I was going to have to talk to that girl.  I just didn’t know how.  I mean, yes, she was my sister, but in just the past (I checked the computer clock) 10 hours or so I had learned things about her that changed my understanding.  When it’s an understanding of your sister, it’s even more odd; she was always just background, that annoying girl who spied on your dates, went through your stuff and always seemed about to catch you masturbating or something else that would temporarily paralyze you with humiliation.

Um.  I realized that I had run out of the bathroom when the books fell wearing just a towel.  I mean, I always knew where my towel was, but I was far too comfortable with Wrecks.  How long was he staying?  Why was I letting an obvious Dragon spy hang out?  And was it that I was comfortable with Wrecks or was it just that I didn’t perceive him as enough of a person to really care about whether or not he saw me in the altogether, or not quite together.  (I think I would have been concerned if he’d seen me falling apart.  Which, I guess, is the opposite of together.  Maybe.  We put a lot of emphasis on control in our society, which I think has a magical aspect to it as well.  We maintain the reality we want through will, right?  Magic and will were so entwined and inter-related that control has to have a similar effect.)

I had had a perfectly good conversation with my gay friend about his new boyfriend while I was basically naked.  I decided that that was some kind of feather in my cap for acceptance and supporting the cause.  I needed a gold star for being a gay ally.  I looked around in my desk drawer for where I kept the cheap dollar-store star stickers to be sarcastic during game nights and stuck one onto the back of my hand.

Wrecks got up, leaving the mess on the couch and the television on to some kind of Spanish soap opera.  After a few minutes, I heard my shower start.  I didn’t know if he could reach the soap, but I also wasn’t going to try and help.  I guess he had managed.  In fact, I didn’t know what those Beyond did for plumbing.  I guess I supposed they had chamberpots or urinated rainbows and passed perfumed gases.  Any or all of these things were possible.  As long as he didn’t pee in corners or on books, and if his hygiene was otherwise socially acceptable, I wasn’t likely to remark upon it.

My gold star started peeling as I got up and returned the oatmeal bowl to the sink.  I went in and got dressed in jeans and the ubiquitous black t-shirt style of my geekhood and general generation.  (This one said, “Can’t Eat, Clowns Will Neep at Me.”)  I put the peeling star on the wall, and went back to my e-mail.

It was getting dark outside. Once I had actually checked my accounts and decided I was painfully behind on my various social media, I realized that I’d have to see what the new hotness was. No one seemed to be on MySpace or LiveJournal.  I mean, I’d known they were dying, but it seemed so sudden.  I even remembered my Friendster password.  Facebook had always been unruly.  I decided to check on some of the news sites and read up on the fires.

In my e-mail induced haze, I hadn’t caught Wrecks’ return.  He had made a microwave meal for himself and was busy reading a well-thumbed copy of Foucault’s Pendulum.  I wasn’t sure if I approved, but at least he’d replaced the soaps with the Discovery channel.  I realized with an amused grin that this meant I had plenty of new Mythbusters to watch.

I was stalling.  I knew it.  I picked up the phone again.  I decided I wasn’t going to have this conversation in the living room, so I went into the bedroom.  I turned on the light.  I stared at the wall, and then hit the right buttons.

“Um, hi.”

“Hi yourself.”  She’d answered between the first and second rings, which was encouraging, but her tone was guarded.

“So.  If I told you I’d been kidnapped by a Dragon and offered a contract marriage that I denied but still kept me out of the real world for almost a year, would you believe me?”

Silence.  Breathing.  “I think you need something better than that.”

“What if I threw in dinner, any place you like?”

Her tone was slightly more positive.  “I’d say you were getting warmer.”

“It’s all true, you know.”

“Yeah.”  Rohana sighed.  “It’s always the weird stuff with you, E.  I don’t think you live in reality.”

“I have for the past,” I glanced outside, “seventeen hours, at least.”

“I’ve moved on, E.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, reflexively.  “I didn’t mean to drop off the face of the planet.”

“I heard.  Kidnapped.  By a Dragon.”  It was colder.

“How much ‘moved on’ is it?  Married?  Kids?” I asked.  I tried hard not to sound desperate.

“I’m not the marrying type,” she said, and while it had the ring of truth, it also had the ring of something sad and repeated in her head.

“So, kids?  Polyamorous girlfriends?  No, wait, you got some cats?”

“Wishful thinking much?” she teased a little.  “No, I’ve just been…” a pause, “dating.  You know.”

I knew.  I’d done it myself once or twice.  Or three, four hundred times.  I’d lost track.  “Serious?”

“Kind of,” she admitted.  “Kind of getting there.  Feeling it out, trying to see where we are.”

“I know the feeling,” I said.  “Before I was, you know, beamed off the planet by alien succubi or whatever, I thought I had that with this girl I knew.”

“I see you’ve learned a little passive-aggressiveness,” she said, and this was warmer in the death-ray thermometer kind of measure.

“Hey, I’m the one who didn’t answer calls.  I’m the one who was kidnapped and is left adrift with almost a year’s worth of amnesia to the real world.  You’re just being sensible.  There was no need to wait for me.  No need to trust that it had to be a really big deal if I disappeared.”

