Quartet for the End of Time #2
Another person stood behind Lilly, and when she walked forward Buck nearly let the knife slip. “My queen!” he gasped. “I didn’t mean you no harm, Your Majesty. But the wizard here is deceiving us all, you understand.”
The queen held a large gray box. “You can let the wizard go,” she said. “It’s not safe for you here, I promise.”
“I’m sorry, Buck,” Gregorian said, pulling a little on his rope leash, “but you have no idea just how sheltered you are. Even the queen doesn’t know, but I do.”
Lilly laughed. “Do you?”
“Don’t be cruel,” Gregorian said.
“Be quiet!” Buck said. “I don’t want to kill him, either, lady, but I will if you try to take him.”
Hannah walked forward. “Please let him go. I’m just starting to understand, too, but there are a lot of lies in the Malicarn.”
“What’s that? What are you holding?” Buck asked.
“It’s a, well…” Hannah paused and looked at the box. “I don’t know really. Some kind of magic.”
“See, Gregorian, there is magic!” Buck laughed.
“You said there ain’t but I knows the truth.
Wizards lie. My father fought in the wars.
He told me all about wizards. He didn’t trust wizards neither, not really.
They used people as shields, as tools, children even.
He told me this story once about searching for rogue mages in a village.
They found a kid in a house, in a hideaway, watching over magical artifacts, but the kid tried to kill my pop and his buddies.
Killed one of them with an arrow, then my father struck him down.
The wizard set the kid up, believe that?
Damn shame they had to kill the kid. Got the mages in the end, though. Found them and killed them.”
“Where did you hear that story?” Lilly asked.
“Like I said, my father told me.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Well, his right name was Francis. But folk called him Frank. Frank Douglas.”
“It’s not real, Buck,” Gregorian said. “It’s like I’ve been trying to tell you, none of it is real.” Gregorian moved a step back, but Buck held the blade closer to his neck, the tip poking the skin.
“No, it’s real,” Lilly said.
“What?” Buck asked.
“There really was a child. He was hiding, he probably didn’t want to trick the soldiers. But the soldiers killed him anyway. The child was real. He lived. My father told me that story, too.”
“Lilly,” Gregorian asked, “what are you talking about?”
“I don’t understand none of this,” Buck said. His eyes teared up, and his voice cracked. He pointed at Lilly. “How do you know these things?”
“This box,” Lilly said, taking it from Hannah’s hands and setting it on the ground. “It’s a, um, a dreamtalker. It creates memories. I gave your father that memory with it.”
“Never heard of a dreamtalker,” Buck said. “I know loads about wizards but ain’t never knew of that.”
“That’s what this is,” Lilly said, kicking the box softly with her foot.
“I don’t think you should touch it,” Buck said.
“It’s real magic,” Gregorian said. “Let us go and I will show you.”
“How will you show me if I let you go?”
“I will come back,” Gregorian said. “I promise. I just want to get the queen to safety. As soon as the queen is safe, I’ll come back and I’ll still be your prisoner. I’ll even show you how magic works.”
Buck smiled. “No, no. Kreek says you are a schemer. No, no, no. How do I know you’ll come back? Never trust a wizard, that’s what my father always said. You’re lying still.”
“Show it to him now,” Lilly said. Her eyes were fixed on the box. “Go on, Gregorian.”
“Lilly?” asked the queen. “What are you doing?”
“The wizard is going to do some magic,” she said.
Gregorian nodded. “Yes. Buck, please, come. The dreamtalker can tell a wizard what’s in another man’s head. Would you like to see what I know? I can give you some real wizarding knowledge, directly from my mind to yours.”
“Sounds like dark magic, maybe.”
“No, no. It’s quite safe,” Lilly said. “Please, let me show you.”
“I’m gonna have to watch you close, though. You try to run and I’ll have to cut him.” He waved the knife at Gregorian.
Lilly knelt on the ground beside the box. She touched it, and the box began to hum. Buck laughed. Lilly uncoiled two cords, one green and one red, as lights shone out from the box.
“Incredible,” Buck said. “Magic light.”
Lilly took the red cord and placed one end of it on her forehead. Then she pressed one of the lights on the box and there was a loud buzzing sound. The dreamtalker shook. After a moment it ended and Lilly removed the cord from her head.
“See? The box just read my mind. I am fine. It isn’t dangerous at all.”
“Doesn’t seem much like magic,” Buck said. “Does it really work?”
“It’s an invisible magic,” Gregorian said.
