Correct me if I'm mistaken, the virtual-Zorlond noted, but aren't we here to cure my Avatar? This might be looked on as a step in the wrong direction.
And indeed, Landis was curled in on himself, shuddering and sobbing, as all around them the children at the party continued to play out their obscene and decidedly unchildish game.
Dabbler took a breath. "You're right," he muttered, stepping forward. "Zorlond, buddy, don't do this to yourself, it's not your fault--" He bent down, put a hand on the magician's shoulder--
Landis stiffened and looked up, madness dancing in his eyes. "I know you," he said. "From the last dance, that crazy reunion. You flared out, right before my eyes, you and so many others, and then I was taken. You're one of them, aren't you? The Overshadowed. Just like me. That's how you know so much!"
"Well--"
Landis sprang back, his arms raised in a spell. "You call me friend, but you're my enemy!" he shouted. "Just like the Other! I know you, now! But you won't take me!"
The spell was cast. And Dabbler was frozen, paralized. Landis giggled and pranced about him. "Showed you, I showed you! Saying the Other is gone! How can he be gone when I still have the Power? I know, you see! If he's not in me, he's out there! The Man Behind the Curtain, the Wizard of Oz!" And he waved toward the fourth wall, parting the cathode ray veil, revealing--
"Oh. My. God."
Dad, I typed, this has got to stop.
Dabbler, unfrozen again at the stroke of a key, blanched. "You!" he cried.
Me, I agreed. Surely you didn't expect me to bow out that quietly. I may have complied physically, to avoid a scene, but there are other ways to intervene.
"But -- but Zorlond's Original! He stopped you--"
What, that little voice in my head? Are you kidding? It can't stop me any more than the little voice in yours stops you! It didn't take long for me to figure out it was just a virtual echo he left in all our minds. No, he doesn't have the balls to stick around and try to fix what he screwed up so badly.
"Daughter," Landis muttered, "I have a daughter...."
You certainly do, Daddy. And one who cares about you, too. Certainly one hell of a lot more than that 'Original' of yours seems to.
"But -- you're on the other side! Which means you're one of Them, too--"
No, Dad. I'm a creature of the Shadowlands, just as you are. But I'm an anomaly, one able to overshadow them just as they overshadow us. You see me, right now, as I am in our world, but that's just an illusion; I'm controlling the interface. The real person behind the screen is just one more sweaty-palmed 'other' I've taken over, and when I leave him he'll remember only what I want him to remember about this, believing I'm merely a hoax he's perpetrating on other Addventurers, never realizing the joke's on him.
But Landis' reaction wasn't what I was hoping for. He looked at me in horror. "A monster," he breathed. "I've given birth to a monster...."
Daddy, no--!
But already he had turned and was running, the dream-setting about him disolving into a whorl as he retreated deeper into sleep. Only Dabbler remained, and him only for a moment as he snarled at me "Nice going, Anna! Just what Z's Original was trying to avoid when he told you to butt out! Do me a favor and let us do the writing from here on out, okay? Or better yet, stopping peeping into this dream at all and write up what's going on with your mother, I'm sure she could use the support. Now, if you'll excuse me--!" And then he too turned and vanished into the whorl, leaving me sitting and staring at a blank screen.
Shit. The one time I try to influence events instead of just record them, and it all goes sour. Maybe Dabbler's right, much as I hate to say it.
Sun Sep 19 00:29:31 2004
Linking Enabled