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now?” The death-ray in her voice continued its countdown to explosion.

“No.  Hey, can I invite you to my pity party?  It’s bring your own tears.”

She chuckled, out of politeness, probably.  “That was good, but I’m washing my cat’s hair.  Or something.”

“There’s an innuendo in that that would probably not be good for me to hint at, I bet.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence for a long time.

“I need to go,” she said.

“Yeah,” I repeated what she’d said.  “Hey, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she echoed.

“Is that, ‘Yeah you are,’ or ‘Yeah, I believe you?'” I asked.

She chuckled again.  “Can it be a little of both?”

“Yeah,” I said.  We both kind of chuckled.  “Alright.  Look, if you ever want to talk.” I started again. “I mean, just talk… well, I guess I can’t promise not to disappear again, but I’d, I guess, I’d like that.”

She was quiet.  “I’ll think about it.”

“No pressure. I promise.”

“I said I’d think about it.  That’s not a hard ‘No.'”

I took a breath.  “Then this is a goodbye, but it’s with a hope to talk to you again.”

“Goodbye, E.”

I dropped the phone onto the bed next to where I’d sat.  Well, what could I expect?  Heartache, pain, that feeling of disconnection that comes from not being able to access my emotions for fear of being overwhelmed that is endemic to my half of the species… yeah, all that.

“Hey, Wrecks,” I called out to the living room.

“Eh?” he grunted.

“I’m ordering pizza.  I don’t feel like going out.  Want some?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”  I had that number in my phone, too, and it was a heck of a lot easier a conversation, even if I had to find out if garlic would repel Spriggans.  (“More likely jalapenos,” he suggested.  I didn’t like them on my pizza anyway.)   I even got the bread sticks.

I picked up some comics and turned pages.  I wasn’t pretending to read them, or even do much besides look at the pictures.  Apparently I picked up a collection of X-men with Lockheed in it.  I closed it after a moment and picked up the next graphic novel.  Something about a supercriminal organization run by a Mr. Lao.   I tossed it aside.  Ah, the Kakaranatharans.  Fine.

I got up and sat on the coffee table facing the futon.  The TV was off.  “Which Dragon?” I asked.

“Which witch?” Wrecks retorted, putting the book down.  He kept a finger in it as a bookmark, as if he didn’t expect this conversation to last too long.

“Non-sequitur,” I said.  “Which Dragon are you working for?”

“Do I work for anyone?”

“Do you not serve your King?”

“Is my King a Dragon?”

“Is your King a witch?” I asked, testing.

“Would you have slept with her if she was?”

“Would I sleep with anything not human?”

“Was your relationship with Angharad’s shell that innocent?”

“Do you mean Doloise?”

He paused.

“Hesitation,” I murmured.

He frowned.  There was a knock and I went to pay for the pizza.  I parceled us out some pieces, and sat back on the table.

“What do you really want to know?” he asked, gently enough.  He put the book down to eat.

“I asked.”  I shook my head.  “Why are you here?”

“You need a bodyguard, and my kind have been that.”

“Do I?” I was alarmed.

“I would rather not have to fight,” he admitted with a wry tone.  He chewed the crust for a moment.   “Especially the things you tend to get mad at you.”

“I don’t think one run in with a Dragon is a tendency.”

He enumerated with his fingers.  “Naul. The Magdalen.  Muak-lal, a Shadow King.  Asheralat.”

“How come you know the names of things I don’t even know?  Who is the last?”

“A … you would probably know her as a succubus.”  He shrugged.  “On the other hand, your companions are pretty puissant.  The Questor has sided with you, where he is normally neutral.”  He named the Questor’s wife.  “Peredur.  Artur.  Sir Darius.  Even your Rohana is a power.”

“She’s not my Rohana anymore.”

“A shame.  You need a healer.”

“What, is this a band of heroes?  I need a fighter, a cleric, a bassist, that kind of thing?”

He laughed a short bark.  “Well asked.”

“Who’s side is the Seven King on?”

“Ah, well, the Small Kingdom and the Large both arm against Muak-lal, yet your mark does not make them your friends.  Perhaps you could have persuaded the Seven if you had given in to that Majesty’s charms.”

“Not your Majesty?” I asked.

“I am Nen Wave-crasher.  No King can command the tide, though they may dam against it.”

“Is that just the structure, or is there a hidden ‘n’ at the end of that word?”

“Like a monster at the end of a book?” He grinned.

“She stole almost a year from me already,” I said, suddenly loud.  I hadn’t meant to be.  I didn’t really even realize I’d been that angry about it.  I didn’t know which part hurt most…that I could be gone a year and not notice, or that other people didn’t really notice.

“Aye.  The King owes you much,” he said.  He looked very serious, and something about him was different.  The strange deviation of his facial structure, the weird shaping of his mouth, it looked different for a moment.  Less feral, more noble, I guess.  Like I’d seen something powerful in him.

“I’ll collect with interest,” I said.

“Ah, I thought your interest wasn’t for sale,” he teased.

“What did the Small Kingdom gain from me?” I asked.

