by Scott Meyer
Kludge had plenty of experience as a fighter and knew how to use an opponent’s attack against them. He grabbed a handful of the fabric and yanked back as hard as he could, intent on stopping Gwen’s forward motion, but the fabric went completely slack, stretching and expanding faster than he could pull on it. He grabbed another handful and pulled, then another, then another, hauling back like a magician pulling an endless rope of knotted scarves out of a hat.
Only Donnie and L.L.’s dragon flew a serpentine path, twisting and turning in a vain attempt to lose Martin, whose immense silver glowing form dangled from their dragon’s tail.
Only Donnie shrieked, “Get rid of him!”
L.L. had a death grip on the scales of the dragon’s neck. He pulled and twisted with all of his might. “I’m trying, but he won’t let go. How about you do something, instead of panicking?”
“What can I do?” Only Donnie said, “I’ve already thrown all of my rocks at him. I dumped the whole bag! Then I threw the bag at him! Nothing!”
“Well then find something else to throw!”
“How about you, L.L.? I could just grab you by the earlobes and whip you around my head a few times to build up speed.”
Martin shouted, “Don’t feel bad, guys. At least you both know you’ve done your best.”
In his peripheral vision, Martin saw a dark object, roughly the size of a person, falling. He assumed it was one of the Bastards, and prepared to intercept and rescue them before they hit the ground, but then a straight, white line shot from the falling person and hit the dragon’s right wing with an audible thwip. The line tightened into a cord and the person falling swung into Martin with great force.
Martin managed to keep his grip on the dragon’s tail despite the impact. He looked over and saw Gary, hanging on to one of his Spider-Man webs. The dragon’s tail and torso stayed relatively steady in flight. Gary’s web was attached to the dragon’s wing, which did not. While Martin’s enlarged form only bobbed up and down slightly in the air, Jeff bucked up and down as violently as a roller coaster, and he whooped and cheered accordingly. After several seconds of this, Gary reached into his robe with one hand, pulled out his Uzi, and fired a burst into the air.
Martin yelled, “Gary, what did we say about the gun?”
Gary said, “Relax! It’s blanks,” then fired another burst.
Martin said, “That’s not the point. It’s the principle of—”
“Hold that thought,” Gary said. “I see Kludge!” Gary let go of his web and fell away.
Martin looked toward the two men on the dragon’s back, both of whom had their necks craned around to look at him. Martin said, “Sorry, guys, I gotta go have a talk with my friend,” and let go of their dragon as well.
“Well, how do you like that?” L.L. said. “They’re just ignoring us, like we aren’t even a threat.”
Only Donnie said, “We aren’t a threat. I’m out of rocks and they know it. Besides, are you really going to complain because two wizards aren’t attacking us?”
L.L. said, “It’s nice to feel wanted is all.”
* * *
Now far behind them, Kludge still circled high above Leadchurch on the horned dragon, but he no longer flew alone. He had finally given up on defeating the multiple Brits and Gwen’s robe. He disengaged, and only managed to fly a few precious moments unharassed before a white, stringy substance shot into his field of view from above and struck the head of his dragon. The material seemed to be many long, straight strands of a ropelike fiber, held together by smaller threads to form a cable about as big around as a man’s thumb. The cable thickened as its elasticity drew whatever hung from the other end closer to him, until finally Gary dropped into view, landing very fast, straddling the dragon’s neck just behind its head.
Kludge was very close to Gary, but he couldn’t just reach out and grab him. Kludge only felt confident in his ability to stay on the dragon as long as he used both hands to do it.
Gary saw that all of Kludge’s limbs were occupied. He reached into his robe and pulled out his Uzi, which he held in Kludge’s face and said, “Land this dragon now.”
Kludge went cross-eyed looking at the Uzi, then leaned to one side and asked Gary, “What’s this thing?”
Gary said, “What do you mean, What’s this thing? It’s a gun.”
Kludge nodded and looked at the Uzi again, then asked, “What’s it do?”
“What do you mean, what’s it do? It’s a gun! How ignorant are you?”
Behind Kludge, a voice said, “How ignorant are you, Gary?”
Kludge looked back and saw Brit the Younger flying up fast.
She made contact with Kludge’s dragon, and flew along, carefully matching the dragon’s speed and direction so that she appeared to be standing casually on the dragon’s back.
Brit said, “Guns aren’t even invented until, like, over a hundred years from now.”
Gary said, “What about cannons?”
“A cannon is a kind of gun. I think they might have them in China, but not around here for a long time.”
“But we’ve screwed up the timeline so much, I’m sure a violent guy like Kludge has heard of them. How about it, Kludge, ever heard of a cannon?”
“No.”
“How about gunpowder? It’s this black powder you can make that burns violently when you light it?”
“I may have heard of something like that.”
“Well that can be used to make a weapon.”
“Yeah?”
Gary said, “Oh yeah!” He fired a burst into the air to demonstrate his point. “If you put enough of it into a really strong tube, and put a ball of like, rock or lead in there you—”
Brit hit Gary with a blast of energy that knocked him off the dragon. Gary fell out of view, then a line of webbing streaked through the sky, barely missing the dragon’s wing, then falling, slack, pulled down by Gary’s weight.
