It took a hella lotta time, but persistence finally paid off. An emissary from [the Chinese Mob Boss] informed me that I had one shot to have an audience with the entity I once called my Lord of Earth. It would be supervised by tCMB himself, and I could not be guaranteed a full memory of the event.
Chance: Seized.
She was surprised I remembered her. Surprised I was inquiring about her well-being in honesty. Surprised I wasn’t tracking her down to enslave/bind her. Surprised when I burned the only question I was allowed to ask her directly and without fear of social faux pas with, “Are you doing well?”.
I asked about a memory I had of a thing related to her. It was a true memory, she said, but it wasn’t mine. We talked a bit more about the land she rules over. Of that conversation I only remember that mortals such as I can not enter without the aegis of entities like tCMB personally present. Few were those that could reach her without such escort and protection. Fewer still were those that left her presence and returned. None returned intact.
I remembered the name I used for her then. When I spoke it, she smiled in fond memory. She asked if I knew who she really was and if so to speak that name. I spoke it. She smiled and kissed me on the forehead. She is true to her name.
tCMB caught me as I fell. He spoke the required words of parting. As he carried me out I heard her whisper a final farewell. I would not be allowed to enter her realm again.
I came to in one of tCMB’s chambers. He was sitting at a nearby desk. Paperwork is pervasive, even in alternate worlds. I asked him what did she take from me with that kiss. “You won’t miss it. It wasn’t ever yours in the first place. It was the token that allowed her to come to you before. Without it, there is nothing binding her to you, or binding you to her. I hope your visit went well. You will never see her again.”
There was a question (or two) I wanted to ask her. It was the same as I had asked all the entities that “served” me when I played at being a ceremonial magician. To all of them, I am insignificant and nothing more than dust thinking itself more important than mud. Why? Why did they come to me and play the game of pretend with me? Who (or what) prompted them to descend to my ignorant corner? I remember asking her. I don’t remember her answers, only that she actually did so.
Figures. The one time I get a straight answer, and I can’t remember it.
Interviewing her closes a chapter of my life. While I have some of the trappings of that time back, the seal and the wand; the function of both has changed.
[The Chinese Mob Boss] had one parting shot before he allowed me to leave his lands. Technically, I now owed him one. He said it in that half-amused, half-serious, all-undertone way that meant 199.99% complete business.
It turned on a technicality that would be laughed out of the building if everyone involved was in the same culture as American business.
But everyone wasn’t.
And by tCMB’s cultural standards, he went out of his way to get me something I had not explicitly asked for but benefited greatly from.
I owed him one.
I acknowledged the debt.
He took a length of ribbon and showed me what my name would look like in Mandarin by writing it in formal calligraphy on the silk. Lovely but I would never be able to reproduce it. He wished a token of that debt. A marker so when he calls it, there will be no mistake that it is him calling the debt.
I understood what he was asking for.
I took a feather from my cloak and dipped it into his inkwell. I make a mark of my own under my Mandarin name on the long ribbon. I held the ribbon up until the ink dried, then folded it so the names were facing up and bowed before handing the marker of my debt to tCMB.
The debt now codified and binding, he sent me away.