Eddie and the Amazing Rescue

by Brian Raiter

Part One

My name is Eddie Shearer.

I realize that that doesn't really tell you very much about me, but I'm not in a reflective mood right now. I expect we'll get to the rest as we go along.

Right now I'm sitting in a T. G. I. Friday's with Andrew and Val, two co-workers of mine, and I'm seriously wondering what I'm doing here. It was my idea for us to hang out, you see. I'm beginning to doubt my judgement. I've been working with these guys for two or three years, and I hardly really know them, or them me. We all know what each other thinks about coffee, and about various games. Yet I get the sense that they're pretty tight with each other, and it bugs me to think they may be excluding me. So I sort of took the plunge today, because it seemed like a good day for it, seeing as it's Friday evening and all. We work in a law firm. Rather, we work for a law firm. We're the tech support department of Lehrer, Pringerman, and company. Mostly we just help them get their machines to talk to the printers. I don't understand how so many people can make it through law school, memorizing ten times more information twenty times more boring than I will ever know, and yet they can't figure out how to print from a Windows machine. Anyway, Friday is usually pretty crazy in the office, as half a dozen people have to get something working right now, or else they're not going to get their hundred-page brief submitted to the court before five o'clock. And then there'll be trouble. So by the time things finally calm down around 6:30 or so, the three of us are tired and cranky and ready to blow off some steam. You'd think we'd be heading straight out the door, to catch a bus or go meet our girlfriends for dinner in some nice restaurant, but more often than not we seem to wind up standing around for twenty minutes or more complaining about our least favorite co-worker of the week (usually Jenkins, who seems to smile at just about everybody in the world except us three). This may be because none of us have girlfriends. I certainly don't, not for over a year now, and I'm beginning to suspect that Andrew and Val may not have much of a life, outside of each other. So why do I want to be friends with them? Good question. Maybe I should have seen this coming. But lately I've been feeling a bit — well, unmoored may be the word for it. Like I'm floating free, but not in a good way. If the tide were to suddenly rise, I'd be on my way out to sea. It's not that I don't have friends of my own. I do, and good ones, too. But I have a suspicion that I'm currently in the process of driving a wedge between them and myself. Or at least annoying the piss out of them. I'm in danger of wearing out my welcome, is what it is. And that would be bad, because I only have three of them. And if I made my friends sick of me, enough so that they started not wanting to be around me, I would really have nobody. So I feel like I need to get some more friends, and quickly too. They don't need to be good friend — I just need them to shoulder some of the burden. The burden that knowing me is starting to turn into. And if it doesn't work out in the longer term, that's fine. I just need them for a while. Preferably until I stop annoying my friends so much. Or until I find some more friends to replace them.

I'm panicking, aren't I? I think I am. I think I'm overreacting to Chuck's overreaction. But Chuck unnerved me, and so did the ring. It's hard to say which unnerved me more. I guess Chuck did, at the time, because I forgot all about the ring when he started getting on my case. But then this morning I found the ring in my jacket pocket again, and now I can't stop thinking about it. It's sort of the ring's fault that Chuck blew up at me, since it got me thinking about April in the first place, which is why I asked Chuck about her, which is pretty much what led him to start laying into me. So the fact that it's been on my mind all day is making me paranoid that it's going to interfere with my other friendships as well. Which is probably a stupid idea, I know, but there it is.

So when the Friday afternoon madness had finally worn off, and it looked like it was safe to leave, I considered my co-workers. They were working here for several years before I arrived, and they seem to be pretty comfortable. The job is actually pretty cozy, in some ways. Sure, you've got to deal with obnoxious lawyer types being clueless all day long, but it's a very predictable job. Every day I come in, and I know that the odds of being expected to deal with something I don't already know how to fix is pretty low. Every now and then some important bit of software gets upgraded, and then we have to learn how to deal with a whole new set of bugs and failure cases, but that never seems to happen often enough to actually aggravate me — just enough to keep us from getting bored and complacent. I'm not one to avoid complaining about my job, mind you, but I've had jobs I hated and I don't think this one is ever going to rival those. And Andrew and Val do their fair share of bitching, but they also seem to have a near-subconscious understanding that we actually have it pretty good, all things considered. I mean, it's not in human nature to actually be happy with your job, especially not just because you know it could be worse. But still, our complaints never seem to contain any real venom, and I suspect it's just as much a source of small talk than it is anything else. As I say, they seem pretty comfortable here. If this job were a couch, they would have made two permanent dents in the springs by now. And after two years I still feel like a bit of a newcomer. They had their routine, they had it all figured out, and then I came along. Law firms don't expand and contract quickly (I expect it will be quite a while before they ever need to expand the tech support department to four people). So I suspect they still think of me as something of an interloper. For a long time I tried to win their trust by maintaining a respectful distance, not trying to interpose myself before they're ready. But I've come to realize that that was probably the exact wrong approach. Probably they're waiting for me to show them that I'm ready to make friends, that I'm interesting enough to be worth talking to about more than lattes and Counterstrike. So I went and did something that wasn't really in character for me: as we were standing around with our coats and backpacks, looking for all the world like we were just about to walk out the door even as our ritual complaining about the day's annoyances seguewayed into a full-scale analysis of the office's politics (and believe me, if you've never worked in a law firm you've no idea what office politics can become), I suddenly blurted out, "Hey guys, ya want to go next door and grab a quick beer?" Andrew and Val looked at me, and then at each other, and then shrugged as if to say why not? What interesting customs you foreigners have sometimes. And now I'm beginning to think that my brain knew what it was doing back when I was keeping a respectful distance.

Andrew holds his beer mug with one hand as if for leverage as he leans forward and eyes me from across the table. The gesture makes him look intoxicated, even though we've barely started drinking. "The thing you need to understand is that it's not really about the sex. It's really all about status. Human beings are like obsessed with social status."

Val sets his beer down with a bang, ignoring the cardboard coaster three inches away. "No, man. Sorry, but you're full of it."

Andrew reorients his gaze to Val. "Think about it."

"Sex?"

"Yes."

"Sex? Is all about the sex."

"Status."

"Stop analyzing, Poindexter. Sex is not about analyzing things."

"Listen to me."

"It's about feeling good."

"Listen to me."

Val indicates that he is listening by taking a drink from his beer.

"Which would you rather have. Okay? Which would you rather have." Andrew adjusts his glasses, causing a reflection of the dim light to briefly shine at me. I look across the aisle to my left. There's a large table over there, about eight or nine people. "A: a blow job from a four-hundred-pound chick." Andrew is holding up a finger to indicate that this is choice number one.

Val interrupts, perhaps suspecting where this is going. "If it's a blow job then I don't have to look at her. She can weigh as much as she wants."

Andrew considers this briefly. "Okay, then sex. Full-on penetration."

"Are we assuming that I come at the end of this?"

"Sure."

"Then she can't be four hundred pounds."

Andrew makes an annoyed pffft sound. "Oh come on."

"Come on what? Am I supposed to be enjoying this or not?"

"You're unintentionally proving my point for me."

"No, you're offering me a hypothetical, and I'm pointing out the internal contradictions."

"Not even if the lights were off?"

Val doesn't respond, except to narrow his eyes. He appears to be thinking hard. The conversation from across the aisle is loud. There appear to be three or more people talking at any given time, but it's not like the are multiple groups that are just talking amongst themselves and ignoring the others. People seem to be moving in and out of the various discussions with fluid grace. It's almost like a cocktail party. For a brief moment I feel an ache in my chest: I want very much to be a part of that group, surrounded by the happy chitchat of acquaintances and being a part of the whole. Then I wish desperately that they would go away so I wouldn't have to sit and try not to overhear them.

"Just humor me, Val, okay? For the sake of argument."

"Okay."

"Thank you."

"For the sake of argument."

"For the sake of argument. Yes."

"Just finish your sentence already."

"Okay. Or B: Have a rumor started that you're doing Cindy Crawford." Val begins to say something but Andrew holds out his two fingers and quickly adds: "Which then gets printed in People magazine."

Val scowls at him.

"If it's all about the sex then the answer's gotta be A. A, you get laid. B, you don't."

Val is on the verge of saying something but can't quite find the words.

"But in reality it's not really about the sex at all."

"But wait, Andrew. You can't really compare the two, because with B you've got all these other possible advantageous consequences, outside of the sphere of sexual relations."

"Yes. Social status."

"It's more than just that."

"Because people think Cindy Crawford is letting you bang her."

"I mean, you could probably get on talk shows and stuff like that. Given the choice between being on television and getting a free blow job, I'd rather be on television."

"Yes. Because social status is more important to you than sex."

"No, wait. Hang on. That wasn't what you were arguing originally."

I was on the bus, on the way to work, when I found the ring again. It set the mood for the rest of my day, after a fashion, making me feel confused, and vaguely annoyed, though without a clear target for my annoyance. I found myself getting annoyed at the other people on the bus. There were these two different guys playing with some tiny hand-held computer thingy, with a flip top and a stylus for poking at its touchscreen. The two of them weren't together or anything; they were several rows apart. They didn't see each other — they were just two random guys who happened to own the same PDA (or game console, or whatever). I was annoyed because I didn't recognize their gadgets. If I had just seen one guy with an unfamiliar gadget, then maybe it's just some obscure unpopular thing. But two guys at once, on the same bus? That seemed to be a sure sign that I was out of the loop. I got annoyed at the guys for making me feel stupid. Then I got annoyed at my job for making me become an expert on a narrow range of five or six Windows applications, causing the rest of my skills to become outdated and unmarketable. And if everyone except me knows about these gadgets, then surely Val and Andrew know about them, and so I got annoyed at them for not mentioned them to me at work. Then I got annoyed at them for not being more friendly and sociable with me. By the time the bus got to my stop, I had worked myself into a fine little dither, and then fallen out of it again as I started to think more about the ring.

I had been a little unsure about the ring last night. At first my only thought was, what the heck is this and how did it get in my jacket pocket? I worried that I had somehow managed to put on someone else's jacket by mistake. Then I wondered if I had found the ring, put in my pocket, and then forgotten about it. I had almost convinced myself of the latter, sitting in the bar and staring at it in the dim light, as I waited for Chuck to join me. But as I turned it around, something about one of the angles jogged my memory and it suddenly seemed familiar. I was sure I had seen it before. Which seemed to suggest that it must have been April's, that somehow it had wound up with me, buried at the bottom of my jacket pocket for the last couple of years and for some reason only now rising to the surface. And then I remembered where I had seen it before.

"See, you just said that social status is more important than sex. But what you said at the start of all this is, social status is more important than sex in relationships."

Andrew is listening carefully. "Okay."

"You practically said that social status is the real reason we have relationships, and the sex is just a distraction or something."

"Okay, yeah."

"That's a very different statement, Andrew."

"You're right, it is. I misspoke back there. But my point is still valid."

It was an easygoing Saturday afternoon. April and I had had a late breakfast at a busy little diner, and when we emerged from the noisy bustle of the place we discovered that the sun had come out and it was all at once a beautiful spring day. So instead of going back home, we wandered aimlessly along the street, looking in the windows of the various shops. I had been perfectly happy just to be outside, with all the other people, and with nothing that needed to be done other than to stand next to April and share in each other's thoughts. And to be seen with her. I found myself constantly wanting to nuzzle her, as we wandered down the sidewalk, and I felt like I understood why people indulge in public displays of affection for the first time in my life. Never before had I had a girlfriend like April — that is, someone who so clearly seemed to be one in a million. I wanted everyone to see this, this miraculous woman who seemed perfectly happy not just to be with me, but also to be seen with me. She was my girlfriend, and she didn't care who knew it. And I realized that as long as I had her around, I would be able to see myself through a different pair of eyes, a pair in which, it seemed, I appeared better than I did through my own. It felt as if my life had opened up underneath me, like a flower in the sunrise, and the best part had truly begun. On that day I would have taken a bullet for her. Heck, I would have done so with glee, secretly blessing my luck at having been given an opportunity to so perfectly demonstrate my gratitude to her and the world at large. And while April herself wasn't quite as giddy as all that, she was clearly feeling happy and affectionate. I started going into stores at random, for no particular reason other than to prolong the moment, and to try out the idea of ourselves as a couple in front of the shopkeepers. Look, a drugstore. Perhaps we might come here together to purchase shampoo and toothpaste, in the near future. Look at us: a happy couple. All the world loves a lover, no? And so it was only natural that we would wind up going into the jewelry store. Of course neither of us could afford anything in the store. When the jeweler came over and genially asked how he might be of service, it seemed only natural to pretend that we were looking for an engagement ring — a very serious matter, of course, and not one that could be decided right away. There would be no expectation that we would buy anything that afternoon. But April was certainly encouraged to try on any of the rings that caught her fancy. I loved the little game at the time; it made me think of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", and I felt like a resourceful little church mouse. I think April felt much the same way. She definitely got into the game of considering the rings they had, discussing the merits of each with the jeweler. In the end, though, one ring was clearly the best of them all, and to nobody's surprise it was the most expensive ring they had. One large diamond in the middle, large enough for it to show off tiny prisms inside its depths, surrounded by four smaller diamonds cut slightly asymmetrically so as to draw the eye to the middle stone. The ring itself was platinum. It was so expensive I couldn't bring myself to even pretend that I could afford it. But it fit April's finger perfectly, and she I agreed, afterwards, that it was clearly the most beautiful ring in the store that day.

Of course the ring that I found in my jacket pocket couldn't possibly be the same one. And it's possible that the resemblance wasn't even that strong. It had been many months since that afternoon in the jewelry store, and I hadn't seen it since then. (Though I had certainly thought about the ring since then. I would occasional fantasized about saving up enough money to one day be able to buy the ring, and then presenting it to her on bended knee. It would have been impossible for her, or any woman, to say no to a proposition such as that.) It's possible that the ring in my pocket simply looked valuable enough to remind me of April's ring, and this had simply confused my memories of what the original actually looked like. But even setting aside the issue of resemblance, the ring in my pocket certainly couldn't actually be made of diamonds and platinum. People may lose valuable jewelry from time to time, but not in other people's jacket pockets. It had to be costume jewelry — cubic zirconium and aluminum plating or whatever. I was hardly a judge of gemstones, so the fact that it looked genuine to me meant little.

"As long as we're positing that the woman in A is attractive enough for me to actually enjoy the sex, then I choose A over B. So no, your point is not valid."

"No, you're just saying that. If it came down it in real life you'd take B."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Any man would."

"Hell no. The choice is between getting laid, and trying to convince other people that I'm getting laid. I'd rather get laid."

"Not quite. The choice is convincing other people that you're getting laid by a woman who's out of your league."

"I don't care what other people think about who I'm laying."

"Versus getting laid by a woman whose league you're out of."

"I'm not into those kind of games."

But even setting aside all consideration of the ring's authenticity, I was still completely baffled as to where exactly it had come from. Even worthless rings don't just show up in your pocket one day. Loose cough drops, yes; jewelry, no.

This is what I was thinking about as I was on the bus this morning, going to work and getting annoyed by everything around me until suddenly I wasn't anymore, and just felt confused and out of control of my own life. Which is a weird thing to feel, when you're single. It's when you're in a relationship that you're really not in full control of your life, because there's this other person always pulling on the steering wheel, trying to get you to say stop at a retail outlet store when you're trying to get to the movie theater on time. Now I'm alone, and have full control over what I do each day. So why do I feel unmoored and out of control? It doesn't make sense.

"This isn't just a game I'm talking about, Val. This is society. This is human culture. This is what people do."

"Yeah. People play games. That doesn't make it good."

"Okay, fine. Call it a game if that's what you want to call it. The point is, it's just part of life. Like death and taxes. You can't live in a society and say 'Oh, I don't play that game.' You can't not play."

"That's just not true. You can choose."

"The only way to not play that game is to live in a cave."

"You don't have to go along with every single thing society does."

"As in, by yourself."

It doesn't make sense but it's still true. Since discovering the ring last night, I found myself thinking about April almost constantly. In the sequence of unhappy events that had occurred since, I had completely forgotten about that Saturday afternoon. Thinking about that day now evokes a special kind of pain, one that I'm finding is really hard to resist. I'm not sure, now, that I've ever been more content with my life than I was on that day. Maybe there was a time when I was like six. On Christmas day or something. But not in my adult life. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced. Which is really terrifying, if that was the high point of my life. I don't want to be thinking like this, but I have a very hard time believing that I'm ever going to be able to arrange such a harmonic convergence of good things. Certainly I didn't arrange it last time; I fell into it. But such luck only comes once in a lifetime. If I don't make it happen again, it won't. And I seriously doubt that I have that kind of power. Or ever will. There are people who do have that kind of power, mind you. But they're the ones who get written about in the newspapers and the tabloids. People pay attention to them. I'm never going to be one of those people. My best hope for getting into the news is by being shot by a rampaging psychopath.

All of which means that it's really hard to stop thinking about that Saturday afternoon. Which means thinking about April.

When we first broke up, I was angry and upset, but also relieved. The relationship was starting to turn into a mess, and I wasn't sure how to go about cleaning it up. She felt that I was growing distant, and I felt that she was withholding sex to punish me for ignoring her. It's possible that I have that backwards, or that April and I wouldn't agree if you asked us both. Frankly, I no longer remember now how it first got started, and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't either.

When I need to clean up a mess of my own, like in my apartment, it's a pain in the neck, but at least I know to go about doing it. But a relationship is like a mess that two people make, and both people have to be involved in cleaning it up. And I'm in my thirties and I still don't know how to go about it. My parents spent so much effort in getting me to clean up my room. Why couldn't they have passed on a few pointers on this while they were at it? For that matter, why the hell is sex education all about diseases and the mechanics of birth? You think they could at least set aside a week for getting in some basics of dealing with relationships. Are our priorities so backwards? Why don't we teach our children how to recognize when trouble is on its way, coming closer but still avoidable? Or how to know when something is worth salvaging and when it's better to just throw in the towel and move on? I would have sat through that class. (Sure, I would have still acted like I didn't care about it, but I would have attended every day. Even as a callow teenager I wanted to know the answers to these things. Or at least to know that these were questions I would have to deal with. Over and over again.)

But as it was, me not really knowing the right thing to do, I only knew that our relationship was turning into a mess. And I did have enough prior experience in these kinds of situations to know that if neither of us took action, it would only get worse, not better. That is, it was better to start talking about it now, rather than wait until somebody became too unhappy to remain silent any longer. And so finally I said the magic words: "April, we need to talk." Unoriginal, I know, but I think you score points with most women by not waiting for them to say it first.

The conversation lasted all night long, and it really, really sucked. I can no longer remember much of what either of us said, but after several hours of grinding our gears against each other and bringing up all the different ways we were pissing each other off, and watching both of us go from defensive to offensive and vice versa, there was pretty much nothing positive that either of us were feeling. We were drained of everything good. I don't know what I hoped or expected going into it, but by the time we had both wound down, I was convinced that this mess was not worth trying to clean up. It was time to put it to the torch and move on. Take whatever lessons there were to be had and leave the rest for the buzzards.

I don't know what she hoped or expected going into that conversation either. I do know how she felt not long afterwards, though.

"Look, Andrew, I see what you're trying to get at. I understand. And you know, I don't think you're totally off base, but you're going about it all wrong."

"What, you think you know better than me what my point is?"

"Well like, if you had asked me instead to choose between A, hitting on a cute chick in a bar and getting a drink thrown in my face, and B, hitting on the same chick and getting hot vibes from her but eventually getting turned down because she's married, then you could say, yeah. In both scenarios I get no sex, but obviously B is ten times better than A. And it's all because in B I still get all of the social status stuff that I would have gotten with option C. Namely she goes back to my place and we hit it."

"That's a nice little image and all, but it's not really illustrative of my point, Val. I'm still saying that when men and women get together, form relationship, have sex, it's really for the perceived boost in their social status."

"That's like Darwinian, and not in a good way."

"And the fact that sex feels good is secondary."

"You're starting to sound like some robot anthropologist, man."

Chuck was held up at work last night, so by the time he made it to the bar I was already well into my first beer. And despite my better intentions, the ring had gotten me thinking about April. When he finally did arrive, all Chuck wanted to talk about was his job, which I'm sure was terribly engaging for him but I found utterly uninteresting. Maybe with a different frame of mind I would have been able to focus, but as it was my mind kept wandering back to memories of April. Even this evening, sitting in a restaurant listening to a conversation that I can't bring myself to care about, reminds me of our first Valentine's Day.

I had no idea what to do on Valentine's Day. The week before April had suggested that we do nothing for Valentine's Day. "I don't really like all the pressure surrounding it, when it really is just a made-up holiday," she said. "And we're still getting to know each other." We had only been going out for three or four months at the time. I didn't really know what she meant by "pressure", but I agreed. I'm not really into romantic gestures as it is. A few days later I happened to mention this to Chuck, and he warned me. "Eddie, when a woman says let's do nothing on Valentine's Day, that means like go out to a movie. She doesn't literally mean nothing." I told Chuck that April didn't even like movies that much. "Then bring home some flowers and order something to be delivered for dinner. When she says let's do nothing, she means let's not put a lot of effort into cooking a romantic dinner." I didn't think Chuck understood April well enough to be so certain, but he nonetheless got me worrying. "A card at the absolute least, man. Otherwise you're asking for trouble." In the end, I decided that trusting my instinct was, in the particular case, the more dangerous route. If I followed Chuck's advice and he was wrong, it was unlikely to upset April. So I made plans: I would buy flowers from a place near where I worked, take the bus over to her place, and suggest that we order Indian food to be delivered. But then she called me up at work, an hour before quitting time. She had this old friend, a guy named Saul, who was single and feeling lonely, and since we weren't doing anything anyhow, maybe we could go out to dinner and invite him along? And so that's what we did. Was this idea borne out of a sense of charity on her part, or was she still unsure that she wanted to spend February 14th alone with me? I never quite worked up the courage to ask her that question. The dinner went on for hours, though, or so it seemed to me. I think she was right that Saul really didn't want to be alone that day, and he talked nonstop all evening. Even April had a hard time getting a word in edgewise, and as for me I didn't even try.

But even this memory has a sepia-tinged nostalgia about it. Every now and again, after that, that day would come up, and I would make a joke at Saul's expense. It made for a good anecdote, and good anecdotes are valuable things in a new relationship.

"See, you just think you're slave to your hormones. In reality you're a slave to your standing in society."

I slam my glass onto the tabletop. It was already sitting in front of me at the time, as I had finished my beer some time ago, I being the only one at the table whose mouth wasn't busy doing anything else. But it had been so long since I had said anything that I felt the need to get their attention before trying to interrupt. "What the hell, you two? What does all this philosophical blather have to do with my question?"

Andrew and Val break off their gaze and look at me blankly. "Well, I thought that," Andrew begins, then frowns. "What was your question again?"

I roll my eyes up to the ceiling. I shouldn't do that, I know. I should have just dropped it and let them get back to their psychoanalysis. "Never mind, it's not important." I look around for our waitress, even though I'm not sure I want another drink. I should just pay for my share and get the hell out of there. Not that I have anything to get home for.

Val says, "He asked about his ex-girlfriend, remember? He dumped her, then he regretted it and she didn't."

"Oh, right. So it's really like she tricked you into dumping yourself."

"Yeah."

"Like as one last favor to her."

Val laughs. "Yeah."

"Okay okay, real funny." I turn back to the table and face them. The waitress is busy with the huge table across the aisle and there's no use pretending that I'm expecting to catch her eye any second now.

"See, that's where what I was saying comes in. The reason the whole situation freaks you out is that you thought, by being the one to dump her, you were preserving your social standing as being above hers. But then —"

"Good god!" I shout. I'm overreacting, I know I am, but I can't help myself. Whether it's because I think he's underestimating me or because I think he's got me pegged, I don't know. All I know is that I really don't want to listen to this. I am lashing back in self-defense. "When was the last time either of you had sex anyway?"

Andrew and Val both blink at my outburst, almost in unison. They look at each other, then back at me. Andrew shrugs. "Last month," he offers.

"Last night," says Val. "Not that it's any of your business. But like you know that I'm married, right?"

No, I didn't know you were freaking married, Val. Of course I didn't; otherwise I would have kept my big mouth shut. You're the biggest dork I've known since I dropped out of the computer club in high school. Why the hell would I suspect you'd even lost your virginity. Is that your secret, Val? Marriage? She's pledged her till-death-do-us-part, and so you're now free to let yourself go? Smart, that. Thinking one step ahead of the game.

One step ahead of me, anyway. I lean back into my chair, trying not to visibly sulk. My attempt to silence Andrew and Val has exploded spectacularly in my face: Even my loser co-workers are getting laid more than me.

Val turns back to Andrew. "Last month? Was that that date you were telling me about? Hillary, was it?"

Andrew nods. "Hally, you mean. Yeah."

"You never told me you went all the way."

Andrew shrugs. "Eh. It wasn't worth bragging about. The sex wasn't very good."

"I'm not talking about bragging. It's just, you know, something that most people would bring up. It's noteworthy."

The waitress suddenly materializes and picks up my glass. Eying the other two glasses, now half empty, she asks, "Another round?"

Val nods. "You bet." I shrug to myself. My desire to escape has been punctured and deflated. I don't want to go home and be alone on a Friday evening. I can't say that I'm enjoying hanging out with my co-workers, exactly. But hey. At least they're getting laid on a regular basis. I could do a lot worse for company. I guess Andrew would say that they have a higher status than me, and so my desire to be associated with them is perfectly natural.

Andrew watches the waitress as she walks away. "Man, I wouldn't mind taking her home."

Val half turns in his seat, then faces front again. "Yeah, she's something else all right."

I grunt something noncommittal, not really wanting to encourage this topic in general any further than I already have. There's no point in lusting after waitresses, especially in bars. They get hit on several times a day, by guys of all shapes and attitudes. In order to keep smiling, they have to develop armor three inches thick. There's no way to appear sincere when you're hitting on a waitress while she's serving you.

To be sure, our waitress is really quite attractive. Dusky skin, nice figure. A little on the short side, which I actually like. A bit part of her attractiveness, though, is that her hair and makeup are done up with a lot of attention to detail. I'm not even that big on women wearing makeup. April never wore the stuff, and after a while I found I didn't miss it at all. In fact, it's really better to not have lipstick involved when you're kissing. The stuff tastes like greasepaint, and it takes forever to get rid of the taste. But when you're talking about a woman you don't know, there's no doubt that makeup is more attractive than no makeup. Particularly when it's elaborate. It's not an issue of how it looks, at that point. It's an indicator. It says that she wants to be seen, to be looked at her appearance appreciated. It's almost like permission to ogle. And for a guy, that's attractive right there.

