The Magic Quill

177. Werewolf Puppy Mills

2011-01-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

Contest Winners: Everybody

The island was very small, very beautiful, and very quiet.

It was beautiful because of the staggering expanse of cloudless blue sky that stood over it like the cover on a gargantuan pie-plate, and because of the sunshine that sparkled on the still, turquoise-blue waters of the lagoon separating its shore from the coral reef that surrounded it, and because of its broad smooth beach of sparkling pewter-colored sand, and because of the almost painfully bright green of the grass that waved around the middle part of the island between stands of graceful palms and thickets of colorful fragrant flowers.

It was quiet because nobody lived there. No human foot had ever disturbed its soft sandy soil. No human hand had ever plucked its sweet succulent fruit. No human nose had ever sneezed upon its highly pollinated flowers. No human eye had ever watered with agony after the previously mentioned foot was stung by the spines of its venomous burrowing crustaceans. No human ear had ever heard the squawk of its cheerfully colored (but not very talkative) local species of parrot, nor the buzz of its viciously biting swarms of insects, nor the croaking battle-cry of the indigenous iguana relative whose vermin-infested bite guaranteed a slow, hideous death to anyone whose foot disturbed the island's soft sandy soil, or whose hand pl-... You get the picture.

It was small because... Well, it had always been small. But these days the island was even smaller than it ought to have been, at least if one counted as part of the island the smaller teardrop-shaped hump of sand connected to the main part of it by a slender shoal that was only above water at low tide. For the past little while--long enough for the iguanas to forget, but little enough for the parrots to remember--this stretch of land had been under water. Under water in a most unusual way. A way that threatened the parrots with extinction, because they could not resist their old insect-hunting grounds, even though visiting them meant diving horizontally through a vertical surface of water behind which swam the first sharks in the south seas to have developed a taste for parrot.

Today the parrots, iguanas, and stinging crustaceans of the littler-than-ever island were nonplussed by the arrival of three creatures the likes of which they had never seen. The trio arrived with a pop like a cork exiting a champagne bottle. One was a tall, broad-shouldered wizard whose flowing dark robes brushed the sand, and the hood of whose cloak overshadowed his face. The second was a pale, shapely witch who wore her pointed hat and broomstick-trimmed robes with an indescribable blend of demure domesticity and lively flamboyance, as though she wanted to make up for not being visible for a rather long time. The third was a seven-foot-tall, scruffy dump of a djinn who, although he was already weaving on his feet, risked leaning backward to finish the dregs of an enormous bottle of wine. With a loud hic the djinn sat down hard, crushing an iguana that had been sneaking up in the hope of biting him.

"What the devil is this?" the hooded wizard demanded, gesturing toward the wall of water that surrounded the smaller portion of the island.

"It'th an ishfthsmush," said the djinn, patting his pockets in search of another bottle. "An ithsthmuth. Itshthsmus. Isthmuff. Just a mo, I've got it: iffsmus."

"Not this," the wizard bellowed, kicking at the narrow shoal of damp sand that, at that moment, just cleared the surface of the lagoon. He gesticulated hugely toward the water wall: "This!"

"Dunno," said the djinn, squinting blearily at a paper umbrella he had discovered about his person. "Pimple on face of t'ocean? I say, yer couldn't poss'bly fetch a feller drop ter drink, could yer?"

The wizard turned toward the djinn, but was forced to retreat backwards by a long, rich belch whose odor providentially killed a swarm of bloodthirsty insects that had gathered around the three.

"Awk," the witch gagged, gathering several folds of her robes in front of her face.

"Parrot, I should think," said the djinn, though his pointing arm was just a bit too slow to follow the flight path of a gaily colored bird that, a moment later, perished in the jaws of a shark that jumped the isthmus and returned to the lagoon, all without leaving the water.

The wizard dipped his fingers in the sideways lagoon, pulled them out, and gave a low whistle. "Must be some kind of water-weave charm," he mused aloud.

"Powered by a waterspout spell," the witch added.

"Oi!" the djinn shouted. "Dyin' o' thirst, here!"

The wizard sighed, flicked his wand toward the top of a nearby palm, and caught a coconut as it sailed down into his hands. Then he drew a long, silver knife; hesitated, with a shake of his head perceptible in spite of the hood; and drove it through the shell of the coconut with an ease that made the djinn's eyes go wide. Another wave of the wand and the smell of piña colada brought moisture back to the djinn's dry mouth. Sober as he suddenly was, the djinn's hand shook slightly as he accepted the fruit from the wizard's hand. The umbrella went in, and for a while the only sound that came from behind it was a slow, steady slurp.

"That's him sorted," the witch said, the Romanian lilt in her voice contrasting with her British turn of phrase. She held out her right hand palm-up, balanced her wand on it, and chanted: "Annulus invenio." The wand began to spin like the needle of a compass, only it didn't stop until the witch muttered, "Finite."

"It has to be through here," the wizard said, gesturing with his head toward the wall of water. "I would hate to waste a wish on a broom only to find out that it forms a dome over the entire peninsula."

The djinn snickered behind its paper umbrella.

"What?" the wizard demanded. "What's funny?"

"You said penim- ...er. Penum... Pessinoola..." Slurp. "Wicked 'ot, it is. Wot wuz I sayin'?"

"Your drink is evaporating," the witch warned, and that silenced the djinn for another while.

"Bubble-head might get us through," the wizard mumbled, thinking aloud again. "That's if we can move fast enough to get to the other side before the sharks get us. And I can't tell how thick this water-weave is..."

"This would be a great place to bring the kids," the witch said, gazing in the opposite direction to where a lithe, beautiful skink lay sunning itself on the silvery beach. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a huge pair of jaws rose up from beneath the sand and closed around the unsuspecting reptile. "Maybe when they're a bit bigger, though," she added, shaken.

"An animagus transformation would help about now," the wizard said, continuing his previous train of thought and oblivious to what the witch was saying. "Only it would have to be to some type of aquatic creature. But those spells take ages to learn. And the sharks could still be a problem."

"Maybe a divination spell can get through their defenses," the witch speculated, squatting down before a tiny, reflective puddle of water. As she held the tip of her wand above the surface, a long black tongue darted out of the water, wrapped itself around the wand, and pulled hard. The witch barely managed to hold on as she engaged the creature in the pool in a fierce tug-of-war. Meanwhile, she couldn't spare the effort of calling for help, so the wizard had no idea this was happening. The djinn watched from under his paper umbrella, but did nothing to cheer her on except to continue slurping on his piña colada.

"Maybe a freezing hex?" the wizard thought aloud. "In this climate, it might not last long enough to kill anything, but it might give us time to break through to the other side... Only, it could be a meter thick. How would we get through it then?"

The witch finally wrestled her wand free of the grip of the submerged creature's prehensile tongue. She sat back on the sand, panting, until something stung her hand and she leapt up with a cry.

"Be quiet, will you?" the wizard snapped without looking over. He had begun to pace up and down before the wall of water. "One of us is trying to think here."

The witchground her teeth in frustration, cradling her stung hand as it swelled and turned red.

"Give us a butcher's," the djinn said, considerately setting his coconut aside and offering the witch a helpful hand.

Dubiously, the witch let the djinn check out her wounds.

"Hmm," he said, after holding the swollen limb close to his bleary eyes, sniffing the wound, and giving the swelling a gentle squeeze. "Ah," he said knowledgeably. "Nuffink a wee wish wouldn't sort" was his diagnosis.