“The King cannot abdicate her decisions, for which you reminded the Court. You released their seer, their war-guide.  You had Rayya open the gates and awakened the hall of hands from darkness.  You did not offer yourself as sacrifice.  You had the King lead you through time back to a beginning.  It was quite a statement, Door-closer.”

“Huh.”  I thought about it.  “I did all that?”

“And more.”

Potentially with the grace of the unknown, or more likely simply the workings of my own mind and sanity, if I dreamt, I did not remember it.  I was done with allegory and I had metaphor I didn’t like.  I stood up, I stumbled into the bathroom, I brushed my teeth while in the shower, and I thought about what transitions and transformations had in common.  I towel’d off, shaved carefully, and stood for a moment looking at my reflection.  Mirrors.  Alice wondered which side of the looking glass was the real one.  Esme Weatherwax had the answer.

I stretched one of those long stretches that pop your shoulders and make you do that involuntary zombie moan sound.  A stack of books falling off the table caught my attention, and I remembered my house-sitter.  The elf who sat on the shelf yawned for himself.  “Did you save any of the hot water?”

“I wasn’t thinking of conservation,” I admitted.  Of course, taking more than eleven minutes kind of made me uncomfortable and had a tendency to wrinkle my fingers anyway.  I wondered if fey evolution followed such forces.  I had never taken a hot bath with one, and the lyrics to “How About A Kobold Stew” ran through my head for a moment.

“Aye, you have a head for theory rather than practice.  I’m assumin’ you also didn’t consider the ecological impact of Dragons the last time you crossed one,” he sighed, hopping down to the floor with grace.

“That word again.  Why do you people keep bringing that up?” I moved into the kitchen and started setting up some hot water to brew. Enough for a couple of packets of instant oatmeal and a glass of tea. And one for Wrecks while I was at it, because it was only hospitable.

“Theory?” he asked, amused.

“You know.  The ‘D’ word.”

“Whether you like, you are caught up in their forces.  They are the uroboros, the tail eaters.  The symbol of infinity, to talk to the English, the mark of the cycle that continues metaphysical, spatial, and temporal.  Or so they would hae you think.”  The burr was in that last sentence.  “You have another thought, or you would not be standin’ there letting the pot whistle.”

“They’re not infinite,” I said.  “I don’t really want to talk about them.”  I fixed my oatmeal, and left my tea to steep.

“It is that you are finding yourself bound with their roots, the mountains, and you cannot help but delve the darkness.  Tell me, was the room of hands in shadow or light?” he asked.  He helped himself back up to the seat near the table.

“It was dark.  It was very dark, except for the white tree.  It lit when she changed, went dark herself.”  I paused.  “Your sister had to open the doors.”

He looked worried about that.  “Shake the very stone,” he said, pronouncing it in its singular. “Haunt the windswept crags, the lonely castles.” He shook his head.  “Each drop of water weakens the rock. We take our work seriously.”

“What are you?” I asked, finally.

“Did you fear the question rude?  I had seen it dance in your thoughts, just teasing its way to be let loose, and yet you wanted to figure it out on your own.  You’ve not seen our like, man.  I could give you a name and tell you we were its close cousin but you’d still have presumptions.  Are we better an enigma or do you want a start to your research?”

I considered it.  Naming is the first power.  “I am curious,” I admitted.

“We are like unto spriggans, but that is only part of it,” he said. “I caution you, do not jump to conclusions because of the name itself.”

“I’ll try.”  Huh.  When I thought of spriggans, I had a woodland guardian in my head, but that was just the last console game impression I’d had.  I shrugged.  So it didn’t really answer the question, but at least gave me a start.  I pointed him to the couch. “Pick up the books, and let me at the computer.  I’ve got e-mail.”

I grabbed my phone on the way to the computer while Wrecks moved to the couch.  He looked at the piles of books with a sneer.  I think I caught something like “bookawork,” but I wasn’t sure what he said.  He turned on the television and ignored me.

I sighed and turned to log myself in.  The top three messages were all flagged high-importance.  If there was a way for them to be colored red and blinking madly, I’m sure they would.  They were all from my sister and said to call her.

They were all from this morning.

I sighed and dialed her number from memory rather than the contact list in my phone.

She answered on the first ring.  “What forms did the King wear?” she asked.  That was something about cell phones, I guessed.  There was none of that polite social noise of determining that you’d reached the party you were attempting, you already knew if you connected because the timer started…

“Hello, sis.  How are you?  That’s nice.  I’ve been away for a while, in a mysterious underground warren with a crazy woman who wanted to have sex with me in front of people I knew and a little spriggan lamprey.”

“That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Wrecks noted from the couch.

“It’s my sister I’m talking to,” I retorted.

“That’s nice,” my sister repeated.  “You wouldn’t boff her if she were coated in chocolate and whipped cream.  What forms?”

“I never thought you’d be the person supporting my claim.  Um. Someone said War, and then there was, I guess lust, and then this kind of crystalline science fiction Grey, if you know what I mean.”

“How do you know I’m not insulting your lack of imagination?” she paused just long enough for me to take a breath and complain, and then started, “I like to match them up to the sins, too.  Intellectual avarice is the best way I’ve been able to describe that one.  It’s the one that drops the royal ‘we’ and acts like she’s hip to the jive, right?”

