glanced at the sky. “We could have visitors any minute.”
As gently as he could, he plucked the other Reg from his shoulder and made sure she was settled safely on the dais railing. Her eyes warm with appreciation, she gave him a little nod. She even managed to rattle her tail.
The other Gerald snapped his fingers and a rain of rose petals fell from the sky. Then, ignoring Reg, he grasped the dais railing with both hands and swept his gaze around his frightened, captive audience.
“Look, everyone, I know you’re afraid,” he said, his voice clear and carrying. “I know in the last few months there have been many changes which you haven’t always understood. And some harsh measures have been taken that have caused some of you pain. I’m sorry about that. Truly. I wish there’d been time to tread lightly and kindly. To explain everything step-by-step. I wish there’d been time for committees and consultations and working parties and resolutions in the house. But there wasn’t. I had to act swiftly and I didn’t have time to argue every little thing. There are dangers in this world, my friends, terrible dangers. And whether it was by accident, or by some strange thaumaturgical design, I’m the wizard who was in the right place at the right time with the right resources to make us safe. Which is what I’m about to do now. I’m going to make every last one of us safe.”
Silence. The captive crowd of wizards and witches looked at each other, then looked back at the dais.
The other Gerald was frowning. “Well, y’know, I think a thank you would be nice. Bibbie.”
Smiling brightly, Bibbie started to clap. After a moment, behind them, Ottosland’s impotent Prime Minister Attaby clapped with her. One by one his fellow shadbolted ministers and senior civil servants joined in. Bibbie clapped harder. Ottosland’s government followed suit. And at last, grudgingly, the city’s captive thaumaturgists followed suit. Nobody in their right mind would call the applause enthusiastic, but it was loud enough to put a smile on the other Gerald’s face.
Reluctantly clapping, Gerald kept his own face blank and was careful not to look anywhere near Monk. Blimey, he really believes it. He believes everything he just said. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Trying to be inconspicuous, he stared around the ceremonial parade ground. There was still no sign of Reg. Where the devil was she? Surely not lost. Or-oh, God, was she trapped back in the Department of Thaumaturgy building? No, no, no. Don’t let it be that. Because once the etheretic enhancer was switched on there’d be no going back. She had to be here, ready and waiting.
Bloody hell, Reg. Don’t do this to me.
Thanks to Bibbie’s enthusiastic example the ragged applause showed no sign of dying down. The other Gerald raised his hands. “Oh, you’re welcome, you’re welcome,” he said, widely smiling. “It’s my pleasure. Honestly, my only interest is in serving you all. And right now I’m going to serve you by asking you to serve me. So everybody please relax. There’s no need to panic. You’re going to feel a little peculiar-and then everything will be fine. I promise. My word as a wizard.”
Bibbie stopped clapping, and immediately so did everyone else. With a final smile and a wave the other Gerald stepped up to his precious machine and started flipping switches. Moments later the ether began to stir, thaumaturgic currents agitating as the amplifier’s incants came alive. Gerald felt his own potentia stir in answer, shadowed eddies an unwelcome reminder of what had been given to him against his will. Felt what he’d have to purge from himself against its will, when this was done and he was home again, safe.
He looked at Monk, anxious. His friend would be feeling the machine’s effects too, along with every witch and wizard gathered in this horrible place. Monk was holding on, his face rigid with strain. He risked a glance at Bibbie. She was frowning, fingers tightly interlaced against the uncomfortable thaumaturgic roil.
But the other Gerald? His counterpart? He was revelling in it, grinning, drinking the ether’s agitation like fine wine. His perverted potentia was hungry, and fed on discord. Watching him, Gerald shuddered.
I don’t know why that isn’t me. I haven’t a clue why I was spared.
The etheretic pressure was slowly building to a crescendo. It was nearly time. They had one chance to do this-one chance to stop a madman and save two worlds, maybe more. He looked sideways at Monk, the only man in any world he wanted standing by his side. Poor Monk. Not a trained government agent, just an extraordinary theoretical thaumaturgist. Dragged into this disaster by the scruff of his neck. Condemned by his own brilliance to be the lynchpin of a deluded wizard’s megalomaniacal plans.