The witch yanked her hand away from the djinn's inebriated caress. "I can wait for it to mend on its own," she sniffed.

"Meanwhile," the djinn said, shaking his empty coconut sadly, "P'raps yer'd make me five or six more o' these while yer 'ave time. Would hate ter get thirsty watchin' yer writhe in t'agathas... er, agronomies... angernees..."

"Don't you wish you had this fellow's way with words?" the witch called to the wizard behind her.

"Yes, dear," the wizard said absentmindedly.

Suddenly there was another "pop" as of a champagne cork going. The djinn hiccoughed and fell backward onto the sand, groaning, "Coo, but me 'ead 'urts!"

At the same moment, the wizard exclaimed: "I think I've got it, now!"

The witch, meanwhile, had realized her mistake and tried to stop her partner before he did something they would all regret. "Spanky! Wait!"

Spanky did not hear her. Flourishing his wand, he was already halfway through an elaborate incantation that began with Congelato! and was supposed to end with Reducto! As a result of the djinn's magic, it came out otherwise than as planned. He said "Congelato," all right; and a shield of frozen water spread before him from a center point directly opposite the tip of his wand. But instead of "Reducto," he said "Radix toe!" Then he stared dumbly at the ice shield before him, which was not blasted open by his second spell as expected. Instead, it continued spreading, though more slowly every moment; then stopped and began shrinking again, until all the ice was gone and the water-weave was back to normal.

When he tried to turn around to appeal to Ilona for help, he found himself stuck fast. Looking down, Spanky discovered a long tap-root growing out of his big toe. It had ripped a hole in his right boot and was busily burrowing into the sand when Spanky caught it. In wrestling it free of the sand, he fell over backward and had a good roll in the sand before he caught the waving root under control and, finally, singed it off with a silent blast of flame from his wand.

"Bovver," he said as he rose to his feet, examining his wand with concern. "Wot could've gorn wrong? Oi! Why am I talkin' like..."

Spanky finally paused and looked at the witch, who had stopped trying to get his attention and now seemed to wish she could become invisible.

"Ilona, luv," he said, grimacing at the words he heard coming out of his mouth, "what've yer done?"

"Actually, you did it," Ilona replied evasively.

"Did wot, luv?"

"Wished to talk like the djinn does."

"Did I?" Spanky looked severely dubious.

"A technicality," said the djinn, lifting one hand, index finger raised, from his otherwise supine repose.

"He tricked me," Ilona added.

"You tricked him," the djinn countered.

Ilona rolled her eyes and said, rather to Spanky than to the djinn, "Give him another drink and we can wish it all right back."

Spanky covered his face with both hands.

"She knows 'ow yer feel, mate," said the djinn.

"I wish," said Spanky.

"Aargh!" yowled the djinn, simultaneous to the popping of an invisible champagne cork. The magical creature clutched his head with one hand and his belly with another. "The mornin' after is comin' early, an' no mistake..."

"Oh, Ilona," the wizard groaned.

She turned away from him, her lips white. "Yer meant ter do that," she accused, wincing at the sound of her own voice.

"Get the poor sick child a hair o' the dog," the djinn begged. "I can 'ardly stand it."

Spanky produced three more coconuts, swiftly and efficiently cutting them open for the djinn's convenience.

"There's the problem," he said informatively, as he cleaned his silver knife. "Djinn need lurbi-... loobi... lurbrication ter work proper. Lee."

"Lee who?" Ilona said, rubbing her forehead.

"Proper-like," Spanky corrected himself. Sort of. "Look, there's a way ter get through this weave fing. We just 'ave to say the spell careful-like."

The djinn scowled. "Do I soun' like that fer real?"

"Shut yer gob," the witch-wizard couple said in unison.

"Let's try putting shark ter sleep," Ilona suggested.

"Good idea," said Spanky. They approached the water wall together.

While Ilona pointed her wand at the wall, Spanky stuck his arm into it and splashed it around. The shark jumped at him so quickly that he almost didn't have time to pull his arm back. Luckily, Ilona hit it with what was meant to be a Morpheus spell. Somehow it came out "Morphequus." Instead of falling asleep, the shark turned into a horse and leaped, neighing, out of the water weave.

As the sound of galloping hooves receded into the stand of palm trees, Ilona hung her head in humiliation. The djinn, however, laughed so hard that piña colada came out of his nose.

"This makes the aeons spent squeezed int' a dusty bottle worthwhile," he chortled as he wiped the moisture off his face. Then, after licking his fingers, he returned to his drinking.

"We'd best do this fast," said Ilona, observing that the once-towering djinn would now stand shorter than herself. "If 'e keeps drinkin' at this rate, we won' be able ter find him ter wish our way home."

After several more attempts to put the waiting sharks to sleep had the same effect, the island was home to a large herd of wild horses, all noisily whinnying, cropping the tropical grass, and running along the shore while the sun baked the seawater out of their coats. At last, using his arm as bait, Spanky was unable to attract any more predators. So, bracing themselves with a long look into each other's loving eyes, the witch and wizard held their breath and dove through the vertical lagoon.

A moment later they found themselves standing, drenched, on a flat, teardrop-shaped island under a dome of clear water, lit by the sun beyond. Amid the rippling, dancing patterns of light and shadow, they spotted a long, low, barn-like building, half-buried in a dune at the far end of the island.

"It must be here," breathed Ilona.

Spanky seemed preoccupied. His eyes closed, his nostrils flared...

"What is it?"

"Don't you smell them?"

"I smell something," Ilona whispered. "I thought it might be from having the sea all around us."

"No," he said.

If either of them noticed that they had their own accents back, neither remarked on it. Ilona strained her senses toward the building at the far end of the peninsula.

"Listen," said Spanky in a voice so low that Ilona more felt than heard it. "Listen. You must hear them."

For a moment he did not seem to hear her. Then, just as she separated a sound in the background from the muffled hum of the surf--just as she realized that it reminded her of the growling of a wild beast--a lonely voice, almost human, raised itself in a blood-chilling howl. Then another. Then several others... All of them coming from that slow, sand-swept shack.

The howling of wolves. No... The howling of werewolves.

"What is that djinn playing at?" Ilona trembled.

"Wishes are dangerous things," Spanky replied, unsheathing his dagger for the third time that day.

"Put that up," said a voice to their left. Ilona jumped. Spanky whirled, but not before two spells hit him, one blasting his knife out of his hand, the other taking his wand.

"Expelliarmus!" Ilona hissed, disarming the smaller of the two cloaked figures that had crept up on them from behind the dunes.

The larger of the two, however, took her wand. Doing the math, Spanky and Ilona held up their empty hands.

The wizard Ilona had disarmed picked up the weapons that had been dropped. The one who had overcome them wriggled the tip of his wand in Spanky's direction. "Where's the other barrel?"

The double-barreled wizard gently pulled out his second wand, grimacing in chagrin, and handed it over to his captor.

"Very good. Now I know the both of you, and you probably know me..." Harvey put back his hood.

"Did you like my wall? Family specialty, one of the premium items in our catalogue. No? Well, here you are. I regret that I can't say, 'Welcome to my home from home,' but you didn't choose the best time to pay a call."

To punctuate this remark, the werewolves in the barn--the not-very-distant-at-all barn--renewed their chorus of mournful howling.

