Free Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer Page B

open with levitating. There was no way the fraud could top that. He’d slink away in shame and leave town most likely. Maybe Martin would get his hut. It sounded nice, and some stew would hit the spot.
    He saw Gwen in the crowd. He smiled and nodded to her. She shook her head, walked to Phillip and said something. Martin couldn’t tell what from this distance, but Phillip nodded as he replied. She looked to Martin again, her large brown eyes looking equally tired and disapproving.
    “When do we start?” Martin asked.
    “Whenever you’re ready,” Phillip sighed.
    Martin pulled his phone out of his pocket. It cast what he hoped was an eerie glow on his face. The crowd silenced instantly. He opened the app. His thumb paused over the Hover button. He paused for effect, then pressed the button. Instantly he was suspended three feet in the air. He heard sounds of surprise from the gathered throng, but not quite as many as he expected. He figured most of them were too shocked speak.
    The hover app worked as designed, resetting his altitude back to three feet off the ground ten times a second. He’d tested it briefly in his apartment, curled into a ball to keep from putting his head through the ceiling, but now he was in a standing position and holding his altitude for more than a second or two. It was profoundly uncomfortable. Imagine standing in a bus with no shock absorbers driving over cobblestones at forty miles an hour.
    Every joint in his body rattled. His teeth hurt. His brain hurt. He feared he might be sick. He feared the vibration might break his phone, his only means of returning to his own time. He loosened his grip on the phone as much as he dared, hoping to dampen the shaking. Despite all this, he did not land. He had to expose the false wizard Phillip, and that meant decisively demonstrating his superior power. He would stay in the air until Phillip admitted he could not do better.
    “BEEEHOOOOLD!!” Martin bellowed, in a voice that sounded like he was yelling through a high speed fan. Even to himself he sounded like a goat. “Phiiilliiip, caaan yooour pooowerrrrrrs maaatch thiiiiis?” He hovered in as impressive a pose as he could muster with his body ringing with pain.
    All eyes turned to Phillip, who smiled, shrugged, and said, “Let’s see.”
    Phillip pointed his staff at the sky. The staff glowed an unearthly blue color and emitted a hum, like a kazoo but with more reverb. Smoothly, effortlessly, Phillip soared straight up, thirty feet into the air. His feet dangled beneath him. The blue glow formed a vapor trail that traced his path through the air. The buzzing intensified as Phillip twirled the staff like an oversized baton. He spun the staff so quickly that it became a disc of blue light warping around him. Slowly, Philip started rotating. As he rotated faster the blue disc became a blue sphere, which got brighter and hotter until it was burning a brilliant white. Despite it being well after dark, the street looked like it was high noon on the hottest day of the year. A voice so loud that it would have given Martin a headache if he hadn’t already given himself one filled the air.
    The monstrous voice asked, “What do you think, Martin? How’s this?”
    Without a word Martin turned and ran as fast as he could. It would have been an impressive display of speed if his feet were touching the ground. He spun sickeningly and toppled over. He came to a rest hanging upside down at an undignified angle, facing Phillip, still vibrating, three feet above the ground. His robe flapped downward. His feet kicked impotently in the air.
    Then Martin threw up.
    The white sphere of light contracted to the size of a basketball at the pinnacle of Phillip’s staff. Phillip was motionless, floating in the air serenely with his staff held at his side, the ball of white light emitting from its tip illuminating the whole world.
    “Thanks for visiting us, Martin,” Phillip said in a flat, conversational tone.