Chapter Text

The others were extremely confused. They’d been watching from the garage as I approached my wife like her very first supplicant. She’d taken my hand and we’d disappeared , only to come back less than a second later, smiling brightly but with several weeks of beard growth, for me, and entirely new outfits on, for both us. We walked over to them and sat down, waiting and giggling in anticipation as they stared, before Delmutt finally burst. “WHAT?”

Haley and I cracked up laughing, over that. I’m not even sure what struck us as so funny about it- maybe just the way the world was quickly detaching from anything we were used to. We took quite a while to recover ourselves. She got there first. “Ohhh, man. Okay short version- the wish engine is hidden in another dimension, time moves much faster there.” The sack she’d been about to hand to me earlier reappeared in her hands. “Here, one for each of you.” She pulled out several copies of her ring-gate, each sized differently. “Put these on, and I’ll hook you into the network.” I already had mine on, of course, my pinky disappearing into the other dimension- interestingly enough it did not age thousands of years for every hour out here, so I assumed some sort of time dilation magic was at play. But it did allow me to maintain telepathic contact with Haley no matter how far apart we got since at least some part of us was sitting still in the other dimension, never out of the physical range of the spell. It also allowed an easy connection to any physical items or magical effects I could possibly desire, cast via her simulacra just on the other side of the gate.

I demonstrated by saying “A nice recliner, and a mint julep.” The final syllables weren’t even out of my mouth before one of Haley’s clone-sisters made a wish, and the objects of my desire appeared behind me. I reclined like a true southern gentleman. I might not be able to use magic items, but I had the world’s most powerful Star Trek replicator, now. I could get used to this! Their eyes got a bit wider at that , and they scrambled to put on the rings. All save the Dog, anyway. He sniffed his and turned his nose up. “It would interfere with my air of mystery, and the vanishing into thin air, I’m afraid.”

Delmutt put hers on and shouted- “I WANT TO BE A DRAGON!” Haley rolled her eyes, but nodded. I was guessing the effect was some variant of Form Of The Dragon. A disappointing spell overall, I thought. It was one of those silly Pathfinder nerfs to an awesome spell from previous editions. The PF version gave you the size and shape of the monster, but few of the overwhelming powers and only a moderate physical bump. Actually, I didn’t see any reason Haley couldn’t cast it on herself, come to think of it. Delmutt swelled and became a huge silver, so big she was tipping over into the “Terrain” side of the scale for me. "Wow!" She jumped up and took off, flapping up into the air on gigantic wings that blew the rest of us around in her backblast. Watching her become our third draconic companion, I began to wonder if I was in one of those fictions, where everyone gets trapped in the author’s personal kink. I didn’t feel like I was that into dragons, but they kept cropping up. Something to discover about myself?

Skylar slipped hers over one massive claw. I was expecting her to wish her shape back to normal but she surprised and shamed me when she thought of someone else before herself. She sat quietly, for a moment. “I want my brother back.”

Haley’s breath hitched. “Oh, sweety" she said, tearing up. “We can’t. I tried. The first thing I did was trying to bring everyone back, from the Swap. It didn’t work- wherever he is, it doesn’t count as our universe, anymore. Or perhaps he doesn’t count as dead, per the rules- they are pretty specific to Pathfinder’s conception of how souls work. But there may be other ways. I’ll keep trying.”

Skylar nodded, resigned. “Then I’ll go and find him. Could I be myself again, please? Especially if I can be a dragon again later like Miss D.”

My wife smiled at that, but it was a melancholy thing. “Ten years old and the weight of the world on your shoulders. Whatever Aslan saw in you to put that curse on you in the first place, he was a fool. A damned fool.” She frowned in concentration, but nothing happened. “That’s odd- I just fired about ten different dispels and curse cancellations at you, and nothing.”

I spoke up, starting to grasp the rules: “A clash of stories, again. The pendant is magic but it’s Aslan’s magic, and he’s probably not someone you can overrule if she’s still… part of his story.” I turned to Skylar. ”You need to… give her permission to help you. Not to put you on the spot, kiddo. But when you signed up, you were convinced Haley might be evil. Are you still feeling that way? Do you trust her to throw spells at you?”

