Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water

by Scott Meyer

  Phillip’s facilities consisted of a simple latrine with a thirty-foot pit, but at the bottom of the pit there was a portal that instantly transported anything that fell through it away. Where away was had changed recently, because a statue he particularly disliked had been removed. Currently, away was a local farmer’s fertilizer supply, which the farmer appreciated, although he was not pleased with the velocity with which the fresh fertilizer would arrive. It led to his fertilizer pile being messier than he liked, a concept which fascinated Phillip.

  “Where do your lavatories lead?” Phillip asked.

  Brit asked, “You haven’t had a chance to look at the stars at night since you got here, have you?”

  “No.”

  “I suggest you and younger me do so. Not tonight, as I’m still a little shaken, what with someone repeatedly trying to kill me and all, but soon. I think you’ll notice that we have quite a few more shooting stars than you’re used to. Now that you know why, I doubt you’ll find it as romantic as you would have before.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, giving Phillip the opportunity to notice that she had started leading him away from the monument and back to her patio. They were most of the way back and he hadn’t even noticed it. He remembered that he had business with Brit the Elder, and he needed to tend to it soon.

  “You mentioned the attempts on Brit’s life,” Phillip said.

  “Yes.”

  “So,” Phillip said, “clearly, you’re aware of them.”

  “Oh, Phillip, I remember them like they were yesterday.”

  Phillip said, “Two of them were.”

  “Not for me. For me they were a long time ago, but like I said, I remember them all too well. It’s terribly disturbing to know that someone wants you dead, and every attempt is a clear reminder. The statues. The submersible. The thing tomorrow. Ghastly.”

  “What thing tomorrow?” Phillip said.

  “You’ll see. Don’t worry. Obviously, I survive.”

  Phillip sputtered, “But . . . why? If you remember exactly what happens, why not tell us who’s doing it?”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “Don’t, or won’t?”

  “Both. I won’t now, because I remember that I didn’t then.”

  Phillip stopped walking and gently but firmly removed his arm from Brit the Elder’s grasp. “So you’re not going to lift a finger to help,” he said.

  “No, I’m going to help, as Brit the Younger. I remember going to quite a bit of trouble to figure out who’s doing this, but I also remember that Brit the Elder stood by and did nothing, and now it’s my turn to play that part, unsatisfying as it is.”

  Phillip shook his head, “I . . . I don’t have a lot of respect for that.”

  Brit nodded in agreement. “Neither did I. The whole thing caused a lot of resentment on my part. It took a long time for me to get over it, but eventually, I understood, and forgave myself.”

  Phillip said, “Whatever,” and started walking again. Brit walked beside him.

  “I know this isn’t the way you hoped this conversation would go,” Brit said, in a soft, pleasant tone, “but you’ll see in time that you couldn’t realistically expect it to end any other way. After all, Phillip, you still don’t believe that I’m really Brit. You still think that I’m a false projection. I’ve noticed that you still refer to me as two separate people.”

  “And I suppose you resent it.”

  Brit said, “Not at all,” and stopped walking while softly grasping Phillip’s elbow in a way that made him involuntarily stop and face her. She softly cradled his cheek with her hand. “I don’t resent it at all. You don’t want me to be Brit the Younger’s future because when I was Brit the Younger, I didn’t want me to be my future. You only doubt me out of a sense of loyalty to me. How could I find that anything but endearing?”

  Phillip looked into Brit’s eyes and said, “You confuse me terribly.”

  She kept her hand on his cheek, looked back into his eyes, and said, “I find that endearing too.”

  18.

  The next morning, when it was time to go to the summit’s second day of meetings, Brit the Younger was feeling edgy. Three attempts on your life will do that to you. Having Brit the Elder predict a fourth attempt didn’t help.

