“I was poisoned.”
“Was it Gossamer poisoning?”
“No My body is in Real. But I was poisoned. That’s why my body is in a coma and I am here. Come to think of it, my mother was dying. She was in a coma. It was a lot like the coma I am in.”
“Your mother still in a coma?”
“No, I’m pretty sure she died. You know the lavender Fairy that sits by the creek? I’m sure that’s my mother.”
“You haven’t asked?”
“No. Why bring that baggage to Fairy? If she doesn’t want to talk about it, I for sure don’t.”
The thin man with gnobby joints nodded. “I have always wondered why they put members of the same family in the same Fairyland when they die. Seems like a bad idea but then I didn’t get along with my relatives. I wonder if I had been a better person, if I could have been put with my old WWII buddies?”
“I’m not dead, I’m still in a coma.”
The pale man looked at me and grinned. “We may have an out. Let me get with a few other Fairies. Then we’ll talk.”
#
The pale man warned me. “Thees and thous, here. Some of these Fairies are old school.”
In a thickly wooded area there was a sink hole that was half filled with cool water. A stag nodded to us and the pale man lead me into the water and down till we surfaced in a cave that was lit by a large candle. There was running water in the cave but it wasn’t deep. It was cold, but for a Fairy that wasn’t an issue, it was just how the water was.
Further into the cave was another candle. We followed from candle to candle. At one candle a girl with too large a smile snapped her fingers. The candle I thought we were going to next went out and another lit. The pale man put his finger to the side of his nose and nodded to her. We continued wading through the cave till we came to an open area where several Fairies where gathered.
A frog said, “The master of this realm is distracted for now so we can mostly talk. No one mention the second in charge and we can probably have privacy. So here is what we have been thinking. It isn’t that we want to escape, we just want options.”
A lizard climbed up the side of a large candle and turned the side of his head while his eyes stayed looking at me. “We all have to take risks, it was advised that thou not eat anything here so thou wouldst have a chance of returning to life. Well our plans just got a bit more sophisticated.”
A fish raised his head high out of the water. “We not sure but we might have a tricks. It may be that if we eat foods from other realms we can go to those realms as well. So we wants thee to sneaks foods from here to Real. If thou dust hold the snake tight and retrace thy silver cord to thy mortal body, then snake can heal thee. Then we got more options.”
The frog said, “We give thee a few gifts and then thou canst summon us. We can smuggle a few simple things from Real. Nothing big, mostly bread. A few loaves wilt pay off a few of those that we can’t trust with the details, but then, after thou art secure in Real, comes the second part. I don’t dare even mention my plans till thou hast summoned me to Real.”
#
I held the snake and the snake coiled around me as we passed through veils of mist and cold winds. Howling moans and distant lightning made us wary of the shapes that reached out trying to grasp at us and the silver cord that we were following back to my body.
I had made this journey on my own twice but now the angry voices making unintelligible demands as we passed seemed more insistent than before. We broke from the borderlands and into the earthbound realm. We passed more shapes but most seemed unaware of our passage.
#
Hovering over my body, The snake said, “Thou wert poisoned. Likely then thy mother too. Her life is over and gone but thou art not yet through.”
The snake coiled around my body and squeezed. The snake squeezed tighter and grease came out of my ears. He licked the grease and spit it out. “Heavy metal poisoning. Now I can heal thee. Back up so thou dust not feel the pain thy body is about to.”
I shifted to the farthest corner of the room and watched as nurses came in and the snake entered my bodies mouth. A nurse shouted, “We have to contact his brother before we proceed.”
The snake slid his head out of my mouth. “Now with thy first gift, shut down the power. We need them not to interfere.”
As I followed the lines of power, I started to wonder, “Why were they were calling my brother?”
I didn’t have long to think about it, there was a breaker box in the hall. I burned out the fuse and felt reduced. I had spent what I could spend without fading to dream.
I felt my silver cord pull and it was too strong to resist. I snapped to my body and sat up screaming. My ears hurt like I never knew ears could hurt. I felt something coiled within me shift. My ears stopped hurting. Nausea like I had never felt before racked me. I dry heaved.
A nurse said, “We are calling your brother.”
