

**An Aspie Tells Tales**  
By Bob Kite

Published by Carrie Simmons at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Carrie Simmons

Smashwords Third Edition, License Notes  
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art By Bob Kite

CONTENTS:

Food Chain  
\- Science Fiction, We like to believe humans are the top of the food chain, but we are just the big fish in our very small pond. 2200 words

Newly Dead Newlywed  
\- Supernatural Horror, The origins of a restless spirit, and how she leaves her comfort zone. 4000 words

Family Tree  
\- Post-apocalyptic Fairy Tale, An oak sprite experiences a thousand years of future human history. 5500 words

Felinus Supernus  
\- Science Fiction/Experimental, A post-humanity evolved cat struggles against authority and doctrine to discover true history, as told through various archival sources. 1900 words

Svengolly  
\- Fantasy, A somewhat normal beginning that quickly becomes something of a mind trip, but resolves at the end. 3000 words

Faerie Glen  
\- Fantasy, Beware achieving your deepest desire, then again maybe just go for it. One person's hell is another's heaven. 500 words

Domino  
\- Fantasy, A gritty story of a super-hero fallen on hard times following a personal tragedy. 6700 words

Emergency Evacuation  
\- Science Fiction, A flash story for which I should be ashamed, if such a concept were in my nature. 327 words

Keeping To The Shadows  
\- Fantasy, Something of a social commentary, with a view of life from within the mind of a survivor. 1175 words

Crimson King  
\- Fantasy, The story of a simple country boy and his journey from the fields of his father's magic farm to the Court of the Queen of the Three Realms, and beyond. Caution: a couple of scenes are a bit on the dark side, but that's the nature of evil, as evil seldom appreciates being depicted as wishy-washy. 16000 words

Afterword  
An introduction to me, my conditions, and my motivations for producing this book. 1200 words

Chapter 1: Food Chain

Bzzzzzz bzzzzzz bzzzzzz! The alarm echoed around the seemingly unoccupied pink marble bathroom, the early-morning sunlight seeping through the Taffeta curtains to brighten the start of the day. The penthouse glowed as the resident gloating in that cheerful light well before the lesser beings lower down the Manhattan social structure enjoyed a few moments of the same luxury.

The surface calm of the sunken Roman tub rippled as a few small bubbles appeared. The alarm clock took no notice, methodically sounding off every six minutes as if in irritation. A pinkish gray knob suddenly broke the surface of the water, engorged to unfurl in a disquietingly erotic manner, and smashed the alarm against the wall. The appendage deflated and retreated beneath the surface. A few moments later it reluctantly slipped out and over the side of the tub followed by the rest of the alien being.

The body was boneless, and resembled an octopus' head-sack, but further physiology allowed no further comparison to earthly life. The formless mass squelched into the walk-in shower, spread the buttocks apart on a hanging human-suit, and entered by the anal opening. The body jerked a few times, then reached up to an overhead bar to lift itself off blunt hooks. It walked out the door, stopping a moment at the expansive bathroom window to admire the view of a small corner of Central Park and continued across the sunken living room into the glittering modern kitchen.

The alien opened the refrigerator to choose amongst a dozen pre-packaged meals, chose one, and plopped it into the microwave. It sat on a designer saddle-stool at the green-veined marble counter to shuffle through some notes for the morning's meeting. The appliance dinged to indicate the contents had reached ninety-eight-degrees. The alien placed the package into the nickel-plated sink, removed the plastic cover, then turned around and bent over to allow a tubular feeding tube to exit the body and siphon the pinkish slurry.

It went to the bedroom after cleaning the kitchen and chose a charcoal Armani ensemble, then rode the penthouse elevator to the lobby. The concierge immediately came to attention as the private elevator door opened with a pleasant b-flat chime.

"Good morning, Mr. Smith! Shall I alert your driver to bring your car?"

"No thanks Rochester; it's a lovely day for a walk. I think I'll enjoy the sights."

The February morning was brisk, the temperature still in the teens, but the sky was clear after two days of light snow flurries. The sparkling white cover masked both the famous New York smells and the accumulation of commuter-debris. "Mr. Smith" walked down 6th Avenue, heading for his employer's corporate offices in the mid-forties block. As always, the scurrying yellow cabs utilized six lanes where the markings suggested four. The early shifts were just coming on duty and tempers were still only on a mild boil, moderating the noise to a dull clamor.

Despite a reputation to the contrary, the majority of pedestrians made an effort to avoid contact, leaving room to walk without a jostled elbow as long as one kept up an aerobic pace. The early-morning cold also minimized the number of panhandlers and doorway loiterers through which to slalom, although that would change as the temperature rose.

During the twenty-minute walk, Mr. Smith hungrily eyed the unsuspecting cattle that surrounded him, made even more delectable as puffy coats and jackets enhanced the outline of their portly frames. At his salary, he was only able to afford reconstituted people-pap, and the consequences for unauthorized hunting were severe enough to prohibit any thought of poaching. The first truly fresh meal he had ever enjoyed was during the recruiting party where he signed up for this field assignment. It seemed such a waste to allow all this ready bounty to go to waste, but upper management was very clear on this point. Nothing must ever allow the natives to become aware of their presence, even by inference.

With a mental sigh, Mr. Smith nodded towards the savory, rotund doorman and entered the gilt-framed doors of his destination. He walked across the vast lobby, presented himself to a rent-a-cop standing guard at a side hallway and navigated two turns to end in front of a door marked "Maintenance Personnel Only." A hidden device scanned him and automatically opened the reinforced door with a loud snick. He entered a small elevator, which descended several for minutes before it opened into the boardroom.

The oval table in the center of the room was encircled by twelve chairs, all but one occupied. Mr. Smith's walk had made him the last to arrive, but he was still ten minutes early. The floor, walls, and ceiling, all covered in polished concrete, hid intricate circuitry designed both to inhibit electronic eavesdropping and to facilitate intergalactic communications. The table was a single plank of waxed mahogany, plain except for a milky, round globe inset at the center. The only other items were the occasional electronic notepad or PDA. As Mr. Smith settled, the chairman cleared his throat and started the meeting.

"Let's get right to it. Overall, divisional headquarters is pleased with market trends and commends us on the saturation of the native food supply with cornstarch, corn syrup, and estrogen additives. Mr. Jones, report please."

"The recent danger from national health department inquiries has been quietly neutralized by the planned economic disruptions. Affordability, bulk, and convenience have stabilized as evidenced by sales and population weight gains. Add to that Ms. White's successful promotion of inactivity via video games, reliance on the internet, and affordable giant screen technology, the average American is now spending what, seven hours a day...?

"Actually, an average of nine for Americans, seven for other developed nations."

"Thank you, nine hours a day in sedentary activity."

"Great! Now, Mr. Smith, how are we handling the juvenile problem?"

"Although test markets show a small contingent of loyal customers prefer diabetic flavored children, the teen year's hormonal fluctuations are distasteful in the majority of the test markets. Wholesalers are reluctant to stock fresh supplies, and special orders don't have the profit margin to make them worthwhile. Our attempts at forcing puberty at an earlier age show promise, but we're not quite on goal yet."

"So do you recommend we drop the line entirely, or continue research?

"I'm leaning towards dropping, but in favor of developing a line of snacks by harvesting from third-world countries. Under U.N. nutrition programs, units aged less than six months are tasty, nutritious, and readily available in war-torn regions. Our profit per unit is smaller, but the cost is low, and we can more than make up the difference in volume."

"O.K., work up a white paper, and I'll send it upstairs for approval. Next, I'd like to move the recruiting bullet point up the agenda..."

The poly-dimensional communication globe in the center of the table interrupted the chairman. The milky translucence cleared into a burst of brilliant white light, giving way to a miniature scene of chaos. The viewpoint overlooked an office floor of endless cubicles, bulbous aliens moving around in disarray and evident distress while a cacophonous depth of noise filled the space. A harried head appeared, eclipsing half of the view field and gibbered in a flurry of words.

"Chairman Brown! I only have a few minutes before services cut off. We are ruined! Our competitors have discovered a new food animal inhabiting several hundred worlds . They have the exact same flavor, flesh, and fluids of humans but are non-intelligent, highly reproductive product. No one knows how this came about, but the result is total bankruptcy for our company. Our wholesalers are actually dumping their stocks of humans, and our creditors are calling in all notes and are preparing to sell us off piecemeal. There will be no further transport services available although I will try to convince the government to send a charity junket your way. We both know that will take decades at the least. My recommendation..."

The globe turned milky, then a deep ebony as the carrier signal was lost. The shocked department heads looked in silence to the chairman, hoping for and expecting him to take leadership and comfort their overwhelming fears.

Although they controlled vast wealth in earthly terms, the aliens were wholly dependent on H.Q. for off-world transportation and communication. Chairman Brown quickly reviewed and accepted the situation, for he was a talented leader, and moved to do what was possible.

He pressed a side button on his priority line, sat down, and gave an order.

"Security! Send Mrs. Fortelli into the boardroom."

A small nasal voice impertinently responded, "I'm sorry Chairman; protocol prohibits junior staff from entry..."

"Captain O'Donnal, you are henceforth terminated. Who else is on duty?"

After a minute of silence, another voice answered, "This is Lieutenant Charlotte Kingsly, Chairman. How may I..."

"Kingsly, you are my new head of security. Mrs. Fortelli, boardroom, NOW!"

"Yes sir, Mr. Chairman. Two minutes tops sir!"

Mrs. Fortelli was the chairman's long-time executive assistant. As the boardroom door opened, Chairman Brown smiled, stood up to gesture invitingly, and said, "Mrs. Fortelli, won't you please join us for lunch!"

Mrs. Fortelli maintained a stoically professional face despite her inner confusion as the executives began enthusiastically undressing. She finally broke into a shriek as pinkish gray tentacles began descending from the deflating flesh suits and placed her prone on the table.

An extruded appendage pierced the spine near the base of her neck, paralyzing muscles while allowing her fully conscious brain to produce delicious quantities of adrenaline. The chairman exclaimed, in a voice she neither understood nor long heard, how fresh meat tasted especially scrumptious when basted in strong emotions.

~o0o~

On the other side of a thin, non-Euclidian membrane, a smug amorphous Uber-Entity watched in satisfaction. The unseen shape lowered and twisted a barbed appendage, hooking into the accumulated ectoplasmic-temporal essence that constituted the chairman's soul. The Uber-Entity had been the agent responsible for designing and seeding worlds with genetically engineered human substitutes. The Entity was typically a scavenger of souls lost between the corporal world and the after-life. Although this provided for its continued existence, the Entity found them stale and tasteless.

For a while, it had effectively hunted and consumed live aliens until their science advanced to a point that they could defend themselves en masse. The Uber-entity had succeeded not only in isolating this specific group from their defenses but also provided the race as a whole with their own ecstasy-inducing food source.

As the Uber-Entity rolled the flavorful, screaming soul around its sensoria, it marveled at the freshness and vitality. It could consume all of them all at once, but mustered a great deal of self-discipline and decided to savor them one by one, willing to sacrifice instant gratification for long-term satisfaction. It sighed contentedly as only those at the top of the food chain can.

~o0o~

The made a The trans-dimensional Ancients admired the fine main course centerpiece for the Feast of Transition. As the elder Ancients gave themselves up to the alluring pull of black holes, their unending memories full of wisdom and experiences, they were weary and ready for the next step into the unknown. The parentho-genetic buds of the Younger generation ate their first meal of fattened Uber-Entity, and asked their parents what happens within the singularity.

"No one truly knows, but I believe that time eventually slows to nothing, offering eternal rest. Others, like the Cult of Cukukachoo, tell of a myth where the singularities were purposely designed by an omniscient being to reward elder Ancients for their good deeds in life.

~o0o~

The Grazer Cukukachoo tenuously spread across the vast entropic center of creation. felt cohesion of its constituent parts nearing the breaking point as the universe continued to expand outward, which mad it feel hungry. It reached into a few singularities, pulled a cluster of Ancients, and sent them on the slow journey towards its bowels. The Grazer felt satisfaction as it slowly stripped off and incorporated their essence into its own. Once in a very long while, Cukukachoo squeezed the dense, concentrated remains of indigestible matter and dark energy out of existence, the only form of pleasure Cukukachoo enjoyed besides the act of eating. The waste was forced into a non-region of pre-existence and exploded to form a nascent universe.

The Grazer moved either extremely quickly or glacially slowly, depending upon the observer's perspective. It took a vast amount of time to eat a universe, but given the Grazer's immense size, they were consumed like popcorn. Eventually, on a time scale so large as to be immeasurable, the Grazer's limited intelligence noticed a shiny something appear in the middle of the next universe over.

The something engaged Cukukachoo's interest and awoke long-dormant instincts and feelings it did not know where pre-programmed. The Grazer left the current universe half eaten and veered towards the something. The something tasted exquisite as the Grazer slowly enveloped it. Suddenly (or at least it seemed sudden to the Grazer), the something extruded spiky ridges into several dimensions and embedded in the Grazer's gut. Cukukachoo felt betrayed as it was pulled it out of the familiar matrix it had always known. The last feeling the Grazer experienced before it expired was the strangeness of flopping alongside a string of other Grazers. It had always assumed it was the only one.

~o0o~

"Let's head back to shore, Junior, before this string of Grazers begins to rot. It has been a long day, and I'm starving!"

~end~

Chapter 2: Newly Dead Newlywed

Mary squealed as her husband of two hours carried her over the threshold. That feat was slightly more impressive given she was not as slim at twenty-five (it also happened to be her birthday) as in her youth, plus she was eight and a half months pregnant. William made a manly three steps onto the marble floor of the cavernous entry and set her gently on her feet just before his trembling legs gave out.

Mary was the last of an ancient bloodline. Although most of the money was gone she was the heiress to several original blocks of old San Francisco properties, including the hundred and fifty-year-old Victorian four-story, she had just entered for the first time. Along with the remainder of the family fortune, she also inherited the quirky conditions placed on the trust fund. She would gain full receivership upon reaching her twenty-fifth birthday, as long as she remained unmarried and childless. Technically, she just met those requirements.

William was a newly minted dot-com millionaire who worked out of Silicon Valley to the south. The two fell deeply and compatibly in love at a Forty-Niners' corporate box playoff event nearly a year previous, a love so strong it almost cost Mary her inheritance.

" Yaarghh!" Mary exaggerated a yawn with a twinkle in her eyes. "I'm exhausted, think I'll go find the honeymoon suite and hit the hay. I'll race you up. Winner gets the choice of bedside!"

William glanced down at her very pregnant belly, clever enough not to verbalize his question but communicated his point with a raised eyebrow."

Of course," She drawled, "It's your job as the man of the house to take up the luggage."

As William stood and wondered how best to respond to her blatant sexism, Mary started up the grand staircase at full waddle.

~o0o~

After a passionate but carefully considerate "official" consummation, William started for the master bath and stripped off what remained of his tux in preparation of a much-needed bath.

"Oh, by the way." William said as he veered off to rummage through a large Louise Vuitton, "I wanted to make something extra special for your wedding-birthday-majority gift. The Board chose my department to test the pre-release home version of our new three-D printer. The modeling software integrated like a dream."

William offered his outstretched cupped hands that cradled what appeared to be a perfectly detailed newborn baby with eyes closed in peaceful sleep. Her left thumb slipped to the first joint into the tiny rose-petal lips while her bent hips drew the tiny legs halfway towards the inch-long umbilical cord. Her knees bent slightly into a natural fetal position that only the very young find comfortable. Except for the too-pink color of the soft plastic, the infant was perfect in every way. Mary extended a tentative finger to touch the fanned-out right hand and traced each finger.

"It... she is so incredible. There are even cuticle beds beneath the fingernails, and eyelashes! How?"" asked Mary in wondered tones.

"I downloaded the six-month sonograms, expanded them to approximate birth size, uploaded to the three-D printer, and a few hours later, there she was! If you run your teeth along the back of the head, you can feel the individual layers the solidifying laser built up from the liquid slurry."

"I'll do no such thing!" she interrupted, offended by the very idea, "She is special, though, thank you my genius lover."

~o0o~

William set the temperature to slightly below scalding, slid into the generous sized antique claw-foot tub, and closed his eyes for what he planned to be only a few moments. He sighed in pure contentment, both from the relaxing heat and his life in general. He opened his eyes, ready to get on with the job of matrimonial-level grooming.

The sun had dropped below the Bay hills, which lowered the ambient light within the unfamiliar room. He could not find the soap anywhere within reach and thought he might have missed it in the dark. The light switch, an old-fashioned dipole punch-button from the house's original conversion to electricity, was a full arm's length beyond his reach.

He seriously did not want to get out of the water into the cooling air. He stayed mostly submerged as he reached for the three-legged iron toilet-paper holder and attempted to use it as a remote control. He slid back against the fluted end of the tub and reached the white-circled "on" button of the light switch.

His weight shifted at just the wrong time and his slippery body slid along the porcelain so that the iron rod touched both buttons at the same time. The deteriorated wiring arced in a direct ground and completed an electrical circuit into the water through William's highly conductive body.

Mary at first thought how nice that William put on the teakettle, but the chattering whistles became a staccato scream as William's vocal cords tightened from the electrocution. She abruptly realized her beloved husband was in distress and ran through the doorway. William was ridged on his back and his extended legs pushed his shoulders past the lip of the tub. His cramped hand gripped the iron rod of its own accord and his entire body vibrated in agony. His final movements before the circuit breaker tripped were fluttered eyelids that made the whites appear to strobe.

Mary grabbed her new husband's hand without thought of consequence and reached to remove the metal rod. A final electrical surge arced to her hand an inch before she made contact and threw her back onto the toilet tank. The fifty-year-old fuse finally melted and cut power.

For William, it was too late as Death separated spirit from flesh. A few moments of eternal pain later, Mary felt her child exit the womb. After three struggled breaths, the infant's soul met her father's, who gently and lovingly gathered her tiny bemused spirit to his ectoplasmic chest.

Mary lay at a balance point, half in each world, wholly in neither. She slowly came to awareness as the room swayed and bobbed around her. She finally noticed William and their baby as they undulated in synch with the room. Mary realized it was she who was in motion and was floating a foot above her bloody contorted body.

There was an ethereal, braided cord that connected her ghost-navel to that of her almost-corpse. She ran a hand from her belly down the cord and pulled. The action wafted her towards the floor until she was softly swaying on her feet. Mary's voice, when she finally spoke, was wispy and tenuous, modulated like waves on a shallow sandy beach.

"Oh, William! This can't be happening. We can't be...this is our wedding day!"

She refused to look towards or in any way acknowledge her baby's blue tinged unmoving body as it lay on the floor between her bent legs. Williams voice sounded soft and far away but was clear and full of sadness.

"You are still alive, my light and my love. Keep us always in your heart. I don't know exactly where we are going, but I can feel the pull. I do, somehow, know for a certainty that you will continue to an enviable age. When it is your time, our baby girl and I will be there to meet you. I promise."

He paused for a moment to kiss his daughter's ethereal forehead while she sounded a soft, bubbly coo as if in agreement.

"She says her name is Margaret, and that she loves you very much. I'll have to call her Margie though, because to me, "Margaret" will always be your great-aunt. That woman still intimidates the bejesus out of me, and I really hope she won't meet us on the other side. Not that I expect her to have ended up in heaven."

William's sardonic humor was, for him, so classically normal that Mary momentarily forgot their surreal situation. William also had a phantom umbilical that connected his body and soul. It slowly pulsed with mother-of-pearl light and dissipated starting at the corpse, reminiscent of a slow-burning fuse.

Baby Margie's tether to the mortal realm also began to undergo the same transformation. Mary, forced past her denial, issued a challenge toward God, or the universe at large should He/She/They not be listening.

"No. NOnononono! I am NOT losing my family!"

Mary grabbed a double handful of her life-anchoring cord, and despite the bottomless well of pain, pulled, and yanked. She was intent on breaking the bond in order to travel on with those she loved more than life itself.

"Mary, please...I don't know the full consequences, but I do know you will suffer if you do not stop.

"I!-pull-Don't!-yank-Care!-pull"

An ugly black bruise enlarged around her body's abdomen with each pull. A fully formed idea appeared in William's mind, but from where he could not tell. He paused and weighed the alternatives presented to him.

The choice was an eternal horror he knew faced his beloved bride, or an open-ended sentence of imprisonment for this daughter who captured his heart the moment she was conceived. He made his choice, pressed his phantom lips once again to Margie's tiny forehead, and tenderly laid her spirit into the realistic model doll of herself.

Margie's new surrounding felt...familiar. It was unyielding and confined, yet she felt much more comfortable than during her brief stint in the outside world. She automatically curled herself to conform to the doll and jammed her spirit thumb into her mouth. She relaxed and fell into the first restful slumber since her birth or death.

"Mary, look, she's bonding. Margie is not going anywhere for quite some time. She needs her Mommy to look after her and love her."

A soft glow pulsated from the remnant of plastic umbilical stub as the formerly inanimate object gained life, of a sort. Mary sobbed and gave up her struggles, then collapsed in a slow motion and fell back into her still breathing body. She opened her eyes and was overwhelmed by pain, both physical and emotional. She wanted to drop into catatonic despair and never come out.

A stab of white-hot pain impaled her uterus and forced a scream that echoed off the bathroom tiles. In the after-silence, she heard a non-directional thin cry, unmistakably that of a hungry baby. Mary half-rolled off the commode base where she had been thrown and reached for her daughter, or at least where she knew her daughter resided. She brought the fetal model to her breast and heard Margie gurgle, happy and content. Of course, no milk passed through the unmoving plastic lips. But then, what is Mother's milk other than a conduit for a Mother's love, the perfect nourishment for any soul.

Mary knew she must remain alive, to honor her husband's sacrifice and to ensure the happiness of her daughter. She was too weak to crawl, but after a few heroic attempts she could hooked her foot through William's discarded tuxedo jacket. He always kept his phone in the same pocket, and was consistent to the end.

~o0o~

The next sixty-five years, Mary and Margie led a simple, timeless life. Every morning after breakfast, baby would receive a careful bath. After toweling and dressing, they moved a small ornate prom from room to room while Mother went about her daily running of the estate. At four in the afternoon, weather permitting, Baby would be appropriately dressed and they took luncheon under the veranda in the high-walled back garden.

They spent evenings together either in the conservatory for piano practice, reading classics out loud in the library, or with needlework and mending in the drawing room. A light snack before retiring, then Margie would be dressed warmly in hand-knitted bedclothes and placed in her bassinet beside Mary's bed. Every other Saturday, they received visitors in the rear entrance, mostly grocery-deliveries and tradesmen. They received the occasional charity representative in the anteroom, where in exchange for humoring Mary's eccentricity each received a carefully calculated tax offset.

One Saturday each month, they met with a junior partner of her trusted legal retainers in the overly masculine study to sign the usual variety of documents. Her portfolio seemed regularly to increase so that money was, for them, irrelevant to their lifestyle. The smartly attired agents were always solicitous of Margie's' welfare and never failed to bring her a small gift which ended up on a special-built shelf above her bassinet.

For Margie, the outside world simply didn't exist. Mary kept neither radio nor TV, and the rhythm of each week turned to seasons which turned to decades. Margie grew strong in will and spirit on her mother's love and devotion and felt only harmless amusement issue from the few visitors. She never grew up, in the normal sense, but she did mature with age.

Mary also aged, in the full traditional way of life. While she baked a small cake for their shared (her ninety-first) birthday, she suffered a debilitating stroke. This was on a Friday morning but due to her otherwise good health she survived until a concerned grocery delivery boy found her the next afternoon.

Despite her doctor's concerns, Mary's solicitors engaged a home-care team that included an on-site nurse twenty-four seven. Mary remained bed-ridden and unable to either talk or grasp small items. As the care workers soon learned, the only time she made a fuss was when they removed her "baby" to change the linens and give Mary her scheduled sponge bath.

When Mary's terminal breath finally signaled the end of a long and arguably fulfilled life, Margie watched her mother's spirit dissipate in a scintillating fog of translucent color. She passed in a peaceful sleep so different from the stress of a violent death of her beloved groom so many years earlier.

Margie could tell this moment was near for the past couple of days. She had hoped to tell her mother good-by and maybe return a hug between spirits in appreciation of a lifetime of shared plastic ones. Mary fell into a coma at the end and missed her own translation into the next world so Margie never got the chance. As her mother's body cooled, Margie realized for the first time in her entire experience that she was alone.

~o0o~

The coroner's assistant wheeled the body away and closed the bedroom door behind. That was the last person Margie saw for the next month. She experienced loneliness, boredom, and finally fear. On the third night, she felt claustrophobic and panicked. She slowly drifted out of her plastic body and floated in the middle of the room. She hadn't known she could do that! As she calmed, Margie wondered what other undiscovered talents she had.

She caught a pearlescent glow at the corner of her vision and slowly rotated until the diffuse light was in the center of her view. She wanted a closer look and without conscious volition floated towards the light. She had stopped an inch before they touched. Margie giggled in tinkling laughter at herself as she realized she was looking into her mother's vanity table mirror.

There was not much to see but a dim smear of translucent colors that slowly wavered in and out of sight. In the full light of day, Margie discovered she was all but invisible. Direct sunlight also made her sluggish and tired. She simply re-entering the familiar body substitute she had occupied since shortly after she came into the world and napped the day away.

She spent her nights exploring and discovered she could ooze her way through walls, floors and ceilings with little effort. She was even able to hover outside the window a story above the garden. There were, she soon found, limitations. After twenty feet in any direction she began to feel a tug in the area she pictured her abdomen lay.

Further away than that she experienced increasing pain in her belly, as well as a panicky paranoia. One night, overcome with loneliness and despair, she took the equivalent of a running start and felt a snap when she exceeded her limit. She awoke in the morning ensconced in her plastic body, rudely startled as the bedroom door opened with a bang. That was the day her life changed forever.

"Dang, this furniture looks heavy! We'll need to break it all down. Get to it, boys."

"Hey boss, I can't find the hardware, no bolts or screws or nothin'."

"Idiots. These are real antiques, early eighteenth-century German, I'd say. That's why the auction house is so excited to have them for tonight's show. They're all put together with hand-made wooden pegs, just follow the seams and pull. It's all solid wood, so don't worry about breaking it."

"That did it. Just the furniture?"