"A full moon is going to be rising soon," said Harvey. "Your arrival at this of all times--most particularly, the scent of your blood--could have a most interesting effect on our breeding and training programme."

"Ours?" Spanky asked. "Yours and who else's?"

"Surely you recognize the man who took your knife," said Harvey, gesturing toward his smaller, hooded partner. "Why, he's the man who gave it you."

Another hood fell back, and so sharp was Spanky's shock that as he sucked air through his teeth, it made a whistling sound.

"Zophar," Ilona croaked. "Zophar Good!"

"Alive and well," said the twisted little man; and he gave a slight bow.

"How are you alive?" Spanky asked, his voice thick with emotion. Then, with sudden anger, he demanded: "What would possess you to breed an army of werewolves?"

"The usual motives," said Zophar Goode. "Money, revenge, and..."

"Shush!" said Harvey, but a moment later the need to conceal his last secret was moot. A loud, rubbery snap echoed deafeningly within the water-weave dome. As the echoes died, all eyes looked up at the top of the nearby dune, behind which someone had begun to play a recorder. A furry hump emerged above the top of the dune, followed by the rest of a harnessed yak. Leading it were two servants, while a third played the recorder and, walking beside the animal with her hand on its snout, a witch with a sort of motor-veil wrapped around the brim of her hat came into view. She raised a hand to wave at the party on the beach, releasing the end of the veil so that the wind caught it and let it trail behind her like a flag.

"Yoo-hoo!" cried Madam Solfeggia as her party picked its way over the top of the dune. She beamed at everyone as she came closer, most especially Ilona and Spanky.

"If it isn't the very people I was hoping to see before feeding-time," said the wolf-woman as her entourage brought the yak to a halt. "I was starting to worry that my clues were too subtle. But here you are!" Ilona was too nonplussed to resist having her cheeks air-kissed. "Has Harvey been a gracious host and shown you the puppies? They're just wolves at the moment, but wait until dusk and I daresay you'll be impressed! Shall we refresh ourselves?"

Harvey and Zophar Goode exchanged a look of bewilderment that mirrored the way Spanky and Ilona were feeling.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," said Ilona. "We're not here about the yak killing. We've come to ask Harvey to turn over an heirloom of my family which he has been, er, minding for me..."

"Don't be silly," said Madam Solfeggia, preening her robes while the recorder-player tootled on. "We both know Harvey isn't to be trusted with such an object. There are simply too many of him. No, dear, I've been holding the ring for you. But first, I have a teensy favor to ask of you. I would ordinarily be ashamed of the imposition, but since you can hardly resist my written request, I think the two of you could be of great service to me."

"To do what?" Spanky growled. "To set yourself up as the next dark lord?"

"Oh, no!" Madam Solfeggia laughed musically. She took Ilona's hand and handed it to Harvey, then put her hand on Spanky's elbow. "Nothing remotely like that. I only wish to lift the stigma that my kind must live under." She kept talking as she, Harvey, and the ever-present recorder-player led the Spankisons back over the dune from which she had come, while Zophar Goode and the other two servants led the yak away toward the barn. "The ostracism, the shunning. The persecution, even to the point of hunting and killing. It all has to be stopped. The time has long since come, but now at last the means has come as well."

"And how do you propose to do that?" said Spanky, as a roof of a smaller building--a house, perhaps--came into view behind the next dune but one. "I mean, if it were as simple as writing a letter, sealed with the Ring of Count Matthias, telling everyone who reads the Daily Prophet to accept werewolves as equal members of society..."

"I would already have done it?" Madam Solfeggia agreed. "But surely you see that it can't be that simple. I mean to say, what would happen after I returned the Ring to you? You would have it in your power to reverse everything I had accomplished. No, our solution must be more permanent. I only took the ring because I needed you, the two most trusted agents in the Rogue Magic Bureau."

Their musically-enhanced walk came to an end below the front porch of a modestly-proportioned but strongly-built house. "Do have a seat," Madam Solfeggia said, gesturing toward a row of driftwood chairs on the porch. "Dinty will be here presently with refreshments."

"I won't make myself comfortable," said Spanky, pulling his arm out of the wolf-lady's grip, "until you tell me how you mean to use me."

"Use you?" The lady's eyes softened. "I should think you would assist me willingly. Surely you can sense the injustice of the way my people are treated!"

"I simply can't see what all this"--Spanky gestured toward the barn, now hidden behind a dune, but easy enough to locate by the renewed howling that must have been triggered by the yak's arrival--"what all this is going to accomplish, in terms of gaining the sympathy of the wizarding world."

"The answer is simple, Mr. Spankison: We propose to have more people bitten. Many, many more."

"Merlin's beard," Spanky gasped. Ilona squeezed his hand, looking sick.

Madam Solfeggia, meanwhile, kept talking, gazing out upon the beach below and the base of the water-weave dome that enclosed it, oblivious to their horror. "Soon nearly every magical family will understand the trial that all too few of us now bear. People hate what they fear, and they fear what they do not understand. So doesn't it stand to reason that if they come to understand--really understand..."

+++ A NOTE FROM ROBBIE +++

Thanks for your patience, as this chapter took a record 3 months to pull together. My prognostication, back in September, that it was going to come out in record time, goes to show that I probably have Trelawney blood! I am fairly confident that the time-management crisis that curtailed my creative writing for a few months is now behind me (more or less), so I hope you can expect a few more Quills in 2011!

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #179 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which Magic Quill hero holds the ultimate key to putting the pieces of Harvey back together? A) Spanky with his djinn. B) Joe Albuquerque with his hag. C) Sadie with her waveform collapser. D) Endora with the potion described below. E) Your write-in candidate--the more radical the suggestion, the better!

CONTEST: Our Endora hasn't had much to do for a while. What exciting potion has she been working on? Feel free not only to name the potion, but to describe how it's made, what it's supposed to do, and what happens if it isn't made quite right. The winning entry will be the most entertaining idea.

176. The Picture of Doreen Grape

2010-08-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: greyniffler

VOICE: You are listening to the Wizarding Wireless, broadcasting at 42 thaums per lunar cycle.

(Sound of rustling in cupboard.)

WITCH: Oh, drat!

SECOND WITCH: What's wrong, Carmen dear?

CARMEN: Would you believe it, Branwen? I need to make a simple Complexion Concoction and I'm all out of bees' wings, four-leaf clover stems, and moonwater!

BRANWEN: There, there. That used to happen to me all the time, before I found...

VOICE: We interrupt this advert for a word from our sponsor.

REALLY DEEP VOICE: No matter where you fly on Saddler brooms, you are not alone. Old man Saddler stands behind every flight on Saddler brooms. (Evil laughter...)

PREVIOUS VOICE: And now we return to our regularly scheduled advert.

BRANWEN: There, there. That used to happen to me all the time, before I found Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs!

CARMEN: Potion Packs?

BRANWEN: Each one has all the ingredients for one batch of a standard potion. They have over one hundred recipes available, and they are adding more every week. And they come complete with full directions.

CARMEN: Do they really work?

BRANWEN: Lizzie's recipies are foolproof, dear. They're guaranteed.

CARMEN: Well, let's go buy some of Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs. I can't wait to make my Complexion Concoction.

WHISPERING VOICE: Potion Packs do not include calendar-sensitive ingredients. Read package for full instructions. (Louder) Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs are avail-....

(Snap)

Ethelfrigga Spankisdaughter switched off the wireless and closed its cabinet doors. She straightened her shoulders and prepared a cheerful face before turning to face the drawing room and its denizens.