Of course, not everyone would agree with me. The feminists say that women should be able to dress up for their own sake, without it being taken by guys as permission to stare. I gotta say, I'm sympathetic to feminism and all, but I just don't get it on this subject. If you don't want to be looked at, then don't put on makeup and go outside. If a guy has to leave the house and he doesn't want to be ogled, he puts on a scruffy tee shirt and doesn't comb his hair. Why can't women do the same? It's ridiculous to work over yourself until your appearance is just so, and then get upset if you get stared at. Why the hell did you bother with it all then? If you're truly just dressing up for yourself, then don't go outside. Simple as that. We all have to deal with being seen in order to go to work, buy food, et cetera. Men and women both. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Again, it's not that I'm not sympathetic to women's issues. I'm housebroken, I have my share of feminist ex-girlfriends. I even know what third-wave feminism means; how many guys can say that? But stuff like this I still just don't get. And I just wish they'd work all this stuff out so that I can look at them without worrying if I'm being perceived as threatening. They can decide if it's okay to pay them compliments or not. I don't care either way, I just want them to make up their minds and then tell me so that I can be polite and charming to strangers without feeling like I'm navigating a minefield.

But yeah. Regardless of what women say or don't say, a woman who's clearly put a lot of effort into her appearance is attractive in a completely different way than a woman who's just hot naturally. And I think all three of us, at the table, would have agree that our waitress was hot in that way.

I sighed and allowed myself to sink a bit into my chair. This nugget of male camaraderie, minuscule as it was, made me feel that much less alone and isolated. I decided that it was worth it, coming out here with Andrew and Val tonight. I'm not about to ask their opinion about my ex-relationship with April again anytime soon, but I think on the whole, my mood right now is no worse than it would have been if I had gone home and moped all night. I don't think I'm going to mention the ring to them, though.

"Now see, you and I are sitting here admiring our waitress. And it's not about social status. It's about the fact that she's hot. Maybe it's different inside your head, I dunno."

I can't believe these guys haven't exhausted this topic. I thought I had successfully derailed the subject, even if it sort of backfired in my face. Now I've embarrassed myself for nothing.

"In fact I probably don't want to know, if it is."

"Sure sure, for right now it is. But what if she actually started hitting on you? That would be even better, right?"

"Like yeah. Der."

I can't remember the last time I heard someone say "der". It sounds almost antiquated. I smirk, despite myself. But there's no danger of offense, as Andrew and Val have gone back to not noticing me.

"And it'd be better not just because you think she's hot, but also because you know that most other guys would think she's hot, too. So having her hit on you out of all the guys she could have hit on means that you must look pretty good to her."

"Yeah. Sure."

Have I mentioned already that I really don't care about this conversation? But I'm still unaccountably wary of the idea of leaving and being alone with my thoughts. So I remain here, even though I have absolutely no desire to join in this discussion. Frankly, I'm not even interested in trying to change the topic to something more interesting to me. That was my first instinct, when I originally brought up April. I thought I might get some interesting feedback about the fact that I'm still thinking about her fourteen months after we broke up. A different perspective, maybe even some sage advice spoken by voices of experience. What I got instead was this conversation. And my second attempt to take control of the conversation resulted in my discovering that I'm the only one at the table who hasn't been with a girl this year. Maybe even the only one in this entire restaurant. God, there's a chilling thought. And yet it's entirely possible. Maybe even probable.

"And therefore, having her hitting on you increases your social status. Which makes you happy."

"See, I don't see why it's so hard to believe that I can just be enjoying the fact that a hot girl is attracted to me. She's attracted to me, therefore she's likely to welcome my attraction to her, we're both feeling good towards each other, it's a beautiful thing, yin and yang, balance and centeredness, you get the idea. And here you sit, and you keep trying to tell me that I'm really just grooving on being cooler than all the other guys. And I'm just not seeing it, man."

So if I don't want to join in this conversation, and I don't want to try to change the conversation to something I could at least feign interest in, and I don't want to leave — I guess my only option is to sit here at the table and lose myself in my own thoughts. Hm. I guess that would explain why I've been doing exactly that all evening.

"Because she's hot in a way that lots of other guys find hot, too. You see? If you thought she was hot in a way that most other guys didn't care about, or better yet thought was a turnoff, then that part of your enjoyment would be missing. And you'd notice. Trust me."

Val frowns in thought. "Gimme an example."

"For example, if —"

"And don't bring up the four-hundred-pound chick again. That doesn't work."

"There are men who find that attractive, you know."

"Well yes, there are a lot of weird people out there, and I'm sorry for them and all, but I am not capable of imagining myself as one of them. Pick an example I can deal with."

Andrew rolls his eyes. "Okay fine, how about short women? Most guys prefer tall and thin, so say you prefer short women."

"I don't really much care about height, actually. Long as she's not taller than me."

"Cripes. Just say you prefer short women. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure, whatever."

"Okay. Now if you, the short-woman-preferring you —"

"But not short and fat."

"Fine! If that you looked at our waitress and said, hey she's hot, it'd be a little different. Because she's pretty tall, yeah? Only so now, here comes another waitress, and she's also hot, but she's like five foot one, the way you like them. Now imagine that this second waitress starts hitting on you."

"I say, that's good, because I like her more." Val looks at Andrew and waves his hand aimlessly in the air to indicate that he thinks this line of inquiry is showing nothing.

"Right, you're happy about that because you like her. But you also know that she's not quite as popular in the looks department, seeing as how she's short and all. So one part of you knows that, and so you know that the fact that she's hitting on you isn't quite as impressive, because she's that much less popular with the guys."

Val looks up at the ceiling. He appears to be rolling this idea around in his mouth. He says, "Yeah, but."

Andrew continues. "Whereas if the first waitress had hit on you instead, even though you're more attracted to the other one, you'd be more likely to brag about that to your friends."

"Yeah, okay, I'll concede you have a small point. But it really is a small one."

Actually, to my surprise, I find myself conceding a bit to Andrew as well, for I have recognized a bit of myself in the current example. April was a thoroughly attractive woman, both in my eyes and in the eyes of the common man. But one thing about herself that she disliked was her legs. She liked to compare them to tree trunks, and when she looked at herself in the full-length mirror in the morning, she would invariably turn her legs to try to find the angle that presented them at their thinnest cross-section before passing on into the bathroom. They weren't as big as all that, really, but I could see that they were indeed thicker than average. Or at least thicker than your average woman-on-a-billboard. Who knows what the real average is. But the thing is, I really liked her legs. For whatever reason they really turned me on. They looked strong and solid to me. They made her look tough. Especially when she wore skirts, which she did only rarely. I tried to convince her to wear skirts more often, actually, to very limited effect. I loved to run my hands along the backs of her legs, especially right after she had waxed them. (She was fanatical about keeping them hairless. I hated to imagine her putting herself through all that pain. It almost gives me shivers, actually, just thinking about it. But the results were just so, well, arousing, that I never said anything to discourage her. Instead I told myself that she was doing it for herself, really, not for me. And left it at that.)

All of which is not to say that I can't get it up for a woman with thin legs. Or that I would have found April less attractive with thin legs. It would have just been different, is all. But I think I would be less likely to talk about my appreciation for April's fat legs with other guys.

Andrew pokes at his damp coaster with his index finger. "I don't think it's a small point. Not at all."

"Sure, I'll agree that the first waitress makes for better bragging material, and I guess I do care about that a little. But you're saying like that's a really important thing, more important than the sex even. And it's totally not."

"Well, that's just because you made me choose such a lame example. Height isn't really all that big of a deal in our society. But the further you get from the norm, the more it starts to matter."

The thing is, I never really told April how much I liked her legs the way they were. I did try to get her to wear skirts, but she may have just thought that I liked skirts, not that I liked her legs. Was I reluctant to admit that I liked her legs? If I ever thought about it at the time, I probably chalked it up to a general belief that it's utterly hopeless to try to dissuade a woman to stop hating her least favorite part of her body. They have some basic, instinctual need to find one piece of themselves and direct the worst of their venom at it. You can't convince a woman to start liking it, and if you could she would just focus her energy on the next-most-hated feature on her list instead. All you can do is remind her that you think she's the most beautiful woman ever, and let her pursue her own private neuroses on her own time.

But now, Andrew has me wondering if perhaps I also didn't tell April how much I liked her legs the way they were was because I didn't want her thinking I was a freak. It's one thing to love your girlfriend despite her self-perceived flaws, but if you actually prefer her with them, you can become suspect in her eyes. Maybe even a traitor to her pursuit of perfection.

I shake my head. Relationships are so damn complicated. And when you look at them more closely, you realize that you didn't know the half of it. I wish the waitress would come back with our beers. I'm seriously considering the merits of drinking with serious intent. If I get drunk, perhaps I shut off my brain enough that I won't be so worried at the prospect of being awake and alone tonight. And If I can get drunk quickly enough, then I can leave these two yammering geeks and go home before this conversation makes my head explode.

"Well your four-hundred-pound woman doesn't make a better case, let me tell you. If I was attracted to four-hundred-pound women, I'd go see a shrink until I was cured."

Right as these words leave Val's mouth, our waitress materializes by our table and puts down our beers. If she heard Val, her expression betrays nothing. I figure she did hear him — she'd had to have been deaf not to — but I doubt she really cares. She must hear all kinds of things, working here. Nonetheless, Val looks embarrassed. And Andrew is chuckling. He drinks from his beer, then says with a patronizing smile, "Val, you gotta be more careful than that. Make sure you know what's you're doing."

Hm. Something about Andrew's comment rings a faint bell.

Val shakes his head. "Oh, it doesn't matter. I don't care what she hears me say. I'm not out here hoping to impress any women. I'm married, remember?"

I try to shut out the conversation as I jog my memory, but nothing comes.

Andrew is still grinning. "Yeah, but you care a little bit, don't you? You would prefer that she not think you're a shallow jerk-off."

Val rolls his eyes.

"Come on. Every guy cares what a hot girl thinks about him. You wouldn't be human if you didn't care just a little bit."

"Okay, fine. I care a little bit, yes."

"You see? Everything you do just proves my point."

"Holy cow," I interject. "Holy cow, look at the time." This is clearly the neverending conversation. If I don't leave now, what reason will I have to leave an hour from now? "I completely forgot. I have to —" I have to what? I've pretty much revealed that I have no life. "— you know, get up early tomorrow. I'm meeting my parents." I sound like even more of a loser than I really am, I know, but I don't really care what these guys think about me tonight. I just want to get away. (Without insulting them, that is; I still have to work with them.) I throw a fiver down in the middle of the table. Lucky for me I had the fiver. If all I'd had were twenties, there would have been an awkward negotiation of making change and/or promises to pay each other back later. As it is, I just gather my coat, smile and wave, and I'm out of there. Andrew and Val say something vague and polite as I go. My retreat may have been a bit too precipitous: they may be already realizing that they should feel insulted at my leaving. Hopefully they'll forget about it as they return to their interminable debate and beer-drinking.

The wind is blowing and it's cold outside as I stand at the bus stop. I turn my back to the wind, facing up the street. It's November and it's dark outside, so I forgo sitting down inside the shelter for fear that the bus driver won't see me and blow past the stop. You gotta be more careful than that. Make sure you know what's you're doing. Why does that sound so familiar? I shake my head. It seems like a recent memory, but for the life of me I can't place it. It doesn't feel like it's associated with the office. If it wasn't there, then where would I have heard it? I guess Chuck must have said it. I haven't done anything else recently that's brought me in contact with other people. I find myself frowning at the retreating red lights of cars going by. Why does the memory even seem important? It's not a particularly charged turn of phrase.

Chuck and I had been talking about his job. Actually, Chuck had been complaining about his job and I had been nodding my head sympathetically. Chuck's job kind of sucks, and he and I both know it. But what I also know, and what Chuck may sort of know but not in a conscious way, is that he isn't very qualified for much better job. He works in tech support, like me — keeping the hardware infrastructure up and running. But Chuck's resume is a lot less eye-catching than mine. He's worked for a lot of startups, which looks a bit suspicious, since startups have a tendency to hire whomever they can get. Plus they tend to suddenly stop being able to pay employees rather abruptly, so as a result Chuck's resume has a lot of "holes" in it — periods of time in which he was unemployed. This also looks suspicious. But Chuck is one of those people who are dead set on working for big, stable companies. Which means that he's unlikely to ever improve his situation. Which means that he's going to continue to work for the kind of startups who will hire anyone they can get. The upshot of all this is that while I'm sympathetic to Chuck's unhappiness with his job, I also feel that he's chosen this situation where he can't easily go out and get a better job. So when he complains I tend to zone out. I guess we're like an old married couple in that way.

Chuck's current job is for a web hosting company, which in some ways is a step up, because web hosting companies have non-trivial hardware requirements, and if he can just stick it out in this place for a few years, it would go a long way towards balancing out all the sketchy short-time junk on his resume. Unfortunately, he doesn't currently command a lot of respect at his job, so his co-workers tend to stick him with the least interesting work. It's his job to change the toner on the printers when they run out, for example. At my job, the secretary does that.

Chuck and I have taken to meeting up once a week or so. A year ago last summer, I was sort of avoiding him — not seriously, but not really making room for him in my schedule either. It felt like all he ever talked about was how much he disliked his job, and it was getting old. But then April and I broke up, and I wound up leaning heavily on him during the six months or so when I got really depressed. So now we continue to hang out, but it's getting to be annoying again. I've changed; I'm better. Well, I'm still not entirely over April, but I'm definitely better. I no longer lie in bed for hours in the dark unable to sleep and wanting to either cry or punch things. (Although I still have nights where I have to lie on the couch with the television on in order to fall asleep.) I'm no longer terrified at the thought of spending a Friday evening by myself. (Although I don't still relish the prospect, but at least I'm capable of doing something about it.) I'm no longer convinced that I could never have another girlfriend again ever. (I just don't believe that I'll ever feel towards anybody else the way I did towards April.)

Like I said, I'm not fully recovered, but I feel that I have made progress.

So anyway. Chuck and I were hanging out in a bar, having a beer and eating some chicken wings. Chuck was iterating through his latest set of complaints about his job. I was shaking my head sympathetically at intervals and thinking about the ring that I had just found in my jacket pocket. I had arrived a couple of minutes before Chuck. I had grabbed a copy of the local weekly from the stack by the door and was going to browse it until Chuck arrived. Instead I wound up finding the ring, which once I had identified it left me thinking about that Saturday afternoon. Don't get me wrong with what I'm about to say, because I was extremely happy that Saturday afternoon, and I knew it. But I don't think I realized until that moment in the bar, with the unopened newspaper in my hand, staring around the dimly-lit room at the half-dozen other groups of people in the place, that it may well have been the happiest day of my life.

The full realization of this dawned on me slowly, but it felt like an epiphany nonetheless. I didn't know what to do with this information (and I still don't), but it seemed a vital thing to understand and acknowledge (and it still does). So you can see that when Chuck arrived a minute or two after that, sitting down with a gigantic sigh like some punctured air bladder, and moving directly from the niceties to his faithful conversational gambit, also knows as "my job sucks" (The opening line this time was: "Oh man, Eddie, my job hit a new low today. Again.") — you can see that I wasn't really in the right frame of mind for listening to him.

After a few minutes he finished his story, after which he sort of wound down. That's his usual pattern: once he's gotten his griping out of his system, he turns back into a useful friend. Which I suppose is part of why I put up with it still. His tale of injustice sort of petered out, presumably having run out of the raw materials with which to build a narrative thread, leaving Chuck shaking his head at the travesty. "So yeah. Ugh. That was my day." These words were the signal for me to come back into focus. I pulled myself out of my little reverie as Chuck leaned back into the booth and sighed. "How was your day?" he asked.

This was my cue to respond in kind. Chuck is nothing if not fair, and he knows that he has to listen to others bitch and moan in their turn. But I wasn't in the mood for that, so I just said. "Oh, it was quiet. Boring but not in a bad way. Say Chuck, have you heard from April recently?"

That was sort of a mistake on my part, in hindsight. Chuck looked at me suspiciously. "No, I haven't. Why would I?"

I shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. You two were kind of friends before she and I were."

"Eddie, she and I were never friends. We were acquaintances. I barely knew her until you two became an item. I was only friends with her because of you."

"I just thought you might have stayed in touch a little, is all."

"No."

"She and I were the ones who broke up. That doesn't mean you and her have to stop hanging out, you know. I mean —"

Chuck looked hard at me, and I realized that his expression was one of serious annoyance. I wasn't really sure why he was so annoyed, which made me feel a little annoyed in turn.

"Eddie. You're my friend, not April."

"I know that. I appreciate that."

"Good."

"But just because she and I are having this problem, doesn't mean that it has to involve you, is all I'm saying. That's all."

"That's all?"

"Yeah."

"That's all?" It dawned on me then that he was being sarcastic. Chuck leaned over the table, half rising out of his seat in his effort to get in my face. "Eddie —" He seemed to be at a loss for words. Suddenly he fell back and sat upright again. "Shut up. Just shut up. You're being an idiot."

"Why am I being an idiot?"

"In so many ways I can't even being to explain." He throws his hands up in surrender.

"What?"

"It's beyond enumeration."

"Name one. Just one. I'm just asking after a mutual friend in a perfectly rational manner, and you're telling me that this is so idiotic that it defies explanation?"

"Okay, shut up!" I almost jumped at his raised voice. He returned to a normal speaking volume, but his tone had gotten cold. "Number one, April and I never hung out to begin with, expect when it was with you, so there's no reason to expect us to hang out now without you."

"There was that one time —"

"It was one time, Eddie. That's all. Okay, number two, right now I'm your best friend. Why the hell would you want me to be hanging out with your ex-girlfriend instead of you? That's warped."

"I never said instead of. You can be hanging out with both of us."

"No, I can't. That's not how it works. I can't be hanging out with two exes simultaneously. Not and be friends with them both."

"It's not like that with us."

"Yes, it is. It's always like that. You just haven't realized it yet."

"And anyway, I didn't say that I want you to hang out with April. I'm not trying to convince you to. I'm just saying the idea doesn't bother me."

"Okay. That's fair. But maybe it should bother you, Eddie. Because, number three, I don't think you're really over her yet."

"What the heck does that mean?" That comment hit much too close to home, given what I had been thinking out a few minutes ago.

"I mean just that. You walk and talk like a normal Eddie, most of the time. But every now and then you bust out with a comment like that and it's obvious that you still spend a lot of time thinking about her."

"Well, of course I think about her some of the time."

"Too often, in my opinion. And what's worse, number four, it's not the right kind of thoughts. I wouldn't mind so much if your thoughts were more like, oh man I hated it when April complained whenever I hung out late with you. Or, hey Chuck, let's go have sushi, cause April never wanted to have sushi."

Chuck adopted a slightly silly voice as he recited these words that he wanted to put in my mouth — a tactic that I thought rather undermined his argument. I shook my head in disbelief. "So — you're annoyed with me because I'm not bitter?"

The exasperated laserlike stare returned. "I'm worried because you're not angry! It's been a year now —"

"Over a year." Fourteen months, I wanted to add, but thought better of.

"— and I don't think I've ever really heard you get angry. Sad, yes. Miserable and depressed, yes. Angry, no."

"Well, so what? I just don't have it in me to get angry at her."

"Exactly!" Chuck says this as if I helped to make his point. "Anger is a natural part of a healthy break-up. You can't avoid it. At first I thought that you were just expressing your anger in private. You're a private sort of person, sometimes."

"I am a sort of private person."

"Sure. But then you keep dropping all these hints like you're fishing for news about her. When you ought to be flinching at the mention of her name."

I shook my head again. "You consider that healthier? Being unable to even hear her name without pain? You're kidding, Chuck. How is that healthier than a quiet, calm acceptance of the status quo?"

"Because I don't think you have accepted the status quo. I think part of you is still hoping you'll get back together."

There was more, much more. About an hour's worth of back and forth. But I don't really remember it. It's largely immaterial, anyway. Chuck was wrong about me not having been angry at April. He just doesn't know about the time when I was angry. (And hopefully he never will.) He was dead wrong about that, but that was all he was wrong about. It's true. Part of me is still hoping that we'll get back together.

How can I not hope? It's impossible.

The only thing I remember from the rest of the conversation is Chuck saying, with a casual air, "Hey Eddie, there are plenty of other fish in the ocean." That made me angry, surprisingly enough. It's a banal enough observation, and no doubt it's true. But it wasn't what I wanted to hear from my friend. I wanted reassurance, at least. Hey there Eddie, who could blame you for still wanting to get back together with April? I would if I were you. I wanted to hear, Eddie, April's one that's worth fighting for. Good for you for keeping the flame alive. You're faithful to her, and that's admirable. You, you're no fair-weather friend. April's blind if she doesn't see that. That's what I wanted to hear. Not this throwaway remark that was basically telling me to get over myself already.

The bus arrives. I get on it, find a seat. The bus driver pulls out into traffic. You gotta be more careful than that. Where do I remember that from? Make sure you know what's you're doing. Not from Chuck. It wasn't in Chuck's voice. I don't remember the context of the words but I remember how they sounded. The voice was softer than Chuck's voice, but louder. The words were spoken in a quiet place, in other words not a bar, and reverberated around briefly before diminishing into silence. The words were spoken with caution, lest they travel too far, to distant ears. When was the last time I was in such a place? Surely that should narrow it down.

The bus is overfull tonight, not unusual for a Friday night. All of the internal lights are on. For some reason I can't understand the combination of a full bus and bright lights makes everyone especially quiet, so nobody on the bus speaks at all. The only noise is the rumbling of the engine as it drags our combined weight up the sloping road. Some people are reading books or newspapers, but the rest of us are just staring ahead. I hate these buses, particularly on a night like tonight.

Finally it arrives at my stop. I get out, walk to my building, let myself into the foyer. Open the mailbox. It looks like it's all junk mail but one can never be sure so I take it all with me down the hall, to my door. Home at last. Home sweet home. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Actually, I kind of hate my place these days. Which drives me to hang out with people I think I might not like until I'm feeling the need to be alone again, at which point I can feel good about being home alone.

The bedroom is a small room off to the left, just big enough to hold a large bed. I hate my bed. You could fit three people on this thing, two easily. I have it all to myself, and I hate it. I'd much rather have my old twin mattress back. On that mattress, sleeping alone was the norm and having a second person was the exception. With this bed, every night I'm reminded that I'm a loser for going to bed alone.

No wonder I have to sack out on the couch every now and then. It's a simple matter of geometry.

But seeing the bed triggers something else in my brain, and suddenly I remember where I remember that phrase from. That dream from last night.

I sit down on the couch, reach over and turn on the floor lamp. I leave it at its dimmest setting. I'm feeling an affinity for the darkness all of a sudden. I feel like I should have a cigarette and a glass of whiskey on the rocks in my hands. Something noirish. I don't smoke, but I do have a bottle of vodka, sitting in the back of a cupboard. I go to the kitchen to find the bottle, and get a short glass filled with ice. I don't much care for straight vodka, or straight anything really. But I am taken with the mental image, and it would spoil the feeling to mix the alcohol with anything but water. And what the hell. It's Friday. I don't have any reason to get up tomorrow.

I think the reason that I feel so out of control of my life right now, when I'm the only person in my life, is that there's nothing stopping me. From doing anything, I mean. I could wake up tomorrow and decide to quit my job, buy a motorcycle with my severance pay, and start driving to Belize. And nobody would be there to stop me and remind me that when I wake up in the morning after freezing my ass off in the New Mexico desert, I'm going to wish I hadn't done that.

We guys grow up thinking that we want nothing more than to be free, and that the only reason to allow ourselves to get tied down is to get sex on a reliable basis. We idolize other guys, like rock stars, who seem to manage to get sex full-time without having to relinquish their options. And that's all fine and good for some guys, I suppose. But clearly I'm not one of them. Maybe I used to be one of them. I may even have been one of them as recently as a month ago. But I can tell you that I'm not right now. When I was with April, I had a full-time second opinion, and whether or not I appreciated it at the time, having it once more would make me a very happy man indeed.

I return to the couch and sip the vodka, wincing. I rattle the ice around in the glass, which is enjoyable in itself. I look more like how I feel right now. I take another sip. The vodka isn't terrible. In a little bit I probably won't mind the taste.

The dream was vivid. Most of my dreams are flat and uninteresting — static scenes, recognizably set in my everyday world. But not this one.

I was standing inside an open building, like a Greek temple. There were fluted columns all around me, but no walls. Outside the sky was bright blue, but with orange tints, like a cantaloupe. There were ice crystals suspended in the air, refracting spectral shards as my gaze swept across the horizon. Everything on the ground was a vibrant green color. Trees were everywhere, and inbetween the trees were bushes, and inbetween the bushes was grass. All of it was healthy and blooming. There were a building or two off in the distance, brilliant white marble like the one I was in. I wasn't alone, either. There were two or three others with me, but I have no clear image of them. There was a great deal that came before this moment in my dream; of that I am positive. But I remember none of it, only that I felt that I had covered a great distance and accomplished many things in order to be standing here in this austere building. No furnishings of any kind were present. Only columns and a roof qualified this structure as a building. Standing five or six feet in front of me was a large bird — a peacock, I suppose, as it had the huge sweeping tail feathers of a peacock. But this was no ordinary bird. The bird itself was facing away from me, but upon the bird's back was a face. A woman's face, to be precise, looking up at me. I don't mean that a human face was grafted onto this bird's back. The color was that of a normal peacock, but the shape was that of a woman's face. Her eyeballs were an iridescent blue-gray color, like the rest of the bird, and she had no eyebrows. But otherwise her face was just as expressive as anyone's She had strong cheekbones, and despite the strangeness she was clearly beautiful. It was she that I had come to see. To meet with her, for some reason. I can't remember what the purpose was, or if this was just another stop on a larger journey. But I remember that I greeted her, and introduced myself and my companions as a single group. She asked no questions, but only replied with those words. You must be more careful than that, she said. Make sure you know what's you're doing. She didn't say exactly those words, but it was something very close to that. Words to that effect. She spoke with perfect enunciation. I nodded, hoping she would elaborate, but she merely looked at me expectantly. I racked my brain, trying to figure out the deeper meaning to this warning. It occurred to me that I had walked up to her without checking for trapdoors in the floor. Perhaps this is what she meant? But I was afraid to move, for if I was standing on a trap door already, the slightest motion might knock it open. Was there more to the dream besides this? Perhaps this morning I remembered more, but right now these are the only details I can bring forth.

I rattle the ice in my glass again. The cubes are much smaller by now. I think I've finished off the vodka in the glass; what's left is just melted ice. I'm feeling pleasantly drunk. I consider getting up and getting some more vodka, but this is probably as pleasant as it will get. Some calmly rational part of my brain realizes that now is probably a good time to go to bed, that at this point I could probably fall directly asleep, and not spend hours tossing and turning. I leave the glass on the kitchen counter and go back to my bedroom. Yes, the alcohol has affected me; I can see it as I walk through my apartment. I only get my shoes off before I lose patience with undressing, and crawl into bed fully clothed and shut my eyes. My brain was right. Almost immediately I feel exhausted, and sleep washes over me.

