by Scott Meyer
She couldn’t let the fact that the wizard had somehow covered up his crime stop her from trying to get justice. He stole her sheep. Then he abused her sheep before feeding it to his dragons. Now he was using his sorcery to cover it up somehow. Of course, she hadn’t seen him feed the sheep to the dragons, and now had no evidence that he’d even taken the sheep in the first place, but just because his crimes were confusing and well hidden didn’t make them any less wrong. She knew what she knew, and right now she knew that she needed to warn the adults. Even if they didn’t listen, or didn’t believe her, and things went horribly wrong, they could never claim she hadn’t tried.
Honor called to Blackie and Harry and, together with Runt, the four of them herded the sheep toward the holding pen and the farmhouse, where Sonny was tending to the rams.
6.
A new day arrived in Atlantis, in its usual idiosyncratic manner.
On land, or the surface of the sea, dawn starts as a glowing sliver of orange on the horizon that slowly grows until the sun is fully exposed and the land is bathed with light.
But Atlantis was built on the inside curve of a gigantic bowl, which floated in the Mediterranean, all but its rim submerged below the water line. So sunrise presented in Atlantis as a diffuse orange glow in the sky followed by a thin line of direct sunlight along the inside edge of the city’s western rim. Every day in Atlantis started in a pleasant haze of adequate but scattered light, which made for cooler temperatures and less severe hangovers.
As the bright line of daylight starting slowly oozing its way down the wall of western Atlantis, Brit the Younger and Phillip were just sitting down to breakfast.
The two of them had not moved in together, because they didn’t have to move. They were wizards, and had the option of simply creating two permanent portals leading from Phillip’s rustic hut on the edge of Leadchurch, and his office and ’80s-themed game room in the middle of Leadchurch proper, directly into the living room of Brit’s tastefully decorated minimalist apartment in Atlantis, two thousand miles away and nearly fifteen hundred years earlier in time. This arrangement gave them each the illusion of independence, along with a combined two-bedroom, three-bathroom home with ocean and pastoral views, in a convenient downtown location (in two different towns), with generous entertainment space, a home office, a garage, and a mind-bendingly confusing time-zone shift that served as a constant source of conversation.
They took their meals at Brit’s, because she had a nice table, dishes, flatware, and Nik, a devoted servant who made meals that were healthier and more aesthetically presented than the food Phillip prepared with his stew pot or magically pulled out of his hat.
They were both picking over their last few bites of breakfast when they heard quiet knocking and anguished shouting in the distance. Phillip and Brit both rose to their feet. Nik stepped in from the kitchen. All three of them listened to the sounds for a moment, then Phillip and Brit approached the two portals to Phillip’s time. They both opened the rustic wooden doors and stuck their heads into the portals, then pulled their heads back out. Phillip said, “I’ve got the shouting.”
Brit said, “I’ve got the knocking.”
Phillip said, “I’ll go see what the shouting’s about.”
Brit crowded past Phillip and darted into the door he had checked. “No way! The shouting sounds much more interesting. I’ll take it; you take the knocking.”
Nik said, “And I’ll do the dishes.”
“Good, we have a plan. Now, break!” Brit closed the door behind her, leaving Phillip no choice but to enter the door she had checked, the one with the quiet knocking.
Phillip emerged from the portal in the room above his office. He quickly but carefully walked around the early ’80s bachelor-pad décor, the vintage GORF machine, and his pride and joy, the immaculate Pontiac Fiero. He nearly ran down the stairs, through his séance room, and into his front office—a small space stuffed with mysterious looking powders, salves, and curios, none of which served any purpose beyond looking mysterious. As he approached the door, the knocking remained quiet but took on a more urgent tone through its rapid delivery and shaky cadence.
Phillip opened the door, said, “Yes Hubert, what can I—” then stepped out into the street.
Hubert, his eyes wide with panic, lurched behind Phillip into the open door to the shop, ducked around the side of the door frame for cover, and whispered, “Master wizard, sir, we have a problem.”
Phillip said, “Yes,” shutting down any further explanation. He knew all too well what he was looking at, but for the moment he had no idea what to do about it.
He heard the high-pitched warbling tone that told him another wizard wanted to communicate with him. He lifted his left hand as if he were examining a bowling ball just before trying to make a seven-ten split. In the empty space above his hand, he saw a ghostly image of a letter B that rotated and morphed into a letter T, then a letter Y. He answered the call, and heard Brit the Younger’s voice.
“Phil, I’m at your hut. I think you’d better see this.”
Phillip said, “I can see it.”
One of the few advantages of having your town get overrun by a small herd of dragons is that dragons are large enough to see, even from a distance.
* * *
Many miles away, Martin sat in his warehouse, at his table alone, eating his breakfast while talking with Gwen, who was not there. Instead, a real-time image of her head floated over Martin’s table so that they could make eye contact and talk like civilized adults while they ate their respective breakfasts. Mostly they talked about where they might go for lunch. Gwen, like almost all female wizards, lived in Atlantis. Martin lived in Camelot, which sounded just as exotic as Atlantis until you learned that Camelot was just London, renamed by a wizard named Jimmy during a bout of temporary megalomania.
