The Golden Prince VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 5.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse Five: The Golden Prince

Special Agent Saul Bridger sat at a table of a chic too white coffee shop looking out the window sipping an espresso. He decided that the truth was not within his reach, perhaps it was out there, somewhere. But it wasn't within his reach. A Kidnapping case taxed everyone on it. The longer the victim remained at large, the lower the chances of find that victim alive. Bridger cursed himself silently for not taking the two suspects into custody immediately. Night and Day, he shook his head at the names, had made a run for it and then everything had gone nuts. Another agency had set up a sting operation and Bridger could not find out which agency or under whose authority. Bridger couldn't get access to the suspect's home or the victim's home either now. His persistence had resulted in him being placed on administrative leave, with pay, and told to take a vacation and forget about the case. 

Bridger had tried, he'd really tried. But then he read in the paper that one Amy Welcher had been reported missing by her mother. The news report hadn't mentioned that Amy Welcher was the long time girl friend of one Harley Night, one of two primary suspects in the Salt kidnapping case. Later news reports indicated that Night and Day were now wanted in connection with the murder of federal officers, apparently the officers had been killed with an axe. And yet, when Bridger called his friends in various federal agencies, nobody seemed to be able to find out who investigating the kidnapping and nobody had a record of federal agents murdered with an axe. Bridger had tried calling the news channel and was met with lawyers and doublespeak, far more resistance than Bridger had expected for a story where the news report seemed to have come straight from an official agency statement. 

The whole affair left Bridger confused, with a bad taste in his mouth. He could taste a cover up, and it tasted like aspartame and MSG. Bridger knew that he should ignore this. The whole sequence might as well have been written on a film noir script. He was setting himself up to the be rebel agent on the run from his own organization. He could see the liner notes alluding to government cover ups and conspiracies. Bridger wiped his mouth instinctively. 

"It's like a sausage. If you want to keep enjoying something, don't find out what goes into it." He said to himself, "I guess I'm about to stop enjoying my job. But really, what else am I going to do? Two kids have been kidnapped and taken who knows where. They're probably already dead, but I have to keep looking until I find a kid or a corpse." 

He paused, and then finished his espresso.

"Mother Mary, I hope they're still alive."

* * * 

"I'm dead," Fitzroy said to nobody in particular as looked around at timber walls rising around him in all directions. Fitzroy noted that he seemed to be in some sort of walled village, within the the walls were earth sheltered buildings with small garden plots in front of them. The people moving around were dressed in a manner that seemed to draw upon elements of iron age Pre-Roman European peoples, East Asian herding peoples and Native American peoples. What had led Fitzroy to pre-declare himself deceased were the people at the gates leading in and out of the village. The gatekeepers were dressed in tabards and chain mail of medieval Crusader knights, with mostly white tabards. 

"Who are you? And what are you doing in here?"

Fitzroy turned and found himself looking at a growing crowd of villagers. A Middle aged woman was standing in front and when she spoke again, Fitzroy realized she had been the one to speak before.

"What manner of witch or wizard are you in these clothes? Why are you here? What do you want?"

"I'd love to answer you, because then maybe you'd help. I'm just not sure how to answer the questions, because things have gone very weird lately. I mean my father murdered my mother for some sort of ritual. A guy calling himself the Witchdoctor tells my sister and I to run, find the Dreamer and the Walker, because apparently they can help. We find them, but that doesn't help, because they don't know much more than us. So we're running from these men in black and white suits. Then we're also running from this black hound thing. I managed to scare the hound off, but because of that, I can't stay focused. I think I passed out. Now I'm here."

The crowd was silent.

"I'm dead," Fitzroy said to himself, "I said the wrong thing, you're going to kill me."

Finally the woman in front spoke, "You are Mordred, but you have chosen to become the Kudavbin King."

"I don't know what you mean," Fitzroy said carefully and slowly, "My name is Fitzroy. Salt. I'm on the run with my sister and two guys named Marion and Harley who are apparently the Dreamer and the Walker. I don't know anything else, because nobody has told me anything else."

"You are the Kudavbin King, your sister is the Last Princess. Your sister is destined to lead the tribes back to freedom, to the old ways. You are destined to kill your father and end his reign of terror as the Locust King."

Fitzroy shook his head, "I really am dead," he said.

* * *

"Please be alive. Please be alive." Amy opened her hands and a tiny little blue butterfly fluttered into the sky. She watched it go in stunned silence.

"I did it. It's alive. I did it! let's see the freak do something like that! Hah!" She said and danced a little dance. 

Grub clapped quietly, "Well done. You've created something new in the story. Remember, if you're going to work with me as a wizard, that wizards are agitators and saboteurs and con men."

"Con artists, thank you very much. Nobody is going to mistake me for a man." Amy interrupted.

"Con artists, that works too." Grub smiled. "The point is that we're like graffiti artists or comedians, we catch people off guard with misdirection and sleight of hand, and then hit them with magic where they're exposed."

"That sounds more like a stage magician." Amy said, still watching the butterfly.

"There's being a wizard and then there is being a magician. Being a wizard means magic and that means story. Being magician means misdirection and that means sleight of hand and illusion. Stage magic. All good magicians are wizards and all good wizards are magicians."

"Okay, fine. But we're still sitting on a park bench conjuring butterflies. And as amazing as that is, and it's pretty darned amazing, we still aren't doing anything to save my Harley. He might even be dead already."

"Little Miss, I don't want to take you into battle unable to protect yourself. The story does that to the main characters all the time these days, because the Locust King is in control of the story. The past is littered with the dead bodies of untrained characters: First Mothers who never raised anyone, First Heroes who did without ever being heroic, Dreamers and Walkers whose dreams and walks were cut very very short, Kudavbin Kings who mere could have been- but weren't. I am sending my apprentice into the fire without protection. And your boy is alive, I'd have felt the string snap if one of the storytellers were dead."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be from within the story. It's possible he's dead and somebody masked his death from me, but very unlikely. I'd bet real money that your boy's alive."

"Please be alive." Amy said quietly. 

And Her Son VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 4.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse Four: And Her Son

"You don't pray to call help down from the sky." Agnes Bladder began as she stood peering out at the mining site outside town. "It doesn't work that way. Prayer isn't a call for help, its a promise to future."

"That's not what I was taught in Sunday school," Maia said.

"I tend to agree with Maia on this," Harley said," Praying is like giving Santa Claus your wish list, as least the way I always heard it."

Agnes reached out and sharply flicked Harley's ear, "You selfish child! True prayer isn't asking for a present. True prayer is planting a seed and promising tomorrow that you will water that seed until it grows to an oak."

Harley rubbed his ear, "Okay, and your point?"

"You are our seed to be planted. The help we're giving you is our promise to the future. So listen carefully, because this is important."