Brit leaned over the side of the dragon and shouted, “Remember, you can fly!”
Brit and Kludge made eye contact, sharing a brief chuckle at Gary’s expense. Then, while Brit was distracted, Kludge threw the dragon into a sharp banking turn, followed by an equally violent turn in the opposite direction. He glanced back again, and Brit wasn’t there. He had successfully shaken her off. He turned forward again and saw Brit slowly rise in front of him.
Brit said, “Remember, I can fly, too.”
* * *
While the other wizards enjoyed their participation in a one-sided contest they knew they couldn’t lose, Phillip was stuck in a battle he knew he couldn’t win. An ever-increasing number of his friends and neighbors had gathered to watch him get shouted at by a young girl, which is always damaging to an adult’s dignity, even if the adult is in the right. The constant angry yapping of her little dog certainly didn’t help.
Phillip said, “Listen, I need to go help my friends. Please stay right here, and I promise you won’t be harmed. When I get—”
Honor said, “Don’t threaten me.”
Phillip sputtered for a moment before finally spitting out, “I didn’t! I said you wouldn’t be harmed! What kind of threat is that? And can you please do something to calm your dog down?”
Honor said, “You said I wouldn’t be harmed if I do what you say. If I stay here, and don’t help my friends, while you go fight them.”
“All I meant was that you’d be safe here. As for helping your friends,” Phillip pointed straight up into the sky, “the fight is up there! I can go there because I can fly. You can’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”
“I’m not trying to tell you what you can’t do! I’m just telling you that you can’t . . . Look, I’m not ordering you not to fly. I’m pointing out that you’re not able to. Can you please make the dog
stop barking?”
“You think wizards are the only ones who can do magic? Well, you’re wrong!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in cloth. She shook the bundle. The fabric loosened and fell away, revealing the muck-encrusted idol Hubert had given her.
One of the town folk watching said, “I’ve seen that before. It belongs to the necromancer. He sings to it in an unnatural voice while twisting and manipulating its limbs.”
Phillip rubbed his eyes wearily and said, “One moment, please.” He activated the battle comm and said, “Hey, Gary?”
Phillip heard Gary say, “Sorry Phil, can’t talk. I’m busy webbing up a dragon so it can’t fly.”
Tyler’s voice said, “No, you’re busy webbing me up so I can’t fly!”
Gary said, “Oh. Okay. Yeah, Phillip. I’ve got a minute. What do you want?”
Phillip asked, “Did you lose one of your KISS dolls?” He did it in a hushed tone. The people watching knew he was communicating with someone, but none of them knew who, or what he said. They all recognized his expression of displeasure when Jeff told him not only that he’d misplaced the doll, but where and how.
He deactivated the comm, looked at Honor, and said, “I really don’t think you want to be touching that thing. Why don’t you just put it down?”
Honor shouted, “Never!” She and Runt both rushed Phillip. Their sudden advance, and the object that led the advance, startled and horrified him so badly that he stepped backward, stumbled, and fell flat on his back.
Honor stood over Phillip, straddling his chest. Runt danced around his head, still yapping and snarling. Phillip started to push her off, but Honor held the doll inches from his face. He turned his head away and grimaced, but he stopped resisting out of fear she might touch him with it.
“There,” Honor said. “You’re afraid of it, aren’t you? I knew it had power. It’s not so much fun to have magic used against you, is it?”
“I’ll admit, I’m not enjoying this,” he said, keeping his head turned to the side and pressed onto the dirt to gain as much distance as he could from the doll. Phillip knew the doll had no magic. All of its power was biological and olfactory in nature, but he feared that any disagreement with the girl would only result in her pressing it to his face, an outcome he wanted to avoid at all costs.
In his ear, Phillip heard Roy through the battle comm say, “Okay, the macro’s almost done.”
Phillip decided to buy some time. If he could hold out, hopefully Roy’s macro would distract Honor and all of the spectators long enough for him to gently remove her and the doll from his personal space.
“Fine,” Phillip said. “You’ve got me. What is it you want?”
Instead of showing signs of relief or triumph that she might get her way, Honor seemed livid that he even had to ask. “I want my brother back!”
Phillip said, “We didn’t take your brother. He’s still here, somewhere. Where is he?”
“He’s in the church, with everyone else you hexed.”
“Well, there you go. He’s in the church, and I don’t like the word hexed. It suggests—” Phillip stopped talking abruptly as the doll got closer to his face.
“His body is in the church, but he isn’t. He’s gone. I want him back.”
“He’ll wake up soon.”
“I don’t want him back soon! I want him back now! You think you can just tell us how it’s going to be and we have to take it because you have magic and we don’t.”
Roy’s voice in Phillip’s ear said, “There. It’s done.”
Honor said, “You do what you want, when you want, and you don’t care what anyone thinks, or what it does to anybody’s lives but yours!”
Phillip heard Gwen ask, “It won’t hurt them, will it?”