"Lazy bunch of bums! Yous should know the drill by now; clothes, blankets, and soft goods into the hinged bins. The stock manager will sort it later and donate all the junk for a hefty tax deduction, probably enough to pay all our salaries. Now, move butt!"

~o0o~

Lavinia was four years old, barefoot, thin, and smudgy. She stood within a wonderland of desire and opulence, or what a more entitled family would consider a low-end second-hand store. The shiny metal forks and spoons mesmerized her, and she sighed as the light sparkled through the glass bowls and cups.

Everything was all so much nicer than the used Tupperware and plastic picnic spoons she used at home. The toy shelf was an almost reverential experience. She learned through welts and bruises that these were all forbidden and willed herself to stand just out of reach, plus one more step back in case she wavered.

She heard her momma arguing with the store lady behind the counter and knew it was time to go. Momma had a pile of pretty clothes. There were also shoes with really high heels that made Lavinia fall over when she tried to walk in them, and some big sparkly jewelry Momma covered herself with before she went out to work most nights.

"The sign says all jewelry ten percent off on Tuesdays. This is Tuesday, and these is jewelry, and it's the law that you gotsta gimme the discount."

"I already explained to you, Ma'am, you need a store discount card to get the discount. I'd be happy to give you the card if you'll just give me a phone number."

"And I 'splained to you, biatch; that phone is for work only. I can't just give it out to anyone."

"Look, give me any number, or just make one up."

"I ain't no liar..."

The line had backed up by nine more customers, and with her manager out on lunch break, the cashier made an executive decision.

"Fine, I'll use mine. That's five pieces of jewelry, minus ten percent, here's your dollar back."

Lavinia's momma had not really expected to win the fight, she seldom won anything, or she would have bought another egg of nylons or a nice hat. She glanced at the clock on the wall and knew she dared not get home late. On the other hand, if she still had the dollar Big Frank would just take it back, or give her a chin check for holding out on him.

She noticed Lavinia had made it to the front of the store and was waiting on her. In a rare good mood from winning the argument, she bent down to her daughter.

"Hey, baby, yo' birthday in two three days, take this and get a present."

Lavinia's eyes grew wide and she nearly lost her water as she tentatively reached for the first folding money she had ever touched in her life.

"Hurry up, though, I ain't waiting."

Home was only ten city blocks straight down the Boulevard, but it was a scary neighborhood for street-smart adults, let alone a not quite five-year-old. Lavinia ran fast as possible to the toy shelves, overwhelmed by the endless choices. She saw a newborn baby doll fall from the top shelf, almost as if it tipped over by itself. A small clear voice said, "Hello Lavinia, I'm Margie. Take me home and I'll be your best friend."

Lavinia always tried to be a good girl and do what she was told, since it could be painful to not. She grabbed her new best friend and ran to the front, slapped the dollar up on the counter and waited politely if not patiently. The cashier looked at the four-ninety-nine price, remembered putting the ugly thing on the top shelf at least six months earlier, and her heart melted. She could not imagine what hell this poor little waif's life must be. The cashier pulled the tag and rang up one dollar and reached into the "take a penny leave a penny" jar for the sales tax. She was rewarded by a look of pure joy.

~o0o~

Lavinia's room was the space beneath the stairs that lead up to Momma's room, which she was forbidden to climb. Sometimes Big Frank would sleep up there too, or sometimes other of Momma's friends, but they only stayed for an hour or less, usually a lot less. The rest of the downstairs consisted of an eight-by-twelve-foot room with a small kitchenette at one end and which shared the space with a curtained-off toilet and shower alcove.

A black-and-white television, attached to a giveaway DTV converter box, stood against the outside wall. It was never turned off and provided Lavinia her main comfort and entertainment. She could not remember a time she was not left on her own during the long nights while Momma was out working. The television also provided Margie with an expanded, if somewhat skewed, exposure to the world at large.

Over the next full year, Lavinia somehow survived, due in great part to learning how to cook boxed macaroni and cheese. Meanwhile, Margie learned aspects of human nature that had been missed during her upbringing, aspects such as neglect, fear, cruelty, and especially loneliness. She was not impressed.

In the wee early hours that followed one of Momma's increasingly frequent parties, Lavinia shook in misery within her closet room. She really needed to pee, but she peeked through the crack in her doorframe and saw a scraggly couple passed out on the dilapidated couch.

She normally would never leave her room with strangers in the house, but felt she was much too old to have an overnight accident. She finally found the courage to sneak to the toilet. The plastic privacy curtain suddenly swooped open and revealed a skeletal gap-toothed crack-head who leered down at the terrified girl.

"Ain't you a pretty little thang? Just like yo' Ma, only fresh and cute. How about a little sugar, Sugar?"

The frightening stranger winced and reached down to pull the forgotten syringe out of his arm and loosen the tie-off. Lavinia took the opportunity to slip her ankles out of her panties which was quicker than trying to pull them up into place. She tried to run past the danger and aimed for the stairs and hopefully Momma, but an arm snaked out and caught her hair.

The hand suddenly jerked open and dropped Lavinia to the floor as she looked up to see the face wrenched in rictus. Drool gobbed down the corner of his mouth and both eyes rolled up to show the yellow-tinged whites. A thin tight scream fought its way out his spasmed throat, but silence followed as the addict settled back to a relaxed stance. His eyes, however, remained white and pupil-less.

A strangely pitched voice, hauntingly feminine, issued out of the possessed man.

"Don't worry sweetie, I have him under control."

"Margie? Is that you?"

"I was called Margie as a child, but I'm all grown up now. Call me Margaret."

Margie had followed Lavinia to the toilet and hovered nearby when she noticed the man struggled groggily to his feet and wove quietly across the room. She had no concept of the depravity in his mind, but to her very being she understood he meant evil. As he grabbed Lavinia's hair, she simply attacked and dived into his body confront him spirit to spirit.

The soul she found was wizened and black, abused and rotted, and incapable of fighting back. She cast it out, where its curled edges withered inward as it descended into a netherworld best left to the imagination. As she settled into his body, Margaret felt quite comfortable.

She thought "Didn't realize I could do that either. I wonder if I can find a ghost owner's manual somewhere? Pretty cool."

Margie's life was cozy and safe during her first half-dozen decades, a loving incubation. Margaret intended her next century to be fun. She walked over to the couch where the other addict remained passed out and sat near her. The man's body slumped over dead as Margaret abandoned it. After a moment, her new body stood up and shoved the old one off to the floor with a disgusted look. She got up and stooped under the closet to retrieve her baby-doll body which was, after all, home. This current body was just a meat puppet, one of many more to come.

"Take care Lavinia, I'll be back to check up on you, but I have things to do. Love you, little one, see you soon."

~end~

_  
_  
Chapter 3: Family Tree

Once upon a wintertime, there lived a mighty tree that overhung a shallow, frozen creek. Snow covered grasslands rose gently eastwards, then sharply sloped into endless foothills. Westward, across the creek, a large valley flattened outwards towards the far horizon. One day a passing bird dropped a small seed, which became the only tree, of any kind, in any direction within sight. The tree grew season by season into a mighty, solitary oak. Deep inside the thickest portion of the trunk curled a wizened, nut-brown tree sprite known as Byrl.

Byrl slumbered peacefully within the heart of her tree ever since true winter began nearly three months earlier. A restless dream brought her awake and had it only been mid-winter she would have rolled over and continued to snore. The weather, however, had warmed during the previous week and began to melt the ground frost.

Byrl could feel her tree's sap thin but not yet flow. In a dream, she was just giving in to the amorous advances of a luscious Merman, who suddenly morphed into a nightmarish incubus that attempted to devour her life force. Dream-Byrl was yanked out of her tree and pulled into the stream, held under the rushing water by grotesque creek-naiads. An oversized pair of webbed hands grabbed her head and began slamming it against a jutting rock, in a strange triple-paradiddle rhythm...tap tap tap, tap tap tap.

Her eyes snapped open, awakened by the early-season woodpecker that tapped her bark in search of grubs. Byrl uncurled and stretched a bit to try and shake off the residual anxiety. It wasn't the drowning or head banging that stayed with her, but the feeling of separation from her treasured oak. Byrl wasn't sure if she even could leave her tree, but she knew for sure she never had the desire.

She existing in a state between spirit and matter, and as such remain anchored to her symbiont. Since she was awake, Byrl took a deep breath and stretched. She willed her perception up and out until her being filled the twenty-foot tall by eight-foot gnarled tree. She exhaled slowly and coalesced into a bird-sized presence that sit on a branch to confront her assailant. "Hello Birdie, a little early aren't we?" she asked.

The young woodpecker froze with a sideways stare at the nearly human five-inch figure. It decided Byrl was neither threat nor food, gave a few half-hearted taps on the wood, then gave up and fluttered away. Byrl followed the red-mohawked male with her eyes, able to track the tiny, rapidly pulsating spirit long after the physical body had disappeared into the bright morning. As well as their physical bodies, she could see the spirit essence in all animals as well as communicate simple thoughts and emotions.

She decided to take a stroll but decided to walk rather than climb. Gravity for a sprite remains polarized towards the surface on which they walk. They are able to apply or disregard orientation, movement, force, and other mundane physical laws at their discretion. Even in the strongest storm, from a sprite's viewpoint, the outside world wildly fluctuated and gyred around while they remain perfectly stable.

The sun was warm, but the breeze was cool, and everywhere north-facing shadows lay, patches of snow remained from the last storm. An inch or so of ice still rimed the creek along the north bank, but a trickle of water pushed along an occasional bubble beneath the crystalline covering.

Byrl enjoyed a full social life most of the year, including both sprites and animals, so began feeling a little depressed surrounded by the intense quiet. It was early in the season, but she thought the creek-naiads might be dozing in the weak sunshine. She shrank herself to pin-head size and squeezed through her tree's capillary cell-walls slide down through a major taproot that dangled out into the creek.

Byrl did find half a dozen fishtailed naiads lying with their faces to the sun, but all were still in deep slumber and unresponsive to her gentle call. A cloud moved in front of the sun as a cooler breeze shivered the branches. "Enough for today!" she said to herself. "A couple of weeks and a good nap should bring more lively company."

Byrl expanded once again for a final look around and then shrank into the heart of her tree to curl up for the last of winter's hibernation.

~o0o~

Byrl loved her life and the life of all those around her. She awoke at first light and began the grand tour of her tree's major branches to visit her newly born spritelings. As each new leave began to uncurl from a tiny bud, a miniature version of her emerged, albeit with the addition of tiny translucent wings. There would be over two hundred thousand of them by summer, more than she ever could get to know personally, but each held a special place in her heart. Although leaf sprites were rather silly, sexless creatures that lived only a season, they always added joy and laughter to her nearly four hundred years of life.

A noisy flock of birds interrupted her walk as they gathered around and sang a welcome song to the morning. She reached out to a mated pair and gently scratched between their eyes, which they closed a moment in pleasure and trust. The flock suddenly jumped into flight to follow their leader, then circled twice before they dropped to the creek for an early-morning drink and their never-end search for possible snacks.

Several creek-naiads rose to the surface and used their tails to ambush the birds with splashing water. They were immediately drenched in return as the birds fluffed and shook sprays of water, all in fun. Later in the summer when the heat settled in, Byrl would join them. But, for now, her mind was on the next major event in her yearly cycle; the birth of her daughters.

~o0o~

As each flower opened along her tree's branches, a petite, precious fairy uncurled from the center to greet the world. The surrounding tree sprites, eager to play and tease their new sisters, immediately turned and set upon them. Byrl went from one branch to the next and gently chided the sprites while she welcomed her infant fairies. Though the sprites lived only three-quarters of the year, the fairy lives were even shorter and so that much more cherished.

The sprites flew at will up to a hundred yards from the tree, which brought no end of mischief to the surrounding animals and nature-spirits. The fairies faded into nothingness if they went further than their short arm's-length from their flower. They soon seemed to appreciate their sisters' enthusiasm, and participated in their games where possible, but wistfulness lay upon their faces that only Byrl fully understood.

One week later, Byrl awoke to a noisy commotion at the edge of a thick branch. Hundreds of sprites milled about, half in angry possessiveness and half in curious excitement. Byrl transferred to the location of the mob and her expectations were confirmed. A bumblebee buzzed as it visited flower after flower and carried a male version of another tree's fairy riding upon its back.

At the visitor's approach, each flower's tiny fairy tried to enchant the male with enticing dance, their suppleness and beauty exceptional beyond human experience. The mounted fairy speculatively eyed each unique femme fatale, but how was he to choose? Suddenly, for no reason any outsider would understand, his pupils grew wide, his breath fast and shallow, and he fell smitten.

He jumped from the bee to take the lucky flower fairy by the hand, and they joined in a dance that took the breath away from all who saw them. They began spinning quicker and quicker and clung closer to each other with each revolution until they became a blur. They physically merged with each other and disappeared into the flower's stamen.

In time, the flower would fall and be replaced by a tiny seed. The fairies cocooned within were merged into a potential Byrl, where they awaited Fall and fate to discover if they would find the proper conditions to sprout and perhaps mature into a mighty tree themselves.

The disappointed, overlooked fairies did not have long to sorrow. Each following day of spring seemed to bring more and more male fairies on the backs of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and on whatever else they could hitch a ride. All had a merry time as the sprites soon learned to playfully interfere, not that the couples paid them any attention. Before long, the sprites tried to imitate the mating dances with each other, or in a pinch with any passing creature they came upon. Although their acrobatic performances were entertaining, they could not match the pure beauty of true love.

This was the time of the year Byrl most loved when the acres around her tree were vibrant and alive with life both in the semi-spiritual world and the natural. She always made time, of course, to visit the river naiads and their aquatic creatures. She also enjoyed the company of every other living soul that came within reach, from earthworms and insects to passing rabbits, moles, foxes, and birds.

Byrl's social life became less frenetic as summer continued, but the long days remained filled with cherished relationships as seasonal visitors, many whom she knew from their birth to their death, stopped to visit. The more intelligent species loved Byrl's wisdom and tenderness, for even though she was immensely longer lived than any, she remembered and valued each of them. She was always willing to spend time and give advice without an agenda of her own.

Late fall through early winter was a melancholy time. Not only due to the departing of old friends, but also the passing on of her tree sprites. As the weather grew colder, she could feel her tree's sap as it retreated to the roots and inner core, which resulted in leaves that slowly faded away. With each change in color, a leaf's sprite wrinkled and aged, and spent more and more time just lying about and soaked up the waning afternoon sunlight.

As each brown leaf finally separated from its branch and floated gently down or was violently blown away on an autumn wind, its sprite slowly faded from existence until it was no more. In the end, only a few hardy leaves remained to cling tenaciously to the hibernating branches. Byrl patiently visited each remaining sprite to ease their fears until they too passed.

Finally, during a bitter, extended ice storm, Byrl took a last look around and huddled into the center of her trunk to sleep the winter through.

Decades passed in a pleasant, languorous rhythm.

~o0o~

A new herd-species appeared on the grasslands. At first, only a couple of small groups of the shaggy bison wandered by and stopped for a drink along the bend slightly upstream. The next week, an additional hundred meandered across the landscape. Soon after that, groups in the tens of thousands thundered by in great dust clouds and temporarily drove all smaller wildlife to find shelter from the massive beasts.

From that season on, twice a year, the immense herds rolled through. Beyond the commotion, they had no impact on Byrl since none had the time or temperament to stop and converse. Byrl paid them no more attention than she did any of the other portents of the changing seasons.

Many years later, she noticed another new species that come on the heels of the bison, small herds of upright bipeds that loped along the same trails and vanished over the hills. This new pattern continued year after year while the two-legged predators attacked their four-legged prey. This didn't bother Byrl one way or the other as nature had its own way to feed and provide for all her children. Byrl did notice that these predators seemed quite solicitous of the departing life forces of the bison and treated them with respect and honor. Byrl approved.

~o0o~

The day was warm, and the hunt was a success, so the tribesmen carried their meat and hides to the shade of the tree, washed and cooled themselves in the stream, and rested. The hunters were happy, and not just with the hunt. They looked at the location of the tree, stream, and sheltering hills behind and decided to bring their elders and shaman to pass judgment on the possibility of making seasonal camp.

A few weeks later a larger band returned to survey the area. An ancient medicine man, nearly as gnarled as the oak, hobbled up and stood beside the tree. Byrl could tell his soul was special as he appeared to see into the foggy midlands between the spirit world and the natural world that Byrl inhabited.

At first, he just stared at the tree, patient and still, waiting. Byrl became curious, so pulled herself into the trunk from the overhead branch where she sat and formed her face against the bark at the same level as the shaman.

"There you are wily tree spirit! Surely, you're not afraid of one old man."

Byrl was quite surprised just from being noticed, let alone the shaman's direct speech and droll manner.

"Do you have a name, spirit, or has your age made you rude and curmudgeonly?"

She was so taken aback, as well as slightly annoyed at the slight, that she fairly shouted, "Byrl!"

The shaman tilted his head, concentrated deeply, and repeated in a slow whisper, "Byrrrrl."

"Well, hello Byrl, pleased to meet you. I am Tuku Nan, shaman of the People. We have been blessed by the Great Creator, growing in numbers and power over our enemies, and ask your permission and wisdom to camp within your domain."

Since Tuku Nan spoke in loud, well-enunciated syllables. Other elders joined nearby to witness the conversation if not to participate. Tuku Nan reached into the small leather bag that depended from his neck and withdrew a garland of dried branches woven into a wreath. He placed it on a low-hanging branch and stood back.

"Tonight we shall entertain you with dance and song, and if you are pleased, we ask for a sign of your acquiescence."

With the ceremony finished, the people dispersed to find bison patties for the fires and set about making camp. At sunset, a respectful distance from the tree, they set a large bonfire. The flickering light did make Byrl more than a little apprehensive. A lightning–caused brush fire burned her in her early years, which was the one truly painful experience of her long life.

She soon saw that the fire was well controlled and lost her concern. The drums that accompanied the singing and dancing pleasantly resounded within her wood. Periodically, by twos and threes, dancers made their way from around the fire to circle her trunk and sang words of praise and respect for her wisdom and asked her protection. No other animal had ever shown her so much respect.

The ceremonies finally wound down an hour before dawn, and Byrl thought what wonderful friends these People would be. She remembered Tuku Nan's request for a sign and thought awhile. She really had little power in the natural world, and not all that much within the spirit side, but then she remembered the garland on her branch and smiled.

Shortly thereafter, the shaman also smiled. He, along with a couple of watchmen, had spent the night sitting in sight of the tree. As the sun appeared above the horizon, the garland of branches squeezed forth several small leaves and one bright flower.

~o0o~

The People thrived for many generations. They always arrived with the herds in spring, and stayed until they departed again in the fall. Few of the People had the quietness of spirit to communicate with Byrl as did the shaman, but most seemed at least able to feel her spirit. Hundreds of tents filled the air with families and activity, somewhat to the detriment of the local wildlife, but in Byrl's opinion these new children of nature more than made up for the loss. They never failed to enchant her during their visits.

Byrl became the center of tribal social life as the elders always held council within her shade, and mostly life was good for all. Change intruded, as is always the way.

At first, Byrl sensed anger and resentment as warriors of the People related tales of rudeness and outright hostility from outsiders who invaded their lands. These new pale people built permanent homesteads and tried to deny the People access to their ancient hunting grounds. The anger and resentment turned to hatred and fear as atrocities mounted. Finally, only a few of the People's warriors came by in season, mounted on painted war horses. They and the bison soon disappeared and Byrl never saw either again.

~o0o~

Year after year, season after season, nature cycled through endless variations of the same patterns as before the arrival of the People. Rarely, a new type of people stopped, always on horseback, and camped for the night beneath Byrl's tree. One small group stayed two days, but only because one of them succumbed to a bullet wound. They buried him just inside Byrl's shade. She had seen death among the People, but they had always built a raised platform to allow the deceased body to return to nature while the spirit floated off with the wind and birds.

Byrl remained satisfied with life and never expected more nor imagined better. She was amazed and pleased to discover that, after six-hundred years, life still presented wondrous surprises. Although they were on the run, the bandits had carefully buried their brother. They overturned enough dirt to place the body deep, which discouraged coyotes and other predators. They also inadvertently dropped a ripe acorn into the tilled topsoil as they replaced the thin layer of sod. That created the perfect conditions for growth as well as a source of nutrients for the soon-to-be sapling.

In Byrl's entire nut producing years, her acorns had fed the local wildlife, were swept far downstream by the rushing water, or dropped into inhospitable soil beneath the slightly poisonous drippings of her own leaves. This one acorn, though, boldly poked six inches into the spring air and promptly unfurled three oversized leaves. Upon each leaf sat a small male sprite, and at their junction stood a young, minuscule, but fully formed male tree spirit.

The young tree and its sprite Gnar were full of youthful vigor and pushed out the triumvirate of leaves before Byrl's first buds appeared. She slumbered late but woke to a shrill tirade from the young sprite. A rabbit, delighted to find such a tender shoot with three bright green leaves, attempted to breakfast upon them. The three winged leaf-sprites fluttered and dive-bombed at the rabbit's eyes, though to little avail. The young Gnar screamed invectives at the top of his tiny voice, but the rabbit simply ignored them all and nibbled the tip off one of the leaves.

Byrl transported to an overhanging branch nearest the commotion and called down to the rabbit. She had known this buck for all three years since his birth and had called a timely warning that concerned overhead hawks many times during those years.

"Twitchy Nose, must you eat my child on this fine spring morning?

The rabbit turned; first to look overhead for danger and then to process what Byrl had actually said. He got a puzzled look on his fuzzy face and twitched his nose as per his moniker. He looked back and forth between the tiny, tasty snack and the massive oak as if he considered the absurdity that there could be any relationship between the two.

"Really, Twitch, that is my son, and I would consider it a huge favor if you could breakfast on something else. I can see a nice new patch of clover just a little way upstream."

Twitchy Nose sniffed, in a rabbity version of a shrug, and hopped away in search of the promised treat.

"Thank you, Mother! I shudder to think what would happen if Twitchy ate my whole tree."

"Like I have always said; treat everyone the way you wish to be treated."

~o0o~

Year by year, Gnar grew along with his fine young oak. They survived through a season of hot drought, an extended freezing winter, and various parasitic infections typical of arboreal adolescents. Through it all, mama Byrl refined his gentle spirit by her wisdom and love. Life was idyllic, except for an emotional rite of passage the year he reached full maturity.

He and Byrl were amazed at the overwhelming number of male pollen sprites that issued from his flowers. Gnar preened with pride over the great abundance of his children. That high made his depression that much deeper when the greatest majority of them jumped off into the wind and disappeared forever. Even the few that managed to find a mate with one of Byrl's fairies transformed into seedlings and were no longer able to interact as they entered hibernation. Thankfully, he had over one-hundred-years to learn to deal with the heartbreak of lost loved ones before he faced the greatest grief of his life.

Neither Byrl nor Gnar ever experienced such a storm. Two tornadoes came within a mile of them, followed by driving rains and winds up to one-hundred-fifty miles per hour. Towering thunderclouds piled above them, followed by innumerable lightning strikes. The trees were thankfully damp enough that the resulting prairie grass fire barely singed their bark. Just when they thought the worst was over, a massive lightning strike, immediately followed by a second, split Byrl's trunk in half and burned her core to ash. Gnar never even got to say good-bye.

~o0o~

One day many decades later, the summer silence broke as dozens of people appeared on the far side of the stream. To Gnar, they appeared methodical and industrious as they worked downstream for a time only to disappear on the horizon. A low rumble frightened the denizens of the Prairie, a sound never before heard. Gnar stood on his tallest branch to look out as the sound and vibrations increased. He had no word for it but took an instant dislike to the noisy, hurtling thing as it passed on the new tracks.

A month later, two oxen-lead Prairie schooners with two horses and a mule in tow pulled into the shade of the tree and stopped. The extended family heralding an invasion of homesteaders that came annually for years. That first winter, the final remains of Byrl was chopped up for firewood and went up in smoke within the low, sod cabins. Gnar never knew how close he came to a similar end. A young wife and mother who grew up surrounded by forests stood firm in her desire to spare the tree, as it was her only concrete reminder of an easier life.

In another two years, enough farmers settled in the region to justify a permanent train stop. Over the next century and a half, ninety percent of the Prairie transformed into covered asphalt and concrete. Gnar became the centerpiece of a one-hundred-acre historical park and shared the space with smaller planted trees with whom he had made friends over their short decades.

The wild animals he had known shifted to squirrels, dogs, and the occasional cat. Even the birds, by and large, were more urban-adjusted species. Of all the changes, Gnar most regretted the day people rerouted the stream and domesticated it through underground channels. He hardly ever received a visit from any fairy folk, as few could tolerate the ubiquitous use of iron in the modern world.

Even the few friends Gnar had left were eventually taken away as offensive bulldozers flattened his park and builders replaced it with a mega–mall. The law protected Gnar's tree in consideration of its age. The architects won design awards for the glass paneled atrium designed just to showcase the oak, but it also completely cut Gnar off from nature.

The sprinkler system provided barely enough water to the roots, and he always felt dry and dusty. Even direct sunlight was limited to two hours at high noon before the surrounding walls shadowed him once again. The temperature was maintained year around so that Gnar and his tree never truly hibernated nor came fully awake. They simply existed in a numbing sameness season after season.

There were people aplenty, but they were so busy and removed from nature that Gnar was virtually alone. Even the children were bereft of the quiet sensitivity required for communion and were just as likely to carve rude words into the bark.. The next fifty years was a period of sadness and loneliness and Gnar only kept living because he had no option. Even this was not to be the lowest period of his life.

Not that he cared, but Gnar gradually noticed that twice each year the mall remained empty other than a lone, wandering guard. Curiosity slightly lightened his lethargy after the fourth straight day of out–of–season solitude, and by the fifteenth day, he felt a foreboding of dread.

The catastrophe happened at two a.m. The sky was clear above the glass atrium dome, but few stars fought through the city light pollution. Several bright clusters suddenly appeared overhead and then turned brighter as they separated from one another other. Twenty minutes later, a painfully bright explosion through the mall from every window and glass door, followed by a rumble that made that long ago first train feel and sound like a kitten's purr. The light increased, increased again, and then the ground broke in waves. The walls buckled and shattered every pane of glass in the atrium. A strong wind pushed east, paused, and then reversed. The light faded and darkness descended, and the sun remained hidden for seventy-five years.

