"But," said Dabbler, "but-- oh, hi Kiya. And, um, your daughter, right? Not sure of the name, don't think we were properly introduced before Anna bounced me from Sid's that time--"
"Darla Jean," Darla said, introducing herself properly. "And you are--?"
"Trouble," said Kiya. "Go away, Dabbler, I won't have you putting the moves on this one, too."
"Um, actually it was her putting the moves on m--right, Kiya, going away, then...." The look on the sorceress's face was not of the sort that gave one confidence in the safety of staying. Besides, D.J. Woohoo had just brushed past him, and Lizzie had impatiently snagged him by the collar, jerking him away from the door to the Troubleshooters' Office. The door closed, shutting out Kiya and her daughter, rather to Dabbler's relief.
"So what did you want to say about Zorlond?" D.J. asked over her shoulder, continuing the march down the corridor.
Dabbler hastened to inform her of the unorthodox delivery of the Red Magician's scrying stone, and of the events that had followed.
"So that's what Zorlond's Original was up to when he put us on hold," Lizzie speculated. "He was talking to you."
"Um, actually that was a message he left, not him in person--"
"Whatever," said D.J., cutting him off. "Lizzie, we're far enough from the Office now that you should be able to scan for Lesley without interference from his back trail."
"Right," said Lizzie, letting her senses range wide.
"Oh, no need for that," said Dabbler. "I can tell you where he is."
"What?" asked Lizzie. "How? Where?"
"Right over there," said Dabbler, pointing to one of the booths in Joe's Bar, whither their path had taken them. "You are talking about your son Lesley Wu, right? I noticed him there on the way down, and there he still is."
"Lesley!" D.J. called. "Front and center!"
Lesley looked up from his table. "Excuse me, Mother? Is this important? I'm in the middle of a meeting, here."
"It's a case!"
"Ah. Very well." He turned to his companion across the table, a black-haired man, pale and gaunt. "My apologies," he said. "I'm afraid we will have to conclude our business some other time."
{Very well,} said the other, rising to his feet. {I am, in consideration of your service to me, always at your disposal.}
Dabbler stared. "Aren't you Morpheus, Lord of Dream?" he demanded.
The pale man frowned and turned to D.J. {Are your companions always this rude, Ms. Woohoo?} he asked.
"I'm afraid so, in the case of this one," D.J. replied. "For which you have my apologies, Lord Morpheus."
He inclined his head slightly. {Accepted,} he said. {And my appreciation again for consulting me prior to your intervention in your old dream thread.}
"I would not have considered encroaching on your realm without permission," D.J. told him. "In fact, I have another favor to ask you, if I might."
{For the mother of Lesley Wu, anything.}
D.J. shot a curious glance at her son, but Lesley's face was guarded, revealing nothing. She returned her attention to the dreamlord. "Thank you, My Lord," she said. "Might we speak a moment in private?"
Morpheus nodded gravely and indicated she might take the seat Lesley had just vacated.
D.J. went to sit down, addressing Lizzie as she did so. "Liz, can you take the others up to Zorlond's suite? Yes, Dabbler too, we can have Anna flutter her eyelashes at him and pop him home if he gets troublesome. I'll join you there shortly."
"Right," said Lizzie.
POOF!
And Lizzie, Lesley and Dabbler vanished from Joe's Bar, to reappear--
--in the Upper Level corridor just outside Zorlond's suite, where they found Anna Jaeger still at her post, startled but pleased to see them, particularly after Lizzie briefly explained their errand.
Dabbler, for his part, squeaked when he saw Anna and tried to hide behind the others. Which of course, just drew attention to himself. When she saw him she turned glowering, some might say smouldering, eyes on him--
"Not yet, Anna," said Lizzie, stepping between them. "That's for D.J. to decide. We may actually need him on this case."
"Where is D.J., anyway?" Anna asked.
As if in response, a portal shimmered into being, and a moment later, D.J. Woohoo stepped through. "Right here," she said. "Lizzie, Lord Morpheus has given the okay to my plan. We move immediately."
"What plan?" Lizzie asked. "And what move?"
"Our first priority is to ensure Zorlond can't continue to hurt himself," D.J. told her.
"Wait a minute, what are you going to do?" Anna asked, somewhat alarmed.
D.J. sighed. "In a word, bust into your father's suite and send him off to dreamland," she said.
"Now hold on--urglglyph--!
Sorry 'daughter,' Zorlond's Original observed from beyond the fourth wall, but it would take too long to explain. So here are the details -- if you can handle them.
"W-what did you do to me?" Anna cried, outraged.
Man, that felt good, Zorlond's original chortled in their heads. Messed with your mind, naturally. Isn't that what we Authors do? I may be low on influence without my Avatar, but it doesn't take any mana to write you for a loop. Anyway, who are you to complain? What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, I say.
"You bastard! I'll get you for-- oh shit, he's gone."
"We're going too, Anna," said D.J. "If you'll move away from your parents' door, that is."
Anna scowled. "Dad's Original did fill me in, whatever else he may have done in my mind," she said. "But that doesn't mean I have to go along. I still don't really know what you're up to, but I do know I don't like this."
"You'll take the responsibility, then, for your father's self-destruction?"
Anna struggled with herself for a moment, and then looked away. "No," she said.
"Stand aside, then," said D.J., and to everyone's surprise, Anna did just that.
She must really love her father, Dabbler thought, with just a tinge of ... jealousy, maybe?
