Mystify the Magician

by K. A. Applegate

  Didn't they even notice I wasn't there? I mean, if they all came riding back after me and arrived just as I found Senna, hey, I'd get full credit for being brave and for catching the witch. I'd be content with that. I'd have the intention of bravery — that was as good as actual bravery.

  I topped the rise, leaning forward over the horse's neck to stay on in the slope. On the other side was a dell, I guess that's what you'd call it. A sort of shallow dimple in the land, maybe a hundred feet across, grassy in most places, more sparse under the gloomy trees.

  In the center of the dell was a circle of crudely cut stone pillars the size of upended Land Cruisers. Twelve in all, and each topped with a precariously balanced stone about big enough to eat dinner off of.

  There in the center of the circle, shining through the mist, stood Senna.

  I felt a chill go right through me. It was damp, and it was cold, and I was tired, but none of that was the reason for the chill.

  Chapter

  X

  She was very calm, waiting, not exactly relaxed, but not ready to go Jackie Chan on me, either. I reined in well outside the circle of stones.

  "Druid stones, like Stonehenge," Senna said conversationally, like I'd asked her a question, "They seem to have advanced quite a way since the days when they used these kinds of circles to plot the stars and the moon and regulate the planting days and the holidays and the harvests."

  "Yeah," I said, dry-mouthed. "They have calendars now, I guess. Probably those Tolkien calendars. You know... like... okay."

  "What am I supposed to do with you, Christopher?" Senna asked, cocking her head to one side.

  "Come back with me," I said as firmly as I could.

  She smiled and shook her head regretfully. "I don't think so, Christopher. These folks are simple, but not stupid. They know that what happened to Lorg wasn't magic. They know we're involved in some way. And you or Jalil or April would have sold me out to them."

  I could deny it, but what would be the point? "Yeah. Not me, though. Not that I wouldn't, it's just that I would never have had a chance: It would be a toss-up between Jalil and April.

  Me, I don't like you, don't trust you, but I don't have a major beef with you."

  She nodded, accepting that. "I wish I could trust you, Christopher, I really do."

  "Can I kill him now?" a voice asked.

  That voice... familiar. From somewhere, not here, but from somewhere. I looked around, saw no one. Just the stones, the trees, the grass.

  "Yes, you can kill him now."

  Keith loomed up from atop one of the massive rocks, rising to his full, not-very-impressive height He cradled an Uzi in the crook of one arm. There was a pair of pistols bolstered around his waist. An ammo belt hung over one shoulder.

  Keith, the sick little racist Nazi wanna-be punk who had threatened me over in the real world. I didn't pause to wonder how in hell he'd ended up here now, I just moved. Kicked my horse hard with both heels and rolled backward off him. Bang onto my back, thank God for soft grass, and still the wind was kicked out of me.

  The Uzi erupted and the horse screamed. The horse hit the ground, kicked, then stopped kicking.

  I rolled up against the base of the nearest stone pillar. Tried to think. Keith. With a freaking Uzi. A little Klebold Harris psychopath working with Senna. And me with nothing but handfuls of grass.

  I heard Keith above. He was leaping from stone table to stone table. Leaping heavily. He was weighed down with all that hardware, not like me, no, boy, thank goodness I had nothing to contend with but empty freaking hands. If I ran for the trees he'd have a perfect, easy shot at me. If I stayed in the stones he'd have a harder time, but there was Senna to deal with. All I had survived in Everworld and I was going to get shot?

  Shot? With a gun?

  I breathed hard, almost sobbing. How did David do this hero crap? What should I do? Slight vibration down through the stone pillar. Keith was directly above me. So at least he was no genius: How was he going to shoot me when he couldn't lean out far enough to see me?

  Loud explosions all around me, clattering, chipping, exploding rock.

  I scampered around the rock. Keith was sticking his gun over the edge and firing blind and had damned near greased me. I crawled fast, elbows on grass, thinking, The stains will never come out, thinking it was almost funny, and when I came full circle there would be Senna and I'd be all done.

