Deadly Wands

by Brent Reilly

CHAPTER 9

  Genghis Khan and his wife came to watch Billy compete for his 10,000th duel in one hundred days. At over 350 years old, Genghis thought he looked pretty good. But that damn child looked even better. "He's young, but he looks even younger," his beloved empress joked. Genghis killed thousands to preserve his reputation as the greatest dueler ever. Now a kid from the steppe, of all places, with the same name, of all things, was usurping that unique claim to fame. What a difference one hundred days makes.

  Every week the little punk suffered what looked like severe injuries. Some days ended with him unable to fly, and many days he limped or lost use of an arm. Yet, no matter how many third degree burns, ringing blows, or bloody cuts, he returned at dawn looking good as new. Genghis appreciated more than most the incredible recuperative powers of superior wands, but he still hoped the bastard suffered crippling injuries by now.

  In fact, he had counted on them.

  Well, the Immortal had a little surprise for the child. He personally recruited the hundred best damn quads the world has ever known and bet a fortune on them. He promised the winner a thousand tons of silver, since gold was becoming scarce. Already rich, it took the personal plea from Genghis himself, in front of their astonished families, to get them to do this favor for him. The Khan fantasized about how easily he could crush the French Air Force with such talent.

  On a more practical level, he could not afford that much gold leaving the economy. Already inflation was destabilizing financial markets. Commerce could not handle so much coin leaving the system. He not only needed to kill the kid, but to stop the river of money flowing out. Paying a thousand tons of silver seemed a small price against the thousands of gold tons he’d win upon the Boy Wonder’s death.

  To return money into the economy, the Khan personally walked into the betting exchanges and waged one thousand tons of gold against the Boy Wonder winning ten thousand duels. Financial institutions, the wealthy, and everyone with a spare coin duplicated his bets in betting exchanges across the Empire. Genghis smiled at the thought of all that gold soon flooding local economies, and himself taking 10% of each transaction.

  The kid projected sixteen meter-long flames now -- one meter more than when he arrived. Most people saw him as the One Who Could Win The War, but Genghis instead saw a threat to his own survival. He had dealt with palace politics long enough to know that rival factions would gravitate to the kid, and every misfortune the Great Khan ever suffered would be sited as reasons for new leadership. Every year he had to kill a dozen descendents attempting to replace him; this would just be the youngest.

  If anyone asked him about the morality of murdering a ten year old, Genghis Khan would not have understood the question.

  Few people appreciate that he was elected khan at a khuriltai, a grand meeting of the tribes, and that they could simply elect someone to replace him. Not without bloodshed, but it could be done. And a fighter who could out-duel him would be a necessary choice. So Genghis Khan saw the Boy Wonder not just as a threat to his economy, but to his life.

  Genghis had never seen a crowd this excited off of the battlefield. With tickets so expensive, these one hundred thousand represented the wealthiest members of the Empire. The child sensation could become a cult. He should know -- he spent three centuries building his own personal cult.

  After everyone stood up for the national anthem, which glorified conquest, Mongols, and Genghis Khan himself, the arena manager grandly introduced the boy, who flew in a circle slapping outstretched hands. Genghis did not realized that he and his Imperial Guards were the only ones who did not stand. The roaring did not die down until Billy himself stopped in the center and tapped his vocal cords to speak.

  "Thank you, brothers and sisters! I love you all. Today I face my greatest challenge: I will either reach ten thousand kills or die. It has been a long one hundred days, and I’m exhausted. I look forward to my first day off tomorrow so I can train for the Olympic Games. When I’m of age, I’ll help conquer Europe."

  The stadium roared again.

  "I wish to welcome the greatest man who has ever lived; my hero, my ancestor, and my inspiration: Genghis Khan!" More applause as the Immortal rose to bow. "His blood gives me strength. His example shows the way. His policies taught me Mongol virtues hard won on the Mongolian Plateau. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude."

  Genghis tapped his own throat. "I accept both gold and silver!"

  “I owe the Immortal a great debt that I can never repay!” the champion re-stated to wild applause, flying closer to the Khan.

  "Some say I’m just like him, so let’s see if we share more than just a name." The boy, hovering close, peered intently at the khan. "They’re right. It's like looking in a mirror!" People laughed and Genghis wondered where the hell this was going. "I never knew I had such pretty eyes."

