Wizard Squared

by K. E. Mills

  “Are you sure?” Sir Alec murmured, then glanced pointedly at the hand restraining him.

  Oh. He let go. “Yes.”

  Sir Alec wasn’t convinced. “Look at his eyes, Mr. Markham. I don’t think you can say with any authority what your friend—your former friend—is likely to do.”

  He didn’t want to, but he looked at Gerald’s eyes. The last time he’d seen them they were a nice, ordinary brown. And now—now—

  “I don’t care,” he said, dogged, his stomach heaving in protest. “I know Gerald. No matter what he’s done, no matter what—what kind of magics he’s mucking around with, he would never hurt Reg.”

  Sir Alec snorted. “Well, for the bird’s sake, Mr. Markham, I hope you’re right.”

  Yeah, well, so do I. He glanced down at Melissande. “Is that Lional?”

  Shivering, she nodded. “Please, Monk. We have to do something. I know Lional’s awful but—”

  “But he doesn’t deserve that,” said Rupert. “Melissande’s right, we have to—”

  “Wait,” he said sharply. “Because I’m telling you, right now Reg is our best hope of this mess not blowing up in our faces.”

  Landed safely on the bright green grass—well, green where it wasn’t splattered with blood—Reg was marching to and fro like a sergeant major at mess-time inspection. Ignoring Lional, Gerald had dropped to a crouch and was watching her closely, his lips twisted in a faint, almost amused smile.

  “—don’t believe this, Gerald,” Reg was saying, her voice unusually high-pitched. “I mean, not that I care a fat rat’s ass about this tosser—” she flipped a contemptuous wing at Gerald’s prisoner and kept on truculently marching, “—but even if you are giving him a taste of his own medicine—and I don’t blame you for that, nobody would, he did you such a mischief—I do take exception to you ignoring my excellent advice and dabbling your fingers in those mucky grimoire pies!”

  Sighing, Gerald shook his head. “Reg, honestly. I’m fine.”

  “Fine? Fine?” she demanded, and bounced up and down. “Gerald Dunwoody, have you looked in a mirror? You are not fine. Your eyes would give a ghost nightmares!”

  “My eyes?” said Gerald, puzzled. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with my eyes?”

  “They’ve gone crimson, you tosser!” Reg shouted, tail rattling fiercely. “Like someone’s stuck two live coals in your daft head!”

  “Oh,” said Gerald, after a moment. “Oh, well. It could be worse, Reg. They could have exploded, like Lional’s eye.”

  Bloody hell. Monk exchanged a glance with Sir Alec, whose carefully blank expression gave nothing away. And then, before he or anyone else could stop her, Melissande abandoned the sensible wait and see approach and launched herself at Gerald.

  “Professor Dunwoody! As New Ottosland’s former prime minister I demand to know what you’re doing!”

  Gerald rose out of his crouch, that still not-quite-amused smile curving his lips. Shoving his hands in his pockets he rocked a little on his heels.

  “What does it look like I’m doing, Melissande? I’m making Lional sorry.”

  To her credit, Melissande looked at her oldest brother without throwing up all over him. “And I’m sure he is sorry,” she said, her voice almost steady. “I’m sure he’s very sorry. But I think you’ve made your point, Gerald. I think it’s time to stop.”

  “Stop?” said Gerald. “Oh no. I don’t think so. I’ve hardly begun.”

  Melissande tilted her chin at him. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist, Professor. I appreciate the sentiment behind your actions but we have our own judicial system here in New Ottosland. You have to let our laws deal with Lional, and what he’s done.”

  Gerald shook his head. “There are no laws to cover the crimes Lional’s committed, Melissande. Not even the international wizarding community has a statute to fit him.”

  “Then we’ll write one,” said Sir Alec, following Melissande’s lead. “I’ll see that an emergency sitting of the United Magical Nations is convened, so contingency charges can be drawn up to deal with these extraordinary events.”

  Hanging back, Monk watched Gerald watch Sir Alec approach, an unsettling, detached curiosity lighting his altered face. “Really? And who are you? I don’t think we’ve met.”

  Halting a pace away, Sir Alec nodded a wary greeting. “We haven’t, Mr. Dunwoody. My name is Sir Alec… and we have to talk.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gerald’s unnerving smile didn’t waver. “Ah. I take it you’re from the Department of Thaumaturgy?”

