by Kailin Gow
Wirt left it there, and he felt a lot more satisfied than he had with the last task. Had he done enough to win? He didn’t know, and it quickly seemed that he wouldn’t know yet.
“Since this is a real situation,” Ender Paine said, “I will not make a decision yet. Instead, I am going to discuss the possibilities with James and Tess, so that they can choose the course to support that is most appropriate. I will inform you of the winner tomorrow.”
Chapter 17
This round took place outside again, out in front of the stand that had been erected for the first task. As such, Wirt was expecting something physical, but when he got there and saw what was on a trio of podiums in front of the stand, he froze. The quantum balls sat there, dull and still for now, but obviously taking pride of place.
Wirt could see the other two boys looking at them as they stood there in front of the assembled crowd. Spencer looked nervous and pale, unable to keep still and constantly glancing at the potentially lethal spheres on the stands in front of him. Roland looked eager, as though sensing that the moment he had been waiting for might finally be there. He had, strangely, brought that box of his down with him again, placing it near him and glancing to it as often as to the quantum balls.
Wirt stood next to them, staring at one of the quantum balls, imagining using it. Had it really come to the time to do it? The crowd seemed to be asking the same question, because a constant murmur of excitement seemed to be flowing through it, running back and forth as people discussed what was about to happen.
Ender Paine, seated at the front of the stand, stood up and silence fell. This time, Wirt got the feeling that it wasn’t magical. It was simply that people wanted to hear what he had to say.
“Contestants, parents, students,” the headmaster began. “You see before you the quantum balls.”
“But do we get to use them?” Roland called out.
Ender Paine ignored him. “They are there to remind you of the seriousness of what is to come. First, however, we have a piece of business to conclude.”
Wirt swallowed as he realized what it had to be. The headmaster had said that they would be getting the results of the previous test today, and now, it seemed that they would find out how things had gone. Wirt stared at the quantum balls. If they were there, then it had to mean that things were nearly over, didn’t it? Did that mean that the previous test had been the last one? Did it mean that he was out of the running? He didn’t know, and the worst part was that all he could do was wait.
Ender Paine seemed to know that, since he kept them waiting for several seconds before speaking again.
“I have discussed the solutions you put forward yesterday with both Tess and James, and their views on the matter were clear. Wirt Newton is the winner of that round.”
“No!” Roland said, obviously furious that he hadn’t won. “He can’t be!”
“He can, and he is,” the headmaster said without the slightest change of tone. “That means, of course, that the scores are currently tied.”
“So we’ll fight it out three ways with the quantum balls?” Roland asked, looking hopeful. It didn’t last.
“So we will have another challenge to eliminate the weakest of you,” Ender Paine said.
“What kind of challenge?” Spencer asked.
“It has been brought to my attention,” the headmaster began, and here he glanced at Ms. Lake, “that our school has acquired something of a reputation for teaching the use of power without responsibility, as though we teach nothing of the difference between right and wrong.”
Wirt saw him smile, and thought back to some of the things the headmaster had done since Wirt had been there. He also thought back to some of the things he had said. Ender Paine had routinely dismissed morality as a kind of weakness in those lessons Wirt had been in. The thought of him having a test based on it was almost ludicrous. Yet Wirt could imagine Ms. Lake wanting it, and it seemed that Ender Paine was serious.
“I will not have it said that my students are mindlessly evil,” the headmaster said, with another small smile that suggested his views on the more mindful kind were different. “A student should always be able to tell the difference between good and evil, and as such, we will have one last test before we move on to the quantum ball. Then I will decide who goes through. Tell me, each of you, how you know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. Who knows, you may even convince me. Spencer, you can begin.”
Spencer looked around, obviously trying to think. “For me, right and wrong is a matter of trusting my instincts and having faith that I’ll be able to tell the difference. People across the Hundred Kingdoms might not always do the right thing, but again and again they seem to agree on the kinds of things that are right, because they’re all people. Well, mostly. I have to believe that I’ll have some idea of what the right thing to do is, because otherwise, how can I trust myself to do anything?”
“Interesting,” Ender Paine said. He glanced across to Ms. Lake, and Wirt saw her nod just slightly. That, at least, solved some of the problem of how the school’s almost gleefully unpleasant headmaster could judge a task like that. Yet didn’t the very fact that he’d agreed to it suggest something about him?
“You next, Wirt,” he said.
Wirt nodded. “I think the world would be a very easy place if it were always clear what is right,” he said, looking around the crowd and then fixing his gaze on the headmaster. He thought he knew what he needed to say. “In theory, Spencer is right. You have to trust that you’ll know right from wrong when the time comes. The trouble is, knowing these things in abstract terms is easy. Putting it into practice is harder. Circumstances can seem to offer no good options, or leave it so that doing the wrong thing is so much easier than doing the right one.”
Did Ender Paine incline his head ever so slightly at that? Wirt wasn’t sure.
“That’s where judgment comes in. Advice too, but ultimately, no matter how much people try to help you, you’re the one who has to make the choice. Not everything is going to be black and white, so there is an element of trust there too. You have to do what you think is going to be the right thing, and trust that it will turn out that way.”
