Jake's Women (Wizards) (12 page)

22.
      
Preparations

Thanks to the internet the task I had set myself was not impossible, merely very difficult. I had hopped here having tracked the entire route using one of those aerial mapping programs. It isn’t easy to hop to places I haven’t visited before, but it’s relatively easy to hop into the air and then carry out a series of hops to places I can see. If you haven’t memorized the landmarks, you surely get somewhere; just not where you planned.

The
here
in question was a hill overlooking an army firing range in the south of England. It was MOD property and I had no right to be there. However, the soldiers were firing in the opposite direction so I was probably safe. I used magic to zoom my vision in on one particular soldier to make sure he was using the right rifle. I’d done a crash course in recognizing rifles using Wiki before I set out.

It was easy to hop behind him and I rendered him unconscious before he could see me. I put my hand against his forehead and learned what I needed to know. I hopped back to the Bat Cave as he started to stir.

[Is this a good idea?]

“It’s the only one I’ve got, so it had better be.”

Retnor stood and stretched his wings, nearly knocking me over. The Bat Cave was large, but then a thirty foot wing span takes up a lot of room.

[It will be good to fly some distance. Ever since that reporter saw me I have been a little nervous about staying visible for too long.]

“We’ll hop all the way going. But I suppose we can fly as far as you like going back. There’s going to be a lot of weight though.”

[You take all the fun out of things.]

“Sorry.”

I climbed onto his back and adjusted the nets we were going to use to carry off the loot. The whole idea was crazy and it would stir up a lot of fuss in certain quarters in England, though I suspected not a word of the theft would leak to the press. That I would become a thief was depressing, so much that I had asked Esmeralda for some gems from the royal collection. It was only fair that Salice pay something as this was all for them. I would leave the gems where the loot had been.

“When I get us there, drop straight into glim.”

[I know the plan, Jake.]

Retnor was nervous. Where we were going, people carried weapons that could kill us. I would have a shield around us most of the time, but a shield stops the wearer doing things almost as much as the enemy. I would have to drop it for long periods while we were sorting through the stuff.

We materialized in mid-air about 200 feet above a hangar. Retnor dropped us into glim and used his magic to hold us in the air. Dragons don’t use their wings for lift. They had grown far too heavy for that a long time ago. But their instincts remained and Retnor beat his wings. Glim is a half state between being in hop space and being in the real world. We could see around us, but the colors were faded and nothing in reality could touch us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t touch anything either.

Retnor dropped vertically like a helicopter so we could read the signs.

[This isn’t the Armory.]

“It’s got to be around here somewhere.”

We flew lazily to the next building. I had assumed the armory would be near the center of the base, but it seemed I was wrong.

[Guards. Over there.]

Two guards stood in front of a building. Retnor decided this was an adequate hint and we flew straight through them into the building beyond. My dragon was far bigger than the rooms with his wings outstretched. It was a decidedly strange feeling to fly through walls in absolute silence.

“Here.”

I slid off Retnor and immediately reappeared in normal space. I don’t know how to glim. It was a dragon magic and it was not immediately obvious how to do it even though I’d been in it many times.

The weapons were locked inside special cabinets, but it took only a second to force the doors open. It took a little longer to locate the M24 rifles along with the telescopic sights I was looking for. There were ten of them, which I hoped would be enough.

“Can you get in here?”

Retnor managed to materialize in the room, but only just. He held his wings close to his body. I stacked the rifles into the nets on either side of his body. Fortunately the ammunition was kept in boxes below the rifles and I took all I could find, which wasn’t very much.

[I can’t hop carrying this much.]

“Can you glim?”

[Yes.]

“Once we are moving I can hop both of us.” It was a sad truth that when stationary, even a wizard of my powers cannot hop more than a dozen people along with him. Unless the wizard and the objects were in motion. Then I could hop a whole bus.

“Halt or I’ll shoot!”

A soldier stood with his machine gun pointed at me. Then he took in Retnor, his eyes widened in fear and his trigger finger twitched. Rounds sprayed towards us. I had put a shield between us as soon as he started to speak, but bullets are difficult to stop because they are travelling so fast; even magic pays some attention to physical laws. These dropped to the floor mere inches from us.

[Jake, take hold]

I gave the soldier’s chest a magical push and he fell backwards. Then I dived for my dragon. We dropped into glim.

“Can you get us moving?”

In answer, Retnor started walking. That may sound daft, but glim is a place that dragons can adjust around them and we appeared to be on a solid floor even though the walls had no substance. Retnor picked up speed and then he was running.

I hopped us back into the Bat Cave and Retnor promptly crashed into a wall.

[You could have warned me you were about to do that.]

“Sorry.”

I seemed to be saying that a lot these days.

Watching Merlin and Morgana together in the same room was a delight. Though they were still at the waving arms randomly around stage physically, the link between them pulsed in a way that suggested a lot more was going on in the magical plane. Beyond explaining the link to my wives I’d told them very little about their babies’ magical talents. But since they had got together in Salice it was clear that my babies knew exactly what the other one was up to. Feeds had to be synchronized to avoid a tantrum from the one not getting fed.

