The Devil of It

The Devil of It

The Devil of It

Gabe understood that lessons are learned in hindsight. He knew about times when there was no good choice, times when merely to draw breath was to partake of evil, to roll in the mud of mortal sin. He accepted his failings as the price of admittance to life as a stage, and staged as theater.

Pain was the fee charged to access his feelings, to gain paid entrance to his world of the senses. Guilt was the penalty for listening, then following curiosity, crossing borders, trailing closely, too often, too far. He had seen life mirrored as ugly in a world full of beauty. He knew pain as a whip, the catalyst of creation recasting ugly into a thing become worthy, something worth having, depth added to meaning, giving dimension to art.

Saddled with conscience and the wounds of an artist, but schooled in science with only numbers for truth, Gabe lived life as an unfiltered vacuum, taking in both worlds: Archipelago as water, Terra for earth. Curiosity was the goad, Next was his go-to, discovery his goal.

Nuggets unearthed were from digging and self-cannibalizing. It was knowledge he drilled for, until every action was from instinct, every finding recorded in memory mode. Dedicated to search without bias since youth, unable to turn from a troublesome truth, he paid full price for the methods he used. He lived, in short, the questor's code.

Knowledge comes late, after the mistake. Success is built from the fallen bricks and rocks thrown up from quakes and faults of the past. Error and disaster are muck for the roots. Misadventure and failure are the compost that fertilize growth. There's time enough for sleep after the grave.

Gabe understood that cloying maxims are what winners use when crawling from defeat, clawing back into action while healing on stage. But inspirational adages don't account for the meanness and utter fickleness of Fate, the gush of a broken heart, or a backbreaking run of random bad luck.

Stubbed toes, the broken nose, the scabs turned scars, the awkward stumbles and near-fatal tumbles, the ungainly trips over trivial rocks: these were the usual. But memories endured like spoiled meat from the past, mistakes that still mattered from a time when he cared.

Memory was a field of tares and weeds that he himself had planted. The briars sliced as easily as lasers, slashed as deeply as razors, yet cut as raggedly and viciously as a blunt, rusty knife. Out of the gouges and gashes, and worst of the worst, more dire than the damage of wound-opening swords, is the pooling of pus that festers infected, the trauma and damage from the cruelty of words. The road ages a man early and claims his innocence first (reality and the working world have no use for it), but now he was roaming, aimlessly adrift, old weathered wood on a restless sea.

Twelve good people were dead because of him, and he was unwilling (or unable) to hide from his mirror of blame. In too deep for forgiveness, still, he was indebted to the errors that sharpened his game, and he held to his guilt as a rose to its thorn. There were still chance meetings in the hallways of his memory, and he still bowed to their ghosts; but shame was a burden that had no more to show him. Regret had taught all the lessons it ever had to teach.

No, what he mourned now weren't the paths he'd taken, or the dark places explored, but the chances he missed, the sights he neglected, and the long nights alone. It was the road not taken that haunted him now. There aren't enough seasons in a lifetime for the curious mind, but there are those missed moments that take on a life of their own. Pulsing, punishing bouts of what-if and what-might-have-been, alternating blows of fever and ice, assaulted him as each of these memories surfaced in turn.

Unrecoverable times lost to a single word: the yes that came out no, the hesitation thaat fraction too long... and that one smoldering coal in the bin of one's history, the one that still blisters with a red-hot heat. People and events will pass thru life as an itch of the moment, a colorful rash soon come and gone. But there's always that first one, the heartbreak that scars one, that eats like an acid, that burns like a branding on fresh memory's hide.

First-love's heartbreak and last-chance lost are love's parentheses that hurt the most. The first reigns unquestioned, but the moving target of which time and when for the last time, this is love's ghost time, and that time is uncertain; it can never be clear. Usually.

Because sometimes the ending feels perilous and pending, terrible and menacing, the rending-on-arrival, in the person of Fate on the next inbound train. A limned silhouette, a looming outline fills in, loses momentum and fury, gains presence and weight.

Civilized love ends with a cultured goodbye, couched quietly in dignity and rueful respect. But the great romances end with grand opera panache, subtle as a door slam, after a bell-ringing slap to the richly deserving, worthy-one's face.

The yearning sense of missed chances, the teasing vacancy in memory of what-might-have-been, and the knowing of something looming just out of reach: these are the true regrets of time, the fruit that mortals eat when they pick from the Tree. With a warrant to sow, a desire to create, and a rutting man's needs, these take root from the random, unplanned seeds, his wild crop for the reaping, his harvest from deeds.

1 raveling the Mobius Road, his destination behind him as it was ever before him, Gabe has grown tired of its iterations, its repetition and grind. Weary of its monotony and bored with the sameness, life seemed to unreel with the feel of a rerun, the interminable unwinding of a hamster's wheel. The routine of spinning, uselessly, endlessly, racing a circle anchored in place, he was filling his time going from don't-know-where, to now-here, back to nowhere again. With rote functions set on Repeat, he was unprepared when one such once-only moment did, in fact, appear.

As notably improbable as it was indelible, nexus aligned with the axis of enchantment and framed an event more incredible, more memorable than a penned invitation in God's own hand: it was the Once proposal. A once-in-a-lifetime offer, a lock-off, gate-open gift, a one-time bid from the twilight zone: it presented as a fantasy come real, a first, once, and only bid, a solitary, singular chance in a congress of bodies far beyond the usual, pedestrian, rules of romance.

Permissions were given, and access granted, to a Garden of such rare and startling beauty that it astonished simply at the impact, in the fact, of being. Caught in the act, whole and intact, captured and complete, rendered true and pure by the simple fact of it, beauty and grace had found their face, and the offer was Eden in the person of Eve.

A test, a lightning bolt, an open invitation with only beauty for attire, the welcome flag was out; and yet... and yet, the moment escaped. Save that chance and one midnight eve's revisit, the dark angel of what-might-have-been colored all that followed in the then and again, was the never included in the forever-after. The intersection of yes and no, choosing left or right, whether opting for the high road, a low place, or the which-piece-of-candy choice: each logs in as the next-of-another moment that determines the course in life. The others, destiny and Fate notwithstanding, Gabe would choose and direct the course of his universe, with all his choices, and everything he did.

Gabe was grateful for the sights he'd inhaled in the breadth of his travels. He considered the walk of his particular road a treasure beyond price. He held these jewels of experience, dear beyond measure, in the vault of his memory that gave meaning to his life. From amethyst to ruby to the clarity of diamonds, holding up his colors to all its broad spectrum, in all their lambency, there was little in light's rainbow left for this questor to fill.

Gabe knew all the words, and could recite every line in Hecate's national, Forgotten Songs of the Coming Light. Sung solo, a cappella, it was a song with echoes of this dark world's eternal night. To him, life was a hymn played out in stories, chronicles for canticles, history as melody caroling against silence, voice as a living act, and active against the void. Anthems in sequence were meant to mount up and harmonize, orchestrated for wisdom as the composed for a sacred psalm.

He often guised as a busker to provide cover for his work. Scoring life out as music, where his lines of choice become notes for a ballad, the writing and recording, a coded verse from his bio. A hat-down, curbside, minstrel-observer of the unfiltered street with its subliminal strife, he made music while he weighed it; while he watched for and waited for the elusive gold nuggets, ghostly with meaning, illusive and ancient, new-minted but old. With curiosity unsated, he suffered a world hunger with a catholic need, gratified but unsatisfied, filled with not-enough-of, and too-much life.

He favored the upbeat, but counted on the downbeat for measuring time. With no place or position on the musical staff, Gabe's tune was the blues. And now, with his world on hold, and empty of cause, Gabe put away his flute and portable lute, and set his music on Pause. With the North Star for compass, aligned and true, he returned to the road; followed the lodestone of his kismet that led from behind.

He was grateful for the twists of fortune that brought him to now, yet what he yearned for most sat on the out-of-reach shelf labeled: What Might Have Been. What might have been, that again? Nostalgia's counter-self, love's inverted image, it was memory's evil twin who sang the siren song that pitched the dart that targeted his heart.

And this lost last-chance wasn't the tender ache-in-memory kind that hurt good, either. No sir, it was not. It was Curiosity itself waging ceaseless war against that unknown-thing incarnate. It was the something-wild that ventured out and bet his life's last chip, that wagered his mortality against the smallest chance of something new waiting undiscovered. Or else something previously unnoticed, something evident and obvious, some bare, stark-naked truth was waiting its turn to emerge, to be seen, and recognized.

Where might those shadowy paths, the alien corridors, those foreign roads and mystery trails, have taken him? Grown world-weary, burned out and jaded, his time now was filled with thoughts of what-might-have-been, and not what-might-yet-be.

He had set out in search of Lethe, and thrice been interrupted by the royal sisters of Hecate. Now they were years behind him, and his quest for the river had long since resumed. Results were less than stellar, but turbid, and unclear. His casual busking and paid assignments covered both worlds while providing him the funding needed as he continued his search for River Lethe's source.

His longing for the silence of nothingness had become less urgent over the years, and now was little more than a subject of academic interest. With nothing to see ahead but growing old drinking cheap wine alone, Gabe remained willing for Lethe's promise, indeed, was eager to try for the River's oblivion, again.

He had paid handsomely in time and money for new information, but nothing returned to him not already known. How diligently, and how deeply, is one obliged to look to satisfy science, to convince oneself? How was he to prosecute those who took his money, then returned nothing to him that was useful or new. Anything with promise proved not to be true. Was Lethe to become a story synonymous with lies, or for his gullibility alone? Because he alone among the Questors Guild believed the fount of it was to be found on this mortal coil, on living soil, this side of death.

Avenues of potential branched off into myriads of multiples of everything conceivable, mounted in number, multiplied exponentially, a process that made tracking improbable, then made it impossible at all. Options lined up as beggars pleading for belief, then magnified in numbers backed up in googles, then disappeared in their legions far out of sight. Which way was the only way out of the vast host of them; which one was the alleyway that led out of the maze?

Tasty teasers and monumental temptations, these are the pathways that lead to the Broad Way, but it was the untraveled road, and the rare patch of discovery, that mattered to Gabe. For him there would never be time enough to see more than the least tiny bit of it, when it was the whole and gestalt of it that mattered at all.

Teachers and gurus still build their portfolios selling elixirs and potions, their solutions of love. They mask it in verbiage by calling it therapy, making it needful for safety, and billable reasons of health. It gets issued as instinct (the need for love, standard issue at birth), still the hucksters make their coin hawking nuanced alternatives of the same trite advice: Run, don't walk – run to love! Go out barefoot on the human beach! Surrender to the sand, to the hot burning blister for the skin rendering warmth it brings to the heart. Don't bother to resist it, biology will insist it; the cause of tomorrow is the reason, life's reason for love.

For posterity and the future, love is needful in the chemistry, but what of reality? What of today's memories from yesterday's beach? What of believing and hoping, of venturing out onto love's white sand, only to find the gelatinous, emotionally disastrous, and someone else's sand-buried poo-pie? So, what of now? How does one find them in time to defuse fresh intimacy's landmines? Where are they buried, and how deep are their borders beneath the top skin of sand?

Yes, what of those poo-pie realities, a diarrhea of knowledge, of emerging failures up from the past? Because when polarities match up and chemistries ignite, the fusion of union can seem as if new again, innocently renewed again, as surely as gossip hunts the scandal, and day follows night.

Since True Romance advice is to be intrepid in love, the call of the questor is to be intrepid with life. By all means, explore! Dare the dragon! Strike out swinging! Take secrets to the grave! Do unto death in spite of the fear. But to walk the steep, icy cliffside in the foggy soup at midnight, to go without reason, to stray unbidden, to caper unhidden within the quick reach of Death...?

For those left wanting, feeling emotionally vacant, feeling cheated by movies and secondhand life – imagine it. Imagine the throbbing option of it, the dangerous thrill of Chance, of life dancing at the edge, out of control. Do I.T... the Dance! Tango lively or waltz lightly, but by all means dance closely – then dance away blithely, having awfully unlawfully, deviously or daringly, yet spiritually and willfully, touched the black hem of Death.

Moments arrive, choices present, give no hint of their import before moving implacably on. A possibility of the moment takes form, slips by, and without serving notice, gives way to the next. A priceless encounter, a glance, the chance-of-a-sudden offered but once... slips away and is gone.

Soul-starved for all the stillborn worlds that never had a chance, Gabe grieved their loss, rediscovering never again and what might have been, and that opportunity clocks in with a cost. But there was something... else. Most assuredly unsupportable in concept, inelegant by dint of logic, dialectically intolerable, impossible by definition, creatively and mathematically beyond the pale... and yet, there it was: the tactile throb, a palpable pulse, irrefutable evidence of something alert, a what-might-yet-be, something inexplicably kicking in the uterine Void.

Crossroads

Topping the hill from a height in the distance, the road below branched into the legs of a Y that quickly leveled into the wings of a T. One wing of the T soon disappeared around a bend in the road. The opposite wing ran straight on until it disappeared as a thin line intersecting the horizon. Once out of sight, either might have changed, veered wildly, split unpredictably, turned ominously, climbed precariously, dropped precipitously, twisted variously, always topographically – or remained unchanged. Picking one and walking it was the only way to tell.

Without a destination to guide him, Gabe took the right path only under advisement of strong reason, or the whisper of instinct. Being wary of well-traveled highways and any right way to explore, he preferred the discoveries yet to be made, those that were left.

He wanted those found by the off-roads, off by the back lanes, the back-behindns, and forgotten tracks, that only the byway offers. And the lesson of his travels was that karma was adhesive. Whichever turn he took, the road he thought left behind, was the same road he traveled now, and the same that lay ahead.

Between the legs of the Y in the road was a small triangle park with an altar to Saint Homer of the Simpsons, a small chain of rarely visited islands off Crater Island, the capitol of Archipelago. Saint Homer was a minor travel deity, the patron saint of idiots, bad decisions, tomfoolery, and confusion.

One of the few beliefs held in common thru' out Archipelago was that Saint Homer's penchant for error was such that he pulled all bad decisions, wrong turns, and bafflements to himself. Having filtered the nearby air of all currently available folly, travelers breethd an atmosphere thought to be free of confusion. Thus, equipped to face their choices, they came to believe in their judgments as lucid and valid.

Empowered by Saint Homer, they left qualified to persist, certified to succeed, enabled to carry on. The longer one stayed within the perimeter of Saint Homer's influence, the greater the clarity. Such was the legend, and body of belief, that survived to influence from Archipelago's past.

Each of the tiny roadside parks was little more than a wayside bench under a shade tree or two, with a deep well for water, and a stylized statue presiding. Homer Parks provided a place to rest and refresh, to meditate on the present, to consider one's purpose, direction, and place. There were a few of these stations on each of Archipelago's main islands, and such was their reputation for aborting muddle and disorder that there were sometimes two, and even three, travelers leaching mistakes and absurdity from their lives at any given time. This was that rare moment when there was no one about to confuse or intrude, to detract, distract, or subtract from the day.

No longer given to self-flagellation for mistakes of his past, still Gabe remained aware of the absurdly long tails that minor doings can have. A living example of karma and the laws of consequence, for one pegged to a moment, Gabe was Exhibit A for the dubious choices one delivers in the pursuit of life. Despite the integrity of his quest, he considered himself the poster child for chaos and the bedlam that flow from countervailing discoveries, with disordered conclusions from unsettling finds.

Gabe knew the rules for gain and competition. Familiar with dueling affections, and the gut-wrenching pull of opposites that attract, he resisted the charge of divided loyalties, the competitions for love, the hectic struggle for survival, and the ambitions of life. He was familiar with the concussed migraine of butting heads with thick-skulled opinions, just as he dreaded the muck of soft, squishy feelings that pretended to think. He avoided the blinding obtuseness of bias, the binding whimsy of power, and the bullying of bureaucrats armed with rulebooks in hand.

He played the game as a matter of necessity, but given a choice, he skirted civilization for the free air of journey, and the pitfalls of chance. An eagle in flight over an unmapped landscape might serve as his blazon, just as a road disappearing into the notch of a mountain was all that he needed as his direction of choice.

As a questor, he was trained to see the world as information uncluttered by his presence, uncolored by his opinion, but not free of his mistakes. This accountability was instilled in the schooling of every questor. Life would be willing to teach him, but only if he surrendered all of his rights to owning a faith, or of other beliefs directing his life. He must yield all claims to volition; waive exercise of emotion; refuse, at the altar, his usual powers of choice; or to alter his judgment for personal gain.

Yielding utterly to unruly lessons and unholy choices, he must consent to all the conditions that deep knowledge required. Life would continue to honor its covenant with but one overriding codicil. Unlabeled doors are discovery's threshold, and he must enter the classroom his journey happened upon. He would succeed to the degree that they brought him new knowledge, a novel experience, or unstructured understandings that filled in the cracks, and divisive issues of life.

Too-hungry eyes in a too-raw world, with the loss of belief, and its dearth of certainty; plus, the death of love, and now of hope, totaled together, plus tax, equaled exactly the charge to his Life Account, now in danger of default. Included on file: moral bankruptcies by reason of having lived, his indebtedness to chance, his owing to expediency, his overcharge on luck – but foremost and finally (prepaid divinely), the same cosmic ticket in everyone's pocket, a guaranteed seat for that last ride Home.

Calloused eyes, dying hope, greyed expectations, the useless knowledge amassed, the obscenities he must accept, the occluded doorways accessed, the worn lines and scars of life: these were the diplomas that Gabe had to show. Scars heal hard and protect better than skin, so Gabe fell to growing his from the inside out.

一

He had stopped more out of a need for rest, than out of respect for Saint Homer. Every bench in every park had a view, and with or without the good saint siphoning off sins, and sanding off the rough spots, it was a welcome pause for Gabe. And then, tho it had been years since his last visit from Eden-of-the-Garden, he turned again to the wind, and briefly dialed in for the nearing scent of roses... but none came. It never did.

Word on the road was that the League of Assassins had fragmented and reformed, so that the League's professionalism might remain intact. The Mercenaries took in those departing the League, those happy to join in the grab for low-hanging fruit. On the killing streets and across borders, they competed simply as the League and the Mercs.

This arrangement provided for separate operations under different rules, different services, with different guarantees, at different rates. Soliciting and referrals were allowed, but poaching from each other's client list was prohibited. The League was self-policing; the Mercs were feral. Targeting a fellow killer of either office was forbidden. Rogue killers were marked for death and soon Resolved.

Somehow, the Director's machinations, in chorus with the natural flow of things, had filled in all the grooves of his etched design. Two organizations waltzed to their separate tunes without stepping on each other's toes. The League and the Mercs were left to canvas for business in the same territory once covered under a single umbrella. Now two sides were hungry. Both were following business models for growth; two separate agencies were rabidly scrounging for new markets and leads.

Green was the color favored by the competing factions on both worlds. Hecate's crystals glowed with a green that was entirely compatible with the business goals envisioned by the company of corporations corporately involved. Apart from its entertainment value, the business world held firmly to its view on the profitability of legends-with-a-message. Legends have currency; messages do not.

Incapable of factoring in the ineffable value of folklore, myth, or fable, the Castle's crowning Crystal served merely as a beautiful temptation to the moneyed mind of Org. Hecate's own world of Archipelago considered Hecaten legends to be nonsense, purest bunkum at best. What, then, was Terra's business world to think?

A collective, sarcastic sneer was the real world's answer, in fact. A Brotherhood of Ancients, seriously? Visible only to one royal priestess? How convenient. And who in the real world, in their right mind, believed it would all go dark one day? Was there any corroboration at all for this lunacy, and obvious folly?

Well, since you ask, of course there was. Hecate's very own priestess-king had herself confirmed it. A straight-from-legend, self-serving story about the Castle's crystal being the secret to the whole world's survival – well, it must be true. Local Hecaten legend, and Hecate's king, just said so.

“Superstitious hooley” and “ethnocentric bullcrap” were catchphrases on the rare occasion that Hecate came up in thoughtful conversation. Altho certified, listed, and protected under Archipelago's Register of Legends & Locations, Hecate, now that it had a king, might be subject to delisting by royal decree, or legislative fiat. This was, in fact, the process currently ongoing as an end-run around Archipelago's Law of History and Place.

In Greater Archipelago it was commonly understood that the haunting beauty of Hecate's Moon, together with its green glowing crystals and perpetual night, was what made the native Hecaten suspect. The very best of them were at least a little bit lunar-loopy; the rest were certifiable. The eternal darkness, the towering walls of its canyons, the stark, sheer bleakness of Hecate's landscape, the island's isolation, and its political remoteness made anything that came out of Hecate suspect by nature. A museum's pamphlet from earlier days might be found at the Lyceum, but Hecate currently had no Office of Tourism, no Travel Board, no publication, or organization that featured, or promoted, it in any way.

Aligned against the green of glowing crystals was the green of greed, of the ambition for money and profit. It was lust for the greenback: the color of envy, the color of growth, a green to pay for new seeds, the printed color of greed. To trans-world Org, the Hecaten crystal market was a big golden bag of sweet-dripping money-honey waiting to be scooped up, and carried off.

There was just enough difference in Archipelagan soil and science that its produce and products carried exotic cachet on Terra. The water world's brand of green-and gold-grained harvest, and the glamorous fish from Archipelagan seas, traded favorably for the numbered corners of paper that passed for value on Terra.

In Hecate's case, the business model was as basic as the operation was simple. It was a green glowing instead of green growing product, a hot commodity converting directly to gold. Org had its reps and surrogates in place, shills with deep pockets who paid handsomely to nudge their interests along.

Also, there were academic, as well as underworld, rumors of strange (if not magical) properties attributed to Hecaten crystals when ported across the Membrane to Terra. In the meantime, they glowed beautifully in the dark and were currently de rigueur dans le monde de la mode. The fickle world of fashion needed to serve up a strange and glamorous delicacy to its fashionistas again.

There were two things that Gabe knew for certain about Org: 1) that Org played by its own rules (never mind laws on the books), and 2) that Org had a long memory. The item topping the list of Hecate's bad news was that Org was still in the game with a fortune to reclaim, and still in the business of bulldozing, and jumping, claims.

Freedom of the road means a loss of connection, that each day is different, and that some of what happens is out of one's hands. Time on the road teaches wiles of the road, just as charm and wonder of the road begin to recede. The road can be alarming, disconcerting, and exciting; Fate is even more in command when routine is at bay, and chance has the reins.

Gabe would take what was left of life marginally grateful, and without complaint, because on his own, he had no one he must answer to. There was nothing external, nothing outside of him requiring his time, or demanding its due. Random and Without Reason, rawr instead of R.I.P. Yes, that would do nicely scratched into the soft wood on his nameless, roadside marker come that once, and inevitable, day.

With the comforts of home and a cheery hearth having failed to settle him, the rare chance of a hearty meal and the random hot bounce were all the surprises left to him in the day-to-day. Then the day would dawn, and his last sunrise would finally catch up to him, and... well, today was a day as good as the next.

Friend?

A sister: ~Speaking~

He sat on a bench in the V of a Y-branching road looking back on the way just come. Gabe was in the habit of reviewing each day's account before closing it in sleep, but this little park offered perspectives on the pursuits of journey where day follows day follows day until death. Life had devolved into rote process with little more to it than waking, moving, and sleep's escape at day's end. Another mile, another month, another wayside morning; after all this time, why was routine his only reason for rising? Perhaps, because a painfully dying rat will struggle for life until the very end.

Leery of idle talk that might give his voice entry into the world, and wary of the consequences unleashed, Gabe found background anonymity more to his liking. Offstage, at the edge of the crowd, offered the best viewing to his way of thinking. Already familiar with his own fusty world, with the same stale thoughts always in mind, he was happy to be a spectator watching the audience be part of the show that circled the stage in the surround of it all. They danced to the music as unpaid players, spontaneous as children, as candid as pros hosting their own live show. And Gabe took them in with the eyes of a lover, onlooking eyes with a hunger to see.

Better to give up the laughter and convivial liquids than to invite disaster, tho. Loose lips and loose cannons, calamities alike able to cripple a ship. A hooked blade between his vocal cords and a sharp tug remained his final solution; otherwise, no cure but silence suggested itself. So, he watched and he waited for his last sunrise to arrive.

It wasn't despair, but worse. It went beyond loneliness, misery, even hopelessness. It was... nothing. It was waiting. It was marking time until the end, or something unexpected, a surprise, intervened. The emotional and psychic weight, the mental exercise involved, the heft and mass of this life-on-hold, of waiting-to-die, amounted to... well, there it was again: nothing.

Asleep :: not asleep. Eyes jolt open from closed, instant awareness kicks in, then habit takes over, replacing the reflex. Breathing in, breathing out, and in the background, the countdown ticking of a mortal heartbeat ... ticking ... waiting ... marking time ... on hold for a sign ... a purpose ... something – anything but ... nothing.

Below predictable, beneath mundane, and under the humdrum, beyond corrosive in effect, tedious and dull, there is a numbness, the insensate deadness of... nothing. The world of feeling and sensation had gone lost to him. With heart-clock ticking (having given up talking), he kept on hitching and walking, waiting the end. He was empty of everything above the brain stem that wasn't instinct, that either rumbled with hunger, needed sleep, or to be alert to a danger in need of a reply.

Life happened to him. Daily memos with instructions for survival were delivered from brain stem to the functioning offices that remained. Directives were issued dictating action, promoting survival, instinctively active, insisting on life. Someday, soon maybe, even that goad, that instinct to breathe, would agree that, really, enough was enough. He would wake that morning, and know it for his last.

Memories were a company that still sparked with life for him, and often enough they were welcome. Unpredictable, ever ready, and poised to pounce, Casper-friendly to headless horseman-with-sword-in-hand, never daunted by what he wanted or felt, they haunted him. Familiar and forthcoming, these friendly and not-so-friendly memories filled the silence, and he was grateful. They were all he had.

Triumphs and disasters, old favorites and terrors, reprised their roles, played out in memory, staged comebacks at will with an off-hand familiarity, unscheduled, irregular, governed only by chance. A few surfaced but once, disappeared without revival, sank heavy as lead, some precious as gold. Some returned often, like syndicated reruns on instant reissue, recut and reshuffled, some on demand; but always they came to him in his penury, free of charge. But memories, too, grow old, finally, lose their freshness, become cliché, begin to smell of stale linen and dust.

