by Scott Meyer
“Where’d it go?” he asked Phillip.
“Where I wanted it to.” Phillip answered.
After a moment’s thought, Martin asked, “How deep is it?”
“Thirty feet.”
“Why so deep?”
“To build up speed.”
Phillip changed the subject, telling Martin about another wizard he knew (Tyler, as it turned out) who still kept an apartment in his original time. There was nothing unusual about that, but Tyler’s apartment was basically a bathroom and a storage facility for bulk-purchased toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, and garbage bags. He would commute back there every time he had to move his bowels. From his point of view, that meant every day or so, but if you were in his apartment you would see him appear, use the lavatory, wash his hands, dry them with paper towels (cloth towels wouldn’t have time to dry), and disappear. Then, less than a second later (but hours or days later for him), he would appear and do the whole thing over again. Then again, and again, and again. Tyler had been a wizard for four and a half years, so according to Phillip’s math, Tyler’s toilet had been in near constant use for something like five and a half days.
“His water bill is going to be astronomical!” Martin said.
“Yes, in something like twenty years,” Philip said.
Martin didn’t know how Gary handled number twos, but when it came to urine, the answer was the forest outside, and that was where Phillip was going. The instant he was gone, Jeff, Gary, and Tyler’s demeanor changed completely.
Tyler looked Martin straight in the eye and said, “You aren’t wrong, Martin. Don’t ever let the locals think you can’t defend yourself. Most of them don’t care about us one way or the other, but there are some who’d love to catch one of us unaware.”
Martin was both alarmed and relieved. He told them about the few seconds Phillip had left him alone on the street, and how close he came to getting attacked. They did not seem surprised.
“One time, I made the mistake of saying I’d broken my wand. A guy pulled a knife on me, like, immediately! Like he’d been waiting to make with the violence for years!” Jeff said.
“What did you do?”
“I showed him that I’d glued my wand back together, then I showed him that it still worked. Then I showed him my back, from a great distance.”
Tyler shook his head. “They need us, and they fear us. That’s not the same thing as liking or respecting us.”
“Why doesn’t Phillip see that?” Martin asked.
“He doesn’t want to, I guess. He likes almost everyone, and he figures almost everyone likes him. It’s worked out pretty well for him so far. I don’t want to be there the day it stops. Who knows, maybe it never will. It’s hard not to like him.”
Martin thought about the few days he’d known Phillip. In that time Phillip had publicly humiliated him, bounced him off of a tree at high speed, threatened him with prison and public nudity, and repeatedly accused him of not thinking, and yet Martin trusted Phillip, and considered him a friend.
“You said he likes almost everyone,” Martin said.
Gary smirked. “You haven’t seen him and Jimmy together yet, have you?”
“Look, Martin,” Tyler said, “we’re not saying you should live in fear. We’re just saying to keep your guard up.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Martin said. He glanced at the door. The guys seemed to be leveling with him. He had a question he wanted to ask before Phillip returned.
“Guys, should I be worried about passing the trials?”
They all looked at each other. Tyler said, “You should work hard and do what Phillip says. He trained Gary, and Gary trained me and Jeff. Phillip knows what he’s talking about. Do what he tells you, and take it seriously. That said, I think you’ll pass.”
“Yeah, you’ll pass,” Gary said.
“Because if you don’t, we’re totally gonna send you back to your own time tied up and naked!” Jeff added, helpfully.
Chapter 16.
The next morning it was time for the rough fitting for Martin’s robe. Martin spent most of the night before lying in his hammock, trying to figure out how to handle the Gwen situation. He listed the things he knew. She was the most attractive woman he had met in this time. She was also the first woman he had met in this time. Every attempt he had made to impress her had failed. Gary, Tyler, and Jeff had all asked her out and gone down in flames. She seemed to like Phillip, but Phillip made a point of not hitting on her. He toyed with the idea of hitting on her by not hitting on her. He would be friendly and professional, maintaining a facade of pleasant disinterest, all the while scheming to initiate a romantic relationship.
He plotted and schemed for a bit, but eventually realized that it would be a lot of work, and that he’d most likely mess it up and make her dislike him even more. Instead, he decided to give up. The Gwen thing wasn’t happening, and he should just concentrate on his training. Instead of his big, complex bluff, he would just treat Gwen like he would any professional with whom he was doing business. He would be friendly and professional. It was just simpler that way.
Martin told Phillip he’d decided not to pursue Gwen.
“Splendid,” Phillip said. “I’m glad you’ve chosen to follow my instructions. Although it’s a shame about the lag time between when I tell you to do something and when you finally decide to do it.” Phillip put a bowl of stew down in front of Martin. Martin started to dig in, but paused, his spoon hovering over the bowl.
“Is this still that same pot of stew?”
“It depends what you mean by the same pot of stew. Of course, it’s the same pot, and it’s still full of stew, but if you mean is it the same stew, that’s been bubbling away in the pot for days on end, then the answer is also yes.”
Martin put his spoon down. “Are you trying to kill me?” he asked, as politely as he could.
