Ashura materialized in a small, rather modest courtyard that was bordered by a simple wooden fence. However, only the size of the courtyard failed to impress him. He felt the space around him, and knew it was set apart from reality, apart from time. He had truly arrived at the Witch's abode.

He took a few minutes to examine his surroundings. An elegant, jewel box of a house stood before him. It was constructed in a fanciful, attractive style, but nonetheless of unfamiliar architecture to him. Crescent moons topped its curved roof and minaret, and an interesting sliding doorway gave entrance from the portico into the house.

All around him great, brutish buildings boxed in the courtyard. Ugly constructions of metal, smooth stone, and glass, they soared to dizzying heights and almost, almost blocked out the sky. He turned, gazing up at those marvels. They were part of a different world, though, a world that the Witch's home merely intersected in this current moment of no-time.

Overhead the heavens were blue, without even a single cloud to sully their purity. The courtyard was bursting with grass, flowers, and the variegated green of myriads of growing things. The sheer variety of colors and scents was a revelation that he hadn't experienced in many years, not since he had last gone world-walking. He could only wish that his homeland would grow such luxuriant vegetation.

The air was warm, too warm for his fur-lined cloak and heavy winter clothes to be comfortable. He didn't remove his cloak. He was here as a supplicant, and such loose, uninvited behavior in the Witch's home would be too rude to even consider.

Despite the wonders that surrounded him, a dark, fearful reality seeped into his awareness and set his heart to pounding. This place in no-space and no-time was completely artificial, maintained with power so great it was humbling. No, more than humbling—it was absolutely terrifying. The stories had not exaggerated the Witch of Dimensions' magical potency. If anything, they had understated it. Like the Realm of the Gods, the power here was unimaginable and overwhelming, and could crush him utterly if he made a single, inappropriate move. He was less than the most insignificant insect compared to the being who resided here.

The Witch of Dimensions, he realized, was another like the sorcerer who manipulated Ashura's dreams, a magician whom even gods would fear. Had it been a mistake to come here, to bring himself to her notice?

Somehow, some way, he had become entangled with the great powers of the universe. Gods, magicians more powerful than gods... He had encountered both, and now they would grind him and his country to dust. He should leave quickly, give up this mad quest and find another way, one that didn't involve magicians greater than gods...

The sound of girlish laughter made him turn back to the house. A pair of young girls came running toward him, gamboling lightly like happy foals in springtime. Their hair colors were very strange; one had long blue hair, and the other's was short and pink. They giggled at the sight of him.

"The king is here! The king is here!" the girls chorused as one, clapping their hands and dancing with childish excitement. Abruptly, both dashed to the house. "Mistress, mistress, the king is here!"

It seemed he was expected.

Ashura stared after the girls as they disappeared through the entryway, and suddenly wanted to get down on his knees and thank them. They had handily interrupted his destructive thoughts and broken through the paralyzing state of fear he'd been working himself into. He wondered if that wasn't one of their functions, to help distract the Witch's magically aware visitors. If so, they performed their task admirably well.

A moment later, the girls reappeared, calmer now, and accompanied by a beautiful, statuesque woman. She had piercing brown eyes and raven black hair that hung to her knees, and she wore strange garments of silk and lace that fit her so tightly they embarrassed him. With effort, he kept his eyes on her face. She strode toward him with panther-like grace, carrying herself with the supreme dignity and confidence of a queen regnant.

Even from a distance, he felt her staggering power, how it surrounded her and permeated every inch of the space she occupied. There's still time to run, a small voice whispered in the back of his head. He could still escape, before he had any dealings with her.

Her overpowering presence filled him with both dread and a curiously hopeful anticipation. For the first time since he'd begun this insane course of action, he truly believed there was a chance for success.

She stopped a few feet before him and regarded him with what he could only describe as amusement.

"Are you the Witch of Dimensions?" he asked cautiously.

"I have been called that," she confirmed. "And you are?"

It seemed a redundant question, as it was obvious by the girls' earlier reaction to him that everyone already knew who he was. Knowing that complete honesty was essential with this terrifying being, he politely said, "I am King Ashura of Seresu, my lady Witch." He gave her a courtly bow, acknowledging her superiority to him.

"Oh, my. You're very formal, aren't you? I suppose that's only to be expected." She turned her face aside slightly and muttered out of the corner of her mouth, "I sure hope he doesn't grow up to be an uptight prig."

The two girls picked up on this peculiar statement and sang out gaily, "A prig! A prig! An uptight prig!"

Offended, Ashura straightened and winced, but then his brain caught up with his ears. "He? Who are you talking about, my lady?" he asked the Witch, but she ignored the question in favor of laughing with her young servants. Ashura was rapidly coming to believe that despite her immense power—or perhaps because of it—the Witch of Dimensions was quite an eccentric individual.

