putting the rock into my hand.  I considered snatching my hand away at the last minute, but she was quick.

It felt warm, very warm, and almost as if some kind of heartbeat were pulsing through it.  “What is it?”

“A tooth.  I’d say about four warriors worth,” she grinned.  “It’s not a major canine or anything.  Anyway, I’m only letting you borrow it, not bury it.  Next time Peredur comes a-calling, you have some leverage.”  She tilted her head.  “You’ll want to give me something in return so the pendulum swings freely and not at an angle.  I’ll similarly keep it in trust.”  She glanced at her husband.  “It feels really weird to ask for such things.  Why is it always that calling out the rules sounds so ridiculous?”

He chortled, but stayed quiet.

I pulled out the rock the Small Folk had given me and gave it to her without hesitation.  “It’s a wish, I think.”

She held it up to her eyes and I could feel things moving around in the air as it was inspected on several different levels.  It was like a music-box melody, with tiny little “pings” as the cylinder rotated and pushed bits of metal away.  “A fair trade,” she said.  “And both gifts perilous,” she smiled and I saw her teeth.

“We only make the most interesting friends,” the Questor murmured to her.  They clasped hands for a moment, smiling at each other.  I smiled, too.

“What is your next step?” the Questor’s wife asked.

“Uh… I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted.  I pulled out my phone.  “I’ve been making lists.”

“Things to do, promises to keep, how many miles before you can sleep?” she asked, teasingly.

“Well, yes, and, yes, and, no.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Try and stop her,” the Questor grinned.  She slapped at the air near him.

“Sure,” I said, bemused.

“You are in no danger here.  You will be in no danger, short of a Dragon, sleeping in your hotel room tonight.  Get some rest.”  She seemed quite sure of this, and I suspect it wasn’t just digging up a tooth that took so long in the back.

“Am I allowed to thank you?”

“What, do I look like a fairy?” she asked, with a hint of what I always thought was a New York accent.

I shrugged, grinning.  They look however they want to look.

“Alright, I’ve been accused of being a little fey at times.   Anyway, I understand you don’t want to be a wizard.  I have had those moments, myself.”

“About twice a month, if I recall correctly,” the Questor suggested.

“Shush!” She grinned at him, then turned back to me.  “Once I took on the mantle I owed too many favours to get out of it again,” she said, adding, “Even if I knew how.  You’ve been marked.”  She made sure I knew it.  I nodded.  “Until whatever it is is truly relinquished, the kinds of things that are happening to you, and no, I don’t know or care what all of them are, will keep happening.”

“So I’m stuck being a weirdness magnet until I somehow get rid of the invisible blot of Caine?”

“Well, that’s a way of putting it,” she said, her grin turning wry.  “But you’re not Job or any martyr.”  She looked me straight in the eye, just long enough for me to see that she was serious without it becoming anything else.  “You could pick up the mantle, such as it is.”

I shook my head.

“What if I said wizards are made, not just born?” she asked.  “Why are you so afraid of it?”

“You shall not pass.  You shall not collect two-hundred dollars.  The dark fire shall not avail you.  You must pay rent on Mediterranean.”  She said it in an almost dramatic monotone, if that wasn’t some kind of oxymoron. 

“So, your non-Flame of Udun burning question?” the Questor asked.  He put down his plate, but that’s the only kind of preparation he really seemed to take.

“There’s a cream for that, isn’t there?” I muttered.  “Do I only get one?”

“Yep, and that was it.”  He looked sad for a moment, but the minute passed and I could see from the way his eyes crinkled that he had been joking.  “Seriously, I think the reasons people with this particular talent have made it difficult to get to them in the stories is because it can be practically a deus ex machina, or you end up saying, `Oh, you had the ruby slippers all along.'”

“Silver,” his wife corrected.  “In the book.”  She had gone back to writing, but she had that curious look a lot of wizards I’d been around had, suggesting that her attention was in more than one place at once.  Honestly, wizards multitasked in strange fashions.

“If they’d told Dorothy that from the beginning, would she have just said, `I’m going home now, good luck with the witches?’  That’s not the kind of thing that makes a good story.  It’s worse than, `It was all a dream.'”  He shrugged.  “I’m just not the type to find the frugal life on top of a high mountain to be to my liking.  Too cold.”

“Not enough wi-fi,” his wife grinned.  “Maybe we could set up the usual three challenges the asker needs to face, the smarter of which give you clues as to the answer you’ll receive.   I mean, we’re strong believers in narrative causality around here,” his wife interjected, “but you don’t have to find three golden apples.  I prefer Fujis anyway.”

