by K. E. Mills
“Oh, Gerald, this is so exciting,” said Bibbie, clapping her hands. “Ottosland’s very first invasion.”
Yes. And once Babishkia fell, the other lesser nations would fall twice as fast… provided he was able to hold off Gonegal and his short-sighted allies in the UMN.
But failure wasn’t something he thought about. He couldn’t fail. He was Gerald Dunwoody.
He slapped Bibbie’s temptingly rounded behind. “Go and fetch the Professor, Bibs. Taking Babishkia won’t help us if the machine’s not ready. It’s time Gerry rolled his sleeves up and got down to work.”
Bibbie’s hand on his shoulder startled him out of his doze. Seeing her sweet face beside his, smiling, he thought for the briefest moment that it really had been the worst kind of dream. And then he blinked… and the Cabinet dining room swam back into one-eyed focus.
The disappointment was so sharp that he gasped.
“Come along, Gerry,” said the Bibbie with short hair and makeup. “Gerald wants you.”
In numb silence he followed her back to the Cabinet room, where his counterpart was sitting in a chair with his crossed heels on the conference table. His only company was shadbolted Prime Minister Attaby, whose dull stare was carefully trained upon the carpet.
“Ah! Professor!” said the other Gerald, with a genial smile. “There you are. Ready to go?”
He was desperate to know what they’d been up to while he twiddled his thumbs in the dining room. He wanted to ask, but something dangerously brittle in the other Gerald’s voice dissuaded him. Whatever had happened, he thought it had sickened Attaby. There was some new strain in the shadbolted man’s gray face…
The other Gerald swung his feet to the floor. “Right. So, now that things are under control here for the next little while, you and I and Bibbie are going to—”
On the conference table, the large crystal ball chimed.
“Damooj again?” said the other Gerald, surprised. “My word, that was fast.” He glared at Attaby. “Well, come on man, don’t stand there like a noggin. Find out what he wants!”
“Yes, sir,” said Attaby, and accepted the call.
The crystal ball’s flashing green light was replaced by a man with a wolfish face and bright blue eyes full of disdain. Gerald felt his blood leap. Tambotan of Jandria. Jandria? What the devil was this?
Attaby flicked an anguished glance at the other Gerald and eased a finger between his collar and his throat. “Ah—Prime Minister Tambotan. Greetings, sir.”
“I do not care for your greetings, Attaby,” Tambotan snarled. “I want to speak to him. Send for him immediately.”
Bibbie sighed, rolling her eyes. “Y’know, Gerald,” she whispered loudly, “I’m beginning to think it was a mistake to pay Jandria any attention at all. Tambotan can’t seem to grasp he’s not in charge.”
Standing, the other Gerald cupped his hand to the back of her neck and kissed her, hard. “Don’t fret, Bibs. He’ll grasp it soon enough. But I do appreciate you getting all… hot and bothered… on my behalf.”
Bibbie laughed, but she was blushing. “I’ll always get hot and bothered for you, Gerald.”
“Glad to hear it,” the other Gerald said. “Now shut up. Like politicians, beautiful women should be seen and almost never heard.” Abandoning dumbstruck Bibbie, he approached the crystal ball. “What d’you want, Tambotan? I thought I made it clear I wasn’t to be bothered again.”
“And I thought I made it clear,” retorted Tambotan, “that there would be no alliance with Jandria unless certain conditions were met.”
The other Gerald was smiling, but he wasn’t amused. “I met the conditions I was interested in meeting. You can wait for the rest.”
“Why should I?” demanded Tambotan.
“You haven’t proven yourself trustworthy, that’s why,” the other Gerald retorted. “Once you’ve lost a few dozen of those airships I helped you build, defending Ottosland from the UMN, then I’ll think about giving you something else.”
Tambotan’s glare should have ignited the ether. “At least give us the weapons you promised. The thaumaturgically-enhanced guns.”
The other Gerald heaved a put-upon sigh. “You see, Professor?” he said, turning. “This is what happens when you give people things without getting something in return. They start taking you for granted. I swear, the way he keeps putting his hand out you’d think I was a genie in a magic lamp.”
