Part Two

Special Thanks go again to everyone who appears in this story, for either giving me the okay to play around with your own character a bit and welcoming him or her into my imagination or for at least pretending I did. Again, I’ve tried to keep those characters’ motives, reactions, dialogue and such at least fairly close to what I’ve seen in their role-playing sessions in #asfr or in stories about them. And once again, if I’ve goofed somewhere or made your character do or say something that he or she would never say or do, you have complete permission to take Paris and bastardize him in your own stories. I’ll probably welcome it, in fact, with Paris being the right bastard he is, anyway.

Also, special thanks go out to my select group of pre-readers and editors, for telling me what I’ve done right, wrong, or very wrong in this part and in part one. You people know who you are. Getting the seal of approval from you is always what makes stories like this worthwhile.

And one more little bit: Thanks to Ruckus for extra editing help, and not forcing me to work on another deadline while I was working on this story. And thanks as well go to ShortDog, for getting me a copy of Word97 with a "Save to HTML" function so I didn’t have to cut and paste, then go through and highlight every bit of italics, underlining, font changes and list function and change them manually. If not for you, I would still be sitting in front of Netscape Composer in a puddle of my own drool and wondering why I have to write epic thirty page chapters with massive internal dialogue. Thanks a bunch, you two!

And for all of you who read this and wonder what it’s really like in #asfr on Sandnet, get yourself an IRC program and join the fun! Sit around, chat, get hit by a stray blast from a sonic pulse rifle… it’s all worth it. Actually, it is great fun, and I highly recommend it. You can meet some pretty decent folk there and watch these sorts of stories develop firsthand.

But I’ve prattled enough. Go ahead… this is what you were looking for when you loaded this, anyway.

-ArgoForg

I.    Prologue: The Fabric Torn

    The barrier had been breached.
    Picture an infinity of Earths and Earth-like dimensions— parallel universes, to use a term that has already been overused but serves its purpose here.  Each dimension is marginally different from the one before, following a slightly different set of rules than those we hold as true.  Each revolves around a marginally different sun, third in a host of ten planets marginally different from those we know as real.  Each of those Earths exist in the same spot occupied by the Earth we know as ours, but each along a slightly different vibrational frequency than ours, so that they can actually exist at the same time, in the same place, but without our knowledge.  Now imagine each of those countless alternate Earths are separated by an impenetrable barrier, separating each and every dimension from one another, bottling up that Earth’s reality and separating it from the others.
    For eons upon eons, since the very conception of time and space, the barriers had stood between the different realities, separating the various realms from their dimensional cousins.  No one asked what the barriers were composed of, how they were created, or who brought them into being.  The very reason why they were there seemed justification enough not to question them at all: the barriers held in each realm’s reality, kept it from infecting the others.
    Many had found ways to circumvent the barriers or transport themselves from dimension to dimension without physically going through them.  The Worldtree was a conduit, for instance, between what we know as Earth and the near-Earth realm of Faerie.  The Astral plane is merely another Earth-Realm situated so closely to ours that people have been known to travel to it through simple meditation.  Some even claim that Heaven and Hell are merely alternate Earths which depict, respectively, the paragon of peace and goodness and the lowest brink of war and chaos.
    From time immemorial, people have found their way from dimension to dimension, skirting the barrier and finding themselves in an alternate representation of the world they know as true.  And though those travelers might have had a different concept of what was ‘real’, that alternate Earth’s reality remained constant.  Therefore, the barriers holding in each Earth’s reality remained intact.  This led every magus or quantum physicist worth his salt to agree that it in all cases, reality would always remain stable.
    But now one barrier had been breached, sending minute fractures along all the barriers it touched, which passed along those minute chinks to those barriers they touched… like a chain with one link split, soon the every barrier began to feel the strain of that one crack.  And ever slowly, around the leak, realities were trickling through, and around those realities, possibilities were beginning to assert themselves.  The trickle continued, unabated, and like a stone that wears down as water passes over it, the barrier through which it came slowly began to wear away.  Spidery cracks began to form around the leak, and pressure began to build…

Randall McAffee was already in a black mood, and the news his secretary passed on to him didn’t help matters much.
    "Love of God," he spat.  "Davis called in again? That’s what, five times in the last month?"
    "Six, sir."  His secretary nodded. Rhonda was a middle-aged woman, who had spent ten years learning that Mr. McAffee would curse, bitch and moan about whatever he could at that particular moment.  Hardly a day passed without her hearing a profanity from Mr. McAffee’s office.  Why she even stayed here in the ad agency was beyond her.
    "Six?  Why is he even working for us when he takes six fucking days off in a month?  Why haven’t I gotten rid of him yet?"
    "Probably because you don’t do any work short of complaining," Rhonda said beneath her breath.  She needed a vacation, she decided.  Not just away from the job, but away from Davenport.  Maybe just out of Iowa altogether.
    "What’s that?"  McAffee glared at her.
    "I said, ‘Probably because of his work at campaigning,’" she said smoothly, looking up at him.  "I mean, he’s pulled ads for four companies we never thought we’d have.  Including those latest Proctor and Gamble spots."
    He glared harder, then turned away and stalked back into his office.  Seconds later, she heard him spit something out, and begin another profanity-laced tirade.
    She walked to the door of his office.  "Something wrong, Mr. Mc—"
    McAffee was red in the face.  "Damned right something’s wrong!  This coffee tastes like shit!  Who put salt in the sugar bowl?"
    "Who did what?"  She asked, her voice bordering on incredulity.
    "Put salt in the sugar bowl in the break room," McAffee growled.  "Get me a new cup, will you?"
    Rhonda mimicked him the entire way to the break room.  She reached a finger inside the sugar bowl there, tasted it.  Sweet, certainly not salty.
    "He’s cracked."  That or he just absent-mindedly used the salt shaker when he was making his morning coffee.  Either was a sound guess.
    Sighing, she emptied the coffeepot in the sink and filled it at the tap, muttering.
    "The bastard’s finally lost his head," she whispered, shaking her head.  "I don’t know why I bother putting up with…"
    Her voice trailed off as she watched the water.  It just didn’t look quite as clear as tap water she was used to seeing.  And it smelled strange, too.  Almost as if… she couldn’t quite place it.
    "What the hell?"  She said, wondering.  Was there a bum pipe in the building?  Hesitantly, she dipped a finger into the coffeepot, and lifted it to her lips.
    She spat.  The taste helped her recognize the smell: brine.  McAffee, a near-chain smoker, probably couldn’t smell it, but she could… it was as if the water came from the ocean!
    "Salt water!"  She declared, stunned.  But the water for the entire building came straight through the water treatment plant from the reservoir outside town.  And a small freshwater stream fed the reservoir, so it was impossible that the water running out of the tap was seawater.
    She stared at it, felt the brine assail her nose. Absolutely impossible.

