An Unwelcome Quest (Magic 2.0 Book 3)

by Scott Meyer

  “So, then, why are we here?” Phillip asked.

  “Well, that’s the thing. I was thinking about it, and I realized that while I’d gotten the best revenge, none of you knew about it, and really, what kind of revenge is it if the people you got revenge on have no idea you got revenge? It bugged me. So I decided to come back and tell you all how I got the best revenge.”

  “And now you have,” Phillip said.

  “Yes,” Todd agreed. “And then I thought, while I’m going to be in contact with you all anyway, why not try the other kind of revenge too, just to compare.”

  “Ah. I see,” Phillip said.

  “Yes,” Todd said. “I bet you do. So, look, you dummies already know you can’t do magic to get out of this, and we all know you’re going to get hungry and thirsty pretty soon. What you may not realize is that you’re never going to get off that rock you’re standing on until you answer the hermit’s questions, so you’d better get to it.”

  “And what?” Gary asked. “You’re just going to watch us run through your little maze for your amusement?”

  Todd said, “Yeah, you’ve got the idea. It’s not a little maze, though. It’s a full-on epic quest, full of hardship, adversity, and danger.”

  “And you built it just to torture us?” Tyler asked.

  “I designed it, but most of the actual work was done by interns. They thought they were working on a game. It’s amazing. They’ll do anything you ask if they think it’ll get them a job as a real game designer. It’s amazing what people will do for you if you just give them some false hope. They’ve really outdone themselves. I can’t wait for you to see it. You’d better get a move on.”

  Todd’s window disappeared.

  The old man said, “I can see you are men of valor. Which of you shall lead his fellows on this quest?”

  The wizards looked at each other, and Phillip said, “I suppose I will.”

  “Good,” the old man said. “And who will be your second, should you fall?”

  Phillip looked at the other wizards, trying to decide whom he’d want in charge if he weren’t around. He would have chosen Tyler, but Tyler might kill Jimmy. If he chose Jimmy, Tyler would kill him, and Phillip would have thought he was right to do it. Gary was nearly as out of the question as Jimmy, so that left one choice.

  “Jeff,” Phillip said. “Jeff is my second.”

  The old man said, “Splendid, then tarry no further. Your quest awaits. Attain the ore, forge the weapon, and take it to the Chasm of Certain Doom, where you shall fulfill the prophecy, and reveal the identity of the chosen one, the man who will be free.”

  “Wait, what prophecy?” Tyler interrupted.

  The old man, being a preprogrammed automaton, continued without noticing the interruption. “And so that you know what danger you face—”

  “Yeah, great. Danger. I’ve heard. What about this prophecy? What’s the deal with that?”

  The old man continued, unperturbed. “There will be a demonstration, so leave this place and seize your destiny, or else a coward’s death will be yours.”

  “No, no,” Tyler said, with just as much tenacity as the old man. “Don’t change the subject. I want to hear about this prophecy.”

  Jeff leaned toward Tyler and said, “Man, it’s just a recording.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said, “but we know Todd’s listening, and he wrote this crap.”

  The old man stepped to the side with a flourish, motioned toward the narrow rock bridge to the forest, and froze as if about to speak. Above him, Todd’s window winked back into existence. Todd looked irritated.

  “You were talking over important dialog,” Todd whined. “How are you supposed to understand what’s going on if you don’t pay attention?”

  “Then make it worth paying attention to,” Tyler yelled. “You don’t lay out the entire quest for us, then just mention that there just happens to be a prophecy. You lead with the prophecy, man! Your hermit should have been all, ‘It is written. Heroes will come. Might you be they?’ Then you tell us what we have to do, and we might just be into it. You don’t lead with ‘This is gonna suck,’ then expect us to be champing at the bit because you ended with ‘Oh, by the way, prophecy!’ That’s just sloppy storytelling.”

  “Oh yeah,” Todd said, “I remember now. You were trying to be a writer, weren’t you?”

  “Hey,” Tyler yelled. “I’m published!”