Gerald cleared his throat. “You gave the Jandrians airship designs? Didn’t you have the war here, too? When they used airships to—”
“Yes, yes, but that was then and this is now,” said his counterpart impatiently. “Now they’re fighting with us, not against us. At least that’s the idea.” He turned back to the crystal ball. “All right, Tambotan. You can have the souped-up guns. I’ll make the arrangements. Just you be ready, you and the others, in case the UMN won’t take bugger off for an answer. Right?”
Tambotan, his eyes narrowed, touched his forehead in formal salute. “We’ll be ready.”
“Of course,” said the other Gerald, once the crystal ball connection was severed, “what Tambotan doesn’t know is that I’ve embedded an incant in the weapons that means one word from me and they’ll go up like fireworks. Never give a man a gun unless you’ve made sure he can’t point it at you, Professor. Bibbie!”
Bibbie roused out of her slouching sulk. “Yes?”
“How long has your brother been shut away in his lab, now?”
“Um—” She frowned at the ceiling. “Three days, twelve hours and twenty-four—no, make that five—minutes.”
“Really? Is it that long?” said the other Gerald briskly. “Gosh. I’ll bet the poor chap’s lonely. I think he’d like some company, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bibbie. The sly smile was back, as though she and the other Gerald were sharing a private joke. “I’m sure he would.”
“Then let’s pay him a visit and see where he’s up to. For his sake I hope he’s got the job done, as promised. Professor—”
He let himself feel the depth of his relief. Monk. Oh, thank God. “Yes, Gerald?”
“Anything you wanted to say to this fool before we go?”
He stared at silent Prime Minister Attaby, whose chain of office was a sad and terrible prank. “No. No, not really.”
The other Gerald laughed, and slapped himself on the head. “I’m an idiot. I wanted to say something. Attaby?”
Attaby stood to attention, his eyes frightened. “Sir.”
“This is Gerald Dunwoody,” said the other Gerald, waving his hand. “Don’t let the silver eye fool you—” He glanced sideways. “Did you know the color-incant’s worn off, Gerald? Anyway—remarkable as it may seem, this man is me. More or less. To be strictly accurate, he’s another version of me. And that’s all you need to know about that. He’s here to work with me, to ensure Ottosland’s supremacy. Which means that you’ll be answerable to him too. In due course. That’s all. I just wanted to keep you apprised of developments. You can get back to work now.”
Attaby bowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Right then,” said the other Gerald, turning away as though Attaby had ceased to exist. “Off we go. I can’t wait to see what Monk’s come up with. Although—” Heading for the door, he glanced behind him, one arm draped around Bibbie’s shoulder. “I should warn you, Professor—our good friend’s looking a little the worse for wear these days. Try not to go on about it. Turns out Mr. Markham’s a bit more sensitive than we thought.”
“Oh,” said Gerald faintly, following. “I see. Well. Thanks for letting me know.”
Bloody hell. You bastard. What have you done?
They drove through the almost empty, rain-splattered streets to the Department of Thaumaturgy building, where they were waved through to an empty underground garage. Feeling sick again, dreading what he was about to find, Gerald followed his counterpart and Bibbie up three flights of basement stairs and into the building proper. Looking around, he
recognized his own Monk’s Research and Development laboratory complex—but it seemed deserted. He couldn’t sense the presence of any other wizards. Even the ether was silent, no eddies and currents of thaumaturgic activity. It didn’t feel like R&D at all. So where was everyone?
I don’t think I want to know.
Noticing his confusion as they headed down the central corridor, the other Gerald grinned. “Don’t worry, Professor. The Department’s other wizards aren’t dead. They’re just—otherwise occupied.” The grin widened. “Bloody Errol Haythwaite. Is yours still alive?”
He nodded warily. “Yes.”
“So’s mine, more’s the pity,” said his counterpart, leading them out of the main corridor into a maze of shorter, narrower corridors linking a series of small thaumaturgic labs. “I keep hoping he’ll give me a reason to squash him like a bug, but he doesn’t. God, I hate him.”
“You need a reason to squash him?” he said, remembering those other awful exhibits in the parade ground. “I’m surprised.”
