The inner workings of the mind were an enigma and he had never cared to think of it beyond its manipulation to protect his own and influence that of others.

It was a powerful magic, forbidden.

To take over the will of another, to look beyond that which they presented, was considered nearly as dark as one could get. That didn’t stop him, of course. In the beginning, he justified it. He was searching for information. There was nothing ‘evil’ about finding answers to one’s questions and even when the time came to move beyond such simple jaunts, he had reasons. Reasons that made sense.

He was a man of sense, not morals.

Morals were often nonsensical. He wouldn’t deny their place in the majority, without morality the world would be little more than toxic waste, but it was not his guide. He was his guide and what he sought was nothing so strange. Countless men and women had gone before him and he’d done less than they to achieve his goal. He did not bathe in the blood of virgins or seek to torture the young to extract their heightened emotions and thus their youth.

Wasteful.

The young were impressionable and idealistic and stupid.

They would be a weapon.

He flew under the radar of all but a very few and they could do nothing to stop him because they were bound by the laws of magical society and he had done nothing technically wrong so far as they could tell. Sure, he’d amassed great wealth and political power over time, but others had done the same. Though they may suspect darker deeds they had no proof and without it, they were shit out of luck.

Fuck them.

Greedy bastards.

The money was incidental, gained as he made his way in dealing forgotten knowledge. None of which was illegal, rather highly coveted. In fact, he’d taken payment from many in office now. Knowledge was power, after all.

What they failed to appreciate was that he had far more than he sold and that he kept meticulous records. He knew exactly who bought what when and how much they paid for it.

He was fair enough, never sold the same piece of intelligence twice, yet kept it all. There was no clause stating that it would be destroyed, rather that it may be.

Not one of them was smart enough to realize what was happening.

Now he had ins throughout the governments of multiple nations. Various politicians worldwide were named in documents detailing every step of the transactions and therefore open to extortion, an instrument he used sparingly. The impact was lost if it was expected.

He understood what so many failed to grasp.

Though tens of thousands of doctoral students used it for their thesis, though every single person on the planet possessed one, though it had been studied exhaustively, the mind remained elusive.

He did not believe it to be so complicated and that was perhaps half the battle won. Distilled to its simplest form, its most basic functions and desires, the brain was easy to influence, no magic was required. The smallest shop knew it. Everything from the layout to the music was designed to elicit certain actions in those who entered; in that case, spend money. If they failed to bend the foolish consumer's mind to their will then it was their fault. Nothing could be simpler.

It was rarely necessary to take the step of magic. There were less exhausting ways of extracting information that were effective, but sometimes one ran into a particularly difficult person.

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Normally, he was apt to do without than forge ahead. There was almost always someone else to take the place of a lost source...

So, why had he tried so hard to get into this one mind?

It was as he faced the most difficult one he’d ever encountered, a truly unbreakable spirit, that his worst nightmare became reality. The very thing, the single thing, he feared and he met it himself. In a blinding flash he was flung from the brightness of her mind to that bridge. He had no idea how long he walked it before shaken from the stupor and he still didn’t know, though he’d escaped, because he was trapped.

In the mind of a child.

That false world was not hell. This was. This place was darker and danker than it had any right to be and he would not have preferred neon or pastel, but that at least would have been understandable. There were no dolls here, no plastic food items or ice cream. He saw no memories of birthday parties.

In place of all those typical things, he found graves. Ghosts. Redrum and prostitutes with pink hair. They were many of them dust-covered and not one in proper pose. Flung here and there they sat together and in pieces, seated in the yellow cushioned seats of a diner. Outside was a motel with one room. He followed the child and the pink person inside against his will. Found himself seated on a closed toilet as the water ran from every faucet.

“Who are you?” the child asked.

“No one.” He’d thought of not answering, but suspected she would ask again and again if he refused. If she was the child he saw in the afterlife, or wherever that was, then she would be a talkative bug.

But again, he was surprised. She accepted the answer and said no more. Perhaps it was a small part of her memory that had little influence.

That hope was proven fruitless, as there they remained in the bathroom for a very long time. Longer than he recalled being dead. The running water was their single companion until he got tired of waiting and tried to open the door himself only to find it locked.

The child stared at him as he pounded on the barrier, rammed it with his shoulder.

This place wasn’t real. It was in her mind.

Drawing on all the patience he’d ever had, he turned to her. She wore a plain t-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers. Uniform in color. Dirty.

“We should leave,” the tone he used to persuade the powerful. “I wonder how we can leave,” repeating the idea because she was simple and he needed it to stick. “Do you have-”

“We can’t leave.”

Dammit.

“Of course, we can,” he spoke gently. “There’s a door right here.”

“It’s locked.” She looked at him like he was the simple one.

“But if we had a key-”

“We don’t. You can’t make a key appear out of thin air. Are you stupid or something?”

His eyes twitched.

“Pink is out there with a man. She thinks I don’t know but I do. We’ll be here until she opens the door.”

And if she was decided on that then, yes, they would be, but he was a patient man. A skill cultivated over years and in waiting there was information to find. Time was never to be wasted.

An interesting concept, time. He found himself wondering if it even existed and it was a further goal, once he conquered death, to gain mastery over it. He had no foolish desire to change the past, but to see and influence the future was something else entirely. Before his demise, he’d been building a list of those who purported to do such things. A log of documented occurrences and their outcomes. So far, he’d found no evidence that foreknowledge brought any ability to effect change, but the past need not dictate the future.

Time was a thing that flowed forward with no impetus. Whenever it began it continued without guidance, sweeping all of creation with it toward an end. He would not be a victim of this power. And indeed, it was power, unlike any other, and if there was anything that could draw him in it was power. What he’d lacked for so long. Drug through the years like every other fool in existence, powerless to control or predict events as they happened to him without permission. Set upon his head, his back, and he labored on because there was no way to go but forward.

Progress? They thought so. Progressing into hiding and back alleys. To underground and clandestine meetings. Playing cards and losing at every turn as they fell further and further behind the modern world, nearing the point of no return because they were too stupid to see it. They did not know of bombs. They used wands. They did not know of city lights. They used candles.

Magic was powerful, but it would not stand against all the weapons of the world. Weapons most practitioners failed to realize even existed. They shunned it all. They had no televisions and their radios took only magically transmitted stations. While the rest of the world had cars and trucks they relied on broomsticks and carpets.

He could hardly stand to think of it.