One of the reasons that I stopped letting myself fall asleep on the couch is that it's right next to the windows that face east. So I'd be woken up with the sunrise. No fun, especially when there's been drinking the night before. So I was pretty annoyed when I was awoken by the bright sunlight beating against my closed eyelids.

I squeeze my eyelids against each other and turn my head away from the light. A coarse fiber tickles the inside of my ear, making sleep retreat even further. I can hear birds singing. Why the heck did I leave my window open? The rain could have gotten in. Actually, there's no "could have" about it: maybe the rain did get in. I should get up and check, but understandably I'm not eager to do so. I can hear maniacal laughter nearby. Somebody's having a good time. I wish they would go have it somewhere else. A cool breeze blows across me, giving me the shivers. I curl up a bit. Why don't I have a blanket over me?

Finally, the number of anomalous experiences hits a critical mass, and my brain comes wide awake with the realization that something abnormal and/or inappropriate is going on. I open my eyes and sit up.

I am laying atop a grassy knoll, out in the open. There's not a building as far as I can see. Trees are scattered about, too thinly to be called a forest. The sun is low in the sky and there is dew on the grass. There are also clumps of bright white mushrooms scattered about, including one right next to my left hand. I see butterflies in the air, as well as birds. Now that I'm fully awake, I realize that the air is full of birdsong. They must like it here. Standing a few feet to my right is a squat man, with wild shaggy strawberry-blond hair. He's dressed in soft leather clothes that would look cute on someone less striking. His mouth is wide open, for the maniacal laughter is his. His teeth as long, yellow and uneven. He stops laughing and stares directly at me. His eyes are wide open, and they too are yellow.

I look down at myself. I'm wearing the clothes I went to bed with, down to my stockinged feet. I don't really want to stand up in the damp grass without shoes, so I remain where I am.

"Ah, he's awake! It worked! The prophesies are true!" His voice is a little high-pitched, and clearly excited. He laughs again, looks me over, and danced about a little.

I clear my throat. There seems to be a day's worth of gunk in there. I spit, being careful to aim it away from the dancing creature.

The dancing stops. "Oh my, lad. That's a poor sort of greeting."

I look at him again, to be sure. "Harax?" I say, tentatively.

The yellow eyes grow wider still. "How do you know my name?"

Part Two

"Look, I've got a bit of a hangover here. Do you have any water?"

Harax looks a bit confused, but nonetheless hands me what appears to be a water skin made of pigskin leather. The water tastes a little funny, but maybe that's just a lack of chemicals? I hope that it's clean.

Should I be concerned that I think myself to be talking to a fictional creature from a video game? Rationally, the only possible explanations are that I am insane or dreaming. And yet I'm pretty sure that I'm neither of those things. Which should leave me even more worried, but for some reason I'm not. It just doesn't occur to me to question my self-diagnosis of sanity. Or rather, it does, but it seems silly: of course I'm not insane.

For whatever reason, I feel confident that there's a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, and that I will eventually figure out what it is. In the meantime, probably the best thing to do is to try to get some questions answered. Fortunately, Harax seems all too eager to oblige me in this respect.

"First question: Where can I get some shoes?"

Harax examines my socks and cogitates. Finally he says, "In the next town, I expect. You'll have to go barefoot for the time being."

"Out here? No, no way. I'll step on a twig and put a hole in my foot, then I'll be bleeding and the next thing you know it'll be infected."

Harax shakes his head at me.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any practice going around barefoot. My feet wouldn't last a minute." I take off my socks to show him my soles.

Harax gently prods the bottom of my left foot. He then sighs, sits down in the grass, and begins removing his shoes. "You don't cut a very heroic figure so far, I must say, good sir."

"Oh, I'm not asking you to give me your shoes. Surely there must be another solution."

"Well, there isn't. So take the shoes and be silent about it." I can see the bottoms of his feet now, and in fact they are thickly calloused. He drops the shoes in front of me and stands up again. "This will do for the time being."

I carefully try on one shoe. The opening is small, almost too small to squeeze my foot through, but the inside of the shoe proper is large and roomy. I stand. "Thanks," I say uncertainly.

Harax clasps his hands behind his back. "It seems a bit strange to introduce myself, when you clearly know me already. Perhaps you could do me the favor of introducing yourself?"

"Oh. Uh, I'm Eddie."

Harax frowns. "Eddie? Your given name is Eddie?"

"Well, Edward."

Harax nods. "Edward. Edward who?"

"I'd really rather you called me Eddie, actually."

Harax frowns again. "You prefer the name Ed-die?"

"Yeah." I try to discern the cause of his discomfort from his face, but there are no hints there. "Edward just sounds formal, you know?"

Harax blinks. "What do I know?"

I blow a loud sigh, despite myself. "My apologies, I know this may be rude of me, but can we just skip the introductions for now? I'd really like for you to explain what I'm doing here. I mean, you seem a bit surprised about my nickname, but you don't seem surprised to see me in the first place. And I'd really like to hear why that is."

Harax smiles again, seemingly in spite of himself. "Well, it certainly is a worthy tale. I presume that in turn, you will explain to me how it is you know my name, when we have obviously never met before."

"Sure," I say, though I intend no such thing. Unless between now and then he demonstrates to me that he already understands what a "video game" is, I doubt that I can honestly explain to him how I know his name, and even a bit of his history.

Presuming, that is, that the part that I know about has already happened. It's possible that it's the future.

"Let us not dally here, however. It's full daylight, and we should be walking. We have many miles to go, and first we need to find a shoemaker." Harax moves off, moving quickly for a man with no shoes. I follow him down the knoll and over the next hill, where there is a small encampment. Harax points at the bedding. "Roll that up for me, if you would. I will cover up the evidence of the fire, and then perhaps find something with which to bind my feet, for protection."

I have to admit that I feel a little uncomfortable, being ordered around so easily by a — man? What exactly is Harax, anyway? A hobbit? I honestly don't know. April never told me, and I never thought to ask.

Harax, you see, was April's character.

The video game was called "Legends of Armethal". It was a lot of fun. April and I played it together, not long after we moved in together. I had a lot of trepidation about moving in together. We had only been seeing each other for about a year, and it seemed hasty. But she hated her apartment, and she liked my place. And she seemed convinced that it would work. In the end her confidence rubbed off on me, and I agreed. April arrived in a single afternoon. She had few possessions, and she actually wound up giving away most of her furniture when she moved. Against my expectations, my place did not suddenly get cluttered and claustrophobic with her living there. Sharing the bed was a bit tight, but that suited us fine (at first, anyway).

And to my surprise, it was a video game that really made me feel happy that she was living with me. I had been worried that she was going to object to the amount of time I spent playing video games. Not that I play them all the time, not nearly as much as some people I know. But the time I do spend playing them is important to me, and I didn't want to be made to feel guilty for it. So I had one of the few moments of sheer brilliance of my life. I went out and found a video game for us to play together. "Legends of Armethal" had just come out, and the reviews I read suggested that it was a girl-friendly game, but also guy-friendly. A game with a cool fantasy setting and a strong storyline, and one that didn't rely too much on simulated blood-and-guts (but also wasn't just a bunch of unicorns running around). And the game had options for single-player or two-player modes, so I could still play it by myself if April didn't like it. It sounded just right, and it worked like a charm. April really got into playing the game, and in particular playing it together. The game's world was pretty, and had lots of good detail. We spent a fair bit of time just exploring it, ignoring the main quest of the game. (The quest was to find a kill a dragon, as I recall. In order to do that you had to obtain a powerful sword, and in order to release the sword from the stone it was embedded in you needed a magic gauntlet. And so on.) Eventually I got a little bored with just wandering around, though, and I convinced her to focus on the game's storyline.

But her curiosity must have remained, because for a short while she started playing the game without me, when I wasn't around. So as not to interfere with our game she created a new character, and used him to wander around the places we hadn't yet explored to her satisfaction. Of course I saw her character in the saved game list not long after she created it, and I thought it was great that she was honestly enjoying the game. April was the only girlfriend I ever had that didn't consider video games to be a waste of time.

Of course, we hadn't left very much of the world unexplored, so she quickly ran out of things to do with her solo character, and left it unused while our main characters went on to complete the quest and finish the game.

But the name of the character she created was Harax. And he looked just like the creature by my side.

Camp is broken, and Harax has bound his feet in cloth. We're now walking roughly north, judging by the sun. There's no path, but Harax seems to know where we're going. Harax's shoes are a bit loose on my feet, despite his short stature. If there are too many of these grassy knolls between here and a shoemaker, I'm going to have two feet covered in blisters. On the other hand, the weather is perfect for hiking: sunny, with a gentle breeze. And Harax insists on carrying all of his possessions. I offered to carry the bedroll, but he insisted. "You'll have your own things to carry soon enough." This comment reminds me that he clearly expects me to go travelling with him.

"Ah, Eddie, it is good to be moving forward. Soon we will procure for you some shoes, a pack and a bedroll, and definitely some clothes. What you're wearing now is not unflattering, but I fear it will inspire more staring than you'd be comfortable with. We will be noteworthy enough as it is."

I'm all in favor of travelling, as long as it gets me closer to home, but I doubt that's what's forefront in his mind. And of course I have no idea how I would accomplish that.

"There is much work ahead of us, but for now it is good to be out in the open fields, on a fine spring day like this."

It strikes me that it's November. At least it was November when I went to bed.

"Okay, Harax. I really need you to start explaining some things to me."

"Yes, I promised to tell you how you come to be here."

"Right, but first of all: Where is here?"

"We are crossing the Hegland Plains."

"And this land is — Armethal?"

Without breaking his stride Harax looks up and over at me, surprised. "But of course this land is Armethal. Do you not hail from Armethal yourself?"

"No." I frown. "No, I don't."

"Then tell me, whence come you?"

I'm now extremely doubtful that I'm going to be able to give him any details on that subject. "Elsewhere. A land you've never heard of."

"The land's name is truly Elsewhere?"

"No, it's just somewhere else. Leave it at that."

Harax looks consternated. "But if you're from a distant land, then do you know of our princess and her plight?"

I think about this, but I don't remember anything from the game about a princess, or indeed anything about royalty or other governing bodies. "No, I can't say that I do."

"This is quite unexpected. Why would you be the one summoned, if you are not a citizen of Armethal and know nothing of our quest?"

"I was summoned?"

"Perhaps —" Harax looks into the distance ahead of us, contemplating. "Perhaps I have yet made some mistake?"

"Harax. Did you summon me? Is that what you're saying?"

Harax looks at me again, carefully. "Yes. At least that is what I thought. Am I wrong? Do you have another explanation for how you came here?"

"Heck, no."

"That much is good then."

"But how did you summon me?"

"Ah-ha, how indeed? Well, with magic, naturally. Now, you are probably wondering how a lowly elf like me could have wielded such a powerful spell."

"No actually, the thing I was wondering was: Why me in particular?" Well, to be perfectly honest I was also wondering: An elf? Harax is an elf? Sure, he's short like an elf, but he looks more like a dwarf to me. Aren't elves supposed to be — well, more elfin? Wispy and pointy-eared and sprightly? Something like that? But I say none of this aloud.

"That I don't know. Magic alone knows its reasons, and it does not answer questions." He says this as if it were a truism, clearly expecting me to recognize it and agree.

"Okay. Can you at least tell me why you were summoning people?"

Harax nods thoughtfully. "I fear that in order to answer that question, I must first explain to you the perilous situation of our country, and of the captive princess."

I take a deep breath. I was sort of hoping that he was going to be able to show me some object that he used to bring me here, and it would have an obvious way to reverse the process and take me home again. Not that I'm desperate to leave here — it's been pretty nice so far, ignoring the shoe issue. I'd just like to know that I had the option of leaving if I wanted to. Now it's looking like getting home isn't going to be easy.

That's all assuming that I'm not just dreaming, of course. But nothing about this feels like a dream. There's no sudden shifting of contexts, and the focus hasn't been on some anxiety revolving around my job. The vista around me is fully detailed, and there's a rich scent of dirt in the air, not to mention all the birdsong. Were it not for last night's dream, it would never occur to me to think that this was not actually happening.

Harax suddenly stops and grabs my elbow, which is right at eye level for him. "Look over there, Eddie." He points with his other hand at the horizon.

I see nothing interesting where he's pointing at first, and then I notice a thin gray thread meandering up from behind the distant trees to the sky. "Oh," I say. "What is that?"

Harax chuckles. "It's chimney-smoke, of course! Come on."

"Do you know who that is that lives there?"

"No, but if we continue walking this way we'll know them soon enough. With any luck, it will be someone willing to barter with us for an extra pair of shoes." And he heads off again, angling towards the smoke. I hurry to catch up with him.

As we settle into a comfortable walking rhythm, Harax says. "Now, Eddie, listen and I will explain to your satisfaction our situation."

"I'm all ears."

"Many years ago, the King of Armethal was a wise and just ruler, and Armethal saw many prosperous years under his hand. But one day the King was on a hunt, and took a heavy fall from his horse. His body survived, but not his wit. The King was largely unharmed in body, but he became scatter-brained. He could no longer see through deception as he once did, and his temper became unpredictable and vicious. Sadly, he also failed to see his own deterioration for what it was. Though the Queen pleaded with him, she could not convince him that he needed to relinquish the crown.

"For a time, it looks as if the King of Aremthal would have to be forcibly removed. The court was in a terrible state as secret alliances were formed and broken, and various parties sought to increase their own personal share of power in the coming upheaval.

"But in the end, no such rebellion took place. The Queen, who was as loyal as she was insightful, learned how to guide her addle-brained husband with a gracefulness that even the most influential diplomats envied. The King of Armethal remained in control of the throne, and so was content, while the Queen of Armethal made certain that his rule continued to be wise and just. And so our prosperity held.

"The winter before last, the Queen took ill with a raging fever, and died after a long week of suffering." Harax paused here for a moment of silence, holding his hand over his heart. Then he proceeded. "The only child she left behind was the princess, Thalia. Princess Thalia had watched and learned carefully the method whereby her mother maintained her peaceful rule over Armethal through her demented father, and she took on her mother's great task with love and determination. We breathed a sigh of relief as our princess showed herself fully capable of keeping her father's reign on the same path that the late Queen followed.

"But the princess, though skillful and devoted, was not as wise as her elders. The Tilonites, who border us to the west, saw their chance to strike at us from within. They insinuated themselves in our royal court, and forged treasonous alliances in secret. One by one they began to replace the royal advisers with plotters, whose allegiance was to Tilon. They did this without arousing Princess Thalia's suspicion, until it was too late. By the time she understood that secret machinations were taking place all around her, the royal advisers were thoroughly corrupt. The princess attempted to make her father see what was taking place, but before she could succeed in that endeavor, she vanished."

Harax pauses dramatically. I ask, "She vanished? How?"

"How, indeed? One day her morning maid came to her bedroom and she was not there. The court was in upheaval at first, but then a rumor reached the King of Armethal, saying that the Princess Thalia had fallen in love with a stable boy, and the two of them had run away to elope. The King in his fury disowned the Princess, and has made no effort since then to locate her."

Again Harax pauses for dramatic effect, so I prompt him. "Was the rumor true?"

"No! Of course it was not. It was a simple fabrication, started by the treasonous members of the court, and calculated to have precisely the effect it did.

"I on the other hand do know what happened to the princess. She has been the victim of a kidnapping most unkind. Armethal's enemies are not so ruthless as to kill her outright, but they have taken her away from the King and his court, and hold her in secret exile to the north. I learned this after many weeks spent in the taverns near the court, asking questions of everyone I thought I could trust. I've come very near to forfeiting my life, or at least my freedom, on many an occasion. Fortunately an elf like me knows many ways to evade his pursuers, particularly when they're had too much to drink. But with time I found a few people that could be trusted, whose loyalty to Armethal stood unbent even in these difficult times. Between them I pieced together the true history. Sadly, our country's royal court is a place of intrigue and duplicity."

I nod, indicating polite sympathy. "And so now that you've learned all this, are you trying to find a way to bring her back?"

Harax becomes bold. "In fact I have already done so, and I am now on the way to rescue Princess Thalia! And it is for that reason that you are here with me now."

"Really," I say carefully. "I don't quite see how that follows."

"Ah, that's because you are ignorant of Romiel's Prophecy," he announces, then adds "Don't fret, though. Most people are ignorant of Romiel's Prophecy."

Oh, he's just getting warmed up, this one. I look up. Ahead, I can now see the small cabin, nestled inbetween the trees, from where the smoke originates.

"Romiel was a mad visionary who lived four centuries ago. We are fortunate that he had enough of his faculties to record the things he saw with ink, for he was not respected in his own time. The people who cared for him thought him to be merely insane, and took nothing he said seriously. But his writings were preserved, thanks to chance and benign neglect."

"And these writings told you to rescue the princess?"

Harax narrows his eyes and looks at me carefully, though his pace doesn't change. "Eddie, my boy, was that remark delivered with a mean spirit?"

Taken aback, I consider his question honestly. "A little bit, I suppose. I don't mean to dismiss you, Harax." But my girlfriend came up with your name late one night when she was feeling whimsical. "But you have to admit, your story is starting to sound a little crazy as well. You know?"

Harax is silent for a moment. Finally he says, "No. I don't know."

Oh boy. I've already managed to offend the only person I know here. I suppose I need to remember that this is a fantasy world, presumably based on a video game. (Unless, of course, it's the other way around, and the video game is based on this world. That's a nice little twist for a movie, but I don't think it demands my serious consideration at this point.) The fulfillment of ancient prophecies recorded by mad visionaries is probably rather normal in this place. "I apologize, Harax. I spoke too hastily. I wasn't thinking. See, in the land I come from, we have no prophets. Or rather we do have prophets, but they're all false prophets. Their predictions never come true. Or well, I suppose they do come true once in a great while, but it's just because of luck. You know, if you make enough prophecies one or two of them are bound to come true, sooner or later. Particularly if you make them vague and —"

"All right!" Harax shouts. "You apology is accepted. Now will you let me finish my tale?"

I nod mutely, not wishing to annoy him further.

We walk along in silence for a while, as Harax regains his composure. Finally he begin anew. "Romiel made many prophecies in his brief and turbulent life. A handful of these have already come to pass. The remaining ones refer to events yet to come, or else refer to events already passed but not yet recognized as such.

"One such prophecy tells of a time when Armethal is in turmoil. Romiel makes it clear that the land's well being hangs on the fate of one young woman."

"Presumably the princess."

"Yes. Romiel's Prophecy states that the woman is lost in a unknown land, and that Armethal's future depends on her returning home once more."

"But the princess isn't lost. She's being held prisoner north of here." I know I shouldn't be poking holes in his story, not yet anyway. But I can't help it.

"She has lost her way home. And the northern lands are sparsely occupied, and certainly she has never visited them before. So in that sense they are unknown."

"Okay. Keep going."

"According to the prophecy, the young woman is helpless to save herself, until she is aided by a resourceful elf."

"Which could only be you?"

"I'm omitting the details in this telling. Just let me finish, boy. Now the elf, sensing the danger to both the young woman and his homeland, calls upon the Fates and begs them to intercede on behalf of the woman, to unravel what has been woven. The Fates are moved by his speech, and honor his request by bringing unto him a powerful hero."

I want to interrupt him here, but I can think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound foolish.

"The elf and the hero then journey to the unknown lands together. With the assistance of a powerful mage they find the young woman and bring her back home again. Once the woman is reunited with her family, they return to the strange lands and —" Harax waves a hand in dismissal. "Well, the rest of the prophecy isn't about the hero, so I won't bore you with that part of it. But you see, do you not?"

Again, I find myself at a loss for anything appropriate to say.

"I learned of this prophecy only recently, and saw that the parallels were strong enough, that it was my duty to my liege the King, and his daughter the Princess Thalia, to act accordingly. So I travelled to this place and, wielding a relic of great power, made my case before the almighty Fates themselves. And lo! In the very next moment, you appeared before me, as if you had condensed from the very air!"

Harax is getting excited. I continue to say nothing.

"You see, you can scoff at the prophecy all day long if you wish, but in the end you have to allow that you are here, brought to me by the Fates at my request! Do you not?"

"Indeed. There's no arguing the fact that I am here." Against all reason, no less. Harax's argument does have that going for it.

"What other explanation can there be for your presence, but that Romiel's prophecy is true?"

I pause to consider how best to response, and in that moment of silence a shout comes to us from the direction of the cabin. "Help! Yah! Stop it!"

Harax frowns, and then in another moment is off running like a shot. My feet are beginning to blister, but I lope off after him.

You might think it would be easy to keep pace with someone that short, particularly when he's weighted down with a pack. I certainly thought that, but I see now that I was wrong. Harax is fast, and it's all that I can do to catch up with him by the time he reaches the house.

The place looks rather cozy, actually. It's almost storybook-perfect in its neat exterior. There's even a little well out in front — a real well, not just something for show. The shouting is coming from around the far side of the cabin, along with the sound of something scrabbling or struggling with something else. Harax and I don't break our pace, but continue around the cabin.

On the other side is a cleared bit of ground. Here and there about the ground are chopped-up bits of wood. Larger chunks of wood are stacked to one side against the cabin, under the protection of the eaves. In the middle of the chopping area is a tall, thin woman. At least I believe she would be tall if she were standing upright. At the moment she is running back and forth while crouched down, bent almost double. Her hair is a dark brown, and the bright sunlight glints off of the odd scattered gray hair. The woman is the one who's yelling, and what she's yelling at is —

— is, oddly enough, an axe. A large axe is swinging itself wildly through the air. Once in a while it strikes against a piece of wood or kindling, but mostly it hits the ground, or swishes violently through the air. After each stroke it quickly rears back and once again flings outward.

"Can we help you!" Harax shouts to be heard above the woman's yelling, whose back is still towards us.

"Okay, now this looks pretty dangerous," I hear myself saying.

The woman jumps visibly, then turns around and regards us for a moment. The axe swings again, fortunately at a spot several feet away from the woman. She runs forward at us. "Grab it! Try to hold it down!" The axe seems to notice that the woman has moved out of reach and lunges in her general direction — in other words almost directly at me. The woman runs past me, almost hitting me in the shoulder, and vanishes around the side of the cabin. I panic, and instead of dodging the axe blade I freeze up and cover my face with my heads. Because that's the kind of hero I am. Yes sir.

Fate chooses to let me off the hook this time, though, and the axe buries itself in the dirt three feet in front of me. At once Harax is upon it, grabbing the handle and bringing his foot down on the back of the axe head, trying to hold it down. "Give me a hand, Eddie!" he shouts at me.

At this able demonstration I finally unfreeze, and run forward to help. But not fast enough, for the axe pulls itself out of the ground anyway, sending Harax sprawling onto his side and rolling over, coming to rest on his stomach.

The axe has pulled back, just like I imagine a cobra looks the moment before it strikes. I run over to Harax and I can feel the breeze from the axe swinging down, the head once again burying itself into the packed dirt where I was standing.

Is it my imagination or is that thing picking on me? And where is the idiot who set this thing loose in the first place?

I extend a hand to Harax, who takes it and nimbly jumps back onto his feet. "Quick, grab the handle! Before it swings again," he shouts at me, and runs past me. I turn around. The axe still has its head in the dirt but it is visibly working itself loose. Harax is running towards it from the left. I step forward to come at the handle at the right, but just at that moment the axe comes free from the ground and swings back. There is no doubt in my mind: the blade is pointed directly at me. It's all I can do to halt my forward momentum, lest I impale myself directly. My balance is off. A full second passes as I stand there, wanting to run off to either the left or the right, but first just trying not to fall on my face. Another second passes. I am utterly helpless. The axe is pointing right at me. Harax is holding the handle.

"Rigsthemenay!" A clear, commanding shout, in a voice that only the foolhardy would ignore.

Harax wobbles on his stumpy legs for a moment. Suddenly the axe in his hands is just that: an axe in his hands. He lowers it, looks it over for a moment, and then lets out a long sigh. With a strong and careful overhead stroke, he beds the axe in a knotty chunk of wood near him, then pulls a handkerchief out from a hidden pocket and wipes the dirt and sweat from his face.

The tall, thin woman is standing by the cabin again. In one hand she holds a small book, her thumb holding it open to a specific page. She lowers her arms, takes a deep breath, and smiles. In a calm voice she says, "Many thanks, my visitors. You have saved me from an ignominious death — namely, at my own hand."

Harax wipes his hands on his handkerchief and stuffs it back into a breast pocket. "I take it then that you are the maker of this accursed object?"

"Indeed, I confess it is true. Though my intentions were hardly what you saw. I hoped to make an axe that would cut kindling from my woodpile, rather than from myself. Please don't think me a hasty bumbler: it's a spell that I have been working on for some time, and my experiments on less dangerous objects proved quite successful. I do not know why this one turned out so badly."

Harax nods. "I take it you have been studying the magical arts for some time then?"

The woman shrugs. A small, rueful smile plays about her mouth. "Some years, yes. Not as many as I might wish. Or yourselves, I imagine." She closes her book and carefully tucks it into a pocket in her left sleeve.

Harax chuckles appreciatively. "My name is Harax, madam, and my friend here is named Eddie. Would I be right in guessing that your name is Legrielle?"

"So it is. I see that my name is becoming known in these parts. Have you come for some magical assistance?" She addresses this last question at me, as if she thinks I might be the leader here. Or maybe she's just trying to include me in the conversation. I smile and shrug foolishly.

Harax speaks. "Actually, I confess that we did not come here intending to visit you at all. We are simply travellers, crossing over the Hegland Plains. We saw your smoke and came here hoping that you might be able to assist us with some minor provisions. Very minor."

Legrielle's expression does not change, but she stands a little straighter and asks, "Is that true? You are not even from these parts? Then how is it you were so sure of my name?"

Harax nods. "I'm afraid in these times it has become my business to know the names and general whereabouts of many of Armethal's mages. And thought I did not seek you out in particular, it is surely Serendipity that brought me here. For you see, we are seeking —" Harax suddenly falters, and looks around himself. "— a colleague of yours," he finishes quietly.

Legrielle stares at Harax carefully. Then she opens a pouch attached to her belt, and pulls out a pair of spectacles, the kind with no earpieces. Wedging them onto her nose, she stares at Harax for a long moment, then scrutinizes me just as carefully. "All right," she says, taking the spectacles off and returning them to her pouch. "Come inside, and we can discuss these things more comfortably."

The inside of Legrielle's cabin is in fact quite cozy. There is one comfortable-looking chair against one wall, and some stools pushed up against a tall thin table — a worktable of some sort, I'm guessing, as it's covered with papers, books, and small opaque containers. A single bookshelf runs along the wall just above the table. The far wall has a number of cupboards. Perhaps the worktable is really just part of the kitchen?