Spinning so he was walking backwards again, his counterpart frowned. “Watch it, sunshine. I’m the only one who gets to be sarcastic around here.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “Sorry.”
“You will be, if you’re not careful,” said Bibbie. “We might need you, Gerry, but that’s not to say there’s bits of you that can’t be dispensed with at a pinch.” She smiled that sly smile. “And then there’s Melissande, don’t forget.”
The other Gerald gave her a pleased nod. “That’s my girl.”
The trick was not to listen when they said things like that. “So why haven’t you squashed Errol? Made him part of your outdoors amusement park?” he said. “Since you hate him so much, and since I can’t imagine he didn’t try to interfere with your plans—why isn’t he dead?”
The other Gerald heaved a sigh and spun around to walk face-forward again. “You tell me, Professor.”
How much do I hate that I know how he thinks? “Because you never know when a top-notch First Grade wizard might come in handy.”
His counterpart laughed. “You’re a fiendishly clever man, Gerald Dunwoody.”
“So where is he?”
More laughter, rich and filled with a genuine delight. “He and his dear friends Kirkby-Hackett and Cobcroft Minor, shadbolt-shackled to the eyeballs, the bastards, are currently slaving as kitchen hands in the greasy bowels of Government House. In fact, they’re probably washing our lunch plates as we speak. And to think—Errol used to be one of Ottosland’s premier airship designers. How’s that for revenge?”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed. The idea of superior, elegant Errol up to his elbows in dirty pots and pans…
“I thought you might appreciate the notion,” the other Gerald said, grinning. “What’s he doing in your world? Something menial, I hope.”
He stopped laughing. Bugger. “I—don’t know. Errol and I lost touch.”
“I never liked him either,” said Bibbie, her eyes smoldering with remembered resentment. “At parties he always used to try and look down my dress.”
Stunned, Gerald stumbled. She’d said that before. No. His Bibbie had said it. At home. In the parlor. Bibbie and Monk and Mel and Reg and him, working together to solve the mystery at Wycliffe’s.
God. What is wrong with me? I can’t laugh with these people. She’s not my Bibbie. I’m not their friend.
The other Gerald frowned. “Something the matter, Professor?”
Oh, only everything. “No.”
“Not feeling sorry for Haythwaite, are you? Because if anyone deserves a good shadbolting, he does.” They’d reached the end of the latest corridor, and a massively hexed door. Halting, spinning around again, the other Gerald smiled beatifically. “Saint Snodgrass be praised, Professor. I bloody love a good shadbolt.”
With an effort he kept his breathing slow and steady. “I’ve noticed. So why aren’t I wearing one?”
“Because, Professor,” said his counterpart, smile fading, eyes sharply watchful again, “as you know perfectly well, you’re shadbolt-proofed. Just like Sir Alec. Exactly like Sir Alec, actually. I don’t suppose you’d like to explain that, would you?”
I’m what? Since when? “No, not really.”
The other Gerald considered him closely. “Blimey. You didn’t know you were shadbolt-proof, did you? How’s that possible, a wizard with our potentia?”
Sir Alec must’ve done it—or had it done—at some point during his janitor training. Sneakily, and undetectably. Probably during one of those interminable tests. Was Monk a part of it? He gave new meaning to the notion of sneaky and undetectable. But why do it and not tell him? What would Sir Alec have to gain by keeping it secret?
When I get back home, he and I are going to have some words…
His heart thudded. When I get back home. But the way things were looking he wasn’t going to get back, was he? Barring some kind of miracle he was trapped in this appalling, madhouse mirror world. And if that miracle didn’t come in the shape of one Monk Debinger Aloysius Markham, then he was pretty sure it would never come at all.
“Professor?” said his counterpart, seeming more alarmed than cross. “Your wits are wandering again. Should I be taking you to see a doctor?”
Bloody hell, if he so much as suspects I’m a janitor that’ll be it. I’ll have no hope of escape.
“What?” he said, trying to sound harmless. “No. I’m fine. I’m just—” Discovering how good I am at tap-dancing on eggshells. “I’m trying to remember when it could’ve happened. The shadbolt-proofing.”
The other Gerald raised an eyebrow. “And?”
