Off to Be the Wizard

by Scott Meyer

  Jimmy rose from his seat, which for Jimmy meant floating straight up into the air, gliding sideways so he was no longer over his chair, then stretching out to a standing position. Once all that was accomplished, he took Martin around the table, introducing him to everybody and making some small talk.

  Martin later reflected that eighteen is just about the optimal number of new people to meet at one time, if your goal is to not remember anything specific about any of them. He had already met Eddie/Wing Po, who lived in London/Camelot with Jimmy/Merlin and was his best friend/assistant.

  The Paris contingent had the most elaborate robes and staffs. There were four of them, named Daniel, Stephen, Mitchell, and Greg. They were all Americans. They talked at great length about French girls in such a manner that it was clear they did not know what they were talking about.

  The guys from Norway, Magnus and Magnus, had little bits of fur on their robes as trim, which wasn’t necessary, as the shell made sure they were never cold. They were from the late Nineties, and had both chosen their names to honor the world’s strongest man, Magnus Ver Magnusson. Their interests included Vikings, heavy metal, and fulfilling stereotypes. Martin suggested that they should talk to Gary, but they knew Gary already, and derided him as being “too glam.”

  There was one guy named David who lived in Russia. Martin asked him why he chose Russia, and he replied, “Russian women.” That was all he said, but he said it in a way that left Martin sure that David knew exactly what he was talking about.

  Jimmy and Martin had worked their way down the right side of the table, reaching the rest of the England contingent: Phillip, Gary, and Jeff.

  Jimmy said, “And I know you’ve already met Gary and Jeff.”

  “Yeah,” Martin said while shaking hands, “Still no Tyler?”

  Gary shrugged. “Dunno. He disappears from time to time, but this is the longest he’s ever been gone.”

  Jeff added, “Weird part is, the guy doesn’t answer his hand! It’s not like him. Maybe he’s spending some time up in the future. His plumbing may have finally given out!”

  “Well, I’m very disappointed that he’s not here,” Jimmy said. “I do prefer to have everybody attend these banquets.”

  “And by prefer, he means demand,” Phillip said.

  “It makes it nicer for the new wizard,” Jimmy continued.

  Phillip also continued. “And by new wizard, he means Jimmy’s ego.”

  Jeff looked puzzled. “It makes it nicer for the Jimmy’s ego?” he quoted.

  “Yes,” Phillip assured him. “The Jimmy sometimes refers to himself in the third person and uses the definite article. That’s just the Jimmy’s way.”

  Jimmy said, “The Jim … I do not.” Jimmy put his hand on Martin’s shoulder and teleported the two of them to the other side of the table, rather than walking all the way down and around the empty two thirds left at the end. They continued working their way up the table.

  Carl, Felix, and Theodore lived in various parts of Germany, and seemed to communicate entirely through inside jokes. Fred and Louis lived in Spain. “Isn’t that a little close to the Crusades?” Martin asked.

  Fred gave a knowing smile. “It’s right in the middle of the crusades.”

  “It’s where the action is!” Louis said. The two went on to describe the action as if it were a particularly exciting football game. Martin was relieved when Jimmy ushered him on to the next group.

  The last five wizards chose to live in Italy. Specifically Tuscany, because why wouldn’t they? They were Ross, Lenny, Ron, Sergio, and Kirk. It was clear immediately that Sergio and Kirk did most of the talking, and Sergio’s part was largely urging Kirk to be quiet. It turned out Ron had attended the University of Washington, and discovered the file only a couple of years before Martin. It was strange to think that he and Ron had probably passed each other more than once without taking any notice of each other, and now they were finally meeting, hundreds of years in the past and on the other side of the globe.

  The introductions were over. The meal was eaten. The drinking had just started building momentum. It was time for the entertainment, and at a party thrown by Jimmy, that could only mean one thing.