  A blur that came to a sudden vibrating stop. Two fairies at the top of the rise. They stared hard.

  "Run!" I yelled. "Get help, run!"

  A stream of bullets caught them, spun one around. He was dead before he hit the grass. The other ran, but he was hit. Too badly to get away? Couldn't tell, couldn't see.

  I scurried around the rock and there was Senna. But she wasn't looking at me. She wasn't looking at anything. She was glowing like she'd swallowed a stadium light. Her head was thrown back, her arms spread wide in a parody of crucifixion, eyes staring up at nothing.

  The light inside her shined right through her, she was translucent, insubstantial. She was hard to look at, she was so bright.

  Keith was capering away atop his rock yelling, "Yee-hah!

  Yeah! Yeah!" and other hillbilly nitwit witticisms. "Now it comes!

  Now it comes down! It’s happening right now!"

  And then he remembered his business and aimed a blast at where I'd been a few seconds before. I rolled over to look up and see if I could spot the muzzle before he could kill me.

  Help had to be on the way, right? Come on, MacCool, come on, David, someone save my sorry ass.

  The air around Senna was shimmering, a wind had whipped up, a wind that seemed to blow straight through her, like she was an open window in a gale.

  The gateway! She was doing it. She was opening the gateway.

  "Yeah! Yeah! Do it! King of the world!" Keith yammered.

  And then, as I blinked in disbelief, I was looking right through Senna, right through her at a shabby room, a real-world room. Maybe a dozen men, maybe twice that many, were somehow inside her. Men of various ages, all of them gaping in some mixture of terror and weird exaltation.

  All of them were armed, most with more than one weapon.

  They had dark green ammo boxes piled up around their ankles. One was wearing a swastika armband.

  Keith yelled and just fired into the air in celebration. It came to me then that it was right now or never. Right this minute or I was never getting out of this place.

  I jumped up and ran from my rock to the next rock over, expecting the line of bullets to shatter my spine. I raced around the far side and hugged rock, weeping. I hugged that damp rock, held on, didn't want to let go.

  "Keep going," I told myself and damned if I didn't. I ran to the next rock. Now I'd be blocked from Keith's view, at least for a while. If I ran straight for the trees, quick calculation, he'd see me, oh yes he'd see me, but how much exposed space did I have to cover? He'd blown away the fairies at an even longer distance.

  No choice, move, run!

  I ran. Ran for the trees, bounding along over the springy grass, with the sound of a tornado growing behind me, punctuated by Keith's mad ranting.

  Then...

  A loud curse. BamBamBam. I jerked with each explosion.

  Saw the line of bullets hit the grass beside me, move toward me, no way to outrun it, the advancing line of bullets... stopped!

  Empty dip.

  Another curse, frantic now.

  I was still running, still laboring up the slope when he opened up with his pistols. Two shots. Then I was in the trees, slid behind the first like Daffy Duck with Elmer Fudd on his tail.

  Bullets thudded into the tree. The far side of the tree. I ran again, this time keeping the tree between me and Keith and now the range was too far for accuracy. The shots were wild and I was out of the dell, over the lip of the ridge, and running like I was trying out for the fairy Olympics.

  Chapter

  XI

  "At lea
st a dozen Maybe more. Lots of guns. A whole Keanu-load of guns. Boxes of ammunition. I don't know what all else,"

  I was back in the castle, back behind walls that didn't seem nearly high enough or thick enough anymore. Etain, the king.

  Queen Goewynne, MacCool, Fios, and a representative from each color of druid, plus all my friends, were there. Everyone was scared. Or at least everyone who got it was scared. Some of them were not understanding the deal, despite the testimony of the second fairy, the one who had taken a slug in his scrawny butt but still managed to limp home.

  "At least a dozen heavily armed electroshock cases. I mean, Jalil and I know Keith, all right? If he's an example of these guys, we're talking major meltdowns, whack jobs: cousin-marrying, beer-for-breakfast, swastika-tattooed losers who stay up all night stroking their guns and watching Saving Private Ryan so they can root for the Germans."

  "Only twelve?" MacCool said with the slightest little smile of condescension. "Twelve mortals?"

