Jake's Women (Wizards)

by Booth, John

  Two guards stood in front of a building. Retnor decided this was an adequate hint and we flew straight through them into the building beyond. My dragon was far bigger than the rooms with his wings outstretched. It was a decidedly strange feeling to fly through walls in absolute silence.

  “Here.”

  I slid off Retnor and immediately reappeared in normal space. I don’t know how to glim. It was a dragon magic and it was not immediately obvious how to do it even though I’d been in it many times.

  The weapons were locked inside special cabinets, but it took only a second to force the doors open. It took a little longer to locate the M24 rifles along with the telescopic sights I was looking for. There were ten of them, which I hoped would be enough.

  “Can you get in here?”

  Retnor managed to materialize in the room, but only just. He held his wings close to his body. I stacked the rifles into the nets on either side of his body. Fortunately the ammunition was kept in boxes below the rifles and I took all I could find, which wasn’t very much.

  [I can’t hop carrying this much.]

  “Can you glim?”

  [Yes.]

  “Once we are moving I can hop both of us.” It was a sad truth that when stationary, even a wizard of my powers cannot hop more than a dozen people along with him. Unless the wizard and the objects were in motion. Then I could hop a whole bus.

  “Halt or I’ll shoot!”

  A soldier stood with his machine gun pointed at me. Then he took in Retnor, his eyes widened in fear and his trigger finger twitched. Rounds sprayed towards us. I had put a shield between us as soon as he started to speak, but bullets are difficult to stop because they are travelling so fast; even magic pays some attention to physical laws. These dropped to the floor mere inches from us.

  [Jake, take hold]

  I gave the soldier’s chest a magical push and he fell backwards. Then I dived for my dragon. We dropped into glim.

  “Can you get us moving?”

  In answer, Retnor started walking. That may sound daft, but glim is a place that dragons can adjust around them and we appeared to be on a solid floor even though the walls had no substance. Retnor picked up speed and then he was running.

  I hopped us back into the Bat Cave and Retnor promptly crashed into a wall.

  [You could have warned me you were about to do that.]

  “Sorry.”

  I seemed to be saying that a lot these days.

  Watching Merlin and Morgana together in the same room was a delight. Though they were still at the waving arms randomly around stage physically, the link between them pulsed in a way that suggested a lot more was going on in the magical plane. Beyond explaining the link to my wives I’d told them very little about their babies’ magical talents. But since they had got together in Salice it was clear that my babies knew exactly what the other one was up to. Feeds had to be synchronized to avoid a tantrum from the one not getting fed.

  Nearly two weeks had passed since my meeting with Betty. So far we had had no word from Bronwyn and no sign of invasion or reconnaissance from her Cult. I was putting off going after the knife, but logic suggested if I left it much longer the Progenitors would put it into deep store or into the garbage. A little nagging voice in the back of my head was telling me to get on with it.

  “Lord Wizard, we have need of you.”

  I hadn’t heard Esmeralda enter the room and I turned round rapidly. Since she was standing calmly (with only a slight hint of foot tapping) I concluded that we were not in the middle of an invasion.

  “Huh?”

  “It is always good to hear my husband express himself so cogently. You may remember we scheduled a meeting to go over the defense of the realm? My father, he is the King you may remember, asked you to turn up on time. You are twenty minutes late.”

  “Sorry. I forgot the time watching the babies.”

  Esmeralda smiled, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to be nice about it. “Ah yes. It is understandable you should be full of self-admiration. But might I remind you that ten minutes work on your part, if we count both conceptions, was followed by nine months hard labor from Jennifer and myself.”

  When I showed no immediate sign of moving she made a hrmthing sound.

  “The meeting?”

  I reached out my hand and when she took it pulled her towards me. By the time she bounced against my chest we were in the Ballroom.

  “Ah Jake. Good of you to attend.” My father in law was completely unperturbed by our arrival out of thin air, or the look on his daughter’s face.

  Urda smiled at me and her sister lowered her eyes. She was looking much better than the last time I saw her. Queen Janti nodded and Esmeralda raised an eyebrow. A number of Lords and Ladies also sat around the table. I knew them all by sight and even one or two by name.

  “To business,” the King said and then looked at his daughter expectantly as the two of us sat at the table.

  “Have there been any sightings of the Cult or Bronwyn?” asked Esmeralda briskly.

  Everybody shook their heads or grunted in the negative.

  “Remind the people to be alert. They are bound to scout out the kingdom before they attack.”

  “Might Bronwyn persuade them to leave us alone?” Chancellor Hart asked hopefully.

  Esmeralda looked at me expectantly, as if I had a clue.

  I shrugged. “My best guess is that they are still trying to get her powers fully restored. Who knows how long that might take? They are also expanding Barren and other towns on their world. That ought to take years, even for wizards.”

  Esmeralda tapped a pencil on the table.

  “And would you care to give us your best guess as to when they might attack?”

  “Today, next month, next year? The only way to tell is to go to Tydan and find out.”

  “But instead, you plan to leave us defenseless while you carry out a fool’s errand against the Progenitors.”

  There were a few gasps from those Lords and Ladies not familiar with all aspects of our relationship.