ATHENS, Greece – (Associated Press) Three thousand years of erosion finally brought down what invasions by Romans and Turks could not.  One of the support columns for the Temple of Athena Nike, one of the longest-standing architectural marvels of the ancient world, collapsed today, injuring two archaeologists and an anthropologist who were working on the site.  Luckily, no one was killed, and all three were released after examination.
    The temple itself has been closed off to tours and digs, pending work to stabilize its structure. Sources in the archaeological world are confident that the temple can be saved, but the loss of even that single column is a horrible blow to scientists and history lovers alike.
    "It’s sad, very tragic," said Dr. Julien Andropolous, the lead archaeologist at the site.  "The column had just been bracketed, re-mortared and shored up just a week or so ago to prevent this sort of thing. The odds are very much against a column or a structure falling once we use modern-day science to attempt to save it..."

CHICAGO – (Scripps Howard Wire Service) Call it the luck of the draw, twenty-four times. After eight weeks with no winning ticket matching the six numbers drawn, the Illinois Lottery’s number combination for Friday matched an astonishing twenty-four separate tickets.  Twenty-four lucky lottery players will split the thirty-five million dollar jackpot. State officials claimed that most of the winning tickets were sold inside the state of Illinois, but eight tickets were sold in towns close to the border, including two each in Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin. Stranger, more than half the lottery tickets we’re Quick Picks, chosen at random by lottery computers.
    Lottery officials were as baffled by this coincidence as anyone. "I’ve never even heard of anything like it," said Brian Lansing, an Illinois Lottery executive. "The odds of twenty-four people even getting the same numbers is remote at best... but for those numbers all to hit... Well, the odds jump into the astronomical. The possibility of such a thing happening is hard to even fathom..."

WAYERTON, New Brunswick – (Associated Press) Experts say the possibility of sextuplets alone is staggering, but that didn’t stop Hettie.
    Hettie, a dairy cow belonging to Mr. and Mrs. James Bolliver, successfully had the octuplets Monday, after she was originally believed to be infertile.  All eight calves and mother are in fine condition...

MILAN, Italy – (United Press International) Three passenger flights narrowly avoided colliding into one another when all three planes incredibly ran out of fuel and were forced to abort their usual flight paths to make forced landings near Linate International Airport.
    A computer error in the tower had somehow lined all three jumbo jets on flight paths that would have caused them to collide, and air-traffic controllers did not realize the mistake until too late.  However, all three jets —two of which were Trans-Atlantic flights— ran low on fuel, forcing them to abandon their flight approaches and averting potential disaster.
    Passengers of all three flights have called their narrow escape a miracle. "What do you think the odds are of all three planes running empty like that?" Asked one...

