Chapter 19

19.
         There is a fish that walks down my street. I call him Bob. When he walks he walks on railroad feet. Bob has scales the color of the sky, if the sky was purple. Purple and green, like a ragtag orange. Fruit is the root of all perspiration. I learned that. I learned that in school. In school they built four floors right next to each other and called them castles, because it rhymed with unit. Unit spelled backwards is puppy and that was something else they taught us. I don't go to school anymore, we don't get along too well, there was a disagreement about gender and we just couldn't reconcile. I swore the school was a man because it had bricks like one, but the school claimed otherwise. I think the school was just one of them crossdressers, if you know what I mean. Did you ever see the school pregnant. Of course not. Birth control or not, sometimes it just happens. Just like when day turns to noon. There's that shift in the air that screams backwards.
         When Bob comes by on his railroad feet, I sit and think about these things, thoughts the shape of octogons and square like a circle. It reminds of a song I once heard, and sometimes I tend to sing it all day without pause. It makes the grass wave.
         It goes like this-

* * * * *
         He woke up slowly, the slow simmering rise of consciousness from a deep sleep. There was light pressing against his eyes but he didn't feel like opening them yet. Beneath him he could feel a soft mattress, around him were the spreadings of sheets. He felt quite well and wondered how much he had overslept.
         The voice he heard, soft and familiar, reminded him. "Are you going to stay there all day, dear?" she said to him and when he heard her he opened his eyes completely.
         Yawning, he tensed his body into a stretch. Smiling at the woman standing in the doorway, he said, "Sorry, Mari, I must have been tired last night."
         His wife smiled back at him, crossing the space between them. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she affectionately patted his leg and said, "Well, I can imagine why, I know I slept well."
         The memory of the night came back to him and he flushed a little, remembering. He normally wasn't that eager, but she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps it was something they both had needed. Mari certainly seemed refreshed for it.
         He slid off the bed, starting to throw on some clothes that he found lying around the room. As he pulled a shirt on, he said, "Is she up yet?"
         Mari frowned. "No, but I didn't want to wake her, she looked so peaceful there."
         "Well, let's go look on her anyway."
         The baby was in her usual place, which was comforting. Johan stared with wonder at that upside down face, as she hung from the doorway into her room. Her little wings were curled back and her face was somber and relaxed as she took deep breaths.
         "We should probably let her sleep a little longer," Mari said from right behind him.
         "Yeah, might as well," he told his wife. "Let's go have breakfast."
         "Well, you can," Mari said with an impish grin as they walked away, "I already ate."
         "Hey, what about waiting?"
         "Oh, what you think I was going to sit around all day, who knows how long you were going to be out sleeping . . ."
         "Well . . ."
         "I thought so . . ." and there was laughter from both of them.

* * * * *
         "Tristian? Are you there? Tristian? Oh, damn."

* * * * *
         "Michelle! Michelle!"
         The voice calling her name sent waves of headache running through her mind. Shaking her head to clear it, she opened her eyes to find Tristian standing over her. There was smoke and debris all around.
         "You did it!" he was saying, joy evident in his face. "Nobody else could have done it but you."
         "What?" she asked weakly, as he helped her to her feet. "I don't remember . . ."
         His face fell briefly. "The battle didn't affect your memory, did it?"
         "I just . . . give me a second . . ." pressing one hand to her head, she grimaced, trying to remember. "I remember . . . fighting . . . and . . . oh my . . ." her eyes opened wide and she stared up at Tristian. "I killed him. Didn't I?"
         Now Tristian smiled. "Yes, you did," he replied, putting his arm around her in a gently affectionate gesture. "The false Magent is dead now."
         She could see the body now, as the smoke was clearing. Other mages were creating localized storms to wash away the ash and smoke. The body was there and it was in red robes, even redder now with blood.
         "He had us all fooled," Tristian said, sounding reverant, "but you managed to see through it."
         "Not completely," the king said as he strode over, stepping gingerly over broken glass and stone.
         "Sire!" Michelle exclaimed, surprised to even see the king walking. "We thought you had perished!"
         "Nearly did I," the king stated, staring at the dead Magent with a sniff. "The dread Magent put my body into a trance state, tricking you into thinking that I was dead."
         "That was how he was going to take over," Tristian mused. "He would have `generously' assumed the role of king while we found a new one and then never would have given it up."
         "Indeed," the king said. "However, you both have missed a key point."
         "What?" they both asked, simultaneously curious.
         "This being here is the actual Magent, not some imposter, as you might have thought."
         "But I . . ." and Michelle felt faint at the thought, "I killed him . . . I defeated the Magent."
         "You did," the king responded, smiling his toothy grin and absentmindedly scratching at the plume of scales behind his dragon head. "And you should take great pride in that feat, for you proved that regardless of power, good always wins out in the end."
         "I never doubted for a second," Tristian said firmly, smiling at Michelle. She smiled back.
         The king nodded at both of them, then turned to the side and said, "Step aside, whilst I remove this unsightly stain on our floor."
         Then, taking a deep breath, a gout of flame erupted from his leathery lips, engulfing the Magent's body. The fire leapt high, crackling and snarling, and everyone could see the robes smoking and folding and curling into ash before their eyes. Michelle looked up at Tristian, seeing the fire reflected in his eyes. She wondered what thoughts might be going through his head.
         He looked down at her, and she saw herself also reflected in those eyes and wondered no more.