  “SPEECH! SPEECH!” Eddie shouted, striking his knife against his earthenware mug with a dull clunking noise. Martin and Jimmy looked at each other, both seemingly caught off guard. Martin reluctantly started to stand. Jimmy put a hand on Martin’s shoulder and pushed him back down into his chair as Jimmy rose to speak.

  “Friends,” Jimmy said. There was a cough from the far end of the table.

  “And Phillip.”

  “Thank you,” the distant voice said.

  “We are here,” Jimmy continued, “to welcome a new member into our family. Martin, a young man with tremendous potential, who was brought here, as we all were, by his abilities, his cunning, his willingness to do things others would not consider, and his desire to become something that others would not consider possible. Something more than what he was. A wizard.

  “Now he’s here with us, and we call upon him to demonstrate the power he has earned, by learning to not just use and understand computers, but by finding the file, having the grit to use the file, and by listening to his betters … or in this case, the person his betters allowed to train him.”

  Jimmy paused while someone made a strangled choking noise at the far end of the table.

  “Now rise, Martin, and show us your salutation, for in the morning you face the trials, and then you will truly be a wizard.”

  Martin rose and started to thank Jimmy, but Jimmy, oblivious, cut him off. “Or we’ll strip you naked, truss you up like a turkey, and send you back to your time, where a prison cell awaits.”

  Martin didn’t thank Jimmy after all.

  He and Phillip had discussed the purpose and theory of the salutation at length. Initially, Phillip had described it as a display wizards put on to demonstrate their powers. It’s one thing to tell the non-wizards that you have magical powers, but one often needed to do something ordinary mortals couldn’t to seal the deal. The salutation also sent a message to other wizards. As it had evolved, every part of it had taken on new layers of meaning. What you said to trigger it, how elaborate it was, how much thought you put into transitions, what imagery you used, what impression you gave the witnesses – all spoke volumes about who you were and what you thought was impressive. Do you create fire or flowers? Unicorns or demons? Do you dissolve in an elaborate light show, or just wink out like an old-timey camera trick? Do you use props and stagecraft, or just say abracadabra?

  “Don’t say abracadabra,” Phillip had told him. “I’d rather you made the obvious joke than hear you say abracadabra.”

  Martin did not say abracadabra. Instead, he said, “For this, I’ll need the assistance of the imp I’ve captured to do my bidding.” With his left hand he held his staff, with its silver and gray bust of El Santo. With his right he reached into his pocket and produced the small carved box Phillip had hastily given him as a gift. He had painted it with silver and gray highlights, to match his robe and staff. He held the box in front of him and swung the hinged lid open with his finger. From most angles, the lid appeared to open on its own. As the lid opened, a flickering, uneven light came out of the box and washed Martin’s face. Martin could see his smartphone wedged into the bottom of the box with some wooden shims to keep it from rattling around. Martin smiled and muttered into the box as if he were talking to a treasured pet. “Wake up, imp. There’s a good imp. I’ll call you Tyrion! Yes I will!”

  There were a few laughs, but Martin could tell they were laughing with him, not at him. Everything Martin had done so far was just preamble. Now it was time to get to the serious part. He said, “starigis la scenejo,” and immediately, it looked as if Martin dove head first into the box. His head shrunk and disappeared into the bo
x, followed by the rest of him until only his hands, still full sized, remained at the ends of his stretched and contorted arms which looped around and terminated into the box. Then Martin’s arms and hands followed, dragging the base of the box with them. The box itself warped, twisted, and disappeared into itself, leaving only the ornately carved lid, which slammed shut, buckled, shrunk, and vanished.

  In the middle of the cavernous hall, four feet above the very spot where Martin had tapped his staff three times at the beginning of the party, a small light winked in and out of existence with a faint pop. When the light disappeared, the box was left in its place, hovering in midair. Its lid opened and a thick white smoke poured out and fell heavily to the floor. Instead of spreading when it reached the cold marble, it coalesced into a pillar which grew and thickened until it solidified in the form of Martin, still holding his staff and peering into his box. To Martin’s surprise there was actually a smattering of applause. He smiled, then closed the imp box, placed it back in his pocket, planted his feet and held his staff over his head with both hands, and looked at the floor.

