Some practitioners make prayer a part of their practice.\u00a0 Perhaps they have more sympathetic ears listening.\u00a0 I, myself, try to keep somewhat agnostic.\u00a0 I’ve met some small gods at parties.\u00a0 You’d be surprised who you can see at a science fiction convention.\u00a0 (You just thought it was a costume, didn’t you?)\u00a0 Remember, acts of will include belief and disbelief alike – and the faith of powerful practitioners is something scary to see.<\/p>\n
I reflected on this as I looked upon the unwelcome guest.<\/p>\n
He was a wraith on a green hillside beneath a fairytale castle made of bones and mother-of-pearl.\u00a0 He sat at a stone table, upon a stone bench.\u00a0 A jug of what I proposed was wine, and a broken loaf of bread sat on the table.<\/p>\n
For the want of an invitation, the kingdom’s fairest was bound with the prick of a finger into a timeless sleep.\u00a0 For the want of sovereignty one embraces the hag.\u00a0 Fire, food, and friendly conversation is the coin of the realm of Hospitality.\u00a0 It is a strange study.<\/p>\n
I looked past the young man who sat on the hillside and at the portal behind him, covered with shadow.\u00a0 It sounded like thunder.\u00a0 It sounded like the beating of hooves upon one’s heart, half freedom, half being trampled to death.\u00a0 It pulsed with the faintest tinge of ozone like a passing bolt of lightning.<\/p>\n
I felt the edges of the portal constantly pushing against the shadow of the castle.\u00a0 The pulsing was power, a power I was overwhelmed by at each pulse.\u00a0 I hesitated to try even matching its harmonics for fear the creature touching it would feel my hand on it.<\/p>\n
I retreated into the darkness of the cavern, feeling disconnected, like a stranger to myself.<\/p>\n
“Who is he?” I asked.\u00a0 “Who broke bread with him and gave him a seat?” I asked, recognizing the ritual.<\/p>\n
“One of our own,” Doloise shook her head.<\/p>\n
I recognized the pattern. “Brother? Father? Sister’s son?”<\/p>\n
“The dead cannot come to a kinsman’s aid.”\u00a0 I recognized it as a proverb, but probably not from where she thought it came from, amusingly enough.<\/p>\n
“I understand that this scene is how my brain is interpreting the signals of this place.\u00a0\u00a0 The castle, for example, is made of the images of castles in my head.”<\/p>\n
“It is made of the dead.”<\/p>\n
“And lace, pretty lace and rainbows.\u00a0 Don’t forget the rainbows.\u00a0 Nevermind.”\u00a0 I started to pace, thinking.\u00a0 “If I spill blood in order to make the anchor of mortality, I will have broken any hospitality that protects me.\u00a0 No, don’t say anything.\u00a0 You are suspect merely because of what you are, so you cannot give me advice that does not benefit your faction.”\u00a0 I didn’t look to see if she was hurt by my astute observations.\u00a0 I couldn’t afford it – making pretty girls cry affects one’s manly self-confidence.\u00a0 “You cannot affect the portal because the Gillikins are related to the lords who made the invitation, and you would lose your trusted place to the lords.\u00a0 At the same time, he is visited courteously by the lords who hear his poisoned words and the Gillikins are losing their place anyway.\u00a0 Or, at least, that’s how you see it.”\u00a0 I sighed.\u00a0 “By the way, you and your people are the Gillikins.\u00a0 It’s an Oz reference.”<\/p>\n
I stopped.\u00a0 “I could walk away.\u00a0 I haven’t been noticed, because it was your deal with the Questor to keep your people off the radar entirely.\u00a0 If I do this I will be in deep with the Gillikins, but their masters will be publically upset and so you will be able to use that to wiggle out of anything of real value in repayment.\u00a0 I will also potentially be burnt out in the transfer or come to the attention of the nazgul you’ve got camped like a vulture losing\u00a0 its patience.\u00a0 Someone will make a deal eventually – you don’t have the Witch King of Angmar over for tea and crumpets.\u00a0 You talk business.”<\/p>\n
I finally looked at her.\u00a0 She, of course, wore no expression I could read.\u00a0 “But I’m in.\u00a0 I’m in because I know too much now to walk out.\u00a0 You want that festering sore on faerie lanced and I’m the dumb mortal who is going to do it.\u00a0 You’re going to watch my back and not complain about my methods.”<\/p>\n
I didn’t even look back at her as I strolled into the sunshine and down the hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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