“I wonder,” the Questor mused, “if there are granny nymphs, too.”

“Only polyamorists sow their domesticated oats,” she rolled her eyes at him.

He stuck his tongue out at her, and I know she saw it.  He put his attention to me.    “Do it right, though.  If you want to spend the night figuring it out, and then seeing me at the shop, we can do it that way.  Although…” he trailed off.

“The boss,” his wife explained.

“The boss?” I asked.

“We’re free, here,” she said, implying they were expensive somewhere else. 

At least, that’s how I read it.  I nodded, as if I understood.  I looked around.  Well, we were all wage-slaves to someone, I guess.   I took a breath, composing my thoughts.

He held up his hand as if to stop me from saying.  “I know one of them is about the Dragon,” he said.

“That wasn’t a lucky guess,” his wife winked at me.  “It’s not often we entertain an actual Dragon slayer in the house.”

“Trouble is, you only get them on Sundays,” the Questor said. 

“Lawyers aren’t always nice,” I retorted, recognizing the quote.

“But they can be, for a price,” his wife picked it up.

“Not rules-lawyers, I hope,” the Questor said.  “Let me answer that one for you.” 

I was looking for it, and so I was ready to see it.  A flicker in his dark eyes, like a flame wavering behind them.  Like Peredur?  Was the Questor’s trait related to the Dragons? 

He wasn’t looking at me, or anything in this world, that was for certain.  I could feel something like a brush of the Beyond.  It was like opening a door, but it was done within some kind of other structure.  It was more like pushing a paintbrush heavy with paint, that kind of smooth cool sensation as you put down the first coat.  It didn’t have a sound to it, just the sensation.

“The path to the cave is coated with ash, and her jewels no longer can defy the darkness.  The entrance is blocked by the roots of the forest, and thorns dig deep into her nest.  They remain locked in eternal battle, neither able to breathe or grow.  Fire would free her, but the ones who came before freed fire, instead.”  He shuddered and took a breath, and the flickering of his eyes quieted and was no longer visible.  “I can almost see her,” he said, as he came back.  “She’s hurt, but it’s a Fisher King sort of hurt, an eternal wound.  It’s like…”

I shook my head.  “It’s like she tore out her own heart.  More Davey Jones in that popular pirate flick.”

“She can’t die that way?” he asked.

I saw his wife smile and shake her head, sadly. 

“I’m pretty sure her lover did it in some kind of synchronicity.  No.  I think…”  I put some pieces together.  “Artur’s still alive, then.  Holding her back.  He had some kind of ancient grudge of the forest against her.  I think she broke some sort of cosmic rules.  We had to free the fire, though.  I don’t remember any jewels.”  Thorns.  Doloise.  “Man, I wish I knew if Peredur had set me up on this, or if he’s just an opportunist.”

The Questor’s wife’s eyes narrowed.  “Peredur?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah.  Interfering Dragon with a grudge against a Shadow King.  Know him?”

She closed her book and stood up.  I glanced at the title, but all it was was some kind of travelogue-style journal of some sort.  After kissing her daughter on the forehead as she went by, she passed the doorway into another part of the house.  I looked at the Questor.

He shrugged.  “Maybe she’s looking up his e-mail.  You’d never believe her little black book.”

I shook my head.  “I’ve dealt with wizards.  I’d totally believe it.”

“What’s the second question?” he asked.

“Speaking of little black books,” I said, pulling the slip of paper out of my pocket, “tell me where that leads.”

He stared at it for a few minutes, and then sent it back.  “Who did you annoy?” he asked.

“Oh boy, you want a list?”

He chortled.

With one thing and another, the weirdest moment was knocking on the door.  You wouldn’t have been able to tell his house from any others on the street, really.   They had a dog and some cats, two children, and a ton of books, most of them familiar to me.  

Dinner smelled good.  I’d eaten lunch on the road at some chain restaurant that masqueraded as a truck stop.  After some texting with my sister, of all people, I bought a couple of small gift cards on the way just so I didn’t arrive empty handed.  (It was an etiquette question.  She seemed the most likely to know about such things, plus, I owed her an update from our Mother.)

The Questor and I were in his kitchen where he was putting together a plate for his wife.  “I think the real difference between you and `the heavy hitters,’ as you put it, is a lot more idiosyncratic than you think.”  He and I had been bantering about just what it was I did.

“As in?” I munched on a carrot.  I can’t do the “What’s Up, Doc?” joke because, well, wrong role.