  “All of the worst books I ever read were published,” Todd replied. “Look, he said that if you bring the mystical weapon to a certain place, the chosen one will be revealed. That’s a prophecy, isn’t it?”

  “You didn’t call it a prophecy before.”

  Todd said, “But it is one, and you’ll find out more about it as you go, okay?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I want to,” Tyler said.

  Todd looked dumfounded for a moment, then sputtered in frustration before finally saying, “You’ve interrupted the whole narrative flow here to insist that I haven’t told you enough about something that now you say you don’t care about. What sense does that make?”

  “What I’m saying,” Tyler explained, “is that you’ve created this fictional story for us to experience, but you have to give us a reason to care what happens, or else we won’t bother to experience it.”

  Todd thought about this and smiled. “Okay. That’s a fair point. I appreciate your note. I’ll tell you what, I’m going to rewind a bit—you can listen to the old man this time and see where he’s going. Then I’ll check in with you and see if you’re emotionally involved.”

  Todd’s window disappeared. The old man, who had been frozen, statue-like, pointing the way across the rock bridge, suddenly lurched back to his original stance, holding his lantern high and blocking the path to the bridge.

  The old man said, “Splendid, then tarry no further. Your quest awaits. Attain the ore, forge the weapon, and take it to the Chasm of Certain Doom, where you will fulfill the prophecy. And so that you know what danger you face, there will be a demonstration, so leave this place and seize your destiny, or else a coward’s death will be yours.” The old man stepped aside with a flourish and again motioned toward the narrow rock bridge that led off of the rocky crag and into the woods beyond.

  The wizards waited for a moment, expecting the old man to say more, but instead they became aware of a distant rumbling noise. They felt the ground shake beneath them; at first it was merely a vibration, but it quickly grew to a steady shaking, strong enough to make them instinctively crouch to lower their centers of gravity. Cracks began to form in the rock beneath them. Without needing to discuss it, they all ran for the bridge, but the unsteady ground made them shamble like drunkards. The cracks grew with alarming speed, and one particularly large crack split the peak into two parts, the largest of which was still attached to the bridge, and the smallest of which held Jeff.

  Jeff saw that his situation was dire. He ran to the edge of his island of rock, but in the time it took him to take three steps, the gap between him and his friends had grown too wide to jump. He managed to skid to a stop just before he fell into the crevasse. For a sickening moment he teetered, the toes of his sneakers hanging over the edge, unable to solidly catch his balance on the shifting surface. Finally, mercifully, his weight shifted backward, and he was able to stand with some dignity. His chunk of rock had shifted at least twenty-five feet away from the main body and somehow had sunk at least ten feet in the process. He looked up at the rest of his group. They were all standing at the edge, looking down at him. They reached for him, but clearly they could see that there was no longer any point.

  Jeff felt his traction slip as the stone that was supporting his weight dropped several inches. He knew the next time it slipped, he’d be going all the way to the floor of the canyon. He couldn’t fly. Todd had taken that power away. He couldn’t teleport. Todd had taken that power awa
y too. It hadn’t really been explicitly spelled out, but Jeff was pretty sure Todd had given him back the power to be killed by falling from a great height.

  Jeff looked up at his friends. As he felt the ground beneath him start to go, he said, “Crud.”

  The others watched helplessly as Jeff fell to the canyon floor, his gray wizard robe fluttering from around his neck and shoulders like a cape. They saw him hit the bottom. None of them held out any hope that he had survived.

  The rest of the group scrambled desperately for the bridge to more stable land. As they ran and stumbled and pulled themselves along on all fours, the granite fell away behind them, driving them on in a blind panic.

  Gary was the first to make it to the woods beyond the rock bridge. Phillip and Jimmy were close behind. Tyler was bringing up the rear, and with each step he took, the piece of ground directly behind him would fall into the abyss.