Dreams and memories: cunning thieves of time, or creative genies openly generous with their wares? Were they merely distractions, or sources of insight; drains on the battery, or vital nutrients; experiences that nourish, that foster and feed, or were they poison, of the hemlock breed? Was it fuzzy thinking, or new information, spectral phantom or the flash of inspiration? Was it wandering lost in the desert, or the hunt for Oasis, the Eden of legend; the vapor in vaporware, or the burning magic of tragedy, art born of a muse?

Nightmares and day-scares: do they fertilize roots, or burn them? Are they nurseries for seedlings, or dark cavern halls painted to model a world? Why cultivate dreams whose harvest never varies from death? Suppose a vision that foretells disaster: as a warning, or as a taste of the poison just shy of the kill. …or is vision the venom setting in motion the active ingredients that finally will? Is it none-of-the-above, some of it, or is it all sieved uniformly, caught up universally in the weave of One?

Dreams: potential sources of magic, bright cores of creation, narcotic distractions, or merely the prunings of a mind soporifically at rest? Are they adventures mired in nerves, wired randomly, weighted by inertia, or coinless entertainments? Are they fictions born of friction, or (just maybe) the happy frictions of seduction? Maybe dreams are nothing more than a thin cotton shift worn to ward off the nothingness and freeze of the Void.

Dreams were for the young, tho, so it was either decaying old memories, or this nothingness, to fill his day. This is what waited for Gabe as he woke by the road, as he rose for the day and continued to wait.

Was this it, really? Was waiting to be his fate? Were his remaining days to be a field lying fallow, storing up nitrogen and sunlight... for what? Was he banking energy against a future with no seeds to sow, no well for water, no hope, no reason for, and no evidence of life? Or had nothingness begun to grow for its final, mortal swallow? Wasn't he already waking each day to hell's antechamber? Stashed away, confined to a cage bleached clean of interest at the start of each day, he was that curious anomaly: solitary confinement with two planets to roam, two whole worlds he could reasonably call home.

Was life meant as a preamble to wisdom, as pre-purgatory, or as a seasoning shed for fine-grained woods? Was life a hammering into art, or the sharpening of experience into a sharp-edged tool? Was it a test for the conquest of karma, or merely the preliminaries before a final escape into death? Until he arrived at Departure, there was no way to know.

On the road, one learns to filter rumors thru personal experience: listen, compile, edit, and file. This is where mica and glitter get separated from gold, where iron-hard facts are honed into knives, become useful in hand, and a weapon to hold. The only believable rumor is the one you don't hear. The good ones keep their secret, wait quiet in their lair.

Its corollary, that silence is a blackboard that fear writes on, only highlighted the lack of news from Hecate. And because the day might yet dawn when that night world would need him again, the effort must be made. He might continue, life on Pause and barely in mind, but he must wake at the dawn, peripherally aware, if barely alive.

Gabe had given up expecting contact from the Castle a long time since. Only Eden-of-the-Garden's ancient presence might guess where to find him now, but the memory of roses, too, was receding down the long grey corridor of memory into oblivion. The filled with action and not a little passion, his work with each of the sisters had been brief. Already their faces were becoming casualties of a half-slumbering mind. Soiled and glorious memories, the eraser of time rubs lightly and slowly, but it will take skin to the bone given a spell long enough, left undisturbed, to evaporate, alone.

Deep into his ruminations on mortality, the riddle of seasons, and the occasions of life, Gabe missed the soft snap and flapping of a cloth being unfurled. It wasn't until a flash of color off to the side seemed to wrap around a form that suddenly was...

-Abbie?

Jade stood... somehow just stood there, looking impossible lovely and... not unreal?

~Call me Jade now, if you don't mind.~

-I'm sorry. Jade. I meant Jade. My god, you startled me! Is this... is it you?

~It is. Yes, it's me. It's been a long time, Gabe.~

-Yes. Hell yes! How many years? I... I'm sorry, I was expecting... I thought if... I thought Ginger...

~Ginger Leigh's away on a mission, but she did tell us where we might meet. I've been sent to do that, and bring you back. The king sends her regards, and requests your presence at the Castle.~

Trained to use pain as teaching moments, questors do not advance, or mature professionally, by avoiding the difficult question, or suppressing memories. Gabe knew to leave as many doors open as possible, and to assume nothing. He knew not to reach for the easy answer, tho it was often best. He would never have full knowledge, and would never be qualified to judge another's right from wrong. These understandings were as rich and thick in him as blood in the bone.

Questors are trained to the cowardly virtues of unbiased viewing, of dispassionate acceptance, and not choosing sides. They are bound to no other loyalty than to the house of discovery in the tribe of truth. Follow the question wherever it goes, answers be damned. It meant remaining open to factions of dubious intent.

Gabe was more open to trust than most questors, but he didn't forget. Jade, as Absinthe, was the source of the fever that almost killed him. And that contagion was the source of the voice that he hated more than evil itself, more than he abhorred the cowardice of lies.

More to the point, she was an assassin. Despite her avowals to the contrary, she was a killer by trade, by temperament and choice. And the tried not to overanalyze their meaning, the dying words of the Promoter hissed and sparked like a lit fuse to him. "...tell Jade..." Tell Jade what?

-Lovely dress for an auspicious day... and there's only you beneath it if I remember the qualities of your illusion. ~Anything else you'd like to guess?

~Anything else you'd like to guess?~

-A belted wrap-around, instantly donned and as quickly gone... nice. Post-invisible never looked so good.

~Instantly off, instantly on, and now there's a necklace for cancelling illusion for... well, for...~

...for love; I haven't forgotten.

~But...~

...but not for us. Your sister the king... again, I've not forgotten.

~Thank you. I needed to hear that. She's beautiful, Gabe. Your baby is so beautiful. She's got your eyes, your hair and coloring. And she's quick – super smart. Too smart! I'm the mom; I'm the parent, and I'm supposed to be smarter, but I'm not. We're so proud of her! And since I can see you wondering, this is what having a baby does to a woman's body.~

-Since I'm wondering? Ah ... yes. My god, Abbie, you're... even more beautiful, a woman now. But why? Why do this to me?

~Jade.~

-Jade, right. Abbie was free to... so we could... Right, don't go there. So why this, now? ~Ginger Leigh said it would desensitize you. In a house full of sisters, it would turn you from a potential lover, into our brother. I'm not so sure from the looks of you, there.~ -That's it? Just like that, I'm supposed to be your brother? ~And I wanted to see...~ -To see? See what? ~If I was beautiful, still.~ -Beautiful? ...but any mirror could have told you that. ~A mirror... but a mirror doesn't feel, doesn't have eyes that go wide and melt, like yours just did. Mirrors don't respond. A reflection is not an audience, Gabe. It's not someone else, not a man, or even a woman. I wanted to know if I was beautiful, still beautiful... to you.~ -The mother of my daughter? Me, more than any other, but any man would worship this. As you can see, I'm defenseless against you... and you want me to be your brother? ~We expect you to behave.~ -I... I don't think so. I don't see how! I think Ginger Leigh got it wrong this time.

There was an air of completion to her now, where there had been only the sense of duty before. There was a shine to her eyes, and her freckles glowed in a way that was new. And now there were a woman's curves over the girl's frame. These were immensely attractive to him, and it grew harder still for him to pretend otherwise.

It was embarrassingly obvious he was smitten anew. It was a woman who stood before him now in place of the hoyden-assassin he'd known before. Such is the seduction of beauty that it conquers without caring to, and is as heedless of consequence as a dead man's fall. Beauty may be a short-term gift out on loan, but the sizzle of it pops like water beads on a red-hot stove.

~Well, thank you. I've missed you, too. Now back to my question. Will you come back with me, return to Hecate?~

-Yes, of course. I've waited a long time for this. So, tell me about it, about everyone. How is our king? How is Constance, and the babies?

~They're not babies any more, Gabe. And wait until I tell you...

...and instead of the winding road left, they turned right on the long straight road that led to horizon.

The State of Things

The report was grim. The news from Hecate was as detailed as it was bleak. Item by item, Jade delivered a litany of dangers, current and pending, unvarnished truths, yet without hint of despair. No doubt the Ancients tended people in other lands, using different names, and were bowed to as other gods, but nowhere was their presence more shrouded in evidence than in Hecate-of-the-Crystals. It helped to believe in their specialness. The rare, but repeated contacts, their intercessions, the rituals they endorsed, all spoke of a benign if not loving benevolence, except...

Who plows the acres to plant the seeds, then waters the plants and grows the fields for the crops of rage that fuel the flames that foster conflicts that build to war? How quickly the kindling gets added to the daft ideas, the fiery speeches, and incendiary papers, that men draft. Who bothers to incite, and then to ignite them?

The sabotage of goodwill, the black ink spilled over every effort to gather, and understand one another, in a move to unite – who answers for that? The rows of marching torches, the scorched air of fear: who holds the match that lights their flame? The walls thrown up between their gods and convictions: who builds them, and why? If there were benevolent influences that intervened on man's behalf, then this vile malevolence made no sense at all, except...

Vitriol and competition sharpen tools and perception in the cause of survival. They multiply eyes times facets in the search for answers, just as their search for advantage turns aggressive for utilitarian facts. Rivalry serves as a burr under saddle, a spur for change with most of it growth. Death's place, to fertilize seeds for the next round of history, delivers the blood-spill to water new roots. And all the while the world bleeds, it oils the skids for the next push up.

Having met the Ancients, and seen the results of their efforts, Gabe didn't believe in gods. He only believed in other beings with other, older powers who had little more than a gaming interest in Hecate, Archipelago, and Terra.

Evil has its own power source, the mitochondria of greed whose meat is the world. Not a flattering image, but it was the needs of greed that produced a world of laws to protect their gains, that grew it a conscience, that fashioned civilizations refined into cultures, manufacturing progress, while creating art. Practically speaking, one must concede the value of greed and its efficacy in the cause of progress, but sometimes greed steps on the wrong tail.

Everything was fuel to the great maw of greed's ambition, so it was reassuring to the harried Hecatens that the Ancients were involved. It was a matter of swallow hard, and believe... trust that the strongest and best of them were on their side. Because other, awkward, questions remained unanswered.

Gabe and Constance had faced an arc of Ancients, but what of the rest? What of the Circle that completed the Arc? Who else sat at the Round Table, and why weren't they speaking?

Were they of lesser, or greater powers? Were they more, or less friendly? Might they be wise, or more inclined to adventure? Were they inert with wisdom, or vital with curiosity? ...more peaceful or warlike, or merely voyeurs? Were they a single people, or a compendium? Might their attention be suddenly captured by some other adventure, someplace elsewhere? Was Hecate their Tuesday evening's after-dinner, low-budget entertainment? What if their vaunted Arc of Ancients was a grade-school exercise, or a low-level graduate squad onsite for training? And where did their loyalties finally, and truly, lie?

What did they want, and how had they gotten to be where they are? Were they as wise and beneficent as they seemed? Had they reached an understanding, learned the how and the why as well as the what of being? What if eternity was but an hour of their time, and it was only our when that mattered to them, our tick that marked time's passing, that gave functional meaning to eternity's clock? Had they so blended with the disciplines of infinity that they merged and made their worlds, their will, and their word as One with the Verse? Or was it simply the mastery of numbers and equations, the science of digits and symbols that made them supreme?

Suppose the stars themselves were home to the Ancients, nuclear abodes that powered their will. If numbers and knowledge get fatally fused in black holes into wisdom, then these others might flare as a brilliance in the hearts of stars. Suppose that stars are indeed seeded like pearls, as nuggets of knowledge maturing, curing in kilns for the future, furnaces for the plasma spew in the renewals of creation.

Such powers would touch the fewest levers needed to nurture a future in concert with history's base. Such powers might conceive and speak in poetry, compose lyrically, submit a compendium of answers, or insinuate as God; and microscopically, midst a maze of maneuvers, manipulate their conclusions quietly into place.

Yes, the questions, always that nagging doubt. With their infinite eyes mapping out, and envisioning, interstellar designs, with projects less tiresome and more compelling than the future of two backwater nodes of intelligence called mankind, a realistic question had to be: was Hecate and its crystalized storybook-Castle disposable? Were Hecatens expendable, merely pawns in some larger, interstellar game? Did Hecatens even matter to the watery scrub-planet of Archipelago?

Would Hecate rise to the level of a minor footnote in one of their histories? Would their lives end in a good cause, and bring about a better end? Reasonable questions posing as doubts (and not a bad thing), but duty was a destiny that had nothing to do with trust, or belief. They would do what they must, whether remembered and honored, or even if not.

Comedians working the more cosmopolitan islands of Archipelago made light of Hecate, a standard gag in their nightclub routines. Pointed digs, sly mentions, sometimes a weird-cousin affection crept in, but the mockery was general for the rubes and hicks of outlying Hecate.

The primary, and easiest, source of ridicule was the Hecaten belief in a society of Ancients, and that it was their divinely assigned duty to protect their crystals as the future of Archipelago. Never bothering to explain how, or even to ask if outside help was wanted, Hecatens were hoarding an immensely profitable Archipelagan resource that served no other useful, local, purpose.

The insular provincialism of it all made Hecatens an easy target for ridicule, in-world and out. Hecate's road-wise, worlds-traveling, moral-surfing, adventure-chasing, culture-crossing, knowledge-weary, mind-voyaging expats held a special disdain for the Castle's ethnocentric hubris. But there was evidence enough to act on, for those needing to know.

A dizzying sense of vulnerability entered the corporate and political worlds when invisibility joined the braided, interwoven, cross-linked, splice-twisted, intertangled, conglomerate fray-kus that was Terra's galaxy of business. A vast puzzle that served as its culture (think petri dish), became its model for society. The corporate world, the private sector, the religious, military, and court systems were in a frenzy of uncertainty, posing questions, demanding answers over the unforeseeable, the criminal and social prospects of invisibility on the loose.

Researchers of every ilk and persuasion were pulling hairs out looking for a new application, or some latent advantage hidden in Hecate's crystals. As they pursued advantage (whether to advance future plans, or wall-up with countermeasures), the science and business worlds were frantic with doubts. Snared in a vortex of perplexities, they were as bald from hair-pulling frustration, as they were sleepless with fear.

The structured under the same umbrella, the Assassins and Mercs were interested in Hecate for different reasons. The new Mercs focused on perfecting existing technologies for invisibility, and finding new uses for it. They were interested in capturing the market for their branded Chameleon ware. Establish primacy, then eat anything that looks like competition. Brute muscle, and lack of compunction (or compassion) were on the table if action was needed.

The League was less interested in new uses of existing science, than in pursuing new technologies that might branch off of illusion. They were also developing countermeasures against Illusion cloth and Chameleon ware for security purposes. Governments, and the corporate world, wanted something more than infrared glasses standing between their secrets and a prying world.

To open up the playing field a bit, the new Mercs had appealed for looser rules to apply at their level of sanctioned killing. Using the reason of offering a more affordable justice, they intended to harness a good to their greed, with a goal of bettering receipts. This only needed a rule change or two. The calculated advantage needn't be large. They practiced their modified rules openly anyway (illegally at times, it must be said), and made no effort to cloak their work. There were rumors the new Mercs didn't always bother to front their battles with registered clients.

The League chose the less morally strenuous route of tapping into the worlds of academia and research grants to fund their goals. Org, having learned its lesson from jungle bikers about the clean-up mess that follows violence, had marched in with a squad of Archipelagan banks and a company of lawyers instead. Some were more willing than others, but all the sides showing interest understood the advantage that comes with a willingness to help other people die.

Whether worn as fabric, or applied as a soak or spray, Org's silk tie brigade, the Mercs, and general public, called it the cloak used for cloaking. For reasons of tradition and commercial identity, the League referred to its related products as Illusion cloth to market against the Merc's Chameleon Wear. Maybe this was where backroom deals, legal and marketing issues, and strategizing entered in, but there is no settled history (yet) for the when, who, and why, these names for the process diverged.

Constance had slipped into the role of king and ruler as the hand to its fitted glove. With her growing success and renown came the return of Hecate's far-flung, widely strewn, freewheeling, road-wise, and troublemaking expats. And with them came the herculean task of organizing them into a coherent community of thought and defense, a prospect hovering at some midpoint between unlikely and impossible. King Constance had a knack for it, tho.

Decisions were as quick as instinct, and as unerringly sound as grown-from-seed training, high intelligence, and good common sense could make them. With dual talents for incisive action and herding cats, she was already legendary for outwitting Org's legal overtures – all this with a child in tow. Hecate's Castle had chosen well.

They were called, simply, Boy and Girl. According to royal rules and tradition, descendants in line for the throne did not receive formal naming until they reached their majority. Pet names and nicknames were the norm, but both sisters lacked the gene for adorable. They liked the unsentimental clarity of the names, Boy and Girl, then left it to the kids to find out what boy and girl meant. The boy's age numbered in double digits, while the girl's age required but one. Half-blooded brother and sister, each was smarter than the other, and both were as voracious for information as their world-devouring aunt.

5 Homecoming

Hecate's king greeted Gabe with a wary smile and a measuring eye. The natural reserve of one raised to serve, and schooled in solitude, now telescoped her perspective thru the rarified lens of command and rule. There comes a change of perspective seeing the world thru the eyes of a kingdom, and the eyes of concern far-short of two meters tall.

Reportedly chosen by the Crystal Castle itself, and verifiably successful as Hecate's king, she had become a person of political interest to other outlying islands in the Archipelagan chain. But more crucial than her machinations in the defense of Hecate, she was that one thing most important to the people selling the news: the young king of Hecate was beautiful in a way that excited dreams.

The courted by corporate and wooed by the banks, the young king was well grounded in Hecaten interests, and her position was clear. She was unavailable, as were Hecate's crystals. What would have been a suitable marriage, and a coup, for anyone's political goals, became the world's most watched sport, with Hecate's king as the enviable prize.

Sought after but uncaught, fought over but not got, chased by fame trailing the media's worst lot, she escaped their clutch, simply ignored their reach, their unchaste ambitions, and lecherous thoughts. She owned the king's right of refusal, and lived by it, posted it publicly for all to see. To reign justly, she would need independence and clarity, and to govern rightly, she would remain unbought.

Gabe responded with his own frank appraisal. Never meant for the role of rule, Gabe saw life thru the eyes of a questor. Her role was to make decisions based on the needs of her people, and the requirements of history. He was ruled by the need for discovery, to deny final answers, and never closing the book.

She was designed for singleness of purpose, and being decisive. He met the world as the eyes and ears of a question alive. A student of the road and never its judge, Gabe saw her kingdom thru the eyes of two worlds.

Both understood the other's extremity of view. Both bore up well under the weight of the other's review. Both tested for qualities, both expected the best; neither minded the measure and being assessed. Each on each was each other's equal; each would have succeeded playing the other on stage. There was a radiance and warmth, and both knew the pleasure that neither was surprised; each liked the person each other saw.

The king facing Gabe was more regal of bearing than her title merited; she was more majestic, and statelier, than her accolades would suggest. She was more splendid with presence than a host of others surrounded by retinue, their sycophants (with pageantry), and their cronies in tow.

Her silence was more telling than their volumes of speech, and carried more force than their river of words. She was the model of mothers in the care of her son, but it was as Hecate's leader, and reader of people, that she bloomed to rule as a king, using sharpness of insight, and the clarity of instinct, in lieu of a sword.

No longer just warrior-destroyer in the defense of Hecate, she reigned now as its creator, its teacher and defender, its motherly mender, and tender of life. From warrior maid to maternal enforcer and king, she tuned all her antennae to the needs of her family, and the being of Hecate. Married to both, she wore the crown as her ring. Changes in Constance were as subtle as the shifting of stars in the infinite night, as the atom of difference between quiet deceit and a lie, as the shades of blue in the shadow of smoke. She was the same entire person in her role as king.

Secure from violence within the walls of the Castle, Abbie had retired from being Absinthe-the-assassin and morphed into Jade, the devoted mom. The stunning conversion from killer, to mother, was as if a cocoon had opened up to a life with wings. Gone was the world-weary loathing that was once a fixture that creased her eyes. Instead of the wary dread that meant survival on the job, she now faced the scramble and tumble of free-ranging kids.

She had love and she had family; she had duties to Hecate and her sister the king. There was meaning to life again. Cued to the voice and love of her family, Jade found herself atypically happy, domestically tamed, and contented at last.

The transformation seemed complete, but Gabe continued to be hammered by doubt, unable to void out the warnings that hissed from her past. There was the matter of her training, of Absinthe's precision, her veiled instinct to kill ... and those final words of the Promoter, ... tell Jade... Tell Jade what? What had he tried to say?

Was it a deathbed confession, or was it meant to sow discord, to foster division and disaster from beyond the grave? It wasn't the ubiquity, the deadliness, or the proximity of weapons in the Castle that worried him, but her magnetic attraction for the attentions of Death. It would smell her out and track her down. Death would find her here.

-

Ginger Leigh was expected back at any time. It was her imminent return that provided the reason for Gabe's summons. What tickled him was that while she had never given up resisting the sobriquet of Gin, she had taken very happily to the pet name of Jinn. Two little letters were the only difference in spelling, yet there was a polar difference in the same-sounding name. While she had rebuffed every attempt of his at privileged access, this one she loved when it came from the kids.

In Hecate, every departure is in the dark of night, just as every arrival is in the dark of day. Ginger Leigh arrived in that part of the dark when everyone slept. Indoctrinated from her childhood in the Castle to keep and use its secrets, and dressed for the dark in Hecaten black, she slipped easily past the Castle guard. No one bothered guarding the wall-climb that first challenged Gabe. There were only four alive who had climbed that wall, and only then with the Castle's blessing.

She was rattling pans in her kitchen, looking for the makings of the Archipelagan coffee that everyone would need. It was the infernal clattering of pans and the smell of coffee brewing that woke the Castle inhabitants from their cascade of dreams.

Gabe wasn't sure how to feel when she returned, wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel. She was easily the most complicated, and the most difficult to understand of the sisters, yet he was most at ease with her, and most at home in her company when they were alone. And he wasn't the only one seeking her out. In a household of great powers and talent, Boy and Girl were most in awe of their Auntie Jinn.

One whose mother was king, and the other whose mother could invisibly pass by, were thunderstruck by their aunt. Both were growing a different, and special, variety of rose, a bush chosen for each of them as a birthday gift from Eden-of-the-Garden. Enthralled by the stories of her travels, they held in reverence the prices she paid for her hard-won knowledge; a knowing which peered thru the lens of motive into minds, that saw into the futures that were most likely to be.

Under the stars and light of Hecate's Moon, they heard tales of immense and staggering wonder native to their sister planet, Terra. They roamed vast plains of roving beasts, pored thru picture books of land animals and weird sea creatures in alien oceans, ranged the strangest of wild places, from its highest heights to the yawning of it unplumbed depths. If a word must be given to portray this planet, she told them it would have to be: indescribable Beasts of prey rose from the pages, limned in shades of Stygian black and grey, and chased thru their dreams like hunters of prey. They shared nightmares, with all their terrors, as play; and dreamed up new dramas to enact each day. Tornados and quakes, volcanoes and hurricanes, mountainous meteors that fell from the sky: each of these horrors from Terra's distant soil, and past, stampeded thru their dreamscapes as the wildest of imaginings with no desire of escape. The blazing chaos and pandemonium of its history raced thru their midnight and dream-life worlds as a dog chasing rabidly after rats, hopping rabbits, and cats.

She showed pictures of trees both stunted and towering, of tortured landscapes, of flowers more vivid and varied than any on the water world that Archipelagans called home. She spoke of bright and teasing wonders, and of the outsized marvels of Terra's outside realm. The people of Archipelago loved their island world, temperate in climate, and addictively pleasant with beauty. But nothing matched the greatly varied glories, the fierce and teeming stories of Terra, their sister world from the stars.

From earliest days, their mothers had regaled them with stories of their Auntie Jinn. Doubled over in laughter, they told of her hijinks, and the diabolical tortures she brought down on their heads. As the oldest of three, it was a right divinely granted. They called her General Leigh. So bossy, so Miss-know-it-all, and in all ways, always right. Then they'd tell another story, and laugh till they cried.

一

She was not the vibrant, determined woman he remembered, but a thin, worried woman older than her years. She joined in their welcome celebration. As she relaxed with the wine, the deep-etched worry lines eased into the perplexed look of a burned-out hope left wondering why. Even boredom brings more freshness to a face than lost hope. Gabe was not the only one to notice. Both of her sisters and Boy and Girl – everyone remembered the Jinn who had left them less than two years ago as a powerhouse for hope and the future.

All who saw the difference were alarmed. It was less their fate than her health they cared about, so everyone approved the special bond, and extra time, she shared with Gabe. Comity without drama was the rule, so that nothing of romance was considered or allowed.

The potential for jealousy and palace intrigue would have slammed the door on any dalliance, and thrown away the key. Death and reality are no respecters of passion, and real life not infrequently frowns on love. Survival mattered more. Each slept alone, and there was peace in the house. Only the Director had tools for drawing fire from ice.

Background

The Delegate: /Speaking King Constance: ^Speaking^

The Director had a web in place, with connections that reached everywhere, seemingly out to anyone's everyone. Dots linked across borders, joined tactics in strategies that mixed jigsaw and crossword puzzles with maps, a tool chest, and 3.D chess. Freed of the League's institutional restraints, the Director's plans called for a constant churn of probe, feint, and advance. A swirling flux of nexus, plexus, and vortex, always changing, never random, the odds mattered less to him than study and reason. He looked more at the research, then bet on potential. It was never clear whether his ceaseless activity was a marriage to duty, or the result of a vision and grander plans, but he made time for his daughter and the cause of Hecate.

Tho a kingdom led by a king, Hecate was not entirely a sovereign state. It was governed as a principality, a second-tier, semi-autonomous state. Despite the exalted title for its head of state, Hecate was little more than an island fiefdom. Curio was the world's ruling body. It made law, collected taxes, and settled inter-island disputes. Without an outside enemy to defend against, there were only the worldwide reasons of geography, convenience, and tradition to guide the governance of this body.

Thus, it was that Archipelago's Curio ("the Fifty," as they were often called) made decisions for all the islands, however remote. With short periods of exception, the Mayor of Crateria (Crater Island's capitol, and Archipelago's largest, most populous city) banged the gavel during legislative session. Not surprisingly, Archipelago's best interests were not necessarily those of a distant, outlying island. Current differences of opinion were mounting into concerns of mutual distrust and outright anger, some of it on rude display.

