Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water (11 page)

“Ah,” the servant said. “So, you had someone else fight for you while you fled. Impressive.”

The president made an effort to hide her amusement. Her servant did not. After a moment of mirth at Martin’s expense, the servant continued his story.

“So, it’s a brawl, people fighting everywhere, but I want a challenge, so I decide I’m just going to hit guys on the top of the head, like this.” The servant made an exaggerated swinging motion, wheeling his arms over his head and bringing his fists straight down in front of him. “I just wanted to see if I could knock guys out like that. Turns out I can.”

The president seemed impressed. Martin moved on.

Elsewhere in the same room, Phillip was talking to a man whose nametag said “Goopta” about how their respective communities’ versions of the shell program worked.

“The shell looks for certain details of our wizard robes and staffs to determine who should and shouldn’t be allowed to cast spells,” Phillip said with some difficulty, while eating a piece of fried shrimp.

“Clever,” Goopta said. “We call ours
the gateway
. It
identifies
us based entirely on our fingernail length.” Goopta held up his hands, showing Phillip his dark, curved nails, the shortest of which was at least five inches.

“Wow,” Phillip said. “Impressive.”

Phillip felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to find
himself
facing both Brits. He smiled, but inside, he cringed. He
considered
Brit the Elder to be a walking refutation of everything he believed about free will, and as such, he found even looking at her unpleasant. This was made worse by the fact that on another level, he found looking at her quite enjoyable, which made him angry with himself.

It also didn’t help that Brit the Elder again seemed delighted to see him. “Phillip,” she said, positively beaming, “I have
someone
I’d very much like you to meet. Phillip, chairman of the wizards of Camelot, this is me, approximately 182 years ago, from my point of view.”

Brit the Younger grudgingly made eye contact with
Phillip
while limply shaking his hand. Phillip said, “Good to meet you.”

Brit the Elder’s smile grew even brighter as she looked at Phillip and Brit the Younger, both of whom were radiating discomfort. “Yes, lovely. This brings back such memories. You two are going to get along famously, I just know it.” She turned to Goopta, glancing deftly at his nametag. “Come, Mr. Goopta, let’s give these two some time to get acquainted. I could introduce you to a servant who gives the best manicures.”

Phillip and Brit the Younger watched as Brit the Elder led the bewildered man away into the crowd.

Phillip thought
, I could really begin to hate her
.

Brit the Younger said, “God, I hate her.”

Martin worked his way through the crowd. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he was looking for Gwen. He was so focused on scanning the distant corners of the room that he nearly ran directly into the two hostile men in top hats.

“Oh, hey,” Martin said brightly. “I was hoping I’d bump into you two.”

“Oh, were you?” said the top-hatted man on the left. He was stocky, tall, and angry-looking. His moustache was straight, waxed, and angry-looking. Martin suspected that this effect had to do with the angle at which the two halves of his moustache met under his nose. His nametag said “Gilbert,” that he originally came from 2007, and that he currently resided in the year 1906.

“Yes,” Martin said. “I noticed you eyeballing me and my friend earlier. I figured the civilized thing to do would be to come over, introduce myself—”

The second top-hatted man, taller, with a thoroughly oiled Van Dyke, a monocle, and a nametag that said “Sid,” interrupted Martin, saying, “You’re Martin Banks, also known as Martin the Magnificent, The Great Martini, and that git who hangs around with Phillip.”

“Ah, we’ve met,” Martin said. “I assume we meet in the future.”

“Correct,” said Gilbert.

“So,” Martin said, determined to figure these two guys out, “you’re magicians.”

Sid said, “Yup.”

“And you do magic.”

“Yes, we are magicians. We do magic,” Gilbert explained, slowly.

“Well, obviously,” Martin said.

“You’re the one who asked,” Sid replied.

Martin said, “What I mean is, you two are like us. You can do real magic, as far as your audience is concerned.”

“Yes,” Sid agreed.

“But when you do magic, do you do magic? I mean, when you do your magic act, do you do fake magic tricks, or do you . . . you know, do real magic?”

Sid pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

Gilbert was aghast. “Are you suggesting that we would advertise ourselves as magicians, then get up on stage and do magic?”

“I was just asking,” Martin said.

“We would never dream of such a thing,” Gilbert sputtered.

“Why not?”

“It would be dishonest, that’s why, or does that not matter
to you
?”

Martin said, “You’re telling your audience that you’re going to do magic. Why would it be dishonest to go ahead and do magic?”

Sid said, “Because, mate, the audience expects us to fool them. They don’t think a magician can really do magic. They come to be entertained by a lie. We can’t get up there and show them something that’s not a lie. We’d have lured them in under false pretenses. Can’t you understand that?”

Martin’s mouth said that he could, but his face said that he couldn’t.

“When people walk out of a magic show,” Gilbert explained, “they say, ‘I wonder how he did that?’ They picture lots of
mirrors
and trap doors, strings that are too fine to see, that sort of thing. Imagine how unsatisfying it would be if they found out the answer was ‘he did it with magic.’ They’d be terribly
disappointed
.”