She shook her great head, nearly knocking me over. “No, of course I don’t think she’s evil. You’ve been so good to me, and I’ve seen how hard you work to do the right thing. Aslan was wrong. I don’t know what he is, but he’s not good. I’ll tell him that, when I see him again. She can cast whatever she wants at me.” She was resolute and confident. I felt something then- indefinable. A slip in the world, the tiniest shudder. None of the others seemed to notice it, I assumed it was the only sign I’d get that Skylar was now just as susceptible to Haley’s magic as I was.

I gave Haley the nod and she focused her attention on the girl. Skylar gave a start. “Oh!” The dragon form shifted, and solidified. Became like stone. Then- nothing.

I shouted in alarm, “Haley! Did you just kill her?!”

She ran over, not-quite-panicked. “No- I can see through it, her body was returned but she’s inside-” She plunged her currently-human hands into the stone dragon sculpture, scooped it like the softest clay. Within seconds she had reached Skylar’s unconscious form, and pulled her from the ruins of her former body. The damned pendant at the heart of all her misery was still around her neck, glowing red as it tried to reassert a claim to her body. I snatched it up and threw it in the haversack to sort out later. Delmutt landed, and cancelled her transformation to be closer. We all gathered around the young girl, as she finally woke up.

“Oh, hello everyone. You’re so much bigger now.” We smiled and laughed a little in relief, at that. Some tears may have been shed, I couldn’t say whose. “I had wondered if all of this would end, like a bad dream.”

I shook my head. “No, more’s the pity, and I’m afraid I have one more important favor to ask from you before you go back to your family.”

---

Some time later, we were all comfortably seated inside Haley’s dimension. I had ordered up a grand detective’s accusing parlor, with wish-based refreshments of our choice. Haley reported some moderate disgruntlement from the efreets at being so callously abused for minor conveniences, so I knocked it off for the time being.

Haley was looking at me intently. “Okay, master planner. You’ve been baiting me all day, tell us this big revelation already.”

I held up my hand and. “First, we must establish what we already know. Then, I will tell you what I have deduced.” She rolled her eyes and sat back. I was enjoying this way too much to let her spoil my fun. “First. The multiverse is full of stories. It’s unclear to me, but the multiverse may simply be stories. Everything that has come to our world is from a story. Aslan from Narnia, and his friend the man in the hoodie, from a source unknown to us right now but I have suspicions. The Dog is a mirror of a Wonderland trope. And from somewhere, maybe not even a human story, the infomorph world. Likely every other visitor to our fair planet is stepping out of the pages of fiction. We here in this room are also caught up in a story, unfortunately one that we don’t all know by heart.”

Everyone nodded in general agreement at this. I ticked off a second finger, “ Second, more than one story can exist in a universe, as we are now witnessing. But there seems to be some question of priority . Cecilia’s magic did not spin me around for very long. The Efreet did not automatically come under the jurisdiction of Haley’s rules. The rest of us were unable to make use of her magic items, though she can cast spells on us. She appears to be unable to return the dead or disappeared around the world, which we may hypothesize is because they are part of some other tale, not yet tied to ours. Each time magics interact between stories there is a priority conflict, and while the rules for hostile casting are currently unclear, it seems like a recipient may choose to be affected.”

I ticked off a third finger, and looked up to see if any of them made the connection. “ Third . Every story within our world has a narrator . They may or may not be aware of their power or even present within the world of the story, but in some metaphysical way they are telling it, and the power springs from them. The djinn referenced Scheherezade, for example. Wonderland sprang from Lewis Carroll, but Cecilia’s telling a story from that world using her own head. Aslan’s source in this world, his narrators, may be Skylar’s brothers and sisters.” I pointed at Haley. “And our narrator, is me. Ah-ah-ah!” I held up my hands to forestall any objections. Nobody’d actually made any objections, I was disappointed to note. “Wiltshire Dog can confirm.”

The Dog, a little displeased to be drawn into this parlor scene, nodded brusquely. “It's true. After our confrontation, Cecilia tired of narrating her own story in this world, and took the opportunity presented by living in my head to withdraw to Wonderland. I have joined your story. Which I suppose is point the fourth in this fairly insipid drama.”

I nodded and gave him the ol' finger guns. “Yes. People can move between stories of their own free will. So, before we get to conclusions, I open the floor to questions. Anyone?” I glanced around.