Issues of law and domain could only be resolved between the ruling king of Hecate, and Curio's Curator of State. Appeals to court were rare. Without a king to negotiate for them, all standing agreements remained on the books as written and were not subject to amendment, nor could they be voided. Neither the Director's inworld network, nor Curio's Fifty, would think to challenge this precedent in law.

The Hecaten throne had been vacant for nine generations, and much had changed. A restored throne was in everyone's interest. Centuries of waiting had been too much for the restless youth of Hecate, and the best, as well as the worst, of them had scattered to seek their fortunes in the daylight world of Archipelago, and the circus of Terra. Repatriation began soon after word of Hecate's new king spread.

Curio's Fifty had been eager to welcome the new king to their circle. They were delighted to be dealing with the strikingly photogenic, newly anointed, charmingly untutored, and innocent young king. Here at last was someone to negotiate the exciting changes they had in mind. This would lead to Archipelago's great leap forward, and Hecate would be at the top of the list benefitting most!

The island's remoteness and its treasure of crystals made it the new frontier, and now was their chance! It was the unique, glowing beauty of the crystals that first caught the greater planet's attention, but it was the scientists who were most amazed, then aghast, at what they found. Hecaten crystals displayed remarkably different properties in the labs on Terra than they did at home. Variously shaded, multicolored Archipelagan irises turned to gold in Fifty sets of eyes. ^Mr Delegate - may I call you that?^ /Of course. It shall be as your Ladyship wishes, your Majesty. ^You talk flowers when you have meat on your mind.^ ^You are the third delegation in four months, and the last was three weeks ago. What do you want?^ /I only meant to show my respect. You are a very bright and clever woman I am told, and I have a great respect for high intelligence put to good use. I especially admire it in a woman. I find it a type of beauty that ages well. But now I must ask for your tolerance. May I speak freely? ^My sisters call me Ma'am. I give you that to use, for now, and you may speak freely. I will insist, in fact. Now, what do you want?^ /If I am free to speak, then I have to challenge your claim regarding the number of delegations. I have been assured that I lead 'the first official delegation to negotiate with Hecate over Archipelagan rights to “Hecaten crystals,”” as I believe they're called. I lead this delegation. ^No, in fact, the first was a gentleman from Curio who came alone to talk. His interest, as he stated it, was 'to bring banks and a consortium of investors together with Hecate's decision makers.' The offers thru regular channels were generous. The offers from anonymous sources ... well, you can imagine.^ /Yes, money does talk, as they say, but that would not have come from Curio, not officially. ^I won't argue that.^ /Then there can't have been a second delegation. ^Three lawyers and two bankers were accompanied by the Major Colonel of Police & Enforcement, a coterie threatening action in the line of duty. Court papers have been filed, I'm told.^ /Ah, so it's officially out. Curio threatened force, did they? ^Then you don't deny it.^ /I have no part in that. I'm here to offer a solution, an alternative. I am here to negotiate something we both can live with. ^What you propose is beautiful as a concept, but there is nothing to negotiate. No more crystals will be leaving Hecate.^ /I don't understand this. On Terra, Archipelagan crys..., I'm sorry, your Hecaten crystals are beginning to reveal astonishing properties. They're just bright shards of light here. Great leaps verging on miracles are taking place, and you are a wall against hope for so many people. ^Think of Hecaten crystals as batteries of light that Archipelago will need some day. They are in my charge as king of Hecate. They are under my care. Already too many have been lost to the Membrane.^ /It's not true, you know. ^What part of what isn't true?^ /Your priestess thing, the Crystal, the world going dark. We've been studying you, your legends and history, and it's not true. ^You have appealed to our greed, threatened us with court and police action; now you try to paper it over with reason. This makes Curio's third try by my count. The purpose this time: cast legal doubt on the Crystal's heritage and undermine Hecate's claim. Would you say that's a fair read of this visit, your purpose here?^ /A brotherhood of invisible Ancients who live in your Castle Crystal. You're a bright, educated woman, someone to be reckoned with, I'm told. You've studied religions from both worlds, according to your file... give me a break here. Show me you've learned something real about the world. You are a king now. ^The great new properties the crystals have on Terra won't help us here when the lights go out, will they? The crystals are found here and are bound to Hecate because our world needs them here. This is Archipelago, your home-world, I would remind you. It is your world, our world I'm trying to save.^ /The Ancients, your stories of a Darkening, just aren't true, ma'am. We've run every test we can think of on Hecaten crystals. They just don't have the magic here they do on Terra. ^I won't argue that. However, I am going to continue acting as if our stories are true, because the stories of the Ancients that you don't believe... I do believe them. I was there, Mr Delegate. They are, in fact, true, and you will not be allowed to remove any more crystals from Hecate.^ /Then I suggest you find a way to lose gracefully, ma'am. That's the best advice I can give you now. Having said this, I believe we have concluded our business. Your Highness... good day.

Gathering Clouds

Archipelago's Curator of State: 'Speaking' The Delegate: /Speaking

The kingdom of Hecate, under direction of the throne, had given the grant of a home to Gabe. He had the choice of a large place under full moonlight on one of the island's open mesas or high on the canyon walls in one of the smaller cliffside aeries. He would have liked one of the larger mesa homes and stepping out for walks under Hecate's fabled moonlight, but the residential mesas were on Hecate's third and highest residential level and farthest away.

With the river's encircling moat coursing far below, Crystal Castle rose massively near the center of the island on the second of Hecate's four tiers. Gabe liked riding his hover board to the Castle and taking different routes to work, but travel time was precious when minutes might mean the difference between unpleasant surprise and some dark thing turning lethally black. With current events and decisions pending, calling it in wasn't enough. He chose a nearby aerie.

He was glad to be back in Archipelago. He had missed the use of hover boards on his assignments across the Membrane. It was one of those technologies that had yet to make the transfer to continental Terra. Crystals did cross the barrier, however, with their properties enhanced. Correction: with their constituent properties greatly enhanced.

While Org-backed bankers were arranging finances at the money end of conquest, their lawyers were poring thru land-use agreements, property rights cases, old deeds and records. Loopholes that might be used for an end run around Hecaten interests were less bloody, very much less expensive, and vastly more welcome to Org's Board of Directors than outright attack.

Killing skills were useful in both worlds, but Mercenaries remain Archipelagan natives. Since only Pelagans were able to cross the Membrane, only Pelagans stood to die if it came to blows.

With sharp business practice being preferable and easier to defend than a costly war, it had the added advantage of being news friendly. Everyone at Archipelago's end would benefit (none of their boys would be dying over something that belonged to all of them), and the P.R people heartily approved.

Altho Merc skills had been useful to infiltrate secured places on Terra, they had been unable to penetrate Hecate's defenses. Jade's mastery of the Assassin and warrior crafts provided the needed background for setting up security in a world completely alien to the invaders. Perimeter integrity was established, tested, and tweaked. A single border checkpoint was included. The Director gave the system a final tug to tighten it up so that they were indeed in the sweet spot of safety as they settled in and trained.

The Crystal of Crystal Castle itself was unassailable by any force the Mercs could muster, but the large, luminous crystals dotting the landscape were as easy to find as they were to harvest. While the Mercs firmed up tactics for an if-needed attack, they continued their admittedly limited study on new applications for their Chameleon ware.

If the crystals' special attributes didn't apply on Archipelago's side of the Membrane, there were hopes that Hecate itself might hold the key to their properties Terra-side. Academics out of Archipelago's Lyceum were granted laboratory privileges on site. There they developed theories that supported growing them from seed, also to creating new crystals of similar structure with related properties. Academia covered their research and legitimacy flanks, while the League worked as a deterrent to the encroaching new Mercs.

Altho stymied by laws, distance, and the Membrane, moneyed interests from Terra had goosed their investors into a buying frenzy with their forecasts of projected returns. As if some rare magic had been unearthed intact from an ancient crypt, interest in it, and the bidding for it, had gone stratospheric before rocketing into criminal spheres.

Fortunes were involved. It sparkled green, for crying out loud. Just look at it – the color of money! What could be more natural? There was no resisting the lure. No one is immune to the romance of money, and no one on either side owned to intentions that were pure.

Against a backdrop of sanctioned avarice, and scarcely bottled impatience, the stymied Delegate and Curator of State were meeting to jar loose a plan:

'I got your report. I see from your face that nothing's changed.'

/She refuses us, absolutely won't change her mind. Says the stories are true. I don't understand it.

'Something I never thought to hear from you. What don't you understand?'

/Her. I don't understand her. She's as clever as they say.

'And...?'

/She believes these stories. She says they're true. That bright, beautiful woman throwing it all away for a fable. I don't understand it.

'And you don't believe the stories.'

/Of course not. It's not possible! It simply isn't. Enter a solid crystal to meet ghosts who walk on air? Batteries of light for when the world goes dark? No. No, I don't believe it. And what's worse, I want to believe her. A good man might yield up everything he believed in if she would have him, but I cannot.

She's that beautiful then.

/I've painted the dead-leaf dance of autumn. Spring dawn, summer sunset, the sullen overcast of winter... those are mine. Caged lions, battlefields... I've captured the famous in oils, portrayed the exalted on canvas... I've seen beauty as no other, but ... but never have I seen such extravagance of it so concentrated... Yes, she is that beautiful. I would give up my positions and everything I own to have her sit for me, just once, in my studio. My fingers fairly itch from wanting it so. I wish now that you had sent another.

'I would like to have gone myself, but...'

/But...?

'We couldn't have her turning down the Curator of State, now could we? You were there, tho, so what do we have? Where do we go with this? Unofficially, of course. I never know where to stand with you artist-diplomat types.'

/First of all, I've been away. I need to know what situation I'm responding to here. What's happening with our friends across the Membrane?

'People from their Departments of State and Defense, and the President, are furious that Archipelagans successfully attacked business interests that close to their border. They are considered terrorists who escaped. They want to make an example.'

/It doesn't matter that Org was training Mercs to invade, and that Hecatens were only guilty of a preemptive strike? It's a matter of industrial sabotage, not a matter of state.

'That may be, but that's classified information, and has no place in this conversation. If it were possible for them to cross the Membrane from their side, they would have already answered the attack on Org.' /Are the Fifty going to use police enforcement, or turn it over to Org and the Mercs?/ 'You're not on the need-to-know.' /I see. So, what I'm hearing is that your lawyers say we won't win in court without her consent.

Silence.

/…and the police aren't trained for attack and warfare. It will be easier for everyone concerned if we're busy with some other crisis when Org sics the Mercs on them.

'You can be useful, but I begin to understand why governments have their problems with you artists.'

/Whatever you do, make sure she's unharmed. Nothing happens without her. You keep her safe, or you'll answer to history... after you answer to me.

一

The League shared an uneasy alliance with the academics by way of shared goals. Using the Questor's pursuit of knowledge, and the carrot of unimaginable wealth, the Director had bridged the divide between the two camps. Losing little more than title, he had given up his position with the League for something useful: an offstage role that was unmonitored, with connections intact.

Ask one person, and he was all about business; to another he was a political animal, or a figure of romance no more threatening than a stage-quality actor. They admired his skills and many successes... from a distance, of course; because no one talked of his role as a working assassin. It was considered poor form and (shhh!) possibly... bad luck.

He moved with the grace of a cheetah, and spoke with the persuasiveness of gold. He bowed as deeply as boot-top, teased winsomely, joked cleverly, and smiled as easily as a mask. He said little of himself, especially when asked. He thrived as a living mystery in the way a hunger wants filling. But it was his reputation for action, and getting things done, that assured him a quick audience with the noted and great. He spoke little in passing, missed nothing in looking; and if he acted professionally, he did so anonymously, as silent with answers as he was with a knife.

A nimble dancer of the sidestep with a parry to every thrust, he was the veiled and silent vapor resident in every crack. A master puppeteer in a fracturing, border-violating, untrustworthy world, he maneuvered privately, as the directing the news, ever privy ahead of the fact.

Retired from the lucrative world of retail death, he had access to information in all the locked drawers, their encryptions to wealth, all the vault combinations, and the secrets they held. Medical files, tax records, any birth-to-death record was his for the taking, if there was need. His maps followed the twisty trails of forbidden couplings (financial, romantic, state, and otherwise), and he could quote a price for silence that was quickly understood. In possession of the algorithms that governed algorithms, he was able to track to their endpoints all the branching fractals of truth.

Everyone submitting application for the League's Power to Execute must respond to a detailed set of questions, with strict requirements merely to apply. It was reasoned that the threat of death for major and capital infractions (there being no death penalty under Archipelagan law) would serve to keep the general population playing by the rules. All seeking legal correction were compelled to comply.

Whatever benefits the practice of legal assassination had, in fact, it had the unfailing disadvantage of being irreversible. Despite the rigors of process leading to the League's final Consent to Proceed, he knew of more than a few who were approved for termination who did far more for the public weal, and its happiness, than those paying for their removal. Tho rare, it was not unknown for the scruples of a master assassin to age into senility, or turn black with disappointment, then rot with corruption from the outside in.

Gabe had journeyed widely, randomly, and knew many of the places that returning Hecatens had been. He knew about the highs and lows of byway travel. He knew the gimmicks and shortcuts needed to survive. With a radar that saw below horizon, he was familiar with the creep of sleazy scavengers, the omnivore's hunger, and the gnawing of cannibals who feed on disaster, those who find gain from the raw pain of life.

He was callous to claims of sacred and sectarian mystery, of received knowledge, spiritual maps, inspirational God-saids, and divine reveals. He was innately suspicious of any belief that locked the door on anyone outside the fold. Agnostic to belief, he was nevertheless alert to the fertile grounds of gossip and opinion, to whisperings of inside insight, to sectarian rumors, to hints of political sights. He gave a ready ear to the stories from roadside, alert to seeds that sprout, to the spread of weeds, and the potential deeds of another day.

Officially, he was there to help those with title and land claims, those with legacy and heritage issues. The most difficult involved petitioners seeking right-of-return to ancestral homes, long empty and since occupied by claim jumpers. Specious claims (colorful, some of them), claims without birth records, proof of deed or history, and it was Gabe who had to decide. He also served as official greeter and host at the Castle's main entrance gate and Information Center.

Off the books, he was Hecate's intelligence officer. However remote the chance under Jade's security system, he was constantly tuned to the possibility of outside agents infiltrating Hecate. He was easy with the comradery of having been there, that is, everywhere. He was familiar with the joshing, the lingo, the patter, and accent tells. He was especially adept at prying open a window revealed from an offhand crack in some raconteur's tale, or unguarded chat.

He sifted and filtered everything that came to him, and reported each morning to an early-rising mother and king, his first order of the day. He no longer thought of her as Constance, much less Connie. Now, she was simply his king. Even her older sisters bowed to her and addressed her formally. Their remarkable meekness and obedience to their younger sister remained a source of marvel to Gabe.

With her deeper knowledge of the world, her sight, and her place as eldest among the sisters, Ginger Leigh would have been ideal for Gabe's position as Hecate's intelligence officer. But her attention was needed elsewhere, she claimed, and she refused the position in his favor. He ran everything by her before his morning report, and her input proved a worth beyond price, but she was chewing on heavier matters, and it was eating her alive.

She had failed to recover from her usual road-fatigue after too long away. Was this to be the final stage of a creeping disconnect, the soul-deadening weariness that comes of seeing too much, too often, for too long? There was the sense that Ginger Leigh was losing ground, that she was fading, her life-force slipping away. Gabe, too, began to shrivel with each new sign of her decline. She seemed always to be “away” even when present, yet was always awake when anyone knocked, needing help at her door. She looked exhausted and gave no evidence that she slept, ever, at all.

She had taken care of him in his need and given him haven, and was owed by him in faithful return. Her encyclopedic life and his epic curiosity seemed to bathe in the same warm waters when they were together. They fell easily into each other's rhythm. Whatever knowledge or disease that was eating her, she lost the least to it when he was near. The time came in her decline when the king suggested that she go to his bed. The family had discussed it, all agreed, and so it was done.

She went at first to be held, and not be alone. A day came when she woke feeling rested. Not long after, she awoke feeling Gabe. Theirs wasn't the lovemaking of two bodies in frictive, frantic motion, but the lovemaking of two bodies paged together, becoming as one. He yearned to know her, to enter her temple, to plunge, and plumb depths of her, to partake in her mystery, to share in her orgasmic shattering, and bury in her shuddering, organic love.

More than the emerald pools that shimmered in the eyes of that long-ago Constance, more than the mixed jades and the cornflower blue of Absinthe, it was Jinn's twin golds that combined for his treasure. Mined from the dross of daily life, they were twenty-four karats of purified wisdom, nuggets of experience, tablets of herstory etched in gold.

While she seemed to grow stronger, she never lost her aura of sadness, or the dark blue circles that framed her eyes. How much did she know? Was she in possession of a knowledge, of a vision, of some pending devastation she was unable to share?

Checking messages before leaving his aerie, he saw one from Jade saying the Director was back. This was welcome, because he always had news, often weeks in advance of any other source. A midmorning meeting was scheduled, but could he come in early? Right. With events in such precarious flux, when was he ever anything but early? But that was Jade being Jade, predictably officious, annoyingly correct. Of late, it was the returning remoteness of Ginger Leigh that worried him more.

Eden-of-the-Garden had been silent since her parting words those ages ago. He still sniffed the air for her signature scent, but he did so as a reflex now, always without hope, never a reward. If ever a time existed for a people who needed reassurance, hope, help, or direction, that time was now – but nothing came.

The doors of Crystal Castle were kept open during what would normally have been regular business hours. Perpetual night and moonlight might rule the sky in Hecate, but routines worked better if everyone lived by, and abided the same clock.

Gabe manned a station at the main door, interviewing returnees, directing them to the proper stations waiting inside. Each of the Castle principals had an aide to stand in for them during a necessary absence, but Gabe wanted the measure of everyone himself. The entrance would be posted with Closed during the meeting, with instructions to wait, or to return with necessary papers at a specified time.

The sign was up, and he was snapping the barrier in place when a shiver from the past raced up his spine. A finger with a knowledge decades old had traced a pattern on his back that was her signal for, I'm ready for my story now. Only Maya, his illusion, his love, his departed wife, his life, his mate, knew that sign; but it was impossible for her to be in Archipelago. No science existed for Maya's presence in Hecate.

Renewal

Maya: ~Speaking~

The Director: “Speaking”

The laws of permeability didn't allow for it. According to known science, it was physically impossible for Maya to be in Archipelago. It was twice impossible that she should find him... but the fact of it stood before him. Here she was. She was here.

Her lines had softened with the years, but the sylph of their youth stood before him again. Melancholy creased the famous eyes that once danced to her musical laughter. Spun threads of silver laced her midnight hair, but the dusk-rosy cheeks and the plum-red lips were as soft as the petals that once graced her youth in the way-back-when.

It was Maya, his Maya, his princess of the Kashmir, mirror of his kismet, counter to his karma, yoni to his lingam. It was Maya, his abandoned past, his prodigal half, his broken self who stood before him again. He smiled to find her more beautiful with the years than ever she was as a maid. She was famed for her beauty then, but to him it was all adornment for the far richer worlds now alive in her eyes.

Why was he thinking beautiful when he was being confronted by impossible? The surrounding world gave a little tilt so that he reached to steady himself on the barrier. He looked away, then again at the apparition. She remained. He blinked and she remained ... rub-rub blink*blink* ...It didn't matter what he saw, he reminded himself, because it was impossible... then he saw the Director in the background, grinning.

The impossible suddenly became improbable, and Gabe tested the mechanics of breathing again. He croaked a couple sounds, tried for words, swallowed once, twice, a couple more times, tried licking his lips, tried for enough moisture to speak, a deep breath, a new struggle for belief, a deep deep breath again... until, at last... thru desert-dry lips...

-Maya?

It was a plea for a return to sanity.

~I did not think you would want to see me. Your Director is a persuasive man.~

Her posture and eyes were those of a frightened doe before she leaps to the forest. There was love in the look (he could see it), but there was fear, also. Perhaps it wasn't fear, but merely the expectation of another loss, another devastating blow. He'd been there already, knew it himself, had survived it. He had been both at the edge, and on the broken rocks below where she was standing now.

She had been his home, his heart, his mooring and medicine, his emotional spiritual center. As counterweight to the losses inevitable on a mission, she had fostered persistence, made it more stubborn than it was. She fed his courage, his endurance; healed those wounds and undoings sustained on a quest. His place of rest and source of respite, she had been his vacation, his holiday and escape from the questor's need to see.

To be somewhere out there, provoking answers, unveiling Life, Gabe was meant for crossing borders, creating perception out of plight. Trained for flexing instinct and testing reflexes to survive, he was given to plumbing enigmas, the use of a simple shovel, and probing tenderness with a knife.

Dread of a staid existence demanding full compliance, from his catalog of choices, bought his life's alliance. Against the strictures that would stifle, all the rulings meant to muffle, bore the mark of his allegiance, gave his hope for hope some possibility, perhaps a chance to dance. A fear of lost horizons formed his fondness for the alien, for the nameless, the forgotten, the abandoned, and those hidden out of sight. His march against the Sameness was his walk away from the Same.

He craved the verge for its adventure, raveling the hems of laced convention, expanding his range of understanding, for bringing his shadows under light. Recovering discovery from sterility, and sight from being blind, he needed the fringes of periphery, free of opinion, free of pride.

Out of the middle and muddle of nonsense, the explosion of options and narrowing choice, he had entered the fires of learning, his furnace for earning the indelible burn scars, etched diplomas from the universe-ity commonly labeled, Life.

Life has a history with a future oncoming; while the present is a searching, and a yearning for learning. In want of a schooling (another way of dining), the hunger for knowing is a starving, in fact. Trials and tests beget a real education, offering (often without tutoring) degrees of experience, while never mastering life. Because, Life is a dive into mystery, with divine Curiosity a defined way to arrive.

It's a process, a journey, and a quest. Far beyond the worlds of words and verse, their vivid verbiage and vibrant foliage, a relinquishing of moral judgment for the clarity and transparency acquired. For the mastering of justice, and of meaning at the bar, a neutral foundation was essential, ethically sound, and desired.

From a Garden soil of innocence, curiosity-seeded, and fertilized with guilt, planted Lessons from mistakes and experience were grown. For a harvest of immortal wisdom, needful temptations were sown; immoral humanity was conceived, evolved to be naked, and virginal, when born. With pain his paid tuition, random gains from the spoilage meant encountering new knowledge. In the Garden where the obscure, the abstract, and the ambiguous emerge, come to be discovered, examined, and known.

Less of need and noble deed was a willingness to forage, to proceed without courage, driven by curiosity alone, until... Until, long after limits, beyond the reach of four letters, in the range of five spaces, in the two words of most-promise (read: absence of meaning), to be found in the words, and the verb of: to be

From his willingness to cross wilderness, he owned privilege at the edge, his access to the Unknown. The secret, the foreign, the obscure, and the weird, the cryptic, the strange and uncharted, became his claim to domain in the world of Frontier. But, his one, overwhelming advantage, had been having her for haven; having Maya for anchor, his other half as wife.

The long, lonely days disguised as research, the dire patches and sketchy places while barely skirting death, the uncertainty, forever doubting, while all the while asking, why bother at all: all these he had subsumed and submerged in Maya, his illusion. But she had cut loose her mooring, setting both of them faithlessly adrift.

Entertainments became as tinsel. Song and laughter, thick and viscous as clotted phlegm, caught in his throat, choked and throttled him. The loss of her had torn out roots that might have regrown later, to become subject for grafting onto another love. His last thoughts of love had shrunk to hard, shriveled nodes, turned morbid, and died. Belief was its first casualty. The world's lexical glories, its encyclopaedias of music, all became as a babbling, cacophonous din.

The void left by her had canceled out his compass, had untethered him, drained and unmanned him, had emptied his life. In lieu of new meaning, a void and a vacancy, and a nothingness instead. Thereafter, two worlds, all their maps, all the roads and their million veins, only these would he hereafter think of as home. Now was too late for the answers he had needed then, but this...? The Director's research had breached an unbreakable law, had bridged to the unreachable, made it available, somehow.

-Why, Maya... what happened? ~Please let me say this... let me finish. I've said it to you a thousand times over, in my mind, and more. I want to say it now... to you, please.~ ~I was too happy, Gabe. I was happy being pampered in my rich house waiting for you. When you returned, I was high with a joy so supreme that only the gods should know it. But I was happy in a time and place of need, and I would see this on my way to market. I would only see this when you were gone. I was too happy to care when you were home. I had to give it up, Gabe. I had to give you up.~ Silence. ~I had to, because I wanted to learn the world, the real world. I wanted to learn the world the way you did. You were so alive when you returned... tired, but so alive. I saw that life gives back too little for your happiness. I wanted more than stories. I wanted to see for myself. You were strong enough for both of us, but I wanted to be strong as myself. I wanted my own understandings.~ Silence. ~There are things you understand, perceptions that come to you only in silence, when alone. I was growing numb with happiness, and I would see this when you were gone. I would learn nothing new being safe at home, safe in your love. You buried my questions in joy.~ Silence. ~I've explained it to myself, over and over. I've repeated this so many times that my world grows tired with it. When the Director explained his idea to me, I wanted to come and did not want to come... but now that I am here, please don't send me away.~ Silence. “She's completely vetted, Gabe. Guaranteed free of cooties, and other emotional ties. We've talked long hours, your wife and I.” ...but, but... how? She can't... this isn't possible! “Of course it is. Use your eyes, man! The Mercs may be satisfied to refine old technologies, but I'm not. Maya is the first person to cross from Terra to Archipelago. I wanted to be very sure who I brought in, because the science that brought her here could slam the door shut between here and Terra.” -What do you want from me?

"Let her stay."

-Are you saying that you'd cancel your experiment on my say-so?

~Experiment?! You think I'm an experiment? I put my life under the microscope, not the Director, not you or anyone! And I can look thru whichever end of the telescope I want... because it is mine! I don't care what experiment you think you see, or what he sees! I am here for my reasons. I was wrong to hope you would see it otherwise. Director? Your experiment was a success. Mine was a failure. Take me back, please.~

Silence.