Harley stood just to Agnes' left with Maia in front of him. Harley kept a hand on each of Maia's shoulders as Agnes spoke, looking at the witch rather than the mining site that Agnes had indicated was where Harley would fulfil his end of their agreement. Agnes Bladder was a crone in the classic sense: large nose and sharp eyes, a face that bore a interstate roadmap worth of wrinkles and lines, hands warped and gnarled like the branches of an ancient tree, all capped off by a stooped back that made her posture look like a question mark.

"The first thing that you need to understand to work in the story world is what is what and what that means. People have been digging around in the Shadowlands for as long as we've been people. Not just Homo Sapiens, our older cousins and parents and grandparents- Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Erectus to name just two. Bone flute and burial mounds and ochre body paint are found on ancient sites all over the world. We've been talking to gods and using magic for as long as we've be able."

Harley shook his head, "I don't want to sound like a flat earth atheist here, because I'm not in denial about the kind of world we're suddenly living in. But I feel like I'm playing catch up, because I would have called myself agnostic before this happened and I definitely wouldn't have believed in ghost or old gods or magic prior to getting swept up into the story, whatever the story is."

Agnes nodded, "Very sensible. Keep those ideas in mind. You see, gods are a way of personifying concepts. They are a way of giving form to ideas, building myth from symbol. Magic is a system of explanation for things that we can predict, things that we can use, things that we can reliably observe, but which we cannot explain. Magic is how we explain things for which we do not understand the underlying mechanism. Theologians and critics call this the god of the gaps theory, and generally as a pejorative, an insult. Which is nonsense. Humans have been using since fire long before they understood combustion. If humans were not willing to play with that magic flame well it was still magic, cities wouldn't exist today. You need to stop imagining that what you've seen somehow re-writes physics or invalidates natural history or renders science irrelevant. None of this conflicts with natural science, because that is the Bonelands and this is the Shadowlands and the two meet only in the telling of the story."

"You lost me," Harley admitted, "I was hearing what you were saying and then, poof."

"You're too rational, too reasonable, to level headed to make the jump necessary on intuition. I imagine that's what your boyfriend did."

"We aren't dating." Harley said.

"That's a shame," one of the other witches said, "You'd make a cute couple."

Harley turned and looked at her as she spoke, trying to remember her name. He was fairly certain she was called Phyllis Heart.  There were a lot of them and Harley was struggling to keep them straight in his head. Phyllis Heart looked like all of the Golden Girls rolled impossibly into one. She perfectly mimicked the prototypical sitcom grandmother with a gentle face and a clever smile and hair wrapped into ridiculous curlers.

"People trust little old ladies," Phyllis heart continued "Even people playing the game. Which is foolish. I started playing this game when I was a young girl. Does the game seem easy to you young one? Has the learning curve been gentle on your bones so far?"

"No ma'am."

"And yet here I am, still playing the game, still moving other people across the game board. For decades now, I've held my title as witch. That sound easy?"

"No ma'am."

"And yet people underestimate me every day. But you won't, will you young one? Not any more."

"No ma'am."

"And that's because I like you. You're practical. So we're giving you a look behind the curtain as gift. Hmph. That sounds vulgar, like I'm a dance hall girl. I don't imagine a young thing like you would want that kind of look from an old lady like me."

Harley had no answer.

"And now I've made you blush. I do like you. Decent child at heart. I don't know that the game will be kind to that decent soul though. I do wish you luck."

"Luck hasn't been readily abundant thus far, ma'am."

"Don't be ridiculous. You've been all kinds of lucky, or you wouldn't be alive. Do you know how many people might be the Storytellers and never make past the first vision?"

"I haven't had my first vision." Harley said.

Mildred Spine piped up, "Or maybe you just didn't recognize it when it first happened."

Harley turned in the opposite direction to look at the new speaker. He had noticed that a lot of the witches seemed to work in pairs. Mildred Spine always seemed to stand near Margaret Rib. Mildred Spine stood straight and wore jeans and a knit wool sweater. She looked practical and indomitable and stood over six feet tall and very thin, but looked in no way frail. She made football players look up when she passed. Margaret Rib by contrast, though also tall and very thin, looked as though a strong wind would blow her over if it caught even her wispy long hair. She looked like a dying willow, or a starving ostrich, with huge eyes and a sagging skin on her face that hinted at her having been heavier in her youth.

Mildred Spine stared at Harley with owl's hard glare, "You're an oak tree kid, you know that? Your stronger than everything else around you, but you break when you ought to bend."

Margaret Rib nodded, an act which caused her whole frame to sway unsteadily, "There is strength in embracing weakness dear. There will always be things stronger than you. There are times when you have to roll with the blows and let yourself fall. You remember that dear."

Agnes Bladder added, "He's having trouble seeing this because he's too practical. That's the whole of it."

"Or maybe he hasn't learned how to apply his practicality to the new game is all," added the witch called Lady Purge. Lady Purge was a tiny little lady who had been scrunched down like a coiled spring by time and gravity. She smelled of spoiled perfume and vinegar, and dressed in traditional witches black with a a knitted black shawl stained with tea and spotted with Biscuit crumbs, 

"Look how long it took the Gees to get a handle on how to make the magic work for them."

Genevieve Sole and Gertrude Hand, referred to by the other ladies as The Gees we childhood friends who wore their silver hair in matching high rise beehive hairdos and dressed as though they had never left the Sock hop. They wore too much make up and smiled like the Stepford Wives. Genevieve Sole nodded in response to Lady Purge, "Far too concerned with what people might think, should they learn the truth. Far too concerned with doing the right thing. Held us back far longer than it should."

Gertrude added, "Other people get their stories in your head, and they make you into characters in their stories and they make you dance on their stage. Where's your stage?"

Harley was starting to get overwhelmed by the flurry of voices around him.

"Is Linwich Crossing your stage then?" He asked, and instantly regretted the tone he had used. The words sounded accusatory or mocking, definitely defensive, as they floated in the air.

"Don't let appearance fool you Storyteller," Agnes Bladder said, "I know you're new to the role and to the story, but don't let us being little old ladies fool you. We serve ancient powers, we draw our strength from the Primal One. You'd be fools to think you can brush us aside, especially given how underdeveloped your abilities are."

"I'm sorry," Harley said, "I'm just tense. Too much running from the bad guys, too much frustration, not enough options. To keep with the story metaphor; it sounds like the villains are everywhere, and the good guys are in hiding and broken.The more I hear, the more hopeless it sounds."

Agnes shook her head, "This is not a battle between good and evil. This is not a duality or a dichotomy. The game board is vast and, if I may steal from dear old Whitman, contains multitudes." 

Harley couldn't decide how to respond and Agnes continued, "There are many horrible things in the story. Ancient gods and demons and devils lurk in the shadows and the dark of the tales you will rediscover and weave back to life. And these evils are essential to the survival of the story. It is a poor story that assumes evil must be opposed. Evil is an idea, a creation of the Locust King and his folk, a way of describing those who do not step into line with him. We are wicked and our patroness is more wicked, and dark and vile and inhuman in her thinking also. But that does not mean she must be destroyed or that you could destroy her. The hallmark of the Locust King has been his penchant for the fool's errand. He seeks constantly to be the hero and casts all who disagrees with him as the villain."

