I rode my Harley out of the shimmering and rippling silver light of the interdimensional gate, and right into a camera’s metal flash stand.

It tipped over, and I skidded to a halt.

I heard vituperation behind me, and I spun around to see a few people, an old lady being helped to stand by a young woman, a photographer, and a guy with a notepad computer.

Notepad waved his device, and flagged me down.

“Your name, and can you confirm or deny that you are indeed an actual extradimensional?”

“Who are you?” I replied.

He introduced himself as star reporter for the Weekly Spot, a national newspaper of great renown.

“I’m Tadeusz, and yes, I’m an extradimensional. Do you know anything about getting home?”

“Sure, and iffen we can’t find it, then are we not the ones to find it anyways?” The Irish accent of the girl who came up after delivering the old lady to a van, and her cheery red hair were distracting. But so was the way, they both hopped on back of my bike.

“The old lady, top-notch seer, said you would give us a ride. We took the taxi out here from the airport.”

Evidently the photographer was a local with his own transport. These two were recently married, which was just as well since the girl was too nice indeed.

They yelled against the wind, and told me in detail all about the wedding. Elvis had sung their wedding march, and the Pope had officiated, that is the real Pope, not the robot android most people see. The android was a security precaution, and they really hated they said with subdued glee what would happen to the next jerk who tried to ice the Pope.

We arrived at the airport, and my bike got put into baggage, and we all flew off to the big city, and their office.

It was tabloid heaven I saw as I walked past pictures of twenty foot aliens shaking hands with Bob Barker, and the real John Kerry in a stasis field created by the Ancient One, an Atlantaen magician, to hold back the Senator’s superpowers, not the mannequin they wheel out for his public appearances. There was a cherry tree, the lineal descendant of the one George chopped down, and next to it, pieces of a black helicopter shot down by the Roswell aliens with a Chicom earthquake generator tuned to shoot death rays through the air.

Some of it was interesting, but most not. I scorned this type of stuff. And then the two saw me with that face, and they were infuriated.

I got lectured, and yelled at. They protested their sincerity so much that I started to wonder if I had been wrong, or they were simply not liars, but nuts.

So they showed me a picture. It was kept in a vacuum chamber, and it was a Polaroid of me, the Fire Child, Lil and her husband, and the Alchemist, and some Pharaoh looking guy taken under the light of twin suns.

We were in a single sun system, I had checked.

“We found this in an ancient Egyptian pyramind of King Tut. On the back is written in hieroglyphics. ‘Thanks to my friends, sent by the sun god Ra, I recover from my illness, and spend many decades bringing prosperity to the land they call Egypt.’ It is thousands of years old.”

“I remember…” I muttered, and so I did. The Pharaoh had been a decent guy for his time, and quite young, and so we showed him how to survive his illness in exchange for certain concessions. Like he took up the Law of Hammurabi, and taught his people how to have clean water. It ended up making his nation the hyperpower of its day since none could stand against him since his armies did not wither from disease like everyone elses did.

So, I provisionally accepted that this was all on the level. Elvis was entertaining on Mars right now for a delegation of Grays from the Sculptor Galaxy, and Amelia Earhart had discovered a gateway to a place where you could fly your plane forever, if you wanted to.

And that the reporters of the Weekly Spot were, while they did not look it, actually the very best reporters on the planet.

After we got that settled, they took a few minutes to search for my request. It took a bit, some searching of Nostradamus, and some divination with tea leaves, and Googling which they seemed to find the most fantastic and it got me to what I needed, a name of a man.

We took my bike again since they had wrecked the car chasing a vampire donkey off-road last week. The thing had turned about and drank their radiator, and oil empty.

The man was a magician. I could tell as I walked across his very densely arranged lawn. Signs of magic in use lay in the design of the walkway, and in the choice of herbs, but mostly the sensation pulling at my soul became stronger, and I could only escape by throwing up shields.

He was not a nice magician either, I could tell.

The door opened of its own accord,and we walked in.

“So the Spotty have recruited a paladin. Whoever you are, you would be well advised to throw in your lot with me, rather than with the Spotty family.”

“Thanks for the advice.” I said sarcastically.

We fought magically, but I was in his place of power, and he was far more familiar with the strictures on magic in this world. He wasted no time trying something that would not work.

I was losing, but then the girl bopped him on the head with a frying pan. And the magician sagged, and we won.

I took the map of alternate worlds, and thought it might help me get in the general vicinity of the world I wanted.

And then the magician surged for one last strike. I swatted his bolt of magic aside, and thus lit the pitiful yellow curtains on fire.

A more direct attack, and I finished him until he went to dusk. But in so doing, I had taken a fatal bolt or two from my enemy.

I had what I wanted (I hope), and I had helped some people.

Now it was time for my next world.

Tadeusz