He feared that very eccentricity might also make her dangerously unpredictable.

As though to reinforce his worries, her mood abruptly shifted back to seriousness as she again addressed him. "Do you know where you are?" she asked.

The question seemed part of some ritual formality that could not be forgone. Ashura nodded. "Unless I did something very wrong when I came here, this is a shop where wishes are granted for a commensurate price."

"That's correct," she said. "And you, of course, have a wish that must be fulfilled. You could not have found or entered this place otherwise."

Ashura blinked. His wish must be fulfilled? He hadn't known that fact. He doubted the Witch made such statements lightly. By his coming here had he bound them both to his wish, even before he bargained with her? Could he even leave at all without making a contract with her?

"Your servants," he said to delay the inevitable, just for a little while. How foolish of him, to be having second thoughts now that fulfillment of his wish seemed imminent.

"Yes? What about them?"

He nodded to the girls now standing quietly by their mistress. They mirrored the Witch's mood with absolute perfection, and something about them bothered him. "They seemed to already know who I was when I arrived. Were you expecting me?"

"Your coming is hitsuzen," the Witch of Dimensions said, as though that confirmed something important.

"Hitsuzen?" he repeated, mulling over the unfamiliar word. He had no idea what it meant. "What is that?"

"A state in which any other outcome is impossible. You could not have failed to come here, King Ashura. We had to meet here, at this time. There could be no other result; it is the present culmination of all the events that have made up your life, and mine."

"Predestination?" To his everlasting regret, he was very familiar with that concept. It didn't surprise him that the Witch could also see the future.

"More a matter of the inevitable choices made by all parties concerned which bring them together."

It sounded like semantics to him, but the distinction was obviously important to her. He wasn't about to contradict such a powerful woman, especially not when he wanted to ask a dreadful boon of her.

Needing an excuse to look away for a moment, he again glanced down at her two servant girls. With a start, he realized for the first time that they were soulless constructs, so perfectly created that he hadn't noticed before that they weren't living beings. Shocked, he returned his attention to the Witch, who gazed back at him with a knowing smile.

"What is your wish, King Ashura?" the Witch of Dimensions asked, and waited expectantly.

He swallowed. "I wish to die."

She gave him a look filled with a strange sympathy and understanding, almost as though she identified with him, but that could hardly be true. Gods and their ilk did not relate to mere mortals.

She said, "This is an unusual and weighty wish. Most can accomplish such an end without my help."

He said quietly, "I bear a curse, my lady, which prevents it. Nothing I have tried so far has succeeded. I need not die at this present moment. I only desire to obtain a means to achieve my death."

"And you do not have any particular means in mind?"

"No. I will accept whatever you offer."

"Indeed? Perhaps you should not be so trusting of me, King Ashura."

"I have little to lose," he replied evenly.

"On the contrary. I believe you have a great deal to lose," she contradicted him.

Ashura said nothing to that. She was correct, of course. That was why he wanted to die, after all.

"Very well," she said after a moment. She locked her gaze onto his with unwavering focus.

He felt as though her eyes were tearing him asunder and seeing straight into his soul. He refused to let himself quail under that intense scrutiny, and stared back, even though it was like looking into an unending abyss.

The Witch of Dimensions said, very precisely, "I will provide you with the means to your death, and in doing so realize your heart's greatest wish."

Ashura frowned. That had been a very strange way of putting it, but he wasn't in a position to quibble. What unpleasant conditions did she plan to attach to this unholy bargain?

"However," she continued, "as you are aware, there is a price for my services."

"I know."

"It's high."

"I know." Ashura breathed in, keeping his eyes fixed on her impassive face. "I will pay it. Whatever it is, whatever you ask, I will pay."

She suddenly smiled, like she'd just won some important point. Perhaps she had. He wondered with trepidation what she would now ask of him in return for his wish.

"Then we have a contract," she said. "Do you agree?"

"I agree," he said, questioning his own sanity. It felt like he had just made the greatest mistake of his life.

At his consent, he felt something empyreal, something beyond even the Witch's power, settle over him like the lightest, most clinging silk. The gossamer net bound them both on a multitude of mystical and spiritual levels that he barely comprehended. The consequences of breaking this contract were unimaginable to his poor, mortal mind. He suddenly wanted to escape it, but there was no going back now.

Then the ethereal sensation vanished, leaving behind only a fragile memory of its existence.

The Witch of Dimensions nodded, as though she had known what his response would be all along. "The price of death is very heavy. So heavy, in fact, that there is only one payment I can take from you. I demand your life, King Ashura of Seresu."