A small fire is indeed burning in the fireplace, and over it is a cauldron. No kidding. It's small, but instantly recognizable. Just seeing it there makes the whole place feel more magical. I don't know what to think about this. As far as I'm concerned, magic is just another excuse for putting lots of computer-generated images into blockbuster movies. On the other hand, I just got through dancing with a maniacal axe, and not for a moment did I wonder if that thing was real.

"Legrielle?" I ask.

She looks at me, "Yes? What was your name again?"

"Eddie. May I ask you — I mean, can you tell me what's in the cauldron?"

"You may. It's vegetable soup. Are you hungry? The soup will be ready in a couple of hours, I'm told."

Soup. Of course. I don't know why I expected some kind of witch's brew, but it seemed the most logical next step. "You're told that it will be ready? By whom?"

Harax frowns at me. Perhaps my question was impertinent? Or maybe it just sounded stupid. There was probably a reason I was keeping my mouth shut earlier.

Legrielle blinks but otherwise does not appear perturbed by my question. "My assistant, of course. She's out right now, gathering herbs in the nearby forest. I decided to test my axe trick when she was not around. I thought it best for her to not be endangered if the experiment went badly. It did, and I see now that my choice was the more dangerous one."

Harax smiles and says, "Yes, but for the fact that we happened along." Harax drops his pack on the floor by the worktable.

"So you did. You are travellers, you say, but what is your destination? You are not looking for me, but having found me, you wish my aid? There are many questions."

"Our destination." Harax pulls out a stool and hops up onto the seat. The extra few inches of height seem to reassure him. Legrielle makes no move to sit down. Unsure what is polite, by default I remain standing by the fireplace. "Our destination is the Drowning Castle."

Legrielle folds her hands together and speaks carefully. "To what purpose? The only ones I can imagine are either mad or treasonous."

"To rescue the captive Princess Thalia, to be sure."

"Mad, then."

"Not mad at all! Our actions were prophesised by Romiel, madam. We are to be its fulfillment!"

"You? An elf and a boy?"

Boy? Did she call me a boy? Hey, jackass, I'm thirty-five. It's been years since I was carded at a bar. Who does this woman think she is? Harax doesn't bat an eye at this, though. He says, "The boy was summoned. By me, Legrielle. From a distant land. Mark you, I have not a whit of magical training."

"Then how could you have accomplished such a feat?"

Harax hops off of his stool, bends over and opens his pack. He rummages around for a moment, then pulls out a rod, about three feet long. On one end is a crystal of some kind. I don't think it's a gemstone, as it's far too large. And the crystal is riven through with a webwork of cracks, like the safety glass at a bus shelter when it shatters.

Legrielle reaches out and raises an eyebrow. "Is that —"

Harax holds it out to her. "The Wand of Final Resort. Yes. It was."

Legrielle takes it from him and turns to the fireplace, letting the orange light refract and scatter through the broken crystal. She examines it from end to end. Finally she says, "Had you come to me but yesterday, and asked me if the Wand of Final Resort ever truly existed, I would have answered, it is merely a tale, to entertain children and bolster the hopes of people in times of hopelessness. And today you hand it to me, spent and destroyed." She shakes her head slowly and then hands it back to Harax. "But not a bit less recognizable for that."

Harax holds out his palm. "You may keep it, if you like. It is of no further use to ones such as ourselves. All we ask in return is some small assistances."

Legrielle holds the wand close again, then lays it on the table, careful to rest the crystal on a stack of papers. "I can offer you a meal, and some small amount of provisions for the road, certainly. You are welcome to spend the night here, but if your goal is the Drowning Castle, I would recommend that you not tarry long."

"Agreed. But a pair of shoes for the boy would be helpful as well."

Legrielle looks at my feet and chuckles. "I may be able to assist you there as well."

"And directions to the home of Auros Ettra."

"Auros Ettra. The colleague you alluded to before?" Legrielle's voice grows contemplative. "Yes, I see. Indeed. Indeed. He is likely to be able to help you, if any of us can." Legrielle turns to his table and lifts the lid from one of her containers. She withdraws from it a pinch of dried herbs, and crosses over to the comfortable chair near the fireplace. "But you will have to approach him with caution. Auros Ettra has become mistrustful of strangers in his old age. If you arouse his suspicion, it may never go away again." Legrielle picks up a wooden pipe resting on the arm of her chair and tamps the herbs into the bowl. With a pair of iron tongs she deftly retrieves a small coal from the heart of the fire, uses it to start the herbs smoldering, and then tosses it back into the fireplace. "Here," she says, holding the pipe out to me. "Let us relax for now, and consider your quest further."

I look at Legrielle, and then at Harax. I've never smoked before, much less from a pipe, but I can't quite bring myself to admit this to them. They're both already calling me "boy". So I take a drag on the thing, trying to remember how my stoner friends in college did it. At once my lungs are on fire. I manage to pass the pipe over to Harax before the coughing fit begins.

It lasts a long time. When I finally catch my breath again, my face feel beet red and I'm very dizzy. I feel seasick. Harax is laughing his fat little ass off. Going over to his pack, he pulls out his bedroll and lays it flat on the floor. Embarrassed and grateful, I lay down and stare up at the ceiling. I remain there for a long time, listening to Legrielle and Harax discuss castles and lakes and mountains and guardians and a dozen other things that I don't remember, until I doze off into a hazy sleep.

"Ed-die. Wake and arise! It's time to sup."

I blink my eyes open. Harax is leaning over me, smiling indulgently. The air above him is a bit opaque with smoke, but there's also a smell of soup in the air, and suddenly I realize that I'm starving. "Yes, Harax, I'm awake," I manage to say intelligibly. I take a deep breath and sit up.

I hear Legrielle say, "Be gentle, Harax. The poor boy is probably still suffering from the effect of being summoned across the vast distances."

"No, really. I'm awake. I was just a little tired is all. From the, you know, the axe and everything." And trying to breathe your foul herb concoction.

Harax steps away from me. "His speech is mostly quite normal, Legrielle, but I've noticed that every once in a while he interrupts himself to say 'you know'." Harax comes back and hands me a bowl of soup. He smiles as if he truly believes I couldn't hear him talking about me. But the prospect of food puts me in a forgiving mood. I accept the bowl, saying only, "Thank you." The soup is as good as it smells. It's full of all kinds of vegetables. Some of them are undercooked and are difficult to chew. I don't care. It tastes great.

Harax goes back to the table where he and Legrielle continue their discussion, which sounds no different than when I fell asleep. My mind wanders.

It occurs to me that I dreamed while I was asleep. There was a rather vivid dream, in fact. Only this time it was about April. And it was real. Or rather, it was a replaying of a real memory. And not a particularly happy one, either.

We're in a restaurant. April and I have been sitting together without saying a word for three minutes now. The prior conversation was half-hearted and petered out without fanfare, and now the silence has stretched well beyond what I thought possible. We're focusing on our food, like we have suddenly forgotten how to use forks to manipulate salad, and it now required our full concentration. This is ridiculous. My head is going to explode if somebody doesn't say something. But all I can think of saying was "So, this relationship hasn't been going too well, has it?" Am I ready to initiate that conversation? Heck no. Why not? That I can't answer. What's the worst thing that could happen? That was one of my mother's favorite things to say when I was scared. The worst thing that could happen here is that we walk out of this restaurant as two single people. But if the relationship makes me miserable (and it does), then why should that scare me? Apparently some animal part of my lower brain still holds out hope that this is just a temporary setback and things are going to get better. How else to explain the fear that grips my intestines at the idea of acknowledging that things suck? This is no rational reaction to the idea of being single; this is a reptilian instinct. Like fight-or-flight.

But lo and behold, I realize that there's something that scares me more, and that is the prospect of April initiating the conversation. Then we walk out of here just as single as before, but now I'm the one who got dumped. I don't understand why, but it matters. If we're going to have The Talk, I need to be the one to initiate it. Immediately my senses come back online. How much longer have we gone without talking? Oh no, April's put down her fork. She breathes one of her quiet little sighs that sound like a leaking tire: they're very quiet, but they go on and on and on, letting her lungs empty in the most passive manner possible. She's going to do it, isn't she? She's going to dump me. Or if she doesn't, she wants to. She wants me to know that she wants to. This is stupid. I'm trying to score points in some imaginary game. Shouldn't this be about two people trying to be happy? Or rather, trying to make each other happy. Or, more appropriate at this point, trying to stop making each other unhappy?

"So this relationship hasn't been going too well lately, has it?"

I did it. The words are out. What made that moment different from the five hundred before it, where I thought about saying it but didn't? I haven't a clue.

She shakes her head without even looking up at me. "No, not really." A pause. Finally she meets my gaze. She looks sad, and concerned. I couldn't begin to guess what my face looks like. Scared, probably. That's certainly what I've been feeling. But now, seeing her, the fear is starting to ebb. I did it. I broached the subject. It's obvious now that she's been thinking about it, too. We can talk about it. We can stop trying to avoid the subject. Maybe we'll even figure out a solution. We'll come out of the restaurant with a renewed sense of why the relationship is important and what we love about each other.

An hour and a half later, we walk out of there. We're not quite single yet. That happens later, much later than night, back at the apartment. When the weekend comes, she moves out. She moves out in the course of a Saturday afternoon, just as quickly as she arrived.

It makes a perverse sort of sense, I suppose, that since I dreamed about another world when I was still in touch with reality, now in this fantasy world I would dream about the real one. But couldn't I have dreamed about something in the present, instead of vividly reliving the past? At the very least I could have returned to a happier memory, no?

Apparently not.

I shouldn't have brought up the subject like that. I should have said something more positive, more — optimistic. Maybe something like "This relationship could stand a little working on, eh?" Or I don't know. Something that didn't assume that only realistic solution was quitting. I fear now that that opening sentence could have made all the difference in what followed.

I stand up. I've been sitting on the floor long enough. I go to the cauldron and refill my bowl, and then join Harax and Legrielle at the table, sitting on the remaining stool. With a start I realize that the fourth stool is on the other side of the cabin, and sitting on it is a young woman, eyes kept firmly on her bowl of soup as she eats in silence. This must be Legrielle's assistant. No doubt she hears everything we say.

"Eddie," says Legrielle.

I turn my attention back to her. "Yo," I reply. Why did I say that? I never say "yo". Then Legrielle furrows her brow at me, and I realize why I said that. There is one part of me that's fascinated by what's happening to me, but another part of me feels like acting out, poking at my environment to see if this is all just a facade.

Legrielle forges ahead. "Eddie. I want you to know that I have the greatest respect for your bravery."

Oooh. I don't want to have this kind of conversation. I don't want people to tell me that I'm being so very brave. That doesn't bode well for my immediate future.

"And you have my full support."

"Great," I say. "Does that mean you can loan me some shoes?"

Legrielle laughs out loud. "That, and more. Finish your soup, and we'll see what we can find for you."

I finish my soup, and Legrielle opens up a cupboard that turns out to be her clothes closet. Legrielle, as it happens, owns a pair of shoes, a pair of sandals, and a pair of boots. I try them all on to see which pair fits my feet best. This is quite a step down from worrying over half sizes at Volume Shoe Store. At least Legrielle is a human — I've become unnaturally aware of the strange shape of elfin feet this morning. I wish now I had gone to sleep with my shoes on, although the only time I've ever done that was when I was in college, and I just don't have the ability to get that drunk anymore. I should be counting my blessings: I could have undressed properly for bed. Harax would have summoned me unto the dewy grasslands wearing nothing but my boxers. When we lived together, April often slept wearing nothing but an oversized tee shirt. The lettering across the front was so worn that there were only a scattering of blue flecks to indicate that the shirt once said something. I don't remember now what it said originally, or if I ever knew. I really liked seeing her in that tee shirt, though. Who would have guessed that such a plain, shapeless piece of clothing could become such a turn-on? Suddenly my heart knifes sideways, as if trying to avoid a knife, and I groan audibly despite myself.

"What's wrong? Do you feel unwell?" Legrielle asks. I'm standing in her boots, which I've decided to take, because even though the sandals feel marginally closer to my foot size, I know the boots will stand up better over long hikes.

"I'm fine. It's nothing, really."

Legrielle seems unwilling to leave me alone, however. "Is it the Princess Thalia? Can you see her? Is she in pain?"

"Uh," I respond, taken aback. Is the princess in pain? "Uh, maybe?" How am I supposed to know? But even as I say this I realize that I'm giving her the wrong impression.

"Listen closely, Eddie. Harax tells me that you know very little about our world. Yet it was you that the Wand chose to bring. I suspect you have a greater connection to us than any of us understand yet."

Yeah: my ex-girlfriend might have met you in a video game. I don't say this out loud, of course.

"So, if you start seeing or feeling things whose source you don't recognize, don't be too hasty to dismiss them, or close yourself off from them. It could be the princess, a bond forming between the two of you. Such powers can be brought forth to fulfill Romiel's prophecy. I know it sounds backwards, but such is nature of visions."

Without even thinking about it I'm nodding politely and mentally ignoring what she's saying. It all sounds like such ooga-booga New Age crap. Then I remember: oh yeah, I'm in a world where magic is real. I cough and say, "I will keep that in mind."

"Good boy." Again with the boy. "Which reminds me: here is the other item I promised you." She reaches into her belt pouch, takes out the glasses, and hands them to me. "These spectacles are magicked. With them, you can see through illusion and mirages. Keep them close at hand, and they may come in handy before your quest is done. It is said by some that the Princess Thalia's captors are masters of disguise."

I take the glasses, and wedge them onto my nose. Everything looks the same. Still, I don't doubt that she's telling me the truth. So I remove them and say, "Thank you, Legrielle. This is a generous gift indeed."

"Just don't forget to return them to me, after you've rescued the princess!" She smiles, and then laughs. She laughs a little too long for my comfort. I can't quite tell which part of that she thinks is so funny.

"So, Eddie. How do you feel?" Harax asks me. We're walking once more, again heading roughly north.

"I feel okay." And It's true. The sun is high in the sky, past noon, and the air is warm. I'm wearing real human shoes, and they feel much better. I have some dried food in a sling over my shoulder, and a walking stick. Not to mention some magic specs. Entrusted to me by a real live wizard. I still don't understand why I'm here, as opposed to somebody else, but it seems clear that I have a purpose. I'm still not sure if I believe this world is real, but as long as I'm stuck in it, I'm willing to grant it the benefit of a doubt. I can worry about the philosophical implications of what's happening later. "In fact, I feel pretty good."

"That's the spirit."

"So. Where are we going now?"

"We're off to the home of Auros Ettra."

"Right. And who is this Auros Ettra?"

"He's a powerful mage. A very powerful mage indeed."

"Check," I say, heedless of whether Harax will understand me. "And what is he going to do for us?"

"Well," Harax frowns. "That is actually not entirely clear. Romiel's Prophecy doesn't really say exactly what the mage will do."

"Is that so?" I say, keeping my voice neutral.

"Possibly he will provide us with secret information that will allow us to overcome the captives. Or maybe he keeps a powerful magic item against the day of our coming."

"That works, I suppose."

"Or maybe he even comes with us, to help us vanquish them directly. That's not typical behavior for a mage, of course. But of course Auros Ettra is not your typical mage."

"I imagine he's not."

"But he does something, and rest assured, it's necessary to the success of our campaign."

I shrug. "I feel plenty reassured, don't worry. But I must say, I had the idea from listening to you earlier that these prophecies were a little more specific than this. I mean, you recreated a summoning ritual from them, didn't you?"

"Well, yes. But I didn't do it alone, you know. I had help in deciphering the prophecy."

"From whom? A mage?"

"A mage, yes. One that knows the ancient prophecies better than any other."

"So why couldn't that mage help you figure out the rest of it as well?"

Harax frowns at my question. "Well, he could have, I suppose. But it wasn't worth his time at that point, and it would have certainly cost more than I could have paid. You see, he wasn't yet convinced that my interpretation of Romiel's Prophecy was accurate. So he helped me work out the first part, and then he said, Harax, go forth and try to summon your hero. If you succeed, then we will know that the whole of it is true, and you shall come back here and we will puzzle out the rest. And so I did. And so, here you are."

"And so, why aren't we on our way to him then?"

Harax laughed at me. "But we are, my boy, for Auros Ettra is the mage of whom I speak." Harax looked at me and laughed again. He kept up his laughing for rather longer than necessary. I guess when you're a squat little elf, you have to get your entertainment where you can.

We continue walking through the afternoon, and near the end of it we find ourselves near the shore of a large lake. Harax claims that the lake extends for many miles to the east and west, but is only a few miles wide at this point. That's great, only since neither of us can swim, I'm not sure how that does us any good.

"We need to find a boat of some kind. A canoe, a punt, even a simple raft will do."

"Well, I suppose we could try and build a raft," I say, doubtfully. "But I don't expect a boat is just going to materialize in front of us."

Harax looks at me with a puzzled expression. "I don't quite follow you, but no matter. Come, let us walk along the lake for a ways. And keep a sharp eye on the reeds along the shore."

So we do that. And what do you know? He's right. We walk for less than a mile before he spots a small canoe tied to a sapling and half-hidden in the reeds.

"Quickly now, let us hasten to the vessel. No dawdling, lest we be seen."

I hurry to follow Harax through the marshy mud. "So, basically, we're stealing this canoe. Right?"

Harax looks a bit offended at my words, as if I have said something rude before polite company. "Perhaps we are behaving less than perfectly saintly, but we are hardly stealing. I've no intention of taking this canoe any further with us on our journey. We are simply going to use it to cross the lake, and we will leave it on the other side." Harax begins untying the rope from the sapling. "With luck, someone else will ride it back across again before the owner needs use of it again. In fact, perhaps it has already been rowed across once, in which case we will be returning it to its rightful place."

"Sounds like a bit fat rationalization to me, Harax."

"I refuse to reply to such a coarse remark."

Because you didn't understand it, I think to myself. Nonetheless, I don't really have a desire to impose my ethics on other people, particularly people in a world I'm still being introduced to. Maybe this is the norm here. We get in the canoe and shove off. There are two oars in the bottom, so we each take one and row.

We're about halfway across, and my shoulder muscles are on fire (rowing is damn hard work, make no mistake), when we hear a voice behind us. Looking back, we see a small figure jumping up and down on the shore and making distant little insect-like noises.

Harax observes him for a moment, then turns forward again. "You see? It was good that we didn't dawdle. Heed my advice." And with that he resumes his rowing.

My arms feel like wet noodles as we approach the opposite shore. I'm considering asking Harax if he can row solo the rest of the way, when suddenly the water around the canoe erupts. A stream of water sprays out from the right of the canoe and swings towards me. It crosses my chest, and I feel a constriction tightening around my arms and ribcage. I try to twist away from whatever has a hold on me, but I can't really move much. I'm trying to yell, but I'm having trouble breathing. I can't see anything behind the stream of water that could be doing this to me. With a start I realize that the stream of water isn't really a stream at all; the water isn't flowing, and furthermore it has a shape that is eerily reminiscent of a tentacle. Now my heart is pounding and my scream has turned into desperate little squeaks. I sound like a dog's chew toy. I am definitely in pain.

Splat! Suddenly a black oil splashes on me. Some of it gets in my face and I have a taste of brackish syrup in my mouth. The pressure on my torso is released, and the liquid tentacle vanishes back into the water. I look behind me. Harax is standing up in the back of the canoe. He's holding an empty vial and his expression is grim. "Are you all right? Can you breathe?"

I nod slowly, then carefully inhale and say. "Yeah. I'm fine. I think. What was that?"

"That was a water snake, and a vicious one at that. Lucky thing I was prepared, eh?"

I nod again. "Yeah. Lucky."

Harax sits back down. "Row, my friend, and let's get back on land."

I hurt all over now, not just in my arms, but I don't for a moment think of protesting. I row as best I can until we've reached the other shore. By this time, the sun is just about to touch the horizon. We continue walking so as to be well away from the lake when the mosquitoes come out, and then we make camp. I'm hoping that it doesn't rain much in this place, because Harax doesn't seem to have anything in the way of a tent. He does have an extra bedroll, which was a nice surprise, as I had completely failed to consider how I was going to sleep until now. Unfortunately, his bedroll is a bit shy of four feet in length, being made for elves. I use my sling for a rough sort of pillow, and squeeze myself into the bedroll in a fetal position. It'll have to do.

I change out of my oily shirt. Sadly, that means I'll have to wear one of Legrielle's shirts now. Not that it isn't nice-looking, but it's made of hide. I mean, it's soft, for hide, but it's no cotton acrylic blend. On the plus side, I will be that much less conspicuous in it.

Harax sends me out to collect wood for the campfire. There's a clump of trees off to the east, so I rummage around in there until I have a small armload of dead branches and twigs. By the time I return, Harax already has a small pile of moss and leaves burning. As soon as I put down my gatherings, he starts adding wood to his pile, and sends me back for more. I return again only to be sent out a third time. By this time the sun is down and it's getting pretty dark. I can't really see what I'm doing, under the trees, and the prospect of meeting up with a wild animal has me freaked out. Harax, I fear, doesn't really understand how little experience people like me have with roughing it. So my third trip only brings back a few pieces of wood. Fortunately Harax seems satisfied, or at least he doesn't complain. Harax is already heating up something in a small pot near the fire. Water, mushrooms, and some rabbit meat. On my second trip to collect my pitiful armload of wood, Harax took out his slingshot, gathered a few rocks off the ground, and hunted down a freaking rabbit. Killed it one shot, he boasts, direct hit to the back of the head. He was already skinning it by the time I got back. If I were out here by myself, I'd be dead in a matter of days.

Harax inhales deeply over the pot. He smiles at me and says, "When you're out in the wilderness, there's nothing like a hot dinner to make you feel cozy again."

I sit down on my truncated bedroll and stretch. My legs are tired. I can't remember the last time I walked this far in a single day. Still, it feels good. I feel capable. "Harax? One thing you haven't told me about all this prophecy stuff. What made you so sure that you were the one being called to action?"

"I wasn't sure, of course. But I knew it was my duty to Armethal to find out if I was."

"You had the Wand of Final Resort, though."

"Yes."

"Did you have that before you learned of Romiel's Prophecy? Or did you learn about the prophecy and then go find the wand?"

Harax's face is unreadable. "That's a delicate matter, I'm afraid. No offense meant, and none taken on my end. But you will have to excuse me from answering your question."

"Uh." I wasn't expecting this. "Sure. No problem."

The makeshift stew is finished off by this point. Except for the fire, everything is dark. No moon is visible in the sky, making the stars brilliant. I look around for a familiar constellation. I can't find any, but then I can't remember the last time I tried to locate a constellation, and I don't think I've ever been out at night where so many stars are visible. It proves nothing, I fear.

"Sleep well, Eddie." Harax is already nestled into his bedroll by now. "We have much to do tomorrow."

"Good night, Harax." By the time I climb into my bedroll, Harax is already snoring. It isn't like most snoring I've heard, though. Instead it has a calm, almost soothing sound to it. After a moment I realize that it sounds like nothing so much as the ocean's tides washing ashore. Hey, some people pay money to hear this when they try to sleep. A few minutes after I lay down, I feel the tiredness of the day wash over me.

"Get up, you lazy pup."

I roll over, or try to. I forget that I'm curled up in a little ball, in this half-sized excuse for a sleeping bag. I open my eyes to a protective squint, then open them fully.

"Harax? It's still dark."

"Not for too much longer. I want to be moving by sunrise."

You've got to be kidding me, I want to say, but don't. I'm not thinking clearly enough to even be able to argue. Instead I just lie back down in hopes that Harax will change his mind. This is bad news. I do not want to be on a quest with a morning person.

Harax doesn't change his mind. Fifteen minutes later I am on my feet, the fire is buried, and we are packed up. Apparently they don't believe in the importance of breakfast in this world either. And off we go, once again heading north. Between yesterday's hikes and the night spent curled up, my legs are unbelievably sore.

The sky is lighter, and I can see that the near distance is all hills. Harax sees them, too, and says, "Gird yourself, for we will be doing a deal of uphill walking today." Suddenly I'm liking this quest a whole lot less. Harax does not attempt to make further conversation, but concentrates on his walking. That's a good thing, because I'm still not in the mood for civil chitchat. I want some coffee.

I realize that I had another dream about April during the night. To distract myself, I trace over the events of the dream in my memory.

"Eddie, when we first starting seeing each other, you were such a sweet guy. You listened to me. You were considerate. You never said anything mean or unkind about anybody. You would bend over backwards to point out the good side of other people. Including me."

Ouch. Every sentence of this is painful. Like shards of glass. Because I can see what's coming next. All of these compliments are for the old Eddie, the one that April's given up hope of ever seeing again. I had no idea that he was such a cool guy. Now I'd give anything to be him again. What changed? I don't honestly know.

"So, what changed?"

"You did."

Well, thanks. That doesn't help me.

"You're just so bitter nowadays. It seems that all you do is complain. You complain about your job, you complain about the people you work with."

"April, you would too if you had to work with them."

"The old Eddie didn't."

She has me there. At least I presume so. I don't really remember, but why would she make any of this up?

"And — well, you don't complain about me, not to my face. But I know that you would if you could."

I shrug. That's more or less true. Didn't I start this conversation because I was unhappy with our relationship? The overlooked question, though, is who got unhappy first? Her or me? She seems to be making the case that it was me. I should be trying to argue the case that it was her, as a survival tactic if nothing else, but I don't have any evidence to present. That fact alone argues that she's probably right.

"You're just really unhappy, Eddie."

Can't argue there. Life is threatening to give me ulcers. The only good thing in it was the hope that my girlfriend would start making me happy again. Guess that's out the window.

"And I can't live with you like this. I — I can't remember the last time you paid me a compliment. Or said anything nice to me at all."

"Hey." Part of me wants to keep my mouth shut, but I'm terribly conscious that she's doing all of the talking and I'm coming out looking like a complete jerk. "That's just not true," I object.

She spreads her hands, as if in honest confusion. "Tell me when's the last time you said something nice about me."

Every time we have sex, I think. For me, sex is worshipping at the altar of your body. But I don't say this out loud. Not only am I afraid that it would come off sounding shallow, but lately the sex hasn't been very good. So even if she took it the right way, it would only work against me. And frankly, that's part of the problem. At this stage in our relationship, I'm acutely aware that sexy legs and blue eyes are not enough, in and of themselves, to make me content. I need a girlfriend who doesn't fill every possible moment with small talk when she's in a good mood. I need a girlfriend who can have run-ins with her co-workers and not take it personally, and analyze it for hours afterwards with me. I need a girlfriend who can enjoy sex simply as sex, and likewise doesn't feel judged when I don't want sex. (You grow up thinking that getting sex is the major obstacle of becoming an adult. Turns out the real challenge of adulthood is to get out of having sex without hurting your girlfriend's feelings.)