  "No," I said, pounding the table with the reckless rudeness of a man who'd just finally stopped shaking, "Twelve guys with sub-freaking-machine guns, all right? See everyone in this room? Here's how long it takes." I stood up and pointed my finger like a gun. "BamBamBamBamBamBam, you're all dead, all right? Keith killed the two fishermen. He killed your big old giant, all right? He smoked one of your fairies and almost got the other one."

  David said, "He's right. The fairies are so fast and so accurate with their bows that you folks could probably put up a good fight, especially if this little army is as disorganized and untrained as I suspect they are. But I'll tell you flat out: if the twelve of them are under the control of someone smart and organized and patient..."

  "Senna," April said poisonously. David flinched. I wanted to feel sorry for him. He'd been bewitched by Senna — and in Everworld that's not just a cliche. But to some extent his continued devotion to Senna was his own choice. Plus he had it in his head that he was the brave platoon leader who was going to get us all out safely, come hell or high water. It's no joke being trapped in those macho fantasies, you know: doesn't leave you much room for being a normal human being.

  "The question is where she gets these people," Jalil said thoughtfully. "I mean, how do you recruit heavily armed nuts?"

  "NRA convention?" April cracked.

  "She's recruiting these guys on the other side, in the real world," Jalil said. "Guys who'll give up home and family and job for what?"

  "Adventure," I supplied. "The chance to swagger and point a gun and have people kiss their butts. Why do you think people do anything? They want power. You should have heard Keith up there, dancing around and 'yee-hahing.' I mean, he's a nobody. He's a loser. It's not exactly some software billionaire or boy genius who is going to join up with this kind of stuff."

  I guess MacCool felt like things were getting away from him, so he stood up, drawing every eye. "The Fianna have protected this land and kept the peace for generations. We have protected our shores from Vikings and Saxons, our skies from dragons and griffins, our forests from demons and goblins.

  No Hetwan has walked Eire's sacred soil and lived. We will meet this new challenge. I assure you of that."

  The king's eyes lit up. He slapped the table. "Well said.

  Hear him."

  Etain's eyes lit up, too. "I will go with you. I put my faith in the Fianna."

  Oh, man. Great. Unbelievable. She was falling for that act?

  She'd get herself killed. That posturing tough guy MacCool would get her killed.

  I was startled to discover Goewynne staring right at me. It was a laser of a stare. She'd seen my petulant eye rolling. But she'd seen my worry, too, I guess. With the slightest turn of her head she sent me a silent question, I met her gaze and shook my head slowly, emphatically: No, lady, you don't let Etain go or she comes back dead.

  "No, daughter, you must stay with us. We require your help and sage counsel," Goewynne said.

  "I'll go with you," David said heavily.

  "I would welcome Galahad's sword," MacCool boomed expansively. Good grief, he was more David than David, and that's way too much David.

  I swear I half expected the two nitwit heroes to start high-fiving each other. But David ain't stupid. I mean, he's dumb, but not downright stupid.

  But instead David just snorted, almost contemptuously.

  "Galahad's sword? Up against machine guns? MacCool, I'm not going along because I think you'll succeed. I'm going because maybe I can try to influence Senna. And maybe I can help save some of your people. You people go up against these guys waving swords, you'll die. At least bring fairy archers along, a lot of them."

  MacCool's cool MacCool eyes flashed. "The Fianna honor the fairy bowmen, but the Fianna fight alone."

  "I'll go with you," I said, startling myself and earning an honest surprised look from Elf Mommy, and a look of warm appreciation from Etain.

  "You will?" April said, more puzzled than impressed.

  "Yeah. Someone's going to need to show these two heroes how to run away."

  Chapter

  XII

  Jalil and April stayed behind. They'd both volunteered to come along, falling in with the general mood of suicidal stupidity that had overcome all of us.