Skylar held up a hand, looking confused. I pointed to her. “ When are you narrating this? Did you already do it? Can you make anything you want happen?”

I shook my head. "I don't know. Causality doesn't seem to apply. Cecilia was contemporaneous with the story she was telling. For me, it must be in the future. I don't know the rules for storytelling. For example: I declare that this glass is weightless. As a narrator in the future, I will do whatever I can to make it not fall to the ground.” I held out the glass. I'd already tried this in private and expected similar results. Sure enough, when I dropped it, it plummeted to the carpet. Either I, in my role as the narrator, really enjoyed screwing with me, the character, or there were restrictions in place, consequences for disrupting the story in such a way. "As you can see, nothing. So we can't count on help there, aside from the fact that I am narrating, in some fashion, so my survival may be assumed. Anyway. There is something about our world that prevents stories from manifesting for narrators normally, and I expect that would apply to me as well, but future-me made use of-”

Haley snapped up, "the Swap! You started your story at the same time as all of these others, during the one moment when our world was susceptible to it. The Coordinator had mentioned that the swap cracked whatever barrier is in place. All the other narrators were randomly linked to stories by temperament or preference. But instead of some other place, you told- will tell- a story about yourself . You're either the most brilliant human being or the most selfish.” High praise, from my wife.

I nodded, and looked around the group, sipping my julep for dramatic effect. "Well, technically, I told it about us. Anyway. I'm the person that Aslan is looking for. The ‘Dragon' he wants to kill.”

The Dog chuckled, low and ominous. "Oh, figured it out did you? Took you long enough.”

Haley just looked bewildered, switching nervously between me and the Dog. "What on earth are you talking about? I am literally a Dragon. Skylar's sister shot me.”

I nodded, "Yes, an understandable mixup. Think about the story he's used to. The part of Chronicles of Narnia that always bewildered me. What was the White Witch? As a half-giant half-genie, who ruled that world but didn't particularly care about tempting its citizens to sin, she was a very strange stand in for the Devil in CS Lewis's original tale.”

Haley was beginning to pick up on it. That ludicrous intelligence score of hers allowed her to follow even my most circuitous leaps of logic. "You think Narnia was hers, originally. That he… usurped her story somehow."

"Ding-ding-ding! That's why he's after you. He assumed the chosen hero would be telling her own story. Kill her, claim it as his own, another world to rule."

Something else occurred to her. " Wait. I'm a character in your story? Fucking hell, Sean! I can't turn around without something trying to kill me!"

I did feel a little abashed. "I won't apologize. You wanted to be a hero, I never did. You have always been amazing, to me. But you're so much more now. You said it yourself- more you. " She looked away, embarrassed. "I can't regret it. The world was, is collapsing and it needs a hero. And I technically haven't done it yet, you know. Haven't narrated it into existence." She subsided for the time being but I knew an argument that wasn't over when I saw one.

Skylar was just lost. "But we do exist. Don't we?"

I hand-waved that away. "Yes. Probably. We are definitely going to have been existing, at some point, and that's fine. The story is the storyteller is the story. Unless he takes the narrative from me, then he might have been the storyteller all along. Not really sure how that works out except retroactively. There's too many layers to the narrative cake for me to keep track of. All that matters right now is that our narrative is separate from his, and both our narratives have narrators."

Haley looked thoughtful. "But that doesn't explain the Coordinator, that menacing phone call. Something wanted to stop the stories leaking into each other in this universe, said it was using me to do it as a universal attractor to draw them in and kill them- and, I guess, their narrators."

I nodded, excitedly. " Something put up the barrier to prevent our world from being overrun by stories, something wants to maintain it. And something just lost control in the Swap. Tangential to our current problems, for the time being. I don't think we've met it, yet. Maybe we never will." I shuddered at the thought of anything powerful enough to alter what was apparently universal constant.

Delmutt was nearly cross-eyed trying to keep up. "So everything's stories, you're a storyteller, Haley's your hero, Aslan wants your story of world salvation and he needs to kill you to get it, but he has the wrong person. How does this help you stop him?"

