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Banish all the World Ch. 01

By: Stultus



Synopsis: Our industrious minor 'magician for hire' finds an opportunity to improve his checkered reputation, but sees everything go up into smoke instead. If he is to possibly save the world, must he let the woman he used to love die instead? But if he fails the greatest Banishment spell of his life, all of the world might become banished instead! The second Arc Deco Universe story.


Sex contents: No Sex


Genre: Fantasy


Codes: MF, Romantic, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Paranormal, Slow


******

Falstaff: No, my good lord: banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as his is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!

Prince: I do; I will.



Banish all the World Ch. 02



Today's show was at the hoary old Austin Convention Centre right across the Colorado River at Town Lake from the famous El Marvelo movie theater, and more importantly quite near Sandy's Frozen Custard. I won't even discuss the bad chain hamburger place that sits on the other side of the El Marvelo. Even I have some food standards. 

I'm skinny enough that I couldn't afford the weight I'd lost this year, and I figured that a program of visiting Sandy's for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper, followed by a late night snack of yet more frozen custard, just might get me back into better fighting form. Walton promised to get a flunky to make the custard runs for me so that I could snack while staying on-duty.

Simply put the ACC is a dumpy old concrete dive that ought to be bulldozed at the earliest opportunity; preferably yesterday. Style-wise, the place is pretty much a featureless semi-round off-white stained blob, greatly resembling an extremely unsatisfactory bowel movement. 

Every year a City Council motion for selling bonds to fund a new bright and shiny modern convention centre goes up for vote... and is shot down by at least 65% of the vote. Nothing involving raising taxes even a bent penny stands a ghost of a chance of being voter approved in Austin. Despite being the Capitol of the Republic, our city is an arch-conservative, anti-government and fairly contemptuous of 'big business' sort of place. Even the local university students are stolid and staunchly libertarian. Never any student unrest here. If the Republic had any less government we'd be an anarchy.

The layout was pathetically simple and uncomplicated. Glass doors in the front on the riverside for incoming and outgoing customers, and a single large back door from the hall that lead to the loading dock on the west side. Easy squeazy for even semi-competent security to supervise. The convention floor was isolated enough from other smaller meeting rooms and staff offices on the east side to rule those smuggling routes out as well.

Dollars to donuts (or more custard) that our thief was most definitely not getting the items out via any of those ways. This almost certainly meant magic, by some means or another. That still left an awful lot of options, and I didn't like most of them. This whole operation smelled of a 'Renegade' Wizard.

*********

BMA's attitude towards magical practioners is very simple. Obey the laws, what few there are, or we will send ill-tempered Wizards to your door to make sure you do, or give you a proper burial so that you'll never repeat the offense again. Low ranking Adepts, like me, and all Wizards must all submit to government testing and training, or pledge a great Oath to never, ever use our powers again. To become licensed we get a free college education and training for our skills, but we also have a mandatory period of duty in government service. Mine was just five years, but full Wizards must serve for at least twenty. Don't feel bad for them, they're very well paid civil servants and most of them have an ego the size of the Alamo.

With power comes very definite responsibilities and there are always some people that you just can't trust with as much as a burned out match. Sometimes bad people will do bad things, in a bad sort of way that annoys a lot of good people. If the bad guys have magical abilities, that just makes it ten times harder to clean up after their shit. Do this sort of crap once and you might get your hand slapped; do this sort of shit habitually and you'll be soon be declared 'Renegade'. A 'mad dog' of a Wizard legally declared to be unfit for society and with a bounty price put on their head, dead or alive. 

There is a Wizard prison somewhere in the bowels of West Texas near Roswell, but most renegades don't live long enough to see it. Invariably they always try to go down fighting, but real government trained Wizards are a lot nastier and win ninety-nine times out of a hundred. 

Usually, the smarter magically inclined criminals will keep to the down-low and try to live quietly to avoid detection. Usually these guys will work for various criminal or otherwise not-quite legal operations for protection. Kind of like my estranged father, who lives near a swamp in sunny southern Florida, making his living as a fringe player in a Confederate smuggling ring.

This particular renegade appeared to be involved in a weapons smuggling ring. Nobody else needs to steal an average of seventy-five guns a week for the last three months. That's a lot of firearms, and there were a lot of potential buyers for them.

Our neighbors to the east, the United States of America and the Confederate States of America are old, old adversaries. They've fought four major wars in the last one hundred and fifty years; the Confederates won the first one big and the next two were very disappointing (and bloody) ties. The USA claimed a pyrrhic victory for the most recent one. I won't bother mentioning the other twenty odd 'border disputes'. The USA is much larger, has more heavy industry and has a much greater population, but the Yankees still fear the use of all magic, forbidding its use entirely until fairly recently. This has evened the odds considerably for their weaker southern rivals who long ago embraced magic as a core of their religion and culture. Things have been quiet for awhile, and both sides now usually prefer to talk rather than shoot. They even trade with each other openly and legally, but smuggling is still habitual on both sides. I don't think they'll ever become friends.

Within our Great Western Alliance, our member nations don't always see eye to eye, especially with California and their upper coastal neighbor Pacifica, but we've never had anything close to a civil war. Each Republic enjoys considerable political autonomy and our Emperor is largely a figurehead with only minimal executive powers. Our only true enemies are to the south and the north. The remnants of Mexico and our insane demon-possessed neighbors in Deseret.

Like the squabbles between the USA and the CSA, Mexico has declared war on the Republic of Texas three times, and once more upon the entire GWA. We cleaned their clock every time and annexed a lot of their territory over the years until we had full control over virtually all of their silver mines. 

Silver is the blood of magic, more precious than oil, and an essential ingredient for nearly every minor, moderate or major magical crafting. Silver is much too valuable now for use in coinage and in times of war its value is nearly comparable to gold. Like every smart mage, I keep an eye on the precious metal markets and buy banged up old coins and bulk bullion whenever the market takes a dip, or if I'm feeling rich. You just can't have too much stored away for a rainy day. Artificement uses up silver especially fast!

There are malcontents below the border hoping for some grand 'reconquesta' someday that squirrel away guns for a rainy day. This wouldn't be the first gun smuggling ring that the BMA has broken up in Texas, or even the fiftieth, but they didn't usually use their scarce wizard resources this way. Still they do need the guns, which makes them a prime suspect, even if this particular caper was a bit too subtle for their usual way of doing things.

We've got no inclination to start a new war with them, as our current border with them is relatively short and very defensible. No one really wants to have to police another couple of million angry Mexicans in any new captured territory. At least not this week. The ones we already have are mostly assimilated and good GWA citizens now, mostly due to the extremely libertarian philosophies of the GWA. Pay your minimal taxes, don't start trouble and trouble won't come looking for you! 

"Live and Let Live" is pretty much our Imperial motto, and it really works very nicely actually... except for the wild-eyed desert sun baked brains of the Nerunites in Deseret.

*********

The madmen of the Theocracy of Deseret have more than held their own in an on-again off-again war with us that has raged across the high central desert regions for hundreds of miles around the Great Salt Lake since the 1850's. Magic is their bread and butter and what their war machines lack in quantity, they more than make up for in quality. We have no peace treaty with them. At best, we have a quiet uneasy armistice.

Their religion is loathsome; a perverse off-shot of extreme Mormonism, perverted science (including institutionalized policies of racial eugenics), and corrupted American Indian and Aztec religious practices, combined with a zeal for death in combat that would make a Viking berserker yearning for Valhalla feel proud. 

They have a harsh and firmly pyramid structured political order of 'Warriors' (all lower classes of rabble), 'Warlocks' (mostly Adepts, who are their aristocratic overseers) and 'Priests' (Wizard class magicians), whose every word is law. 

Women are chattel. Slaves by virtually any definition, who perform the physical labor and are sorted by their breeding value to the Warriors, Warlocks and Priests. Other uglier rumors can be heard about horrific and terrible magical rituals, perhaps including forced breeding with various 'visitor' races from other planes, to create a stronger race of warriors or more potent Warlocks for future generations.

They are a culture that only values strength or power, and abject submission to those above you. By weeding out the weak from their gene pool, they hope eventually to create the ultimate caste of obedient but lethal soldiers, ready to kill without the slightest compassion or mercy in the name of their dark Gods.

