Off to Be the Wizard (19 page)

Humming quietly to himself, he moved cautiously into the crystal ball room, around the table, and faced the door that led upstairs, the door that no person could open or enter but Phillip. He knocked, and waited several seconds. No reply. He knocked again.

Martin decided Phillip wasn’t there. As he turned his back to the door upstairs, he noticed that the shelf built into the crystal ball table that usually held Phillip’s beloved Commodore 64 was empty. He looked into the crystal ball and saw that the TV was also missing. Martin was so engrossed in peering into the crystal ball, he didn’t hear the door behind him open.

“Can I help you, Martin?” Phillip asked.

Martin jumped, then tried to sound casual. “Uh, I, uh, I just wanted to get out of the hut. I thought I’d come see what you’re up to,” Martin said.

“I’m not up to anything,” Phillip said as he stood framed by the open door, drying his hands on a modern hand towel. He was wearing his powder blue robe, but not his hat. The forbidden staircase stretched off into darkness behind him.

Martin pointed to the empty shelf where the computer had sat. He could see a rectangular patch that was free of dust. “Why’d you move the Commodore?”

“No reason,” Phillip said.

“Oh,” Martin said, as if that explanation simply hadn’t occurred to him. The two men stood, looking at each other in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Phillip said, “you’d better get back to studying and working on your macro. Tomorrow we go to London, and the day after, you face the trials. I’d hate to have to strip you naked, tie you up, and send you back to your time. Especially the first two parts. Never pleasant.” Phillip started closing the door as if Martin had already left. Martin raised his hand and said cleared his throat like a school boy with a question.

“Yes, Martin, what is it?” Phillip said, now just poking his head through the partially closed door.

Martin held up the small wooden box he’d taken from the shelf. “Mind if I make a copy of this to use? It’s your box, so I thought it’d be polite to ask first.”

Phillip looked down at the box. For a moment all irritation drained from his face. “Ooh, that’s the perfect size, isn’t it? Make a safety copy or two if you like, but the box is yours. It’s a gift. Take it and go home, Martin.” With that, Phillip closed the door firmly. Martin knew not to knock again.

Martin spent the rest of the day working on his Macro. Phillip had told him that the wizards would expect to see what they liked to call a s
alutation
– the set of effects used at the beginning of a duel, or when feeling threatened by the locals, to show that everybody knows they’ve got a powerful wizard on their hands. The night he and Phillip first met, the light show that ended with Martin flying backwards into the forest had been Phillip’s salutation.

Wizards also used their salutation as a means of both entertaining and demonstrating their power and creativity. Phillip had often called it the wizard’s form of breakdancing. It was a dated reference, but Martin thought it fit.

Martin asked Jeff some questions about his work on importing video game assets into the real world. Specifically, Martin wanted to know about displaying and animating three-dimensional assets in space and playing audio files. Later, he asked Gary about smoke, light, and particle effects. He had seen that Gary had a good grasp of the subject. Also by not asking any one wizard all of his questions, he had a better chance of keeping his macro a surprise. He spent the rest of the day searching the web for code snippets and existing animations to speed up the process. He ran a simulation or two, and was happy with the results.

Phillip returned from the forbidden zone above his shop at dusk, acting as if nothing had happened. They dined on burritos from Phillip’s magic burrito hat. Phillip had many other food choices he could produce, but a selection of specialized burritos is all the variety most men need. After dinner, they went for a fly and found themselves back at The Rotted Stump, the inn where they’d first met. When they went in, Martin noted that the place looked exactly as it had when he first arrived, and yet it felt totally different. It seemed less hostile, less frightening. He figured it was partly because he was more familiar and comfortable with this era now, and partly because he knew he could level the whole building with a few words of Esperanto.

Pete was behind the bar, wearing what appeared to be a windbreaker made out of used cling film. He had collected all of it from the patrons and had Gwen help him fashion it into a shirt, but it was devilishly hard to put on and take off, so he cut it up the front and used it as a jacket. He said it still turned inside out every time he took it off, but he just wore it inside out the next day, and because it was transparent, nobody could tell. Gert was also there. She greeted Martin in the friendliest way she knew how. She cracked her knuckles.