"Still no word from them," she said with courageous carelessness.

"No password, you mean." This came from the rafters, where her older brother Aloysius hung upside-down. He had been doing this a lot since his unfortunate attempt to brew a Polyjuice potion. Ethelfrigga secretly believed Aloysius had performed the recipe perfectly, but that a certain disreputable friend of the family had cheated him by selling a common bat pelt labeled as boomslang skin. Of course, she wasn't going to tell Aloysius that. She was still having too much fun taking it out of him.

"Caught any juicy flies lately?" she teased. "You should be careful. For all we know, one of them might be carrying a message from Mum or Dad."

"Careful yourself," Aloysius sniffed, wriggling his batlike snout. "You don't want to make me cry in my condition. With the echo in this place, I could probably hear where your diary is hidden..."

"Ha, ha!" Ethelfrigga stuck her tongue out at him. She was strictly too old to behave like this, but she did it anyway because it amused the younger children--at least Persephone and Bob, who by this hour of the evening tended to be so worn out that they could swing instantly from giggles to sobs. It didn't help that they had been worrying about, and missing, their parents as long as they had. Nor did it help that the middle boy--Marmaduke--was in a dark, sullen mood tonight. At the sight of Ethelfrigga's wriggling tongue, his pout downgraded itself to a scowl.

"I think it's time for bed," Ethelfrigga said, just as Marmaduke opened his mouth for a speech that most likely would have ended with the little ones in tears.

"I want a story," Persephone said.

Marmaduke rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue against the little witch's wish. Ethelfrigga gathered Bob onto her hip, wrapped her hand around Persephone's hand, and headed for the stairs saying, "When you two are ready for bed, we'll see."

For a long, resentful moment Marmaduke stayed where he was, dwarfed in his father's armchair, wearing a handkerchief in Gryffindor colors knotted at the corners on his head, a T-shirt blazed with the slogan "Down Vold-Mart! Reduce Your Carbon Hoofprint," and a pair of canvas trousers recently and hastily patched at the knees. His pride was still smarting from being hauled off the ground by the scruff of his neck--or more precisely, by the straps of his knapsack--and flown home from the anti-Vold-Mart demonstration by his freak brother. Under orders from their bossy sister. When his parents hadn't sent any word about whether he could go or not, or about anything else...

The sound of Aloysius's snoring finally drove him from his pity party. Marmaduke crept upstairs, where Ethelfrigga was just now tucking a freshly-combed Persephone and a minty-fresh Bob into their beds. He refused to meet Ethelfrigga's gaze as she settled down beside Persephone and began the bedtime story. He perched at the foot of Bob's bed as if he had just stopped for a moment to catch his breath after climbing the stairs, and looked away as if he wasn't really listening to the story. Anyone would have thought he was about to get up and leave. But he didn't.

"Tonight's story," said Ethelfrigga, "is called 'The Picture of Doreen Grape.'"

Marmaduke shivered slightly. He remembered their father telling this story years ago. His hand had left black-and-blue marks on Aloysius's wrist that night.

"Once upon a time," Ethelfrigga began, "there lived a very vain young muggle lady who liked to be admired. She had a lovely face and an even lovelier figure, which she loved to dress up in fabulous gowns and show off up and down the avenues and in all the salons of her city. She dressed like a duchess to walk her dogs. She dressed like a princess to visit the theatre. She went to every fashionable levy and ball dressed like a queen. Her hair always shined and her skin always glowed. Every woman who saw her hated her, because every man who saw her could look at no one else. Her name was Mrs. Grape.

"Mrs. Grape was known for her manners and grace. She had only one fault in polite company, and it was this: She could not resist food. The more delicate the food was, the more ravenously she ate it. If a tray full of canapes came within arm's reach, it would be empty before it passed out again. Mrs. Grape was a menace to any buffet table. At banquets, she ate like a pig. It was almost embarrassing to sit by her.

"Almost, I say; because however much she ate, her beautiful shape stayed the same. She gobbled rich food that would have brought any other lady out in pimples, but her skin stayed perfect. She guzzled heady wines that should have swelled her nose into a big, red, veiny thing; yet she kept the same perfect, perky, lily-white nose. At first, her jealous lady-friends tried to ruin her figure by plying her with food and drink. But the lady went on eating and eating, and drinking and drinking, without so much as a wild hair. Meanwhile, her lady-friends either got fat trying to keep up with her, or went broke trying to feed her.

"Soon Mrs. Grape was the belle of all society. She married numerous times. Her husbands all died young, worn out from trying to keep up with her. Even after mourning so many husbands, her face never got puffy or lined with grief. And she looked as good in black as all the other colors of the rainbow.

"Mrs. Grape had a huge litter of children. They all had to be taken away for their own good because their mother would steal the food off their plates, she was such a pig. Even after bearing all these children, she still had the same girlish figure.

"Many years passed. All the ladies of Mrs. Grape's generation had passed middle-age. Many of them had grown frumpy, if not dumpy. Most of them could at least be described as full-bodied. Mrs. Grape was still wearing the same dress size as when she debuted. Now the daughters, and even the granddaughters, of the ladies who had first resented her, resented her. Men young enough to have been her children's playmates pursued her. Fashions changed, but Mrs. Grape stayed in front of them. Nobody could reckon how she did it. Artists offered to paint her, even at their own expense, but she refused them all.

"One day, a man came to Mrs. Grape with a proposal. At first he offered her money, but she already had plenty of that. Then he offered her love, but she had no trouble getting that. Finally, the man offered Mrs. Grape the one thing she couldn't refuse: a non-stop supply of the world's most exquisite food and drink, served on polished silver by herds of servants in a never-ending ball with music and dancers and lively conversation going on at all hours. All the lady had to do was reveal the secret of her indestructible figure and beauty.

"So the lady explained, between bites of her inexhaustible canapes. She explained how she came from a large family of witches and wizards, but she was a squib"--here Persephone gasped--"with no magical powers whatsoever. Even then she had been greedy and vain, but her family loved her and felt pity for her. So they had often taken her along with them to places in the magical world such as Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. It was in Hogsmeade where a wizarding painter had fallen in love with her and decided to preserve her loveliness in a magical portrait. Unfortunately, the portrait took several years to complete, though Mrs. Grape had only sat for the painter once, and briefly. Still, the artist made a faithful record of the young woman whose beauty had always haunted him.

"The day finally came when the artist presented his portrait to the girl and her family. He was shocked to find that the young lady had become plump and spotty, due to her ceaseless stuffing. Worse still, the foolish squib took offense at the painting, as a reminder of what she had fallen from. The artist took his painting away and never saw Mrs. Grape again. Only a few days letter, Mrs. Grape suddenly began to lose weight. By the time she learned that the heartbroken painter had died, she had become the same beautiful young creature he had captured in oils.

"No one knows whether Mrs. Grape ever knew what the artist had done. Moments before he died, the painter had cast his death-spell on her portrait. From then on, Mrs. Grape would always look like the girl he had painted. But as she ate and drank her way across Europe, her image in the painting grew monstrously fat. The real Mrs. Grape's stomach seemed to be a bottomless pit, but her painting developed a diseased look, covered in rashes and sores. Her painted skin turned red from broken blood vessels. Her ankles and feet swelled up. Her painted fingers looked like sausages. Her painted hair grew lank and greasy, and her eyes all but disappeared in the folds of fat around her face. Whether she knew it or not, the only portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Grape showed a vile, gross thing that could hardly move because of its own crushing weight. But for one reason or another, Mrs. Grape had always set her mind against having her portrait painted, even by a muggle. Maybe it was because of the way that first artist's painting had made her feel.