II.    Reprise: Five Days

Paris found the towels with no problem, and it only took him a few minutes to figure out how to turn on the shower.  He stripped down to nothing and stood under the cascade of warm water, letting it wash the travel dust from his body.  If only it could have been that easy to wipe clean his mind, he mused.
    The more he tried to put her out of his mind, however, the less luck he had.  She kept tugging at his conscience, her violet eyes and flame-red hair finding their way back into his mind’s eye, the soft touch of her skin on his burning at his hand like a contact poison, the smell of cherries even when she wasn’t breathing near him.  He couldn’t get his mind off the curves of her small body, and he blushed as he thought of it.  The music was only partially the reason he had awakened from that dream... put simply, the dream could go no further because he had absolutely no idea what happened next.  He had once held a Sestrey’llania woman, reclined with her in the shade of a tree and kissed her, but neither of them had even loosened the clasps on their clothing, and it had never progressed much past kissing.  Compared to Paris, his father was probably utterly worldly.
    It would never work out, the rational portion of his mind screamed.  I mean, you have the blood of the fey-folk running through your veins... you could never introduce the Bond to a machine! It hurt him terribly to even think of her like that, as a machine. She was real to him, real flesh concealing real blood, concealing real feelings and emotions, despite the fact she had removed some of her hatches before, let him see the wiring and ‘servomotors’ beneath her artificial skin.  Still, to think of her using the same term he would for... say, a wheat-thresher, seemed absurd.  But his rational mind rallied. And besides, she obviously would throw you down in a heartbeat the moment Father walked into the picture! He shook his head morosely.  If that was the case, his rational self reasoned, he should just put her out of his mind— at least in the manner he was thinking of her. It would only lead to bad feelings… if it hadn’t already.
    The rational portion of his mind kept throwing out those arguments, hammering his conscience with cold, blunt reason.  And finally, he began to wear under the assault:
    I need to face it... Faerie-kin and Androids don’t mix. Just like Faerie-kin and Humanae.  Of course, going by that line of reasoning, he shouldn’t even exist then, being the son of a Humanae magus and a Sestrey’llania woman.  And the idea of Feyfolk and Humans falling in love was a staple in Faerie myth.
    Okay then... just like Faerie-kin and Wyrms.
    Well, maybe not that either.  There were also a lot of myths about elves and dragons getting along, even becoming fast friends... one or two even hinted at transformed dragons falling in love with elflords, and…
    Paris blinked, and then slowly his lips curled into a smirk.  Shades of the Nine Hells, he thought, shaking his head, she has me so riddled that I can’t even come up with a decent analogy!
    Paris sighed, and numbly let the water glide down his body as he stared at the floor.  He was a magus who was starting to come to terms with the amount of power he could control.  He was the son of a Humanae magus and a Sestrey’llania elfwoman who practiced magick herself, both of whom had been on adventures many Humanae could never even dream of.  He was a half-elf, a fey-child who had seen sights in Faerie that would boggle the most clear-minded of men— and had not only survived, but thrived.  He could call upon the power of magick while in Faerie; he could make the improbable possible and the impossible merely the unlikely.
    And here he was, standing under a stream of warm water, driven to confusion and inactivity by a boyish infatuation?  To someone he had only known a few days?  The very thought was absurd.  Was it really an infatuation, then?  Or was it something deeper?  He shook his head and turned off the water flow.  What is happening to me?

She stared at the door of the bathroom a long time after he closed it.  She finally brushed a lock of hair out of her eye and picked up the jewel case for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral.  How appropriate, she mused.  That pretty well described how she felt right now.   She had been through enough emotional turmoil in the last five days to give a normal human whiplash.
    She hadn’t reacted to his rebuffs, at least openly, had forced her face to remain placid and calm when he flinched from her touch and all but shouted that he didn’t want her to join him as he bathed.  But she could feel, deep with her neural pathways and emotional subroutines, a sense of pain at his rejection.  She couldn’t understand why for five days straight now he had exhibited all human symptoms of a love-struck boy and had still shied from her.  And that in itself caused her to feel all the more forlorn.
    The damnable thing was, she knew she shouldn’t feel such a thing.  She was not prone to giving herself to the pleasure of the moment and latching onto someone that easily, at least not lately.  She’d known too many people she cared about that had left her in an untimely fashion to open up emotional ties like that again.  She could understand that he was a fairly handsome sort, in an exotic, otherworldly sort of way, but that did little to explain her feelings.  In fact, her ability to be completely unswayed by a person’s physical appearance had been programmed into her, unlike human women, who could not help but be affected by what their eyes told them.
    His eyes.  She couldn’t shake the memory of his ice-blue eyes, staring at her.  There was passion behind those eyes, she could tell, a sense of drive there that she had seen lacking in many humans.  She had seen that once in Argo, before the accident that had grafted the Medusa Shades to his eyes… she had seen it when he held her.  Now she found herself pondering what it would be like to be the object of the passion she thought Paris capable of.  And to some small effect, that bothered her.  It made no sense for her to feel such a connection to a person after such a short time.  She had barely met him, when it boiled right down to it.  Truthfully, she didn’t know him at all, beyond the fact that he was Argo’s son.
    She wondered if that had something to do with it.  Certainly, she could see more than just a token physical resemblance between Paris and his father.  Both were men driven by a love for magick.  She could somehow sense that Paris was a man that was tortured by inner demons, like his father was.  She remembered what Paris had said that first evening, when she had murmured that everyone she cared about left her. I won’t.  If he could have only realized how much he had sounded like his father when he said that!
    Just because her brain was artificial— a high-tech primary central processing unit, in all actuality— didn’t mean she had no subconscious.  Could it be that subconsciously, she was trying to fill the hole Argo had opened when he left… with his son?  Or did she find something genuinely attractive in Paris?  And did it matter?  Assuming he even gave a damn for her, would he leave her like so many others—
    She heard a sharp snap, looked down at her hands.  The jewel case was broken in her hands, a jagged crack tracing the clear plastic from one side to the other.  She looked at the broken plastic, blinked.  The tactile sensors on her fingertips should have warned her that she was exerting that much pressure, shouldn’t they have?  Did she have some sort of malfunction?
    She closed her eyes and ran a quick diagnostic.  Streams of information began to compile, checking data from her primary processes and sub-processes and feeding that data into her CPU.  She scanned through the information quickly for error messages and warning tags, and within moments had found her answer.
    There was no malfunction.  A warning had been fed from the tactile sensors in her hands, and now resided in her system memory: it stated that the object she was holding would break shortly given the stress her hands were applying.  And she had completely ignored it because she was preoccupied thinking about something… someone else, which should have been impossible.
    She set the broken pieces of the CD case on the table and sat down, dropping her head to her hands.  What is happening to me?

