The bearded man frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“I am sorry to hear you say that, Paul,” the wizard/genie rumbled. “But I am a stubborn and patient man. There must be a way....” And then he paused.
And smiled. Then he chuckled in mirth. And then he openly laughed.
“Yes, of course!” the wizard/genie boomed. “Why did it take me so long to see it? Tell me, Paul. You seem to be concerned about people. How would you like to help a lot more than just your stepson, Douglas? A lot more than just him. People that are starving, people that have lost loved ones, or people that have fatal illnesses? Doesn’t your heart ache for them? Don’t you want to help them as well?”
His forehead wrinkling, Paul was puzzled by the other’s questions.
“What are you saying?” he asked the wizard/genie, his eyebrows scrunched together in bafflement.
The bearded man leaned forward. “How would you like to be a wizard too?”
Paul found himself speechless, his throat suddenly dry, and the very idea of being his own wizard, of casting magical spells, to be a mind-boggling concept. His whole body tingled intensely from head to toe just thinking about it.
“You could make me into a wizard?” Paul asked hesitantly, and this time, his voice did squeak quite a bit.
The wizard/genie nodded. “Think of all the people you could help then, Paul. You could travel the world, seeking out the neediest of people. You could cure the deadliest of sicknesses, end droughts, floods, and famines, and bring true relief to the suffering.” He leaned back in his chair and gave Paul a huge grin. “Of course, you’d have to give up the menial existence that you have now, leave that terribly stressful job you have, the one that is slowly killing you. That’s the unfortunate part of my offer, of course. But necessary. For the good of many other people. You must think of them, Paul. Don’t be selfish. Think of them.”
Paul’s body physically froze in place; he was totally unable to move a muscle. Instead, his mind was aflame, filled with ideas and images. He could see himself bringing rain to the deserts, dropping manna from heaven to whole populations of starving people, rescuing potential victims from floods and earthquakes, diverting hurricanes away from populated islands, stopping battles and wars before they happened, as well as a whole host of other possibilities.
Saving lives. Helping other people. Giving them a real chance to succeed when there would otherwise be none.
The idea was overwhelming. Mind-blowing. Paul was filled with awe at the scope of it, at the audacity and daring of it. His body pulsed with excitement, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. In the back of his mind, a whole cheerleading team was dancing wildly, shouting rousing slogans, and tossing pom-poms high in the air.
One lone voice, far off in the distance, was shouting at him to wait, to carefully examine this offer in detail, to do a top-to-bottom cost/benefit study and an environmental impact assessment. With icy contempt for that voice, Paul ignored it.
Instead, he again jumped to his feet, rubbing suddenly sweaty palms on the sides of his pants and pacing anew, this time much faster than before. And too, he made himself focus on the wizard/genie, who was grinning at him in delight.
“Please, correct me if I am mistaken, but I sense a certain interest in the idea,” the wizard/genie observed unflappably. “However, there is a condition to my offer.”
Paul’s heart skipped a beat, and all his visions of himself playing a superhero came crashing to the ground.
“A condition?” he asked, his pacing coming to a dead halt, as if he had run into a brick wall.
The ex-genie nodded and casually waved a hand. “In my case, I have endured great hardship for centuries. I feel confident that I will not misuse my new powers. But what about you? Great powers present great temptations. You would have to swear that you would not use your powers in an evil manner and that you would never use your powers to kill anyone.”
An episode of the original Star Trek series came to Paul’s mind, the one with Gary Mitchell in which his mental powers nearly turned him into a god—a very arrogant and revenge-minded one, at that.
Paul mulled the wizard/genie’s condition over in his mind for a few seconds before replying. “I wish I could guarantee that I would not misuse such powers. But you’ve seen my life. It has also been far from ideal. I know so many other people who have suffered too. I freely admit it. Your offer is extremely tempting. Are you seriously offering me the chance to be a wizard?”
“Do you swear not to misuse your powers? Do you swear not to kill anyone?” the wizard earnestly asked Paul in return.
The tingle returned, coursing back and forth through Paul’s body, like a series of waves in a tube. The other man really was serious. The offer really was on the table. Paul sensed a vast gulf open in front of him, an endless sea of possibilities ahead. The power to make a difference, to reach out and touch so many other lives. He was suddenly hit with the realization that this was probably the greatest watershed moment of his whole life. His knees threatened to collapse under him.
Paul nodded quickly, but firmly and with great determination. “I so swear.”
The bearded man seemed satisfied, even a bit smug. “Then, I can grant you your wish to be a wizard, one with considerable power, but let me make one point clear: I cannot make you into a god. There will be limits to the magic you can perform. Do you understand? And do you still want to be a wizard?”
Paul contemplated the question and made his final decision. “I think I understand. And yes, I want to be a wizard.” After a short pause, he continued, looking a bit sheepish. “But what about my job?”
The wizard/genie stood, gently shaking his head. “You can’t go back, Paul. Especially not as a wizard. Trust me on this. And in truth, they probably won’t even miss you very much.”
