by Scott Meyer
Gwen prayed she’d made the force bubble small enough. During the fruitless hours the wizards had spent attempting to craft anti-dragon weapons, they had discussed the uses and limitations of force fields. Gwen knew that she had probably saved the men quite a bit of pain, but there was a small chance, depending on how low the dragons had flown by, that she had trapped several armed men in a confined space, where they would be blind and in excruciating agony.
She placed a second force field around herself just in time to avoid a light roasting. She couldn’t see anything beyond the fire, but she heard the sound of the men screaming at the tops of their lungs.
Normally, I’d take that as a bad sign, she thought. But with these guys, I can’t be sure.
The fire surrounding Gwen subsided. She saw the underbelly of the dragon that had attacked her as it streaked past. It flew away from Gwen and gave no indication that it ever intended to turn back.
Below, another dragon flew over the men, raining fire down upon them for as long as it could before also gaining altitude and flying away as fast as its wings could manage.
The men’s shrieking and shouting had continued unabated through the attack. Now they looked up at Gwen, and continued yelling, their mouths open wide, their eyes bulging. She still couldn’t tell if she’d helped them or made their situation much worse. It wasn’t until the one called Jock cried, “Gods be praised! We’re saved, lads! Her magic has saved us!”
Their shouting got even louder as Gwen dropped to the ground in front of them.
As the cheering died, Kyle said, “Praise be, I may yet live to once more see my beloved Morag!”
Leslie said, “Aye, and, if fate allows it, I, too, may live to once more see your beloved Morag!”
Kyle snarled, “Come here, you wee bastard!” and tackled Leslie. The two rolled, grunting, on the ground. The other two men watched and laughed instead of trying to break them up.
After a spirited tussle, the fighting men started laughing and let go of each other, then sat up in the grass. Kyle said, “You’re a true friend, Leslie. I could never hurt you.”
Leslie said, “You’re a true friend, Kyle, and you’re right. You could never hurt me. I’d wallop you if you tried, and we both know it!”
“You think so? Then let’s see, you arrogant bastard!” Kyle dove at Leslie, and the two rolled on the ground, fighting again, accompanied by a fresh hail of laughter from their friends.
Brit the Younger landed next to Gwen and said, “I managed to take out another dragon, then they all scattered. We have six left to get.”
Gwen said, “Cool.”
They watched and listened to the fight for a moment. Brit asked, “They okay?”
Gwen shook her head, chuckled, and threw her hands up to signal her uncertainty. “I guess. They seem to be trying to determine exactly what kind of bastard Leslie is, arrogant or wee.”
Brit said, “I see.”
Gwen and Brit stood and watched the two men struggle, the sounds of their grunting and cursing almost drowned out by their friends’ laughter and cheers.
Brit said, “Those kilts really allow for a lot of mobility for the, uh, lower extremities, don’t they?”
Gwen winced. “Yes. Mobility, and visibility.”
“Unfortunate angle though.”
“Agreed.”
Gwen could barely discern a high-pitched warbling sort of sound over the fighting and the laughing. She lifted her hand, saw that the call was from Jeff, then turned to Brit and said, “I’m getting a call. You want in on this?”
“No, I think I’ll watch the fight. I’ll let you know if you miss anything.”
Gwen took to the air and put fifty yards or so between herself and the fight so she’d be able to hear and speak in a normal tone. She answered the call.
“Hello, Jeff. What’s up?”
The hazy image of Jeff’s head floating in her palm said, “Hey, Gwen. I’m sending you something. Please look up.”
Above, just in front of Gwen, a rolled piece of parchment appeared. She caught it easily.
“It’s a map,” Jeff explained. “It’s useless for finding your way to the nearest town or anything, but it will tell you where the dragons you’re after are. Some of the teams had a hard time finding them.”
“Really? I wouldn’t think it’d be hard to spot a dragon.”
“I know, right? I don’t get it either, but apparently some of the dragons were hiding.”
“They’re as big as a house and shoot fire. Where did they hide, inside a volcano?”
“I don’t know. They asked for a map, and I made them one.”
“Who, specifically, asked for the map?”
“I shouldn’t tell you that.”
“Meaning it was Martin.”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
17.
Leadchurch looked deserted. All of the citizens were hiding in the church. If Jeff and Roy had listened carefully, they might have heard their former selves still arguing with the other wizards about what Jeff had done.
Jeff said, “Well, let’s go unmake my mistake.”
Roy shook his head. “Kid, the only one who’s still mad at you is you.”
“I hope that’s true, but I don’t know. I mean, you acted pretty mad before.”
“Yeah, before. Back when we were armpit deep in dragons and you were acting evasive. It looked like you didn’t want to tell us what you did because you didn’t want to admit you’d made a mistake. Now I see that you didn’t want to say anything until you were sure what mistake you’d made. That’s understandable.”
“So you’d have done the same thing?”