Paris stepped out of the bathroom, having cleaned and changed into a set of clothes he’d brought along.  He saw Nova finishing up some repair work, and swallowed once, hard.  Then he made his way over to the couch, set down his knapsack and pulled forth the Tempora  Arcanum. He cast one last look at Nova, felt the swell of longing in his chest, and forced himself to study.
    Nova was replacing one of the air-purifier’s filters when she heard Paris open the door to the bathroom and make his way across toward the couch.  She closed her eyes, then resolutely forced herself to finish the repair job and not look back up until she’d finished.  As she twisted in the last screw to the metal plate, she gazed over at Paris, and sighed to herself.
    She passed him on the couch as she made her way back toward the lab and tool room.  Sitting cross-legged on the couch, he looked up as she approached.  Her eyes met his; his met hers.
    "Hello," he said with a fractional smile.
    "Hey," she responded, with one of her own.
    The greetings were perfunctory, uneasy and over far too quickly… but neither would admit to it.  They were also the only words they said to one another until people began to arrive in the ASFR room that evening.

III.    Realizing the Impossible

The man had once been named Lawrence Michael Evans. He was an up and coming hotshot lawyer in the So Cal area, recently adding his name to the prestigious firm of Watley, Marshall and Evans after a series of seven straight wins in the districts and two in the Alameda County courts.  He was a boss to a twenty-something secretary and staff of six legal aides. He was twenty-eight years old, unmarried but an eminently eligible bachelor.  Many women, in fact, were taken by his rakish good looks: wavy brown hair framed a square-jawed face and drew attention to his piercing grey eyes, and racquetball and weight training every other day had honed his sturdy physique.  He was a man who had aspirations, goals and plans for his life, and the prime one was to end up on top of the world.
    And now, he was the human host to Fithnaheyin, who would be happy to put Lawrence Michael Evans there, even if it turned out being a world of ash and ruin.
    Fithnaheyin recognized the need to take a Humanae host early in its travels to this Earth-realm, and not just for the protection that a Humanae’s frail body offered its shapeless form.  Although it would need no help following the Possibility Magus, whose magickal stench clung to Fithnaheyin’s nostrils like that of a spoiled fruit, it realized that this was the Possibility Magus’ home and that this was a stranger world than the one it had known before.  By just following him blindly, Fithnaheyin would have no doubt stumbled into whatever traps the one called Argo surely would lay for it.  Not that it would have mattered, granted, but Fithnaheyin was in no mood to give the Possibility Magus any sort of upper hand— a long time ago, when the Children of the Fey had imprisoned it, such overconfidence had been its downfall.  Furthermore, whether they realized it or not, Humanae had bodies that were naturally adept at wielding magicks, much like their fey cousins.
    It had taken little effort to consign the soul of the one called Lawrence Michael Evans to oblivion, and take its place.  It had taken a slight bit of time to adjust to the rigors of the Humanae form, but Fithnaheyin had all the time it needed.  It had taken a bit more time to ensure that it was not interrupted in its work, but Fithnaheyin had all but relished that part of the chore.
    In the one called Lawrence Michael Evans, Fithnaheyin found a host whose mind would prove beneficial in acclimating it to this strange Earth-realm, and a body that would allow it passage among the Humanae relatively unnoticed.  Already, with help of the Evans-mind, it was forming plans on how best to proceed in finding the Possibility Magus.  Not where he was now, but rather where he would be.  That was the key, he decided.
    The door to the office was nudged open slightly, and it looked up from the desk at the intrusion to see a young deer look up at him from the doorway.  The Evans-mind recognized the doe as formerly being Katherine, one of his legal aides.  Evans had always seen Katherine as a naïve sort, not really conscious of the fact that many times, the best money came from defending those who really didn’t deserve to be defended in the first place.  Fithnaheyin thought her new form suited her innocence well.
    In fact, the Evans-mind would have found all of his co-workers’ fates to be somewhat ironic.  Sheila Pournelle, his attractive brunette secretary, had lusted after Lawrence’s wallet as much or more than she lusted after him personally.  She stood just outside the doorway, forever locked in a smiling, seductive pose, the light glittering off her solid gold body.  Directly under her feet was the two-dimensional, flattened form of Lyle Mackinally, a legal aide who felt that everyone in the office walked all over him.  As a floor mat, that would be the case from now on.  Aaron Lindsley, another legal aide, had constantly bored Evans with details of his hunting trips.  Now, it was his head which hung on the wall, sightlessly staring into the room from its place on a nameless wooden plaque.
    But there was no time for gloating over magickal creativity now.  Fithnaheyin had work ahead of it.  It growled at the doe and cast a simple flare magick in her direction to send her scampering off, then it tapped on the ‘computer’ on Evans’ desk.  The Evans-mind told it that the place called Internet would be as good a place to start as any.  Information could be found there— both legally an illegally— on a good many people, if you had the right access.  And the host mind of the Humanae had all the access it would need.
    Fithnaheyin delved into the Evans-mind and pulled out the information he needed to learn how to get to this Internet.  And then he smiled, the lips of the Evans-thing curling back.  It had the time, it had the means, and soon, very soon, it would have the knowledge.  It would find the Possibility Magus soon enough, and it would destroy him.  There would be nothing the one called Argo Veseyez Forgeuzev could do to stop it.