~o0o~

Gnar saw no other living creature for a very long time. The weather rode a frightening pendulum, from rains that lasted for months and produced massive floods, to droughts that continued for years. He didn't have an understanding of radiation, but only knew he hurt. Gnar spent much of the time in a state akin to a coma, but somehow the very core of his tree endured through all the depredation.

The first proof that he was not alone in the world came as legions of insects. The first to arrive were endless carpets of cockroaches, which completely covered him during a three-day wave. The oak survived only because the insects found no nutritional value in his dead bark or outer pulp. Whatever they had previously found to sustain themselves was deposited among the long deteriorated remains of the tile flooring as feces and dead carapaces.

This turned to a blessing as it gave the tree enough of a nutritional boost to sprout several small clumps of leaves the next spring even though hordes of locusts quickly stripped them. The departing millions of insects left tens of thousands of dead, which made more than a fair trade for the leaves.

~o0o~

Slowly, but inexorably, the prairie grasses returned, although they exhibited a distinct reddish tinge. Even small mammals began to reclaim ecological niches, although they were in constant competition with enormous insects. The catastrophe left its mark on everything. Rabbits no longer had eyes, but their ears were twice as big and round like an elephant's, and their shrieks rose into the ultrasonic for use as echolocation.

Reptiles retook the world as the prominent ecological Class and now came in countless varieties with some as large as extinct hippos. Gnar wasn't sure if the scaled beasts lacked the intelligence to communicate with him or were simply rude. His greatest joy of the recovery years came when the trickling stream reclaimed its ancient bed, and with the sweet water returned of the silly, playful naiads.

~o0o~

Kimbu was hungry, tired, and thirsty. He thought of himself as human, but his ancestors would have taken some convincing. His direct forefathers and foremothers were of the lucky few whose mutations were not only beneficial but also bred stable. His skin locked in moisture and reflected harsh radiation with small, scaled growths that shone with a slight metallic glow. His lack of knees and lower legs, combined with prehensile feet and double-length arms gave him a four-limbed gait that rivaled the extinct racehorse. He was barrel-chested and lean of waist, and at the age of five was considered an adult.

He had completed the rites of passage that included strength, bravery, provision, and progeny so was on his vision quest. His extended clan of two hundred people had depleted their hunting grounds and needed a sign before their next migration. Kimbu and the other four members of his generation had left following radial directions in the hope of richer lands. The most successful of them would become the next leader of the clan.

Kimbu came upon Gnar's tree when he scented the trickle of water from miles away. He greedily lapped at the cool, sweet liquid. He fell asleep nestled into an exposed root and entered a healing dream.

Kimbu's people had yet to develop self-importance and always kept in mind that nearly every force of nature was more powerful than were they. They also carried a racial sense of guilt over their ancestors near destruction of the planet and kept to a simple level of technology by tradition as well as circumstance. They distrusted pure scientific knowledge and were only interested in day–to-day survival tools.

The mutated humans developed a balance between their hard-won humility and the deep self-reliance evidenced by their continued survival. They gave respect to the natural forces of the world, but without groveling in supplication and superstition. This openness of spirit allowed them sensitivity towards the surviving nature spirits, whom they honored and cherished.

Kimbu had never seen such a great tree as Gnar's had become and simply assumed it proper etiquette to enter into a conversation.

"I am called Kimbu. I thank you for the night's shelter and the sharing of your water. Would you care to gift your name?"

Gnar was amazed and deeply touched that this son of mankind was so polite and kind in spirit.

"Welcome Kimbu, I am called Gnar, and this is my oak tree. If you are hungry, there is a patch of tubers against the east wall which the rabbits always seem to enjoy."

Kimbu's stomach growled at the mention of food, and he immediately loped to the wall and greedily dug up a handful of pseudo-carrots. He ate a mouthful, hardly pausing to chew, then brought the remainder back to the tree where he finished them at a slightly less-hasty pace.

"You are kind and generous. You have a beautiful view across the South, and the ruins behind you and to the sides look as if they provide good shelter. I can see herds of grass eaters in the distance, and we are far from any taboo nightglow. Would you accept the company of my people? We are few, but we need new grounds to lessen the impact on the remaining wildlife."

"Tell me, Kimbu, can all your people speak with those like me?"

"I, at least, have never met another like you. I am not sure what you are asking."

"The people from before, those that built this place, could not truly speak or hear any but their own kind, neither birds nor rabbits nor trees nor naiads, nor any of the spirit people. A special few were aware of us, but the last such were many hundreds of seasons ago."

"I am in awe of you, who knew the ancestors! There is so much we would learn from you. Please, with all respect, allow us to come, and guide us with your wisdom."

Gnar had mellowed with age and came out of the long dark times as a simple, gentle spirit, so it never even entered his mind to deny such a request.

"I dearly would love the company, and whatever knowledge I have is yours for the asking."

As Kimbu gathered supplies and trekked back to his people, ancient memories slowly returned to Gnar. He thought, perhaps, he might be able to help direct these people from some of the dangers that befell their ancestors.

And direct them, he did. His very first act was to introduce them to the naiads, who showed them to the blockage of the ancient riverbed. The community quickly and thankfully restored the creek to its former glory. Gnar dredged up more memories of the first settlers and their farms and introduced the stability of an agrarian community, but also preached the intimate symbiosis the Buffalo People had shown with the land.

The people's mutations shortened their lifespan so they seldom lived past twenty-five years. Gnar became a mentor, arbiter, and an ever-flowing well of stories and teachings. The small tribe thrived and spread their ways and culture throughout the world. No matter how far they expanded, Gnar's Valley and ruins remained a treasured link to their past as a living memorial. Gnar saw them through another fifty generations until in the fullness of time the grand oak reached the end of an exceptional longevity.

In tribute to all Gnar had given, the people traced a direct descendent of Kimbu and sent him as their representative. The young girl simply sat and reminisced as a friend until at last the life force of the tree faded and Gnar separated into his rest. Much to Gnar's surprise and beyond any expectation, his soul gently rose above the surrounding tumbledown walls that had been his view through so many years.

It seemed his soul was incapable of tears; else so deeply did the People's final gift touch him they would have flowed profusely. The ravages of radiation had made his tree sterile, so when the people found any rare surviving oak out in the world, they brought back acorns and planted them along the hills beyond the walls. These became a forest that numbered in the tens of thousands, a secret they kept from Gnar as a final good-bye gift. His last view, as he looked down, was of countless sprites that looked up and cheered him on, along with their millions of children.

A split appeared in the fabric of the sky above, and as it opened, Gnar saw Byrl waited beyond with outstretched arms.

"Welcome home, my son, no mother could be more proud!"

~end~

Chapter 4: Felinus Supernus

These bound transcripts are certified copies of originals kept by the Office of Temporal Veracity. Unauthorized removal or duplication is strictly prohibited.

~o0o~

<Source doc: Inquiry board, Council of Blessed Certainties, codex 14312>

This board is convened under the authority of Inquiry. The subject of this Inquiry is certain allegations surrounding statements, oral and published, from one Whiskers Tabbyclan, licensed Systemic Classifier; to wit, statements contradicting clear passages from the Divine Tome.

Tom Tabbyclan, before you lies a paper entitled "The Advancement of Clowderkind Through the Ages." Are you the author?

RE: I am, CouncilTom.

Do you stand by the assertions made within this publication?

RE: I do, CouncilTom.

And do you understand these assertions are in contradiction to the wisdom of the Divine Tome?

RE: I am not a licensed Doctrinal Translator, so do not feel qualified as to what might or might not contradict the Tome.

We are happy you recognize your limitations. However, you do stand by these claims, made by you; that clowderkind developed over a period of time, issuing from a type of proto-felinus into the form we inhabit today?

RE: Over a very long period of time, yes I do CouncilTom.

Despite the fact that the Divine Tome describes how the All-Powerful hawked up the first Sire and Dam from within Her Holy body, and purred life into them?

RE: Again, I am not a Doctrinal Translator, but only report what I have found while performing my duties as a Systemic Classifier. Search as I may, I could not find the events described in the Tome.

Thank you, Tom Tabbyclan. I would suggest you stay close to your burrow awaiting word of a ruling. This Inquiry is closed.

~o0o~

<Excerpts from Whiskers Tabbyclan, Official Systemic Classifier, Diary Volume 8>

-By studying Brain Damaged cases 3 through 28, I have isolated the region regulating sensitivity to the Pulling Force. None of the subjects, when dropped from a height of thirty paws or more, is able to land on their feet. In fact, simple walking is often interrupted by an episode of Predestarenation. While these poor souls do have the instinct to stop and peer into the immediate future for danger, they are unable even to discern the path a thrown ball will take, and are hit every time. I conclude that Pulling Force and the Predestarenation area of the brain are somehow interrelated-

-As so often happens in science, I have discovered the key by happenstance! The subjects were, in fact, reacting to danger in reverse temporal order of actual events. Without a doubt they were seeing, not into the immediate future, which we all do when threat is imminent, but they were seeing into the PAST, where the threat HAD BEEN-

-The Council has denied both the acquisition of new subjects and further experimentation along these lines. Officially, they express concerns over the welfare of the unfortunates, but when has the council ever been concerned with the disabled? The real reason is an uncomfortable debate taking place as to the lack of "seeing into the past" where The Tome is concerned. The Tome speaks, in several passages, of the gift of Predestarenation, but lacks even a corollary about Post-Destarenation. Once again, politics triumphs over Truth-

-I have been closely monitoring the progress made by Molly Whitesocks Clancrooktail in the field of Pulling Force science. She has discovered, and been able to manipulate, what she has termed 'Attractitrons'. The Council has already created a sub-committee to debate which applications may be Doctrinally safe to spread to the populace at large, and those that may have undesirable impacts on the souls of individuals, as well as the spirit of society. I must decide now before my plans are interdicted-

-By modifying Molly Whitesocks Attractitrons generator, I have managed to create a device that I will apply to myself. Because Council spies are everywhere, I have manufactured a clockwork of gears that slowly and steadily increase the Attractitrons field while I will attach a failsafe to my raised arm. Should I become unconscious, its fall shall interrupt the field. Should I fail to the point of termination, it is my hope that, in some future time, a scientist may find these entries and continue my work-

~o0o~

<Excerpts from Whiskers Tabbyclan, Official Systemic Classifier, Diary Volume 12>

-There is an addictive quality to studying the past. I have watched our great cities coalesce from small villages and clans, watched two eons where giant ice fields flowed from the poles of the world almost to the equator, and saw even further back to savage times of wandering individuals, hunting and surviving by themselves and coming together only to mate. I am proud how our civilization has advanced, by starts and stops, but my curiosity as to how it all began is overpowering my common sense. I plan to delve into the origins of The Tome-

-I have found NO support for any of the stories and histories as related in The Tome. I must increase the power of the Attractitrons device as I have reached an impasse and must know the truth.

\- What small, pathetic creatures from which we come! I almost doubt their intelligence, but with their foreshortened fingers and unarticulated thumbs, it is hard to tell. They were subject to every form of predation and disease, at least until they developed Predestarenation. From where, then, have all the giant, twisted ruins come? There were great pockets of these structures spread across most of the continents, and the proto-cats seem to thrive within their protections, but for a certainty, they did not produce them. I must parallel the sequenced devices and look further back-

-I have lost all faith in the Tome and am left empty by the terrible truths of history. Are the Builders aliens from another Earth? Are they demons, angels, or phantoms from another reality? In all the animal kingdom, there is none like them! Twice as tall as we clowderkind are even now, strangely balancing on their rear legs, and using uncountable mechanisms for their work and their pleasure. And what killed them off so fast? Within a year, they had all succumbed, leaving their great cities to the inheritance of proto-cats and proto-wolves. The proto-wolves, of course, didn't stand a chance in the long run against even the rudimentary supremacy of the Felinus form to come. And how long did this transformation take? I am too tired to calculate, but I am sure it was thousands of thousands of moons at least. It is, however, undeniable that we have sprung from them, and a thousand, thousand lifetimes will not be enough to study this immense Truth-

~o0o~

<Source doc: Blasphemy Rehabilitation Board, Obstinance Enforcement, codex 22817>

WARNING: Codex 22817 secured/buried from unauthorized viewing, on penalty of Death: WARNING

Whiskers Tabbyclan, you are found guilty of sedition by thought, word, and deed, and are hereby ordered to be sacked, tied, and drowned until dead. The entirety of your writings, including prefaces, summaries and annotation, are to be either destroyed or archived in the secured/buried vault, access authority to lie with the head of this council in perpetuity. Shame on you. Hsssssss!

///Sentence executed on the fifth day of the third new moon, Year 2205 of the Blessed Revelations///

~o0o~

<Source doc: Whiskers Tabbyclan's Secret Diary, codex 87662>

-Greetings grandkit Ringtail. It is so very strange watching your temporal shadow reading this entry. I placed this introduction on the last page because I saw you open to it first; what was the cause and what the effect? I'll leave those questions to you and your successors. You were extremely brave in follow the clues I left and to find this, especially after discovering the truth of your parents and their untimely deaths at the hands of the Council. After reading this diary, and building and experiencing the Field yourself, you will have the power to choose and influence the future of our entire race. I don't know the ultimate outcome because I see how short my time is, and the sacrifice I must make. Good luck, and all my love and respect, \--Your Loving Grandsire, Whiskers Tabbyclan-

~o0o~

<Source doc: Ringtail (ne Tabbyclan) Strayclan's Secret Diary, codex 90346>

-Grandsire Whiskers was truly a genius never before seen in this world. I know I have spent too many hours looking back on his extraordinary life, but by following his procedures and inverting the polarity of the Field, in effect, creating anti-attractitrons, I have, indeed, seen possible future events. The Attractitrons side effects of repelling matter and counteracting the Pulling force could be the greatest boon to society ever invented, but which would, no doubt, be warped and controlled by the council if they were to discover the secret.-

-The future has tremendous momentum from the weight of the past, and stubbornly resists attempts to divert it from the path of least resistance. Nevertheless, I have come to recognize those pivotal points where a slight nudge, with the proper timing, can bring even the most tenuous wafts of possible futures into being. Through judicious peeking into individual's pasts, and comparing them to potential futures, I have brought together an unlikely group of ten others who can overturn the current dark age and break the bonds of ignorance and suppression. -

-SUCCESS! The council, along with their vile supporters and servants, have been surgically removed, along with their torture dungeons and secret Attractitron device of destruction. I KNOW to whom I can trust this technology and to whom I can entrust the future leadership of all clowderkind, for I have seen it beyond doubt. I now can retire to a normal life and raise a goodly litter with Greeneyes Clanshorthair. She has, of course, accepted my courtship, and I don't feel even a little guilty for using my grandsire's device in bringing this about. I'm sure he would have approved.-

-This will be my last entry, as well as my good-bye to the attractitron device. I am placing this journal into the old council Secured/Buried vault, where hopefully future generations will find it at least amusing. I must get back as my first litter is due today.-

~o0o~

<Source doc: Field Report from Temporal Retrieval Team B, Project Whiskers, 4200 years post revolution, codex 38271>

-Subject recovered at one hundred fifty paws depth, unconscious but now breathing on his own. Healers expect full recuperation within half a moon. All operatives nominal-

~o0o~

<Source doc: Transcript Excerpt from Whiskers Tabbyclan speech to the Free Assembly, Founders Day, Year 4205 of the Blessed Revolution, codex 996452>

You have all exceeded my expectations beyond...beyond...[momentary snuffling] excuse me; it is all so overwhelming. The wisdom and love I have experienced and seen throughout this society is more than could even be dreamed, in my time. And to bring me forward to enjoy the fruits of my meager seeds, it is more than I can express. However, of all the wonders and kindnesses given me, the most emotional and appreciated is the gift of one of the first recovered humans. They have turned out to be the perfect companion, more than just amusing pets, and will be a great comfort in my later years. Thank you all, yes, thank you!

~o0o~

<Excerpts from the Table of Contents: Care and Feeding of Your New Human, 4205 edition.>

Section 3: Proactive purring as reward and motivation.

Section 6: Flea and odor control for a fur-less mammal.

Section 12: Kennel or bed, pros and cons.

Section 15: Possessiveness and aggression, some simple tips.

Section 22: Discipline, or when all else fails - a firm bop to the nose (claws retracted!).

~end~

Chapter 5: Svengolly

Sergeant Joe snapped to full awareness from a state deeper and somehow more sinister, than sleep. His first thought, as had been drilled into him over countless missions, was of his weapon. His trusty carbine stood in easy reach against the headboard, currently assigned as valet to his cast off blouse and Boonie cap. He automatically felt under the blanket along his leg to confirm his K-bar remained sheathed where it belonged. The standing joke was that he only removed it for two things, but in reality, the blade only came off for bathing, and remained close even then.

Security concerns satisfied, Joe took stock of his immediate surrounds. A bedroom, but definitely not his. The accessories on the massive, round bed were an explosion of softness; a pink theme of atomic intensity continued throughout, sprinkled liberally with colorful faceted beading. Reduced by ninety percent, he might consider the decor feminine, but this was overtly aggressive, shading from Pepto through shocking magenta.

It must have been one heck of a night since he could not remember where, or with whom, he was. Joe assumed his location was either the beginning or the end of a very successful leave. "O.K." Joe thought, falling back once again on his training, "First objective - reconnoiter. Actually, make that second!"

Attempting to locate the head, he poked his into an enormous walk-in closet, astonished at the dozens of frilly party frocks and endless pairs of shoes and handbags. He noticed a couple of smartly tailored suit-pants, but overall this girl appeared to be a professional party animal. "Looks like I still got game." he thought approvingly.

After relieving himself and enjoying a quick Marine bath in the seashell shaped sink, he dressed and performed a few basic warm-up stretches and combat moves, admiring his perfect eight-pack abs and eighteen inch biceps. He quickly inventoried his kit, cinched his utility harness, and checked the action on his sidearm. Squared away and mission ready...but what was the mission?

He made his way down a long hallway, wide oak doors periodically branching off, and at the end chose to descend the spiral staircase rather than explore the next higher floor. The palatial Great-room at the bottom displayed expensive, tacky looking furniture, mostly done in the now nauseating pink motif. Joe pushed a lace window treatment aside and counted nineteen forms of personal transportation haphazardly scattered around a fountain-centered oval driveway, including luxury sport cars, motorbikes, and boats. Someone had plenty of money, if not taste.

At first, everything was quiet, but a thin wail seemed to originate in the back. French doors opened onto an expansive porch, crowded with the latest casual furniture and edging onto a heart-shaped pool and Olympic size Jacuzzi. The wail belonged to a tiny baby, angrily demanding its bottle from within a royally appointed bassinet. Casually draped over a gold chaise lounge, a bikini-clad young woman studiously ignored it.

Rather than the porcelain debutant Joe had assumed from the house and surroundings, he saw a dusky, toned, street tough mamacita with short black hair, facial piercings, and tribal tattoos encircling her whipcord arms. Her too-wide eyes gave an initial impression of innocence, but Joe's combat sense kept him balanced and ready for instant defense as she emanated assured competence.

"Nice place you have here, umm, sorry, I don't remember your name. We seemed to have already made acquaintances."

"Name's Zee, and don't sweat it. My memory's a little fuzzy this morning too. What should I call you?" she asked somewhat bored, sliding mirrored designer shades onto her nose.

"Joe, Sergeant Joe."

"Well, Sergeant Joe, this isn't strictly speaking my place. It belongs to the kid. I just stay here to watch over him. Better than flopping in the streets, and I even have my own pool table. Wanna shove that bottle in his pie hole? Only thing that shuts him up."

Joe walked over, picked up the milk bottle from the ground, and sure enough; the baby went silent soon as it hit his lips. Not knowing what else to say, Joe asked, "Where are his parents?"

"Never met the dad, but mom was torn to pieces, literally by a mad dog. Some say it was murder, but it was never proven." The last she said with just a hint of sarcasm. "This place ain't exactly my scene, but there are some hot wheels out front, and a few other perks besides."

"I saw the closet, pretty high end rags."

"Gag! I wouldn't bury my dog in that sissy crap. There are a few decent high heel kicks though."

Suddenly, without warning, Zee let out a piercing scream of terror; her gaze fixed over Joe's left shoulder. He turned, instinctively drop-and-rolled as a huge, long hairy arm attempted to backhand him. Joe continued his roll to his feet, came up with his pistol and aimed at a...a nine foot tall silverback gorilla! It howled aggressively, beating its chest with resounding thumps while advancing menacingly towards Joe.

The baby picked that moment to roll over and drop his bottle, startling even the gorilla with the power of his outrage. The silverback shuffled sideways and sniffed the baby, picked him up, and disappeared into the forest surrounding the estate.

"Don't just stand there, soldier boy, go get that baby back!"

Sergeant Joe, known for his bravery, was an expert tracker besides...not that anyone could miss the swath of destruction the giant ape caused as it traveled. It seemed to have a destination in mind, sticking to a straight line. Joe decided to follow closely for now, reluctant to fire and possibly hit the crying infant.

They finally reached the edge of a clearing, Joe a scant few yards behind. The gorilla announced himself with a profound bass call resembling a slowed down Tarzan yell and proceeded into the clearing. Joe climbed a tree along the edge, for both concealment and a better view, surveying the situation.

In the center of the clearing stood a large oak tree, its branches festooned with wooden walkways and ladders leading to balconies and lean-toes. Dozens of strange little creatures descended the tree and gathered towards the gorilla, whether for greeting or battle not yet evident.

The not-quite-people stood about waist high to Joe, a disturbing cross between an egg and a thalidomide victim. Their oversized floppy hands and feet attached directly to their torsos, bereft of even rudimentary arms or legs, forcing them to roll from side to side while advancing the opposite foot. They only remained upright due to the low center of gravity caused by their bulbous bottom half.

The Wobblers, as Joe christened them from the indistinct murmur of 'wobble-wobble' that emanated from their round little mouths, gathered around the gorilla, swaying in unison and timing their utterances into a unified chant of "WO-bble, WO-bble". Again, all motion stopped in unison, and silence descended. The gorilla looked around, held the baby above his head, grunted twice, and laid it on the ground. The Wobblers parted, opening a corridor between the forest and the gorilla. Faster than Joe's eyes could follow, it was gone.

The open space surrounding the baby collapsed and the Wobblers carried him en masse up the crown of the tree. There was no question that Sergeant Joe had to save the baby, but he was incredibly outnumbered and short on operational intelligence. Best he waited until dark, and they all retire for the night. Joe, known for always having a backup, did not. In his experience, no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy, so he rummaged through his rucksack and came up with his hand-crank field radio.

"Star Captain Rock...I say again, Star Captain Rock, this is Sergeant Joe requesting air strike support my location at midnight. A child's life hangs on the line, over!"

There was no way to know whether he would show up. Star Captain Rock always maintained operational silence. He had bounties on his head from here to the Crab Nebula, due to his propensity to get the bad guy regardless of law or custom. His motto was 'War is Hell, but Victory is Heaven'. He and Joe had a long past saving each other's' lives, so Joe knew he would have his back if at all possible.

As darkness fell, the Wobbler village quieted down until the only activity was occasional roving guards encircling the woods in regular patrols. Joe decided to make his move at half 'till midnight. He wove an impromptu ghillie suit from the surrounding vegetation and methodically wormed his way to the base of the tree. As soon as the latest guards left the tree for the woods, he shimmied up a rope ladder and pulled himself onto a balcony.

The trunk had Wobbler shaped doorways behind each platform, hidden from Joe's sight from the ground. He looked into one, and saw the tree was hollow with ladder rungs descending far below ground level.

Joe did not like dark places. He would do what needed done; that's what bravery meant, but he did not have to like it. He decided to make his way to the top platform of the tree, in order to get a better idea of an exit strategy. While making his way up between patrol watches, Joe began to wonder just how many of the enemy was below his feet. A dozen Wobblers left the tree every ten minutes, and so far, none had returned.

He pulled himself over the lip of the uppermost platform and dropped back just as quickly. In that fraction of a second, he saw the baby lying against the trunk, but also saw a Wobbler on duty at the edge of a small crow's nest platform. Luckily, it had been looking away. After taking a moment to let his adrenaline run its course, he popped a quick glance to confirm the Wobbler had not moved, then noiselessly padded over and put the bullet-shaped head into a rear choke-hold. The Wobbler struggled, under control, but the near lack of a neck kept it from passing out as planned. Out of desperation, Joe finally flexed his massive forearm up and to the side, breaking the Wobbler's neck with a sharp crack.

Joe did not like to take life unnecessarily and always felt as if he lost when forced to. That difference from Star Captain Rock, who delighted in mass-destruction and carnage, was the only thing that kept them from forming a permanent partnership.

The baby was lying quietly, content with a hand-smoothed wooden pacifier. Joe bundled the tiny body into the crook of one arm, cut loose a strand of rope from a walkway, and began to rappel directly to the ground. He kept his feet, but in the dark he slightly misjudged and hit hard, bouncing just enough to shoot the pacifier out of sight. The baby transformed into an air-raid siren.

Joe started running, the time for stealth over. He could feel the ground shake from the number of Wobblers making their way up through the inside of the tree. He turned back for one look at the cacophonous wobble-wobble-WOBBLE's, wishing he had not as countless Wobblers poured into the space behind him.

He jumped to a full sprint, hoping to vanish into the woods, but his hopes disappeared as the roving patrols started to enter the clearing from the woods. He stopped, trapped between the anvil and the hammer. There was nothing left but to go out with honor. He placed the baby at his feet, checked the slide on his sidearm, adjusted the sling of his rifle to balance in his other hand, and waited.

High above, he heard a familiar and welcome sound. It was Star Captain Rock, firing his retro-rockets! All the Wobblers stood frozen, watching the magnificently sleek, famous flagship of the Pentel line, "Technika-X" proudly emblazoned on her side. The ship hovered, advanced engineering allowing her to separate in two, revealing the most feared burrowing missile in existence. As the two halves of the Technika-X continued to separate, the missile slowly oriented until it pointed straight down at the Wobbler tree, whistling gleefully as it reached maximum velocity. A small bright star detached from the rear of the ship, racing under power to land next to Sergeant Joe.