* * * * *
         "What? Oh, now, that's just rude. Tristian, I know you're there, you might as well answer me. Tristian?"

* * * * *
         and Bob sits there and he tells me about things, about stars and shrimp and how the two things are completely different even though they both begin with the same letter, which isn't as obvious as you might think. We sit under an awning made of melons, talking words that erupt like peaches on a cold spring day. It's stimulating stuff, and it's only when the dog catcher comes in his great clomping meal wagon that Bob has to leave because he fears he might be mistaken for a hound. I suspect that his papers are wrong, since everyone knows dogs have six legs anyway. Poof.
         So I sit and I sit and I sit. I sit because the rain never drains properly, it just stirs around in the puddles at my feet. Some days it tries to engage me in conversation but you should never believe anything that water tells you anyway. They're notorious liars, having little to do than be irrelevant. We get along anyway but I'm a person people, if you know what I mean.
         But the water talks anyway and it asks me how I'm doing which is a fine thing to ask someone and so I say I am doing fine and to be polite I ask it how it is doing and it says it is evaporating. I say that I'm sorry to hear that but they say it's not so bad since they figure they'll be back anyway. They say I am looking very fine today which coming from anyone else would be a great compliment but from water it is something different and I figure they must want something. But I am polite and I politely thank them and they ask if I have a bucket lying around somewhere.
         I do but it is not for them. When I need more wood I call for my bucket. My bucket is not for them and their perversions, the sidewalks raised me better than that.
         Mildly offended, I get up and walk away. They call after but in this world you have to be firm and you have to be strong and you can't stand for any crap from any liquids. That's what I know.

* * * * *
         "I've tried to be patient. Really. I mean, I've really really tried, but frankly I've got things to do and I'm not going to sit around here all day waiting . . . are you listening to me? Tristian? Tristian! Dammit!"

* * * * *
         The baby came fluttering in while they were having breakfast and they pulled a seat out for her. They couldn't believe how good a baby they had, other mothers in the village always were complaining how their babies never listened and were brats all the time but not their baby. Johan and Mari felt very lucky and proud to have such a well behaved child, but then they had always known they would be good parents. Sometimes you just knew these things.
         "I had a dream last night," Mari said to him at breakfast, absentmindedly wiping some food off the baby's face. Johan had finished and was polishing one of his latest carvings. It was a little man with a sword. For some reason he could make the man smile and that puzzled him.
         "Oh, did you?" he asked. He didn't have time for dreams the night before, he had been too tired.
         "It was . . . weird," Mari admitted, oddly hesitant. "I dreamt you were in a castle, in the air and you kept asking the person next to you . . . where . . . where I was . . . and why would you do that?"
         "Because I would have wanted you there," Johan said without hesitation. Answers like this were easy. It made perfect sense.          "No, that's not right," Mari said, her face pale.
         "Mari, what's wrong, you look scared," Johan said, starting to get up. "It was only a dream."
         "I know," she said softly, also getting up. Her face was ashen. She said again, "I know," and then ran out of the room.
         "Mari!" he called after her, uselessly, nearly knocking the chair down in his utter haste to stand.
         The baby started crying.

* * * * *
         "Oh bloody hell."

* * * * *
         In her room the lights were off. She didn't care, she didn't need to see. Didn't need the lights to see him. She could see his form in the dark, feel the warmth of his skin. All the tensions and adrenaline of the day was screeching inside of her, begging to be released, needing to be expended.
         "Michelle," he said and that was all he said.
         And they fell back against the bed, either of them no longer resisting. His mouth moved against hers, she could feel the passion heaving in his breath, knowing it was echoed in her as well.
         "Are you sad . . . that I killed the Magent," she said in those too long pauses in between, when just felt the sweat cooling on their bodies.
         "No," he said simply and his smile was wolfish in the dark. "I never liked those bastards."
         And with that renewed vow of faith, they fell into each other again.