“You’re not allowed to use that phrase.  Never use that phrase again.”

“Ooh, you’re harshing my buzz, bro.”

I sighed.  “Yeah.  It seemed realler than the rest.”

“Bad grammar isn’t excused.  That’s because it’s more acedia than avarice.  It’s hard to explain.”

“You’re going to refer me to Wikipedia aren’t you?” I asked.

“Well, only if you’ve donated.  That’s important.  That’s what I needed.  Kiss, kiss.”  She hung up.

I looked at the phone. I could just hit redial, but she’d just reject the call.  I sighed.

I dialed another number.  “When is a king worse than a king?” I asked Ed when he picked up.  Maybe it was a family thing.

“Hey!  How are you?” he asked.

“Long story.  Answer the question.”

“Um, if you asked me when a queen was worse than a queen, I’d say when she could fly.  That’s true in my business and would really have messed up the Aliens franchise.”

“Probably fits.  Huh.  So, uh… hi.”  I didn’t even know what to say to him.  I felt disconnected; if it had been yesterday it would have been one thing, but I don’t even know what my sister said.

“How was lock-up?” he asked, cheerfully.  He asked me to hold on a second – he was talking to a customer, then he came back.

“Lock-up?”

“The big house.  The slammer.”

“Um,” I paused.  She said I had been incarcerated?  I was going to kill her.  I didn’t know how, but it would be slow and humiliating.

“Rather, how were the prisoners.  Scary?  Your sister said you’d gone to work a job at SuperMax?”

“Ahhhhhhhh… yes.”  Alright, she could live.  “Scary could cover it.” I considered carefully.  “Some of them were worse than others, of course, and my boss was very demanding.  I should sue for sexual harassment.”

“Really?  Dish!” Ed laughed.

“I guess having someone from outside the facility was probably her kink,” I suggested.  “She had her own boy toy locked away, but that just made him one of the inmates.  Couldn’t tell if he was crazy or a snitch, really.”  It wasn’t prevarication, just a different way of explaining the story, right?  “Anyway, I wasn’t going to give in, and she wasn’t going to give up, so I’m back.”

“Well, it’s not as salacious as I’d hoped, but it’s interesting.  Was she just not a looker?”

I sighed.  “No, she was a looker.  She had amazing eyes you couldn’t swim in for fear of being pulled underneath,” I paused.  “Ed, you don’t like girls.  I could rhapsodize about her legs and wax poetic about the heft of her breasts and the sweet red of her nipples and I don’t think it’d do much for you.”

“You saw her nipples?  How far did this go?”

“Actually, she was naked when we met.”

“I didn’t believe it could happen to me.  Nah, it’s just the first glow of romance on my account.  Zach.  Zacharias, actually.  His parents couldn’t stop at Zachary, no, they had to go all in.  I want everyone to be as mushy and sparkly as myself.  Share the love, right?”

I laughed.  “If you say so.  Mushy, eh?”

“Oh, I’m so far in over my head, and he’s actually about my age.  I was willing to do that math, the half and add seven, but no one that young really got me.  Hey.  Speaking of that.  I get postcards from Matana.  I think she’s forgiven us that whole stake her out in the sun bit.”

“It wouldn’t have harmed her unless she’d gone over to the parasite.  Hawk’s probably never going to talk to me again, but he was a little weird anyway.”

I could hear the pfft-pfft of his equipment in the background.  “Yeah.  Kind of cute, though.”

“Oh dear.  What does Zach look like?”

“Um.  Well, he’s shaved.  I mean, everywhere.  Not his eyebrows, but…”

“I’m not going there.  You can’t drag me.  So, more a Kingpin than a Picard.”

He made an amused grunt.  “Yeah.  Not built like Kingpin, though.  He says he got buff because Olympic gymnastics made him hot, but that was fifteen years ago or so.  He’s an accountant.  Loves numbers, super good at it.  Has money, but I don’t really think about that.  He did get me some return on my taxes, refiled them and, well, anyway, that’s all boring.”

I smiled.  “Sounds like you want steady and reliable, and that’s what you’re saying.”

“I guess so.  I mean, the gay dating scene has the same hazards as you’ve talked about, and while there’s more getting laid, I guess, that’s never been what I was wanting.”

I chuckled. “You’re the one who saw the unicorn.  Should I ask if you’re still eligible.”

“No,” he said, quickly.

“No, I shouldn’t ask?” I teased.

“Shut up,” he said, but he sounded amused.

“Anyway, you don’t seem to have the same problem with witches.”

“Was the warden one?”

“The ward– yeah.  How’d you guess?”

He laughed.  “Rohana’s a sweet girl, you know.  She called me a couple of times.  Guess your sister gave her the number.  We talked a lot.”

“Really?” I asked.  “About what?”

“You, of course.” He laughed again.  “She thinks you’re in too deep with the weird.  I tried not to agree with her, you know, for you, but…” The laughter was gone from his voice.  “You’re in deep, aren’t you?”

“Dragons, vampires, wizards, fairy kings, not to mention witches, lions, tigers, bears… the works, I’m sure.  I’m staring at a spriggan laughing at 80s cartoons as we speak.”