Star Captain Rock, smaller but more heavily muscled than Joe, stepped out of his small silver shuttle with a graveled "Hey brother, need a ride?" The two old friends embraced left forearms in a manly version of a hug, high-fiving with their right. Joe grabbed the baby, and the three escaped just as the missile hit, scattering Wobblers and pieces of their tree to the winds.

Back at the house, Zee took the baby to go find a bottle, leaving the men to say their good-byes. As Star Captain rock turned to enter his shuttle, Zee came screaming towards them.

"Settle down, woman!" said Rock in his no-nonsense tone, "With us two here there's nothing to fear."

The entire left wing of the house collapsed as a twenty-foot tall T-Rex came roaring at them. Sergeant Joe unthinkingly emptied both clips into the beast, but the bullets had no effect on the thick-skinned monster, except to anger it further. Zee ran away with the baby as fast as possible, so the T-Rex chose the closest target first, and chomped off Star Captain Rock's head.

It rolled to a stop at Joe's feet, but still seemed to be alive as the mouth tried to talk. Joe bent down to where he could make out the whispered words.

"Save the girl, Joe. She likes you, and you know you like her."

Joe knew he was right, but he had always thought girls were at best silly creatures, or just irritating like his little sister, but lately he'd been having confused feelings.

"But how am I going to defeat a T-Rex, especially without you at my side?"

"Take the cape off my body; I certainly don't need it any longer. Now, remember who you used to be."

With that final advice, he died; a hero to the end. The T-Rex had started after Zee. Knowing his weapons were useless, Joe took the shimmering space cloak off his friend's body and tied it around his shoulders. And with that, he remembered his life before he was Sergeant Joe.

With a mighty leap, silver cape fluttering behind, he flew to place himself between the ravening beast and the cowering maiden. He slapped it twice just for fun, once on the snout and once on the bum, laughing as the fearsome teeth ground uselessly against his indestructible skin. As a final flourish, he grabbed the T-Rex by its tail, spun around three times, leaned back to counter-balance, and flung it out of sight. Zee stood and placed a gentle hand on his cheek, her wide eyes full of wonder.

"You, You're really super..."

"Why, yes I am! I forgot how fun it is to be a super-hero. Hey, you want to get married? We already seem to have a baby."

"That sounds so cool! Where will we live? "

The former, and present, super-hero grabbed Zee in one hand and baby in the other and flew them all to his Fortress of Solid Tunes high on a mountain. Zee was quite impressed when the remote-control door automatically slid open.

"I wonder," he thought, "if she'll take off her clothes once we're married?"

His bedroom door burst open un-expectantly, accidentally causing Johnny to push his cassette player/radio off the shelf and drop his action figures.

"Susie!" he yelled, "You little sh..."

The forbidden expletive died on his tongue as he noticed Mom standing behind his little sister.

"See Mommy?! I told you he was playing with my toys again. He broke my dolly house too!" said Susie, somehow managing to convey accusation, outrage, moral superiority, and a sniffle all in one brief outburst.

"I warned you, young man, about consequences." Mom said sternly, "So did you give your sister's Barbie to the dog? And don't dare lie to me, or it will just get worse."

"Nooo...well, I mean I accidentally...I didn't mean to..." Johnny replied, licking his lips in a subconscious-tell that made mothers seem like magic mind readers.

"Fine. Since you destroyed her toy, she gets to choose any one of yours to replace it."

Rather than joy or vindictiveness, her tiny face took on an aloof, calculating look more suited to an I.R.S. auditor than a little girl.

"I'll take...this one!"

Johnny started to ask for the cape back, since it really belonged to Star Captain Rock, but then he remembered he broke him earlier, so instead he said, "Fine! Take them all. I'm too old to play with stupid baby toys anyway!"

"Do whatever you think is right, but don't even think about coming to dinner until this mess is cleaned up."

True to his word, and still a little embarrassed about the way he'd been treating his baby sister lately, Johnny packed his childhood toys in a cardboard box and left them by her bedroom door. All except for Star Captain Rock, whom he interred in an old chocolate tin under his bed, where it shared a lifetime with other cherished memories for the next eighty years.

Joe, now known as Brad, lost something that day, but he also somehow gained. Never again exotic adventures of conquest, violence, and mayhem, lost to the past were glories of heroism and honor. He did, however, host many elegant tea parties and fancy balls, and even learned to pilot a private jet to take his new friends on romantic far away holidays. And his wardrobe improved dramatically, which came in handy as best man at T-Rex and Gorilla-Ann's grand wedding.

~end~

_

_ Chapter 6: Faerie Glen

Glen was sweaty, stinky, scratched and bit, and no longer bothered to remove leeches. His tiny Amazonian guide assured him they were near their destination. Glen saw a clearing ahead through the entangled vegetation, but the guide refused to go further and stated he would return to the split tree in one week. Glen continued alone and quietly entered a Wonderland.

He had earned three doctorates while tracing his lifelong obsession and now weeped with affirmation and joy over his success. The clearing was abuzz with two-inch winged creatures that sparkled in the sunlight or shone gently luminescent in the shade. They stayed mostly in the canopy level high above, but at they descended and sat in the center of the glade and rested on the ground. He Glen tried to approach ever so gently, but the timorous creatures flittered off at every movement and sound.

On the fifth night, he camped in the clearing and staying as quiet and still as possible. As the sun warmed, he picked a flower and held it in his open palm. One of the tiny creatures landed on his hand and ate a bit of pollen off the stamens. The eyes were wide set and the nose very flat, but it was clearly hominid.

Glen was holding the reality behind fairy myths and perhaps those of all little peoples. He slowly moved his finger to stroke the adorable head. The fairy looked him squarely in the eye and without warning bit his finger. It drew blood and flew away to join the others, but Glen could never bring himself to retaliate in any way.

That evening, after nausea and fever, Glen's body began to change. He fell into a deep coma, which was a good thing. His skin hardened into a chitinous covering while his internal cells, including bones, muscles, and organs, liquefied to initiate his metamorphosis.

On a fine spring day, the desiccated body began to rock and the mouth split into a morbid similitude of a smile. Glen, or at least as much of him as fit into the pea size brain, crawled out and lay across the bridge of his former nose, exhausted. His knurled wing buds slowly expanded and firmed in the warm sun as blood pumped to the tips. Four of his new adopted family un-expectantly swooped in, grabbed a limb each, and soared above the treetops. Before he could orient, they let go amidst piping laughter.

The new version of Glen floundered in panic. Arms, legs, and wings thrashed independently as he let out a peep of a scream. He actually fainted for a second, but awoke as his body instinctually hovered, face to the wind. His strong new dorsoventral muscles firmly beat his wings, and with just a little experimentation Glen soared, dove and danced with all the others. He could not exactly remember his former life, but he knew on a primal level that he had arrived home.

The native guide did not bother returning to the split tree. The area would remain taboo until the next foolish outsider insisted and threw his life away as he chased ridiculous dreams. Still, it was better to guide them individually rather than put up with whole herds of searchers as they trampled around their sacred grounds. Just so long as they paid in advance.

~end~
_

_ Chapter 7: Domino

It was third and goal at the nine-yard line. The capacity crowd of fifty thousand remained quiet as the home team, behind by three points, lined up in field-goal formation. The kicker had not missed from within the forty-yard line in his last three seasons, and this chip shot would put the game into overtime. East coast teams grumble about late-night games, but tonight they wouldn't mind, as long as their team could pull out a win.

The long snapper chucked the ball between his legs in a perfect arc, which fell right into the ball holder's hands. He set the point firmly into the ground, immediately spun the ball so the stitching faced correctly. He turned his eyes and peripherally tracked the kicker, who loped in from the side and executed his patented soccer style kick. Just as the kicker planted his left foot and swung his right, the holder pulled the ball into his chest and dashed towards the right sideline.

The crowd erupted after a heartbeat's silence and shouted their approval of the fake play. This was their team's final chance to win the divisional playoff. The defense double-teamed the star running back, as usual. He dodged to the left, pirouetted in a counter spin as if to move right and somehow changed momentum in mid-air. He continued to the left as both defenders lost a crucial half step as they readjusted.

In his rookie year, the ball holder was a record-breaking quarterback out of USC. He zinged the ball in a perfect spiral and aimed to intersect the receiver cross-field. The screaming crowd shook the stadium in anticipation the victory celebration. The silence was abrupt as the entire stadium went black as the lights all turned off. After an initial mass gasp, the quiet was as deep as the darkness.

It was not just that the lights went out A total ink-black gloom descended to suck out even the memory of sight. A few screams of panic preceded a growing murmur, but total quiet returned as the jumbo LED screens above either end zone glowed to life. They showed, in forty-foot-high images, the same split screen scenes that appeared on all broadcast stations throughout the city.

The left half of the split showed a wide-shot of the packed stadium itself, focused on Center field. The camera zoomed in to show an instantly recognizable five-hundred-pound bomb. A large digital timer was counting down by the second and showed less than two minutes remaining to 0:00. The other side of the screen showed a scene in the middle of the deserted Cross Harbor Bridge. That half-screen featured the well-known black with white-dotted leotard uniform of local superhero Domino as her similarly colored hair blew haphazardly from the on-shore breeze.

~One Hour Earlier~

Complete darkness enveloped the downtown Metro National Bank, but light-sensing triggers alerted both the police and the region's super-heroes. Another Night-Ghost-lead robbery was in progress. His modus operandi was to employ a meticulously trained cadre that used recently developed echo location headsets for the blind. He applied his innate ability to suppress all light within an area of his choice, which rendered everyone in the bank sightless and helpless during a robbery. The previous robberies had netted three million dollars American.

Within minutes of the alarm, Bounce, The Kineticist, and Domino met across the street from the main entrance behind a parked delivery truck for partial protection. Domino was usually the dominant personality, which made her peers wonder if that was not the origin of her name.

"How do you want to handle this, boys, slow and easy or hard and quick?"

Bounce and The K grinned at each other. After a nod from Bounce, The K answered, "You know how we like it, Domino!"

She just rolled her eyes and made allowances since she would expect the same juvenile answer from her hubby back home. She closed her eyes and reached out with her hyper-senses. She had the thought, "F = ma = m(dv/dt) = d(mv)/dt = dp/dt, and F + u(dm/dt) = m(dv/dt)." At least, that is what she would have told her doctoral candidate advisor as she defended her thesis on Newton's laws of motion. Before college, she would have said she just had a knack.

What she understood on an intuitive level, was the mass and potential momentum of every object within reach of her senses, and the cascading events they could force on each other. For instance, she knew they could interrupt the robbery by throwing Bounce through the front plate-glass window. Everything just bounced off him, or if something was heavier than him, he bounced. She could also foretell where he would bowl into the five bad guys that stood in a group at the entrance to the main vault, fire-brigading sacks of cash. Fortunately, her senses did not require sight.

However, in every projected scenario, she calculated that glass shards from the window would fly out and seriously injure bystanders. Her group of heroes did everything in their power to keep everyone involved in an operation alive and unhurt if possible. They were careful with the innocent because they deserved it, and the perpetrators so they could face justice.

Domino concentrated a few more moments and then laid out the best option.

"Hey K, see that elevator shaft running along the outside of the parking garage next door? If you target the third-floor section at exactly forty-two degrees from street level at thirty miles per hour we can all go home early."

"I'll need to gather some energy first. Just a moment."

The Kineticist stepped out from around the van into the middle of the street and addressed the two occupants of the idling getaway vehicle.

"Hey, you two, give yourselves up now before something bad happens!"

The curb-side door banged open as the two occupants jumped to the street and fired three-round bursts from rather antiquated AK-47's. The first three bullets slammed into the UPS truck's back tire with a loud hiss. Every bullet after that made contact with K's skin and stopped abruptly as they imparted their momentum to him.

His body glowed with a bright light as he daintily picked two of the bullets from where they had struck. He sighted along his pointed finger, said "bang!", then flicked them back to their point of origin. The two machine guns shattered into shards while the gunmen yelped in surprise and pain. They screamed even louder as two more cones of lead drilled through the meaty part of their thighs. The K grinned at called the other two to the middle of the street.

"Some people just never learn! OK, Bounce, you ready to make like a squash ball?"

The smallish superhero squatted in place, tucked his head into his curled arms, and nodded. The Kineticist looked back to Domino for confirmation. He squatted behind his impromptu munition and gently placed his palms on Bounce's back.

With a sudden flash of light, Bounce streaked towards the reinforced elevator shaft, bounced off at a relative forty-eight-degree angle, smashed through the bank lobby's upper foyer window. He then bounced off the ceiling into the opposite wall and straightened his arms and legs to maximize reach. He slammed into the perps and the impact forced them into the vault. Bounce closed the vault door and waited for proper law enforcement to take custody.

Light immediately returned to the interior of the bank by the time The Kineticist and Domino made sure all the bystanders had made it safely to the sidewalk. They heard sirens approach when once again a total blackness descended on the bank interior. Domino sensed a figure dash towards the back of the bank and immediately followed.

"Guys? Someone is sneaking out the back way; want to bet its Night Ghost? Here, take my hands and we'll catch the creep.

Bounce squeaked, "Hey! I'm stuck! Something is oozing up my legs and won't let me go."

"Yeah, me too!" K grunted as his struggled to no effect. "It's moving too slowly for either of us to use our powers. Domino, you'll have to follow him by yourself, just stay out of any line of fire and report when he goes to ground."

"What about you guys? I can't just leave you here."

Bounce shouted, "We'll be fine. The police will be here any minute, now go!"

Domino ran out the rear security-door. The outside was just as dark and black as had been the inside. She extended her senses and found a lone figure jogging North towards the Bay. Even the cars had stopped as no one dared to continue as the darkness swallowed up their headlights without as much as a dim glow.

She followed at a steady pace for ten minutes and headed up the incline towards the head of the bridge proper. As she traveled across and over the water, the blackness ended in a knife-edge of normal light and allowing her to see Night Ghost base jump into the river. A small delta parachute opened from a backpack and allowed him to glide towards a waiting speedboat.

As the boat revved away, Night Ghost turned and cheerfully waved, which released a torrent of vindictive thoughts in Domino's head. The thoughts all abruptly stopped as a familiar voice floated from the center of the bridge.

"Hello, Domino. Time to face that justice you are constantly spouting off about."

Domino slowly walked towards her nemesis and took note of every detail in a way no normal human could. She wanted to scream in rage and fear as she saw her beloved husband, and their only child, lying strapped to a bare metal table.

The young villain clutched a naked wire from an overhead power line spliced from atop the main bridge in one hand and laid the other on a stand-alone switch box grounded to the table.

Domino was terrified but spoke in slow even tones.

"What are you doing, Polarity, you know family is off limits. That is the one cardinal rule both sides have always agreed on. If you hurt them, every super-hero in the world will hunt you down, and not all of them believe in rehabilitation as I do!"

"You should have thought of that before you killed my twin sister!"

"I didn't kill her, you know that. She took her own life in prison."

"You were the one that put her there! Did you know, the only time we were separated our whole life was the minutes between her birth and mine? And then to keep her in a Faraday cage, so she could never even experience her power? That was beyond cruel. You know, some super-heroes inspire fear, and some inspire anger, you used to just inspired irritation. You should never have made me choose between my life and her freedom."

"You both could have simply chosen to turn yourselves in and would have received the therapy you both needed. It's not too late for you, even now. We can get you help, both for your underlying issues, and the horrible grief you must be going through."

As Domino approached the table where her family lay, she saw her six-year-old boy was at least unconscious. Her husband Anthony was awake but strapped to the bare metal by his legs, arms, and head. A television monitor on top of the refrigerator-size junction box showed the scene at the stadium where there was panic as the hundred-thousand-plus crowd all tried to run away at the same time.. Above that scene, she saw the red eye of a broadcast camera pointed at her.

"Choices! You are all about choices, aren't you Domino? Here's a choice for you. See that handle, the big red one? Flip it up, and the four hundred thousand volts from this power line will reroute into the river, saving your precious family and draining all my power and thereby killing me. And, of course, send a signal to detonate the dirty radiation bomb and dooming about fifty thousand of your ardent fans to a painful death. On the other hand, you can flip it down, routing the current through the table and into your nearest and dearest, disarming the bomb and saving the great unwashed. Incidentally, that also will drain all my power and kill me. As you can see, I don't have a horse in this race; my payoff is to watch you suffer before I rejoin my sister. And oh, you have one minute from...now!"

An overlay clock on the screen mirrored the one attached to the bomb in the stadium. Domino walked around the table opposite from Polarity and willed a part of her mind to continue the conversation while she searched for a series of actions that might change the consequences given her. She had learned long ago that when an opponent gave you a choice between A and B, always choose C.

"Just one thing Polarity, why would Night Ghost help you? I can understand the bank robberies since that what he does for a living, but how did you motivate him?"

"Ah, like so many villains, it was simple greed. I willed him my entire fortune, including an extensive underground lair. I'm afraid he has a rather limited imagination and not really a worthy inheritor of our life's work, but what can one do? You have thirty seconds. If you don't choose, of course, everyone dies. Except you."

The no-win situation turned Domino emotionally numb. She could not think and could not act. Her maternal instinct was the only one working as her hand began to reach for the switch. Her husband, in a low, paternally stern voice simply said, "No, Domino!"

He knew, as devastating as his and their child's deaths would be, she could never live with the memory of allowing so many others to lose their loved ones. Some think the ultimate sacrifice is to give up your life for another, but they're wrong. The ultimate is to give up your loved ones, no matter if the exchange rate is twenty-five thousand to one.

As the countdown clock reached five seconds, Domino's powers of observation finally gave her a plan C. The choice was not perfect; it was horrible. She reached out and slammed the switch into the down position, instantly dropped to the ground and lifted the table up and over into the power cable in Polarity's hand. This created a feedback arc that kicked the villain twenty yards down the bridge like a faulty fuse.

"Take care of our boy, Tony, I'll join you soon as I can."

There was nothing left of her family but charred meat and smoke. Quick and painless. She walked purposely to where Polarity's unconscious but live body lay, and began slapping him back and forth, as her screams went from horror to rage to grief. She continued until his face was hamburger and her hand a rattling bag of broken bones. Every on-duty law enforcement officer arrived to pull her off and make sure her sacrifice would ensure Polarity reached the judge's bench.

~o0o~

The overwhelming sympathy, gratitude, and adoration of a city of three million were too much for a grieving widow to handle. But what do they call a parent whose child has died? Society doesn't even acknowledge their loss with a title, because it is a pain so severe, that no one wishes to acknowledge it. There was a word she called herself, though, and it certainly wasn't "hero". Domino discarded her uniform, along with her identity and a good part of her sanity, and disappeared into the West.

~One Year Later~

Domino abruptly stopped before her hand pushed the poster-covered door that lead into the roadhouse. She wasn't sure whether the vehicle that just dropped her off was a battered, dusty pickup or a new shiny Corvette. For some reason, that bothered her, especially since she could tell from the sound it was a beefed-up V-8 Chevy. She turned to look, but the setting sun made the retreating vehicle no more than a red smudge that seemed to levitate against the horizon. She also couldn't remember if she had spent the last three nights with the hardened Chief Petty Officer on shore leave, or the cute trucker waiting out a deadhead. For some reason, that did not bother her.

All she did know was that she had reached the Left Coast after a year of drifting, which was reason enough to celebrate with a Tequila party. Tomorrow she would find a reason equally persuasive. That was about as far as her plans ever got. To fulfill this glorious future, she needed her last friend, Jackson, to invite a few of his buddies into her pocket. That goal easily sounded within reach as the harsh clunking sound of pool balls echoed throughout the room.

She tended to shy away from biker bars, but the scooters parked outside were mostly Hondas, Yamahas and Kawasaki's; wannabe pussies, to Domino's mind. Not that she couldn't face down hardcore riders, but a lone cougar fighting a wolf pack usually got messy all around.

"Well," she thought, "time to dance."

She dug four quarters out of her battered leather jacket and plunked them on the corner of a pool table the furthest from the obvious Laird of this particular swampland. After a dozen sloppy shots, one of the current players dropped the eight, and the winner turned his gaze her way. His eyes swept over her firm, if scruffy, body.

"You're up, sweetheart. I swing a pretty big stick. If, that is, you think you can handle it."

His cue, at least, was large, 24 ounces, and deeply carved along the butt end. That meant, of course, that the light and delicate touch required for real control would always be beyond reach. That made him a "poke it, not stroke it" kind of player, and would not be a problem even without her special powers.

As the challenger, Domino stuck the quarters into the slot, racked the balls, then chose the straightest piece of maple she could find, and the lightest. Her opponent sank the three on the opening break, and then missed, which was the last shot he got.

"Sheee-it." he muttered as he went back to the counter and his beer.

Given a sparkle in her eye and a genuine smile on her face, Domino would be considered pretty. At least in the sense that all women who retain their childhood innocence and playfulness are pretty, but smiles and innocence died along with her family. Also, the thin scar that ran from her left temple to the opposite corner of her mouth gave her a permanent sneer that shriveled the ego of even the most determined lothario.

She held the table for two and a half hours and ran through the fairly decent players in short order. She avoided trick shots though and only made obvious shots without error. With no more takers, she grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered her first drink of the night.

The barkeep, a blonde who was four years her junior but looked ten years older, slid the shot glass to stop in front of Domino and followed it over.

"On the house. I haven't enjoyed watching the locals get their butts kicked like that in some time, and you being a chick; they can't do much about it!"

"It was a good warm-up, but I'm looking for a little real action. Is the grease-ball in the corner as good as he thinks he is?"

The blonde's lips snapped to a thin line as her eyes reduced to slits.

"You don't want to go hustling Hammer. I don't know that you can't beat him, but if you do his posse won't let you get far before they get payback."

"I can take care of myself. It's payday, and I think my paycheck somehow got lost in his wallet. By the way, what's up with the kid in the back corner?"

About an hour into her table run, she had noticed a scrawny boy who intently watched her play. He looked about nine years old but recently turned twelve, although no one living could vouch for that. At first, he looked elsewhere whenever she turned his way. He finally gave up the pretense and simply dipped his eyes beneath a ragged baseball cap that sported a half-loose Marauder's football patch in front.

"Oh, that's just Snitch. He's kind of a fixture. We keep him around like a mascot because he doesn't seem to have anywhere to go, and the one time Children's Services tried to catch him, all hell broke loose."

"I would think a snitch wouldn't last long on the streets!"

"Oh, he's not a snitch, that's just something of a joke. You know, like a six foot, three-hundred-pound bruiser named "tiny". No one has ever heard him say a word, and even though he always seems to be hiding in a corner watching, everyone knows he's the last one who would punk you out. Hey, Snitch, here's a quarter, go tell Fred the Bud is fizzing!"

"I thought you said he couldn't talk?"

"I said no one's ever heard him talk, but he'd make the perfect partner playing charades."

Snitch deftly grabbed the tossed quarter from the air, looked around, and grabbed a Bud logo napkin off a table. He ran up the back stairs where a semi-permanent poker game took place. A minute later Fred came down, mumbling as to how he had to do everything around here so he might as well fire all his employees.

The jukebox played mostly southern rock on and off through the evening but lay quietly for the half hour Domino nursed her drink. It came to life with a cheesy finger-snapping intro, and the entire bar suddenly went quiet as a new cover version of Mack the Knife started playing.

Domino looked into the smeared and dusty collection of trade logo mirrors behind the bar and saw a thin, blue-eyed northern Italian punk walk towards "her" pool table. His black hair was greased back with imported violet-scented gel, and the rest of his style followed suit. He placed a stack of four quarters on the corner of the table and slid a folded twenty beneath them. He snapped his fingers and a lackey reverently handed him a sharkskin soft-sided cue holder from which he pulled a gleaming Balabushka stick.

Domino looked at the bartender, and in a quiet whisper said, "Only a wealthy asshole would use a work of art like that in a place like this, and he don't look rich to me. Nice knock-off, though. Bet I could pawn it for a thousand bucks!"

As she turned to get up, the bartender placed a gentle hand on Dominos shoulder and pleaded no with her eyes. Domino just shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head a bit as if to say, "What can a girl do?"

She walked silently to the table and saw nine balls racked in a diamond pattern, which defined the game. Hammer looked at her with a studied lack of emotion and asked, "Can you handle a man's game?"

"Depends if I can find a man around here."

His demeanor didn't change as she replied, although his knuckles whitened as he gripped his cue harder than strictly necessary.

Nine Ball, when played by even average players, is a fast-paced game. The contest between Domino and Hammer was brutal. Although she was careful to let Hammer win enough to keep his ego convinced he could eventually beat her, within the hour Domino was up two grand. They say you can't con an honest man, and conversely, a con makes the easiest mark. The same applies to hustlers. Domino picked up her latest winnings and started to leave. She handing the kid Snitch her pool stick along with a twenty-dollar tip, who had also been running her drinks. Hammer motioned at two of his underlings to intercept her at the door.

"Not so fast, sweet meat. One last game, rotation to 61 points, double or nothing. Seeing as you have my money, I'll even let you break. Fred, you're holding.."

Domino wasn't greedy, and so far relented using her power, but Hammer and his people were making it clear this wasn't a request. This was confirmed as all the other patrons decided to call it a night and left, the last two inebriated patrons forcibly.

The barkeep nervously took the cash from each player, stacked the bills in the center of the bar, and placed a half-bottle of Patron on top. Snitch cowered behind the cigarette machine and watched with a frightened and concerned look on his face.

"This is bullshit!" Domino muttered to herself, determined to finish this quickly. She decided to use her powers to their full and overawe everyone, then grab the money on the run before they knew what happened. It worked before, in worse conditions than this. She would make sure to grab the Patron too.

Even through the warm haze of the night's liquor, Domino sensed the relationship of each ball to the others and instinctually calculated the millimeter gaps in their racked formation. She noticed the one-half degree off-true slant of the far corner pocket and decided to show off. She lined up on the cue with just the correct degree of bottom right English to drop the 15, 14, 13, 12, and 10 balls for 63 points and the win. Only, they didn't.

The moment between when she struck the cue ball and the one started the targeted balls in their planned trajectory, a horrid pain explode between her eyes. It felt like chewing on a jawbreaker of tinfoil and was accompanied by a fuzzy double vision as the balls somehow oscillated and varied from their predestined course. The resulting chaos on the table did drop the six, but that was not the plan.