“Let’s just go to the café here near my place,” Gwen said.
“We always go there. I’m tired of it.” Martin pulled a bottle of syrup out of his hat and poured it on his waffles.
“Do you eat waffles for breakfast every day?”
“Yup.”
“Why? You can pull anything you want out of your hat.”
“Exactly. I can have anything I want, so I make waffles every day. There’s no better way to start the day than with fresh, hot waffles, slathered in butter, with syrup squeezed from a plastic bottle shaped like an old lady, just as nature intended.”
“Why not just create the waffles pre-syruped? You’d save a step.”
“Tried it. If my hands shake, even a little bit, I end up with a sticky hat.”
“Whatever. Look, let’s just go to the café. We always go there because it’s always good.”
“Well, maybe I’m tired of good.”
“So you’d rather eat somewhere you know will be bad?”
“I’m not saying that. It’s just . . . it might be nice to eat somewhere here in Camelondon.”
“So you do want to eat somewhere you know will be bad. Martin, food in Atlantis is made to modern standards. Food in Medieval England, not so much.”
“Gwen, we can eat here without eating here now. We’re time travelers. Let’s act like it. How about I take you to lunch in London in the mid-sixties? Piccadilly Circus at the height of the mod scene. It’ll be like living in the first five minutes of an Austin Powers movie.”
Gwen thought for a moment, then said, “That may be the best idea you’ve ever had. I’ll need to find something appropriate to wear.”
“What about me?”
“Your silver robe should fit right in.”
The wavering tone that denoted someone calling them sounded. Martin looked at the image of Gwen and saw a second, smaller image of Phillip’s face, looking angry, which meant it was urgent. Martin warned Gwen, then conferenced Phillip in.
&n
bsp; Martin said, “Hey, Phillip. You’ve got Gwen and I. What’s up?”
Phillip said, “It’s Gwen and me, and we’ve got a problem! Many problems. Big problems! Many big problems! I need one of you to call the gang and get them all to come to Leadchurch. We need help!”
Gwen said, “Well, I’ll have to make the calls, because Martin’s probably already there with you by now.”
Martin said, “Hey, Phillip.”
Phillip turned to his right and saw Martin standing next to him, in front of his shop in Leadchurch.
Gwen asked, “What’s going on there? Everyone’s going to ask when I call them.”
Martin said, “Dragons! The town is overrun with dragons!”
There were two dragons in the street in front of Phillip’s shop. They didn’t seem angry, or even upset. If anything, they seemed curious. One peered through windows and poked its head under awnings. The other walked down the street slowly, moseying really, looking at the buildings as it went. The dragons walked on all fours, but the front two of the four had been adapted into wings instead of legs. This gave the dragons’ gait a clumsy, labored quality.
The dragons were calm and quiet. The people, on the other hand, were terrified and quiet. They huddled in corners, hid behind barrels and wagons, anything large enough to block the dragons’ view. As soon as a dragon turned its back, the people behind it would silently dart into the nearest open door.
Most of the buildings were only one or two stories tall, so the dragons poked up above the rooftops. Martin could see two more dragons from where he stood. He glanced out toward the edge of town and saw Brit the Younger hovering above the rooftops. She looked right at him and gave an exaggerated confused shrug.
Gwen remained sitting in her home in Atlantis, and could think a little more rationally than the others. “Why didn’t you call Jeff first?”
Martin said, “She’s got a point.”
Phillip gritted his teeth. “Right. I’ll call Jeff. Please call everyone else, then come here. Hopefully by then we’ll have a plan.”
Gwen hung up. Martin said, “This is something, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “It’s safe to say that this situation definitely qualifies as being, as you say, something.”
Phillip called Jeff. After a moment of ringing Jeff’s logo, a simple picture of Jeff’s face, clearly taken himself just to have something to use as a logo, appeared. A sleepy voice said, “Hello?”
Phillip said, “Dragons, Jeff! Downtown Leadchurch is overrun by dragons! Your dragons!”
Jeff no longer sounded sleepy. “What? No way!”
“I’m afraid so.”
“No, there’s no way they could have escaped.”
“They must have.”
“Are you sure they’re dragons? Have you seen them yourself?”
“I’m looking at them right now.”
“Well, they must have gotten out, I guess. I’ll go take a look at the pen.”
Martin rolled his eyes and Phillip shook his head while they waited for Jeff to confirm what they already knew.
Jeff shouted, “No way! You say my dragons are there with you?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “I assume they are not in your pen.”
After a heavy silence, Jeff said, “I’ll be right there.”
“Yes, I expect you will.” Phillip turned to Martin and said, “Jeff’ll be right here.”
Jeff materialized, looked up at the dragons, who were still peacefully exploring the street, and shouted, “No way!”
Phillip turned to Martin and said, “Jeff’s here.”
Martin asked, “How’d they escape?”
Jeff said, “We can discuss that later. Right now we should just concentrate on getting the dragons out of here.”
Martin nodded and said, “I’ll take that to mean I don’t know.”