“Dear, explain to E what you were saying about instinct,” he crossed into the living room with the plate, bringing her some dinner.

She put down the book she was writing in, and thanked him.  “Oh, that.  It’s kind of silly, really.  My instincts have been trained in magic.  Rather than react in the traditional fight or flight, I’ve got both of those triggered to the esoteric.  If I hear a noise in the dark, I raise a ward first rather than think about getting out of bed to check it out physically. ”

“I thought they expanded fight or flight,” the Questor noted.

“Abuse of psychological theory aside,” I quickly interrupted, “a wizard is someone who basically eats, drinks, and sleeps magic?”

“Don’t ask about the mystery meat,” the Questor’s wife grinned.

“It’s chicken,” the Questor, who had done the cooking, quickly added.

“Or tastes like it,” his wife raised an eyebrow.

I glanced at my plate.

“That’s half of magic right there.  Psychology.  Do you trust me?  I have raised the possibilities, see, that maybe it isn’t chicken.  Maybe it’s dog.  I have opened up chance, and now that there’s more chance to play with, I can influence it with Will.  You’re going to taste it and try to remember that it’s chicken, pitting your Will against mine, right?”

I said nothing, because she was exactly right.

The Questor grinned.  “You’re the one who came to eat with wizards.”

“It’s fine, it’s chicken,” she said, grinning.  “No, really, as much as we’d like to think instinct is drilled into us so that we can handle sabretooth’d tigers and the like, the truth is we have the intellect to train our reflexes.  One of my mentors does a lot of talking on his blog on how to link the need to do the unpleasant things in our life to the survival instincts.  It means you exercise because your life depends on it, and your brain understands that because your body starts to panic a little.  Your brain wasn’t otherwise convinced it was a good idea because your brain wants to settle and conserve all that lovely potential energy you absorbed in things like fats and sugars for when you need it.  Like for when you’re being chased by that tiger.”  She ate a bite of chicken.  “Which some of my friends could arrange the illusion of if you needed a little adrenaline to start that exercise program, but it violates one of the laws of magic, I’m sure.”

I eyed her askance.  “Laws of magic?  Like sympathy?”

“Hah!” she laughed.  “No, I think every wizard writes up their own idiosyncratic list.  I was thinking the law of showing off always costs more energy than you expected.  It might be just mine.”  She smiled.  “Although there are rules.”

“Different than laws?”  It was good chicken.  Basic, some broccoli with cheese, some macaroni & cheese, a little barbecue sauce, nothing fancy, but a good home-cooked meal.  The Questor was seemingly addicted to a particular cherry-flavoured cola, so I had a cup of that with ice.

“Yeah.  And some of the rules are idiosyncratic, too, but I think all of us have rules.  We wouldn’t be ourselves if we broke them.”  She paused, considering.  “Some of them are awkward, too, like the fellow in Seattle who has to speak Truth if approached with a Question.  Almost as inconvenient as the husband’s little gift.”

“I can imagine,” I decided.

“Yeah, I try never to ask where I left my keys for fear that my destiny is to strike down the Goblin King first.”

We both laughed.  The Questor didn’t seem to find it as funny, but he gave a wry smile anyway.

Her daughter interrupted then, some matter of a disparity in the amount of chocolate milk between her and her brother’s cups that was resolved with a warning and an offer of more milk (but no more chocolate.)

“So, I am guessing you have a question to ask me?” the Questor said, between bites.

“Uh, in your official capacity.  I can wait until tomorrow or something.  You’re off-duty right now, I hope.”

“I try not to take my work home with me,” he agreed with a grin. “It’s actually a lot less automatic than she makes it sound – that whole thing about wizards eating, sleeping, and breathing magic.  She’s a wizard when she gets gas for her car, or when we go grocery shopping, or watching the kids at the park.  She just gets a little more gravitas when she says, `You shall not pass.’  But usually she’s saying that while we’re playing Monopoly and I’m closer to winning than she is.”

We laughed.  It was easy to do here, and they weren’t the kinds of wizards I’d been used to… more working-class wizards in some ways.  They had some art up here and there, but the couches looked used, the carpet had its share of spills, the bookcases were overflowing, but it was nice.

After fulfilling my filial duties, I searched in my pockets to read the piece of paper that had been left for me. It had been an overly dramatic methodology, so I expected a particularly clever riddle.