Roy answered, “Who, the Bastards? It shouldn’t. I’ve tried to make it as gentle as possible, but if there are some bumps or bruises, hey, they attacked us, right?”
Honor continued, “And why do you do it? To rub our faces in the fact that you’re wizards and we’re not.”
In Phillip’s ear, Martin asked, “So the macro will pull them off of the dragons?”
“Yup,” Roy said. “And it’ll make a nice show of it, too. Glowing bubbles of energy, lots of light and sound effects. Should make quite an impression.”
Honor drew Phillip’s attention back to the conversation at hand by shaking the doll over his face and shouting, “You’re not even listening!”
“I am,” Phillip said as articulately as he could while keeping his lips pressed mostly shut, lest something should be shaken loose of the doll and fall toward his mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Sure, you’re sorry now that I have magic, too. You’re not sorry for what you did to Sonny. We’re just bugs to you, aren’t we? We can’t do anything to you, so why worry about us, right? And if someone comes even close to being a threat, you make them sorry. I don’t know what you did to poor Kludge, but he won’t discuss it, and fighting and pain are his favorite things to talk about.”
“Look, I’m not happy about what happened to Kludge, but, I mean, he is Kludge. You can’t say he’s an innocent victim.”
“Kludge and his friends have been kind to me and Runt! None of them has hurt us. You wizards have.”
Phillip rolled his eyes to look at the people watching. At first he’d assumed that nobody came to his aid because he didn’t seem to need help. Then he assumed that they saw he was in a mess and didn’t want to get into the mess with him. Looking at them now, he saw that at least some of them weren’t interfering because they wanted to hear what the girl had to say. Maybe some of the things she was saying were things they had thought before.
The conversation in Phillip’s ear had continued, but he’d been concentrating on Honor and had lost the thread. Now he picked it up again, and heard Martin ask, “—it’ll keep the Bastards neutralized?”
Roy said, “Completely. They’ll be stuck in energy bubbles, floating around in the sky for everyone to look at until we decide they’re ready to come down.”
Phillip pictured it in his head. Then, he pictured how it would look to the girl using his sternum as a stool, and all the people standing around, watching. He activated the battle comm and said, “Everyone, disengage with the Bastards and medevac yourselves now, before doing anything else. Now!”
38.
Louiza slumped in her desk chair. Her back curved in a way that she knew was terrible for her lumbar region, but it was the only way to get her body low enough for the back of the chair to support her head.
She shifted her eyes to look at the ice-cold bottle of beer sweating on her desk. She wanted it very badly, but she hadn’t wanted to expend the energy to turn her head to look at it. The much-greater effort it would take to reach out for the bottle and bring it to her face just didn’t seem feasible. She considered creating a spell that would deposit a small amount of cold beer directly into her mouth. It would have been very handy in this situation, but also sounded like a good way to choke to death.
It said something about her level of fatigue that the idea of drowning in beer didn’t sound bad.
Her thirst finally overcame her lethargy. She took a long drink from the bottle and savored it, holding the bottle on her belly with both hands. Feeling a bit rejuvenated, she looked across her desk at Brit the Elder.
She had to be tired, too, but she wasn’t giving in to it, at least not as obviously as Louiza was. Brit the Elder sat with perfect posture, and her hair and clothes were as impeccable as ever, but she stared into the middle distance with no light in her eyes, even as she enjoyed a sip of ice-cold Hi-C.
Louiza said, “Would you like me to get you something stronger?”
“No, thank you.”
“We could pour a jigger of vodka in that or something.”
>
Brit the Elder smirked and asked, “Isn’t it a bit unusual for a doctor to recommend liquor to her patients?”
Louiza said, “It depends on the doctor. The whole reason I got into this racket is that I grew up watching reruns of M*A*S*H. It holds up surprisingly well when translated into Portuguese. We just spent a whole day treating battle injuries. After a day like that, Hawkeye and B.J. would always have a stiff drink.”
Brit said, “I always preferred Trapper.”
Louiza said, “Old-school. Nice.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, each enjoying her drink.
Louiza said, “I liked Bishop Galbraith. He really got into the spirit of the thing.”
Brit the Elder nodded. “I think you’ll probably see him again. Now that he’s gotten a glimpse of modern medicine, I suspect he’ll ask Phillip to get you if a member of his flock gets terribly injured.”
“You suspect he will, or you remember that he does?”
“I don’t think I should tell you.”
“Don’t think you should, or remember that you don’t?”
“Louiza, I haven’t lived this conversation before. I don’t have any idea what you or I are going to say next.”
Louiza considered Brit’s statement for a few seconds, until her train of thought got derailed by a sound similar to a digital watch chime. Louiza knew instantly what it meant. A fresh patient had materialized in the medevac triage room.
“And I suppose you don’t remember this either.”
Brit sighed. “I remember that it happened at some point, because I was involved when I was Brit the Younger, but I didn’t know when we . . . ugh, I don’t have the energy to get into it. Just go. It’s not as bad as you think.”
* * *
Louiza teleported to the triage room, which was empty save for Phillip, who lay on his back on the floor, knees bent, head twisted to the side, and both hands raised as if fending off an attack.