The Vexed Generation, page 27
Roy said, “If any of you let on that we know, they’ll just take off and hide again. We all need to teleport over, right on top of them, at once. Follow my lead and be ready to attack.”
Roy reappeared. He rolled a cough drop around in his mouth and said, “Much better. So, yeah, like Jeff said, we couldn’t find them. Don’t take it so hard, Jeff. You tried.” Roy flew over to Jeff and put a hand on his shoulder.
Roy and Jeff hovered there, Roy squeezing Jeff’s deltoid reassuringly, Jeff looking at Roy, deeply confused, until Jeff’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh!” Jeff said. “Uh, yeah, I’m taking this real hard. I don’t like failing. Thanks for comforting me Roy, but it’s just not enough.”
Roy raised an eyebrow at Phillip, who said, “I see! Yes, don’t worry about it, Jeff. You did your best.” Phillip drifted over and put a hand on Jeff’s shoulder.
Phillip looked at the other wizards. “Come on everyone. Can’t you see our friend is upset?”
Over the course of about fifteen seconds, all of the wizards, Gilbert and Sid included, clustered together and put a reassuring hand on Jeff, or on someone who had their hand on Jeff.
The immense face of Magnus Rex scowled down at them “You’ve all gone soft.”
Roy said, “That’s everyone, Jeff.”
Jeff poked at the screen of his smartphone, and they all disappeared.
30.
They reappeared, clustered together in the sky, and started falling immediately, a flailing chain of confused, panicked wizards. A massive jolt pushed them hard to the side, as if they’d been hit by an immense, invisible Ping-Pong paddle. They crashed into a muddy field in a loose grouping, like a meteor shower, only with less fire and far more cursing.
Martin lifted his head and shoulders out of the soft, wet sod, saw that Gwen was alive, then sprang to his feet, ready to fend off any threat, a process that took longer and involved more sliding and sinking than usual, thanks to the ground conditions. The other wizards all did the same, with a similar level of success. Some whined about the difficulty. Others laughed about it, which was a healthier response, but still detracted from the image of formidability they’d been trying to project.
All of the wizards faced the duck blind, a flimsy nylon tent printed with a woodland camouflage pattern, its top made entirely out of semi-transparent mesh through which they could see Magnus Rex’s hat and eyes.
They heard the sound of the zipper pull as Magnus Rex opened the blind’s flap. He stepped out, looked their way, and waved.
Most of the wizards either pointed their staffs at Magnus to unleash some attack spell or ran and leaped forward to fly at their enemy. Neither of these approaches worked. The magicians trying to attack from a distance, like Phillip, looked confused as absolutely nothing happened. The ones who attempted to fly, like Martin, only dove forward and landed, sliding face first in the muddy grass as if they’d attempted to steal third base.
Magnus Rex said, “Did you think I wouldn’t be prepared? I knew that once I became chairman, someone would attempt a coup. Magnus and I have been planning for years, since we lost our first election. One of the first things we did was create a macro in the shell program that hides us and sets up a nice, fat, no-magic zone.”
Tyler said, “And it hides you with a Walmart duck blind?”
“Yeah,” Magnus Rex said. “Why not? I mean, invisibility hasn’t been cracked yet.”
Sid glanced meaningfully at Gilbert. Gilbert made a point of not looking at Sid.
Tyler said, “Come on, man. You don’t think you could’ve come up with something better than the exact piece of equipment Elmer Fudd would use?”
Magnus Rex shook his head. “This is a quality product, Tyler. It was designed by professionals. It’s big enough for two grown men and a full-sized cooler, but it folds down to the size of a small hula hoop, and when you throw it on the ground, it erects itself! But you’re sure you could do better. Where does your arrogance come from?”
Martin reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver box he used to hide his smartphone, but Magnus Rex was not as distracted as Martin had hoped.
“Don’t bother, Martin. The macro disabled all of your smartphones. We remembered how you used yours to get to Jimmy. No, you’re stuck in place where there’s no magic or cell phone coverage.” Magnus Rex rose into the air. “Except for this area over here where I am, right next to the blind, of course.”