“Let me see, then. Let me see what a wizard knows!” He cut the ropes around Gregorian’s wrists, then kept the knife against his throat.
Gregorian knelt down next to the box. He looked up toward Lilly, who backed away.
Hannah stood behind her, watching, her eyes flicking back and forth between the box and Lilly.
“The first step,” Gregorian began, “is, uh—”
“You have to disengage sequestration,” Lilly said.
“What?” Buck squinted his eyes and looked at her. “You are a wizard, too, aren’t you?”
“She’s a real dream sorceress,” Gregorian said. “Knows more than anyone about it.”
“Take the sequestration protocol offline with the master switch on the left.”
“It’s turned off already.”
“Good. Now you set it for input or output. Both systems can work simultaneously, so you have to set either input or output to zero. If both are set high, then it will extract and implant at the same time.”
“What wizard talk!” Buck laughed.
“Do you understand me, Gregorian? If both are set at one hundred percent, it will do both at the same time, and at the same rate. Both at the same time. And with no sequestration.”
Gregorian nodded. “I understand.” He made a few adjustments to the dial.
“The red cord reads. The green cord implements. You want to put only the green cord onto Buck’s forehead. Not both. If you do both, it will both read and implement.” She looked straight at Gregorian as she said this. “Do you understand? It will both read and implement.”
Gregorian nodded and said nothing. He reached the green cord toward Buck. “Here, Buck. At the end here is a flat sensor, called a node. Like a magic orb. Hold it onto your forehead.”
Buck smiled. With one hand still holding the knife, he used the other to place the end of the green cord above his eyes. He smiled broadly.
“Real magic!” he cried.
“Now,” Lilly continued. “You have to enter an algorithm based on the subject’s height and weight. You can estimate but—”
Gregorian shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Lilly slowly approached. “I’m going to show him, Buck, okay?”
Buck nodded, his eyes crossed as he stared at the cord in front of him. Lilly leaned over the dreamtalker.
“I’ll tell you what to enter, okay?” She read out some numbers to Gregorian, who messed with the lights on the box. The box began to sing a high-pitched note. Gregorian held the end of the red cord against his temple.
“Are you ready, Buck?” Lilly asked.
“I want to feel what it’s like to be a real wizard!” Buck shouted. “I’ll be like you, Gregorian!”
“When I say to”—Lilly looked between Gregorian and Hannah as she spoke—“press the yellow button to commence program. Ready? On three. One, two, three—now!”
Gregorian hit the yellow light, but as he did so Lilly leapt forward, grabbed the red cord away from the wizard, and thrust the end onto Buck’s head.
The box’s internal metallic hiss screamed, and sparks ignited across Buck’s face.
Gregorian grabbed Buck’s shoulders to keep him still and Lilly held both cords in place on his forehead.
Buck swung the knife wildly in front of him, digging it into Lilly’s side.
She screamed as he pulled it out. Gregorian grabbed Buck’s arm, kicking away the knife as a white bolt of energy sparked out between the two cords, snapping back Buck’s neck.
Lilly rolled over and grabbed her side. Blood flowed out between her fingers. She shut her eyes, groaned, breathed deeply.
It would be hard to describe what Buck saw in the instant that followed, as by the time it was over he had no memory of any of it ever happening in the first place.
There were sights and smells: fires in the village during market festivals, fresh fruit from the farm, his home before the flood.
He was in an inn, reeking of alcohol and sweat and full of song and dance.
There was the master mason, showing him how to use a whetstone to sharpen his tools.
A dirt path that ran down from the old farm, toward a creek.
The Reenactors, talking in a circle at the back of a church.
His mother, alive, washing clothes in a tub outside their house on a summer morning.
His father, dead, lying in a cold bed waiting for the grave.
His baby sister in a crib. Buck jumping into a puddle.
All parts of his life at once, rushing past him. “No, no, please, no,” Buck said. But he didn’t know why. When he spoke again, it was only screams.
All the memories were gone, and all Buck knew was that his face was on the ground. A cold, muddy ground, where someone’s blood pooled among dry tufts of dead grass. But he didn’t know whose blood it was, why it was soaking the dirt, or where the grass came from. He didn’t know anything, anymore.
Jules
He was a poor man begging for scraps on the side of the road.
He was a child unable to sleep because she feared the night demons.
A woman who missed her sister, now married and living far away.
An old man who thought about his youth in the King’s Army, fighting beside wizards.
A Council hero, who had been through many campaigns and missed his old friend Prion.