Mindful of the urgency posed by Trevor, Maggie, and Adam, Amanda had attempted to ask Justica more about her wizard past, and how they had acquired their powers, but Justica had gently rebuffed her. Amanda then knew it was better to stop the line of questioning before she aroused suspicion.
She sighed. Sometimes she felt that the harder she tried to find out about the wizards, the less she knew. She’d received much more information – without even asking – when she minded her own business.
Suddenly, Demus appeared across the room from her, sitting atop a chair, for once appearing contrite. He was wearing his regular red shirt, along with khaki pants. This time, his shirt displayed dozens of blurred gold stars, giving his top an overall patterned look without disturbing the dominant red theme.
Amanda shouted out in astonishment and said crossly, “Demus, don’t you ever knock?”
He still appeared uncertain, and Amanda’s heart told her to take pity upon him. Hey, she thought. He’s the brash one who revealed much about the wizards’ world. Maybe I can coax him to tell me more.
“Amanda,” Demus finally said, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I just want your forgiveness. I guess I came on too strongly last time.”
“That’s okay, Demus,” Amanda said with a conspiratorial smile. “I accept your apology.” Keep trying. Get him to blab away. She asked, “Why are you so interested in me anyway? I have no super powers to offer you.”
The wizard gazed at her as if in a trance. “You’re like a vision,” he said softly. “And the other wizards don’t know love the way you do. That’s one special thing about you Mortals. I guess you don’t know how…” His eyes misted.
Good. Keep reeling him in. Amanda patted the side of her bed and said soothingly, “Demus, why don’t you sit beside me and talk to me?” But don’t go too far, she warned herself. I still have a job to do as Supreme Liaison. I’ll just get as much out of him as I can, and then humor him.
Demus brightened perceptibly. In an instant, he vanished, and reappeared, reclining sideways, about one foot away from Amanda on her bed.
She couldn’t contain her curiosity. “You said something about wizards not loving each other. Why not? What do you mean?”
He looked uncertain. Whether he felt he was revealing too much to a Mortal, or was simply uncomfortable talking about his innermost feelings, she couldn’t tell. He started to speak, but held himself back. Then he stammered, “I – I – I don’t know how to explain it. It’s something that only wizards know.”
“Try me,” Amanda said with a smile.
“Well,” Demus said, weighing his next few words carefully, “think about it. Think about the ages of all the wizards in the world.”
“I don’t understand,” Amanda said, yet at the same time feeling Demus had just revealed a vitally important secret to her. It was right at her fingertips. Her mind raced on, trying furiously to figure out what he meant.
“Amanda,” Demus turned to her, “I just wanted to thank you for not telling the council about our visit to Emerana. That means a lot to me.”
“Oh, Demus. You made me promise not to tell. I’d never break my word.” Amanda reflected on the sheer beauty of that fortress. “It was simply amazing.”
“As for reporting on my forcing you to see my past,” he averted his eyes away, “I guess I deserved that. Thanks so much for not telling them about the zombies I created from my imagination.”
Amanda shuddered. “I can’t imagine living through a nightmare like that.” She forced herself to focus. “Okay, you mentioned the ages of the wizards.” She deliberated some more and frowned. “Well, there are no wizard children, that’s for sure, as far as I can see in wizard-dom.”
Demus nodded, urging her to continue.
Amanda said, “There are no wizard families.”
“Go on.”
Straightening out her back suddenly, Amanda had a revelation, exciting her. “There are no older wizards!”
Demus nodded slowly and smugly, indicating that Amanda had hit a bulls-eye.
“Why? Why aren’t there any wizards with gray hair?”
Demus held out his hands, shrugging. “That’s for you to figure out.”
Amanda excitedly thought of a possibility. “Do they leave Earth for another wizard world?”
The wizard reflected upon this, moving his head sideways slowly. Then he stopped and turned. “Yes, you could say that.”
“Because they amass the magic talent they have, and go on to more challenges?”