“I’m sure that’s a euphemism for something.  Hold on, I have to get under this.”  I heard some sounds for a moment, then he returned.  “I didn’t want to tell you this, but she’s not your type.  She’s a nurturer Gemini with an adrenaline-junkie twin.”

“Um,” I managed to say.

“Yeah, Zach’s a little bit into astrology.  Not as in the stars show us our destinies, but that their presence has some kind of effect on the personality.  I’m skeptical, but he’s been spot on about people’s birthdays every time.”

“Just classical Greek?” I managed to ask.

“I don’t believe you said that with a straight face,” he guffawed.  “But no, he messes with other zodiacs, too.  I guess that’s what you’d call them.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Oh.  I thought you knew.  Your sister introduced us.”

I looked at my phone. It was almost out of battery, of course. I didn’t recognize the number, so I rejected the call, only to glance at the time and date.

You know that phrase, “He reeled?” I always took it in context to mean  he felt dizzy, and out of touch with his surroundings. In seeing the date, I reeled. When I had left, it had been a crisp, clean autumn bearing into winter. Now it was the tail end of summer. I found myself leaning against the post for the street sign, trying to get my bearings. Almost a year in what, to me, was merely a day.

I took stock in a few positives: One, all my bills were paid electronically. Unless I had had some wild parties while I was gone, I should see a hefty credit to my utilities. Two, I hadn’t missed the presidential election. Three, I wasn’t really attached to any television series.

The phone was busy updating. I knew I had already had the last year’s model, but it meant I’d have to upgrade before I’d expected. I tried breaking my chain of thought because that just led to the downward path. I told myself to continue to think on the bright side; less mileage on my car, more chances to listen to others, and I had saved all the food budget.

On the other hand, where could I say I was? The dark side of the moon? Self-imposed hermitage? Sanatorium. Sanatoriums were always fun. No one in my family would be surprised.

Ed. I should call Ed.

No, I should find out what’s going on with my stuff, first.

I made my decision based on the fact that my boots were already headed down the block, my feet in them. I was glad that my clothes hadn’t turned out to be woven of spidersilk and shadow, or cleverly pasted flower petals, because I wouldn’t want to be caught by my neighbors in such a costume. The motley I had was bad enough, but I could at least explain it with enough references to Shakespeare. Besides, I was man enough to wear green.

My car’s registration was overdue, but I hadn’t been towed. I’d have to leave a thank you to the guy who owned the lot. My unit was still standing, not burnt down or looking too much different. The door still needed painting.

I didn’t have my keys.

Oh, I know where I left them, in a little octopus cup about three feet to my right, diagonally-speaking. If you speak diagonal.

I thought about calling Maggie, because I bet she still had a copy of the key. Instead, I leaned over and knocked on the door. Couldn’t hurt.

“‘Bout time,” Wrecks said, opening it. “I was getting tired of watching television.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?” I asked.

“Come on in,” he replied, moving aside. “It’s your place, after all. And you’re still asking stupid questions. You think they’re letting you off the hook that easy? If you don’t maintain a hearth, you could just flit off, maybe head to California, or Cuba. I hear Cuba’s nice this time of year.”

I glanced inside. Everything seemed pretty much the way I left it, if you didn’t count the books off the shelves and all over every horizontal surface. Which wasn’t all that unusual. Truth be told, that’s only how it was five days of the week; I’d pick up on weekends.

“Wait. Who sent you?”

“Dragon. Duh,” Wrecks gave me a look.

“I met your sister Snowflake. And the pile of Dragon bones.”

“Yeah, the King’s got no sense of humour when it comes to nicknames or beasties wot interfere with the Kingdom. Did you do the dirty deed?” he leered. “There’s no Small Kingdom channel, and what with them being wrapped up tight no word was getting through.”

“I’ve got a rule,” I said. “It’s not just a guideline, but a hard and fast rule.”

“Women have a way of making you forget your rules,” he said. He hopped up onto the chair and helped himself to something that smelled like and probably was root beer, if the 2-liter bottle next to him had any connection. “Besides, the King’s awfully persuasive.”

I sighed, and took off my jacket. I plugged my phone into the wall and, after pushing the Lord of the Rings trilogy up against the Coldfire trilogy, sat on the futon in front of the television.

“Children’s programming?” I asked.

“We have danced around in the hearts and minds of those who can wonder without limits for years,” he said, looking as if he were embellishing a poem. “And they tell our stories, although some of them get quite odd.”

“So does the Small Kingdom,” I agreed. I watched as a puppet of some sort danced around with wildly flailing arms and a couple of back-up singers. “You know, I’ve had the dreams of that staircase before, but at least this time each step didn’t complain to me outright.” I leaned back and took a deep breath. “What the heck has been happening here?”

In response, he changed the channel. I resolved to take the remote back from him at the first opportunity. That was power I was not willing to share with the little fey.

The fires were on the screen, blazing orange with black smoke. For a moment I felt the terror again, and I was paralyzed. I realized I had been holding my breath, and I let it out slowly. “Where?”

“North, South, and West,” he said. I tried reading the screen but the words weren’t making any sense to me. I’d never heard of Waldo Canyon. It was like a bad, “Where’s Waldo?” joke ready to happen, and yet it died on my lips.