Phillip tried not to look too proud when, without any urging, Martin apologized to Pete and to Gert for the scene he’d caused on his first night in town, and asked if he could do another trick to make up for it. He pointed to an empty flagon that was on the bar in front of Pete and said, “Kopiu.” He repeated this fifteen times and fifteen more flagons appeared on the table. Then he removed his hat and produced enough gold to pay for enough beer to fill all of the flagons. He announced that the next round was on him, then he leaned in close to Pete and said, “Feel free to keep all of the flagons.”

Pete replied, “You gonna help me wash them?”

“Do you wash the ones you already have?” Martin asked.

“Good point.”

Chapter 20.

The next morning, Martin woke early. He lay in his hammock, listening to nothing. He didn’t often hear nothing. He had discovered that living in a medieval town was not much quieter than living in a modern town. Sure, cars make a lot of noise, but so do hooves, and while in a modern house the road noise is filtered through modern windows, here it came through either rough, single glazed glass or a simple hole with wooden shutters. It was quiet now, because it was early, barely dawn.

Martin wasn’t totally awake, but not totally asleep either. He was in that hazy, semiconscious state where the dreams of the night before dovetail with the reality of the day ahead. That time where you find yourself thinking how unfortunate it is that your lower half has been replaced with the body of a crab, and how difficult it will be to explain to your boss that you couldn’t come in to work because your pants are now impractical.

Martin opened his eyes a crack. A light streamed in around the edges of the window shutters. Phillip was in his bed, snoring lightly. The light illuminated the dust that hung in the air, swirling lazily in space. Martin thought about how in a dark room you couldn’t see anything, and in a brightly lit room you only saw large things, but in a room with very little light, you could see very little things, like dust. As the sun rose, more light came in, and he watched the dust slowly spiraling in random patterns as the shaft of light got larger and brighter.

Martin opened his eyes all the way, then immediately squinted. There was clearly a void in the dust, next to Phillip’s bed. It was barely discernible, but dust was flowing around the empty area. The void was irregularly shaped and appeared to be moving. It seemed still toward the floor, but there was a churning quality about the upper part of the void. Martin lifted his head so he was no longer looking at it sideways. He squinted harder, and for just a moment, the dust seemed to form the outline of a person leaning over Phillip, as if he meant to attack. Martin gasped. The form turned suddenly to face Martin, who recoiled in shock and fell out of his hammock.

Martin hit the ground and cursed loudly. He looked up and saw that the form was gone, if it ever really had been there. Phillip was sitting upright, looking at him. “What’s wrong with you?” Phillip asked.

“I, uh, I fell out of bed,” Martin sputtered.

“Yes,” Phillip said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s just a symptom, not the root problem, but whatever.”

Martin chose not to tell Phillip what he’d seen. Bad enough that he’d had a silly half-dream and freaked himself out. No need to make it worse by telling everybody about it. Still, Martin was unusually quiet that morning, partly because of the strange start his day had, and partly because he was nervous about the trials. Phillip did his best to calm Martin’s nerves.

“Look, there’s no point in freaking out about the trials and ruining your day,” Phillip said.

“I know,” Martin agreed.

“Freak out tomorrow. That’s when the trials are. Today is meant to be a day of fun. Possibly your last.”

Martin didn’t think that Phillip’s best was terribly good.

They ate their breakfast, had a conversation about the infinite adaptability of the humble burrito, then ran through a quick checklist of all the things they would need for the trip. It was not a long list. Wizard robes, wizard hat, wizard staff, completed macro, and a positive attitude. Martin asked if he would need his laptop.

“No,” Phillip said. “Remember, many wizards are from a time before useful portable computers. The trials were designed in such a way that directly accessing the shell is not needed. Besides, you’ve got your pocket computer. If anything, you’ve got an advantage, not that it’ll help.”

Martin spent a couple of hours going over his macro a few more times. He was certain it would work. He asked Phillip to quiz him on the things he’d need to know to pass the trials. Phillip asked him some Esperanto vocabulary questions and quizzed him about the finer points of conjuring and flying, but Phillip didn’t seem terribly concerned. Martin thought this was either encouraging or maddening, he wasn’t sure which.

