by Scott Meyer
Tyler appeared, gasping for air, eyes bulging. He immediately fell to his knees. Gary and Gwen had watched with interest, but now they leapt to their feet. Jeff abandoned the arcade console and ran to where Tyler, breathing deeply and moaning, knelt on the floor. Phillip pulled off his hat, said, “Enboteligita akvo,” and produced a bottle of mineral water. He handed it to Tyler, who gulped it down at an astonishing rate.
Martin remembered his first morning in Medieval England, when Phillip told him the dos and don’ts of wizarding. Particularly the part about getting “ghosted.” Being made invisible. You didn’t need food, air, or water, but your body didn’t know it. You could still see and hear. You could still move around, but you couldn’t interact with anything heavier than a mote of dust floating in the air. The real torture was that you couldn’t talk, but you could make faint spooky noises, so any attempt at communicating would only torment and repel those you tried to contact. Martin knew Tyler had been missing for at least a week. Starving, suffocating, and dying of thirst for a week, surrounded by people who would love to help him, but didn’t know he needed help. Martin couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Tyler finished the bottle of water. He remained kneeling on the floor, breathing deeply. He opened his eyes, reached out and took Phillip’s staff. He said, “Mia banĉambro,” Esperanto for my bathroom, and disappeared.
Yup, Martin thought. That’s worse.
They sat in a sullen, guilty silence while they waited for Tyler’s return. Phillip poured everyone a drink.
Finally, Tyler reappeared. Nobody said a word, nor would they until Tyler broke the silence. He walked to Phillip, who was standing by the bar. He handed Phillip’s staff back to him, then hugged him for a very long time. Finally, Tyler released the hug and said, “Thank you.”
Tyler turned to the rest of the group, who were seated, but stood up as soon as Tyler returned. Tyler nodded to Gwen and said, “Gwen. A pleasure, as always.” She returned his greeting. He turned to Gary and Jeff, his two best friends, and in a genuine outpouring of heartfelt emotion said, “Damn you idiots! You morons! Ngaah! I’m so mad at you two … Mbraaaagh!”
Clearly, words alone couldn’t express what he was feeling. He shouted inarticulate rage noises at Gary and Jeff for a while longer. By the time he was done, Phillip had produced another bottle of water, which he handed to Tyler. Tyler sat heavily on the couch and took a drink.
“I’ve been growling at you idiots for twelve days,” Tyler said between gulps of water. “You’ve both read my book! I’d hoped spooky growling would make you think of me at least once in all that time.”
Martin turned to Gwen, and said in a low voice, “Tyler’s an author. He wrote a book called The Curse of the Ghost of the Wolfman’s Mummy. The monster would make a spooky growling noise.”
Gwen nodded and said, “I know. I’ve read it. Phillip loaned me a copy.”
That meant that Martin was the only one in the room who hadn’t read the book. He thought, I really do have to stop assuming that Gwen doesn’t know things.
Tyler turned to Martin, fresh anger in his eyes. “And you, the new kid. You looked right at me TWICE! I know you saw me. One time you were so scared you fell out of your stupid hammock!”
“That was you?” Martin said.
“Yes, Martin, the ghostly apparition trying desperately to get Phillip’s attention was me. I’d given up on ever getting through to Ren and Stimpy over here, and thought I’d try to get the attention of the one sensible adult I know. Thanks again for finally saving me, Phillip.”
“You’re welcome,” Phillip said as he settled into the lounge chair. “I’m just sorry it took us so long.” They all apologized. Even Gwen, who hadn’t really done anything. Tyler waved his hand dismissively, which was as close to an apology accepted as they were likely to get.
Martin pulled a bar stool over and had a seat. Gary and Jeff followed suit. Gwen sat on the lounge chair’s matching footrest. After what he’d gone through, the least they could do was let Tyler have the couch.
“So,” Phillip said, “how’d it happen?”