If I'd had a pipe right then I would have lit it triumphantly. "Yes, the deductions. We need to attack his narrators. Get them to change sides. I'm not about to kill children, of course. Skylar, do you believe your brothers and sister can listen to reason?" She considered, and nodded eventually. "Then there you have it. We'll call him out. Meet at the Stone Table, or the equivalent in this world. I'll engage him in a rousing theological debate, with Haley as my backstop so he doesn't just eat me, and prove, conclusively, that he can't be the righteous savior he makes himself out to be. Without his own source, he becomes part of our story." Assuming the kids are his narrators, of course, but that seems obvious enough. Who else could it be? I puffed my invisible pipe. Everyone looked at me like I was mad, which was really the capstone on a perfect parlor scene in my opinion.

Skylar held up her hand. She was so small in human form, it was adorable. "Uh, but you said you needed a favor from me?"

I grimaced. "Yes, the hard part. Skylar, do you trust us?" She nodded vigorously, eyes wide. "I need you state, publicly, that you don't won't be part of Aslan's story anymore. That you want to be part of our story instead." She inhaled- I was basically asking her to deny Jesus and I had a feeling she'd been heavily indoctrinated as a child, or why else would he have been drawn to her family? But she was growing up- she'd seen so much, in the last few days. I added a little more. "There may be a God, capital G, out there. Given what we know about stories I'd say it's almost a guarantee. But Aslan was never the real deal."

She nodded, and opened her mouth again- I quickly held up a hand. "But not here! Let's get back into the real world first." Last thing I wanted was that Lion getting a fix on our pocket dimension.

---

We stood in the field for the second time that day, in a circle amid the trampled and burnt grass, a ways away from the broken stone statue of a dragon-girl with its' chest torn open. Skylar stood, feet apart, hands on hips, and shouted at the sky. "Aslan is a fake! Miss Haley is good and I don't believe in him anymore! I want my brother back!" That was all it took. The world shifted, for me. I looked around but the others hadn't reacted. Maybe it was only something a storyteller could feel. Like a great tension released, from her, and suddenly the scales of the world were rebalancing. Was this what it meant for a narrator to change tracks? Something metaphysical was happening. Everything teetered, like a-

"Like a crux," I said softly. "A fork in the story."

And down the old dirt road, a man came walking, his long boots kicking up dust against his blue jeans and black hoodie. Had he been there before? Impossible to say. In front of him, but nearly unnoticeable against his presence, was the man I'd shot in the shoulder on day two of this disaster. The one who'd ambushed us with his scavenging party, when we'd learned about this bunker. Even from a quarter mile away I could see his eyes, dinner-plate sized with fear. He stumbled ahead of the walking man, checking over his shoulder constantly, as if terrified of what would happen when the man caught him. Foam flecked his shirt and his mouth. The walking man whistled- it sounded like "Country Roads" but every fourth or fifth note was sharply, deliberately off-key. Every time he hit the wrong note, the man stumbling in front of him let out a pained cry. The sound filled the air, finally alerting the others, and I realized I'd been staring transfixed for what felt like minutes. It was like an oncoming train.

Without willing them to, my legs began moving on their own. The others trailed behind me, Haley keeping Skylar well to the rear, and we met him at the threshold that was the old wooden gate, at the edge of the field. He came up short, and the foam-flecked man gasped, and collapsed at his feet, dead or dying. Haley frowned in concern but he didn't heal so I assumed there was other magic at play. We stood on our side of the fence like a simple wood barrier was going to stop this… thing. Some small part of me questioned- what was it about this man that was so overwhelmingly terrible? He hadn't even done anything, that I knew of. I shut that part down, swiftly. If this was who I thought it was… best to confirm. "And you are?"

He grinned and his eyes flashed red. "Come on now, old son. You know who I am."

I sighed. " Not pleased to meet you, and I'm not going to guess your name."

He stared, and then threw his head back and laughed, long and loud. Every bird for a mile took off and flew into the war-torn sky. Like a black spirit lifting up over our heads. One of Haley's hands found its way into mine. I'm scared too, honey. "Ahh, right in the face of death. You got spirit, I'll give you that. Randall Flagg, guy. Happy to meet you." He winked at me, gave a cockeyed grin, turned his attention to Haley, "and good to see you again, little missy."

Haley stared him in the eye. "Just now I filled a pocket dimension with equal parts matter/antimatter and sealed it. Threaten my family and they will have to identify you by the shadow you leave on the ground when you evaporate." Her hand in mine was dry. I didn't think she was bluffing.