~Fine. I'll find my way without you. If you'll excuse me, good day to you both.~

“Maya! Maya? Gabe, do something! She's leaving! Say something!”

-Maya!-

~What?~

-Turn around if you're going to talk to me... please. ~Okay, what?~ -The shock, Maya. It's not possible, but here you are. I... I'm not sure what you expected, but for me, the surprise... the surprise is total. Unexpected doesn't begin to... to... Forgive me if I... I don't know what to say! Shocked, Maya... stunned, completely stunned. I... I haven't thought of you in ages. ~Haven't lost your touch for brutal honesty, have you?~ -I'm sorry. I meant... ~It's okay. I used to wish you weren't, always. Now I'm glad. Saves me time. Do you want me here?~ -Yes, oh yes, please yes... for many reasons, for so many reasons, but mostly... mostly I want... I want to meet you again. It will be like knowing you for the first time. We met, were students. I cared about beauty, and brains, and the way you made me laugh. I loved the beautiful skin that holds that beautiful mind of yours inside, and – no, let me finish. Yes, I was gone a lot, but then you were gone... gone for good. I suspected nothing of this in you, then... means I know nothing of you, now. Yes, of course I want to meet the person who is half my self, and carries my name as wife.

Politics. Domestic

There was dismay among the sisters when Maya was introduced, then relief. Gabe had found himself the father of two bravely independent, wildly curious children, by two strong women of enormous power and will. Each mother came charged with a different talent, and her own strain of intelligence; and each had a woman's need steeped in her own organic, natural, normal flow of carnal juices. The proximity of outside peril, and family politics, meant that romance was out of the question; but daily encounters, and the pressures of abstinence, were beginning to tell. Any of the sisters would have been a full-time job, but everyone's priority was time, Hecate, and preparing for war.

He had arrived at the Castle prepared to help in whatever way was needed of him. From greeter, to sign painter, to dishwasher, to Castle spokesman: he morphed and remolded himself to match the moment's need. Border Patrol went to Jade, but Castle Guard was his; so was keeping an eye on Boy and Girl.

They were everywhere looking into everything, and this was encouraged. Curiosity has its dangers, tho, and everyone took turns being aware. It was the variety of his chores that kept the restless questor from the creeping encroachments of boredom; yet as much as he gave, there was one who gave back more than she took.

Her journeys and knowledge of the world, her veiled interventions and mastery of events, her connection to the Garden with its link to the Ancients: of these she shared generously, and gave as much as her energy allowed. Ginger Leigh's sole want as a partner was that the range of her travels, and her telescope on time, had stamped her with a self-sufficiency, an emotional distance, that needed little from Gabe. Even in decline, she avoided assistance, keeping signs of love, and his attentions, at bay.

Customarily, the three sisters (each a different spice, and redolent alone) worked collegially in flavoring the family stew. The nature of spice, however, whatever its distinction, wants a place of primacy on the plate; it wants dominance on the palate in matters of taste. Imagine: three sisters, three vividly overt, contrasting flavors of Sisterhood brimming with complexity, vying for impact over nuanced effect. Imagine this mashup of extracts if they were to battle for prominence, if they clashed for primacy instead of melding their talents, melting flavors that pleasingly merged into a complexion of one.

Imagine the excess of a taste set on overload, and not a temptation, a tease on the tongue. They understood that friction in the kitchen adds heat to hot tempers; and that competition's ignition can bring turmoil to a boil. Nothing good can come of a conflict in a room of bad moods brandishing knives. Wary of family episodes flooding the shelf with shakers of self, they grew wise in the ways of restraint, of overruling temptation, of overpowering the urge to scratch that bitch of an itch.

Imagine the spill of scalding tempers out of the same mother oven called Sisterhood. Factor in the heat and tears, the humid angst of teenage years; let it stand, let it season, then ripen; let it mature into heart and intelligence until becoming the Garden's fruit in the nature of wisdom. This, then, became the Castle's recipe for saving Hecate: by force of need, bend the future to its will.

They had traveled the distance between sweet and sour, learned the language of umami, and to savoring their differences. With each unique flavor to serve as personal distinction (their D.N.A benevolence paternally fresh), they had grown tastefully apart, as if informally farmed in a field by elves. They have lived through multiple kitchen wars of salty assaults, of too much tang on the tongue, of grotesque, stovetop disasters of unbridled spice. They knew the failures of leftover waste, of spoiled meat on the plate, of battlefield carnage, and tabletop casualties... until, one after another, their lessons were learned.

Castle routines, and the patterned tableau of their daily lives, were not much different from the living of life in any man's home. Home was indeed their haven and life's centerpiece, but there was also their work, and professional lives. The wear and tear of their ever-togetherness began to wear thin, then started to fray. The torque and strain on the beams and joints of their daily lives were loosening, threatening to detach from binding at critical juncture points. Lip-corner twitches and sub-vocal snarling were sometimes in evidence, if one paid attention to signs of distress.

Whether planned by the Director, or arriving simply as God's own Angel of Serendipity, Maya became the source, the common denominator, and first waking thought of everyone's day. Her personhood became their center, their common ground and meeting place when they gathered to talk. She was that starkest of anomalies, and most unexpected of facts: the sudden acquisition of an honest-to-Pete, not natively grown, foreign-planet born alien, adult-person, as... family? Dropped unexpectedly into their circle: an unadopted, unregistered, out-of-the-blue, out-of-this-world entity of uncertain history, a problematic, but certifiably true, brand-spankin' new family member?

Getting to know her, bringing her up to speed, and blending her into the family was everyone's pleasure of the day. Boy and Girl understood her immediately, and took her happily into their games as a band of crusading gypsy urchins.

King Constance was hours, then days in private conversations with her. All of Terra had been Maya's home, and the king remained unsure. This vast border world promised both danger and opportunity, but which potential was greater for Archipelago, for her own entrusted Hecate? Was Terra essentially an ally, or existential threat?

The Director sat in on some of these conversations, as did others on occasion, but the flow between the king and Maya seemed to transmit as if by a pooled osmosis. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the one most transformed by Maya's arrival was the ailing Ginger Leigh. Imagine dying embers being fanned alive by a freshening breeze. Out of the tired, old womb of lifelong labors and disappointment a new hope was born – and she hadn't seen it coming.

As Gabe had before her, Maya found Ginger Leigh's availability to experience made her the easiest company of the sisters. Altho Jade, as Absinthe, may have traveled more extensively, her travels had been professionally brief, with tightly scheduled goals, in and out – an assigned death to arrange within precise moments of time.

Maya and Ginger Leigh had traveled different roads out of a wandering spirit instead, with open, curious minds, dedicated solely to finding. Others might travel for commerce, or out of a need to escape to, but they longed for the other. The sounds of foreign music on alien instruments, the unknown gesture, the exotic taste of an aromatic new spice; fleeting sparks of transcendental connection; rare, sensational moments of skin, with feelings of intimacy recovered, of ecstasies uncovered. From the times and sights that surprised, to those that amazed, these were the treasures bypassed by the others; pleasures they had discovered, and held separately in common.

Tho neither had tried the dodgy slopes and long climb to love, both had scaled mountaintops simply for the view. If both tacked to ill-winds as seasoned sailors of the deep, it was because both had surfed bottom troughs on reed-flimsy rafts, on crafts that most found unsuitable for life on its double-crossing, thrice-tossing seas. Both had kissed the face of Death, and lived to kiss it again.

They bonded as twins might, and the Castle purred with a new-found contentment, and was grateful in its joy. Warmed by some new inner fire, their beloved Jinn had reengaged, and was returning to life.

Maya soon took to calling her Jinn as Boy and Girl had done, and as the others sometimes did. A contra-symbiosis and counter-mirror's recognition existed between Maya's lush illusion and the jinn's desert specter. A porous blending of polar natures meshed like fresh young spirits brought alight with new life. They bathed in oceans of synergetic love. Like Jinn, Maya had that rare, easy way of conforming to the moment's need. She, too, possessed the open door, and hungry ears, on which good company feeds.

She morphed effortlessly to complete any circle. Able to bridge any break, and arc the widest gap, hers were the arms with reach enough to complete any circuit. Whether she tapped into Maya's illusion, or was jolted alive by the spark of some new vision, Ginger Leigh found in Maya the one thing she had given up looking for, something with a future to it – a reason to hope. Both opposite, and half the distance to each other, they coined together as two sides of the same soul.

Jinn had taken to bringing unusual delicacies for Maya to try. She said they would ease the Terran's transition to an Archipelagan diet. Some of the exotics that appeared on Maya's plate were on no one else's plate, so that only Gabe and Maya were surprised to announce that she was pregnant.

Maya's first request when they were alone had been for one of his stories. She had adored their life and times together too much, perhaps, but the loss of his stories, and their lovemaking, had been the two lingering regrets she had been unable to shed. He had tried his stage-as-audience technique on other skincapes, but was met with little more than a modest, to moderate, success. No other skin had been as electric and alive to his touch. It was as if the master musician had found the one true instrument tuned to his feel, aligned with his truth, attuned to his touch, that begged to be played by him, over and again.

As the months passed, and Maya increased in size, evidence of increased activity from the Mercs had the Director off in search of fresh intelligence. Ostensibly to firm up alliances in his travels, his intent was to track down rumors of a surprise, not out of Org, or from the League's research centers, but from a low-level accident out of a Merc lab.

King Constance showed an aptitude for tactical and strategic thinking that was more of a surprise to her sisters than it was to Gabe. A small, highly trained Castle Guard, and a Border Patrol, had been reorganized based on ancient protocols. Normally without danger of invasion, the native darkness of Hecate provided a rite of passage for its youth that became Hecate's answer to the potential of a Merc attack. Their elite training married Terra-side ninja skills with the Native American's code of counting coup.

Her Recovery From Extinction program had cleared the surface of Hecate's crystals, collected, numbered, mapped, wrapped, and stored them in unmarked caves. Her three-year, triple-tiered Return To Hecate repatriation program had startled everyone with its success. She was soon recognized as a quick study by others in the Northwest League of Islands and for being shrewdly coy in her dealings with the Fifty.

Unpredictably sweet and tart, quotably blunt, demure and undiplomatic by turn, King Constance was bested by no one in the staging of public opinion. Neither side enjoyed their need for conversation, but both sides kept the door open, and the dialog with Curio continued. And, to Curio's profound dismay, she was in the way of besting them at their own game. With the excess words and fat boiled off, their two-sided argument came to this:

–Archipelago needed a win in its game of commerce with Terra :: Hecate was guardian of the crystals needed for their world's future rescue from night.

–As Archipelago's governing body, Curio claimed eminent domain :: King Constance answered to the Ancients.

Both sides considered their terms sacrosanct, carved in stone, non-negotiable

Hecate was that most remote of places on Archipelago, and Hecaten stories of their Crystal (and some future Darkening) were considered local fables, of little interest to any but themselves. Hecate's legend of the Ancients would have been perfect for any degree-seeking candidate desperate for a thesis, but there had been none until now. Terra's interest in Hecaten crystals had given Archipelago a high-demand, very marketable bargaining chip.

Hecate's upper mesas were too small and irregular in shape for a landing strip. The journey by boat being a long slog, and ending over an unfriendly ocean, getting there by hovercraft became the travel mode of choice. The limited in capacity, they flew often now, and they were flying full, no empty seats. Without an outside enemy to defend against, and there being no military, Curio had no real way of enforcing their claim of sovereignty over Hecate. Vigorous legislative effort was ongoing to change this.

Out of professional courtesy, Curio had approached the League first about its lack of enforcement powers. When turned down on points of charter restrictions, and mismatched needs (form fighting units out of individual assassins?), the Fifty turned without pause to the Mercs. Org was busy lining Archipelagan pockets, and pulling strings Terra-side, all the while funding the front edge of research.

一

In due time, Maya gave the Castle the gift of another daughter. Tho not of royal Hecaten lineage, she was a princess by blood, and there was a week-long fete that brought official Hecate to a jubilant halt. With aides and assistants, their families, friends, and returned Hecatens in attendance, the Castle rang with songs of hope, shouted laughter, thudding beer mugs, and breaking glass. They danced, and the world was full of happiness for Maya and Gabe.

Claims about the child were extravagant. With eyes that outshone the fabled lambency of her mother, she was born (they said) with a beauty to rival the gods. Boy and Girl were alternately thrilled, and bashfully in thrall of her. Unlike her cousins, who would choose their names on reaching majority, she would be christened on her first birthday. She was nursing when they dragged her from her dead mother's arms.

Spoils of War

The Delegate: /Speaking

Ginger Leigh: ~Speaking~

In war, in commerce, as in any competition, there's no benefit to a sudden advantage if the wait to spring it outlives the surprise. It wasn't cunning, or cutting-edge research, but an accident that gave the Mercs their advantage. The freak encounter of splattered chameleon paint by a laser during a voltage spike had delivered a bead of the paint instantly and undamaged to the beam's terminus. The voltage surge that gave the Mercs their advantage would never have happened in the Class A environment of an Org lab. Calls were made, lights went on in empty workrooms, and stayed on all night, and for long weeks thereafter.

Giddy, professionally curious, underpaid, criminally unassailable scientists discovered that anything encased in their chameleon paint arrived instantly, and intact, at its destination. Altho results might be unpredictable on Terra, it would be enough that it worked, just once, on Archipelago.

On the day the first white rat arrived unscathed at the ray's terminus, plans were firmed up and finalized for attack. The instructive lessons of violence die hard when old methods that used to work might succeed in new ways... maybe.

As the beam grew broader to meet the needs of the mission, so, too, the energy needs and cost rose. The search for efficiency became priority one. A long, thin rod of heavy metal proved many times more efficient than a larger area of weightless foam board when delivered by laser. Designs for a tube-encased, laser-delivered, specially-coated hovercraft made the trip necessary but one way.

When all was ready, two squads would be delivered feet first, followed by their equipment packed in tubes. A third squad was available for backup.

Each of the sisters had a small apartment off the common foyer. Each used the door behind her robe to enter the short passage to her quarters. Evening supper was a communal affair with each of the three small kitchens bringing something different to the table. Meals were lively with excitable children, and issues of state being resolved.

After the table was cleared and tidied, Girl swept the floor clean of the day's dirt and orts. She didn't so much sweep with flourish, as dance with the broom. She was Hecate's Avenging Angel *ta-dah!* saving Archipelago from the moldy old Mercs and their boomba-bimba bombs – her very own song. Tonight was Boy's turn to help Gabe with the dishes.

Family time after supper was often in the Great Room below. Sometimes Gabe and Maya stayed for a third glass of wine. There was room around the Chair's platform for the games and skits that Boy and Girl liked to make up and play. Only a preview of the night's coming bedtime story worked to coax them upstairs for their cleaning up, and their lights out, after tucking in.

Gabe and Maya had stayed to chat, a casual evening, usual in every way. The difference began with a muffled explosion and the great front gate folding in. Maya died first. There was to have been no collateral damage from the explosion. No chance of harm to the king and her heir was the imperative. Every death was to be intended and specific, yet a long sliver escaped to pierce Maya's side-turned head. She never knew.

Death was a tool, but abduction was the goal. Out of the noise of the explosion, the frightened screams, and yelling, a voice boomed out:

/No One Harms the King, or Boy!

It was soon apparent that, altho invisible, the raiders were there to capture King Constance with Boy, her son and heir. Great care was being taken by the invaders not to hurt her. Witnesses were vastly inconvenient, however, and required a different approach. Gabe's legendary fight at River Bend, and Jade's reputation as Absinthe the Assassin, made them the immediate targets.

Things began badly for everyone, and soon got worse. However prepared the chameleon-coated attackers thought they were, the fire they brought to bear was meant to take out highly trained warriors, not the honed skills and instincts sharpened by the old man's kung fu transfer, or the Director's curse on both. Their shots found vacancies where their targets should have been.

The stone walls made ricocheting bullets a danger to everyone, and with the first victim being one of their own, guns were put away and invisible swords were drawn – two six-man teams from the sound of it. One of theirs was down (with a soft thud and spray of blood), and Maya was dead. She was slumped forward over Daughter, protecting her even in death. Eleven assassins against seven in the Castle, two of them children, plus a baby.

When Gabe had walked into the Promoter's jungle office, he had entered knowing that death would follow. He had expected nothing less from Org... but this... this here, now... this was a surprise! Seconds before, he had been sprawled in the post-prandial glow that comes with a full stomach and a third glass of wine. Surrounded by family, and cosseted in the numbing flush of love, he was at peace as he would never be again.

Forgetting how tenuous his hold on it, Gabe had been somewhere in that state of happiness between joy and settled contentment. They were preparing for war, and privation was likely to follow, but for now, tonight he was happy. That was less than ten seconds ago. Now his Maya was dead; he could see that. And the king was fending off, and struggling with invisible foes. Then, before he could help It –

-No!-he thundered.

The great roar had escaped him involuntarily. As before, moths of invisibility fluttered away, revealing a tableau of impending violence; but this time, nothing was right. It was wrong – all wrong.

With apparent foreknowledge, Ginger Leigh had been in motion before the explosion and was already covering Boy. She had known and kept silent. She had kept faith with the future, and kept its secret sacred. She would not contest the outcome. She must yield, and let the future have its way, but she gave the last gift she had for the loved ones in her care. She would lose them, and they must die, but not before one, last, carefree evening, sharing family time, as the best time that life has to offer. Terror would follow after, but not before love, and food, and laughter.

With her body as shield, she had covered Boy for the explosion, but now, as she lifted him, a thick, soaking fountain of red spread across her back. There was the smell of roses in the air. Jade kicked a small table into the assault, then a chair, slowing it long enough for her to reach Girl.

For one so long out of practice and away from the fight, King Constance was magnificent in her fury. One of the assailants was already dead at her feet; another was sitting against the platform, a gash across his neck, an arterial gush from his arm. All she had was her ceremonial knife, a royal perk, razor sharp but small.

One attacker held her tightly at the waist. Another wrapped around her legs while a third taped her ankles together. One arm was pinned, but the other was free. Even at this fixed moment in time, however epic the fight, it was the position of her knife that took his breath away. She had taken one too many lessons from him during their short time together.

Unlike the last intervention of his voice, the scene now before Gabe was one of unmitigated ruin. There was no silver lining; there was no chance of hope. However long he lived, this image would be his live-in, freeloading companion, his instantly on, intensely spun, everlasting, and always-pending torment. Thus began the remains of his leftover life, a Void even more barren than the nothingness before he had thought of as hell. There was nothing to do but fight it out, and try to survive... for Hecate.

-go,-he whispered...

...and immediately deflected the sweeping blade of one sword into the gut of a second attacker before disposing of the first. Collecting both swords in one broad swoop of his arms, he rushed for the gap in the gate. Anyone trying to come in would have to go thru him first, and the king's or Boy's abduction would have to be over his death-riddled body.

Now that the raiders were visible, the unflinching brutality of the picture overrode the stench of blood and offal with the promise of worse to come. This would be the Castle's last stand. It was a scene of seamless catastrophe with only one thing out of place.

Despite her wound (and now, a second mortal slash from the side), Ginger Leigh wrestled mightily with Boy, struggled in her own slippery blood to lift him up. The fragrance of roses grew quickly stronger... then blossomed into a vision, with Eden-of-the-Garden hovering midair. She held a sword in one hand as she reached for Boy with the other. She was crying.

Maya was dead and Ginger Leigh was dying. Try the she might, her last efforts to lift Boy were failing. Increasingly weak, with her life quickly draining away, and the floor made slick by her viscous, red, self flooding out... she fell. Betrayed by her own shed blood, she would not rise again, yet her mission was incomplete.

~Gabe!~ she screamed, but a third squad had arrived.

~Jade!~ she begged, and Jade abandoned Girl to lift Boy from the now-dead arms of their beloved Jinn, lifted him to Eden-of-the-Garden and traded for the sword. But when she turned to save her own, Girl was dead.

Everyone was gobsmacked when Eden-of-the-Garden had materialized out of nothing, midair – what the hell? But now that she and Boy had vanished, the business of kingdom versus commerce took precedence, and the king of Hecate held center stage.

As she had mere seconds ago, King Constance still held the knife to her throat. Orders concerning her safety had been absolute. Altho ransom might be a secondary goal, any new laws benefiting Org, the Mercs, and Curio would need her signature. She was of no use to any of them dead.

Her opposition to releasing more crystals had been clear and unequivocal. However, with the life of her son as a bargaining chip, and both held hostage in a controlled environment, the thinking was that she would eventually see the benefit of the crystals' value to all of Archipelago, and her own beloved Hecate... oh, and to swollen royal coffers, buy the way.

Everyone, including the newly arrived squad, pulled back. It was a standoff between progress-thru-commerce and the preposterous myths coming out of this Castle. Gabe saw it coming. Perhaps Jade did, too. The too-sly-by-half Delegate had been inching around behind her to catch her unaware, trying to save her... but she knew, could see his progress in their eyes. She looked at Gabe with a twisted wistful smile that asked, Remember?, and when his eyebrows jumped, she slit her throat.

/No! .... Dear God, No

There would be no new laws favoring Org and the Fifty now. Old constraints would stay the same. Outdated rules, financial strictures, and impediments to progress would all remain in place. With the kingdom shed of its sovereign (in the body of its king), now there was only a justice to enforce, and a vengeance to enact. With a roar and scorching rage that exploded, and echoed, against the walls, Gabe and Jade waded thru the remaining two squads like two killing machines fueled by rage, oiled with blood.

The king lay still in a pool of her own making. Maya, Girl, and Ginger Leigh, were silent now as only death could make them. As Crystal Castle lived and breethd, it, too, would miss their music. Darkest night had returned to Hecate, and it would be again as if the hope of morning never was. Seventeen dead Mercs littered the Castle's Great Room. Blood was ankle deep in the floor's hollow at the gate. The Delegate and one other raider were missing. So was Daughter.

There would be a debriefing on the raiders' return. The king dead, their mission a disastrous failure, he must somehow explain Hecate's heir escaping with some angel hovering in the air... better to say he was dead, too? Had they really been to Hecate? The story smelled; it was too preposterous. The Delegate would need to produce evidence of... of something.

People with a lot of power and reach would expect something for the oceans of expense just incurred. No, maybe better to have Boy escape thru a secret passage with someone... somehow. Having failed a mission of such global magnitude, he would need a bargaining chip. The Delegate had grabbed a baby; she could be traded for Boy, or for access to him. He had taken Daughter as evidence. He would be bartering for his life. ~She knew! Ginger Leigh knew!~

Pursuit

Jade/Absinthe: ~Speaking~ Gabe: -Speaking-

-Yes, she knew! Why didn't she tell us? We could have prepared! She should have trusted... could have warned us! Why?

~I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.~

-They're getting away! We have to go!

~No, we have to think. We have to think—stop and think! You said Border Patrol doesn't show them on radar, and they blew the other two hovercraft. So tell me, how are we going to follow?~

-We can't just stop! They've got Daughter! Every second counts, Jade!

~Jade is dead.~

-Dead?

~Call me Absinthe.~

-Absinthe? Jade, what the hell?

~Not now.~

-But...

~I said, not now!~

-Jade, Absinthe, what... whatever, we have to go! Now! If they get back with her, she's gone! They can make her disappear... and they will! Org knows how! They've got my Daughter!~

~And Girl is dead, my daughter, our daughter! A body! ...my god, why can't I look? Our daughter is dead! Everyone's dead. We... we have to do this right! We get all of them – all of them, Gabe. Lost minutes mean nothing now. We do this right, we get them. Later. We make them pay, then we kill them! We get them, we get them good... we do it right.~

Name: Gabriel Augustus Noble

(aka: Gabe, Badge, Theo Badger)

Posted: Questor, esoterica (Questors Guild)

Life Goal (under senior picture): A life worthy of my name Name: Absinthe (aka: Abbie, Jade)

Posted: Assassin, Master (League of Assassins)

Motto, Royal House of Hecate: A Light for the Darkness

Legendary for the professionalism of her kills, and the secrecy in which she worked. Master of disguise. Only documented way of determining her identity: subject's irises turn the liquid green of absinthe at the moment of a kill. Invisible while unclothed and during final stage of undress; provided basis for original research into chameleon effect. Middle sister of three: King Constance and Ginger Leigh (both deceased); mother of Girl (deceased).

Gabe and Abbie: The names of two people hitting the skids

-They're getting away!

~What are you doing?~

-Border Patrol... heat signals, tell them to look for heat signals instead.

~Gabe, you're not thinking! They're gone, Gabe! Our king is dead! We have to finish here, take care of our own and... and everything. We have to think. We have Hecate to think of now.~

-She knew! Maybe she left notes... a note, or something.

~Dammit!~

-What dammit? Why dammit?

~Perfect memory, she never kept notes. Didn't need them; they left paper trails, evidence. Maybe, tho ... maybe she did leave something. It would be like her.~

-Let's go! Let's look... now Abbie, now!!

~Abbie?! Don't you dare! Not after this.~

In the moment's need they had snapped instinctively into fighting mode, and her team name came to him as easily as a dropped egg falls.

-I don't get it. Everyone called you Jade; now it's Absinthe again?

~I want to be reminded. Every time you say it, I want to be reminded. You lost a wife and daughter, but I was a mother.~

-Jade, then.

no! No, Jade was a mother, and I'm ... I'm not, anymore. Call me Absinthe. I am the ghost of green Death again, and I will find them. Never let me forget that! Mark me now, I will see them destroyed, or god help me, I will return and die again until I do! No, not Jade. I am Assassin. Call me Absinthe.~

Silence.

~We've got work to do, our dead to clean.~

-No. No, this won't work. I understand revenge, this... this rage to make them pay, but I need someone I can talk to, someone not consumed. I need the other you. Abbie or Jade, your choice. -Call me Badge or anything else you want, but I need this from you. ~Badge? No, there's no going back. Putz comes to mind. Sounds right... suits you, but I can't be bothered.~ -I'm sorry? ~In one of their dictionaries... a girl gets bored, but Gabe is good. Gabe it is.~ -And you? ~Jade is dead.~ -Then we're a team again... Abbie? ~You could try not calling me at all, but yeah, I'll need an Terra-side name. Yes, together, but now we take care of what's in front of us, here, first. This, then we go see if she left something.~ -Not now? This needs cleaning, yes, but... ~But this first. Her plans were always long range, beyond today's horizon. Nothing we can do now but what's in front of us. This is my home. Hecate needs us here, now. We finish this, we look, find what we need to know, then we go. We find Daughter, and they pay. We kill them. We kill them, Gabe, all of them, promise me... but this first.~ Gabe knew battles and fight strategies. In the field, an unbroken string of wins was the only way to reach old age, but domestically, the tactics of survival were different. He knew when to yield, playing dead before the bear; he had heard it once, when silence and obedience were the proper answers. Now he must treat her as something other, and nameless, if he was to know her at all.