“If I were trying to kill you, you’d know it, because you’d be dead. Don’t be such a baby. It’s perfectly safe. It’s been boiling nonstop for weeks! It’s a whole lot cleaner than that bowl I put it in, that’s for sure.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“Look, I’ve added water occasionally, and thrown in more vegetables when I get them. This is how they do things here. Didn’t you ever wonder how people survived without refrigerators? It was tricks like this. Also, letting the stew cook down over the course of days intensifies the flavors.”
“Maybe so, but not all flavors are good,” Martin said, eyeing the stew as if it might attack him.
“Look,” Phillip said, “I told you not to go after Gwen, and after much deliberation, you decided to do as I say. I’m telling you to eat your stew. Sadly, we don’t have time for you to decide that I’m right. We have to go and not hit on my friend Gwen.”
Once Martin had half-heartedly choked down some stew, he and Phillip teleported to the street outside Gwen’s shop. It wouldn’t have been a long walk, but Phillip didn’t have any customers lined up and he didn’t like to let a day go by without some public demonstration of his power. Inside the shop they found Gwen talking to a peasant woman wearing what appeared to be a burlap coat. The woman was holding one arm straight out at shoulder level, and was pointing at it with the other hand. At first Martin thought she was doing some kind of Tai Chi move, but then he realized she was just complaining.
“The sleeves are too long. You don’t have to be a bloody tailor to see that.” She had a point. Her fingers were barely showing beyond the line of the cuff.
Gwen looked perplexed. “Are you hunching your shoulders?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
Gwen held up her hands. “No, not at all. I’m sorry, I’m just mystified. Cloth shrinks, it doesn’t grow. And even if it did, it wouldn’t grow faster in one direction than in the other.”
“Well, it is. I just bought this coat three months ago, and now it doesn’t fit.”
“We both agreed it fit fine when you bought it.”
“Well, now it don’t!”
Gwen thought a moment. “You live near to Sam, don’t you?”
“We both live in Rickard’s Bend. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, I’m sure. Look, I’m sorry for the trouble. Leave the coat with me, I’ll hem the sleeves for free. Please come back in a week. It’ll be done.”
The woman handed Gwen the coat and left. As she passed Martin he heard her mutter, “Now to go settle up with that bloody cobbler.”
“Tough morning, Gwen?” Phillip asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle so far.” Gwen looked pointedly at Martin.
Martin smiled. “Good morning Gwen, it’s good to see you.”
“Uh, good morning, Martin. So, gentlemen, ready for the rough fitting?”
Gwen asked Martin to remove the blood-red loaner robe and hat. She unfolded a robe made of thin, off-white cloth, which she held up like a man helping his wife put her coat on. As Martin slid his arms into the robe, Gwen explained, “This is just a rough template I made to your measurements. Once this fits properly, I’ll make the real thing out of more expensive fabric.” Martin swung his arms around. “How’s it feel?” Gwen asked.
“A little tight through the chest, but other than that, it feels good.”
Gwen made a note. She pulled at the seams where the shoulders met the sleeves, held her measuring stick along the side of the sleeve and took another measurement. “The shoulders aren’t sitting quite right either.”
Martin said, “It’ll be fine. You know what you’re doing. What fabric have you chosen?”
“I have a couple of ideas. I didn’t want to settle on anything until I saw your staff – or are you the wand type?”
With great effort Martin let this pass without comment, simply turning to Phillip and asking, “Could you please hand me my staff?”
Phillip took the staff Martin had left leaning against the wall and handed it directly to Gwen. She looked at the small bust of Santo in his shiny silver mask. “Fearsome!” she said. “What is it?”
Martin puffed up a bit and explained, “That is the grim visage of the saint of the southern country. Destroyer of monsters and leader of men. He vanquished and later befriended the Blue Demon.” It was the first time Martin had gotten to use the description he’d prepared, and he was pretty happy with it. Gwen seemed impressed.
Gwen put a conical hat made of the same flimsy fabric on Martin’s head. They discussed how it fit. Gwen took a few more measurements and told Phillip and Martin to come back in a week for the final fitting, and if no further revisions were needed, they could take the robe home then.
As they left, the angry woman with the oversized coat came back in, now barefoot. Her leggings were stretching down past her heel onto her foot. She said, “You got me so angry talking about the coat, I plum forgot to mention that my leggings are too long as well!”
That afternoon found Phillip and Martin in an empty field miles from town. The field was bordered on one side by forest and on the other side by the sea. Phillip was carrying what looked like an artist’s easel and a large dartboard. “Today, we’re going to talk about mystical rays and beams,” he said, as he set up the target with its back to the sea.
“How long did it take you to get used to saying things like that without feeling silly?” Martin asked.
“I’m still working on it. Anyway, you already know how to levitate small objects and move them through the air. That alone is one of your most powerful defensive weapons. But in an actual fight, simply hurling heavy objects at people leaves something to be desired.”
“It’s not that impressive,” Martin agreed. “I mean, making things float is cool, but everybody knows we can do that already, and at the end of the day there’s not a lot of difference between throwing a rock at someone and magically throwing a rock at someone.”