  Martin, Phillip, and Gwen were nervous as well. They gathered at Brit the Younger’s apartment and escorted her to the summit. They considered just teleporting to the convention center, but Brit didn’t want to look like she was living in fear, so they walked. Gwen walked in front, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Martin and Phillip walked on either side of Brit, ready to leap into action the instant anything went wrong. Three guards, one of whom was Ampyx (still wearing his new hat), brought up the rear. As long as Brit the Elder seemed unconcerned, this was the all the official response the situation was likely to get, and like all obvious precautions, none of this did anything to help Brit relax or make her look less fearful.

  Martin tried to reassure her. “If Phillip’s right and she’s not really you, maybe Brit the Elder’s memory of today is wrong.”

  “You mean her memory that someone would try to kill me and fail?” Brit asked.

  “Yeah,” Martin said.

  “Well,” Brit said, “if her memory is wrong, then it may be that nobody tries to kill me today.”

  Martin said, “Exactly.”

  Brit said, “Or, she could be right about the attempt to kill me, but wrong about it being unsuccessful.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Martin said.

  Phillip said, “Maybe she was predicting your failed attempt to cheer Brit up.”

  Martin looked back over his shoulder, and found Ampyx was staring at him. He asked the guard, “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  Martin said, “Yeah, I thought so,” and turned back around.

  They reached the lift station just before the lift departed on its trip down the wall of the city toward the center. There were few people on the lift platform already, but to Martin’s chagrin, Gilbert and Sid, the angry fops, were two of them. They were wearing stifling three-piece suits with stiff, starched collars, top hats, and white gloves, and carried walking sticks. They regarded Martin and Phillip with equal parts amusement and loathing, much as one would look at a cockroach dressed as a clown.

  Martin ignored them. Phillip hadn’t dealt with them yet, and as was his way, met their scorn with attempted friendliness. Phillip said, “Good morning,” and bowed slightly.

  The shorter of the two men, the one with the waxed moustache, lifted his top hat and bowed in an extravagant manner. “Good morning, Phillip. It is so good to see you. Martin, Gwen, Brit, lovely to see you today as well. I take it the purpose of traveling in this tight formation is to protect fair Brit in case another statue falls on her?”

  Phillip said, “Yes. You disapprove?” His veneer of friendliness was already wearing thin.

  Sid, the taller, chin-bearded one who had been silent until this point, said, “No, not at all. If you choose to spend your time making sure nobody kills someone who is unkillable, who are we to judge? Besides, this way, if another statue comes down, maybe it’ll take you two out instead. Then we can step in and give the ladies some real protection.”

  “Yes, ladies,” Gilbert agreed, raising his walking stick, which was piano-black with ivory caps on both ends. He used the stick to tap Phillip’s wizard staff as he said, “Theirs might be larger, but I promise we’re better at using ours.”

  Martin grimaced in utter disgust. “Really? Making the obvious joke?” Any question in his mind as to why he and these two men didn’t get along was now answered. “The first rule of using magic staffs and wands is that you never make the obvious joke.”

  “That’s your rule, not ours,” Gilbert said.

  Gwen decided it wa
s time to speak up. “Tell me, has any woman ever laughed when you made the obvious joke?”

  “No,” Sid said, “but that’s just because women don’t really have a sense of humor.”

  Gwen asked, “What makes you say that?”

  Sid said, “I tell a lot of jokes, jokes my male friends think are hilarious, but women almost never laugh.”

  Brit nodded, and said, “Well, we can’t argue with that. Your logic is as strong as your wit.”

  Sid bowed more deeply, and said, “Thank you.”

  Mercifully, the lift reached the lowest station and it was time to disembark. Soon Gilbert and Sid were lost in the crowd. The walkway was crowded with Atlanteans going about their business and delegates all milling around before the summit commenced for the day. Gwen had expected to have to lead the rest of the group through the crowd, but word had gotten out about the two statues that had fallen on Brit, and everybody seemed to be giving their group plenty of room.

  They were nearly to the convention center’s entrance when a voice rang out through the crowd.