Between coughs I said, “Don’t call him. I’m awake.”
The snake said, “I am being pulled back. Summon me when thou art home and alone.”
#
My apartment had been cleared out by my brothers family. The lease was canceled. My car was missing. Two weeks in a coma and everything was gone.
At work, June was waiting for me at the door. “Josh, you just got out of the hospital are you sure you should be here?”
I shook her hand and she turned it into a hug. “I’m mostly good I think.”
June said, “You have a month and half of sick leave still.”
I asked, “Can I use my computer? I probably have a few hundred emails to answer. I will stay on sick leave till I figure out what I am doing with my life.”
June said, “Of course you can.”
#
Checking on things, making calls, I found out my brother’s wife had been trying to get control of my accounts. They had started the process the day I went into the coma. I thought back and remembered the spaghetti dinner that I had suffered through to be polite. Now I suspected that the metallic taste I ignored was the poison that put me and possibly my mother earlier into comas.
My life was a mess. I was able to answer the questions that had been piled up and read through the pile in my inbox and resolve most of it while I was on hold while trying to settle accounts with billing agencies and banks.
Chester, my bosses right hand man came into my office. “Was your home computer secure?”
I nodded. “Yea, I figured you might ask. I called around and used my connections. My brother tried to get Michael to break the passwords, but it’s still on the shelf waiting for Michael to get to it.”
Chester said, “I’ll send someone to pick it up.”
I pulled up the folder with the programs I had been working on and turned a monitor to face Chester. “Most of the code work on it was just snippets of this and that. None of our programs are on it. A few ideas I had late at night and had to code and test, but nothing we have currently in use.
“At most the emails that are cached in my browser are the only work related issues that could be pulled off my computer.”
Chester asked, “Are you working on projects outside our business?”
I gave him a long look. “You know, almost dying makes a man think about his life choices. I have been working here since I was an intern. What I code on my own isn’t really a concern unless I bring it to work and use it here. Maybe I should think about my options.”
Chester backed up. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was just asking.”
I got up. “Don’t worry about picking up my computer. I will be heading for Michael’s shop as soon as I can get a taxi.”
Chester said, “Joshua, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I nodded. “Sorry, I just lost my apartment, and I found out my brother and his wife were trying to take all my things and money. I still need to call the police about my missing car. I have a lot to do and I just got out of a twelve day coma.”
#
I got a call from June. “Josh, I don’t know what you said to Chester but he came by my desk and asked what it would cost to be sure you didn’t quit. So Josh, what would it cost to be sure you didn’t quit?”
“I don’t know. I might need some time to get things together. By the time I do, I suspect I will have been replaced.”
June said, “They won’t just trust any programmer. I’m not sure where to look to find someone able to come in and replace you. Apart from what you offload to me, you practically manage you own department of just you. You know all the ins and outs. The last thing they want is for you to go to a competitor or decide to go into completion. We lose you, we may lose a lot of clients.”
I said, “I’ll think on it. I’ll look things up. I don’t know.”
#
My brother had broken the case on my computer. It looked like it had been kicked in. Michael said. “I think your brother tried to persuade your computer to give him the password by stomping on it.”
I shook my head. “I always thought he was the calm one.”
Michael shook his head. “He wasn’t when he brought this in.”
#
In my hotel room I remembered that I had an obligation as important to me as the life I was trying to put back together.
I summoned the frog. “Want to come to Real?”
The frog said, “This was faster than I thought. Call me again at the full moon. I can already tell this is a bad time. Have bread, milk and butter ready.”
I replied, “Till the full moon. Over and out.”
Before disconnecting, the frog answered. “Over and out.”
I summoned the snake. “Thanks for healing me. I’m doing okay apart from my life being in shambles. I plan to summon a bit more when the full moon comes, is there anything I can get in Real?”
The snake said, “Bread, butter, milk. The usual. Oh, now that I think of it, raisin bread. I look forward to the next call. Later.”
#
I stayed away from work the next few days. I needed a job and apart from my degree in statistics, I didn’t have much in the way of credentials. This was the only job I ever held, so my resume was going to be thin. The odds were good that they would make sure I got a bad report if they found out I was looking for another job. I could probably contact a couple of clients and start my own business. I didn’t have all the software, but I had been wanting to rewrite it all anyway. I didn’t know business though and I didn’t want employees so going into competition wasn’t what I wanted to do.
