by Paul Kater
speak. Make her doubt her environment."
"Oh, goody." William frowned. "Sounds very simple, doesn't it? Isn't there just a way to get her drunk or so? Magic doesn't work when we're drunk..."
"True. I forgot that one. Oh, maybe we can flood the building with alcohol and disable her that way," Hilda said.
"Hmmm. That is so silly it might actually work," William pondered.
"Hey, you. Watch it, okay?"
William watched her for a moment. Then he smiled. "You're sweet."
"Puh."
"I do guess we'd need to seal off the exits to the building to make sure she's hit with the alcohol," William thought out loud, "and it would be important to get the alcohol in that building in all places at the same time, so she can't run."
Hilda tugged William's sleeve. "You're taking that idea seriously?"
"Of course. It's an idea, and for now the only one. Usually the more improbable it appears to be, the better it works."
"Yes. Sure. I know that. I'm good, and a witch, after all." Smugly Hilda sat back. "And what more would my plan need?"
"A lot of alcohol, for starters. I doubt that you and I combined can magick up so much alcohol that we can fill the town hall building."
Hilda nodded. "That's true. Big building. Too big. Maybe we could shrink it." She frowned at her idea. "Although it's awfully big. Never tried that before."
"And there's someone inside it who can't be shrunk," William added.
Hilda nodded. "That's a problem also. So, do you have a wine place near here?"
William frowned. "Don't you have a simple question?"
"Sure I do, but I already know you love me."
William's face lit up. "I think I know something better than a winery."
"Oh?"
"A library."
"Sometimes, sweet wizard, you say the strangest things."
-=-=-
The wizard walked along the lines of books, the witch in his wake. "Ah. Here we are. Organic chemistry."
"We need alcohol, William, lots of it. Not that book."
Far away an alarm went off. The floor shuddered for a moment, and the lights overhead flickered.
"And may I remind you that we need that stuff fast."
William nodded as he quickly paged through the book. "Damn, too much booze in here," he muttered as the chemical information ran past him. "Ah. Here it is." He sat down with the book, reading the page.
Hilda looked at the page. "What's all that? Those are very strange magical symbols."
"This is how alcohol is made," William said, without looking up at her.
"Oh, sure." Hilda frowned. "I don't recall seeing you drink, William, and yet you sound as if you've had enough."
William looked one more time at the page. Then he closed the book and put it away again. "I know enough. Now all we need is a tremendous amount of water. But before we do that..." He took Hilda's hand and tried to show her, through the link, what he intended to do, transforming water into alcohol by applying the chemical formula and some magic.
Hilda looked surprised. "Suck an elf, William, that is powerful magic if it really works!" She did not understand the theory behind it, but she knew she could do this. "There still is a lot of snow around outside, William. That is easy to transport and turn back to water..."
William now grinned. "That is an excellent idea."
They left the library and started to collect as much snow as they could, storing it behind the large building where Hilda had been waiting earlier, so Zelda would not see it. They needed some magic to keep the snow where it was and to prevent it from thawing also.
Hilda took a chance one time and quickly flew by town hall, to make sure Zelda was still there.
"She in there. If we're going to do it, we have to do it now," said Hilda. "It is quite strenuous to keep all that stuff cold."
William agreed. They enveloped the mountain of snow with magic and raised it off the ground. "Let's do it."
The action that followed went amazingly fast. The snowball flew up and once in the air it split in two parts. Magic held the two pieces up and as one piece shot towards the front of the building where Zelda was, the other part flew to the back of it. Hilda guided one bulk of snow, William the other, and just before impact on the floor where William had located Zelda's throne, they changed the water to alcohol and like that the two giant loads of liquid smashed into the building, taking all windows out. The two amounts of pure liquor, which were probably the wet dream of many an alcoholic, met in the middle of the rooms they were thrown into.
William and Hilda then sealed off the building, keeping the alcohol inside. Some of the stuff leaking to the lower floors was something they had counted on.