It wasn’t a riddle that was on there. Instead, it looked to be a series of numbers. Code? Coordinates? Hexadecimal? URL? Winning lottery ticket options? (I had a sudden worry that I ended up with the wrong slip of paper. Maybe someone had a bunch of messages in their supernatural wallet and I just got the receipt for their lunch with Loki.)

I sat down at my computer and plugged them into Google. ‘Cause, you know.

My eyes watered, as if I were straining them. When I looked back down at the note, I had mistyped. I started to re-enter, but what I was entering and what was on the note was not the same thing. It was like trying to read a book in a dream; the story kept changing, and it was hard to focus.  (I’ve become part of amazing stories in dreams, some of which I wept to read, and few which I could pull more than a synopsis out with me in waking.  Of course, I’ve also dreamed about spiral staircases where each step had a different personality and grudge, so my subconscious has a wormhole to Wonderland as it is.)

I looked away and took a few deep breaths. Well, that certainly left out coordinates (unless it was flashing through a variety of tracked people) and most likely winning lottery ticket numbers. It still could be a receipt for lunch with Loki, I supposed.  (While I have friends who number themselves amongst his worshippers, I have other friends who say that, for a Power he’s a bit of a jerk, but he always brings” the hottest chicks” to parties.)

So, in a way, it was, indeed, a riddle.

I taped it up next to the monitor.  The handwriting remained consistent, which made me think more of fonts than a steady scrawl.  Of course, it could just be an idiosyncratic touch to the magic.  I guess I could go to all my practitioner friends and see if they recognized the style, but that was a little too Cinderella for me.

Then it struck me.  Who do I know who could point me in the right direction?

The Questor, of course.

I was short transportation.  I seemed to remember Matana saying she could get me there, but that offer may have been null and void once we staked her in the sunlight.  Witnessed by Peredur, though, so I could try to pin him down on it.

I never thought I’d be asking myself, “How could I find a Dragon?” especially one who always showed up when he was least wanted.  Following that logic, I’d have to meet him in the bathroom after I’d eaten cheap Chinese food and brought in a graphic novel.  He’d probably be staring out my mirror with his smoke-filled eyes.   The name of the domains in which I’d have to find him probably had more poetry in them than anything ending with “dot com.”  If you know what I mean.

Ouija was out.  It’s never, actually, in, if you must know.  (“Hi!  I’m going to open a portal to something that thinks moving a crystal is great fun and will answer all my trivial questions.”  Frankly, I want there to be a spirit of knowledge that always pushes the little oracle piece to the words, “Use The Internet, Dude.”   Plus, mass-production of something intended to reach out Beyond?  Bad news.)  The only kind of divining I was partial to was randomizers on restaurant picks, and even that needed particular weighting by things like positive reviews.  I did occasionally read my horoscope in the paper, but I was more a free will type.

Instead, I sent an e-mail back to him asking if tomorrow would work, and if he could give me a street address.

Then I set out to buy a car.

This was not a trivial task.  I analyze.  I want the best car for my money, or at least, that’s what my head says.  The rest of me says it has to look fast and attract women.  Not that in any estimation I have ever seen a car in a price range I’ve ever had access to that had women drooling.  Unless it was, you know, coated with chocolate.  (Drool may also be overestimated.  I mean, lubrication is one thing, but random drooling is not a turn-on for me.)  Besides, expensive cars and comfortable seats tend to repel each other in most cases.  Well, seats comfortable enough to take advantage of drooling women, I presume.  No one should have their head bumping against a steering wheel.

I looked at the phone as if hoping Rohana would call, now that my mind was wandering so idly towards sex, but alas, the universe was not so obliging.

While I did check out a few top ten lists for car copulatory comfort (not just cargo space, but in seating) none of them had the reliability ratings I wanted.  Honestly, there ought to be a way to collect lists on the ‘net and compare them for whatever features you want, but apparently this niche was still best handled by personalized spreadsheets.  After manipulating the data, comparing prices and options, I had to find something local that matched.

I glanced up at the note, saw that it was probably an ISBN number now, and ignored it.

I got an address and a map with directions.  I guess the Questor did know where I lived.   It was definitely going to be a drive, and I made some arrangements to overnight in a hotel that didn’t sound like a palace for bedbugs despite its speciously cute name.  I set up some CDs to burn for personal use driving mixes, and watched the time fly by.

I still didn’t want to turn off the lights, so I fell asleep on the living room futon.

I looked at the curl of paper, and put my hand on it, ready to throw it in the trash, unread. On the other hand, they had gone to an awful lot of trouble to get it to me.