"That's something I keep wondering. Something I keep hearing from other people. Nobody seems certain who is in fact the hero. People have called us main characters, but nobody seems certain as to who the story belongs to, who it's about."

"Everyone has their quest and their story. You are the storyteller. But the battle here is precisely that, whose story does the storyteller tell?"

"He's not even telling the story yet," Countess Cleanse pointed out, leaning in to tap Harley on the breast bone.

"He's Bishop on the board, but he's acting like a knight." Her sister, Sybil Cistern added reaching up to put a hand on Harley's shoulder.

The sisters known as Countess Cleanse and Sybil Cistern were not in fact twins, although one might be forgiven for believing otherwise. They both looked nearly identical, round little heads with iron grey hair in round little buns, all set upon round little bodies wrapped in pink knit sweaters that matched perfectly.

"So teach me," Harley said, "You're sending me into some place to dangerous or too difficult for you ladies to manage it, and I haven't heard anything that will help me use this power I'm supposed to have. I haven't heard any tutorials on how to summon tomahawks or have convenient clairvoyant visions, or anything."

There was a brief silence and then the women broke into frenzied argumentative speech, voicing clamouring over each other as they fought for auditory dominance. 

"We should help him summon Boneshaker."

"We should teach him the seven league walk."

"We should teach him the path of winds."

Agnes raised her hand and the coven fell silent. "I heard the seven league walk. He's the Walker so that will probably come naturally, and he'll need that to get in and out in a hurry."

"What's Boneshaker?" Harley asked, "I heard that get mentioned." 

"The flanged mace that is the weapon of the Walker is named Boneshaker."

"So, if I'm hearing correctly, that's the equivalent of Marion summoning his tomahawks?"

"Yes. And?"

"Then I want to learn that too. How long will that take?"

Agnes frowned, "Summoning Boneshaker will be like re-attaching a phantom limb. That mace is a part of your character, as much a part of you as your arm or your sense of honour. You have to imagine yourself as a character. What would King Arthur be without Excalibur? What would Thor be without Mjolnir? The costume is part of the character, like putting on a mask to become a god. The mace part of your character as you exist now within the story. You need to reach out deep in the Infinity codex, deep in the heart of the story. You need to find it. And you need to pull loose that missing part of you."

"How do I do that? It's a great pep talk, but how do I do that?"

The coven burst into murmuring again. 

"He's far too pragmatic."

"No imagination, how is he the storyteller?"

"He's only half the storyteller. Maybe we can work with the other one."

"He's all we've got until the Dreamer breaks free."

"He'll never get it."

"He's hopeless."

Harley waved his hands like an umpire calling a play at home base, 

"I can hear you, you know! What am I missing? And why would you think that explanation would be enough?"

Lady Purge answered, "As a storyteller, you need to be capable of creation, drawing something from nothing. That is what story telling is. If you can't do that, how can you tell a story?"

Harley shook his head,"I haven't heard anyone call me a creator, I heard them call me story-teller. Teller. Storytelling is like playing music, learning the tune and the rhythm, making old stories sing with a fresh voice. It's not necessarily about making new music, but about making old music sound new. And from everything I've heard, this is an old story. why are you trying to make me play free jazz? I hate free jazz."

Mildred Spine nodded, "You need to hear the music before you can improvise on it?"

Harley nodded, "That's basically it."

Margaret Rib, "Oh, we can help with that dear. Take my hand," She reached out and grasped Harley's hand with surprising strength, numerous rings digging into his hands, "Feel the magic, or music is you prefer. I'm going to summon something through you, pay attention to how it feels."

Harley felt a tingle running up his arm and initially mistook it for a pinched nerve from Margaret Rib's iron grip. but the tingling flowed down into Harley's right hand and he felt something trying to grow solid in his hand, finally his hand closed around a ceremonial bone dagger that Harley heavily suspected had been carved from a rib.

"Perfect. Did you feel that?" Mildred Spine asked, clapping her hands lightly.

"I actually did."

"Good, can I please have my blade dear?" Margaret Rib asked extending her hand.

Harley handed her the dagger and Agnes cleared her throat.

"Now you try." Agnes said, "Call up the mace Boneshaker in the same way. Feel for the same feeling."

"I'll try, but I suspect I'm going to take a little while to get this."

Harley wasn't wrong. After half an hour of cackling, coaching and coaxing; Harley still had not summoned the mace. Maia had remained resolutely upbeat through the whole process, cheering on Harley and maintaining absolute faith that he would master the Magic. Harley wasn't sure if he was grateful for her faith or embarrassed by it. 

"I don't even know what I'm summoning," He said finally, "I don't really know the story that I'm a part of, and I certainly don't know how I would recognize this Boneshaker either."

"We can show you that, you know," Countess Cleanse said and quickly reached up and tapped Harley's forehead sharply. Harley felt the ground drop out from under him and vision began to darken until he was falling through a void. Above Harley a figure faded into focus. He recognized the figure as himself, although it didn't look like him. The figure was androgynous and dressed in numerous overlapping capes of black with red trim and held an enormous two handed mace, whose head was made of seven plates or flanges designed to crush bone and collapse armour. The figure pulled back a dark hood to look at Harley.

"Why do you hesitate? The walker acts. It is the realm of the Dreamer to dream."

And then Harley landed in the grass of the hill overlooking the mine, the impact driving the air from his lungs. He lay there stunned until he noticed that the coven of women were clapping, and Maia was outright cheering. Then he noticed he was holding something in right hand.

Harley shook his head, "No way that worked." He said, looking at his hands. But sure enough, there in his grasp was a now familiar two handed flanged mace.

"Well I'll be damned." he muttered.

"And now. On to seven league walking," Agnes announced.

"All this help is going to kill me." Harley muttered.

Seven league walking turned out to be both easier and much more difficult. Agnes Bladder described the process as walking with intention rather than walking with legs. Travelling by willing oneself across the landscape. In theory, the coven explained at length, seven league walking could be used to travel through solid objects, across oceans and even to different worlds. Harley got the hang of the process fairly quickly. He focused on his destination and mentally removed the distance between himself and the destination. The problem was that Harley was only able to do this with places that he could see. The witches put this down his insufferable pragmatism and rationality. He could bound from hilltop to hilltop almost immediately, but could not disappear around the corner of a building. He could travel through a window, but not a door. 

"Keep moving, Keep Walking. Little steps." The Gees said to him in unison as he practiced. All of the women had their rituals and their mantras, although Harley noticed that these rituals were not at all the same. The rule of magic seemed to be: whatever worked for that person. This drove Harley mad, as it felt entirely wrong to him. If magic worked, then there should be a reason that it worked. Still after two days of practise, although he still couldn't move through opaque objects or to places he couldn't see, Agnes pronounced his mastery of summoning and seven league travel sufficient to attempt the mission that was his part of the bargain. Of course, they still hadn’t told him what that mission involved. 