“So you have magic powers, but your act is made up of
normal
magician’s tricks.”

“Yes. It’s the only honest way to proceed.”

“Do you invent the tricks yourselves?”

“No, we go to the future and copy them from modern
magicians
.”

Martin said, “So you’re thieves.”

Sid smiled and said, “That’s what you say later, when you find out what we’re doing for the first time.”

Martin said, “It’s good to know I agree with me.”

“Gwen had never . . .”

Gwen had never been much for parties. Her usual plan was to find the quietest part of the room, go there, and try not to make it any louder. She had spent most of the evening getting caught in, then escaping from, conversations with men she’d never met and knew nothing about. It would have been nice if she could have latched onto either Phillip or Martin and spent the evening teamed up with one of them, but Brit the Elder had specifically asked her to leave Phillip to his own devices for the evening, and Martin was acting strange, which, sadly for Martin, wasn’t all that strange.

Along the wall, where Gwen could easily reach it, there was a door that led to a balcony. She might be able to get away from the crowd for a few minutes, but the whole point of this wing-ding was to meet new people. It would be bad form to spend the evening hiding from the very people she was supposed to meet. Instead of fleeing for the cool night air outside, Gwen stood there, alone in the crowd, looking and feeling tremendously uncomfortable.

Gwen didn’t see the tall, muscular guard who slowly approached her, looking furtively around, checking to see if
anybody
was watching. She didn’t see him close his eyes and take a deep breath, as if psyching himself up for something. She didn’t hear him
mutter
encouragement to himself. The guard opened his eyes and took two steps to his left so as to enter Gwen’s field of view.

Gwen saw the man approach, and at first she thought he was one of the typical city guards. Then she thought he was a guard who, for some reason, had a limp. Then she thought he was
suffering
a petit mal seizure. Finally, she realized he was just walking strangely. The men who were chosen to be the official guards were usually the very model of physical grace, but there was a jerky, forced uneasiness to this one’s gait.

The guard walked up to her. His smile was slightly goofy, and his eyes almost glowed with manic energy.

The guard said, “Hi!”

Gwen said, “Hello.”

There was a pause while the guard thought, then he said, “My name is Ampyx.”

Gwen squinted at the guard. “Have we met before?”

Again, the guard calculated his response carefully before
saying
, “Yes, you chose me to escort the visitors from your
homeland
. Thank you for that.”

“Oh,” Gwen said. “How did you like my friends?”

“I did not like them,” Ampyx said enthusiastically. “I found them distasteful.”

“Oh,” Gwen said.

“But I also realized that you made me endure them so that I, and only I, would see what it is you’ve been looking for in a servant all this time. No wonder you’ve rejected us. None of the men here were nearly weird, annoying, and uncoordinated enough to suit your particular tastes.”

“And you are?” Gwen asked, equal parts amused and
horrified
.

“No,” Ampyx said, his facade dropping for a moment to express his outrage at the very idea. Then, his forced goofy smile returned, and he said, “But if I concentrate, I can feign being
this way
, for you.”

“That’s . . . impressive.” Gwen said.

Again, a moment’s thought, then Ampyx said, “Thanks! Yeah, uh, of course, it would be a great shame to myself and my family if I acted like this in public. I’m only doing it now as a
demonstration
. Were you to choose me as your servant, I would put on this act for you only in our bed chamber.”

“I see. And in public?”

“I would act like a proper man.”

At some point while nobody was looking, tables and chairs had appeared around the periphery of the room. They were probably brought in by servants, but nobody had noticed it
happening
, so it seemed like magic.

Brit the Younger sat alone at one of the tables, trying to be invisible. Phillip approached with two large, overtly decorative beverages.

Phillip said, “I asked for whiskey, but all they had were piña coladas and mimosas, so I got one of each. Take whichever you like, and I’ll have the other,” as he set the two drinks down.

She said, “Thank you. That’s very sweet, but if you don’t
particularly
want one over the other, and they didn’t have what you asked for, why did you get them at all?”

Phillip thought about that as he settled into his seat. “Well, I didn’t want to come back empty-handed. I considered just
conjuring
up two glasses of Scotch, but it felt like to do that when there was an open bar would be, I don’t know, disrespectful to my host somehow.”

Brit the Younger said, “You have a point. I suppose it would be.” She lifted her hand in front of her face and swiped her finger through the air. The tip of her finger glowed and left a vapor trail as she moved it from her right to her left, then from the bottom of her field of vision to the top. To the uninitiated it probably seemed like she was casting some sort of spell, but to Phillip, or anyone else who had ever used a modern computer interface, she was clearly making selections from a computer menu that only she could see. Finally she jabbed her finger straight ahead twice, then traced a circle on the table top with her other hand. Two glasses of Scotch appeared. She handed one to Phillip, who took it happily. “Excellent,” he said. “Next round’s on me.”

Phillip held the glass to his nose, and lightly breathed in through his mouth, letting the fumes from the drink gently ascend into his nostrils. “Ooh, that’s nice,” he said, before taking a sip.

Brit swallowed her first sip, savored it for a moment, then said, “I can make anything I want. I don’t see any point in
making
crap.”