I had spent my college years programming for them and then continued it for the last five years. Now that I had been touched by death, I wanted to see a bit more of the world before I passed on. Maybe I could try and figure out what it took to have life everlasting in a better place. I had spent seven years writing code to make other people rich.
Now that I had lost everything I wanted more but I wondered if wanting more might be what led a person to end up having life everlasting in a worse place than the Fairyland I was in.
#
One advantage to having a brother deny every bit of medical aid that might have kept me out of a coma, was that it kept my medical bills down. Not that the emergency room and hospital room were cheap. Since I had never signed anything handing all the decisions to my brother, it was questionable how fast he managed to take over and deny extensive treatment.
My mother had already been cremated so any evidence of poisoning was probably lost. I didn’t have absolute confirmation on my brother, but all the signs pointed to a very well planned and rehearsed death on my part.
I was in the habit of using programs to solve things so my crazy wall of conspiracy was a simple enough data base. There was no yarn strung between pictures on thumbtacks, but as I brought up the past in my mind, there was very little that didn’t echo with the command, “Never let your brother or his wife have another chance to do you in.”
#
I moved to a cheaper hotel. I didn’t want my brother to have a clue where I was. I hadn’t yet decided on an apartment, and I was thinking of moving to another town just to avoid any chances of meeting him.
I had several children’s wading pools in the room when I summoned the Frog and the Snake.
The snake had a leaf in the coil of it’s tail. “Best I could sneak out without notice. It’s not an apple but it will do. Chew it well.”
As I chewed the leaf, the frog summoned a black cat.
The cat jumped up on the table and sat with it’s paws tucked in under it’s chest.
The frog said, “Well, that’s great. I can’t turn humanoid in Real. Canst thee put the twisted end of two of those loaves of bread where I can grab them and take them back to Fairy?”
I helped him with the bread and he disappeared.
The snake said, “I was planning on bread, butter and milk, but in snake form, all I could probably manage would be an egg.”
I held out a jug of milk. “Wrap around the handle of this jug and I’ll put the twist on the bread loaf’s bag where thou canst wrap around it and a stick of butter. That’s probably the best we can manage. I can probably summon thee a dozen or so times before the moon stops being full.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The snake wove side to side. “No, one time we got set up to manage. Too many trips and someone might notice. We can try again next full moon.”
We loaded up the snake and it went back to Fairy with a loaf, two jugs of milk and a stick of butter.
I looked at the cat. “Want some milk before we pack thee up to go home?”
The cat smiled. “I do want some milk but I’m not going home. Don’t worry about thee and thou with me. You and I have some interesting work ahead of us. But for now, let me concentrate.”
I watched as the cat shut it’s eyes and grimaced.
My phone buzzed. The cat asked, “Can you take it outside?”
#
I stepped out and answered the phone.
June said, “They want you to come in for a meeting.”
I said, “This is a bad time and I am thinking of moving anyway. With my sick leave and all, can I just put in a resignation or are they going to want two weeks?”
June said, “They are going to want a non disclosure and you to sign away your rights to compete. They really want to meet with you though.”
I said, “This is a really, really bad time. I just got out of a coma you know.”
“I know, Josh. I’ll call you later.”
#
I went back in. The cat looked angry. “Well this is really lame. I figure I am probably a four year old cat. Who knows, I probably have ten years or more to live before I am forced back to Fairy. I can’t turn into a human and I can’t throw the simplest spells. They tied down my powers. Open the door and let me out. Be ready to let me in if a dog shows up. Then again, I might welcome dying. Nothing is fair.
“Get a move on it, monkey boy, open the door and let me out.”
I held the door and closed it behind the cat as it walked out. I started putting up the butter, milk and bread when I was summoned.
“Joshua, this is King Surmium, if thou wouldst be ever so kind, please bring me to thee.”
I grimaced. This was the king of the Fairyland I had spent over a week in. It wasn’t like we had plotted against him, but we had definitely done things that we were keeping secret. His timing indicated he knew a lot more than anyone thought. I brought him to my apartment.