  Sir Alec nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Which division?”

  “Special Operations,” said Sir Alec, after the briefest hesitation.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I’d be alarmed if you had, Mr. Dunwoody,” said Sir Alec. “Now, if I might suggest—”

  “No, you might not,” said Gerald, with a bite in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “You and I, Sir Alec, have nothing to talk about. This isn’t Ottosland. You have no jurisdiction here.”

  And now it was Rupert’s turn to join the fray. “Sir Alec has whatever jurisdiction I choose to grant him,” he said, joining Melissande. “Professor—”

  Gerald turned. Eyebrows lifting, he ran his dreadfully altered gaze up and down Melissande’s other brother. On the ground beside him, amidst the beds of hollyhocks, pansies and snapdragons, Lional trickled blood and moaned.

  “Why, Rupert. You look… different.”

  “Not as different as you,” said Rupert, standing his ground despite all the changes in New Ottosland’s royal court wizard. Impressed, Monk wished he could tell him to shut up before he talked himself into trouble. “Gerald—is it true? What they’re saying? Did you—have you—”

  “Stuffed a few new tricks down my shorts?” Gerald grinned. In that swift moment he almost looked like himself. “Yes, Rupert. It’s true.”

  Rupert shook his head. “That was very brave of you. And very, very foolish. I wish you hadn’t.”

  “And I wish I hadn’t had to,” said Gerald, shrugging. “But the thing is, Rupert, life can be a bugger that way. Now—what about you? What’s your explanation? Because right now, old chap, I’d have to say that despite the unfortunate plus-fours you’re looking positively kingly. As though you wouldn’t know the difference between a Dumb Cluck and a donkey.”

  And the notion didn’t seem to amuse him at all. His etheretic aura was electric. Feeling it, Monk didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Stand Gerald near a thaumatograph now and he’d melt it to slag.

  Oh, Saint Snodgrass’s bunions. I’m good, but if it comes right down to it I don’t think I can take him. I don’t think I can take him even if Sir Alec lends a hand. I don’t even know if that’s Gerald any more.

  The notion was so appalling he was hard put to keep his dismay a secret. He could feel fear and a terrible grief building in his throat.

  God, Gerald. Please. Let’s stop this before it’s too late.

  Rupert was dithering, uncertain how to answer this new and not-so-improved Professor Dunwoody. Even Melissande seemed shocked to uncertainty.

  “I think,” said Sir Alec, with a sharp look at the royal siblings beside him, “that this might not be the best venue for our discussion. King Lional requires medical attention—and rigorous incarceration, given—”

  “No, he doesn’t,” said Gerald. Despite his dangerous aura he sounded positively cheerful. “Lional’s perfectly harmless now. Couldn’t hurt a butterfly. Not any more.” He nudged Lional’s flaccid left arm with his foot. “Could you, Your Majesty? And you wouldn’t want to either, would you? You’ve been a very bad boy but you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?”

  Bloodied eyes closed, his ribs hardly moving as he breathed, Lional didn’t respond.

  But Reg did. Having abandoned her sergeant-majorish struttings and tail-rattlings, now she sat on the grass with her feathers fluffed out like a hen ready to roost.


  “Harmless?” she hooted, monumentally disbelieving. “That deranged tosser? That’ll be the day! You need a cool drink and a lie down, Gerald, all this excitement has gone to your—”

  Gerald’s dreadful crimson eyes flared. “I said I’ve taken care of it.”

  Monk felt the power behind the words sear the air and scorch his skin. He heard Melissande’s little gasp. Rupert’s, too. Saw Sir Alec fail to hide a flinch. On the grass, Reg opened her beak in shock, all her feathers abruptly flattened.

  “Now, now,” she said, rallying. “I’m sure there’s no need to take that tone of voice.”

  “Sorry,” said Gerald—but any sorrow was perfunctory. There radiated from him now the most obliterating sense of power, as though a candle had been transmogged into a blast furnace. “I just—I don’t like it when people doubt me. You know that, Reg. It hurts my feelings.”

  “Oh, stop being so sensitive,” she snapped. “This isn’t about your feelings, sunshine, it’s about you having taken leave of your senses. And another thing—why are you talking like a third-rate mustache-twirling villain all of a sudden? It’s not like you, Gerald. None of this is.”