  “I believe the Lord Wizard has a plan to protect us,” Treva Assad said bravely. It takes real guts to contradict Esmeralda. Treva was the new Captain of the Guard. I hadn’t warmed to him when he first got the job, but I was finding him a powerful ally.

  “Using these Earth weapons?”

  If it was possible to snub an entire planet, Esmeralda had just done it.

  It was time for a speech. I stood up and took a deep breath.

  “There’s a reason that technological worlds don’t suffer from invading wizards. While a wizard might raid such a world, staying there is a death sentence. None of us can spend every moment of every day and night instantly ready to protect ourselves.”

  “And yet wizards have ruled Salice rather more often than they have not,” the King interjected.

  “Because Salice has not yet invented practical explosives. Once you go down that road then weapons that can kill at a distance and destroy castle walls will follow swiftly. A wizard on Earth could be killed from a mile away, and he would never hear the shot that killed him.”

  “And how does that help Salice?” Esmeralda again.

  Treva stood. “If I may, Lord Wizard?”

  I sat down and let him take over.

  Treva took a M24 Sniper Rifle from the bag by his side. He expertly clipped on the laser sight and pointed the weapon vaguely in my direction. I slapped a shield between us that was so strong it made the air hum.

  He laughed. “It is not loaded. But it makes the Lord Wizard’s point. Even he is afraid of it. This telescope lets me see what I am pointing the weapon at, and the red dot over there tells me exactly what I will hit. Every single time.”

  “A rule with weapons like that is never point them at anyone you don’t want to kill, whether you think they are loaded or not,” I said quickly. To my great relief Treva put the weapon down, leaving it pointing safely at the wall.

  “It can kill a wizard
from over a mile away,” he continued, stating the obvious.

  Chancellor Hart looked confused. “But wizards can stop a man with a single word. Burn him to death with two.”

  “The point is that the wizard can’t be aware of everything around him at once. Any attack on Salice will start at the Palace. Ten well trained men with these weapons can take out their wizards before they know they are being attacked. Those that survive will retreat to their home world and hopefully decide we aren’t worth the cost.”

  Esmeralda mulled this over.

  “And do we have ten men capable of using these weapons effectively?”

  Treva grinned. “The Lord Wizard has trained thirty of us by magic, though we only have ten weapons.”

  “I learned from an expert,” for a second I saw the image of the soldier I’d sent to sleep. “All the men have fired enough live rounds to use that expertise for real.”

  “You are determined to leave us and undertake this errand, Jake?” Esmeralda asked.

  “I have to.”

  Esmeralda banged her fist on the table.

  “Then go, and let us hope you are right about these weapons. It will have the merit of being the first time, if you are.”

  23. Conference World

  “Are you sure you want to come?”

  Retnor gave me a reproachful look. [We agreed.]

  “And it gives the Dragons their first look at a Progenitor world?”

  Dragons are quite capable of looking guilty.

  [Why should you have all the fun?]

  “The thing is; the only place I know that isn’t filled with blocking magic stuff is a walkway. You won’t fit.”

  [I could take you into glim as soon as we arrive. That way we will not be seen.]

  “Can you do that?”

  [I can hop in glim. If you open your mind so I can see the location it will be easy.]

  Which was all very well, but I’d been opening my mind to him rather a lot lately. And it wasn’t only Retnor that was getting in.

  “It isn’t you I don’t trust.”

  [I would never search your mind without permission, and without using me as a willing conduit, neither can the Elders.]

  There was little else to say. Without further comment I got onto my dragons back (more his neck than his back, really) and I let him see the inside of the Conference building from the walkway.

  Retnor took us the scenic route, which involved us slowing down in hop space so we could see where we were going. A universe looks like a star in hop space, surrounded by mist. If you let your mind zero in on a particular one, it grows to reveal galaxies and nebulae. We flew passed thousands of universes before zooming in on an area in which no universes appeared to be present.

  “What’s going on?” I am famed for my succinct questions.

  [The universes here are very old. They don’t shine brightly enough to be seen through the mist. Look more closely over there.]

  Retnor didn’t point, but his telepathic message told me exactly where to look. Not that it mattered, because the act of approaching it caused it to inflate around us. In wasn’t quite pitch black. Faint galaxies flickered at the edge of being seen; all showing at the red end of the spectrum. Then we inflated a galaxy and it looked much more normal once we were inside. Some of the suns glowed yellow like our own. We were still in hop space. The mist that was always part of hop space still blurred our vision.

  [The Dragons know of this galaxy. But we abandoned it so long ago that our memory of it is hopelessly out of date. We left when the spread of technological worlds destroyed our habitat.]

  Dragons have a habitat? Who knew? I just thought they liked mountains teaming with sheep and goats, nothing as sophisticated as an actual habitat.

  We could see no closer in Hop Space. If I was tracking an individual I might be able to see something of the surface of their world, but in normal circumstances seeing a galaxy was about as much as you could see before you had to hop the rest of the way. Retnor hopped us to the location I’d given him.