I want to be careful about what I actually tell her. I'm worried about the long-term effect of confessing all of this to her, of bringing up these shortcomings. (Unlike April, apparently. She seems to think that pointing out all of my flaws will instantly inspire me to rise to the occasion and overcome them.) But caution notwithstanding, all of these complaints come out, eventually, in the course of the evening, with varying degrees of tact. By the end of it all, I'm relieved that she wants to break up. I'm feeling absolutely hopeless after bearing witness to the evidence of her unhappiness and dashed hopes. If she had expressed a desire to give me another chance, I would have been tempted to open up my wrists.

This one point of agreement, that we should break up now, feels like the only way left that we aren't disappointing each other.

I shake my head. We are now among the hills, and our pace has slowed. Are all my dreams in this place going to be unhappy memories of April and I breaking up? Give me the enigmatic peacock woman any day over that.

April's laundry list of complaints about the relationship were too pat: I can see that, now, looking back on it. She had clearly been thinking about this for some time beforehand. Which I have to consider suspicious, given that I'm the one who initiated the whole discussion. Am I supposed to believe that she was inspired by the moment, and pulled this presentation of why we're no good for each other off the top of her head, improvising as it were? It seems more likely that she had prepared for this moment. In which case she must have decided she wanted to break up, and then just sat around and waited for me to take the first step. Is that true? If so, that was cowardly. Really cowardly, April.

We walk in silence. Every step is uphill. How long has it been? I wish I had a watch. Do clocks even exist in this world? I try to remember details about the level of technology in the video game, but it's been too long. When were clocks first invented, anyway? I couldn't say. I gaze up at the angle of the sun, and figure we must have been climbing these hills for at least an hour. There's a fallen tree trunk on my left; I sit down on it with a audible thump. "Harax. Let's rest a moment. I'm exhausted."

"Very well. We'll take this opportunity to eat a bit as well." Harax shows me exactly what and how much to eat from my sling. Apparently he considers himself an experienced hiker, and knows exactly how much food is required to sustain oneself without risking a cramp. Of course, Harax is nearly half my size, so I sneak a little extra dried meat when he isn't looking.

I feel my water skin. (Yes, it too is made of pigskin leather. Every time I drink from it, I have to force myself to not think about being out here in a pre-technological wilderness with dysentery.) It's getting low. I mention this to Harax. He nods. "I'm keeping my ears open. There are numerous little streams in these hills. We'll come across one sooner or later."

"How much sooner or later do you think that is? Because maybe I should start rationing it to be on the safe side."

"Shh." Harax is motionless. "Listen," he whispers.

I strain my ears, but I hear nothing but the wind. Certainly nothing that sounds like running water.

"Eddie." Harax is still whispering. "Put away your things and stand. We need to leave this place at once."

"What is it?" I whisper back.

"Just do as I say before we're surrounded."

I jam the rest of my meal back into my sling and pick up my walking stick. Harax begins walking uphill, slowly and silently. I follow, doing my best to be equally quiet. We walk no more than fifty feet, when suddenly Harax yells at the top of his lungs. The sound nearly gives me a heart attack. Harax leaps to his right and tears off in that direction. And I see in front of me, directly before the spot where Harax so recently stood, a lizard, standing on its hind feet, nearly three feet tall. Its scales are a striking red, the color of roses. Its eyes are alight with a faint orange glow.

I go running after Harax. Vaguely I notice that I'm screaming at him to slow down, lest I get left behind. There doesn't seem much likelihood of that, though, as Harax is making plenty of noise and commotion and he pounds through the underbrush. Are we running towards anything? Or just away from the lizard thing? I wish I knew. Is it following us? I know that it's not a good idea, but despite myself I attempt to glance behind me. It is in fact chasing up with a nimble, four-footed gait. Fear, or just the fact that I wasn't looking, causes me to stumble. I land on the ground screaming Harax's name. Almost immediately I get up again, but then suddenly the lizard has its claws in the fleshy part of my back, and it burns, there is a feeling like bonfire heat in the lower layer of skin where the claws have pierced, and I am no longer shouting Harax's name, I am not even breathing, my diaphragm has seized up and I am back on the ground again, face down this time, and the pain is still there.

There's a commotion going on above me, but I can't think straight to figure out what it is. There's a series of slapping sounds, and suddenly the fiery needles in my back drop down a few degrees in temperature, and my lungs remember how to work and I gasp air in and out for a while.

"Curses! Boy, can you stand? I thought I killed the thing but it sneaked off and I couldn't follow it."

I look up. Harax is leaning over me. In one hand he holds my walking stick. I don't remember dropping it. One end of the stick is stained with black ichor.

"If we stay here more will come soon enough. We need to hide. I say, can you stand?"

I continue to gasp until I feel I am once again capable of talking. "If I have to."

"You have to. Now get up."

Every movement brings needles of hot pain shooting into my lower back. In my imagination there are four glowing-red holes in the skin there. At any moment the heat from the pain could set my shirt on fire. Harax lets me lean on him, but pushes me mercilessly to keep walking. Uphill, even. It seems an eternity before he finally brings me into the shelter of a cave. I let myself fall down onto my stomach. It's cold and dank in here. My hands are ice cold and stiff. The needle-holes in my back are just as hot as before, though. But at least I'm not moving.

Harax sits down beside me. "You must be quiet. They will come looking for us. We'll have to spend the rest of the day here."

"Can you do anything about the pain?" I manage to eke this question out of my throat quietly, without screaming once.

"A little. But it's going to hurt for a while, I fear. Just be glad you're still alive."

I'd be a lot happier I was still alive if I had some morphine. Harax's words are not encouraging. "Look, Harax, maybe you should just send me back."

"Send you back?" He doesn't believe I'm suggesting this.

"Yes, send me back." I'm talking quickly. Suddenly this seems like my only hope. "I'm sorry if it seems like I'm abandoning you, but, you gotta understand. I'm in a huge amount of pain. If I stay here with you, I'm just a liability. If I went home, I'd be able to do something for my pain. And then, you know, I could come back after I was better, and we could pick things right up again. And when I come back I could come better prepared, bring some extra clothes, a tent, antibiotics — maybe even a gun!"

"Eddie, my boy, stop your mouth. Pull your strength together. I have no way to send you back. You saw the Wand of Final Resort. It has no more power."

"What?!"

"Quiet, boy, or so help me I'll box your ears until you're out!" Harax is still whispering, but it's an urgent hiss, spoken directly into my ear. He's sweating profusely; I can smell it. "You can't risk letting the salamanders find us. You're in no shape to run. They'd tear you to pieces."

With great concentration I keep my voice to a whisper. "What do you mean, you can't send me back? What were planning to do with me once I rescued the princess? Leave me in her place?!"

"Eddie. Eddie, you're my friend. I won't abandon you. You must hold your faith steady. Why would the Fates help rescue one person only to leave another in need of rescue? It would have made as much sense to have ignored my plea entirely. But they didn't. Have faith, Eddie. The Fates wouldn't bring you here with no hope of returning."

"Are you serious? It sounds exactly like something the Fates would do."

"Worry about rescuing the Princess Thalia first, and I swear to you that the rest will take care of itself."

"Easy for you to say."

"Eddie, we will no doubt be facing much powerful magic before we're done. Many things can happen when such magic is afoot. Perhaps Auros Ettra himself will know how to carry you home again. Worry not about this right now. There will be time for that. Right now, you must worry about keeping in control of your pain, and staying silent."

This isn't the least bit reassuring, but I can't help but follow his advice anyway. Funny thing about pain, it makes it really hard to think about the future for any length of time. Pain pretty much keeps you in the present. All I could think about was holding back the pain for another few seconds, and then the next few seconds after that, and so on. Time becomes a loop, seeming to stretch out to eternity, with no promise of an end. I am nothing more than four tiny spots of skin, connected to a nervous system and a brain. All for the purpose of registering this pain.

I can't believe it. I'm stuck here. I am truly and entirely stuck here. Wherever here is. Panic wells up inside of me, mixing with the pain to form a potent synergetic torture for my soul. I can no longer shrug off the philosophical question of what is happening to me. What is this world? Am I dreaming? If so, I want to wake up, right this instant. Am I insane? Is this pain my mad interpretation of, say, a session of electroshock therapy? This world is too strange. I don't honestly believe that it is possible to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning in a world based on a video game. Video game companies don't have power over space and time. This has to be all taking place inside my head.

I will myself to wake up. I rock back and forth, managing the pain a few seconds at a time, and tell myself that I can find my way back to the real world. I just need to believe that I can do it, and I will. It's not possible for this world to be real. Real places don't have snakes made entirely out of water in them. Elves aren't real, not even ugly elves. This world cannot be real. I'm imagining it, and I don't want to anymore. It's time to wake up. It's time to stop living in this world. I don't like this world anymore. I want to go home now.

When that doesn't work, I rock back and forth and try to will myself into some other world. Anywhere else. If it happened once, it can happen again. Just so I don't have to bring this pain with me.

When that doesn't work, I just rock back and forth. And manage the pain. At some point I notice that it's dark everywhere. I can't see anything but a small knot of stars hovering in one corner of my vision. The cave is cold. I'm cold. I'm cold all over, except for four needle-shapes spots in my back.

Harax is lying down beside me. He has covered us both with a bedroll. We're both lying directly on the iron-cold ground, but I don't care. It's too hard to care about the cold in addition to the burning pain. I haven't been too keenly aware of my exterior surroundings, so I don't know if he's stayed by my side this entire time. Didn't he say he was going to do something to ease the pain a little? Did he already do it? Maybe not. Maybe he forgot. If it gets too bad, I can wake him up and ask him to do whatever it was he going to do. I hold onto that idea, clutching it like a lifeline. If it gets to the point that I can't take it anymore, I'll wake up Harax and he can make it a little better. Just knowing (or just believing) that I have something in reserve gives me the ability to hang on. Somehow, it makes a tiny difference. It makes all the difference in the world.

I will ignore this pain for the next three seconds. And I will ignore this pain for the next three seconds after that. And so on. And so on. And so on.

Time becomes a loop, unrolling out to eternity. But each time through the loop leaves me a little more exhausted, a little more delirious. Eventually I will receive the blessed gift of unconsciousness.

I wake up. It's light out, on the other side of my eyelids. I don't open them yet. The holes in my back, the only part of me that I can think about, still burns. The pain is no longer fresh, though. It hurts no less than before, but my body is no longer surprised at its presence. I can't help but think that eventually these nerve endings will simply burn out, cease to function from the overload of stimulus. I look forward to that moment. The rest of me is cold. I shift my legs, trying to seek a warmer position. Ugh. I think my skin is damp. A fearful tingling runs through my body, and now I'm shivering involuntarily.

I open my eyes, finally, and look around. Harax is not here. I'm alone in the cave. It's daytime outside, morning or afternoon I can't say. Next to me is a small stack of food — nuts and dried meat, mostly, but there's a bit of dried fruit as well, or so it appears. My water skin is next to the food. I suddenly realize that my mouth is very dry. I reach for the skin, but my hand is tangled in the bedroll. It looks like I'm actually inside the bedroll now. When did that happen? I finally free my left hand. Oh, it's cold out here in the open air. I manage to get a mouthful of water, plus some more down the side of my face. But I don't feel ready to sit up.

This is more than just a reaction to pain, isn't it? Pain wouldn't leave me shivery and weak, not like this. No, I'm sick. Maybe even poisoned. It's obvious I'm not well. Have I been sweating all night? Is that why I'm damp?

I don't want to think about it. I don't know what to do. There is no modern medicine in this world. Would a doctor even know what to do with me? "It's a salamander scratch; don't you people have something for that?" Ha.

Harax is probably gone because he's out collecting the herbs he needs for my cure. He's a native. He knows how to fix this. Why else would he be gone?

To get food for the long vigil over your tormented body, my rational brain suggests. While he sits and waits to see if you live or die. Or maybe he just left. He knew it was hopeless, and so he just left you here to die. Maybe he couldn't bear to watch. He knew the pain was only going to get worse.

Clearly, my brain hates me. I have to stop thinking like this. I chew on a nut. I should probably eat some of the meat but I don't have any appetite and it just seems like too much work right now.

There's a noise from outside. I hold still, try to stop shaking, and listen. There it is again — a quiet rustle. Somebody's out there. And trying to move silently. I look around. Unfortunately, it looks like Harax didn't think to also leave me a weapon. What do I do? Suddenly a shape lurches into the mouth of the cave. I freeze.

It's a vulture. It looks at me cautiously and takes another step in. Mustering my available strength, I yell at the bird and swipe at it with my open hand. In a flash it exits the cave and is gone again. My hand touches nothing but air.

I groan to myself as awareness of the pain returns. I bring my arm back within the bedroll and curl up tighter. I close my eyes. I should probably sleep now, before the vulture is ready to try me again. Unfortunately I am wide awake. Without really meaning to, I allow my thoughts to turn back to April. April, after the break-up.

It is evening, and I am calling April at her new apartment. When she first moved out, she spent a couple of weeks sleeping on a friend's couch. Shannon, to be precise. Shannon is somewhat notorious, among her acquaintances, for taking in her female friends when they break up. I remember April telling me about this one time during idle conversation. Surprisingly, it never even occurred to me at the time that one day April would be one of those friends. How is it possible, that such a thought didn't even cross my mind, however briefly? It seems incredible to me now. Certainly I will never be so blissfully naive again: of that I have no doubt. Every girlfriend I am with after April (presuming I don't wind up shunned and single for the rest of my life), no matter how perfect the relationship seems, I will wonder about the details and circumstances of a break-up. Even if the break-up never comes, I'll be thinking, where would she spend the night if we broke up today? I won't be able to stop myself.

April stayed with Shannon for twelve days before she found a new apartment and moved into it. I know this because I eventually called Shannon and asked after April. I was somewhat surprised when Shannon answered my questions about April. Her tone of voice was guarded, but she nonetheless remained polite. She even gave me April's phone number at her new place. I assume April explicitly told Shannon it was okay to give me the number; I can't imagine her telling me otherwise. Out of curiosity I remained on the phone with Shannon for several minutes, drawing out the conversation with various pleasantries. Shannon seemed to believe that our split had been mutual, even amicable. Which meant that April must have presented it to her as such. Maybe April herself honestly felt that way. I suppose I was civil enough about the whole thing. And I was the one who initiated The Talk, after all.

Which means, perhaps, that for once I hadn't burned my bridges behind me. So it was with a sense of blooming optimism that I called April at her new number.

I get her voice mail, though. I listen to the message, but when the beep comes I choke and quickly hang up. I don't quite know what it is I want to tell her. No, that's a lie. I know exactly what it is. I want to invite her to come have dinner with me. But I can't just leave an invitation like that as a message on her machine. I need to talk to her, gauge her reaction to my voice. Her message sounded strong, confident even. It's entirely likely that she feels that she's doing just fine without me. This is a potentially delicate thing, and I have to have some indication of where her thoughts are regarding me before I dive in. In short, I don't want to blow this.

The memory is painful. Not just remembering what I was thinking at the time, but just knowing what happened next — that is to say, nothing good at all. And yet I thought I was doing pretty well. It had been a few months by then. I had stopped taking sick days from work. During the first few weeks of the breakup I had stayed home no less than three days, claiming various symptoms each time that came and went. I would then lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling, or watch a lot of television that even in my distracted state I couldn't bring myself to enjoy ironically. I cried a little, but only a little. Mostly I just felt unmotivated to do anything. At loose ends. Ennui, I suppose is the word. Full of lassitude.

Eventually that passed, spurred at least in part by a fear that I would risk getting fired if I kept it up. And then I discovered something that I should have already known, from past breakups, namely that keeping yourself busy is a great way to distract yourself out of being depressed. I threw myself into my job for a while, not because I suddenly realized it was interesting but simply out of fear, fear of depression. That took care of the days, and the evenings I kept full by throwing myself at my friends. Or, on nights when nobody I knew could be talked into coming out, I would turn the television on and leave it in the background, and drink most of a bottle of wine. It mattered not a bit what was on the television, so long as it was people. I didn't even watch the programs, really. I just needed to surround myself with human voices other than mine. Unfortunately, though my general disposition was much cheerier during this time, I still wound up taking another three sick days in as many weeks — this time because of my hangovers.

And then, over the following month or two, some switch got flipped inside my head, and I suddenly ran out of patience with myself. In short, I got sick and tired of my own attitude, of not being able to cope, of listening to myself complain. Slowly, but inexorably the new habits and behaviors sloughed away, and the old me reasserted himself. Not to say that I wasn't changed by the whole experience, but I no longer felt unrecognizable to myself.

And so, feeling like I had reached the point of recovery, I found myself thinking about April with curiosity instead of pain or resentment. Almost as an impulse I decided it would be a good idea to get in touch, start working towards establishing a stable friendship. It's the grown-up thing to do. And then, as if to deny the impulsive nature of the initial idea, I carefully planned how to go about doing this.

Ugh. I don't want to think about this. It's too embarrassing. More than embarrassing. It's telling. I had all of my energy back, and my positive outlook. I was excited, I was actually excited. Even on most days, in which I did absolutely nothing towards seeing April again, except think and plan, I felt like I was accomplishing something. It seems pretty clear to me now that I was excited because I had found a reason to think about April. I had an excuse to imagine her and I together — well maybe not together per se, but in the same room — and feel like it was a progressive thing. Instead of regressive.

Maybe if I had kept it at the planning stage, and just rode that emotional high out for the rest of my life, I could have stayed a good person.

I hear a squawk outside the cave. The vulture hasn't gone very far, it seems. Assuming it's the same one and not a newcomer. Then a feathery rustle that trails upwards and away.

I reach out from the bedroll for the food. Some muscle in my back spasms and the hot needles flare up like fireworks in my nervous system. I imagine bright white sparks flying outward in all directions, lighting up the dark caverns of my brain. I squeeze my eyes closed and focus on riding out the pain. I try to relax the muscles in my back but they're not under my control right now.

I hear an unfamiliar sound, like a hiss. I open my eyes. There's a salamander in the cave entrance. The red scales are iridescent in the sunlight. Its eyes fall directly upon me then: I can see the orange glow brighten suddenly, as when a cat stares at you in a dark room. My arm is still exposed, held out towards the water skin. I should do something, I know, but I'm afraid of setting it off. I see the scales on its hind legs ripple as the muscles contract.

"May I come in?"

The voice is quiet, calming even. The words are spoken with a slow precision, as if with a mouth unused to making such sounds. I look at the salamander more carefully. It looks back at me, and cocks its head slightly to one side, like a dog.

The moment stretches out. "Well?"

I don't know how to react. "I'd sort of rather you didn't."

The salamander sighs. "Sir, are you ill?"

"But, you know, thanks for asking."

"Sir, you appear to be ill or injured. Was it from another of my kind?"

I don't know what to do. I don't want it to know how helpless I am, but it's probably already guessed that. "Maybe, maybe not," I finally say.

"Are you not aware that the only proper cure for a salamander scratch is the saliva of a salamander?"

Oh cripes. There is no way I'm letting this creature drool into my wounds.

"Sir, I can help you. You need me to help you."

On the other hand, I'd do just about anything if I thought it would get rid of this pain. I've had it for so long I can't really remember what life was like without it. All I can recall clearly is that it mostly took place outside of caves.

"Let me come in."

I feel utterly exhausted. I don't know what to do. I let out a long sigh, one that might be mistaken for acquiescence.

There is a twisting sensation in my stomach, and the colors before my eyes run together. I can't see any shapes, only smears. I blink my eyes, which have begun to water profusely. For a moment it feels that I am about to throw up, but then the sensation passes. I repress the urge to use my hand to swipe at my eyes; I'm afraid of making any large movements. I blink furiously. The cave seems lighter now. My vision finally clears. I am lying down on the flagstone floor of a very large room. The walls are made of wood, covered here are there by large tapestries. There are a few narrow windows in one of the walls, as well as a number of candles burning on a table to my left. Seated near the table is a man — "man" as in a male human. One can't assume these things here. He is bald, and his face is heavily lined with furrowy wrinkles, exaggerating the expression of concentration he is focusing in my direction. Unlike the other people I've met so far, he seems to be wearing clothes made entirely of fabric. They look expensive.

The man puts on a pair of glasses and squints at me. "Eddie, I presume?"

I breathe carefully. "Don't mess with me."

The man raises an eyebrow and frowns.

Suddenly a hulking shape leans over from behind me. I twist around, shouting, and fireworks of pain blossom in my back again.

It's Harax. "Eddie, it's okay. It's me, Harax."

I'm gasping with adrenaline and relief. "Harax. Where the heck were you?" Not the most grateful response, I realize.

Harax puts a hand gently against my chest. "Eddie, are you okay? I mean, do you have any new injuries?"

"No. I don't think so anyway. Just the one."

Harax looks down at me eagerly. "Open your mouth." I do so at once. Harax holds out a sponge in a gloved hand and squeezes it. An oily liquid lands in my mouth, smelling like rubbing alcohol. My mind seems to drift loose from my body. The pain is still there, but it no longer hurts — it merely exists. I close my eyes.

There's something incongruous about the external world right now, but I'm still too groggy to open my eyes, much less focus clearly on what it is. The bedsheets feel fine. The light isn't too bright. There's a smell of bacon in the air — that's probably from a neighbor. I turn over onto my other side. My legs are sore, but that's not too strange. I stretch my legs and arms, and suddenly the absence of shooting pain in my back hits my conscious attention.

Oh yeah, that and the fact that I'm naked.

I open my eyes and sit up. I'm lying down on the floor. I'm atop my bedroll, inbetween clean white sheets. The room is small, and there's a small, low bed in here as well. The bed is empty but the muss of sheets suggests that it was recently occupied.

There's another one of those narrow windows in the wall opposite the room's door. The sunlight is bright outside. I should probably get up.

There's some clean clothes in a neat pile by the door. They aren't mine, or even mine/Legrielle's, but there's nothing else in here to wear, so I can only assume that they're here for me. I put them on, then look down at myself. I have to admit that even though the cloth is a little rough, overall it's less irritating than the hide clothing. And the fit's a little tight in spots and loose in others. I can't tell if this is due to them being tailored for another man, or if it's just because of the difference in fashion.

I step out and immediately find myself back in the large room where I first "arrived". Harax and the old man are seated by the table, the latter looking like he never moved. They turn and see me. Harax stands and says, "Eddie, you're awake at last. Come here and have some lunch before I eat it all."

Oh, yeah. It suddenly dawns on me that I'm really hungry. I take a seat at the table with the others. There are all sorts of dishes laid out here, most of which have been partially consumed already. Most of it looks unfamiliar, but I inhale a noseful of aromas and it smells delicious. I want to try everything. There's an empty plate already set before my chair, so I help myself to something from the nearest dish — it looks like some kind of meatloaf — and try it. It's peppery instead of sweet, and the meat has an unexpected nutty flavor to it. I love it.

The old man looks at me and laughs aloud. "Well, I'd estimate that our hero is starting to feel better."

Some instinct tells me that I've forgotten my manners. "Excuse me, sir. I didn't mean to ignore you or anything. I guess I'm just —"

"No need for apologies, son. You've been through a hard time. Overlooking a few social rituals is no sin in my eyes."

"Thank you, sir." See, when they're this old I don't mind being called "boy" or "son". "I presume I have you to thank for fixing me up?"

The old man raises his eyebrows. "Fixing you up?"

"I mean, for healing my wounds?"

"Yes, I suppose I can take credit for that."

"Did you —" I shouldn't ask, but I can't help myself. "— did you use salamander saliva to do it?"

He seems a bit surprised at the question. "Salamander saliva? No."

My relief is irrational, I know, but no less real.

He continues, "Salamander saliva relieves the symptoms, but since you were already rendered unconscious, this was an unnecessary step. I did use salamander blood to break down the poison in your wounds, however." His abstract gaze refocuses on me. "Do you have an interest in the medical arts?"

I shake my head. In fact, I should probably change the subject before it affects my appetite. "I presume I also have you to thank for teleporting me here?"

Again with the eyebrows. "Teleporting?"

I consider for a moment. "For summoning me here?"

He nods. "You mean the relocation spell. I am indeed the one who wove the magic, but the person you should thank is your friend Harax."

I looked at Harax, who was grinning from ear to ear. "You see, Eddie, when I realized that you were falling under the influence of the salamander poison, I decided that bringing you here by magic was our only hope. So I cut off a lock of your hair and set out alone. I travelled through the night, which I don't recommend you ever do, but fortunately I made it here without further encounters. And I think it was the right thing to do. With the hair and my directions to your cave, the relocation spell worked flawlessly."

"This one salamander found the cave, moments before you brought me here."

Harax nods thoughtfully. "We are lucky they didn't find you sooner. It was the risk I took by leaving you alone."

"What exactly are the salamanders, Harax? Why were they after us?"

"They are bounty hunters, Eddie. They're in the employ of our enemies, the Tilonite conspirators."

"So we're being hunted?"

"Well, it's possible that they weren't after us to begin with. They may have just thought we looked suspicious, and chased us out of sheer speculation. Of course, if one of them saw you vanish magically, then they'll know that we're up to something. I'm afraid we've only a little while longer before the Tilonites will realize who we are and what we're doing."

"The salamander talked to me," I say cautiously.

"I see. Did it ask you for permission to enter the cave?"

I nod mutely.

"Did you refuse, I hope?"

"Pretty much, yes."

Harax beams. "Good boy, Eddie."

The old man looks quizzical. I expect I do, too.

Harax grins mischevously. "I may be a simple elf, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Before I left, I made that cave your homestead."

"My what?"

"Your homestead. I laid out food, and water, and made a bed for you to lie upon. Just before I left, I blessed the cave entrance in the name of the Holy Mother of Earth and Sky. So your enemies were unable to trespass as long as you remained inside your home, unless of course they gained your permission to enter."

The old man nods. "An excellent precaution. Eddie has no home here, so any place you ensconced him was viable to become his true home. Well thought out, Harax."

"Thank you."

I shake my head. "You might have let me know about it."

Harax shakes his head. "I do apologize for abandoning you without any explanation. But you were delirious at the time."

"You could have, I don't know, left me a note or something."

"I had no paper, nor ink nor quill." Harax frowns. "And I wasn't sure that you could read."

I glare at him briefly, but of course he doesn't mean it as an insult. Good grief, I may not be able to read, actually. Just because they seem to speak English doesn't mean that they use the same alphabet. To the best of my knowledge, this is a fantasy world based on a video game — it doesn't have to make sense.

There is a momentary lapse in the conversation. I continue to stuff my face. I was right: almost everything on this table is delicious.

"So then," the old man says finally. "What's the next step for you two?"

Harax pauses and looks thoughtful.

I say, "We continue on to Auros Ettra." At the same time Harax says, "Well, that depends —" Harax and I look at each other.

I frown. "Depends on what?"

There's a moment of silence, then Harax and the old man both burst out laughing. Loud and thoroughly impolite laughing.

