Queen of Wands-eARC (17 page)

At the bar was a stormtrooper, his helmet sitting on the bartop, drinking a Guinness and talking with a guy in Jedi robes while a rather heavyset woman in a Princess Leia slave-girl outfit listened in. Two of Monty Python’s knights were sharing a beer at a table, Bedevere constantly having to lift his face-shield to take a sip.

A slightly overweight and -age Fantastic Four were at another table, Mister Fantastic fumbling with a floppy arm, trying to pick up a drink while the other three ignored him. Wolverine, on the other hand, was pointing a claw and laughing from not far away.

There were at least five times as many people in street clothes as the costumes, but it was definitely the costumes that stood out.

“Fun, huh?” Mandy asked. “Seen enough? We’re going that way,” she added, pointing to the glass back wall.

Glass doors led to a twenty-by-twenty partially covered patio where a couple of groups were already gathering to smoke. One was parked in a corner by the door and had not only seized most of the tables but all the chairs.

The members were mostly in their thirties or forties and seemed to be centered around a man wearing a pair of shorts and a fishing shirt.

“Mandy hath arriv’ed,” the man said. “And she brings new blood. Quite pulchritudinous blood, I might add.”

“Be nice, Folsom,” Mandy said. “She’s a con virgin. Her name’s Doris. She’s from Chattanooga.”

“Ah, the Mountain City. Almost lived there once,” Folsom said, his brow furrowing.

“Almost lived there?”

Doris wondered for a second who had asked the question and then realized it was her.

“Yes,” Folsom said. “Almost moved there. Not sure quite why I didn’t, but water over the bridge, as they say. And what is your quest at Dragon*Con, my dear?”

“Oh, not a quest,” Doris said, shifting her feet uncomfortably. The attention was starting to scare her.

“The lady needs a chair,” Folsom said, gently. “And a drink, methinks. Nonalcoholic, for the nonce,” he added, pulling out a twenty. “The surrenderer of a chair does not get the drink.”

A bearded man smoking a pipe stood up and waved for Doris to sit. Another took the twenty and went inside.

“Everyone is on a quest,” Folsom intoned. “Always. People say that they have no goals. Pish. Everyone has goals they just haven’t looked closely enough at themselves. Mandy’s goal is to get her shit straight, although I think she underestimates herself. Todd’s is to become Bill Gates or somesuch, whether he internalizes that or not.”

“And yours?” one of the group asked, grinning.

“To have people say ‘Harry who? I’m dying for the next Folsom Duncan book to come out,’” Folsom said, grinning disparagingly. “An unlikely goal to attain, I’ll admit, but a worthy one nonetheless. Forget trying to find an old bone or two, seek the damned Holy Grail! You may fail, probably will based on historical record, but you’ll fail
grandly
! And undoubtedly find an old bone somewhere on the way. So, what is your quest, young lady? What do
you
want from Dragon*Con? Think before you answer, take a deep breath and expound. We are muchly ears.”

He pulled a thin cigar out of a breast pocket, lit it and leaned back unthreateningly. He seemed to be actually interested in the answer.

She thought about it for the first time. Really thought about it. Why was she here? What did she want from the con? Well, practical first.

“I need to find a ride home,” she admitted.

“Alas, I don’t know anyone going to Chattanooga,” Folsom said. “And it would have to be a trusted source. That problem shall be solved in time, I’m sure. But what do you want from the
con
? Why are you here? Not how are you to leave.”

“I want to find people like me,” Doris said.

“Ah, now we get to some really interesting answers,” Folsom said, happily. “Because they beg more questions. Todd, throw me a question to that answer?”

“Uhm…Who are you?” Todd said. “I mean…To find people like you, you need to know who you are?”

“Exactly,” Folsom said. “Ever read military science fiction?”

“I don’t think so…” Doris said, uncertainly.

“Interested in the military?”

“Not really.”

“Know a platoon from a company?”

“No.”

“Then we are not people like you,” Folsom said. “That is not rejecting you. Far be it. I do so desire lovely ladies around but, alas, few of my books appeal to the fairer sex in large numbers. I misdoubt that you will remain long in our company, not because you shall be cast out, but because you will find your own path.