“Yes.”
Amanda clasped her hands, bouncing on the bed without intending to. “What’s the name of this world?”
Demus held a finger to his lips. “I can’t tell you.”
“How old are they before they leave Earth? Is there a certain age, or does it depend on their experience?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Amanda made fists, which she playfully brought down quickly. “Oh, shoot!” She gazed at him in wonder. “Have you been there?”
Demus grimaced for a few seconds. Finally he said, “Yes.”
“What’s wrong with it? What’s it like?”
Slyly, Demus rolled on his side and brought his face over to close in on Amanda. “You’re out of luck, I’m afraid.” He smiled, taking into Amanda’s lingering scent. “Why don’t we get to know each other better?”
No thanks, Amanda thought. She recalled how he had scared her a few times with his magic tricks, zapping her into perilous situations, and she wasn’t ready to forgive him just yet. She playfully pushed Demus away. “Demus, guess what I’ve been reading?”
Disappointed, yet still giddy, Demus rested his head on his left arm. “What?”
“It’s your fan club! I’ve been reading fan mail addressed to you!”
Demus opened his eyes wide and smiled. “I’m not surprised. What’s a busy lady like you doing with such trivial stuff?”
Amanda hesitated before answering. “Well, I met with my fellow citizens recently, and you’re right, I’d never thought about it. Like you said, there are pressing economic and environmental issues out there. But they told me you’ve attracted quite a wide following.”
“Nice,” Demus said. He was lapping it up.
“They say –” Amanda pulled out a letter. “This one says you exude charisma.”
“Ooh!” Demus laughed, swaying his shoulders.
“This one says you’re a God. This person prays to you and says you’ve descended from Heaven to bless us all.”
Demus playfully brought his hands, outstretched, up toward the ceiling. “I guess I have.”
“You literally have hundreds and hundreds of letters. Many by teenage women and older women. Hundreds of marriage proposals. Hundreds of invitations for you to attend a wedding. Or to share dinner with a family. It’s mind-boggling.”
“What about the others?”
Amanda knew he meant Indie, Justica, and Regi. “They get their share too. But you’re by far the most popular.”
The ecstatic wizard stroked Amanda’s arm. “Why do you think they love me so much?”
“Must be your prowess during Games Days. You’re quite a bull on the field.”
Demus ran his fingers through Amanda’s hair and gazed lovingly toward her. “Don’t fight it. Join them.”
Amanda sat up beside him, teasingly pushing away his arm. “Hold on to your guns, buster.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amanda impatiently tapped her foot, and then paced the marble floor in the lobby of Liberators’ Headquarters. Regi was late for the tour he was supposed to conduct for her. All of the Liberators were perfect, no? She grinned to herself. This was one tardy fellow who couldn’t blame his lateness on traffic problems. What was he going to say, “My magic didn’t quite work out this morning – I ended up into the Amazon rain forest!“ She chuckled to herself.
Before she finished laughing, Regi appeared, with a bemused smile on his face. He looked utterly charming, with nary a g
uilty or smug look on his face. “What’s so funny?” he grinned.
Amanda waved away his question. “Oh, nothing, really.”
“That’s okay. Are you ready to begin your immersion in the life of yours truly?”
“Yes, I’m ready,” Amanda replied, a little puzzled at the lack of warm-up conversation. He was a man of brief words. Even before she had a chance to set her feet apart to prepare for the new landing – wherever she may go – she promptly vanished, along with the dashing wizard.
In the next split second, Amanda gasped even before she could take in her surroundings. She was suspended in thin air, grasped from behind by Regi. Seeing nothing but a horizon ahead of her, and feeling nothing underneath her feet, she shrieked. She felt the warm reassurance of large arms – Regi’s – firmly in front of her abdomen. The intimate physical contact wasn’t enough to deter her from total fear. She glanced down and found herself hovering about two hundred feet into the air!