#
The small man pulled out a chair, climbed up one it and then sat on the table. He pointed to the bread, milk and butter. “May I?”
I got a glass for him and a plate.
He said, “No butter knife please.”
I took out a plastic knife since he probably didn’t want to touch steel. He smiled and then he rubbed his hands together and gleamed at me. “This is so cool. I can’t even begin to tell you how fun this is.”
I shook my head. He continued. “I’m a D.M. I died in seventy-eight, but my campaign was wildly popular.”
I shook my head again.
He said, “Dungeon Master. D.M. I died at my prime and then I died in the first Fairyland I was thrown in. I got into an argument and was torched with an iron pin. I came back because, well, I’m a D.M. So I started at the bottom. Made deals, adventured and made my way to the top. Not so bad for a pudgy guy who was a junior Poly Sci major. Now I am a King of Fairy.
“But here is the thing. I am a D.M. I live for this stuff. No, honestly I don’t think I would even exist without this calling. I would have faded away a long time ago.
“So we have this wonderful intrigue going on and a group of adventurers with a plan. But first they have to figure out how to get to other Fairylands and to free the powers of their wizard. This is fabulous. Keep this all secret. Just between you and me. It’s just too cool. I will try and help when you get stuck, but remember, the adventure is yours. You are the hero here. Oh, and all these extra loaves of bread and jugs of milk, I can have them right?”
I nodded. He said, “Fabulous. So can I make a list of gaming books I need you to get? I’ll make it up to you.”
I didn’t see a choice so I nodded again. He smiled. “This is going to be great. So for my first hint, your boss is desperate. The questions you came in and answered while making phone calls, kept him from loosing clients worth half a million a year. You honestly don’t have to do a thing. Just offer to be a consultant for a hundred thou a year and they’ll snap at it. Don’t sign anything. Tell them, keep me happy and I will want to keep you happy. Simple as that.
“There you go, a few gaming supplies, oh, and I love board games and I have no idea what is out there now. So Joshua. As I just told you to tell your bosses. ‘Keep me happy and I will want to keep you happy.’ ”
He put his slender arms though a pair of milk jugs and grabbed onto the loaves of bread. “Oh, and yes, your brother killed your mother and he tried to kill you.”
He smiled at me and disappeared.
#
I let the cat in.
It walked in and jumped onto the kitchen counter. “Milk.”
I got a bowl out and it said, “Saucer. Can’t stand the sides of a bowl touching my whiskers.”
It lapped up the milk and gave me a look. “I’m a boy, okay? stop checking me out.”
I looked away.
He rattled the platter. “More milk. I’ve been thinking about things. I don’t want to visit a vet, ever. Get over my manners, when this cat ate me, we merged and it isn’t like I had a lot of choices. I don’t want worms or any worming medicine if I can avoid it, so I want you to get a few aquariums with lids so we can keep gerbils and hamsters. Yea, raw meat, gross I know but the cat in me craves the stuff.
“I was a wizard when I was alive. Bound by oaths to the Society of the Raging Carnelian Eternal Flame. Yea, all the wizard societies have poncy names like that. Most of the orders have redundant names as well. Public Relations is not a strong suit for the sort of narcissistic wizards that start these organizations.”
I asked, “Are there a lot of these organizations?”
He held a paw up and grimaced at me. “Great, paws don’t really work for expressive gestures. Not that many wizard’s orders as far as I know. But they don’t really advertise and battles start when they meet unless things are handled well.”
I poured him some more milk. He shook his head. “Clean the plate, More and I’ll be having the runs. Oh, and don’t even think about watching me at the cat litter. Keep the kiddie pools and get cedar shavings to put in them. After I poop, don’t wait, take it straight to the dumpster. I hate filthy cat litter.”
My phone rang. It was my brother. The one that tried to kill me. “Hey, Josh, this is Simon, how are you doing?”
I thought about my answer. I didn’t want him to know I was well or where I was. “I don’t know, my mind seems woozy.”
He said, “So I had a locksmith help me with your car so it didn’t get stolen. When it looked like you were staying in a coma I gave it to Caroline. She’s still in college so it may take a few days for me to get the car back to you.”