  It looked exactly as I’d last seen it, except that I had a feeling the machinery was switched off. There was still a hum, but it was almost inaudible. Machinery doesn’t have a soul, but sometimes it feels as if it is sleeping when inactive and this place felt fast asleep. There was something else about the scene that bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  [I think this area is deserted. Most of the machinery is powered down.]

  “What’s the yellow light about?”

  [I see only a white mist. There is no trace of yellow.]

  “It’s very faint. It’s only after looking at the walkway and back that I can see it.”

  [I still see nothing.]

  “Let me try something.”

  I slid off my dragon. As I came out of glim the yellow glow vanished. That was interesting in itself. I went to the edge of the walkway and stared down overlaying my magical sight with my normal one.

  [You risk detection.]

  He had a point, but it seemed to me that this would be the perfect opportunity to try and figure out what drained my magic down there. At the edges of my perceptions I found what I was looking for. The yellow light was the same as magical auras, but almost off the spectrum. It was interfering with the normal magical flow, pushing it away from mass. The heavier something was, the less magic flowed into it.

  [Have you finished admiring the view?] He was being a tetchy dragon, and he was still safe in glim.

  I stretched my hand down into the field and on the third attempt I found a way to block it. Chalk one up to Jake Morrissey, Wizard Extraordinaire .

  [Jake!]

  Retnor was getting impatient. I turned and walked towards where my dragon probably was. He materialized for just long enough for me to get onboard. As I suspected, he was a tight fit on the walkway.

  “Glim us around. You would think they would keep my possessions somewhere close.”

  [Any particular direction?]

  “Up. I’d like to see how tall this building is.”

  Retnor flew us up through floor after floor until I was thoroughly dizzy. The only way I could have found the walkway again was by hopping to it. Eventually we passed through a layer of concrete so thick I wondered if we were travelling through the planet the wrong way and this was its core.

  We came out onto a flat plane that went from horizon to horizon. I sensed that outside of glim there was nothing much in the way of air. But Glim, like Hop Space provides its own survival mechanisms.

  It was difficult to judge distances, but as we reached an altitude where it was possible to see the curvature of the planet I could see that the surface was not continuous, the concrete had been formed using pieces joined together like a jigsaw. There were protuberances on the surface that looked as though they were made from highly reflective plastic, and others that looked like dark holes. Perhaps they were holes. Without getting closer to them it was impossible to tell.

  “How big do you think this damned world is?”

  [About the size of Earth’s moon. Perhaps a little bigger.] Of the two of us, Retnor was the least impressed. He probably had race memories of much larger constructs.

  Now we had a spaceship’s perspective I noticed a lot of shooting stars, burning up before they reached the surface.

  “I didn’t think there was any atmosphere?” My limited education told me that it required an atmosphere for things to burn up.

  [There is no atmosphere to speak of. I think light beams from the surface are hitting the meteors. Let us go and take a closer look.]

  Retnor took us back towards the planet at a speed that had me holding on tightly, though it didn’t feel fast, it certainly looked it.

  I was blinded by a terrible light and felt my skin begin to vaporize. Then we were back in the Bat Cave, coughing and spluttering.

  Before I could faint, I healed my skin and eyes. Retnor was making a terrible racket and I healed his skin though the effort nearly drained me of pow
er. Then I lost consciousness.

  [Jake.]

  Mam was nagging me and I wanted it to stop. It was so nice in bed.

  “I don’t want to go to school.”

  [JAKE]

  Jesus, there was no need to shout. I struggled to open my eyes. My eyelids wouldn’t move and they hurt. I remembered I was a wizard and investigated. Then I started healing them.

  [JAKE]

  “Give me a minute, Fluffy. My eyelids are burnt.”

  [Glad you are awake… and calling me Fluffy again. I’ve missed that.]

  ‘And done.’ I was getting better at this healing thing. I opened my eyes and looked at my dragon. He looked fine except for his eyes. They were white where they weren’t bloody.

  Running to his side I put my hands on his beautiful face. Using tendrils of magic I assessed the situation and was horrified by the extent of the damage. I tried to get his cells to regenerate, but some of them were dead and far beyond my powers to heal.

  [You saved my life. Never think I am not grateful for that.]

  Putting a stasis field over his eyes I tried to think.

  [We underestimated the Progenitors. They must not only be able to detect dragons in glim, but also be capable of attacking us.]

  “I’m getting Urda. She’s much better at healing than I am.”

  [I fear the damage is too great, but I can still see in the magical planes. I shall survive.]

  I patted my dragon on the neck and hopped for Salice.

  24. Eyes

  “What on Earth do you want so many for?” the chemist asked. He was a large man with a friendly smile and I was in the process of buying a whole box of cheap sunglasses.

  “Amateur production of Bugsy Malone.” I’d expected that question and had an answer ready. A daft answer, but still an answer. He looked taken aback for a second and then his face lit up with an enthusiastic smile.

  “My wife and I like the musical theatre, see. So put us down for a couple of tickets.”

  I smiled and nodded, but suddenly felt a little guilty that my lie had got his hopes up. The only production I was doing was The Dragon and I and it looked like that was going to be a tragedy. The weight of the book I had borrowed from the town library was slightly comforting.