Dragonfire.

I got up and turned the television off. I walked over to the kitchen, grabbed a clean mug out of the dishwasher where I’d left it, and filled it with ice from the freezer. Apparently Wrecks had a weakness for Ben & Jerry’s. No surprise. I grabbed the 2-liter and poured myself a cup of fizzing soda. I drank it while staring at the wall, a spot that, more than a year ago now, had a picture of Bard the Bowman in the bottom left corner, shooting a black arrow at the underside of Smaug. A blank spot on the wall that could not harm me.

“There’s a lot of questions there,” I said after a moment. “Shall I expect the usual fey mischief in your answers? Or shall you suddenly disappear when I’m close to knowing what’s going on?”

“I am what I am,” Wrecks said, simply.

“Said the Scorpion to the Fox, if I recall. Or Tia Dalma to Davy Jones. But I don’t believe it. You’re the Small Kingdom. You’re abutted right up against us, and you catch a number of my more subtle entertainment cues. Did you read all of these?” I made a gesture encompassing the piles of books cluttering the room.

“Only the ones I had not read before,” he admitted.

I nodded slowly. “What’s the story you’ve given my friends? I know Ed came over.”

“Your friend has found love, or at least lust in the company of a younger man. He’s itching for the chance to bring him over. Your game group has not yet retired your character. Your healer pines for you, and is trying to escape the clutches of her coven. Your Dragon has avowed vengeance on the scaly beast that started this.”

“My Dragon? Which one?” I asked.

“What, you claim more than one? What a puissant wizard you must be. Do you doubt the province of the bones the Seven King offered?”

“I didn’t until you asked,” I said.

“Doubt everything,” Wrecks said. “Save perhaps love. Which is the foulest deceit of them all.”

“I’d fistbump you, but I don’t know if you’d explode or get me sticky or something. I guess what I’m asking is what did you tell them? How did it work?”

“You would unravel the nature of the universe by turning it into an equation, and then forgetting to carry the two.”

“I know that Bloom County cartoon. It’s kind of a favourite.”

“It persists because of its truth. You do not wish to be a wizard, and yet you insist on knowing how it works. The trick is, it works because of will, and because of passion, and it is only when you break the rules that magic happens.”

I leaned back. “I recall saying much of the sort myself. Simulacrum? I’m a trifle jumpy about those these days, but I know Doloise did one. Glamour? Truth?”

“I appreciate that you did not laugh at the suggestion of the last. No, we are perpetually the Hidden Folk. In this, your sister conspired that you had temporary employment in another place.”

I shot right back up. I mean, I literally rose to my feet in alarm. “My sister?”

Wrecks looked amused. “Indeed. She has quite the creative touch and penned the lightning missive.”

“Wait, wait, this is too much.” I was beginning to feel quite dull and tired, not to mention hungry. “What do you have to do with my sister?”

“She keeps secrets, I see.” He looked even more amused, if possible.

“You’ve gone native,” I muttered. I put a hand up to my forehead, because even if it wasn’t a physical headache, I was getting some kind of mental migraine from all the possibilities. He was a lot easier to read than his sister, or he played a different game. My sister? I mean, yes, she was flighty, but that’s an unfair stereotype with which to paint the Small folk.

I changed the subject, sitting back down again. “Know anything of how the witch wars have progressed?”

“Did you kiss the King at least?”

I thought about it. “Is it related?”

“There are connections between anything, and the puppeteers do not know the spiders wait for the pull of the strings,” he said, offhandedly.

I thought that one through. “That is a disturbing image, and I’m not even too much of an arachnophobe. I’m not the kind who kisses and tells.” I paused and let the thought percolate. I swore. “Wait, you’re telling me that the war the King wants is the same war the witches are fighting? What is the relationship between the Gillikins and the Smalls?”

“There are connections between anything,” he repeated. This time he winked.

“Yeah, it’s all fairyland from this point,” I retorted.

Wrecks winced. “You know, we don’t all mince about with pixie wings spreading craft herpes. I don’t care what you call it, just don’t think Tinkerbell so loud, would you? Besides, not all of what’s out there is ours. We’re just the friendliest.” He seemed to consider that. “Well, the leeches are the friendliest, but we’re definitely a close second. Well, unless you consider possession…”

“You’re giving me the heebie-jeebies, man.” I shook my head. “So,  let me see if I get you right. You and my sister told everyone I was on some sort of top-secret mission out of town. Ed, Rohana, and everyone but my Dragon, whoever he, she, or it is. I probably have about sixteen-zillion e-mails, but that’s what Google does. My bills are paid, and you watch too much Sesame Street.”

“Sounds apt,” Wrecks said. “And on your end?”

I figured he’d deserved a little after everything else. “Thomas didn’t hatch, the King is dressed for War, and there’s been no fairy nookie. I am a part of the silver ring club, if that was the King’s bedroom, I didn’t know Martha Stewart did the coliseum look, and I’ve got a song, although I don’t think it’ll be the hit of the year. That about sum it up?”

“Your translations leave something in the murmelthump.”

“Something indeed. Hey, did you sleep in my bed? Do I need to change the sheets or will I get fairy cooties?”