Paul blinked in surprise, then cast a downward look before giving the genie a wintery smile. “You’re probably right. In my career, I’ve seen lots of people retire, and everything went right on, same as before. I just...all those years....”
“Let it go, Paul. In your heart of hearts, you know it was a horrid existence. No one would treat a dog the way your bosses treated you.” With a smile, he continued, “And in your new life, you will be too busy to miss them very much either!”
With a grim smile of his own, Paul nodded. “Good point. A very good point. Fine. Please, proceed.”
The wizard/genie waved his arm. The bed reappeared a few yards away. “There is one more thing you should know before I grant you your powers. I won’t be here when you wake up. There are other matters I must attend to. But you won’t need me. Once you have your powers, you will have everything you need available to you.” He paused. “You and I will meet again. I somehow feel it in my bones. May Allah be with you and bless you.”
Paul smiled weakly back at him. “Thank you for this. And may He bless you too.”
“Please, lie down,” the ex-genie said, “and close your eyes.”
Weak-kneed, Paul somehow managed to walk to the bed without tripping over his suddenly too-large feet. As he lay down, a sudden thought came to him.
“Uh, just how long is this going to take?” he asked as images of people in suspended animation popped into his head, from films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Buck Rogers, Avatar, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek, and a host of others.
The wizard/genie smiled and shook his head. “Only a day or so. Now, relax and clear your mind. Very good. Shortly, you will fall asleep. When you awaken, you will have the powers of a wizard, and you will find ways to use those powers. This is your last chance to change your mind and go back to a normal, if miserable life. What do you say?”
“Please, proceed,” Paul said firmly. His heart raced, his blood pounding in his veins. He was about to become a real-life wizard!
Paul heard the wizard/genie softly chuckle. “Very well. May you henceforth have the ability to shape reality to your will. May you be a master of space and all the elements and have t
he power to bend the laws of nature to suit your needs. So it is said; so let it be!”
FIVE
Unknown location
December
Saturday, 10:05 p.m. (by Paul’s watch)
Paul stirred slowly, gradually awakening for the second time on the soft bed. The plateau was still there and the vista too, but this time, there was no wizard/genie. No matter. Paul silently wished him bon voyage and jumped to his feet.
The position of the sun had not changed much, not far from its zenith in the sky. According to his watch, he had been asleep for an entire day. Moreover, he felt a great deal better—far more rested than he had been in the last month.
He also felt distinctly odd. Internally, he felt light, a warmth radiating though his whole body, and he was filled with a sense of anticipation. Also, he felt a...well, there was no decent way to describe it other than as a power coursing through his body, ready to leap forth and perform great feats of magic. It was hard to put into words exactly, but there was no denying the differences he felt.
“Ah, but how is it done?” Paul softly asked himself as he pushed his glasses up on his nose. “And what should be my first act of magic?”
His stomach chose that moment to rumble in hunger. But of course. The answer was obvious. Paul needed to cast a spell for some food.
He snapped his fingers and paused expectantly. But nothing happened.
Huh? Where was the food?
Anxiously, Paul snapped his fingers again. “Hey, let’s have some food here! I’m hungry!”
Nothing.
Maybe a spell needed more concentration?
He closed his eyes and concentrated hard, visually creating the image of a huge steak dinner on an oversized plate, the meat turned to a perfect medium-rare. He visualized the onion rings, the baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits, and the side helping of broccoli smothered in melted butter. He threw in the steak knives and other utensils and included a tall, frosted mug of root beer. Oh, and a table to hold it all too.
Then Paul snapped his fingers again, hard. “Engage!” he yelled anxiously.
He cracked open an eye and peeked around. Nothing.
For a couple of seconds, Paul felt a surge of panic. It should have worked! His brand-new magical powers should have worked! Why hadn’t they?
He wrung his hands silently as he began to pace back and forth, his brow furrowed in concentration. Suddenly, he realized that being a wizard just might be a shade more difficult than he had first anticipated. The genie...ah, wizard, had made the casting of spells look incredibly easy. And unless Paul started casting his own spells...well, without the other wizard’s help, he might end up stuck here on this rocky summit, where there was no food to eat or even water to drink. He had already gone more than a day without water while he was asleep. Therefore, he needed to solve this problem quickly.
Paul forced himself to put aside his emotional reactions, focusing on his predicament as if it were an engineering problem, one to be solved with logical thinking. He could feel the power inside him; ergo, he must be doing something wrong, possibly multitudes of things, in trying to use his new abilities.
The wizard/genie had told Paul that he had everything he needed to be a fully functional wizard of his own. The implied assumption was that Paul could work his magical powers without difficulty, that he would know how to do so or that the processes involved were intuitively obvious.
As Paul began pacing again, he realized that such was probably the case. Sure, the wizard/genie had been regularly using magic for centuries. Moreover, he had come from an age when people commonly believed in magical powers. So it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination at all for the wizard to assume that Paul would know how to implement his newly acquired abilities, employing methods that were widely known by the general public, promulgated through legends and myths.