“No, Jeff, I didn’t say that. I don’t think I’d have ever pulled this particular boner, but I understand how you did. Kid, I worked in the aerospace industry on military projects. You don’t do that for long without becoming real comfortable with the idea of unintended consequences. Nobody sits at a desk drafting plans for a wing spar, hoping that someday it will lead to a firebomb landing on a grass hut somewhere on the other side of the globe.”
“I suppose not.”
“You don’t have to suppose. I told you. Now let’s get a move on. There are still dragons to kill.”
“There is one thing I should mention though, Roy.”
“What’s that, kid?”
“You’re from the seventies, so I get it, but you should know that people don’t say boner. Any more.”
“What?”
“Boner. People don’t say it. I mean, they do say it, but not to mean mistake. When most people hear it they think you mean—”
Roy waved his hands. “Yeah, I know what they probably think. We used it that way, too.”
“It’s weird that we use the same word to describe that and to refer to making a mistake.”
“Not really. I’ve made some of my worst mistakes while I had one.”
Each team of wizards had certain dragons assigned to them. Jeff and Roy got the four that attacked Leadchurch, the random stragglers wandering around the wilderness nearby, and the pod of five massed on the outskirts of London, which the locals and a few of the wizards still habitually referred to as Camelot.
Roy and Jeff made the Leadchurch dragons their priority, and dispatched them with little difficulty. Having a fixed moment in time when they knew the dragons were far from any person, and from each other, flying at high speed in separate directions, made it fairly straightforward to coax them through the goal one at a time. Jeff noted with some satisfaction that if the wizards had just looked around right after the attack while they were berating him for his mistake, they would have seen him in the distance, taking an active role in fixing it.
Jeff looked at his map and said, “I thin
k the next logical move is to go take out the cluster in London. A bunch of dragons working together near a city is far more dangerous than a few wandering around the wilderness. Besides, they won’t be wandering around for long. We pretty much have the hang of this.”
Roy agreed.
Jeff and Roy teleported to a spot two hundred feet above a field just outside the walls of Camelot. After several seconds of scanning the skies, searching for signs of dragons, Roy finally looked down. Five dragons stood around grazing on some poor farmer’s crop. Jeff searched the area, hoping he wouldn’t find any people in peril. He was happy to see nobody anywhere near the dragons. He was unhappy to see that the top edge of the city’s nearest wall was filled to capacity with citizens who had gathered to watch the dragons.
Jeff said, “Great. We have an audience.”
“Yup, and I don’t expect them to go away anytime soon,” Roy said. “We’re doing something interesting. If you had a choice between doing your work or watching two wizards fight five dragons, what would you pick?”
The two wizards lowered silently to the ground, a safe distance from the dragons, and discussed their options.
“They aren’t moving,” Jeff said. “We can’t trick them to go through the goal unless they’re moving.”
Roy said, “I guess we gotta flush ’em out.”
“What?”
“Flush ’em. It’s a bird-hunting term. It means to startle them so that they take off flying. That way, shooting them is more sporting.”
“Or it just guarantees that they die terrified and fleeing.”
“Maybe, kid, but we aren’t gonna be shooting them, are we? Besides, look at yourself, then look at them. Do you really think they’re going to be terrified?
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“Then get to it.”
Jeff glared at Roy, but he glared while walking toward the dragons, intent on doing as Roy suggested.
Jeff took a second to consider how he would frighten the dragons. Two had horns; three did not. They had deduced that, though all of the dragons lacked any genitalia, the horns signified a male. Since many of the dragons’ instincts came from sheep, this meant that the males were more aggressive, and that once one dragon started running, male or female, odds were good that the others would follow. Jeff figured that the horned males would be the easiest to goad into action, and once the dragons were in flight, they could just apply the same system they’d used in Leadchurch.
Jeff triggered a macro he’d been playing with that combined elements invented by Gwen and Gary. After uttering a few words of Esperanto, he radiated waves of dark energy, and his voice was amplified to ear-splitting volume. He ran toward the nearest male, and in his deepest, scariest voice shouted, “Hey! You! Dragon! Get outta here! Scram!”
The horned dragon didn’t run, but instead reared back and lowered its head, threatening to ram Jeff. The other dragons all turned to look, but none flew away. Clearly, as in humans, their urge to avoid danger didn’t stand a chance against their competing urge to watch someone get their butt kicked.
Jeff stumbled to a stop, still visibly radiating energy. He kept his eyes on the dragon, but tilted his head back over his shoulder to Roy, and in his still-amplified voice said, “I think it’s going to ram me.”
Roy, his voice faint due to the distance, shouted, “Good! I’ll throw up a goal right in front of you!”
“No!” Jeff shouted. “Don’t! Don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because if you time it wrong, I get rammed. If you place it wrong, I get cut in half lengthwise! Or the dragon gets cut in half, and its front half still rams me!”
“Fine,” Roy shouted, sounding more than a little disappointed. “I guess you’re right.”