"Okay," I say over the noise, but still maintaining a civil tone of voice. "What did I say wrong now?"

Harax waves a hand meaninglessly in the air. "No no, Eddie. It is I who made the mistake, when I skipped the formalities. I thought you already realized." He stops laughing. "Eddie, allow me to introduce you to our host: Auros Ettra." The old man declines his head briefly. He is wearing a smile like Santa Claus. Apparently being a summoned hero is no proof against committing social faux pax. Or of being laughed at to one's face.

Harax turns back to Auros Ettra. "So, our next step depends on you."

Auros Ettra considers this gravely. I fill up my plate again and continue eating. I'm just about certain that it's going to be a while before I get a meal as good as this one again. After a while Auros Ettra's frown softens into a blank stare. A moment or two later he leans forward and says, "When Eddie here is done eating, let us adjourn to my library."

Harax looks at my plate with one raised eyebrow.

My facial expression must betray my embarrassment, for Auros Ettra smiles indulgently at me and says, "When Eddie is done eating, and not a moment before then."

Despite his polite words, I've become self-conscious. I clean my plate in record time. I've never eaten like that, being watched by people who weren't eating also. I must say, it's a bit disconcerting.

Finally we get up and walk through a curtain that I had originally mistook for a hanging tapestry, and into a cozy book-lined room. "Please, be seated," says Auros Ettra. There are a number of large chairs in here, so Harax and I make ourselves comfortable. Auros Ettra walks over to a table on the far side of the room. He bends down and pulls a wooden box out from under the table. He rummages around inside of it, and finally produces a large ceramic bowl. He stands and walks out of the room, bowl in hand. I stare at the books on the shelves nearest me, hoping to see examples of the writing in this world. Unfortunately none of them seem to have titles on their spines. How does he find anything in here? Finally Auros Ettra comes back in, walking carefully. The bowl is nearly full of water. He sets it down on the table and waits. After a while he gestures with his right hand, his fingers hovering a inch or two above the water surface. He leans over the bowl and stares into its depths, oblivious to us. After a long minute he gestures again. The staring continues. I shift in my chair, trying not to make any noise.

This ritual continues for several minutes. Harax watches it intently, as if it were a football game instead of an old man staring motionlessly at a bowl of water. Why are we even here? Wouldn't it have been better if we had stayed outside while he did this? Then I wouldn't be sitting here trying not to move and feeling guilty every time I cause the chair to creak.

After what seems like hours, Auros Ettra straightens up. He walks over to a chair and sits down. He looks tired.

Harax waits patiently for Auros Ettra to say something. My patience is completely gone, however. "Well?" I ask. "Did you see anything?"

Auros Ettra inhales deeply. "Indeed I did. I believe I have learned the method by which the princess can be unshackled from her prison."

Harax slaps his knee. "My word, that's excellent. I knew you were the one to do it, Auros Ettra."

Auros Ettra ignores this and continues talking. I realize that he's looking directly at me. "The Princess Thalia is kept in thrall by means of a binding spell, which binds her to her captors. It is a powerful spell that is proof against any method I know to neutralize it."

"Any method?" Harax asks.

Auros Ettra leans towards me in his chair. "Instead, you must bring to the princess a binding spell of your own, one that is more powerful yet. You must bind the princess to yourself. This will allow her to follow you out of the Drowning Castle. You can then accompany her back to the capital. Once the princess is safely unmagicked, she will then be able to lead the battle to oust the invaders from Armethal. This time for good."

I'm a little uncomfortable that this plan requires me to play such a pivotal role, but then I suppose I knew that this was coming from the get-go. It's literally the price of admission, when you think about it.

But it is Harax now who looks doubtful. "If the binding spell is as powerful as that, then how is our young hero to wield an even stronger one? He claims he is completely unschooled in the magical arts."

Auros Ettra nods his head. He looks over at Harax, and then up at the ceiling again. "Indeed, Harax. That is the heart of the puzzle. How can this young outlander be able to wield magic so potent? Neither you nor I foresaw it. Hopefully, the Tilonites will not either. This will be our element of surprise, by which he shall, with luck, be able to attain the Drowning Castle and the princess's cell: because he will be perceived by everyone as ineffectual. Harmless, even. Until the deed is done and the Princess Thalia is free."

Harax is hanging on to Auros Ettra's every word. He's loving every minute of this. And I have to admit that I'm sort of enjoying it, too. It does sound quite heroic. But I also know that people don't get to be called heroes by doing things that aren't dangerous.

Auros Ettra turns to face me once more. "You carry a talisman." It's not a question.

"I do?" I consider the contents of my sling, which holds everything I own in this place.

"You do. A talisman that bears great power, for it has moved between worlds."

"I don't know what — Oh. Of course." I stand up. "What did you do with the clothes I was wearing when I came here?"

Harax gets up without a word and runs out of the room. The next moment he returns with my clothes. They're wadded up in a shapeless ball and smell strongly of sweat. From the ball I pick out a pant leg and carefully disentangle my jeans. I take them over to the table, and begin fishing through the pockets.

My wallet. My keys. Several loose coins. I switch to the other pocket. My cell phone. (I can't help myself: I check the reception. Zero bars, of course. Still, the thing is on. I'm surprised the battery hasn't run down yet.) And then there it is, at the very bottom of the left pocket.

I pull out the ring, made of platinum and diamond, and present it to Auros Ettra. He takes it from me carefully, and gently rubs the metal band between thumb and forefinger. The diamond appears to be glowing by its own dim light. "Yes. This is indeed the talisman. It remains only to focus its power into a binding spell."

Harax looks at the ring with wonder. He is probably wondering why I never mentioned it before now. Would he believe me if I told him the truth, that I had forgotten that I had it in the first place?

"Tell me, you two," I venture. "The Princess Thalia." I clear my throat. "Is she about five and a half feet tall, blue eyes, dark blond hair?"

Auros Ettra gives me a puzzled look. "I've never actually seen the princess. They say she is exceedingly beautiful, but I don't know such details as the color of her eyes."

Harax continues to examine the ring. "Are you capable of focusing its power, Auros Ettra?"

Auros Ettra nods very slowly. "I believe I am."

"Then you should do so, without delay."

"Indeed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

I'm sitting at the table in the main room, alone. Harax and Auros Ettra are still in the library. Auros Ettra is working over the ring, focusing its power into a single expression of magic. Harax is fascinated by this, and watches everything Auros Ettra does. I watched for a while, because it seemed the only polite thing to do at the time. But Auros Ettra doesn't talk to us while he's working, and when I tried to talk to Harax, no matter how quietly, he glared and waved at me to be silent. Auros Ettra started by hanging the ring over the bowl of water, using a fine black thread and a wooden contraption that (to me, at least) looked like a miniature gallows. I thought there would be some interesting ritual to follow. But Auros Ettra just left it dangling there while he began reading through one of his books. Really, you can only watch someone else read a book for so long. So I left them to it and came here to sit and think. Unsurprisingly my thoughts turn, almost involuntarily, to memories of April.

"Hello." Her voice sounds unfamiliar, which surprises me. It's only been three and a half months since she moved out. Already she's becoming unfamiliar. But maybe what makes it unfamiliar is hearing it over a telephone line. This will be the first real verbal contact we've had since the breakup. We didn't talk over the phone very often when we're living together. That's probably what it is.

Or maybe, part of my brain suggests, her voice sounds unfamiliar because she's happy. Carefree. When was the last time she was unreservedly happy in my presence? She doesn't yet realize that it's me calling. As soon as she does, her voice will take on a dull gray tone, and it will then sound all too familiar.

I don't want to hear her voice change. I don't want to interrupt her happiness with my presence. I don't know if this pessimistic thought has any truth to it, but I can't bear to find out. I'm panicking. I can't speak. Quickly and quietly I hang up the phone.

I stare at the walls of the bedroom. I wonder if anything would have been different if I had swallowed my fears and stayed on the phone. Did she ever suspect that it was me who had called and hung up? Did that affect her perception of me later? And how would things have been different had I listened to my fears and never called her back again?

Would I still be here now?

The sun is going down. Auros Ettra and Harax are still in the library. Harax did emerge briefly a little while ago, but all he did was grab some of the food off of the table and return, winking at me as he left and saying, "It's going to work. It's all coming together, Eddie." I guess dinner is just lunch, only colder.

I suppose I understand now why all of my dreams in this place are about April.

I spend some time trying to light the candles, but apparently there are no such things as matches in this world. I mess around with a flint and some tinder for what seems like hours, and accomplish nothing. Finally I give up, because of course it's too dark to see what I'm doing. There's a dim light coming from under the door to the library, but I feel like I should leave them alone. I have a mental image of me bumping up against some bit of glassware, and breaking it, and Auros Ettra having to start all over again. I'm happy to just be alone with my thoughts right now, anyway. When it gets too dark to see across the room, I return to the bedroom and lay down. Resting seems like a good idea. I expect we're going to be travelling again all too soon. The wind is blowing outside. I can hear the creak of some wooden structure leaning in the breeze, or perhaps the branches of a tree are rubbing against the wall. Before long I fall asleep.

I awaken to the sound of my name being called in the next room. "Eddie, it's the morrow! Come out from that bed!"

"I'll be there in a minute," I manage to grate out.

"Don't let that minute become ten, or you'll risk missing out on the mealtime again!"

I spent too much of yesterday asleep, I suspect. I'm groggy and sluggish, and I feel like I could lay in bed for another eight hours and not regret it. Or perhaps my dreams are interfering with my rest. Is that even possible? I don't know. But the dreams are still there, and each one is still just a rehashing of my past.

It's winter, and a light dusting of snow is coming down. The flakes are tiny, almost invisible against the gray clouds that blanket the sky. The air is damply chilling. Even a small breeze leaves my hands feeling numb. I am walking to the grocery store, but the cold air convinces me to stop inside a used book store on the way. I browse through the aisles in a distant mood. I haven't really been reading much of anything lately. Maybe I should take this opportunity to change that? It seems like a good idea, but none of the specific books that I consider hold any appeal. I'm interested in the idea of reading, but not the thing itself. I realize that I'd like to have read a great many books, but not enough to actually read them. This is a depressing discovery about myself. But still, apparently not depressing enough to motivate a change. I continue to wander the aisles, still hoping to find a book interesting on both the inside and the outside.

In the next aisle I spot her immediately. April is standing in the aisle, before the Rs. She has three books cradled in her left arm. She's wearing her reading glasses, something I've never seen her do in public before. She's wearing a blue and gray sweater under her black raincoat. She looks good. Her hair hangs flat and limp from the rain, but she still looks good. I stand there for a moment, but she doesn't notice me. I quietly walk up to her. It would be rude to walk away and pretend I didn't see her, and I'd probably just bump into her again in the next minute or so. There's nothing odd about this. We live in the same neighborhood. It's not suspicious. I really did run into her by accident, in honest fashion.

I stop two feet away from her. "Hey," I say quietly.

She looks towards me. Her eyes are wide. Is she startled, or are the glasses just making it hard for her to focus? "Hey there, Eddie. Hello."

"Hello. How's it going?"

"It's, it's going." She nods her head with slow, lengthened swings, as if to emphasize the positive aspect of what she's saying. "I'm doing okay."

"You got a new place?" Stupid question. As if I didn't already know.

"Yep. Yep. All moved in and everything."

"How is it?"

She bobs her head and stares over my shoulder. "It's okay." She comes back into focus and smiles wanly. "It's kind of small."

I nod encouragingly, but no further details are offered. Pause. I point to the books she's carrying "So what do you have there?"

She looks down at the contents of her arm. "Just some light reading."

I'm amazed at how awkward this is. What was I expecting when I approached her? I'm not sure — but not this. It's like we met once at a noisy party last week and are now standing here racking our brains for something to say to each other. It's ridiculous. April, we lived together for over a year. We know way too much about each other's habits. Is all that intimacy completely gone after four lousy months apart?

Suddenly my heart is going out of my chest. She's holding me at arm's length. Do I make her nervous? I don't know how or why, but apparently I do. Is she scared of me? I never did or say anything to make her scared of me. Not even remotely.

And because I don't know what's going on, I can't bring myself to walk away. The awkward conversation continues for several minutes. I string it along, continuing to ask friendly questions. I'm showing polite interest in her new life, completely free of bitterness or jealousy or any other negative emotion. I'm just being a friend. That's what we agreed we were now. But she never relaxes. She loosens up a little bit, and at one point offers up a brief bit of information without being prompted first. (It was that she recently had dinner at the Ethiopian restaurant that had just opened up on 15th. The food turned out to be extremely good, but the portions were a bit large for one person to finish.)

I seem to be powerless to end the conversation. Not powerless, actually — I'm completely unmotivated to end it. I can't stand seeing us like this, yet I can't look away. April finally excuses herself from the conversation, saying that she needs to finish up here before the bus comes. I apologize for taking up so much of her time, wish her luck with her new place, and hope we'll see each other around again. I say goodbye and walk on to the next aisle, so she can continue rummaging through the Rs in peace. At least I can say that I ended on a polite note. It was the only comfortable moment in an otherwise miserable encounter.

But it was an act. I was depressed and confused. And yes, I was starting to feel a little bit angry.

I finish dressing in the clothes supplied by my host, and step out into the main room. The table is once again covered with various foods, as if to make up for last night. Auros Ettra looks a bit wired. He has an energetic air about him, but I can see bags under his eyes. He's smiling, and in fact he looks happier than I've seen him so far. He produces from a pocket the ring and lays it on the table next to me. The central diamond seems to faintly glow with its own internal light.

"Your ring has taken the focus perfectly, Eddie. My work was successful. The talisman is now a ring of binding."

Harax is smiling as he chews a mouthful of bread. "Romiel's Prophecy is coming true, Eddie. All we have to do now is get you and the ring into the Drowning Castle. Once we find the Princess Thalia, you can release her, and then we shall bring her back home."

Auros Ettra nods abstractedly. "These deeds are much easier to describe than to enact, of course. But Harax is right. Handling this talisman, and seeing its power for myself, has convinced me that the prophecy is real. But the time in which to act may be short. We need to proceed quickly, and keep our wits about us."

"We?" I ask. "Are you coming with us then?"

Auros Ettra looks at me, clearly surprised by the question. "Oh no, I'm afraid not. I'm an old man now, and I would only slow you down. Presuming I didn't just die from exposure the first night I spent away from home."

Figures. Everybody talks big if they don't have to do anything. Well, except for Harax. Harax talks big, but he's only too happy to be in the middle of all this.

Auros Ettra continues. "However, that doesn't mean that I can't offer you some company, if only for a short distance. This morning Harax and I spoke with my errands boy, Kett, and he has agreed to accompany you as far as the White Forest. He will also help you prepare for your travels on your way out of the town."

Town? Are we in a town? I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise. I had assumed that Auros Ettra lived in isolation, like Legrielle, but I see that there's no reason why he should. The sumptuous meals and no sign of servants should have tipped me off. I realize that I've been in this man's home for over a day and I've hardly looked out the windows, except to see the sky.

Harax nods. "We already have some warm clothing and dried food, although I fear that much of our provisions were left behind in Eddie's cave."

Auros Ettra nods. "Don't worry, I am a man of some influence here, Kett will see to it that you will not leave town wanting for anything." I suppose he means that our provisions will all go onto his tab. That's good, because I don't think Harax and I have much to barter with. My money would be useless — even the coins aren't silver.

By the time Harax and I have eaten our fill, Kett arrives. He is fourteen at most, and has a teenager's wiry build. His hair is slicked neatly into place, and his clothes are plainer than Auros Ettra's but made of similar materials. I suspect it is something of a uniform that he wears while on duty.

Harax and Auros Ettra embrace briefly, continuing to converse as they make their goodbyes. "Now Harax, do not dawdle in the White Forest. If you make quick time, you can be out of there well before sunset, and you'll find safer camp in the North Plains."

"I've no intention of dawdling. We've already been spotted once. I mean to get to the Drowning Castle before the Tilonite conspirators realize what our game is. Otherwise they'll be ready for us there, and we'll never be able to sneak in undetected."

"No doubt more salamanders will be out there looking for you."

"We'll be keeping our eyes wide open."

Auros Ettra smiles. "May Luck follow you."

"To the ends of the earth."

Auros Ettra turns to me. "Eddie, whether success or failure awaits you, Armethal remains in your debt."

"Thank you," I say, with as much gravity as I can muster. It's a limp response, but I have no idea what else to say to such a statement.

Kett leads us along a well-worn trail through the grass and trees, which comes out in an open area, and suddenly we find ourselves on the edge of a small town. As we walk through it, Kett stops at various homes and slowly accumulates a small pile of possessions for us to carry. Rope, cloaks, a knife, more dried food, a new water skin for me. At an herbalist Harax acquires a small arsenal of tiny paper bags, each one containing a different mixture of dried leaves and each with a different set of properties. "Use this to cover your scent from bears. You can even sprinkle it on the ground to disguise the smell of your tracks. And use this to disguise your scent from salamanders. Now this mixture is for snake bites." I hope Harax has a photographic memory; otherwise I can't see how he could hope to remember which baggie does what.

Finally we reach the opposite end of the town — for which I am grateful, for my pack is starting to weigh on my shoulders with all these new purchases. Kett and Harax and I walk in silence for a few hours. Harax and I try to make light conversation, but Kett is clearly mistrustful of strangers and prefers not to talk with them any more than he needs to.

A little ways before noon, a swath of treetops pokes up over the horizon. A while later and we are standing on the edge of the White Forest. Despite its name, the forest looks like a normal rain forest. There is no evidence that it is about to snow.

Kett points to the worn trail that leads into the forest. "There's your footpath. Stay on it until you're well clear of the forest on the northern side."

"That sounds simple enough," I say cheerfully.

"If you walk straight through, without making camp, you should reach the Plains before nightfall."

Harax and I thank Kett for his assistance, and then he tuns back and heads for home.

Harax stares into the forest. Without looking down he absently touches the knife at his belt. "Well then, Eddie, let's not dawdle." And with that he enters the forest. And I follow him.

How does it happen that bad sex is better than no sex? I wouldn't prefer to eat a bad apple than have no apple. When I sit through a bad movie, I don't think, well that was bad, but at least it was better than having ninety minutes of free time to spend however I choose. To be sure, bad food is better than no food, but that's because no food will kill you. No sex won't kill you. (I know some people who would argue with me on that point, but those people aren't meant to be taken seriously. I mean, nobody thinks that monks are committing suicide.)

But, in my experience, bad sex is still better than no sex. Or at the very least, bad sex with April was better than no sex with April, which is what I have now. And I don't really understand why that is.

What's so important about sex that you want it even when it fails to make you feel closer and more connected to another person? Not that I felt much that way at the time. But then I was spoiled, and all I could think about was how to bring the good sex back. Now I would take the bad sex and be grateful, because at least then — what?

At least then I would know that April still liked me, I suppose. Still cared about me. Still trusted me. Perhaps it's not so much the sex itself, as it is the willingness. Because at least then we'd still be trying to make that connection. At least then there'd be hope that the relationship would get better, right? I guess what it is, is that with bad sex, there is still hope.

It's not just the sex that was bad. Pretty much all of our interactions were bad. We were moody around each other, and testy at times, and it was a relief when we separated. We could both see that the other was no longer expecting something positive when we talked, and the conversations became less frequent. Really, the sex was just the first thing to go bad. It was the barometer of our shared life. It was the canary in the coal mine, though we might not have fully appreciated that at the time.

It probably would have gotten better, eventually, if we hadn't given up. All these problems we had with each other, we shouldn't have just assumed they were unsolvable. We only tried to fix them for a few months, and then we quit. If we worked on it long enough, eventually we'd figure out how to fix them, right? People were doing it for centuries, back in the days before divorce. Quitting wasn't an option then. If the relationship wasn't working you were just miserable, and you stayed miserable until you figured out how to fix it.

It's my fault, really. I gave up too easily. April saw that I was giving up already, and so she gave up too. I don't blame her. It's perfectly understandable. But that's not who I am now. I don't want to give up so easily. I've taken the easy road all my life. I gave up on college when it got too hard and I realized that I could get a job without it. I've given up on everything I couldn't solve right away. I don't want to give up on this. I really, really don't. It could be something beautiful. It could be the only beautiful thing I will ever create.

April, you have to give this a second chance. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to the beautiful possibility that we could have together. You owe it to us. You and me both.

I need to make you see the truth of that. It's my only hope now. I've been asked to save you. I mean to do so, for in the process of saving you, I will also be saving myself.

Part Three

I've decided that I don't like this forest.

Normally I enjoy being out in forests. But the White Forest is uncomfortable if not actively hostile to visitors. The trees are thick overhead, blocking out much of the light. Even now in the late morning it is dim here, and what light does penetrate to the ground level is hazy and greenish. The trees' roots all seem to lurk much too close to the surface, and with this shadowy light I am constantly stubbing my toes and tripping over these heavy, immobile roots. Our route seems to be directed steadily uphill, which I'm discovering is more tiring than I care to admit. Plus the air is dusty and dry, which just seems wrong.

So I'm just as eager as Harax to see the last of this forest. But that doesn't give me the ability to hike through the entire day without a break. My lightweight sling is gone, replaced by a full-sized backpack, same as the one Harax wears. My shoulders are starting to ache, and a blister is threatening to form in the small of my back, at the stop where the bottom of the pack bangs against me as I walk.

"Harax, I need to stop and rest."

"A little ways further yet, and then we'll stop."

"What's wrong with right here?"

"You can keep going for another few minutes, I wager."

"Harax, I'm serious. I really need to rest now."

Harax stops and looks back, directing his frown at me. But I don't care. I ache in all of my limbs, and my stomach is complaining at having to digest all this food while we're walking briskly. And my mouth is dry. I sit down on a log, unshoulder my pack, and pull out my water skin.

Harax continues to eye me from where he stands, as if willing me to get up and start walking again. Finally he says, "Very well, but let us keep it brief."

"That's the idea, yeah."

I sit and wait for my breathing to slow down to normal speed. Harax continues to stand, this apparently being more a more restful pose for him.

You know what else I don't like about this forest. I don't hear any birdsong here. What kind of forest is it that even the birds don't want to hang out in?

Without warning a spider rappels down from overhead and lands on my right cheek. With a yell of surprise I jump up, swatting at my face and swinging my other hand in a wide circle in front of me. It takes me a moment to realize that it was just a bug and not a sign of danger.

Harax grabs my shoulders. "Quiet, Eddie! Are you stupid?"

"Sorry! There was a spider on my face, and I thought it was — something poisonous."

"Well, it might well have been, but you must keep your voice down while we're in this place. You must realize that we don't wish to announce ourselves any more than strictly necessary."

"Yeah, I know," I say sullenly. "Sorry."

"Come, grab your things. We can't linger here any longer."

Mentally grumbling, I shoulder my pack and follow Harax as he sets off once more.

After a time there seems to be a subtle change in the quality of light. I can't be sure, but I think it's because the sun has passed the zenith, meaning that it's now afternoon. Whether it's for that reason, or just because we're in a new region now, I don't know, but the sounds of the forest are different now. I keep hearing a rachetty clicking growl, sometimes coming from two or more directions at once. After listening to it for some time, I finally speak up.

"Harax? What is that sound?"

Harax turns his head slightly and speaks quietly. "Those are batrachians." Pause. "They're easily spooked. If you see one approaching, just raise your arms up in the air and jump up and down." Pause. "Now, no more talking. We must be quiet."

I mentally stick my tongue out at the back of Harax's head. It's a knee-jerk reaction to being given orders. But I'm no more interested in meeting denizens of the White Forest than Harax, so I do my part and keep my mouth shut.

We keep walking through the forest. I can't see the path that we're following, but Harax proceeds with his usual air of confidence, so I assume he knows what he's doing. Maybe elves have an innate sense of direction, like a tiny magnet inside their brains that works like a compass. Don't they say that some birds can sense magnetic north when they're migrating? Elves might even migrate, too. Why not?

It's cold here in the forest, presumably due to the perpetual shadow from the dense canopy. I'm nicely warm thanks to all the walking, of course, but the low temperature adds to the unwelcome and oppressive sense of this place. I think about standing on the other side of this forest, exposed to the brightly colored springtime sunlight. Of course, it'll be nearly sunset by the time we're actually out of here. Tomorrow, then.

Harax comes to a halt. I stand next to him. Up ahead the path splits into two different directions. From what we can seen from here, the two paths do not rejoin later. There is no signpost, or marking, or anything of that nature.

I look at Harax. "Well? What do you think?"

Harax looks very put out. "Well, we should take the fork that points closest to north by northeast. Which would be on the right. But who's to say that in the next three hundred yards the paths don't bend and turn so that the left one is pointing in the right direction?"

"True enough, but I suppose we have to make do with what we have."

"Curse that whelp. Why didn't he mention this when —"

Harax gets no further than this, for a pale humanoid creature suddenly jumps on Harax from behind and brings him to the ground. I scream and jump sideways, and nearly crash into another creature, who was apparently preparing to ambush me as well.

I spin around and back up, facing the creature from six feet away. I've brought up my walking stick as if I'm prepared to use it as a weapon. But all I'm doing is imitating Gabrielle from old "Xena" reruns. I don't know the first thing about how to defend myself with a walking stick.

The creature hesitates, sizing me up. I suppose this is a goblin or an orc or something like that. It stands four or five feet tall, and has a thickly sloping brow sparsely covered with greasy gray hair. Its skin is deathly pale in color. It wears no armor or clothes of any kind. Not even a loincloth. It — though I suppose I should call it a he — He has a knife in one hand, and it looks a bit primitive in manufacture. Hopefully it isn't too sharp, either. He's emitting a low growl as he watches me, then suddenly he feints a jab at me. I jump to one side and swing the stick around, even though the knife never came closer to me than five feet. He laughs to himself at the ease with which he can scare me.

There is a yell, a roar really, and Harax explodes upwards from the ground, sending his attacker sprawling. Without hesitation he pulls his knife from its sheath on his belt and throws himself at the creature. Man. Why can't I be more like that?

Whoops. My attacker, noticing how I was distracted, is running towards my left side. I bring up the walking stick, hoping to ram it into his chest, maybe even knock the wind out of him. Unfortunately he deftly sidesteps my jab, but at least it serves the purpose of keeping him from getting close enough to stab me. But in the next moment he's made a grab for my stick. Before I can bring it back towards me, the creature has yanked it out of my hand. Aw, crap. He throws it down and comes at me again. I start to run. The creature is right behind me. I take the left branch of the path, since it's slightly closer. I don't get very far down it, however, when I stub my toe on one of those errant roots. I crash to the ground with force. The impact empties my lungs down to the dregs, and for a moment I can't manage to inhale. I look over one shoulder. The creature is coming at me, without slowing down. He jumps on top of me, and at that moment the adrenaline kicks in. I scream and push the creature off of me, and in one smooth motion I stand again and continue running. I'm more careful this time, keeping one eye on the ground as I go. But the creature catches up to me before too long. He grabs my legs, tackling me, and I go down in a heap. Something's wrong with me. I'm suddenly exhausted. There's an ache in my upper back. I roll over and try to stand up, but succeed only in presenting my torso to my attacker. He stands up and points his knife forward.

