When the others had left, Doc said, “I want to tell you a story about a girl named Donna. Please don’t discuss it with anyone else.”

Simon stared at him in puzzlement and annoyance. Why did this have to be now? Why couldn’t he just have emailed this?

“It’s also about a man you know named Adam.”

That was where Simon’s troubles had started. Surely this would strike very close to the origins of Simon’s incomprehensible problems. He settled back to listen.

Doc continued, “In the old days I was actually gamemaster, and he was a player. His characters were all Blue Sword Honor, and he was an OK guy, but he had one annoying twist. It wasn’t just his characters who believed Blue Sword Honor was better than all the other factions, it was him. Even when he played a sorcerer he always made it Blue Sword Honor, even though the river friend factions have advantages for sorcerers.”

Simon nodded.

“When he annoyed people with Delirium stuff, it was always one line. The Eightfold was real, Blue Sword Honor was most favorable to Earth, and he was going to be important when they revealed themselves to us.”

Simon shifted in his chair, vaguely uncomfortable. He said, “Not too original. Not much better than what some grade school kids were saying after the second movie came out.”

Doc grinned. “Good way of putting it. And he was getting on people’s nerves, especially D – Donna.”

Had Adonis stuttered, or cut off the name he was originally going to say? Either way, he continued, “One day Donna was telling him off, about how stupid and pathetic his little games were. All the sudden he looks straight at her and says, ‘You believe I’m a real sorcerer and you feel in awe of me. You want to sleep with me.’”

Simon recoiled in shock. Eventually he asked, “Like a sorcerer using vulgar magic on a low magic world. Only this was the real world, not a game or movie. So did she slap him, leave, or sue him for sexual harassment?”

Adonis shook his head. “No. She was pretty quiet the rest of the evening, and the way she was looking at Adam wasn’t what you expect. I asked her later and she insisted it wasn’t a big deal.”

Simon just stared. How could it not be a big deal?

The other man continued, “A week later I visited Adam at home and saw she had moved in with him. I couldn’t believe it. Adam had better social skills than a lot of gamers, but he wasn’t good with women, and D – Donna had never liked him as a person, though she admitted he was a good gamemaster.

“I managed to talk to her privately the next night. She insisted she was fine, but her love life was her private business and she didn’t want to talk about it with me. All the same she seemed uncomfortable and unhappy beneath the surface, and even vaguely puzzled. She admitted to me that he was nothing like the guys she was usually attracted to.

“The whole thing seemed impossible to me, so much so that I began to consider the truly impossible. I started listening to Adam’s annoying stories and asking questions. I even flattered him. I talked about how useful real sorcery would be in my practice. He knows I’m a psychiatrist.”

Somehow Simon found this revelation almost as shocking as the rest of the story. The older man was still talking.

“At first he tried to make it sound like he’d discovered some hidden secret in some of the books by some stroke of genius. Eventually he more or less admitted that he thought a Blue Sword Honor elder was giving him his powers. He couldn’t really teach me how to do it.

“So the next night at home, I’m wondering if I’m just crazy or the victim of an impossibly complex practical joke. So I say out loud, ‘Look, when one rogue elder from one faction decides to stretch the rules and bring a world into the Eightfold fast, it never seems to work out well for said world. The elder in question may feed well awhile, but in the long term it doesn’t do much for the Eightfold either. Even in the short term they tend to lord it over the other faction members. So if one of you can bend the rules this much, so can others. I’d like sorcerous powers please, and I’ll help you out.

“So I’m sitting there in my underwear, feeling like an idiot. I wasn’t sure if I had gone crazy or been the victim of an elaborate practical joke.”

Simon hadn’t needed that picture in his mind, but he didn’t interrupt.

“That night I had a dream. I won’t tell you exactly what it said, but I knew one of two things had to be true. Either I was crazy or I knew how to do sorcery.

“Unlike Adam, I gave it a lot of thought to the ethics of real life mind control. Even testing the power by making someone do something harmless might be wrong if it had long term consequences when the person wondered why they had acted totally out of character.

“Eventually I used it to get a policeman to give me a warning instead of a speeding ticket. I’m pretty sure he was on the borderline, so he wouldn’t be wondering what the heck he had done later. By the same token it didn’t absolutely prove anything, but being there and seeing his face I was sure.”

“I was very careful before using it on patients though. People often have reasons for the things they do, even when they don’t like doing them. They could be fearful, angry, and resentful if suddenly forced to stop doing them, without any understanding of why they couldn’t. Oddly enough, this could apply even to something they say they’re desperate to stop doing.

“Technically, no matter how careful I was, experimenting on patients without their consent was unethical. Yet asking for informed consent would have been unethical too, would have frightened and unsettled them, perhaps convincing them their therapist was crazy.

“After an hour of listening to a woman say how desperate she was to change one day, I did it. I told her casually that she had reached a turning point, and she would find it easier to get outside and get a little exercise and talk to people. I didn’t tell her that she would do these things but just that she would find it easier, because I wanted to leave her an out. Minds are complicated, and I was apprehensive.

“Something felt wrong about it, too easy to be true. I was a little surprised when she came in next week and talked about how much better she was doing, and asked me how I had done it. I told her that I could only help her help herself, as all psychiatrists do in this sort of situation.”

Simon asked skeptically, “How often does helping your patients with sorcery come up?”

“This was the one and only time, so that’s what I did every single time it happened.”

That was logical, so Simon nodded and Doc continued, “Now I knew I wasn’t crazy, so I went to talk to Donna again. She insisted she was happy and just keeping her private life private. Something about her voice, her expression, and her body language bothered me though. Then she told me she was so happy she wanted to die right now, because nothing else in her life could be as good as this.

“Alarm bells rang in my head. I felt like I had to do something right then, and I used the sorcery. I told her she could remember everything he had said to her, since I seem to recall from the comics making people forget what they were told is a favorite sorcerer’s trick. I told her she could chose weather to be affected by his sorcery or not.

“She started packing her things. I hesitated to leave her alone, but she was very purposeful and confident, and there was no telling what Adam was doing meanwhile.

“I talked to Adam next, without telling him what I had already done. He didn’t quite get that he had done something horrible, a sort of rape whether our legal system encompassed it or not. He did promise to do better next time. He also complimented me on how smart and realistic I was, and said I should help him rule the world.

“Rather than asking him what the fuck was the matter with him, I said goodnight and did some research. I bought some books and comics and speed read.”

Doc stopped for breath, and Simon was nodding vigorously. He knew what Doc had found. Before the other could resume talking he said, “Yeah, it isn’t easy for an Elder to just teach sorcery that takes even an Eightfold years to learn in a night. Usually they … mingle … their mind with yours. If they are desperately hungry it can strengthen them more than it hurts them. The human probably loses way more than they realize either way, and gets screwed.”

Doc replied, “Oh yeah. And since vulgar sorcery never existed in our universe before the Eightfold came, we don’t even get a default roll for common sense regarding it. I think some part of my brain knew I had started losing … something. I had a nightmare. I haven’t used sorcery again since then.”