by Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Six

Decision

Two hours hard travel later found Amanda sitting in a cheap deck chair and heavily wrapped in blankets. She had slept the entire trip from Sara’s Uncle’s home, barely wakening when her friend had half carried, half walked her to the boat. In her mind she could still feel her mothers tears, still see her fathers sad face. “Sara” she called, her voice barely carrying.

Sara came quickly, kneeling beside Amanda’s chair. “Need something” the older girl asked.

“Yeah. About seventy more years” Amanda joked. “I just wanted to say thank you. In case I didn’t have a chance. You know. As in later?”

Sara nodded, patting one of Amanda’s legs. “I understand. Look now. Until we’re there, unless its important I’ll be really busy. The Coast Guard kinda frowns on boats running themselves you know. When they try, they tend to run into rocks, other boats and the occasional mermaid. Mermaids are a protected species you know, really rare now.”

“Yeah. Bunch-a stuck ups” Amanda managed. “Need pain meds” she gasped as another sliver of cold steel made its way through her chest. She almost coughed, held it, then breathed again. Her pain medication was wearing off quicker now. Or the pain was worse. She swallowed the broken tablets Sara offered, then closed her eyes. Soon she was nodding off again.

In her sleep Marcus came to her again. “Now your in my dreams” the young mouse laughed. Only in her dreams was she full of energy. Only in her dreams was she able to leap, dance, run. “What do you want to know this time?”

“I need an answer” Marcus replied rather bluntly. “Will you learn magic?”

“I’m dead, or pretty near dead” Amanda admitted. “Kinda late to start learning something new. Don’t you think?”

“Actually Amanda. Your body has been dead for several hours” Marcus admitted. “I’ve helped your body continue to survive this long, and will until you reach your destination. I can heal you yes, but there is as with all things a price. That price for you would be to learn magic, as you called me to teach you.” He paused, thinking of what he had to say next. “You have a strong natural talent Amanda. A very strong talent. Illness has taken your future from you. I promise you that I can return it, but you must agree to learn magic. Not the stage acts you mentioned. Real magic. Magic that can heal you, but only if you agree to serve it.”

“Yeah, and I sell my eternal soul right? No dibs.”

Marcus groaned in frustration. “There is as I have already said a price yes. A very high price. But your soul in not involved. Only your body, your life... And your honor.”

“So” Amanda said. “I keep my soul but my mind, body and life become yours. Being a slave is worse than being dead. Keep it scaly. Even if you are kinda handsome, in a reptile sort of way.”

“Intelligence and education should be denied women” Marcus cursed to himself. “Their logic is unassailable. Their assaults impossible to defend against. Their bulwarks never yielding.” Returning his attention to the still amused teenager he took a mental deep breath. “Amanda. To learn magic you have to give up any hope of being a mother. Simply using the smallest spell makes you unable to have children. Ever. No I don’t know why, no one does. It works the same way with men. I should know. Your life you give to serving others, sort of like a guardian angel. Your there to help others. As for your mind, somehow I don’t think its going to be much affected since you have to learn to think logically to use magic. In your case, I doubt magic has a chance of changing those thought processes.”

“Well thank you very much mister know it all” Amanda snapped. “I wanted kids. I wanted a lot of kids, just like mom. I wanted a lot out of life mister ‘I know better than you’ but I got ill and I’m one in fifty-thousand that don’t get over it. So what I want doesn’t matter. God gave me nineteen years plus. Not as long as I’d like, but more than my friend Frank who died last Fall in the war. Don’t see me crying in my milk do you. I took what God gave me. I did my best.”

“Which God” Marcus asked gently. “There are millions you know, even on your own world. You might even meet one, if you take the path I offer.”

Amanda groaned. “Dark or light” she asked suddenly, realizing that arguing with herself was a waste of what little time she had left. Besides, the way she was feeling it was easier to go with the flow.

“Neither, its Order, Neutral or Chaos. There is no Dark or Light, no Good or Evil in Magic. Only those who serve it. Neutral, if you want. I am neutral but I also teach Order. Chaos is a path I will not follow. I cannot teach that. I would have to find you another to teach you such.”

“I can do neutral” Amanda admitted. “That means I support neither side right?”

“Correct. Neither Order nor Chaos. Both will visit you. Both will try to get you to take their side in the short run. You can’t, your agenda will be for the long path. Not the here and now. You will be part of the Balance.”

“Sounds okay I guess. And I don’t have to sacrifice myself or Sara to some multi-tentacled god right?”