"But the day finally came when the heartbroken painter's death-spell came down on Mrs. Grape's head. It happened when she stopped to visit her sister, with whom she hadn't spoken in years. Her sister was a witch, and all her children were magical. And one of those children was quite handy with crayons. So Mrs. Grape's doom came when her little niece or nephew--no one remembers which--sketched a crude portrait of Auntie Grape. The squib lady might have torn it up if she had known what was going to happen. But for some reason, she accepted the child's crayon drawing as a gift. Maybe she used it to wipe her guzzling mouth. Maybe she didn't recognize what it was. Maybe she didn't even know that someone had stuck it to the inside of her bedroom door until the middle of the night.

"One way or the other, though, Mrs. Grape got up in the dead of night to use the loo. And what a scream she gave! For on that piece of paper tacked to her door was a wizard's portrait of Mrs. Grape, however crude. And as you know, people painted by a wizard artist can move from one portrait of themselves to another. So it was then, and only then, that the grossly fat picture of Mrs. Grape, painted all those years ago and charmed by its maker in the moment of his death, came face to face with Mrs. Grape herself. At that instant, the painter's death-spell was undone. The vile portrait of Mrs. Grape shrank back to her original, slender beauty. At the same time the real Mrs. Grape swelled to the size, appearance, and state of health the painting had reached.

"She was now too big to get through the door. Even the window was not large enough. Too big to support her own weight, Mrs. Grape had to lie down. And since her bed was no longer big enough to support her, she had to lie on the floor. She never got up from that floor, either. The diseases brought on by a lifetime of bad habits soon overtook her, and Mrs. Grape died. Her sister's husband had to knock down the outer wall to remove her from the room so she could be buried. They couldn't find a coffin big enough for her, so they buried her in the hull of a two-masted ship. Her grave was a crater caused by a meteor. They had to drop soil out of a squadron of airplanes to cover her up..."

By now Persephone and Bob had fallen asleep. Marmaduke had wriggled under the covers with Bob and was desperately trying to stifle his giggles as Ethelfrigga relentlessly embellished the end of the story.

"...They stuck Stonehenge on top of her grave to keep it from washing away in the floods. And if you fly over Sarum when the angle of the moon is just right and your broom is pointed straight into the wind, you might even see the shape of Mrs. Grape holding up the shoulders of the hill..."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #178 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: When next we see Merlin and Miss Pucey, they should: A) Catch up with Il Comte di Bestemmia at last. B) Have to use another life-saving item in Merlin's survival satchel. C) Meet a type of magical creature or being we haven't seen for a while.

CONTEST: Chapter #178 could include a light-hearted parody of what non-Harry Potter film? Provide a few brief examples of how lines or images from the film could be transformed into a magical context.

175. The Hag Bride

2010-07-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Contest Winner: TWZRD
Runner-Up: Joe

Harvey found himself in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, standing just below the dais where the head table belonged. Instead of the house tables, rows of chairs filled the room, with an aisle down the center carpeted by a strip of avocado-green taffeta. The chairs closest to the aisle were decorated with nosegays of shockingly ugly flowers, most of them either venomous or redolent of spoiled meat.

What, Harvey wondered, had he gotten himself into? And why couldn't he remember how he came to be here...? He looked at himself, and around himself, in a desperate quest to remember.

The dais was covered in a tasteless weave that looked almost like burlap embroidered with twine. The designs featured flowers even more garishly ugly than the ones that decorated the chairs. The staff table had been removed, replaced by a hideously decorated lectern under a gazebo-like awning. A wizard Harvey vaguely recalled as a member of the Wizengamot smiled down at him from under a mantel that appeared to have been stitched out of a yak's pelt. Harvey tried not to look lost as he checked out his own attire (dress robes) and the audience waiting in the chairs. The cream of wizarding society sat on one side, and a collection of crones and hags on the other. Each side watched the other with some mixture of disgust, fear, and resentment.

Are they waiting for me to make a speech? Harvey wondered. Or am I about to be presented with some type of award...?

He shifted on his feet nervously. Someone coughed. A few people on the wizarding side of the aisle smiled at him. One or two of the crones glared at him. Most people who showed any signs of impatience, did so by looking round at the doors at the back of the hall. They didn't seem to be waiting for Harvey to say or do anything.

The more Harvey studied the people in the chairs, the more he was convinced that something truly life-changing was about to come through those doors. He wished with all his might that he could remember what he was waiting for. As more time passed, he looked for other things to hold his attention, so that he wouldn't have to think about his feelings of dread and anticipation.

There, in the sixth row, he recognized the chap from his year who had been caught stealing other students' school books and selling them to a squib porter at Hogsmeade Station. Harvey remembered it because he was on the student committee that had tried to restore the confiscated books to their rightful owners. The ownership of some of them had proven too mysterious for their sleuthing skills, such as the creepy "Half Blood Prince" one Harvey had voted to burn. He was outvoted, though, and the unclaimed books were all tucked into cupboards in the classrooms where their subject was taught, in the hope that their owners would come searching for them....

Harvey sighed. As nothing continued to happen, he reflected on how his passion for student safety had mellowed during the years since he was a student in these halls. He himself had put four thankless children through Hogwarts. He understood the hope that some wizarding parents cherished that their dear little ones might come home with one or two less limbs and an attitude more receptive to parental advice. During his years on the Hogwarts Parent Council, he had seen six motions to raze the Forbidden Forest outvoted by wide margins, on the grounds that rule-breaking and inability to mind one's own were genetic traits that could do with a bit of weeding out. In other words, most Hogwarts parents seemed to agree that, without at least a small chance their children might never come home, there would be no fun in sending them away to school.

The Board of Governors (which Harvey had chaired three years in a row) had also held, for as long as anyone could remember, that nothing teaches a healthy respect for the dangers of potion-making, transfiguration spells, magical beasts and plants, and the dark arts than the occasional mishap such as having one's finger bitten off by a venomous tentacula, or being trapped in the Haunted Airing Cupboard for a month or two. And if the student in question dies, what then? The lesson would be learned by others!

Harvey nodded grimly as he recalled the incident that had brought him over to this point of view -- the little blighter who just wouldn't wouldn't turn down the dare to say "Widdershins" three times while looking into the Mirror of Noitcepsorter -- the one in the fifth-floor hallway that usually showed what one looked like from behind. After whispering the key word for the third time, the boy began to squeal. To this day, no one knew whether he squealed out of excitement to see the back of his head (in the mirror) turning, so that at last his face looked back at him, or whether it was from pain as his body twisted around, from the neck down, to face the direction opposite to his head.

The case was incurable. To this day, the lad (now a young man working in the back room of an apothecary shop in Dublin) had to look backward while walking forward. And Harvey, who no longer had to deal with his younger son's inability to resist a dare and his third wife's habit of throwing hysterics over the tiniest things, was eternally grateful to the Mirror of Noitcesporter.

Harvey was prodded out of his contemplations by a sudden onslaught of nerve-shredding noise. A ghostly orchestra, all armed with musical saws, had started playing a tune that remotely resembled Isaiah Thwackem's well-known processional piece, "The Ear-Trumpet Involuntary in C-Double-Sharp." Harvey reckoned that if this went on for much longer, a lot of the folks in this room would soon be in the market for ear-trumpets of their own.

