The Wand of Truth
Raven had been standing near the great doors and, still half shrouded by the smoke, he was through the doors before any guard thought to stop him.
Passing through the black cloud, however, he came face to face with a line of armed men in business suits, who covered the door with their pistols. Raven stopped suddenly, staring at the many barrels pointed at him.
Van Dam had somehow gotten through even before Raven, and was arguing with two of the men, calling them by name, asking to be let through. These men wore dark glasses and stony expressions, which hid any reaction they might have had.
Two or three of the Secret Service men were looking up, but, despite Wentworth’s calls, none of them had raised a pistol toward Wendy. Raven thought that was a good thing: these men did not look particularly wicked, and it would be a shame to fry the first one who began to point a weapon at his wife.
The chambers were full; the congressmen filled the aisles, and the gallery was filled with press and television cameras. Some of the cameras had swung up to cover the girl floating in midair, who swooped slowly from one side of the vast chamber to another, her skirts flapping and dropping cotton-flower petals.
Wendy was calling out, “We dropped the bomb on the bad guys and saved the earth! It was magic! Look at me flying! Magic! Stop laughing! It is not so wires!” Her voice was growing shrill and tearful with anger and frustration.
Some of the congressmen laughed in nervous, high-pitched bursts, guilty laughter. Some congressmen were snarling in fear, guilty fear. Others looked up with a boredom drained of hope.
Wentworth had been sitting near the president but had leaped to his feet, shaking his fist and snarling. He froze in embarrassment when some cameras turned on him.
The congressional chaplain was Kyle Coldgrave, not dressed in his purple robe, but wearing the collar and crucifix of a faith not his own. His thin face was twitching with rage and malice: his squint and hairlip were pronounced. Beneath the gray stubble of his skull, his complexion was sallow. Whatever advantages or preferment Azrael had bestowed upon his henchmen, health and tranquility were not among them.
Coldgrave shouted, “Shoot that girl! She’s armed and dangerous!”
There was a group of his acolytes, dressed in their purple robes, but seated in a line of folding chairs nearby—allowed into the proceedings for no reason made clear to any outsiders. They did not understand Coldgrave’s orders, but, loyally, they took up the cry as well. “Shoot her! Shoot her! She’s armed and dangerous!”
A Secret Service officer near them shouted them down in a bored voice: “She’s carrying a broomstick.”
“Shoot her!” cried Coldgrave.
“I don’t take orders from you, sir.”
The man who had been, until recently, the Vice President (and he still had trouble remembering that he was no longer) stood at the podium, confronted by a battery of microphones. The recent troubles had worn on him; his polished demeanor had given way to a harassed, frightened look. He had lived his life by appearing to lead, while following public opinion; by appearing resolute while ignorant; by appearing wise while uttering platitudes. Now that the emergency had come, demanding real leadership, real resolve, real wisdom, the Vice President had no such qualities, and lived in the continual fear that this would be discovered, and in the even deeper fear that it already had been, long ago, and that he wasn’t fooling anyone.
It was that fear which made him grip the podium and stare when Pendrake came through the smoking doorway, dressed in black, armed with a sword, and walked toward him up the aisle with a majestic stride. The armed soldiers coming behind him, who had allegedly arrested him, seemed, at first glance, to be following him.
It was the expression of certainty in Pendrake’s face, of clear, dispassionate, inflexible judgment, which frightened the vice president.
Wentworth shouted, “It’s Anton Pendrake! Shoot him!”
A murmur of awe ran through the chamber: Everyone had just been told that this man had control of a nuclear bomb.
The Vice President cringed and said, “Don’t shoot anyone on camera! It will look terrible!”
Wentworth turned and glared at him, “Shut up, you fool!” The Vice President flinched, and looked up in fear at the cameras. “We can edit this out later, can’t we?”
A ripple of disgusted laughter ran through the chamber.
Wentworth said, “We’re live, you idiot!” He pointed at the cameras. “Shut off the satellite feed! No broadcasts are leaving this room!”
Pendrake said in a loud, clear voice: “The time you have feared has come! Now you will pay for your crimes!”
Wentworth grabbed a Secret Service man next to him and wrestled the gun out of his holster. People screamed.
Raven raised his voice: “Wendy! Now! And the chaplain, too!”
Floating on high, Wendy pointed her Moly Wand at Wentworth, who was brandishing the gun in the air.
Wentworth was pointing the gun at Pendrake, screaming, “You’re just a filthy terrorist, Pendrake! You can’t prove anything … ar! Ar! Ar! Awk! Awk! Awk! Arw.w.wk!” And Wentworth’s face and skin fell open as he slid to his furry belly near the podium, the gun dropping from his flippers. He was a seal.
Raven said, “The chaplain! I saw their flayed corpses at Everness, with Koschei! Azrael had killed them!”
Coldgrave, in a huge flap of his coattails, tried to leap over a line of chairs and run away. When his false skin fell off, he turned into a seal and rolled heavily to the floor, coming to rest almost at the feet of his erstwhile acolytes.
There was a moment of silent horror in the room. The men and women in purple robes stared down at their feet at the inhuman creature they had been following and worshipping.
The seal-creature flapped it flippers and choked out a croaking bark.
A cry of rage broke the silence; a dozen men in purple robes seized their folding chairs and clubbed the creature mercilessly to death, while it rolled and squealed pathetically.
Blood flew. The rich carpet was stained. The horrid deed was done. The men in purple robes straightened suddenly when they saw the cameras pointing at them.
Numbly, they dropped their chairs. Numbly, they began to strip off and discard their purple robes.