  “Brit! Brit!” The crowd parted and Ida, the duly elected president of Atlantis, ran through, followed closely by her towering servant. The president ran to Brit the Younger and hugged her tightly. “Oh, Brit. Are you okay? I heard about the statues. I know you weren’t hurt, but are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Brit said. “I’m fine, Ida. Thanks for asking.”

  Ida released the hug, but held Brit at arm’s length, studying her face. “Are you sure you’re okay? I know how badly an accident like that can shake someone up. Having a statue fall on you once would be bad enough, but twice. What are the chances?”

  Brit said, “It’s impossible, Ida. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Ida smiled and shook her head. “Brit, I admit, it’s weird, but you can’t think that it was anything but an accident. I mean, why on Earth would anybody try to hurt you?”

  Brit opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a whizzing noise, and a razor-sharp arrow streaked into view at high speed, striking her harmlessly on the forehead. Brit grimaced and said, “I don’t know, but I’m already getting pretty tired of it.”

  Phillip, Gwen, and Martin all looked frantically around, trying to see who had shot the arrow. Luckily, a random bystander in the crowd shrieked, “It came from up there!” The bystander pointed to the roof of a building near the rim of the city. All eyes turned and saw a single person looking down from the roof. From that distance, it was impossible to tell who the person was, but they could clearly tell that the entire crowd was looking at them, because the head quickly disappeared.

  Phillip turned to Martin and saw empty space, a pair of feet, and a silver sequined hem, streaking out of his vision. Martin had muttered “flugi” under his breath, and was speeding toward the would-be assassin’s position at top speed.

  Phillip said, “There he goes.”

  “Yup,” Gwen agreed.

  Ampyx looked at them, then shielded his eyes to watch Martin’s progress.

  Martin kept his eyes on the distant rooftop where he’d last seen the assailant. The rushing wind blowing directly in his face made it uncomfortable. For about the hundredth time Martin made a mental note to try to program some sort of auto-deploying goggles into the shell.

  Martin reached the top of the building and performed a perfect three-point Iron Man landing with his staff held behind and above him, designed to instill fear in the person he was pursuing, and it certainly would have if anyone had been there to see it. Martin surveyed the roof. Like all of the other roofs in Atlantis, this one was made of a thick, milky, crystalline material. In the far corner there was a shed-like rectangular protrusion with a door. Martin ran to it, opening it cautiously, in case his prey was waiting to ambush him. The area inside the door was clear, so Martin entered.

  As his eyes adjusted to the lower indoor light, Martin saw that the door led to a long stairwell, much as you’d find in any high-rise building, except that it was a graceful curving spiral, and made of milky glass. Martin heard the sound of someone running down the stairs very fast. He peered down the shaft of the stairwell and yelled, “Hey!” The running stopped, and a person’s head emerged into the shaft almost a third of the way down. He thought it was the same head as he had seen on the roof, but now he was much closer, and Martin could see the look of absolute terror on the man’s face. The head disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and the running noises resumed at a faster pace than before.

  Martin knew that if the other man reached the bottom floor before him, he’d be lost. Martin also knew that he wouldn’t catch up on foot: the other man had too much of a head start. The open shaft in the center of the spiral was just a little too tight to fly down at any speed without crashing. He briefly considered trying to fly down the spiral. He would catch up to the guy that way, but by time he did, he’d likely be too dizzy to do anything but throw up on him.

  Martin smiled, and reached into his pocket. He pulled his bean bag out and simply dropped it down the center of the shaft. Martin watched it plummet silently then hit the floor at the bottom of the shaft with an echoing thud. Martin said, “Bamf,” and instantly he was standing at the bottom of the shaft. He looked up through the spiral. The now more distant running noises stopped again, and again, the man making them stopped running and peeked into the shaft. He looked up first, then turned and looked down.

  Martin smiled and waved up at the man. That’s right, Martin thought, I’ve got you and we both know it.

  The man looked stricken. His head disappeared again. Then, Martin heard the unmistakable sound of rushed footsteps and a door opening and closing. Then, the stairwell was silent, except for the sound of Martin cursing.

