“You shall not pass.\u00a0 You shall not collect two-hundred dollars.\u00a0 The dark fire shall not avail you.\u00a0 You must pay rent on Mediterranean.”\u00a0 She said it in an almost dramatic monotone, if that wasn’t some kind of oxymoron.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So, your non-Flame of Udun burning question?” the Questor asked.\u00a0 He put down his plate, but that’s the only kind of preparation he really seemed to take.<\/p>\n
“There’s a cream for that, isn’t there?” I muttered.\u00a0 “Do I only get one?”<\/p>\n
“Yep, and that was it.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 “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\u00a0saying, `Oh, you had the ruby slippers all along.'”<\/p>\n
“Silver,” his wife corrected.\u00a0 “In the book.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Honestly, wizards multitasked in strange fashions.<\/p>\n
“If they’d told Dorothy that from the beginning, would she have just said, `I’m going home now, good luck with the witches?’\u00a0 That’s not the kind of thing that makes a good story.\u00a0 It’s worse than, `It was all a dream.'”\u00a0 He shrugged.\u00a0 “I’m just not the type to find the frugal life on top of a high mountain to be to my liking.\u00a0 Too cold.”<\/p>\n
“Not enough wi-fi,” his wife grinned.\u00a0 “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.\u00a0\u00a0 I mean, we’re strong believers in narrative causality around here,” his wife interjected, “but you don’t have to find three golden apples.\u00a0 I prefer Fujis anyway.”<\/p>\n
“I wonder,” the Questor mused, “if\u00a0there are granny nymphs, too.”<\/p>\n
“Only polyamorists sow their domesticated oats,” she rolled her eyes at him.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0stuck his tongue\u00a0out at her, and I know she saw it.\u00a0 He\u00a0put his attention to me.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“Do it right, though.\u00a0 If you want to spend the night figuring it out, and then seeing me at the shop, we can do it that way.\u00a0 Although…” he trailed off.<\/p>\n
“The boss,” his wife explained.<\/p>\n
“The boss?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“We’re free, here,” she said, implying they were expensive somewhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At least, that’s how I read it.\u00a0 I nodded, as if I understood.\u00a0 I looked around.\u00a0 Well, we were all wage-slaves to someone, I guess.\u00a0\u00a0 I took a breath, composing my thoughts.<\/p>\n
He held up his hand as if to stop me from saying.\u00a0 “I know one of them is about the Dragon,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That wasn’t a lucky guess,” his wife winked at me.\u00a0 “It’s not often we entertain an actual Dragon slayer in the house.”<\/p>\n
“Trouble is, you only get them on Sundays,” the Questor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Lawyers aren’t always nice,” I retorted, recognizing the quote.<\/p>\n
“But they can be, for a price,” his wife picked it up.<\/p>\n
“Not rules-lawyers, I hope,” the Questor said.\u00a0 “Let me answer that one for you.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was looking for it, and so I was ready to see it.\u00a0 A flicker in his dark eyes, like a flame wavering behind them.\u00a0 Like Peredur?\u00a0 Was the Questor’s trait related to the Dragons?\u00a0<\/p>\n
He wasn’t looking at me, or anything in this world, that was for certain.\u00a0 I could feel something like a brush of the Beyond.\u00a0 It was like opening a door, but it was done within some kind of other structure.\u00a0 It was more like pushing a paintbrush heavy with paint, that kind of smooth cool sensation as you put down the first coat.\u00a0 It didn’t have a sound to it, just the sensation.<\/p>\n
“The path to the cave is coated with ash, and her jewels no longer can defy the darkness.\u00a0 The entrance is blocked by the roots of the forest, and thorns dig deep into her nest.\u00a0 They remain locked in eternal battle, neither able to breathe or grow.\u00a0 Fire would free her, but the ones who came before freed fire, instead.”\u00a0 He shuddered and took a breath, and the flickering of his eyes quieted and was no longer visible.\u00a0 “I can almost see her,” he said, as he came back.\u00a0 “She’s hurt, but it’s a Fisher King sort of hurt, an eternal wound.\u00a0 It’s like…”<\/p>\n
I shook my head.\u00a0 “It’s like she tore out her own heart.\u00a0 More Davey Jones in that popular pirate flick.”<\/p>\n
“She can’t die that way?” he asked.<\/p>\n
I saw his wife smile and shake her head, sadly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m pretty sure her lover did it in some kind of synchronicity.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I think…”\u00a0 I put some pieces together.\u00a0 “Artur’s still alive, then.\u00a0 Holding her back.\u00a0 He had some kind of ancient grudge of the forest against her.\u00a0 I think she broke some sort of cosmic rules.\u00a0 We had to free the fire, though.\u00a0 I don’t remember any jewels.”\u00a0 Thorns.\u00a0 Doloise.\u00a0 “Man, I wish I knew if Peredur had set me up on this, or if he’s just an opportunist.”<\/p>\n
The Questor’s wife’s eyes narrowed.\u00a0 “Peredur?” she asked.<\/p>\n
“Uh, yeah.\u00a0 Interfering Dragon with a grudge against a Shadow King.\u00a0 Know him?”<\/p>\n
She closed her book and stood up.\u00a0 I glanced at the title, but all it was was some kind of travelogue-style journal of some sort.\u00a0 After kissing her daughter on the forehead as she went by, she passed the doorway into another part of the house.\u00a0 I looked at the Questor.<\/p>\n
He shrugged.\u00a0 “Maybe she’s looking up his e-mail.\u00a0 You’d never believe her little black book.”<\/p>\n
I shook my head.\u00a0 “I’ve dealt with wizards.\u00a0 I’d totally believe it.”<\/p>\n
“What’s the second question?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“Speaking of little black books,” I said, pulling the slip of paper out of my pocket, “tell me where that leads.”<\/p>\n
He stared at it for a few minutes, and then sent it back.\u00a0 “Who did you annoy?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“Oh boy, you want a list?”<\/p>\n
He chortled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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