The Kings of Old VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 3.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse Three: The Kings of Old

Harley drove the Cricket to Linwich Crossing crossing over two antique wood bridges spanning two crossed rivers. The town was very old and was all faded cracked paint and exposed blackened wood that looked as though Linwich Crossing were somehow the origin of all dry rot. The bridges nearly rattled Harley's teeth loose and Maia giggled on the first bridge and sang vowels across the second bridge listening as the rattling played games with her voice.

"Feeling Better?" Harley asked.

"Kind of and not at all and all at the same time," Maia answered," 

I'm feeling a sorts of stuff and other stuff too. Is that okay?"

"That sounds pretty much exactly like I'd expect."

"Mr. Harley, what are those towers over there?" Maia asked, and Harley turned his head to look out past the edge of town to the metal towers in the distance that looked like a hipster had tried to knock off the Eiffel Tower. Harley stared for a moment, and then returned to watching the road.

"It's a shale oil drilling operation. Hydraulic Fracturing, fracking and that sort of thing. It's probably the only reason this town still exists. I bet this was farm country, probably pasture and cattle as far as the eye could see before the drought went from an event to state of being. I don't think this place has seen rain for decades. Have you seen any white vans yet? Any men in sun glasses and suits? Any horrifying black dogs?"

"No sir, Mr. Harley."

"That's good. What do you think our chances of being lucky are this time."

From the back seat Marion mumbled, "... the story never stops... "

"I don't need input from you, Mr. Jinx." Harley said with a smile. The town had not entirely given up hope or life and there was a small General store and gas station and launder mat that seemed to serve as a catch all commercial location for the whole town. 

Harley was beginning to think that village would be a more appropriate term, maybe even Hamlet. He bought camping gear, tents and sleeping bags and filled up the gas tank and his jerry can. He bought a bunch of long lasting food and noted with some worry that they were running much lower on funds now that he gone on this much needed spending spree. He tucked away the remaining money for gas and emergencies and made a mental note to tell Marion once his friend woke up. Harley kept alert as he did his shopping, but no agents showed up and now white vans drove past.

"Mr. Harley, can I have a hamburger?" Maia asked as they finished loading the new gear into the Cricket. She pointed across the street to a small burger stand that looked like something from a different time named Big Mack's.

"They are asking to be sued aren't they?" Harley said to himself," Maybe they'll claim parody or fair use. They'll probably lose anyway though." 

Harley opened his wallet and did some mental calculations, then finally decided that Maia could use the boost that a treat could give and nodded to her. Harley parked the Cricket directly in front of the picture window of Big Mack's so that Marion and Fitzroy would be visible at all times and stepped into the 

building. A bell above the door jangled as they enter the restaurant.  Behind the front counter stood a mammoth sized woman in a frilly apron bearing the embroidered name tag of Mackenzie. She had a few streaks of grey running through her hair and crow's feet around her eyes, but Harley guessed her age to be somewhere around the mid-thirties suffering from a case of hard living. She was built like the cybernetic synthesis of a lumberjack and a pro wrestler and Harley was reasonably sure that she could bench press both him and Marion at the same time. She nodded as they entered and waved a hand to the empty tables that lined the building.

"Sit yourselves wherever you want folks. I'll be right with you. My cook's sick, and by sick I'm pretty sure he meant hung over. It's not a problem for making the food. I taught the lazy featherweight to cook, but it means I'm doing everyone's job today, because my server just hasn't shown up at all- probably 'sick' too. Pretty much the whole town was at the opening party for the fracking site last night. Free booze and tiny sandwiches is a powerful draw in a small town like this."

Harley grinned, "I'm guessing you're Big Mack?"

"Yep," She grinned, "Retired Minor League Pro Wrestler. Big Mack: hundreds and hundreds served!"

"Why'd you quit? Get tired of of it?"

Big Mack shook her head, "Never. I love the kayfabe and the performance, the story, you know? But you know if you give your life to a fantasy, eventually it actually asks you to hand it over. And then you have to choose, live in the story or live in the real world. And you know, I couldn't make a living in the fantasy land, as much as I'd like to do so. So here I am. I'll get you menus, but I recommend my special: the Spinning Suplex Burger with curly frees. Can I get you coffee to start?"

Harley nodded, "Coffee sounds great." and they sat at a booth looking out at the Cricket while Big Mack dropped a pair of menus and bustled back behind the counter to pour coffee.

"Princess? You want coffee too?" She called from the counter.

Maia scrunched her face up, "I don't like coffee and it doesn't taste good."

Big Mack grinned, "I'll make you a latte macchiato. You'll like that. Are you lactose intolerant?"

Maia shook her head and Big Mack busied herself with the coffee and expresso machines. Harley and Maia opened their menus and began to look through at the available options. As they did, harley suddenly heard and elderly female voice from the front door. 

"And there they are fresh from the Bonelands and still smelling of compliance and old sweat socks. How are you little critters doing?"

Harley looked up to see a group of somewhere around a dozen old woman standing behind him like the world's most progressive biker gang. Harley noted as he looked at the women, that he hadn't heard the bell on the door ring when they had, presumably, opened it to enter. Harley looked at Big Mack and noted that she looked suddenly very tense. 

"I'm guessing one of you is Agnes Bladder," Harley said, to which the lead woman nodded, " Right then, let's start right away. What are the Bonelands? I know I've heard that before. But nobody seems to want to explain how this game is played."

The woman called Agnes Bladder smiled, raised and eyebrow and crossed her arms.

"That's because you four are the movers and shakers," She waved to indicated both Harley and Maia, but also Marion and Fitzroy in the Cricket, "Main characters with all the power and chances for horrible horrible tragedy that goes along with that. And the more you know the better you can play this game. The better you playing, the more you will disrupt the status quo, the more destruction you can wreck. So people are afraid of you. Even your friends."

"That is not a comforting answer. But again, what are the Bonelands?" Harley said. 

"The Shadowlands are where the story is told, where the game is played. They are the world os symbol and myth. miss. The Bonelands are the other place. The world of flesh and bone. The world devoid of story."

"Then Marion, and probably Fitzroy are trapped in the Shadowlands. How do we free them?" Harley said.

"You're never truly free of the Shadowlands."

"How do I get him lucid in this world then?"

"That depends on what he's doing there. He may not be ready to leave." Agnes Bladder answered. 

"Well he's a pain to haul around like this." Harley said, gazing out the window at the Cricket. 

"Just be glad only two of you young critters are deep sea diving 

at the same time." Agnes Bladder put her hands on hips as she said this. 

Harley shook his head, "Don't go there. I don't want to hear that."

"Did you ladies want to find yourself some seats?" Big Mack said carefully as she brought harley's coffee and Maia's latte macchiato.

Agnes nodded and sat down beside Maia, who quickly scooted up against the window in alarm. Agnes waved vaguely at her pack of old ladies and they seated themselves at tables around the restaurant. Harley noted that the restaurant suddenly seemed very busy just based on the new number of occupied seats. 