Bloody hell, Markham. I’ll owe you for this.
Meeting his gaze, Monk flicked him a wink. Nonchalant on the surface, but terrified underneath. And he wasn’t the only one. If either of them made even the smallest mistake…
No. No. Don’t think like that, Dunnywood. You can do this. It’s your job.
He took a deep breath, then let it out. One more. One more. This world’s Reg had turned herself around on the dais railings. She was staring right at him, her eyes full of love. He couldn’t look at her. He had to look away.
Oh, God. Reg. Where are you? Come on… come on…
With a silent peal like thunder the etheretic amplifier’s process approached its peak strength. Feeling it, many of the captive wizards and witches cried out. The other Gerald shouted, a raw, shocking sound of triumph, his potentia shuddering-and then he started to recite the incant for his planned mass shadbolting.
“ Now, Monk! ” Gerald shouted. Then, as Monk triggered the hexes they’d planted in the machine he spun around to face his dreadful other self. Unleashed his own tarnished potentia, lashing out at the other Gerald to throw him off stride and disrupt his shadbolt incant.
Take that, you bastard. Bloody well take that!
But the other Gerald wasn’t easily knocked off stride. Shaking with fury, he pointed at Monk and snapped his fingers. Monk dropped, writhing, as his shadbolt woke and sank its claws deep.
Gerald leaped forward but Monk waved him back. “Don’t be an idiot!” he grunted, choking with pain. “Stop him while you still can!”
“ Stop me?” echoed the other Gerald. His wide eyes were mad, promising an appalling retribution. “You bloody idiots. You morons! You can’t! ”
Laughing, he continued reciting the mass shadbolting hex.
Gerald spared one last look at Monk, tormented and shuddering against a dais railing post. And then he banished outrage and anguish and focused on the plan. The machine’s etheretic amplification wave was still building but Monk’s triggered incant had reversed its direction, sent it seeking, like an arrow, a rogue wizard’s potentia. He staggered, feeling its power.
Bloody hell, Monk. I hope we know what we’re doing.
And then there was no time for wondering, hardly any time to think at all. He’d baited his counterpart’s machine with the unique thaumaturgical signature that they shared-and if he could work out how to deflect the amplifier’s attention from himself right now — before the other Gerald realized-before the wave of power found them both Oh bugger. Oh, bugger. I don’t know what to do.
He’d thought he could wing it. He’d thought he could make it up as he went along, avoid tumbling headfirst into his own clever trap And I can. I can. I’ve got a knack for improvisation. What do I need? What do I need? Bloody hell, I need not to be me…
With a blur of inspiration shooting through him faster than thought, he turned on his shivering friend and snatched at his potentia, as though Monk were a paint pot and he wanted to slather himself green. Not knowing how to do it, precisely, knowing only that he could, even through the mauling claws of the cruel, confining shadbolt. Monk cried out, a sound of fresh shock and pain. Ruthless, he ignored that. For a heartbeat-and a heartbeat-and another pounding heartbeat-he smeared himself with Monk’s brilliant thaumic signature. Made up his own masking incant on the fly. Made himself not-Gerald. As good as invisible. He hoped.
Come on… come on… come on…
And all the while the other Gerald, oblivious, lost in a trance of his own grimoire making, wove his web to ensnare a whole world. Hidden in plain sight, Gerald shifted his attention. Now for the second impossible part of the plan. He needed to jigger with that shadbolt hex and in doing so fool the other Gerald’s shadbolt-proofing into failure. Trick it into accepting the very incant it was designed to defeat.
On a breath, on a sigh, he eased his potentia into the shadbolt’s matrix. Just like he’d eased it into Haf Rottlezinder’s warding hex. Sneaky-stealthy-he was a janitor’s janitor An odd thaumic click. A subtle etheretic vibration. Done. The shadbolt matrix was altered. The shadbolt-proofing would be blind. With a shiver, the redirected amplified etheretic carrier wave began to shift and And then- oh, bloody hell- things went ass over elbows in the worst possible way.