“Uh-huh,” Phillip said. “So, how large is this area of no magic? How far out does it go?”
“Oh, it ends about two hundred yards out, just beyond the invisible force field wall you can’t get through. Neat, huh? Magnus thought of everything. Oh, speaking of the other Magnus.”
Magnus Rex made a sort of scoop-and-throw motion with his right hand. The limp form of Magnus Galka floated out of the duck blind and flew across the field, landing and skidding to a stop in a muddy heap at the wizards’ feet. “He got us this far, and I’ll always be grateful, but it’s time for me to govern on my own.”
Martin and Gwen knelt by Magnus Galka’s side.
Gwen asked, “Are you awake?”
Martin slapped Magnus Galka once, hard, across the face.
“Ow,” Magnus Galka said. “Thanks. Yeah, I’m awake!”
Martin slapped him again.
“Ow!”
Phillip said, “Martin, stop. There’ll be time enough for that later. Right now, we need to see if Magnus here has come to his senses enough to help us stop Magnus over there.”
“What can I do? He won’t listen to me anymore.”
“How about magic?” Martin asked.
“No good. The only place anyone can do magic inside the invisible wall is a twenty-foot radius around the blind.”
“Even you two?”
“Yeah, he wrote the program and missed that wrinkle. I could have corrected it, but . . .”
“But,” Phillip said, “you planned to kick him out and take all the power for yourself.”
“It was an emergency measure. I hoped I wouldn’t ever have to do that.”
Gwen said, “Well, you didn’t, so good for you.”
Martin asked, “If we can get over there, we can do magic again?”
Magnus Galka said, “Yeah. But he can use any magic he wants to stop you.”
Large rocks and small boulders, hundreds of them, rose into the air, leaving craters in the ground where they had been buried. They flew in toward the blind and began to orbit around Magnus Rex. “That’s right. None of you can get anywhere near me without catching a giant rock right in the kisser, so I guess magic’s off the table.”
Sid raised his hand. “Pardon me, dear fellow. Just to clarify, am I to understand that your macro, as you call it, prevents the castigation . . . is that the word, Gilbert? Castigation? I’m looking for the past tense of the act of casting a spell.”
Gilbert shrugged. “Wouldn’t it just be casting?”
“No, there’s got to be a term more baroque than that, but castigation doesn’t sound right.”
Gilbert said, “Castration?”
Sid said, “Never mind.” He turned his attention back to Magnus Rex. “You say this amazing macro of yours makes it impossible to perform any magic based on the Leadchurch Shell Program, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m afraid I must inform you that my compatriot and I are not tied into this archaic shell program of yours.”
Gilbert made jazz hands. “We got our own thing, baby!”
He reached into his hat, pulled out a rabbit, and flung it toward Magnus Rex. The rabbit traveled straight, like a line drive sailing across the field, and clamped onto Magnus Rex’s bicep.
Magnus held his arm out straight, the wriggling rabbit hanging from it like damp trousers on a clothesline. Magnus used his free arm to point at the wizards. The giant boulders broke free from their orbits and flew toward them. Sid managed to get a force field up in time for the boulders to smash themselves, one by one, onto the shield, shattering into gravel from the impact.
Gilbert pulled his hand from his hat, then flung the hat straight up into the air. It flipped several times and landed on his head, perched at the perfect angle. He pointed his white-tipped ebony walking stick at Magnus Rex, and a bolt of blue light shot from the end, striking Magnus Rex in the chest. At first, he seemed unaffected, then thick chains whipped around from behind him, wrapping him in so many loops that he resembled a chrome-plated mummy. Four rectangles of plexiglass hinged up from the ground around him, slamming together to form a box similar to a phone booth, but roughly twice as large.
As the edges of the transparent box sealed, thousands of gallons of water appeared in the air above Magnus Rex and fell, instantly filling the tank and splashing on the ground surrounding it. A square steel hatch slammed shut over the top of the tank. A large metal handwheel set into its top spun, sealing Magnus Rex in, and a velvet cover rolled down along the sides, hiding the struggling wizard from view.
