A/N: If it weren't for Madripoor Rose's review a few hours ago, I'd be forlornly asking what I did wrong with the last chapter that it didn't get even one review. Thank you, MR. This one is much more exciting than the last...
"But I don't have mage sight, and I can't even invoke the Flames of the Faltine without messing up." I protested. "I can't turn water into tea using magic, not even if you gave me a teabag."
"One who can descend into Hell and coerce demons, even lesser ones, to bend to her will, and return to life, still calling her soul her own, is not without ability." Victor stated with finality.
"Did I coerce lesser demons to bend to my will?" I asked.
"Yes. When you arrived with the Talisman, you were using your belt for a choke-chain around the neck of one of them."
"I don't remember that." I frowned. "Are there going to be tests involved?"
"There will be. You need not change for dinner—your garb looks to be practical enough—although you might perhaps put on sturdier, more comfortable shoes." Victor commented.
"Oh." I said. What was I in for that evening?
As it happened, I beat Victor downstairs by five minutes, and arrived to find our guest strolling around the drawing room, looking at the Renoir that hung between the windows on the south wall. He turned to face me when I entered.
"Hello," I said. "You're Doctor Strange; I'd know you anywhere." He was a handsome man in his forties, with a grey 'racing stripe' arcing up and back from his temples, and a neat mustache, wearing a dark suit and a blue tie. "I'm Joviana." Once again, I left off my last name. Introductions were going to be so much simpler after the wedding, when everyone would accept that I was a Von Doom.
"Indeed I am." he said, extending a hand. "But please, call me Stephen. Doom—ah, Victor—has told me about you. I'm delighted to have the chance to meet you."
"Likewise." I smiled. "But don't people usually say 'told me so much about you', rather than simply 'told me about you'?"
"They do. However, I would be telling an untruth if I did so. Victor said, when he invited me, 'If you are free this evening, I would appreciate it if you were to assay my wife's magical potential. If you arrive at seven there will be plenty of time for dinner beforehand.' I said that I would—as I am as curious as the rest of the world, and even more so after his astonishing invitation—but when I asked who you were, he said only that you were exceptionally intelligent and that you had literally gone through Hell for him. And that you were an extremely learned student of magic who had never yet cast a single spell." There was a distinct note of skepticism in his voice at that last statement.
"I don't see why I couldn't be a magical scholar who has never cast a single spell. After all, think of the many theologians out there who have never seen or spoken to a single god."
Victor laughed—he had entered the room while Dr. Strange and I were talking. "Your acquaintance can hardly be more than five minutes long, and already you've run afoul of her wit." He strolled over, in full armor, but sans gloves and mouth grill. "Good evening, Stephen."
"Good evening, Victor. I wouldn't say afoul. When a beautiful woman chooses to sharpen her wit on my dull stone, what can I be but flattered?"
"What a lovely compliment." I exclaimed. "He must think me intelligent. Isn't the first rule of charm to tell the beautiful ones how intelligent they are and the brainy ones how good-looking they are?"
"If you were to hold me to that you'd leave me no way of expressing my admiration for you at all. How could I possibly place you into either category?" Dr. Strange returned. "Can you not throw me a rope, Victor? I fear I'm in over my head here."
"In this contest you must sink or swim on your own." Victor told him, and to me he said, "I'm surprised you don't complain that I never say such things to you."
"That's true. You don't. You simply make me feel them." I answered, smiling into his eyes.
"Ah." he said—he seemed momentarily at a loss—"That, Stephen is why I do not take you to task for saying such things to her in front of my face—for I have no fear of what you might say to her behind my back."
"How on earth did I get into this conversation?" the sorcerer wondered. "You needn't worry about me in any event, Victor. I gave up seducing other men's wives when I took up the study of magic, and I always steered clear of the real thing—meddling here would be as dangerous as juggling nitroglycerin."
It was true—Dr. Stephen Strange had a reputation for being a terrible womanizer and partier when he was still the brilliant, proud, young neurosurgeon, before he wrapped his car around a tree one drunken night and wound up with nerve damage that left him unable to operate ever again. He crawled into a bottle—and then into the gutter. That was why there would be no wines served at the table this evening, and no alcohol used in the preparation of the meal.
While he was still pursuing slow suicide via alcoholism, he heard a rumor. Magic might be able to heal his damaged hands, and give him back his career, his income, his women, his life. He sought magic—and found it. Once he found it, he found there was no room left in his life for the superficial successes, the vain and meaningless glories of the existence he had outgrown.
The butler announced that dinner was ready. As we went in and took our seats, Victor saw how I was smiling and asked me why.
"I was just comparing this conversation with one I had earlier today, in an elevator, with Johnny Storm—to his detriment. Most men aren't worth speaking to before they turn thirty."
"I like your bride more and more all the time, Victor. She is clearly a woman of great discernment."
