by Scott Meyer
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“But it’s true. We’ll totally do that to you. TRANSPORTO RONDA TABLO!”
In an instant they were standing in the center of the black granite disc that marked the center of the great hall of the castle Camelot. The disk was raised as it was when being used as the round table, but the chairs remained recessed into the floor, giving the overall effect that Martin and Phillip were standing on a raised pedestal for examination. The hall was dim, despite the massive windows that lined its sides. Martin saw that there were huge curtains drawn over the windows, blocking most of the light. All of the wizards he had met, dined with, and entertained with his avatar’s break dancing the night before were there, arranged in a curved row, facing the platform where he and Phillip stood. As his eyes adjusted, Martin could see that one of the wizards on the end seemed to be holding some rope. At the middle of the line, one wizard stood taller than the rest, because he was hovering five inches above the floor.
“Who comes to face the trials?” the hovering wizard asked.
“With all due respect,” Phillip said, “You know exactly who it is, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t waste his time with your idiocy, Jimmy.”
“That wasn’t very respectful,” Jimmy said.
“No, but it’s all the respect you’re due. Now get on with it!” Martin recognized Jeff and Gary’s laughs coming from the end of the line of wizards.
Jimmy took a moment to compose himself, then continued. “Are his skills adequate to the challenges that await him?”
“You know they are, or I wouldn’t have said he was ready, would I?” Phillip answered.
“All right then. Phillip, you’ve done your duty. Leave your apprentice to his fate.”
Phillip clambered down off of the platform and walked slowly to the end of the shadowy line of wizards. As he reached his spot, he said, “Hello Gary. Jeff. You brought the extra scratchy rope, I see.” Muffled laughs and shushing followed.
“Martin, do you feel ready to leave your life as an apprentice behind and take on the powers and responsibilities of a wizard?”
Martin gave Jimmy a look that he hoped read as determination, and said, “Yes.”
A long moment passed. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. If someone had told Martin that the birds outside had stopped flying in midair, he would not have doubted it. Finally, Jimmy said, “Okay.”
Martin looked at all of the other wizards. They all looked at him. He looked back to Jimmy and said. “Good.”
Jimmy replied, “Yes, good.”
Martin looked at Phillip, who held up his hands and mouthed the word what?
They’re messing with me, Martin thought. They’re trying to put me off balance. Then, when I’m vulnerable, the trials will begin. He bent his knees, transferring his weight to the balls of his feet. He hunched his shoulders slightly, put his empty left hand out in front of him for balance and held his staff slightly behind so he could whip it forward with force if need be. For another long moment all was silent, and Martin was at the center of the universe, a coiled spring, ready for whatever happened next.
Eventually, Martin realized that nothing was going to happen. He stood up straight again and asked, “Okay, what’s going on?”
When the wizards were done laughing, Jimmy explained, “It’s over, Martin. You’re in.”
“What?! But … the trials!”
“Were last night,” Jimmy said, “if you must call them that. Look, Martin, the point of the trials is to make sure that you know what you’re doing and that you can be trusted. Phillip has lived with you and trained you, and he says you’re okay. We all met you last night and you didn’t set off anybody’s warning bells, so, you’re in.”
Martin sat down on the edge of the round table. He didn’t know if he was more relieved or angry. “So it was all a lie?”
“No,” Phillip said as he walked to where Martin was sitting, “it wasn’t all a lie. It was mostly a lie. In a sense, the trials began when you and I met, and the final test was your macro last night. You got off to a rocky start, but you paid attention, you learned, and you took the whole thing seriously.”
“What if I hadn’t?” Martin asked. “It’s happened before. Phillip told me about a trainee who failed a few years ago.”
Mitchell, one of the three wizards from Paris spoke up. “Yeah, I had an apprentice who seemed all right at first, then I caught him practicing his powers on animals. Nasty business.”
“What did you do?”
