Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water (34 page)

Sid shouted, “Someone stop him!”

Nilo was running toward the open end of the square that led out to empty space and a spectacular view of the city. If he reached the edge, he could jump. As steep as the bowl was at this level, the tops of the buildings on the next level down could probably be only thirty feet or so down. He would have to vault over the railing, but he could survive that jump, and then would have an excellent chance of escaping.

John, the Chinese wizard, heard Gilbert’s call, and in one smooth motion redirected his energies from maintaining the wall to shooting some sort of glowing energy ball toward Nilo. The ball of red light passed through him as if he weren’t there, continued straight out into the empty expanse of the city’s airspace, then flashed a blinding red light. When the light died, in its place, suspended in midair, was a massive Chinese dragon. Its body, at least fifty feet long, undulated through the air like a gymnast’s ribbon, but at the front end, instead of a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian girl with a stick, there was a head like that of a lion, but much larger and much less sleepy. Its claws looked like daggers. Its eyes looked like hatred itself, and it made a beeline for Nilo, who scrabbled to an undignified stop, shrieked, and darted away to his right.

John would have found it quite gratifying if he’d seen it. Unfortunately, he had lowered his force field to create the dragon, and as such had been buried under an avalanche of snakes.

The dragon changed direction to follow Nilo, who ran a full, panicked lap of the cobra pile until he emerged on the other side of the square with an unobstructed run to the open air and freedom again. Luckily, John had shown the way, and the Incan shaman at the other side of the pile had paid attention.

The Incan dropped his force field and reached toward the open air. In the space between Nilo and the railing, a mounted conquistador appeared, glowing like a fake ghost in an episode of Scooby Doo. Steam burst from the ghostly horse’s nostrils as it reared up on its hind legs and flailed menacingly with its hooves. The rider leveled a flare-fronted musket at Nilo, but Nilo had already altered his course to run another lap of the pile. As he ran around the back side of the square, each wizard he passed abandoned the wall and did something to add to his problems. By the time he emerged again on the other side of the square he was pursued by the dragon, the conquistador, a three-headed wolf, a stone golem, and a small pack of vicious Chihuahuas. The cobra wall had also unraveled behind him, giving the impression that he was fleeing from a nonstop wave of deadly snakes.

As he again sprinted toward the railing and, Nilo hoped,
freedom, he was
passed by another bolt of energy that struck the railing and exploded into a wall of solid flames that filled his entire field of vision. He stopped dead in his tracks, shielding his eyes from the light and his face from the searing heat. His shoulders sagged, and he turned to face his tormenters. He saw the people of his city, his people, watching from every available vantage point, waiting to see how he would be tortured next. He saw the
wizards
, the monsters, and the tiny yapping dogs all waiting for him to make his next move, and all standing ankle deep in the pile of snakes (except for the Chihuahuas, who were standing
on the surface
of the snakes).

It was almost impossible, but Nilo managed to keep his fear in check.

For an instant, the central mass of cobras emitted a glow, as if they were piled on top of a theatrical spotlight that had been quickly turned on and then off again. Then the pile began to swell, bulging and pulsing outward. A circular wave of wriggling snakes rolled outward like a ripple in a pond as a swirling mass of what appeared to be small silver boxes broke the surface of the pile. The boxes coalesced into a larger version of the recognizable form of a crouching wizard, Martin, who had finally managed to find his staff.

Giant Martin rose to his full height, cobras rolling off of his shoulders and back like rain. He planted his gigantic staff on the ground with a sound like two wrecking balls colliding. He looked down, surveying the scene. He saw the fearsome creatures, the wall of flame, the large audience, and the international task force of wizards, all clearly ready for action, standing in what he had to admit were mostly bad imitations of kung-fu poses. Martin took this all in, then opened his giant mouth and in a voice so deep and so loud that you could feel it in your viscera, he said, “See! This is more like it!”