After about three minutes the magical couple released their magic and let the alcohol flush away. If Zelda managed to survive three minutes of that, then there was no point in holding it there longer.
The stream of liquid washed down the stairs and flooded the elevator shafts that had never before been cleaned so thoroughly. The smell of alcohol slowly rose up from the street that was the final destination of the flow, which damaged just about everything inside the building.
The witch and the wizard hung on their brooms, high up and well out of reach of the fumes that were slowly coming upwards, despite the frost that still was in the ground.
"How long do you think we'll have to wait before it's safe to go in?", Hilda asked. "I've never attacked someone with so much of that, so it's a gamble for me as well."
Knowing how badly she held her liquor, with even diluted wine, William said she should stay outside and he would fly by to have a look.
"Be careful, William, you don't sense where she is," Hilda warned him as he flew off.
William slowly approached the building.
Below, people were streaming into the street, as they had noticed the strange happening in town hall. Nobody wanted to miss what was now going on there.
The wizard lowered his broom to the floor where he had found Zelda. Their flood had cleaned out the offices. The furniture, desks and chairs, lay on the ground. The bodies of the people he had seen in the offices lay among them, arms and legs pointing in strange directions.
Zelda's throne had not fallen down yet, it hung outside the building, caught in a web of electrical wires.
The smell of the alcohol wasn't bad, William noticed. He popped up his wand, cast a spell, and most of the alcohol was gone. Slowly he flew into the building, through what once had been a wall of glass.
Hilda had caught what he'd done to the alcohol-wash and deemed it safe to go after William, so not much later they both were in the desolate building.
"She's not here, William," Hilda said. "Either she's dead or she's gone."
They shared an unruly feeling that Zelda was not dead.
"Crappedy crap, William, she got away. I'm sure. Somehow she must have picked up on something."
"Or she was gone earlier..." William hovered his broom next to the destroyed throne. There was a silver band hanging from it that was wrung and out of shape. He picked it from the hook it somehow had remained on and handed it to Hilda. "I've seen her wear this."
Hilda examined the disfigured headband. "Looks like you are right. She would not leave this behind. She was going to come back."
"What is that thing?", William asked.
"I'll tell you later. When we're back in the apartment."
William looked around. "The town council won't love us for this," he said as he took in the devastation they had created with the liquid shockwave.
"We can help clean the mess up later, William," said Hilda. "First we need to get Zelda-"
"Hello you two up there!" A loud voice, electronically amplified, boomed up to them. A group of four policemen had taken position in front of the building.
Hilda turned. "What?"
"You are under arrest!"
"Oh, okay!" Hilda, not at all impressed, tu
rned back to William. "As I said, first we need to get Zelda, and that might make that we break some more-"
"This is the police! We order you to come down so we can arrest you!"
Hilda rolled her eyes and sighed. "If you want us, then at least come up and get us. Do something for your silver," she yelled back at the policeman. Her response triggered a subdued wave of laughter going through the crowd that had gathered.
The strong arm of the law stood and conferred, debating if it was wise to actually enter an unsafe building and try to capture two people who were flying on brooms.
"You are the insubordinates here," the policeman tried as they failed to reach a decision, "therefore you are required to surrender!"
"Okay. That's it." Hilda swung her broom round and dropped to the policemen's level. William was right behind her.
"Now listen," she said to the megaphoned man. "We may be the insubordinates here, whatever animal that is, but we are also the ones with the brooms and the wands. It will take you a good deal more than words to get us. And then something: you are not really doing what you can to catch the witch that's around. At least we do something. Now leave us be and do something sensible."
As she was ending her tirade, one of the policemen quickly slapped handcuffs on the witch. "You, lady, are under arrest. Get off that... broom."
Hilda looked at the metal rings around her wrists. She wiggled her nose and the handcuffs sprung open. "How neat. Toys. Thank you."
On her signal through the link, William and she climbed into the air quickly and shot away towards another part of town. A place where their apartment was not.
In the crowd, a slender woman with a pale face and black hair, all dressed in black, slowly