Potion One and potion Three hath poison none, as ye shall see

But drunk together, you will find, they'll quickly kill the human mind

Within this baker's dozen bottle-line, four have trace of vintage wine

Of which two are with poison, two without, and Two tastes quite like sauerkraut

Gorgon's blood fills bottle Eight - but right or left? You'll have to wait

And Six and Ten hold potent cures, but for what ailment no one's sure

One of the odds holds deadly venom, distilled only by juice of lemon

Which resides inside the neighbor of the drink that makes ye braver

Potion Seven's from the sink, mixed with arsenic, I should think

And potion Four can get you drunk, or sunk, or locked in a trunk

Eleven and Twelve are harmless, and tasty, like a pastry

Unless that was Thirteen, in which case, don't be hasty

Now look upon your thirteen choices,

Tell me with your eager voices

Choose three, leave ten, and split them up

One for your glass, one for mine, and one for the witchchilde's cup.

The smell of smoke in the morning

It would seem that even the Mulla and his Library do not contain any knowledge of use to me.

No; that's not true. There's so much in that library that I could use, but I don't have time for it all now.

It took me a while to get in. Anansi couldn't even slip in through the windows. It didn't, obviously, occur to me to knock. I stood just outside those huge doors for what felt like a year but probably lasted about an hour, pondering every possible route of entrance. I imagined how the Compass might get in, or how Atlas would do it, or Infinity - I didn't even think to look for news of her inside. And I call myself a researcher.

After such time had passed that I thought my feet would fall apart just from standing, a slightly hoarse and deep voice called out from inside the Library: "Do you need something?"

I was taken aback, and for a moment I was afraid it was the Businessman come to collect his ill-gotten claim upon my life. But I recovered and replied, "May I come in?"

There was no reply, and I was worried that I had said something wrong and now I was never going to be allowed inside. Then, with a great screeching and rumbling, the doors swung open as slowly as doors of that size can swing, and I rushed inside, leaving my children to wait for me. In retrospect, not the most thoughtful of decisions, though all worked out fairly well in the end.

Once inside the Mulla spoke again, asking what sort of information I was looking for. I told him I needed to find something out about La Dame du Lac, and a great sigh came from nowhere. "I've heard that one before," he said.

"Does that mean you've got nothing?" I asked. The Mulla sighed again and said, "Yes."

"But you've got to have something - you have something on everything!" I protested. The Mulla sighed for a third time and said, "No. Now, unless there's anything else, you'll have to get going." I frowned and shook my head in disbelief, and that's when the fire started. It was quiet at first, a flickering heat that began just beneath my boots and spread out slowly until it reached the endless bookshelves, where the flames erupted into reality. It was pure luck that I hadn't gone far enough into the Library to get lost, and I was able to turn tail and get out before any damage was done to my person.

When I looked back the Library had completely disappeared, as it does.

The previous inquiry still stands. There are two chances left.

Doing what I love

The Canyon Library is a great big affair; until you go inside it looks like a cathedral or mosque or some fancy government building in northeastern Europe. It never stays the same for long, but I rather think it or its keeper likes the minarets the most.

I've only stopped to say I've arrived; hopefully I'll be in and out by Tuesday evening at the latest, but you can never know with these things.

9/11. I have a story or two for that day, if I can remember them.

I have a story, for every occasion.

The previous inquiry no longer stands; instead:

This one, for power: Black roses, Black Pearls, a little kitty-cat smiling, sailing away; Black thunder, black worlds, a mother of sorts avenges her child today.

You get three chances.

There and back again

I'm off again. The Compass can take care of the others well enough, and anyway I'm no use to them, not like this, not...not like this.

I'm headed for a library. There's no better place to learn about something than a collection of books, and if anywhere has information on La Dame du Lac and her dog - more than standard information, at any rate - it's the Canyon Library. The place is about a week's journey by car from here.

I've never been so scared in my life. I can't trust anyone, and especially not myself.

