The House

There is a house at the end of the world. Not many people know that. It has no welcome mat, and the porch is never lit. Almost no one know what is it, because few people understand the end of the world. The world is always ending. The world is always being saved. Most of the time it’s an accident either way. People like coincidences, feeling that the gods are winking at them. But mostly that never happens either.

There is one light in the house. It is on the second floor, presumably a bedroom. No one knows, because no one has found the stairs to the second floor. It is a hard thing to believe the house exists. It is almost harder to find it. It is a house that is never a home and it is only a night when it is found.

The front door shudders a little as a hand knocks against it. Almost no one uses it. Most who find the house are wise enough to search for side entrances. But the door opens nonetheless. A man nods a greeting. He is very tall, and neither stout nor thin. He has no eyes, but few ever notice this. He is always smiling, just a little, like so.

“How may I be of assistance?” he asks, his voice thin, as wispy as his skin. The house inside smells of must, and the old man smells of nothing at all. For he is old, his black suit worn at the edges, every ruffle frayed. The suit is decades out of date. A man might wear it to attend his own funeral.

The man who knocked looks ordinary, but that is a talent. He is not yet thirty, though you would never know it by his eyes. It is raining, on the thin dry lawn that never turns green, but there is no rain on the young man.

“I request to come inside.”

The old man frowns. “Few ask to enter.”

“I am not a fool in this.” The young man smiles, but it is largely a baring of teeth. “And I make no such request lightly.”

“You may enter.”

The young man walks in, and there is a door that did not exist before inside the house.

The old man lets out a hiss. It is a hiss with meanings behind it, and fury is only one of them.

“I am the wandering magician.” The young man does not move. Wood scrapes as the old man grows larger behind him. “And part of that is that there is no door I cannot find, and none I cannot open. I have wandered far to come here.”

“You should not have been able to find this place,” the old man says, and there is a growl in his voice.

The magician laughs, almost gently. “It was not hard. I would like you to think on that.”

The door opens when he touches it. There are stairs, and the old man shrinks away from them.

At the top, a landing.

Other stairs, but the magician ignores them all. He walks to the one room where light shines out under a door, and knocks.

The old man stands behind him again. He has eyes now, the colour of dead pennies, and he is very old and tired beyond the telling. “What do you expect to find, magician?”

“You. This is your home.” The magician does not move. “I imagine other worlds have other stories. But there was a mother at the start of most things. A father at the end. But the problem with stories is that we make them real. We turn them into books. We bring stories to life in order to reason with them. That is what gods are, at the core of it: a bargain. With death, the universe, with ideas and concepts. Once something can be reasoned with, everything changes. We bargain with miracles and magic, to gods and death, love and entropy and even the ending of all things.”

“You think you can bargain with me?” the old man asks.

“I think there is a grave. I know there are more than bargains.” The magician lets out a sigh. “I do not have to be here. You will not let Jay end a universe. You will not let him die.”

“You are so certain of this?” the old man asks.

“I have some small idea of what Jayseltosche is capable of, yes. I’ve had over four years to mull on this. I’ve met him in his future several times. I am also aware he once tried to force an adventure to happen and, perhaps, ate the universe so I am less sanguine about the future than I would otherwise be.”

“Nothing is certain.”

“Except jaysome, I should think.”

There is no reply.

“You let Jay into the universe. I don’t know why. I imagine I never will, but the Grave – your grave – was the way he got in.”

“The Cone still protects the universe.”

“I don’t really understand what you are. Or how you came to be. And I am most definitely not throwing blame around. What I am saying is that you owe it to your actions to make certain Jay does not destroy the universe by accident.”

“That is why you came here.”

“It was a reason. He wanted to be 28. I still don’t understand why, but it did involve a beard, and trying to grow. And the fact that Jay is certain Charlie adopted him. What seems to be the case is that Jay will never be 28, and he’s not able to grasp that. You’re going to help him forget and make it right by stopping anything from breaking.”

“I am going to?” the old man asks.

The magician turns and smiles. “Don’t push me. I can push back, and I don’t think either of us want to know how far I can go.”

“You presume much based on guesses. Magician.”

“Might do,” the magician says, an admission rarely made, but the humour never touches his eyes. “But the Cone and the Grave protected the universe against – intrusions like Jay. Who was let in, and I think everyone is... wanting to find out why. Including you.
“And no one will if Jay learns things about himself that he never should.”

“You want him having a beard to have been a dream.”

“Charlie would say that many are, given her parents, so it may be for the best that she isn’t here. If that works for you, yes.”

“There will be a price to be paid for tis.”

“Mmm. Sometimes I wonder how much better everything would be if we did not think that.”

“Magician.”

“Very well. I accept.”

“Go,” the old man says. And this time there is no door, and no hallway, and the magician is simply in a street in the rain, the house not on it at all.

There is a house at the end of the world, but you can’t find it if your world is not ending. The magician smiles and walks away rubbing his face.

To never be able to grow a beard would be a small price to pay, though explaining that to Jay would take more work. He walks, whistling softly, and if he notices the house is on the street again he ignores it entirely.