Harley stared at her, "So you're the witches that we are apparently supposed to find. I was told you'd find us, and I guess I should be grateful that you found us so quickly, but I can't help being suspicious."

"Then you aren't an idiot," Agnes Bladder said, "Which is good. It's alway a pain when main characters are idiots." 

"Okay, but what does that mean? Main Characters? Apparently Marion can summon tomahawks and astral project himself into the Shadowlands and use it as a the world's weirdest cell phone. Can you guys that stuff too?" 

Agnes Bladder shook her head, "Some of that yes, but you two are the children of the great ancients from outside time, the cosmic couple; Lady of Fire and her consort The Man of Void. You walk in their footsteps and draw upon their power and we cannot. That is why we seek your assistance. All the players have beings from which they draw power. The Locust King draws power from the Grey through bargains with the serpent Falsenight and the Locust Spirit itself. Witches draw from the Primal One. She is strong and ancient, but the Lady of Fire and her man are beyond time and not subject to the limitations upon beings bound by time."

Harley shook his head, "This is getting to feel like we're taking an alternate historic Mythology class and slept through the introductory chapters."

Agnes Bladder smiled again, "Well, you're going to need to play catch up if you want to survive. There are two sides to this battle and two stories warring for dominance. I suspect you know this much. The Locust King stands on one side. On the other side

stand the Last Princess and the Kudavbin King mentored by the Storytellers- at least in this chapter of the story. There are other chapters you know. And of course, the Locust King has his servants and his forces."

"We've had to deal with the hound and the men of black and white so far. Anything else we should be aware of in terms of nasties." 

"They aren't servants of the Locust King, but Wendigo are an ongoing problem for all sides of the conflict, and they are always a problem in the wasteland. They have an affinity for the wasteland."

"What's the wasteland?"

"The Wasteland is one of the locations in the story, an archetypal location, in the same way the Storytellers are archetypal characters that you and your boyfriend are filling."

"he's not my boyfriend." 

"Does he know that? In any case, the wasteland is the land that the Locust King's empire has used up and abandoned. This late in the story, the wasteland starts to become a common feature. Eventually the wasteland becomes almost the whole map. And the Wendigo are creatures of the wasteland."

"Why?"

"The Wendigo are the spawn of That Which Survives. I've heard it referred to as the Spirit of the Winter Wind, the Ghost of the Starving Wolf, and a dozen other charming names. But it all comes back to hunger and to survival. That Which Survives is the spirit of endurance, survival at all costs. It is the core of life really, the persistent desire to strive against the inevitability of heat death of the universe. It is the spark which convinces us to battle against entropy and the grave. Without it, we cease to live and new generations cease to come into existence. But That Which Survives is not a sane thing, it is the embodiment of an impulse, and if that impulse is not controlled it becomes a disease of the mind and the soul. The Wendigo have gone mad from hunger and have been possessed by the hunger which cannot be sated, they have become the hungry ghosts."

"Okay, I heard what you said, but the term Wendigo is Native American, and the term hungry ghost is from Asia, Japan I think."

"All cultures must craft stories to deal with the hunger, cannibalism, desperation, starvation and other problems that a tribe might encounter when times are bad. They must invoke gods and demons and monsters and spells and incantations to protect them from being destroyed by these things. The stories are the magick that holds the tribe together through such trying times."

"But what I want to know is whether the Algonquin people invented the Wendigo, told them into existence through the story, or whether they discovered or named them through their stories."

"Yes, exactly, but not these Wendigo. These are the product of syncretic myth-building by previous tellers of this story."

"You must have misheard me. It wasn't a yes or no question. It was and 'A' or 'B' question."

"You must not have understood what you asking."

"Okay, Okay. This is all obviously useful. but do I need to hear all of it now?" Harley asked, "This is starting get overwhelming."

"Not yet, maybe never." Agnes Bladder answered.

Big Mack slipped cautiously back to the table, "Was anyone ready to order?"

"Get my usual Mackenzie honey." Agnes said without breaking eye contact with Harley.

"I'll have your special. I sounded good when you told us about it." Harley said.

"Can I have the Little Wrestler Special?" Maia asked.

"Of course you can!" Big mack said with a smile. "I'll get those started and then check with the rest of your friends."

"Just get them coffee in the mean time then." Agnes said and waved a hand vaguely to dismiss Big Mack. 

Harley watched as Big Mack snuck away to kitchen. He noticed that she watched Agnes as she left, glancing back several times on her way to the kitchen. 

"So where do you witches stand in all of this?" Harley asked.

"Witches and Wizards are meddlers and mentors, shapers and subverters. We tweak the story. We are supporting characters."

"Are wizards just men witches?" Maia asked.

"No, little critter. Witches and Wizards are occupations, no gender is required. Men can be witches and women can be wizards. The difference is in the roles they play. Wizards are tricksters and mentors, the actively disrupt and commit acts of mythic sabotage. Very active, running about and doing things. Witches are advisors and midwives, supporters and subverters, corruptors and healers. We serve the Primal One, they serve The Sleeping Beast."

"Wait a minute, The Sleeping Beast?" Harley asked, "I've heard of the Sleeping Beast. It's a book, it's a movie monster. Some guy from New England wrote a bunch of horror stories about the Sleeping Beast back in the thirties before he died of tuberculosis or something. Seward Harris Lovelace, that was the name. The Sleeping Beast isn't a god or a demon. It isn't anything. It isn't even real!"

"It's fictional, that doesn't mean it isn't real. Especially in the Shadowlands."

"What does that mean?" Maia asked.

"We're being drawn into story worlds, so I'm assuming that things in the story worlds can affect us." Harley said,"So given that the Sleeping Beast is kind of like Godzilla meets Cthulhu on the set of Lord of the Rings, I kind of don't want to meet it- do you?"

"I guess not, but is that right?" Maia asked, turning to Agnes Bladder.

"Almost entirely wrong, but it will do until I have time to explain it better. For now, anything that convinces you to run should you see it is satisfactory. The Old Ones are ideas incarnate, they ARE what they mean and represent. They are metaphor as god and devil. Really, they are the essence of story, ideas as things. A handy memory device and teaching tool with pitchfork and horns."

"Also," Harley said, "I thought it was called the Sleeping Beast, not the Sleeping Priest?"

"Stories changes. Most gods and demons have dozens or thousands of names and roles the shift like sand dunes."

"So, I guess my next question is why you're so eager to help us. What do you get out of telling us how to navigate this supernatural mine field."

Agnes Bladder shook her head, "I'm a naturalist. I don't believe in anything supernatural and neither should any Shaman or Magician worth their salt. Magick has nothing to do with the supernatural and everything to do with the story. You will never see any supernatural occurrence, if you think you do, you're going mad."

"Then I'm definitely going mad."

"Don't mistake the workings of the story for an occurrence of the Supernatural."

"Are you saying that what we've seen is natural?"