The doors at the far end flew open with a rafters-shaking crash. The first to make their dramatic entry was a couple, walking promenade-fashion with the female's hand on the wizard's arm. The wizard, Harvey noticed with interest as they moved closer, was himself -- another one of himself, that is -- and the female in question was a simpering hag, got up in a flouncy dress of tangerine-tinted twill. She also sported a shapeless, lacy hat and a completely unnecessary parasol, which rested open on her free arm and, consequently, caught in the hair and clothing of the person nearest the aisle in each row.

By the time Harvey noted all this, two more similar couples had joined the procession. All of the men were Harvey. All of the females were hags. Different hags, each a startlingly original variation on the theme of ugliness trying, with little success and less taste, to appear beautiful. Six, seven... nine... eleven of couples marched in, one after the other, stepping more or less in time with Thwackem's Involuntary. As they reached the foot of the dais, the couples parted, the hags to form a line in front of their side of the audience, the Harveys to line up to Harvey's left.

Harvey's heart sank as he began to realize what this event was, and the role he was fated to play in it.

And now it sank even further when the musical-saw orchestra changed its tune. As they played the opening bars of Pachyderm's "Bombardment and Dissociative Fugue," a hairy, muscular leg thrust itself out of the shadows beyond the great doors, its foot clad in a shoe Harvey could have worn as a helmet. A high-heeled shoe. With training wheels.

The rest of the leg followed, accompanied by the other of the pair and the rest of a very lumpy, spotty, snaggle-toothed hag. She blushed. She giggled. She blew kisses to Harvey over the top of her toadstool bouquet. Her hair had been teased into a massive structure, reinforced with bits of wood and bone and elaborately knotted pieces of mismatched string. Her dress was a suffocating mass of yellowy-white lace, gauze, satin, bleached and felted human hair, and albino leather. Nevertheless, it revealed too much -- things that made Harvey shudder to think about his wedding night. How had he gotten himself into this? Could he still get out of it, considering present company, without getting smashed to a jelly? Where was his wand? Perhaps he could at least put his own eyes out...

Harvey's horror grew as he realized that he could do or say nothing to stop the ceremony. Compelled by a force he didn't understand -- though it certainly didn't feel like an Imperius curse -- he took the bride's hand on his arm and faced the smiling justice of the Wizengamot. Help me, he screamed, but only in his mind. The justice's opening patter ended too quickly. Harvey didn't seem able to make a single sound, except when asked if he was willing to take Madrigal (so that was her name!) as his awfully wedded spouse; and then his mouth disloyally formed the words, "I will." The vows were even worse. Apparently Madrigal had written the vows for both of them, and Harvey was horrified to hear the things he promised her. My soul WHAT? ...What's this about my internal organs? ...Bathe WHERE? ...Oh, stars, no! Not the troll-bone tea service!...

The exchange of rings was most unpleasant, given how filthy and clammy Madrigal's hands were. Harvey thought his despair could grow no deeper until the bride threw back her veil. Until then he hadn't realized she was wearing one. Seeing her for the first time in all her glory, Harvey felt his innards recoil with a start. Her puckering lips protruded, wriggling and making a flesh-crawling sound like two balloons being rubbed together. Worst of all, he couldn't stop himself from leaning in for their first kiss as husband and wife...

Harvey screamed in his sleep. Madrigal smiled a smile of blissful satisfaction as she sat on his chest, cross-legged, knitting a tasseled cosy for the knob in the center of the headboard.

The house-elf named Dinty appeared beside the bed with a pop, bearing a glass of mulled milk on a tray in answer to his master's summoning cry of anguish. The elf's eyes bulged at the sight of the hag riding his master.

"I will, thank you," Madrigal said with gravelly daintiness. "None for himself, I'm afraid." She threw back the toddy in one dash, tossed the glass into the hearth with a crash, and belched richly. "A little less milk next time," she reflected critically. "Let's say, one third as much. Make up the balance with firewhisky. Keep the rest the same. All right?"

The house-elf gulped, nodded, and disappeared.

Harvey groaned. Madrigal giggled.

"Is he gone?" said a painting of a young wizard with his body facing the opposite way to his head, a full-length portrait squeezed into the narrow wall-space between two sash windows.

Madrigal gave the painting a slightly disturbing wink.

The turned-around wizard stepped down out of his painting--or rather, Joe Albuquerque stepped down off the frame, where he had stood carefully balanced in front of the actual painting. For a moment, it looked as though a young wizard contemplated his own, exact image. Then Joe shook himself, pulled a robe over his head, and emerged as an exact double of Madrigal the hag -- though, naturally, with her head facing the right direction.

"Coo," said Madrigal. "It's like being in two places at once!"

"Something your victim knows a lot about," said the other Madrigal. "I'll take over here, in case that house-elf comes back. You move along down the corridor. You have a lot of Harveys to terrorize tonight. And remember, if you see this bauble" -- Madrigal 2 held up a gnarled little finger, wearing a replica of the Ring of Count Matthias -- "bring it directly to me. All right?"

The original Madrigal appeared to give these orders some consideration as she climbed off Harvey's chest.

"Is there a problem?" said Madrigal 2, taking her place.

Madrigal 1 looked confused. "I just don't know if..."

"Look at me," said Joe Albuquerque, his voice (like his face) almost indistinguishable from the hag's. "Don't you trust this face?"

After a split second of seemingly painful thought, Madrigal flashed a grin that almost stopped Joe's heart in his chest. "I suppose there's no point arguing with meself," she chortled; then she left the room with a merry wave.

Joe crossed his thick, hairy legs (or rather, Madrigal's) and tried to make himself comfortable on top of Harvey's chest. Still trapped in a nightmare, Harvey whimpered beneath him.

"Police work," Joe muttered.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #177 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which deceased TMQ character should be found, miraculously or otherwise, to still be alive? (A) One of the Goode brothers (1-Zophar or 2-Zichri). (B) Silver Conkling. (C) Bette Noir. (D) Sid Shmedly. (E) ___________ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Propose a new magical spell to be used in the chapter after next.

174. Surfer Mice

2010-06-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Evensong
Runner-up: Linda Carrig

Merlin and Miss Pucey legged it. In their mouths the slightly medicinal, herbal tang of Turbo Gum (tiny lozenge-shaped chicle drops made to Signor Subito's family recipe). Over their shoulders a massive wall of water that advanced so slowly that it seemed almost suspended in time. To their left and right, smooth stone walls that arched overhead to form a vaulted ceiling only a meter or so above the level of the approaching water, but with no footholds to climb and no ledges to climb to. Ahead, a seemingly endless tunnel offering no refuge from the wave behind. Time was in their favor while their legs, and the flavor of the gum, held out.

They ran and chewed. They chewed and ran. The slow-motion roar of the following wave was so deep it could not be heard by the human ear, but they felt its thrum in their feet, legs, chest. Apart from that, only the sound of their panting breaths and running footsteps broke the silence of the watery, subterranean deathtrap in which they ran (and chewed) for their lives.

The wave was not gaining on them. In fact, they were pulling farther away from it every minute. This was not very encouraging, however. They knew that when the Turbo Gum lost its flavor, the wave would take only seconds to cover the distance they had gained. They might have time to pop another drop of Turbo Gum in their mouths... but how long could they keep running like this?

