Bureaucracies are a necessary evil. This is a tried and true fact, and one that you can’t deny easily—though some glassy-eyed men wearing surplus military fatigues and carrying semi-legal assault weapons often try. Without them, you’ve got nothing in the way of public service networks, sloppy central organization for the few weeks that the central organization lasts, and Robert “the Chainsaw” Jenkins claiming your front yard as territory in the newly formed nation of Robertoria. With them, you’ve got people snooping into that little cockfighting/prostitution ring you’ve been running on the side, taxes, and tooth-grindingly pointless administrative procedures.

Throw in a little incompetence, and you start wondering just how many shotgun shells you can stockpile in the next few days.

Governmental bureaucracies are bad enough, but nothing exemplifies this ideal of sadistic and gleeful hoops-jumping better than the college registrar. In my experience, they can take any minor problem, like, say, permission for an online course, and within minutes have it developed into an earth-shattering, extinction-level-event type problem. And then they go to lunch.

All that aside, it’s not unreasonable to have to go the advising center just before registration. After all, in a school as big as the one I go to, entering the wrong class code can mean a semester spent in the bush learning intermediate Bantu and battling revolutionaries between bouts of malaria. No, I don’t have a problem visiting the advising center—most of the people there are quite friendly, and about one in two actually know what the hell they’re talking about—an exceptional ratio, in my opinion. The ordeal doesn’t start until my advisor makes a chance comment when I’m on my way out the door.

“By the way,” he asked idly, “have you gotten your PIN yet?”

Our registration system is high-tech, cutting edge, and totally online, which means that the server usually crashes at crucial points during the process. The PIN, a four-digit code that distills my life, identity, and soul down into a manageable little packet essential for online registration, had been up to this point had been brought to my email every registration period by (I assumed) mystically enslaved sprites, bound to the campus server by dark rites.

“No,” I replied, trying to look nonchalant. “Shouldn’t they be sending those out soon? It’s getting kind of close to registration.” ‘Close’ would be an understatement. ‘Staring it in the face’ might be more accurate, or perhaps ‘using its toothbrush, sleeping with its wife and playing fetch with its dog’.

“Don’t you know?” He sounded shocked at my ignorance. “They aren’t sending them out anymore. You have to go pick them up.”

My disbelief had to be apparent. “I have to pick up a number?”

“Why, yes.”

I paused a moment. Illogic can be worked around. Remember that no one in an advising office can truly be called human. I tried again.

“Can they email it to me?”

“No.”

“Can they mail it to me?”

“Nope.”

Okay, so obviously they aren’t going to expend any effort. “Can I send a highly-trained primate assassin to retrieve it for me, or die trying?”

He shook his head. “No, you have to get it in person.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“What possible reason could there be for me having to be there, physically, in person, to pick up a handful of digits?”

Sedately, he answered, “It’s policy.”

I rubbed my eyes and sighed. The ne plus ultra of bureaucracy. I gave in. “Alright,” I said wearily, “where do I go to pick it up?” Wordlessly he pointed out the window. I walked over to it and stared at the building he pointed to. And stared.

“The staircase made of skulls is a nice touch,” I remarked after a moment.

“The admin group are a colorful bunch, yes.”

“The gouts of hellish flame—those are nice too.”

“They think it gets the message across.”

I pointed. “What style is that built in, exactly? It looks like a fusion of sixties government-funded and pagan ziggurat.”

“Neo-torment. A lot of admin buildings are built in it these days.”

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Why the hell didn’t I ever notice this before?”

He smiled enigmatically. “It is only for eyes that see,” he answered cryptically.

Ooookay. “And I need to go in there to get my PIN?” I asked. He nodded. “Well, no sense in waiting.” Especially considering that if I did wait, I’d be stuck with academic dregs next semester. Again. I squared my shoulders, picked up my backpack, and stole a silver letter opener off his desk. I told myself at the time that I was probably going to need to kill some werewolves at some point in my life, but let’s be honest—it was a really nice letter opener.

As I sauntered out of the building, the other students waiting for their appointments whispered to each other.

“Is it he?”

“The cursed one . . .”

“. . . never come back alive . . .”

I was encouraged. And here I thought that this was going to be boring.

Whatever it was, the students outside noticed it too. They walked wide around me—wider than normal, that is. I have a bubble of personal space about six feet wide and as impenetrable as rugby player’s head. After about the seventh or eighth fearful look I stopped looking for stigmata or burning sigil tattooed on my forehead.

I tell you, a staircase of skulls might look really impressive at a distance, but it’s a pain in the ass to climb. Add to that the fact that some genius decided to put the stairs at the very top of the building with the skull-steps leading grandly up to it, and it took me a long time to get to the top. A pair of huge doors opened into blackness. I stepped in gingerly, feeling blindly along the wall.

“Why have you violated our sanctum?” roared a voice. I admit it, I jumped. And squeaked. And maybe wet myself a little. It was a very loud voice.

