Order of the Majestic

by Matt Myklusch

  “I was only supposed to go here and back.”

  “And you will. I’ll wager anyone traveling with you can make use of this portal, just as long as you go along for the ride. Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Waves licked at Joey’s heels as he stood with his back to the ocean. He was cornered and totally defenseless against the man in the top hat and scarf. What could he do to get away? He still had the key that led back to the theater whenever it was placed in front of a door, but there weren’t any doors in this place. Not unless you counted the mirror that the man in the top hat and scarf was blocking. How could Joey escape without letting the Invisible Hand hitch a ride? He couldn’t. He was trapped. Joey thought about what Shazad had said to him earlier… how if the Invisible Hand were to threaten him, he would surrender in a heartbeat. The words gnawed at him. As frightened as he was, the last thing he wanted to do was prove Shazad right about that.

  Joey looked down at the small compact mirror in his hand, the only weapon he had. It was set in a decorative metal case that opened and shut like a clamshell. Joey threw it, hard as he could, just missing the man in the top hat and scarf. That was all right. He wasn’t aiming for him.

  “NO!” the man shouted as the projectile struck the magic mirror, hitting it hard right in the center of the glass. A spiderweb crack spiraled out from the point of impact, and the glass shattered, then exploded outward with a force Joey did not expect. Shards flew through the air, pelting the man in the top hat and scarf. He fell to the ground, his hat tumbling from his head, but Joey didn’t get a look at his face. He was too busy running in the opposite direction.

  By the time the man got back up, Joey had put a significant distance between the two of them and was safely hidden behind one of the larger mirrors. Careful not to be seen, he watched from afar as the man collected himself and brushed the glass from his coat. “Joey, Joey, Joey…,” he said, resetting his hat upon his head. “That was a very foolish thing to do.” He whirled around, scanning the horizon.

  Joey pulled himself back out of sight but kept his eye on the man, watching his reflection in the countless other mirrors on the beach. The man began his search, starting with the mirrors closest to him. He checked behind them one by one, hunting for Joey.

  The mirror that Joey had shattered rumbled in place and started to sink into the ground. “You see that? I hope you’re proud of yourself. That’s a waste of a perfectly good magic mirror. Isn’t the Order of the Majestic supposed to preserve magical relics like these?” The ground beneath the mirror turned to quicksand, and within seconds the top of the frame disappeared into the growing sinkhole. “It’ll be seven years before that grows back. Seven years of bad luck for you. Think you can hide here that long?” Joey’s chest tightened as a seed of dread took root inside him. What had he done? That mirror was his only way home! Now he was stranded here, and Redondo couldn’t even come to his rescue. He hadn’t thought this through very well.

  The man in the top hat and scarf laughed. “Don’t worry. We can speed things along, you and I. Redondo has more than one magic mirror in that theater of his. I remember what they look like. I’ll find their counterparts here, I’ll find you, and if you won’t behave, I’ll carry your lifeless body into the theater. I promise you I’ll do it if I have to. It’s up to you how this ends.”

  Joey stayed quiet and still. He didn’t dare move. The man in the top hat and scarf stood motionless as well. He was staring at something. Viewing him as he was from many different angles reflected in multiple mirrors, Joey couldn’t tell which direction the man was looking. The tips of Joey’s sneakers were sticking out from behind the mirror. Did the man see them?

  “This is pointless,” said the man. “You can’t hide from me, Joey. We’re on a beach. You leave tracks everywhere you go, and what’s more… you have very distinctive footwear.” The man leaped around a mirror, diving at Joey’s sneakers. “Got you!”

  Joey smirked from the other end of the beach as the man snatched up Joey’s empty sneakers. He had slipped them off and tucked them behind a mirror as a decoy while the man was still on the ground, covered in shattered glass. After that he had run in the opposite direction along the water’s edge so the waves would erase his footprints.

  The man in the top hat and scarf threw the sneakers down in a furious motion. He looked up and down the hundreds of mirrors on the beach. At this point he had to know Joey could be hiding behind any one of them. “Very good,” he said. “You’re a clever boy, Joey.”

