Called to the bar

There is a bar at the tail end of nowhere, the back end of beyond. There are no signs, no vehicles, so signs of occupation, not even a road that leads to it. In the general course of things, you can’t even find it. It is protected by pacts and treaties, was made by sacrifice and invocations. The thing about magicians is that they don’t often use power outside themselves. The city they are bound to, yes, but seldom anything Other. There were prices paid to Time here, that this place would be nowhere but touch everywhere.

There are wards made from bargains with death that mean even one of the truly old fae would find their glamour does not hide them. I can see other bargains as I approach it. Some very old, some very new. A few are named, them barring and banishment from this place burning in the sky to those with the eyes to see such things. The first Merlin was banned from here. So too was Mary Lee, who was old when the pyramids were built. It is, perhaps, the only place in all the world that the wandering magician cannot enter.

I wonder if he even knows of it.

I walk up to the front door, open it and step inside. There is a bartender. Some poor, poor fool bound to this place as penance long ago. A bar top of old wood – probably the kind linked to legends, but there are few who would say that and fewer who know the bar exists at all. It is protected, after all. Six magicians from six cities sit at a simple round wooden table. They are drinking drinks, and talking talks quietly until I enter.

There are no words spoken. They are not fools, and the banishment that slams into me is almost harder than what the wandering magician could do in a moment’s notice. I hold against it, smile. I have a very good smile, and two of them flatter against the force of my charm.

“You can banish me, yes, but I will return. You could keep doing banishings, I think, but you would be noticed and you cannot destroy me.”

One of the magicians stands. She is young, if you ignore her eyes. “You are a Walker from one of the Far Realms.”

I nod. I don’t offer up any of my names; if they don’t know I go by Moshe, I am not about to tell them.

“You think we will let you leave?”

I sigh. “You can’t banish me. You know What I serve. You really think you could stop me from leaving?”

She speaks a Word. One humans aren’t meant to know. It destroys things inside her even magicians have no name for. I catch the power that surges forth, sending it elsewhere between moments. The magician sways, face drained of colour. Years burned out of her life, and a death that will be a slow weakness, a steady decline.

“I did not come here for a challenge. Certainly not for this. You are making plans in your fear, to deal with the wandering magician.”

“He has grown too powerful,” one of the other magicians snaps.

I snort. “I knew Mary Lee. She was things even the wandering magician of your era had made a conscious choice to not become. He is strong yes, and more than I suspect you understand. But you will not move against him.”

“Excuse me?” Another magician, this one unable to leave the wheelchair they are sitting in. The most dangerous of them, perhaps, because they are wise enough not to use magic to try and change such things. Still as foolish as the others for all of that.

“The wandering magician has allies. The creature from far Outside, yes. I’m sure you’ve all heard stories about him. But his will is – limited, his power constrained by the wandering magician. His other friend, Charlie. She has no such limits. Would you want to piss off an exorcist trained personally by Dyer the ghost-eater? A god-eater who has barely touched the edges of the power she could claim? She could ask things of Jay the magician never would, and Jay would do them.

“And then there is me. I am no ally, no. But I have duties, and one of them at present is keeping him safe.” I smile. I don’t use my glamour, don’t pull up my beauty. I smile in the way of magicians and they all fall back before it. “You will leave them alone, or I will destroy you and keep destroying every gathering you make until you understand this. You stupid, small creatures fear the wandering magician. Fear what would happen if he was hurt. Fear what would happen if Jay was scared. Expand upon that.

“Think,” I snarl. “That’s what magicians are meant to do.”

I walk back outside the bar. Nothing tries to prevent me from leaving.