Not Quite as Planned

[singindemonhq]

Firewalled against all who mean harm,
See the words, obey the charm!

Well, the Invocation just didn't work. The most likely thing is that the Diran was lying, or mistaken, and the portals between my dimension and this one are still dead.

When I'd last been in London I'd noticed a difference in the portal myself, though. I'd thought that the mercenary was telling the truth.)

My Little Wolf knew I wasn't happy. She wondered how I knew that the ceremony wasn't valid.

(It didn't seen wise tell her that I'd thought my dimension might be accessible again, so, from my viewpoint, the Invocation failed when I couldn't take her off to my home at midnight!)

I had to say that I knew it hadn't worked because we'd both have sensed a difference if it had. (That was true enough, too, once I thought about it.) I needed to find a reason, though. The one I came up with - well, I don't know if I talked myself into believing it or whether it's the truth.

The Talisman that Erynne wears came from another dimension. (Once I talked about it I realised something. The mojo may have been near enough exhausted even there.

Back then, I'd known a demon called Astraeia - nice enough if you like Vengeance chicks, but not my type. She'd used it with the Invocation, not realising that it was a Queen Clause job!

Well, that could have been ... there's a lot of ways that could have gone, mostly bad. Maybe I should stop preening about mind over matter and start thinking that maybe that Talisman didn't have all that much more strength than a summoning spell, even then!

I thought it glowed, or at least flashed, when Erynne used it, but perhaps it just caught the light. It'd be drained now, anyway.

It just wasn't made for this dimension. Even if we could find someone to revive the mojo here - it might not even hold the charge!

If this is a dud there could still be working talismans somewhere. I don't want to find out the hard way. Maybe Demetria, could help, or the Watcher, or ... there's something I keep nearly remembering.

If that Talisman is near-drained, I feel a fool for not realising - but Erynne is different. The Invocation is a kind of marriage-ceremony-at-first-meeting, but it's not as brutal as it seems. The mojo makes some parts of it much easier for the operative. Let's just say that I can't be sure if the Talisman was dead, earlier. Even now, Common-Lore or Loreful, we had a great wedding-night...

Then somebody on the Inn staff called us, at sunrise, to go a meeting! When you get to my age you need more than 2 hours sleep!