“You’ve been reading Lovecraft right? Now there’s a mind that went down a really odd path. No, you just have to study. For years and years and years. You have to bounce your head off walls and find your own path around them. I can’t give you the answers, only the tools and the right questions.”

“Sounds like High School” Amanda admitted. “Okay then. Lets say for sake of argument that magic is real. I’m a history nut, my love is Archeology. What does magic have to do with that?”

“Learning magic is more than just spells and law” Marcus admitted. “Your going to have to visit ruins to learn, or recover lost knowledge. Probably dig things up as well. Your interest in Archeology will be invaluable too us both. Point of fact, continuing your education would be a very good idea. It will give you a very good cover for your real vocation. You’ll also learn about the people who created that knowledge, along with the items they left behind.”

“And I’ll be helping people. How?”

“That depends entirely on you little mouse. You decide who you want to help, why you want to help them. Neutrals look forward, down the long path. They work to insure that mortal races survive. Right now a single command could destroy this world and all who live on it. Neutrals work to insure that those in power who shouldn’t be get kicked out. Be they good or bad. Say your president goes crazy and wants to push that red button. Chaos wants that simply for the chaos that would ensue. Order doesn’t. They both look at the here and now, rarely worrying about repercussions or later payments. So they usually balance out. Neutral would simply move to insure the button is never accessible to one like him. Or her should it ever be a her. That’s neither good or evil, its simply insuring mortal civilization survives. Where mortal civilization goes isn’t a Neutrals decision. Neutral is the fulcrum of a lever that has Order and Chaos at each end. Your movement along that lever changes the power structure, when needed.”

“Ah... yeah. I guess.” Amanda thought about her next question. “Your saying Neutral is the pivot point right? And it moves to insure this balance always holds right? So, sometimes I’ll throw my weight towards Order, sometimes to Chaos. So it all balances out in the end. No favorites. I can understand that. But what if I suddenly back out?”

“In your case, you die almost instantly” Marcus admitted. “When someone ‘backs out’ as you put it, they return to what they would have been had they never started. In your case... I’m sorry, it’s the rules. I don’t make them. I don’t enforce them. Greater beings than I do that.”

“You know Marcus, I was warned I’d have weird dreams, but I like this conversation. Can’t enter a Church anymore I bet.”

“Why not? Don’t like them?”

“Not really. All Sunday best ‘look, my dress is more expensive than yours’ snobby stuff. Hours of listening to the same thing over and over. How whomever is on the podium today knows best how you should live your life. But I don’t have to give up my beliefs?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t” Marcus admitted. “It makes you you.”

“Can I get married?”

“Of course. You just can’t have children.” Marcus stopped talking for several moments, again working out his next words. “You would have to find someone who understood what you are, could keep it secret and still love you. Tall order.”

“Blows every guy I know out of the water” Amanda admitted. “Kissed Tony, almost the next morning Beth asked me if I was pregs. There has to be someone though right?”

“There will be” There always is” Marcus agreed. “I just hope you find him before your three hundred.”

“Three.. Your joking. Anyway, why that long?”

“No I’m not joking” the dragon explained. “The first major spell you learn, when you finish your Journymanship and become a Master, will grant you immortality. Until you release it of course. You will chose the age you look and feel. After three hundred years though it seems that love is a very difficult emotion to attach to anyone. I think its because by then you’ve watched so many people live and die. All mortal things are fleeting and all that rot. I’m pretty certain that it’s why there has almost never been a Mage over two thousand. You kinda get tired of living I believe.”

“Makes sense I guess. Okay then. Taking for a moment that your real, which I know your not. Then admitting that all you told me is real. Yeah. I’d like to learn magic. But I’d want to follow my love of Archeology too. But there’s my parents, all the people who know about my condition. What about that little dreams lizard.”

“I’m a dragon” Marcus corrected. “Small at the moment because it suits my needs, but a dragon none the less. If you agree, and from what you have said I think that you will. If you agree then I will heal your heart. We will have to create a new ‘person’ for you to be in this case. A new identity. Your career studies can continue along with the beginning teachings. I think we can ignore the traditional ten years of drudge work expected of apprentices though. From what I have seen of you, you do not need it. I will then place Sara into a short sleep where her mind will dream everything she expects to happen. She will wake believing it happened. Actually, your death makes my job easier than normal.”

“Your welcome” Amanda laughed.

“It wasn’t meant that way. You’ll understand later. What is your decision Amanda. Time is near its end for you. I have to know now.”