  He was almost across the bridge, almost safe, when he suddenly said, “Wait a second,” and stopped running. As he stopped, the wave of destruction that was pursuing him slowed and stopped as well. Tyler turned around and looked down at the void behind him. The air was still filled with a cataclysmic rumbling, but there was no sign of further destruction. Tyler took one large step backward, but since he had turned to look into the canyon, he moved closer to the others and safety. As his weight shifted, the stones that had been supporting his weight before immediately fell.

  Tyler shook his head, disgusted. He turned and slowly strolled to the others, the bridge systematically disintegrating behind him until he reached solid ground. He picked up a pinecone and threw it back from where he had come. It flew in a predictable arc until it reached the empty space where the bridge had been, where it bounced. He muttered, “Lazy programming,” his voice dripping with contempt.

  “You mean it’s still there?” Gary cried.

  “The visible parameters were programmed separately from the physical,” Tyler said. “The rocks that made up the bluff were massless shells. The shape of the bluff is still there.”

  Again Todd’s chat window leapt out of the nothingness, and again he didn’t look amused.

  “It just had to look convincing enough to get you to run,” Todd said. “Lazy or not, it did the job, but yeah, you’re right. The mass of the plateau is still there, except the part Jeff was standing on, of course.”

  “What the hell was that?!” Phillip shouted.

  Todd said nothing.

  Phillip shouted, “Todd! We won’t move another inch until you explain what just happened.” They stood at the head of the trail, with a long trek through dark woods ahead of them and a sheer cliff behind them. None of the others made a sound, partly because they were stunned and partly because they wanted the question answered as well.

  Finally, Todd said, “You want me to explain what just happened? Really? The rock crumbled and you ran. I don’t see what’s so difficult for you to get.”

  “What happened to Jeff?” Phillip demanded.

  Todd said, “He fell.”

  “And what happened to him then?” Jimmy asked.

  Todd leaned into the camera to emphasize his next statement. “He died.”

  Gary shook his head, saying, “But, okay, yeah, I get it, in the quest he died, but where is he? What happened to him? When will we see him again?”

  Todd said, “He’s at the bottom of the ravine, what’s left of him. He really died. You’ll see him again if you decide to climb down there and retrieve his corpse.”

  “You killed him?!” Phillip cried.

  Todd chuckled. “In a way, you killed him, Phillip. When you named him your second in command, that’s what made the game mark him for death. I suspected you’d pick him or Tyler, but didn’t know for sure, so really, it’s your fault that he’s dead now.”

  “But I didn’t know what I was choosing for!” Phillip said. “I thought it was in case we got split up or something. I had no idea I was choosing him to die!”

  Todd shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll have to share the blame.”

  Gary asked, “Why kill Jeff? Why kill any of us?”

  Todd shook his head. “Guys, come on! What part of ‘revenge’ didn’t you understand? You took the law into your own hands, sent me away to rot in a prison for the rest of my life, knowing that I’d had immortality and unlimited wealth in my hands before you all took it away. Now I’m back to get even, and you expect me to pitch underhand? You’re all trapped in a deadly game that I have spent years dreaming up. Jeff died because I needed to kill someone at the outset so that you’d know what the stakes are.”

  “We’re time travelers,” Tyler said. “We’ll figure out a way to get Jeff back.”

  Todd looked directly at Tyler. “If you survive to get your powers back, which Jeff didn’t. You wanted a reason to be emotionally involved? Well, now you have one. You have to keep going, or you will be killed. If you fail to complete any of the challenges, you will be killed. If you get careless and make a mistake along the way, you will be killed.”

  “But you need to keep us alive to play this crappy game of yours out to the end,” Tyler said.

  “Eh, I dunno. Ideally, that’d be for the best, but really, if you all die miserably, then the game has served its purpose. I already know how it ends anyway. I made it. Besides, Tyler, just because I expect someone to make it to the end doesn’t mean that I expect you to make it. The fact is, I really only wanted revenge on Phillip, Jimmy, and Gary. You and Jeff are here because I knew you were their friends. I figured watching you two die would spur them on.”

  “You’re saying I’m expendable,” Tyler said.