The late arrival of off-duty Guards (two were dead outside) helped with mopping up the blood and stray fragments of flesh, clearing remains, and spreading the news. They scrubbed the Castle's Great Room, while Gabe and Absinthe prepared their dead. More help arrived. But for the occasional gruff word and broken sobbing, all worked together in silence, and grieved alone.

They weren't enduring the agonies of lake fire and brimstone, but of love uprooted, the future gutted, hopes deflowered, lives truncated, and hearts destroyed. Every . single . solitary . moment . that . crawled . by was a crushing realization, the first-person witness of that final amputation, love's excruciation, the heart's devastation, hope's demolition, the future's immolation. It was death.

The slaughter at Crystal Castle had materialized out of thin air and was acted out locally, entirely on site. Due to political and private fortunes, and business pressures, the murders and punctured attempt at profiteering passed quickly from the front pages on Terran soil. It was easy to dismiss as yesterday's news. Turns out that crystal replication was showing real promise at Org headquarters and research center, and the raid hadn't been necessary, really, after all.

With other options remaining open, Curio was putting distance between itself, the failed attack, and the king's death. Hecate's former celebrity soon became a fading backstory. It was an inconvenient reminder to those recently calling for armed intervention, and Hecate soon disappeared from Archipelagan headlines, too. The unwelcome source was soon returned to its original obscurity; at best, to be ignored, as it was before.

History's surgery by sword leaves little behind but deep scars and infected memories. Winners write the history books; losers marry in, reorder priorities, rearrange their loyalties, modify identities. Slowly, they merge their own with the prevailing voice. Hecate's world hadn't ended, only its ruling house. Its essence, the reason for its distinction, lived on.

Death, thy name is Void; thou art Empty on the gauge. Ballads are the old songs, the debris and phantom pains of dreams ended, and broken love. The bottomless agonies, the searing pain of unbearable loss, these are beyond medication, beyond the remedy of music, or the narcotic of sleep... only death.

The bottomless fall that's not drifting, the gut-wrenching tumble into empty without end, even the eternal bouncing down cragged walls into the abyss would have been better than this nothingness. Beyond any spiritual, pharmaceutical, or any of distraction's help, the numb-blunt experience of the sharpest pain that anyone is given to know, how much empty and nothing can hurt... this is what stunned him.

It's then, in the moment of need, that the duties of life kick in, redeeming the day. Breath follows breath out of necessity. Step after step, feats of motion imitate action, things happen; things get done. There is no patch to cover death's loss, no antidote for grief, but that work itself will do the job better.

Already news of the carnage was broadcast, and Hecatens were arriving to mourn their king. To Jade fell the task of leading the mourning, of preparing a state funeral, and the burial of their four, plus two guards. The invaders were escorted to their afterworld on a three-day, all-consuming, gas-fired funeral pyre, their bones burned, ground into powder, burned again, and what remained thrown to the sea. Whatever waited their perfidy in the afterlife, there would be no dust of them, their bones, or names in the land of Hecate, forever.

The crisis of attack, and the loss of their king, had many Hecatens fearful, clamoring for someone to take charge, to lead them into some kind of future with hope. Some yelled for Jade, others for Gabe. Emotions spiked from ice-cold fear to boiling rage on the question of Hecate's legitimate rule. Jade was of royal blood, but Gabe had entered the Crystal with King Constance.

Gabe stood before the elders and refused on grounds that he was not a native. Jade pointed out that Boy was the true heir and was last seen alive. A brief discussion later, and Gabe was made co-regent with Jade, a compromise that both camps soon admitted worked better than either choice alone. It was noted by those paying attention to affairs of the royal house, that the two argued heatedly (debated vigorously, some said) about all and everything, but after a decision they spoke as one, with a single voice.

一

Org had no idea what to do with the baby the Delegate brought back. Arrangements were in place for the retention of a powerful, and dangerously inventive woman, and Boy (his real name?), her son and heir. There was nothing on record, no information found, nothing could be found in the plans, at all, for a baby girl. Perhaps a backdoor scheme might be found for collecting ransom.

She was a beautiful baby; she might be traded for favors, or sold lucratively as royalty into adoption – anything to help pay off the massive debts thus far incurred. The red numbers crowding their financial statements were large, even after tax breaks, and insurance payments, were granted and paid. Or, it may be that in the middle and the muddle of sorting things out, another answer might pop up. Perhaps a profitable detour around threatened insolvency might yet be found.

No provision had been made for their new charge, but Org had not become successfully conglomerate by overlooking a potential resource. A soon-to-retire couple in corporate's marketing department was asked if they would be willing to accept a substantial bonus on their retirement checks every month to be foster grandparents. Childless, and encouraged to think adoption, they were thrilled to be misled. Org's thinking was turnover, a quick sale, and close the file with better numbers somewhere on the books.

Known as rogues in the loose-cannon department of marketing, the couple had chosen a town of private gardens and public parks in which to retire. A garden village snuggled between the legs of two mountain ranges, it hummed with the harmonies of a small university-cum-theater town. A phoenix sprung from the ash lands; it was a creative nest long noted for its fledging of talents. The little town, nestled-in, and festive by nature, was known for its love, and nurture of art.

A mecca for teachers, mountebanks, and healers, for dealers in substance, and gullible choice, it was a town that welcomed color in people, for their weave in the rainbow, for their richness of depiction in the spectrum of life. It was a place become a Name, a place of spontaneous encounters, and unstaged events. It was a place importing raw talent; refined and refashioned, sold as experience, it exported as art. It recognized quality, but accepted authentic; Name gave it a home, place with a heart.

To its credit, and as a gesture to its corporate karma (read: P.R), Org wanted Gabe's daughter pink with happiness and health. They wanted her primed and available. Org wanted some of its money back. Once satisfied with the couple's arrangement, and that the baby would be ready for immediate pick-up, Org buried her in files, and went to Next on its list of hidden agendas.

Both still woke in the morning listening for the voices of their dead before the remembering set in. The bottom still fell out of their world at the beginning of each day, a newly minted grief for every time they woke, whenever they turned, walked, ate, or breethd. Remembering the call of happy voices, the children's ringing laughter, the soaring songs of the morning, the lullabies at night, the mewling of a newborn becoming the cooings of a baby, all the rousing anthems that celebrate life: all silent, all dead, all buried... to be heard no more, forever cancelled, forever gone; now they were to live forever alone.

Without love cementing instinct to life, the answer wasn't clear: which activity would work to confront the nothingness they faced? Would a justifiable rage against injustice feel better, or would mourning and remembering the wasted moments help? Should one scold, or does one file suit against a fickle future for the promises it failed to keep? Pick one, or pursue all courses in combination, no matter; Death speaks, answers its own questions, doesn't care for approval, doesn't listen in passing.

With hope gone, and the loss final, with love and the future beyond recovery, it is finally left to history to inter the dead. Leave the renewing to those who remain alive. It might be fatal and few-tul to try, but love and duty insisted. Crystal Castle's sole surviving heir had been abducted by Org; Gabe's only Daughter was waiting to be saved. It gave both a purpose, a summons of impeccable intent, unimpeachable at source. It gave both a reason to live.

Their problem as a team this time was that Gabe missed the new Jade, the loving mother Jade. Absinthe, in turn, missed the old Gabe of calculated action with his desire to explore. Each pined for the lost other of each other's memory, and each was left to fill in the vacancy from their own depleted stores. Of love and hope and promise, of these aspects, their loss was complete. This left only duty, and a desire to escape nightmares, to spit them out of bed at the start of each day.

The time came when local issues and Castle affairs were managed, procedures established, and staffed to succeed. What had simmered on the back burner of their psyches for the long weeks past, had been reduced from the rolling boil of passion, to one of crystalized intent.

Absinthe was right. There were no notes, maps, or instructions when Gabe looked. Ginger Leigh hadn't needed notes. Taught by the road, she had lived with spare necessity as her rule, limiting embellishments to the bowl, cup, and utensils, needed to get by in the day-to-day. The door to her rooms opened to reveal the austerity of a nun's barren cell. He asked to search first as a test of his skills, but found nothing.

When he had finished, Abbie went from the doorway to the wall abutting her cot and pressed a raised knot in the stone. There was a short grinding of stone on stone, and when she turned, she was waving a small envelope. It had their names on it. Inside were two tickets to a performance of Chekov's Three Sisters in a theater on Terra billing itself as the Olde Stage Faire. It was scheduled a week prior to their national holiday in the summer, five months hence. They would be crossing from Archipelagan to Terran soil to finish this, do or die. ~Gabe...? Gabe!~ -What? ~I've been thinking. I've got an idea.~ -I'm listening.

Strangers

Abbie: ~Speaking~ Gabe: -Speaking-

~You stay here, stabilize things, while I check this place out? I'll keep you posted, and you come if needed. You slide in a week or two before the show, disappear in the crowd.~

-They have Daughter. I'm coming.

~Not like this. Not with me, you're not.~

-I'm fine.

~I'll have better access as a single woman. Take a look... wha'd'ya think?

-Spectacular… you have to ask? But two minds are better than one. You'll need help. I'll stay out of your way. You won't see me.

~I won't have you sitting around in a big mope waiting for your engine to start. I'm serious. This isn't working.~

-What do you want from me?

~They're gone, Gabe. It's not our fault. It's not your fault, and we have work to do.~

-And...?

~I'm going, with or without you. If you insist on coming, be ready tomorrow morning. I'm leaving.

Orders were left with captains of the Castle Guard and Border Patrol. With the king dead and the crystals buried, Terra would have to succeed in exploring with the crystals they had.

Org was very loudly and sincerely outraged at the loss of King Constance and her heir. They denied any connection to the Mercs in the slaughter of Hecate's royal family. Despite Org's palpable desire for reprisal against Hecate's surviving trio, the loss of Hecate's king was as great to them as anyone involved. All ties to the Mercs were permanently severed, for now.

With the Mercs under indictment and reined in for the moment, it would have been reasonable to breathe easier, but Training Under Threat Conditions was to continue in Hecate. Information traveled easily both ways across the Membrane, and reports were due on a weekly and a per-need basis. Gabe was ready to go half an hour before Absinthe.

Shucked of hope, husked of intention Followed the road, a busker in motion Cheated by Jove, no destination, no choice Wanders a minstrel, his instrument, a voice Freed of conviction, always in doubt A torch on the inside before flaming out The third or fourth verse of a song popular at the time of Maya's disappearance, it spoke to him, spoke for him, spoke of him, had stuck with him. Now Gabe had lost Maya a second time, and the echoes from that first blow were hammering his brain into sheets of pain with the gentleness of ball-peen hammers, again.

Ginger Leigh had been renewed by Maya's arrival as with a new-found purpose. It was understood that she had conspired in Maya's pregnancy, and that she had the sight and communed with the future. Mother, and seer, both dead now, but Ginger Leigh's every action seemed predicated on a communion with the future so accurate that it qualified as a foreknowledge.

In possession of a prescience that allowed for small interventions, it was not unreasonable to hope that Daughter was yet alive, and available for saving. This alone served as their confidence, and the foundation of their thinking. It gave purpose to their planning. This glimmer of hope that shone thru Gabe's grief never left, entirely. Otherwise, he was running on empty, embers gone out, emotionally snuffed. The porch light was on, but nobody home.

Absinthe, on the contrary, was fired by an anger that grew to an ire that swelled into wrath that spread to a fury that fed into a furnace of towering rage. The theft of life and love, the emotional desolation, the wholesale loss of belief in reason, the starvation to death of every hope but revenge: all of it demanded payback, the laws be damned. God or no god, Judge or no judge, karmic integrity or not. this cried from the heart for an extreme and unrecoverable vengeance, and she would not wait for justice.

This rage wanted – no, demanded! – and would accept nothing less than the raw meat of annihilation as her justified retribution. Take everything that meant anything to her for another digit at the bottom of their ones column, would they? One by one she'd find them. First, the knee-capping, drop them helpless on the spot. Then some combination of fire applied to a disembowelment, or perhaps some other, slower method of dying schooled by modern science. No, the age-old tortures culled from ancient texts were still best, but anything that led to their begging, their pleading, for death would do.

Gabe watched the miles pass with uninhabited, unblinking, dead as lead, eyes. Absinthe gritted her way thru her nightmare landscapes like pitted gears grinding rock into sand. He sleepwalked, while she fought not to scream.

They tried finding comfort in each other's bed but woke too often to the other's crying. Good sleep was too hard to come by, so both returned to crying alone. Absinthe used her invisibility to hide from a receding Gabe; while he backed off, then away, giving her room to grieve.

He used every trick in the questor/assassin manuals to erase that snapshot image, that last live moment of love before the instant of death. No distraction, no rum, no drug, no spiritual blanket, no love, or lover's intercession could wipe that moment's horror. He blamed the Director for the infection as the source of his voice.

The voice that thundered no louder than any mortal could, the whispered go that turned time and history loose; he despised it. The voice that severed rope, that liberated butterflies turning invisibility off... no, Gabe wanted normal again. He wanted nights of contentment, with artless chat, and a bottle of wine. He pined for the time when words were simply tools for creating, for expression, for giving birth to image, as the market where varieties of ideas get traded and sold. He missed their days as purveyors, those times when words could be played with, mere conveyors of thought.

There was no questioning the powers of this voice. The question that mattered was its cascading effects, and the consequences that followed, intended or not. It tied directly to the physical world, changed it materially, and Gabe was notable for the mistakes he made in pursuit of his quests.

Yes, the voice was powerful, but it still needed him for entry into the world, and he would refuse it access. He would not be responsible for words he could not control. Yes, he still fantasized that long, slim blade, something angled at the tip, razor sharp, something clinical to sever the cords, but not yet.

Safe travel wants a modicum of attention paid to it, some awareness of surroundings that signals an interest in staying alive. Life thrives, and does best, with the active participation of its host in its health and preservation. Seemingly unwilling to cooperate actively in his continued survival, Gabe still had his deep training as questor and assassin to keep him alive; and instinct does not sleep. His instinct was still forward, but paced at the same rate as sleepless time.

Lost in thoughts and her plots for revenge, Absinthe was preoccupied and disinclined to coddle the burdensome drone that Gabe had become. Walled up alone in their separate worlds of grief, they arrived at the Membrane, each harboring a heartache, orphaned parents alone, isolated in hell. The effect was of crippled strangers confined to a solitude, suffering separate ailments, unwelcome entities taking up space in each other's world.

Absinthe had wanted to create and give back a life for those she had taken. Life had accepted her offer, then took it in sacrifice on the altar of karma, in a flood, an orgy in blood equal to those she had professionally spilled. Girl had been as living daylight in her land of darkness, a night-blooming star in the house of Hecate. Unlike the resolute seriousness of her older brother, her sparkling presence had been the Castle's endless source of delight. She was effervescence. A bubbling fountain of unending surprise, she was their honeyed ambrosia, their daily gift of matchless joy.

There was no walking if running, or dancing, could take her there; no single step if a skip or a hop would give it flair. There was no speaking if it could be sung in a song, no melody without harmony if Girl sang along. Gabe had been in a constant state of marvel that this gamine bundle of exuberance was half his own grimly stern, sourly disillusioned, and menacing self.

He should have known. He should have sensed something, should have done something. The brooding aura surrounding Gabe was of a poppy seed blooming into blackness. Around Abbie, there was only the stain of blood-red intent, pulsing dangerously, with the need for revenge.

Maya dead first, quickly and unaware. Ginger Leigh, twice wounded, dead before she last hit the ground. Girl? What must have been her terror cringing away from the screams, the bared teeth and spittle, and that last descending blade. Constance, dead by her own hand. Hecate was without a king again; an exodus would follow soon. Daughter was gone; Boy was, too.

What of Boy, tho? Thru'out the raiders' visit, the king's heir had been Ginger Leigh's only concern. She had set him as her sole mission, her one soul to save, her single goal. Had she handed him into a third place, a place independent of Archipelago and Terra? Into whose hands? To what purpose? Would he survive as a corporeal agent? Would Ginger Leigh endure as a spirit? Had she joined him as he entered the Garden? Was Boy her conduit to the Garden, or was it she for him? Would he be returned to Hecate, or Terra? Or, was he gone for good?

Strategic, tactical, and intellectually compelling, but already his questions were outdated burdens having nothing to do with the needs of now. As considerations, they were only good for collecting dust. What remained, and all that mattered, was finding Daughter, and revenge – their single, two-pronged task left to be done.

Arena

Altho good with a lute, Gabe's instrument on the road was a bamboo flute, baritone by choice. Replacement needs were rare. They were affordable, commonly available, and convincing as a club in time of need. The low, throatier tone, rich and round, had a velvet purr to it that suited his taste. And with his years on the road, Gabe was good. Whether staged theatre, or street theater, play was the thing in this town; so he played his heart out on a hollow reed, a hunting ghost haunting harlequin streets.

A request had gone out for the Director's help, but nothing came back. They were here searching for Daughter, having no clues. There wasn't even the encouragement of lies to tease or mislead them. With no limiting parameters and nothing to analyze, from the grand overview to the last, least, little detail, there was no trace, no hint of anything at all.

There was no point requesting help from the Castle when they were Hecate's frontline defense, and source of intelligence. They were themselves their only resource.

...and the slow months passed.

As the seasons changed, as winter's spring to summer followed in sequence, Gabe prowled the streets in search of... what? He didn't know. Abbie, in turn, paced with the fury of a caged lion when alone. Having lost Girl, she was in a punishing rage out of a fear of losing Daughter.

The urge for vengeance became as an ecstasy to her. Her one way of coping became the drug and addiction that powered her life. From one end of the room to the other she stalked: from assassin, to mourning mother, back to angel of death, then grieving, again.

She had been right. Unattached as Abbie, a superbly fit, resplendent, still spirited young filly, she was a natural fit, a hit on the streets where such things mattered. A more strawberry blonde than a white wheaten beauty, with dazzling eyes of cornflower blue, she had welcome access anywhere she wanted – and she did want to go. Bold curiosity with a radiant smile, her lovely self, and lively interest, were the magical keys to everyone's door.

Her performance was pure. In sequence after agonizing sequence, her routine was exceptional in its unfaltering portrayal. In a town noted for its theater, for the quality and craft of its acting, the conviction of her performance was matchless, her execution supreme. Her ferocity and rage, her frank desperation, disappeared as a cloud shark beneath a sky-blue sea. Between them, they had a view from the tower tops, down to the street and gutter level of things.

Daughter's first birthday came not long after her abduction, and she would remember nothing of her mother. As Daughter had been orphaned by Maya's death, so, too, was Abbie orphaned by Girl's loss. Each was the fitted piece that matched the empty space in each other's puzzle. It was a thought both held, and left unspoken: that neither would heal if left to heal alone.

As a man of questions and less of action, as a man who'd lost everything again and again, as a man burned free of all of life's passion, Gabe had grown scarred and indifferent to the offense of pain – but not this time. They had taken his everything for the little pittance it brought to their till. He would repay in a time of his choosing, in a currency of his choice.

It was a town of perhaps one score thousand, smaller than a city, bigger than a burg. A village noted for its parks and gardens, it flaunted its green space and taunted the cities, thumbled its nose at megalopoli many times its size. It pulsed with the traffic of commerce and talent, and throbbed with a heartbeat the length of a year.

Sidewalks teemed with spectacle, fun times clogged the plaza, and corners were centers of quirk and surprise. Vistas were plentiful, and wide-open alleys bloomed with natives and life. A polite town used to hearing please, and thank you, Gabe roamed the streets and nodded, pleasantly engaged. These were good times, but he had no reply to her questions, and nothing to report.

This was play-town, a playground where the streets themselves entertained with impromptu amusements. A town trained by the stage to appreciate character, to tolerate difference, and to let stories unfold, it was a Place become stage, a shop stocked with stories, music, and life.

They had arrived early, during the off-season, when the mind has occasion to settle, and to look at the puzzle, to ponder the mysteries and quickenings of life. It was that season of the year for sitting, lost-gazing, mesmerized fireside, staring untethered, riveted by flames while parsecs away.

Roaming the mind-stars was a time for the intangibles, for unsealing memory vaults, of sweeping away cobwebs, and revisiting old rooms. It meant falling thru trap doors unearthing the true ones, using the red ones for finding the blue ones, of addressing old grievances and letting them go. It was relearning the truth of live and let live. There may not be answers, but these questions do want their hearing in that place out of mind.

With the old one over, and the next season pending, Gabe and Abbie's rummage pile was pared down to locals working jobs, students studying, the theater practicing, while money and the seasonals left in search of the sun. Cocooning creatives wrapped themselves warm in the wool of their gatherings, wintertime projects, refreshing friendships, and fostering fun.

Street people, mendicants, and the homeless left for warmer climes, or got by on spare change, community, and an instinct to survive. Merchants went on vacation while their shops dozed, a short hibernation while the owners shopped for new wares for stocking their shelves, investing on inventory, spending to grow. The two had hoped to tweeze something out of the town's homegrown secrets before it filled with the distraction of crowds. This was their hope, but it wasn't to be.

They had believed this was the place, back in Hecate, but what of now? It was months of wasted time later, and they had nothing to show for it. Were these people who held Daughter even nearby? Who were they? And what of Daughter? She was of age now. She needed a name.

Locals and natives often used the alleyways, walking to and fro, getting around town. Having learned from his years on the road, Gabe watched the locals and followed their lead. It was a friendlier passage, cozier, less crowded. Neighbors waved to each other from their backyard parklands, tho rarely at Gabe. Acceptance didn't extend to a welcome, but he found being ignored easier than dodging the Neck Cranes clotting the sidewalks on hot summer days.

It was finally summertime, and the season of this country's birthday. Would it be someone visiting for the parade, someone who marched in it, or would the day draw someone down from one of the hillside estates? The date on their tickets listed today as the day, a reminder that there was hope yet – their only hope, because nothing of worth had materialized yet.

His only useful passport in this non-Archipelagan world was his personal experience of it. With wariness honed, and his wiles enhanced, with instincts and a skill set forged in back-alley kilns, Gabe was as cheerful as a knife sheathed, available on demand. A tested instrument of street-smart survival, and adventure on the road, he had learned the listening art of looking, and to take heed of the shadows, to scan for bad actors who deal from the dark.

He was alert to eyes, and hands, and the altered stance. Changes in accent and tones of inflection spoke to him as if another language were given to augment his work. He listened for the sudden hush... the breaks in conversation if he lingered nearby. He trolled the bars, and eavesdropped in shops, strolled thru parks scoping the shadows; he visited the bulletin boards until they were all old friends.

He scouted until there were only the perched hillside homes that had no room for alleyways. The liberal, and of a generous heart, local money was known to feel a queasy uneasiness protecting their hard-earned abundance from the hard-learned lessons gleaned from the street. With civic hearts embarrassed in the face of real want, they helped behind walls, from their landscapes of plenty, by using tax breaks charged to their business accounts.

Uncomfortable with ugliness and privation not listed as art, in the manner of manors, they happily paid for their protected privilege of distance. The bustling street was Gabe's province, leaving Abbie to monitor the moneyed and gifted crowd. Both surveyed for prospects, someone with something – with anything – they could add to the file.

Gabe conducted his basement-level search using methods of deep-field study, both micro-, and telescopically. He scanned like radar for the nebulous, listened to the absence, and felt for the essence of anything that spoke of her presence... but there was none. He found nothing but a blank slate, a black space, nothing but a stone wall to show for his work. He heard nothing, learned nothing, found nothing at all.

Weeks, then months, passed, until there was only Chekhov's play, and the great parade, left to offer them hope. They had looked independently and together for any sign of Daughter, searched to the point of exhaustion and mutual disgust. If there was no active animosity between them (yet), there was a profound apathy, a yawning chasm of indifference. A reciprocal angst insulated each from the gangrene of the other's rot and infection.

Perhaps a nearby farm, an outlying vineyard, a ranch, or an orchard's workshop held her and hid her. Maybe some of her essence would attach to someone attending the Three Sisters performance. They might find her spangled in red, white, and blue for their holiday parade, while bouncing to the rhythm of their national song? Would she be perched on someone's shoulders, cooing to band music in the festival park? Whatever Ginger Leigh meant by the gift of Chekov tickets at a time proximal to the parade and national celebration, their months of searching and waiting were over. Their playdate was up. It was showtime, folks. Their moment had come.

They were looking for signs, for anything propitious that might lead them to Daughter, so it was with some surprise that they saw the Director presenting his ticket as they approached with theirs. Their surprise turned to dismay to see him startled at their presence. The Director? What was he doing here? What did he know of Hecate's final hour? Why was he delighted, then frowning at them? First, with an arched eyebrow, then a quick glance around, how was it possible for the Director to be surprised?

Play and Parade

In stoic control is the preservation of life.

(From the League's first Handbook)

Director: “speaking”

Gabe: -speaking-

World-class assassins don't betray their surprise. Absinthe and the Director both failed their training. Perhaps the long years of working together, their familiarity and shared goals might account for the anomaly, but the gravity of the moment's happy error registered, and both walls slammed up, bland expression papered over with bored. A pause to consider the futility of hiding their surprise, and hints of expression were allowed back in. Both were suspicious. Then, pointing at his playbill as if enquiring, quietly...

“Even I didn't expect her to be this good.”

~Who? What are you talking about?~

“Jinn! Ginger Leigh... the cancellations, staged in sequence. Brilliant!”

~What? What are you talking about?~

“My last flight, lost in the system... reservation cancelled, they said. I was too late for the show here. But luck is a lady... a reservation just cancelled for this one.”

-Really? May I? Your ticket... may I see your... thank you. Yep, next to us. You're right, breathtaking, actually... beyond brilliant. You were herded here. Tactics at the level of prescience. Success in the nexus. Beautiful.

