Deadly Wands (6 page)

The visitor just said he was gonna kill them
to suck their wands dry. Drained of life, their useless wands would
then break like twigs. The words chilled William, who until now had
not felt the Siberian cold.

"You’ve been very polite. Please continue by
telling us your name."

The old warrior hesitated, but decided he
owed them at least that. "Subodei."

Liz and Billy watched William turn pale. He
seemed to shrink in front of them.

"We just killed sixteen. What's one more?"
Liz demanded.

"We can't beat him," William assured her. "He
has Millennial Wands. I'll fly north, you go south. Billy, lose him
in the woods."

"And why can't we beat one guy?" she wanted
to know.

"Show her," William begged the visitor.

"You seem like a good Mongol, so I'll tell
you what. If you and your wife promise to fight, I'll let your son
live. If either of you flee, I'll make sure he dies hard. I'm
responsible for the deaths of millions. As your wife said, what's
one more?"

"Who is he?" his wife demanded, completely
irritated.

"You know him as the Third Millennial. The
Second Millennial, Jamuka, was Genghis’ blood-brother growing up,
then rival as adults. Subodei has an even longer wingspan than
Genghis Khan."

Known as the Khan's favorite general, Subodei
won sixty-five pitched battles and defeated thirty-two nations
before retiring in his prime. In contrast, Julius Caesar fought
fifty major battles and Alexander the “Great” just five.

When Genghis first heard of wands, he paid a
fortune to find the oldest tree. From it the legendary wand maker
Torolchi crafted ten sets of the world’s most powerful wands.
Genghis promised the wands to the first warriors who scored a
thousand kills. So many quads were eager to prove themselves that
they completed the unification of the nomad tribes, then looked
south to quench their thirst. Soon they sucked China dry.

"How many Millennial Wands are still
alive?"

"What am I? A history professor?" The
visitor's patience was running low.

"Come on, or we'll take our chances at high
altitude! Genghis uses a set, with one as backup, and gave another
to the head of his personal security. Jamuka lost his when Genghis
killed him over Lake Balkhash, and General Boorchu's burned in the
ashes of Moscow. How many others still work?"

He shrugged. "You already know that Genghis
gave sets to his brothers, Khasar and Kachiun, although I don't
know which of their descendents have them now. Batu Mongke has the
tenth set, as far as I know."

William felt Billy looking at him. In the
briefest glance they read each other’s minds. William nodded to
give his son permission.

"Let the child go and we promise not to run."
William then shushed his wife before she could argue with him.

"You know what I like most about a fair
fight?" the general asked rhetorically. "The better fighter always
wins."

Subodei “spread his wings,” shooting flames
fourteen meters in both directions for a total “wingspan” of
twenty-eight meters -- the most in the world. As he geared up to
attack, Billy hopped through the deep snow towards him with his
palms empty.

"Stop! You have to first promise to carry me
home or I’ll freeze to death tonight."

The general hesitated in disbelief at the
ballsy kid. Although he had a good point since the old man didn’t
know the boy could fly. Still, he didn't want to bother with that.
The father sensed it, and called him out.

"We’ll agree to stay only if you swear before
Father Sky and Mother Earth to carry our son safely home."

The old general grunted his displeasure. His
first temptation was to kill the father, and hope he could find the
mother before dark. They both looked prepared to flee, although the
child stupidly walked eight meters in front of him, memorizing his
face.

"Where can I find you in ten years?" Billy
demanded to distract him.

"Revenge is suicide, boy. No one can beat
me."

"That’s my decision, not yours. As a
descendent of Genghis Khan, I demand honor for the killing of my
parents.”

Spoken like a true Mongol. The ancient
warrior stared hard at the little boy. With snow up to his chest,
Billy looked about to drown.

"In a cave on top of Mt. Burklan Khaldun. Now
get out of my way."