* * * * *
         "You know, if I'm going to keep walking in circles, I should at least recognize the territory . . . oh wait what's here-"

* * * * *
         the television was violet again. I hate when that happens because then you can never reason with it. Love songs used to do the trick but then I have to clean them out of the air ducts for the next week and after I pulled my back doing it the last time I figured there must be an easier way

* * * * *
         "Aha! What do we have here?"

* * * * *
         and so I bounced the sink off the wall to get it started, sometimes that's the only way to make the motor think you're not there and I started rinsing out the holes in my drapes-
         "Ahem," a voice behind me said and I turned around.
         A man was there. A man in red. A redman. He was standing there with hands behind his back and his eyes were glowing violent colors. He didn't look happy but because I had never met him I couldn't think of what I had done to upset him.
         "I think this has gone on quite long enough," the redman was saying to me and I asked him what he was talking about. I was very polite, not wanting to upset an already upset man.
         "Really, Tristian, I think it's time that you stopped this nonsense, don't you think."
         And when he said the name I felt weird and I looked around and realized that this world that I had thought was perfectly normal was utterly insane and furthermore, made no sense. That was a startling fact to me and I did little to hide my surprise, which seemed to amuse the redman. But I had a name for the redman now. It leapt out of nothing and splattered against the windshield of my brain and that was weird and I had a feeling things were going to be right.
         "Agent," I said, "what the hell is going on here?"
         Even
                   as
                             the
                                       world
                                                           collapsed.

* * * * *
         "So tell me again what happened?" Tristian said to the Agent as he picked himself up off the ground. "I'm not quite sure I followed it."
         "The fairies sensed me coming and set up a rather elaborate trap for us, I'm afraid," Agent One said, staring around cautiously at the now mundane looking woods around them. Of the altar and stone structures, there was no sign. "Most of it hinged on a complex illusion that I didn't see through until the last second."
         "It was a distraction, wasn't it?" Tristian asked.
         "Exactly," Agent One nodded, pulling his robes closer around him. "I was taken in by it as much as you were, but until Johan grabbed the monk's robes, I wasn't sure. Alas, by then, I couldn't come up with a counter for it. Not that it would have mattered, they had been working on ensnaring your minds the entire time."
         "Where did they take the others?" Tristian asked, the vague memories of what he had experienced still creeping him out slightly, even as the deceptively safe looking forest chirped and buzzed around them. Of the fairies, there was no sign.
         "Johan and Michelle probably got up and walked away by themselves, I guess, knowing how fairy traps often work. I had hints of what they were going through when I was looking for you and I must say, they're in for a rude awakening, as it were."
         Tristian frowned and narrowed his eyes. "But this looks like the area where we came in. Did I move at all?"
         "A little bit, but I think that's because they moved you. You weren't responding to the trap as well as they wanted, which I was counting on, frankly. So they probably just left you there."
         "Why would that . . ." and then revelation blazed on his face. "Oh. The conditioning. I can't believe I forgot about that."
         "Proof against magic too, it seems," Agent One smirked. "It does do more than killing you know.
         "Yes, well, you could have fooled me," Tristian replied somewhat archly.
         "Is it my fault you have an agressive personality. In any event, all that nonsense you were experiencing back there was the conditioning's way of fighting the fairies. An illogical world is much easier to break out of then a logical one, which is where our problem lies."
         "Okay," Tristian sighed, letting the matter rest at that, "but we have to do something. So now what?"
         "Now," Agent One replied evenly, "we fight back."

* * * * *
         She was crying and he was holding her. She had run into the bedroom and thrown herself down on the bed and was crying into the pillow, which was very much unlike her. He came into the bedroom to see what was wrong and had sat down beside her, asking her insistently what was bothering her.
         None of this is real, she kept saying.
         Of course it is, he kept telling her. This couldn't be more real.
         I wish I was dead, she said to him, her voice breaking and coming back together. I wish I was dead. I've been a poor mother.
         And she made no sense and he figured it was just because she was upset. So he put his arms around her and she let him and she cried into his chest. It made his shirt wet but he reassured her that nothing was wrong and she was a fine mother. He remembered that she had been like this since the baby had been born and he heard from other fathers that for a few months after the baby was born the mothers got sad sometimes. Depressed even though he wasn't sure what to call it. That was probably it though. In fact this had happened before. He couldn't believe he hadn't remembered something important like that earlier on. He must have been tired. That was it.
         She was just resting in his arms now, sobbing quietly but securely.
         In the distance he could hear his door opening and footsteps coming into the house. It was too early for visitors, or so he thought.
         The footsteps came closer and he heard a voice calling out his name. Out of the corner of his eye he could see something glowing in the doorway. Glowing red.
         What are you doing here, Johan asked the glowing figure.
         I am in need of you, Johan, the crimson man said and Johan knew it was a legendary Magent.
         You cannot need me, Johan told him, for I am only a man. What do the Magents require of a mere man?
         It matters not, came the Magent's voice. I still need you.
         I have a wife and child and cannot leave them. Mari tightened against his chest.
         Go with the Magent, Mari said, her voice muffled against his chest.
         I will not leave you he told her. You are more important than any mage, then any powerful quest.
         It involves the fate of the world, was all the Magent said.
         And without my wife, I have no world.
         Go with him, Johan, Mari told him. We will be here.
         But the way will be dangerous and fraught with peril, I am sure, Johan said softly to her. And I will not risk that, I will not risk never seeing you again.
         You will see me again, I promise, his wife said and she was crying even harder than before. You have to put things right, Johan. Only you can.
         Very well then, I cannot deny my wife. He disengaged from her and spoke only for her ears. I will return soon my dear.
         She kissed him and for that moment he remembered why he loved her so. It made him sad for a passing second and he wondered why.
         Go, Johan, said Mari. Go and know I am with you.
         And so Johan and the Magent left to go.