It's Darwinist principles at their most frightening, and this scares a lot of people. And it should.

Deseret also shares a long border with the western flank of the United States, above Colorado and or Oklahoma Indian territory northern boundaries (politically part of the Republic of Texas, but that's another story). They don't like those crazy fanatics any better than we do and there is some popular support in both countries in favor of a military partnership to deal with them for once and for all. This idea of a military alliance frightens the CSA enough that it is unlikely for this very desirable event to ever occur.

The world would just be a happier, healthier place with the last Nerunite sent off to meet their dark Gods in the afterlife, and as soon as possible. I'd even volunteer to help dig shallow graves or light the burial mounds, with my bare hands if necessary.

They breed hordes of warriors for the sole purpose of dying in battle to cull the weakest and select the survivors for breeding stock. And they need guns.

Deseret always needs guns. Their factories are operated by female slaves, and they emphasize quality over quantity. They didn't have any particularly impressive native firearms manufacturers and mostly make copies of other makers' products. Their current army field rifle is a hybrid variant of the old Mauser and Mosin-Nagant, but I've heard rumors that they're slowly switching to a full automatic version of a newer Imperial Russian assault rifle, the Kalashnikov. A deadly accurate weapon engineered and built to the smallest tolerances. Most definitely an upgrade of their older bolt action rifles, and far superior to the USA AR-15 series rifles which are mass produced to sloppy tolerances and quality control and incapable of hitting a target bullseye at even fifty yards.

One report I read a few years ago just before I left government service, reported that during a recent skirmish with USA troops in western Kansas, only about half of their warriors possessed guns. The ones without weapons charged into battle with all of the rest and stooped to pick up the weapons of the fallen. This suggested that they didn't even have enough obsolete weapons to supply their front rank troops, let alone their reserves.

Since Deseret is landlocked and surrounded by very unfriendly nations, it is easy to maintain a trade embargo on them. There are smugglers everywhere, it's true, but the demand of for weapons there surely far outweighs the supply. 

If our sneak thief was supplying Deseret, this was a major ring stealing nearly four thousand weapons a year. This was enough to stock a couple of Regiments or maybe even a Brigade. Now imagine that this thief wasn't alone and had buddies in the other Republics of the GWA also stockpiling weapons. Now we were talking about tens of thousands of stolen and smuggled weapons a year, enough for an Army Division or Corps.

That was exactly the sort of high end scheming we knew to expect from Deseret. Suddenly Walton's little problem didn't sound quite so little anymore.

I took a last spin around the dealer's exhibition hall before the show opened to gather a few last thoughts and I made a quick last minute phone call into the local BMA office. I didn't exactly bleat for help, but I did tell the Adept on duty to send a flash request to all of the other BMA field offices throughout the GWA asking if they had been getting reports of regular mysterious possibly magic related gun thefts, especially at gun shows. I didn't expect an answer back until Monday at the earliest, but I'd be extremely surprised if I didn't receive back several affirmative confirmations.

**********

I walked the convention hall all day long and didn't see a thing to put my nose out of joint. Rifles and hand-guns disappeared like clockwork just about all day long and by closing time for the day I still didn't have the slightest clue how it was being done.

Walton wasn't too disappointed. He hadn't quite expected a miracle solution on the very first day and I wasn't the only Adept standing guard duty. The thief was really very, very smart.

They let me stay on for awhile with the crew of off-duty Austin Police Department that worked night security while I tested out several possible theories, none of them very probable. The possible solutions mulled, I retreated on home to think some more while I loaded up my precious Artifact with the new Arcana Stones. If I was even half right I was going to need every bit of advantage that I could scrape up.

*********

Sunday morning, despite not getting much sleep the night before, I was up bright and early and equipped myself for trouble. My Christmas encounter with the Stalking had ruined my very best protective warded duster coat, suit jacket, pants and vest and still put me in the hospital for a week with over a dozen stitches. It had taken me months of my very limited free time since to even get their replacements even half prepared with new imbued protections. 

My old suit would have laughed off bullets, with the new one I wasn't nearly so confident. It was better than nothing, but it made me feel like I was half naked... I was so used to walking around better armored than a tank.

The new bracers changed that. I knew immediately after putting them on what had driven poor deluded Gloria into attempting to summon things far outside her ability. This Artifact just oozed raw power and it itched to be used. With both bracers on, the three Ley lines that crossed my house now seemed like huge rivers or super highways of limitless power. With just a thought now I could grab on any or all of them and drink endless power like a sponge, to do anything I wished with just a casual whim.

Oh, yes... I was very definitely upgraded well into major Wizard class power now and I could understand why the egotistical bastards are usually such utter pricks. If I could have naturally wielded this kind of power right from the start, I'd probably be an insufferable ass too. Wearing these bracers would definitely let me smite the wicked and leave their smoking boots in some impressively large craters. Bring it on!

Taking off that left bracer and leaving behind at home was probably the hardest and most difficult decision I'd ever made in my life. With both on I was sure that I would be utterly omnipotent... and that was exactly the problem. I was just like a magical junkie soaring high on borrowed power and willing to let that power start making decisions for me, and probably not the same decisions that my cold sober under-powered brain would have made. This was exactly the sort of warped thinking that made Gloria decide to summon a major Shadow Stalker that she had no prayer of controlling. My own mistake would probably be worse. 

If I even pretended to get used to that kind of raw power I'd become useless and a real danger to others. Every single problem would start to look like a nail, and I would become the Hammer of God looking for things to smite.

With just the right, older bracer on I was still bursting to the teeth with boosted latent power, but my brain could now think... if I didn't get too excited. This was a racehorse that I thought I could hang on long enough to ride and maybe even be able to command. Reservations about my new toy or not, I knew I'd need that extra firepower today.

************

The last day of the gun show on Sunday started right off where Saturday ended. Weapons were disappearing right and left and I still had no clue how it was being done. Neither of my so-called brilliant ideas was bearing out any fruit.

My first thought was that the Renegade Wizard was using miniaturization. He or she would shrink the weapons down with a touch to fit inside a hand or a pocket. The tiny weapons could then all be easily hidden and not detected by the security guard when leaving. There was just one small problem. Mass. Miniaturization is a very tricky skill that only has very limited applications in the real world. You can make a foot long item an inch long instead, but the mass and weight of the original item are both going to remain. Seventy-five guns, more or less, was going to weigh many hundreds of pounds, far beyond what a guest could carry off, even if he had a team of helpers.

This was my first guess for how the theft could be carried off. It was indeed possible, but not very practical. I told security nevertheless to keep an eye out for customers that seemed to regular meet and discuss at a fixed place, apparently also exchanging small heavy pocket items. No likely hits were noted. 

It was still possible for this sort of scam to be run by a gun dealer, who would load up their unsold weapons along with the stolen ones in great large trunks and wheeled out on flatbeds at the end of the day, so I changed my focus to them. This notion also fit well with my second idea, that the Wizard was using Translocation.

Frankly, the idea that the thief could use Translocation that efficiently really frightened me badly. I have very limited skills in that art and in the past I've been able to perform minor feats like relocate a handgun or a book from someone else's hand and into my own. With lots of concentration and nearly exhausting my own magical energies in the process. The mere idea that someone could do this nearly non-stop fifty to a hundred times in an afternoon and at a distance was worrisome.

That was definitely major Wizard class power, and without at least one bracer on I was going to be badly outgunned in a direct confrontation.

The beauty of using Translocation for theft was the neatness and pure simplicity. The thief just needed to concentrate on the item for a moment and then it would appear in his hand... or would it? My powers, normally only Adept level, wouldn't let me shift an item directly from point A to point C without a stop at point B (my hand) first. But was this true for a talented Wizard? I decided to find out.

The experiment was simple. I went over to Walton's large display booth area and selected a small box of ammunition and moved it by hand out of place onto another table. Concentrating on that box I then tried to translocate it directly back to its original starting place. With a surge of wizardly power it was returned there in an instant. Yes, it could be done!




Banish all the World Ch. 02



Sure the ammo box was smaller than most guns and lighter, but I hadn't relied upon either of the two Ley lines focused directly across the street at the El Marvelo. I was scared that grabbing too much extra power might cause the ammo to fire off accidentally. That would not have been good.

