The Vexed Generation, page 24
Phillip said, “You had some of our respect. A certain number of us held you in . . . some esteem. We all agreed you had . . . qualities. The point is, however much respect we had for you before, we’ll have less if you try to just ram what you want down our throats.”
Magnus Rex turned to Magnus Galka. “Look, man, I didn’t want to do things this way to begin with. This is your thing. You said we’d be in charge if we won. If all this is just going to be us getting insulted, I have better things to do.”
Magnus Galka put a calming hand on Magnus Rex’s shoulder. “I know. I know. Please be patient for just a minute more, my friend.”
Magnus Rex rolled his eyes and shrugged.
Magnus Galka turned back to Phillip. “What you’ve been trying to tell me is that a leader would use logic and reason to explain why the path he’s chosen is best, to persuade his constituents to go along.”
Phillip said, “Yes.”
“But a dictator would use threats to convince others not to oppose his plans.”
“Exactly. I think you understand.”
“I do. You’ve explained it to us very logically and reasonably, and we are not convinced. So, if Magnus and I were to just go ahead and start enacting our plans, what would happen?”
Phillip grimaced. Martin said, “We’ll stop you.”
“By force?” Magnus Galka asked.
“If necessary.”
Magnus Galka nodded. “And that’s a threat. So, it’s not a question of who’s the leader, Phillip. It’s just a matter of who’s going to become the dictator first.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“That just means I have a head start. Rengjøring!”
A blinding bolt of white-hot lightning blasted down from the sky, shattering the windows in its way as it shot into the main hall. The bolt hit Phillip before spreading to all of the other wizards around the table, except the two Magnuses.
Normal lightning lasts a fraction of a second, striking its target, writhing in the air for an instant, then disappearing, leaving nothing but a charred tree, a terrible smell, and a squiggly line burnt into the retinas of whoever was present to witness it. This arc persisted, twisting in space with an earsplitting buzz and delivering a constant stream of high voltage electricity into the chests of the wizards. They all remained where they’d been standing or sitting when first struck, but they were not still. They trembled violently, their muscles spasming, teeth gritting, eyes wide open.
Magnus Galka, his eyes squeezed shut, magically produced two pairs of welding goggles. He put one on and gave the other to Magnus Rex.
The Magnuses walked around the table. As they moved into the buzzing, strobing mass of writhing tendrils of electricity that encompassed and reached out from all of the wizards, the darting bolts of power seemed to warp and detour around them as if they were somehow repellent to lightning.
Magnus Galka approached Phillip, standing right in front of him.
“Electricity won’t kill us wizards, but it still hurts like hell and makes the muscles clench. We learned that the hard way when Magnus Rex tried to make a lamp out of some antlers. We’re going to go now. We have a whole planet full of new subjects just waiting to be informed of their place in the world. When we’ve done that, we’ll come back, turn the lightning off, and see if you’re ready to be part of the future or not.”
Magnus Galka turned to Magnus Rex and shouted, “I suggest we go.”
Magnus Rex said, “It’s about time.”
The two Magnuses flew straight through one of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, shattering it with no concern that they might be hurt by falling glass, or anything else.
* * *
Up on the catwalk, Mattie, Brewster, Gilbert, and Sid had all averted their periscopes to keep from being blinded.
Mattie said, “We have to do something.”
Sid said, “I wholeheartedly concur.” He deactivated the invisibility spell. As the light-warping field dissipated, he was revealed, sitting, leaned against a handrail with his legs crossed, looking through his hat-mounted periscope.
Gilbert also became visible. Both of them, in unison, turned to the floating periscopes and blurred distortions that denoted the twins.
Mattie said, “Yeah, we know. Please don’t say it.”
Brewster said, “We wait here, right?”
Sid said, “Indeed. We have to tell you to stay here and stay safe. Thank you for understanding.”
Sid stepped off the catwalk and began to float down toward the lightning-encrusted clump of twitching wizards.