They were now above a small town. She saw, directly below her, rooftops of houses, factories, facilities, and trucks and cars zooming about.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Moose Jaw.”
She turned around to Regi and wrinkled her brows. “Where’s that?”
“Saskatchewan, Canada.”
“This is where you grew up?”
“Yes.”
“What an odd name. Where did the name come from?” she asked, intrigued.
“Well,” Regi said thoughtfully, “Some people say it comes from the Cree word ‘Moosoochapiskanissippi,’ meaning ‘the river shaped like the jaw of a moose.’“
Amanda chortled at the impossibly long word. “So it’s not like, someone found a moose jawbone and then settled here?”
Regi’s eyes twinkled. “No, I guess not.”
Amanda peered out further along the vast hinterland beyond the city boundaries. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Want to fly?”
Amanda’s eyes widened in excitement. “You mean, like Peter Pan?”
“Yes.”
“Oh Regi, I’d love to!”
Slowly accelerating as to acclimatize her to the momentum, Regi held on to her tightly and swooped through the sky, never losing close-up sight of the details of the town below them. Amanda whooped with delight, feeling the air rush by her billowing hair. It felt so good – ten times better than the three minutes atop the Screaming Demon wooden track roller coaster in that Six Flags amusement park two summer ago.
Having traversed the countless wheat farms surrounding Moose Jaw, they gazed at the infinite meadows that stretched out as far as the eye could see.
“I feel like Lois Lane,” Amanda said, enthralled.
“And I’m Superman?” Regi asked with a grin.
She ignored the comment and said, “I’m surprised I’m not cold.”
“Oh, that. I surrounded us with a heat field to make your flight more enjoyable. Yes, it could get very chilly up there.”
Amanda gazed at Regi in the eyes. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
She sighed. “This terrain’s so flat and uninhabited. Not one hill in sight.”
“Saskatchewan is famous for its flat landscape. We have a joke here that you can’t put an egg anywhere here where it can roll.”
“Just like the moon,” Amanda said dreamily.
Regi thought it over. “We’re even more flat than the moon. Say, why not?”
Suddenly there was a whoosh, and Amanda’s pupils enlarged. It was pitch dark! The air felt cooler, more still. Amanda blinked. What she saw immediately drew her breath away.
She was staring out into outer space! Billions of stars encircled her, and lo and behold, there was the Earth – a tiny blue and white ball as small as a marble. Panicking, she looked down at her feet, and saw grey packed dust. Fear drove her to glance out into several different directions. Craters everywhere, lifeless landscape, and not a speck of green to be found.
She was on the moon!
Horrified, she gasped three times, overcome with a jolt, as if anti-freeze was poured throughout every crevice in her brain matter. Regi hugged her from behind to soothe her.
Amanda’s logic rose to the forefront. “How can we breathe?” She swivelled to look at Regi in alarm.
“It’s okay,” Regi held up his hand. “I created an air bubble around us. It’ll last as long as you wish.”
“Whew,” Amanda said, placing a hand over her heart to make sure it was still beating. The reality sunk in. “Are we really on the moon?”
“Yes.” Regi held out his hand and pointed at Earth. “Here’s our home planet.”
Jumbled feelings weaved in and out through Amanda. All at once, she was scared, flabbergasted, serene, fascinated, and curious. She felt as if she weighed ten times less. It was like sitting in a waist-deep swimming pool – only that there wasn’t any water anywhere. It felt weird.
She didn’t want to talk. Not now. She only wanted to gaze at Earth as a brilliant blue ball – a sight afforded to very few in Earth’s history. She wanted to consciously savor it, experience it, and relish it. She wondered how she could find the words to describe this astounding experience. Oh, to make the sensation last forever! She was afraid to make a move, even the act of breathing itself, lest she’d somehow zap back to Earth. She should talk to Regi, to thank him, or to acknowledge his presence, but no. Her heart told her to gaze as long as she could. To do nothing. She followed her heart.