Cover story, cover story, he needed a plausible cover story… A good janitor, Mr. Dunwoody, knows how to think on his feet.
“Well, I can’t be certain,” he said slowly, “but—I think it might’ve been when I was still a compliance officer. I needed money. You remember how skint we were. R&D was starting some paid double-blind thaumaturgic trials. Monk never told me what they were, just said they were perfectly safe. The boffins must’ve been testing a new shadbolt-proofing incant. They never explained either, and I didn’t ask. R&D—they’re so bloody hush-hush. It was about a month before the accident at Stuttley’s. You didn’t—that didn’t happen here?”
“The accident happened,” said the other Gerald. “Not the R&D trial.”
He shrugged, doing his best to look innocent and bemused. “Oh. All right. Odd, isn’t it, the bits and pieces of our worlds that don’t fit? Well, anyway, that’s the only explanation I can think of.”
And truer words have never been spoken. At least not by me.
“It makes sense, Gerald,” said Bibbie, slumped against the corridor wall and trying not to look bored. “Now honestly, can we see where Monk’s up to and then go? Because I’d really like to—”
His sharp look having silenced her, the other Gerald folded his arms and tapped his fingers, edgily thoughtful. “What is it you do these days, Professor? Back in your world?”
Ah. Right. Damn. His counterpart’s lack of curiosity had always been too good to last. What do they say? The easiest lies are the ones we tell ourselves? “I… consult, Gerald. Solve problems of a thaumaturgical nature.”
“And how is it you know Sir Alec Oldman?”
Careful now, careful. “Well, I wouldn’t say I know him,” he said, casually dismissive. “We’re slightly acquainted. We crossed paths after I got home from New Ottosland.” He shrugged. “Sir Alec was just one of a long line of government busybodies I had to put up with while the dust was settling. Look—how come you don’t know this? I mean, if you’ve got the wherewithal to pluck me from my world into yours, how can you not know who I am there?”
The other Gerald smiled thinly. “The plucking, as you call it, Professor, is a brand new feat. As it stands I wouldn’t call the technique precisely refined. But don’t worry. Once Monk’s taken care of a few other tasks I have in mind he’ll be turning his prodigious talents to the
reading of alternative dimensions. In fact, we all will. But for now first things first. Just like dominoes, worlds need to fall one at a time.”
It was the off-handed way the words were said that made him ill.
Bloody hell. So that’s it. That’s his grand plan. It’s not enough to rule one world. He wants to rule them all.
“What?” said the other Gerald, reading him like a book. “Oh come on, Professor. Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”
He didn’t know what he was… except terrified and sick.
Sighing, the other Gerald unfolded his arms and pressed his left hand flat to the locked door before them. With a blinding surge of power the tangle of warding hexes on the door deactivated, blowing them all back several paces.
“What did you expect, Professor?” said his counterpart, grinning. “Keeping Monk Markham penned isn’t exactly child’s play.” With a snap of his fingers the de-hexed door swung open. “After you.”
The first thing he saw, walking into the unsealed lab with the other Gerald and Bibbie on his heels—was Reg. This world’s Reg. Crammed into a cage dangling from a tall stand, tail feathers sticking out through its bars, fluffed-up and miserable. Her beak was tied shut with a length of red ribbon. When she saw him she made a strangled sound of surprise.
He stopped dead.
You bastard. You utter, utter, pillocking bastard. I will kill you for this. I swear you are dead.
With a bang and a thaumic blast, the laboratory door swung shut behind them, the warding incants reigniting.
The other Gerald put a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t be too careful, Professor. Like I said, this is Monk. And look, there she is. Reg. Didn’t I say you’d be seeing her?”
He swallowed acid and bile. “Get her out of that damned cage, Gerald.”
“I will,” the other Gerald said. “In a minute. Say hello to Monk, why don’t you?”
Oh, yes. There was Monk. This world’s Monk. Shadbolted like Attaby and the others, and barricaded behind a veritable wall of thaumaturgical apparatus, monitors and etheretic flux capacitors and test tubes and various bits and pieces he couldn’t put a name to, wearing an expression that could only be described as stunned.
