After showing Tysiel around, the next morning I let myself sleep in a little. I woke up early enough, but Gren was lying on my left side, and Lysandra on my right, and each of them had a hand on one of my breasts. Sure, I could have moved. But I just breathed for a bit, watching their hands rise and fall with each breath, and dropped off again.

When we all finally did get up, the eggs were cold, and the coffee needed to be made again, but it was worth it. I put on a black dress, fairly modest, and was then annoyed at myself. Why was I dressing modestly just because of Tysiel? And then I told myself it wasn’t that modest, and I liked the lace edging, and it was very goth. I had bought the dress because I liked it. Grr. Sometimes, just thinking about an audience can be paralyzing, whether you want the audience to influence what you do or not.

I remember a writer friend telling me the same thing, once. But he didn’t have to decide between a black dress with lace edging and a cute pink tube top paired with a white short skirt. Talk about apples and oranges.

I kept the dress on, but the decider was inertia. Or so I told myself.

“So, Lysandra,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Tell me about Tysiel.”

“Well, he’s really smart, and he does know a lot about his subject,” Lysandra said.

“Good.” I waited for her to go on.

“His opinion of himself is quite high.”

“Uh-huh.”

“At one point he was the youngest teacher at the University of Avonia, younger than most of his students. But that was decades ago. I – I don’t know what you’re looking for, exactly, Abby.”

“How do you feel about him.”

“Me? Oh, he’s a hypocrite. He comes across like a prude, but he takes a good look before he disapproves. But you wanted the best, so I’ve been giving him a few smiles and making sure he caught some good angles of my legs. You know, this sort of thing.”

She sat down, and crossed her legs, and uncrossed them, and made a point of pulling down her skirt. Then she stood up, and said, “Oh, a bug bite!” and lifted her skirt just a bit so that she could scratch her thigh. Then she dropped a pencil  on the floor, and bent over at the waist to get it.

“Ah,” I said. It was quite a show. “I think I know what might be the next rage in Avonia. After the bra craze dies down.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Stockings. With garter belts.” I pulled up a picture on the computer. “They can ‘need adjustment’ whenever one likes.”

“Ooooh.”

“So,” I said. “You’ve been leading him on.”

“Lecherous lecturer,” Gren said, from the door. I guess she’d been listening for a bit, and watching. She could move so quietly when she wanted to. “Speaking of which, there’s an argument going on outside. Don’t know if you want to be there for it, or steer clear, but it’s right where we usually eat.”

“You said you wanted the best I could get,” Lysandra told me. “And you know I have no choice but to do what I think you want me to do.”

“For the tenth time, Lysandra, you are not mind-controlled.”

Lysandra glanced at Gren, and then back at me. “Yes,” she said. “Of course. Whatever you say, Abby.”

Gah. I went out to see what the commotion was about. Tysiel and Meta were at one end of the table, on opposite sides, and Valeria and Talos were seated similarly on the other end.

“The particle theory has no basis,” Tysiel was saying. “Magic is a matter of fields. Amaranth’s field is more powerful than Earth’s, and therefore its field is expanding. You can build a vertically oriented gate all you want, but having two holes in space rather than one will only increase the rate of field expansion. Building one and then closing the other won’t change things any.”

“The particle explanation is consistent with other phenomena, and it’s highly predictive,” Meta retorted, from the other side of the breakfast table. I noticed her cleavage was on full display today, and I wondered if she did that just to annoy the elf. “It’s a best fit theory. The field explanation only explains the Dimension Step ability because you’ve added extra formulas to make it fit. If you’re going to do that, you might as well say it’s all about waves or something.”

“If we proceed with your irrational theory, we might very well make things worse,” Tysiel said. “The field theory predicts that closing the gate will in fact eliminate the field on the gate side entirely, barring the existence of another gate in close proximity.”

“And the particle theory suggests that the magic area will slowly dissipate.”

“What does that even signify? Either magic works, or it doesn’t work.”

“Actually,” I said. “When I first used Dimension Step to go from Amaranth through the gate to Earth, I used to get headaches all the time. But it still worked. I still appeared.”

“Because there was a weak field,” Tysiel said.

“Because a few magic particles had already floated up through the gate, but not enough,” Meta said.

“But you both agree that it’s possible to build a replacement gate?” I asked.

“Oh, absolutely. Even an ignorant slut like Meta understands that,” Tysiel said. “The question is whether it would solve your problem or not.”

“You know, we don’t engage in slut-shaming here,” I told Tysiel.

“Of course,” Tysiel said smoothly. “It wasn’t pejorative, only accurate.”

I took a deep breath. This was a distraction, and I needed to keep these two focused on the question of the gate. 

“I think I have more objections to the word ignorant, actually,” Meta said. “In any case, yes, we can build a new gate. Although there’s some work that suggests that two gates in close proximity, leading to the same place, might cause some sort of interference pattern that would render both inoperable. But that should be solved when we close the first one down, even if it’s true.”

