The Quantum Games(The Alchemists Academy)

Chapter 19





“Ender Paine and Vivaine Lake,” Roland said in that strange new voice of his. “You’re really going to stop me? You should be on my side, both of you.”

“And yet we are not,” the headmaster said, the runes on his ungloved hands glowing an angry red. “Perhaps it is the way you have attacked my school.” His voice rose to a roar with the last two words and the sky seemed to darken around him. Where he stood on the sidelines, even Wirt flinched.

“And you?” Roland asked Ms. Lake. “From what I remember, you have no more love for Merlin than I do. Weren’t you one of those who helped to send him into his slumber?”

“And I have regretted it every moment since,” Ms. Lake said. “You get one chance. Leave Roland. Leave him now.”

“You think I am some pathetic child to be cowed by the two of you?” Roland demanded.

“But there aren’t just two of them.” That voice came from behind Roland, and Wirt looked past him to see Ms. Burns standing there. Her red dress seemed to shimmer like a heat haze, while her hair flickered as though it was actually composed of flames. Combined with the clearly visible points to her ears, she looked ethereal, impossible.

Roland didn’t seem impressed. “I can kill three of you as easily as two.”

“Really?” Ender Paine asked, raising an eyebrow. “Kill three of the most powerful mages in this kingdom? I think I would like to see you try.”

Roland waved a hand, and the three quantum balls he’d been using seemed to leap up of their own accord, circling above his hand like moons around a central planet. They glowed a weird, unhealthy green now, which seemed to Wirt like the same color as the mist had been before.

“Fine,” Roland said. “Die, then.”

The balls shot out, one at each teacher. Ms. Lake waved a hand and vanished, the ball intended for her shooting through the space where she’d been. Ms. Burns seemed to split and multiply, dozens of her occupying the space where she had been. The ball darted after one then another, chasing after illusions until it ran out of energy. Wirt had to admit he was impressed. A glamor that could fool an object like the quantum ball was obviously a powerful one.

As for Ender Paine, he simply stretched out his hands, those runes on them glowing with dull red power, and caught the ball heading towards him. Just that. There was no thunderclap. No flash of light as magic met magic. There was no sign of the headmaster disintegrating either as the quantum ball met his flesh. He just caught it, and in many ways, that was the single most impressive thing he could have done.

He seemed to concentrate, and Wirt watched as tendrils of black smoke crept up over the ball, enfolding it in what seemed to be a tiny cloud bank. When it cleared, things started to fly off the ball in his hand, buzzing as they went. Wirt realized that they were bees. Large, furry, red and black bees. A whole ball of them, which split apart and flew off as Wirt watched, leaving the headmaster holding nothing.

“You will have to do better than that,” Ender Paine said evenly, taking a step towards Roland.

“Then I will.” Roland’s mouth seemed to stretch and dilate, becoming something inhuman for a moment. Something that spat a gobbet of bright green slime straight at the headmaster. Ender Paine deflected it with a wave of his hand, sending it to crash into the stand where people had been watching. It was empty now, which was probably just as well; because Wirt saw the green slime spread out and eat through the wood of the stand like acid. The structure groaned and creaked before finally collapsing in on itself as though made from cardboard.

Roland spun then, sending a wave of green fire towards Ms. Lake and Ms. Burns. Ms. Lake conjured up a wall of water to counter the fire heading towards her, while Ms. Burns met hers with flames of her own, pushing fire into fire until the whole expanse of magic burned out. Wirt stood by the stand, trying to think of something, anything, he could do to help. Yet right then, there simply wasn’t anything. In a contest between four such powerful magic users, he didn’t have a chance of doing anything but being a distraction.

Roland stood there, looking around at the teachers who now formed three points of a triangle with him at the center. He seemed to take a deep breath, and he went on taking that breath. Wirt normally didn’t feel the magic around him unless he concentrated, but he could feel it now, or rather, he could feel its absence as Roland started to suck all the magic in the area around him into him, so fast that there seemed to be nothing left. Wirt looked to Ms. Lake, and he could see the worry on her face. She could obviously feel it too, and whatever was coming, she wasn’t sure if she could cope with it.

Wirt knew he couldn’t let that happen, yet what could he do? He’d already decided that he was useless there. That all he could be… was a distraction. Of course. Wirt hunted around on the ground for a rock, a pebble. Anything. In the end, he had to settle for a lump of broken wood from the spectator stand. He hefted it, and then he threw it, the way he’d practiced throwing the quantum ball so often in the last few days.