Miss Pucey snapped her fingers. Merlin looked round and followed her pointing hand. This was hard to do because they were both running, so both pointing and looking are chancy affairs and cannot be done with great accuracy. After a few more hand-snaps and emphatic gestures, Merlin finally saw what Miss Pucey was trying to point out.

At the cornices of some of the pillars holding up this endless vault, gargoyles looked out over their own dark, damp, lifeless domain.

Merlin looked at Miss Pucey and shrugged his shoulders and eyebrows at the same time. He was doing his best to say, "So what?" without swallowing his gum or breaking his stride.

Now Miss Pucey began gesturing toward the satchel slung over Merlin's shoulder. He gave her another "So what?" look. She pointed to herself, then the satchel. She pointed to Merlin, then the satchel. Then she pointed up toward the gargoyles.

"We'll never have time," Merlin said out loud.

On the t of the word time he made the mistake of spitting out his gum. "Bother," he said, hastily ducking out from under the satchel's shoulder strap.

Meanwhile, Miss Pucey flew away from him in one direction, and the roaring wall of water suddenly began flying toward him from the other. Merlin desperately patted his pockets in search of the tin of Turbo Gum.

A moment later Miss Pucey returned, still on Turbo time, moving so quickly that she appeared as a blur. She dived into the satchel headfirst. She somehow grabbed Merlin's wrist at the last moment and pulled him in after her. The jerk nearly dislocated his shoulder.

The wall of water was only a thousand feet away. The satchel sat on the stone floor in front of it, sagging open, motionless.

The wall of water was now seven hundred feet away. A wad of gum flew out of the satchel with a dainty pop. The gum ricocheted off two or three cobblestones before getting stuck in a crack.

The wall of water was within five hundred feet. A wand-tip poked itself out of the open satchel. The person at the other end of the wand said something that he or she could scarcely hear over the now deafening thunder of the approaching wave. The spell must have been something like Accio Gargoyle, because the wand-tip was pointing at a gargoyle. Since, however, the gargoyle could not move, the satchel moved instead.

It rose up into the air. It rose very rapidly, in fact. But was it rising fast enough? When the wave was only two hundred feet off, the satchel had risen less than halfway to the gargoyle's jutting chin.

Meanwhile, riding a crest of the approaching wave on a re-purposed door was a lean figure covered in tattoos, piercings, and very little else. Rigel whooped and sported as though a California beach filled with sunkissed girls lay spread before him, rather than an endless, empty, underground cathedral. For a moment he was distracted by what looked like a pair of tiny, fleeing figures far ahead of him, but he dismissed them with a shake of his head. Nobody could move that fast!

With a snap of his head he threw his wet, hip-length hair in front of his face. He had almost made up his mind what color to change it to, when he failed to see a satchel flying straight at him.

WHAP! Lights danced in front of Rigel's eyes. The world spun, tumbled, and roared. Something hit Rigel with all but crushing force, and suddenly everything went black.

Darkness. Silence. No... the sound of dripping water...

For a while Rigel lay still with his eyes closed, wondering. He wondered how he could have been so foolish as to fall asleep in the midst of non-stop, fast-paced danger. Maybe the high-speed action had gone on too long, he had gotten used to it, even bored with it. Maybe he was just too exhausted to help it. But apart from that, how could he have survived?

Another sound was added to the background silence and dripping sound. A scritching sound, like a mouse gnawing and scratching on something. Rigel lay still anyway. He wasn't sure, now, that he wasn't actually dead. He wanted to delay finding out as long as possible.

The scritching sound grew closer. In fact, it was very close. Surely he must be dead. Mice wouldn't get that close to a live body, would they? Now rats, he thought, were a different matter. They would eat anything, living or dead...

Rigel's eyes snapped open. He looked around, moving only his eyes. He was surprised by his surroundings. For one, he wasn't lying on a damp stone floor, surrounded by debris swept in by the wave. Rather, he was on a dry, soft bed, covered by a soft rug and surrounded by all the normal trappings of a bedroom. A woman's bedroom, Rigel realized with satisfaction, taking in the objects on the nearby table, the cut of the curtains over the windows, the soft cushions and pillows, the muted glow of gas lamps draped in patterned silk. The air was warm, delicately perfumed...

The scritching noise came even closer. It was the one thing that truly bothered him. But all in all, this wasn't a bad place to wake up after that horrible dream about the wereyaks, and the merhags, the canal and the tunnel and the wave. He wondered, though, why he couldn't remember whose bedroom this was or what had happened the night before.

Rigel thought about sitting up. He decided to turn his head first and look at the other side of the room. That's when he saw what the scritching was all about.

On the table next to the bed stood an old phonograph with a single bell-like speaker. A furry paw was turning the crank, winding the spring that drove the mechanism. Another furry paw let fall a hinged arm with a needle at the end. The needle landed with a deafeningly amplified SCRATCH on the flat, black disk rotating atop the turntable. Tinny music began to pour out of the speaker. Drums, guitars, keyboards... squeaky voices singing unfamiliar words to a familiar tune...

Rigel slowly turned his gaze up the length of the huge, furry paw that had now withdrawn itself from the phonograph. The paw was attached to an arm, which in turn was attached to a large furry body perched on the edge of the bed. A furry tail grew out of the rear of that body. It stood up and turned around, confronting Rigel with the whiskery, toothy face of a gigantic mouse. Swaying on its hind legs, it began to dance and sing along with the record: "I wish they all could be California miiiiiice...."

Rigel's eyes snapped open. He gave a little scream and tried to sit up, but hands pressed him back into the bed. Hands, he noted, not paws. He tried to see who they belonged to, but the room was too dark. He was definitely in a bed, though. A soft, cushion-strewn bed with perfumed draperies and a warm rug across his chest... Rigel struggled, but again the hands gently restrained him. Not paws. Not paws. He relaxed.

"Good," said a familiar, feminine voice. "That was close, wasn't it? Aren't you fortunate that I sent Carpet to follow you. I must say, the more I see of you, the more interesting I find you."

Rigel clutched the edge of the rug self-consciously. A tassel on the fringe of the rug snapped at him, and he loosened his grip. "Gently, there," cooed the woman's voice, though it wasn't clear whom she meant.

"You're Sheherazade Jenkins," Rigel ventured.

"We've had a strenuous night, haven't we? Sleep now. I'll leave Stanley here to watch you."

"Wait," he said. "Where am I? Where are my knickers? There are people... I mean, I have to find..."

"There, there," said the woman who had neither confirmed nor denied being Sheherazade Jenkins. "It's all taken care of. You're safe now." Lips brushed lightly against his forehead. "Why don't we have a little sleep, eh?"

The bed creaked and shifted. Weight lifted off the side where the woman had been sitting. Footsteps. A door closing. Rigel lay in darkness, wondering.

Rigel wondered who Stanley might be. He could hear someone breathing nearby. He couldn't see anybody except Carpet, whose only name (so far as he gathered) was Carpet, and who didn't seem to need to breathe. To be sure, however, Carpet felt unusually soft and warm just now. As Rigel stroked its fringe, Carpet even began purr. The effect was very soothing. In spite of his worries, Rigel fell asleep in seconds.

Rigel's eyes snapped open. The room he found himself in was quite different from the surfer mouse's bedroom. It felt and smelled like the room he had last fallen asleep in, which he hoped wasn't a dream. It wasn't, however, the boudoir of Sheherazade Jenkins that he had visited earlier, the one with the painting of the joined twins. It was, in fact, the lair of a troll.

