Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water (33 page)

Every delegate in the crowd did as they were asked, instantly surrounding the open space in a protective field, sealing in Nilo and Martin as well. As Vikram again raised his pungi to his mouth, Martin made his move, diving for his staff. Sadly, it was too late. He saw some sort of dark mass shoot at high speed from the end of the pungi, and was driven to the ground under the weight of what people outside the force field could see was an undulating mountain made up of millions of live cobras.

The crowd that had gathered to watch the battle dispersed instantly, screaming and fleeing from the horrific scene. They ran far enough away to not be afraid of the cobras, but not so far away that they couldn’t see what would happen next.

The delegates from different cultures and times worked together to keep the snakes contained, and Nilo and Martin
contained
, buried beneath the squirming serpents like children hiding in the ball pit at a Chuck E. Cheese. Vikram looked proud. Gilbert and Sid looked delighted, or as delighted as they could in their current condition.

One of the Egyptians turned to the other and said, “Asps. Very dangerous. You go first,” which got a nice laugh out of all of the delegates.

Brit the Elder’s patio was large, more than large enough to host every sorceress in Atlantis, and that was a good thing, because they had all teleported in, drawn by the promise of some
genuine
drama. At first there was quite a bit of chaos. They were all
accustomed
to deferring to Brit the Elder, but she wasn’t there, leaving a power vacuum. The next obvious authority
figure
was Brit the Younger, who was also gone. That left Ida, but to Gwen’s relief everybody seemed to recognize that neither Ida nor Gwen should be running the show, since they both clearly had a
n agenda.

After a brief conversation, Louiza, the doctor, took charge of the situation and nobody argued, which in this case was all the vote they needed to take.

Of course, Gwen already had the crowd on her side. She wasn’t sure this would be the case. After all, Ida was popular enough with the other sorceresses to get herself elected to the only elected office they had. Happily, as the other sorceresses started to arrive, they all noticed that Gwen seemed genuinely happy to have other people involved in the argument, while Ida seemed frantic and skittish and tried to hide it under an
increasingly
unconvincing front.

Once all of the sorceresses had arrived, Louiza told the guards to leave, which they did gratefully. Then, the sorceresses set about trying to figure out what was going on. They formed a rough circle with Gwen and Ida in the center and told them both to explain themselves. This might sound like a less aggressive approach than the male delegates were pursuing further out toward the rim of the city, but from Ida and Gwen’s point of view it didn’t feel less aggressive.

“All right, you two,” Louiza said. “You called us all here. What’s going on?”

Ida said, “I didn’t call you here! She called you all here, not me! I told you not to listen to her!”

Louiza held up her hands to make Ida both quieter and calmer. “Okay, okay,” Louiza said. “Fine, Ida. You didn’t call us here. This meeting is Gwen’s doing.”

Ida smiled, feeling as if she’d scored a point.

Louiza said, “Okay, Gwen. You called everyone here. What’s going on?”

“Wait! What?” Ida shouted. “Why does she get to explain things? How’s that fair?”

Louiza squinted at Ida, then, in a slow, even tone said, “She’s the one who called us here. I think we’d all like to know why. It seems logical to ask her for an explanation.”

“Actually, Ida,” Gwen said, “I think it would be better for everyone if you did explain what’s going on.” She softened her expression as much as she could, and looked Ida directly in the eye. “Go ahead, Ida, tell them what’s happened, from your point of view. They’ll listen.” She hoped her message was
piercing
through all the layers of ego and embarrassment and panic,
actually
reaching Ida’s brain. Gwen thought this might be Ida’s only chance at redeeming herself.

Ida muttered, “I don’t know.” Then she broke her eye contact with Gwen, shrugged, and in a loud, clear voice said, “I don’t know why Gwen called you all here. I can’t think of anything she’d have to say, unless she intends to lie.”

Gwen grimaced. Ida misinterpreted this as a sign that she’d scored another point.

Louiza squinted again, then said, “Well, I can see why you fought to get the chance to say that you don’t know what she’s going to say.”

“Except that I know it’ll be a lie,” Ida corrected her. Gwen realized that on a certain level, she missed Jimmy. At least he’d been a good liar. Ida was panicking, and there’s a reason you never hear anyone say, “Luckily I panicked and did something really smart.”

“Noted,” Louiza said, in an effort to placate Ida. She turned to Gwen. “Okay, your turn.”

Gwen said, “Ida is in a romantic relationship with her
servant
, Nilo.”

Most of the sorceresses laughed at this. Louiza smiled and shook her head. She started to say something, but Gwen cut her off. “Because of her feelings for Nilo, she used the file to stop his aging.”

Louiza’s expression changed. She no longer looked amused. She looked concerned. The other sorceresses stopped laughing as well, but Gwen noted that instead of looking concerned, many of them looked embarrassed.

“And,” Gwen continued, fearing she might lose what little momentum she had, “when she told him about it, he talked her into giving him other powers!”

Gwen saw a lot less quiet embarrassment among the
sorceresses
and a lot more quiet shock. Louiza looked at Ida and asked, “What powers?”

Ida said nothing, so Gwen answered, “The power to make small explosives, powerful enough to bring down a statue. The power to create enchanted arrows that home in on a
specific
target
. The power to create portals in space. He told her he wanted these powers to eliminate Brit the Younger. He believed that if he did, Brit the Elder would be out of the way as well,
leaving
Ida, as president, in charge.”