Phillip nodded. “That is one issue, but the more immediate problem is that it could kill them. If it’s in self-defense that’s one thing, but our goal is to prove that we have powers, not to prove that we are murderers. The beauty of mystical beams and rays is that you can make them look horrifically violent while being deliberately non-lethal.” Phillip and Martin stood about a hundred feet from the target. “Okay, Martin, you’re wearing a robe and hat. You’ve got your staff. What’s the first rule of using your staff?”
“Don’t make the obvious joke.”
“Top man! Now, I want you to stare at the target. Concentrate hard on it. I want you to say trabo de ruĝa lumo when you think you’re ready.”
Martin stared at the target. It seemed to loom impossibly large in his perception. He imagined it being obliterated by his will. He exhaled slowly, and when his lungs were almost depleted he said, “Trabo de ruĝa lumo.”
An awe-inspiring amount of nothing happened.
Martin turned to Phillip and pointed at the target. “It’s still there. What’d I do wrong?”
Phillip said, “Say it again.”
Martin furrowed his brow. “Say what again, trabo de ruĝa lumo?
A bright beam of light, the width of Martin’s arm shot from Martin’s pointing hand directly into the target. Martin gaped at it for a moment, then let out a whoop. He raised his hand to look at it and the ray angled into the sky. He aimed it back at the target. Then at the ocean. Then at a tree. Then at a rock. The whole time, he was giggling like a maniac.
“As I said,” Phillip said, “the shell is always monitoring us. It’s not just waiting for commands, it’s also looking for signals. Of course, it won’t let you do anything without a staff or wand, a robe and a hat, but there are subtle clues as to your intent built into those items. The robe has two-foot cuffs because that’s how the shell knows where your hands are. It watches for you to make a pointing gesture, and that’s how it knows where to target things. It took us a few years to get the programming right. For a long time we could only shoot beams from our staffs and wands. You can still use your staff to shoot rays if you like. It can look very impressive, and can help with long-range accuracy if you hold it like a rifle. Also, if you think you’re ready, you’re welcome to stop shooting me with your beam.”
Martin laughed and changed his aim so that the ray was no longer hitting Phillip in the chest. He aimed at the grass between them. The ray brilliantly illuminated a four-inch circle of grass, but was clearly doing no damage.
“I assume this is some kind of harmless learner’s energy beam.”
“Of course. Your hand is a glorified flashlight.”
“Still, it’s awfully cool. Thanks for showing me how to do this.”
“You’re welcome, Martin.”
They stared at the spot of grass illuminated by the beam.
“Phil, would you show me how to stop it?”
“Sure, you know how already. What’s Esperanto for stop?”
Martin laughed at himself and said, “Halti.” The beam disappeared.
“Okay, now we’re going to move on to something genuinely dangerous, so no kidding around.”
“Gotcha.”
“Good. I want you to carefully point at the target and say trabo de varmo when you’re ready.”
Martin did as Phillip told him, and the target burst into flames. “I can’t see the beam,” he said.
“That’s right. Simple beams like the ones we’ve been playing with usually either look cool or do something useful, but not both. If you want to accomplish something and look good doing it, you have to shoot more than one beam at once. You could tell the shell, ‘Beam of heat and light and make a loud noise and surround me with sparkly stuff,’ but that’s a lot to translate into Esperanto on the fly. That’s why
the next thing we study will be making macros.”
“Cool,” Martin said. “Why isn’t my hand burning?”
“We built a safety feature into the shell. The ray – all rays, actually – start three inches beyond your hand.” Phillip pulled a long blade of grass out of the ground and touched it to Martin’s pointing finger. It was unharmed. Slowly, he moved the blade away from Martin’s finger, toward the target, and at the three inch point it burst into flames.
“Mind if I stop?” Martin asked.
“Feel free.”
Martin said, “Halti.” There was no visible difference, but he pointed at the ground and the grass was unharmed, so clearly the beam had stopped. He looked at the smoldering ashes of the target. “Sorry I destroyed your target,” he said.
Phillip patted him on the back. “Don’t be. I borrowed it from Gary.”
Later that afternoon, Phillip and Martin sat at the keyboard of the Commodore 64. Phillip removed the crystal ball and put the monitor, an old eleven-inch color TV with a faux wood-grain exterior, up on the table so they could both see it.
Phillip said, “You remember the night we met, that display I put on before I sent you flying into the trees.”
“Yes. I remember that.”
“Well, that was what we call a macro. I’m sure you’re aware of the idea of a macro.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, “it’s a simple program that allows you to execute several actions with one command.”
“Exactly. That’s all that was. I sat down in advance and thought up an entertaining series of commands and programmed the shell to execute them for me if I do certain things. In that case, I twirl my staff and quietly hum a few notes of Ride of the Valkyries. We all program our own macros. Some are useful. Some are for show. When we get together sometimes we have a duel to see whose macro is the most impressive. You could say it’s like breakdancing for wizards.”
“I could, but I like you, so I won’t. What was that you hit me with, by the way?”
Phillip shrugged. “I can’t tell you all of my secrets, but since you’ve experienced that particular beam firsthand, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that the active ingredient was a one foot wide column of wind.”