"Not at all, we are in the story. None of this is supernatural or natural, it is narrative devices and nothing more."

"You're making my head hurt. I've seen Marion summon magic Tomahawks and I've fought a dog made of black holes. I don't know how you can hear that and not call it supernatural."

"Because you are misunderstanding what you are."

"Then tell me. I'm listening."

"There is no point. You aren't fluent in the language of the story yet. I could tell you, and you would not understand. You have to arrive there on your own or else your power will be destroyed and you will fall."

"That's convenient."

"Story logic tends to be." 

Big Mack slipped up balancing three plates and quickly deposited them in front of Harley, Maia and Agnes. 

"One Spinning Suplex Burger with Curly fries. One Little Wrestler Special. One Rakfisk Open Face Sandwich with sauerkraut and black sausage on the side. How's your machiatto honey?"

Maia looked up from her meal and its little cardboard championship belt, "It was really good. Thank you."

"I didn't hear an answer to my question." Harley said, "Why are you helping us? I want my best friend back. I want a handle on this game that I am playing. I've been told that a witch can help be get that, but everything I hear from you convinces my you have your own game you're playing. So why are you helping me?"

"I said you weren't an idiot, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"Good. You four are far more powerful than my whole coven combined. Right now, you're running scared and with no direction. And that's because you don't know how to use your power and you don't know how to guide yourself. We can teach you much of what you need to know to do those things. In exchange, we want you to use your newly acquired abilities to help us. We'll unlock your power, and then you pay us back by using it on our behalf."

"I can hear the theme song to the Godfather playing in the background," Harley said, "What do you want us to do?"

"Nothing bad for you. I told you that we witches play a subversive role. And I told you that the Locust King derives his power from the Grey via the Locust Spirit and from the serpent spirit Falsenight He accesses Falsenight's power through an artifact, a reliquary if you like: Falsenight's Cup." 

"You're sending us on a hunt for a MacGuffin?"

"Oh no, not a MacGuffin. MacGuffin's don't do anything. This is a plot device, it's actually useful."

"What's a MacGuffin. Mr. Harley?" Maia asked.

"A MacGuffin is the thing in the story that everyone wants. The plot centres around people trying to get it, but it never seems to do anything and doesn't serve a purpose except to motivate the plot. Basically it's something people want, because the plot says that they want it."

"And that is why this isn't a MacGuffin because the cup actually does something," Agnes said, "The cup allows the user to access the power of Falsenight, and that power is enormous. Falsenight has some tie to the Great Serpent, a traitorous child perhaps- the legends are unclear. But in either case, Falsenight is one of the great trump cards that empowers the Locust King's forces and his empire. cut off access to that power and you cripple the Locust King."

"How's the first few bites of food?" Big Mack asked as she darted past with food for the other member's of Agnes' coven.

"It's really good Mrs. Mack" Maia said as she swallowed a bite of hamburger.

Harley realized that he hadn't started eating. 

"Let's find out," He said and quickly dug into his burger, "This is really good. Thank you for recommending it. There's some spice in this."

"My own secret spice mix." Big Mack said with a smile that Harley noticed, still seemed quite nervous. She retreated to the front desk and watched everyone. 

"So, what I'm hearing is that what you want is big and dangerous and you're going to put us at risk rather than yourselves." Harley said.

"Not at all," Agnes said, a little too quickly for Harley's liking," You don't understand the difference between your power and our power levels. This is destroy us, but would be easy as cake for you.

"And what happens if we don't make it? What happens to the story if we fail and end up dead in a ditch somewhere?" Harley asked.

"That won't happen," Agnes said.

"But what is it does?" Harley insisted.

Agnes shrugged "The story has an answer, and the story will go on."

"Without us." Harley said, finishing the last bite of his burger.

"Are you refusing our assistance?" Agnes asked.

"No, you have us in a difficult position. We need to know how to play this game, so I guess we have to deal with you. But I don't like what I've heard. You say we're more powerful than you. So I want you to remember that. Because if you betray us, or sell us out; I will hold a grudge. I always try to be reasonable first. Don't ask what I do second."

Agnes smiled, "Now you're in the proper mindset to make deals in the Shadowlands." She extended a skeletal hand wrapped in parchment like skin and Harley reached across the table to shake it.  

Threshold Guardian VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 2.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse Two: Threshold Guardian

Harley listened to Maia as she sat on the dirt by the cold campfire quietly crying. He couldn't blame her, she hadn't even hit puberty, and now her mother was dead, her brother was catatonic. She was running for her life from her father on the advice of some possibly mythical witchdoctor, and the one her protectors was unconscious and mumbling prophetic nonsense while the other was clueless. Marion had said he preferred this life to their old lives. Harley didn't agree. Harley liked the world to make sense, and maybe if he could make this world make sense, maybe then he would agree with Marion. But not until then.

Maia wiped her eyes and looked up at Harley, "Mr. Harley. Mr. Walker. What do we do?"

Harley shook his head and gently put a hand upon Maia's shoulder, "When you fall down, get up." He said, "When you can't stand, rise to kneeling."

Maia wiped her eyes and looked up at Harley.

He stood and gently pulled her back to her feet, "When you can't rise, face skyward. And never admit you've been beaten."

"But we did stand." Maia said to him.

"Precisely." Harley answered, "We always think we're beaten long before we really are. When our minds and our hearts tell us that we're finished we need to train ourselves not to listen and to carry on."

"Mr. Harley, you talk about being reasonable and I don't understand. That doesn't sound reasonable."

Harley smiled, "The great secret of the reasonable man is to continue doing small things, rather than giving up when large things stop working. We continue to try reasonable things long after the process has stopped being reasonable to us. That is how the ocean wears away the shore."

"You sound like a storyteller Mr. Harley."

"Well, being reasonable, means you do what you have to do. And you don't complain about it. Let's get in the Cricket and figure out where to go."

They piled into the Cricket and Harley started the engine and then let the van idle as he flipped through a road map looking at the surrounding area.

I don't know this area well. We're right on the border of two counties: Linwich County and Howard Country, there are maybe four towns total in the two counties with more than five houses and a pig." Harley paused, "But who knows if witches live in small towns or big cities or off in the woods. We need something useful, a clue or a hint or we're just going to spin our wheels until we're caught."

From the back of the van, Marion spoke in a voice that wasn't his, wasn't even a man's voice, but the voice an old woman.

"The wheel keeps turning." He said.

"That sounds like Mrs. Trilby, Marion's crazy old neighbour with the cats." Harley's voice faded away into a stunned silence, "It was Mercer that saved us from the Hound the first time. Mercer is Mrs. Trilby's cat. Mrs. Trilby is a Witch. Mrs. Trilby is a witch. We had help right where we began and we didn't know how to look for it! Mrs. Trilby, can you hear me? Marion can you hear me? You helped us with that move against the hound before. Can you hear me this time? What do we need to do? What do we need to know?"