But Paul wasn’t a product of such an era. In the modern day, a belief in magical powers was scoffed at and ridiculed. Yes, the concept of magic was sometimes used for entertainment purposes, perhaps as the basis of a movie or for a magician to use in front of an audience. But no one took it seriously.
Not only that, but Paul was less informed about magical powers (i.e., stories of sorcerers, wizards, genies, etc. and their spells and methods) than even the general population. He wasn’t an aficionado of fantasy at all. Science fiction, yes, but he had never really been enamored with fantasy. Magic, knights, damsels in distress, and all of that seemed a little bland in comparison to starships, time travel, and black holes. But given his current situation, it might have helped him a bit more if he had read a few fantasy stories and seen a couple of movies. What could that have hurt? Maybe, if he lived long enough, Paul could redeem that mistake.
However, he needed to focus on the here and now. The question before him at this moment, assuming that he wasn’t using his magical powers properly, was how to figure out how it should actually be done.
Continuing his pacing back and forth on the plateau, Paul considered how to acquire the knowledge he needed. And after serious deliberation, he came up with three possible avenues of approach.
The first and most effective option was to have someone teach him how to cast magical spells. The second was to somehow acquire the necessary reference materials (books, operational manuals, YouTube videos, websites, etc.) that he could study and learn from what he needed to know. The third avenue, and without a doubt the least efficient one of all, was to experiment, to try a variety of different methods and learn through the process of trial and error how it should be done.
Obviously, the best person to teach him was the wizard/genie. But he had said that he had places to be and things to do, so getting his help...well, that idea was busted. And to call on anyone else—or to access any textbooks, manuals, or the Internet—also required the use of magical spells. It was a classic case of a catch-22. Paul needed to cast magical spells to obtain the information he needed in order to cast the spells in the first place. It was quite the conundrum, indeed.
He mulled the possible options over in his mind. Perhaps if he just tried casting a few spells to call on a knowledgeable individual, one of them might work. It was worth a shot. But who should he call on?
A wizard would be the best choice, but Paul didn’t know of any other real-life wizards. So perhaps he could call on a magician instead.
Ceasing his pacing, Paul narrowed his eyes in concentration, bringing both of his hands up high and waving them around in a frantic motion, and said, “I need a magician here to help me. David Copperfield!”
And yet again, nothing happened.
“Okay, any knowledgeable magician will do. Pronto!”
Nothing.
“Perhaps the Guardian of Forever from Star Trek? As a personal favor? Please?”
Nothing.
“Mr. Peabody?”
No response.
Paul sat down on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. The reality of his situation was that any fifth-grader could probably have easily figured out how to start casting magical spells.
“I’ll take a fifth-grader,” Paul muttered. “Or even a five-year-old!”
Still, nothing happened.
“‘I’m not even supposed to be here,’” Paul bellyached, quoting Guy Fleegman from Galaxy Quest. “‘I’m just Crewman Number Six. I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is.’”
Oy vey!
So, what was he going to do now?
• • • •
Not knowing what else to try and feeling a little more desperate with the passage of time, Paul began experimenting with determination, though in a more or less aimless fashion. For nearly two hours, he tried everything that came to mind. He tried calling forth every personality—real, historical, or fictional—that might possibly help him. This ranged from all his favorite sci-fi characters to a number of scientists going all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci. He tried calling forth textboo
ks, Internet connections, and manuals of any kind dealing with magic. He went back to trying to conjure forth food, this time simplifying his spells. Instead of steak dinners, he tried simpler fare, such as apples and various other fruits, bread, cheese, a variety of drinks, and so forth. He even tried to distill water out of the air, and then he tried tapping into the snowbanks that were clearly visible on some of the surrounding mountains.
The result was always the same. Nothing came from any of his attempted magic.
Depressed, he plopped back down on the edge of the bed, mulling over his situation and what to do about it. For a few minutes, he even fell into self-pity, blaming his own greedy nature for allowing himself to get into such a quandary in the first place. If he hadn’t been so fixated on becoming some sort of superhero, then none of this would have ever happened! He could, right this very minute, be back in his home in Mojave, watching another one of his favorite sci-fi movies and scarfing down a TV dinner!
He sighed and got back up to pace again. He needed to focus, to use his training as an engineer, to approach this problem from a scientific point of view and in a much more deliberate manner, not to experiment wildly in the dark like he had been. As he considered the problem, he realized that he had been too ambitious with his first spells. Every one of them had been complex, requiring a fairly sophisticated use of magic. After all, he was trying to conjure up people and material objects. What he needed to learn and master first were the basics involved.
For a couple of minutes, he pondered that idea. Sure, something fundamental. As basic and as simple as he could make it.
Looking around the plateau, the flower beds gave him an idea. A quick few steps took him over to the nearest one. Leaning down between a rosebush and a stand of forget-me-nots, Paul scraped together a handful of dirt and then returned to the four-poster bed. There, he opened his hand, and with the other one, he brushed away most of the dirt until he had a small number of tiny specks of sand scattered in his palm.
Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard Page 6