  “No?” Gerald’s slow smile was chilling. “What if you’re wrong, Reg? What if this is the most like me I’ve ever been?”

  Monk swallowed. Never in a million years would he have believed he’d ever have to treat carefully around Gerald Dunwoody. But this was like balancing polarity-opposed tetrathaumicles in an etheretic combustion chamber.

  He took a cautious step forward. “That sounds… wonderful, mate. I’m pleased for you. Honest. But if you don’t mind me asking—when you say you’ve taken care of it—you’re talking about King Lional, right? You’ve—you’ve—” He tried not to look at the bloodied, stuporous, half-blind man at his friend’s feet. “You’ve rapped him over the knuckles, let’s say, and—”

  “I mean I’ve sorted him out,” Gerald said, impatient. “For good. I’ve defanged him, Monk. No more magic. I took back the potentias he stole. Thanks to me Lional can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

  He’d done what? “But—but—” He beat down the urge to stagger about clutching at his hair. “Gerald—”

  “Oh, come on, Monk,” said Gerald. Smiling again, but not nicely. Not like the Gerald he used to know. The Gerald he’d bullied and cajoled into answering Melissande’s desperate job advertisement. “I thought you of all people would understand.”

  He stared, his heart painfully pounding. Understand what, mate? That Reg and I are right and you’ve gone around the bend? “Am I being thick? Sorry. It’s only—well—this is all a bit much to take in, y’know?”

  “It’s not that much,” said Gerald. Impatient again, with a nasty undertone of arrogance.

  But Gerald’s not arrogant. That’s not who he is.

  Or—who he was.

  And that’s the question, isn’t it? How much of this man is still Gerald? My friend. The stubbornly conscientious wizard I left behind.

  From the looks of things… not enough.

  “If I might inquire,” said Sir Alec, breaking the taut silence. “Once you removed the stolen potentias, Mr. Dunwoody, what did you do with them?”

  Gerald shrugged. “I got rid of them.”

  “You didn’t—” Sir Alec hesitated, “—make use of them yourself?”

  “No!” said Gerald. Now he looked genuinely shocked. “What do you take me for? A ghoul, like Lional? I dissipated them into the ether. It was the least I could do.”

  “I see,” said Sir Alec. He was very quiet, and so watchful. “That’s impressive, Mr. Dunwoody. Really. But it’s not what one might call orthodox incanting. So I take it that means—”

  “Oh, come on, man!” said Gerald. “Stop being coy. Yes, I made use of the proscribed texts Lional took from Pomodoro Uffitzi. Enhanced my natural thaumaturgic abilities—which as it turns out are a lot more impressive than I’d been led to believe. But don’t tell me that’s news to you. I’ll bet when I activated all those interesting incants the etheretic surge blew up half the DoT’s monitoring equipment.”

  Sir Alec risked a swift, wintry smile. “As it happens we did notice some unusual thaumaturgic activity. And we assumed it had something to do with you. But it never hurts to have one’s theory confirmed.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” said Gerald, choosing to be amused. “Especially since someone somewhere is expecting a report about this. Am I right?”

  “Well…” Sir Alec flicked a speck of lint from his sleeve. “I do serve a bureaucracy, which would grind to a halt without regular reports.”

  Gerald pulled a rueful face—and for a split second he looked like his old self. “I know. I used to be a probationary compliance officer. Practically gave myself arthritis, writing reports.”

  “I’m gratified you understand, Mr. Dunwoody.”

  “Oh, I do, Sir Alec,” said Gerald, as earnest as ever he used to be. Only now his sincerity struck a sour, false note. Hearing it, Reg rattled her tail.

  Monk managed to catch her eye. Don’t. Don’t. It’s too dangerous. Don’t. But Reg, being Reg, ignored him.

  “So let me get this straight, sunshine,” she said. “Just so there aren’t any misunderstandings. Even though I told you not to, you barged right in and mucked about with those filthy grimoires.”

  Haughtily surprised, Gerald looked down at her. “That’s right. Because the last time I looked, Reg, you weren’t my mother. I did what had to be done. What you and Monk were too frightened to do. What Shugat was too selfish to do, and Melissande and Rupert here were too incompetent to do. I stopped Lional. I saved New Ottosland. And I think it’d be nice if you just said thank you and left it at that.”