I squinted into the darkness, trying to find the source of the voice. “Um . . . I think I’m supposed to get my PIN here?”

A light flicked on, outlining a circle of pale yellow glow just ahead and to my right. The circle barely contained the mammoth desk sitting smack-dab in its center, and a wizened little gnome of a man sat behind it, looking like a kid sitting in daddy’s cubicle. He wore embroidered robes (also too large for him), rimless spectacles, and a very large, very odd hat. There was a flint dagger lying next atop a pile of papers, and he was writing on a wax tablet with a Sharpie.

“Name?” he asked in a voice like sandpaper on a chalkboard.

“Why were you writing in the dark?” I asked curiously.

“We haven’t paid our electric bill. Name?” he repeated, without changing tone a jot.

Perversely determined to ignore him as long as possible, I pointed. “And what’s with the funny hat?”

“It’s a mark of my station,” he said, his pen still poised over the tablet. “Name?”

“What station is that?”

“Keeper of the Guardian of the Knower of the Maker of the PIN. Name?”

I marveled. “That’s an impressive title. What do you do?”

“I take names,” he said flatly. “Name?”

I pointed again. “Why do you have an Aztec sacrificial knife on your desk?”

“Letter opener. Name?”

“You’re not going to leave me alone till I tell you, are you?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “Name?”

“Signorile,” I sighed. “Eric.”

He produced a huge leather-bound tome from . . . somewhere, I think it might have been simply plucked whole from Nothingness, but that’s just supposition. With an infuriating lack of haste he cracked open the manual and began to leaf through it unhurriedly. Finally he paused and looked up. “Ah,” he said, then stopped.

I let the silence stretch for a minute, until I could bear it no longer. “Ah?” I asked hopefully.

“Ah,” he answered gravely, nodding solemnly. He stopped again. The silence drew out again, until I was almost dancing with frustration.

“Well?” I demanded impatiently.

“You’re not on my list.”

He said it like he was telling me the tumor had reached by heart, brain, lungs, and testicles—all at once. Wonderful. The bureaucratic version of the ultimate sin, exceeded only by forgetting to initial page three b and four steps beyond homicide in severity. “What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.

He closed the book with a bang. “It means,” he said, “that you must face the trials.”

Oh dear God.

He rose. “Follow me,” he said. Not seeing any other option, and not quite sure what happened to the door, I did. He led me down a hallway, deeper and deeper into the heart of the temple—er, admin building. As we went down, we passed other people, all dressed in robes and equally strange hats. None of them paid any attention to us.

Finally we arrived before a pair of enormous double doors. A young man, also in robes, leaned against it casually, seemingly dozing. He snapped awake as we approached. “Who’s this?” he asked sleepily, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“A seeker,” my guide said brusquely, then added in a conspiratorial tone, “He’s not on the list.”

All traces of drowsiness vanished from the young man. “He’s not?” he asked, startled. Then he turned a regretful gaze on me. “You poor bastard,” he said sorrowfully. Before I could open my mouth to ask what the hell was going on (or more likely, gibber a little), the young man pulled something from behind him and crammed it into my hands. “Remember,” he said urgently, “the giant snake likes to strike to the right, so you have to dodge to the left—”

“What—” I began.

“—and whatever you do, don’t let—”

“—is going—”

“—spiders, pouring out of your skull—”

“—on!” I howled.

“—and make sure to return the sword, or you get billed for it,” he continued rolling right on. “Got it? Good!” He gave me a powerful shove toward the doors, propelling me through them. They swung shut behind me with a ponderous groan. His voice came faintly through the door, “You have sired an heir to avenge you, right?”

“NO!” I shouted back.

“ . . . them’s the breaks, man,” drifted back. I waited, but nothing else came through. Muttering something derogatory-sounding nonsense words, I finally looked at what he’d shoved into my hands. “Why a plastic cavalry saber?” I wondered aloud. “Was the broadsword too expensive?”

“Yesssssss . . . ” came a hissing voice from behind me. I contemplated whirling dramatically around, but I suddenly realized that I really didn’t want to know what was there. I turned around very, very slowly . . .

Well, they did mention something about a giant snake.

“Eep,” I said.

I won’t bore you with the details of my miraculous escape, but suffice to say that it was only the first of many. After the snake there was the Lake of Fire, where I had to cross a burning rope bridge over a lake of molten rock to retrieve times-tables flashcards, all the while reciting the Magna Carta from memory. After the Lake, I was subjected to a grueling thirteen-hour marathon of Reality TV while midgets dressed as Templars beat me with foam bats. As the final and most grueling trial, I was required to make a convincing case for the legalization of mallard-molestation and present it before a panel of Christian-Right luminaries while naked and visibly aroused.

Once all these tasks were completed, I was given my PIN, and my right to take boring classes in a place I don’t really like for a degree I’m not going to use was once again confirmed, and just in time for Registration itself.

Bastards still charged me for the sword, though.