“Given the choice of death, a real downer in anyone’s book, or living and helping people. I’ll go for breathing if you don’t mind. That’s a yes, in case you didn’t understand. Anything else?”

“No. I think its time you woke up though. Sara needs to talk to you, and I have some really serious work to do first.” Marcus nodded to Amanda, then slipped from her dreamworld.

Amanda slowly woke to find Sara sitting beside her. “Hi” she whispered tiredly.

“Hi yourself” Sara answered. “You talk in your sleep you know.”

“Yeah, and snore. Had the weirdest dream. Where are we?”

“About twenty miles out, on sea anchor. Shores directly aft and it’s a beautiful day. Who’s Marcus?”

“Hallucination” Amanda answered with the hint of a smile. “Came with the pain pills. Little yellow lizard with wings. Talks a lot about magic. Sara... You’ve been the best friend anyone could ask for. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me” Sara sighed. “I’ve had ulterior motives.”

“Meaning? I’m not rich. Or famous.”

Sara laughed. “Dying, and you still crack jokes. Oh Goddess I hope I can be as strong as you when my time comes.”

“Goddess?” Amanda asked. “That’s your really big secret? I already know that remember?”

“I worship Diana” Sara admitted. “And yeah, its one of them, to most people. Another is, really deep down I wanna be part of your life forever. Good or bad.”

“How long have you been holding this secret” Amanda asked, too fogged from her pain killers to really understand what Sara was saying.

“Little over two years. Day you came out crying because your last hope had failed. Knew then. Didn’t understand it, but deep down I knew.”

“And Franklin” Amanda asked, referring to Sara’s long time steady.

“Is a hunk hon. Wouldn’t make a good father though, bad genes. Kids are always in my thoughts. Mind if I name my first daughter after you?”

“Yeah” Amanda admitted. “I really do. Please don’t. Any of them. How could you want to be with me all your life?”

Sara shrugged, her long black hair shifting gently. “Donno. Your pretty, intelligent, strong willed, talented, determined, would have been a hell of a bread winner. All the things a girl looks for in a guy.”

“And I’m dying.”

“Yeah, well... That is a big negative isn’t it” Sara admitted. “Look girl. You’ve always wanted to get married right? You did say you didn’t want to die unmarried, if you could find the right guy. Okay. I’m not a guy but we can ignore that for now. I know your church says no to girl-girl marriages but mine doesn’t mind. I’ll marry you if you want.” She pulled a small black velvet box from her pants pocket. “I even bought these last week.” Opening the box reveled two gold bands. “So little bit, you wanna marry me? Until death do us part.”

“Your sick” Amanda managed, almost giggling. “I’m gonna turn you into the morality police, see you locked up. Your trying to corrupt me.”

“Morality Police?”

“Their a sub-group of the Phone Police. They have the comfy chairs.”

Sara laughed. “Yeah, I know them. Run around in grey smocks with blue rhinestone masks right?”

“Sounds like them. “ Amanda lifted her left hand. “Why not? I’ve just agreed with a drug created hallucination to learn magic. Why not marry my best friend in the world. I’ll finally be a Mrs. Even though you don’t really love me. Your gonna have to put it on yourself though.”

“Love too.” Carefully Sara slipped one band on Amanda’s finger, then the other on her own hand. “I’ll wear this always, even when I get married to some hunk.”

“Captain of the football team?”

Sara looked up. “Not likely. I want someone with brains, and good genes.”

Amanda patted her pants gently. “I’ve got good jeans.“

“Yes you do” the black furred mouse agreed. “And your nuts” Sara laughed as she touched the ring on Amanda’s finger. “Until death do us part” she whispered in a suddenly very serious voice. “Then forever beyond.” Patting Amanda’s hand she took a deep breath. “Thirty-thousand comedian’s out of work and I had to fall in love with you.”

Amanda managed one more grin. “Yeah, drop by anytime. I’ll be here all week.” As she started to lift her hand to look at the ring a pain lanced through her. With a gasp she collapsed. Dream creature or not, Death had finally come for her. “Hold me Sara” she managed to say before her eyes closed.

Above both women Marcus watched. He’d hated letting Amanda feel her death. But with Sara beside her. With the conversation they were having, he’d had no choice. A quick flicker of one wing sent a barely visible tendril of energy towards Sara. As it struck the sobbing woman she fell into a deep sleep. Now he had to act quickly. Time was very much against him.