A Wizard would need to mark the item to be translocated first, but at a big show where several thousand people were touching and handling guns openly displayed on tables, this would be nearly impossible to detect. I'd have to winnow down the suspect pool first, then I'd have some options.

This focused my attention now twice over upon the other dealers. This still left me with over two hundred suspects, but I had a way to winnow this list down fast. Good, because guns were disappearing right and left and the afternoon was nearly half over.

"Walton, think real hard about this and check your PDA, your secretary or other notes if you need to. I'm 98% sure that your thief is another dealer. Either a relatively new arrival to your show or else it's an older company that has recently been bought out and has a brand new boss. Get me a list of any gun seller here that has only started doing your show circuit in the last six months or less. I'm sure they were smart enough not to start stealing right from the very start so there should be at least a month between when they first joined and when the thefts started."

He knew most of this information right off the top of his head but made a quick phone call to his administrative assistant to get a confirmation. Three names came right to mind and he told me where to find their booths. Now that I only had a few suspects I had a lot more options.

I couldn't pretend to be a customer, as I'd already been introduced around yesterday as being part of the security team. Still, being the proud owner of a well-used .38 revolver myself, I could show it around and feign interest in upgrading it to something a bit livelier.

My first suspect, Raymond of Ray's Guns, was a very small time dealer just getting his start in the gun resale business. He was a retired ex-Marine doing the gun show circuit with just his wife for a helper while they enjoyed their retirement. He didn't think much of my revolver, but admitted that it was solid and ultra-reliable. He suggested the time honored Colt .45 1911 for a replacement and I had to admit that this was a more than adequate weapon. When I told him I preferred a revolver he smiled and showed me a massive Callahan .50 caliber Special. It weighed a ton and was way too large to be concealed, but it would put seriously large holes into my enemies.

He didn't seem to fit the master thief role; especially being ex-GWAMC, completely with old sun faded Semper Fi tattoos on both arms. I decided to give my other suspects a closer look instead.

The next, James Prutte was a famous ex-radio shock jock who did have a flag in his GWA records for possible weapons smuggling in the 1970's (not proven). He still had a fairly famous weekly radio call-in talk show where he'd espouse ultra-liberal political philosophies, anarchy, and firearms. He was short and round and had a wild beard that nearly fell to his waist. He looked like one of those kooks who live isolated up in the mountains of Pacifica, 'getting back to nature' or holding a grudge against the entire modern world. This didn't stop him from being an extremely personable and likeable man. 

James was already a major player and top weapons dealer and his tables had suffered some of the worst losses at recent shows. He always had the 'good stuff'', he remarked. Even with the thefts he was buying and selling guns right and left and making a decent profit. Somehow, he didn't quite fit right for the role of magical sneak thief either. This was way too subtle for him. He laughed at my .38 and suggested replacing it with a Smith & Wesson .40.

"A jack of all trades, master of none." He said. "40 S&W's are for people who are ashamed to be seen carrying a 9mm, but don't have what it takes to man up and carry a .45!" I wasn't quite so amused, but he probably had a point. I kept him on my suspect list, but didn't quite think that he was my man.

My last candidate for a good old fashioned Texas 'necktie party' was Adrian Smith of Smith Tactical Firearms. A nice plain generic name, Smith and their booth didn't stand out at all from the pack either. No 'booth babes', gals dressed in just micro bikini's, high heels and a smile, and no flashing lights or big banners saying "Get your tactical nukes here!" 

Adrian's specialty was high performance hand guns and he derided my current weapon and proposed alternatives with scorn. The .38 was a 'toy' and the .45 was 'obsolete'. He wore a Beretta 9mm at his side and praised its smooth features and fine esthetics. This made me suspicious right from the start, no one wears a gun to look 'cute'... except for a booth babe I'd seen earlier who wore a tiny camouflage colored bikini and sported a 'Hello There Kitty' pink assault rifle.

He liked the idea of a S&W .40 even less. "It's like putting a 454 engine in a VW Beetle." He sneered. "Sure, it may work, but it's kind of overkill for the frame." His idea of a manly firearm was the .357 SIG-Sauer P229 with a peppy over-achieving bullet round perfectly capable of blasting through a car engine. Massive overkill - no thanks. That was all I needed, for a bullet to shot straight through my target, and their hostage... then drill an innocent little granny two blocks away for good measure. I guess I'll just stick with the .38 for awhile longer.

I couldn't pin anything on Adrian. He claimed to be from northern Greater Arizona, quite near the wild desert border with Deseret but not suspiciously so. It was obvious that he didn't quite take a shine to me, but some wankers are just immune to my natural charm and wit. Unfortunately, when I next questioned other nearby dealers I learned that Adrian almost never leaves his booth during a show. If someone was marking items and translocating them, it wasn't him... probably.

Great, now I was out of suspects and had less than an hour of the show to go!



Banish all the World Ch. 03



It wasn't easy to find a place where I could watch all three dealers at more or less the same time, but I managed it, after informing my client that none of my three prime suspects seemed to be ripe for pinning the crime on to just yet. This was going to take some long term surveillance I suspected before one of my suspects made a telling mistake.

I had nearly given up for this show when something slightly irregular finally occurred.

Over at Adrian's booth, one of his assistants who appeared to be of more than part Indian blood entered his booth and went into a brief consultation with him. Adrian then nodded and sat down in a chair for the first time and closed his eyes, deep in concentration. His knuckles appearing to turn white with tension as I scooted on over to take a discrete but much closer look.

I hadn't really considered the option before of a duo of thieves working in tandem and suddenly now everything all fit into place. I ran to find Walton and give him the good news; his problem was all but solved. The trick was going to be dealing with a skilled team of both a Wizard and an Adept level partner.

Walton pulled his other two Adepts from door security and the four of us, along with the boss of the off-duty APD officers, sat down for a quick pow-pow so that I could explain how the magic disappearing act was done, and discuss plans for capturing the thieves, without anyone getting hurt in the process.

I called BMA first thing with an urgent request for back-up help apprehending a skilled Renegade Wizard with an Adept partner, and gave the on-duty clerk all of the details that we had. Sunday evening is the worst possible time to get anyone at BMA, especially anyone with any actual authority, let alone quickly. The gal answering the phone thought that the team 'on call' might be along in an hour or two. Upon further questioning she admitted in fact that they hadn't responded yet to an earlier call that she had routed them to several hours ago.

Wonderful. My ass was once again hanging out in the wind, but at least this time I had followed procedure. Besides, I was more than curious about how my new Artifact would hold up against serious trouble. Now it looked like I was about to find out.

******* 

"The scam was absurdly simple!" I told my client and our security posse while we were waiting for the last customers to leave and the dealers to start packing up at the end of the show.

"They worked as a well trained team. The Adept assistant pretended to be a customer and selected the items to be stolen. He would place a light magical mark on each item, maybe four or five items at a time from the same dealer table and then return to inform his master the Wizard, who could sense these familiar marks easily and who would then perform the Translocation to send the weapons safely elsewhere."

But where we wondered. Ok, it was a given that the Wizard was a very powerful one, but this is a very tricky skill that gets progressively harder at distance. The hidden weapons stash must be nearby. My guess was that the stolen items would be found inside of his small box truck, parked near the loading dock. The Austin PD guys concurred and phoned in to get an emergency search warrant. 

Unfortunately the warrant wasn't expected to arrive for at least an hour, but fortune was on our side – the two front tires of Adrian's truck suddenly sprung large air leaks courtesy of a stout combat knife in the hands of one of Walton's many unknown friends and admirers.

Now we settled down to wait for either BMA backup or the police warrant. Both were extremely late in arriving long after the dust had finally settled.

********

The gun show closed its main doors and one by one all of the other dealers packed up and left, leaving Adrian, his Adept, and two surly looking gunsels, along with our security team left all eyeing each other maliciously. 

Adrian knew immediately that the gig was up, but played it cool. He suspected that we were held up waiting for something and he did his best to get at least one of the spare tires replaced so that he could attempt to limp away on just one flat tire. He tried rolling on two front flats first but the truck was virtually immoveable that way. Unfortunately for him, the air was also let out of his only spare tire. As for the chances of finding an open garage on a Sunday night in downtown Austin…. forget about it!