  That’s what they tell me.

  “But how clever can you be, really? What are you going to do next? I expect you’re wondering the same thing,” he added with a confident laugh. “Out of ideas yet?”

  Joey hated to admit it, but he was. The move with the sneakers was a good trick, but it was the only one he had. Now what?

  “This comes to nothing, Joey. You can’t avoid me forever, but the longer you delay the inevitable, the more irritated I become. You don’t want to see me lose my temper.”

  I don’t want to see you period, Joey thought, falling back a few mirrors while the man looked the other way.

  “You know what your problem is?” the man called out, picking up the pace of his search. “You still think I’m the bad guy here. I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about the Invisible Hand. Believe me, you don’t know who the real bad guy is. You’re so eager to jump through hoops for Redondo.… Where is he now? I’ll tell you where. He’s in the same place he’s been for the last twenty years. Hiding! He doesn’t care about you. Is he teaching you anything? Surely not. Has he ever given you a single word of encouragement? I doubt it. He’s not interested in any of that. He’s just playing games with your life, throwing you into situations you’re not ready for.” Joey watched as the man in the top hat and scarf turned on his heel, then stepped into a mirror, just as he had done back in the theater. “It’s irresponsible, really,” he said, emerging from a mirror right behind Joey.

  “Ahh!” Joey leaped up and ran, but there was nowhere to go now that the man had eyes on him. Joey tore down the beach, but the man kept stepping in and out of mirrors, cutting him off at every turn. Through it all, he never stopped talking. “What you fail to realize is that magic is dangerous, Joey. The more it goes unchecked, the more chaos there is. Someone has to control magic. That’s why we do what we do. The world needs order.”

  He stepped directly into Joey’s path, and they collided. Joey bounced off him, falling back and landing in the sand. “Not your order,” Joey said, defiant.

  “I suppose you’d prefer the Order of the Majestic?” The man in the top hat and scarf barked out a laugh. “What did they ever do? Redondo… Houdini… the lot of them with their magic shows…” He kicked sand in Joey’s face. “That’s what I think of them. Performing for strangers… putting on a song and dance… I ask you, what does that accomplish? They don’t make a difference in the world. We do.”

  He grabbed Joey’s wrist and pulled him to his feet. “Let me go!” Joey said, still struggling to get away. “Redondo! HELP!”

  “You are joking,” the man said, amused. “He can’t hear you. Even if he could, he never leaves that blasted theater… that twisted realm of his. Did you know he created that place? It’s an alternate reality born entirely out of his depression. That’s the most he ever did with the wand. It’s pathetic. Redondo cracked up twenty years ago, and he’s been there, dying a slow death ever since. Would you like to know why?”

  “Because you wouldn’t stop talking?” Joey reached up to grab the frame of a nearby mirror and pulled it down with all the strength he could muster. It connected with a satisfying crack, the glass breaking against the man’s head. He staggered a step, loosening his grip on Joey’s arm. Joey broke into a run. The man threw off the broken mirror and watched him go.

  “All right, then, enough talk.” He took hold of one of the mirrors and angled it so that his reflection appeared in several others at the same time. He snapped his fingers an
d every reflected image of him came to life. Dozens of them stepped out of mirrors all along the beach. Joey spun away from one of them just in time, but he tripped over his own feet and went tumbling into the sand. He felt fingers on his ankle and, looking closely, saw a gloved hand reaching out of a nearby mirror, clutching at him. He kicked it away and sprang up, desperate to escape. They were everywhere.

  His heart sped up and he ran, zigzagging between mirrors. Random, unpredictable movement was his only defense, which meant he was pretty much helpless. They had him surrounded and completely outnumbered. No matter where he turned, another figure blocked his path. He kept changing directions, ducking and dodging their grasp.

