The Width of the World

by David Baldacci

  I screwed up my face, shut my eyes and —

  “Pass-pusay titanticus encapsulado principium todos.”

  I paused, building my energy to the level I knew was necessary.

  Now, Vega, now!

  “Domum nunc en pepertuum!” I cried out.

  A bolt of light issued from the tip of my wand and shot straight up and through the ceiling of my room, leaving a darkened mark there as residue.

  As soon as the light vanished, I fell backward and passed out.

  The next thing I remember was Harry Two licking me on the face.

  I heard a commotion downstairs.

  Then I heard Pillsbury shouting something.

  I jumped up and raced out of the room and down the broad stairs, Harry Two barking at my heels.

  The foyer of Empyrean was large, but it was now also crowded with figures.

  Pillsbury and Mrs. Jolly were running around trying to restore order, although I daresay they were destined for failure, at least with respect to those who were unfamiliar with walking and talking suits of armor and brooms with appendages.

  I raced into the foyer and shouted, “Everyone quiet down.” When that didn’t work sufficiently, I raised my wand to the ceiling, muttered an incantation and the resulting boom was so overwhelmingly loud that only quiet followed its release.

  They all stood there staring back at me.

  There was Cecilia Harkes, Anna Dibble, Sara Bond and Clive Pippen. Over near the door was Amicus Arnold, looking serenely pleased. Next to him was the chubby but buoyant-faced Artemis Dale. On his right was Miranda Weeks, looking confused but excited. Standing next to each other were Dennis O’Shaughnessy and Reginald Magnus, who looked so much like each other they could be brothers. And by a large vase of flowers, Dedo Datt stared around in silent wonder.

  And on and on they went.

  All fifty of them. They stared at me.

  And I stared back at them, or at least at their hands.

  I saw, with immense satisfaction, that a full-size golden wand was gripped in each.

  My spell had worked.

  I couldn’t keep the enormous smile off my face.

  Until I noticed something.

  Or more to the point, I noticed the absence of something.

  Even more to the point, the absence of two people.

  I rushed over to Pillsbury.

  “Where’re Delph and Petra?”

  “Oh, they left quite a while ago.”

  The blood iced over in my veins. “What?”

  “Yes. They told me to be ready to receive what they termed ‘guests’ and then they left. Together.”

  I couldn’t process what he was telling me. Where the Hel had they gone?

  At the same instant I felt my wand tingle and shake slightly.

  And in my head I heard:

  “Vega, help us! We’re in Greater True.”

  It was Petra. She was communicating with me by wand wire.

  I barked to Pillsbury and Mrs. Jolly, “See that our guests have all the food and drink they require and then find rooms for them to rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “But —” began Pillsbury.

  I shot forward and nearly collided with Alabetus Trumbull, who luckily leapt out of the way.

  Charlotte Tokken and Pauline Paternas cried out after me, but I didn’t really hear them. All I could hear was Petra’s desperate plea.

  I could not lose them. I just couldn’t.

  MY FIRST PROBLEM was that I could not become invisible without the ring, and Petra still had it. Thus, when I appeared on a street in Greater True, someone instantly saw me. Luckily, it was a doddering old man who continued to walk past as though someone materializing out of thin air happened all the time.

  At least it was late at night, and I immediately withdrew into the shadows, attempting to regain my composure and my wits. This was hard to do because I was frantic to find Delph and Petra.

  I peered around to see if anything unusual was happening in Greater True. I had just removed fifty of the servant class with one fell swoop. I was sure that the town would be up in arms about this. But then as I thought about it, I realized that might not be the case. It was very late at night, and most if not all of their former masters would still be sound asleep and unaware of what had transpired. The first they might learn of it was when they awoke and realized no one was there to serve them their morning tea.

  But then again, I wasn’t sure how my spell had manifested itself here. Had there been noise, incantation, lights? Had the former slaves been seen flying through the sky, if but for a moment? Had someone in one of the houses been up late, seen something suspicious and alerted the Maladons?

  But why had Petra and Delph come here?

  Suddenly in my head appeared another wand wire.

  “Train station. Same room. Hurry.”

  I focused on the four walls of that room where we had slept while locating those whose magic had been stolen from them. I twice tapped my wand against my leg, muttered the spell and a moment later I was standing in the little room at the train station.

  I looked frantically around for Delph and Petra, but they weren’t there.

  However, I wasn’t alone.

  Four Bowler Hats encircled me, their wands pointed directly at my chest.

  I was so stunned I had no time to think, which was probably a good thing.

  “Embattlemento.”

  Their four spells hit my shield, but my magic held. In fact, their spells rebounded off my conjured wall, causing them all to duck.

  I used this opportunity to once more tap my leg twice and say the incantation.

  I was instantly on the street outside the train station.

  I was frantic now. Delph and Petra had obviously been captured by the Maladons. They must have used her wand to communicate with me.

  I couldn’t become invisible, which was a colossal setback. I wondered if they had taken my grandfather’s ring from Petra. But how would they have even been captured? They couldn’t be seen behind its invisibility shield.

