Decker stood before the weapons booth and gazed around him. He had only heard of this place, this magical city which appeared each year. In the last heat of autumn, before the trees began to shift slowly from green to red to brown, this city of magic appeared in the Mecca and the dome. It lasted less than a week, vanishing as completely as if it had never existed. Its life was less than 5 days. And this year, Decker had made the pilgrimage and stood now in the middle of the City.

Behind him, dominating the bazaar was the Castle. Cold and grey it towered over the banners and fabric walls of the merchant's booths. Atop each of it's towers--4 in all--sat a grotesque figure of a gargoyle, its eyes burning red as it shifted its head slowly back and forth, surveying the scene below with the indifference of a machine. Below the watchers in the small courtyard of the structure, minstrels played, troupers performed their antics, and the denizens and pilgrims of the City watched or passed by as was their want.

Around him wandered every shape of human and alien. Sword-laden warriors and staff-laden magi walked calmly beside fighter pilots and aliens the likes of which Decker had never seen. Magic and technology calmly intermingling in this nexus of worlds. The weapons booth at which he had stopped displayed the gleaming steel of claymores and rapiers, as well as the dull metal of blasters and laser rifles. Silver coins, paper notes and squares of gold were all accepted as payment.

Calmly watching the customers to the booth, Decker noticed that those who wore swords and mail never bought the blasters, though surely these would be better in battle than any sword could ever be. Unwritten rules of conduct and anachronism kept the swordsmen to their swords and the space-marines to their blasters. At the next booth down, a short, round man with a long, yet sparse beard sold parts for space ships. Beyond that an older man, white-haired and wrinkled, displayed detailed maps of 7 different worlds, along with encyclopedic volumes describing their inhabitants, customs, weapons, and trades.

Decker was lost in the awe of his surroundings. He let the crowd pull him along to the food vendors just beyond the row of booths. With food and drink in his hand, he sat at one of the small tables and watched and listened. Just across from him, not 30 feet away, huge, fierce aliens keep prisoners behind invisible force fields. Beyond that a structure held artifacts from space-faring cultures. And all around him the conversations flowed, allowing him brief glimpses into the stories they told.

"I'm telling you, my hyper-drive was fragged beyond belief. And I'm thinking to myself; I'm not going to get anywhere using only my thrusters..."

"...luckily my familiar warned me about the dragon's habit of using that particular spell, so I had a counterspell..."

"...23 orcs single-handedly. It was pure skill, I tell you..."

"...no, it specifically says in article 23, section 5 of the Articles of the Federation that no planet shall be allowed to..."

Decker had absolutely no idea what most of these people were talking about, but it intrigued him. Just the bits of conversation he was able to hear got his mind racing to figure out the rest of the story. Cutting through the noise of the market, came a soft, high, chinking, sound. The sound of a thousand tiny bells tied around the belly of a snake, tingling together as it's body swayed slowly back and forth along the ground. He turned full around to find the source of the noise. While he couldn't see it as yet, he did know where it was coming from, for the eyes and heads of those selling their wares, turned subtly or blatantly up the aisle between booths. This sound was important in some way, it was the herald of something great, he just knew it. When at last the source of the now crisp and clear sound rounded the corner, he saw the importance of the noise; the reason the heads turned in anticipation. Walking towards him, tall and slender was a dark-skinned warrior goddess. Her body was long and slender, tight and smooth. As she walked it moved with the slow grace of the snake he had imagined. It was not bells, however, that graced the body of this goddess, but rather the fine links of chain-mail formed into an armor that didn't even protect her decency, much less her life.

Decker drooled and leered with the rest of them, unable to take his eyes from her as she passed by him to the next row of booths, and a fresh crowd of staring eyes and turning heads. He was still in this position when he heard the voice; the voice of a woman he knew well. The woman who had brought him here on this pilgrimage. He turned to her, to the look of cynical suspicion. Her eyes cast around briefly at the crowd and the City of Magic, and then returned her gaze to Decker sitting before her.

"So, are you enjoying yourself?"

"Oh yeah. This is so cool, Mom. Can we come back to GenCon next year? Pleeeeease?"