“I called Jimmy,” Mitchell said, “and told him about it. He had me tell the guy that he was ready for the trials. We had a dinner just like last night. He showed us his macro, which I’m not going to describe to you because there are some things you can’t un-hear. It’s bad enough we had to see it. Anyway, after that we were unanimous that he had to go. The next morning we told him he’d failed and we used the shell to make it so that no integrated circuit would function within ten feet of him.”
“That’s how you keep him from using the file!” Martin said. “I’d wondered about that.”
“Yeah, unless he figures out how to access the file from an abacus, the world is safe. Then we sent him back to his time …”
“Yeah,” Martin said, waving his hand. “Hogtied and naked so the police would get him. Are you sure the police were looking for him?”
“Oh yeah,” Mitchell said. “No question. The fact is, the police are looking for almost all of us.”
Many heads nodded. Gary said, “It turns out that bank fraud is surprisingly hard to get away with, even if you create the money out of thin air.”
Jimmy nodded. “Not surprising really. At the end of the day all a bank really does is track money. It makes sense that they’d be pretty good at it.”
By this time all of the wizards had walked over near where Martin was sitting. Fun is fun, but they knew they had put Martin through the wringer, and they wanted to make sure he was all right, partly because they’d all been there themselves and partly because few things are more dangerous than a wizard bent on revenge.
“So, Marty,” Phillip said, “you haven’t said yet if you’ll join us.”
Martin shook his head. “Are you kidding? Phillip, how can you ask me that? Of course I’m going to join you! Even if there weren’t unimaginable power in it for me, and even if the feds weren’t waiting in my time to take me to jail, I’d stick around just to help do this to the next sap to come along.”
That was when everyone knew that Martin was truly one of them. There were many handshakes and back slaps. Jimmy congratulated Martin then excused himself and his assistant Eddie, saying they had pressing business elsewhere. Gary made a pizza run and the remaining wizards generally had a pleasant afternoon. They all found Martin to be a little quicker to laugh now that the pressure was off.
Slowly, wizards started making their excuses and going back to their homes. Finally it was just Martin, Phillip, Gary, and Jeff left to clean up.
“I wish Tyler were here,” Gary said.
“He’d have enjoyed this,” Phillip agreed.
“That, and he has all those paper towels in his apartment,” Gary said while attempting to scrape some melted cheese off of the granite table with the edge of a cardboard pizza box, leaving a smear of oil behind.
“You could go to your time and get a roll,” Jeff said.
“Yes, but we both know that’s not going to happen,” Gary said. He piled all of the pizza boxes on the stone floor, aimed his staff at them and said, “Flamo sur.” There was an intense gout of blue flames. The pizza boxes completely burned away in less than a second. With nothing left to feed them, the flames took on the shapes of demons and rose to the ceiling and dissipated. For just a moment Martin could see that the spaces between the flames took the shape of a man waving his arms frantically, as if in a
gony. When the flames were gone, Martin said, “That was a touch overdramatic.”
Jeff smiled. “Like you should talk.”
Jeff and Gary said goodbye and disappeared into thin air. “How do you think he made the areas between the flames look like a person?” Martin asked.
“Hmm,” Phillip said. “I didn’t even notice that.”
There was nothing left for Martin and Phillip to do but go home themselves. Home meaning Phillip’s home, which became all too obvious to Martin quite quickly. They rematerialized in Phillip’s hut and Phillip rubbed his hands together and said, “I expect you’ll be anxious to get out on your own.”
Martin didn’t know how to react. “Phillip, I hope I haven’t done something to make you think I’m anxious to leave.”
“Oh, Marty,” Phillip said in a chummy sort of way, “I didn’t say think, I said expect. There’s a difference. So, where will you go?”
“I … I guess I’ll get a place of my own,” Martin sputtered.
“Splendid idea! When?”
“I dunno. Tomorrow morning?”