His options now extremely limited and his escape route closed, Adrian put the final frosting on my suspicion that he was a Deseret Wizard when he went scorched earth. He sent his two gunsels out armed to the teeth with automatic weapons to keep our security forces busy. Then he and his Adept decided to hightail it out of there, but not before he pointed a finger at his doomed truck and bellowed a command of power, causing it to explode up into the air to about the height of the roof of the convention centre. It was pretty impressive actually.

The APD boys didn't need any warrants by this point and the firefight started in earnest.

We all charged up to bottle up the Deseret thieves and started a major conflagration of our own. My two weakly magical partners tried to deal with the Adept while I faced down the Wizard. It was unfortunately a very even fight. The Deseret magicians were battle tested and trained for combat since they could walk, and were very experienced and confident using the arts of magic in war. Us more civilized Adepts, on the other hand, hadn't received much training in that sort of thing and we found ourselves on the defensive fast.

The conventional gun battle was less drawn out. Walton's crew, his own security staff and the APD boys were all expert gunmen, especially the guy in the back with the deer hunting rifle. The pair of gunsels went down in bloody heaps fast, despite the fact that their coats were ballistically resistant, like my own duster coat. The deer hunter was dead accurate at making head shots at a distance of one hundred yards. 

This freed up the reserves to put the Renegade Wizards onto the defensive, but before the Wizard put up his protective energy shield to stop the rain of incoming lead, he unloaded a monstrous bolt of raw energy drawn from the Ley lines just across the river, that would have absolutely vaporized me if I hadn't thrown up a sudden protective shield of my own, augmented by my bracer. My Artifact had already saved my life on its first use. A week ago I could never have been able to summon up a shield even half powerful enough to have protected me.

Still, this force was enough to blast me backwards fifty yards up in the air and two hundreds away until I landed with a splash in the middle of the Colorado River in Town Lake. Damn that water is cold, even in the late spring!

This complete pissed me off now! I shook my head clear of floating stars and singing tweetie birds and started to swim for shore, but stopped to try a little experiment. I'd never had any previous skill at Levitation, but then again I'd never been able to channel that much magical energy before. With the El Marvelo at its pair of Ley lines just about in spitting distance, I decided to give it a try. With a little effort I floated right out of the water and soared right back into the battle far faster than I could have swum to the river bank and then run.

The battle was still pretty much a draw. My Adept partners had kept the Deseret Adept occupied until his energy shield eventually weakened. Our friendly deer hunter with the sniper scope then took care of the problem permanently. Everyone else was keeping the rogue Wizard pinned down with bullet fire so that he couldn't open up his shield long enough to either clean their clocks or else make an escape. Now it was too late.

I was back into the fight and just in the mood to open up a can of some serious whoop-ass!

Since what's good for the goose must also be good for the gander, I decided to test out exactly how much unnecessary and excessive power I could now channel into a force bolt at one time. The short answer was 'a lot'. The more precise answer was 'too much'.

I blasted the fucker straight through one of the concrete side walls of the convention centre, marched right into the wreckage after him and blasted him though another concrete wall. His shield failed sometime right after my third blast and shortly before he crashed into a steel roof support beam, which pretty much crushed his spine into splinters. 

He didn't die right away, but he was in no shape to hold a conversation.

The battle was over and after counting noses we were relieved that everyone was more or less ok and still in one piece. I was very much the hero of the day despite the fact that deer hunter 'Bob' had the bigger head count. I got my fee, a large cash bonus and a bit later on a gift of a really sweet handgun from Walton. I'd had worse days.

A few days later, after some horse trading with Prutte, Walton came up with a beauty of a semi-automatic, a 10mm Glock 23 that was small enough to be easily concealed, but had several very nice magically artificed 'improvements'. Specifically a permanent translocation spell that automatically feed new ammo into the magazine from a small pouch built onto the shoulder holster, and relocated spent shell casings into another similar pouch. This prevented my greatest concern of loose spilled shell casings, which could be collected by an enemy and used to track me. The finely tooled and silver filigree holster concealed perfectly and apparently also had a charm that would prevent it from being discovered by most metal and gun detection equipment. This little benefit was probably illegal, but I decided not to advertise that fact.

Prutte's original buyer for this weapon had suffered an accidental death at the hands of some unsavory business partners. Appropriately, this weapon would be perfect for a life of uncertain danger.

The wreckage of Adrian's truck revealed a large stash of weapons, most of which could be identified as stolen. They were nearly all a complete loss, except for parts, but everyone was happy that the thefts were now at an end. Insurance would cover everything else… including the two large holes in the concrete walls of the convention centre.

**********

If I thought that the paperwork for the Christmas Stalking fiasco was a nightmare, it paled in comparison next to the ordeal of the next forty-eight hours. At least this time I didn't have to spend a week in the hospital.

Nor did I have to explain the use of my Artifact. I'd quietly stashed the bracer under the front driver's seat of my beloved Ford Pinto which was also discretely parked in a remote corner of the parking lot next to the river. I wasn't too worried about leaving the car unprotected for a couple of days; I've got anti-theft charms galore all over the Pinto. I doubted the fire department's 'Jaws of Life' could even get the doors opened.

The facts ought to have been pretty simple, plus my earlier phone call requesting backup had been timely and entirely accurate. No houses had been burned down and no good guys were in the hospital. The four bad guys were all in the morgue. 

What then was the freaking problem?!

Once again I had faced off against a powerful foe who had far classed me. It didn't matter that a dozen people had seen me get my ass kicked and knocked for a ride into the river. The jewel of the crown, so to speak, was that I'd come back fast and kicked his ass through two thick concrete walls and into a steel beam. I naturally pleaded that I'd had the help of the two very strong Ley lines at the El Marvelo and that the Wizard had been weak and drained by the efforts of upholding his shield against our security gunmen. All very true, still a bit too convenient for some of the more suspicious minds that once yet again, 'lucky' Zak Zyphyr had defied the odds and cheated certain death. Now if I could only get my own Broadway magic show on the Strand!

It was the Deseret connection that had gathered the most lingering concern and worry. The thought that two of their magicians were on a weapon gathering safari in the GWA was enough to scare a lot of people high up in the corridors of power. In a few days after the facts had been correlated, it appeared that other Deseret magical teams were working the same theft smuggling operation in the other Republics as well. Later we heard that similar groups had been operating (with bolder success) in the USA.

Everyone saddled up their regional BMA strike teams and charged out to winnow out the other theft teams, but the warning got out fast and only two other similar teams were caught. Both fought hopeless odds until the end, dying in combat rather than facing capture.

It all pointed to Deseret. A few safe houses were discovered and several large stashes of weapons were recovered before they could secretly cross the border. Like me, the big shots were worried why Deseret needed the guns so desperately right now. 

This was not enough for a cause belli, but enough folks were unhappy enough by this that Army and BMA funding was certain be increased in the years to come. Taxes would go up and the more libertarian Texans would squeak.

************

My appointment to assist Harriet was repeatedly postponed until mid-day Thursday, until when the last out of town BMA big shot had heard my story, repeated now for about the five hundredth time. I received a slightly nicer and more sincere Letter of Appreciation this time with a concurrence signature from the top Republic of Texas BMA Wizard, the noted and honorable 'Wesley'. 

As I think I mentioned once some time ago, most Wizards all think that they are either rock stars or famous supermodels, and thus only have one name. This only makes them sound silly and egotistical.

******

Harriet was glad to see me when we met at Sandy's for a late frozen lunch. We hugged and she kissed my cheek chastely. Harriet did everything chastely… really this was the single biggest reason why we broke up. We were also just seventeen and in High School so I'll admit that maturity didn't enter into the relationship very much either.

As always, Harriet was pushing the wheelchair of her crippled twin sister Henrietta. They were never separated – ever. This was actually the real final straw of our teenaged love affair. Young men like to take willing young women off to private places for some very private fun. Harriet never would or could leave Henrietta, even in a nearby room next door or behind a mostly closed door. Even as her boyfriend I was a very distant second place in her heart. 

We never actually managed to have sex. The furthest I could ever get was a very short lead off of second base.

In the end, it came down to an angry ultimatum of 'her or me!' Henrietta won in a landslide vote. We split and exchanged annoyed looks at each other for the rest of school but we both got over it fairly fast. Other young lads tried to rush in to full my void with Harriet but they ran into the same problems that I had, and most didn't have to the patience to keep trying even to get past first base with her. 