* * * * *
         "Well . . . that was easy."
         "Not really, there's more to do."
         "But we got him here."
         "Only the first step, Tristian."
         "Now we have to find Michelle."
         "Already found her, you just stay here, I'll be back in a minute with her."
         "I should probably come along, you might need help."
         "I think it'd be a good idea if you stayed here. Trust me on this."
         "I don't see . . . hey!"
         But he was gone.

* * * * *
         The time seemed endless. The time seemed too quick. The room, even with the window open, felt warm and stifling, but she could sense that he couldn't bear to be apart from her. In the face of such passion, she had no choice but to give in. In the throes of ecstacy, she lost all sense of the world.
         Until she realized someone was talking.
         "Get back!" Tristian was screaming near her, scrambling back further on the bed. The moment shifted from love to terror so swiftly that her brain could barely handle it. Her eyes took a second to focus on the dimly lit figure in the doorway.
         "I killed you," she said softly, already opening the doors to her magic, feeling the blue suffuse her.
         "There are more than one of us you know," the Magent said a bit curtly, stepping into the room. "You killed one bad one, that was all. Or so you thought."
         "What do you mean?" Michelle asked, feeling fear ruffle in her chest.
         "He lives still," the Magent said darkly, "and even now he plots his revenge. You defeated him once, with your power and my knowledge, we shall do so once and for all." He held his hand out. "Will you finish what you started for all time?"
         She glanced at the Magent and then turned back to Tristian. "You know what I have to do, and I have to do it alone."
         "I understand," he said to her, and there was fire in his eyes. Without hesitation, he leaned forward and kissed her again and fire erupted in her as well. It was hard tearing herself away.
         "Let's go," she said to the Magent, who only nodded abruptly. He turned to leave, but gave one last look at Tristian before he left. Perhaps only he could explain the mysterious smile on Tristian's face.

* * * * *
         "Is this what I would have looked like had they gotten me?" Tristian asked curiously. Michelle and Johan were standing before him, but they weren't seeing him. Their eyes were glassy and their faces were blank, if he didn't know what was affecting them, he would have thought they were drugged.
         "Unfortunately, yes. I merely managed to make myself part of their vision, breaking them out of it requires a bit more skill than I can manage at the moment." Agent One stepped around them, looking them over from top to bottom, pausing a second to stare at their faces.
         "I wonder what they're experiencing," Tristian wondered, shaking Johan a little to see if he could get a response.
         Agent One, who was examining Michelle, frowned as he stared at her, lingering on her for perhaps a second longer than he needed to. "Perhaps it's best you didn't know," Agent One murmured.
         Then he whirled around, shouting at the forest. "Okay, you might as well show yourselves! This is as good as you're going to do and your little antics aren't benefiting anyone, least of all yourselves!"
         Tristian winced at the sudden fury of the Agent's words but the forest absorbed the anger and remained placid.
         "Was that supposed to do something other than tell where we are?" Tristian asked mildly.
         "Oh they know where we are, this is their forest, but I want to let them know this isn't a social call."
         Then sound erupted from the forest, a cacaphony of sound that assaulted Tristian's ears. He got down on one knee, covering his ears, trying to block the sound out. The screaming, screeching chaos of sound continued, finally resolving itself into four simple words.
         "Come"
         "and"
         "get"
         "us"
         "Not the most mature of responses," Tristian noted.
         "Oh, I'm sure the best is yet to come," the Agent responded without a trace of humor.
         At that moment, the ground rumbled and Tristian caught the shadow of something large moving through the trees.
         "Days like this, I wish you weren't always so right," Tristian commented sourly.
         "So do I," Agent One agreed glumly just as the trees parted and a shadow covered both of them.