“You have what you wanted,” said Madness as he stood on top of the water between me and the Simurgh.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You’ve learned how to steal domains,” he said. “You don’t need to keep pushing it.”

“You knew?” I asked.

“Of course I knew. You didn’t try to hide it,” he said.

“Those two weren’t able to tell,” I said.

“They were born in this world,” said Madness with a wide grin. “They are not accustomed to the sort of dishonorable thinking that you and I have grown up with.”

I frowned. “This world isn’t all that different from mine. A little further back in history, sure, but they’re Immortals. They should have more experience with this sort of stuff than I do.” I lifted myself above the water and used magic to dry off my clothes and legs. “And you know, something has been bothering me about you for a while now. You always sound like you know what kind of world I came from. But I have never described my world to you, and you weren’t involved in my summoning either. We may both be people from another reality, but how can you be so sure my reality was the same as yours?”

Madness nodded slowly, closing his eyes and playing idly with the water by trailing his big toe through the surface of the sea. His toga was frayed and disorganized. The tail end of the pristine white garment trailed into the water but it did not get wet. “I am afraid the answer will disappoint you. No, considering the kind of person you are, I think you might actually appreciate an answer like this one. Wouldn’t you?”

I waited. Madness looked at me but he didn’t continue. I frowned. “Go on?”

“I’m done,” he said.

“Done? Done with what?” I said.

“The answer,” he said. “You’ve already heard it. In fact, you’re hearing it right now.”

I was hearing the answer? I narrowed my eyes and focused on Madness’ words. No. No matter how many times I repeated them in my head, I couldn’t figure out what he had said. There had been no secret riddles, no phrases with double meanings, no code words that I could decipher. Every single word that he had spoken so far had been plain old English.

My mouth hung open.

I blinked twice.

I brought a hand to my forehead and rubbed it. I shook my head from side to side, muttering a few expletives under my breath. I couldn’t help but laugh. Madness was right. The answer was disappointing but I appreciated it anyway.

“Well, what if our worlds just happened to come up with the same language,” I said, weakly.

“Yes, and what if elephants could fly, and both of our worlds happened to have elephants,” said Madness. “And what if we shared proverbs too.” He put his hands together and smiled. “Listen. It doesn’t matter if we came from the same world or alternate versions of the same world or worlds that are similar to each other except for like one grain of sand on the beaches of Fiji. And yes, Fiji wasn’t only a reference to Fiji. You’ve seen the Truman Show right? Funny movie. Maybe a little relevant here, don’t you think?”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know,” said Madness, nudging the air with his elbow as if there was somebody next to him. “Come on! You’re a smart kid! Truth, Veritas, and all that other stuff. Figure it out already. I’ve gotta say. I was stumped for so long. Ever since I came to this world, I thought there was only one way back. It’s how I came to this world in the first place, after all. Looking for my lover and getting annihilated in the process. You know, the usual stuff. But now that you’re here, I know there are other ways to get here! A little luck, both bad and good, and the walls shift and the world sways and music and song and dance begin to break through the monotony of words, of language, of pixels and ink on pages and monitors. Don’t you think? Don’t you think?”

I held a hand to my forehead. Madness’ words didn’t make sense and they were throwing me for a loop.

“Maybe I’m going too fast,” said Madness. “That’s fine. All I wanted for now was for the gears in your brain to start turning. The clock starts ticking and the bomb under the table is lit, the audience can see it, but you cannot. It will explode, won’t it, Caspian? It will explode when you pull out the pin. Ah, right. There was another thing that I wanted. Don’t hurt my beloved!”

“I,” I began to say. “I thought you said that now that I was here, you didn’t need annihilation anymore. That there might be another way home. The same way I came here. With a little luck, whatever that means. Why do you care about the Simurgh if you don’t need it to return to your—our world, anymore?”

Madness stroked his chin. He wagged a finger at me. “So you do understand what I’m saying. That’s good. It’ll make things go a lot quicker. And to answer your question, of course I still need my beloved. My beloved is my beloved, and its relationship to my return is not as powerful as the relationship between the two of us!”

“The Simurgh called you a stalker though,” I said. “And a creep, too. Doesn’t sound like there’s a relationship there. Maybe unrequited love, but definitely not a relationship.”

Madness shrugged. “What would you know, kid. Wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t even kissed anyone yet. Ah, wait, you aren’t that kind of cha-person. Nevermind, nevermind. But anyway, putting our relationship aside, of course I still need to keep the option of annihilation open. Trying to leave this world the same way you came in would still need my beloved’s help. I thought it was the domain of Annihilation, since it was the domain my beloved guarded the most jealously. But if it wasn’t that. If there was another domain that we could use, I think my beloved would’ve offered it up long ago.” He shrugged. “Or maybe not. My beloved is fickle, you see. Like the feathers you can see right there. All sorts of colors. Red, blue, yellow, violet. Ah. Violet. Looks like its time. Should be waking up now.

“So listen, Caspian. You know how to steal domains now. You think I am your enemy, and perhaps I am. But we have a common goal. We want to return to Earth. To our families, to our friends, to the conveniences of modern life, and the purposes of our mundane lives. I must say, I am missing music quite a bit. The only music I have found in this world has been my own. None of the peoples of this world have found much joy in music ever since they discovered war and violence. That’s why I liked the elves and still love the humans.

“But I am digressing, like I usually do. All I wanted to say was that now that you know how to steal domains, I am willing to help you take them. You felt the way my beloved teamed up with that red retch to beat up your metaphysical form. We can do the same. We can get for you everything that you want, but I have one condition.”

“Let me guess,” I said, with a quick glance to the stirring Simurgh. “You won’t let me beat up your beloved.”

“Exactly!” said Madness with a glint in his eye. “For now, I propose an alliance. I will help you pick apart that red bug and then you will let me win the domain of Annihilation from my beloved in a non-violent way. How does that sound?”

I mulled the question in my head for a bit. Having Madness’ help against the Evil Eye would make things a lot easier. Although I knew, theoretically, how to steal domains now, I still hadn’t tried it out yet. With Madness’ help, I could refine my technique against the Evil Eye and then, when our alliance inevitably broke down, I would be able to attack both Madness and the Simurgh more easily.

There was, however, the small issue of how I totally did not trust the Immortal of Madness at all. The guy was a conniving, scheming, mysterious being, who still refused to tell me something very important about this world despite hinting at it quite aggressively. He would surely use his greater strength to take most of the Evil Eye’s domains for himself, making it even harder for me to take him on in the future. I knew this was a trap. I knew I would only make things more difficult for myself if I agreed to this alliance. I would have to be a completely naive, gullible, rose-tinted glasses wearing imbecile to shake Madness’ hand in the middle of the battlefield.

I lifted my head, stared at Madness, and smiled.

“Deal.”