We were both sent to Lovett College, the Republic's largest and best school of magic and saw each other occasionally, and we even had a few social dates just for fun but neither of us let the old relationship resume. Like me, she left school for her mandatory government service very single and complete unattached. She stayed local working for the local BMA office here and I'd seen her around a few times in the last year or so, never with a man.

She's only nominally ranked as a Wizard, having a low 5.1 BMA score to just barely qualify. This was only .4 points better than my own score, but she had the ability (barely) to alter objects using magic, rather than merely augment like I could. This was a huge difference, and why most Wizards think that their shit doesn't stink.

Henrietta was a completely different matter. Her twin had identical physical features, i.e. fair skinned, blond hair, nice breasts, and was very pretty, but she seemed withered somehow, just a little bit warped out of proper proportions. She's crippled and cannot stand up on her own and requires a wheelchair. Her arms and hands are equally helpless and she can feed herself only with great difficulty. She was diagnosed first as 'retarded', then 'challenged', then 'special needs', and finally autistic… which is the current medical cubbyhole for 'we don't know exactly what is wrong'. 

She's mentally about the maturity of an eight year old with an IQ somewhere around 80, but this still didn't prevent her from becoming a licensed Adept, like me, with a BMA score of 4.9, .2 better than mine. Somehow she got through magical training against all odds, even when it was obvious that she'd never be the slightest bit functional on her own. She did everything 'wrong', but the end result always came out exactly right. 

There was a lot of whispering in school that Henrietta could do 'impossible things', such as altering reality and scientific probabilities, even the laws of physics, but I never saw anything like this. 

In the end the BMA instructors just threw up their hands and left the two sisters alone to work together and they found perfection. They made the perfect partnership – a sister/sister magical team that somehow worked together better than most established partnerships. 

Up until now their success record had been perfect. This new case was driving them nuts, however. 



Banish all the World Ch. 04



All over town for the last week or so, people had suddenly started to act strangely, as if they were seeing and hearing things that no one else around them could detect. Some began muttering in strange unknown languages and others just went barking insane mad. Mass dementia, some at BMA were calling it.

There had been a peak of this outbreak last weekend, but so far this week things had been relatively quiet with only a few new cases every day. Still, this was much too dangerous to be ignored.

We ate a second bowl of frozen custard and sat down to review the case files to look for a common denominator or event, but we couldn't find one. The victims varied by age, sex and economics; the lawyers, students, housewives, construction workers, carpet layers apparently all did their normal weekend routines. Not all of their past steps could be traced but no single activity or restaurant could be pin-pointed as the root cause.

If someone was drugging bottles of cola, they were covering their steps very thoroughly.

We read more case files that afternoon at the Austin PD and called it a day. We'd try and examine the new cases with a fresh eye starting tomorrow.

Friday we examined six new cases that had broken out over night but again couldn't find any common thread. Two of the victims had been discovered walking aimless around Town Lake Park late at night. Other similar victims had been found this week late at night at Auditorium Shoals, Zilker Park and wandering on Barton Springs Rd. This strongly suggested the southern side of Colorado River 'Town Lake' downtown area as a possible locus. Well, I was certainly very familiar with this area, being next to Sandy's!

Their pocket contents were all non-magical and entirely appropriate for an evening on the town. Various restaurant receipts (different places), a gas station receipt, a movie theater ticket. No smoking gun here.

We chased a few more red herrings and were about to quit for the evening when we got the word that several of our new addled victims had suddenly gone into cardiac arrest and had been taken to the city morgue. As we were out of other more practical ideas, we decided to give these unfortunates a final look over, and I was very glad we did. Also so was the city morgue staff, which was not used to zombies thrashing about in their nice quiet offices.

They weren't kidding. Four very animated but confused nude corpses with toe tags were slowly shuffling about and trying to push their way through a solid wall towards freedom, entirely ignoring the door. Good luck with that, at least they weren't going to be too hard to corral. Zombie wrangling is strictly Magic 101 level stuff and even the weakest Adept knows how to stun a zombie. It's not like they have any brains, unless they're eating the brains of one of the assistants to the Coroner, which one was. 

Damn, more paperwork!

It didn't take a moment to stun and subdue each of the undead onto a gurney cart that could be strapped down tight. From the sounds of banging in the several of the closed and locked morgue vaults, it sounded like several more zombies were trying to get out. They weren't likely to escape but we decided that they really couldn't stay there, so we rounded up a few more gurneys, stunned the released zombies and strapped them down good and tight to join their friends.

Now we had some time to figure out exactly what the hell was going on!

Two of the victims seemed to be new, unreported cases that might match our weird dementia epidemic. Both had died in the back of a police patrol car shortly after pickup. According to the paperwork, both victims were alive but confused and unresponsive when first encountered, again in the Barton Creek/Town Lake area, and suffered terminal seizures within minutes after being taken away for medical examination.

Searching their clothing, which was labeled and neatly sorted into a bag, we found more dinner receipts and two more sets of movie ticket stubs that matched the one I'd seen earlier. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. I had a theory, but I needed some proof.

I asked for Harriet to find me a good Wizard map of Austin, showing all of the charted Ley lines, color depicted by type and strength. Theories of alien retroviruses excluded, it takes power and specific intent to create a zombie... usually. There are exceptions but they're rare. They don't suddenly self-create themselves, unless they've been in a heck of a magical shit storm beforehand. The people were ill, but alive until their ride in a police car when they suddenly died... and stayed dead until they arrived here and suddenly with little warning reanimated. 

It didn't usually work that way, unless there was a new power source to give them another kick start. I looked over Harriet's map (no good Wizard goes around without one) and found the second power source, a geologic fault that channeled a moderately powerful Earth Ley line that ran underground right next to this building. 

Our confused and demented victims were fine until they were removed from the range of their original Ley line, and were reanimated when taken within range of another one. This confirmed that whatever had caused this problem involved massively powerful magical energies, with a crossing of a pair of Ley lines at a bare minimum. And a nearby movie theater in the Barton Creek/Town Lake area.

Duh.... the famous El Marvelo fit this bill to a perfect 'T'.

I asked Harriet, as the ranking Wizard in charge, to request some minor assistance from Austin PD and EMS for a small experiment, and to get BMA on 'standby'. Friday night was another very bad night to need emergency assistance, again with just a single team of Wizards on the emergency 'on call' roster. 

Whitaker's gripes about a manpower shortage weren't entirely just idle complaints. Once again, the cavalry was very likely to be late arriving at the party.

The test drive worked like a charm. Sandwiched in-between a pair of police cars, we took one of the strapped down zombies with us for a ride in the back of an ambulance and as soon as we travelled about a block away from the morgue Ley line the zombie de-animated. Once we arrived within about two blocks away from the El Marvelo they once again perked up back to life.

No one was the slightest bit surprised when after we released the zombie from its restraints it began to shamble directly towards the open doors of the theater as fast as its feet could shuffle and it disappeared inside. We noticed numerous other people now wandering towards the theater, all apparently new dementia cases and we tried to stop them but we were seriously outnumbered. Looking around we could see more new addled folks arriving each minute.

Harriet and the police officers looked like they had the situation under control for the moment so I ran back to the nearest squad car to call in some more Austin PD. Our two lone officers most certainly needed assistance handling the steady flow of befuddled and demented people, seemingly not in their own minds that were trying to enter the theater in an ever increasing number.

Once I'd put APD on alert, I next gave the BMA another phone call, telling the clerk on duty to forget about the duty roster and just order a full alert and to start phoning everyone, telling them to get their asses down to the El Marvelo before all Hell broke loose!

It wasn't much of an exaggeration. The top spire of the theater was now glowing a soft malevolent yellow color all on its own.

Returning to help the poor beleaguered patrol officers I asked them where Harriet and Henrietta had gone off to and I now didn't see them out in front where they had been just a few minutes ago.

"I think I saw them go inside about a minute ago," one said, "but I'm not entirely sure. I was too busy to notice." The other officer had seen even less.

I took a fast run around the entire building to double-check that they weren't there and didn't see a trace of either of them. When I returned out in front even the two police patrolmen were now gone as well. Even the last confused bewitched arrivals were all now inside apparently as well. In fact I was now quite alone. Sometimes I thought I could hear a voice calling me inside as well, but it was muted as if lost in the static of the power I could feel coursing through me, being so close to the building that was actively feeding now off of the two Ley lines that crossed this site. My right bracer was surging with the power, throbbing now with a life of its own as well.