With that, the last of Nilo’s self-control disappeared. His mind was wiped clean of all rational thought. All he knew was that he wanted to get away. He turned, screaming, and leapt through the wall of fire. He emerged on the other side, hair and clothes smoldering, and fell thirty feet to the roof of a building below. He landed badly, rolling on his side. He speed-crawled to the edge and then slid over. He fell another twenty feet to street level. He landed on his back, groaning, just in time to see giant-Martin burst through the wall of fire with his legs tucked up under him, one hand in a fist and his staff held out before him like a sword. All of the hideous creatures, and all of the wizards who had created them, followed Martin through the wall of fire. Most flew under their own power, but the distinguished gentleman from China rode his dragon.

Martin made a three-point landing, taking up most of the street. Nilo ran like he’d never run before, literally. In his terror he’d forgotten all grace and technique, and was shambling like a toddler, arms flapping uselessly. His hair and the heavy fabric of his kilt had stopped smoldering, but his netting shirt burst into actual flame. Luckily for him, there was very little of it to burn, and the fire was mostly light and flash with very little heat. Still, Martin caught up to him in one massive stride, more a short flight than a single step, and kindly put out the fire by mashing Nilo to the ground with the flat of his hand.

Nilo yelped piteously as Martin grasped him around the waist in his giant fist, and lifted him up two and a half stories to Martin’s eye level. (In truth, Martin was located in the giant’s torso, but lifting him up to the head was better showbiz.)

Nilo pushed and struggled and beat at the immense fingers with his fists, but Martin did not feel it, so it had no effect. Nilo screamed insults and curses, ranted and raved, and made specific threats about what he’d do when he got loose. Martin wanted to squash him like a bug. He’d tried to kill Gwen and Martin and Ampyx. He’d beaten Martin mercilessly and had tried to kill Gwen. He may have killed Phillip and Brit, both of her, and what made it all worse, he’d tried to kill Gwen. Martin wanted to squeeze him until he popped, but he didn’t. He showed some restraint. Instead, he raised the hand that was holding his immense staff and gently flicked Nilo’s head with his index
finger
. Nilo’s head flew to the side as if he’d been slapped.

Martin looked to the assembled wizards, who, along with their various creations, were hovering around him like planets orbiting a star. He said, “Thanks for the help, everyone. That was great!” Martin’s eye was caught by Gilbert and Sid, who had not yet taken the trouble to revert from their monster forms. He looked at Gilbert’s wings and tentacles and said, “Cthulhu,
obviously
.”

Gilbert’s face tentacles parted, and he replied, “Obviously.”

Martin turned to Sid, and asked, “Are you Fek’lhr, guardian of the Klingon afterlife?”

Gilbert slobbered, “As envisioned by Ardra in the
Star Trek: The Next Generation
episode ‘Devil’s Due.’”

Martin laughed and asked, “How is it that we’re not friends?”

Gilbert said, “Maybe in our time you’re just a jerk.”

Sid added, “Or maybe we are friends, and Gil and I have just been messing with you.”

A distant voice shouted, “Hey! Hey Martin!”

Martin turned, and back at the railing that marked the edge of the public square where all the action had occurred, amongst the throng of Atlanteans, he saw Ampyx waving his arms.
Martin
covered the space between them in one long, gliding step,
standing
on one of the rooftops beneath the railing.

“Ampyx! Are you okay?”

Ampyx said, “Yeah, my knee hurts, but it could have been much worse. I see you caught him.”

Martin said, “Yeah. Always knew we would in the end.” He lifted Nilo up for the crowd to see, like a child showing off his favorite toy. “Look everyone, it’s Nilo! Say hello to Nilo.”

A surprising number of people actually did yell, “Hi, Nilo.”

“So, what do we do now?” Ampyx asked.

“Go find Gwen, I guess.”

“Can I come?”

Martin said, “Sure,” then looked at his hands. One was
holding
his staff, the other was holding Nilo. He couldn’t really let go of either. He looked perplexed for a moment, then jammed Nilo into one of his armpits and stretched out his now free hand to carry Ampyx.