It was Van Dam who spoke next. He called on two or three people in the room by name, saying, “Wentworth is a selkie. Look at him! Take a good look! We were being played for suckers! Is this what we owe our loyalty to? Is this seal-thing what was going to lead us to power and glory? The damn thing can’t even pick up a gun for itself! Can’t do anything unless we help it! And we’re not going to help it anymore! You there! Put down those guns!”
Pendrake stepped up to the podium. One of the Secret Service men set to guard the Vice President stepped in his way. “Get back, sir! I can’t let you near the President!” He spoke in a calm, strong voice, like the voice of a man who knows his duty. He held a gun in his fist.
“Please!” whined the Vice President. “You can’t shoot anyone on television! Wait till later!”
Pendrake looked the Secret Service man in the eye. He spoke softly, but he was near enough the microphones on the podium that his voice was amplified through the chamber. “You may now decide where your loyalties are. Did you ever take an oath to defend the Constitution? Against all enemies? Foreign … and domestic?”
The Secret Service man looked back and forth between the cringing figure of the man he was supposed to guard, and the upright, fearless figure of Pendrake.
Then he shrugged, holstered his weapon, and stepped aside. “I didn’t vote for this dweeb,” he muttered.
Pendrake now turned his gaze on the Vice President, saying, “Azrael de Gray is my prisoner. All his schemes are at an end.”
A murmur of fear and awe rippled through the chamber. Congressmen exchanged guilty glances; White House staff snarled in fear.
Pendrake continued in a clear voice: “The murder of the President took place in front of security cameras installed in the Pentagon, and was watched, not only by Colonel Van Dam, and by the creature impersonating Wentworth, but also by me. You were present, you saw the crime, and later lied, destroyed evidence, and impeded justice. I accuse you of aiding and abetting murder after the fact; this makes you a member of a murder conspiracy and a murderer. I accuse you of conspiring to overthrow the Constitution of these United States by armed rebellion, which is treason. How do you answer these accusations?”
The Vice President looked back and forth wildly, a trapped, haunted look in his eyes. “I—I—It’s a lie, of course … a falsehood propagated for political reasons by disloyal … uh … Azrael made me do it! It wasn’t my fault! He had magic powers! I had to tell all those lies! Everyone lies! I had to help them cover it up!”
Pendrake held up the magic blade he carried, almost as if raised in a salute, so that the vice president could see himself in its mirrored surface. “What is a fair and just punishment for such crimes?”
The Vice President swayed on his feet. “I resign. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Pendrake caught him by the arm and pushed him toward one of the soldiers who stood behind him. “Have the Sergeant-at-Arms place this man under arrest. We have all heard his confession on national television. Mr. Secretary! I believe you are now President. Please rescind all of your predecessor’s orders—now.”
The secretary of state stood up slowly, uncertainly. Near him sat the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who was calmly looking right and left. He and the two men near him, obviously bodyguards, quietly got up and started down the aisle toward the exit.
Pendrake pointed his sword. “Stop that man!”
The chairman of the Federal Reserve turned slowly. He spoke with great dignity. “There’s no national television. The satellite feed must have been cut off by now. What we’ve done, Mr. Pendrake, was meant to preserve the nation from terrorists like you. At least, that is the story we will allow the press to publish. You would be amazed at how fawningly the press plays up to us. Or perhaps you won’t be. You won’t be around to see it.”
The speaker of the House and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee both stood up. One of them said, “Aye. I reckon there’s none but loyal lads in this here room by now, right, lads?”
Raven shouted, “Wendy! They’re …”
She said in a cross voice, “I know! I know!”
Roughly a quarter of the congressmen, and all of the cabinet, fell down, shed their skins, and flopped helplessly in the aisles, or were caught painfully atop the arms or backs of seats.
The sight seemed to improve Wendy’s mood. She fluttered down out of midair, and hung near Raven. “Well! That explains a lot about politics I didn’t understand! Aren’t they sort of cute?”
Raven snorted. “I make you rug of some of them, eh?”
Pendrake stood at the podium, looking back at forth at the squirming mass of seals who now filled the chamber, rolling underfoot and nipping at the ankles of those who were human. There were several minutes of chaotic noise.
Pendrake said sharply to his daughter, “Gwen, hush! Those men were killed and flayed and replaced; members of their family and staff as well, no doubt. They died in the service of this country no less than any soldier. Don’t make light of this!”
The number of seals astonished him. So many people had been killed, so much of the government had been taken over, without any word or alarm given.
Pendrake was further disconcerted when he saw that the chairman of the Federal Reserve was, in fact, a man.
Raven whistled for silence, and a thunderclap followed that whistle, shattering glass overhead.
Raven said, “Quiet! I want to hear Pendrake talk!”
Wendy flourished her wand; and perhaps she was hoping she could make people realize when they heard the truth.
Pendrake stared up at the camera. “I address my words to my fellow free men of America. Your government has fallen into the hands of a corrupt group of criminals. Their ringleaders were not even human beings, but horrible imposters. These creatures possessed a parapsychological science far in advance of ours, so far in advance that we might as well call it magic. By that magic, they established a beachhead on earth and landed troops in such numbers and armed with such weapons that they certainly would have conquered the earth, with ease, had not I, and a group of private citizens acting with me, directed an atomic weapon at the enemy location in the Pacific. No act of aggression against any nation of the Earth has been intended or has been performed. The operation was concluded successfully; the enemy has withdrawn. Withdrawn, I say, not destroyed. We must be eternally vigilant against their return.
“We must be eternally vigilant as well against those domestic enemies who seek to undermine our freedoms and establish, by slow corruption, a tyranny over our lives. Arm yourselves, my fellow free men; do not obey any order that infringes on your rights to free speech, free assembly, free press; do not permit any searches without warrant of your property.