He held up both hands and leaned back. "Whooooah, spicy! Alright, truce, truce, nobody's making any threats around here. I come with glad tidings, kids! You finally figured it out, finally hit him where it hurts." He placed his hand over his heart and closed his eyes in the world's least sincere gesture. "Big Man wants to see all of you."

And we want to see him. But this is too convenient. I crossed my arms. "I take it that's what all the thunder and flash is about?" I gestured to the clouds, still rumbling with the distant thunder of bombs and artillery.

He raised his hands to the air, as if in benediction. The near-corpse at his feet whimpered. "Ah, no, that's just the floor show!" He turned towards Skylar and I felt Haley's hand on mine tighten. Careful, dear. You get one shot at this guy, at most. "He's driving hard after your dad, sweetheart! But ol' dad-"

Haley cut him off. "Nope. No. You don't get to say anymore. Location and time, then you leave."

Flagg's words had already hit home though. Skylar hid further behind Haley, but whispered- "Father's alive ? We thought, with the Swap-"

Randall frowned a bit, at my wife. My gut was starting to curdle. Whatever fear I'd overcome, it was coming back full force. "Now why have you got to go and be so rude? I'm-"

She cut him off again. "I wondered who you were, when I saw you in the woods with Aslan. When you gave us your name a second ago I had every book you've ever been part of read into my memory. I understand what you're about. You're a knockoff Devil, having a good time. Playing every side, riding the end of the world out for kicks and your own ambition. No manipulation here, no games. You tell us the location, or you tell us your narrator, and then you leave. You're under about thirteen different compulsion spells and a Zone of Truth. One word sideways and I will kill you." The spells had to be a bluff. But a dozen gates, unopened, hovered in the air around him like quadcopter drones.

He grinned, entirely unconcerned. "Truth, huh? My name is Haley McCarthy, and my narrator is Sean and I'm extremely unhappy that my husband took control of my life without asking but we haven't had a chance to fight about it-" one of Haley's gates opened above him and a tiny, coherent beam of nuclear fire lanced out for a millisecond or less. It scorched the tip of his nose, and put a neat and smoking two-inch diameter hole through the ground. I didn't want to speculate on how deep it went, I was still blinking back the dazzle. He shouldn't have known that about us. Has he told Aslan? I felt like I was losing control of this situation already.

She stepped to the fence and spoke again. "You don't get it . We aren't lost children, Mr. Flagg. We aren't scared, or hurt, or sick, or vulnerable. You have no prey here. You're a bogeyman for a powerless world, and I'd be delighted to take you out of it. Narrator or location."

His grin had vanished but he didn't look worried, he looked angry. I could swear the clouds overhead were darkening, the treeline around us closing in. All focused on that face, on those blood red eyes. The rumble of thunder was becoming omnipresent and it no longer sounded like it was far away - it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, like the warning growl of some great predator. The light was getting dimmer and there were shadows of unnatural things in the trees- I gripped Haley's hand as hard as I could. Suddenly his face relaxed- like a light switch being flipped, he was all easy nonchalance again. "You want my narrator? You're the near-divinity here. Go ahead! Divine him, my treat."

She was silent for a second as she concentrated. I assumed, somewhere in the pocket dimension, an efreet was giving her some kind of vision. Her eyes flew open wide and she stumbled back, dry-heaving. "He- you made him narrate what you - he's still- oh god," she fell to her knees and vomited, unable to contain her horror at whatever scene she'd just witnessed.

His smile was turning dark again by degrees, as he watched her retching on the ground. Like a sociopath who thought nobody was watching as he let the mask slip. The body of the man who led him to us was disintegrating, turning to ash from the outside in and blowing around his form. His voice had no humanity, now, no charm. It sounded like stale air, blowing out of a tomb unopened for millennia. "Your lesson for the day. Nobody, nobody, constrains me. I've walked the apocalypse on more worlds than your sky has stars, child, and I'll be walking still when your sun burns out and your bones turn to dust. Those stories about me? You may notice they have something else in common."

He didn't get to finish his thought. A wall of lead meters thick suddenly enclosed our group, cutting us off from him and crushing the fence as if it were tissue. The world outside, visible only through the opening at the top of the shield, lit up at the cloud layer with a sound like the sky tearing open. Even with that reflected light, the heat bouncing back off the clouds was so scorching I thought my eyebrows would catch fire. Haley was making good on her threat.