IV.    Reflections

"Does he often spend that much time hiding his face like that?"  Vengeance asked.
    "I’m surprised he’s not permanently red for as much time as he spends blushing."  Silvera remarked as she saw the half-fey drop his head to his hands again and mumble.  She, Vengeance and Nova sat on the other couch, treading a fine line between watching the three menfolk with rapt attention and making a show of appearing uninterested in what they were doing.
    Nova smiled halfheartedly.  "He certainly is shy about a lot of things."
    "Not like us, eh?"  Vengeance winked and sipped at her sangria, then continued: "I mean, sure, we all have our own little secrets, but we’re all very open with one another, am I correct?"
    "Meaning?"  Nova’s eyebrows rose a fraction.  There was unmistakable innuendo in Vengeance’s words, and Nova didn’t miss it.
    "Meaning," Sil said, smoothly interposing herself between Nova and Vengeance and dropping a hand over Nova’s shoulder like a best friend, "that for five days straight, we have been witness to the Paris and you exchanging pleasantries.  Now we also know that for five nights straight, for want of a better place in the ‘Earth-Realm’ to stay, he’s stayed here, in this room."
    Nova nodded.
    "With you.  Alone."
    Nova nodded again.
    "So we want the dirt.  And quit nodding."
    "Dirt?"  Nova felt her lips curl upward.  "You want dirt?  What would you like me to make up?"
    "Make up?"  Vengeance asked, craning around Silvera to see Nova.
    "Yes, make up.  Because otherwise, there hasn’t been anything happening here short of him falling asleep next to me the first day he came here."
    Silvera’s jaw dropped.  "Nothing?"
    Vengeance looked more bemused.  "At all?"
    Nova shook her head.  "Not a thing.  In fact, sometimes I think he believes I have the plague.  Sometimes he shrinks from my touch as if he’s afraid of catching something.  Truthfully, since that first night, I don’t know if we’ve really ever connected.  I don’t think he’s all that fond of me."
    Silvera began to laugh.  Vengeance hid a smile.
    "What?"  Nova asked, confused.
    "Come on, Nova.  Are you seriously telling me you can’t see it?"  Vengeance took another drink of her sangria.
    "See what?  Talk plainly!"
    "Wake up, Nova.  Venge and I have seen him doing everything but waiting on you hand and foot.  He stares at you like a ten year-old with his first crush, fumbles his words whenever you talk to him, and turns the color of a fire engine if you even casually touch him."  Sil smiled at her.  "It’s almost painfully obvious.  He’s so smitten he probably can’t think straight when you’re in a five-mile radius of him."
    Nova shrugged slightly, looked away.  "It’s not all that obvious.  I don’t see it."
    "Because you’re at the center of it," Vengeance reasoned.  "Evidently, you care about him, too.  You’d have to be blind not to see that.  Otherwise it wouldn’t bother you that he’s sending these mixed signals.  See, you’re blushing just thinking about it."
    "I am not,"  Nova retorted, ashamed to find out in a quick diagnostic that Vengeance was right.  "It… doesn’t matter, anyway.  I mean, he’s a half-fey, and I’m an android."
    "Like that’s ever stopped anyone in this room," Silvera said with a smirk.  "It sounds to me like you’re grasping at straws to find reasons for something between the two of you to fail.  Of course, then again, how do you know he’s not doing the same thing?  But I saw the two of you that first night, Nova.  He cares for you, and unless I miss my guess, you feel the same way.  Why you’re both fighting it is beyond me. "
    The words struck home to Nova.  She remembered a thought she’d had earlier: Would he leave her, like everyone else did?  Was she really searching for a reason not to get involved?  Was she secretly hoping he wouldn’t care for her, to spare herself that pain again?  She looked over to Paris, saw the young man caught in a diatribe between Pantherr and Android69, and she made an instant decision.  She stood up.
    "Where are you going?"  Silvera asked, lifting her wine goblet and looking at Nova curiously.
    "Over there," said Nova simply.  "I have something to do."
    "Like what?"  Vengeance inquired.  From the smile on her face, Nova could tell she had a few ideas; it would have been funny to see the look on her face if she realized they were all wrong.
    "What I did the first day he was here," Nova replied as she walked away.  "I’m going to learn about his past."
    Vengeance blinked, then shrugged.  "Not what I would have suggested, but then again, some bots have too much subtlety."
    Silvera tasted some of the blood-wine from her goblet.  "I’m surprised the word the word subtlety is even in your vocabulary.  It’s not something you regularly employ."
    "Too much work," Vengeance smiled.  "So what do you think, Cyrano… should we find a seat closer to the action?"
    "Of course," Silvera grinned, raising her wineglass to clink Vengeance’s.  "After all, Christian and Roxanne make quite the cute little couple."
    Laughing, the two made their way to the other couch.