Finally, Phillip seemed to get bored and asked, “Ready to go, Martin?”

Martin said that he was, but he was not sure of it. Phillip could sense his hesitation. “Buck up, Martin! Two days from now, you’ll be a fully trained wizard with full shell access. Or you’ll be in jail. The point is, you’ll know. All the uncertainty will be over.”

Martin asked, “Have I told you that I’m going to miss your little pep talks?”

Phillip said, “No, you haven’t.”

Martin said, “There’s a reason for that.”

Phillip put a reassuring hand on Martin’s shoulder. “I have every confidence in you. You’ll be fine.”

Martin shook his head, and started to thank Phillip, but Phillip interrupted him. “Either way. Transporto londono kvin!”

An instant later, they were standing in a pasture. Martin did not react well. Sometimes, people will forget what kind of beverage is in their glass. They’ll get it in their head that they have a glass of milk, when in fact it’s soda. If they take a drink without looking, the pleasant mouthful of pop will, for a moment, taste like the most messed up mouthful of milk in history. Martin had expected city, and instead got a mouthful of pasture. It was a pleasant enough pasture, but Martin had expected a city.

“I thought you said we were going to London,” Martin said.

Phillip smiled. “We’re in London. This pasture, those woods, that river bank over there, especially that river bank, all of it will be London. If we stand right here, a little under a thousand years from now, we’ll be standing in front of a really good curry stand I know, and it’d be a good thing, because by then we’ll be hungry.”

Martin looked around. The landscape was dotted with cottages. There were people in the distance tending to sheep, working in their gardens. A relatively busy road, by medieval standards, led off into the woods. More people were headed toward the river than away from it. Martin had never really been one for agriculture, but it was all very picturesque. “Okay,” he asked, “So why’d you pick this spot? What’s your point?”

“I wanted you to have a moment to prepare yourself for what London is at the moment. You’ve grown up with pictures of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. I wanted you to be prepared for the fact that none of that is here. When I showed up, all there was that was recognizable were the beginnings of Westminster, and the Thames.”

Martin shrugged. “Well, at least there’s something recognizable.”

“There was, back in the
Pre-Jimmy
period of English history. Now it’s been replaced by Camelot and the river Jems.”

Martin was confused. “Why’d he change the river to Jems?”

“It’s spelled James.”

Martin was starting to see why Phillip hated Jimmy.

Phillip held his staff aloft, preparing for flight. “Shall we?” he asked.

Martin followed suit, and soon they were flying through the air. Martin was deliberately lagging behind, allowing Phillip to lead. They skimmed over the farms and fields, toward the river
James
. In the distance, beyond the trees, crowded along the far bank of the river, Martin saw what he had to assume was London, or as it was now known, Camelot. From a distance it looked a lot like Leadchurch. Actually, it looked like ten Leadchurches packed in together. Martin’s entire life, he had thought of cities as places where there were tall buildings, but aside from one notable exception, there were no tall buildings to be found. The technology simply wasn’t there yet.

Phillip swung in a low, lazy arc around the city. Martin followed. Chaotic patterns of narrow streets and squat, mostly brown buildings spread out below him like a field of wooden blocks. The one exception was a large building next to the river, slightly to the left of the city’s central mass. The building was surrounded by a wall that was at least three stories tall, and seemed to be covered in highly reflective gold. The building itself was not just a castle. It was
the
castle. It couldn’t more obviously be a castle. It bristled with parapets, towers, arrow slits, sky bridges, and buttresses, all covered in the same shiny gold leaf as the outer wall.

Phillip led Martin to the castle, losing altitude as they went. They barely cleared the wall and landed lightly in a large square just inside the main gate. The road came in through the gate, then made a circle around a large reflecting pool, past the formal entrance to the castle, which looked like the gaudiest casino in Las Vegas had been covered in gold leaf and the greeters replaced with knights in hammered gold armor. Beside the entrance, a golden carriage waited for the royal family. It was hitched to four white stallions, presumably because gold stallions weren’t available, not that it mattered. Everything within the walls was tinted gold by the reflected light from the castle and the walls.

