Abe was five years old before Dorian confronted me about the nature of the life we were living. I had just finished collecting a few degrees, and Abe and I had been invited out to Dorian’s manor to celebrate. It was the typical small party that when the person that was celebrating was either Dorian or Myself. Hyacinth had plenty of family who she loved to gather around her whenever she or Lucitia had an opportunity to celebrate something. In fact the last such party had been just last month. I’ve got both birthdays fairly well memorized by now, having been asked to take over the kitchens for the party on almost every single opportunity. Hyacinth says that maybe in a decade or so it will make up for not being there to cater the wedding. But Dorian and I didn’t have an extended family here, mine mostly explained as being off in England and lacking the funds to travel, while Dorian’s paperwork declared him an orphan who had grown up as a ward of the state of Wisconsin. So when Dorian and I actually felt like celebrating something, we celebrated with our families.
I had been expecting to do this same for this occasion, but Dorian sent me a messenger asking me to come celebrate with him and his family. I had sent the messenger on his way and emailed my acceptance of his offer. Maybe it was needling him over the way he interacted with technology. Okay, it’s entirely the fact that the man runs an international corporation and still has a personal assistant kept close to him to handle his technology like a seeing-technology dog. I was in the Adricus kitchen prepping the dinner, an interesting variation on an English pudding dish mixed with some of the spicy aspects of Asian cuisine. I was just sticking the plates in the oven when I felt Dorian standing behind me.
“May I ask why you’re doing this?” I finished arranging the dishes in the heat before I turned around to face Dorian.
“What, exactly? Cooking at what is technically my own party? None of your cooks has my experience, and besides, I’ve always preferred to craft a meal with my own two hands.”
“In that case, why aren’t you on the Food Network, trailing a thousand stupid house-wives in awe of your cooking skill? You know that this place carries no influence on the real world, so why not live out some idyllic life where you’re not struggling to put yourself through college as a single father, relying on free day-care from the college you’re attending.”
“And you think that would be my option, some talking head on a cooking show? It’s too public, and besides it takes three years of advanced math to begin to follow what I do in a kitchen.” I motioned with one hand to a small bowel of egg whites that were whipping themselves into frozen waves and a rain of glitter seemed to appear over the bowel as my magic gently folded in the brown sugar and honey into the cake’s batter. “Plus, let’s account for the fact that I tend not to use most kitchen tools in a standard manner.”
“Then be a hidden master of the world, pulling the strings of the puppets. It’s not like you need to worry about stepping on my toes afterall. This world disappears on what will be the child’s tenth birthday. It’s a construction, a dream.”
Ah, and here we have the mistake in perceptions. “Dorian, you’re wrong. This world is a dream, but I think you don’t understand whose dream it is. Could you call your assistant in here, please?” Dorian looked at me for a second before making the small gesture with his hand that caused his assistant’s ring to light up. Dorian had apparently told the young idiot that it was accomplished by one of his researchers in microelectronics. Then again, was he supposed to tell the kid it was magic?
It didn’t take long for his current assistant, a dark-haired young man who looked like he spent most of his time when he wasn’t working sitting in front of his computer hunting down other young professionals in the digital deserts of the Internet, to get down to the kitchen. “You paged me, Mister Adricus?”
“I asked him to, Jacob. I had a few questions I wanted to ask you. I need to settle a bet between Dorian and myself.” An expression of jaded boredom passed quickly over the young man’s face, but was stilled quickly into neutrality fast. “Dorian, prepare a memory charm please.” I saw Dorian’s fingers tense as he began to work the energies that he would need to alter his assistant’s memories when my little experiment was done. I released the spell I had started when realized where Dorian’s questions where heading. I felt the spell hit me and wash over without effect and do the same to Dorian. Then again, we already had the benefits of what this spell would do on us.
Time for the questions. “Jacob, if you could, please inform me when was the first time we met?”
“A few months ago, just after I came to work for Adricorp. I had to relay a message to you about some event Dorian had you cater on my third day of the job. You were to cater the Adricorp New Millennium party.”
“Thank you Jacob. What year is it now?” No sense in a build-up, let’s just push straight through to the real questions.
“Two thousand and four.”
“What game do you play in your down-time?”
“Team fortress right now, but I switched over to EVE online last year.”
“Okay, and what year did you leave Adricorp, and where are you working now?”
“Um, I quit in oh one after getting an offer from a New York firm. I worked for them for about a year before starting my own trading company on the street.”
“Interesting. Now the memory charm if you would Dorian. Leave him just the question about his after-work activities, but not his answer.” I saw the look of utter confusion embrace Dorian’s assistant then begin to fade as the spell took effect.
“I play Team Fortress, I like the dynamic of working in a group against an opposing side.”
“Thank you, Jacob. I thought that might be the case. Dorian thought you wrote. There’s that bet settled.” Dorian motioned for Jacob to leave, which he did after a brief look at the two of us like we were both insane.
Hm, have to give the kid credit for that assumption.
I turned back to Dorian, and after a quick check that the meringue was were I wanted it, started in on my explanation, “This isn’t just the five people in your little safe-room dreaming. Whatever spell you did is pulling on the dream-lands, letting single mortal in this place join in and have their memories messed with.”
“Interesting. I should have guess that would happen. It makes sense, the spell has to pull the accessories from somewhere. I will have to make a note of it when the spell ends. But still, why does that matter? You’ll have a world that remembers you. That’s only a call for caution, not this total hiding that you’re doing.”
“Paperwork. The more I did, the bigger a foot-print I would leave on the grid. And your spell isn’t going to fake that.”
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