The headmaster looked over to Ms. Lake again, and there was a definite nod from her this time.
“Well then, that just leaves Roland. What do you have to say on the subject?”
Roland stood there for several seconds, saying nothing. It looked to Wirt like he was warring with something within himself.
“Well?” the headmaster demanded.
“There is no grey,” Roland blurted out after another second. “There is black and white, and no middle ground. I know what is right. I have been told what is right, and I should use the power I have to ensure that others know it too.” He looked around, as though expecting people to agree with him. Ender Paine did look back at Ms. Lake briefly, but Wirt saw her give just the smallest shake of her head.
“What?” Roland demanded. “You agree with me. I know you agree with me. We have power, and because we have power, we are able to impose right and wrong on the world. We should do it. We should stop giving advice and start making demands, because the Hundred Kingdoms would be far better run with us in charge than anyone else. We could make kingdoms where there was no dissent, no trouble. We could make things work.”
“A subject I have given a lot of thought to, over the years,” Ender Paine said, and now he kept his eyes on Roland. “At what price, though?”
“Who cares about the price?” Roland demanded, practically shouting it. “We have the power to make things happen. We deserve to be the ones who decide.”
The headmaster held up a hand. “I believe I have heard enough to make a decision.” He shook his head when Ms. Lake started to say something. “Thank you, Vivaine, but this decision is mine to make.”
That was bad. Based on past experience, there was a good chance that Ender Paine would side with Roland. Certainly, the other boy looked confident
. Yet given what the headmaster had just said, should he be? Wirt didn’t know.
“I have made my decision. There are those who say that I have no morals. They are perhaps closer to being right than some would like, but I must often choose the hardest course for myself, and my students, to avoid damage to this school. Damage that I will never allow.” Ender Paine glared at Roland. “You, on the other hand, propose a view that would only ever mean war, suffering, and the destruction of my school. I will not allow that. Your time in the Quantum Games, and in this school, is at an end.”
“What?” Roland looked so shocked in that moment. Shocked, and helpless, and small. He looked like he simply couldn’t believe in a world where the headmaster might not agree with him. He certainly didn’t look like he could believe that he’d just lost a place in the final. “B…but I can’t be out. I can’t! I’ve worked my whole life for this! I… no. Please, no.”
For a moment, Wirt didn’t understand what was happening, but then he saw it. The box Roland had brought out with him was open, and there was something glowing inside it. Something glowing a sickly green that spread even as Wirt watched, drifting over until it seemed to envelope Roland.
He saw Roland try to scream. Saw it, but didn’t hear it, because in that moment the green stuff flowed into him, pouring into his mouth, his nose, his ears. It seemed to go on for a long time, and when it stopped, Roland looked different. Not physically different, but he stood differently, and his expression was subtly changed as well. It looked like someone else was wearing his face like a mask.
“No,” he said, and it wasn’t his voice. Instead, it was the voice Wirt had heard so many times when Roland had been speaking to whatever was in the box. “I won’t allow this. I won’t allow this failure. They have to die. They are going to die.”
He leapt for the quantum balls, grabbing one and moving away, spinning it until it glowed with the strange collection of colors that meant its power was rising to deadly levels.
“We will have revenge!” Roland screamed, turning towards Spencer and pulling his arm back. Wirt saw Spencer’s eyes widen. At close range, he would have no chance of dodging the ball, little chance of deflecting it, and he had never been good at transportation. He was going to die.
Wirt acted on instinct to grab another of the quantum balls. There wasn’t the time to spin it, but he could still throw it, and that was what he did. The ball arced out as Wirt flung it with all the magic he could summon behind it, right as Roland threw his ball at Spencer. The two spheres met halfway to him, and bounced apart, both shedding magic as they faded back into darkness.
Roland turned to look at Wirt and his expression was terrifying. “No, it won’t end like that. It won’t!”
Chapter 18
Roland lunged for the third ball, snatching it up. Wirt and Spencer barely looked at one another.
“Run!” Spencer yelled.
They ran, and Roland threw the ball. Desperation lent Wirt speed, and he sprinted for the tree line, throwing himself into a roll to avoid the initial pass of the ball. He came to his feet and sidestepped as the thing swooped back at him. His lessons with Ms. Burns came back to him, and he managed to use a shield of air to send the ball flying upwards. It shot back to Roland, who caught it and threw it after them again.
Wirt found thoughts of the ball racing through his head. Once thrown, the magic of the thrower kept it on target. It kept the ball hunting their opponent, no matter how far they ran. Losing it was nearly impossible. Unless…
“Split up,” he yelled to Spencer. “It can’t follow both of us!”
Spencer looked like he wanted to argue, but Wirt shoved him aside just as the ball passed through the spot where he had been standing, and Spencer kept going with that push, sprinting off on a strange, zigzagging course obviously designed to fool the ball if it came for him.
It didn’t. Instead, it sped after Wirt as he sprinted for the trees. He darted into them, dodging back and forth between them, hoping to lose the ball, or slow it, or something. It just came on after him, sometimes weaving around the trees and sometimes passing straight through them to leave neat holes in their trunks as it kept coming.