~Okay, so she didn't want us meeting until now, here, and not be aware of the other... but why?~

-Might have derailed someone trailing you. Hardly worth the effort, tho.

“Security, I would imagine. You can't divulge what you don't know… and she wanted two teams on it, just in case.”

-And the meeting looks random. No priors, no connection.

~But these things, these events, could only be managed by someone alive, and Jinn...~

-Or something she created, still active in the system.

“We'll see the play, talk later. I'll go; give me a couple minutes, and you follow.”

Gabe sat in miffed silence while Abbie and the Director introduced themselves, grew animated in discovering a new best friend. They exchanged cards. All the world a stage, indeed, then the play began.

Three Sisters, by Chekov, uses a sizable cast of competing interests in a swirl of events around the sisters of title. Olga, the dutiful older sister. Maria, the artistic, morally ambiguous middle sister. And Irina, the innocent youngest, whose ideals are soon dethroned by life. Someone of no great import dies late in the play, pointlessly.

There is only one person less on stage, but the fact of it changes the equation of everything, and what seemed assured... isn't. Last line of the play: If we only knew ... if we only knew...

If only we knew, indeed. After the outcome, after curtain fall, curtain call, and lights up, in that muzzled moment of profound absorption, the three sat mutely, fathomless questions incarnate, silently rapt, inert, unavailable, immersed in contemplation, enormously still.

Aware of their part in death's aftermath (guilty, and newly reminded of it), they sat soundlessly affected, profoundly afflicted, indicted and convicted, for their professional skills. Finally evicted under the Tree's knowledge of evil clause, mankind's first set of rules, they were foremost among the guilty, wicked by will.

And thus, they sat... silent. Each a singularity cloistered in privacy, each alone in their knowledge of guilt, they bled out their sins on the stage of catharsis, each dying onstage just as their victims had done... again, and again, on memory's floor. Unholy sinners under the purview of karma, three paladins of action sat bathed in new light. Violators of destiny ordained by a code, actors in full knowledge, and in lieu of the law, they had killed without conscience on behalf of Code and contracts, carrying out justice, and the machinations of Fate.

A trio of true actors, they sat quietly, almost serenely, waiting patiently, silently, as the herd of an audience mooed their contentment, stood up as one, sidled in unison to leave their experience behind. Three sat absorbed, tho, reviving debate, reliving the past, reviewing their dead, and the futures they cast. These endlessly fractalized branchings, the layers of consequence left in their wake: these were unknown to the herd of an audience as, individually and patiently, the three (of abandoned innocence) continued to wait.

To wait – but not as the spectators who were waiting to wait. Not theirs, the custom of shuffling down chutes into crowded, carpeted aisles, thru gaping doors, into the wide-open fields, and the maw of life. Not theirs, the habit of impatience on leaving their lesson as classroom entertainment; not for them, not now, the unseemly haste for pursuing future prospects, and leaving the treasure, the current moment, the gold of experience unattended behind.

Tolerant of the smudges on their own tainted slates, it was by such brush-byes of staging that the audience felt qualified to judge, and to pass guilty verdict on everyone's moral and spiritual fate. Ignoring the laws they had tacitly enacted (and agreed to) by their own judgment in words, this audience-cum-jury went smugly, and freely, out into the wise and forgiving, non-censorious night.

Reputations suffer cruelly from the foibles of failure and lack of success, but this crowd had been satisfied. The setting was spare, the acting superb, the themes eternal: moral justice had been questioned and ambiguously served. Plus, the bars were still open, serving their own brand of entertainment, with everyone playing both audience and stage.

Highly trained and vetted assassins were legally enshrined under Archipelagan law. Being licensed as the final escort, and vested instrument of Death, meant nothing more to them morally than Next on the list. They acted, in fact, as registered agents of the law, signed under contract, sanctioned by statutes of the assigning state.

Yet the emotional echoes, and the ongoing chaos within their circles of damage, the outcomes and sequels that followed their assignments, these were ever and always an ongoing quandary, an ever-widening halo of ripple effects. These repercussions would register naturally for those attuned to the arcs of karma and life, to those aware of consequences from action, to those owing to honesty, and of an inquiring mind.

Burdened with this knowledge, they sat bathed in, and confronted by, new recognition, as existential candor began edging out loyalty and reverence for their time-honored craft. Like posturing statues seated and breathing, or inked-in depictions (Powers of Death in Throes of Inertia), the three sat posed, pondering, immobile, as they probed the imponderable, wondering at the who of their why, and why they were there.

A cool night, and a short walk later, found them at an outdoor patio savoring drinks and dessert. Mindful of ears in the way of medieval intrigues, they found a table near a fountain to mask the level of urgency as they probed and spoke.

~Tomorrow is the parade.~ ~Well...?~ “You want instructions? You know what to do: fan out, each take a side of the street to patrol. There's a balcony overlooking the plaza where the parade ends; I'll be watching from there.” -We can meet up after, near... ~Black curls. Look for black curls.~ -Wavy, black wavy hair. ~Curly.~ -Wavy. “Enough, you two... anything else?” ~Black eyes...~ ~Black eyes. Very alert, beautiful eyes.~ “Black hair and eyes... and complexion?” -Darker, but..., I don't know how to describe it. ~Golden, a dusky gold.~ -Yes.- “A year old?” -…um, a little over. Naming time, I know. “Got it. And you both have a flag... what is it... the Jolly Roger? You got pirate flags? Great! Love it! Okay, you both have a flag to locate and signal with. Keep them visible, and an eye out for the other.”

Coffee in the morning?

“Better not. If we don't find anything at the parade, we can meet cute after, like you said. Plaza fountain, meet there. There's a food and craft fair after the parade, a couple outdoor music venues. There's a lot to monitor. We'll have to check it all. That's it. That's all I got. You've lived here for what, five, six months; anything else I should know?”

~Nope.~

Nothing here.

“We clear on everything then?”

~I got no questions.~

“One more thing. Here's a whistle for each of you... very loud. Use it only if you have to, an emergency, if you need help. And that's it. You go; I got the check. See you tomorrow.”

Conversation snippets garnered from street talk ranged widely: “band music in the park, later… coffee across the street… school team… bi-planes more fun than jets … see-thru when it's wet … smoking something … forecast said a scorcher … at the brew pub… she didn't… here, try this…”

Late morning, faded blue sky, and already the day was hot. Heat was rising from the paved streets to match the heat beating down from a nuclear sun. A scorcher was on the way, as promised, but clouds were building in the west.

The olio of costumes, outfits, and uniforms; the over-and underdressed; the loud talk and sly winks; excited kids, hovering parents, babies in strollers; foods tasty, or healthy; teens flooded with hormones, needy and fertile. Constant vigilance and awareness: this was the trio's dire duty in the midst of this jubilation and celebration of life.

Disappearing sandwiches walked by in their last seconds of life; cheap drinks with labeled percentages promised pre-hangover fun. Backpacks brushed by designer purses; battered guitar cases bounced off candy-consuming, noise-producing, parent-worshipping kids. Open-toed sandals skirted low-level dangers of swains in pursuit, hot and cold spills, drink-induced dizzy spells, cowboy boots, and anything ordained, or destined, to fall.

Cameras competed with young ones, who competed with loved ones, who competed for notice, that competed with music competing with food. Everyone vied for those moments of primacy in the eyes of their world; who, craving connection, vied for the time and attention of those they loved, who they called their own.

Gabe knew from experience that people who are usually agreeable and happy to share, often think property when it comes to love. Possession being nine points of love, it comes complete with a certificate granting exclusive access, sacrosanct pleasures alongside privileged rights. Consecrated, unimpeachable, a signed, unbreakable contract, it stood eternally inviolable – until inconvenient, when it no longer applied.

Theater town was a place whose blood flowed hot for spectacle, a town that loved to celebrate, make music, and parade. Many of the people knew many of the others lining the street. Locals encountering locals, the parade that day was their opportunity for news, and chances for salacious gossip were doubled, easily tripled, often squared. They nodded, waved, chatted, made room for each other. They ceded space from their comfort zones, gave of their excess until even the strangers, and grey beards, got into the spirit, fell in line, and grew at ease with the fun.

Excitement and anticipation rippled thru the swarm and press of people, not just for the parade, but for the full bounty of the day that still lay ahead. There were cooing babies, and crying babies; poster tots, monkey ugly and monkey cute; precocious toddlers and diapered, too... but no dancing curls with matching black eyes.

Snookered

Hippie chick: 'Speaking'

Gabe: -Speaking-

The Director: “Speaking”

The clock was a player in this game, and time was running out. Fruitless months of legwork, meticulous care sifting data, scenarios sketched out and tested, with all due diligence in every exhaustive effort, energy, and time – all come to nothing. A couple hours more, and their chance to find Daughter would melt away faster than discarded ice on the hot summer tarmac. And they had nothing to work with, nothing that looked, felt, tasted, or even smelled like hope.

A wide, sloping hill formed a natural amphitheater around the stage where the readers, dancers, and musicians performed. A gently curved road bisected the hill into upper and lower lawns. Families and couples, tourists and townies, punks and patriots, friends and lone wolves comingled, rubber-necked, and chatted happily as one.

Young couples laughed, leaned into each other, shared kisses and bites. Families flourished blankets, spread them for the rites of Picnic Basket soon to be observed. Viands would be devoured, worn on chins, washed down with beer, chilled summer wines, and all manner of drink reflecting personal taste. Outliers read; the lone wolves watched and drank alone. A broad staircase climbed grandly to a large sculpt fountain on one side of the upper lawn.

Someone in costume, the Master of Orotundity, read a declaration from the nation's early history. It was a document the audience not only loved, but seemed to know. They joined in, quoted along, booed and cheered in concert. At the finish, they hooted, brayed, and whistled like the proudly partisan patriots they were, celebrating the freedom they all believed was theirs. Then came the music.

Most in the crowd listened, some sang along, others danced. Friends chatted, traded stories, recent news, caught up on things, generally. The rest simply caved to the moment, surrendering happily to the festivity, and their day at play. They yielded wholeheartedly, and without hesitation, to temptations of the palate, dining gladly, mixing madly, drinking their best chilled wines out of cheap plastic, and waxed paper cups.

They spread and they sprawled; they read in the shade and dozed in the sun. At peace in a time of plenty, celebrants in a town that partied, they were buried in fun, surrounded by happiness, and multiple chances to play. It was something more than mere holiday. A summer day in the park, it was the living of life as a celebration and dream.

Time passed. Festivities gave way to languor; the mood turned horizontal under beatings from the sun. Time was passing and families were leaving. There would be evening barbecues, with fireworks that night. Overwrought kids would need their naps.

The Director was making a last mad round thru town, and the central plaza. Gabe was in one corner of the upper lawn, scanning the crowd below. Soon, only the music and party elements would be left. Much in the way of touring relatives, midday sun and baby skin were best kept to short, timely visits.

Abbie writhed, and was screaming inside, trying to drown out the panic as she searched the thinning crowd from her place near the stage. Fear wore hobnail boots and was kicking down her last door when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

'Miss? Miss, I think somebody up at the fountain is waving to you.'

Gabe? But Gabe wasn't at the fountain now, or wasn't supposed to be.

'Up at the fountain... there. See? At the top of the stairs, in front of the fountain. Here, you can use my glasses.'

Abbie had turned at the tap on her shoulder to face a local flower child (something perennial on the scene). She was pointing to a man waving in their direction... then he was holding a beautiful baby up high in the air. Without thinking or asking or saying thank you, Abbie grabbed the binoculars.

there she screamed, pointing. People turned to stare. there, Gabe!~

But he was being diligent at the other corner.

~Gabe!!~

God no, not now. Look at me, Gabe. Look at me! now!! My god, she's grown... so beautiful! Gabe – here!! The whistle! Absinthe, the professional ultra-cool assassin, scrambled for it, dropped it. There were tears in her eyes blinding her as she fumbled to find it in the grass. A sob caught in her throat as she blew the whistle – hard – exceedingly hard, so that an ear-splitting, law-defying, ugodly sCrEEch!!! entered the world. Those nearby, recently sensitive to her tears, now glared at her, and were seriously angry. But Gabe heard.

there she pointed. there Gabe was already running.

The man holding Daughter turned unhurriedly and climbed a short stairway to a road bordering the park above. The top of a car, parked curbside, and waiting for the man and Daughter, could be seen. They got in, and the car drove slowly away – just as Gabe arrived at the fountain, out of breath, out of luck. They're gone, she signaled. She could read the swear words on his lips from the stage. Nice glasses, she thought. Very nice for a street urchin, but when she turned to return them, the girl was gone.

A set-up. Org knew they were here, knew who they were, and was toying with them – but what was the message? The Director arrived as Gabe was flying down the steps. Abbie was unfolding a small piece of paper she found taped to the binoculars. She read it, passed it to the Director. Gabe was crossing the street onto the lower lawn as Abbie lifted the lid of a nearby garbage can. Gabe and the Director were both at her side as she removed an envelope taped inside the lid. She unfolded the paper inside; they read:

Mr. Noble,

We need something from you. If you wish to see your daughter again, be at the destination directed below in half an hour. It is a 20 minute stroll from the lower pond, you have 30.

Follow the woodchip path that begins at the playground. At the ranger station, you are perhaps two-thirds arrived. Continue past. Your destination is a rock garden. Look behind the base of the tallest rock stack. Your instructions are there. You are being watched.

-The stage here is a quarter up the path already. There's a bridge there, see it? We cross to the trail side and head up. Hills around here are laced with hiking trails. They could be watching from anywhere, but the walk is nice. I know the rock garden. We've got time. Abbie, what–? Abbie! Crystal Castle calling Jade… yes, thank you! What did you see? Who?-

~Daughter! I saw her! A man held her up. I saw her.~

“Who held her up? What was he wearing? Where did they go?”

~He was... I don't know. A man. Shirt and shorts... glasses maybe, I don't know. She... she had a pink, white, and sky-blue sundress; red, white, and blue flag, in sparkles, on the front... white sun cap, black curls. She was laughing, Gabe.~

-You sure it was her? ~Absolutely. She's beautiful! She was happy. She looked... she looked happy.~ “Of course they're taking care of her! They need her. I can imagine the answer waiting for us, but we need the details.” ~Why? Why not just tape their instructions to the lid?~ -Like the note says, they're watching, and they know there are three of us. I'd say, be careful what you say, on the way there. “They want a good look at us. And those binoculars, if I could, please? Their prints won't be on it, but hers might. We'll walk while you describe this girl who gave them to you. She may be our only link. We can assume...” ...we're being watched, now, yes. But it won't help to look for them. We haven't the time. They know about us. The girl gave you these glasses and then just... disappeared? ~Gone, yes.~ The purling lilt of the rill running thru the park's Japanese Garden was, here, the streaming song of high adventure in full cry. The woodchip trail following the creek came with a stately border of trees, and the umbrella comfort of their high shade invited a slow, breeze stroll, but the trio kept their focus. The cold stream cooled the torrid air above it, and the trees gave their blessing as each of the local nymphs (the naiads, sylphs, and dryads), gifted each of them with their three kinds of gold.

They found the rock garden just as described. A long, final S-curve in the path skirted an alcove of stacked rocks. Architectural graffiti, weathered-stone sentinels, heaped altars, artful cairns, lofty pillars, precariously balanced columns all towered alarmingly, defying their fate. A slap to the face of gravity, they were purest futility laced with beauty, bravado, and grace. All survived at the mercy of the weather, of course, but there were animals, and human vandals, and the most certain of all, the predations of time.

Fallen stones and scattered ones were available for new stacks, rocks for building blocks recruited like soldiers to reach for the sky. Each stack had faced the challenge of patience and labor and was a gift of love, an ephemeral love note never meant to endure. They fell and they rose again like tides of the sea.

If more durable than its cousin, the sand painting, still each stack was created as a statement: a living vertical as an altar, meant to die a horizontal, no longer ornamental, no longer purposeful, yet the future seeds of another try. Gabe liked coming here to consider creation, to meditate on its impulse in the face of destruction, and its follow-up question wondering why.

The note read as expected.

Mr Noble.

If you want to see your daughter again, we want one hour of time for a reasonable conversation with your son, the heir and presumed king to Hecate's throne. Your presence is welcome. No one will be harmed. We are a civilized people, Mr Noble. All will be released safely. You have one month to produce him before we invest our resources elsewhere and your daughter finds a comfortable life beyond your reach. We have your contact information. You are being watched.

"And this is why Ginger Leigh had us meet at the box office. They had pictures of me as Director, you too, Gabe. They've been watching to see if we'd show up."

~We have to find this guy.~

“No, we go after more than this guy. We go after them.”

-Them? You mean go after Org?

“The very heart of it, or Hecate will never be safe.” ~That girl. You're right. She's our only link.~ “Good, you find her then, because we need someone here going thru the motions of looking for Daughter. This needs unraveling; I'm going out to look for a loose thread to pull.” ~Me. I'll do it. I'll stay.~ -There's nowhere else to start looking but here, so I'll stay here with you until something turns up. “Have you chosen her name yet?”

Silence.

~Well?~

-No.-

~No more reminders, Gabe. It's time. She needs a name.~

Scent of a Trail

H.R: 'Speaking'

The waiter: 'Speaking'

A girl: 'Speaking'

The binoculars came back clean of fingerprints. Even the girl wore gloves. This was the work of bankrolled professionals, a well-planned, flawless execution worthy of applause. Was the girl Org based, a local flower child, a bona fide hippie chick, or a gypsy traveler come and gone? Whatever agency used her, also vanished her. She was nowhere to be found.

The Director excused himself, spent hours, then days haunting Abbie's phone, and the library, as he disappeared into his worldwide maze of dubious connections. He left immediately after coming up blank. Gabe stayed with Abbie while they fine-tuned their rummaging, turned over ever-smaller stones, diminishing pebbles, until they were left with nothing more than grains of fine, sterile sand.

The sighting of Daughter had ignited Gabe's fuse while it drove Abbie ever deeper into her pitch-black humor of blood-red intent. The loss of Girl, mostly sublimated and subsumed in the hunt for Daughter, still haunted her. What was her last terrified thought before she died? Girl's last image, her last look before death, was of Jade herself, of her mother leaving her, abandoning her to save someone else. Her very own precious, disbelieving, uncomprehending, daughter... in parts, beheaded, soaked in blood, echoes of terror still etched on her face. The image! Only a magnified and multiplied vengeance, or another such love, might crowd that memory out, or never.

一

They cruised the streets, the bars, local music festivals and communes. Yard sales, garden markets, swimming holes, church services, park socials, sporting events, sideshows, one retreat, a tribal powwow – all to no avail.

Only days had passed since the sighting, but this was theater town's season of frenzy, and the clock they were on had turned schizophrenic. The minute hand crawled like hours in their search for answers while racing simultaneously to reach the end of their deadline. Then a week was gone. Maybe they missed something in the Three Sisters play; they went again.

Nothing new presented, and unless Eden-of-the-Garden surprised them by dropping Boy at their door, they were losing time, losing hope, losing Daughter. Either they were missing a clue meant for them, or Ginger Leigh hadn't, finally, connected all her dots. Standing at the bar afterward, drink in hand, Abbie was browsing the theater playbill, absently cruising pictures from the show, when she dropped her glass.

~It's her!~

-What? Who's her?

~The girl with the binoculars! Here... in this crowd scene. There! See?~

-I see, yes. You're sure?

~She's no hippie chick; she's an actress! A peasant girl in the play.~

-Well hallelujah! What's her name? ~hmmhm, it doesn't say.~ -Has to, I think. Union rules. ~But it doesn't. Here's the program, and... she's not listed.~ -Okay, we check this company's H.R first thing tomorrow. ~But now we have something.~ -If that's your girl, then yes, we have something. ~It is. Oh … sorry about the spill, waiter. At least the glass didn't break.~ 'But you caught it with your foot. I never saw that before.' ~An old bar trick I learned years ago.~ 'But you...' -She was showing me because I didn't believe she could do it.

'But she...'

-We just got some exciting news, and we really have to go.

~Yes, but leave something extra for the...~

-I did. Let's go. Thank you for your help.

~You needn't have been so sharp with him.~

-And you need to be more careful what you let people see.

'Yes, we have an intern program. Drama programs around the country use us; we pick the best. She was with us, but students only serve a three-month internship. She was playing the opening season when the picture was taken. Students, their plans change often... no, they don't always get listed in the playbill. She's gone... finished end of June. Yes, very possible she staved for the Fourth, but no. I can't give you her name. Sorry.'

~But we talked in the park. I lost the slip with her name. We may have a part for her.~

'I'm sorry, but I can't. She was hired for a birthday party because of her anonymity. That was the condition. Maybe you could try the drama department at – yes, U.C Brokeley, it says here. I'd like to help, but I can't. You understand... I'm sorry.'

-You have, tho, and thank you.

~Do you remember me?~

'um... no?'

~The Fourth... in the park.~

'No, I don't think... yes! You were the Lady in the Charade Quest. Yes, I remember. Damn, what was that whistle about? That hurt!'

~Thank god! Thank you thank you thank you – so you do remember!~

'Yes, but not much. It was a chance to make a little money before leaving.'

~So you know the man who got you the part for this quest?~ 'Not really. Somebody from the company referred me. I was leaving.' ~Do you remember his name? The guy up at the fountain had offered me a part, but I lost the piece of paper with his name on it.~ 'But you were crying, screaming about the baby.' ~Right. Well, that was because she was the next clue on the quest.~ 'You sure? because...' -…because it is important. Because it's about the baby. Custody dispute. I'm her lawyer, and that man has taken her child, and is tormenting her with it. He is not a nice man. Was he the one who gave you the glasses?

'No, another man, I think.'

-Did he leave a card, give his name, anything?

'Card? Hell, no, didn't even give his name. Nice man, tho.'

~So there's nothing you can... for my baby?~

-You were paid?

'I'm an actress, I was in costume; yes, I was paid.'

-But not much.

'Almost nothing, but...'

-Welcome to the arts.

'Yeah, the music doesn't pay much either... or the writing. Especially not the writing.'

-Same everywhere, probably other worlds, too.

'Yeah, everywhere...'

-Well, thank you for your help… I'm sorry, they gave us your name as Savana. Is that your real name, stage name?

'Birth certificate says Savannah, double 'n' with an 'h', near where I was born. So yeah, my stage name.'

~Well, thank you for your time, Savana, and for coming to meet us, but if there's nothing else...~

'Wait… wow, wait. I'm a writer, and I'll take a pen faster than light speed if I need one… hell, even if I don't. I had to write down directions, and your description. I kept his pen. I think I still have it. There was writing on it. If you got fifteen minutes, we could walk to my room and see.'

~For my Daughter? Yes!~

-If we could, please.-

-A subsidiary of Org, their research arm. I recognize the company. Did you use it much, this pen?

'Didn't really need it, so I kept it as a souvenir of my internship… and a job on the Fourth. I have a few. A writer can never have too many, you know. So, no, not really. Not at all, actually.'

-And you wore gloves?

'uh… yeah, now that you mention it. I was supposed to, part of the costume. How did you know that?' -Can we take this?

'If it'll help get her daughter back, you bet.'

~Here's my number if you think of anything else. I am so grateful. Thank you. Thank you, so much!~

-And we have your number. We'll keep you in mind if we hear of a part. We know someone... someone who knows everyone. We won't forget.

'That would be great, but don't worry about it. I hope... I hope you get your daughter back, lady.'

The Reasons We Lie

Abbie: ~Speaking~

A girl: 'Speaking'

A woman: 'Speaking'

“We got it. We were able to pull prints from the pen, and he is on Org's payroll. What we don't know is, who's in actual possession of Daughter. He's listed as an independent contractor; his partner will be, too. My guess, they work out of the same office, and were brought in for this job.”

-No job title?

"Right, no job title, subcontractor, but travel records give us what we need. He moves around a lot; some correlation to trouble spots, but not much. His field seems to be the small prickly things in need of discretion."

~A mechanic?~

"You should play him that way, but no, not a hired gun. I don't think so. This requires different skills, and I don't think Org can afford to be compromised again, if things go south."

~South? What about Daughter?~

“They'll give her a home where she can't be found. Do you have a name for her yet?”

Silence.

~Gabe...?~

-Do you know which office he's out of?

“Okay, no name. Consider yourself reminded. Now, back to the job because it gets interesting here. The government here provides its president with a mountain retreat not far from the Capitol. Very close by is a solid rock mountain hollowed out to house a bomb-proof command center in case of attack. Together they form a secondary nerve center in time of crisis.”

~And?~

“And somehow, this guy and Org are plugged into this complex.”

-You're saying Org is governmental, not private?

“I don't know. It's hard to say. They share some resources and information, but off-brand research, testing, and implementation is strictly thru Org.”

~Are you saying this government attacked Hecate?~

“It depends on...”

~Did this government attack Hecate? Did this country kill my baby?~

“No, Abbie, no. From the looks of it, a rogue team out of Org used elite Mercs. They wanted a quick, no mess, in-and-out success. They wanted to show what they could do. They went in force. They did it right. There shouldn't have been a problem, but they didn't count on you two.” -And now? “I think Daughter is here somewhere.” ~I feel it. I think so, too.~ "Someone was already in place here, and they took advantage of it in response to an unexpected need. You two stay here. You may see her in a store, on the street, stumble into something somewhere. And someone needs to be in place if I find something." -And you? “I want to see this place. I don't know how she did it, knitting together all these different parts, but Ginger Leigh's woven a masterpiece here, her magnum opus. I want to see where this last thread leads.”

'Is this Abbie?'

~Speaking.~

'Abbie? Great! Abbie, this is Savana. Remember me?'

~Yes, I remember, of course I do! Your pen helped a lot, by the way.~

'It did? Great!'

~It really did! How are you? You graduated, didn't you? That was coming up, wasn't it?~

'Turned in my last project, got my diploma, yes! I got my piece of paper, but that's not why I called.'

~You remembered something?~

'Not me, someone else; a friend told me.'

~What, dear girl? Heard what?!~

'A year-old girl was kidnapped, or not kidnapped. There's some confusion, but the police are keeping it out of the papers, all hush-hush. An usher at the theater had foster custody of a one-year-old girl she was going to adopt. Someone from the agency picked her up for a routine checkup, and didn't return her.'

~And...?~

'Word got out in the company. My friend is regular cast, and she remembered my thing with you. She said someone is going to adopt your baby? I don't get it. This doesn't make sense... still doesn't.'

