“It’s the edge of a kingdom,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a crosswalk,” I responded.<\/p>\n
“Strangely enough, we are both stating the truths obvious to us in apparent disagreement, but these truths, however self-evident, can in a declaration exist simultaneously.\u00a0 This is a crosswalk, but it is also the edge of a kingdom.”<\/p>\n
“I suppose like many governmental maps, it’s an artificial boundary, but why have you dragged me to the corner of Colfax and,” I looked up at the street sign, “Monaco, to talk about kingdoms?”<\/p>\n
“Rather, I have dragged you to the eight corners of Colfax and Monaco,” Thomas corrected.<\/p>\n
“I guess you could count it that way, if you wanted to be specific and not just `self-evident.’\u00a0 Was the question not direct enough, or do I need to repeat it in a less appropriate manner to get an answer?”\u00a0 It wasn’t that talking to Thomas was a challenge so much as that he seemed to take the most difficult path.\u00a0 It was a kind of verbal bureaucracy, and, well, words mean things, but they don’t mean the same things to everyone.<\/p>\n
“I want you to meet a friend of mine.”<\/p>\n
“Not the one with the snakes?” I checked.\u00a0 I have been known to get a little nervous around snakes, even if I’m generally alright with them.<\/p>\n
“No, Adelina is busy tonight.”\u00a0 He laughed.\u00a0 “I’ll pass on that you remembered her, though.\u00a0 It will tickle her.”<\/p>\n
“It’s nice to have fans,” I suggested.\u00a0 “However, it’s cold, it’s the witching hour, and the police have been by twice already to make sure we’re not making trouble.”<\/p>\n
“If, by trouble, you mean they’re checking that we’re not having illicit gay sex on the sidewalk, and we’re not buying or selling drugs or women no matter how many offers we get.”\u00a0 He sighed and watched another potential merchant pass with a shake of his head.<\/p>\n
“If you weren’t such a pretty boy, you’d get less of them,” I laughed.<\/p>\n
“The last one asked me how much you cost,” he noted with a half-snarl, half-grin.<\/p>\n
“Hey, I could use a little cash,” I bantered.<\/p>\n
“I’ll be sure to sell you as cheaply as you estimate yourself,” he sighed.\u00a0 “Look over there.”<\/p>\n
He pointed at the set of corners directly opposite.\u00a0 A shadow of a man stood there, waiting for the light.\u00a0 The shadow was probably, well, eight feet tall, and four feet wide, and humanoid.\u00a0 As the light changed, it waddled across the street and became smaller and darker.\u00a0 By the time he had crossed all of the streets, I saw a small man, maybe about four feet tall, in a dark trenchcoat, a soft black hat, and a cigarette.\u00a0 The little skin that was revealed was blue.<\/p>\n
“He’s a troll,” Thomas whispered.<\/p>\n
“Quick and unsubtle to anger?” I asked.\u00a0 I stared.\u00a0 I’d seen some strange things on the streets.\u00a0 A small blue man smoking a cigarette shouldn’t have been that weird.<\/p>\n
“What’cha lookin’ at?” he grumbled under a waft of smoke.<\/p>\n
“Potential lung disease, Sir Darius.”\u00a0 Thomas seemed amused.<\/p>\n
“Eh.\u00a0 War or tobacco, I’m choosin’ the peaceful way.\u00a0 ‘Sides, gotta run to hit my shift down at the station.\u00a0 Gotta have an excuse to walk out of the box now and then.\u00a0 Not everyone out this time of night, they don’t all have credit cards, y’know?”\u00a0 He leaned up against the wall and began gathering a small aura of smoke.\u00a0 “So, this your boyfriend?”\u00a0 He gestured at me with an elbow.\u00a0 His hands had remained in his coat pockets the whole time.<\/p>\n
“Told you you were a pretty boy,” I said.<\/p>\n
“This is the Portal Doctor,” Thomas said, ignoring me.<\/p>\n
“Oh yeah, the one you mentioned to the King.”\u00a0 He looked at me, but I still couldn’t tell you anything about his eyes.\u00a0 I had the feeling they were dark and they glittered, but there was some kind of glamour involved that kept my vision just sliding off his face.<\/p>\n
Or maybe it wasn’t his face.\u00a0 Maybe he really was the 8 foot shadow I had seen before, which meant his blue navel was smoking.\u00a0 This was odd, indeed.<\/p>\n
Thomas waited to see if Sir Darius was going to say anything more, and then replied, “Yes.”<\/p>\n
“Huh,” the troll knight said.\u00a0 “If you could believe anythin’ a Mad Tom says, yer a wizard of some sort.\u00a0 Kind of scrawny, really, but I guess you guys get yer exercise runnin’ demons and stuff down.”\u00a0 He didn’t use the word “stuff.”<\/p>\n
I would never consider myself scrawny, especially as I towered over the troll, but maybe he had different, far more Rubenesque standards.\u00a0 “I’m not the athletic type,” I said, demurring.<\/p>\n
“I don’t care what’cher boyfriend and you get up to,” Sir Darius suggested. “You’re no more ‘n a bite.\u00a0 ‘Sall wizards are good fer, after.”<\/p>\n
“After what?” I began to ask, but Thomas interrupted.<\/p>\n
“He has not taken up your quest, Sir Darius.\u00a0 He is here as an observer.”<\/p>\n
“So yer goin’ do it?”\u00a0 The troll sounded, well, more drunk than anything else.\u00a0 “Thomas, m’friend, yer either Mad or True, and neither of those ever leave well.”<\/p>\n
“Or leave well enough alone,” Thomas agreed.<\/p>\n
“I serve a King of small things,” the troll said, looking at me.\u00a0 It was the clearest utterance I had yet had from him.<\/p>\n
“There can be big surprises in small packages,” I thought of a T-shirt I’d seen Binah wear once.<\/p>\n
“Hoo hoo hoo,” the troll chuckled.\u00a0 “Spoken like a wizard.\u00a0 Look,” and for a moment, I could feel the immensity of the troll, as if he merely kneeled next to me, and spoke into my ear.\u00a0 “Small kingdoms do not wage small wars.\u00a0 I pass through seven boundaries merely to make a mortal’s time, and at that, my King is not seven boundaries small.”<\/p>\n
He smelled like smoke, and like asphalt, and like rock, and like old blood.<\/p>\n
I nodded, as if I understood.<\/p>\n
He pulled out a hand from the pocket of his trenchcoat and laid it on the back of my neck.\u00a0 “‘Member this, ‘mancer.”\u00a0 It felt like that literal ton of bricks that’s mentioned in passing now and again.\u00a0 “Seven boundaries, and seven anchors.\u00a0 Bound an eight time and small things will begin to leak out.”<\/p>\n
“That would be bad,” I guessed.<\/p>\n
He put his hand back into his pocket.\u00a0 “Yer good friend will be walkin’ across the street with me, then I’m catchin’ a bus.\u00a0 Get yerself home.”<\/p>\n
“Seven streets?” I asked Thomas.<\/p>\n
Thomas nodded.<\/p>\n
I never saw Thomas again, but there’s a small set of places where I might, someday, go looking for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Thomas, m’friend, yer either Mad or True, and neither of those ever leave well.”
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