It was over as soon as it began, before any of us had time to begin to scream. Skylar screamed anyway. I couldn't blame her. We had all instinctively crouched away from that firey reflection but now we stood, blinking stars from our eyes. It had happened so fast. Haley gestured, and the back of the lead enclosure between us and the bunker disappeared. The grass of the field was gone, reduced to vapor. The nearest trees along the forest edge were blackened, carbonized instantly. I couldn't help my curiosity- I walked to the front side of our makeshift barrier. The heat still lingering there hurt my face, like standing too close to a bonfire. The lead had run like wax, ablated almost all the way through. The dirt road he'd come walking down no longer existed, just a wide strip of blackened glass, carved in a shallow trench all the way to the horizon. I could see a hole punched through the clouds, out at the end of it. Whatever she'd hit him with had just… kept going. "Holy shit honey, I think you got him. God damn."

She was holding Skylar close, but she looked at me. "No. We didn't see the body. He'll be back."

I shook my head in disbelief. "I don't know what this world is that we've stepped into. I liked it better when we were getting shot at by police, I think. You cut him off before he finished- what did all his books have in common?"

She looked solemn, kneeling in the burnt field next to the ruined statue, bearing witness to the destruction she'd caused. I thought it might finally be starting to sink in for her, the kind of power she had now. "He didn't need to finish. It was pretty transparent. The only books that have ever been written about him- the only ones where anyone is left to write about him- are the books where he loses."

---

In the end it wasn't hard for her to divine Aslan's location. He wanted to be found, after all. Once that was done, we split the party once more. Haley and I would meet him at his chosen grounds. Delmutt and the Dog, with wish support, would infiltrate the stadium and coordinate the evacuation. Skylar really wanted to go to her father, but understood the need for her presence at our meeting.

We didn't need to walk, or drive, but we did anyway. We unloaded the guns from our truck bed into Haley's nether-dimension, laying them out on the grass of the parkland, and then we slowly bid goodbye to each other. I think we were just reluctant to end our too-brief retreat. The time at the bunker had been nice, isolated from danger. A decompression we'd all needed. Now the tension was returning as that time drew to a close. I knew that at least one source of anxiety was about me. As we drove away I spoke to Haley, sitting with Skylar in the passenger seat of the truck as it bounced and rolled down the trench she had blasted. "What he said, back there-"

"Was intended to divide us, to plant seeds." She looked away, out the passenger window. She wasn't wrong, but…

"So let's not divide over it. Let's work on it. I… can't apologize for something I haven't done yet. Given that I'm going to do it anyway. It would be hypocritical. But, understand something. I would never presume to dictate your life. Whatever happens in the future, I don't know- but there must be a reason."

She closed her eyes and blew out, angrily. "Sean I was just starting to get a handle on this, starting to feel like I earned this power, that I could use it responsibly. Now I find out it was you, dancing me like a, a puppet? "

I shook my head, but kept both hands on the wheel. She wasn't quite ready for me to reach out, yet. "No. I know I wasn't. You think Walkin' Dude back there is a puppet on the strings of some narrator?" She winced and I regretted bringing him up instantly. "Not everyone has control of where their story goes. Sometimes you introduce a character and they just… run with it. I chose you, you did the rest. You've more than earned it. I know that, because-" I cut off, sure I was running my mouth ahead of my mind.

She turned in the seat and gave me a hard look. "Because what?"

I broke eye contact with her, ashamed. "I told you earlier. If it had been up to me, I'd never have let you get this far. I was scared of what you were becoming. That you might lose the part of you that loved me."

She was tearing up a bit. Or maybe I was. Her hand found mine on the wheel. "Once upon a time, there was a woman." She was… telling her own story? "She loved her husband very much. He made her laugh, and he made her think, and he made her feel beautiful. She loved him when she finished grad school, and during her postdoc. She loved him when they changed cities for work." She squeezed my hand. I could feel the world shifting, the sense of control transferring. Just as with Skylar, but deeper, more, because this time it was me. I let it happen. "She loved him when the world ended, and afterwards. When she changed, got smarter and stronger, she just found smarter and stronger ways of loving him. And in time she told her own story, and she loved him still." The world shifted off its axis and I fell out of reality.

And I did. I loved him still.