  Next moment the four Maladons burst from the front of the train station and looked wildly around for me.

  I scurried around a corner and then peeked back.

  I performed my magnification spell and looked at them more closely.

  I recognized two of them. My heart sank as four more joined them, appearing out of thin air, after no doubt having been summoned. I wondered if Endemen would make an appearance. Indeed, I was more than a little surprised that he wasn’t right in the middle of all this.

  Under the magnification spell, I searched the fingers of all of the Maladons for the ring. I didn’t see it. I had been told that they had never learned how to make themselves invisible. They might not know the ring had such powers, or how to turn it around to engage the shield. But given time, they would probably discover its secret, or do so accidentally, as I had.

  I looked nervously around, wondering how many more Maladons would appear to join the hunt for me. But my only goal was to find and save Petra and Delph.

  Were they here? Had they already been taken to the castle? Were … were they already dead?

  I looked down at my wand.

  One wand against eight. But I had always been the underdog in every fight I’d ever had, including the Duelum back in Wormwood. And I had won them all.

  Everyone said I was special somehow. Well, I guessed I was about to find out if that was really true.

  When the Maladons had cast their spells, they had not used the Rigamorte curse, which my shield would not have stopped. They obviously didn’t want to kill me. They wanted to capture me. And I was sure I knew why. They wanted to torture me to gain every bit of information they could.

  Well, that worked both ways, didn’t it?

  And I instinctively realized that when you’re outnumbered on the battlefield, you need to do one thing:

  Divide and conquer.

  I sent back-to-back spells sailing over the
ir heads, each shooting off in a different direction. As soon as I’d done that, I used the pass-pusay spell to disappear and then reappear behind them. I saw them react to the spells and do what I’d hoped. They split up, four and four. Still not good odds for me, but better than they had been.

  They charged off in different directions. I followed one of the groups down the street and watched them turn a corner and hurry after the lingering lights of one of the spells I had cast.

  I hurried on and caught up to them, keeping just far enough back so they couldn’t see me. I aimed my wand at the Bowler Hat bringing up the rear.

  My Subservio spell hit him in the center of the back.

  I whispered my instructions to him. He pointed his wand at the Bowler Hats in front of him and cast spells knocking them out. The fourth one turned in time to blast the one I had under control, and he crumpled in a heap.

  I took aim at the remaining Bowler Hat, and my Subservio spell hit him full in the chest.

  He went funny in the face and his wand hand dropped.

  I hurried up to him, took his wand in my gloved hand and broke it in half. I did the same with the others’ wands.

  I pointed my wand at the last Bowler Hat and said, “What are you called?”

  “Dullish,” he said gruffly.

  I said “Origante,” expecting his hideous actual Maladon self to be revealed, but he looked the same. I was bewildered by this. I had thought all of the Maladons would be the same underneath.

  “Okay, where are my friends, Dullish?”

  He looked at me quizzically. I realized I had to be more specific.

  “The tall man and the young woman. Your lot used her wand to summon me here.”

  He nodded. “They are at the headquarters of the Elite Guard on the other side of Greater True.”

  “And they’re alive?” I said sharply.

  He nodded dumbly.

  “Where is her wand?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, then, who would know?”

  He looked down at one of his fallen comrades. “He would.”

  I performed the spell to erase any memory of this encounter from him and then knocked the bloke out.

  I pointed my wand at the man he’d indicated. “Rejoinda, Petra’s wand.”

  It flew from his pocket and into my hand.

  I thought for a moment and added, “And Rejoinda anything else of Petra’s or Delph’s or mine.”

  Nothing appeared.

  I put the wand away in my cloak and turned just in time to ward off the first spell.

  It bounced off my shield and exploded against the side of a building, leaving a gaping hole.

  The other four Bowler Hats had appeared feet from me, no doubt having heard or somehow sensed the magical fight that had just occurred here.

  Then the duel began in earnest.

  I thought I had no chance. I well remembered the fight Petra and I had waged against a single Maladon. It had left us breathless, barely able to lift our wand arms, while our opponent appeared fresh and full of fight. We were lucky to have vanquished him.

  But now, for some reason I could not fathom, my wand hand started to move in ways I had never envisioned, in ways I never thought myself capable of. I danced and parried, blocked spells, and sent off my own.

  The longer I fought, the stronger and more confident I became.

  “Impacto. Embattlemento. Jagada. Paralycto. Embattlemento.”

  I blasted one off his feet with an Engulfiado spell. Another fell to my Impairio incantation, and he started blindly firing off spells, sending his mates running and ducking.

  The very air around us was boiling from all the magic cast.

  I kept pounding away, saying spells and whipping my wand like it was a sword.

  I charged forward, my gaze darting across the field of battle, calculating all options, tactics and strategies, my mind going full bore, my concentration total.

  They fell back, and I could see the panicked looks in their eyes. They had obviously not expected me to be able to hold my own against all of them.

  But I wasn’t done yet. And if I’d learned one thing with the Maladons, it was that you had to finish the fight.