~Adopt my baby? Do you know her... this woman?~

'I don't know her, but I remember her. Really nice lady. Retired. Volunteer ushers see the plays for free.'

~Her name, do you know her name... or your friend?~

'Yes. I have it. That's why I called.'

~Just a second. Let me find a pen. Where's a pen when you need one?~

一

~Hi, my name is Abbie, and this is Mr Badger. I know you don't know us, but I heard that someone repossessed a child that you were holding for adoption. Is this true?~

'Abbie? How did you hear about this? The police want this quiet.'

-Abbie has a special interest in this child, and we have feelers and bulletins out everywhere for her. 'Special interest, what kind of special interest?' -Abbie is the mother of this baby. We have proof here. It's a matter of custody dispute. The father snatched her baby. ~Here's her picture about seven months ago. Did you notice anything different about her?~ 'She's the most beautiful child I've ever seen, even then, I can see here... but other than that, no. Why?' ~Nothing?~ 'No. Well, she's very bright... extremely smart, I'd say.' ~Exactly. Way too smart. What do you call her, if I may ask?~ 'You say you're the mother? She doesn't look like you. Red hair, black hair. Eyes, azure blue against her obsidian black. You're freckled alabaster, her skin's a baby bronze... sorry, I was in marketing. Can't help it. But you look nothing like her.' ~Her father, she's the image of her father. Similar to this gentleman.

'And you are...?'

-Mr Badger, Miss O'Teer's attorney. An awkward time, but still... a pleasure to meet you.

'I don't understand. You say you are the mother of my Savana, and she was snatched from you in a custody fight?'

~~Yes,~ ma'am, and we need your help.

'But the company I work for would never do that. We were vetted by my company to adopt her. I took early retirement when my husband left the company. The offer was completely unexpected.'

-The theater company?

'Oh, no. I worked for Org. You've heard of them, I'm sure. They're big.'

~I know. I worked for them, too.~

-And senior vice presidents sometimes make their own rules.

Pause.

'The father?'

~Yes.~

'Well, you're certainly a lovely young woman. Do you have I.D, any documentation to verify this?'

~Yes-yes, oh yes! Right here.~

-My card.-

'So, you're Abigail O'Teer?'

~Abbie, please.~

'And you are Mr Badger, Theo Badger. For Theodore, I assume.'

-Yes ma'am.

~And you call her Savana? Does she answer to it?~

'Oh yes, she's very smart, even smarter than you think she is.' ~Pretty name. I like it.~ 'Yes, named after a lovely girl with the company for a while... and then one day, she was gone.' -Company? Do you mean Org or the theater company?

'Theater, of course. I still don't think anyone in Org would do this. It... it's against the law – seriously against the law.'

~Well, you don't know the father like I do.~

'No, I don't guess I do.'

-Do you have any documents, any signed papers with Org concerning your custody?

'Just instructions, contacts, nothing signed. Not yet. They were drawing up final papers.'

-I'm sorry to tell you this, but I doubt you'll see your Savana again. Org will not be returning her to you, you can be sure of that. When she wins final custody, I believe Miss O'Teer will be returning to her home country where her family, the government, and local police can offer more protection than she gets here.-

'What will I tell my husband? He was even happier about this adoption than I was.'

-Perhaps you could be godparents to the child. Certainly, there are other orphans needing families. I don't know, but I understand your confusion, your pain. Believe me, I do, and I am sorry.

~Maybe I can quietly bring her back to see you before I leave, if you like. It... it might be too much for you, but if you like...~

'I would. I would, please. I want to see that she... that she's okay.'

~God willing, then, I will do everything to bring her safely to you... one more time, at least.~

-You said something about contacts in Org.

Words in Exchange

“How long has it been since you stripped for illusion?”

~Today, for my bath. Years, otherwise... and I won't again.~

“No?”

~The ordeal. People bump into me, or I into them. It can't be helped. Sometimes... a ravishing sense of freedom... sometimes I have thoughts... lust, sometimes... more times angry, tho.~

“You're an Assassin, control it.”

~I try, but everything is exploded now. It's too... too much, too violent, everything too raw. It's too strong a feeling, and I'm a... I was a mother. I had to be in control.~

“Yes, you were, and you may be again. I'm sorry, Abbie, but you may have to go illusion one more time.”

~Why don't you and your choir boy here paint up and do it yourselves?~

-Choir boy?

“Not now, you two. Because they can detect the paint now. You are the only living natural.”

Silence.

~Where is she? Where do I find her?~

-That's my girl!

~Girl?~

-Lighten up, Abbie-

~You are not...~

“Abbie! Stop it! What's gotten into you?”

~Nothing! That's just... just let it go.~

“I don't know what's going on between you, but this is our only chance. If you want Daughter back, this has to stop.”

Silence.

~...where is she?~

-What was that 'choir boy' crack about?

~It slipped out.~ -Okay, it slipped out, but what did you mean? ~I said I was sorry.~ -You didn't. ~Okay. I'm sorry.~ -I don't care about sorry. I want to know what you meant. ~Hey, I said I was sorry. Let it go!~ -The Director was right. We have one chance to do this, and I'm not doing this with you if you're not with me. So, what is it? ~It's nothing, I said. Drop it!~ -No, I'm not dropping it. It's getting worse. I get anywhere near you, and I swear I hear you snarl. One wrong word and I'm shit on your shoe.

Silence.

-I stay out of your way, try not to touch, don't provoke... I say nothing, make sure I don't offend. I... I don't know what else to do... so, what is it?

~I said, drop it!~

-You think I didn't do enough to save Girl, don't you? That's it, isn't it? You blame me.

~Me! I blame me! I want my baby back. I want my baby... I wantmybabyandyouwon'thelpme.~

-Won't help you?

~Won't touch me.~

-Won't touch... wait a minute. What?

~What happens... what happens if we don't save Daughter? Tell me. What happens then?~

-We... we won't fail. We won't. It's that simple.

~But what if we do? You don't touch me, won't give me my baby. I wanted so much to... See? ...my knife. Without Daughter... without a child, my baby, when there's nothing else, this is my friend. I can't count on you, but I can count on this.~

-Put it away, Abbie. We have this to take care of first. Put it away, or go home. You're off the team, and you go back to Hecate – without Daughter.

~You don't understand, Gabe. Why don't you understand?~

-I do. I think I do... she is our Daughter, please remember, and you still have to put the knife away. I won't do this with your finger twitching on the trigger.

~I was meant to be a mother, Gabe, not a killer. Without my baby, I'm just a killer... just a killer, and I can't do it. I have no heart for it anymore. But there's always me. I can still take me out.~

-I've been there, Abbie, but this is not the time. There's a world in need, and a child that says so. Put it away.

~See? ...just a little blood... see how easy it is?~

-Put it away!

~See, only a little... but if... if just a little deeper, see, and... Ow! Let me go!~ Why turn up the heat on a life already in flames? Seared heart, scarred soul, twisted history under cover of beauty, inconsolable; but still the inferno of sex burns – burns hotter than caution, hotter than hatred, hotter than hell. With feelings on fire, and her life ablaze, the question had to be: a caged fire must burn itself out of air, and die, or burn itself free; which would it be?

The male part: what is it exactly, and where does he fit in? Is it a game, a hunt, or a dance? How well does he read sign? What does it mean if the Welcome mat is out, is summarily withdrawn, then teasingly replaced? Or if the invitation issued is Hot-for in first gear, then thrown into reverse at Chase-after speed?

If lips part for kissing in the French way, will they for the tongue lashing forbidden below? Will knees fall open like pages of a book, clench tighter than vice grips, or only unlock when the authorized key is synchronized, to enter and be embraced? Which meaning of partner applies, and of what use is the beauty that no longer matters when the primeval and sacred meet in their most un-secret place.

But isn't that the glory of closed eyes, when jazzed-up other senses get to fill in, operate full charge, open range, at full capacity, engorged and inflamed? A chance to fill in the void of her vacancy, is to thrill in the feeling up-flooding, the stream overflowing, the raw scream at sensation, the creamy release, his solution and resolution of sexual tension.

The eyes hungry (no, say starved) for beauty, that would otherwise commandeer a full four-fifths of the brain's sensing attention... they close. In surrender to sensitive touch, the tensing of sensing-it skin, the clenching of carnal neediness that feeds back in return, these glow the brighter into brilliance when the lights are turned low, on the way to going out.

There were long hours, and but a few short days left, before the battle for Daughter would be lost, or won. They were in the embrace of mountains here, planted among orchards in the valley's fertile loam, and their bodies were known to each other. Out of familiarity, for pleasure, and out of despair, they had been here before. He was fluent in skin talk while she was womb-hungry with passion in the time of her moon. He knew the trigger points that opened her floodgates, while she was open to receive his offering of love... a nice conceit in concept, but that's not how it went.

一

-Got it! Okay, let it go... let it go, nice and easy... yes. Good.... I've never seen you like this, never known you to tremble. Here, come here... no, just to hold... until the shaking stops. Yes, good... like that, just like that... now breathe... breathe ...

A long silence followed, one interspersed with fragments of a self in recovery, the sighing, half-sobbing, catch-in-breath of a crisis winding down.

-Better now? ...You cradle nicely on a shoulder when you cry, you know that? ...We're a nice fit when you let... when you let me hold you, just hold you... yes, like this. You okay now?

More silence.

-Exhausted? ...ah, yes, I can feel it. Good. Then, how about sleep? That sound good? I take the nod to mean yes again. Is this your room or mine? Damn hotels... shrugs, nods, who needs words, right? Okay, here's the bed. Under the covers, or on top, and I can leave... what? Sorry, I didn't hear, you're muffled.

Complications

The Director: “Speaking” Gabe: -Speaking- Abbie: ~Speaking~

“I don't believe I've seen the two of you smile at the same time since the Castle. Glad to see it. Maybe now we can get on with getting Daughter back. So, Abbie, you ready for this? The address we need isn't in public records.”

-Address?

“I have the name and office of the man in charge of their Hecate operation, but Org is keeping this off their books. We don't know where she is or who's holding her. We need that address.”

~I'm ready.~

"Good, you're the one who stands the best chance. I just need to be sure that you are ready. I have one of their security uniforms, and I can get you in, but you're on your own after that. We can assume that Eden-of-the-Garden won't be delivering Boy to them, so we have less than four days. Tonight we case the place. Bring your scopes."

一

“…and those are the discard dumpsters for used parts, and old experiments. They're secured. That's where you'll wait for the guard on rounds. Abbie will be in a uniform padded to the approximate shape of the man making rounds. Gabe, you take him out, disable him, whatever you need to do, and hold position. Once she's got what we need, we'll create a disturbance for her to check out; we leave. We split up, you two meet and go get Daughter. Abbie, the secured file room is two flights up, third floor. You'll have to hurry once you check in at third floor reception… southeast. See it? Good. Here's their floor plan. Now, let's walk it thru.”

-What about you? What are you doing while we get Daughter?

“I have work to finish here once I know you have her.”

~Destroy them, sir. Kill them! Kill them all! Make sure they know!~

“In time, Abbie. We'll see. But right now, one thing you have to be aware of is your heat signal. They'll have visual, but I doubt they have infrared in place at the dumpsters. It's a chance we have to take. We need to delay discovery as long as possible. Abbie, this little toy will decode the door lock after Gabe takes care of the guard.”

~Okay... next?~

“Next, see there? That's your line of approach… and there's where you wait to take him out. Questions?”

~Do you have everything ready that we need to do this?~

“Yes.”

-Just a second. Abbie, your glasses... check the entrance to the restrooms. Wait until he comes out.

~Who?~

-Just wait... There, coming out of the men's room. Him. ~The Delegate? It's the Delegate! He killed Constance! He killed the king!~ -No! She did that! Only a king could have done what she did! Don't take that away from her. “He's right, Abbie. It was a sacrifice only a king could have made. Org's got him watching security cameras on night shift.” -Night watch? Him?

"At least he tried. He was bold; it just turned out wrong for him. They're wasting a good man."

~You're defending him? He killed my sister. He killed the king!~

“Constance was my daughter! I think you forget that. He would have taken care of her.”

-And killed the rest of us.

~He was in charge... probably his idea. He killed her!~

“Rumor is he loved her.”

~Loved her?~

-I can see it... in his custody, opportunities to grant favors, ease conditions, be a sympathetic ear, her intercessor, perhaps, even an ally in the enemy's camp.

"Something like that, yes. A chance to woo her, become a friend of Hecate. It wasn't about money, only, but love, too. A different kind of hunger."

-Just as greedy, tho.

~Love her? He killed her! Let's do this now. Let's take care of him and go get Daughter now!~

“No. Tonight we watch. Tonight we walk it thru; then we do it again.”

一

The guard would wake in a couple of hours with a headache. Gabe took him easy, no problem there. The issue was Abbie and the door. It wouldn't open... wouldn't open ... wouldn't open – but it had for the guard on previous rounds. There were three days left before they had to produce Boy for the meeting, but the precious time of now was getting away. Org had been prescient in finding and tracking them in theater town; how could they not sense them in their own back yard? Was this a trap for them? Despite all their precautions, it had to be considered – because the door wouldn't open.

The numbers captured by the Director's toy verified as authentic, the light went green, there was a *click* – but the door wouldn't open. Why the goddam hell not? Was the Delegate who monitored camera feeds also notified of repeated failures? He was away from the desk; they had timed it so. Were there thermal sensors? Was the invisibility of their camouflage leaking somewhere?

The Director's toy worked. Punch in the numbers given her, green light, *click* – but the door wouldn't open. Seconds were racing by, taking hours at their leisure, and still the door wouldn't open. The guard! It had to be the guard, something on the guard… his ring with the Org emblem on it. Put it on, punch the numbers again, green light, *click* – she was in!

Cameras would show the guard punching in at the lobby checkpoint followed by third-floor reception, then the men's room, with a magazine in hand. Tho an actor might have been better able to bury Abbie's natural glide into a tired guard's late-night shamble, she did a credible job. Low-rent guards, high-fashion models, and C.E.O's all pay homage to that same quotidian need: the throne that won't take no for an answer. Twenty minutes later the guard emerged and resumed rounds. Soon after, his walkie-talkie squawked, came alive with notice of activity, a disturbance at the dumpster site. Roger that, he coughed. He'd check it out.

Nothing?

~1 looked... I looked everywhere. Twenty minutes isn't a lot of time, but it's certainly long enough to find the Hecate files and check them.~

“Any locked drawers, file cabinets?”

~Two, but not a problem. Nothing there, either.~

“You left it clean, everything in place, as you found it?”

~I'm sorry, I just really hope I didn't understand your question.~

"Will they know you were there?"

Silence.

"Well...?"

~You trained me. What do you think?~

“I had to know. We may still have a chance.”

-Chance? Chance for what?

"Org has a new hire, an intern working on their company newsletter. She has an appointment with the man heading up Org's Hecate operation. She's doing a puff piece on our crystal's cosmetic properties. She has a question for him, and he's going to see our intern in a new light."

-Our intern?

“I hired a young actress out of Brokeley who might be able to tease out this other information we need. She's bright, she's good. She's our last chance.”

~Brokeley?~

-There isn't enough time.

~Our actress is out of Brokeley?~

"She's already here. Started on this right after you found her. She got her job a week ago. We've worked it out. She knows her talking points, and she's good on improv."

~She's here? Do we know her?~

-Org found us in play town, how are they not going to know we're here, in their neighborhood?

“We flew to the Capitol a week ago, where our passports boarded different planes to European cities with major Org offices. We have since converged on Rome. It keeps their interest focused there while we go to work here.”

-You've been thinking about this for a while.

“It's my job.”

~Helloooo-o-o?~

-What about the guard? He's going to report being mugged.

“He's dead, apparently of natural causes.”

~Hey! I'm talking here! What about the actress?~

-Dead? But I didn't... “I did. Easier to explain a dead employee than an unconscious one. He was the other raider who escaped with Daughter. I had to be sure. I woke him first so he understood why. It had to be done, and you wouldn't. It's my job. I'm the assassin.” ~Good, dammit! Now will somebody talk to me! What about the actress?~ “Yes, Abbie, Savana is here. We're going to see her now.”

Conversations

Mr Plunder, Org exec: *Speaking* Savana: 'Speaking'

Miss Plunder: 'Speaking'

*Come in, come in. Come right on in, young lady. My secretary says... you met Cathy, right? My secretary says you're an intern with the company newsletter. That right?*

'Yes sir... I... I just... I just started, sir. You are Mr... Mr Plunder, aren't you?'

*Why, yes I am. haha… great fun watching people's faces first time they say my name. If they only knew. Makes me laugh. Funny, tho, I don't remember agreeing to an interview.*

Confused silence.

*But then, I don't remember interns being so pretty, either, so why don't we just do it. I've got ten minutes, so why don't we start? Why does the company newsletter want to talk to me?*

'It's not the newsletter ... well, it is for the newsletter, but I asked for the assignment.'

*Really? And what assignment is that?*

'The crystals! I love your crystals. I collect them. I use them to light an altar I made.'

*Crystals? What crystals are you talking about?*

'The green ones, the magic ones, from Archipelago? Org discovered them, this company, didn't we?'

^{*} The green ones? Yes, I believe we did. It's a matter of record, I suppose. So what was your question? ^{*}

'Oh, I want to hear the whole story...'

^{*} You have three minutes left, time for two very short questions. ^{*}

'But didn't you say...?'

^{*} Yes, I did, and your second question? ^{*}

'Okay... okay, this one's personal. So let me ask it... okay?'

^{*} One minute.

'Okay, I said I collect them. They're small, but I have a lot of them. They glow, so I was wondering about radiation. Are they dangerous, Mr Plunder?'

'I mean, I'm not giving mine up, even if there is a recall. I just won't wear them anymore. I just want to know.' ^{*} There's been no history of harm at all, no tissue damage. The rats are fine. Where did you hear this… this rumor? ^{*}

'Oh, no rumor. Everyone loves them. I love them! ...more than anyone. But I read a lot and I... I wonder about things.'

*And you're afraid there's going to be a recall.*

'Not me, I'm not giving mine up. In my heart I know they're good... but others might. What I want to do is tell the story, the true story of the crystals, even... even if they are dangerous.'

^{*} I see. Well, perhaps there is a story here for you. How about tomorrow, same time. I'll give you half an hour. Tell Cathy on your way out; she'll confirm with me later. ^{*}

'Cathy doesn't like me.'

*Nonsense. She doesn't know you.*

'She's scary, and I can tell she doesn't like me... and I don't know why.'

*Yes, she can be intimidating. Part of her job. Okay, I'm on my way to a meeting anyway... my jacket here... now we can go. I'll tell her.*

“You got it?”

~She's with his daughter. Here's the address. We're going there now.~

'How did you do that? That was impossible the way you got in.'

~It's an old circus trick, and the code is not to tell.~

'No, really, how did you do it? Is this that new invisibility thing? I can use this in a part someday... um, except actors need to be seen. How...?'

~Hey, this is different, on your notebook here. See... the name isn't the same spelling as before.~

'Yes! Do you like it? My real name, the old spelling on my birth certificate. I went back to it! Two letters longer, more space on the marquee. What do you think? Besides, Savana is too cute. I'm serious about my acting. You can't be cute and serious both.'

~Really? I'm very serious about my work, and I don't think myself ugly.~

'Oh no, god no... dammit, now I'm all hot and sweaty. I'm blushing red right now, aren't I? A serious actor, and I can't stop it. Oh god no, Miss O'Teer, I said cute can't be serious. You're beautiful, so... so beautiful. I... I... I'm so sorry. I wouldn't... I didn't mean you.'

~It is a very fetching red, and you, too, are beautiful. And I do understand. Don't apologize.~

'Thank you, thank you so much for understanding, but you really have to tell me. How'd you do that?'

“You're both beautiful; all women are, I believe, but they need to go get her daughter now. You stay here with me, Savannah, while I make some calls for you. I see you're good enough to play with the best, so let's set that up. I'll see you two later.”

-But your duty is to Hecate. You're the last sister.

~I am not going back. I can disappear here. You were great organizing Hecate's administration. Hecate doesn't need a ruling house anymore.~ -Your ideas for a sisterhood and priestess will hold Hecate together for the Darkening, whenever the time... an excellent reordering, by the way... a good thing. A very good thing, but Hecate needs a leader, someone home at the helm in the meantime. ~With the House of Hecate gone, they can vote who they want. Royalty isn't needed anymore. I'm not needed, which I'll prove by not being there. And, they get the leader they deserve.~ -You've thought about this, given it your fullest consideration? ~Yes, and I talked with the Director. He's agreed, and found me a place. He's found us a place, Gabe.~ -Right, but what's he doing, after? ~Hasn't said a word, and I know not to ask. What I want to know is, what about you? What about us?~ -I don't know. Roots are gone, Abbie. Everything's gone; nothing feels like I belong anymore... not here, not Hecate, the road – not anywhere. Burned out, burned clean, everything that used to hurt completely calloused over, love out of reach. What's left when love itself hits the light switch, turns off, goes dark? ~Love, going dark, and you think I'm the light switch turned off?~ -I'm sorry, Abbie. I shouldn't have said that. Wasn't thinking? Just tired... weary, a little sad, I guess. ~But we're going to pick up Daughter... your daughter.~ -And I still don't have a name for her. Promise me, Abbie, promise if something goes wrong… no, not wrong. That's not right. It won't be wrong… if something is required of me, I'm leaving her with you… for you to name.- ~You don't like Savannah?~ -I do, but there's something else. ~I don't understand. What are you saying? I've seen you bend, even break, but this isn't like you.~ -There's a feeling... no, something more, a knowledge. There's something nearby, getting closer, closing in. I don't know... just tired, like I said. I'm no fit father to raise a child, anyway, and... ~Gabe?~ -Yeah? ~I want another baby. I want... I want one of my own.~ -We'll talk, Abbie, but we're here now. -Miss Plunder?

'Yes?'

-Miss Plunder? I'm Mr Badger, and I represent Miss Abigail O'Teer. This woman is the mother of the child currently under your care.

'I see.'

-We want to say how grateful we are for the care you've given her, and we're here to thank you for that.

'Okay, you're welcome, and...?'

-We are also here to return her to her family. For the child's sake, the sooner the better. Tonight.

'I've been expecting you. I just received word from my father confirming my worst suspicions, and you are more than welcome in my home. Please, come in.'

-I... I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand the source of your welcome. Your father...

'My father? Any crackpot scheme coming out of his hot evil oven deserves to be hammered to dust right out of the kiln. And this time... this time, kidnapping a baby? He needs to be stopped. Anyway, those are my thoughts at the moment, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. In the meantime, this way, please. I would like to introduce you to this gentleman. Mr Badger, Miss O'Teer, this is my father, Mr Plunder.'

一

^{*} Ah, yes, I see you're surprised. You're here to pick up a baby girl, and sadly, you find me here instead. ^{*}

-Yes, we are here to pick up the child. Is she here?

*She is, but out of your reach.*

-We're not leaving without her.

*Unfortunately, that part about not leaving may be the truest words you ever said, but I'm curious now. We hear rumors of someone from your world. You are from Archipelago, I take it.*

Silence.

*A very shadowy person, an assassin... head of them, in fact. Director of Assassins. You wouldn't know him, either of you... would you?*

Silence.

*It's not that hard to get a friend, or a nephew, on Org's payroll. It happens. But to get someone placed so precisely for an interview at Org headquarters in such short time – why, it's virtually impossible. But it had to be considered. A guard dies on duty, natural causes, but I'm suspicious by nature. A pretty young intern, two weeks on the job, shows up with a great idea to bring in a trove of Hecaten crystals. A great attention-setter, but why? Either of you?*

-Where is the child?

^{*} Exactly. The girl. So here I am. ^{*}

-Where is she?

*And don't think we're not grateful. Recall caused by rumor. We deny any damages, but we'll pay postage for any crystals returned for research. Brilliant! We're using it! But what do we do with you?*

-Where's the girl?

*Some advanced form of camouflage got you in my office, right?*

~Where's my daughter?~

*Your daughter? Your daughter is dead, if I'm not mistaken... Miss O'Teer.*

~My daughter and sisters are all dead by your hands. If you think you know who I am, then you know you are dead where you stand.~

^{*} Do you think I came here without backup?

~I know you didn't. I checked. Smug, arrogant bastard like you figures he can handle it on his own. You picked the wrong mother this time.~

^{*} I had nothing to do with that. ^{*} ~I will ask you one more time, and then you become Org's first sacrificial goat.~ ^{*} I had nothing to do with that! -Mr Plunder, I would advise you... *Org will take you out. Hecate is history if you kill me.* -We'll see about that. Where is my Daughter?

'Here. She's here. I have her... and here's rope. Tie him up. Just don't kill him, and I'll give you the girl. She deserves to be with her family.'

^{*} Where did you get that? ^{*}

'Yes, Dad, your old pistol. Turn around, hands behind you so they don't kill you... or I will.'

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Abbie: ~Speaking~

I give the fight up: let there be an end.

A privacy, an obscure nook for me.

I want to be forgotten even by God.

~Robert Browning

There should be some minimal evidence of recoil, a certain moral winning when describing justice in terms of destruction. There ought to be regret in seeing a house of first-rate research razed, and all of its knowledge lost. Company workers would feel the pinch, and a government would be compromised, but oh, the glow of satisfaction raining fire down on Org's house-without-scruples, and temple of greed.

A consuming planet was grateful, and lined up happily to pay for the lux goods, the shady comforts, and tree-ripened pleasures to come out of Org's entangled vines of commerce, worldwide. Sheltered in the arbor of its vastness, mainlining the sweets of its research, addicted to the wine from its cellar; to visit any marketplace was to breathe Org's product line as if it were air. It would have been awkward to look too closely, or judge too harshly, on how their enterprise got it all done.

But imagine a Court of Generations; call it history. Imagine Org's astonishment to find itself standing before it, fingers fat with gold, pockets overflowing, bellies big as balloons on the riches of a planet they had turned into dross. And tho the living cannot punish the dead, the Court remembers. History lives with consequence, and records it in memory, filling in the corners of chronicle, and recording the shame. Woe to those offending this next ring of karma when choices are revealed, when research backfills the record, when knowledge is satisfied, and the weight of consequence is felt and enforced.