34.

The sorceresses watched the distant lights and listened to the horrific noises coming from the upper ring as if it were some bizarre fireworks show. Most of it had been just a little too
distant
to make out from their vantage point, near the lowest part of the city. It was mainly distant shrieking noises and weird, faint glows, but the Chinese dragon was large enough to get
everyone’s
attention
, then the wall of fire held their attention. The tiny-
looking
,
normal
-sized man bursting through the wall, pursued by a giant
silver
wizard, made for a pretty satisfying finale for everyone except Ida.

Gwen knew who the giant silver wizard was, and when he started standing around casually, with what appeared to be a human being clamped helplessly in his hand, she knew what that meant.

Gwen asked Louiza, “Mind if I send them a signal to come down here?”

Louiza said, “Knock yourself out. It should be interesting to hear what they have to say.”

Gwen poked and swiped at the air in front of her, then traced an arrow shape, and in the sky directly above her position, a huge blinking-blue arrow appeared directly overhead. The
sorceresses
had a chuckle when they saw the silver giant notice, then point at the arrow.

Martin placed Ampyx on the back of the Chinese dragon along with John, the dragon’s rider. Martin retrieved Nilo from his underarm, and slowly flew down to the center of the city. All of the wizards who had assisted him followed. As they flew, Martin heard Vikram shout, “I put out a call to all the delegates I know to meet us at the arrow and pass the message along. Whatever happens, I think it would be good to have plenty of witnesses.”

Soon, Giant Martin touched down in the park, just beyond the railing of Brit the Elder’s patio. He looked down to the
sorceresses
, said, “Ladies,” and touched the squirming and protesting Nilo to the brim of his hat as a sign of greeting.

It took only a moment for Martin to lose the undivided
attention
of his audience. He looked over his shoulder and was a bit disgusted by what he saw. He knew the Chinese wizard was riding his dragon down, giving Ampyx a lift in the process, but he hadn’t expected the Incan to bring the ghost-conquistador along, and he’d assumed that Gilbert and Sid would go ahead and ditch their Cthulhu and Fek’lhr disguises. He certainly hadn’t expected to see winged Chihuahuas flying in behind him. They had Nilo in custody. There was no need for all of this shock and awe, but then Martin remembered that they’d been able to see that many of the sorceresses had gathered at their
destination
, and Martin realized that these guys would not choose to turn off their most impressive spells
before
the ladies got a chance to see them.

I guess I’m lucky that Vikram didn’t bring the snake
s, Martin thought bitterly. There’s nothing a showoff hates more than a competing showoff.

Vikram’s call had been more successful than expected. Most of the city had become aware of the chaos Martin and Nilo had started, and when the call to the delegates went out saying that the danger was probably over, but the interesting bit was not, they all came running—or rather, flying. Less than a minute after Gwen had sent up her arrow, every magic user in Atlantis was gathered together—the sorceresses on Brit’s raised patio, and the delegates in the park below.

Rather than try to get everyone up to speed herself, Gwen simply asked Ampyx to tell everyone what had happened when they confronted Ida. He stood, surrounded by his audience, and explained the whole thing. Gwen was betting that he, as a naïve non-magical type, would be believed more readily than she or Martin, and by the time he finished, she could see that she’d been right.

Louiza thanked Ampyx, then turned to Ida and asked, “Would you like to say anything in your defense?”

Ida started to say something, but she saw the looks on the faces of the sorceresses, her former friends, and realized that more talking was not the solution to her problems. The jig was up, all the way up. Any attempt at a defense would just be
perceived
as a new crime, like a child who steals a cookie, then lies to his parents about it. She simply shook her head no.

“And how about you—Nilo, is it? Anything to say for
yourself
?” Louiza shouted.

Nilo shouted, “How dare you question her? How dare you question either of us? She is your president! She is your rightful ruler! You should defer to her as she defers to me, her man.”

Louiza said, “Interesting.”