Domino's options were now limited, even considering her powers. She could either double-bank and carom the seven into the three and two, or just drop the four. Somewhat shakily, she decided to take the duck and drew back. Once again it felt like her skull was going through a vegetable grater. She missed, which just did not happen.

Hammer strutted up and sank four shots for thirty-two points. Domino lined up an easy shot, but this time purposely only used her hard-won natural skills. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snitch squeeze his eyes in concentration as her ball just missed the pocket. She focused her power and caught the strange oscillating effect centered around the kid. The effect dissipated as he relaxed and opened his eyes.

While Hammer took his next turn, Domino grabbed her shot glass and sauntered over to Snitch. In a low voice, without looking directly at him, said, "I don't know how you're screwing with my shots, or why, but if you do it again I'll turn you over my knee and teach you some manners!"

His eyes grew very round as he tried to shrink into the corner. He looked up in plea and pointed at her, lifted his index finger and pointed at Hammer, and hit his left palm with his right fist several times.

"Don't worry about me; I have a few tricks to escape the big scary Hammer. So please, just let me finish the game so I can get out of here."

Hammer finally missed which left only two points for the win. Domino focused her power, smiled at Snitch, then cleared the table with one shot. Hammer's mouth dropped as he watched the four banks, two kisses, and a teetering cue ball that just stayed clear of the pocket. Domino immediately lunged for the cash, but Hammer was half a step ahead of her.

"I don't know how you cheated me, but I expected something like this."

Domino glanced at the cash, focused on where the other goons were scattered about the room, and started to grab for the money.

"It ain't gonna happen, bitch. You know why? 'Cause it's Hammer time!"

As his fist came arcing down onto the cash, Domino's power reported that his hand had somehow gained the mass of a couple hundred pounds. He smashed through the Tequila bottle and down through two inches of solid oak, sending splinters flying.

"Shit!" she thought, "A mini-mute. I've heard there were a lot of those on the West coast. That probably explains Snitch too."

As pharmaceuticals turned to retrovirus delivery systems as the cheapest way to deliver drugs, a small percentage of the population, like Domino, reacted with powerful DNA mutations that edged them further along the evolutionary scale. Those affected could always sense each other within close distances. Fewer yet developed something akin to allergies and their genes expressed minor, and in most cases useless, powers. These minimum mutations were too weak to be felt by those fully afflicted, but they could be a pain in the butt.

Hammer's three partners slowly surrounded Domino and awaited their boss's orders.

"Grab the kid. I don't care if he can't talk; I don't want any witnesses to what I'm going to do to this cheatin' little..."

Domino Focused. She jumped and rolled behind the bar then grabbed and threw an empty Scotch bottle with carefully considered speed and angle into the overhead ceiling fan. Before the bottle exploded, she leaped to the top of the cigarette machine to reach a moth-eaten moose head and threw it in an arc towards the rear exit. Last of all she grabbed Snitch by the back of his shirt and pushed him towards the back door and shouted, "Open it!"

In the meantime, the bottle hit the fan's spinning blade and shatter into shards. The sharp pieces flew into the eyes of the goon closest to her while the thick bottom of the bottle slammed into the base of Hammer's neck. The noise of the breaking glass and the screams of pain and rage gave her time to dash through the steel security door held open by Snitch. She closed it behind them just as the moose head fell in such a way that one antler wedged firmly against the doorframe while the other dug firmly into a gap between the bar and the wall.

Seconds later a huge dent bulged in the middle of the door as a highly irate Hammer took out his frustration. Snitch tugged on Domino's sleeve and led her running through back alleys and between pre-cut holes in chain-link fences. They finally squeezed beneath a raised railroad span and ended their flight in an abandoned storage closet below ground.

Snitch closed the door and clicked on a small battery-powered camp light. The entire space was only about ten feet by four, and the concrete ceiling less than six feet high. A discordant pile of clothes made a bed against the far wall. Row after row of newspaper articles, attached to the walls by old chewing gum, was the only décor. Each faded clipping featured pictures of both past and current super-heroes, set in a circle that surrounded two treasured trading cards.

"Nice hidey hole. Is it okay if I crash here a while? I'm tired, broke, and not nearly drunk enough."

Snitch's nods were quick and short as he plumped up his cloth bed.

"Thanks, but this won't be the first time I've made do."

Domino removed her thick leather jacket and expertly folded and rolled it into a servable pillow.

"And do you have anything to eat? Breakfast was a long time ago, and it wasn't much."

Snitch dropped his head with a pout but popped it up as he remembered the twenty she had given him. He brought it out of his tattered jeans with a flourish. He pointed to her, tilted his head to the side onto his folded hands, and scissored two fingers to show running out and back.

"Ok, just watch for Hammer and his guys."

He rolled his eyes, stuck out his tongue, and blew a raspberry.

~o0o~

She awoke to the smell of a greasy fast food cheeseburger and fries, which she gratefully reached for. Snitch sat in the far corner of his bedding and stared at her with wide eyes and a strange look. She ate slowly so as not to startle him, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and asked, "What's up, kid. You look like a snake snuck up on you."

He glanced up at the wall at his left, haltingly stood up, and took down a news-clipping. He stayed just out of her reach but extended the yellowing piece of paper to her. It was a side-by-side picture of Domino standing upon the fateful bridge, and a funeral snapshot where they were lowering her husband and her baby in adjoining plots.

Tears began sliding down her cheeks. Snitch's lower lip started to quiver as he lowered to her side and give her a tentative hug. She finally broke down completely and engulfed the slight boy in her need. She sobbed uncontrollably then after a while fell into a deep, peaceful sleep for the first time since the incident. Snitch stayed in her arms and silently wept, both for Dominos grief and his own.

~o0o~

Domino spent the next ten days in Snitch's hideaway and detoxed. She met the challenges of going cold turkey head on and tried to pull together a semblance of reality from the fog in which she had been living. When the worst of the alternating chills and fevers, the hallucinations and tremors had passed, she sat in the lotus position and contemplated a sample-size spray bottle of Stetson for Men.

This bottle was the sole purpose for the countless one-night stands where she forgot herself after her nightly rounds of tequila. Each hook-up was with the same type of stranger, tall, dark-haired, and thin, just like her husband. After enduring what she must, when her partner de jour was asleep, she would spray a little on her fingertip and smear it under her nose.

She had started out quietly applying it to the men, but each of their body chemistries was just different enough it didn't fool her. Dominos only solace was to snuggle against the warm body next to her and drift off to a fitful heaven/hell of her own memories. It was time, somehow, to turn the corner and take on life again.

~o0o~

Snitch suddenly burst through the door and excitedly pantomimed for her to grab her jacket and follow.

"What's up Squirt?"

He pulled an exasperated face and ran over to point to clippings of two local super-heroes, members of the White Hats. At first, Domino pretended not to understand, unsure whether she had the strength to go back into the fray after wallowing in her emotional quagmire so long.

Snitch got down on one knee to look her in the eyes and folded his hands in supplication. His face suddenly turned stern and he got up with a sweep of his arms that took in his wall of heroes. Domino could not resist as he held out a hand palm up in invitation and command. Something she thought dead within her twitched, wounded but still alive.

~o0o~

Two of the White Hats were in a tough spot. The police had cordoned off a two-block area around the headquarters of the Diamond Exchange, where a small crowd of anti-mutant demonstrators jeered and hassled the authorities. A larger crowd of bystanders gathered for the expected entertainment.

The first was Gorgeous Georgie, a blonde, blue-eyed muscled mutant who styled himself after the famous grandfather of wrestling. He struggled in what looked like a twisted pile of oversize metal bedsprings that dangled him several inches off the ground. Every time his not insignificant muscles strained out of one coil, the spring unwound and retightened in the opposite direction. Gorgeous G just could not gain leverage no matter how mightily his muscles flexed. An old nemesis, Whodini, stood nearby in a truck-mounted vertical tube of bulletproof glass and worked a dial on a small remote control.

"You might as well relax Georgie, the aluminum-austenite memory metal will hold you for hours, and we only need a few more minutes before we're done here!"

With the soundtrack from Quadrophenia blaring in the background, Whodini flourished his long black cape and bellowed his most sinister laugh. Gorgeous G was not known for his relaxation techniques. He roared in anger and struggled all that much harder. Whodini just cackled in response.

Half a block away, VegiMight had his own problems. He was surrounded by a three-foot-high wall of mobile greenery that blocked his every move. The Australian immigrant was used to vicious man-killing animals, but plant life normally fell under his super-power and hardly ever attacked on their own in any event. These plants, however, were genetically crossed with shark genes and snapped their razor-sharp suitcase-size Venus flytrap mouths whenever he left the exact center of the open space. They seemed to draw on his plant powers whenever he moved near and grew in size and aggressiveness.

Domino Focused on the activity before her. There was a lot to work with in the chaotic environment. She and Snitch had explored his abilities and determined that if he concentrated really hard he could "push" small objects with about the same force as he could lift with one hand. His influence interfered with Domino's ability to determine a chain of events while he applied his abilities, but she could take that into account beforehand now that she was familiar with his mini-power.

From beyond the police barricade, Domino whispered her plan to Snitch, who nodded his understanding at each step. She stooped to pick up an empty soda can and a fist-sized piece of broken concrete from the gutter and nodded towards the top of the hill. An abandoned cable car's handbrake mysteriously un-ratcheted and caused the carriage to slowly move and then pick up momentum towards the traffic jam below.

Domino counted to five and a half and threw the can towards a nearby flock of strutting pigeons. The can sailed further than she could throw, thanks to a little help from Snitch, and landed on the far side of the birds. Startled, they jumped in a panic, circled twice, and rode the stiff coastal breeze towards Whodini.

Meanwhile, the cable car reached maximum coasting speed and clattered down the tracks. It slammed into a parked VW bug and jumped the tracks. The carriage skid along its side into a gasoline tanker truck that waited to dump its load at a corner gas station. The impact ripped the pipes from the truck's undercarriage and released three hundred gallons of fuel. The fuel flowed along the curves of the gutter to pool beneath the intertwined vines of the mutant plant.

As soon as the gasoline reached the intended target, Domino threw the concrete in her hand as high as she could in an arc towards VegiMight. Snitch helped it along until it reached two hundred feet, then released his grip. By this time, the pigeons were flying above the action. With a sly grin, Snitch squeezed a dozen birds in their mid-section caused them to squawk and drop their guano en masse into the eyes of the gloating Whodini.

Just before the fly-by, the previously thrown piece of concrete reached terminal velocity on its way down and slammed into a transformer on top of an electric power pole. The explosion jerked Whodini's head towards the sound just as he received a face full of pigeon poop. In his surprise, the remote control jolted out of his hand to crash onto the floor of the truck and exploded into dozens of pieces.

The giant metal springs the remote controlled immediately straightened into their neutral position and released a none-too-happy Gorgeous Georgie. At the same moment, a spark from the exploding transformer fell into the pool of gasoline and erupted into whooshing flames that burned the predatory plant to ash.

~o0o~

The White Hats only needed about two minutes to wrap up the operation. Domino and Snitch made their way to the police barrier where the heroes gathered. Snitch tugged on Gorgeous Georgie's left earlobe a couple of times with his power. The massive hero turned in aggressive surprise, still in combat mode and ready to punch whoever had tweaked him.

There was no one within reach, but since he was facing the right way, Snitch tugged a forelock of G's hair towards the barricade. Puzzled, he followed the prompting but pulled VegiMight along with him, just in case of further trouble.

When they reached the barrier, Domino tried to look innocent and said, "Hey, I'd like you both to meet a huge fan."

Gorgeous G looked down his massive bare chest at the waif-like street urchin who shyly looked out from under his ever-present logo cap, too excited to move. Gorgeous G, still puzzled, lowered his huge paw to offer a handshake. In a deep rumbling voice used for children, which he was convinced was a gentle whisper, he said, "How do you do, son. My name's Gorgeous Georgie, what's yours?"

Snitch's grin almost stretched to his ears as he vigorously nodded his head, as if to say he, of course, knew who G was. The boy grabbed the tremendous thumb and shook, which was as much of the hand as he could handle. Domino's grin was not as big as Snitch's, but there was almost as much joy in it.

"He doesn't speak much, and I don't know his real name, but at least in my eyes, I'd say he's earned a Junior White Hat patch."

VegiMight's eyes narrowed as he scowled and said, "Hey, don't I know you? Wait a minute... "

He studied the gasoline truck, backtracked up the hill with his eyes, looked at the transformer, glanced at the guano-speckled face of Whodini in the paddy wagon, and made the connection.

"I never did believe in coincidence. But how did you manage all this at the same time?"

Domino presented Snitch with her open hand. "I had a little help."

"Gorgeous G," VegiMight addressed his still confused partner, "meet Domino, one very impressive super-hero who dropped off the radar a while back. And... Junior. And not just a patch! I'd say we have a new White Hat auxiliary member."

Gorgeous Georgie finally caught on and said, "Welcome, Domino. And you too Junior, welcome aboard! Thanks for the assist. Domino, you are one of the original good guys and can hang with the White Hats anytime! Anyone who says different can deal with me." He flexed his mighty biceps but know one was about to argue anyway.

~end~

_

_ Chapter 8: Emergency Evacuation

Now that the excitement of Mark's first intergalactic launch was over, he was in dire need of a toilet. He was one of ten thousand passengers, but the only human among a dozen physiologically diverse races. He consulted his handy-dandy all-in-one Traveler's Assistant with some trepidation. The Human to Galactic translator database was in its infancy and had already caused him numerous embarrassments.

"Toilet" was not on the list, of course; nor were the dozen alternatives he could think up. In desperation, he left his cubbyhole cabin and wandered the halls until he came to a queue. Several aliens stood before a door and moved in conjunction with a blue light that turned off when unoccupied. He pointed his T.A. at the door plaque and pressed the translate button. It came back "Evacuation." Since there were neither sirens nor general panic, Mark assumed he had found his destination.

He noticed a pattern that clothed aliens generally entered individually while those unclothed often entered in groups. He assumed this behavior demarked along nudity taboos, so entered alone when the time came. He bypassed a large open sand-litter pit, a bowl that contained worms with sharp gnashing teeth, and various mechanical extrusions. Nothing resembling the standard porcelain facility of his people. There was one container of liquid, but it was blue and sparked and fizzed, which made him fear an explosive chemical reaction.

He finally came across a maze of tubing, and experimentally placed a finger in an appropriate sized hose. "Good enough!" He thought as he felt a slight suction. He gently matched need to opportunity and sighed in relief.

Unfortunately, those facilities were also diagnostic and assumed from the chemical analysis that a Gylix was in severe medical distress. The system increased the suction, pulsed the hose to stimulate the Gylix respiratory nerve, and injected an appropriate psychotropic alkaloid. Mark died, but with a smile on his face, which is why it is now considered a social faux pas for a human to smile in mixed alien company.

~end~

_

_ Chapter 9: Keeping To The Shadows

They hired me on the spot. The manager, a Jim Carrey wanna-be, took one look at my, to be fair, scarce resume and thrust his hand over the tiny counter in welcome. He said my timing was perfect as we waited for the top of the hour for the other four new hires to show up for training. They were all attractive young ladies, like me. I'm not being vain, just staying real. I could tell from Mister Carrey's dirty-little-boy charming grin that I would have to watch this one. He's too old to be serious with a nineteen-year-old, and I am old enough to know that.

A gas-station attendant is not the most glamorous job in the world, but it is an honest living. There wasn't much to the training, mainly a quick introduction to the pump controls, and the phone number to the credit card companies in case of problems. And, of course, where they stored the cigarettes. Other than that, the register told you how much change to give, and that was pretty much that.

Most of the day, customers showed up by ones and twos, with a slight rush starting at four-thirty, but overall the shift went by quickly. It feels good to be working, and I hope soon to save enough for the deposit on a place of my own. I don't expect anything fancy; just someplace quiet where I can get on with my life. After an uneventful shift, I walk to the corner of the street and wait for the bus. The wind is coming up, and I turn to look at the loose roofing panel banging on the shelter over the pumps.

Something is wrong. My vision waivers and I feel a bit nauseous from vertigo. My eyes clear and I'm looking at a long-abandoned derelict business. The corrugated panel slapping in the wind is the last piece of roofing, hanging onto the bare, skeletal frame. Most of the gas pumps are missing or lying on their sides, broken, rusted, and covered in graffiti. Trash piles up against the center-island work shack; glass busted out onto the ground and sparkly in the late-afternoon sun.

The desert sky shows ribbons of oranges and reds and yellows, slowly changing hue into shades of gray as the sun gives up the day's endeavors. I shiver as the temperature suddenly drops ten degrees. Two knee-high tumbleweeds catch my attention as they lope along the ground in search of a resting spot after scattering their seeds. One escapes into the high desert backdrop while the other tangles in the rest-stop canopy across the street. This reminds me why I came out to Wolf Creek Junction to begin with before I slipped into one of my alternative lives for the afternoon.

I don't understand why they call it Wolf Creek. I've never heard of wolf in this area, coyote maybe. I see them frequently, but they stay a safe distance, even from me. I suppose it might be named after the old flash flood channel where I sometimes overnight, at least in warmer weather. I've never seen a drop of water in it, but an old 'bo once told me he lost his best friend and his dog, or maybe he said his dog was his best friend, doesn't matter; the point is several people died in those floods, but that was something like fifty years ago.

I've made my way to the rest stop without realizing it. I'm not too good at tracking time, but this must be Wednesday because I always try to hit this spot on Wednesdays. The County empties the three fifty-gallon metal barrels of trash on Friday, but by then there's too much chance of spoilage. Of course, if I come earlier in the week, there's little likelihood of forage.

I find two half-eaten boxes of McD's fries, there are always fries. They are cold and stale, the grease coating my mouth with an unpleasant film, but they are filling, and grease is a good compact form of energy. The salt helps too, here in the high desert, as long as I stay hydrated. There's also an untouched cherry turnover, but even I have standards. Score! Three apples in a clear plastic sack, with only a small bruise appearing where they touched. The sweetness is heaven.

That's about it for this week, not a bad haul, and at least no diapers. I detest diapers. The old station across the street used to be the last stop out of town before entering the desert proper, and the turn-off is still used by travelers preferring to avoid the business route and avoiding the two-light town of Wolf Creek. Oh, wait, what did I miss back here?

Oh damn, just a couple of bottles of trucker's lemonade. I once asked a good ol' boy why they don't pee alongside the road like everyone else, and he just laughed and said time is money. Still, it is amazing what people throw away. The flannel shirt tied around my skinny hips I found right here in the middle barrel. It was brand-new, except for a large mustard stain on the front. I just mushed a broken aloe leaf on it and rubbed in the little stand, and no one could tell the difference.

It's quickly turning cold, so I untie the shirt and put it on, heading into town. A few minutes later, I see one of those million-dollar RVs pull up to the rest stop and wonder if it would be worthwhile to backtrack, but the driver just gets out and pretends to hide behind the bumper to relieve himself. As he drives off into the night, I see a woman and two kids by the light over the small table, seeming to enjoy their dinner.

I think I was a kid like that once, but if so, I was very young. An errant memory threatens to surface, but I need to stay focused on my mission. My clan is counting on me to breach Yojimbo Castle and retrieve the sacred statue. I stay to the shadows, avoiding both the city guards and the wandering security teams of the local Yakuza boss.

The security fence is high and strung with sharp barbs, but my thin frame and years of training allow me to squeeze between the chained and padlocked gate. The secure vault is twice my height and four times as long, with only one small opening along the top. I climb up between the vault and the brick wall, dropping flat on the top as a searchlight sweeps the area. In darkness again, I squeeze into the chute, practically dislocating a shoulder, but I succeed.

I'm in total darkness. I light a match and behold, I am in the treasury! Not only is there a sleeping bag and all the cardboard I can carry, but a brand-new pair of high-top sneakers close enough to my size. Some may pity me for living rough, but isn't all living rough, in one form or another?

~o0o~

The zipper on my new sleeping bag is broken, but it is big enough that I can fold the top over and lie on it. It is soon going to be too cold to stay on the streets, but I'll avoid the shelters until I begin to get frostbite. The food is steady there, but they make me take pills that only make me super sleepy and keep me tied to the mundane world. The counselors tell me that I won't live long if I keep up my lifestyle, but they don't understand the number of lives I live when I'm in the wild and med free. I pity them, those that live one life but hardly live at all. They are all miserable and simply going through the motions of survival while I get to have grand adventures. We'll see who has the biggest well of memories to draw on during the Long Sleep. Speaking of sleep, I better get some. I'll need to be fresh for tomorrow's delights.

~end~
_

_ Chapter 10: Crimson King

They suffered; oh how they suffered!

Jarn sent his wife and children into the wild lands at first light He prayed they could maintain a steady crawl long enough to escape the oncoming gravity increase in advance of the Dream Festival. He rose to his knees to cast a hateful glance at the strutting Dream Temple priests but quickly dropped back to all fours to save energy for the hard day ahead. His eldest son normally helped drag supplies, but tonight was also a Full Moon, so his labors were required elsewhere. Most importantly, the livestock needed to be herded into sheds before dark or their stampede would leave nothing but bloody bags of broken bones.

Jarn whistled the roundup call to his coyote-dogs, who struggled onto their muscular, low-slung legs and slow-loped around the herd while belly fur dragging along the rocky ground. They co-operated not so much out of loyalty, but for the food provided, saving energy for later scavenging. Jarn crawled along, protected somewhat by thick leather shields covering his palms, knees, and foot dorsals. The sheep bleated in pain as they left anemic blood trails, squirming ahead of snapping teeth that forced them into the shed.

He closed the gate just as the sun disappeared between distant peaks, and slowly climbed a ramp onto the four-foot-high roof to watch through the night. He could see his few neighbors atop their own livestock sheds dotted around the one-acre farm lots, but all were too weary to call a greeting. Besides, the Full Moon was soon to arrive, and each had to steel their resolve before they faced that ordeal. All heard the crackling line of fire that spread across the boundary between the moon and the lower atmosphere as the bloated satellite approached.

~o0o~

While the Crimson King snored upon his throne, he relished the experience of a young girl's nightmare of drowning in a fiery lake. His court stood quietly, each locked in a private hell. The lightened gravity, the ornate furnishings, the reflective carved, metal surfaces and rich fabrics; all joy was abrogated by the overwhelming horror which was their liege.

The Armchair Throne itself caused mental breakdown in some. Dozens of human arms, severed from fallen enemies, were attached to one another's shoulders, elbows, and wrists with artistic flair. They constantly shifted as they grabbed one another to lessen the strain of supporting the immense weight of the King. Along the bottom, dozens of legs and feet bent beneath attached hip joints, which caused a random rocking and swaying. The movements gently comforted His Highness during his slumber-dreams.

All attention focused upon the King as the replayed dream came to an end. Each surviving member of the court became an expert at reading the King's nuanced moods. Death, or often worse, could result in inappropriate responses. Tension receded from extreme to merely high as a sonorous, bubbling chuckle filled the air. Every member slightly relaxed their vigilance and strained once again to come to terms with their untenable situation.

Few remembered the King's appearance before he had donned his overcoat of circulating blood. Towards the end of the war, as he defeated the world's last twelve resisting heads of state, he realized he would have no more enemies of note whom he could terrorize. Unwilling to face a future bereft of chastised trophies, he pulled the very blood from their bodies while leaving them technically alive as fully conscious desiccated mummies. To keep their life forces viable, he enjoined and encased his own body with ever-swirling ribbons of their blood, giving him a bloated, vaguely human, balloon-like shape.

The young girl's delicious nightmare he just consumed had not only raised his spirits but had also stimulated the King's predacious nature. His bubbling, sonorous command issued against the silence.

"Peter! Bring me a toy!"

The Crimson King was the first wizard in history to combine the liquid power of Essence with the science of Magic, but he was not the first to fall victim to the malignant nature of the unnatural mix. That honor belonged to his Grand Vizier, Purple Peter, so named for the aura of mauve semi-permeable energy that trapped him half within this realm and half within the Other. As Peter moved towards what he called the Peanut Gallery to select a toy for his King, his eyes locked on his twin sister Jesse with aberrant lust.

The King had convinced him that their intimate congress would free Peter from this perpetual half-life, as well as permit full access to the same power the King enjoyed. She was denied him as long as she provided amusement to the court, but the King had made promises. She, as always, pretended not to notice, but also, as always, felt an inner shiver of disgust mingled with pity. She knew in her heart that their liege was engaged in yet another twisted game, but her brother lived in agony and held on to the small hope.

The King allowed small numbers of vanquished stragglers to occupy the outer fringe of the lessened gravity gradient that surrounded his travelling court. There were always a few refugees that chose between the rumored horrors of their king and the proven horrors of living in the chastened lands. Few stayed longer than a couple of days, despite the respite from the overwhelming gravity increase. Even so, there were a steady stream of replacements willing to exchange their last shreds of dignity for just a few hours of relief.

Peter approached the frightened herd and ordered two servants to grab the first elbow within reach. His King no longer maintained a preference for male over female, young over old, or even beauty over repugnant ugliness. He only required was that they were alive and pliant. The chosen victim stumbled two steps towards the throne and tensed, ready to flee. Peter had thousands of similar experiences. Rather than waste his efforts by grabbing another, he willed a small amount of Magic to his bidding. He pushed his insubstantial hand through her skull and into her brain while his purple nimbus increased in intensity. The young woman screamed a moment from pain and terror and then stood slack as a light purple glow subsumed the intelligence behind her eyes.

Peter brought the object before the King's throne, performed a quick but sincere genuflection, and retreated three paces. The Crimson King reached out to twine his fingers through the hair at the back of her head and pushed down. Peter turned away. As inured to the King's ways as he was, he also preferred not to dwell on certain aspects of his liege's behavior.

The toy began to suffocate ninety seconds later, but in no particular hurry, the King allowed her a few breaths. Bloody gobbets covered her hair and face, which congealed and dripped when flung outside the field of Magic that held the undulating red streams against the King's body.

Twice more the King thrust his toy into position, and on the third, raised a finger towards Peter. He withdrew his aural Influence and resumed position with the rest of the court. Reason momentarily returned to the girl as he cast her aside and she fell to the ground with great sobs. The king willed his throne to step daintily around her gagging body. He showed no sense of remorse or regret, but only felt the same repugnance one would have towards a wad of soiled tissue lying on the ground.