I was ready to look at it when my phone rang. I answered it automatically, as my eyes tried to decipher the spidery letters. (I was always touched by Tolkein’s comparisons of handwriting in the Red Book of Westmarch (as opposed to the Red Book of D&D, because that version of Dungeons & Dragons came in a box set.) It was just a way of giving life to the journal as character.)

“Oh, it’s you.”

“You owe me a favour, dear, sweet, older brother.”

I couldn’t make heads or tails of the note while I fenced with my sister, so I stuffed it in my pocket. “I suppose I do. What will it be? Will I have to wear something pretty and frilly?” I tried to make my voice come out in an enthusiastic simper, like I was mincing across the floor in exaggeratedly insulting, flamboyant joy.

“Oh, would you?” she played it over-the-top. “Not that I’m trying to spoil your plans of picking up a few extra dollars down on Colfax,” she said, voice turning to a more serious tone. “I need you to check in on Mom.”

“I don’t owe you that much,” I grated.

“Pretty please, with pink sparkles and sugar on top?” she said, her voice as syrupy sweet as the description.

“What’s wrong with her now?” I knew I was whining. “No, wait, I don’t want the list. Fine, but all debts paid in full, I spend no more than twenty minutes before my hair catches fire or I get arrested or something real happens to get me off the phone, and if she asks me when you are going to settle down and have children I have carte blanche to answer in any way I so desire.”

“Twenty-five minutes and I can’t have sold my uterus on eBay,” she negotiated. “And your hair can’t catch fire, I think you used that in 2005.”

“No wonder it seemed so familiar. Done, and deal.” I was about to hang up when it occurred to me. “Why not on eBay?”

“Mom’s got this thing about body parts on eBay. I think she got a chain letter from Auntie A.”

“Since when did she unblock Auntie A?” I don’t know if every family has an Auntie A, who sends them only the Most Ridiculous chain e-mails about things that repeat the “Appeal to Emotion” logical fallacy. They certainly didn’t Appeal to Common Sense.

“When she went to a new provider. She sucks at setting up filters. Took me almost two hours on the phone with her last time.”

I grunted. Despite her seeming full-time search for a sugar daddy, my sister works for a small company that has her do tech support over the phone. She takes great pride in her resolution speeds. Privately, I’ve always thought she annoyed the customers and then set them up to keep them from ever being able to dial back.

Of course, it also meant she was flaunting two hours on the phone with Mom, and only asking me for less than half an hour. That was more subtle pressure that I had had from her in a while. She was upping the ante at the Game.

People play games with each other, and they feel out the rules. I don’t know that everyone, if asked to specify the rules, would agree on the actual guidelines and subtleties, but I know couples who score friendly points off of each other for all sorts of things, like saying a particular phrase or, of course, pun wars, or getting the final say (ever) or things like that. For my sister and I, well, I won’t say we ever play fair, but there are lines we don’t cross. That’s the important rule of these games: you know when the line’s been crossed, and you lose when it has.

“No time like the present,” I said. “Besides, I don’t like owing you.”

“Of course not. That’s why I get you to pay in pretty pennies,” she pointed out, cackling and hanging up.

I sometimes wondered if I would ever be able to bring a girl to meet my family. Well, if I liked her enough she’d have to be quick enough to handle them all, from Ed’s ma to my wicked sib.

I dialed from memory. The phone number hadn’t changed for over two decades, and, well, I didn’t want it programmed into my phone. This was probably one of those anti-senility games I played with myself. “If I can’t recognize the number quick enough to send it into voicemail, I deserve what I get.”

I won’t transcribe the ten minutes it took to convince her who it was on the phone, but the additional fifteen minutes went something like this.

“There I am, and I’m shouting because they’re not listening, but that’s fine because they really don’t know the language but I guess it’s their language because when you go down there’s it’s practically another country because all the billboards are in their language so you know you’re in southern Aztecistan where there’s condors on the street corners who will eat your heart out for extra prayer passes. Those are condors in the glyphs, right? So then you’re remembering your basic lessons but you don’t know that shouting, `I just wanted one of your long doughnuts’ isn’t going to come out something terribly naughty so you’re trying not to point because you read somewhere that pointing means different things in different cultures so you don’t want this young man thinking you’re trying to proposition him when all you’re starving and you can’t wave money to let him know you want to pay for his pastry because then they’ll see you’re carrying cash and it all goes bad from there. Oh, and on the pointing, did I tell you about Uncle Sergei? He almost lost a finger. He was poking it into a bird cage…”

I didn’t ask if it was the cage of a condor.

Ah, mom.