“So what do I do?”
“Brace yourself!”
Then the dragon rammed Jeff.
Jeff picked himself up off of the ground and flew back to Roy’s side, disabling the macro as he went.
Roy asked, “So, what do we do now?”
Jeff said, “We tried scaring them off with something we thought they wouldn’t like. What if we lure them off with something they would like?”
“Okay? What do dragons like?”
“I dunno. Eating people?”
“No. If that were it, they would be chasing you right now.”
“Yeah. True. Okay, they’re dragons, but they’re also kinda sheep, right? What do sheep like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. One second, I’ll look it up.” Jeff looked around to make sure nobody was too close. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. All of the wizards had tampered with their smartphones’ entries in the file to allow them to work any place, in any time, without draining their batteries. No amount of magic could prevent them from incurring Roy’s scorn.
“You kids,” Roy sneered. Being the wizard from the earliest original date, he tended to view the other wizards as kids, and their technological advancements as toys. “That’s your answer to everything. I’ll look it up on my phone.”
“What would you have me do,” Jeff asked, scrolling through pages on his screen, “stay ignorant?”
“It just seems to me that having all of that information available makes you complacent and lazy, and it keeps you from ever having to admit you don’t know anything.”
Jeff shook his head. “I admitted I didn’t know, right before I said that I would look it up. And I don’t understand how I’m being lazy when I’m the one going to the trouble of tracking down the information, instead of just shrugging and saying I don’t know.”
Roy shook his head and looked away, the closest thing to an admission of defeat he was ever going to commit. Jeff poked a few more links and scrolled through a few more screens, then said, “Apples. Some people who raise sheep give them apples as treats.”
Jeff continued navigating through his phone.
“What are you doing now?” Roy asked.
“I probably shouldn’t say. Learning new information might make you lazy.”
“Telling you I wasn’t mad at you anymore was a mistake.”
Jeff smiled. “I’m looking up a 3D rendering of an apple that I can project to lure the dragons.” He tapped at his phone and said, “Okay, I’ve got one.” He tapped a few more times, turned the phone sideways, did a few seconds worth of thumb typing, then looked toward the dragons and said, “Here we go.”
Jeff aimed his wand toward a point a hundred feet or so away from the dragons and pressed his right thumb to the screen. An apple appeared. It didn’t look quite real. It appeared to be a solid object in the real world, but its color was too uniform, and its shape was too perfect. Also, it was flying, and measured ten feet across.
The dragons all snapped to attention, turning to look at the hovering uber-apple. They stared, alarmed, for half a second, and then shrunk back from it, cringing, but not actually stepping or flying further away.
“Fantastic,” Roy said. “Your treat has given them the creeps. This whole dragon thing has been a textbook lesson for you in why you don’t mess with things you don’t understand.”
Jeff said, “I know.”
“Why’d you make the apple bigger than their head? Were you counting on the dragons being greedy?”
“I wanted to make it big enough for all of them.”
“But if they can’t get their jaws around it—”
“I know,” Jeff interrupted, neither needing nor wanting Roy to finish the sentence. “Let me try something else.”
Jeff monkeyed with his phone. The giant apple disappeared. After a few more seconds of tapping and wand pointing, a large pile of normal-sized apples appeared in its place. Again, it didn’t look like a real stack of apples in that the apples were al
l utterly unblemished, perfectly uniform, oriented identically, straight up and down with their stems tilted in the same direction, and positioned in a perfect four-sided pyramid, which floated two feet above the ground.
The dragons looked puzzled, but that was a step up from looking vaguely uneasy.
The dragons looked at the apples. Then looked at each other. Then looked at the apples again. Finally, one of the horned dragons started slowly crawling closer, as if attempting to sneak up on the apples. The other dragons cautiously followed suit.
Jeff said, “Okay, quick, throw the goal up in front of it.”
“Will do.”
Roy took a moment to judge the distance, pointed his staff at the space in front of the dragons, and whispered, “Krei duono ringego, goal.” The goal appeared—a large, translucent blue half disk rooted to the ground between the dragons and the apples. The horned dragon stopped walking, as did the other dragons.
Jeff sighed. “Let’s try something. Please take the goal away.”
Roy made the goal disappear, and the dragons resumed slowly advancing toward the apples. Roy made the goal reappear, and they stopped again.
Roy said, “The goal’s blocking them from the apples.”
“Yup,” Jeff agreed. “If this is going to work, we need to get them moving fast enough that they won’t have time to stop before they hit the goal.”
“Here’s an idea. We wait ’til the lead dragon almost gets to the apples, then you take off flying, trailing the apples behind you. If they follow, you slowly gain speed until they’re moving fast enough, and I’ll throw the goal up behind you.”
“You said that I take off flying,” Jeff said. “Why do I have to be the dragon lure?”
“What happened to all of that this is my mess, I should be the one to fix it crap?”
“There has to be a better way than this.”