Nearly two weeks had passed since my meeting with Betty. So far we had had no word from Bronwyn and no sign of invasion or reconnaissance from her Cult. I was putting off going after the knife, but logic suggested if I left it much longer the Progenitors would put it into deep store or into the garbage. A little nagging voice in the back of my head was telling me to get on with it.

“Lord Wizard, we have need of you.”

I hadn’t heard Esmeralda enter the room and I turned round rapidly. Since she was standing calmly (with only a slight hint of foot tapping) I concluded that we were not in the middle of an invasion.

“Huh?”

“It is always good to hear my husband express himself so cogently. You may remember we scheduled a meeting to go over the defense of the realm? My father, he is the King you may remember, asked you to turn up on time. You are twenty minutes late.”

“Sorry. I forgot the time watching the babies.”

Esmeralda smiled, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to be nice about it. “Ah yes. It is understandable you should be full of self-admiration. But might I remind you that ten minutes work on your part, if we count both conceptions, was followed by nine months hard labor from Jennifer and myself.”

When I showed no immediate sign of moving she made a hrmthing sound.

“The meeting?”

I reached out my hand and when she took it pulled her towards me. By the time she bounced against my chest we were in the Ballroom.

“Ah Jake. Good of you to attend.” My father in law was completely unperturbed by our arrival out of thin air, or the look on his daughter’s face.

Urda smiled at me and her sister lowered her eyes. She was looking much better than the last time I saw her. Queen Janti nodded and Esmeralda raised an eyebrow. A number of Lords and Ladies also sat around the table. I knew them all by sight and even one or two by name.

“To business,” the King said and then looked at his daughter expectantly as the two of us sat at the table.

“Have there been any sightings of the Cult or Bronwyn?” asked Esmeralda briskly.

Everybody shook their heads or grunted in the negative.

“Remind the people to be alert. They are bound to scout out the kingdom before they attack.”

“Might Bronwyn persuade them to leave us alone?” Chancellor Hart asked hopefully.

Esmeralda looked at me expectantly, as if I had a clue.

I shrugged. “My best guess is that they are still trying to get her powers fully restored. Who knows how long that might take? They are also expanding Barren and other towns on their world. That ought to take years, even for wizards.”

Esmeralda tapped a pencil on the table.

“And would you care to give us your best guess as to when they might attack?”

“Today, next month, next year? The only way to tell is to go to Tydan and find out.”

“But instead, you plan to leave us defenseless while you carry out a fool’s errand against the Progenitors.”

There were a few gasps from those Lords and Ladies not familiar with all aspects of our relationship.

“I believe the Lord Wizard has a plan to protect us,” Treva Assad said bravely. It takes real guts to contradict Esmeralda. Treva was the new Captain of the Guard. I hadn’t warmed to him when he first got the job, but I was finding him a powerful ally.

“Using these Earth weapons?”

If it was possible to snub an entire planet, Esmeralda had just done it.

It was time for a speech. I stood up and took a deep breath.

“There’s a reason that technological worlds don’t suffer from invading wizards. While a wizard might raid such a world, staying there is a death sentence. None of us can spend every moment of every day and night instantly ready to protect ourselves.”

“And yet wizards have ruled Salice rather more often than they have not,” the King interjected.

“Because Salice has not yet invented practical explosives. Once you go down that road then weapons that can kill at a distance and destroy castle walls will follow swiftly. A wizard on Earth could be killed from a mile away, and he would never hear the shot that killed him.”

“And how does that help Salice?” Esmeralda again.

Treva stood. “If I may, Lord Wizard?”

I sat down and let him take over.

Treva took a M24 Sniper Rifle from the bag by his side. He expertly clipped on the laser sight and pointed the weapon vaguely in my direction. I slapped a shield between us that was so strong it made the air hum.

He laughed. “It is not loaded. But it makes the Lord Wizard’s point. Even he is afraid of it. This telescope lets me see what I am pointing the weapon at, and the red dot over there tells me exactly what I will hit. Every single time.”

“A rule with weapons like that is never point them at anyone you don’t want to kill, whether you think they are loaded or not,” I said quickly. To my great relief Treva put the weapon down, leaving it pointing safely at the wall.

“It can kill a wizard from over a mile away,” he continued, stating the obvious.

Chancellor Hart looked confused. “But wizards can stop a man with a single word. Burn him to death with two.”

“The point is that the wizard can’t be aware of everything around him at once. Any attack on Salice will start at the Palace. Ten well trained men with these weapons can take out their wizards before they know they are being attacked. Those that survive will retreat to their home world and hopefully decide we aren’t worth the cost.”

Esmeralda mulled this over.

“And do we have ten men capable of using these weapons effectively?”

Treva grinned. “The Lord Wizard has trained thirty of us by magic, though we only have ten weapons.”

“I learned from an expert,” for a second I saw the image of the soldier I’d sent to sleep. “All the men have fired enough live rounds to use that expertise for real.”