Tyler told them that he’d gone to Rickard’s Bend to do some more research for the fantasy novel he was working on. When he got there, he bumped into Jimmy. Jimmy had asked why he was there, and had reacted with great interest when he learned that Tyler was writing a novel. They talked about the books they’d read and the movies they’d seen. Finally, Jimmy had told Tyler that he had a project he was working on, and that he would welcome Tyler’s opinion.
There were several knowing looks at this. Even Jimmy’s greatest detractors had to admit that he was not without his talents, and one of them was making whoever he was talking to feel like the most important, talented, and valuable person Jimmy had ever met.
Tyler continued, telling them how he went to Camelot with Jimmy, and how Jimmy showed him plans to gradually remake the people of Rickard’s Bend into Hobbits.
“He asked me if I had any input, as an author,” Tyler said. “I told him that he was a monster.”
“And that’s when he ghosted you?” Phillip asked.
“Ooooh yeah. He ghosted me but good. I turned my back to walk away and he flew up behind me, pressed his staff to my back and said the words. At first, all I could do was struggle to breathe. I felt like I was dying nonstop until I got acclimated.”
“How long did that take?” Martin asked.
“Hours. I don’t know how many. Then I got used to it.”
Gwen said, “It’s a good thing the craving for air gets better.”
“I didn’t say it got better,” Tyler said. “I just got used to it.”
They all considered this for as long as they dared. Martin broke the silence, turning to Phillip and asking, “What do we do now?”
Phillip stood. He looked at the other wizards and said, “We take Jimmy down. We’d better call everybody and get them up to speed. We want to do this right. And by right, I mean in as public and humiliating a manner as possible.”
Chapter 25.
Thirty minutes later, the clearing beneath Skull Gullet Cave was full of wizards. They had called every wizard in Europe except Jimmy and Eddie (A.K.A. Wing Po). They’d excluded Jimmy for obvious reasons. They had no direct evidence that Eddie was involved, but they had no evidence that he wasn’t either, and they chose not to risk telling him. They kept it quiet by telling everyone they were planning a surprise for Jimmy, which, Phillip pointed out with palpable glee, was true.
Skull Gullet Cave was chosen for the meeting because it was large enough to accommodate everyone, and the mouth of the skull made a fine amphitheater. Phillip stood in front (because he was the most well-known and respected wizard present) next to Gwen (to explain that she was a wizard, and to tell what she had found in Rickard’s Bend), Tyler (to explain about Rickard’s Bend, and to tell about his ghosting), and Gary (because he insisted, and it was his cave).
As the wizards started arriving, Martin found a quiet moment to speak with Gwen privately. He leaned in close. “Gwen, can I ask you a question?”
Gwen tensed, but said, “Yes.”
Martin bit his lip, then asked, “In your salutation, how did you throw that lummox off of you like that? That was really, really cool! I considered trying to do something like that in mine, but I couldn’t figure out an elegant way to program it. You’d have to differentiate between you, your belongings, and the person you want to repel. I just can’t figure out how you did it.”
Gwen smiled, and actually laughed a bit. “Oh! Uh, it’s actually really simple. You know the exclusion zones we use to seal off certain places? They only act on people, and you can make them not apply to yourself, right? Well, I make a cone shaped exclusion zone underground beneath my feet. Then I make it move up over my head really fast, and any person who isn’t me, but is standing inside the radius of the cone, ge
ts thrown off.”
Martin stared at her, mouth agape. She thought he was amazed, and that was part of it. He was also tremendously turned on.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s so simple! That just never occurred to me! Really, nice work!” He couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he shook her hand. He started to walk away, then turned back to face her. “Can I ask another question?”
“Sure,” she said.
“What year are you from?”
She laughed again. “Twenty-fourteen. Born in ninety-two.”
Martin smiled. “Huh, so I’m a little older than you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been here for ten years, so technically I’m older than you. I was just born later.”
Martin smiled again. “Huh. That’s right, isn’t it? Cool!” He turned, and walked down to the clearing. Gwen watched him go.