  With that the crowd went crazy. No one had ever had fun with the Great Khan before. Even Genghis smiled. But, next to him, Empress Borte doubled over in laughter, almost falling out of her seat. A few weeks ago she attended her first duel, and Boy Wonder dedicated his win that day to her. She liked that so much that she kept coming back, often holding a sign that said “I love Wonder.” While everyone feared, admired, and respected Genghis Khan, most people simply adored the Empress. So when the child flirted with her every day, the crowd ate it up.

  But to flirt with an empress was one thing; to play with a genocidal monster something else. This brat has balls big enough to attempt anything, Genghis realized.

  "Let me help those of you who confuse us: the guy who rules half the world is the tall guy, while the one you never heard of one hundred days ago is the short guy. The one who did so much for so many for so long is the tall Temujin, while the kid who duels to get out of school is the short Temujin." Billy had them now. Even the Great Khan seemed to enjoy the show. "Everyone got it now? The greatest man who ever lived is the tall one, while the child who still gets slapped by his mommy is the short one."

  The video of Liz smacking him in the manager's office had spread like the flu because it meant that the Greatest Fighter Ever still respected his mother like a good Mongol should. It made him human, humble, and heroic. Having won over the men, that video conquered the women. The sheer contrast between him beating one multi-millennial after another with his skinny mother whacking him across the room endeared the Boy Wonder to millions.

  "I point this out because too many people keep equating us. I can't tell you how many times I'm on the crapper when some super-quad bursts in, confuses me with my twin, then knocks himself out kowtowing." Even the Khan was laughing now. "Okay, the first thousand times were pretty funny, but now I can't take a shit without wondering who will mistake me for greatness. And my mother is tired of moping up all that urine from millennials who piss themselves thinking they've interrupted the Great Khan doing his private business."

  The imagery was just too much, and fans puked from laughing too hard.

  "You're just afraid of him!" someone loudly yelled from the premium stands.

  "You think I'm afraid of the Great Immortal?" Billy angrily demanded. Now he had everyone's attention. "Of course I'm afraid of him! He farts fireballs and his penis wand extends ten meters long." He paused to look directly at the Khan’s wife. "Assuming everything the empress has told me is true."

  The crowd went crazy. Or crazier.

  Having made his point, the boy welcomed his first opponent, who he dispatched within thirty heartbeats. Genghis then watched in utter dismay as the child defeated the rest of his carefully recruited quads. The kid suffered several ugly heat blasts, got cut a few times, as well as thrown a lot, but no more than on any other day. The titans he spent so much time recruiting all died before noon.

  And no sooner did the last one fall than half the stadium flew away, right out of their seats, as if fifty thousand puppet strings suddenly pulled them up. It made no damn sense.

  The
Boy Wonder limped across the bloody arena towards the Khan. With a smile that barely fit on his face, the boy rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal sign of money.

  With that simple gesture, Genghis realized the enormity of his mistake: he pissed off one hundred powerful families, let thousands of his best quads die for nothing, lost a thousand gold tons to a potential rival, and a disastrous amount of coin just disappeared from the local economy. He didn’t fix the problem -- he multiplied it!

  Never before had the Great Khan felt his grip on power slip so far, so fast. But he couldn’t kill the boy until after he competed in the Olympics. Then he’d quash him for good.

  A messenger on his personal communications staff flew in and whispered urgently to his head of security, who waved him through.

  “There’s a run on the bank,” the messenger whispered into the Khan’s ear as if this information wouldn’t soon headline news reports.

  Genghis didn’t understand. “What bank?”

  “Your bank.” Meaning the Bank of Mongolia. “Thousands of Mongols are withdrawing their money.” This had never happened before. Sheer panic made his own people doubt his solvency. The most powerful man in the world got up to fix this. “There’s something else. Somebody bet against the market.”

  Genghis built the world’s biggest, richest, and most stable economy with the world’s first, largest, and most sophisticated stock market. Other commerce centers had them, but the Peking Stock Market traded more wealth than the world’s other markets combined. Gamblers frequently bet against companies in crisis, sometimes as a prelude to taking them over, but no one had ever bet against the entire stock market before. Who could possibly have the wealth, the balls, and the desire to do that?

  Something made Genghis turn around, and there stood that damn kid studying him. It was as if the boy could read his mind. It looked like the champion was challenging him. A child against Genghis Khan.

  The realization that this punk crippled his beloved stock market started a fury that his wife feared would never end. Genghis flew to the main bank branch to tell the scared crowd that he’d refill the bank vaults with money from the capital right after he officiated over the opening of the Olympics.

  Then he’d teach the punk a lesson.