I thought about it. I liked his daughter Caroline and I didn’t think she had any part of the murder attempt or the killing of my mother. I probably shouldn’t trust her or interact with her though. I was a bit nervous what my brother might do to the car before he gave it back to me and I didn’t want to go and try to steal it back from Caroline.
Simon asked, “Are you still there?”
I said, “Sorry, I am a bit woozy. I should probably go lie down. I probably shouldn’t drive anymore so I guess Caroline can keep the car for a while.”
Simon asked, “Can we bring you something? Let me know where you are and I’ll be right over.”
I said, “I going to sleep right now,” and hung up.
The cat said, “I don’t want to use my old name. It may be part of what is binding my power. The oath said something about my name or any name I choose to go by so pick a name for me. Make it good and you might as well make it sound like a cat name. Don’t be embarrassing or trite. You’ll need to get a car. I’m not sure if taxi drivers let you bring cats.”
#
I looked at my bills. The medical deductible was a huge sudden lump. I made decent enough pay, I thought, but rent had eaten most of it and I mostly ate delivery food. My computer was a top notch gaming computer three years ago but now I needed a new one. My brother had the keyboard, mouse and all the monitors. He probably had my entire gaming station and was using it. The chair was expensive.
I wasn’t going to be able to afford a car, and a full gaming system. I needed an apartment somewhere, preferably in another town. Everything was going to cost money.
#
Titus was at the other end of the table. June and Chester were on either side of him. Dawson and Piper were sitting to the left of me and two others I didn’t know, but I had seen before were sitting on the right. One of them handed me a stack of papers to sign.
I shook my head. “I’m not signing away any of my rights. Give that up and don’t offend me by even trying. Look. I have stayed late, worked hard, and given you nothing to complain about. I wrote the code and I am not saying that my ideas and methods belong to you. The code is yours, that’s fine. If I were to write it over, it would be a lot simpler. Probably faster. So my methods and understanding, are all mine. Anything I take elsewhere will be new code, so it too will be mine.”
Titus asked, “Are you planning to leave?”
This type of negotiation wasn’t my strength and I had so many things I had to take care of that I hadn’t had time to prepare. I looked at all the faces trying to decide how this was being taken. “I nearly died. I’m just a few years out of college. I didn’t go after any further degrees since I was busy programming for you. I probably spent fourteen hours a day here, nearly seven days a week. I can check files on my computer and when things were saved and give you more accurate numbers.”
Piper said, “You are on a salary so overtime is expected.”
Dawson said, “4,380 hours averaged for the last four years is a bit more than expected. He took his paid leave as cash. Despite that he put in over twice what you can expect from an employee. Salary arguments are going to crash if this hits a jury.”
Chester asked, “Dawson, do you work for Josh or the company?”
Dawson said, “The company. We don’t have an arbitration agreement with Joshua. If this gets unfriendly, we might be asking if you work for Josh or the company. I thought we settled this before we came in here.”
Titus said, “With retirement benefits and health benefits, you make fifty thousand a year. If we gave you a bonus of thirty thousand would you sign papers--”
I interrupted. “No signatures. Not ever. No binding agreements. Remember I was a statistics wiz kid when you got me as an intern. I got the math going and I am awake right now. You do the math. Here is what I am thinking. I can do basic maintenance on the programs as a consultant. You can ask for updates and we can negotiate for them. I can field questions when you need consultation. But as for the agreements, here is the plan. You keep me happy, and I will want to keep you happy. Right now, I am thinking I need to get with a lawyer and set up a consulting firm. Then you can pay what you think would make you happy in my circumstances for past work and issues. Pay it as an initial fee for consulting and then pay my company a hundred thousand a year to continue maintaining the software.”
One of the fellows I couldn’t name said, “We will need some binding agreements with your corporation.”
The other said, “We haven’t agreed on anything.”
I got up. “Sorry. I feel another dizzy spell coming and I have a taxi waiting. I have saved receipts for the taxis. Make sure expenses are included in any arrangement with my company and I will want to charge the lawyers fees for setting up the company since it’s part of my cost for continued service.”