Mattie said, “He thanked us for understanding, not for doing as he asked.”
Brewster said, “He didn’t ask us to stay here. He told us to.”
“Which is rude. But really, he didn’t even tell us to stay. He told us that he had to tell us to stay.”
Brewster smiled. “So, he didn’t really leave us with any clear instruction.”
“No, he didn’t. Quite irresponsible of him.”
“Quite.”
27.
Gilbert shouted, “We have to find a way to redirect this electricity.”
“Agreed,” Sid said. “I shall return forthwith.”
Sid disappeared. Less than a second later he reappeared, standing on the ground near Phillip, wearing a wetsuit, thick rubber galoshes, and his top hat. Under one arm he held a copper cable as big around as a man’s wrist. The cable snaked in front of him and attached to the bottom of a long metal rod he held in his other hand like a sword. From its connection to the metal rod, the cable stretched the full length of the great hall and disappeared out the door.
The lightning leaped from Phillip to the rod. As the bolts of electricity had been cascading out from Phillip to all the other wizards, when the lightning left Phillip, it abandoned the others as well. They all fell to the floor, moaning and writhing in pain, smoke rising from their scorched robes.
Sid, protected by his wetsuit, let go of the cable and the lightning rod, dropping the raging torrent of raw power to the floor. The electrical arc streaming down from the sky remained locked to the lightning rod.
Gilbert rushed forward and started helping the badly singed wizards back to their feet. Sid did the same.
Phillip asked, “What are you two doing here?”
“Came to watch, didn’t we?” Gilbert replied.
“You couldn’t possibly have dreamed that we’d allow so momentous an event to transpire without being on hand to witness said doings,” Sid added.
Gwen said, “Yeah, and I’m willing to bet the kids are here, too.”
“Concealed within the rafters, snug as proverbial bugs in their metaphorical rug,” Sid said. “It might be an advantageous time to wave up at them, just to let them know they are not, in fact, orphans.”
Martin and Gwen both waved in the direction Sid pointed.
Phillip said, “Everyone! We have to get after the Magnuses! There’s no telling what those two idiots might do. Come on!” He took off, flying straight through one of the few remaining unbroken windows.
As the other wizards began lifting off the ground and following Phillip through the newly shattered window, Tyler asked, “Hey, does it look like it’s getting darker out?”
Sid said, “That plays to our advantage. The sign will show up better that way.”
Phillip soared above the city, followed by the rest of the wizards and the two magicians. High winds buffeted them, and a thick bank of clouds rolled in from the horizon on all sides, obscuring the sun and making the constant stream of lightning stretching from the heavens into the castle window only slightly less incongruous.
Gwen looked back over her shoulder, then turned around, flying backward to get a good look at the castle behind them.
“Sid,” she said, “I assume that’s your doing?”
Martin and Phillip both looked back to see a massive neon sign on the roof of the castle, made of fifty-foot letters, connected to the copper cable. The sign read, “Insufficient effort, old bean.”
Beneath the large letters, smaller but still fully legible print read, “By the by, this sign is fully powered by your own lightning.”
Martin said, “If you have to explain your joke like that, you probably shouldn’t bother.”
Sid shook his head. “I’m quite sure I don’t require any presentation tips from you, Martin.” He looked away from the others and adjusted his top hat, pulling it down tighter over his wetsuit cowl.
The clouds closed in, forming a hole that allowed only a single shaft of sunlight through. In the city below, people poured out of the buildings to gaze up in fascination and horror at the turbulent sky.
As the wizards and the people of London watched, the opening in the clouds divided into several distinct holes. The cloud ceiling bulged and warped until the clouds had formed into a three-dimensional image of Magnus Rex’s face, smiling down at them, sunlight streaming from his eyes, mouth, and nostrils.
Beside and seemingly just behind him, the image of Magnus Galka’s face also appeared.