"I don’t care how many drinks you’ve had," Pantherr snapped, then licked one paw irritably.  "If you start sing-songing ‘Paris has a girlfriend’ again, I’ll unplug your Maytag-refrigerator ass."
    Pete crossed his arms defensively, scowled.  "Can you say ‘Holy hypocrites, cat-man?’  Your concern for his well-being sure didn’t stop you from asking him when the big date for the wedding was."
    "Concern, hell.  Your singing just gets on my nerves.  You can’t carry a tune."
    "Big talk from a walking robotic ant colony."
    Paris sat with his head down, peeking every so often in between his fingers at Pantherr and Android69.  So far, their insults were remaining light-hearted, but both had been drinking somewhat, and Paris had no idea how— or if— each was affected by alcohol.  Therefore, Paris had been more than content just to shut up and let them throw slurs back and forth while he concentrated on preparing to cast a defensive spell.  But suddenly, the talk from both ends abruptly stopped.  Paris peeped between his fingers again, saw nothing to one side.
    "Hello there, Nova, my friend," Android69 said warmly from the other.
    Paris nearly bit his tongue.
    "Hello, Pete," Nova returned as Paris lifted his head.  She motioned to him.  "I was wondering if I could borrow Paris for a while, if the two of you are finished with him."
    "Of course," Pantherr grinned and made a courtly bow and gesture to offer his seat, then jumped up into the air and extended his wings to let him glide back to the rafters.  Nova smiled her thanks and sat next to Paris.
    Paris could not help but smile reflexively as Nova seated herself.  He forced a coy tone as he remarked: "Borrow me?  That certainly sounds interesting."
    "Nothing that interesting," she said in an undertone, then raised her voice to a little more normal tone.  She gazed at him steadily.  "Just wondering something..."
    Paris floated momentarily in Nova’s eyes, immersed in a sea of violet, inhaling cherries.  He surfaced quickly, mentally chastising himself: why in the name of the gods do I lose all coherent thought just being near her?  Aloud, he asked her, "Wondering what?"
    She seemed about to say something, then hesitated.  "You know the story you told me the first night you were here?  The one about Argo going back to Faerie?"
    A voice inside him laughed at his naivete. Tell me more about Argo, he saw Nova tell him in his mind’s eye.  He carefully controlled his voice, did not let his disappointment show.
    "Yes," he said, in a voice a couple steps above a whisper.
    "Tell me... "  She said, and again she paused, for just a moment.  Then she leaned close to Paris and curled her hand around his.  "Tell me...  when do you enter the story?"
    He looked at her hand, felt the warmth it gave him as she offered a gentle squeeze, and smiled as he returned it.  He could think of no words to describe the feeling the simple touch gave him; perhaps there were none.  Again he marveled at her; it was something he found himself doing a lot— he had known her only five days and already it seemed she never ceased to amaze him.
    He cleared his throat, looked down to the floor and tried to collect his thoughts.  "I...  I wasn’t around for quite a while yet, actually.  When my father came back into Faerie, he met the three Sestrey’llania women, turned one to stone and had the magickal duel with the other.  It was actually quite some time, albeit time in Faerie, before he... well..."
    He looked back up and was somewhat startled to find that a small crowd had gathered around the couch.  Android69 and Nova were watching him with undisguised interest, and Silvera and Vengeance watched from behind them.  Even Pantherr, up on his customary rafter, appeared to be drawn into the tale Paris was telling.
    "Go on," Nova urged gently, her fingers intertwining with his.
    For the first time all day, Paris found himself relaxing into an easy smile.  And why not?  This was his favorite part of the story, the part he begged his father or mother to tell him almost nightly when he was young... before Argo had disappeared.  Of course, there were portions of the story that he hadn’t learned about until he was older, but then again, that was to be expected— even among the fey, whom many humans consider rather free-minded morally.
    "Well, Argo and Auerenelle began to live together in her home, teaching one another their particular magicks… and slowly, something began to happen…"

V.    A Power Stronger than Magick

VI.    The Bond Forged

    Sunlight fell through the screen of branches and warmed them as they rested upon the warm grass afterward.  Their clothes were nearby, discarded haphazardly in the fire of ardor.
    Argo looked to her, lying next to him, her honey-gold hair disarrayed and a drying sheen of perspiration casting a shine to her apricot skin.  Her arm rested on her hip, her hand trailed smoothly along his bare side.  Her eyes gazed intently into his, knowing even as she did that it would take only the slightest bit of will from him to turn her stone.
    And yet, he didn’t.  Not that he couldn’t, just that he had no will to.  And he couldn’t help but believe that she knew that as well as he did.  His heart soared just looking at her.  She was the most beautiful thing Argo had ever seen.
    "Tell me what you’re thinking, beloved," she said, her fingers drifting down to tousle the light brush of his chest hair.  It was a movement that was tremendously forward for her, but it merely underscored the fact that she was a lot more comfortable now.  Whether it was their lovemaking that was responsible for that, or something else, he wasn’t quite sure.
    Beloved, she said.  He had never been called that, not that he could remember.  And she meant it.  He could tell, in some unspeakable, instinctive way, that she meant it with the entirety of her being.  The feeling it gave him was wonderful.
    "What just happened to us?"
    At that, she smiled, and her cheeks reddened ever so slightly.  "I thought it was rather self-explanatory."
    He grinned at that, but slowly let it fade.  "No, I have a fair idea about that.  I meant during it.  I felt something, inside me."
    She nodded, understanding.  Her smile beamed radiant.  "I wasn’t sure if you would feel it, as well.  There is a Sestrey’llania word for it that will mean little to you.  Most in Faerie simply call it ‘The Bond.’"
    "The Bond?"  Argo echoed.  "I’ve never heard of such a thing."
    "That’s surprising," she said as she traced his pectoral muscles lightly and propped her head up.  "To some extent, all fey have the ability to bond with their chosen love.  How the bond is established differs slightly from clan to clan; for some, a first kiss initiates the bond, in some clans, the lovers undergo a magickal ritual. Sestrey’llania are fortunate enough to be able to chose with whom they bond."
    He nodded.  "But what is it?"
    "The Bond?  It’s hard to explain.  Our souls have touched."
    He felt a surge of happiness and warmth inside him and for the first time, he began to realize: it was not just his emotions he was sensing.
    "You mean—?"  He began, struck with wonder.
    "Part of my being has been transferred to you, part of yours to me.  It is the ultimate joining of two beings.  I will feel your emotions, you will feel mine.  In effect, we complete one another."
    A sense of awe overcame him.  He was fairly sure it was his own.
    "I should have said something earlier.  I merely thought, with all the time you’ve spent in Faerie, you would have known…"  Her eyes dropped; she felt mortified, and he could feel her embarrassment. "I’m sorry."
    He smiled, touched her cheek, smiling like a fool.  "Don’t be sorry.  We’re truly soulmates, then, right?  I told you I love you, Auerenelle.  To be able to complete you is more of a gift than anything I could have ever hoped for."
    It was the truth.  He meant it totally, and he knew Auerenelle could tell that as she looked up at him and her lips pulled up slightly at the edges.  The thought that he could feel her love for him at any time— and draw from it— was a prospect he probably would never have turned down, if she had asked.  It came as a shock to him that he could admit it, but he was becoming more and more aware that he had never loved anyone as he had the young elfwoman.
    Just as he was becoming more and more aware that his home was no longer on the Earth-Realm, but here in Faerie.  And for once in his life, lying there in the grass and feeling everything Auerenelle felt, Argo Veseyez Forgeuzev could honestly say he had never been more content.

