No Respect for Wizards

The sedan crossed directly in front of Ambrose Halloway’s broom without so much as a wave through the rear window, then continued down the road as though nothing had happened.

There were certain courtesies one ought to extend to a wizard of his age and position, particularly after nearly knocking him out of the air, and the driver’s failure to offer even the slightest acknowledgment bothered him.

So Halloway decided to confront the man.

When the silver sedan came off the on-ramp, Halloway followed. He stayed behind it all the way to Halstead and Ninth, where they finally caught a red light.

The sedan stopped in the right lane, and Halloway halted behind it.

He had waited at this light before and knew it would hold for about seventy seconds. That was all the time he needed.

He set his broom to levitate and dismounted, drawing his wand from the holder along its side. He tucked it into the sleeve of his gray Council robe and walked up to the sedan.

The driver’s window was down, one arm resting on the sill.

Halloway stopped a few feet short of the door.

“Hey.”

The driver turned.

“I am the undersigned, first of the Grand Council,” Halloway said. “You cut me off when you merged. I believe you owe me an apology.”

The driver stared at him.

Halloway waited. Most people, seeing a Council robe from this distance, immediately produced some version of I’m sorry or I didn’t see you.

But this man produced neither.

Instead, he looked at Halloway the way Halloway looked at incident forms after some novice blew up his own house: with irritation.

“I didn’t do shit.”

Halloway blinked.

“You nearly knocked me out of the air.”

“Then you should’ve slowed down.”

“I did slow down. That is why neither of us is presently dead.”

The driver turned back toward the light.

“Good for you, buddy.”

Halloway drew himself a little straighter.

“An apology would settle the matter.”

“I ain’t apologizing.”

“Then I must inform you that, should the matter remain unsettled, I am entitled under Council law to challenge you to a duel.”

The driver gave a short laugh.

“Are you serious?”

“Entirely.”

“Get away from my car.”

“I will. Once you apologize.”

“As I said, I ain’t apologizing.”

Halloway sighed.

He slipped the wand from his sleeve and gave it a small turn.

A crack like splitting timber sounded beneath the front of the sedan. Frost raced across the asphalt and thickened into a ridge of cloudy blue ice directly in front of the car.

The driver looked at it through the windshield, then back at Halloway.

“What the hell, man?”

“It’s just ice.”

“Move it.”

“Apologize.”

The driver’s hand tightened on the sill.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Halloway shrugged.

“Perhaps.”

“Buddy, I’m telling you right now. Fix this and get away from my car. Or else.”

Halloway remained where he was, wand in hand, and said nothing.

The driver then shook his head.

“That’s it.”

Halloway tilted his head.

“Have you decided to duel?”

The driver looked him over with open contempt.

“You want a duel,” he said. “You’ll have a damn duel, all right.”

Halloway smiled.

Council law prohibited wizards from directly challenging ordinary people to duels, largely to prevent the practice from being used to rob them, as Edgar Thistlewick had once done. Ordinarily, Halloway approved of the restriction. But this man needed to be humbled, and technically Halloway had issued no challenge. He had merely informed the man that he could challenge him, and the man had chosen the duel himself.

Whatever happened next was therefore, as far as Halloway was concerned, entirely proper.

The driver put the car in park, opened the door, and stepped out with what appeared to be his chosen weapon already in hand.

At that, Halloway proceeded to the Naming.

He raised his wand. A faint white glow gathered at the tip.

“First Hand of Orlaan,” he said. “And the working I call the Long Winter.”

The driver spat onto the pavement.

“Yeah. Try a Glock 19.”

Correct form, Halloway noted. No embellishment. No theater. Perhaps the man was taking this seriously.

“You’ll want to understand the Interval,” Halloway said.

The driver was not listening. He was looking down at the Glock, adjusting his grip.

“Thirty seconds,” Halloway said anyway. “Mandatory between the completion of the Naming and the first discharge. Neither party may act inside it.”

Heat came up through his sandals. Somewhere farther back in the line of cars, someone leaned on a horn.

Halloway kept his wand raised, its tip glowing faintly, and counted.

The driver raised the Glock toward him.

Halloway watched but did not move. Twenty seconds remained, and a man who could name his weapon correctly was surely not a man who would fire before the Interval ended.

Then the driver pulled the trigger.

A click.

Nothing.

The driver frowned at the gun, turned it over in his hand, worked the slide, and pointed it at Halloway again.

Halloway stared at him.

He could have activated his wand. The working was already gathered. It would have taken less than a second.

But the Interval bound both parties or it bound neither. A duel in which one man abandoned the form the moment it became inconvenient was not a duel at all. It was just two people standing in the road, larping.

And Halloway hated larpers.

“Hey,” Halloway said. “You’re supposed to wait thirty—”

The gunshot cut him off.

Halloway hit the asphalt.

His wand bounced once beside him and threw a brief spray of white sparks across the road.

He groaned and pressed a hand against his side.

“How dare you,” he said. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

The driver looked at him, then at the ridge of ice blocking his car, and sighed.

“God dammit.”

He got back inside.

“I am speaking to you,” Halloway called.

The sedan backed up, lurched over the edge of the ice, and pulled into the next lane.

“You discharged inside the Interval!” Halloway shouted. “You cannot simply leave!”

But the driver was already driving away.

Halloway stared after him.

Then the cars behind him began moving around him.

“Excuse me,” Halloway called. “I’ve been shot.”

One passed.

“I require assistance.”

Another passed.

“I am a member of the Grand Council!”

A third went around him.

Halloway sighed and shook his head.

“People these days. No respect for wizards.”