“Silence, woman! You’ve forgotten your place. You’ve all
forgotten
your place! This whole city you’ve built is a perversion, and I’ve tolerated it for about as long as I can. You have forgotten your place. You are women.
Women
! You are here to serve the needs of men.”

With commendable calm, Louiza said, “Women built this city and invited you to live here. We rule the city and make sure everything works. We bend the laws of time and space. We do that. We women.”

“Yes,” Nilo said triumphantly, as if she had made his point for him. “That is how you serve us. That is your place, to make a peaceful and pleasant place for your men while we do the
important
work.”

Louiza said, “You do what we want you to.”

Nilo sneered derisively, “And that’s what is wrong. We should do what we want.”

“While we do everything else?” Louiza asked.

Nilo said, “If that’s what your man wants. Always remember, you are here to serve men. It is not natural for men to do women’s bidding!”

Louiza said, “Then you’re not gonna like this. Martin, please shut him up.”

Martin said, “Yes, ma’am,” then flicked Nilo’s head again, and sent him back to the giant armpit for a time out. Nilo’s legs kicked furiously, but he was effectively silenced.

Louiza stepped forward, and in a loud, confident voice said, “I am not in charge here. Nobody has elected me. I have no
official
rank. I only stepped forward to organize things because I saw that someone had to. While we are on Atlantean ground, the crimes committed here have affected one of our guests a
s
well, so for this matter, I personally think the
delegates
should have an equal say in how
we proceed. Does anyon
e object?”

The silence was long and pronounced enough to be a clear answer.

“Okay,” Louiza continued. “Good. Delegates, rest assured that Ida and Nilo will be punished, and we can certainly discuss who will determine what that punishment will be. But before that, I think we need to find out definitively what happened to the wizard Phillip, and the sorceresses Brit the Elder and Brit the Younger. Does anyone object to that?”

Brit the Elder raised her hand and said, “I object to you
referring
to me as if I were two separate people, but I’m willing to let that go for now.”

Louiza said, “Fair enough. Thanks, Brit.” Then she, along with almost everybody else, spent the next few moments silently freaking out, and listening to Ida curse.

Brit the Elder smiled and said, “Ida, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you weren’t happy to see me.”

Ida’s unbecoming anger faded, and was quickly replaced with an equally unbecoming expression of hope. “No! Brit, on the contrary, I’m very happy to see you. All these people thought Nilo had killed you and that I’d helped, but the fact that you’re here proves that he didn’t do it.”

“Ida, dear, the fact that I still live only really proves that Nilo didn’t succeed in killing me. I am living proof that he failed.
Usually
I say a miss is as good as a mile, but in this case I’m
willing
to give him full credit for having tried his hardest. As for you, you tried to help him, and you succeeded.”

Ida cried, “But I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” Brit the Elder said, interrupting.

“I didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t,” Brit agreed.

“I was sure he couldn’t—”

“But you were happy to let him try.”

“But, then where are—”

“Younger me and Phillip are fine. We’ll get to that. Don’t jump ahead.”

Ida whined, “But I didn’t do—”

Finally, Brit the Elder had had enough. She snapped, “I know what you did. I know exactly what you both did. I saw the whole thing, twice, from two different angles. I lived through what your houseboy did to me, then I had over a century to think about it, then I got to spend the last week watching you do it all over again, so don’t talk to me about what you did and didn’t do, because at this point I know it all better than you do. I know what you did, I know what all these good people have done, and I know how we will all decide to punish you.”

Ida gave a sickly smile, and said, “Really, do you know about this?” She hastily traced a shape in the air with broad, slashing gestures, shouted, “Evac, evac, evac!” and she and Nilo both
disappeared
.

Brit said, “As a matter of fact, I did.”

She turned around to address the throng of magic users who surrounded her, both on her patio and on the turf below. “Don’t worry, everyone. I know exactly where they went. I’m going to let them have one more happy night together, thinking they got away with it, just to make it that much more painful for them when they’re caught. When they wake up tomorrow morning, they’ll find me, younger me, and Phillip waiting at the foot of their bed, and believe me, the look on their faces will be
priceless
.”