Standing the requisite three steps from the King's side, the Black Queen inadvertently drew his attention as a rivulet of steam hissed off her coal-encrusted cheek. She was the true monarch of both Realms. She had enraged the then Crimson Knight by her steadfast refusal to accept his proposal, thus denying the mantle of legitimate rule.

Full of rage, he had directed a column of Magic to consume her in Fire and intended next to force marriage upon the Queen's sister, the Duchess of Fire and only surviving High Royal Wizard. The Duchess intervened with her own projection of Magic, a duel that ultimately banished her from existence.

The Black Queen's outer skin continuously smoldered as coal and ash from a never-ending internal flame, but new skin constantly grew beneath the burnt layers. The best her sister could do before the king won the battle, was insulate her from the pain at the expense of total loss of physical feeling.

The Black Queen flinched but refused to cringe as the king addressed her with scorn in his voice.

"Why do you always mourn for these meaningless creatures? You know you can reverse all their suffering, as well as your own, simply by acceding to my generous proposal."

"They are still my subjects by law, and my answer, as always, is that Wizards neither marry nor are given in marriage. It is an inviolate rule which would destroy the Realms if broken."

"They were your subjects, but now they are mine by right of conquest! I recognize no fate other than my own will, let alone nursery rhymes disguised as prophecy. I will destroy the Realms more surely due to your obstinateness than from violating old superstitions."

He sidled his throne to within inches of her and punctuated his statement with a sharp poke to her breast. She winced slightly and grimaced as the smell of her own ruptured serum intermingled with drops of his borrowed blood, a mixture that burned in a foul vapor.

The Crimson King sighed.

"You always manage somehow to ruin my temper. Jesse! Rouse the puppets; I'm in the mood for a lively jig!"

Jesse based her own access to Magic on empathy, love of life, and goodness of heart. The King sneered at such things, slightly irritated by her presence, but she had her uses. One was the ability to coax the dispirited puppets of his former enemies into animation. Their corpse-like bodies responded to her bidding, but her main function was as the carrot of restoration dangled before Peter. The king would never give her over, of course, but the game was sweet as long as it lasted. A willing servant was so much more fun than a forced one.

Jesse squeezed her eyes to steel her nerves for the unpleasant task ahead. She brushed a stray blonde hair from her face and Called the vanquished, who responded jerkily as if on strings. She required the majority of her concentration to coax thin loops of their individual blood streams away from the Crimson King, to each body and back again. This was the only way for them to both have enough life energy to perform, and keep them firmly under the King's dominion. As the life-giving threads unwound from the King's body, the defeated troop began to un-slump and eventually stood to sway on the floor.

Peter had trained an orchestra in the use of Magic enhanced instruments. The musicians played eerie, atonal undercurrents, which unpleasantly resonated within one's soul. The King waved his consent; the orchestra began to play, and the puppets began to dance. At first, they simply hopped and skipped across the floor as Jesse struggled for the control and concentration she needed. Next she had them form two lines facing each other, partner with two-hand cross-holds, and promenade in a circle around the throne. She soon had them performing a Chasse. Each stepped with the right foot, slid the left to touch it, twisted clockwise on raised toes, and ended with the right foot behind the left in a reversed anti-clockwise twist.

The King, caught up in the spectacle and movement, decided to join in. As he plopped to the floor with a squish, Jesse arranged the puppets into a star. Their left hands extended to within an inch of the King as they step-hopped counter-clockwise, then as one reversed hands and direction to repeat clockwise. They held their outer palms out as if lifting joyful hosannas to their King. They, of course, felt no such joy, other than that of these small moments they were reunited with their blood and life force.

With each change of direction between the King and his puppets, the tendrils of blood that connected them to him were constantly crossing each other. They filled the air with sparkling crimson droplets that gave the dance a grotesque air of gaiety and celebration. Jesse became weary and felt her head spin nearly as fast as those of the dancers. Just before she was about to pass out, the King took a misstep and slipped on the accumulated blood.

"Enough! And quiet now, I need to rest."

The King stumbled onto his throne as it skittered up to catch him and pulled him to its seat. Jesse started to collapse from exhaustion, but Peter had caught her before she hit the floor. She closed her eyes and prepared to sever the blood connections. She stiffened in outrage as she felt her brother's hand slide across her bosom and pinch.. She jumped to her feet and glared into Peter's eyes.

"Don't EVER touch me, you perverted scum!"

Peter just chuckled, but his straining neck muscles revealed the strength of will it took to appear to walk casually away. In all the world, his sister was the only person he could touch. His accident had made his body insubstantial as well as glow, but something in their connection defied the laws of Magic.

Jesse glanced at the puppets, which stood in place and quivered in their weakness. She tried to remember the last time they had been fed, and couldn't. The idea that she was getting used to their feeding habits bothered her more than the fact that the poor creatures were starving. She turned her gaze opposite that of the peanut gallery and gave the monsters their head. They had long ago reverted to an animal state and needed occasional fresh meat to sustain what energy they had. The King was always amused by anything that encouraged suffering and degradation. He decreed that the camp followers were to be their only sustenance. The wild scavengers always appreciated the resulting gore left behind when the King and his court moved on.

In just twenty years, the self-proclaimed King had defeated every country and clan in the world. It took him another five to defeat the Wizards, after which he placed them in chains on the surface of the moon where he could look up and gloat. To remind the world of his dominance, he transferred most of the moon's gravity to the earth. He kept a convenient radius around himself and his Dream Temple but increased the weight of everything and everyone three hundred percent. The lessened mass of the moon would have sent it to drift off into space, so he pulled it down close enough to maintain a somewhat stable orbit. It came so near that the lower portion just skimmed the upper atmosphere, creating a friction fire along the interface. The full moon also blocked out the entire horizon with its bulk, which created a primal fear in man and beast that resulted in a feeling of imminent disaster as it slowly rolled above.

~o0o~

In the gentle times before the war, C.K. was born into his family's Magic farm, an inheritance he detested. Everything about Magic was an affront to his sensibilities. He thought that inhaling the raw gas from the plant's fruit and Speaking an object into existence, or directing the forces of nature to act with a Word, to be both lazy and dimwitted. Instead, he held electrified Essence in the highest esteem. The Master Engineers who matched wits with the liquid power were, to him, hero geniuses as they designed ever more clever ways to force nature's power under human dominance.

Unfortunately, raw Magic and liquid Essence reacted explosively with each other. C.K. was forbidden on pain of severe punishment ever to bring a drop anywhere near the farm. In the rare moments he got ahead of his chores, C.K. Called technical manuscripts to his room and memorized schematics, impedance tables, transistors, diodes, and rise-time charts. Theories, however, were no substitute for hands-on, a dream seemingly forever out of reach.

C.K. daily walked endless rows of the only crop, where he applied twist clips to each stalk an inch below the cantaloupe size fruit to halt the maturation process in preparation for harvest. Each Magic fruit grew from a single stalk and budded a small air bladder as it grew. When immature, the fruit was the size of a grape, colored white with the barest tinge of pink.

The fresh Magic gas within remained weak at that point, barely strong enough to Call a simple glass of water or levitate an object a few yards. It was mainly useful for small tasks that were slightly less effort with Magic than without. Also, objects or effects Called with weak Magic faded after only a few minutes. The size of the fruit and the power of the Calling matured over time. The gas was harvested during growth phases of shades of pink, red, maroon, and burgundy that eventually grew to the size of basketballs. These older plants contained serious power and took decades to mature, only used for major works under the direct supervision of Wizards.

The Queen had given rare permission for one fruit to reach full maturity, honoring C.K.'s family farm with a process that began decades before his birth. Possibly missing that ripening would be C.K.'s only regret as he planned to leave the farm as soon as possible. He would be a legal adult at age twenty, which to a ten–year-old was a literal lifetime away. The deep black six-foot wide fruit could ripen any day or 50 years later. He, of course, was not allowed unaccompanied anywhere near the Black.

C.K. stood somewhere in the middle of miles of orderly rows,. finished with the day's chores, looked around and sighed. He grasped a lemon-size Pink from his satchel, emptied his lungs, and released the twist grip enough to allow a small wisp into his lungs. He closed his eyes, pictured his bedroom in as much detail as possible, and firmly said, "Home!"

The air sparkled as he faded into transparency and vanished. The process reversed inside the smallest bedroom of the modest family home, a process as ordinary for him as brushing his teeth.

His parents could have afforded to Call a house of any style and made of any material imaginable, but exotics faded over time and needed frequent upkeep, so they built for ensuing generations from native stone. Of course, they used magic for the construction. It was a point of pride that they were staunch traditionalist, not were not impoverished mundanites.

~o0o~

C.K. enjoyed a rare late morning in honor of his fourteenth birthday. The family gathered to join him for his morning meal, but a sudden Appearance at the foot of the table interrupted them. They all recognized the local mayor, a frequent guest, but his usual self-important demeanor transformed into obvious obsequiousness as he announced, "The Grand Wizard Waerlogus!"

Even the most powerful wizard needs prior knowledge or line of sight to Appear, so Waerlogus had required a guide. The mayor risked a quick glance to discern whether anything further was required of him and took the complete lack of acknowledgment as permission to leave, which he did forthwith.

The Wizard Waerlogus exuded confidence. He was of average height with an unassuming build. His thick, wavy, brilliant red hair fell past his shoulders and blended seamlessly with an immense full beard as wide as his body and ended with a point just below his belt line. The beard was the same intense red as his hair but shot through with veins of metallic bright copper.

Set against a full-length kelly-green felt robe, his presence seemed as a three-dimensional model posted onto a dull, flat background. His cookie-brush mustache hid his face except for an overly large nose and deep-set no-nonsense, sapphire-green eyes. His left hand held a five-foot tall staff made from the living stem of a Magic plant, topped with a baseball size golden fruit. C.K. sat mesmerized by that fruit most of all, never having heard even a rumor of such a wonder.

Waerlogus spoke with a smooth, pleasant tenor, a restrained strength at rest.

"You, boy, take me to the Black fruit."

C.K.'s father had enough. Who was this stranger, Wizard or not, to burst in uninvited and begin issuing orders?

"This is my farm, and I am Master here!"

He was admittedly provincial and did not know the name of every Wizard in the five realms. He did, however, own the largest Magic farm in the land, which came with a certain amount of pride and authority of its own. He completely felt within his rights, and duty bound to take charge due to the stranger's professed interest in the Black. He reached into his satchel and started to pull out a decanter of Red, but upgraded to a Burgundy and inhaled the powerful Magic.

"Immobilize!" he bellowed.

The air shimmered as the leading front of the Command, enhanced by the strength of the Burgundy and the emotional imperative behind it. As the wave of power reached Waerlogus, the Golden Globe at the top of his staff glowed briefly. The Command crashed against that shimmer, evaporated and left curled edges of Burgundy smoke that dissipated harmlessly into the air.

The entire incident seemed beneath the notice of the wizard.

"Since you are the master here, you may await in the pavilion until the rulers of the Three Realms arrive at noon. Escort them to the Black when all parties have arrived.

"What pavilion?" C.K.'s mother thought, gasping when she glanced out the kitchen window at the ornate Royal Pavilion that had magically appeared in their front yard since she had last looked. Royal banners hung from thirty-foot pillars that surrounded a raised dais, which was shaded by opulent layers of iridescence peacock feathers that hung from above.

"And one more thing," Waerlogus stated in a warning dripping with menace despite the absence of overt overtones, "you are mistaken in your belief that this farm belongs to you. Neither this farm nor your wife, neither your children nor even your liberty. Each of these is the property and chattel of the Queen. She shall enter this realm before the day is done, and to entertain even a thought contrary to these facts is treason and could bring devastating consequences."

C.K. had always respected his father, a bigger than life figure and unquestioned patriarch of both his family and community. To see his lifelong hero so belittled and diminished, especially in the bastion of his own freehold, shriveled and hardened something inside him. Not only was respect for all authority lost, but anger and rage at his own loss of innocence began a rot of his soul that one day would devour the Three Realms.

Waerlogus placed a hand on C.K.'s shoulder and said, "To the Black!"

~o0o~

The seven-foot across Black fruit lay on the ground at the end of a bent stalk. Waerlogus bent down on one knee and placed an ear against the top end of the fruit. He appeared to engage in a whispered conversation. C.K., given no further instructions for the time remaining until noon, wasn't about to miss out on whatever was about to happen. A Black had not been brought to maturity in many generations, and C.K. was not quite sure what, exactly, that entailed. He quietly backed away to the edge of the small clearing where the rows of Browns began and sat cross-legged in the receding shade.

At high noon, Waerlogus stood up. Five brightly costumed young men Appeared along with C.K.'s father, each lightly resting a finger on his outstretched forearm. They looked around and Left, Returning one-by-one in order of precedence with their corresponding sovereigns.

The first attendant announced, "The Duke of Air!"

Each Wizard was unique in their Power and personality. The only way to distinguish them from an eccentric human, besides their attitude of assurance and unthinking superiority, was their ability to invoke magic without the need of the gas. The Duke of Air was tall and willowy, nearly seven feet but so slight he seemed to sway with the breeze.

The next attendant appeared with a resounding, "The Duke of Earth! " The short, squat Wizard was almost a caricature opposite of the Duke of Air. He could comfortably stand beneath a 5-foot high branch, and was nearly thick as he was wide. His hairless head merged with a prominent brow that abruptly transformed into a massive proboscis (for 'nose' was much too modest a word to describe such a commanding appendix). His stance conveyed a stolidness that might outlast the distant marble cliffs.

The Duchess of Water presented as a young girl, perhaps just past puberty. Volumes of silky black locks cascaded nearly to her ankles and undulated in waves even when no breeze moved them. Flashes of athletic arms and legs appeared when sections of hair parted, never quite revealing whether a bodice lie beneath.

The Duchess of Will was somewhat matronly, at the peak of middle age, handsome rather than pretty. Her short-cropped hair was a shining gray, of a color that imparted wisdom and nobility rather than age or weakness. Her substantial bare arms crossed over a laced suede vest, in turn draped over well-used leather riding breaches. She studied each person in the gathering in turn, and even the other Wizards dropped their gaze before her.

The final Wizard to appear was the Duke of Fire, a figure so wizened and aged he seemed nearly translucent as he sat upon a throne made of contained flames. By tradition, such an ostentatious display while attending the Queen was prohibited but was overlooked in light of his infirmity and impending retirement. He had two attendants, both of whom knelt to support his forearms as he struggled to stand. All eyes turned towards him in respectful silence as he spoke in a tenuous whisper.

"My time here is over. This body has served me well, yet like all on this side, is subject to the effects of time. I would say I'll look forward to meeting you, my friends, on the other side, but there is no such thing as time there. We haven't really left, so if ever we have met, we can never un-meet. Fare you well."

With a final sigh, his body wavered and dissipated, the silence followed by a flaring of his throne, which also faded into nothingness. Throughout the proceedings, C.K. sat still, overwhelmed with wonder and beyond thought. His family taught him to use Magic as soon as he could talk. But to him, who knew no other life, it was just a mundane tool for common everyday use. What he now saw, though, was beyond exotic, and the surreality had barely begun.

After observing a respectful moment of silence in honor of the former Duke, Waerlogus extended his staff and placed his Gold finial on the jet-black fruit, and issued a Command, "Come!"

The staff began to glow, a process that spread to the fruit and bathed them all in a brilliant golden nimbus. Waerlogus took a step back as the glow began to pulsate. Several lumps formed beneath the skin of the fruit and pushed outward in simpatico timing with the light. After twenty beats, the rhythm slowed and the brightness dimmed while the frequency faltered. Waerlogus pointed his staff towards each Wizard in turn and nodded his head in orchestration.

Each Wizard spoke in turn, beginning with the Duke of Earth, "By the power of Earth, Come!"

The ground beneath the fruit began roiling and tolling with a tympani of Basso reverberations, encircling the fruit without disturbing it.

"By the power of Air, come!"

A swirling wind formed above the fruit, gained speed and strength, and pulled local debris and clouds into a raging tornado. The base hovered only a foot above the fruit, yet everything remained calm outside its immediate sphere of influence.

"By the power of Water, Come!"

Storm clouds formed above the tornado, black and oppressive. They let loose a deluge of rain, which disappeared into the tornado. Standing in for the former Duke of Fire, Waerlogus stretched his free hand towards the fruit, palm up.

"By the power of Fire, Come!"

A tongue of flame appeared in his hand and leaped towards the fruit, where it burst into a conflagration of gold Fire and interwove with the tornado and the rain. Finally, Waerlogus nodded to the remaining wizard.

She hesitated a moment, closed her eyes in concentration, then simply said, "By the power of Will, Come!"

The noise, the lights and the motion all reached a crescendo. Then, with a massive whoosh, the tempest collapsed onto the fruit. The ensuing silence was aggressively deafening. A shadowy fissure, impossibly darker than the color-negative fruit, extruded a pale, feminine arm from inside. Waerlogus proffered an assisting hand, and the most stunning woman C.K. had ever imagined emerged and rose to her feet. She wore nudity with style and grace. Her near-ivory skin glowed with an internal source, set off by flame-red hair and violet eyes that formed the perfect combination of sensuality and approachability.

Waerlogus nodded to the manifest paragon of beauty and announced, "May I introduce, the newly appointed Duchess of Fire."

The Duchess extended a shapely arm in a sweep towards the still intact fruit.

"And may I present, her Majesty the Queen!"

The skin of the fruit widened around the fissure and deflated. In its place stood a statuesque goddess complete with a polar-bear-white helmet of hair and form-fitting platinum armor. Where the Duchess of Fire was stunning, the Queen was heartbreaking perfection. Any single feature could be found on many a beautiful woman, but the totality was beyond human. She was inarguably the most beautiful woman ever to grace the world. C.K., along with every person whose gaze fell upon her, fell instantly in love.

The Wizards and their attendants dropped to one knee in respect, except for Waerlogus, who dipped his chin and received a mirrored nod in return. Noticed by no one, but caught in the moment, C.K. fell on his face in full grovel.

The Queen curled her fingers and gestured for her subjects to rise, then issued her first proclamation.

"Sister dear, remember our talk of modesty?"

The Duchess of Fire, after a quizzical look, peered down and responded with a pure-toned giggle. She spoke a Word, and small flames danced around her body and formed a skin-tight jerkin and loincloth of cold fire. This only increased the perception of sensuality while technically covered any vulgar bits.

The Queen turned to Waerlogus, gently grasped the back of his head, and leaned in, touching foreheads in a gesture of intimacy, respect, and friendship.

"Thank you, old friend; you are as talented a midwife as you are an artist."

"Well, the Queen must keep up appearances with a proper entrance."

"So, you've been in and out of the Realm since the beginning, where do you suggest I start my chores? It always takes me a while to adjust to living in sequential time."

"Perhaps a royal residence? And your court, of course. The peers have readied a tribute of staff for your review. They are awaiting your pleasure on top of yonder bluffs, where I humbly suggest placing your reigning seat if it so pleases."

"You know your suggestions carry the weight of my command. Would you mind Bringing my attendants?"

"Unfortunately I have a time-sensitive event to oversee. I will, however, appoint an attendant for your sister before I leave. Given her recent elevation to Duchess, she can Bring Jesse and Peter through without me.

"So be it! All right everyone, let's go."

The Queen shimmered and disappeared. Her court followed, as always, in order of precedence. The Duchess of Fire stayed and looked towards Waerlogus as if lost. He smiled, placed a hand on her shoulder, and spoke in friendly tones.

"Since you have inherited the title, dear Duchess, you'll require an attendant familiar with this place and time. I think I know just the person. Come here, boy!"

At first, C.K. hoped they overlooked him, but two pairs of Wizards' eyes drilled into him as his body answered the command of its own accord. He stood before them as if rooted and trembled slightly, but tried not to show his fear.

The Duchess asked, "What is your name, and how old are you? I find it so hard to tell with your people."

He managed to reply with a minimum of stuttering, "I'm 14... I mean they call me C.K. I'm 14 years old, ma'am."

"How would you like to be my attendant vassal? Think carefully before answering. Sacred vows have a life of their own."

"I need to get permission from my father, and the mayor, and I don't know who all."

"Child, or I should say, young man, I may be the youngest of the peers, but in the Three Realms, there are few who exceed my authority. As my attendant, you shall answer only to me, and our Queen, of course. The choice is truly yours."

C.K. was stunned, but his practical side, trained in Essence engineering, calculated the unlimited opportunities available along this path. But then, he thought, would he be forsaking his first love by serving the high mysteries of Magic? A seed of his future willfulness germinated in the rich soil of possibilities and allowed him the fortitude to negotiate.

"I am of honored and humbled, and please excuse my ignorance, but would I need to drop my studies of Essence?"

"Waerlogus, how did you find this gem? Master C.K, the study of Essence is the entire reason the Queen is here! Prove your loyalty, and grow in my service, and I prophesy you may grow into the Realms' foremost expert. Now, if you are willing, go to one knee and place your open palm on mine. Do you...what is your full name?"

"Carmen Kensington McGuire, ma'am." He answered somewhat embarrassed.

"Carmen Kensington McGuire, do you willingly and freely petition for the office of Attendant, beholden to me, the Duchess of Fire, until released, pledging your loyalty and very life to my prosperity?"

"I do."

With that simple phrase, C.K. felt power flow through their pressed palms, a terrible power willing to do his bidding but also watching and ready to devour his soul should he break his oath. He also gained a higher level of vision and awareness, able to see Magic as a new color that lightly swirled through the air and concentrated in glowing balls on the fruit of the plants. The Duchess seemed bathed in a bonfire of Magic, and Waerlogus was simply too bright to look on directly. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see an erratic swirling of disjointed Magic centered on the attendants of the former Duke of Fire, who stood desolate to the side.

"Arise, Master McGuire, and welcome to my service. Now, we have others to fetch. Show me to your ripest Burgundy."

"If I may, what will happen to them?"

C.K. pointed to the two former attendants.

"With all the excitement, I almost forgot; poor things. What are your choices, loyal attendants? Will you follow your former master, or do you wish to be released from service?"

The former attendants, one who squatted with his head buried in his arms in heavy grief while the other stood but vacantly wept, looked up in hope.

"I am pledged to my master and willingly follow him wherever he goes!"

"So be it. Join your master!"

He stood up, joy on his face as he sparkled into non-existence. The other, although also grieved, struggled with the question.

"I am forever thankful, but I am young and was younger still when I pledged to service. I find myself now desiring a family. I pray you forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive! You have been loyal and eased the latter years of a very old man. Go and prosper, you are released!"

With his new sight, C.K. saw the young man's oath brighten to a brilliant yellow and fade away. The former attendant stood thoughtfully for a moment, then with a smile said a Word and was gone.

"Now, where is that Burgundy?"

C.K. led the Duchess to the oldest planting of Burgundies and stopped in front of the healthiest looking of the older plants. She examined it a moment and nodded in approval. C.K. stepped back in anticipation.

"Mature!"

The fruit enlarged, gained firmness, and blackened to dark velvet.

"Ripen!"

The fruit overgrew the stalk and lay on the ground where they could see movement that stretched the skin from within.

"Jesse, Peter, Come!"

The skin split open to reveal twin Wizards. In form, they were identical, but polar opposites in every secondary characteristic. Jesse emerged wearing a buttercup-yellow thigh length dress perfectly matched to her flowing curls while Peter complemented his shiny-black flattop hair with a deep-purple fitted caballero jacket over a lavender long-sleeve flouncy blouse and matching skintight breaches.

C.K. should have been more impressed, but compared to the Queen, their arrival seemed almost commonplace. The Duchess, her insight enhanced by their bond, correctly read his disappointment.

"Jaded already? Waerlogus always did have a certain flair, but that was mostly just show."

Jesse smiled and raised her wrist and wiggled her fingers at C.K. in greeting. Her attention warmed his heart. Peter, on the other hand, had dismissed the boy from his notice, as he typically did with all those beneath his station.

"All right, you two; highborn you may be, but a Queen still requires her attendants. Follow me."

~o0o~

C.K. was surprised to find himself Transported without a connecting touch or a Word of power from the Duchess. There seemed to be whole other levels to Magic than he had assumed during his sheltered life. He was as curious as he was now determined to learn as much as possible.

They Arrived three thousand feet above the valley on a marble bluff overlooked the entire Western District. C.K. nearly failed to recognize the splash of color that was his family's thousand-acre farm far beneath them. They were at the base of an impressive three-story marble arch and C.K. could see through the entryway to the empty ground behind. A Guardian stood beneath the arch with bulging muscles seemingly carved from the same marble as the Cliff and the arch. The intimidating figure maintained a menacing scowl throughout the security proceedings.

"Welcome, and good afternoon, my Lord and Ladies. Her Majesty is expecting you in the feast room. Those on the residency list may proceed as soon as I Register you ."

The Duchess stood before the Guardian and lifted her chin slightly. His massive hands encircled her throat without quite touching skin. He concentrated a moment, and a circle of light formed between his thumbs and forefingers and constricted to settle lightly but firmly.

"My attendant will also require a suite of rooms, and a duplicate of my passkey."

The guardian's frown deepened as he gazed down at C.K. with frightening intensity.

"Including your familial level pass, my Lady?"

"Oops! That could get someone hurt, and I doubt that someone would be my sister. Enable access everywhere but the Queen's private chambers. And he will require a Paige, at least temporarily. Master McGuire, I won't need you at the feast, so you are free until I call."

She took a step through the arch and disappeared in a brief topaz-blue glow from where the necklace of light touched the plane of the arch,. When everyone else had passed through, C.K. stood in submission and waited for an invitation. The guard waited aggressively back at him. Realizing he would never win this or any other contest with the daunting Guardian, C.K. overcame his trepidation and presented his neck. He more than half expected the colossal hand to pop off his head. He felt the circle form and lightly settle, then nearly wet himself when he felt massive fingers close around his throat.

"I suggest you use this great authority...circumspectly. I will be watching!"

C.K. felt the meaty fingers temporarily squeeze, and then loosen, followed briefly by the only smile he ever saw on the Guardian's face. The Guardian gave him a gentle shove through the archway.