  I glanced down at their feet and decided I needed to end this sooner rather than later. I still had to find and rescue Delph and Petra.

  I shot a spell at the cobbles under them. An enormous hole opened up, and they fell screaming down into this abyss, their wands sailing out of their hands from the suddenness of the descent. I sent Impacto spells raining down into the hole, one after another. The spells thundered into their flailing forms and knocked them out.

  Then I flicked my wand across the hole and it sealed up.

  Not wasting another moment, I leapt into the air and sailed across the darkened sky with grim purpose.

  I had never been to the Elite Guard’s bloody headquarters. But I had a very good idea of how I would find it.

  And a minute later I saw that I was right.

  The huge flag with the five-pointed star and the two burning eyes was waving in the wind atop a tall building on the western edge of the town proper. I could see several lights blazing from within. I went into a dive and landed next to the rear entrance.

  Now I needed something. No, I needed someone. And I knew exactly how to get him.

  I made the familiar pulling motion with my wand and I said, “Rejoinda, Dullish.”

  I had thought about performing this spell to get Delph and Petra back, but I had no idea how they were being imprisoned or if the spell was strong enough to break chains and doors. And I also figured whoever was watching over them would probably have time to stop them or even kill them if they started to soar away.

  A few moments later I could see a black blob hurtling across the sky.

  Dullish landed hard at my feet. I revived him after putting him back under the Subservio spell and then instructed him on what I wanted him to do.

  I hid in the shadows as he approached the door.

  He lifted his wand and the door opened, revealing a man in a black uniform.

  He seemed surprised to see the Maladon.

  I used my magnification spell to see inside the doorway and to the room beyond.

  It was only the one guard.

  “Dullish? We’ve got our pair here still. Did you get the one you were after?” the guard asked.

  My spell shot straight over Dullish’s shoulder and hit the bloke right in the face. He fell over backward.

  I stepped inside and looked down at his prostrate form.

  “No, actually he didn’t, you prat.”

  I pushed Dullish ahead of me as I surveyed the set of stairs that led upward.

  “Where are the other guards?” I asked Dullish.

  “Most are asleep in the barracks.” He pointed upward.

  “And my friends?”

  “In the room in the middle of the hall where the barracks are.”

  “How many guards watching them?”

  “A dozen.”

  Wonderful.

  I could imagine their mortas firing into my body until I looked like a mass of holes and not much else.

  Then I had a thought. “Dullish, where do they keep their mortas?”

  “Their what?”

  “Their, um, weapons?”

  He pointed to the left at a doorway I hadn’t noticed before.

  “Their guns are in there.”

  “Stay right here.”

  I used the Ingressio spell to open the door. Along the walls were racks and racks and shelves of guns.

  I swept my wand across the room and said, “Interfero todos.”

  The sounds of something hardening could be heard around the room.

  I closed the door behind me and once more went over to Dullish.

  “Take me to my friends,” I commanded.

  We stealthily went up the stairs, turned right and passed a number of wooden doors. From within, I could hear the loud sn
ores of sleeping men.

  Dullish led me over to a large metal door. There was a small barred window in the middle of it.

  I stepped past Dullish and peered cautiously inside.

  With a sigh of relief, I saw Delph and Petra tied up in a corner. Delph’s face was bruised and bloody and Petra was hunched over and grimacing in pain.

  As Dullish had said, there were twelve uniformed men inside with them. And they all carried mortas, or guns, rather.

  But I carried something too.

  My wand.

  And I wouldn’t trade it for a thousand of their awful weapons.

  I blasted open the door.

  The guards all turned, as I knew they would, toward the door.

  They lifted their guns to fire.

  I already had my wand pointed.

  “Engulfiado.”

  The torrent of water exploding from my wand tip hit them with the force of a lightning spear.

  They were lifted off their feet and blasted backward against the wall, where they slammed into the stone and dropped to the floor, unconscious, their guns falling from their hands.

  I leapt inside.

  “Vega Jane!” exclaimed Delph.

  “How did you find us?” asked Petra breathlessly.

  “Not now,” I shot back.

  I quickly untied them and led them out of the room.

  My spell had awoken the sleeping guards, as I knew it would.

  We scrambled down the steps even as we heard doors slamming open.

  We reached the main floor and hurtled across its width to the door leading to the outside.

  I heard someone scream, “Get your guns and blast them to Hel!”

  We were outside the building and running down the street when I heard someone yell, “Fire!“

  I turned to look back and saw forty guards with guns pointed right at us.

  “Look out!“ screamed Petra.

  “Don’t worry,” I said.

  All forty guards pulled their triggers.

  And all forty guns blew up in their hands, their barrels magically obstructed by yours truly.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Delph.

  Wow indeed, I thought, a grin emerging on my face.

  I tethered us together. And we shot upward, leveled out and zipped onward.

  We weren’t invisible, so I was concerned that a Maladon would see us and take up the chase. I just wanted to invoke the Pass-pusay spell and get back to Empyrean as quickly as possible.