  Monk blinked, the blood thundering in his ears. Oh, no. Oh, no. The heartbreak in Reg’s eyes as she stared at Gerald was breaking his heart…

  Dammit, mate. You bloody fool. You didn’t have to do this. We’d have found a way to stop Lional without this.

  Melissande and Rupert were staring too, in guilty dismay. As for Sir Alec, his face was glass-smooth, revealing nothing of his thoughts or feelings. The silence surrounding them seemed to deepen. Grow cold. Even the palace garden birds were hushed.

  “Now I realize,” said Gerald, turning to Sir Alec, “that what I’ve done is a violation of the Official Code of Conduct but I’m sure you’ll agree I didn’t have a choice.” He spread his empty hands wide and smiled, one bureaucrat to another. “Exigent circumstances. I was saving a kingdom.”

  Sir Alec nodded, still giving nothing away. “Certainly that’s a legal argument, Mr. Dunwoody. One I’ll be sure to mention in my report to the Ministry.”

  As Gerald and Sir Alec stared at each other like fencers over their crossed, unbuttoned blades, Monk cleared his throat. “So, Gerald—exactly how much of those proscribed thaumaturgics did you take on board? Was it just Grummen’s Lexicon, or—”

  “No,” said Gerald, his voice edged, his gaze still locked with Sir Alec’s. “I took them all.”

  “And when you say all,” said Sir Alec, glacially calm, “what exactly do you mean?”

  Gerald’s face tightened. “You’re being coy again, Sir Alec. I don’t like it.”

  Reg rattled her tail feathers. “Never mind what you do and don’t like, sunshine. Just answer the bloody question.”

  And that earned her a hot look, nastily annoyed and so not-Gerald. Suddenly afraid—bloody hell, I’m afraid if Gerald Dunwoody—Monk took another step forward, seeking to distract him. Because if Gerald lost his temper and did something awful to Reg—

  “I know it’s a nuisance, mate,” he said, trying to sound helpful and unafraid, “but probably we should know what texts Uffitzi was hiding. Probably there’ll be forms to fill out about them, once we get back to—”

  “I like patronizing even less than coy, Monk,” said Gerald, his dreadful crimson gaze narrow. “Do you mind?”

  And maybe Reg was right. Maybe the time had come for a little pushing back and
bugger the danger. “Actually I do, yeah,” he retorted. “You’re the one being coy here, Gerald. Not us. So come clean and be done with it. What other grimoires did Lional have stashed away besides the Lexicon?”

  Gerald seemed genuinely shocked by that. “Come clean? You make it sound like I’m a criminal, Monk, instead of—”

  Of what. A hero? His gaze flickered to Lional. What kind of hero does that to a man? “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Gerald, with a theatrical sigh. “If you must know, New Ottosland’s former king had six grimoires in total.” He held up his fingers and started counting them off. “The Lexicon, a Pygram’s, a Foyle’s Foilers, a Compendium of Curses, Madam Bartholomew’s Little Surprise and—oh, yes. Trinauld’s Guide to the Unnatural. All in all a really fascinating collection.” He smiled. It was horrible. “I can personally vouch for the Pygram’s. Lional used every last hex on me in the cave, y’know.”

  Turning to Sir Alec, feeling sicker than ever, Monk saw that his uncle’s mysterious colleague had paled. Oh, no. This can’t be good. “Sir Alec?”

  “Every one of those texts is on the international proscribed list,” Sir Alec said, his voice harsh with revulsion. “Arguably they are the six most feared grimoires in the history of thaumaturgy. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are notorious.”

  “Notorious, eh?” said Gerald, obscenely cheerful. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Bloody awful, some of those incants. Enough to turn your stomach inside out—and I’m not talking metaphorically.”

  “Although—” Sir Alec was watching Gerald closely. “I was under the impression that both the Bartholomew and the Guide were no longer extant.”

  “Were you?” said Gerald, one eyebrow raised. “Oh. Then somebody in Records needs their wrist slapped, don’t they?” Then he frowned. “Mind you, now that I think about it—” He looked down at Reg again, lips pursed. “D’you know, it occurs to me that in between all that nagging you might have had a point.”