#
Jason said, “Josh, I’m a defense attorney. I set up a practice but I mostly try to keep my clients out of jail and out of court. Apart from setting up my own company, I don’t have any experience and I haven’t really studied it.”
I said, “Charge like the big boys do. Just help me keep from signing away any of my personal rights and give me distance from my company like rich people have.”
Jason looked at the contract the company wanted me to sign. “This isn’t my area. Not even close. I dabble in business law as a defense attorney, sometimes I have to. But this stuff gets complicated and there are entire libraries of previous court cases that make it more complicated. You need an expert.”
I said, “Hire one. But first make sure that my old company is going to pay for your time, the other attorneys time, and all the expenses. I don’t want my money eaten away before I even see it.”
#
It was close to the full moon again. I was still employed by the company and they had given me a company car to get around. Jason, my friend from college was still working on the corporate structure of my consulting firm. His friends had decided to get involved and now it looked like the jumble of corporations they were creating for me was going to end up being shared with me as the programmer and math wiz and five lawyers would be part owners.
Jenny, the tax lawyer was the one that scared me though. They all said she was honest but everything she proposed seemed twisty and she was one of those too perfect too pretty girls that scared the bejebies out of me.
“Your quiet. It’s kind of charming but I can’t tell what your thinking. Are you writing a program right now?”
I smiled but didn’t look at her. “Yes, sort of. It’s what I do. Life is complicated right now so it takes algorithms to try and solve everything. I’m thinking about insurance and wondering how to simplify it. Insurance companies hire people like me to figure out how to extract money from people like me and give nothing back. I just about died and since they have an arrangement with the hospital and probably own it, they would have probably ended up with all my benefits. I only had a few years invested but, oh, sorry.
“I get carried away with minutia sometimes. Not really the sort of thing anyone wants to hear.”
She tapped her fingernails on the table. “Do you know what color my eyes are?”
I kept looking down. “No, I really can’t guess.”
She made the sort of musical laugh that interrupted all logic. I have been in dark caves with the dead. I have passed down long dark expanses with things reaching for me. Jenny scared me more than any of them.
#
As I drove, my cat, Harvey, was staring at me. “I realize your not a wizard, but you have been gifted and the gifts seem to have taken.”
I said, “Right now I am driving. I can’t even try to go to Fairy even if I am able. No one has given me any clue on what I am supposed to think to magically transfer myself to Fairy. Yes, I can sort of feel a connection. Felt it ever since I ate the leaf. But just thinking, ‘Go to Fairy now!” doesn’t send a person to Fairy.”
Harvey said. “It isn’t thinking and it isn’t math. When I lash my tail, I don’t think, ‘right now I am making a perfect sine wave with my tail starting with the x and y coordinates at the base of my spine. I just do it.”
“Right, so I just do it. Look moving my hand is sort of instinct. I don’t have, ‘go to Fairy.’ as an instinct.”
#
The town was nice enough. Another college town so I wouldn’t feel too out of place. At the realtor’s office a lady in a short pleated skirt came out. “Benny got called away and asked me to guide you around.” She stepped too close. I smelled a citrus sort of perfume and she held her hand out to me. I glanced at her face. Vibrant blue eyes. I panicked.
#
I summoned my cat. “Harvey, I figured out how to go to Fairy. Can you bring me back to Real?”
Harvey said, “Let me get down from this tree. Wait someone came out of the realtor’s office. Pretty girl, nice legs.”
I said, “Yeah she was looking at me when I went to Fairy.”
Harvey asked, “Panic attack?”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
Harvey said, “I am walking down the street. Only a dog watching so, no wait he started barking. Let me get a bit further before I bring you back to Real.”
#
Harvey asked, “So, before we go back, try to go to Fairy again.”
I looked around at the alley we were in and tried. I felt the Fairyland but nothing happened.
Harvey lolled his head around like he couldn’t believe he had to work with such an idiot. “What was the last thing you saw before you went to Fairy?”
I looked at the broken pavement. “The realtor lady held out her hand. She was really close and her eyes were bright--
#
I summoned my cat. “Can you bring me back to Real.”
Harvey said, “Come on through. Wow, I know your brother did you wrong, but some girl must have really done a number on you.”
I asked, “Can we not talk about it?”