William and Liz suddenly popped up and spread
out to flank him. Subodei naturally tracked them, the child
forgotten. Instead of reaching into his coat like other quads,
Billy had wand launchers attached to his underarms, and already
held his new wands under the snow. He now thrust twin blades
through two meters of snow into the general’s chest, who looked
really surprised that a six year old had eight meter long blades.
In all fairness, no six year old had ever projected that much
length. Ever.

Billy slashed the old man’s arms before the
shock wore off. The general fell back, screaming in frustration.
Before he could recover, the boy scrambled forward and snatched his
hand wands. For a man who thought he had seen everything, Subodei
looked astonished. He tried to say something, but only coughed up
blood.

This was the greatest moment in Billy’s life.
“Revenge is suicide, boy! No one can beat me!” Billy said in a
surprisingly accurate imitation. “Except some damn six year old.
I’m gonna let the world know that the most powerful quad in history
got killed by a child. So how does it feel to get tricked by a
little boy?” Sitting on his chest plate, Billy peered into his
face. "You know what I like most about a fair fight? The better
fighter always wins."

Delirious, Billy popped up in the air and
blasted fire from all four wands, laughing like a lunatic. He
looked down to see the old dueler staring up at him in horror.

“You can use boot wands!” Meaning, other than
for propulsion. “You’re the one who got Barchuk!”

“And, after I destroy the Mongol Empire,”
Billy warned him, “I’m gonna kill Genghis Khan.”

“Noooooooo!” the world’s most successful
general cried.

“Billy!” William yelled out as he landed.
“This is the bastard who led the team that wiped out three
generations of our family in Prussia, so make him die hard.”

“I’m busy transferring wands. You make him
suffer.”

So while Billy absorbed the world’s most
powerful wands, William electrocuted the old man’s genitals. The
boy looked like a nympho enjoying her first multiple orgasm while
the general looked like he swallowed a pinecone. While the bandit’s
wands were incredible, they couldn’t compare to these
Millennials.

They say you begin owning your wands and end
with your wands owning you. Feeding the world’s most powerful
addiction meant Billy would have to duel constantly. Fighting would
boost his wand power, which would increase his addiction, which
would force him to satisfy an ever greater thirst in a vicious
cycle that some called a Faustian Bargain. Every super-quad is an
addict, but never had so strong an addiction started in someone so
young. Nor armed with the world’s best wands. This addiction
determined Billy’s fate. He could never retire, never take a year
off. He had to fight until he died or the withdrawal would kill
him.

What no one appreciated then was how the
world’s most powerful wands would improve a six year old’s ability
to heal. Because he’d use his wands constantly, Billy bathed in
wand juice daily, which fortified his capacity to recuperate. His
body grew, year after year, soaking up wand juice. Growing up in
healing energy did not make him invincible, but it did make him
very hard to kill. Billy would sleep off injuries that would have
killed others.

“Watch this!” the boy told the general,
torching his new Millennials almost eleven meters. “You just gave
the world’s best wands to the Empire’s greatest enemy. I’ll now
join my father in targeting Mongol super-quads.”

The old man tried to curse him, but Billy
just laughed in his face. Literally -- he landed on his chest
plate. General Subodei, scourge of lands from China to Russia to
Hungary, watched the boy watch him die. It seemed to take him
forever to bleed to death, but for Billy, it ended all too
soon.

Billy savored the best damn day of his life.
And his week would only get better because they’d find thousands of
wands in Subodei's mountaintop home, including a backup set of
Millennial Wands that the general was long rumored to have. It was
the coup of a lifetime.

Like most parents, William and Elizabeth
recorded almost everything their only child did. Unlike most kids,
Billy recorded himself since he sparked his first wand at age
three. He wanted a video of every memorable moment of what he
expected to be a tragically short life. So now he saved this
experience forever on his wand, careful to show Subodei’s dying
breath.

Billy left his childhood behind without a
backward glance.