After picking himself off the floor, C.K. saw he was in a grand rotunda. The copula was at least 50 feet high and twice that across. Dozens of identical doors were set equidistantly along the gently curving wall. The architecture was simple but elegant, designed along a "form equals function" format. A random door suddenly opened and a young man not much older than C.K. sauntered towards him, while the door closed behind of its own accord. The newcomer's bored continence turned to wide-eyed respect as he got close enough to notice the nearly unlimited-access passkey around C.K.'s neck. From that point on, his gaze never went higher than the floor.

"Sire, I have the honor to be your Paige. I am yours to command for as long as I may be of use. Will you be preparing your own suite?"

"To tell the truth, I've never seen anything like this place, so let's pretend I am completely ignorant and give me the full tour."

"As you wish. As I'm sure you know, the vestibule doors come and go as needed. Project your intent to enter your antechamber and the proper door will glow, ah, there it is. After you, Sire."

One of the doors, seemingly at random, suffused a thin Magic glow. Close up, C.K. noticed there were no handles, but within two strides, the door opened on its own. As soon as they had entered a moderately lit room, the door swung closed with a hermetic sound. The room was a miniature version of the main hall, but only ten feet across but only contained the door they had entered.

"Again, project your intended destination, and the proper door will form. For instance, the highball court is rather in vogue at the moment."

A second door wavered into existence and opened. Stepping through, they found a space even larger than the main entryway, with perhaps half as many doors around the perimeter. The center of the space was converted into a highball court. A waist-high wall was perforated with various colored goals while small knots of players fought over similarly colored balls. They attempted to pass a ball through matching goals while hampered by hands tightly secured behind their backs. Their efforts brought either appreciative kudos upon the rare goal or derisive hoots and laughter at particularly painful face-plants. While the two newcomers watched, dozens of people entered and left the room. As they turned to exit, C.K. noticed their door had moved three spaces to the left. They reentered the small antechamber and left the noise of the auditorium behind. The Paige continue with his instructions.

"You may create as many rooms as you wish, but each will only be connected to this antechamber. That way, only those with the proper passkey may enter, and then only to that particular room or this antechamber. Also, you can Call a door into any resident's antechamber for which you have a passkey by projecting your intention. In your case, that is anyone's. Excepting the Queen's of course. You also, as attendant to the Duchess, have direct access to the high Chamberlain's antechamber should you have a need to request an audience with Her Majesty. There is one other feature your eminence may find pleasing. If I may..."

On the other side of a new door stood an open-air balcony laid out in a semi-circle two hundred feet above the ground. The shape provided privacy for and from other residents while it allowed an amazing unimpeded view out over the cliffs.

"You may relocate this to any height or face any direction you wish. Above a certain height, though, you will need to remember and provide oxygen and warmth."

A soft, pleasant chime issued from the door, along with a clearly heard voice.

"Sire, the Duchess of Fire requests your presence."

The Paige's eyes widened as the reality of the importance of his primary hit home.

"May I offer any other assistance until your return?"

"I suppose I'll need an appropriate suite of rooms; bedchamber, receiving room, toilet, et cetera. Can you put that together for me?"

"Yes, I do have that authority as your Paige. I would be honored, Sire!"

"Very well. Oh, what if the Duchess isn't in her rooms? And what should I call you?"

"Paige will suffice, Sire. The door will Transport you to whatever antechamber she last entered."

Within his own antechamber, C.K. projected his intention to visit the Duchess, and a door Appeared as promised. He walked through the open door into an identical antechamber except for the two guards that leaned lightly on ceremonial spears. Both were trained Battle Wizards, but that was a discipline to which C.K. had yet to be introduced. The spears, however, were intimidating enough even though ceremonial pieces. The guard on the right addressed him in a neutral tone, neither condescending nor fawning.

"Through this door, Attendant, the Duchess is expecting you."

~o0o~

Wizards take no notice of birthdays, so C.K.'s twenty-fifth came and went without his notice. He had more important, and exciting, things on his mind during the long journey to his laboratory. Due to the patronage of his liege, the Duchess of Fire, and the full support of the Queen, C.K. advanced the science of Essence incredibly far. He became the world's foremost expert as predicted.

He always dreaded the long journey between his lab and the Queen's court, but frequent updates were essential to maintain a personal relationship with those in power. He also developed an insatiable crush on the Queen, who either maintained or feigned ignorance of his affections. In his heart, he vowed one day to rise to her notice despite the uncrossable gap in their circumstances.

He could Transport himself to the edge of Sparks Lake, but enough Essence was in use throughout the nearest city that Magic became spotty at best within its borders. He Arrived near the shed where he stored his Essence carriage, and two servants immediately snapped to attention. He directed them to retrieve it then proceeded to inspect his creation, as well as admire his own ingenuity.

In place of a draft animal, he constructed an enclosed water wheel with metal-lined buckets. A hose ran from a tank of Essence from under the seat of the carriage to the top of the wheel, which allowed Essence to flow towards a grounding rod that trailed from the back if the carriage. A modified Magic-gas valve controlled the flow and thus speed while a simple steering rod controlled direction.

He noticed the connection was a little loose but for safety's sake never exceeded walking speed while he passed through the crowded city anyway. His conveyance was much more about status than practicality. He decided to wait and fix the connection at his laboratory.

C.K. could not help but scowl at the common mobs in the narrow, dirty streets. The educated elite of the city embraced the inventions and conveniences his research provided, but they made up less than one percent of the population. The other million or so residents remained entrenched in their superstitious fears of electrocution.

C.K. wasn't entirely certain that the leadership was innocent in keeping them ignorant. Growing up, C.K. had always looked down on Magic users and assumed that Essence users were inherently more intelligent. He quickly learned that most people, whether due to nature or nurture, were simplistic idiots.

Once through the city, he turned onto a dedicated road and opened the Essence valve until he was traveling easily twice that of a horse-drawn carriage. The steering shimmied a little, but the road ran straight to his compound and there was no other traffic. The lake, for which the town was named, threw sparks and lightning arcs towards small metal deposits in the surrounding hills. For convenience, he built his compound just yards from the liquid Essence but had carefully cleared the surrounding land of metal, which he often required for his experiments.

C.K. employed over one-hundred of the world's top Essence engineers to work on various practical applications. His passion, though, lay in the isolated central chamber where he explored the theoretical interactions between Magic and Essence. As a general rule, Magic simply did not work in the presence of an Essence field, except to drain the Magic charge from the liquid matrix. He recently began work with magnetic fields, a phenomenon for which no one could find practical use until he discovered it acted as an insulator between Magic and Essence.

When surrounded by a strong Essence field, he could create a magnetic bubble within which he could Call magic. He did, however, need to rely on the gas from Magic fruit brought into the bubble. In turn, the gas was contained in a magnetized metallic bag. It was complex and hard to maintain, but it was a start.

He had learned over the years that, outside of Essence's influence, a certain amount of magic floated freely in the air. Magic seemed almost to want to cooperate, but the lower the concentration, the greater that will and detailed imagination came into play. C.K. knew he could never compete with Wizards, who were born within and had an affinity with Magic. Yet he was fairly certain his powers far exceeded that of any other non-wizard. It had been years since he had needed Magic gas to perform common Commands, except when near the countering effects of Essence.

If this latest experiment worked, C.K. would be the first non-wizard to enter their native Realm, as well as further his understanding of Essence and Magic. Over the years, he had compiled everything that was human-known about Magic (which wasn't much), and greatly expanded the previous body of knowledge concerning Essence (which had been near non-existent.)

He knew that Wizards spontaneously came into being in the Realm of pure Magic, and that they had only accidentally found a way to move into the Human Realm. Essence, since it canceled out magic, was a mystery that wizards found highly disturbing. C.K.'s theory stated that Essence came from a third Realm, and all three intersected each other in the human realm while Magic and Essence both leaked through those intersections.

The electrified Essence seemed to seep up from underground reservoirs while magic filtered down on air currents. C.K. believed he could use his magnetic machinery to push a bubble of magic into the Essence realm while he balanced an equal bubble of Essence within the magic realm. He had been successful in small-scale tests and was ready to confirm his findings.

C.K. entered and sealed the six-foot square laboratory safe-room, enabled the magnetic bubble, and removed a large Brown fruit from its insulator bag. He shredded the skin to allow the magic to fill up the room and tried to calm his nerves while he waited for the gas to expand. At the edge of his vision, he could see that the Magic air had equalized throughout the room.

In his mind, he pictured Peter's drawing room at the Queen's Palace and silently Willed himself there. Nothing happened. He went over his preparations again in his mind. Frustrated, he verbally Called a small glass of alcohol. It appeared in his hand, slightly chilled the way he preferred it, and he tossed it back in one swallow then dropped the glass. It was a minimal Calling, so the glass which dissipated before it hit the ground. He sighed, and then called himself an idiot. He inhaled as much air as possible and this time remembered to pronounce, "Go to Peter!"

~o0o~

Peter jumped up from his white leather recliner and shouted, "How in the name of the Queen did you get in here?"

The Queen's wing of the palace, designed for security purposes, allowed walk-in access only. Even with his top-level passkey, C.K. should not have even been able to Appear beyond Peter's antechamber without explicit permission.

"It's as I told you. I found a way to work beneath Magic rather than through it. So, are you ready for the greatest adventure of your life?"

"Assuming the Queen's permission, I'm ready when you are!"

As the Queen's attendant, Peter had official direct access to the High Chamberlain and gatekeeper to her Majesty's presence just as C.K. had unofficial access by his station as attendant to the Duchess of Fire, the Queen's sister. The Queen proved otherwise engaged, but sent her other attendant, Peter's twin sister Jessie, to convey her blessing on the previously discussed experiment.

Not wishing to involve the security team, C.K. Transported himself to his magnetic room and then back to the front of the palace arch to meet Peter and Jesse. The arch guardian eyed C.K. with suspicion, but that was usual even after all these years.

C.K. Transported the three of them to his lab and explained the failsafe procedures to Jesse, who would have responsibility to bring them back. He had created a magnetic Mobius strip with Magic on one side and Essence on the other. It was difficult to look at since it was an impossible construct, but only imagination and will limits magic. C.K. had both, in excess, as well as an unlimited power that he could tap from both Magic and Essence.

He stood between one of the loops of the strip while Peter stood in the other. C.K. showed Jesse how to invert polarity to send them on their way, and how to revert to normal if they had not managed to return within an hour of their own accord. C.K. gave a nod to proceed, as did Peter when Jesse looked at him. She activated the controls and watched with apprehension as the two loops shrank towards each other while the two experimenters seemed to diminish in scale. The Mobius shrank to a singularity point, then inverted to its previous size and presented empty loops.

~o0o~

C.K. floated in a warm sea and mindlessly watched iridescent streamers of pastel colors as they wafted and swirled, sometimes in patterns but mostly not. Up-wind, just at the edge of hearing, he caught snippets of laughter and joy. These sounds slowly resolved into myriad tiny fairy-like beings that flittered in and out of groupings with the same frequency with which they flickered in and out of sight. As the swarm drifted near, they descended upon C.K. and poked, pulled, and tickled in delight. He laughed despite the irritation, but they soon moved on. Their minuscule attention span was too short for even simple conversation.

He had no sense of the passage of time but gradually noticed large dark-gray storm clouds gather by the contrast against the colorful sky around them. There were three huge masses, each with a distinct personality superimposed as a face on their fluffy surfaces. They hurled insults at each other while their angry words echoed from within their thunder. Each accused the others of attempting to steal their babies and hurled lightning bolts when winds pushed them too closely together. Two of the behemoths eventually engaged in a raging fight, while the third snuck up behind the smaller and inhaled its substance. It grew large and heavy while the victim shrank and shredded to fog.

The cannibal cloud shuddered, and as it drifted directly over C.K., released a downpour. Rather than the expected raindrops, he was engulfed in tens of thousands of fist-sized water babies. They resembled cherubs rather than newborn infants, but were translucent and rebounded like gelatin as they bounced off him and each other.

Their sheer numbers and weight forcing C.K. to cover his head with his forearms. He fell down a now slippery hillside, but the water babies' elasticity cushioned his fall. The majority of the tiny hominids burst asunder on impact with the ground, and their watery innards turning into a flash flood that carried C.K. down into a lake.

He tried to swim away from the main mass of water babies as they gurgled while their hungry little eyes sought him out. He put a few yards between them and himself, but he was at least half an hour's swim from the nearest shore, given his doggy-paddle skills,. Before long, he floated on his back to rest. Out of the quiet, he heard a plop, followed by two more plop-plops.

The water babies suddenly screamed and cried and splashed around in panic but were too uncoordinated to make any progress. They swirled counterclockwise as a whirlpool opened beneath them. C.K. ducked his head underwater and was just able to make out a giant anthropomorphic head that sucked the babies into a toothless mouth. When a watery eye twice his height rolled its gaze towards him, C.K. discovered he was actually quite capable of overhand swimming and made the shoreline in five minutes.

He collapsed on a sandy beach, but immediately found the strength to run several more yards away from the frightening lake. The water line resolved into a huge hand and smash his body as it grabbed and tried to pull him back into the lake. C.K. fought forward and fell across a boulder while the wave collapsed and retreated. He remembered where he was and why, and tried to relax both his body and his mind from the constant onslaught of strange experiences. He was only partially successful as his consciousness deteriorate into a series of photographs, each moment of his life as immediate and valid as the previous. All his memories intermingled and gave him no anchor on which to attach his perspective.

The Wizards had warned him that time did not exist here, but the reality was more terrible than he could have imagined. His focus, as it were, randomly shuffled so that he never knew exactly where or when he was, a paradigm phrase that had no meaning here. He knew he had to get a perspective on this experience in order to remain sane. Perhaps he had already lost his mental equilibrium, or was that yet to come?

At some point in the discontinuity, a school of mermaids half his size attempted to molest him. They dragged him back down into the water and tore at his clothes. He evidently had not drowned during that even because "now" he was sat on the peak of a mountain and discussed history and philosophy with the craggy face. A collection of boulders had assembled to form a particularly frightening rock-montage mouth, which spoke with the sound of grinding gravel.

The mountain was curious, as it had never met anything like C.K. before. It had sprung forth near the beginning of all things and appreciated any novelty. Through the ancient mountain, C.K. learned many things, mostly concerning the recurring theme that life survived by consuming life.

In this Realm, all of nature was alive and contained various intelligence, at the very least enough for a sense of self, from mountains to streams to air currents and storms. Every plant, rolling grassland and grand forest thought for itself, from deep, long rumbling cogitations to momentary incandescent flitters, each according to their own preferential enjoyments. Life sprouted and became both appreciative audience and participants in the warp and weave of imaginative exuberance.

At the very beginning of all things, as the mountain related the history, Magic and mobility coalesced into fey shapes. Each was unique though shared basic forms that sprouted from the minds and personalities of the elementals. The Mountains were first to develop ambulatory children. Deep thinkers and philosophers, the mountains were limited to their closest neighbors for communion, so sent their progeny upon the land by the millions and lived vicariously through them when they returned.

Families, then tribes and finally societies that became independent of their progenitors and soon forget from whence they came. Wizards suddenly appeared, the when as meaningless a question as the how, and became leaders and parental figures in place of the elementals and mountains. Wizards saw themselves as the ultimate expression of creation and had no respect for their elders. The mountains in particular grieved over this defect as they knew this would bring the Wizards to a bad end.

Wizards assumed all other forms of life were beneath them, and ultimately useful only as energy for them to absorb. C.K. later learned from the many local Wizards he befriended that they saw the Human Realm as a giant buffet. C.K. knew they must be stopped, or that he would stop them, or that he had already stopped them. With an abrupt wrenching, he was back in his laboratory.

~o0o~

Peter screamed. He was surrounded by metallic spires and spikes and shards and geometric outcroppings haphazardly canted in every direction. Lightning arced from thin edges and leaped with imposing energies. Ball lightning occasionally formed, floated and gaining force until they burst in massive explosions. Essence was so thick the atmosphere resembled a treacle fog, in a state between gaseous and liquidity. The bubble within a bubble of magic and Essence that protected him in the lab failed and collapsed. Essence diluted and transmuted Peter's Magic based physiology and painfully transformed his being into something different .

The process was completed by the time the last echo of his scream faded away. He suddenly relaxed and took the time to notice the beauty of his surroundings. He felt drawn to a small pool of silvery liquid Essence, the edges frothed with a lacy, low-level electrical discharge. He tentatively cupped his hand to dip into the pool, and brought the liquid to his mouth. He sniffed and smelled a pleasant, fresh bouquet that tickled his nose. He took a sip and let the fizz trickle down his throat. It satisfied his thirst, filled his belly, and energized both mind and body.

Now ready to explore, he circled a triangular obelisk and followed a path that climbed upward over progressively larger metallic blocks. He reached a plateau and looked about. The structures below seemed randomly geometric, but there was no doubt intelligence constructed them. A vast city lay in gleaming splendor that stretched from horizon to horizon. Arched metallic roadways wound around, between, and sometimes through an endless array of unique buildings. Obviously deserted, the hard structures gave no clue as to their age. They may have last been inhabited yesterday, or eons in the past. Most striking to Peter was the differences compared to his native Realm.

Here, everything was angular; straight lines and sharp edges the rule. At home, everything was rounded and flowing, the very embodiment of organic. From his present location, he had no frame of reference to judge the possible size of the previous inhabitants, or any clue to their shape. He determined to investigate and took his next step, then felt a twist and was back in the lab.

Peter immediately felt something was not quite right, a thought confirmed by the intense look on Jesse's face. C.K. stepped over and put a worried hand on his shoulder, and stumbled through him when his hand met no resistance. C.K. did feel a slight tingling as he fell through the slightly purple radiance that surrounded Peter's body, but Peter was insubstantial as empty air.

~o0o~

C.K. worked without rest as he tried first to define the changes in Peter's physical state, and then to find a cure. Interestingly, it was only humans and human-Realm animals that could not interact with him. Wizards, although they felt repugnance when touching the purple field, seemed unaffected otherwise. C.K. worked around the clock, but couldn't sleep anyway because whenever he closed his eyes he slipped into vivid, horrifying nightmares from his experiences in the Magic Realm.

During sleep, his experiences were more than realistic dreams. He was concurrently in both Realms, trapped for an eternity without beginning or end. The human mind was not built to live outside of time. Peter understood, but lacked empathy as he begged C.K. to restore him to his original state of grace.

For Peter, the experience of timeless time was equivalent to immortality. Without sequential time he had always existed, and therefore, always would. He felt cut off from his former self, mortality more frightening than his current inability to touch or to be touched, or his new habit of ingesting Essence. He now needed the presence of Essence to use Magic, a turn of events that C.K. found most useful. Jesse, of course, stayed always at his side, ready to give her brother any support she might.

~o0o~

When C.K. had been awake three straight days despite feeling tired and hungry, one of his lead engineers unexpectedly irritated him. C.K. had trouble following the long technical rationalizations for a series of failed experiments. In frustration, he grabbed both of the underling's shoulders so he couldn't pull away from the coming diatribe. To both of their horror, blood droplets oozed from the engineer's skin and slowly floated across to cover C.K. in a thin red sheen. He dropped the shriveled, desiccated body and backed against the wall. He tried to wipe the warm blood off his arms, only to watch the droplets disappear into his skin.

Equally disturbing, the body was not quite the corpse he expected. It mimicked every exaggerated motion C.K. made in weak, uncoordinated movements, like a puppet on elastic strings. The eyes, however, were very much alive and begged for release. Peter looked on dispassionately, but Jesse stepped in to soothe C.K.

"Easy C.K., try to relax, it will be all right. You and Peter just got mixed together some, that's all. This is normal for wizards. It's just the way we feed."

"I, I don't understand!"

"In our Realm, life exists by consuming life, just like here, only more... directly."

"But he's still alive!"

"You need to break the connection. Pretend you've taken a large bite of your favorite food and imagine swallowing. It might help if you close your eyes."

C.K. gagged on his first attempt, but was determined to stop this nightmare. Rather than hide from the horror, he stared into his victim's eyes to maintain his motivation and metaphorically swallowed. The remaining blood seeped into his skin, and the corpse let out a rattling sigh, now truly dead. C.K. felt energized, if a little nauseous. It felt as if he had just finished the most restful sleep of his life, had a satisfying meal, and then exercised to the point of invigoration. He felt strong and alert, at peak performance in every way.

Peter, on the other hand, could not eat what he could not touch, but got along just fine when he drank Essence, which literally recharged him. They had made no real progress towards a cure a week later when the Queen commanded them to attend and report.

~o0o~

The Queen received them in the feather room, a fairly intimate setting she reserved for family and those particularly in her favor at the moment. The walls and ceiling were covered with an array of iridescent bird wings, each attached at the humorous bone and slowly flapped to form hypnotic waves of color as well as stir a pleasant breeze. Her throne was woven from live peacock tail-feathers that opened and closed along the oversized arched back. No one knew exactly how many thrones she owned, or whether she simply created them at need, but each was specifically unique and exhibited a magical and fashionable flair.

By tradition, no other wizard sat on anything while in the Queen's presence.. In their personal chambers, which the Queen never deigned to visit, Wizards allowed themselves exotic materials and ornate designs, but never based them on one of the Queen's in case she ever did.

The Duchess of Fire stood next to the Peacock throne with her secondary attendant, raised to the position ever since the Queen suborned C.K.to Essence investigation. Peter bowed and Jesse curtsied but C.K. simply stood at attention since he was not a Wizard but was familiar with protocol.

"I understand that you have traveled to our home Realm, and returned, at least in some ways, as one of us. Unfortunately, Peter seems to have suffered his own side effect from his journey. Have you made any progress towards his restoration?"

"We are, your Majesty, following a promising line of inquiry. We have Called a few lesser species from the home Realm by using Red fruit during the transubstantiation..."

"How delightful! We never thought of trying that. Train someone directly so that I may enjoy a menagerie from home."

"Of course, your Majesty, as soon as we are dismissed. To continue, I performed the same procedures that Peter and I underwent, except we used the other Realm's fauna in conjunction with a local animal. We duplicated the effects we both experienced and are very near a breakthrough."

"In my experience, very near can be a long way indeed. Care to be a little less subjective?"

"By encouraging the afflicted Magic Realm subject to, um, mate with its human realm opposite, all effects reversed to normality."

"And? Is that look of distaste because you and Peter must mate? No. What aren't you telling me?"

"Shortly thereafter, they both exploded, We are fairly certain it's due to their low intelligence."

"Well, we can't have one of our favorite Attendants exploding, now can we? I expect you will continue working diligently on the matter. In the meantime, we have had a high feast prepared. Let us repair to the banquet hall."

C.K. had never before been allowed to attend a feast so was not quite sure the invitation included him. He followed them all into the Queen's anteroom and through the open door and figured a Guardian would confront him if not.

He had become somewhat blase about the wonders he had seen and experienced since he entered the Wizards' service, but the enormous size and stupendous population of the banquet hall stunned him. The Queen's throne (this one seemingly created out of negative space, a blackness so dark it sucked in light that caused her to blur around the edges) presided in the outside radial center of a horseshoe-shaped table. There were no place settings, and most of the wizards stood along the empty table tops, but there were stools for the Royal peers. A Paige led C.K. to a smaller matching table half step below reserved for the peers' attendants, close enough to call upon if their masters had need.

A series of long tables branched off in an arc that spread out from the throne in a semicircle. The pattern repeated seemingly without limit and provided seating for more than one-hundred-thousand Wizards. The Queen's party was among the last to attend, and with her arrival, the din of voices subsided to an eerie silence. When everyone other than the Queen was seated or in place, she raised one arm and all the doors disappeared. As she brought her arm back down, the ceiling retracted and revealed the most horrible sight C.K. had or ever would see.

A rope descended from above every dinner guest head. A trussed and gagged human tied by their feet came to a stop just before their heads touched the tables. The Queen was the first to feed. She placed her palms on either side of her meal's head and slowly absorbed droplets of blood into her Carmen-colored hands. The room immediately filled with a cacophony of voices as the Wizards all heartily joined in. C.K. was both horrified and repulsed, but a deep hunger welled up from within as his hands moved by their own volition and he softly cupped the cheeks of the teenage boy that dangled before him. C.K. tried to stop the process, but as the first crimson drops caressed his fingers he mindlessly gave in and fed. Peter automatically reached out, but his insubstantial purple-tinged flesh simply passed through his intended meal.

~o0o~

C.K. once again had an opportunity to gain esteem in the sight of the Queen. In the year since his first banquet, he kept busy trying to identify a new plague that only affected Wizards. They slowly sickened and lost first their vitality and then their ability to utilize Magic. The plague seemed to strike at random, and while some succumbed quickly, others fell gradually while a lucky few remained untouched. The most horrifying aspect, at least in the eyes of the Wizards, was the finality of death at the terminal stage.

When wizards Transferred from their home realm through Magic fruits, they acquired corporeal bodies based in large part on their own self-image. Death had never been a factor, either accidental or forced, but eventually the bodies did wear out, at which time they faded back to their own realm. Victims of the plague, however, truly died. In a Realm wherein time was non-linear, they enjoyed a form of immortality in a past and future that remained undifferentiated. With neither beginning nor end, not only did their personality die, but also the very memory of their existence within the Magic Realm faded since once their existence came to an end, they never had existed at all.

C.K. sent word for the Queen to bring her court and any two afflicted Wizards to the Magic farm of his youth. They arrived and found Peter straddled atop one of the strange Magic/Essence hybrid machines C.K. invented. C.K. directed the two stricken Wizards to lie in the cradle of the machine and activated the device. It hummed, sparked, and crackled with blinding energies that bathed them in purple light. After a minute, he ordered Peter to deactivate and helped the duo to their feet.

"So, how are you feeling?"

"It's...it's as if I was an empty vessel that has been refilled!" said the first.

The second smiled and disappeared, then reappeared a moment later and hugged his friend in celebration.

"And my Magic is back!"

The Queen smiled in approval and asked, "And you both feel fully restored?"

They nodded vigorously, turned to C.K., and honored him as they dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.

"Then you may both return to your lives, and of course spread the word among the stricken. As for you, C.K., it is not fitting for any Wizard to bow down before a mere human. Come kneel before me!"

She stood up from her throne of live writhing serpents and Called a sword of flame to her hand. C.K. walked calmly and with more confidence than most in his situation might and followed her bidding.