Phillip shook his head and put an arm around Martin’s shoulders. He said, “Martin, don’t stay here for me.” Martin clearly heard a comma that wasn’t stated, but was there nonetheless. Martin, don’t stay here, for me. Martin suddenly realized that Phillip had shared his entire existence with Martin, and now he wanted it to himself again. Martin couldn’t blame him.
“It’s a bit late to try to find a shack of my own,” Martin said, “but I bet Pete has a room at The Rotted Stump he’d rent me until I find a place.”
“I bet he does. You might even be able to pay him in cling film! I’ll tell you what. You go get a room, and then I’ll help you move your things.”
“All I have is my laptop.”
“I’ll help you move your thing.”
Martin had set a teleportation waypoint for The Rotted Stump. He suspected Pete, Gert, and the others would be pleasant company if he stopped trying to impress them all the time, a quality, he now realized, that they shared with pretty much all of humanity. He uttered some Esperanto and appeared outside The Rotted Stump. A friendly conversation and a small transaction later, he was the temporary owner of a room with a bed in it. When he reappeared at the hut, Phillip was waiting. Martin grabbed his laptop. Phillip handed him his bundle of street clothes, wrapped in his old Hogwarts robe. Martin had nearly forgotten them, but realized immediately that he’d want them if he ever went back to his own time.
Neither of them were particularly emotional guys, so their goodbye couldn’t help but be awkward. A poorly worded thank you was followed by an inelegant you’re welcome and punctuated with a stiff, uncertain hug. When the hug finally ended, Phillip said, “I’m happy to have you as a friend, Martin, and even happier to lose you as a roommate.”
What would have been a cutting remark just fifteen minutes before made them both laugh now. Then Martin teleported to his room on the second floor of The Rotted Stump, and he was on his own.
That night, Martin lay in bed and considered his next move. He could do anything he wanted. He just had to figure out what he wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life long-term, but that could wait. Near-term was all he needed to worry about tonight. The noise from the tavern coming up through the floorboards made it clear that his first order of business would be getting a place of his own. His first impulse was to stay in Leadchurch. All of his friends were here, and there was close proximity to Gwen. Then again, Leadchurch was a pretty small place, and as he said, all of his friends were here. It was a pretty high wizard saturation for such a small town. Then it struck him that he didn’t actually know where Gary’s cave was. He’d assumed it was close, but he’d never asked. For all he knew, the cave was clear up in Scotland. For the first time, it really struck home with Martin that, thanks to teleportation, the entire world was really just down the hall. He could literally set up shop anywhere and it would make no difference. Martin thought about all he knew of this version of Medieval England, and realized that the most interesting place he knew of was Camelot. Martin was a city boy, and Camelot was where the action was. He didn’t have to worry about Jimmy getting angry because Martin was moving in on his turf, because Jimmy had invited him. He didn’t know how Phillip would react, but it wasn’t like he was siding with Jimmy. He was just moving to the capital to see things for himself.
The next morning, Martin called Jimmy. He told the glowing M in his palm that he was going to stay in Camelot for a while (it took some effort not to call it London) to see if he liked it. Jimmy was delighted, and said that he’d have Eddie find a couple of prospective places to look at.
The following day, Eddie had three places to show Martin. Eddie explained the various features of the buildings, resplendent in his red silk robe with gold embroidered dragons as he showed the sizes of the rooms and the proximity to various shops and inns. Martin amused himself with the notion that it was like having Ming the Merciless as a realtor. He mentioned this to Eddie. Eddie laughed, then pointed out in his thick New Jersey accent that Martin was wearing a silver robe and carrying a stick with a Luchador head on it. Martin thought, It’s amazing how quickly we get used to weirdness when it’s our own weirdness.
He settled on a building in a bustling area on the east side of town. It had been used mainly for storage. It had a smallish room facing the street, and then a very large room with a high ceiling in the back. Eddie had suggested it because it would give Martin room to work on large scale macros, and Martin couldn’t help but agree. It didn’t take Martin long to pull enough gold from his hat to buy the place outright.