Roy appeared, looked alarmed, then asked Jeff what went wrong. Tyler appeared, and followed the same procedure as Roy. Gary turned up last, and just giggled while pointing, first at the dragons, then at Jeff, then at the frightened locals.
Gwen arrived last, having called everyone else before rushing to the scene herself, and they discussed their options.
Martin said, “What’s the big deal? Jeff, just zap them back to their cage.”
Phillip said, “No, don’t. We mustn’t give the locals the idea that we’re too powerful. We want them to respect us, not be terrified of us. Also, if Jeff banishes the dragons like he’s flipping a light switch, they might get the idea he created the threat to begin with.”
“Yeah,” Jeff nearly shouted. “Yeah, that’s a bad move. I won’t do that!”
“Fine,” Gary said. “So we kill the dragons right here and Jeff makes more. One second, I’ll get my machine guns.”
Gwen said, “No, don’t. These people are on edge already. We don’t want to cause a panic. I say we shoo the dragons out of town, then deal with them away from any spectators.”
“Gwen’s right,” Roy said. “Heck, running away is all these dragons are good for anyway.”
Jeff said, “Hey, that’s not fair.”
Brit said, “Isn’t it?” She took three steps toward the nearest dragon, which sent it flying into the sky.
They watched to see what direction it flew, but the dragon circled, not seeming to feel threatened, or at least not threatened enough to want to stray too far from the other dragons.
“Okay,” Phillip said. “That worked a treat. I say we roust the other dragons, then when they’re in the air we chase them off and eliminate them away from town. Agreed?”
Everyone agreed, in a noncommittal sort of way. As they split up to walk through the streets and startle the dragons, Gary said, “Okay, Jeff, how many dragons were there total?”
Jeff said, “It doesn’t matter. The dragons that are here are here. We can do a census later, okay?”
The wizards fanned out, walking cautiously, street by street. They knew that the dragons couldn’t actually harm them, or anyone. They were computer-generated puppets. They looked and felt real, but their claws would go right through you like a painful ghost, and their fiery breath felt blisteringly hot, but would not cause burns. The chief danger was that one of the dragons would panic and step on someone, or accidentally knock a wall over on them. The wizards’ caution was mostly caused by a psychological response to the dragons’ intimidating size, the palpable fear of the citizens who watched from the buildings all around them, and Jeff muttering, “Slowly. Be careful,” over the battle comm.
A second dragon took to the air, followed by a third and a fourth. They made good progress until Gwen called out, “Hey, Jeff, why did you give this one horns?”
“What?” Jeff said, in that gasping, hoarse voice that people make when they attempt to shout a whisper. “What do you mean, horns?”
“Yeah,” Roy shouted. “What do you mean?”
Gwen said, “This one’s got big, curved horns.”
The wizards converged on Gwen’s location, and sure enough, they saw a large, light gray dragon with two impressive, spiraling horns sprouting from its head.
“Why’d you give this one horns?” Tyler asked, as Jeff joined the group.
“Yeah,” Roy asked. “Why, Jeff?”
Jeff moaned, “Oh, no way.”
“It’s really cool. That’s reason enough,” Martin said, walking slowly toward the horned dragon.
Jeff said, “Martin, hang back a second.”
Martin said, “Why? They can’t hurt us.”
Roy looked at Jeff and said, “He’s right, isn’t he?”
Jeff said, “Yeah! Of course! I think.”
Martin drew closer. In the sky above the town, the four dragons that had already been shooed circled. The ho
rned dragon watched Martin approach, and slowly lowered its head.
“See,” Martin said. “I think it wants me to pet it! I’ll chase it off.”
Martin ran two steps, an act which sent the previous dragons flying. The horned dragon chose instead to charge directly at Martin, ramming him with its wrecking-ball-sized head and massive horns, pushing him backward until they both struck the side of a house. Martin’s torso provided a cushion that prevented the dragon’s massive head from striking the wall, but all of the dragon’s force carried through him, and still did quite a bit of damage.
Martin let out a pained cough.
Jeff shouted indistinct, alarmed vowel sounds, as if he needed to speak but was at a loss for words.
Roy offered, “No way?”
“I know, right?” Gary said. “Now it attacks.”
Jeff ran forward. Martin crouched on the ground in front of the wall, which now bore a Martin-shaped dent. The dragon backed up several steps, lowered its head again, and was about to ram again when Jeff leapt between the dragon and Martin, and used his wand to emit a blinding flash of light. The dragon reared back, confused.
“Martin,” Jeff shouted. “Do your thing!”
“What?” Martin asked.
“Be big! Grow up! Get swole! I don’t know what you call it, just do it now!”
“You want me to trigger my macro?”
The dragon shook its head vigorously, then regained its bearings and lowered its head, preparing to ram both Martin and Jeff in one run.
“Yes! That! Now!”
Martin did as he was asked, quickly dissolving into a cloud of silver boxes that exploded outward, swirled around in a large cloud, then coalesced into a new, silver Martin that stood thirty feet tall. The dragon looked up from its ramming stance, realized that it now faced a much larger adversary than before, and chose to flee. It soared into the air and joined the other four dragons flying circles in the sky high above the city.