The piece of wood flew end over end when Wirt threw it, tumbling through the air without grace but with all the force he could muster. It was enough. Roland was so intent on whatever spell he was casting that he didn’t even see it coming. It struck him on the side of the head, and spun him around in shock, while Wirt felt the magic rushing back out of him as he lost control of it. Lightning spiked down from the clouds above, striking the earth randomly as the magic spun off.

“What have you done?” Roland started to ask, but the three teachers around him were already acting.

“This ends now,” Ender Paine said, and magic sprang from him. No, not just from him, Wirt realized. He, Ms. Lake, and Ms. Burns were all pouring magic into a spell, weaving it together like an orchestra playing some elaborate piece of music. Roots and vines shot up from the ground, interwoven with strands of shadow and flickering breaths of air, forming chains that wrapped themselves around Roland even as he tried to struggle. They shot up, containing him, controlling him, and Wirt saw something else too. As they did it, Roland’s eyes started to slide closed.

He slept. He looked somehow more peaceful in sleep, without any sign of that violent intelligence that had invaded him, or even his own natural hatred of those around him. The vines and the other strands squeezed tightly around him, pulling him down to the earth, and into it. Pulling him down until he disappeared into the ground and the grass closed up over him like a scar over a wound.

Slowly, so slowly, the sky lightened. People started to drift back, looking faintly stunned, or faintly embarrassed at having run off. Wirt found himself walking over to the spot where Roland had disappeared into the ground. Ms. Lake was there too. The sense of dangerous magic around her had faded, leaving her looking like her normal self, but Wirt wasn’t about to forget what he’d seen in a hurry.


“What happened to him?” Wirt asked. “Is he…”

“Dead?” Ms. Lake shook her head. “Roland is sleeping, and in a safe place. Don’t ask me where. I can’t tell you. We’ll want to talk to him about what he did, and to the creature inside him.”

“Do you know what it is?” Wirt asked. “Who it is?”

“We’ll find out,” she assured him. “And in the meantime, Roland won’t be a danger to anyone else. Now quiet, I think Ender is going to speak.”

Wirt turned around, and the headmaster was just pulling his gloves back on. He’d thought that they were some kind of stupid affectation. Now he knew better. The way he’d simply caught the quantum ball…

“Children, parents,” the headmaster began. “You have seen today the dangers of magic used without control. Of a boy willing to do anything for his ambition. Some of those here have paid the ultimate price for that. I can assure you, however, that the danger is over. The situation has been… dealt with.”

He didn’t go into details, Wirt noted. He didn’t say that Roland was still alive. Probably, given the headmaster’s reputation, people would assume that he wasn’t. Apparently, Ender Paine wanted to keep that part a secret.

“It has been dealt with,” Ender Paine repeated, “as all such dangers will be dealt with. This school is strong, and it will not fall prey to such threats, no matter how great. We come through them as a school, and we are stronger because of them. Now, there will be a break of one hour while my colleagues and I assess the damage, deal with a few details, and of course re-build the stand. Then the Quantum Games will continue.”

“Continue?” Wirt said, and he felt like he was giving voice to something half the people there felt. People had been killed. People had been disintegrated. Yet they were just going to go on with the Games like nothing had happened.

Ender Paine turned to stare at him. “I will not allow this to disrupt my school,” he said, and his tone of voice was one Wirt didn’t dare argue with. The headmaster smiled. “Of course, if Roland Black had not already proved himself incompetent, he would have found himself disqualified for this, so it will be you and young Mr. Bentley facing one another in the final. Unless you wish to concede?”

Wirt knew he should walk away. He knew that it was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t. Not now, and not in front of everybody. Silently, hating himself for it even as he did it, he shook his head.

“Then we will take a period of one hour to prepare things for the final contest,” Ender Paine said. He addressed the assembled crowd. “Refreshments will be served in the school cafeteria to those who wish them. Would those on the school’s board of directors please join me? And you,” he added, with a look at Wirt, “should prepare yourself.”

He walked away through the crowd, and after a moment or two Ms. Lake and Ms. Burns followed him. Parents, teachers and students drifted after them, obviously still trying to make some kind of sense of what had happened. Wirt stood there, knowing that he needed to get a grip on things too. So much had just happened. Roland had killed people, and had been defeated by some of the most powerful magic he had ever seen, but right then, that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that the moment was finally here. In about an hour, he was going to find out if he could bring himself to throw a quantum ball at Spencer.