After Eddie left, Martin looked at his new home, and realized that he had no furniture of any kind. He made a quick list of all the stuff he’d had in his old apartment, then he asked himself how much of it he’d really needed. The answer was, “not much of it.” He decided that the first things he needed were a table, a chair, a bed, and some bedding. Chairs and tables could be procured here in Camelot, but the comfort level of the standard issue straw and scratchy blanket bed he’d used at The Rotted Stump had not impressed him, and he had no intention of spending the rest of his life sleeping in a hammock.
In the Banks’ living room, chaos reigned. Walter and Margarita Banks could tell from the cacophony of sirens, pounding noises, and yelled threats that their quiet suburban front yard was crawling with law enforcement officers, many of whom would soon be coming in. Their youngest son Martin had burst in unannounced and sprinted into his old bedroom, emerging several times in quick succession to model his old Halloween costume, mutter about Draco Malfoy, demand Saran Wrap, and ask geography questions. Then he’d demanded a package that he said he’d ordered, but seemed surprised to see. Now he was back in his room.
The pounding at the door was getting louder. Through the sirens they could hear a man’s voice yelling, “We are federal agents! We are pursuing a suspect and we saw him enter these premises! Open this door immediately or we will break it down!”
“One moment! I’m coming!” Walter yelled. He and his wife Margarita exchanged bewildered looks and Walter started toward the door.
“NO, DAD, STOP!”
Margarita and Walter looked down the hall. Martin had come out of his room again. He was standing in the hall wearing a silver sequined bathrobe and a pointy hat. He was carrying a long pole with his old souvenir bust of what Margarita had always called that stupid wrestler perched on its tip.
“Martin, baby, what’s going on?” Margarita asked. “What have you done?”
“Nothing,” Martin said as he lurched three steps down the hall and threw open the door to the linen closet. “I haven’t done anything,” he continued as he grabbed a small stack of sheets and pillowcases. “I especially haven’t done any of the things those men are going to tell you I did.” Martin yanked a blanket down from the top she
lf, clamped his staff against his body with his left arm, slammed the closet door shut with his foot and quickly went back to his bedroom, shouting, “Thanks for everything! See you later! Dad, you can open the door now!” The bedroom door slammed shut behind him.
Martin rematerialized in his new home, holding a pile of laundry in one hand and his smartphone in the other. He hastily threw the laundry down on the pile of his old street clothes, hoping that would keep them relatively dirt-free. He put down his staff, took a breath, then touched the screen of his phone with his thumb and disappeared again. A moment later he reappeared, bear-hugging the mattress from his childhood bed, which was rolled up like a giant burrito.
It still had all of its bedding attached, as if he had simply pushed the fully made mattress over on itself, stood it on end, threw his arms around it and hastily teleported out of there, which is exactly what he had done.
He let go of the mattress. It unfolded and fell limply to the floor, creating a low whump noise and a noticeable cloud of dust.
Martin said, “I’m home.”
Chapter 22.
Two days later, Martin’s place was coming along nicely. He had a nice flat table to set his laptop on and a chair to sit on as he used it, and use it he had. He’d taken a page from Phillip’s playbook. He set up exclusionary zones that kept anyone from entering his building if he wasn’t there. He poked around the shell and found that most of the food items he’d want to replicate were already programmed in. That saved him some labor, and the trouble of getting a stew pot, although he figured he’d have to get one eventually if he was going to have anyone come visit. He had already tweaked his macro to make it less of a showpiece, and more of a practical display of power. The people of this chronologically polluted version of Medieval England were much more sophisticated than he had originally suspected, but he still doubted they’d be impressed by his ability to do the worm. He was working on this and that when, for the first time on his own, he heard the eerie, warbling chime that meant that the hand phone was ringing.
