The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [169]
The key. He could open a portal. Quentin jabbed at the air with it frantically, but it didn’t catch on anything. He couldn’t find the lock. He jabbed more vigorously and more wildly. God knew where it would take them, but anywhere was better than here.
“That won’t work down here,” someone called out, in a schoolboy English accent. “Magic doesn’t work.” It was that kid, and Quentin recognized him now. It was Martin Chatwin himself. But young—his shade looked about thirteen. That must have been what he looked like just before he became a monster, before he died for the first time.
“I don’t see your girlfriend,” Martin said nastily. “She’ll not save you.”
Maybe it was that Quentin could still die—that’s what attracted them. By killing him they could change something, do something, however terrible, that made a difference in the world above.
A couple of shades in the front row started forward, the first wave of the inevitable rush, but Benedict stepped forward to meet them and they hesitated. He grabbed a badminton racket out of somebody’s hand and brandished it at them like a sword.
“Come on, you bastards!” There he was: the warrior Benedict should have been. He assumed the perfect dueling stance he’d learned from Bingle and pointed the racket at Martin Chatwin. “Come on, who’s first?” he shouted. “You? Come on then!”
Quentin stepped up next to him, though with nothing in his hands and no magic in play, he was painfully aware that he didn’t look very dangerous. Too bad he didn’t bring a sword. He squared off and put up his fists and did his best to look like he had the faintest idea what to do with them.
“I am changing,” Julia said matter-of-factly behind him. And then she repeated, “It is time.”
Not now. Please not now. Let nothing new happen now. Quentin stole a glance back at Julia, then stopped and stared. Everyone else was staring too. Julia was taller, and her eyes had become a brilliant green. Something was happening. She was staring down at her arms with a small, deliberate frown on her face as she watched them become longer, and stronger, watched her skin take on a lustrous, pearly luminescence. It was like she’d looked in the fight at the castle, but more so. She was becoming something else.
Then she was smiling, really smiling. She looked past him at the assembled shades, and they fell back like they were facing a strong wind. Benedict gaped.
“Can you see me now?” she said.
He nodded, goggling.
She was something else now, something no longer human. A spirit? She had been beautiful before, but now she was magnificent. Something about being here must have caused her, or allowed her, to finish becoming what she’d been becoming all this time. She was as tall as Quentin now, though she seemed to be stopping there. With an air of curiosity she picked up a stick from the floor, a hockey stick it looked like. When she touched it, it grew. It came to life and became a long staff with a knobby crown. She hefted it, and the shades scrambled back even farther, even Martin Chatwin.
“Come,” she said to him. Her voice was Julia’s voice, but amplified, and with reverb. “Come fight.”
Martin didn’t come any closer. He didn’t have to, Julia came to him. In a flash, quicker than a human could move, like a poison fish striking, she had him by his shirt front. She picked him up and threw him overhand into the crowd, his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. Her strength was surreal. Quentin wasn’t sure if she could hurt Martin—it’s not like he could die a third time—but he sure as hell must have found it daunting.
The crowd was like a soccer crowd: the front ranks scrambled back, but behind them the shades were flooding in