In the Earth-Realm, clocks ticked and bells chimed the passing of hours.  Sunlight begat shadow and the moon rose and fell, in keeping time with the days.  The days became weeks.
    In Faerie, the months and seasons passed like flickers in a strobe.
    Auerenelle taught Argo about the creatures, customs and myths of the fey.  She explained the more difficult laws of ritual magick, showed him the rudiments of sigilcraft and rune-casting.  She taught him how to speak the Tongue of the Ancients, a Sestrey’llania tongue that predated humanity by several thousand years and enabled the most powerful of spells.
    Argo in turn taught Auerenelle about the theory of multiversal unity, Eobard’s laws on time-space displacement and Minor’s notes on creating possibilities.  He told her stories of his homeland, of the histories and beliefs of various places in the Earth-realm.  He demonstrated the techniques of meditation, and how they could be used to clear the mind for the use of magicks.
    And as they passed their time together, the love that had bloomed between them grew steadily stronger.  The Bond between them taught them as much about one another as words and stories ever could.  He felt her pain, her joy, her bliss, she felt his.  They spent the days together learning from one another as they walked in the fields and wilds, or dallied in the shoppes in Avalon.  When the sun fell and the stars glanced out over Faerie, they lay in one another’s arms and had eyes for only one another.
    Their love for one another continued to grow, and still the seasons passed onward…