“However, we might help to put your feet upon it. To show you the beginning of the yellow brick road to both who
you
are and who are
your
people. Both, I assure you, can be found at Dragon*Con. The Dragon has something for everyone, even the occasional mundane that wanders in. To do so would be a corporal work of mercy, and I need those to my credit. So we must find your needs, wants and desires and perhaps steer you in an appropriate direction. But I do have one suggestion of an interesting
true
quest, if you will. One that, from my reading of your personality, would be a far jump on that yellow brick road.”

“Yes?” Doris said, totally confused.

“Have you, perchance, looked at the cover of the program book?” Folsom said, grinning.

“No?”

“Might I suggest you extract it from the bag and do so,” Folsom replied.

Doris pulled out the program book, a thick, magazine-sized booklet, and looked at the cover. The cover art was of a red-haired girl in a green bodysuit, leaning against a mirror. Behind her was what looked like the leg of a gigantic monster. On the face reflected in the mirror were either three tears or a tattoo of them.

“Okay,” Doris said. “I looked at it.”

“Like the young lady on the cover, have you looked in a mirror lately?” Folsom said, gently.

“I don’t look
anything
like
her
,” Doris insisted.

“Au contraire,” Folsom replied. “The difference is a bit of makeup and a costume. I have never seen such a perfect example of a potential Dawn contestant in my life. You are, my dear, her spitting image. To actually win the contest, of course, requires also a suitable costume, poise and a bit of acting ability. But the potential I see before me is astounding. Seek the Grail! You may pick up a few bones and whatnot. Know anything about costuming?”

“No?” Doris said then paused. “I can sew, though.” She didn’t know where that bit of information came from, but it was certain.

“You’re ninety percent of the way there, then,” Folsom said. “Or so I’m told. To the cobbler his last. I avoid the entire track like the plague. I’d suggest, however, if you have any interest, that you consider hanging out around the costuming track. Fellow that runs it appears to be a bit of a letch, but he’s mostly bark. But he is more than willing, as am I, to spend a bit more time on a lovely young lady than your average costumer. A lovely young lady who can sew would make his heart go pitter-pat.”

“I still couldn’t do
that
,” Doris said, looking at the cover.

“Could not or would not?” Folsom asked softly. “If you
choose
not to dress that way, for your own purposes, for your own personality, that is one thing. If you choose not to participate because of fear or shame or the pressure of society, that is another. To find ‘your people,’ you must first know who
you
are. Are you a person who hides behind a mask of oversized clothing from an innate prudishness? Or someone who hides her person to hide herself? You won’t be young forever. Who do you want to be before you die?”

“Those are the words from the song playing downstairs,” Doris said.

“Rogue and I are friends,” the man said. “He strikes to the heart of many questions. Who are you, Doris Grisham, and more to the point, who do you
want
to be?”

“Folsom, you have a panel,” the man with the pipe said.

“Damn and blast,” Folsom said, standing up. “I just get to chatting up an exquisite example of the fairer sex and they make me work. Anyway, Doris, I hope you enjoy the con. You’ll often find us out here on the terrace or downstairs slowly killing ourselves with alcohol, tar and nicotine. Feel free to pop in and tell us how your con is going.”

“Okay,” Doris said as the group broke up. A couple of the men appeared torn between following Folsom or staying with the pretty girl, but they all eventually left.

“So what to do with myself now?” she asked as if expecting an answer.

The answer was her stomach rumbling. Okay, food.

She thought about her limited funds and frowned.

“Okay,” she muttered. “
Cheap
food.”

* * *

One look at the prices in the restaurant put her off of that. She couldn’t even afford the buffet. There was a food court attached to the hotels, but the prices there weren’t much better. With the few bucks in her pocket she might get two meals.

She knew she’d been short on food in her life. She wasn’t sure when or why and was curiously disinterested. It was as if the life before arriving at the convention was a dream, that only the convention was real. But her hunger was real enough and affecting her concentration.