And then suddenly an arrow shaft is protruding from the creature. He screams, a squeaky scream like air escaping from a balloon with a slow leak. The creature turns around and runs away from me, avoiding the path and crashing through the underbrush.

My eyelids are suddenly very heavy. I let myself fall back down onto the forest floor. With my eyes closed I hear something or someone coming closer. "Harax?" I ask, but my voice sounds strangely quiet, even to myself. I try to ask again, louder, but I can only inhale in short, shallow breaths. And then I lose consciousness.

"Hello, you've reached April Peterson. Please leave a message."

Beep.

I cough. It's just a nervous cough, but there it goes. Now it's on her voice mail. Okay. I'm committed now. "Hey there, April Peterson. It's me. Eddie." I've called her number several times this afternoon. Each time I hear her voice in the message and I lose my resolve and hang up. I'm pretty sure this voice mail system won't actually record a message if you disconnect without making any noise, so hopefully her voice mail isn't full of a bunch of empty messages. Because that would look bad. I don't plan on hanging up. It just happens. I'm fixated on her voice again. Still. There's just such a positive quality about it. I'm terrified of ruining her good mood.

But my dry throat has forced my hand, and now I have to forge ahead. "I was just calling because, well, you know, I was just thinking about you. You know, since running into you at the bookstore." I need to stop gabbling like this. I need to sound decisive — as if I'm in control of myself and I know what I'm doing. If I keep mumbling and sounding apologetic she'll wonder what I have to apologize for.

"And I think it would be nice if we could get together for coffee this weekend. To chat, talk over some issues." There it is. I've as much as said, I need to see you. I've tipped my hand now.

The two sentences of her answering message speak volumes to me. It's that tone of voice. It's the April I first fell in love with. It's the April that originally moved in with me, or at least so it seemed. I don't know exactly when that April was replaced by the gloomy and reticent April, but that's the April that I broke up with. Now the happy optimistic April is back, and I'm still in love with that April. I have been all along.

Now I just need to convince her that the happy optimistic Eddie she fell in love with can come back, too. All he needs is a little help.

"So, please call me back as soon as you can. Okay? Thanks. Talk to you later." I hang up. I did it, finally I did it. And it feels good. I've taken the first step. The ball's in her court now. It's a weight off my shoulders.

April found her hope and optimism by moving out of my apartment, by moving out of my life. Now I need her to bring those things back with her. Somehow I have to convince her to do this.

"Son? Are you awake?"

I wince and turn my head towards the intruding voice. I'm not enjoying this memory at all. Because all I can think of is the unpleasantness that directly followed. By making contact with her, I felt like I was finally making progress out of the rut I had fallen in, and I was sure that it was a positive step. And what followed was anything but positive.

"Are you in pain?"

I open my eyes. I'm in a dim little room. Or at least I'm assuming it's a room. The walls are little more than rough assemblages of sticks and branches. The ceiling seems to be made up of leaves. Or perhaps I'm just looking up into a tree? My depth perception isn't quite right. There's no door to this room, just an opening in one wall.

Now I notice that I have a throbbing headache. Maybe it's because my heart is pounding, even though I'm lying down and have been semi-unconscious for who knows how long.

"My head hurts." My voice is hoarse, but otherwise sounds normal.

"And what about your leg?"

I turn my head to find the sound of the voice. Seated on a fallen log is a young man. He looks a bit like an elf — I mean not like Harax, but like the way I expected elves to look before I came her. He's short but scrawny. He has a head full of unruly blond hair and wide green eyes. He's dressed entirely in clothes made of a soft-looking hide. It doesn't look like he has pointy ears, though. He's holding a knife and a piece of wood. After a moment it occurs to me that he is whittling.

"What about my leg? I don't feel any pain in my leg. Should I?"

He nods thoughtfully for a moment, then says. "No, not necessarily. Mind, you've sustained a serious injury in your left leg. But I treated it about an hour ago, so I wouldn't expect you to still feel it."

As he says this I try to move my left leg. I realize, as I'm doing it, that if my left leg is injured this might be a really bad idea, but I can't help myself. However, nothing happens. I don't seem to have control of either of my legs. They're anesthetized or something.

I raise my head to try to get a look at myself, but I don't have the energy to keep it up in the air. "How bad is it?"

"Hard to say yet. We'll have to wait and see."

Wait? For how long. However, I realize that there's another set of questions that I should be asking first. "Who are you?"

The stranger puts down his piece of wood, and jams the knife into the log he's sitting on. The blade sinks in less than an inch and remains standing perfectly upright. He faces me and smiles. "My name is Magola, and this is my home."

"Pleased to meet you, Magola. My name is Eddie."

He nods. "Happy to meet you, Eddie."

"Uh, thanks for bringing me into your home. You did bring me here, didn't you?" What happened before I lost consciousness? Oh yeah. "Oh, and thanks for saving my life. It was you who shot that arrow, wasn't it?"

Magola nods curtly. "Indeed it was. I was hunting at the time, so I had my bow at the ready. I heard the commotion, and recognized the sounds of ambushers. I was moving closer, intending merely to observe, when you and your attacker suddenly ran into the clearing directly in front of me. The shot was too perfect, and I could see that if I did not act, in the next moment you would surely be dead."

"Yeah, I'm not used to — this kind of combat."

"This or any other kind, perhaps?" he asks archly. "Your attacker escaped, by the way. I chased him briefly, but my heart wasn't into it, and so I gave up after a short while, came back, and found you lying in a pool of your own blood, turning the ground beneath your leg into a reddish and coagulated mud pie. So I brought you back here and treated your injuries."

I frown. He doesn't look strong enough to carry me by himself.

"It's probably a good thing I did, too. You were beginning to show a touch of delirium by then. A bit longer and you might have become feverish.

"Harax!" I suddenly shout. Magola looks at me, surprised. "Where's Harax? The elf that was with me."

Magola shakes his head. "When I found you, you and the ambusher were alone."

"I was travelling with an elf. He was ambushed, too. We must have been separated during the fighting."

Magola frowns. He looks at me carefully. Finally he pulls the knife out of the log and transfers it to his left hand. He stands up and walks out of the tiny room. A moment later he returns carrying my water skin, which he tosses at me. It lands next to my hand. I can tell that it's been filled.

"Here. Drink in little sips. I will be back shortly." And with that he disappears again.

I stare at the ceiling of leaves for a long time. My thoughts wander back and forth, from the ring in my pocket, now a talisman, to worrying about Harax. One thing I don't think about is April. The last memory has dredged up uncomfortable feelings, feelings that I am hoping to put behind me.

The sunlight is dim and unfocused, so it's hard for me to tell how much time passes as I lay there. I sip from my water five times. Then there is the sound of footsteps. Magola enters the room, and behind him is Harax. He sees me and at once shouts, "Eddie! You're alive!"

Magola looks alarmed. "Not so loud, especially not inside my home."

Harax whispers a profuse apology, then turns back to me. He gets down on his knees and examines my leg for a while, then says. "Ha! Look at that. Why, you'll be up and running again before nightfall. Magola, are you trained in the medical arts? Or is our boy Eddie just extremely lucky?"

"Both, I expect," says Magola.

Harax chuckles, then takes a seat on the log next to Magola and faces me. "Eddie, I was so fearful when the ambusher chased you off. I was half sure I would never see you again. I got rid of my ambusher quickly enough — he was no match for me, as it turned out — but I hadn't seen which way you had run. So I hunted around and finally I found the scene of your own battle. There was a fair bit of blood left on the ground, and I feared that it was probably all yours."

I grimaced.

"So I began tracking your ambusher, in the feeble hope that you had been captured instead of killed, or at the very least of retrieving the ring from your remains. It was a difficult task, though, as I'm afraid I'm not much practiced in tracking, with the possible exception of rabbit-tracking. And then this gentleman comes along. Walks right up to me and says my name, as if we had bumped into each other in the market square. Ha!" Harax looks at Magola and laughs. "He tells me that you're here in his home, and you've been asking after me, and would I please come back with him? How do you like that? I ask you."

Magola's expression is inscrutable. He isn't joining in with Harax's overly familiar, bantering tone, but he also doesn't seem bothered or offended by it. He almost acts as if he's watching Harax, like with the scientific curiosity of an anthropologist.

"So how do you feel, Eddie?" Harax asks.

I shrug. "I feel okay. But I can't feel my legs right now."

Magola says, "Your legs will have feeling once more in a few hours. You will need to spend the night here. It is too late to venture out in any case. If you luck holds, then by tomorrow morning you should be able to walk again."

"What about running?"

Magola looks at me carefully. "We'll start with walking."

And so I remain lying on the floor, on my back. I even eat dinner there — venison, as it turns out, and quite good. Magola and Harax spend part of the evening sitting in the room with me, but it gets crowded in there, and they spend most of the time in the next room over. I can hear their conversation just as well as when they're in the same room with me, but I don't feel compelled to try to join in. I feel lightheaded all evening, and I have trouble concentrating on the conversation. Instead my attention floats in and out. I hear Eddie telling Magola all about our quest at one point. Magola seems to know all about the princess, despite the fact that he lives alone in the middle of a forest.

As it grows dark, and the conversation in the next room dwindles, I start to feel my legs return to me. I can tell, if I think about it, that something has happened to the left leg, all around the thigh. The sensation is fuzzy, though, and now I'm beginning to fall in and out of sleep. As I'm drifting off I realize that what I'm feeling on my thigh isn't the wound itself, but the bandage that Magola wrapped the wound with.

I drift back into consciousness, in much the same way that I drifted out of it. I'm still lying on my back, looking up at the leaves. Bits of green-tinted sunlight peek through here and there. It's very quiet.

It has become my morning ritual, in this place, to recall my most recent dream about April. I'd just as soon not dwell on this one, though.

But the force of habit takes over.

"So tell me how you are doing," April says, in a bright tone of voice. She's been using that tone of voice the entire time. I know what it means. It's saying: unless you're doing badly. In which case lie please.

We're sitting in a coffee shop, not too far from where I live. It's bright in here, too, like April's voice. The sun is filtering through clean white clouds in through the windows, and the walls are painted a clear yellow hue. There are a number of young people in this place, seated around the various marble-patterned tables. I presume the nearby college draws them here. Some of them are obviously study groups, their tables covered in papers, textbooks, and empty coffee cups.

My coffee is turning cold. I've been listening to April talking. I'm afraid to drink too much of it. I suspect that if my coffee cup is empty, April will use that as an excuse to end the date. But we can't be done with our coffee date if my coffee's not finished yet, right? April's been doing all the talking since we sat down. She's been bringing me up to date with the news in her life. It's nice, I like the fact that she's treating me like a friend again. I'm even beginning to think that maybe this is enough. Maybe I don't need to say anything to her. What if we just got together for coffee once a week? And she could tell me her news, and I could listen. I could tell her my news, too, if she wanted to hear about it, but that's not necessary. It would just be enough to have her here, sitting in front of me and not acting all weird about it like in the bookstore. Seeing her once a week doesn't sound like much, I realize, but it might be if it was a standing date. If it were guaranteed. You know, it's like starvation. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you'll eat everything you have now, for fear of the worst. But when you're doing all right and you have plenty of food, you stop gorging yourself, and then you can worry about eating healthy and watching your weight.

But now she's run out of news, and it's my turn to talk. And her tone of voice suggests to me that this is a test. If I blow it, that is if I stray into topics that clash too heavily with this bright little coffeeshop, then this might very well turn out to be my last meal of seeing April.

So then, how am I?

"I'm — doing okay." I rack my brain for something to make chitchat with. What's going on in my life that doesn't make me depressed? "You know, same old same old."

April nods. "How's the job?"

"Pretty much the same. April, would you be interested in making this a weekly thing?"

April looks confused by the sudden change of direction.

"You know, get together on Saturday afternoon for a little bit. Have some coffee, get caught up on each other's lives. It sounds kind of nice, don't you think?"

"Yes, it does," she says, but too carefully. "I mean, it sounds nice, but I don't think I could make a regular commitment. Like I said, I'm pretty busy on the weekends."

"Yeah, I didn't mean like a big commitment." I should just drop the subject. I'm not going to change her mind. But to drop it would be to tacitly accept that it wasn't a good idea. "Just a short little get-together. Like today. You had time for today."

"Yes," she says, and the careful tone has completely replaced the brightness by now. "You said you needed to talk to me."

Why is she doing this? First she yammers on with all this small talk, leaving me thinking that she's trying to avoid having a serious conversation. And then when I try to go along with it, she forces me to have the serious conversation after all. What do you want from me, April? I know exactly what I want from you.

Well, she has shot down the Saturday coffee idea, so I guess this was plan B anyway.

"April, I know I'm kind of the one that broke up with you. I mean it was a mutual thing, but I'm the one who brought it up. Initiated the process."

April's giving me this face that's meant to indicate that she's listening, and taking me seriously. I don't like that; I wish she would say something instead. I want her to burst out with everything she's been thinking but hasn't said about that night when we filled out each other's walking papers. Instead she's giving me the serious face.

"And I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"Oh, Eddie." She reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers. For the moment I'm stunned into silence. I wasn't expecting her reaction to be at all — well, intimate.

"You don't have to apologize for anything you did. We were both unhappy and confused and we were just trying to express our feelings the best that we could. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Well, yes, but —" I don't know where to take this. I've lost control of the conversation.

"Believe me, you must believe me. You did the right thing by initiating that conversation. I should be apologizing to you."

"What? No, not at all —"

"I should have been the one to initiate that conversation, Eddie. We'd both been unhappy for months by then, and I could see that we were making each other unhappy. And I should have said something right then and there. But I was scared, because I didn't know how to start, and I was afraid that if I was the one who brought it up first, then I wasn't really being faithful, or giving up too easily. I just couldn't handle the idea that if I said I was unhappy and you weren't, then I would feel like I had betrayed you or something? I don't know, I don't really understand why I was so afraid. But I was, so I didn't do anything, so things just got worse. Until finally it got so bad that you had to be the one to speak up."

I'm stunned. She's doing exactly what I just wished she would do: she's telling me what was on her mind that fateful night. And it's not at all what I want to hear.

"It was the right thing to do, Eddie, only you shouldn't have had to be the one to do it. I'm sorry."

"No! Don't you see? It wasn't the right thing to do at all!" This is bad. Some part of my brain knows that this approach isn't a good one. But her speech has left me panicked. I don't know what else to do. Words spill from me like hazardous waste in a containment breach. "I was impatient, I wanted everything to work right the first time, bang bang bang, and if anything didn't work I gave up on it. I gave up on you, when I should have been trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Don't you see, April? You were the one who had the right idea. You didn't start that conversation because — you knew that sometimes you have to be patient. You gotta be patient with relationships, April, right?"

April doesn't answer, but her face speaks volumes.

"You gotta. You can't rush the important things. April, you're really important to me. You know that, right?"

"Eddie, I —"

"You have to know that!"

"Eddie!" Her voice is no longer bright. It's pained, like her face. "Eddie, I'm flattered that you feel that way, but I need you to understand that I'm not — I'm not going to get back together with you."

I've lost the battle. The war. The kingdom.

"I can see that you feel strongly about this, and I respect that, but I have strong feelings about this, too. And I feel pretty confident that if we were to get back together that it wouldn't be different. Maybe some things would be different, but the problem is that in the end, we just weren't making each other happy."

I stare at my cup of cold coffee. I don't trust myself to look directly at her right now.

"In fact we were making each other really unhappy."

She says more. The more silent I am, the more she says. But I don't relive it, now or in last night's dream, because I don't really know what she said after that. I didn't really hear the words. She had already said the only one that mattered: No. Instead I just stared at my coffee and listened to the rise and fall of her voice. Her tone of voice told me everything I needed to know. That serious, urging tone, thinking that it can make me believe something if it just says it earnestly enough. The be-a-man pep talk voice. The colder, be-an-adult rational voice. And running through it all, the pity. That pity which repeatedly pierced my heart, even as my soul greedily lapped it up. Pity said No more clearly than the word itself, but at least it was something. I couldn't meet her gaze ever again.

Finally she got tired and said goodbye.

The worst day of my life. People say that all the time. I'm sick of hyperbole. It ruins words for others. Because I don't know how to say this and sound like I mean it. But that was the worst day of my life.

There are tears in my eyes. The green-tinted sunlight blurs with the leaves, creating a vision of pea soup floating overhead. I sit up and wipe my eyes dry. It's time to get up. I don't want to think about April anymore. Not until we reach the princess. Carefully I stand up. My legs feel a bit shaky, but they work.

Magola leads the way. We're walking through the forest. We're not on any path, but Magola moves without hesitation through the trees. He's promised to take us all the way to the edge of the forest. Harax and I follow directly behind him. We've been given strict instructions to remain silent, to not even talk to each other unless Magola indicates that it is safe. So we proceed in silence.

I can hear snatches of birdsong as we walk. Were they avoiding us yesterday, because we made too much noise as we walked, or because we were on the path? Or do the birds just prefer to hang out in the northern side of the forest?

We continue for several hours this way. For a change my legs don't feel at all sore, and it doesn't occur to me to ask for a rest break before Magola murmurs appreciatively and we emerge from the trees onto a hilly grassland. It is not quite noon.

Magola points to a particular hill in the near distance. "From the top of that hill you should have no trouble seeing a footpath heading roughly north. Follow that, and you will find yourself in sight of the Drowning Castle sooner that you might wish."

Harax is profuse in his thanks to Magola for all his assistance. Magola waves it away. "It is the least I can do for Armethal. I only wish I could accompany you."

Magola turns to me. "I have a parting gift for you. I know Auros Ettra gave you the tool necessary to free the Princess Thalia from her magical chains. But it is likely that she is bound by physical ones as well. For those, I give you this." Magola hands me a large knife, ensconced in a leather sheath. "This dagger is specially magicked so as to be able to cut through metal objects, with no more resistance than you would encounter cutting the main course at dinnertime."

"Thank you," I say. "I'm sure this will come in handy."

"Handle the dagger with great care. And always keep it sheathed when you're not using it."

Magola shows me how to attach the sheath to my belt. There is another round of thanks and goodbyes, and then he walks back into the trees.

Harax and I watch him go, then turn north once more. Harax inhales deeply. "Oh, it's good to be beneath the sun once more."

"You can say that again."

"Well, boy, let's not dawdle. We lost enough time in there as it is." And so once more we set off.

"Look, Eddie. There it is. The Drowning Castle."

Harax and I are hiding in a clump of shrubbery — what appear to be rhododendron bushes, actually. Harax has a view through a thin spot in the foliage. I lean to one side until I can see around the bushes, keeping my head down close to the ground.

The Drowning Castle is aptly named. It is sitting in the center of a small lake. There is no island in the center that holds the castle's foundations. The water comes right up to the walls of the castle. From here I don't see the entrance.

"Harax? Does the Drowning Castle have a drawbridge?"

"To be sure it does, but it's of no use to us."

"Why not?"

"Because it's completely under the water."

I look at the castle again. The castle is very tall, especially if it extends all the way down to the bottom of the lake. The battlements are far above the water, and the towers and spires appear to reach a hundred yards or more.

"So, it is castle really drowning? I was figuring that that was more metaphorical."

"Oh, it surely drowns. Think about it, Eddie. When have you ever seen a castle before that was built in a dale?"

"Uh, never." I don't mention that this is my first castle.

"Exactly. If you build a castle anywhere, you build it on a hill. Or, if there are no hills nearby, you build a moat. But you don't put your castle in a dale, because then it's much harder to defend."

"So why is this castle different?"

Harax shakes his head. "It wasn't a dale when they built it. You see, Eddie, this castle was the home to a wicked, wicked King. He ruled the Tilonites long ago, before Armethal took this land back from them. You see, this land all around us is Armethal, but this lake and the castle itself is considered Tilonite soil. It is an accursed place, you see, and we want nothing to do with it."

That sounds like an odd arrangement to me, but I say nothing to Harax, whose feelings on the matter are clear.

"At the battle in which we won back our land, the Tilonite King became trapped in the castle along with the remains of his army. Our men surrounded the castle, to wait for their surrender. It was a dry summer that year, and we knew that eventually they would have to give up. But the King refused to surrender, even if they all perished of thirst. Six days we waited. And then, on the seventh day, the King unleashed a powerful and terrible spell. Great gouts of water began spilling out from the lower windows of the castle. Uncountable gallons poured forth. They kept pouring, on and on, until the land around the castle began to sink from the weight of it all.

"Our army broke off the siege then, terrified by the display of such powerful and destructive magic. But the King and his forces never emerged from the castle. They remain inside the castle to this day, although in what form no one is certain. Many men in our ranks were caught in the deluge and drowned that day, and it is said that their remains walk the castle halls even to this day, undead guardians of the place. We named it the Drowning Castle in memory of those men."

The lake is mostly still, though the wind blows some light ripples on the surface. But otherwise the lake presents a perfect mirror image of the castle.

"So Harax, are you saying that this castle is full of zombies?"

"I'm not familiar with zombies, but what I am saying is that nobody I've met knows for certain what resides in the castle."

"So then how do people get in or out?"

"I'm not sure. Of course, people generally aren't trying to get in. And the ones who want to get out, well, presumably like Princess Thalia they're bound there and can't leave."

"But if the princess hasn't starved to death, then somebody's got to be giving her food. So somebody must live there who's free to come and go."

"Well, somebody or something resides there. It would be hasty to assume that they live there when we don't know if they are alive."

I look back at Harax. "All right, well all I'm trying to say at this point is that if there are residents, then they must have to come and go somehow. So we could get in that way."

"Through the servant's entrance. Oh, no. That's not a good idea."

"Why not?"

"I've heard too many rumors that it's guarded by wights. If they're at all true, then we wouldn't stand a chance."

I don't even know what wights are. "Okay then, Harax, how about this idea? I suggest that we first worry about getting to the castle. We need to scare up a boat of some kind. Once we're at the castle wall, we'll be able to look around, investigate, and find a way to get inside."

"A way? What sort of way are you expecting we might find?"

"I don't know. Like an open window or something."

"Eddie, my boy, if we row out onto the water without a clear destination, the creatures within will spot us coming. And they will defend the Drowning Castle, at first with arrows, and perhaps, if we got as far as the walls, boiling oil. Remember that we cannot depend on having the element of surprise. The salamanders may have raised the alarm. Once we're out in the open, we can't tarry."

"Oh. So we need to have a plan, is what you're saying."

"Yes." Harax doesn't say anything further for a moment. He stares at the castle and frowns. Then he says. "A-ha! Eddie, look there. To the right of the drawbridge door. Do you see that? There's your window! If we can obtain a boat, we can row out to that window, and I'll wager we can make an entrance."

I look at where he's pointing, and finally I see it. A slit of shadow in the wall. I can't see what's in the shadow, but it has the right shape for a window. "Okay. So we go there. But what about the arrows and the boiling oil and all that?"

Harax frowns. "I haven't a solution for that yet."

"And what about the boat? Any idea where we can find one?"

"Well, no. I was still thinking about the first obstacle."

We think for a moment in silence. "Here's an idea," I say. "Tell me if you think it would work. We could disguise ourselves as driftwood. We go out on the lake and just float on over to the castle. That way, nobody attacks us because we look harmless, and is solves the problem of needing a boat.

Eddie looks at me carefully. "And how do we make ourselves look like driftwood?"

"Well, I was thinking, maybe we could hide inside a couple of hollow logs?"

Eddie shakes his head. "Unless you have a magical device for hollowing out trees in less than a day, I think that idea isn't going to work."

"Then what if we hid inside a couple of barrels?"

"Where do you expect to find barrels, Eddie?"

"Okay, never mind. That was a dumb idea." The problem is that the only familiarity I have with a time and place like this is from the movies. In the movies weird plans never get hung up on logistics about where to find things. If they need an empty barrel, or a realistic-looking fake log with a hollowed-out interior, they just send an intern down to the prop department to fetch one.

We sit in silence for a while and think. Even if we had a boat, we'd still need some way of getting near the castle without altering anyone. Or anything. If only we could teleport. Or if Auros Ettra had given us something like a cloak of invisibility. Instead, all I have is a dagger and some glasses. Oh, and the ring. Not that I'm ungrateful. I just wish I had a way to use these items to solve the current dilemma. Maybe if Auros Ettra or Magola or even Legrielle had been willing to join us, we wouldn't be stuck here now, feeling like a couple of idiots.

I take the spectacles out and consider them. Legrielle did say that the princess's captors were masters of disguise. Maybe something about the castle or the lake is disguised? I squeeze them onto my nose and carefully poke my head out again.

"Holy cow. Harax!"

"What is it, Eddie? Do you see something?"

"There's an invisible boat sitting on the edge of the lake in plain sight!"

"An invisible boat," Harax repeats slowly, "in plain sight?"

"I mean it's not guarded or anything. It's just —" I pull the glasses off my nose to double check. "— invisible." These glasses, I decide, are incredibly cool.

"Where is it moored?"

"It's just over there." I point. "Like, if we're at six o'clock, the boat's at half past four."

Harax doesn't understand that at all, of course, but he looks where I'm pointing and laughs. "Good work, Eddie my boy! Oh, if only we could make ourselves invisible as well, we could row straight out to the castle without sounding the alarms."

"Do you think it's possible that the boat confers invisibility on its passengers?" I ask. I don't know where that idea came from, but I like it.

Harax ponders for a moment before answering. "I allow it may be. But if that were so, then surely the guards would expect that, and they would be on the lookout for any disturbance in the lake's surface, like an unaccompanied wake."

"Are we sure that there are guards? I mean, I don't see any."

"I don't see any either, Eddie, but I do see arrow slits along the top of the wall, and a lookout in the front. If there were guards in either of those places, we wouldn't be able to see them, except in direct sunlight."

Suddenly it dawns on me. I'm a genius, you know that? "So then what we need, Harax, is a diversion."

We work our way around the lake slowly, careful to remain safely hidden from view of the castle, until we are, as near as I can judge, directly opposite the location of the invisible boat.

We then begin gathering tinder: moss, twigs, leaves. Harax piles everything up in one place, with everything arranged in careful layers. The twigs go on top and around the outside. The moss and the driest leaves he places in the center, near the bottom. The remaining items go in the middle layer. Harax is careful to pile everything up loosely, so plenty of air can flow.

When we judge the pile to be large enough, Harax rummages through his backpack, and pulls out a small, flat flask. He shows it to me and gives it a little shake. "I was saving this to celebrate with, afterwards. But it'll do more good if we use it now." He uncaps the flask and begins pouring the oily liquid out on the ground around the pile. He saves a few drops at the end, which he lets trickle out onto his tongue. With a sighs he throws the flask into the underbrush.