  In a loud, deep voice, he said, “EH NEEEK CHOCK!”

  Silvery lines of pure energy traced the contours of Martin’s form. The lines formed a pattern similar to the mortar in a brick wall. When the line pattern had covered him, the contours of Martin’s body warped, and flattened until he appeared to be a brick sculpture of Martin, but instead of bricks, he was made of copies of his imp-box. For a moment all was silent, then Martin exploded.

  There was no fire, no smoke, not even any noise to speak of, just boxes, flying and tumbling outward and then orbiting each other. They formed a thirty foot sphere of swirling, multiplying boxes. They spun chaotically for two revolutions, then reassembled into another statue of Martin, three stories tall. Because the boxes were still the same size, this statue was more recognizably human shaped than the one before. The boxes were not touching each other, but were floating in a three-dimensional pattern. For just an instant, when the statue stood still, the wizards could see Martin, suspended inside the statue’s massive torso.

  It silently towered over the wizards as they sat, gaping in their seats. The huge staff it held level above its head was also constructed of imp boxes. The head of Santo looked large enough that a grown man could hide in it. Another brief round of applause started, but stopped dead when the statue raised its head. With a strange combination of ponderousness and speed, the statue’s left hand pushed the staff, which spun like a helicopter blade, pivoting on the blindingly fast brick fingers of the statue’s right hand. The hall filled with a deafening roar of wind until the statue’s right arm came down to the statue’s side, stopping the staff’s spinning and slamming its base into the floor with a sound like a sonic boom. The statue looked straight ahead and let go of the staff, which stood balanced for a moment, then it collapsed into a pile of boxes, which spread into a lumpy rectangle at the statue of Martin’s feet. The rectangle sharpened and solidified into the unmistakable shape of an immense sheet of corrugated cardboard and a massive dual-cassette boom box with four huge speakers.

  The statue looked down at the table of speechless wizards and jerked its chin upward sharply, as if to say wazzup? The giant statue bent sideways at the waist. With a massive finger, it hit a button on the top of the boom box. The great hall was filled with the familiar hiss of a cassette player until the inevitable finally happened. The boom box played Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit.”

  As loud as the giant boom box was, it was nearly drowned out by cheering and laughing as the statue started to do the robot. Once it had demonstrated its mastery of robotics, the statue dove forward, did a serviceable version of the worm, then hoisted itself into a headstand and swung its legs around wildly for a moment before doing a head-spin. The head-spin transitioned seamlessly into a backspin, which ended with the statue lying on its side on the cardboard. It was facing the wizards, its head supported by its arm and its upper leg bent at the knee in a posture of simulated relaxation. With its free arm the robot formed a gun with its thumb and forefinger, which it aimed at the table of wizards. As Herbie Hancock hit a large downbeat on the drums, the statue “shot” the finger gun and in an instant the statue, the boom box, and the cardboard all collapsed into splinters that fell to the ground and disappeared.

  All of the wizards were applauding and cheering except one. The cheering only got louder when they realized that the wizard who wasn’t applauding was Martin, who had been standing next to Jimmy since the moment the statue started dancing.

  The rest of the night was a blur of drinking and laughing. The only serious moment occurred when Jimmy pulled him aside and asked him about his plans.

  “I haven’t made any beyond trying to pass the trials tomorrow,” Martin said.

  “Look, I know you and Phillip are friends,” Jimmy said, “and I know that Phillip and I aren’t, but if you don’t have anything to do in Leadchurch, I hope you’ll consider coming here to Camelot. I could use a man like you.”

  Martin looked at Jimmy, then looked around at the opulent palace Jimmy had essentially created through sheer force of will. “What on earth would you possibly need me for, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy patted him on the back. “In theory no one wizard is more powerful than any other, but you’ll learn that just because the shell gives everyone else the same powers you have doesn’t mean that they can do the same things you can do. You have something very rare, Martin. Showmanship. You know what most of these guys’ salutations are? They fly and they glow and they shoot energy beams. If I’m lucky they swing their staff around a bit while they do it.”