"Now," said D.J. in a low but forceful voice. "Here's what we do. When I blow the door down we go in with everything we've got. Take him down, do you understand me? Nothing lethal, just put him to sleep -- but don't worry about the excess energy, I'll be monitoring that and flare off anything that might hurt him."
"I'll help," said Anna.
No you won't, the voice of Zorlond's Original intoned in her mind warningly. Apparently he was less gone than she had thought he was.
"Watch it, buddy," she snarled. "I can still disrupt you better than you can disrupt me!"
"Cut it out, both of you!" D.J. ordered. (Dabbler marveled at the notion of any Avatar daring to order an Original around.) "Anna, he won't let you see your father. I'm sorry, but that's the situation we have to work with. If you want to help, establish a cordon around this suite and don't let anyone past it."
"I can do that," Anna said.
"Good." D.J. faced the suite door, with all its recently added barriers. She could sense their strength, and sense them weakening even as she turned her attention to them. She glanced back at Anna. "Time to do your bit," she said, and Anna nodded, turned, and raised energy barriers blocking the corridor to either side of the Troubleshooters and Dabbler. D.J. was satisfied to note Anna had placed herself outside them.
She turned back to her companions. "Ready?" she asked.
They all nodded.
"Let's do it, then. The door goes down ... now!"
All the barriers collapsed like tissue paper. Lizzie, Lesley and Dabbler leaped forward while D.J. remained in place. Dabbler had a fleeting impression of a haggard, startled Zorlond, his eyes like two burnt holes in a blanket, looking disinterestedly up at the invaders of his suite -- at that moment he seemed very like the Original the barefoot Author had seen in the scrying stone, even though they looked in fact very little alike....
Lizzie's wings boomed, blowing the magician to the floor. Lesley cast what looked like a small bomb from one hand, while firing a gas gun with the other. Dabbler himself, with a mental apology, willed his Avatorial colleague into a deep sleep....
Zorlond didn't even try to resist. He was out like a light. Indeed, he would have been out like a patient under an overdose of anesthesia had not D.J., true to her word, flared off all the excess mana.
"Whew!" Lesley breathed, observing their handiwork. "I would never have thought it would be that easy."
"Look at the man," Lizzie said. "He's like death warmed over, he probably welcomed it. As a release, I suppose."
"Poor Zorlond," Dabbler groaned. "Even when Shackleton had us exiled to the White Plain he never looked this bad."
"What a mess this place is," said Lesley. "What on earth has he done to it?"
"Royally trashed it from the look of things," commented D.J., stepping inside and sealing the door behind her with a snap of her fingers. "Don't you think for a moment this is 'easy,' son. The hard part's just about to start."
"And what's that?" asked Lizzie. "Why have you sealed us in, D.J.? Shouldn't we be getting this man to the hospital?"
"No one's leaving here until Zorlond's situation is resolved. One way, or another."
"So what's the plan?" Dabbler asked.
"We're all going to dream a little dream," D.J. said. "That's really why I'm accepting your help, Dabbler, I know you have experience with dream tests. If I remember the postings correctly, you negotiated several, from the time of my wedding to Lizzie, and in the "Marco Polo" thread, and in the "Monster's Ball" thread."
"Those are all public record?" Dabbler muttered. "Oh, great. In one I was in a drunken stupor, I died as a result of another...."
"We'll need to be very careful," D.J. admonished her companions. "Zorlond has preceded us into the dream, and there's no telling what might await us there. On the other hand, it's my dream, which should give us a certain degree of control."
Lizzie looked at her lover sharply. "Your dream?" she demanded. "Is this--?"
"Yes, Lizzie," D.J. confirmed, "this is the dream thread you saw divide between dream and reality earlier. The reality, in which I foolishly thought we might share a secondary life, is unaffected. The dream -- well, we're about to find out what's become of it."
"But -- that's the part you left to our dream selves, isn't it? I thought you said you were giving them independence there, D.J. What if Zorlond ... does something to them? What if we meet them again? What if-- D.J., how could you?"
"The dreamlord," said D.J. bleakly, "for all his seeming courtesy, would only permit me to use this thread for my 'experiment,' as he called it. He appeared to have little concern for our dream selves, whom he deemed his own creatures. I hope they will be safe. I mean to keep them safe, if I can. But that dream is the only place I know of where we might be able to help Zorlond confront, and conquer, his personal demons."
Lizzie shook her head. "You say you want things to be better between us," she said, "yet you keep pulling things like this. I told you before I want no part of that thread, D.J."
"Then stay here!" D.J. snapped. "Leave Zorlond to his fate, and face Kiya with that failure. I'm going in! Lesley? Dabbler?"
"I'm with you, Mom," said Lesley.
"Me too," Dabbler added. "Zorlond would have done the same for me, had our cases been reversed."
D.J. raised her hands. "Shield your eyes, Lizzie," she said, "or you'll be swept in with us. Our dream starts no!"
Swirling mists billowed about them, and everyone altered. Dabbler felt himself dwindling, changing, into a callow high school student whose name, he realized, was David Abbler. D.J. too changed, into a young girl who seemed about his own current age. Lesley, in contrast, became a tall, severe looking Asian in a karate outfit. While Lizzie--
She was still there. And a high school student like him and D.J.
"I must be crazy," she groused. "But I'm not backing out. This is for him, not you, D.J., understand?"
"I understand," murmured D.J., but there was gratitude in her voice, all the same.
"Where the hell are we, anyway?" Dabbler asked.
Sat Aug 28 00:28:55 2004
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