"In as much as you have journeyed to our home realm and returned as like one of us, I declare your status as that of Wizard. Furthermore, in light of your diligence, ingenuity, and service I foresee many of high station wishing also to bend their knee before you. Therefore, invoking my privilege as Queen, I raise you to the office of Knight Errant. For the sake of propriety, and because it pleases me, I dub you Crimson Knight!"

She brought the flaming blade gently down upon each shoulder, which felt incongruently cold against his flesh. She Returned the sword from whence it came, and clapped her hands together. A rain of dark-crimson rose petals appeared above C.K.'s head and melded into a stunning cloak.

"Arise, Sir Crimson Knight!"

The witnesses clapped politely if unenthusiastically, except for Peter. His more enthusiastic approval may have been tied to his hopes of a cure, but they also had developed something of a friendship. The Duchess of Fire seemed genuinely pleased for her attendant when she heard the news, but it also removed a slight embarrassment that her Attendant had been a mere human. C.K. rose to his feet and seemed to grow in stature, not in response to his elevation as those looking on assumed, but from the knowledge that he was about to change history.

"Your Majesty, a great injustice has come to my attention. One which you may correct, in fact, one which I insist you correct!"

The Queen's visage soured while many in the court murmured depredations at the impertinence.

"And what is this great injustice, which forces you to overstep bounds of propriety with this insistence?"

"Why, the fact that Wizards are interlopers upon this human realm, and yet have the gall to present themselves as rulers and masters. As a first step to addressing this inequality, and as an opportunity for wizards to integrate into my plan for human manifest destiny, I suggest you accept my proposal for marriage. Then all Wizards, including yourself, may pledge your subservience and loyalty to me as your King!"

There were several moments of absolute silence. The Queens face remained neutral as she closed her eyes in thought. Finally, she laughed, a harsh, sarcastic sound composed of both amusement and menace.

"First, dear boy, you should know our ancient stricture, which states that Wizards shall not marry, nor be given in marriage, lest they bring ruin to all creation. The main question, though, is what in your demented little mind makes you believe I will respond in any other way than to have you tortured and destroyed?"

"Let me suggest self-preservation. I have been, let us say, less than honest about the plague. You see; it was I who poisoned your banquet delicacies with powered Essence. That cure you saw today was simply me removing that Essence. I am in a position not only to banish all Wizards from my realm, but also to inflict upon them a true death unless I intervene. I ask a second time, do you accept my proposal?"

"This is ridiculous! I now have over a million of my subjects in this Realm, and can bring over millions more, ironically through the very fruit your family has been tending for generations. You are merely one deluded young man, in whom I misplaced my trust and my charity. We are now sad, and will bypass any deserved torture and simply put you out of your poor deluded misery."

C.K. turned a moment to Peter, who still sat on the complex machine he had used to remove the Essence from the two wizards. C.K. made a slashing gesture across his throat. Peter turned a dial and pushed a lever, and every magic fruit on the farm exploded and withered to their roots.

"Oops. If you insist upon war, I'm afraid reinforcements will not be available. Now, for the third and last time, do you accept my proposal?"

In answer, the Queen stood up in a rage as power visibly gathered between her palms and she prepared to annihilate the insignificant and impertinent insect she so recently honored. Wizard heraldry was based upon the power a Wizard could Call, and the Queen was Queen by virtue of her frightening capabilities. C.K. remained unbowed and drew a Magic/Essence hybrid weapon from beneath his robes. He levelled tapered tube the length of his forearm that was encircled with a decreasing series of glowing rings. He Invoked its ignition and a brilliant ray of energy spouted out the opening.

The Duchess of Fire was closest to her sister the Queen and jumped in front of the beam. The weapon was based on both Essence and Magic so was in part subject to the rules of Magic, including C.K.'s oath of fealty as her attendant. It was also created for the sole purpose of destruction, so was caught in a paradoxical quandary. Whatever level of self-awareness and intelligence that resided within the Magic element decided on a compromise. The Duchess disappeared left no trace of her in any of the three realms, which technically honored C.K.'s vow against her harm.

A filtered shard of the beam hit the Queen and residual Essence wrestled against her gathered magic. The Essence, though weakened, won the battle and the Power between her hands to ash. The process continued into her hands, followed up her arms, and seeped into her body. Instead of ash, her skin turned to coal. Cracks appeared along her joints and flexible muscles that revealed glowing red embers beneath.

She screamed, and the rest of the Wizards jumped into action and prepared to attack C.K, physically and Magically. He made a motion and transported himself and Peter to an underground redoubt he built beneath Sparks Lake. He had hoped the Queen would capitulate, but had not expected it. He was now at war with one million Wizards, a war that would devastate the world.

~o0o~

Waerlogus looked out upon the field of his fallen comrades and wept. An iron rod, two meters long by thirty centimeters thick, impaled the dust on the surface of the moon. Attached to the rod, four chains made of tiny silver links spread out at ninety-degree angles. At precise two-meter intervals, each chain ended in a collar that wrapped tightly around a Wizard's neck and stapled them to the ground. Both ankles of each spread-eagle Wizard were similarly bound and staked. The pattern repeated across the plain and branched to include thousands of Wizards laid out in a living Mandela.

They retained enough Magic to manifest individual protection against lack of food, water, warmth, and air, but at great expense to their reserves, much like a starving man cannibalizes his own muscles. As the moon rotated three times daily, each gathered a weak trickle of power as their side of the moon skimmed the Magic-laden atmosphere high above the earth. They needed all their effort to keep from burning to cinders as the moving horizon of fire and superheated gas passed over them. The remainder of the time they lay exhausted and on the brink of death, so never gathering enough power for escape.

They discussed possibilities and a formed plan, desperate though it was. Every lunar perigee a wizard would sacrifice his own life and sent a burst of his remaining power to Waerlogus. Not everyone could agree to this at first. Slowly but inexorably, those that did not watched as their fellow prisoners gave their remaining Magic to Waerlogus and left nothing but a burnt shadow that stained the ground. They perhaps gained peace, but certainly ended their suffering.

A thousand times over Waerlogus grieved as one more precious friend gave their feeble remaining Magic to enrich his. As he lay finally alone, he still could not break the Essence-enhanced chains and fell into total despair as he gazed at the swirling stormy atmosphere of the planet moving above.

~o0o~

Waerlogus assumed the next rotation would be his last since there was no one left to sacrifice for him. He could not remember his beginning, but he knew he had guided and educated his fellow Wizards since they all first appeared in the Magic Realm. He had been the first to discover the way to the human realm, and had hoped at the time it would relieve the pressures of their closed energy system.

Like all Wizards, he at first saw humans as little more than animals, barely able to use their minuscule imagination for Magic. Given the ferocity with which the Crimson King had waged and won the war, he realized how mistaken he was. Their innate capacity to utilize Magic was les than a Wizard, but they also were able to utilize the Essence which was pure anathema to Wizards.

Waerlogus calmed his thoughts and closed his eyes, ready to release the last of his Magic into the chains. He figured a few minutes of airless strangulation were better than a slow fiery death. He gathered the last of his Magic and pushed it along his arms and into the metal. The remainder of his Magic seemed reluctant to leave, so he steeled his resolve and pushed his will harder. It was almost as if something was constricting his wrists and prevented the Power to move. He opened his eyes and let out a startled unwizardly yelp.

The giant eyes he first saw resolved into an inverted face barely an inch from his own. The Duchess of Fire leaned over him and encircled his wrists with her hands which prevented his death. When she saw he was no longer trying to throw away his life, she changed her grip to his shackles and spoke a Command that made them disintegrate into dust. She helped him stand and simply said, "Come."

~o0o~

Waerlogus could feel her hand within his but otherwise was in complete darkness and total silence.

"Dare I ask to where we Came? And by the way, thank you for rescuing me!"

"This is where I found myself after C.K.'s treachery waylaid me. I needed a long time to learn how to navigate, and even longer to figure where in the world, or more correctly out of it, I was. If you look straight ahead, you can just make out a small pinprick of light. I assumed it was a case of ocular phosphines until I grew bored enough to investigate."

"I'll have to take your word for it; your eyes are much younger than mine."

"Let's go closer and see if you recognize anything."

Once he could perceive it, the dot of light grew larger and clearer. He assumed they drew nearer, although there were no sensations to prove which perspective was correct. The light source stopped growing, or perhaps they stopped moving, when the object was just large enough to fit inside his peripheral vision. He saw a shape made of three overlaying globes that coexisted within the same space. Somehow, due to where, and maybe what, he was, he had no problem differentiating the three elements.

"Something about all this seems familiar, but I can't quite figure what it is."

"I understand. I'm going to take you on a quick tour. You will be perfectly safe, but it will be extremely disorienting. We'll be traveling, not just in space but also in time, back to the beginning. Okay, let's do it!"

In one sense, the globes were like layers of an onion, one inside the other. Suddenly, the inner and outer layer contracted to join the center sphere which expanded and joined into a unified world. It seemed composed of colorful gasses or liquids that swirled in constant motion. The patterns were a breathtaking sight as they formed and combined, only to fray at the edges and once again devolve into chaos.

They took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the sight before the Duchess spoke and broke the spell.

"This is the beginning. If anything lay beyond, I haven't found a way to access it. Now, let's advance a bit."

All movement sped to a blur, and then bits and pieces slowed. Stable areas appeared and slowly migrated to others of like kind until they grouped into recognizable earth, sea, and sky. A line of green appeared along the shorelines and spread to all the shallow parts of the sea and up into the rivers.

"I have rewound this moment countless times, and as far as I can tell plant life simply appears. The same happens with the upcoming animals. One moment there were none, and the next they were everywhere.

The expanding greenways moved with a blur, and time slowed once again as they moved closer to see countless herds of varied animals. Then, in tiny groups, humans appeared. The Wizards swooped in close enough to see they were actually proto-humans, a bit more brutish, a bit hairier, but near fully human.

They flew up again while the planet went through cataclysmic changes that included the rise and fall of two ice ages. Cities grew around ports and deltas, followed by railways that shot across the major land masses. Villages became cities and a select few into metropolises. Rather than the former blockish squares and rectangles, architecture favored arches, sweeps, and curves. The Duchess once again slowed time and they headed for one of the many parks dotted throughout the largest city.

We're going to go in closer, but remember we aren't really here. I think you will find the next part interesting, and likely a little disturbing."

The Duchess next flew them towards an immense rainforest and into its heart then stopped above a large clearing. They settled on the ground and looked around. At first, Waerlogus saw nothing of particular note, but as his eyes adjusted to the layers of plant life, he noticed tiny three-inch high...Wizardlings. They were, for the most part, caricatures of Wizards, with misshapen features and either elongated or foreshortened limbs, but recognizably Wizards.

They easily could fall into the categories of fairies and elves and gnomes and a great variety of other so-called mythological little people. There was, however, nothing magical or precious about them. They lived and loved and fought in and among roots and mildewed rotten logs. Their naked bodies were filthy, scratched and scabbed, and their eyes were dull and barely intelligent. The Duchess could see that they deeply shook Waerlogus.

"Okay, enough of this. Although the next part isn't any easier."

She swept them up and over towards the center of the city to a large domed building of some importance. They floated through the concrete, another reminder that this was but a memory of the universe and a particular feature of traveling back through time. They stopped inside a polished and gleaming laboratory full of equipment and scurrying modern humans. Many of the contrivances were set inside or over see-through tanks that held various amounts of wizardlings.

The proto-wizards were somewhat taller and physiologically more standardized in shape and features than their wild counterparts. Although they were nude, they were clean and well groomed. The Duchess lead Waerlogus to a walled-off section of the laboratory, to a tank full of female wizardlings that jumped and screamed against the glass in an attempt to catch the attention of the human workers.

A technician chose one and picked her up with padded tongs and placed her in a smaller tank that had a larger male. The human placed a small tool against his fingertip and drew a single drop of blood and fed it to the ecstatic female. Waerlogus looked to the Duchess and raised an eyebrow in question.

"I spent a lot of time here to understand the details. The humans are experimenting with genetics to increase the size and intelligence of the species. Their ultimate goal is to create a class of slaves, and once successful they will purge the wild population. In an attempt to control their creations, reproduction depends on the females to ingest a small amount of human blood for each pregnancy or they remain sterile."

"I don't want to accept any of this, yet it makes sense."

"Keep your shock under control, because there is one last secret that I am afraid might be too much for you to handle and remain sane. I only take the chance because I know your strength, and the continuation of our kind is at stake."

Once again the two Wizards floated out of the building and forward in time. Large open parks were scattered around the city now, one of which they landed in. The scurrying wizardlings there had gained stature in the intervening age, some to nearly two feet tall. They also became much more attractive, with a combination of delicacy of features and orthodox limbs. The visitors never saw the wizardlings engage in strife among themselves but watched them lead peaceful familial lives in their clean and quaint woodland village.

Waerlogus couldn't help but smile as he noticed many of the faces were slightly smaller versions of friends he knew and loved. The two followed the social activities for hours, but it didn't take long for their smiles to turn to frowns. The little folk had become the labor class of this world as the humans focused on technology.

While the wizardlings worked in construction, repair, and every manner of manual labor, the humans lived a life of decadence and luxury when they were not inventing ever more complex machinery. The little people served their overlords delicate meals, operated their fanciful vehicles, and cut and fitted luxuriant clothing in exchange for a drop of progeny-enabling blood. There were easily a thousand workers for every master.

The Duchess and Waerlogus made another time jump but stayed within the park. The fairy village was deserted and the surrounding city had decayed into sad slums. Four-foot tall wizardlings roamed the streets and looked thin and haunted. They did not see a single human, nor were any workers involved in productive labor. Trash piled along the sidewalks, and storefronts stood neglected and abandoned. Waerlogus looked towards the Duchess questioningly, but she averted her eyes and swept them once more into the air.

At a certain height, she pointed out a dozen or so isolated compounds located on the tops of outlying hills or the middle of wide valleys. Each building was unique and exotic and reminded them of rambling mansions out of fantasy tales. The Duchess chose a specific mansion for closer inspection.

Every room in the house contained an alcove that housed complicated machinery designed to manipulate the fabric of magic, which was created within tubes of Essence. The appliances created everything from breakfast to furniture and clothing for the twenty occupants, each human and clearly from the same family line. There was not a wizardling in evidence. Waerlogus suddenly began to feel nauseous, and a blinding headache skewered his skull. He was overcome with a feeling of dread and began sweating and shaking. He turned towards the Duchess with pleading eyes.

"There is something wrong here, can we leave? I am feeling unwell."

"Courage! One more stop and we can rest."

They moved to a domed building, one connected to each of the others in the compound by enclosed tunnels. They floated through the curved ceiling like the insubstantial observers they were and settled against a wall in a room filled with esoteric machinery. They finally found a near-wizard, the lone who stood with his head bowed and shoulders stooped.

Waerlogus closed his eyes in weariness and pinched his nose, an affectation mirrored by the slightly smaller figure before them. Waerlogus was certain he had never seen this individual, but something about him was inherently familiar.

When the wizardling eyes opened, they filled with stern resolve. He turned full circle, checked dials and gauges, and furtively around one more time. His face, by happenstance, aligned with Waerlogus and the Wizard recognized his younger self as memory flooded back.

Waerlogus-the-younger pulled a large lever while the Duchess put her hand on the shoulder of Waerlogus-the-elder and shot them well out into space to observe as the world changed. A whirlpool that consisted of alternate bands of Magic and Essence expanded from their previous location. The maelstrom engulfed the entire world, and reality blurred. Three distinct Realms occupied the identical space, like the layers of an onion shaped into a Klein bottle.

Even though he could not see the fine details from that distance, Waerlogus knew what processes were taking place. The Magic and all the wizardlings separated from the Earth into one realm while Essence filtered into another, which left the humans bereft of either, but in sole possession of linear time.

"I just wanted to protect our people." Waerlogus said, clearly in distress. "It was entirely my fault, and now everyone is suffering, Wizards and humans alike!"

"Perhaps that is why we are currently in a position to fix things, at least to the extent where we can spend the rest of our days helping and healing. You succeeded in the creation of two pocket universes, and all of this will respond to your will if you want it passionately enough."

Waerlogus squashed his self-pity the moment he recognized the useless emotion. His character may not have changed in the immeasurable time since the event he just witnessed took place, but he was pleased to recognize he had matured. He accepted full responsibility for his actions and was willing to offer himself in atonement as reparation.

"You're mostly right, my dear Duchess, but my creations have also grown into their own personhood. Thankfully, I feel loved and respected, as from a child that desires wise direction from their parent. However, keep in mind that this creation now has a will of its own. There will be hard labors ahead to put things right, but all the time of eternity to do so. And thank you. I would never have found my way back to a sound mind without you."

~o0o~

The Crimson King reclined in the Dream Temple and enjoyed the psychological suffering of his people. His entourage stood about the forecourt and enjoyed the reduced gravity and the preoccupation of their King. None were aware that their salvation was emanate.

Waerlogus and the Duchess of Fire nonchalantly walked through the front gate to the astonishment of those with enough fortitude to notice. The two took separate paths as Waerlogus sought out Peter and Jesse while the Duchess found her sister. She started to give the Black Queen an embrace, but the tar-like substance that issued out of the cracked skin prevented the simple gesture.

Waerlogus and the Duchess walked off with their charges unmolested. No one dared interrupt the King, or confront these legendary figures of power, nor worst of all follow them into the increased gravity field beyond the perimeter.

Jesse was the first to break the silence, "Why isn't the gravity crushing us?"

Waerlogus placed a compassionate hand on her shoulder and said, "All that will soon be over. The question you now face is how much are you willing to sacrifice to heal your brother?"

"I will not give in to his lust. I am weary of this world, and I would willingly do anything else, even exchange my life to give him back his own."

"Not only Peter, but by giving your life you can heal more than you can imagine. Do not look so glum, because through your sacrifice you will never truly die."

Peter found the emotional passion he had thought long dead, as well as the realization he valued his sister's life above his own. He shouted, "Why do you torture us with riddles! I won't let you sacrifice her, take my life instead."

"Aye, it will be your sacrifice also, but only if she agrees. If you both are willing, I shall enjoin you in matrimony."

"But you know the law; Wizards neither marry, nor are given in marriage! As grotesque as it has become, I do not wish to destroy the world" Jesse exclaimed.

"I should know the law, I created it. Did you never wonder why the proscription exists? The point of nuptials is as a precursor to progeny."

"But Wizards aren't born." Jesse replied quizzically.

"All things have a beginning, just as all things end. It is transitions that provide continuity, and that is all I'm willing to say. If you both submit to this destiny, I personally guarantee that grateful generations will never forget. Now, kneel together before me."

"Is there a long ceremony? What is expected of us?" They asked over the top of each other.

"I won't prolong your suffering. Given your mutual stated resolve to wed, I declare you husband and wife. Rise and embrace! And bless you both."

They hugged, not out of lust or rapacious, but mutual love and tenderness. To the bystanders, they seemed to melt into one another to form one perfect being. He/she smiled and suddenly exploded into millions of tiny Magic-plant seeds that wafted into the winds.

One imbalance corrected, thought Waerlogus in satisfaction.

The Black Queen had remained silent throughout the event, but then her voice cracked with emotion.

"My torture has lasted beyond endurance. If I can not be healed, are you able to end my life meaningfully too?"

She looked imploringly at Waerlogus.

"Those who come into this Realm together must need leave together."

The Duchess held back her sister's hair and kissed her gently on the forehead, despite the foul viscous smudge left on her lips.

"I have seen, dear sister and my Queen, what we and the humans could have been. We all see that which we have become. With our sacrifice and Waerlogus' constancy, I believe all may regain our proper destinies. Come, sister, let us shake the Realms."

The Duchess embraced her sister and nodded towards Waerlogus. He closed his eyes and communed with the Realms and opened his heart and his hopes for a reunited world. The Black Queen and the Duchess blurred into momentary triplicates of themselves and snapped back into one reality, an echo of the three realms which also reunited after eons of isolation.

The sisters grasped each other's hands, as Magic and Essence flowed between them. The substances united and transmuted into simple but elegant electricity, a weakened version of either but a dynamic blend of both.

~o0o~

With the decline of Magic, millions of Wizards looked around in wonder as they flowed into in the now combined realms. They reverted to their former state and became subject to natural physical laws. Only a fraction of them survived the coming years, and retreated to hide in the wilderness and became the origins of many myths and stories.

The few hundred-thousand scattered humans that had survived the war's horrors, although tough, were exhausted and despondent. They too retreated to the wild places, where they and the wee ones first learned to cooperate to survive, and then thrive by forming a symbiotic society. Waerlogus worked circumspectly at the margins of history with support and encouragement. He never again acted as dictator, but did become the source of his own myths and legends

~o0o~

. The second imbalance, following that of Jesse and Peter, began to heal with the joining of the Realms, and that left just one final act for Waerlogus to oversee. As he walked back towards the Dream Temple, the denizens of the court retreated to the walls and cringed in terror at the sudden changes to their world. The near cessation of Magic broke the Crimson King's hold over the blood life-force of his "puppets". Each all sat where they had dropped and welcomed the release of death. The Crimson King, bereft of his victim's blood and power, lay naked on his couch and resembled nothing more frightening than a thin white worm. He barely retained the strength to train his deep-set pools of concentrated hatred-filled eyes on Waerlogus.

"I am so sorry, C.K. No mortal has the wisdom to play God, let alone the former immortal Wizard who stands before you. I have truly learned my lesson, and I believe you have suffered as much as anyone. I vow to do what I can to return you to that innocent young farm boy I first met. The restoration process will not be pleasant, and the anger and fear will fight within you for continuance. You must accept the pain you have caused others, and then you can release your own guilt and find peace."

~o0o~

The forecourt of the Dream Temple filled with chattering and excited five-year-olds, both human and wizardlings. They were the fourth generation to participate in this rite of passage through childhood. For eighty years, their parents and their parent's parents had stood where they stood; ready to make their contribution to the continued healing of the world. Each held a small golden-fruit dream catcher, which had sat by their bed since their birth. Just enough Magic remained in the world to put the miniature Magic plants to minor usage. In this case, they helped lessen the impact of bad dreams, and captured good dreams they could replay at will.

The doors to the Temple opened, and one by one, each child solemnly placed their dream catcher at the head of the former Crimson King. They offered up their most favorite dream, a sacrifice signifying their willingness to give their best for the sake of others and enter society as a full citizen of their own will. The innocent childhood dreams of sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and puppy kisses continuously replayed in the hopes of restoring C.K. to humanity.

~o0o~

He suffered; oh how he suffered!

~end~

Chapter 11: Author's Notes

As the title implies, I am diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For those unfamiliar with the condition, we are a subgroup that shares certain genetic variations in the hardwiring of our brains. In a metaphorical sense, we are as different from an "average" person as a cat is from a dog. We are not broken people any more than a cat is a broken dog, although one would have more success explaining that truth to a dog than to the average person. Even a cat understands they make horrible dogs, but because of the pack-nature of dogs, cats are always the ones expected to change.

I have two main goals in publishing my stories; the first is to give an insight into one Aspie's world view, and the other is to give hope to anyone with life challenges (such as D.I.D.) that it is possible to become successful on your own terms and use both your strengths and weaknesses to surmount any obstacle.

The majority of my story ideas are based on semi-autobiographical incidents, hopefully presented in enjoyable, or at least entertaining, simile and metaphor, with the addition of less pure fantasy than one would expect.

In addition to Asperger's, I also fall under Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as multiple personalities. This is another highly individualistic condition and if anything, even more misunderstood than Asperger's. For me, I live nine distinct lives within one body. In my case, each of these identities is me, but can only accesses the memories they experience while in control (or "up front" in D.I.D. speak.) They seem to shift randomly, but I have recently had some success with intercommunication.

Different stories are written by different personalities, and longer stories often end up with multiple authors, which further explain a lack of cohesion in style and subject matter. Many of these stories could easily fill their own novel, but my inability to maintain continuity became so frustrating I decided to shorten them. In many instances, this forces me to perhaps put too many concepts and transitions into a short story format, but it seems the only way, for me, to share them.

A further contributing complication is Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness. It is estimated that 2 to 3 percent of the population experience some form, and the condition is associated with the part of the brain that attaches emotion to and imbibes a cohesive individuality to a collection of facial features. I cannot look at a face and see it as a whole, which means I cannot recognize family or friends by sight, even my lovely bride of fifteen years, or my own daughter.

This also comes out glaringly to some in my stories, since lengthy descriptions of character facial attributes and expressions are meaningless to me, and I always feel that writing something for which I am ignorant comes across as artificial. This gives you the reader a unique opportunity to participate in the storytelling and design character's physical features to your own expectations and perhaps enhance the experience.

To round off this exhibition of the bizarre, and give one final refutation to anyone who might wish to claim that their situation is too insurmountable to follow their dreams, I spent thirty-two years without sleep. A horse kicked me on the left temple when I was four, which damaged the Hypoglossal nerve that opens throat muscles when taking a breath while sleeping or unconscious. This was not known at the time; so as a result, whenever I tried to sleep, I could not breathe until my blood oxygen level depleted, and my brain would wake my body enough to take a few breaths.

At age 36, technology finally caught up, and I was properly diagnosed, confirming that, for those three decades, I never slept more than a minute or so, certainly not long enough to enter a REM dream state. I've been treated successfully with a type of respirator, but I'm still not sure about the whole dreaming experience. The brain is a wonderful thing, and given half a chance, finds ways around even the most extreme conditions and barriers. Through these experiences, I believe I have more access to my subconscious thoughts, feelings, and processes than most.

As a further example of the power of determination, I experienced a stroke which caused temporarily loss of the power of speech and the ability to write with my dominant hand, and still experience extreme headaches when trying to type, especially while creating fiction. Along with several physical mobility challenges, which I won't go into here, that was perhaps the lowest point of my life. Between the dogged determination of my Aspie nature and the multiple viewpoints of my multiple personalities, I experimented with voice-to-text software, and this book is testament to that success.

Before the explosion of e-publications, none of this would have been possible as the mainstream publishing industry would never take a chance on something so far out from the ordinary, but then again, my intended audience is not ordinary, rather extraordinary. For the more visually imaginative among you, I have a gallery of several hundred works of digital art that I use as a secondary outlet of expression and internal dialogue, at http://veguitarat.deviantart.com/gallery/. Once again, the purpose of posting what amounts to a personal journey is to encourage others to find their own outlets. Now, go be inspired, or at least entertained.

~end~