CHAPTER 8

Dueling obsessed Billy, forcing the family to
visit hundreds of big cities so he could exhaust the world’s best
video libraries at night while exhausting dueling arenas during the
day. He even squinted at the oldest videos that had decayed so much
they had more gray than color. Billy lived, breathed, and bled the
sport like the worst fanatic. He spoke of ancient duelers like they
were neighbors and ran librarians ragged by demanding obscure
recordings buried in deep basements. He argued for hours with other
enthusiasts over the smallest of details or the silliest of dueling
philosophies.

William thought he had a solid Top 10 list of
favorite duelers until Billy cruelly picked them apart. Not content
with just ten favorites, Billy constantly reshuffled his Top 100
and speculated in detail over theoretical matches between fighters
who lived in different centuries. William spent less time offering
constructive criticism of Billy’s dueling and more time defending
his own victories in the arena. The boy showed more mercy in the
stadium than in his analysis of his father’s duels. William became
a much better dueler, but Billy turned into a perfectionist. Liz
had to forbid the topic in her presence.

To salvage his self-respect, William tried
teaching Billy about war. They bought maps, read books, and studied
geography. William took Billy to battlefields to show how terrain
affected campaigns. They debated old war slogans like “An air force
flies on its stomach” and “Tactics win battles, while strategy wins
wars.” They studied the greatest generals of the ancient world --
Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Alexander, Gaius Marius, and Caesar.
Billy wanted to become the world’s best dueler, but William wanted
him to become the world’s best general.

Armed with Millennial Wands, father and son
dominated twice as many arenas. Billy would stay until he ran out
of challengers, then take on teams of two. And who feared a six
year old? Billy dueled ten times as many opponents as his father
simply because he could, and in the process made a fortune. They
hired more of Liz’s family to open up more bank branches. Global
Bank gave interest-free loans to France and Spain to keep them
afloat.

Speed is thrust versus weight. Given the same
wand power, a twenty-five kilo boy could maneuver four times as
fast as a one hundred kilo man -- it was like boxing against
someone who could punch four times as fast.

For his 7
^th
birthday, Billy wanted
to visit American University, a famous flight school founded by
American Jack in San Francisco. Global Bank already had branches on
the American east coast, so William sent employees to start their
first branch on the west coast. Meanwhile, they loaded down every
Siberian quad with gold and flew them to San Francisco to fund
their newest branch.

William walked into American University with
thousands of great wand sets and offered to employ every American
marathoner, near-marathoner, and near-marathoners that they could
train.

A marathoner could fly a thousand kilometers
a day, a near-marathoner eight hundred clicks, and a
half-marathoner five hundred. The University had been training
quads for two centuries, so they could find them all from their
graduates. It’d still take a year for their best veterans to become
proficient at maneuvering together in formation.

To get the best fliers, William offered
double the normal salary, plus half of the spoils from raiding, but
he only wanted those who could fly the minimum distance one hundred
days straight, instead of just ten. The best wands would go to
those who could fly the farthest.

To spread the word, William sent Billy with
their recruiters to show off at America’s biggest cities.
Meanwhile, they showed William their ten lines of fortifications,
stretching from the Bering Strait, which separates Siberia from
Alaska, to Anchorage.

Unimpressed, William paid the University to
construct hidden bunkers capable of housing a battalion within a
few hundred clicks of the coast. He ordered ten million bombs to
distribute among these bunkers. William spent a month flying from
the Strait to determine the Khan’s likeliest invasion route before
taking the family back to work.

The downside of constant dueling was it put
Liz in a state of perpetual fear. Her husband and son suffered
serious wounds weekly. Billy got hurt so much he sucked wand in his
sleep -- something that William did not know was possible. The few
hundred Siberians who could pass for Mongols became his golden air
mules. They’d fly their winnings to Siberia, where other Siberians
would haul it to San Francisco.

What William really needed was Global Bank
branches throughout the Empire. Or a faster way to move tons of
wealth to the Americas. Or both.

Billy celebrated his eighth birthday with the
pack's other boys in the leader's ger. His parents took advantage
of having their hut to themselves. The next morning, when they
looked for Billy, they were told he went on one of his long
distance endurance exercises. Because they could not fly as high,
as far, or as fast, Billy had to push his limits alone.