Now it was time to really panic. 

**********

"10-33, 10-33!" I shouted into the police radio microphone. "Officers down at the El Marvelo theater by Town Lake south at of Barton Creek! This is a Code Alpha magical emergency, declared by Adept Zak Zyphyr, license #086524. Cordon off the area around the El Marvelo for at least a two full block radius until the arrival of BMA personnel. I am going to attempt to enter the El Marvelo to recover downed APD and BMA personnel but successful retrieval is now unlikely. Good luck to everyone."

With that I flexed my right fist to enjoy the feel of the power flowing through my bracer and I boldly walked through the gates of Hell.

**********

I need to explain a few things to you right now about the El Marvelo movie theater, perhaps one of the most famous icons of the early Arc Deco magical period. 

As I mentioned earlier in my discussion of the Christmas Stalking incident, Arc Deco or rather Arcana Decorum Artem, is the principle that the geometric use of style, via either carefully calculated curves or angles can be just as important to a magical device as sheer power alone. At its simplest, form and artistic beauty are just as essential as function. The El Marvelo was one of the first great public buildings to exemplify this theory.

Built in late 1929, the theater was built to test a new and completely unproven theory, that much like radio waves, magic could be used to broadcast a live program from one place to a dozen other far away remote theaters elsewhere that could all then watch the exact same program, live. Accordingly, an opera performed at the Strand Grand Opera House in Galveston, or the San Francisco Orchestra could be shown to live audiences all over the GWA, or even the entire world, with the right Arc-Tec equipment. Paying customers thousands of miles away could watch and hear the production as if there were there in person. It was a stupendous magical achievement long before the days of television, satellite communications and 3-D holographic entertainment systems.

The proof of concept worked and the builders spared no expense making their chain of theaters the finest works of architecture of the period. About thirty of these interconnected theaters were eventually completed, but the El Marvelo was one of the first... and one of the very finest. Each connected into the magic framework and 'self powering' via elaborate Arc-Tec mechanisms that feed from multiple nearby Ley lines.

No expense was spared on the El Marvelo. The outdoor neon lights were the best and the brightest that could be made and covered the entire front of the façade all the way up to a magnificent tiered spire of silver, crystal and neon. The interior woodwork was all hand-crafted and of the first rate, the curtains the finest silk and the rugs and carpets all finely woven. Even the seats were the most comfortable that could be found. The wall sconce lights all finely gold gilded and the massive chandeliers sparkled with worked silver and crystal. The building was famous as an icon around the world and its photographs can be found in a great many books on the early Arc Deco movement.

This first national theater chain prospered through the economic boom of the 1930's and into the 1940's but slowly the customer demand for these fine art performances began to decline. A new consortium took over in the late 1940's and repurposed the business to become a movie theater chain to show new films at the least possible expense, eliminating the costs of distribution and printing multiple prints of the films. By the early 1960's most of the theaters were in poor physical condition and the expenses of maintaining the vintage Arc-Tec were too expensive. One by one the theaters closed, and by the mid-1960's, the El Marvelo was just another plain ordinary movie theater until it also closed, seemingly for good, in the late 1970's.

Various smalltime operators managed the theater off and on for a few years until its final business operation as a second run economy cinema and weekend midnight cult movie venue in the mid-1980's before it closed for good. For the next decade or so the El Marvelo remained closed and padlocked shut while a minor court battle over inheritance of the valuable real estate raged on for years. 

The theater was classified as a protected site by Republic law at the bidding of the Heritage Society of the Daughters of the Texas Republic, so no one could tear the building down to otherwise use this extremely valuable riverfront property, but finding a buyer who would restore and preserve the property took years.

Eventually, Gus Weston, the billionaire cable TV tycoon, got the idea of buying and restoring all of the surviving original linked Arc Deco theaters and restoring them to their original purpose. In this instance, using them for showing special features of classic repertory films, the most famous thrillers, musicals and dramas of film history. The same sort of stuff he showed at on his Weston Classic Movies channel, but in a stylish venue on a super ultra-high definition screen far better than anyone's home theater.

It was going to become the ultimate 'dinner and a movie' experience, complete with champagne service, a fine wine selection and three star quality dining. It was going to be a license to print money. What could possibly go wrong?

The best guess that all of the Monday morning quarterbacks could come up with later on was that Weston's crew of modern Arc-Tec geniuses didn't really understand the way the more elaborate theaters, like the El Marvelo were 'wired' into the magical aether. They ripped out some of what they just didn't quite understand but wired in new Arc-Tec right next to the old and patched everything together and hoped for the best. Then because they distrusted the original and very subtle 1920's powering mechanisms, they tossed in a bunch of Arcana stones at every circuit for good measure. 

The end result was a jury-rigged and insanely overpowered mess that not even the Great Wizard Tesla himself could have probably fixed, bless his crazy Renegade soul.

The new system did connect to WCM's headquarters in Tulsa... and leaked or blasted through several thousand other parallel dimensions and loci to an untold number of upper and lower (and probably sideways) Planes of Existence, many only theoretically known. This was bound to attract a lot of unwanted attention, and eventually it came.

They had been running tests for the last week or so getting ready for the big grand reopening next weekend. The first victims had been the maintenance crews and construction workers, like the carpenters and carpet layers, but gradually as the work continued and certain external malign influences discovered this widening breach of space and time, the over-powered runaway train began to look for additional new passengers to collect among Sensitives all over town, and they had come by the hundreds.

The sheer massive power of the El Marvelo was making my wrist bracer throb with ungodly power and frankly was giving me one hell of a hard-on. Whomever said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac knew exactly what they were talking about. 

I marched right inside those doors without a second thought, unconcerned in the least that my odds of coming back out again were worse than one in a million. I was going to die horribly, but I was going to look good while doing it. I was going to try to save Harriet and Henrietta and shut this place down if it was the last thing I ever did... probably a spot on prediction.

Can you say End of The World™ and "Oh, noes we're all going to die!" type of Trouble'?

Yep. Got it in one.



Banish all the World Ch. 05



Let me make a mea culpa now. I fully admit that I can be an annoying git at times. I complain constantly about having to work for a living but still love to put on an act by wearing a three piece suit for my standard working outfit. There is no need to discuss the duster coat and the boots… this is Texas. Love it or leave it.

I complain and resist anything that smacks of authority and play the big tough loner act, even when it pushes away old friends and prevents me from making new ones. I have to do things my own way… not the 'right' way or even the BMA way. We don't even need to discuss my phobias about privacy and security.

In short, I'm a slightly undersized pismire badly compensating for my various insecurities by far too often shooting off my own pie hole when smarter folks would shut up and listen more. I'd like to blame this social deficiency on the fact that I don't get laid nearly as much as I'd like to. My critics, and there are many, would say it's those very flaws that actively wreck my attempts at romance. Oddly, I've always heard that women tend to prefer confident and arrogant assholes… but in that case I ought to be one of the best fucked men in Austin.

Faults aside, and I confess to having many, I'm a very loyal person to my friends. If someone depends upon me then I will do my damned'est to do what is expected and necessary. I'll show up on time when asked, try not to bitch excessively, and cover their ass when necessary. Today, my friends had gone off alone into the dragon's den and now I needed to see if I could get them out again more or less in one piece.

I had a really bad feeling about this, however, and my hopes sunk even more once I could see inside.

*******

The front snack bar area was empty and both side doors were open to the theater above. The sounds were wild and eerie and bright but unsettling colors danced against the walls as if a wild kaleidoscopic show of light and sound was being held inside. I found some cotton balls in a first aid kit underneath the cash register and wadded them into my ears. The noise was just too unsettling and alien and I didn't want to understand anything that it might be saying.

Inside the grand old theater an odyssey of lights was indeed being unfurled near the screen. Not projected, but rather a vortex as links to a thousand different worlds and Planes of Existence vied with each other for a tiny slice of our world. I risked a quick glance at this mega-portal but didn't like at all the sight of all of the things that were looking back at me. I kept my eyes low to the ground and my soul securely locked down tight.