Magnus Galka cleared his throat. The sound seemed to come from the hole in the cloud cover representing his mouth and was loud enough to be heard for miles around. He made a blowing noise, puckering his lips and constricting the sunlight from his mouth into a thin stream, then said, “Okay, I’ve got it working. We’re live, Magnus. I’ll introduce you.”
Magnus Galka smiled down at the city, pausing for a moment so the people could bask in the literal light of his smile.
“Greetings friends. My name is Magnus. I come to you today with splendid news. Life-changing news. News that will ensure safety, security, and prosperity for you and everyone you love. You will remember this, the moment that I brought you this news, for the rest of your lives. I am here to tell you that for the common good, and for the good of the common, we are all going to come together, one happy family, united by our shared values, our shared sense of purpose, and guided by the compassionate judgment, optimistic vision, and firm hand of our shared ruler. Starting this very moment, you have the honor of following my friend, and our beloved leader: Magnus!”
Magnus Rex said, “Uh, hi everybody.”
Magnus Galka said, “Go on, don’t be shy. Address your subjects.”
“You already said everything.”
Below the wizards, the people lining the streets made a raucous noise, but the wind and the distance, and the great number of people yelling, muddied the sound enough to make it impossible for the wizards to make out any coherent meaning.
The image of Magnus Rex in the clouds squinted, narrowing the beams of sunlight coming from its eyes into two flat planks of yellow light. “What is that? I can’t quite hear you.”
The image of Magnus Galka said, “I’d suggest that it doesn’t really matter all that much what the specific people on the ground right now have to say.”
“Shush. I’m trying to listen to the little people. All you down there, please speak up.”
The people on the ground grew louder but even more difficult to understand with the increased volume and urgency of their words.
Phillip rolled his eyes and turned to the other two dozen wizards floating in the air above the city. “I’ll be right back.”
Phillip flew at top speed closer to the ground, only a few feet above the heads of the crowd gathered in front of the castle gates. He hovered there for a moment, nodded, and shot back up into the sky again.
Phillip reappeared in the sky below the titanic floating faces of the Magnuses. In a voice amplified just as powerfully as the Magnuses, Phillip said, “I went down and checked. Their answer is no.”
Magnus Galka nodded. “Ah. I see. I fear there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah,” Phillip said. “I think there has.”
“What Magnus said wasn’t a request. It was a statement of fact. And now the people of Camelot—”
“London,” Phillip said.
“It was renamed Camelot.”
“Then it was renamed again, back to London.”
“But most of us still call it Camelot.”
“No, I don’t think that’s true.” Phillip turned around. “Show of hands, how many of you call this city London?”
Most of the wizards raised their hands. Below, in the city’s streets, not everybody raised their hands, but enough did that the height of the crowd seemed to rise by over a foot.
Phillip turned back to face the Magnuses, arms folded, and a smug smile on his face.
Magnus Rex whined, “Does it really matter?”
Magnus Galka said, “Yes, faithful friend, it does. When we make an example of a city, it’s very important that people know what to call it. We don’t want people saying: Did you hear about the awful thing Magnus did to that city, you know, the one that had the castle. It muddies the message. Bad branding.”
Phillip said, “We won’t let you hurt anybody.”
Magnus Galka laughed. “A very wise person once said, The question’s not who’s going to let me. It’s who’s going to stop me.”
Phillip winced. “Isn’t that Ayn Rand?”
“Yes! It is! I didn’t know you were a fan.”
Phillip sneered. “I’m not. First of all, if Ayn Rand had been as wise as you say, she’d have come up with a pen name where the spelling and the pronunciation matched. Secondly, I just answered the question, Who’s going to stop you? Us! We won’t let you. You should pay attention unless you think knowing what’s going on around you doesn’t serve your enlightened self-interest.”
Magnus Galka said, “If people like you would actually read The Fountainhead, or preferably, Atlas Shrugged instead of just making fun, you might actually learn something about how the world works, but no matter. How, exactly, do you intend to stop him? Oh no, is Martin gonna turn big? Will Tyler become a clone of one of us to fight Magnus with Magnus? Will Gwen tangle us up in fabric and will Roy fly into us at high speed?”