  Eventually he was forced to run for the only place they weren’t coming from. The water. Joey charged into the surf and waded out until he was in up to his knees. Then he stopped. The water was icy cold, but that wasn’t why he froze in place. It was the view that got him. The ocean stretched out before him in all its vast emptiness. What was he going to do? Where was he going to go? He couldn’t swim to freedom. For one thing, he wasn’t that strong a swimmer. For another, he didn’t have the first clue what was out there. Was there a land, some magical country, for him to escape to, or just an endless sea? He had no way of knowing. The water could have been teeming with mirror monsters for all he knew. Joey turned to face the music. It was hard to tell exact numbers, but it looked like fifty men in top hats and scarves lined the edge of the beach. One of them near the center, most likely the genuine article, stepped forward.

  “You’ve got heart, Joey, I’ll give you that. You’re wasted in the theater. Stop fighting me. Help me get the wand and I’ll teach you real magic.”

  “Not interested,” Joey said.

  “That’s the best offer you’re going to get. I’d hate for you to make a decision of this magnitude without giving it a proper think. Take it from me, Redondo’s not very good at holding on to his people. Ask him what happened to Grayson Manchester! See what he says!”

  The name got Joey’s attention. The boy who was lost in the fire? He was about to ask the man in the top hat and scarf exactly what did happen to Grayson Manchester, when a streak of lightning split the sky. A blinding light flickered like the flash of a planet-size camera, and then it got dark. Clouds rushed in, filling the violet sky, which rapidly deepened to a shade of indigo that bordered on black. Set against a gray cloud, Joey saw something high in the air. It was far away, just a speck, but it looked like it might be in the shape of a person. Joey raised a hand to his brow, trying to draw focus on the object. “Is that…?”

  The men in the top hats and scarves spoke as one. “Redondo.”

  Thunder followed the lightning. An explosive sound, like mountains crumbling, rocked the beach, and a giant wave rose up in the ocean. Its shadow fell on Joey as it climbed ten feet in the air, then twenty. It continued to swell. Joey stopped waiting to see how high it would go and ran. The man in the top hat and scarf ran too, as did his reflections. None of them could outrun the tsunami. It crashed down onto the beach, like a meteor falling to the earth, but at the last minute, Redondo swooped in to shield Joey from the impact. Joey’s feet had just hit dry sand when suddenly the old man was right there next to him. He touched the wand to Joey’s shoulder, said, “Encapsulato,” and a protective bubble formed around them. The wave still knocked them around like a pinball inside the churning water, but it was nothing compared to the beating their enemies took. The tidal wave pulverized them, scattering their forces and the mirrors.

  The next thing Joey knew, the water had receded, and Redondo was helping him get up. “Are you all right?” Dazed and confused, Joey grunted something unintelligible. “You’re fine.” Redondo gave Joey’s cheek a light slap and pointed down the beach at the mess of mirrors. “There. The mirror with the jewel-encrusted frame. You see it?” Joey looked. A mirror matching Redondo’s description had managed to stay upright, rooted in quartzlike stone. “Get there. Quickly.”

  The path to the mirror was clear—for now. All over the beach, men in top hats and scarves were rising to their feet. They didn’t give up easy.

  “What about you?” asked Joey.

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Redondo…”

  “Go now,” Redondo said as a throng of attackers, now coated in white sand, charged at him. He turned to face them with all the confidence of Superman staring down a runaway train. Redondo was not threatened in the least. “Volare,” he said, waving his wand in their direction. Just like that, they went flying back, knocking down mirrors, and one another, like bowling pins.

  Another gang of sand-covered reflections came barreling in from Redondo’s right. He pointed his wand at them. “Detonata.” A series of explosions ruptured the beach. Sand and broken glass filled the air, dropping them before they got anywhere near him.

  “Okay, you got this,” Joey said. He set off running for the jewel-encrusted mirror. Several top-hat-and-scarf-clad figures sprinted past Joey and dove headfirst into mirrors, vanishing from sight. They were giving up. That’s right; you better run, Joey thought. Redondo wasn’t playing around. Joey reached the mirror. Before he went in, he paused for one last look at the action. The man in the top hat and scarf (again Joey had a feeling it was the original), stood across from Redondo at the center of his dwindling forces.