Martin and Jeff stood in the clearing with the rest of the wizards. Phillip thanked everyone for coming, apologized for the false pretenses, and promised them that they’d all understand why it was necessary soon enough. He started by announcing that Gwen was a wizard.
“I told all of you that I was the first one to show up in this time and place, but that’s not quite true. Gwen, whom you all know, since she made all of your robes, had already been here for a month when I showed up. She swore me and Jimmy to secrecy because a female wizard is called a witch, and the locals have something of an attitude about witches.”
Heads nodded in agreement. One voice at the back said something about her weighing the same as a duck, but nobody was in the mood. Phillip opened the floor for questions about Gwen’s wizardiness before moving on to business. Most of the questions centered on her tailoring business. She explained that she took measurements and made patterns the old fashioned way, but went to the future to buy fabric. Also, on harder sewing jobs, she’d use a sewing machine. She had the powers of a wizard, the standing in the community of a craftsman, and the freedom to walk the streets without people asking her to magic their problems away. It was all quite lovely until Rickard’s Bend.
Her description of what she found there sucked all of the air out of the room. She told the story of how she had brought Martin, Jeff, and Gary out to have a look, and she explained that she’d had to break her cover to get them away from Kludge’s gang. She concluded by saying that it was clear to them that the villagers were killed by a wizard, and that the wizard had embarked on a secret plan to make Hobbits.
Several hands raised at this. Gwen called on one of the Norwegian death-metal wizards. He had raised his hand quickly enough, but he seemed chagrined to have been called on. “Um,” he stammered, stalling a bit, “Sorry, but I have to ask. Phillip, what have you been doing upstairs in your shop?”
Phillip bit his lip. Gary announced, “We already checked on that. He’s been transporting and assembling a car one piece at a time.”
Most of the hands went down. Phillip made eye contact with Martin, who could only shrug.
Gary continued. “It’s a Pontiac Fiero.”
The rest of the hands went down. The wizards from Italy tried to hide their amusement, but not very hard.
Phillip explained briefly that the others had come to him, and that during that conversation, they figured out what had happened to Tyler. Phillip turned the floor over to Tyler, who just barely managed to keep his composure as he told the assembled wizards how he learned Jimmy’s plan and was ghosted for it. That was all it took. By the time he was done, everyone present was of a like mind.
There was some discussion, but the consensus was that Jimmy had violated the only three rules they had. He had altered people’s physical structure, he had done so on helpless locals who had not given their consent, and he had used his power to ghost Tyler, which everyone agreed was unspeakably cruel without really having to discuss it.
Phillip summed up. “So, we know what was done, and we know by whom. We can’t let this stand. If we don’t stop him, we’re just as responsible as he is. We have to go to London, confront Jimmy, and put an end to this once and for all. We must police ourselves, because no one else can. We’ll give him an opportunity to explain himself. I doubt he’ll have a valid excuse, because I can’t imagine what a valid excuse would be. More likely, he’ll try to fight us, but he can’t possibly ghost everyone, and if he manages to get a few of us, the rest can neutralize him and undo the damage.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Phillip continued. “Many of you like Jimmy, and it’s going to be hard for you to take him down. I despise him, and as such, I will have a hard time pretending not to enjoy every second of his downfall and humiliation. That’s my burden to bear.”
The sun was high in the sky, and in the splendid courtyard in front of the golden palace of Camelot, people were going about their daily business. Workmen worked, guards guarded, and everyone was squinting, as was their custom on a sunny day.
The light reflecting off of the golden castle Camelot, the giant gold-covered gates, the massive golden statue of the old king, the young king, and the wizard who advised them, and the polished gold adornments on the staff’s uniforms combined to give the impression that to be at Camelot castle was to stand in the center of the sun. People’s vision was so impaired by the unceasing glare that most of them didn’t even notice when twenty-three wizards wearing sunglasses suddenly appeared out of nowhere linked hand to shoulder like a sideways conga line.