If money writes the laws, and doesn't believe in karma, then there's no downside for greed to consider. A well-funded, artfully tuned, beautifully orchestrated style of guided reasoning prevails, and a convenient platform for money making the rules becomes the norm.

There is a saving grace to greed (that it is the seed of progress and brings good new things to market), but rapacious is not the same as hungry; insatiable is a cannibal that will eat itself out of family and home. The time comes eventually when a rougher sort of justice takes notice of the excess, kicks down the door with its evidence, and strikes for reform. Heedless of power, and much beyond the embellishments of cash, it is a brand of justice that strikes more potently than karma, when indictments are signed, and the records of history lock on and take hold.

It would be the work of a churl to cheer the good work lost from Org labs and their record files, but there was love and family to avenge, and a world to protect. What could be cobbled together from its outlying centers of research would be the survivability test of international Org. But for now, the Torch, an airburst to burn a mountain clean, to strip all plans of their blueprints and turn irreplaceable files into blizzards of ash. This time, ground zero was the black-and-white monster of Org's paper-mind, with no lives lost. This time, the win would go undeniably to Hecate, whatever the cost.

The battlefield had been reposted from Hecate of Archipelago, and delivered to the high temple of commerce, and the doorstep to powers ruling on Terra. This time the destruction was the decapitation of intellectual property, and not the body count, the blood-spill, the burning homes and blackened flesh, where the battle belonged to the organization of Org.

The Delegate was manning security monitors when the call came in. It was a recorded warning fifteen minutes in advance of the blinding light and devastation that was to rid the world of Org's dominance, and its blight. To his thinking, Hecate was the fuse to a keg of dynamite, and the cause of a coming war between Archipelago and Terra. His security clearance no longer reached to the tariffed heights, but there was a new technology allowing passage both ways across the Membrane. King Constance had been his hope for escaping that conflict.

And Constance (the woman, minus her title and the inhibitions of state) still burned as his only venture into alien love, his lone flight from reason, and the pleasures of art. It had been the brilliance of one flame recognizing the same in another, and he had been utterly smitten.

Her instinctive understanding of stage and statecraft, her brazen courage, her unsettling beauty, her sacrifice, her... her everything; and she had died in his arms, bathed in her blood by reason of his desire to help, and to save her. He had not taken it well, and in time was relegated by Org to H.Q's night watch (he couldn't sleep anyway), until his corporate mojo returned.

Protocol called for the security guard making rounds to check the building for bombs while police were summoned. The Delegate radioed the guard on patrol, told him to evacuate immediately and to drive away, not looking back. He didn't bother calling police.

He took the elevator to the top floor instead, nodded to names on the few doors lining the hallway, pulled out his master key at the base of locked stairs leading to the roof – and climbed until he stood alone under the stars. The building was otherwise empty when Hecate's vengeance rocked the night, and Org's research and paper world disappeared in a flash.

Ten thousand kettle drums, amplified and magnified times ten thousand at triple forte, was its detonation, a quiet overture before the full orchestral explosion that roared out revenge in its full musical rage. One instant's focused rupture of air, one intense flash of sun-bright light, and all that remained of Org's multinational conglomerate-of-everything was a red-hot, rapidly rising-falling-piling-up-filling-in crater of slow-cooling rubble.

Org International, its extravagantly furnished headquarters, its research facilities and record center, were instantly converted from greenback into grey ash and red ink, from asset into debit numbers, from superior smiles into the lip-sewn rigor of a corpse in a casket.

For this once and only time, Org's last gasp had arrived with the gift of a warning. In the days of paper files, Org was reduced from a monstrous business entity making financial headlines, into a captured rat trapped in bars of column inches, tattooed in debtor's ink, on life support, just this side of certifiable death.

All that remained was a drifting haze, and late-falling debris. A churning miasma of ruin and destruction redolent of single, and an acrid taste on the tongue, filled the air. Scattered fires flared, would have filled lungs with toxic smoke. A shallow grave, a cratered hollow in a desolate landscape, waited to be filled. A hallowed corporate spot was nothing now but twisted wires, burning hot, some still alive and writhing.

Thru'out the layers of exposed years, ceramic shrapnel, and girder shards, from the bent pipes and elbow joints to the broken glass embedded in wood, there was evidence of haste in its construction, of cut corners and neglect in its maintenance thereafter. It wasn't built with the future in mind. What wasn't required wasn't paid for, and what was needed was bargained for, gotten cheap. Business.

From the newly created statutory that once served their purpose as pretensions to art, to the piled heaps of porcelain, the caustic air, and dust – all was sterilized of life. Even to the dead rats, the feral cats, and the last flopping fish in Reception Hall's famous aquarium: all dead. The organizational head, the cerebral cortex of Org, was gone, the self-inflicted victim of its self-limiting dementia. Shattered into shards, dust, and ash, it no longer existed, or held residence, in the ever-changing world of business needs, and the corporeal functioning of an office at work. “Thank you for staying.” -I have no place else. “That's not true, and you know that.” -For me it is. “Then you know why I asked you to stay.” -Something remains... unfinished. “Yes.” -That you want me to do. “You will decide that.” -I think I know it. I'm listening. “Much of Org's resources remain intact.” -Yes.- “They've been crippled; not killed, only enraged.” -And Org needs a massive new advantage to get back in the game. “Yes.” -And they're coming to Hecate to strip us of crystals, and to make a lesson of us, whatever it takes. “Exactly. They still have Mercs under contract, and Terrans will soon be able to join them. They will want to. A counterattack is not illegal for them under law. We struck first in their world. They are coming for Hecate.” -And you're going to tell me there's hope. “Oh yes, there's hope, but it needs someone to… it requires a sacrifice.” -Ah, not sacrifice, general, plural, something shared, but a sacrifice, singular, someone specific. “Yes.” -And my part? “I have watched the light of curiosity go out in your eyes.” -I've seen enough. “I have watched love elude you, and finally escape you.” -Never had the talent for it. “I look at you now and see only a burning impatience to be done with it all.” -The thought is not unwelcome. What are you saying? You found the River? You found Lethe? “Not Lethe, but something else, something more, something worse... or better, I can't say. But I have found the drain that empties even Lethe of existence.” “It's a cross-dimension bomb, and the force of it will seal the door between Archipelago and Terra. I believe it will disable the crystals' power here once they are severed from Archipelago.” -And...? “But someone needs to stand in the doorway with it when it detonates. The life force annihilated has a multiplying effect on the force of explosion. The door won't seal without that sacrifice.” -Are you offering me the job? “Yes. Yes, I am.” -I accept. “Gabe?” -Yes.- “This is absolute obliteration, not death. Whatever people may say of it, we don't know about death, and what comes after. There is the hope that comes with not knowing, however. Gabe, this we do know. There is nothing, there can be nothing after this for you. Nothing. Do you understand?” -And you promise me, nothing will go wrong with this. You found the edge to the abyss and nothingness... say it. Promise me, say you found it. “I have found it... with one caveat.”

Caveat?

“To be correct, I should have said, nothing or nothing else.”

Silence.

-I don't understand.

“Complete obliteration hereafter, all further trace in every universe erased of you... as if you had never been... from here on, forever.”

-Perfect, but the other... you said 'caveat'?

“There's a small chance it might kick you into an empty universe, one that's completely – and I mean utterly – empty, that contains just you, only you.”

-Me only? Alone? Still? Again? Forever? No. No... I can't accept that. I won't. Alone and empty – I have survived it lifelong for a lifetime already, and I cannot do it more... not forever.

“It's Hecate's only chance.”

Silence.

-What are the odds?

“Certainly less than one percent, much less.”

-So, total obliteration, a hundred percent ... right?

“Well, yes. Not one hundred percent, but very much, almost infinitely, in your favor.”

-I'm done here. There's neither cause nor companion, nor even curiosity enough to hold me; no reason, or purpose, and I'm tired... so tired, and I'm ready. Too much road, too much life, too long wandering, and it's the same in both worlds... so it's not just me, everywhere. I don't like your odds of there being any chance at all, but I'm ready.- “Archipelagan interests may well survive in their business world, but this is Hecate's only chance. The Castle's Crystal would be worth the price of invasion alone. Capitol City is willing, and Hecate won't be able to resist them. They'll just take it.” -Do you believe Hecate's Crystal will save Archipelago some day? “You were the one granted entrance to the Crystal. You talked with the Ancient Ones. You tell me. What do you think?” -It still seems a dream that never happened. I don't know. I'm still not sure it really did. “I'm sure of it, but whatever you choose, history doesn't stop with your decision. The world spins on.” -What of Abbie and Daughter? “They are taken care of.” -Here? “Somewhere. The Promoter had a place set for her.” -Ah, so it was he, her father. “Yes, and she's not returning to Hecate, or Archipelago.” -Yes, she told me. She wants a baby. You do know about this, don't you? “Has there been any word, any sign... have you heard anything from Eden-of-the-Garden?” -Nothing, and I don't expect to.

"If she shares the same heart as your Jinn, she would not leave you blind to your son's fate. I've heard nothing that tells me she's cruel."

-No, she is kind beyond your meanest measure, but she will have other plans for him now, plans that don't include me.

“Then your Daughter will need a cousin, a sibling... someone to play with, to grow up with. You've taken care of that... yes?”

Silence.

"Well?"

-I did not give her the child she wants... so you must.

“No, I cannot... not after losing Constance.”

-So, I'm to be the sole sacrifice, the only one to pay.

Silence.

-This is my Lethe at last, and I will do my part for Hecate; but you must do your part for her. She won't be complete without it. Even with Daughter, it's her only answer to the death she's caused. She needs this.

“I can't. I won't.”

-You made her assassin, and I say you will.

Silence.

“Didn't you two make up at the end?”

-We did, but there has been time since... and she would have said.

“I will find somebody.” -Choose wisely, then. “You will carry the bomb to separate Archipelago and Terra?” -Promise me, you give Abbie a reason to love life again, and I will. I will do this for Hecate... you have given me Lethe at last.

"You have my word."

-Has she named Daughter yet?

“She has.”

-And...?

“Since you would not name her, I am not to tell you.”

~So what happened when you gave him the package?~

“He smiled. It was a real smile, Abbie.”

~He smiled? He didn't say anything?~

“No, he just smiled. Well, he did say... he said, thank you.”

finis

AfterWords

Two short chapters that do nothing to advance the storyline have been appended to the story at Archipelago's end. The conclusion arrives abruptly (as decisions often do), but the chapters Garden Town and Merryland's Cat-on-hot-tin Mountain remain as fantasy backgrounds for those lingering readers with more time, and curiosity, than sense.

While the next story's cast waits to take the stage in The Mystery of Miss Tree and Mr E, these two chapters will serve up glancing images from the story just passed. They flesh out Archipelago's body a bit, but straddle the ground, primarily, as entr'acte between the story's two generations.

Backstory Fantasy: Garden Town Preceded 13 ~ Arena

Small towns are to anonymity as pebbles on a rocky shore. Of these, only a few catch the sun and reflect with the promise of uncut gems. Rarer still is the stone that knows itself raw, that seeks a design, and yields to its cutting.

Whether crystalline, organic, or a created piece, a key quality of beauty, that it features many facets. Both the seen and the seeing, the view and the viewer, the broadcast and receiver, are in need of each other. Wedding a diamond to the throne of its setting raises them both to a state of grace.

Whether desert oasis, mountain haven, or tropical isle, paradise is a garden planted, groomed by man, and given mortal face. There is something right and something holy about the forests, fields, and harvests; about man's labor and intentions, about his nurturing of nature, and its future in his care.

Just the one and only, alone in space and lonely, hangs the single, fragile planet-home that all his future shares. A native instinct to thrive, a need to succeed beyond survive, should capture his attention, should compel him to take action, to show the future that they mattered, that he cared.

Wed to place, and bed to family, with an untamed world to claim and nourish, to tend and make to flourish, cause to bloom, a home to cherish was the vision, everywhere. A long time wild before him, this wilderness wasn't paradise, but that his care might make it so.

From crusty rocks come brilliant gems, cut, and polished fine by their own shed dust. Distinct, unique, clear, multifaceted and rare, possessed of identity, and an inner fire, it is exquisite as a destiny that such beauty might inspire, appear in the form that a place would require. When place becomes Place, becomes self-aware, evolves from site into sentence, it becomes Civic in its entity, and alive with a will.

A seasonally breathing, thinking and growing, selling and voting, self-preserving and tactile Thing rises up, takes a name for itself, and a place on the map. It lays claim to autonomy, the inherited right to rule, to police and to jail. Inherent then, until forever, the laying-on of hands in the burdensome form ingeniously labeled as Tax. A few such places are abundantly, yea, even embarrassingly blessed.

Extolled for its tolerance with the foibles, the strayed behaviors, and disorders of art, Place gets a name. Word-of-mouth turns Place into a playground, a certified curiosity, a splendid little getaway, a bona fide oasis, complete with snacks and watering holes. They come driving, and they come hiking; and because of wanting to, they come flying to, and riding thru, in crowds of one or two, and happy tour buses full.

Travelers ride their thumbs, their vans, their decked-out buses, and bikes into town. They sing their blues, spread their love, share their brand of music, their gypsy smoke and their folksy fun... before taking to the road again, on their way back out to Beyond.

Pick a chance corner on any given day, and see fortune seekers and fortune tellers, a pilgrim, a guru, a guitar totin' busker, a one-off creative, mortals in rut, and humans in love. The outliers, the actors, the players and their marks, the students, the workers, and the family man with his children in tow: all parade by, secure in their role. Lushly textured, visually, aurally, and sensuously rich, such a Place calls to those full-of-wonder people; those who see each day as a canvas. and treat their life as art.

It takes time, this Place taking on Cinderella's part, and dressing for the ball. Old hedges get trimmed, formed and framed into gardens; dilapidated old digs morph into galleries of art. Timeworn neighborhoods bloom into music halls, and congregations with heart.

It is no surprise, then, that a desire for the timeless and ageless thing, and the yearning for beauty, have their commercial side. People hunger for meaning, and are willing to pay. They want transcendence, to feel something new, to experience the ineffable, the ethereal, to encounter the gossamer, and to be spiritually moved in a heavenly way.

They climb and descend equally to encounter beauty and horror's depth, for that one-time view from the tippy-top summit of Mount Zenith Peak. To be alive means seeing Life but once, and those curious and able want a seat at the table, a full taste of the banquet for their single, their only passage thru time.

There will be labor as well as art to village work, and the locals charge handsomely for access to both. Charging immediate prices for immodest pieces, it's a genuine smile, with an authentic thank-you, next to a caddy for leftover change. They tax the bread, tack on tips, then grace unwary tourists with the gift of a ticket before turning them loose.

Quality is expensive, and city services don't come cheap, it's true. And it is charming, the shameless grin they give, that happy-to-help business smile, as they contrive to survive, perhaps even thrive, as they strive (using service) for that last penny more.

The replies are wry, and honest, when asked why: survival, they say. Bad years, new shops sprout like spring flowers with hopes bright as their displays; only to end like the shelled flies lining their windows at Garden Town's End of Season sales. Shattered hopes, shuttered doors, bankruptcy notes: these are the harvest reap come their autumn's fall, their Dream's Mausoleum at Mercantile End. It is, perhaps, less a matter of rivalry, and greed for the coin, than every shop walks the edge of extinction alone.

It was Gabe's experience that buskers on the street are the badge of a place with creative roots, a place with musical magnets pulling in talent and artists-at-large. Mere place becomes Place, perhaps even a Palace by reason of its courtesies, its inventive amenities, original offerings, and authentic charm.

Outside serious injury to law, such Places may be satisfied to let time and karma handle the scofflaws, the scoundrels and rascals owing allegiance to no one, who worship only cash, who speak as the rude, the crude, and the brash. It remains for penury and obscurity to reward the efforts of art.

A stint on the street with a taste for the wandering life, coupled with a sometime dose of doing without, of smelling ripe from the road: these are the signature spices, source ingredients for simmering stewpots brimming with stories, with a bit of finishing garnish clipped fresh by the way.

Music on the street is a signpost, a declaration of authenticity: art has a home here, creatives are welcome, where the critic and his craft live to practice alone. The ingredients are various, the mix more delightful, and the entertainment tastier and spicier where the vibe is hot.

Much of it (the strident colors and clashing glamour in the clamor of season) does little more than provide a backdrop for those masters who play for the passers-by pleasure-seeking their day. The park-besotted, jaded and footsore, bench-sitting tourist is as captive an audience as a person can be.

Sly maestros of the short attention span, the minstrels and musicians share generously of their excellence, their years of experience providing music as encounters. Passing pedestrians power down, idle into spectators, some to become an audience held in thrall. A brief rest becomes timeless, a gift, one of those memories, an experience with no cameras to distract from it all.

As added enticement, throw in the occasional juggler, ceremonial fire dancer, trail hiker, or a marimba-playing drum circle, to add more dimension, and bright colors to the scene. With a choice of chess and cello masters to follow, a riddle-spinning parchment painter, martial arts demonstrators, a harp-playing park walker, the common peripatetic-excursionist, etc; the day's denizens emerge, auditioning, a richly woven tapestry out on vivid display.

Toss in the bogus shaman, add an itinerant vision-quester, a huckstering sky pilot, a pet possum-totin', wild-animal, snake-dangling, story-mongering rogue or two, and the park, the plaza, and the main streets teem with opportunities to merge and disappear. Such a place was this Place, and where the story resumes.

Backstory Fantasy: The Cat-on-a-hot-tins Preceded 19 ~ Complications

Tolkien and Rowling would have understood the wild woods of Merryland's Cat-on-a-hot-tin Mountains. A walk in the forest here soon changes into something... other. Not something, somewhere else, but something other. A stroll ripens into reverie, becomes a trance, a meditation in motion, a walk-in dream. Listening to the hush instills a desire to be quiet.

Transformation is the goal: to vanish from the large, commercially targeted herd into anonymity; from the traveler with a map, into a seeker traveling lost; from the profligate in exile, into a prodigal returning home. Fine words, all, that amount to little more than gilt trumpery, a collection worth no more than a bucket of tripe, the ripe and horrid reeking of week-old fish.

But, if a discovery never pretends at pure truth, to exclusivity, or divine validity; and never promises more than life's last breath, or imagins itself more than an interim wandering between dust-to-dust, then all else is allowed. Gifts of the imagination are singular pathways [questionable shortcuts, unmappable passages, trails without name, nothing concrete] on the uncharted journey, the interval Between, an expedition into Unknown, and the safari of Life.

We dignify our quest by calling it Destiny, or the pursuit of Art. A quarrel gets recast as a rage for the ages. A ripple of the moment, a pimple on the back of time, gets reshaped by history and its need for legend, into the richness of instruction, and purified gold. Quotidian events achieve epic quality, become a time when greatness, and merely famous faces, share space and trade places on the daily front page.

Quests may be dignified by sourcing them to religion, or science, but there are limits to any stance laying claim to the answer, universal as Truth. Because, how can a quest be faithful and true to its mission, if the highway is known, perceptions defined, possibilities declined, results predetermined, with a false destination leaving one fallen, lost, or behind?

From an entity on the edge into a being on the verge, the unmapped journey, and our dozen daily crossroads, are all there is. Portals, thresholds, doorways, openings (often ersatz and unmarked), all turn out to be entrances into... well, Death, finally. This leaves starting life without answers, and gambling on direction. It means moving daily onward with but one certain answer, a single shared goal: the Exit sign above the crimson door, a gaping wound, that only opens Out to

To follow any of our fabulists (while curled up reading in the belly of this world), is to wonder how the hobbits and faerie folk stay hidden so well. The woods here are drenched with their essence, the air fairly saturated with their being and presence. The aire here hums with the spirit of their magic, and the enchantments of their chi. The full spirit spectrum, and all mortal beings inhaling life in these woods, breathe this oxygen.

The air here fairly bristles with sorcery. Their oft-told tales, and various stories, are their jewels from antiquity, their memory's gems from the pipe smoke of their dreams. The fumes of brother beings permeate the air, and there are pockets in the forest fetid with the smell, and the tell of their exhale.

Faerie circles exude a fusty pong, a mystifying tang that smells mightily of a common trust, a mutual sharing of the dried-up crust, and the malodorous must of their unsanitized secrets. They populate these forests like the best of old friends, like next door neighbors in a village of trees.

Peer into this other-sphere, into the obscurely exposed, and the partially eclipsed; take in the richness, inhale deeply of it, so you can believe. Let the narrow doors open, and this other world emerges, comes out to greet you, merely diaphanous, but very alive.

It takes no imagination at all to see their leaf-strewn doorsteps, to picture warm, cozy dens adjoining their plump, and ample, pantries. Sheltered within these rocks, and low-rent havens, are homes and families getting on with their lives. They entertain life as commonplace and colorful as the upcoming festivities at their next circle dance.

Young ones live, and thrive, and are schooled in these neighborhoods, counseled among their surrounding, multifarious, roots. Tall tales, improbable legends, and true romance (hard-won love at noble expense) live large in these woods. Stories inhabit these mountains as tho the faerie rings, and hidden glades, were colonized by entities, ancient but alive, enshrined in auld stories, immortalized with words.

Worlds of variety mix and co-mingle, but don't get to meet, get to blend in the mix, but don't touch. They ghost past each other, unable to cross over, except out of necessity, or star-crossed love. They weave, duck and intermingle, but only as divorced worlds under the same welkin roof. Both are blind, as the other side hides. Inevitable brush-byes between the worlds pass undetected, or register a quicksilver thrill shivering up the spine.

Fertility piled on fecundity, storerooms filled to capacity; they thrive on human opacity in the forest where they hide. These million minions of intermingled natures take care of each other. They cover for the faerie folk in their comings and goings, provide a facade for their cross-meadow transits. Using camouflage, dappled light, and sleight of sight, they disappear the evidence, and paint away their stain. Even the instantly startled, ever targeted deer, do not betray the intersect passings of their neighbors-in-trust.

The green moss, the blue sky, the clear streams and grey days, the silvery sheen of lichen, the red leaves falling, the hard brown bark, the fringed orange flowers within their bright, gaudy finery: all wild nature, all its myriads, and multiples, and multitudes of design, all its shapes, all its species, its sizes and hues – all are under contract, interlocked performers, members interweaving, all supporting actors in their woodland play.

To enter the realm of a forest is to step into a mystery, where an alien presence tips the natural balance. The delicate wild-wood is where a stranger signals danger – and the wild world freezes... and... stops... in place... to watch. Oozing poisons of arrogance, of primacy and greed, the hairless biped enters, strips their world of its substance, turns it into product-at-a-profit, stamps it with a label, and tags it with a price.

He vacuums up earth as the ignorant of the rules; forgets that Mother Terra is, by nature, a cost accountant, with inventories that are convertible, but irreplaceable, at any price. She can't be bribed, and she can't be fooled, but she can be snubbed, her needs easily ignored.

Expedience morphs into necessity where the future doesn't factor. Product, soon discounted, is downgraded by volume to attract the next high bid, and finally, to sell at any price, until... until the day comes when Mother Nature (and Terra's cost accountant) has no choice, and must present the bill, and make the biped pay.

As brisk as a winter wind, as fragrant as the vernal field, as ripe as a late harvest, and as bright as the autumn's turned-out leaves; as sure as the moonrise, as real as a rainbow, as regal as the setting of the day's-end sun; and as agile and fragile as the pollen parachuting in the wild dancing wind: this is the daily news making up the wee folk's world.

Here, they snuggle and cuddle, the same as real-world people, who only get to meet them when both are asleep. The pixies, the fauns and the faeries, the sprites, the imps, the elves, and all the woodland elementals: they watch closely from the background they have always called home.

Oh, but to catch them Live & Onstage, at play in their world of revelry...! They know music and how to make it, and they know the joy of abandon in their middle-world dance. But word does leak out of these woodland bacchanals. Stories of mead, music, and merrymaking long into the night filter out in whispers, hushed, in undertones conspiratorially shared. Agnostics do not remain so here; or they do not see, and do not stay.

In the autumn, at harvest time, and the year's apotheosis, the leaves give their last embrace to green virility, before surrendering vitality, losing finally in their battle against windblown life. They celebrate with color before entering transition in their passage out of life. In choreographed pomp, in their splendid regalia, in an ages-old ceremony of punctual pageantry, they will give up, dry up, curl up, and die. Assured of their rebirth at springtime's renewal, they autumn-fall to rest a while, before they flower up, going the round again, a circle without meaning that is the living of Life.

The winter foothills, nestled in their slumber, compose a world of white, silently vivid, and brilliantly bright. Pillowed in their virginal, untrammeled snow, the fields, the ponds, the fens and the rock-broken meadows, the bluffs, the defiant timberlands where the land cries out, “I am different here!” Well, the white death of winter says, No, not so.

No, not in winter, when the world's stark divisions, and the land's sharp edges, disappear under sameness. When cracks in the road and the low stone walls brood under the same leveling whiteness, the restoratives of silence become active reminders. As a being without sound: white is the color, brittle is the texture, and winter is when.

It takes winter's frozen blight, and the first morning light, to highlight one of nature's most treasured moments, least measured times: the passing instance, and momentary instants of ephemeral sights. Glittering diamonds, everywhere, dust the snow-leveled, ice encrusted, fence enclosed fields. They glisten in their millions like galaxies in their billions. A life span of minutes, with fractions of seconds to compose as their ages, their moment of being, their crystalline instant, a gem before dying, before the warming of morning melts their selves into duty, as water awake.

Nature's version, versus underworld ice. Ice, tran-zee-unt and transparent, beauty without price, sits opposite the diamond, its classier, glassier, business world self. Precious for its impermanence, and priceless for being so, it is that perfect moment of beauty that gives evanescence definition, and ephemeral its due.

About the Author

Born in Colorado, the author was raised in awruhgon, where green is a way of life. A variety of jobs worked, and places lived, have served to feed his curiosity about life, about the what and the why of it. Often confused, he has looked for meaning and design to flesh out the skeleton of life.

As a fan, a collector, collator, and curator of quotes, he uses them extensively in his newsletter, the Wordgrove Post & Review (WordgrovePost dot net). Words have been the love of his life, and he has been satisfied to live his life alone with them.

Dan needs music; people-watching has been his favorite pastime. While not quite good at it, bartending was his favorite gig.