“You turned down the fairy cuties, if I recall.” As I began sighing in response, he continued. “You may sleep without concern of sluagh, piskie, or cootie.”

“I’d like it if that list was a lot longer.”

“Don’t press your luck.”

With that I took myself to bed. I wanted a shower first, but I would have been at risk of a slippery spot. I ignored whatever Wrecks did; as long as he didn’t crawl into the bed with me it was all good.

Or set the place on fire…

Or crease the spines of the Malazan series.

Bed. Bed sounded good. My own bed. To dream, far away from any of the madness.

I hoped.

The kiss suddenly felt like poison, not that I’ve ever gone tasting poison, but it both burned and repulsed in a way that made me feel like something was off.  I felt uncomfortable, somewhat violated… even if it was just a kiss.  Even if I kind of wanted it, which didn’t really make it better.  I felt too warm, too much like even my clothing was loud (by which I didn’t mean it was garish, but like it was shouting at me) and abrasive.  I pushed myself away by taking a step back.

The room around us had changed; there were people in seats around us, and by people, I meant strange creatures I could maybe pull names of from mythology and too many nights reading monster manuals from various role-playing systems.   We were in the base of a coliseum of dark stone and wood, and that same bridge now showed caryatids of more monstrous design.  The coliseum had a dome, more like a baseball stadium, and I could see faint phosphorescence from the roof, like stars made of mushrooms.  The creatures were mostly less than I’d say five feet high, with a few notable exceptions like Darius staring at me.  I couldn’t read his expression.

The eerie thing was just how quiet the audience was.  There was none of the shifting, shuffling, sneezing, wheezy noises of the crowds I was used to, with murmurs to the person next to you, and occasional creaks of the seat as you leaned back and sipped your soda.

What was it that Sir Darius had wanted me to remember?  Something about boundaries.  Eight corners of Colfax.  “Bound an eight time and small things will begin to leak out.”  Or what he said about it at first.  “Small kingdoms do not wage small wars.”

The King was seducing me in front of everyone for a reason.  “The form of war,” Rayya had said.

I didn’t understand ecstatic practice. The King kept dancing around the assurances that I wasn’t being used as a fertility symbol of sacrifice, but this still seemed very fertile. And sacrificial.  The whole egg motif was something from a spring festival or an adult toy catalog, either one.

The egg cracked again, I could see where light came out of it.  The King was still standing next to where I’d been a moment ago, her eyes still dark, and the feathery lashes still unblinking.  “Would you rather be a King than a wizard?” the Viktor in my head asked me.  I voted for “None of the Above,” and thought hard.  The Seven King. Did the Shadow King make eight?  Did I?

In my dream, Matana suggested I had unresolved anxieties regarding violence.  I had not really considered what a war meant.  I figured amongst witches it was a lot of minor inconvenient hexes and being sarcastic at each other.  I began to think that I was wrong.

The aftertaste was war.  It was swords and blood and battle, and the dust from the hooves of horses, and the burning scent of magics of destruction.  War had kissed me.  Better than Pestilence, I guess.

“We can work with, against, or just surrender to the flow of things,” the Questor’s wife said.  Had I been about to surrender?  I had a rule.  A rule about not sticking anything starting with a ‘p’ into inhuman things.  A rule I had almost forgotten, almost been seduced against, after the Messenger, after everything I’d seen.  What was it?

“What is the Seven King?” I asked.

The flicker of change came across the King once more, a roll of change, this time back into the statuesque ebony, and this made a few sounds from the crowd. She turned away to look at the egg.  “We do not love, that we are loved.”

It sounded like a quote, almost biblical, but I didn’t recognize it.  Not that I was likely to unless it was really obvious.  My grandma was a bit of a, well, you wouldn’t call her a skeptic because she was a believer in a lot of odd things.  She believed in gifts of fortune or fate, and that there were shepherds of both wolves and sheep.  In fact, one of her euphemisms for the underworld translated that way.  She was always looking for pysanky patterns in odd bits, like a scryer of sorts.  That said, she didn’t spend a lot of Sundays listening to a preacher-man howling from the scripture and scowling, if you know the song.  I knew the cultural Bible, the bits repeated and part of the otherwise secular discourse as familiar stories and references.  I knew a whole heck a lot more about Star Wars.  Not that there wasn’t a schism against the Lucas testament there, but I think I’ve made my position on that pretty plain.

I didn’t ask the question again; I just waited for an answer.  About all I could think of that had Seven Kings was the quote from Saruman, “…[W]hen you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now.”  But that was Kings, plural.

“Seven Kings, though Kings be men, seven Queens seemed meet to bind them. Seven Kings, and Seven Gates from which powers confined did stem.    A Kingdom Small, in need of Kings, that no other would align, the drifting grace, the levels of place, no other could design.  We are one and seven, and the gifts of sons, and daughter’s tears as endings won.”

Rayya pulled her white robe closer.  “The seven gifts.  Knowledge, kindness, might, beauty, victory, foundation, and kingdom.  Or the seven deadly sins?” she asked.  There was something mocking in her tone.  Her pale skin seemed even brighter in the light of the egg, as if there was a connection between them.