Now, Gwen could detect no embarrassment in the crowd, just anger. All eyes turned to Ida, who also looked angry. Louiza asked, “What do you say to that, Ida?”

Ida said, “See? Lies!” Several of the women listening groaned. “Yeah,” Ida said. “I know. Why would she make up a lie like that?” Ida nodded vigorously and wagged her index finger. “You know what I think?” She continued nodding and wagging slightly longer than one would expect before continuing. “I think she, Gwen, and that guy, that Martin, I think
they
are the ones who were trying to get rid of Brit. Yeah!
Yeah!
It all makes sense!”

Ida spread her arms wide and spun around, making sure that she had everyone’s attention. She did.

“Yeah, Gwen wanted Brit out of the way because she wanted that other wizard guy, the old one—”

“Phillip,” Gwen interrupted.

“Yeeeees, Phillip! You liked Phillip, didn’t you? Yeah, and you knew that he and Brit the Younger were an item, so she had t
o go!”

Gwen asked, more out of curiosity than any concern, “Why would Martin help?”

Ida said, “Because, because . . . because he, he wanted you! Right? I mean, it’s obvious that he’s into you! Obviously he wanted Phillip out of the way so he could have you to himself!”

Gwen shook her head. “So, you’re saying that we killed Brit so I could have Phillip, and we killed Phillip so Martin could have me. That’s stupid.”

Ida said, “No stupider than the plan you say Nilo and I had.”

“Well,” Gwen said through gritted teeth, “I can’t argue with that.”

“No, you can’t,” Ida smirked.

“But tell me this,” Gwen asked, “what about Ampyx?”

Ida asked, “What’s an Ampyx?”

Gwen, speaking more to the gathered sorceresses than to Ida, said, “He’s a guard who was in the room when Ida admitted her plan to Martin and me.”

“Well, clearly, he’ll back you two up, because he’s in on it, too. He probably wants you as well.”

Gwen was amazed. “You’re saying that I killed Brit because I wanted Phillip to myself, and that Martin and Ampyx both helped me, killing Phillip in the process, because they both wanted me instead.”

Ida shrugged, smugly.

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Look, if we were just going to get rid of Phillip along with Brit, then there’s no point in getting rid of Brit in the first place. Also, even if that made sense, the plan you just laid out still leaves me, Martin, and Ampyx here in Atlantis, so neither of them has me. The math doesn’t work out.”

Ida said, “Oh, I dunno. Maybe you’re into that kind of thing.”

Gwen said, “If I were, then they’d have no reason to get rid of Phillip.”

Ida said, “Look, it’s your stupid plan. I can’t explain it.”

Louiza decided it was time to take back control of the meeting. “A lot of accusations have been made here. Some plausible, some less so. I propose that we don’t do anything rash until we’ve had time to talk to Martin, Nilo, and . . . what’s his name?”

Gwen said, “Ampyx.”

Louiza looked at Ida and said, “We’ll talk to them, then we’ll do something rash. I further propose that I continue to refer to the guard in question as what’s-his-name.” The wave of head nods and muttered affirmations made a vote unnecessary.

Louiza opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by a blinding flash of light coming from a gap in the buildings up near the rim of the city. All of the sorceresses looked up and saw fire, chaos, and panic. An instant later, loud, horrific sounds of screaming and explosions reached their ears.

“What in God’s name is that?!” Louiza gasped.

Gwen said, “The boys.”

Every window, door, and alleyway that fed into the square was packed full of people craning their necks to see what would
happen
next, but the square itself appeared to be populated entirely by wizards and cobras. Nilo was there too, but nobody could see him, because he and Martin were buried under the cobras.

The wizards wore many different disguises. There were shamen, medicine men, philosophers, con men, holy men, magi, and magicians, but they were all, when you got down to it, wizards, and now they were acting like it. Once Vikram had finished producing the cobras he joined the rest of the wizards in creating and maintaining the invisible walls that were holding the squirming mass of horror in place. The cobras were piled at least ten feet deep, and where the force fields held them in, they formed a solid wall of slick, coiling blackness.

Gilbert, still disguised as a tuxedoed mass of tentacles, asked Vikram, “What if the cobras bite him? We’re not trying to kill anybody.”

Vikram said, “Oh, they’re not actually poisonous. They’re not even really snakes. They look and feel real, but all they do is slither around. They don’t bite.”

A small light spot appeared in the undulating wall of snake flesh. It grew, and became recognizable as a hand. A second hand joined it, pushing against the invisible force field, then Nilo’s face became clear, contorted both by the pressure of being pressed against
the force field, and by the horror of what was doing the pressing.

Nilo struggled and scrambled and clambered his way to the top of the pile, which looked a bit like tall marsh grass swaying in the wind, only instead of grass, it was hooded cobras, all poised as if ready to strike. Gilbert was so amazed by the sight of Nilo fighting his way to freedom that he didn’t even think to extend the force field until Nilo was already vaulting over the top of it.

Nilo landed clumsily on the ground between Gilbert and Sid, neither of whom made any move to stop him, as they were busy holding back a wall of snakes. They knew the snakes weren’t real, but they didn’t have time to think. They were acting on instinct, and the “avoid being buried under an avalanche of cobras”
instinct is pretty strong.

Nilo rose awkwardly to his feet, looked at the wall of snakes behind him, looked at the monsters on either side of him, and ran away from all three of them as fast as he could.