Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer Read Free Book Online Page B

whatever reason, warning himself was not an option. He’d have to find some other way to fix the mess he’d left behind in the future, and since he had no idea what that would be, he’d have to bide his time here, in the past. That made the food and shelter problems clearly stand out from the rest, and for some reason, that made Martin feel better. Also, he didn’t have to worry about messing up the space-time continuum, because if he was going to, he already had, long before he was even born.
    Okay, he thought, I know what my problems are. What are my assets?
    He had his clothes. This was not a promising start, but there it was. His shoes were still unlaced. He dug the laces out of the plastic evidence bag Agent Murphy had handed him when he’d asked for his phone. As he laced his shoes, he continued down the list. He had his clothes. He had a jacket. He had his phone. He had his wallet, full of plastic cards that were useless except as bookmarks. He had his car keys, which were equally useless here and in the future, now that the car was totaled.
    He could stay in this time, go back to his time, or try any time in between. He could transport anywhere on the globe, but he’d have to be careful. He had picked the white cliffs of Dover because they would be there. They had existed for millions of years, so they were a safe landing zone. Even that wasn’t quite true, he saw. He had picked a landing spot about thirty feet from the cliff edge, but he materialized over a hundred feet away. This might have been an error, or continental drift, or perhaps the cliff had eroded. Maybe it was a bit of all three. In any case, Martin couldn’t guarantee that any geological feature would be where his mapping program said it was. He had considered picking a mountain peak as a landing zone, and now he was glad he hadn’t. Imagine materializing in midair, thirty feet to the left of the peak. He shuddered at the idea. He could still teleport anywhere, but he’d need to be careful.
    He was in Medieval England, which was both a problem and an asset. He chose this time and place as his escape hatch because he spoke the language, and the people believed in magic. He could hover and teleport to prove his so-called powers. Heck, the phone itself would look like magic. He could just show it to people and they’d be convinced. His clothes would look strange. His manner would seem strange, and his English wouldn’t be quite the same as the local dialect, which might just make him seem otherworldly. He had the plastic bag the agents had put his belongings in. The locals certainly would never have seen anything like that.
    Lastly, he had the thing he’d rushed home for, aside from seeing his parents one last time. He held it up to look at it, and was delighted that in his senior year he’d chosen to go to a Halloween party as Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies. At the time it was just an excuse to bleach his hair, which hadn’t worked out, but now he had a dark robe with a snake sewn on it, and a magic wand. He tried the robe on. He’d gained weight since high school, but the robe wasn’t too tight. Well, it was too tight, but it wasn’t too too tight.
    He turned his back to the ocean and started walking. The plan was to find people, convince them he was a wizard, get food and shelter, then lay low while he made a plan. It was a simple plan, and it would work this time. He knew how not to do it.
    Yes sir, he thought, I’ll just lay low. First step: find a bunch of people and convince them I have magic powers.

Chapter 9.

    After an hour of walking, Martin crested a small hill. He hadn’t covered as much ground as he’d hoped. Walking through wilderness, even when it’s devoid of trees, takes more time and effort than walking on a sidewalk. He was irritated that nobody had ever mentioned this fact to him, but after some thought he realized that people who walk in undeveloped areas in his time did so mostly for fun, and if that