  Martin remembered Phillip’s display the night they met. Jimmy had just described it pretty well.

  “What you did tonight was the first really original thing I’ve seen in a very long time. None of these guys could have done it. They don’t have flair, like you do.”

  “Gary has flair,” Martin said.

  “Yes,” Jimmy admitted, “but he has no taste. He’s all hellfire and bat wings. It’s impressive, but nothing I can use. I can use you, Martin. Think about it. You don’t have to decide tonight, but when you get bored in Leadchurch, and you will, you can always come here and help me make the world better.”

  Sometime around one thirty in the morning, Martin learned the best thing about wizard parties, which is that because wizards can teleport, they can sleep in their own beds no matter how drunk they get or how far away the party was. Unfortunately, they still were susceptible to hangovers, and Martin woke up with the worst one of his life. The swaying of his hammock made him feel vaguely ill. The light coming in the windows made his brain feel as if it was on fire. The slightest noise was agony. For a moment, while he was still only half awake, he thought he heard a very distant, hollow noise that sounded almost like growling, which was a new one, but he figured it was the blood rushing through the veins in his ears.

  He carefully dismounted his hammock. He groaned lightly as his feet took over the task of supporting his weight. The groan was barely a whisper, but it was enough to cause Phillip to gasp, “Keep down that racket!” Then Phillip winced at the toll his own voice had taken on his head.

  Martin attempted to say he was sorry silently, by squinting at Phillip and waving his arms vaguely, then he shuffled into the bathroom to go deface Jimmy’s statue.

  Over the next hour the two men moped and groaned their way back into the world of the living. The quality of life in Medieval England had improved drastically since Martin learned to pull black coffee, real food, and over-the-counter pain medications out of his hat. Of course, all of the food items he could access were gifted to him by Phillip. He wouldn’t be able to set up macros to retrieve his own favorite items until he had unlimited shell access and the ability to come and go to the future without the imminent threat of arrest.

  He’d figure out how to deal with the feds later. Today, his only p
riority was to pass the trials. He’d have felt a lot better if he knew what the trials were, but nobody had been willing to tell him anything.

  Martin spent the morning going over vocab, quizzing himself on technique, and generally making himself more nervous. Phillip spent the morning reading a dog-eared paperback of Ender’s Game that he’d borrowed from Jeff. After a couple of hours of this, Phillip’s hut was filled with the warbling chime sound that Martin had anticipated and dreaded in equal measure.

  Phillip smiled at Martin and said, “Well Martin, that’s the call. You ready?”

  “I really don’t think so,” Martin answered.

  “Good.” Phillip raised his right arm and held his hand as if he were palming a softball. The chiming sound died and a glowing blue image of a calligraphic letter M appeared in Phillip’s hand. “The hour is nigh!” Jimmy’s voice bellowed. “Is the initiate ready to face the trials?”

  “Yup,” Phillip said with aggressive informality.

  “EXCELLENT! Bring him forth to the great hall of the castle Camelot to be tested and judged!”

  “Uh huh. Will do,” Phillip replied. The uppercase M in Phillip’s hand hovered there silently for a long moment, then disappeared.

  “Does he do everything in the great hall?” Martin asked.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Phillip stood up, smoothing out his robe. “Well,” he said, “I guess it’s about that time. Do you have to use the bathroom before we go?”

  “No,” Martin said. “You?”

  “No,” Phillip said. “Let’s just get this done.”

  Martin hesitated. “Um, Phil, I just want to say, no matter how this ends up, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  Phillip put a comforting hand on Martin’s shoulder. “You’re welcome Martin. And don’t worry; you’re going to do fine.”

  Martin smirked. “I know, because if I don’t, you’ll send me to prison naked.”

  Phillip looked wounded. “I wasn’t going to say that, Marty.”