“Based on the discredited wave theory,” Tysiel said.

“Based on the recorded experience of Althusius the Great, who apparently was such a lazy son-of-a-bitch that he installed gates all over his house so he would have to use the corridors.”

“What are the downsides of this ‘interference pattern?’” I asked.

They both shrugged. “We’d have to find out.”

Tysiel added, “It’s actually not at all clear that the explosive destruction of Althusius’ palace was caused by the gate nonsense. It’s quite likely that it was caused by his enemies using powerful magics.”

“Creating a second gate would certainly give us a data point,” Meta said.

Tysiel nodded. “Quite. Even a dry water clock is right twice a day.”

“Just because I don’t want to sleep with you, Tissy, is not reason to assume that I’m dry,” Meta retorted.

I got up and walked away. I needed to think.

Why was any risk at all worth it? Because I, selfishly, wanted to be able to go back and forth. Not to be Abel, but just to have access to Earth’s goods. Sure, they were helping the lives of the people around me, although some of that was debatable. Were cheap prints really elevating the state of art in Avonia, for instance?

Amaranth was better off, on the whole, without the risk of people on Earth finding out about the gate, and the obvious way to make that happen was for there to be no gate at all. I had a responsibility to shut it down entirely, so that no Earth invaders would despoil Amaranth, and so that Amaranth’s field or particles or whatever wouldn’t eventually consume Earth.

Jill would be on one side, and I would be on the other. Sandra, too; we might be “just friends” but friends still mattered. Ugh.

And of course the gate was the source of my power, really. Being a fifth level seductress / necromancer was nice, but being able to bring things through the gate was responsible for Abbyland’s booming economy. Which helped the orcs and trolls, and eventually, I hoped, would create peace and prosperity involving the demons and elves as well, by fostering interdependence through trade. It would be wrong to shut all that down. I had a responsibility to my people.

Crap. I was way too emotionally and personally invested to be at all objective, but I couldn’t push the decision off to anyone else, either. I could, however, consult the people I cared about the most.

When I came back Meta and Tysiel were still arguing. “Hey,” I said, interrupting. “Question?”

“Yeah?”

“What if we simply moved the gate – turned it vertical?”

“If we could do such a thing, it would solve the problem of the leakage,” Meta said.

“It would reorient the field, but that’s all it would do.” Tysiel said. “Do you mean on the Amaranth side or the Earth side?”

“Earth side. Move the puzzle.”

“It’s possible someone could disassemble it, and reassemble it, but in all likelihood the gate would not form the second time the puzzle was completed,” Meta said. “But Enash would know better than I.”

“Enash?” Tysiel said. “Enash the Necromancer? What does he have to do with all this? Don’t tell me those were his zombies that we –”

“Uh-oh,” Lysandra said.

“Oh,” Meta said. “Was that a secret Tissy wasn’t supposed to know? So sorry, dear Tysiel. I guess you can never leave, now.”

Valeria gave me a “I told you so,” look, and mouthed the word “Evil,” at me.

“Explain,” Tysiel demanded, looking at me.

So I explained, as well as I could, how Enash created the gate, and why, and what had happened. An expert needed to know all the facts, even if those facts would play very poorly in Avonia.

“Fascinating,” he said. “And what does he have to say about it?”

I shrugged. “I try not to worry about that, since he lies constantly.”

Hey! Not all the time. Just enough to keep you on your toes. Have to say, these two are entertaining. How long until they come to blows, you think?

“If there was a way to move the puzzle without taking it apart, that might work,” Tysiel said. “Or the gate might simply collapse. It’s possible that if –” and he spouted some technical nonsense I couldn’t follow.

Meta could, though, and she spouted more back. The more they talked, the more excited they got – and for a change, they weren’t sniping at each other.

“Paper. And Pens,” Tysiel said to be suddenly. “This is too complicated to keep in even my head.”

“Pencils,” Meta said.

“Pens,” Tysiel said firmly. “We need to have a record even of your mistakes.”

“And yours,” Meta said. “Pens it is.”

Ah, it was good to have them agree on something. I went and fetched.

“And inkwells, obviously,” Tysiel said.

I shook my head. “Nope.” I took one of the pens and drew a smiley face up at the top of the page. “Don’t need ‘em.”

“That’s amazing,” Tysiel said. “What magic is that? Out of my area of specialization, of course, but still –”

“It’s an Earth thing, silly Tissy,” Meta said. “Thank you, Queen Abby.” She started writing formulas on one of the sheets of paper. Tysiel, seeing she was getting a head start, started doing the same.

I got up. They were working together, at last. I wasn’t a fool enough to think it would all go smoothly, but it was a start.

Being a dominant is easy sometimes. You let the submissive tell you what they want, and then you order them to do it.