Martin said, “Nice!”
Gilbert nodded. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll hold him for lo—”
The tank exploded. Water, broken chain links, and razor-sharp shards of shattered Plexiglass flew outward, surfing on the front edge of an expanding shock wave strong enough to knock the wizards off their feet.
As the wizards rolled in the mud, groaning and muttering curses, a semi-transparent form materialized in the air above them. They barely had time to register that the shape was that of an immense hand before it swept straight down, moving quickly enough to become nearly invisible. The hand’s path curved, skimming the ground and scooping about a dozen of them, including Gilbert, Sid, Martin, Gwen, and Phillip into its palm before turning skyward. The hand slowed and tightened into a fist.
Back on the ground, Magnus Rex stood in the center of a circle of bare rock and mud, all vegetation and the remains of the duck blind having been blasted away by the force of the explosion. His fur cloak and robe were wet, but aside from that, he seemed completely unaffected. One hand held his staff, the other was formed into a fist, which he held over his head. The wizards on the ground could look through the giant fist and see their friends, a mass of tangled arms, legs, and staffs trapped in the hollow created by the giant palm and fingers.
Magnus Rex tightened his fist. The giant fist tightened as well, pushing those trapped inside into a cramped ball, squeezed into each other and the fist’s palm so forcefully and completely that even their facial features were distorted, as if they were pressed against a sheet of glass.
The wizards left behind on the ground looked up in horror at their friends’ plight, except for Gary, who looked at Magnus Rex and shouted, “You missed me!”
Tyler said, “But he got, like, a bunch of us!”
“Yeah,” Gary shouted, more at Magnus than to Tyler. “But he missed me! Loser!”
“Gary, is that a new hat?”
“It’s Sergio’s.”
Magnus Rex shook his fist as if preparing to roll dice, then whipped his hand downward at the ground, throwing the people in the phantom hand straight down. The wizards on the ground had just enough time to dive, but not enough to get clear of the landing zone before their friends slammed into them from above.
Magnus Rex said, “I think I got you that time, Gary.”
The wizards all lay writhing on the ground, attempting to get their wind back, most of them cursing Gary with what little breath they had, until the giant hand came straight down out of the sky at them.
Martin lay on his back, gasping for air. His last act before the giant palm pressed into him was to turn his head toward Magnus Rex. The pressure of the giant hand pressing on him made movement, speech, or coherent thought impossible. As long as Magnus Rex held them this way, any attempt at fighting back, even by Gilbert and Sid, who still had their magic, was impossible.
Through the ghostly hand, Martin saw Magnus Rex, standing with one hand pressed down into the ground, and the other holding his staff aloft. The staff began to glow. Martin couldn’t know what spell Magnus Rex was casting, but he was certain he wouldn’t like the result. He was horrified at the idea that whatever Magnus Rex was doing, he was doing it to Gwen. The fact that he would suffer the same fate was secondary to Martin. He also thought of the twins, and how proud and happy he was that they’d proven to be so capable because he feared they might need to fend for themselves, and each other, from now on.
Martin decided that while he had a good idea what was about to happen, he’d rather not see it coming. He began to close his eyes, but then blinked and squinted at Magnus Rex. The forest in the distance behind him seemed to warp oddly, as if there were two dents in the fabric of reality itself that were moving very quickly, warping their environment as they went. He had nearly decided the lack of oxygen was causing him to hallucinate when he saw things extending out of the areas of distortion, like antennae, but thicker, and bent at ninety-degree angles. As his vision began to dim, he could have sworn that one of the distortions resolved into the form of a person in a top hat.
31.
Minutes earlier, in the sky above the flattened ruin of London, Phillip asked Jeff where the Magnuses were hiding and received the answer: “We don’t know.”
As the wizards bickered about whether or not that was an adequate reply, watched silently while Roy got a cough drop, then engaged in a stunning and out of character display of midair unity, Mattie and Brewster hovered nearby, still cloaked in Sid and Gilbert’s invisibility spell, watching the proceedings through their periscopes.