Asking questions was out. There was an information booth setting up, but even asking people whose job it was to answer questions was out. She could barely make her way through the crowds, and it was beyond imagination that she could ever show herself as openly as Duncan had suggested.

On the other hand, she had program books in the bag she was still carrying. She found an out-of-the-way corner and opened them up.

They were strangely cluttered with information, some of it useful and some not. She found the information about the “costuming” track, but only a brief description of the track itself, and most of the panel descriptions were confusing. What, for example, was an “appliance”? It raised strange thoughts in Doris’s head.

However, while poking around in other features of the con, she found out that there was something called a “con suite,” that it was open twenty-four hours a day and that, glory be, it served food.

A goal. A quest. And, as it turned out, it had been right around the corner from where she’d been talking to Duncan.

Now to find her way
back
. Where was that map?

* * *

“Eat, you greedy gluts!” a resonant voice boomed as Doris made her way into the con suite.

The suite, a large set of rooms on the second floor of the Hyatt, was crowded. Doris tried very hard not to make contact with any of the people in the room, most of them kids even younger than her, but it was nearly impossible. It seemed that sixty or seventy people must have crowded into the room as soon as the food was put out.

By the door were piles of cups and large containers of ice. Then a drink dispenser with various soft drinks. Arrayed against the far wall, the target of most of the people crowding into the room, was a set of tables piled with hot dogs, buns and a large crock pot of chili.

“Feed your maggoty bellies from the largesse provided by your loving con! Fill your bottomless pits. Feast, feast, you ravenous hordes!”

The voice was produced by a tall, handsome black man wearing an incongruous Star Trek uniform. Parked towards the back of the room, he seemed to subtly bend the attention of the entire room around him. There were several people standing nearby, many of them apparently trying to get his attention, but he appeared to know what most of them were going to say before they said it.

“More rolls, less hot dogs,” he said, sending one of the minions into the throng. “The Coke’s already running low.” Another darted off.

A heavyset blond man came out of the back room bearing a pile of trays. He looked at the gathered group in annoyance.

“These need to go in the other kitchen,” he said, and was roundly ignored.

“I’ll get them,” Doris said. “Where’s the other kitchen?”

“Far room,” the guy said in an aggrieved tone, then went back in the kitchen.

“’Kay.”

Doris carried the trays through the throng, glad to be doing something that would make her unnoticed. Nobody noticed you if you were working.

She found the other kitchen and dropped the trays on the sink, the only open surface. It seemed every other surface was covered by food or the makings thereof.

Instead of getting in line she went back to the group gathered around the black man, wondering if she should help out more. As far as she could tell, the group gathered around the leader was supposed to be working, but nobody seemed to be actually doing anything.

“Peter!” the man boomed, looking at the tables. “Peter!”

“What?” the blond man said, coming back out of the kitchen.

“Where is the coleslaw? There is a distinct lack of coleslawness!”

“That’s because there’s a distinct lack of roominess in this refrigerator,” the blond man said in an aggrieved tone. “It’s in the other kitchen. I’ve been trying to get someone to get it for the last thirty minutes.”

“Peter, Peter, Peter,” the black man said, taking him gently by the shoulder. “If I have told you once I have told you a thousand times. The minions of the con suite are zombies. You must treat them as such.”

He spun in place and grabbed one of the group by the shoulder, turning him to look into his eye.

“Thomas,” he intoned. “Thomas, you shall obey my every command.”

“Yes, master,” the boy replied. “Unless it’s something sexual, in which case, screw you.”

“Of course. Thomas. You shall lurch your way across the room to the far kitchen. There you shall open up the refrigerator—it is the large upright box against the wall. You shall remove from it the coleslaw and place it upon the table at the far end, where the heavyset kid in the Miskatonic University T-shirt with the forlorn expression, probably due to a lack of coleslaw, is standing. Place it upon the table. Remove the coverings from the coleslaw. Stand back lest you are eaten by the ravenous hordes. Then lurch back here for more tasks.”

“Yes, master,” the boy said.

“Do not eat any brains on the way,” the man noted.

“Yes, master,” the grinning boy said and turned, arms out, to lurch into the crowd.