  Martin burst through the first door he saw, which led to an irregularly shaped hallway with three more doors. Martin tried one and found a dirty old mop. He tried the second and found a supply of clean new mops. The third door led to another hallway, this one tastefully decorated and ending in a bend rather than a door. Martin ran down the hall, rounded the corner and stopped, momentarily flummoxed by what he saw.

  Despite being placed in a time before the beginning of recorded history, Martin was not particularly surprised to find seemingly modern scenes here in Atlantis. Also, even though he had never gone to a spa in his life, Martin was savvy enough to recognize one when he saw it. The air was a heady mix of soothing music and the smell of lavender, as you would expect. Employees were busy giving massages, pruning finger and toe nails, and tweezing unwanted hairs. What surprised Martin was that all of the customers were big, beefy dudes.

  The man nearest to Martin was sitting back with a hot towel on his face while another man gave him a foot massage. The man receiving the foot rub was talking listlessly while the man giving the foot rub pretended to listen. “Yeah, I’ve always been a natural athlete. I’m good with the javelin, but my real forté is the discus. Ladies love a man who can throw a good discus, and the ones who aren’t ladies love it even more. It’s that pose at the beginning. There’s nothing manlier than that.”

  At the end of the room, Martin could see an open door. A man was walking in to get some part of his body tended to, and Martin saw broad daylight behind him.

  Martin shouted, “Hold the door!” Then he took off flying at top speed, but at an altitude of about four feet. Martin smiled when he heard men shouting, things falling, and water splashing as he shot through the spa.

  Martin emerged back into the outside world. He angled up at a forty-five degree angle to get some distance from the chaos he had just created. He circled around back to face the wall of the city, and saw that the building he had just left stood out a good distance from the upper curve of the wall. It had several entrances at its base at the front of the building, and other entrances on to the street behind the building about half way up. He estimated that the man who’d fired the arrow was about
halfway down the tower when he exited, so Martin gained altitude and searched for anything that might tell him which direction the guy he was chasing had gone.

  He did not have to search for long.

  Martin had suspected that Phillip would not be far behind him, and he could see Phillip flying above the street a few hundred feet down the road, directly behind some sort of commotion. Martin headed in that direction, and found that he was following a path of mild destruction. Nobody seemed to be hurt, but many of the people he flew over were picking up dropped items or helping fellow pedestrians to their feet. As he gained on the traveling disaster, he saw that it was being caused not by one man running, but by two.

  The man he was pursuing was still running, and looked more panicked than ever. Not far behind, the president’s servant was chasing him, gaining ground fast. The man in front was shoving people, grabbing things and throwing them behind him, toppling vendors’ carts, anything that might slow the man behind him. The president’s servant looked as if he was just out for a casual jog, and was dodging various obstacles in order to give his workout some variety. Nothing stopped him, or even seemed to slow him down.

  Martin could see that the president’s servant was going to catch the other man. It was just a matter of time. The problem was that in the meantime a lot of innocent bystanders were going to be inconvenienced, or maybe worse. This guy had tried to kill Brit. Who knew what he might do if he got the upper hand?

  Either the president’s servant would catch the man, or the man would effectively catch himself if they were just patient.

  Martin, having never been known for his patience, gained altitude and accelerated. He was momentarily distracted by the niggling thought that he hadn’t seen a bow, not on the roof, nor now in the fleeing man’s hands. He put the thought out of his mind until later, when there would be time to think.

  Back on street level, the hunted man was frantic. His legs were aching, his throat was closing up, and his breaths were shallow, stabbing barks that were barely bringing in enough oxygen to keep him from blacking out. He wanted to stop running. Each step was more agonizing than the last, but he knew that whatever was going to happen to him if he stopped would be worse. He’d thought he was in trouble when that foreign sorcerer in the shiny silver robe came after him, but he’d been easy enough to evade. Now, though, he was being chased by this hulking slab of beef with a murderer’s eyes and a marathon runner’s gait.