  But David pulled Jalil aside and begged him not to. "We're going to get our asses kicked, and we're going to come running back here. Someone needs to get these people to prepare, or Senna's army will just roll right in. The fairy archers are the only hope: They're fast, they're accurate. Get to the captain of the fairies and talk to him: Explain about guns. Don't take any b.s. And if they have some magic thing they can do, don't bitch them out about it, okay? Just for once, go with the magic."

  Jalil agreed. And then David, looking guilty and worried, talked to April. "There's something Jalil knows, but the rest of you don't: One of their gods is over in the real world. One of the Celtic gods, I mean, a goddess named Brigid. She lives up on Sheridan."

  "Say what?" I said.

  "It’s a long story." He told April the address.

  "Yeah, well, take five minutes and explain how you know that a goddess just happens to be living on the lake?"

  David ignored me and focused on April. "Go to sleep, if you can, cross over, and go see this woman, this Brigid. Don't let her blow you off. Sometimes she passes herself off as a maid.

  Tell her what's happening over here. I don't know what her powers are, but tell her. Maybe she can... I don't what she can do." April was obviously torn. She's not one to hide when the trouble starts. But she could see the logic of what David proposed. "Anyway," she muttered, "maybe I'll be there for my own performance. Rent is tonight. Or yesterday — who knows with the weird time thing."

  "This is messed up," I said. The whole thing had the feeling of a final farewell. David was worried and so was I. But then, worry is my life, so that was okay. On balance it's probably better to get shot than to be chewed up by a giant. Not that either was a good idea.

  "You can stay here in the castle, help Jalil,' David said to me. I gave David a respectful salute involving a raised middle finger.

  MacCool had twenty guys with him. They did look like a fairly tough crew. There were few un-scared faces. There were a number of missing fingers and ears and even one nose. They all had that calm, cool, combat-veteran nonchalance. They checked their weapons and their saddles and made sure their water bottles were topped off — although it's just possible the bottles contained something a bit rougher than water. I wished mine did.

  David and I were given horses and I was provided with a sword.

  "All I need to do is learn that Wonder Woman thing where she blocks the bullets real fast with her magic bracelets," I said, trying the sword's weight in my hand.

  "Stay toward the back," David said in an undertone.

  "I'll ride with you," I said boldly. "I can be just as big a jackass as you, David."

  Once we were all saddled up, the king and queen and Etain and a crowd of well-wishers
came to see us off. There were brave words and exhortations. And then Goewynne and Etain unwound scarves from around their necks. I groaned inwardly. I knew this scene: The hot medieval babe ties her scarf around the neck or shoulder or — if they're totally pre-Freudian

  — lance, of her hero.

  Goewynne went up to MacCool and said some wel -

  chosen words and tied her colors around the big goof's neck. I almost laughed. Was MacCool getting nasty with Mom? No, no, her husband the king was applauding the gesture.

  Then again, maybe old Camulos was playing Arthur to Mac's Lancelot. I considered a joke involving "a lot of lancing"

  and decided against it on the grounds that no one would laugh, and besides, I felt like throwing up.

  I was busy mulling all this when Etain cleared her throat impatiently to get my attention. And damned if she wasn't standing there with her scarf all loaded up for me. I almost fell off the horse lowering my head to receive the honor.

  "Thanks," I said with terrific eloquence.

  "I thought it might give you courage," she said, grinning with the kind of perfect teeth that are more rare in Everworld than cell phones.

  "It'll take more than that," I said. And what was cool, what was so perfectly cool, was that she laughed along with me and we looked at each other and there was this moment, this true moment.

  One of the druids came and chanted some stuff, a sort of blessing, I guess — I was focusing on Etain. And then, at a jaunty command from MacCool we rode off, "Hi-yo, Silver,"

  clattering out through the castle gate, rumbling across the drawbridge, down the steeply down-sloping cobblestone street, past cheering, waving, admiring town peasants, all of whom were thinking, Better them than me.

  Off we went at a nice gallop, David and me just behind MacCool and his number-two man, a skinny, gray-bearded, mean-looking old guy named Fraich who could only count to seven on his fingers, and to one on his ears.

  We passed the cable car, running empty but for its crew.

  The two liveried hangers-on, footmen, I guess, gave us a bow.