"Your life is not only yours dear. We merely tell a story to each other, we just play the parts as needed. Some of us play heroes. Some of us play mentors. Some of choose to play villains, often mistaking these roles for the role of hero. We retell our stories to each new generation. The story changes, but the the story remembers the previous tellings. And the new story rhymes with its ancestor self."

"I mean about the story. What do we do in the story?"

"All cultures tell stories dear. All peoples belonged to the lands that birthed them. That one people have been trapped in one mad little story means nothing on the scale of humanity. History is merely his story: the Story of the Locust King, and when it ends the cycle will continue and the wheel will remain whole. I hope you realize that his story was not humanities story. the story of humanity is a wheel, and his story was just a stone that caused a slight bump."

"How do we reach you? If you're a witch and we need a witch, how do we reach you?"

"You need local help dear. Not me. The nearest coven is in Linwich County, led by Agnes Bladder. They're nasty things though, so be careful. They'll try to use you to their own ends, so be ready dear. You're big. The big pieces on the chess board and until you learn how to play the game, people are going to move you around to suit their needs."

"Should we even deal with them if they're that bad? They sound like villains." Harley said.

"Dear, one of the big mistakes the Locust King made was to try and divide things into good and evil, pure and impure, holy and unholy. Everything is sacred dear, especially the profane. And all powerful things are dangerous, and so you have to deal with dangerous beings. The Locust King wants us staying away from powerful beings, because then we might have power that didn't come from him, we might be able to act without his story. So seek out dangerous things and make you own deals with them. The devil's bargain is propaganda, dear. "

"How do I find them?"

"Linwich Crossing is the only town of note in Linwich County dear, get yourself there and they'll find you. You four are spraying, well I guess I'd call it narrative radiation. Either way, anyone who is paying attention to the story can't help but feel it. Four main characters travelling together and carrying the plot, the old story to boot. Oh yes, those old vipers will find you so fast it will make your head spin. Just don't let them fleece you too bad."

"Thanks Mrs. Trilby, Now, how's Marion doing? Marion are you alright?"

Marion spoke with his own voice this time, "I'm in that other land I told you about. The Shadowlands, I think it's called. It's hard to interact with you like this and I know I'm drawing attention by doing it, so I need to stay brief. But I'm okay. I learned how to do this from the bad guys, but I'm on the run here too. So I need to keep this brief. Say, what does my body look like there? Am I there at all, because I'm still not sure what happens when I enter the Shadowlands. Did I just disappear or am I like all sleeping beauty?"

"There is no reality where I am going to call you sleeping beauty," Harley said, "It's more like coma patient with occasional lapses into schizophrenic prophet."

"Dear," Mrs. Trilby said, speaking through Marion again, "You really need to get going, or you're both going to get caught. Harley dear, find the coven- get them to train you. Marion has enough skills he's figured out that he can manage, but you seem to running without any of the powers associated with your role- you need them dear. You've got all sorts of unfair prophecies to fulfill."

Harley shook his head, "I hear you Mrs. Trilby. Okay Maia, let's write a story where we get to win."

Why Do They Call it The Witch Road? VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 1.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse One: Why Do They Call it The Witch Road?

Amy Welcher hated the past week. The past week had wronged her, and if it were possible to kick a week or lecture it, she would have already done that. First, her boyfriend and let 'bros' take priority over her, his girlfriend. It happened all the time in the novels Amy read and inevitably led to the guy either turning dudebro evil or strip clubs- which really amounted to the same thing. Guys always wanted to play around, Cosmopolitan taught Amy this at a very young age, and she started dating Harley quite deliberately because he wasn't that sort of guy. Harley was cute enough- not boy band cute, but certainly college athlete cute- and so conscientious. If only he didn't constantly sideline for his man crush.

After man-crush lost his job- no surprise there- and Harley hadn't done what he was supposed to do if he'd watched any Romantic Comedies; Amy had decided to use the tried and true method of making the man punish himself. The silent treatment, only just enough breaks in the silence to remind him what we was missing.

And then Harley stopped answering her texts.

Or, more accurately, Amy admitted to herself, his phone started bouncing her texts back as undeliverable. Amy couldn't tell if he was blocking her number somehow or if he was in an area where there was no service. Amy had kept herself deliberately ignorant on things where others could help her, it provided her with power over the people who needed to impress her and she liked that. But Harley always answered texts. Reliable was practically his middle name.

And so Amy went down to the house. She found the door to the basement suite barre with yellow police tape. She found a white van out front. And when she approached the door she was stopped by man in a business suit who introduced himself as Agent White and demanded she come with him.

He had told her she wasn't under arrest, but hadn't allowed her to leave. He had told her that she wasn't being interrogated, but wouldn't stop asking pointed questions. He had told her that she wasn't being charged with anything, but took her driver's license and recorded everything.

The 'not an interrogation' had lasted for over twenty-four hours she thought. During which time she had told them how she met Harley, about Marion the freak man-crush, about their fight, about their entire relationship outside the bed room. She had tried demanding a phone call. She had tried being flirty. She had tried getting angry, even stomping her feet. She had tried crying, but her secret weapon seemed wasted in the men in black and white suits who just kept peppering her with questions. Finally she was left, head down in the interrogation room, actually crying. The whole process had drained her, and she was unable to answer any more questions. And as she tried to answer questions, she instead found herself sobbing into her shirt sleeve.

At some point they let her go. She was so exhausted from the lack of sleep and constant questions that she couldn't remember when they had actually let her go. She wandered out in to the blinding white light of day, and felt like she were performing some sort of horrible walk of shame.

Amy put one foot in front of the other carefully for several blocks before she noticed that she was heading back towards Harley's house. She tried to think why. She was exhausted and depressed. She knew her make up must look awful from all the crying, but hadn't mustered the courage to check since exiting the building. Had she been in a policy station? She suddenly couldn't remember, and looking around could find the building that she had exited from just moments earlier. Silent glass towers loomed around her on all sides impassively. 

What should she do? The question sat uncomfortably in her skull, an unfamiliar house guest with unfamiliar demands. Amy knew that the world was evil and petty from movies and television, from Oprah and Cosmo, from Facebook and Soap Operas. She had armed herself against that with the best weapons she could find. The thing she had prized most had been her boyfriend. He could act out on occasion, but compared with the boyfriends on display on daytime television, he'd always acted pretty damned excellent- even counting his stupid best friend fixation.

The men in suits had accused her boyfriend of some pretty awful things, kidnapping, fleeing the authorities, potential assaults and murders and she couldn't remember what else. Amy knew Harley did not match the person they described. Grudgingly, Amy admitted that neither did Marion. She didn't think of Marion as evil, just incompetent on one hand and dangerous competition for her on the other hand. Neither guy had the capacity to be as evil as the men in black and white suits had described in Amy's opinion.

Amy felt vaguely guilty, and she didn't appreciate the feeling. Thinking back, Amy wasn't sure what she had told the men in the suits. This fact began to worry Amy. She faced the decision to believe Harley could do the horrible things they had said, or that the men in the suits had lied to her. Amy choice to believe that they had lied to her, which meant anything that she had told them might be used to hurt Harley, her Harley.