Harax then takes out his flint. In a few moments, he has a chunk of dry moss smoldering in his hand. He nimbly transfers the smoldering moss to the bottom center of his great pile, then stands up and steps back.

Harax watches carefully. I do too, but I can't really see what's happening underneath all the twigs and leaves. But in the next moment, Harax turns away, saying. "All right. Let's get out of here."

We quickly retrace our steps, again being careful to avoid being seen from the castle.

After a few minutes of walking, Harax stops and turns around. I turn and look as well. "Beautiful," he says. There it is: a thread of smoke rising up from the trees. We turn back and keep moving.

By the time we're back to where we started, the fire has become a blaze. At least one of the trees is burning. The smoke has grown from a thread to a column, and has turned dark gray.

"I hope this doesn't get too out of hand. What if we come out again and the whole hillside is on fire?"

Harax shrugs. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Eddie. Don't waste time. If the castle is guarded, they'll surely have noticed the fire by now and alerted the others. The time to sneak across the water is now. Let's find that boat."

I pull out the spectacles, set them on my nose, and quickly scan the lake's edge. There it is. "Okay. Let's go," I say. We run out from the cover of the underbrush and down to the water's edge.

I reach the boat. It's a small punt, with two bench seats, and there are two oars lying inside. It's perfect. I turn back to Harax. "Can you see the boat yet? It's a small punt, and it's right next to me."

Harax frowns and looks down at my feet. "I don't see anything, I fear."

I move behind the punt and push it until its nose is touching the water. "There. Do you see it now?"

Harax is wide-eyed. "No, but I must say it is quite a sight watching you lean over like that without falling upon your face."

I stand upright and hold out my right hand. "Here. Give me your hand."

Harax takes my hand. I lead him carefully over to the punt. "Here, this may be easier if you close your eyes first." He does so. "Okay. The punt is right next to your right leg, and it's pointed at the water. You just need to raise your right leg and step to your right to get in — Yes. Like that. A little more. Forward a little. Your foot is partly over the bench seat. Forward a little more. Okay, now lower your foot. That's it. Okay, now your other foot. Higher. Easy does it. There you go. Now you're standing in front of the bench seat. Go ahead and sit down. Perfect." I let go of his hand.

Harax opens his eyes, and looks down. "I can see it now!"

"Perfect. Let's get going then."

Harax selects an oar. I push the punt off of the beach and into the water for a yard or two, then I hop in as well and sit down. I take off the spectacles and put them safely away. Then I pick up the other oar and we begin rowing, Harax on one side and I on the other.

"Do you think we're invisible?" I ask.

Harax twists around and considers me briefly. "No, you're not." He faces forward again.

"But we're both inside the boat, so maybe we can see each other but other people can't see us."

"I suppose anything is possible. But to be safe, let's assume that we're not invisible, and just get to the castle as quickly as possible."

We set out across the lake. I think having practiced rowing earlier has helped improve my stroke, as we make good time. Harax looks back at me briefly, then points to the castle, showing me the window that we're aiming for. I nod, and we return to our rowing.

Suddenly I hear a splashing noise behind me. I turn around in my seat, to see a beady pair of eyes on a pair of stalks, sticking up out of the water, about fifty feet behind us.

"Harax," I call. "I think we're being followed!"

Harax twists around in his seat and leans over, looking past me. I can now see that the eyes are protruding up from a flat reptilian head. Squinting, I can just see the suggestion of a body floating just beneath the surface. It looks vaguely like a crocodile, only larger.

Harax drops his oar onto the floor of the boat. He picks up his backpack, puts it on the bench beside him, and begins root through it.

"Harax, don't stop rowing! I really think we should be trying to avoid that thing."

"Just row faster for now!" Harax says without looking up.

I start paddling frantically. After four or five strokes I switch the oar to the other side. The beast is clearly gaining on us.

"Eddie! Catch!" I look up. Harax tosses a paper bag at me. I catch it in one hand, almost dropping the oar into the water.

"Pour that out into the water, right in front of the critter!"

Still holding onto my oar with one hand, I pull the bag open, and a strong herbal scent wafts out. I twist around, and begin shaking the contents out over the water behind the boat. The contents turn out to be a handful of dull green powder, which quickly forms a scummy surface atop the water.

A moment later the eyes pass through the green scum. In the next moment the eyes retract on their stalks, and the vague underwater shape twists away and dives down, disappearing from sight.

"It worked!" I report. "What was that stuff?"

"A specially preparation of essence of poison oak. The creature will be rubbing that out of his eyes for a while, I expect."

We continue rowing in silence until we reach the castle wall.

"Hold, Eddie!" Harax says, backpedaling with his oar. I do the same, and we manage to bring the punt to a halt, more or less. Harax then turns his oar ninety degrees and pushes outward. The boat doesn't respond much to this, but after a few repetitions he's brought up a bit closer to the wall. I can reach out and touch it with my fingertips without having to lean out of the boat.

"Careful, Eddie," Harax admonishes me. "Don't push us away from the wall. Now, let's work quickly here." Harax lays his oar down in the bottom of the punt and stands up. "I need you to kneel down, facing the wall. I'll get on your shoulders, and then you will stand up, bringing me within reach of the window."

I blink. "What? This wasn't part of the plan."

"Look at the window, boy. It's too high! Can you reach it?"

I stand up. The punt wobbles underneath me. I can almost hear my dad saying, "Sit down, Eddie, that's not at all safe." He's right. If I was standing right up against the wall, I still wouldn't be able to reach it.

I look back down at Harax. "I don't know about this, Harax. How much do you weigh?"

"Six stone, maybe a little more. Don't be a child, Eddie. I know you can lift me."

Great. I don't remember how many pounds are in a stone. And if I did, why would I assume that Armethal's stones are the same as stones in my world? We all seem to be speaking the same language, more or less. So what is up with these stupid little differences?

"Eddie, I can tell you right now that I can't lift you on my shoulders. So it's me on your shoulders or else we give up and row back to shore."

He's right. I'm wasting precious time. I get down on one knee. The punt rocks dangerously as we move around. I hold out my arms, trying to keep everything in balance. It's tempting to reach out to the stone wall in front of me and try to grasp for a handhold.

"Lean over, Eddie. As far as you can without falling."

That's the problem with having the elf on top of the human. His legs are too short for climbing. I get down further, until I'm practically in a fetal position. My forehead touches the lip of the punt and I'm staring at the floor. There's a little bit of water rolling around on the bottom. My knee is resting on the handle of one of the oars, which hurts. Harax is now clambering upon my back. His boot heels poke into my shoulders. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. He grasps my head by the temples.

"All right now, Eddie. Stand up, slowly if you please."

This is insane. I can't lift this much weight with my shoulders while standing in a rowboat. My legs aren't that strong. I'm not one of those guys who works out in a gym three days a week.

"Harax, hang onto me tight, okay? On the count of three. One." I reach up and grasp his ankles, pulling his feet down onto my shoulders.

"What?"

"Two."

Harax grabs at my head as if it were a life preserver.

"Three!" I flex my legs for all they're worth. I try to keep my center of gravity in the same place while doing so. Still, the boat rocks wildly. "Grab the window ledge!" I shout. I don't want to go overboard. I do not want to go overboard. "Grab the ledge!" I shift my balance, trying to dampen the boat's motion. The boat is still tilting, forward and to the left. Adrenaline pumps through me. I lift up my right foot for a fraction of a second and put it down four inches over. "Now, damn it!" I'm afraid to look up to see what's he's doing. All my concentration is on the angle of the boat.

"You're too far away. Bring me closer!"

"Just reach out and grab it, Harax!"

"Bring me closer!"

"I can't! The boat's about to tip over. Reach for it!"

"Yaargh!" My knees nearly buckle as Harax's feet suddenly shove downward on my shoulders. He's jumping, I realize with a shock. The boat sinks a fraction of an inch as he pushes off, then quickly rocks away from the wall as his weight leaves. I fall backwards, completely unable to stop myself. It's all I can do to remain inside the boat, to not do a back-flip into the water. The oars clatter around in the bottom as the boat rocks from side to side.

"You mind warning me before you do that next time?" I groan.

Harax's voice is tight with exertion. "There won't be a next time." I look up. He is hanging from the ledge of the window by his hands. He doesn't move. I can hear him breathing heavily.

The boat is slowly drifting away from the wall. I grab an oar and push it back again, trying to mimic Harax's technique. "Can you pull yourself up, Harax?"

"A moment, if you will. The stone is rough and cuts at my skin." He continues to breathe heavily. Then, with a grunt, he scrabbles at the wall with his feet. He lift himself up several inches, then suddenly lets go of the ledge with his right hand and grabs at something inside the window opening. I can't quite see what he's got a hold of, but whatever it is, it allows him to pull himself up further. A few moments later he is standing on his knees upon the ledge, inside the window opening.

"Good work, Harax!"

Harax turns around carefully in the cramped space, until he is sitting on the ledge with his feet dangling down. He fits in there so well, it looks like the niche was specially made for him to sit there like a gargoyle, only not at all scary.

"There are bars on the window."

Of course there are. What kind of castle would have a window that just anyone could climb through. I feel like a complete idiot.

"Eddie," Harax continues. "Give me Magola's dagger."

"Oh, right!" Why didn't that occur to me? I am an idiot. Carefully I remove the sheathed dagger from my belt and hold it up to Harax, who leans forward dangerously. Standing on tiptoe, I just mange to get it to his hand.

Harax pulls himself up again, takes out the dagger, and twists his body around until he is facing inward. With one hand he reaches in and goes to work. I can't see what he's doing from my position under the window, but I hear him cackling, "Ha ha! This knife is amazing. Look at this, Eddie!" He leans out briefly and tosses down an iron cylinder. It hits the bottom of the punt with a metallic thud.

"Cripes, Harax! Watch what you're doing. That could have hit me."

"It's a souvenir, my boy! A keepsake of the Drowning Castle!"

Harax throws two more iron rods down into the boat. They clang against each other. Then Harax calls, "Eddie my boy, toss me some rope."

Harax's pack is sitting at the head of the boat. I open it up and rummage around until I find a short length of rope. I toss one end of it up to him, and get it close enough for him to grab on the second try. He takes the rope and disappears again.

"There. It's tied to one of the iron stumps," he reports. "Tie your end to the punt. That will ensure it will still be here when it's time to make our escape."

I tie the rope to the forward bench. "Done."

"All right. Now I'm going to try to cut the glass of the window. I worry that just smashing the glass will make too much noise."

"We've already made quite a bit of noise out here."

"True, but that's no reason to go on making noise."

Harax disappears, crawling further into the window's opening. A moment passes, and then he starts tossing out small lozenge-shaped pieces of glass. The fly out in gentle arcs and hit the water several feet away with quiet plops. I can hear Harax laughing to himself.

Harax's head reappears, and he throws out a metal frame that used to hold the pieces of glass, now cut to pieces. "We have an entrance, my boy! Climb on up!"

Wow. I realize that I haven't tried to pull myself up a rope since junior high school. I wind up with rope burns on my hands. But the climb is only a few feet, and I manage to make it, finally, though Harax had to give me some help at the end. Imagine a three-foot elf trying to help a six-foot human climb up a rope and through a window opening. Not one of my prouder moments.

As I'm scrambling up the castle wall, one inch at a time, I hear a loud, faraway keening cry. It's coming from overhead. I look up and see a creature flying across the sky. Its wingspan is as wide as the creature is long. It's flying towards us and angling downwards. I see a brief reflection of sunlight off of a scaly hide. The creature alights atop the castle's highest tower. Now that it's landed, I have a sense of scale, and realize that the creature is enormous. Again I hear that keening cry.

"Harax?" I call. "I think I just saw a dragon."

"Really? Is it coming here, to the Drowning Castle?"

"Yeah. And I think it also spotted us."

"Oh. Well, then. Let us make haste."

At last we make our way out of the window and into the castle. We are in a fair-sized room. A long table stands against the outside wall, upon which Harax and I have left several tell-tale bootprints. Hanging on one wall is a small shield, painted a bright red. Harax goes over to it directly and takes it down from the wall. He examines it critically.

"Hrmph. Wooden. Rather flimsy. Still, it may well prove useful."

"Better than nothing, eh?" I offer.

"Let us first hope it doesn't come to that." Harax straps the shield to his arm. With his right hand he feels for Maloga's dagger, which he has attached to his own belt. Of course, that leaves Harax with two knives and me with zero, but that's fine with me, really. If I got into a fight I'd be more likely to hurt myself than the other person. Let Harax play the bodyguard.

"All right. The Princess Thalia is most likely being held in the dungeon. So we need to locate the stairs."

I think about this. "Aren't castle stairwells usually in one of the corners?"

"Could be. I've never studied the matter myself, so I can't say. Let's head to the nearest corner — over to our right — and see what's there."

The door to the room is wooden and heavy, and makes a terrible creaking groan as we open it. We pass through it into a deserted hallway. We leave the door ajar and head to the right, moving as quietly as we can.

I've changed my mind. I want a weapon of my own. And a shield, too. I feel completely exposed out here. We're in a hallway, for crying out loud. At any time someone could come walking down it and see us.

Or we could turn a corner and bump right into somebody. This latter choice is what actually happens next.

The man we nearly ran over is wearing a suit of chain mail, complete with head covering. He carries a full-sized shield, and I can see that it is made of metal, not wood. Both the shield and his breastplate are painted a solid red color. The man's face is extremely pale, and there is a noxious smell in the air around him, a smell of salt and decay.

Harax, to his credit, almost manages to play it off. He says, "Excuse us. Apologies, friend," and walks around the man with a distracted air, vaguely holding the shield out so the guard can see it. I do my best to follow his lead, and give the man a curt nod of acknowledgement before passing by.

It's a daring ploy, but one that only the Three Stooges could get away with. The man stares at our backs in silence for a moment, and then yells, "Intruders!" and runs after us.

At the first sound Harax and I are off, running down the corridor as fast as we can.

The corridor dog-legs to the left and then the right again. Up ahead the corridor ends. Another corridor heads off to the left, but there is a door at the end of the corridor. My sense of direction is not very good, but it seems likely that this door leads into the corner tower. Harax is clearly thinking the same thing, for he ignores the left-leading corridor and heads straight to the door. The guard is right behind us. Harax yanks open the door and runs through it. I nearly tumble over him in my hurry to get through as well. But our luck fails us: we're in an ordinary room, and except for the window there is no other exit.

"Bother!" shouts Harax.

I try to shut the door behind me, but the guard is following too close. He wedges himself into the door, preventing it from closing. He swings one arm at me, trying to grab something. His hand brushes against my shirt, but fails to actually get a grip on the fabric. I dance away from him, and at once he is in the room.

Harax pulls out the dagger and holds up his shield. A look of determination comes over him. "Get back, Eddie. I'll take care of this one."

The guard grins evilly, pulls out his sword, and assumes a fighting stance in front of Harax. I back away from them both, hugging the wall. The room isn't terribly large. The guard could probably stand in the middle and touch each wall with the tip of his sword. Harax's dagger may be magical, but its small size and his lack of reach is a critical disadvantage. The guard meanwhile swings his sword like a professional baseball batter. The weapon slices through the air with a cry like a child's groan. I can see that Harax is trying to attack the sword, trying to take a piece off of it, but the guard is just too quick for him.

Harax swings again, and as he misses the guard jabs his sword forward. Harax catches the thrust on his shield, which splits in two and falls to the ground. The guard steps back with a laugh as Harax tries to score a hit while the guard is in close range and misses.

In a panic I look around the room, thinking there might be another shield here. Unfortunately the walls in here are bare of decoration. I do see a wooden trunk next to me, though. I open it up: stacked neatly inside are a collection of what appear to be cannonballs. (Cannonballs? Do these people have gunpowder? If so, then why didn't anybody give us a couple of guns, instead of these stupid knives?)

Desperate to do something quickly, before Harax is skewered, I take up a cannonball in my arms, and lift it over my head. Something in my back complains. Turning around carefully, I walk up behind the guard and let the cannonball fall upon his head. It hits with a dull thud and falls to the ground; I narrowly avoid getting my foot crushed under it. The man's chain mail seemed to have protected his skull somewhat, but thankfully he falls to the ground, curling into a fetal position and holding the back of his head.

Harax looks at me in gratitude. "Let's get out of here." We run from the room back into the corridor.

"Which way now?" I ask.

Harax shrugs. "We'll just have to start searching." He takes the corridor to the right. I quickly follow.

Now Harax stops at each door and looks inside. Some of the doors are locked or barred; he ignores those. "They wouldn't put a lock on the door to the stairwell," he reasons. We definitely have a sense of something happening inside the castle. There are distant sounds of activity now, mostly coming from above, whereas before it was dead silent.

"Ah! The Fates have smiled upon us yet again," Harax states. He has found a door behind which is a spiral staircase, leading both up and down. Far above us is the sound of footsteps and voices. There's no time to waste. We close the door behind us and start walking down the stairs as quickly as we can while still being silent.

Progress is not as fast as I would like. The stairs are narrow and steep, and worse yet there's no handrail. I mean, who the hell makes a spiral staircase with no handrail? Finally the stairs come to an end at a wooden door with iron reinforcements. The door is bolted on our side by a heavy iron bar. I step forward and lug the bar off of the door. Harax opens it.

Two or three steps lead down to what has to be the dungeon floor. Only a few feet away from the entrance and it's pitch dark. Harax and I retreat and search the walls of the stairwell. After a minute we find an unused torch ensconced in the wall. I bring it down, and Harax mucks with it using his flint and tinder, until finally we get it burning bright. Harax hands the torch to me and we step down into the dungeon.

There is a half inch of standing water on the floor. We stand at the head of a corridor, pointing directly ahead. Along both walls are iron doors. Stepping carefully through the water, we examine each door, one by one, holding the torch up and peeking into the grill on each door. Harax cannot reach as high as the grills, so he has to be content with following me around.

I look in at five or six doors. Behind each one is a small cell, furnished with nothing but chains attached to the wall and floor. As we walk, Harax softly calls out, "Princess Thalia? Can you hear us?" We reach a branch, where another corridor goes to the right. I peer ahead. The doors along our corridor continue.

I look at Harax. "Well, which way should we go?"

Harax kicks at the water. "This place is immense. We don't have time to examine every cell. Soon enough they'll figure out where we must be headed, and they'll be after us. Remember, once we have the Princess Thalia we still have to make our way back upstairs and out the window."

"Don't remind me. So what do you suggest?"

Harax looks around us, at the little we can see in the torch's small circle of light. "I don't think she's here. I think this level of the dungeon is empty. We need to try the lower level. That's where the princess will be."

"There's another dungeon floor?"

"I wager there is. Come on. Let's look for more stairs."

So we go racing around the corridors. And sure enough, before long we discover a wooden door, one with no lock. Behind it we find more stairs, leading down.

We climb the stairs cautiously. The stone is slick with water. Here are there are patches of moss, which are as slick as ice.

After a dozen steps or so we discover that this level is flooded. The steps lead directly into the dark water. I'm leading the way, walking very slowly. The stairs continue descending, but I can no longer see them. The water rises as I continue down. When it reaches my knees, Harax stops and watches me. I have the torch in one hand and my other hand held against the wall, for balance. I continue stepping carefully. Finally, the stairs run out, and I am standing on the floor. The brackish, slimy water reaches to my waist.

Harax shakes his head. "The water is a bit too deep for me, Eddie. Can you proceed alone?"

I nod. "I think so." If there's anyone down here who's armed, of course, I'm in big trouble.

Harax reaches out. In his hand is the dagger in its sheath. "Here." I take it in my free hand. "You have the ring with you?" I nod. "Go, and be quick." Harax looks pensive. He probably doesn't relish being stuck here on these slippery stairs, without light.

I turn away and begin walking down the corridor.

There are no doors lining the walls of this corridor. Nonetheless, I call out, "Princess Thalia? Can you hear me?" I call out softly at first, then louder. I find it hard to imagine that anyone is down here, in all this water, who isn't a prisoner.

"Princess Thalia?" The corridor comes to an intersection. Three other corridors lead away from here. This doesn't look promising. I'm in big trouble if this place turns out to be a maze.

"Princess Thalia!" I shout down one of the corridors. I don't care who else hears me. I listen carefully but hear nothing above the sounds of dripping water. My arm is getting tired from holding the torch aloft, above the water. What the hell am I doing here? What is this place, anyway? What kind of people have drowning castles with three feet of water in the basement where they store the political prisoners? I'm having a philosophical crisis. I want to be home, in my own apartment. Any moment now the guards are going to figure out where we are, and they'll cut off our escape, and we'll die down here. "Princess Thalia!" I scream, and my fear is audible in my voice.

"Who goes there?" The response is distant, but audible. And definitely female.

"Princess Thalia! My name is Eddie! Where are you? I've come to rescue you!"

"I'm in the far north cell!" comes the reply, and this time I catch the direction of the voice. I hurry down the right-hand corridor, wading through the water as quickly as I can.

"Can you still hear me?" The voice is louder now.

The corridor reaches an intersection. "I hear you! Call out again, please!"

"Ahoy!" I turn left and keep walking.

Through two more intersections, and finally the corridor comes to an end. There is no cell. Chains are attached to the wall at the end of the corridor, and standing there, wearing the chains around her wrists, is the Princess Thalia.

She is wearing a gray shift of a heavy material. Her hair is wet and hangs loose in unruly strands, obscuring her face.

Her hair is dark black, though.

"Princess Thalia? I've come to rescue you," I say, because what else am I going to say? I pull out the dagger. "First I need to use this to cut your chains."

The princess nods, as if this were a routine request, and holds out her arms. Working slowly and carefully, I being sawing through the iron manacles.

"I've been down here a long time. How is the King?"

"The King is, uh —" I fumble for words. It seems like ages since I've given any thought to the King of Armethal. "He's under the influence of his advisers." I finish cutting her left arm free, and begin working on the right arm.

I'm a little put off by her appearance. I was certain — am I a fool? — that the princess would turn out to be April. Or at the very least bear a strong resemblance to her. I can't have been wrong about this, can I? The ring. I know that it was the same ring.

Now her right arm is free. I sheath the dagger. I reach into my pocket now thoroughly soaked, and retrieve the ring. It is inarguably glowing now. It is radiating a pale light that fragments into a thousand spectral shards.

The princess stares. "What is this?"

I look at her closely. "Do you recognize it?"

"Not at once, no. What is it?"

"It's —" I falter again. "It will free you from your magical bonds."

The princess nods, but says nothing.

I continue. "By the use of this ring, you'll be free to leave the Drowning Castle." With me. The ring will bind her to me; that's what Auros Ettra said. I must have faith that this will work. Once we're out of this dank place, I can sit down and figure things out. Right now is no time to dawdle.

"It must be a powerful artifact."

"Yes, I believe it is." I go over Auros Ettra's instructions in my head.

"You must be careful with it. Be sure you know what you're doing."

I look at her in shock. Why did she say that? And why does it sound so familiar?

The ring is in my left hand. I need to put it on the finger of her right hand while holding her left hand with my right hand. Those were the instructions.

I take a moment to think carefully. I need to be careful. I need to be sure what I'm doing.

I reach into my belt pouch, which is also soaked through, pull out Legrielle's spectacles, and place them on my nose.

It's April.

She's standing there, directly in front of me. She's soaking wet, and her hair floats around, as if we're both underwater. The light around us is a blueish gray color.

Her eyes are closed. Is she asleep? Her face is twisted into an expression of sadness. Her arms are held straight down to clasped hands. And I can see that her wrists are still in chains.

The chain is wound around her wrists, and hangs down from there to the floor. I look down and see that the other end of the chain is attached to the ring in my hand.

I look at the ring. It is no different than it was before. One large diamond in the middle, surrounded by four smaller diamonds. It really is a beautiful ring.

I realize that there is a second chain hanging off of the ring. I follow it with my eyes to find it ends at a manacle cuffed around my own ankle.

Oh, April. How did this happen?

Tears come to my eyes. They detach themselves lazily from my eyes and float in front of my face.

I know what I need to do, even though I don't really know why.

I pull out the dagger and carefully cut the ring in two.

There is a deep, almost subsonic rumbling. I feel it in my chest; it seems to be trying to force my heart to beat at its rhythm. April is slowly rising upwards. Her eyes are still closed. She doesn't move. The castle walls are rising with her. Everything is rising upwards. Except for me.

The dagger isn't in my hand. I don't remember it going away. The torch is missing, too. I float in this void of blueish-gray light, empty-handed. I am absolutely alone.

And, right now, that suits me just fine.

"April."

"Eddie."

"All I wanted was for us to be happy."

"You'll find happiness on you own, Eddie. I know you will. You just need to be patient."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"I want you to be happy, too."

"But I am. I am happy."

"But you're not. Every time I see you, you're sad."

"Oh, Eddie."

"You're sad, and I'm sad, so how are we better off this way?"

"I'm only sad because I see you being sad."

"Then let's get together and stop being sad. That's all I'm asking."

"Eddie. I'm sad because I see you being sad, and that makes me feel guilty. It's my fault that you're like this all the time. And I just want you to get past all this sadness."

"So do I."

"But I can't go on feeling guilty over you forever, Eddie. I've done everything I can do to set you free. I thought I could rescue you, Eddie. But it's clear now that I can't. You're the only person who can rescue yourself."

"What if I don't want to be rescued?"

"Then — I guess you'll stay like this until you do."

A long moment goes by. I float here, in the blue-gray light, feeling nothing.

After a while, I realize that the light is getting steadily brighter. Some part of me, my curiosity I suppose, arouses itself and considers my situation.

At some point it occurs to me that my eyes are closed.

I open them. I'm lying in my bed, in my apartment. The angle of the sunlight coming through my window tells me that it's morning.

I remain lying in bed. After a while I can see the rectangle of sunlight on my wall slowly creeping downwards.

I get up out of the bed, and walk into the bathroom. In the mirror I examine myself carefully. I am clean, or as clean as can be expected in the morning. But I can see little bruises and cuts in various locations. My shoulders have dim red stripes the same size as my backpack's straps. I look at my feet. There are various spots, which I know well, where the skin is lightly blistered.

I leave the bathroom and walk over to my desk. I turn on my computer monitor and check the time. It's 9:30 in the morning. Saturday morning.

I sit down at the desk. I'm still wearing nothing but my shorts and goosebumps are forming on my exposed skin. And yet I don't get up and get dressed. I remain seated, and let myself focus on feeling the goosebumps. I can see the hairs on my arm trying to stand up straight.

When was the last time I sat still and just paid attention to what I was feeling? I don't remember.

I may take another sick day on Monday. I can feel that I need some time alone. A mourning period, if you will.

After which, it will be time to get back to the business of everyday life.