It's not saying "What could go wrong?" that jinxes the proverbial it. It's saying, "I bet I just jinxed it," that jinxes it.
I bet I just jinxed it.
This one, for strength: He who leaps and bounds around may seldom if ever touch the ground; he who sweeps the deepest floors, or sleeps behind closed doors, may never know no more.

You get three chances.

In the town
Where I was born
Lived a man
Who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of false regimes
So we sailed unto the sun
'Til we found the sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
Waiting for the one true king

Capabilities

We were researching the missing link.

That was what the Institute of Unity was for. We did drug testing, archaeology, brain scans, sub-dermal implants, animal testing - nothing inhumane, of course. We tried everything we could think of. We seemed to be drawn to our subjects, each of us attached to a particular species. For me, it was the spiders. They were intricate, delicate; they drew me into the web that was...that was them. They spoke to me as if they could speak, and I understood them, or thought I did. They were as the dolphins; the warning of the apocalypse, misconstrued as an attempt to leap through a hoop.

But it was us doing the leaping.

I've said the Businessman first came to us a year ago. Isabella knew the Businessman long before she knew us...and if my suspicions are correct we first encountered him or his influence at least two years ago.

It was, in all seriousness, a dark and stormy night. The Professor and I were both packing up to go home when our generator got hit by lightning. The backup was waiting for repair, and didn't kick in. Our first thought was to get to the animals and make sure they were okay. Their cages were hooked up to electronic life support management systems that would automatically feed, water and clean them and their cages. Atlas ran back and forth among the rows of baying creatures, while I slammed away at the management terminal. When the lightning struck us a second time, we weren't ready. I hadn't even logged in to the system yet.

You'd think that being underground as we were would protect us from what happened next, but that wasn't our biggest concern. The electricity shorted out everything we had, and the gates on the cages slid themselves open. I blacked out, and it's my understanding that everyone else did, too. I was shaken awake by Squirm; he, Atlas, and Majesty had all woken up before me. The others were still unconscious. For a time we had seemed to completely have lost our memories; we each went to our homes, not a small number of which were within the Institute itself, and went about our everyday business. I regained an old passion for video games.

Then the animals came. Spiders were in my house, everywhere, and for some reason I didn't want to kill them or at least get them out. Atlas found a goat chewing on his carpet. The Compass' attic was plagued by bats. It went on, and then we realized that they weren't simple beastly invaders. They were there because of us.

Our companions helped us with our work for the next year or so. Then Isabella disappeared, and it all went downhill from there. They granted us an awareness far beyond that of our own - that which I discussed, many moons ago, as "loose perception." No doubt more benefits will come of these alliances.

We've named the connection the Spark; other than this...that's all I know. That's all any of us know. It has links to our research on the missing link, and there may be...portions of the psyche that we have yet to unlock.

There's your answer. I hope it pleases you.

I have an inquiry for today.

This one, for care: Rejoice! Through faith, your afflictions are banished. Rejoice! Through faith, your doubts and fears are vanished.

You get three chances.

If I regret anything about my time with Atlas, it's that we couldn't give him a proper funeral. A proper burial, yes, but we can't manage the respect he truly deserves. We couldn't even get a real headstone. We engraved a simple inscription on a damn plank.

R.I.P.

Harrison Peabody

The man who held the sky

He didn't suffer when he went out. He cracked jokes the whole time, until his coughing stopped him from talking at all. With his death, Billy - his only companion besides us worthless humans - lost that...Spark. We left him in the field with Atlas' grave, where he could graze near his beloved. You could tell when the Spark had left him. Billy's coat faded to a dirty grey, and his horns seemed to shrink. His hoofprints are now deeper than they had been when he had the Spark. He no longer walks as if on air.

Anansi tells me the dog's mind is impenetrable. I suppose we will have to work things out the old-fashioned way.

And now...back to business.

The answer to the previous inquiry was K.K. Collins. You still have a question to ask of me, and...today's inquiry.

No. No inquiry today. I'm sorry, Emilia.