We took our seats around the table, and the (thoroughly human, this time) waiters served the first course, a lettuce and tarragon soup. As they set down the soup plates, I caught a glimpse of Doctor Strange out of the corner of my eye, and noticed something very interesting. Instead of wearing a dark business suit, he was actually wearing a blue tunic with arcane symbols on it, and a red and gold cloak with an elaborate high collar, which, if he turned his head unwisely, had him in danger of putting out an eye. Speaking of which, the heavy gold clasp at his throat was the famous amulet called the Eye of Agamotto, which allowed the user to see through all illusion. He had come prepared for whatever trial awaited me after dinner.
"I am very interested in hearing about your journey to Hell and back again." our guest said, draping his napkin in his lap.
"In all truth, I remember little of it." I said. "Victor told me only a few minutes ago that I was subduing minor demons while I was there. I was technically dead at the time. It's hard to remember when one doesn't have a functioning brain."
"Dead?" Stephen Strange exclaimed. "Begin at the beginning, and tell me all about it."
Victor began by explaining how the battle-mage Shakti had come to the castle on a pretext, bringing with her the Rohnert Talisman. She had abruptly turned on Victor, attacking him without warning or provocation. He had been more than a match for her, but before she was defeated, she had opened an extremely inconvenient transdimensional portal to Hell in the middle of the Great Hall.
After ordering that Shakti be taken to the dungeons, Victor had retrieved what he thought was the Rohnert Talisman from the floor of the Hall. As it was simplest to close a portal with the same key that opened it, he said the words that should have sealed the rip in reality...
They worked—but not before the portal had engulfed him. It was a very carefully constructed trap.
The waiters removed the soup dishes and served the next course—a salad of chilled asparagus spears with an herbed tomato coulis. "That's where you come into this, Stephen." I said.
"My part?" he asked, startled. "This is the first I've heard of this!"
"Exactly. Boris had your numbers to call in case of a magical emergency, but you weren't available at any of them. Which, in a way, makes you responsible for our marriage." I ate a forkful of asparagus.
"This gets more and more interesting." Doctor Strange commented, his eyebrows raised. "Victor, can you unravel this for me?"
"It was after the events that followed that I realized what I had in Joviana, and became determined to marry her." explained Victor. "Had you answered your phone and consequently come to my assistance, I would still be living in ignorance."
"So I acted as matchmaker in absentia?" mused the sorcerer. "If you want to name your firstborn after me in thanks, I would have no objection."
"That shall have to wait until there may be a firstborn," Victor said pleasantly.
"Of course." said Doctor Strange. "What happened then?"
"Somebody had to do something about it, and that somebody turned out to be me." I told him. "I knew Victor would eventually win free of Mephisto and his domain, but 'eventually' might have been a lot longer than was good for Latveria—or the world."
Strange raised an eyebrow at that, but made no comment, so I continued. "I—also realized that I would miss him. I did not go into it thinking, 'Oh, I must rescue my one true love!' I want you to understand that. I can't stand that kind of sickening mush."
"I understand. No one here is saying that you did." There was a hint of a twinkle in Doctor Strange's eyes. "Do go on."
"The first thing I did was get the real one back from Shakti." I explained. "Unfortunately, she had swallowed it, so getting it back meant giving her a big dose of syrup of ipecac mixed with cascara." Syrup of ipecac was a powerful emetic, cascara an equally powerful laxative. It had been messy. "Once the Talisman was well washed, it was quite clearly damaged, and no one on hand, other than Shakti, had the sorcerous skill to open another physical portal to Hell, and not only was she not to be trusted, after the dose I gave her, she wasn't in any condition to move. So I started thinking…"
I explained the reasoning and research that had led me to the courtyard well while the main course was served, salmon in basil cream sauce with rice and minted carrots on the side. The embassy chef had a way with herbs.
"That took a great deal of courage—not to mention faith." Doctor Strange said, thoughtfully.
"I felt anything but brave." I confessed. "And as for having faith in Victor's ability to bring me back—that's like saying I have faith in the laws of gravity. I knew that he could resuscitate me successfully." I didn't explain how I knew for certain it would word—not yet, anyway. Victor was positively beaming at me from across the table, his eyes and mouth both smiling.
"I think it is once again my turn to take up this narrative." Victor said. "Unprepared as I was to be so suddenly cast among Mephisto's hordes, I fought with all the resources at my disposal. I fought until I was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Demons cannot be destroyed by any purely technological weapon—not in Hell, at any rate. Their substance is not like true flesh—it is more akin to protoplasm. Splatter out the brains of one, and it reforms even as you watch. Such spells as I had at my command, I used, until I was exhausted, my throat too dry to voice another. They captured me, and bound me to a rock like Prometheus, with Mephisto hovering over me, vulture-like—but then I heard a voice I thought I recognized."
TBC….