There were several buildings inside the golden keep of Camelot, not just the castle. Maintaining a facility of this size required infrastructure, which added to the size of the facility, and inevitably, the whole thing gets out of hand. Martin could see that what from a distance had appeared to be a simple, ridiculously ornate golden castle behind a golden wall, was in fact a small golden town surrounding a golden castle inside a golden wall. The guards at the castle entrance were serene and regal, but all around there were workmen, stewards, groomsmen, maids, valets, and craftsman, all milling about in gold-accented livery, looking at the ground, lest they be blinded. The only people looking up at the castle were the tourists, though Martin supposed they were called pilgrims in this time. There were many of them though, milling about. Pointing. Squinting. Buying surprisingly expensive paintings of themselves in front of the castle. “Jimmy had a massive tax levied on gold paint,” Phillip explained.

“Wouldn’t it be the king who levies taxes?” Martin asked.

“Ah, you’re right. Let me rephrase that. Jimmy had the king tax gold paint. Probably just added it to his daily monarch-do list.”

“Jimmy really has that kind of power?” Martin asked.

Phillip shook his head. “Martin, look at that statue. You tell me who’s in charge.”

Martin was aware that there was a grand golden statue of some sort in the reflecting pond, but he hadn’t looked directly at it for fear of being blinded. He removed his hat, mumbled some Esperanto, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses with round, green lenses and metal frames, which made Phillip smile.

In the center of the reflecting pond stood an intricately detailed statue, approximately two stories tall. It featured an older king, (King Stephan, it would turn out) handing a spectacularly ornate sword (Excalibur, which Jimmy had made, then claimed he’d found in a lake, Phillip explained later) to his son, then-Prince-now-King Arthur (who was, understandably, willing to change his name from Eustace). Standing behind and between the king and his son with a fatherly, guiding hand on both of their shoulders, was an unmistakable likeness of Jimmy. Not Jimmy as he was, but Jimmy as Jimmy pictured himself. Idealized Jimmy. He stood a full head taller than the king, and towered over the prince. With his sunglasses, Martin could make out that Jimmy’s robe had a
Merlin
name tag stitched into the right breast, as if he was a mechanic. Jimmy’s hat and parts of his head and shoulders were quite severely tarnished and stained. “What’s up with Merlin’s head?” Martin asked.

Phillip shrugged, and with a trace of a smile, said, “Ask someone who lives here.”

Martin stopped the next person to pass, a porter carrying a crate.

“Pardon me, sir, I’m new to … Camelot,” Martin said, with some effort. “Can you please tell me why the wizard’s head is stained?”

“That’s the miracle, innit?” The man said.

“The miracle?” Martin asked.

“Most every day since the statue was put up, the wizard’s head produces a miracle from thin air.”

“Really? Every day?”

“Indeed!”

“When? Will it be soon?”

“Don’t know,” the porter said. “The schedule’s not very regular.”

“Regrettably,” Phillip added.

“What comes out of the statue?” Martin asked. “Blood? Tears? More gold?”

“Unspeakable filth,” the porter answered.

After a long, uncomfortable pause, Martin asked, “What kind of filth?”

“Unspeakable filth, like I said.”

Another pause.

“Yes, but, is it mud? Is it gore?” Martin asked.

The porter thought a moment, then said, “One could call it muck, I suppose.”

“Muck.”

“Yes. Unspeakable muck.”

“It’s excrement, isn’t it?”

“Um, yes.”

“Feces.”

“Yes.”

“Human …”

“YES! YES! It’s unspeakable … human … muck.”

“And it just appears?”

“Yes. It seems to just come from the point of Merlin’s hat.”

“Then it kind of … trickles down,” Martin finished.

“No,” the porter said, shaking his head. “It don’t trickle. It comes down forceful. Like it fell a ways.”

“Perhaps thirty feet?” Phillip offered.

“Could be,” the porter agreed.

“And nobody knows where it’s coming from.”