It was cloudy but had not yet rained that morning, and from the smell of the air, Argo didn’t believe it was going to.  He wouldn’t have believed that after a few short years in Faerie, he would have learned to predict the weather merely by the smell of the air and a casual glance at the sky.  But then again, a few years ago he probably wouldn’t have believed himself if he knew half of what would happen to him when he returned to Faerie.
    He sat at the table of the cottage he and Auerenelle had shared for so long, and studied the book before him.  It was one of the works Auerenelle had brought with her from her studies in Avalon, a few years before he met her.  This particular one dealt with sigil-weaving, a form of casting Argo had been learning recently.  He knew how to cast the spells from sigils created by others already; sigil-weaving would allow him to create his own sigils to create whatever effects he desired.  The prospect was a daunting, yet potentially very rewarding one.
    He followed down one worn parchment page with his finger, murmuring the names of the glyphs and syllabic formulae he found there, committing it all to memory for future reference.  Auerenelle would be pleased when she returned, he knew, to find that he was progressing farther in the book, especially considering how much trouble he’d had learning the rudiments of sigil-craft.
    She’d been gone since before he awakened that morning, leaving a note for him in her stylish, tightly rounded handwriting explaining that she would be gone for the better part of the morning.  She’d traveled off to Avalon, she’d written, choosing to follow the magickal paths rather than make the two-day walk.  She hadn’t revealed why exactly she was going there, but Argo figured in truth it wasn’t any of his business anyway, or she would have told him.
    He trusted her unequivocally; and she had given him no reason not to.  After all, the same bond which connected their souls let him feel whatever she did.  If anything was truly amiss during her trip, he would be the second person to realize it, shortly after she herself did.  So far, he’d felt nothing out of the ordinary from her except for the surge of warmth that he’d felt during his breakfast an hour or so previously.  From the feeling, Argo wondered if she might have found herself a new dress in one of the clothier’s shoppes; she had groused good-naturedly about not being able to find anything in her wardrobe for the Springtide Festival.  If she found one, Argo could reasonably expect to see her coming in with it shortly.  On the Earth-realm, something like that might have caused a disagreement directly proportionate to the cost of the dress.  Luckilly, that was not the case here.
    Magick was a wonderful thing, taking into account that it basically was the economy of most larger cities in Faerie.  Shopkeepers in Avalon, for example, rarely charged for most goods, since it was merely a matter of creating more magickally.  Anything that a shopkeeper could not create he might offer a trade for, but otherwise, money was almost unheard of in the capital city.  To a degree, Argo could understand that.  After all, a monetary or barter system could hardly be instituted in a place where so many people could magickally create gold or goods for trade.
    Argo just hoped this year’s Springtide Festival wasn’t a reproduction of last year.  He was not at all overjoyed at the prospect of meeting Auerenelle’s brother Creysari again.  The haughty Sestrey’llania had made clear his disgust with Argo, and for that matter, his displeasure with his sister for being seen with a Humanae— Auerenelle had simmered, but still could not bring herself to tell Creysari that she and Argo had bonded.
    He smiled— not at the memory, of course, but at a familiar feeling that coursed through him.
    "You’re back early," he grinned, turning in his chair just as the front door was opening.  The Bond had never yet been wrong; it made sneaking up on one another all but impossible.  Sure enough, Auerenelle entered her cottage.  She was wearing a pale green traveling dress and had no packages or pouches that he could tell.  She returned his greeting with a wide smile of her own.
    "It took a lot less time than I thought," she said, making her way to the table and pecking his cheek.  "And you, my love, are curious."
    Argo bit off a reflexive "No I’m not."  Of course she would know he was curious.
    "A bit," he admitted.  "I thought sure you’d gone to Avalon to do a bit of shopping.  Did you not find anything?"
    Again, he felt the barest wave of warm joy fill him from her link to him, which only increased his curiosity.  But she was covering it well.
    "A bit, here and there," she said, covering a grin that would have done the Cheshire Cat proud.  "I saw Failina in the dressmaker’s shoppe."
    "Oh?  How was she?"
    "Fine.  She has a new beau now. Melantheras, I think she said his name was.  The son of one of the courtiers.  She went on for nearly on hour trying to tell me everything about him."
    "Beaus. Lovers."  Argo made a mock-dismissing gesture, kept a light, joking tone.  "Who can figure them, anyway?"
    "She asked how you were, by the way.  She’s really warmed to you."
    "Glad to see someone has," he smiled.  It was surprising, given what had happened the first time they’d met, that Auerenelle’s sister had come full circle and now was giving him ringing endorsements.
    Her melodious voice turned sly.  "Are you saying that I haven’t warmed to you yet, dear Argo?"
    "Not at all," he said, reaching over to grasp her hand.  He never got tired of the velvety feel of her skin or the touch of her fingers on his.  He looked into her exotic eyes, sensed his love for her returned through their bond, felt something else— another feeling beneath that surface.  It was warm and joyful.  He frowned politely.  "You’re awfully happy.  What is it, love?"
    "Oh, fie, beloved.  You would have found out soon enough."  Auerenelle's joy seeped into him, boundless.  "I went to Avalon to see Enafaela."
    "Enefaela?"  His frown deepened at the unfamiliar name.
    "They call her the Herb Mistress.  A ritualist and midwife of no small repute."
    "A mid—" Argo felt his jaw drop.  He was speechless.
    She beamed, her joy slowly overpowering his amazement.  "Yes.  I… wasn’t at all sure, at first; we’ve been rather preoccupied with our… lovemaking.  But in her own words, ‘In the passing of a year, you shall bring forth a son.’"
    "A…"  His mind was stuck in a fugue state. A son.  Our son.  I’m going to be a father.  A boy, from the union of fey and human.  A son.  Our son.  A slow smile crept onto his face.
    "Argo?"  Auerenelle was talking.  "Are you okay?"
    He pulled her to him and kissed her.  His love, delight, and awe washed over her, causing her to gasp even as her lips pressed to his. Again she asked:
    "Argo?"
    Tears sprang, unabashed, to his eyes.  He could no more control them than he could the torrent of emotions she was feeling through the Bond.  "I’m happy, beloved.  Deliriously happy.  I want to go out and dance a jig on the roof, I want to transport myself to the Seelie court and announce it from the spires of their palace.  But right now I’ll settle for telling you I love you."
    She smiled and kissed him lightly on the lips, and sat on his lap, curling around him.  "Beloved?"
    "Yes?"
    "You do realize that this means you won’t be able to turn me to stone again for a year or more, right?"
    Argo smirked, his mind spiraling.  "I’ll get by."
    A son.  I’m going to have a son.

    He was right.  He always liked that part of the story.  Some things, he mused, just never changed; hardly a difficult admission from one with the blood of the fey coursing through his veins.
    "That was beautiful," Nova remarked, smiling broadly as Paris bowed his head.
    He looked up at the others.  Most of them nodded and smiled as the story ended, then went back to their own little conversations.  Nova continued to watch him intently.  He could not help but feel the blood pound in his head.
    Damn it all, why does she have to be so beautiful?
    "I…"  He swallowed, suddenly finding his mouth dry.  "I always hoped I would be able to Bond like my father and mother did.  I hoped I would find someone like…"
    Like you, he thought.  But he couldn’t say it.  He was surprised to see a tinge of red touch her cheeks as well.
    "Have you ever thought about something like that, Nova?"
    She bit her upper lip, looked from the floor to his face, then back to the floor.
    "Nova?"
    "Can I talk to you?"  She asked suddenly.
    "Talk?  I thought we were—"
    "Not here," she murmured.  "There’s a back room.  It’s more quiet.  Paris, I like you.  More than I should.  But there are things you should know about me."
    His face betrayed his awe.  "Uhm… Okay.  Let me get something to drink.  I’ll meet you back there, if it’s all right."
    She nodded and was gone.
    Paris made his way to the mini-bar and poured himself a glass of wine with trembling hands.  He tried to keep his stomach calm, and failed terribly.  He didn’t care.  He wasn’t quite sure whether he should feel like he was on top of the world, or about to die.  Paris, I like you.  More than I should. Eight words, nine syllables.  And he wasn’t sure how to take them.  He wanted her more than anything, and yet, he feared giving himself to her, more than he feared anything.
    Face it, Paris.  You just don’t know the first thing about love, and here’s where your inexperience shows.
    He thought that and was about to turn for the back room when he saw the silhouette in the doorway to the ASFR room.

VII.    The Return