Regi didn’t make a move either. He gazed out in the same direction as Amanda, spellbound. He showed absolutely no indication of impatience or worry.
For several minutes, they stood as if in a trance, their necks extended, facing toward the only planetary body they called home. Every time Amanda felt an urge to break off her gaze out into space, she brushed it aside.
Finally, she breathed out and said, “This is beautiful.”
“Yeah.” Regi responded in equal awe.
Despite herself, Amanda reached out for Regi’s hand. Surprised, he allowed Amanda to squeeze upon it. She maintained an even grip on him for several more seconds, then let go.
“Have you been here before?”
Regi shrugged, but kept his expression of wonder. “Many times.”
“You’re so lucky.”
“I know.”
Amanda remained transfixed by the surreal atmosphere before her. “So, now I’m the first person on the moon for several decades.”
Regi shook his head. “No, Amanda. You are the first Mortal to be on the moon. Ever.”
Amanda stepped back from Regi in shock. No, he probably didn’t know. She said, “Regi, humans have commanded a rocket to the moon. We first arrived here in July 1969…”
Regi waved aside her assertion. “I’m very familiar with the official line. Amanda, it was all faked.”
Her face turned ashen. Her senses became dull. She didn’t know what to think. She instinctively tried to reason out Regi’s words.
“You mean man didn’t land on the moon?”
“Nope. You were talking about July 1969. Well, as soon as the wizards heard, I mean our ancestors, they immediately went to the moon to look for the spacecraft. There was nothing.”
“Nothing?“
“Nothing. Except for dozens of probes launched from Earth to land on the moon. But none of the Apollo manned missions have been found anywhere on the moon. And certainly no flag.”
Amanda allowed the news to sink in. “Then all the stories of man landing on the moon are not real.”
“No,” Regi grimly said.
Amanda conveyed an expression of incredulity and sadness to Regi. Then she broke away. “I’m very disappointed in humanity. During the past ten years, during the Great Blight, they’ve bankrupted themselves and nearly came to war. Before the Liberators came.” She reflected, and then looked at Regi. “And now they’ve lied about the moon landings, too.”
“Amanda,” Regi said softly. “Don’t be so harsh. Mortals h
ave done a lot of good, too.”
She scoffed. “Well, look at you wizards. Everything seems so perfect.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You don’t know everything.”
Silence hung in the air bubble, which protected them from an asphyxiating death on the moon’s surface.
“Time to go back.”
Amanda suddenly remembered her mission to obtain as many secrets as she could from the wizards. She groaned inwardly. Due to the dramatic incursions she had just experienced, there was no opportunity for her to ease into subtle questioning about the world of the wizards. And she didn’t even learn anything about Regi today, other than his home town was Moose Jaw. She frowned. Regi was awfully nice and modest. Yet he’d managed to spend a few hours with her without revealing anything about himself. Clever, or just the way he was?
She’d have to try again with Regi later.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One year, two months post-Liberation
Amanda was the last to arrive for the council meeting. As she sat, she noticed both Demus and Regi steal glances at her. She felt as if she was going to blush, but didn’t. She’d gotten quite chummy with both Demus and Regi, having spent hours with them during briefings on statistics and reports. She intensely disliked Indie, due to her bossy manner, but thankfully Indie didn’t seem to realize that. Justica was a tough nut to figure out. She was very gracious and polite, but very reserved. It was ironic that Justica had demonstrated the most intimate family background to Amanda during her four “glimpses” into each wizard’s past, but still remained the most aloof.
Amanda smiled back at both Demus and Regi at different times, attempting to appear friendly but not too “buddy-buddy.” This was a business meeting now. It was another Debate Day, and she had meticulously prepared for this meeting.
As usual, the magical meeting was held one kilometer above Earth, this time directly upward from Watertown, New York. The wizards had always changed the location of their skyward meetings to avoid giving advance information to antagonists; so that no improvised missiles from private stockpiles would be aimed their way.
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