Part One

-off to see the wizard-

The wind drove the rain in wave after icy wave. It soaked the frowning man and the teenage girl to the bone as they trudged along the night-shrouded road. Trees bordered the road on either side, rocking in time with the howling gusts. Thunder crackled in the distance, but the accompanying lightning was too faint to have even the slightest effect on the oppressing gloom that hung low in the sky and seeped through the gaps between the trees.

 "Jason!" the girl shouted into the downpour. "This has got to be the worst spring break ever!" Mud had spattered up over her clunky-looking boots and onto her faded jeans. Her wet hair was plastered to her face and scalp, she had dyed it burgundy but now the roots were beginning to show. Her makeup was running, so was her nose.

"Lorelei, I know you're upset but this is not my fault." Jason Magwier frowned. His leather jacket was zipped up to his chin, his hands were buried deep in his pockets. The rain had pummeled his gray fedora into a shapeless ruin. His eyes were the color of coal, a hurt look lingered in them, "How was I to know it would be such a dark and stormy night?"

Lorelei rounded on him, a mixture of rainwater and spittle flying from her lips, "You knew we were low on gas!"

Magwier shook his hands in the air, "You're the one who set the roadmap on fire!"

"If you'd gotten the dome light fixed I wouldn't have had to use my lighter!" she poked him with her finger. "And if we'd have gone to Alliance, Nebraska like I'd wanted to we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Excuse me for trying to broaden your horizons!" With an indignant huff he started walking again,

She waited for the latest clap of thunder to fade before she shouted again, "Catching pneumonia while searching for some dead wizard's house is not my idea of broadening my horizons!"

"Fine! Fine! The next time you get to pick where we go and if you want to waste your time gawking at a replica of Stonehenge made from old cars that's fine with me!"

She hurried after him, splashing mud, "What makes you think we're going anyplace after this mess up? We're through and I mean it this time I'm not-"

Magwier stopped dead Lorelei collided with him. "Well bless my buttons. There it is," he whispered. "Home of the late Sandor Perth."

"Sandor Perth is dead?" Lorelei grabbed hold of Magwier's coat to steady herself and then followed his gaze. The house was nothing more than a bloated shadow in the distance, sprawled just beyond the tree line at the end of a crumbling private road. "When did that happen?"

"Some time ago from what I heard."

"And that's his house?" Lorelei said, "More like a manor."

"A manor house," Magwier said with a trace of smugness. "Right where I remember it . . ." He drew closer; a length of chain was strung between to posts. The sign hanging from the chain said NO TRESSPASSING in faded red letters. He lifted it and gestured to her, "After you."

"Oh no. No way. This is how way too many horror movies and traveling salesman jokes start and I'm not going to end up as part of either." She took a few steps back, to the relative safety of the road.

"Lorelei . . . " he tsked, "there's nothing up there now but his widow and his library. I for one always found both fascinating. Come on now, we didn't travel all this way for nothing."

"Jason . . ."

"Did we?"

He was using that look, the confident yet strangely timid expression he always used on her when he wanted to get his way. The look he used to get her into bed. "All right," she said. "At least until we can get dry."

"Of course." He smiled after her as she scooted under the chain.

"But hear me on this," she glared at him. "If when we get there we find people dancing the Time Warp, I will kill you with my bare hands."

-a prayer in a handful of rain-

The house was further away than it looked and it was pretty much uphill as well. The paving was cracked and uneven, Lorelei could actually feel it disintegrating beneath her feet. With every bout of shivering, she wondered to herself how long it would be before hypothermia set in. She was really starting to have second and third thoughts about this; if the driveway was this shitty, how bad was the house going to look? And all the while Magwier droned on ". . . in the year nineteen thirty-eight Sandor Perth almost single- handedly defeated the Tharoc. His actions made him a hero. The Thirteen made him an honorary Master. Sadly the battle had left him blind, confined to a wheelchair and prone to fits of uncontrollable drooling . . ."

This was just plain typical of him. Dragging her off with promises of "expanding her horizons" but never really getting around to explaining where they where going and why. It was almost as bad as the Academy, where they spoon-fed you the wisdom of the ages in tiny bite-size pieces. At times like this she almost wished she'd gone home for her semester break.

Almost.