Susan Brown leaned against the warm wall, surrounded by cold fog and looked up at the massive elf creature in his flowing brown and gold robes. He looked down kindly at her. She glared defiantly back at him.

“Susan Brown, the question I must begin with is this: would you like to hear the answers you want? Or would you prefer the answers you need?”

Susan wanted to snap at the towering fae and tell him not to play with her. But she bit her tongue and kept her cool. He had said that she should beware of what she wished. Thinking things through, it was clear to her that she demanded what she wanted to hear, it would turn out to be useless or come at a steep price.

Keeping her voice even, she answered, “I will hear what you think I need.”

“Ah, I see you doubt my ability to know what you want and what you need. But it is clear to my Sight that you perceive the important distinction between the two. While many mortals understand that the distinction exists, when put on the spot, as it were, they cease to see what is so important. Instead, their emotions carry them through.”

“You have the makings of a philosopher,” Susan remarked.

The fae chuckled lightly. “Yes, I would make a valuable philosopher to your people, I should think.”

“Then what is it that your Sight says that I need,” Susan asked, keeping her patience and cool. There was a feeling in her gut that said that the fae wanted her to break and would find a way to needle past her defenses. “I would really like to know>”

“Ah, then let us begin,” the fae replied. “What you must know is that you are nothing before the forces that war beyond the barriers of the Grey World. The vestiges of dreams and Reality’s furthest fingertips wrapped into a barrier, as a link in the chain of creation, but not of the true metal from whence all the links come, is nothing more than a frail briar barrier. When it falls, all the worlds you of the Origins so flippantly created will come screaming in and overwhelm you.

“The gods will be pulled down and destroyed.”

“And I am one of those gods?”

“Yes,” the fae answered pleasantly. “All of you in the Origin, or Reality, ah, Earth, you have named it. All of you create with every thought, with every word, every drawing, every dream, every nightmare. It all becomes our reality!

“But we are alive without you. We are ourselves, independent of your wills, unless you should so bend your desires and thoughts our way. But so few Originators do so. They do not love. They do not care. They forget. And they must pay the price of mindless, indifferent gods. Alas, they and you too, already do.”

He said it so calmly. So matter-of-factly. The elf spoke in a way that said he was in completely in the right and new it. It made Susan’s stomach churn uncomfortably. She had a feeling of disaster hanging over her head.

“Ah, you see it now. The possibility that things are just I have stated. That you are the makers of your own demise.”

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Susan growled, “How do I know you are not lying to me?”

“For what reason should I lie? What is there for me to profit from by weaving false tales,” he asked, spreading out his hands.

“I would like evidence that you are not lying,” Susan insisted. “Call it part of being an investigator working with a couple of paranoid, but also correct, supernatural hunters.”

The fae chuckled once more. “Is not the feeling of terror enough to convince you?”

“Gut feelings are not always correct,” she countered. “Sometimes you have to go with your gut, but after everything that I have encountered, simply going off my feelings is not enough. There is a lot that has happened in less than a year that both makes sense and at the same time doesn’t.”

“Ah, really?”

“Yes. The idea of other worlds that can be accessed, it makes scientific sense. The magic part was hard to swallow, but as I have worked on three different cases, and my son has experienced a fourth, there is too much evidence to deny that there are worlds trying to come to ours,” Susan said, getting off the wall; it started getting as cold as the fog.

“And now that I know that a massive war is what motivates these worlds to come to ours, I get that what is going on is an invasion of refugees, not conquerors. Why would you then take vengeance on us when the problems exist on the other side of these Doors?”

“You assume that we are those refugees of whom you speak, and not conquerors,” the fae pointed out.

“All of the Doors that I have encountered were part of beings trying to escape what my partners refer to as the Realms of Imagination,” Susan said.

“Ah, yes. The keeper of secrets has paid heavily for what he has learned,” the elf said gravely. “But how does this mean that we are not invaders?”

“I don’t know,” Susan answered honestly.

He then smiled knowingly. “Then it is as I have said. You are the creators of your own downfall.”

“No, that does not add up either, unless we are the ones who created the ones levying war in the realms,” Susan countered. “Is that what is going on? Have we imagined somehow our own demise?”

“Yes and no.”

“Wonderfully helpful,” Susan said dryly.

“Ah, but you are getting to where you need to be, Susan Brown,” the fae commented. “You have created the tools of your demise. With each thought, worlds come into being or gain life. The King takes all of these and uses them to conquer the realms. If we do not stop him here, he will bring war to the Origin. All order would be lost and all creation would fall into his hands.”

“Who is this king?”

“The King of Abominations,” the fae now whispered. “He is the heir to the Forsaken Pact. he rebuilds the Accursed as they once were. He inherits their legacy. He merges them together and claims their inheritance for his own and arms his dead with their weapons.”

“Once again, you are making absolute sense,” Susan huffed.

“Are you sure that you really want to know those answers? The fae now looked eager.

She did not fall for it. “No, that is something I want. But I’m looking for what I need.”

“Ah, very good,” the fae replied after a pause, betraying his intentions.

Susan pressed, “I need the information that will get me and my son along with everyone else out of this situation alive. And from what I can tell, you have not been helping me with figuring this out!”

“Ah, but I have been. You have not been paying attention.”

Now she was losing her temper. Susan wanted to throw a punch at the fae. But he had already disintegrated her gun. What would he do to her fist? She stopped and thought for a bit.

This guy wants me to think that they are conquerors. We are also supposed to be the makers of what will destroy us. But, chances are very good that the first bit is misdirection. But again, that is a dangerous path. He wants me to get lost along it. That is not what is important. It is that what we think could be what destroys us.

That must be the information that I need, Susan considered.

She looked up at the fae and asked, “What can I imagine that will help me rescue my son?”

The elf cocked his head and studied her. He brought his finger tips together and floated off to the side.

“My children are already executing the terms of the covenant… But you have made a wonderful, engaging inquiry. Yes. Let us see if you are as capable a warrior as your son believes you to be.”