Mattie whispered, “Brewster, Jeff knows where they are, and is trying not to tip his hand. The Magnuses must be close. Come on, wherever they’re going, we have to go with them.”
She heard no reply, turned her periscope to where Brewster had been floating beside her and didn’t see the tip of his periscope. She blinked in confusion for a moment but was jolted out of her mental gridlock when someone directly in front of her hissed. She turned her scope forward. She saw her parents, Gilbert, Sid, and many others all grouped together, but her view was distorted, and she saw the tip of Brewster’s periscope.
“What are you waiting for?” Brewster asked. “You coming or what?”
The two of them flew as fast as they could toward the flying clutch of wizards, all making a show of comforting Jeff while grasping each other’s arms or shoulders. Mattie gripped Gary’s arm, close enough to where Roy was holding it that it probably felt like one hand to Gary. She reached her hand out far enough behind her that it extended out of the invisibility field. Brewster’s hand extended out of his own invisibility field and grasped hers.
The group teleported as one.
They materialized a small distance away, directly over the duck blind, and felt a very hard shove to one side. Mattie’s fingers immediately lost contact with Gary’s arm as he and all of the wizards fell away. Mattie panned her periscope downward and saw them all, tumbling and screaming, still clinging to each other. Sid and Gilbert fell slower than the others, still attempting to fly, but the weight of all the wizards dragged them down to the ground as well.
The wizards flew apart and hit the muddy ground in a cluster, like shotgun pellets hitting wet clay. They all struggled to their feet, swiveling their heads and swinging their hands and staffs around as if they intended to perform either magic or karate at the first thing they saw.
Mattie felt Brewster let go of her hand. She turned toward his floating distortion and said, “None of them knows we’re here.”
Magnus Rex unzipped and stepped out of his camouflaged tent, smiling and waving. The wizards below them attempted to attack but didn’t seem to be capable of flight or any offensive spells.
Magnus Rex said, “Did you think I wouldn’t be prepared?”
The twins watched their mother and father as Magnus Rex explained the no-magic zone. They desperately wanted to see some indication that would let them know that their parents were in control of the situation and everything was going according to plan.
Instead, they saw genuine fear on Gwen and Martin’s faces as they scrambled to get out of the way of the limp body of Magnus Galka landing at their feet. The expressions of fear did not subside when many tons worth of stone from the surrounding fields lifted into the air and swirled around Magnus Rex.
Brewster said, “They really don’t have any magic.”
“No,” Mattie agreed. “But we do.”
“Yeah, and that means that Gilbert and Sid do, too, and Magnus doesn’t know it. That gives them a huge advantage, as long as they don’t let on.”
Sid said, “Pardon me, dear fellow.”
Mattie and Brewster both groaned.
Sid continued, “Just to clarify, am I to understand that your macro, as you call it, prevents the castigation . . . is that the word, Gilbert? Castigation? I’m looking for the past tense of the act of casting a spell.”
“Casting,” Brewster said. “The proper word would be casting.”
“Or use!” Mattie said. “Why not just say use?”
Below them, Gilbert said, “Wouldn’t it just be casting?”
”No, there’s got to be a term more baroque than that, but castigation doesn’t sound right.”
Brewster said, “Utilization.”
Gilbert said, “Castration?”
Mattie snorted, contemptuously. “We’re gonna have to help them. I don’t think they can help themselves. Come on, Brewster. Maybe we can sneak around behind him.”
Mattie flew around to her left, Magnus Rex’s right, taking care not to put herself between him and the powerless adult wizards.
Brewster followed. “Yeah. Let the grown-ups be a diversion. I’m sure we can, I dunno, hit him with a rabbit from behind or something.”
Gilbert launched a rabbit that flew straight at Magnus Rex and clamped on to his arm, then hung there, writhing uselessly.
Magnus Rex let the rabbit dangle for a moment, demonstrating the attack’s impotence. When he seemed certain his point was made, he sent all of the boulders swirling in his orbit flying directly at Gilbert, Sid, and the wizards surrounding them.