The audience of about five hundred had filled the theater, mostly all seated but tendrils (or tentacles) of energy were touching the enraptured people, ensorcelled to the extent that their minds were no longer their own. In fact as I watched, I could sense that these minds were now being devoured and in some instances a complete body replacement or transformation was occurring as various unknown visitors replaced their captive hosts.

Already it was much too late to save anyone. The two police officers I had spent the afternoon with were now mindless and soulless husks, now occupied by two dissimilar creatures that now started to glare at me balefully.

I had to find Harriet and Henrietta – fast!

Dodging several energy tentacles that were questing for me, I made my way down to the very bottom front of the theater next to the stage and there I found them. Both were alive, and more or less themselves still, but their battle to hold off a horde of probing tendrils was clearly a losing one. Harriet had was holding her sister's hand and was visibly straining to keep up a protective energy shield around them.

I didn't think I'd be able to break through the shield to try and pull them both out but someone somehow my hand passed easily through and I suddenly found myself holding Henrietta's right hand with my left. She opened her eyes and smiled at me and I could clearly hear her voice in my mind.

Then things started to get very strange.

"I knew you would come." She said calmly into my mind and without a trace of the crippled stutter than she normally spoke in. 

"Harriet is now going to try and shield all three of us, but she can't hold it for longer than another minute. We have many things to do and we have very little time now, but now we have a chance. Do not try and talk or argue – just listen and try to follow my lead. Relax your guard and let me into your mind for a moment."

I'd like to say that I relaxed, but I keep my thoughts locked up pretty tight. It didn't matter to Henrietta, she surged into my mind like a barbarian horde armed with a battering ram. She popped herself inside and for a very long moment or two made herself quite at home moving the furniture around and knocking down a few side walls until the accommodations suited her.

"Your mind is so narrow and constricted!" She muttered. "It's a wonder you can cast any magic at all! Way too many firewalls and tiny power channels locked behind protective doors… when will you ever learn that sometimes a good offense is indeed better than a great defense? Now I've got some fighting room… we're going to need to cast some pretty powerful spells and I need you to actually channel the casting! First, you're going to need your other bracer from your workbench at home… we're going to need all the juice we can get. Translocate it here and let's get started!"

Translocate it here? That was miles away… no top Wizard I could think of could do that! Impossible!

"Stopping thinking and do it – yes, you can. You've got nearly unlimited power at the moment with your bracer gorging itself upon the loci here. With my assistance, you'll do fine… we don't have time to argue!"

So I concentrated. I thought I'd have to focus so hard that I'd probably shit myself, but at just a thought the other bracer appeared right onto my left arm and I was locked and loaded for battle. I surged with such uncontrollable power that I was sure that I would burst into a ball of pure energy, but somehow Henrietta kept me grounded (barely) to reality.

"Good. Now we can begin and not a moment too. Harriet's shield will collapse in a second and then they will attempt to take her, but I'll bring her part of our soul into my body for protection for just a few more moments, but that's all that we will need. We can't shield ourselves, shut down the connection to the other worlds, and destroy the things that have already arrived here, but there is a way to accomplish the last two critical things. We're doomed, but you knew that already. Harriet loved you very much once, but I had to remind her that I knew that we would both die young soon, but maybe saving the world in the process. Still she cries sometimes at night at what could have been. Isn't life… and death a bitch!"

I was too stunned at this to think let alone speak. Harriet's shield abruptly failed and she let out a loud sudden cry just before a dozen energy tendrils pounced upon her now lifeless frame, which still held her sister's hand tight even in death.  

"Now," Henrietta said with a tone of sadness, "we have just a moment before they come for us. Raise a shield around us for a moment while we teach you the summoning spell you are going to need to cast. You will have only one chance and it must be done right with every ounce of power that you can channel... every last drop!"

My shield went up in the nick of time and we must have had hundreds of energy tentacles and tendrils trying to force their way in to devour us. As Henrietta whispered the words that I would need to command the summoning, I became increasingly horrified. 

We weren't just summoning some major entity; we were going to command a God, the Zoroastrian deity of primal fire - Yazata Adar. A spirit capable of burning the entire world with fire and scouring it clean.

Oh Fuck!

"Now Zak, knock all of these energy probes back and let your shield encompass the entire theater outside, nothing inside must be allowed to escape, then together the three of us will start the summoning."

The shock wave of my shield clearing us some working space actually blasted out three full rows of seats, and their stunned otherworldly occupants who had just been getting their bearings in this new world. This got us some breathing and fighting space. I expanded out my shield to enclose the entire El Marvelo and we started the summoning.

With both Artifact quality bracers and standing in-between two large Ley lines, I was channeling enough power to be confused with a demi-god myself, but still it wasn't enough. I channeled more and more until I was nothing but a part of living magic circuit that feed impossible amounts of power into another new vortex that summoned the deity of fire from his normal place of existence.

At last with a burst of flame, Yazata Adar arrived, ready to purify the world with his flame.

The heat was like the surface of the sun and it scoured everything in its path. Tentacle, tendrils and unwelcome visitors were all burnt to cinders at his touch and soon his flames filled every inch of the entire theater until the very edge of my exterior shield was met. It held back his divine wrath, but barely.

My left bracer melted right off of my arm as if it were flowing water off of a rock. One of the Arcane Stones shattered on my right bracer, oddly enough the 'new' one that I had purchased. The three 'irregular' ones were glowing red but holding on. In fact the entire bracer was glowing orange as if it they had become magical plasma rather than man worked gold and silver.

"Our time is done now," I heard the faint echoed whisper of both Harriet's and Henrietta's voices merged together, "our bodies are about to pass. The gateways will still be open for another moment or two and we will let our combined spirit pass into one of them, or maybe all. It will be an adventure of many lifetimes, but we will never return. We wish you well Zak, both you and your new little friend."

A moment later their bodies still hand in hand burst into flames and into carbon dust upon the burning floor. My own clothes were now on fire as well and I became as a human torch, but yet my skin was unburned.

I thought at the last moment I heard the faint echo of a tiny voice far away saying "I love you Zak" but I wasn't sure. I was more than half insane with the amount of magical power that I was still channeling.

Still I kept up the shield imprisoning the God of Fire until I was certain that everything had been destroyed, the El Marvelo was gone, as were the terrible gateways to a thousand forbidden places, and the entities that had come uninvited to visit… and stay. Nothing was left but a pit of fire and utter ruin.

When I was certain that my sphere of primeval fire was now burning deep into the limestone under where the theater used to be, I decided that enough was enough and it was past time to put this atomic blowtorch back into his proper home. There was just one little problem… I had no idea how!

This was where my 'new little friend' entered into the events. He was sitting right on my right shoulder watching the show until he reached over into my ear and pulled out the cotton.

"Mate, if yee be wantin' to turn off the sun now, I wouldn't tell thee nay!"

I was so startled that I nearly lost my concentration on my shield. Once that genie was out of the bottle I didn't think a hundred BMA Wizards could ever put him back in again. The world would indeed burn.

My little visitor was tiny, maybe about two inches tall, but I learned later that size and even appearance with him were absolutely meaningless. He had brownish skin and a leathery but happy sort of face complete with big eyes and long pointed ears. I knew what he was in an instant but didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Their odd race is known by several names, including brùnaidh, ùruisg, tomte or gruagach, but most folks just call them 'Brownies', probably rather inaccurately.

They're considered the single most magical race known, even more so than elves or other creatures of faerie. They have been reported on dozens of alternate worlds and planes and some Wizards even speculate that they originate from a world of nearly pure raw magic, that they can assume any form and use any and all sorts of powers as effortlessly as breathing. They're rare on earth, most of the usual reported sightings and legends of them being of a similar, but significantly weaker cousin creature, but they have been known to find humans 'curious'.

If anything could survive the divine fire of a God, it would be a Brownie.

"Mate, not to rush yee, but I'd be gettin a move on… that Fire God is looking a wee bit irate!"

"Ummm… like how exactly?" I wondered, a bit too out loud.

"Yee must know its name… you called it here! Banish it… a mite hastily if me were thee!"

He had a point. I'd called the entity here, in theory that gave me a lever to push it back home a bit easier than it would be otherwise.