She was still walking, she noticed, and still heading to Harley's. She wasn't sure if the tape and the men would still be there. The thought creeped her out, she wanted to turn and walk in any other direction. But, she kept walking towards the house. She suddenly realized how much she missed him, Harley; and not as a weapon against a petty universe (although she could really use a hug and a snuggle right now). Amy missed Harley for Harley, and was suddenly very angry at somebody, she wasn't sure who to blame, for their separation.

But the creepy men who had practically arrested her without a trial or a phone call or anything might still be at the house, and she slowed her pace as fear began to creep in. Besides, why was she going to the house? Harley wasn't there. And the creepy men in suits would have taken anything useful that might tell where they went. But she kept walking. Amy started to notice that she was walking against her better judgement, like some bimbo in a bad horror movie. She deliberately turned and faced away from Harley's place and, to her shock and horror, found herself walking backwards in the same direction as before.

Amy turned back around to avoid tripping over the fur pom-poms on her shoes and found herself staring at a grubby looking man with a

grubby looking big dog, both standing in front of her grinning like fools.

"I don't carry cash." She said automatically.

The man drew a familiar object from behind his back and offered it to Amy, "That without that you don't."

Amy stared, "My tote bag."

"Useful summoning anchor too." The man said, "I'm Grub and this is Mung Bean, my dog and partner in crime. We're wizards and we need your help finding your lost boy and his partner before the bad guys in suits do."

Amy listened to the stream of insanity with growing apprehension, "I will call the cops." She finally said.

Grub grinned, "And I will go looking for your boy. Suit yourself."

Amy paused. And Grub, expanded. Still a dirty grubby man in poorly fitted clothes he was now bigger and more imposing, and Amy suddenly realized how slightly the man had been deliberately carrying himself- a mask now discarded.

"We all wear masks. I understand that. You wear a mask as armour to protect yourself, because you think you're in the horrible small petty little stories that you've been reading all of your life. But you're in those stories. I'm giving you a chance. You can choose to be the selfish self-absorbed girlfriend that the story has cast you as so far, just minor obstacle for the first few chapters. Or, you can choose to be part of the dark horse ensemble; the team that backs up the heroes and helps them win the day. This isn't a melodrama, this is epic fantasy adventure. Choose now, because I don't have all day."

"I could scream," She said.

"You could, but you don't need to. I'm going to do anything to you. I'm offering you a chance to help somebody you care about. And I think beneath that carefully composed mask, you do care. And I think you know that given how much you told the bad guys, reaching your boy is time sensitive matter. We have to hurry. Do you want to help, or you do want to go back into your bubble?"

"You don't know a thing about me."

"I know plenty about you. I just used your little bag there as a focus to summon you here. I picked all sorts of stuff including who gave you that bag, which tells me an awful lot about why you're so scared. I'd have burned the bag myself." He said.

Amy dropped the bag. Her mouth hung open.

"You can't know that."

"I do know it. And now you know that you aren't in the story that you thought you were in. The old rules don't apply. You have to adapt if you want to go anywhere from here besides back into your little angry defensive shell of denial."

Amy was about to say something angry and terribly clever in response when Grub reached out and plucked a dandelion seed from the air and gently wrapped his huge hands around it.

"You don't have to be a caterpillar in a cocoon, Amy," He said softly, "you can be a butterfly."

He opened his hands, and a painted lady butterfly fluttered from his grasp.

Amy suddenly had a thousand questions, but between Grubs words and his apparent conjuring of the butterfly, Amy found him hard to question.

"So, you want my help saving my boyfriend?"

"Little miss, neither you nor I are big players. We are meddlers, named extras. Hopefully we are the comic relief, because that boosts our survivability. Be glad you're the girl friend, that will improve your chances of survival."

"Unless he needs some grief to motivate him. I know what happens to love interests in stories written for boys."

"How do you know this a boy's story?"

"It's a quest."

"Yes, it is and your boy is neck deep in danger right now. I can't get a bead on him. But he helped me, and I pay my debts. So I'm going to help him."

"What do you mean he's in danger?"

"Did those guys in the suits and sunglasses seem like they wanted to give him a raise?"

"But what does that or this have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with everything. Your boy is one of the big players in our story and if we don't keep him safe, things are going to keep getting worse for everybody. And, I suspect this is more relevant, if we don't help him he's probably going to die and die slowly and painfully."

"If goes and dies," Amy said, "I'm going to kill him."

"Hah!" He laughed a single loud flat syllable, "We'd best move before the vulture sees us. I don't much care for quislings." He thumbed his hand back at Harley's house and Amy spotted the kneeling figure of Mrs. Critchwood in  the front yard with a japanese trowel doing violence to her lawn and what she must have perceived as weeds.

"Why would care what Mrs. Critchwood sees? She's just a mean old lady who's easy to manipulate." Amy asked.

"You're going to learn that in a story there are very few little characters. We all get recycled sooner or later to serve the narrative."

  

They walked briskly away, and Grub launched into an enthusiastic narrative regarding what he planned for them to do. he kept referring to 'the story' and Amy wasn't certain what he meant when he said that, but didn't want to look foolish by asking obvious questions. The idea seemed to be that they were living a real version of old fairy tales or legends or classic quests, or maybe those things were a reflection of whatever they were doing. But in either case (or possibly something else if she were way off base), people seemed to fill certain roles in the story, big roles and little roles, and then enact the story with the winners getting to dictate how the story looks next time, or something like that.

Amy still wasn't sure that Grub wasn't simply a con man who was good enough at slight of hand and cold reading to pull a convincing job, but something in her gut told her to trust him, and that didn't happen often- especially with men. And the other man she trusted seemed to need help, even if she was still furious with him, and Grub seemed to honestly want to help. So she kept listening to his insanity.

As far as Amy could tell, there were two teams fighting for control of the story: a group that Grub kept referring to as the Tribe, and a group that Grub called the Hungry Empire. No points for guessing who the bad guys were, Amy noted to herself.

"No, me and all Wizards side with the Tribe, because we aren't fools," Grub said, "But we've been losing this fight for centuries, and Wizards and Witches have started stealing some of our power from the empire. Use the master's tools to take down the master's house so to speak."

"Playing dirty?" Amy asked.

"Yup. The heroes play big and dramatic up in the sky. The little guys fight in the mud. We steal and borrow power from wherever we can get it, our enemies, our allies, gods and angels, devils and demons and ancient eldritch abominations, you name it. We're power parasites."

"You're not selling this to me. That is not sexy."

"It can be. Think of it like this. If your car breaks down and you have to get it to the dealership, do you want to push it yourself or call a tow truck?"

"The tow truck obviously."

"Our magic is like calling a cosmic tow truck."

“A tow truck is sexy?”

“It's sexier than walking the Witch Road on foot.”