Harvey said, “One more time. Go back to Fairy.”
This time it was easy.
#
I asked Harvey, “How come you can’t do magic, but you can gift me with magic?”
Harvey asked, “Long version or short one?”
I said, “We are waiting for the full moon so we have a couple of hours. Entertain me.”
Harvey lashed his tail. “Right. So ancient history. My own personal magic gift is inverse prophecy. Kind of like retrocognition but not quite as emotional, takes more interpretation and if you compare it with history it’s a lot more precise than just getting visions about what happened in a place.
“So as near as I can tell mid sixteen hundreds the world started getting inhospitable for magic. A hundred years later the wizard philosopher alchemist types started worrying that the next generation would forget the few beneficial and useful spells and just start arming their countries and factions with all the killer black magic stuff.
“The various psycopomps who tried to keep the more wicked spirits in line and help the spirits go where they needed to go after their bodies stopped breathing, were concerned that magic was going to go military and magic assassinations were going to eventually make the world ruled by dark mages and everything was going to end up in ruin.
“So the plan was to try and preserve good magic, reduce the magic in politics and have the power hungry wizards who were just in it for personal gain kill each other off.”
I said, “One moment while I check on the moon again.”
It hadn’t yet risen so I went back in and sat by Harvey.
Harvey looked up at me. “Seriously, it’s a couple of hours before the full moon. Don’t interrupt.
“So they started with some of the religious orders and made orders to find young wizards early and induct them with the lure of training. It ended up with secret societies bound by oaths. Most of them dueled and gifted or taught magic spells as a reward for winning duels and not killing the loser. It ended up with the loser gifting or teaching something to the winner. Since everyone wanted to keep their battle secrets to themselves, they gifted the stuff that no one valued. The decent stuff that wasn’t black magic. Or at least that was the plan.”
I asked, “Were you killed in a duel?”
Harvey climbed into my lap. “Scratch my head and under my jaw. Yea, sort of. The trick to getting the good powers is to keep after a mage with the power you want. You find out what he has and try to get it all from others so when you duel him he doesn’t know he’s your target and then he has to give you his good powers. By that I mean evil powers mostly.”
#
The frog asked, “How long before Josh can safely interact with wizards?”
Harvey had his tongue sticking slightly out when he looked at me. He yawned. “Josh can summon. He has managed to return to Fairy. It’s a good thing you-know-who has been visiting other Fairylands this last moon or he would have detected Josh coming and going. I have gifted him with a dozen and more powers but he’s like one of those Lords of Fairy that take the gifts easy and can even gift them back, but never quite becomes a peer of Fairy.”
The snake said, “I’m quite certain he’s Fairy king material what is it with him?”
Harvey batted an ear. “Maybe, but his focus falls apart in front of a girl in a skirt.”
The frog asked, “How did he manage in Fairy then? We have scads of girls in Fairy and most of them Fairy cute.”
I said, “Not the same. Living girls are different. Even the frightening and pretty Fairies are different.”
Harvey said, “Hopefully if he meets a female practitioner of the arts he thinks they're different too. Otherwise it will be game over for the poor boy and our plans go pftttt.”
The snake asked, “Pftttt?”
Harvey answered, “Pffttt. No doubt about it. To make it to the mid ranks of Wizardhood you need to be a living Fairy king. Not a true Fairy king or a true born Fairy king, but you need to be able to cast a few spells instinctively. He can summon and he can transport himself to Fairy so the first hurdle is over. Now we have to get him to other Fairylands. If we can get him in and we can keep him from being oath bound, we might be able to smash the oath stone and I can practice magic again.
“Till then we still need him to summon a few of us to other Fairylands so the rest of the plans can keep us going.”
The frog said, “Well for now the bread is letting us bribe quite a few Fairies. Since you-know-who is visiting other places, we can make a few trips and properly bring bread through. Next time, can you get jelly and move it to containers without steel lids? That would insure the loyalty of a few Fairies we need to keep quite.”
Since I was the best for carrying bags of bread, butter and milk jugs, I took most of it to Fairy and had them summon me back.
When I was done, the frog and snake disappeared. Harvey said, “Summon me later. I’m going back to Fairy to see if I can get any advice on training you.”