Still channeling so much energy that my sole remaining bracer was now a solid mass of magical plasma energy I began loudly reciting the Command of Banishment. The divine being just glared and at me and willed me to burn. I felt the pain of his touch but still my will held firm, once again in an even louder voice I commanded him to Depart and his flame began to weaken. Once again I was sheeted in flames near to the temperature of the surface of the sun, but I remained whole.

Finally with a third even more forceful command to Depart I felt the vortex to his plane reopen and he was finally Banished. My shield collapsed and in the backlash of the released energy I was expelled from the flaming ruins of the theater much like a seed from a ripe melon.

For the second time in one week I was flying through the air on course with another emergency crash landing into the Colorado River. This time I didn't complain so much about the water being ice cold.



Banish all the World Ch. 06



I didn't have an ounce of energy to do anything other than float in wretched agony for a very long time. I was told that the water in Town Lake nearly boiled and that the steam and fog obscured the river afterwards for miles.

Some kindly firemen pulled me out of the river and wrapped me in a towel. It promptly caught on fire, so they put me back into the river to chill down for another hour. I had never wanted a Sandy's Frozen Custard so bad in my entire life before!  

I spent the night in the hospital melting down ice packs until my proper internal temperature stabilized early the next morning. I didn't have a single physical injury other than being slightly toasted red all over, but I soon returned a normal fish belly white and pink once more a few days later. 

My right bracer was now also gone, but in its place was a plasma burned branding everywhere the bracer had been, showing off every line and detail of the original Artifacts design. Much like a tattoo the intricate skin branding captured every single feature flawlessly perfect. Just under my skin, where the remaining three Arcane Stone had been I could feel three slight bumps under my skin. My guess was that the ancient Artifact once heated into plasma had merged into my skin, becoming a part of me. I decided that this would probably not be a good fact to mention to the BMA.

I felt totally burned out, figuratively and especially mentally for much of the next week. I couldn't even sense magic now, find let alone touch a Ley line. I was all used up, much like a burned out match, but I was too spiritually and physically tired to be sad.

Over five hundred people were dead, including two BMA magicians and two police officers. Someone had to be blamed… and I was a perfect fit for the scapegoat. The fix was in before I had even left the river.

********

I told my story to anyone who would listen, but BMA had already decided upon their set of 'facts' even before the fire was out. Sure, there might have been a 'bit' of a multi-dimensional leak, but 'fire crazy Zak Zyphyr' had to run in and play hero again and burned the place down to the very bedrock.

This was the story that was given up the line to Imperial BMA, and no one particularly cared to scratch below the surface to sort the facts out. A major Zoroastrian Fire Deity? A rapidly expanding uncontrolled vortex to a thousand worlds that would have devoured ours within days? Visitors feasting upon souls and changelings taking the places of mortals? Not a chance in seven hells did anyone want to believe this was even possible… especially it was true. 

I could plead my innocence and the facts to the four winds, but no one was now listening. I learned real quick who my real friends were… and it was sadly a very short list. Anyone who even remotely considered my signed statement as 'fact' was politely encouraged to find something else better to occupy their time with. 

It was just mere coincidence then that the restoration work on all of the other vintage Arc Deco theaters immediately and completely stopped for good and all of their original artifices and artifacts were completely torn out to the very bare walls. Protected registered historical landmarks or not, nearly every single old theater suddenly experienced arson, accidental terminal foundation problems, or had their roofs mysteriously cave in after minor rainstorms. It seems that someone was taking absolutely no chance of another El Marvelo incident.

They gave me the standard Magical Aptitude Test, which mostly consists of placing a specially crafted artifice, a round crystal ball into your hands to see how bright it glows according to your affinity for magic. Mine stayed dead dark. The other tests that followed confirmed a big fat new BMA score of zero. My magic was gone and I was now a 'normal'. At this point the BMA had virtually no interest in dealing with me any longer. My 'Internal Review' courts-martial before a panel of Wizard judges was now deemed unnecessary and cancelled. Now useless to them I was drummed out in record speed.

My Public License to practice magic was revoked and my BMA folder was stamped 'Retired' and sent off to some warehouse for long term storage. I was still placed on every governmental watch list imaginable. What they thought I'd burn down next, I'm not sure.

Money was going to be tight, but not impossible. I'd inherited my house from my favorite Aunt free and clear. There was a small annual trust fund that paid most of my normal living expenses and I had some savings, so I wasn't desperate to find another means of earning a living.

Mostly I was just too dead tired and sad to do much of anything expect mope about at home and sleep. I slept a lot… and thought about Harriet and what might have been. 

I understood now exactly why she and her sister were utterly inseparable; her soul had split when her twin fetus separated from her in the womb. They had really been one person all along trapped in two separate bodies. Now they were reunited as one and roaming the multiverse… it wasn't quite a happy ending, but I eventually convinced myself that maybe a small tiny bit of good had resulted from the fiasco.

*******

"Wake up!" I heard a small cheerful voice sing out into my ear early one morning about four months later.

I hadn't seen or heard a peep from him since the debacle inside the El Marvelo. I hadn't mentioned him in my statements to the BMA; just as well, they thought I was crazy enough as it was. Naturally, I assumed that this very odd visitor had gone off somewhere else to see and do something much more interesting than hang out with a burned out former minor magician very down on his luck. I soon learned otherwise… I was still 'interesting' apparently.

"Hurry up and get dressed and drink a cup of coffee, fast! You've got company coming! Another day, another new opportunity! Chop! Chop!"

The little guy, today about three feet tall, was wearing my best (and only) smoking jacket, now shrunk to fit his size and he was enjoying one of my better Cuban cigars along with a snifter of brandy.

"So, some building contractors need a building torched and want to contact the infamous Zak Pyro, arsonist for hire? Or maybe the Aggies want a consult for their next University Bonfire?"

"Laugh now, repent at leisure!" He brightly chirped. "Besides, this is going to be a good job. Snap out of it – your star is on the rise again!"

"Rising how? And what is it going to crash into once it rises? No one would hire me for any job – my powers are gone and my name is mud."

"My you're a pessimistic bugger early in the morning! I told you to go get some coffee… I swear you are quite impossible in the morning! And while you're at it, take a look at your Ley's, they're all a bit off this morning."

"Arise!" He commanded. "As a great poet once said, 'To banish, worry, doubt and fear; to again love and laugh and give!"

I hadn't been able to sense a Ley line since I walked into the El Marvelo, and frankly I'd stopped trying. Still to shut the little bugger up I closed my eyes and gave a good grunt or two to prove that I was concentrating… and found all three crossing Ley lines nearly at once. Just like old days… if not even easier!

"What the…."

"See!" The little rat bastard said, smirking at me. "You've had two women redecorating inside your head and then you channeled enough raw magical energy to flatten a small moon. Plus you had your Artifact graft itself into your arm for good measure. You flatlined your magical batteries and your body needed time to heal, adjust and adapt to the new and improved 'you'. Well… maybe improved, we'll see about that. You just needed rest and sleep and quiet. You've had all three and now you should be ready for a little bit of light exercise. It's a big world out there and there's a lot of shit that needs the attention of an infamous and talented pyromaniac!"

Magic! I could channel magic once again! 

Oh, man…. was this going to really piss off the BMA! I'd be declared a Renegade for sure, at the very least. The only reason that I was still alive was that the BMA thought losing my magic was an even worse punishment than death!

"Walk before you run, young grasshopper! Besides there are absolutely no laws about 'retired' magicians working outside of the Republic or the Great Western Alliance for awhile, until certain 'misunderstandings' get resolved." He smirked with a sly grin.

That made complete sense. I got dressed in a flash just moments before a couple of nice Yankee gents in dark suits knocked on my door.

Like the Brownie said, it was a magic related job in the United States, to assist them with tracking down a major weapon smuggling ring similar to the one I had discovered here in Austin. They had heard about my success and politely asked the BMA if they could borrow my expertise. The BMA was only too happy to be rid of me and gave their blessing with no strings attached. That alone should have warned them, but apparently they were too desperate to care.

I could do this! The pay was good, the cause was just, and it was a way to get back into the game again! I accepted at once.

While packing, I asked the Brownie what had happened to his thick brogue and accent. 

"Too much late night TV watching cooking shows and infomercials." He replied. Then he asked me if 'Magic Kaboom Putty' really could really be used to make lasting magical artifices fast and easy.

I had no idea, but told him that we'd soon find out!