Phillip stared at Magnus Galka’s immense cloud image for a long moment before muttering, “Maybe.”
“We’ve been watching. We’ve seen your moves. You will find that Magnus is prepared!”
“Which Magnus?”
“Both! Both of us! We’re both prepared! Why is this so confusing?”
Phillip opened his mouth to speak, but never got the words out, as he was knocked to the side by a powerful stream of glowing blue energy that shot past him from behind and plunged into the space between the two immense Magnus heads, where it detonated in a massive explosion that blasted a hole in the cloud cover over a mile wide. The shock wave blew Phillip and the other flying wizards almost all the way to the ground. The only one unaffected was Martin, who had fired the shot in the first place.
The hole in the clouds swiftly closed, and the faces of the two Magnuses re-formed.
Magnus Galka smiled down at them. “Like I said, we studied your moves. One thing they all have in common is that they only work if you know where the person you’re attacking is, which you don’t, which is why you just wasted your time trying to shoot a cloud.”
Gwen had clearly triggered the amplification spell herself, as her voice was easily audible across the city when she said, “Huh. You know, he has a point.”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “So it would seem.”
“And now,” Magnus Galka shouted, “you will all see what comes of resisting the will of Magnus. For lo, he shall execute the plan I devised under his supervision, and which he approved, a plan that will make Camelot—”
“London!” Phillip shouted.
“Shut up! Camelot or London! Whatever you call it, either name will be remembered for thousands of years!”
“Both names already were!”
“I told you to shut up! Camelot’s remembered as a place of myth where great heroes triumphed and Helen Mirren walked around being hot. London is remembered as one of the world’s great capitals where history unfolds and Helen Mirren walks around being hot. When we are finished enacting Magnus’s plan, they will both be remembered for something very different.”
“For being places where a guy named Magnus was hung up on Helen Mirren?”
“No!” Magnus Galka nearly screamed. “They’ll be remembered for death! Unrelenting, irrevocable, and above all else, memorable death. Death that will preoccupy the thoughts and haunt the nightmares of all who hear of it! Children will cry! Parents will shudder! Teens will pretend to be unimpressed, but we’ll all know it’s just an act!”
Sid shook his head. “This is all getting needlessly wordy.”
Gilbert said, “You’re not really the best person to lodge that complaint.”
Magnus Galka said, “Magnus will now unleash ten plagues upon this city, and when he has finished venting his ire, the metropolis you see now will be an uninhabitable waste.”
“Oh, like in the Bible.”
“That’s right, we’re taking our inspiration from the Bible. You approve of that, Phillip? Or do you think God’s not all he’s cracked up to be either?”
“No, no. It’s fine, I guess. I mean, if you’re going to copy your ideas from somewhere, the Bible’s a pretty good choice.”
“No! Not copying. Taking inspiration. The ten plagues of Egypt were the worst things anyone could imagine at the time. The ten plagues of Magnus are the worst things we can imagine now! There are a few classics from the old list mixed in with new—more modern, dynamic, and proactive plagues. Edgy plagues, with attitude and sass!”
“Is the first plague a torrent of poorly applied marketing buzzwords?”
“No. Shut up.”
Magnus Galka shouted, “Magnus didn’t want it to come to this! You’ve left Magnus no choice! You’ve refused the commands of Magnus, your rightfully elected leader, and now, instead of Magnus’s benevolence, you will face his wrath!”
Magnus Rex nodded and said, “Yeah.”
“Well said,” Magnus Galka agreed. “Subjects, do not waste your time groveling! The time for apologies is past!”
Phillip said, “Nobody’s apologizing.”
“You will face the ten plagues of Magnus, starting with darkness!”
Gwen said, “That was one of the ten plagues of Egypt. You said you’d come up with your own.”