  “The opposite,” Todd explained. “If someone’s expendable, you don’t mind if they die. I expect you to die. I don’t know if there’s a word for that. Maybe ‘sacrifice,’ except that I won’t be sorry when you’re gone. By the way, a little way up the trail, you’ll find a dead hunting party that you can loot for warm clothes and weapons. It’s nothing fancy. Just some swords, shields, and animal skins. Should help you fight off the cold and the mountain wolves.”

  “What killed the hunting party?” Tyler asked.

  Todd said, “Mountain wolves.”

  Jimmy said, “That doesn’t speak well for the effectiveness of the weapons.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Todd agreed, a little too enthusiastically.

  “What if we refuse?” Phillip asked. “What if we just sit here and wait for you to give up?”

  “You’ll either freeze to death or be eaten by mountain wolves. I still get my revenge.”

  Phillip asked, “And what happens if we make it to the end of your quest?”

  “To the Chasm of Certain Doom? You’ll learn the identity of the chosen one. The man who will be free,” Todd answered.

  “One man,” Phillip said.

  “If any of you make it to the chasm at all,” Todd said.

  Jimmy said, “So the choice you’re offering us is to not cooperate and be killed, or to cooperate and probably be killed.”

  “Yes,” Todd answered.

  “That’s not a lot of incentive,” Jimmy said.

  Todd said, “It’s enough.”

  6.

  Gwen, Martin, and Roy materialized outside the door to Brit’s quarters. They were in a long hallway carved from immaculate, opaque white glass, with a floor of textured nonslip white glass, and walls lined with doors made of off-white glass, for contrast.

  “Yeesh,” Roy said. “I’m inside, it’s the middle of the night, and I feel like I need sunglasses. Which Brit is this we’re visiting again?”

  It was a wise question to ask. Brit was unique, in that there was more than one of her. If most people’s lives form a straight line extending into the future, Brit’s formed a loop. At this moment, past Brit and future Brit were sharing the same time and place, and they were doing so with all t
he grace of two siblings sharing the back seat on a long car trip. Brit the Elder was Brit the Younger’s older self. She remembered everything that ever happened to Brit the Younger, and never let Brit the Younger forget it. Brit the Younger was Brit the Elder’s younger self. She resented having to share her existence, and never let Brit the Elder forget it.

  Gwen said, “This is Brit the Younger’s place. She and Phillip are close. She’ll want to know if he’s in trouble.” Neither Martin nor Roy needed to be told this. Phillip and Brit the Younger had been quite open about their relationship, and Brit had visited Leadchurch on more than one occasion. Really, Gwen made the statement not so much for their benefit as for her own. She wanted to reassure herself that they were doing the right thing. It was quite late at night. Brit would be asleep, and Gwen hated to wake her with bad news.

  Gwen had barely rung the doorbell when the door swung open. Brit’s housekeeper, Nik, opened the door. He looked well, as slim and as tan as ever. Nik had been seriously injured a few years ago but had made a full recovery, and now you’d never know anything had happened.

  Nik was wearing a baggy white nightshirt instead of his usual uniform, but he smiled and said, “Ah, hello! Come in. They’ve been expecting you.”

  Brit’s main room was as Martin remembered it: sleek, beautiful, and free from clutter. Everything in the room, like almost everything in Atlantis, was made of molecularly pure toughened glass, or for structural elements that needed the extra strength, diamond. One entire wall was a curved, seamless window with a view of the ocean outside. They were well below the surface, but at this time of night the only fish visible were the ones that came close enough to reflect the light from the apartment.

  Brit the Elder and Brit the Younger sat on the couch looking identical, yet completely dissimilar. Brit the Elder looked as cool and crisp as fresh celery. She wore a simple white tunic and contrasting black slacks that matched the frames of her glasses. Her shoulder-length red hair was impeccably styled. Sitting next to her, Brit the Younger had on a baggy sweatshirt, shorts, and a pair of oversized wool socks. Her shoulder-length red hair looked a mess and her glasses were slightly askew. She clearly had just been pulled out of bed and was not happy about it.