  “You seem to be running out of cannon fodder.” Redondo smirked.

  The man grabbed a mirror and spun it around to face Redondo. The glass rippled and the many reflections that Joey thought had fled were unleashed on Redondo in a single burst. “You were saying?”

  An endless stream of attackers flew at Redondo as if shot from a cannon. Suddenly on defense, he jumped back. “Quixote!” he shouted, waving his arm in a big circle. His assailants spun away, turning hard, ugly cartwheels headfirst into the sand, but only the frontline went down. The blitz continued, and Redondo was overrun.

  The man in the top hat and scarf laughed out loud, pacing around the scrum as reflections of himself piled on top of Redondo. “There you go again, Redondo, tilting at windmills. Why do you do this to yourself? If you don’t have the will to use the wand to its full potential, give it to someone who does.”

  Over at the mirror with the jewel-encrusted frame, Joey’s knees buckled. He had one foot in the glass and one on the beach, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t leave Redondo like this. They might kill him. Not only that, but they’d take the wand! Joey thought about what Shazad had said about the Invisible Hand seizing control of the world. He watched in terror as they heaped on top of Redondo like football players fighting to recover a fumble. Redondo was at the bottom of the mound, curled up, trying to hold on to the ball, or in this case, the wand.

  “Stop fighting us,” the man in the top hat and scarf told Redondo. “It’s over. You’re over.”

  Joey was horrified. It couldn’t end like this. Could it? He wanted to help, but he was useless in a fight—especially this fight. He couldn’t do anything against odds like these, but he couldn’t just bug out and save himself, either. A prisoner of his own indecision, all he could do was watch. He watched as Redondo struggled fruitlessly, buried under a growing mountain of people. He watched as a shadow loomed over them, expanding to cover most of the beach. He watched as another tidal wave fell crashing to the shore. It was taller than the last one, and this time, when it hit, Redondo had no magic shield to protect him.

  The raging water knocked Joey off his feet and away from the mirror, but he was far enough from the shore to feel only a fraction of its force. Everyone else got leveled. When the wave receded, Joey was the only one standing upright. The man in the top hat and scarf and his army of reflections were all down for the count. Redondo, too, appeared unconscious. His wand was sticking out of the sand, a good five feet away from his open palm. Joey went for it. As soon as his fingers touched the wand, he understood why the Invisible Hand wanted it so badly.

  Whoa.

  It was like picking up Thor�
��s hammer. In his mind’s eye, he saw a vision of Redondo. Then of Houdini himself, followed by the images of several other magicians he didn’t recognize… a long line of people who had once wielded the wand, going all the way back to a man with a thick white beard and brilliant blue robes. Suddenly filled with power, Joey felt ten feet tall. Able to leap small buildings in a single bound. The world around him became wrapped in a golden hue. All his senses were hypercharged. Joey’s vision was sharper. Everything was moving in slow motion. He could see his enemies recovering one by one. They would soon be all over him, but he wasn’t afraid. A word appeared in his head. He waved the wand in a big, sweeping motion and cast the spell with confidence:

  “Excelsior!”

  Joey didn’t know where the idea to say that had come from, but when he spoke the magic words, every agent of the Invisible Hand on the beach floated up into the air, as if gravity had ceased to have any hold on them. They clawed at the sand in futile attempts to anchor their bodies to the beach. The man in the top hat and scarf screamed at Joey as he and his other selves drifted skyward. “How did you…? You can’t—you shouldn’t have been able to… You just made the biggest mistake of your life!” he railed. “Do you hear me? Of your life!” Joey just smiled, watching him drift away until he was so high up he no longer mattered.

  Once the beach was clear of all hostiles, Joey turned his attention to Redondo. Shouldering his weight as best he could, he helped him stand up, and together they limped back to the mirror with the jewel-encrusted frame.

  “That was fun,” said Redondo, coming around with a hint of irony in his voice.

  “Yeah, let’s do it again tomorrow,” Joey said.