Louiza asked, “But what if they get away from you?”

“They won’t.”

“But, how can you be sure?” Louiza persisted.

“Like I said,” Brit explained, “when I was younger, I came along. Besides, you know full well that thanks to the file there’s nowhere they can possibly go where we wouldn’t easily find them.”

Gwen spoke up. “Um, there might be a problem there. The file’s been locked down. Martin and I both tried to access it from several different places, and it’s been password protected.”

Brit smiled. “First of all, thank you, Gwen, for trying.” She raised her voice so all could hear. “Thank you to everyone for having helped bring Nilo and Ida to justice, but particularly, I’d like to thank Ampyx, Gwen, and Martin, and to Gwen and
Martin
I also want to apologize. I’m the one who locked you out of the file. Think of it as a proof of concept for things we’ll be
discussing
later in the week. Besides, I couldn’t have you bringing Phillip and me back prematurely, could I? Speaking of which . . .”

Brit the Elder swiped her finger through the air, scrolling through options only she could see. Finally she jabbed at the air before her, and Brit the Younger and Phillip materialized. They were both wearing T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers. Brit had a pair of black mouse ears with “Brit” embroidered on the back in gold thread. Phillip had a similar set of ears that said “Phil.”

To the other sorceresses, Brit the Elder had always seemed a little aloof, a bit above them. They all adored and respected her, but from a distance. Brit the Younger had always been more approachable, so they approached her from all sides, making it clear that they were happy she was back and was all right.

Phillip looked out over the assembled wizards, nodded, and said, “Hey, guys.”

Some of the wizards waved. All of them muttered some variation on the phrase, “Hi, good to see you.”

While the sorceresses were greeting Brit the Younger to within an inch of her life, Gwen caught a glimpse of Brit the Elder watching them, and she could have sworn that Brit the Elder looked jealous, but then Brit the Elder made a few quick swipes at the air, raised her hand, and projected a force field over the sorceresses just in time to stop the hail of arrows Nilo had created during his battle with the wizards, arrows that had fallen uselessly to the ground before, but were drawn to Brit the Younger as soon as she reappeared. With that, Brit the Elder no longer looked jealous.

Martin reverted to his normal size and appearance and went to join Phillip. They shook hands and mumbled some bland greetings, expressing their feelings by making an obvious effort to ignore them, as was their way.

“So, what happened?” Martin asked.

Phillip said, “We went through the portal and immediately found ourselves underwater. We sank for a few seconds. I couldn’t do any magic without my staff. We should really do something about that, by the way.”

Martin said, “I’ve come to the same conclusion. Go on.”

“Well, I realized that Brit couldn’t do any magic with me holding onto her hand. So I let go, and just as she started to work a spell, we teleported again. We found ourselves in a hotel room. We coughed and sputtered for a bit, then we realized that Brit the Elder was standing there watching us.”

“What did she say?” Martin asked.

“She offered us towels. Then Brit yelled at her until she got tired. Then she explained that you and Gwen would sort things out, and that everything would work out for the best, but for that to happen, the three of us had to disappear for a little while. How long have we been gone?”

Martin said, “Hours. You disappeared into the wall this morning. Why? How long have you been gone?”

“A week. Brit the Elder did two great things for us. She got us a week at Walt Disney World during EPCOT’s grand opening, and she left us alone to enjoy it. The only catch was that we couldn’t contact anyone. We had to let events here unfold the way she remembered.”

“Did you stay on-property?” Martin asked.

Phillip said, “The Polynesian Resort.”

“Nice,” Martin said.

“It was. It gave us something to do together that didn’t require us to just focus on our relationship problems the whole time. Real problems stick around, of course, but the nice thing about the unimportant, made-up problems is that if you ignore them long enough, they really will just go away.”