“There are seven colours in the rainbow,” I said, scoffing slightly.  “And I can name seven shapes in my Lucky Charms cereal.  Oh, and seven samurai, seven seas, seven continents, seven wonders of the ancient world, seven chakras, and all seven Disney dwarfs.  You’re not answering the question.”

“What does it matter, Door-closer?” Rayya asked.

“Seven gates,” I repeated.  “Seven seals.  What are you wanting from me, really?  And why is Thomas hatching?”

“Because of you,” she said, simply.

Oh.  I took a moment to think this through. I had already exercised my particular little trick in an unusual way, and this seemed an opportunity to try something different.  To Close the egg.  At least until I knew more of what was going on, because unless he was hatching a plan, I was still grasping at straws, trying to make sense of things.

I continued ignoring the crowd, trying to find that place inside me that I could use to push things Closed.  I felt the edges of the egg like a wound, a piercing shriek of burning marshmallows, a razor-sharp sweet candle, and I slid my mental hands to push the edges together, trapping the chestburster within using its own slime as an agglutinant plaster of sorts.  I felt the pressure building both within the egg, and within the crowd, as if the first was fighting me, and the second aiding, but I almost lost track of both, enveloped in the syrupy shrillness of what was opening.  It didn’t taste of madness, for what it was worth.  Thomas was true.

I had my answer, and the egg was closed.  It was dark again except for ambient light from a number of crystals on the floor, and somehow I felt we were alone.  The three of us.  Rayya, my keeper, a pale guide, the dark statue of the King, brooding, formidable, and myself, a mere mortal man with a trick way out of his depth.

“Speak Secret-Caller.  Speak, Door-Closer.  Tell us what you’ve seen.  Found and lost, dragon’s vassal, speak of what it means.”  The King’s words were quiet, breathless in the sense of I could not hear anyone breathing but myself.

“I am no one’s vassal,” I grumbled.  “Thomas is true, for what it’s worth.  If that’s it, I want to go home.”

The change in the King was sudden, like a PowerPoint slide with a wipe-style transition.  The almost sexless crystal translucent being stood there for a moment, silent.  The light caught the occasional facet and was in turn captured in some fashion, adding to the King’s faint glow.  Rayya was pale and shadowy within her white robes.  Her silver ring reflected the light.

“I am reminded of my duties,” the King said, and her voice was thin and distant.  “I would not have harmed you,” she continued.  Her hairless head turned. “You stand on the threshold, but are no trickster.  The worlds in-between are not for you,” she shook her head, and her dark eyes seemed almost sad.  “Do you tire of my hospitality?”

“The room was great, and the food tasty, but the worlds in-between are not for me,” I said, gently.  This was a different King, one who spoke with the word, “I” instead of the royal, ahem, “we.”

“I had hoped to spare you the pain,” she said, one liquid hand lifting up to my cheek.  “To keep you here while the place you knew raged in fire.”

“Fire?” I asked, concerned.

She dropped her hand to her side, and turned away.  “The breath of Dragons is but the beginning,” she said.

Rayya muttered, “They will give it words like drought, but the hills burn in your land.  There is light and ember upon the mountains.”

I took a step to the side.  “We’re in a drought.  Fire would just…whoosh.”  Colorado had not been getting its necessary rain.  Used to be you could half-predict the farming season based on how late in summer there was still snow on Pike’s Peak.  It wasn’t as good a rule of thumb anymore.  I felt weird.  Not like I could do anything; I knew nothing about fighting fire.  I had an extinguisher in my house, but I hadn’t tested it in half a dozen years, and I never did any frying on the stove because it just seemed like trouble.  Besides, it wasn’t very healthy anyway, although it was the only thing that made leftover fries worth it.

“The war has started, hasn’t it?” I asked.  I knew the answer, but I had to make sure I knew it with my heart as well as my brain.

Rayya said nothing, but the King turned back to me.  “I need not remind you of the mark you bear.  It weighs heavy upon the balance.”  She took a step forward.  “Come, little wizard, let us bring you home.”

“I am not a wizard,” I said, for the umpteenth time.

“Wizard of Portals, mage of doorways.  Which is better, a power that is honed or a potential?” the King asked.  She began to walk along a path of broken black stone.

I found my footing as a grey mist began to rise around us.  “Is that rhetorical?” I asked.  It was probably pretty snotty, but I had already made my choice.

Rayya smiled.  “You did not ask about Ghost-Walker,” she pointed out.  She followed us at a decent pace.

“I figured it was a metaphor.” I shrugged.  It was getting brighter if still foggy.  Things occasionally peered out of the dark grey.  A lamp post.  A fire hydrant.  A gargoyle.

“Nothing our True Thomas said was wasted,” she said.  She sounded a lot farther away.  When I looked back, I couldn’t see her.  I was no longer standing on broken stones, but asphalt.

“Yeah, but he needed an interpreter.  Is there a rhyming prophet to English dictionary app?” I asked, hoping to find her when she replied.

There was only silence.  Then a puff of wind cleared most of the fog.  The grey air smelled slightly of smoke, and the sky above was filled with smog.  The street sign indicated I was about three blocks away from home.  There was no sign of Rayya or the King.

My phone rang.