The wizards separated themselves from one another and strode purposefully to the castle’s entrance, Phillip and Tyler in the lead, flanked by Martin, Gwen, Gary, and Jeff. Martin asked Phillip, “So, what’s the plan?”
“I’m gonna win,” Phillip said. “I’m finally gonna beat him, and I’m gonna taste his defeat. Then I’m gonna chew his defeat. Then I’m gonna open my mouth wide and make him look at his gross chewed-up defeat, and he will be disgusted by it, as I am by him.”
“Damn right!” Tyler added. “And I think I might kick him in the nuts.”
Martin considered this, and said, “Good. I’m glad we have a solid plan.”
The castle had no door, as such. The massive open archway led to the opulent antechamber, which in turn led to the great hall. Guards in gold-encrusted uniforms flanked the gold-encrusted arch, defending it with gold-encrusted swords. The guards made no move to prevent the wizards from entering. Phillip sneered at them as he walked through the arch and ran face-first into the invisible field that kept any wizard from entering the castle without Jimmy’s permission. Tyler, Martin, and Gwen also walked into the field. The other wizards walked into them, or each other. Over the sound of grumbling and cursing, one of the guards said, “Merlin is expecting you. Please wait here and you’ll be escorted to his chambers.”
The wizards spread out, straightening their robes and regaining their dignity as best they could. After a moment, Eddie appeared in the antechamber.
“Gentlemen. Gwen. Welcome to castle Camelot. Do come in.”
His lack of surprise at seeing Gwen carrying a wand was telling. Martin looked at Gwen askance. “Eddie knew about you?” he asked.
Gwen was at a loss. “I didn’t tell him.”
Eddie had sharp ears. He smiled and said, “Merlin tells me everything.”
Tyler asked, “Oh, does he?” About twice as loud as he probably intended. Phillip put a steadying hand on Tyler’s shoulder
In a dry tone, Phillip asked, “Did he tell you that he killed an entire village full of people?”
Eddie’s smile faded. He looked confused, then his expression soured, and he mumbled, “Oh, Phillip.” He composed himself, then with forced joviality said, “Merlin will be ready to see you all in a moment. Please follow me.”
The wizards spent the next ten minutes exploring the most opulent waiting room in all of England. The seats were veritable thrones. Instead of magazines, there were tomes
of arcane knowledge, which Martin recognized as books of magic tricks from the early twentieth century. Some of them were in English, featuring men in tuxedos holding playing cards and pigeons. Others were in Chinese, and featured men in silk robes holding chrome rings and pigeons. It occurred to Martin that one way or the other, stage magic was the art of manipulating the pigeons. He considered sharing this idea with the other wizards, but he knew nobody, not even him, was in the mood.
While they waited, Eddie sat at a large desk in the corner. When they first arrived, he told the wizards to make themselves comfortable. Then, Eddie held up his right hand to use the magic hand phone to make a call, but put his left hand up to his ear, as if to press an earpiece. Merlin’s flaming M icon appeared in his hand and Eddie said that the wizards had arrived. Nobody heard the reply. Then Eddie said in a worried tone that they had said something about killing a village. More silence followed, but Eddie seemed reassured. He ended the call and told the assembled wizards that it would only be a few minutes.
After a minute or two he tried to engage Gary in conversation, but Gary asked him if he was proud to be the world’s first receptionist, and with that, Eddie picked up on the ugly mood in the room and stopped talking.
Ten minutes later the large, ornately carved golden doors opened, and Jimmy invited everyone into his office. The wizards angrily stormed into Jimmy’s office, but as the door was only wide enough to accommodate two wizards at a time, storming in angrily was almost indistinguishable from filing in politely.
Although nobody had mentioned it, everyone was waiting to see Jimmy’s reaction to Tyler. Everyone expected a satisfying mix of shock and guilt. Everyone was disappointed.
Jimmy saw Tyler and took on the attitude of a man who has just bumped into an old friend who he knows has been in the hospital.