Did Roland hate him that much? Did he have that much power? Somehow, Wirt suspected that it wasn’t just him anymore. He’d seen the greenish mist that had poured into Roland. He’d heard the change in Roland’s voice. Something else was controlling him, and whatever it was seemed to be determined to destroy him. Him, not Spencer, because otherwise the ball would have gone the other way when he and Spencer split up.
So why him? Why did someone want him dead that badly? Or was it just that whatever was in Roland wanted everyone dead, and Wirt was just the first on the list? Wirt glanced back. The ball was gaining on him, slowly but surely, its glow as bright as ever as it pulsed its way after him. Wirt knew he couldn’t keep running. Instead, he scrambled up the nearest tree, using magic to push against the air itself to make the climb easier. So far, the ball had been on a flat path just a few feet from the ground, and the one time Wirt had deflected it higher it had gone back to Roland, so maybe it wouldn’t be able to follow him.
Wirt saw the answer to that hope as the ball curved gently upwards after him. Worse, he was stuck there, because throwing himself out of a tree this size wouldn’t be much better than letting the thing hit him. But then, what had he expected? Hadn’t Ms. Burns told him that the only sure way to get away from the quantum ball was transportation?
Wirt winced as he realized how stupid he’d been. He could have done this at the start and saved himself a lot of running. Except of course, then the ball might simply have gone after Spencer. Now though, it blazed towards him, its surface a lurid mess of light almost too bright to look at. Wirt watched it coming, almost close enough to reach out and touch, and he vanished.
He reappeared on the field, where everything was in chaos. People were running about, seemingly at random. Other people were screaming. At the heart of it all, moving fast, was Roland. He’d recovered the two balls that he and Wirt had thrown simultaneously, and now he used them to devastating effect. He threw one at a woman in the stands, and she didn’t even have time to scream before she vanished in a burst of energy. He threw one after a clutch of younger students, and they scattered, one of their number falling. Wirt stretched out his power, snatching the boy away with his transportation magic even as he winced at the effort of doing it.
When the quantum ball missed, or when its intended victim managed to deflect it with magic, it sped back to Roland’s hand. When it hit, its victim vanished as his or her constituent atoms were scattered across a thousand dimensions, torn apart so completely that it would be impossible to put them back together. And still, Roland kept throwing the ball.
“I will destroy you!” he boomed, in the voice from the box. “I will have vengeance!”
The box. Somehow, whatever was in it was behind all this, which meant that Wirt needed to find it. He needed to find it now. Doing that, however, was easier said than done. There were so many pushing, jostling, fleeing bodies in the way, and Wirt still had to remember where the box had been.
It had been where they’d been standing to hear the results, which was just over… there, in the middle of the main group of people fighting to get away. Wirt forced his way through them, feeling like a fish swimming against some kind of raging river, getting swept backwards by them a step for every two he took forward. He pushed against people with magic as well as physical strength, creating a kind of bubble of air around himself that bounced people off as Wirt forced his way between them, keeping his eyes on the ground; looking for the dull gleam of lead.
He spotted it, several yards away, and shoved towards it. Before Wirt could get to it though, a foot clipped it like a soccer ball, and it spun away. He chased after it, looking up just in time to avoid another randomly thrown quantum ball. It hit a slender man with delicately pointed ears, obviously a parent, and he was gone, just like that. The last thing Wirt saw in
his eyes was shock. Shock that it should be him. Shock that it could happen at all.
That spurred Wirt on. He pushed harder with his magic as he forced his way forward to the box, finally diving on it and grabbing it with both hands. A voice, the voice that had sounded so clearly from Roland’s throat, came from within.
“Boy! It is time to strike! All those descended from Merlin must die! All those who bear his magic must fall!”
Wirt wrenched open the box, prepared to confront whatever was within. At least, he thought he was prepared. At the sight of what lay within, however, it was all he could do to keep from throwing up. It was a heart. A human heart, blackened with age, or perhaps with something else, beating in the confines of the box as though it still pumped blood around some vile body. Instead of blood, though, what pumped through it was that greenish mist; the same mist that had forced its way into Roland.
“You…” the voice came from the box again, and Wirt could see the eddies in the mist as it came. “I can sense you. I know what you are. You will fall, pride of the academy. All your kind will fall. They must.”
“What are you?” Wirt demanded. “Who are you?”
The heart didn’t answer, and Wirt could feel the anger building in him.
“Answer me,” he said. “Answer me, and stop this, or I’ll destroy you, whatever you are.”
That got a reply, a long, drawn out reply that started low and ended on a cackling high. It was a laugh. Whatever spirit, or power, or evil sentience resided in the heart was laughing at him.
“Destroy me? You are not ready for that yet, boy, and you never will be.”
Wirt felt the touch of the green mist as it slid up over his fingers. He felt it, and it hurt. It was like being burnt, frozen, and electrocuted all at once, so that for a moment, all he could do was cry out in pain as the mist slid up his arm.