The bed was actually a huge pile of fleeces, skins, several heavy rugs, and assorted sacks of rushes and feathers. The perfume came from a brazier near the bed which, even at this bright hour of the morning, blazed with a fire of aromatic wood. The walls were whitewashed. The furnishings were sparse, rough, and well-used. The only woman's touch was the curtain of shells strung on threads that covered the window. The door Rigel had heard closing was a hatch in the floor. All in all it was the nicest troll's lair Rigel had ever been in. Indeed, he might not have worked out that it was a troll's lair, had the troll not been lounging on the floor next to the bed, holding the trapdoor shut with his elbow.

The troll didn't look any more civilized than the average troll. Rigel could only guess that it owed its refined surroundings to some human influence, possibly the woman who owned Carpet.

Carpet began purring again.

"Don't start that again," said Rigel, sitting up slowly so as not to alarm the troll.

The troll watched him with a bored expression, and picked its nose.

Rigel decided it was time to make the introductions. "Stanley, is it?"

The troll's eyes moved slightly when he spoke the name. Otherwise, there was no response.

"Look, Stanley," said Rigel, "I think we should be on a first-name basis before I get out from under this Carpet. Which I've got to do rather urgently, don't you know. But, you see, I haven't got anything on. So, like, me Rigel. Rigel happy to meet you. Now I don't suppose there's a chamber-pot around here somewhere?"

Stanley gazed at him flatly, then began to eat the bogey that he found on the end of his finger.

"Cripes," Rigel groaned, flopping back on the bed. "I don't know if I can remember any Troll after all these years. What was that tutor's name again? And did we ever discuss how to ask if one might go to the loo? Ah, yes! How could I forget? Going to the loo was a whole chapter in the grammar. Er... hem, hem... Oorg graargh heh aarrgh aargh!"

The troll perked up at the sound of its own language. It looked at Rigel with a bit of curiosity.

Rigel felt only slightly encouraged. What was he saying wrong? "Er... Oog grunt heh ugh ugh!"

The troll grunted something back at him and pointed out the window.

"Oh, lovely," said Rigel. "How does one say, 'Would you mind looking the other way?' Er... Grunt raaorr wump-wump blaaaargh!"

At this the troll began to laugh, now and again heartily slapping its massive belly.

"That evidently doesn't mean what I thought," said Rigel, beginning to squirm with discomfort. "I say, Carpet, you couldn't help a lad out, could you?"

Carpet curled at the corners in what appeared to be a sort of textile shrug.

"I'm just going to skip over to that window for a moment. Could you provide a bit of privacy for me?"

Carpet twitched affirmatively, then flew off the bed and attacked Stanley the Troll. While the troll struggled to claw the rug away from his face, Rigel ran to the window and brushed the dangling shells aside. He was about to empty his bladder out the window when he realized that he was standing above an enormous egg-shaped cavern, open to the sky above, and surrounded by similarly curtained windows. A few meters below was a sunny courtyard where dozens of large, scantily-dressed trolls of indeterminate (but probably mixed) sex were hard at work skinning carcasses, pounding seeds into flour, repairing weapons, and building up a fire beneath a huge cauldron. At the sound of Rigel's involuntary yelp of surprise, they all looked up at him. There was nowhere to hide.

"Er," said Rigel, deciding to put on a brave face, "Oorg graalk hurr aarrgh ugh!"

About a hundred meaty paws pointed toward a trap door close to the opposite side of the courtyard. Even from here Rigel could see the crescent moon carved onto the door. A pile of catalogues from Vold-Mart lay nearby, their pages smeared with what Rigel did not care to think about.

"Lovely," said Rigel, and he began the difficult climb down to the floor of the courtyard. His descent was followed by the riveted eyes of every troll in the courtyard, and more joined them at every moment. He had never been a person to feel shame of any kind, but at just this moment Rigel wished he could crawl inside his own belly-button and disappear.

It was only after he reached the floor that Carpet caught up to him and carried him the rest of the way. This, at least, saved him having to dance out of reach of grabby troll hands. He reached the trapdoor, opened it, quickly closed it and spent a minute breathing through clenched teeth while pinching his nose shut, then opened it again and climbed down into the hole. Though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, Rigel made sure the trapdoor was shut before he climbed out of reach.

When he got down to the really nasty bit, Rigel wondered how anything with an underground river gushing through it could be this filthy, and what became of anything that happened to live downstream. After all his squirming and wriggling, he found he wasn't in such a hurry to use the trolls' loo now. He made himself use it anyway. He did his best not to touch anything. Then, while mincing back toward the ladder up to the courtyard, he was surprised to find a familiar leather satchel wedged between a pile of catalogues and one of the most sickening pieces of troll plumbing.

Rigel poked the satchel with his toe. "Hello?" he said, reasoning as only a wizard would. "Is anybody in there?"

When no one responded, Rigel's blood ran cold. "Cripes," he said for the second time that morning. "I don't reckon Merlin would let this go without a fight. I hope they're all right."

He picked up the satchel and tried to open it, but of course it would only open to Merlin's touch. "Drat!" Rigel said to himself. "Might as well take it back to Stanley's gaff, anyway." He didn't say it aloud, even to himself, but he didn't mind having something to hide behind until he found something to wear.

He was just emerging from the crescent-moon trapdoor when a melodious voice spoke behind him: "Making yourself at home, are you?" Her words flavored with barely-suppressed laughter.

Rigel spun around, clutching the satchel across his middle. "What are we doing here?" he snapped, more angrily than he meant to sound. Partly he was furious at himself for the blush he could feel spreading down his neck and below his collarbone. "And might I ask what you've done with my robes?"

"You arrived as I see you now," said the woman of Rigel's dreams, Sherherazade or not. "I see you've even recovered your toilet bag. I left it down there hoping that it would come in useful for you. Though it doesn't seem to have done you much good."

Her mischievous eyes did not conceal the fact that she had tried, and failed, to open the bag herself.

"The clasp is a bit stuck," Rigel said defensively. "I'm ordinarily much cleaner than this."

"I hope not," said the woman, cocking one eyebrow in a way that made Rigel's blush spread even further. After another uncomfortable moment, she relented. "Fresh clothes and breakfast await you, this way. Hop on Carpet. Make room, now. I won't bite."

Rigel wasn't worried about that, exactly. He held the satchel firmly across his lap as carpet swooped up toward the circle of sunlight overhead.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #176 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which features of Harry Potter's magical world would you most like The Magic Quill to explore? Vote for up to 2. (A) Ghosts. (B) Moving photographs. (C) Talking paintings. (D) Vampires. (E) Professional Quidditch. (F) Magical gadgetry. (G) Magical Plants. (H) Magical Beasts.

CONTEST: Write the script for a 30-second advertisement on Wizarding Wireless, product of your choice.

173. Dance of the Fauns

2010-05-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: kaleidoscopicepic

The arrival of a tall stranger wrapped in a cloak, his face hidden in the shadow of a hood, had the usual result on the patrons of Talia's inn. Most days, the arrival of any stranger at all was enough to stop conversation.

Talia's inn shared a lonely intersection of two forest roads with three other businesses: an apothecary who moonlighted as a no-questions-asked surgeon for magical beasts, a wandwright who doubled as a trader in charmed amulets and talismans against the dark, and a toothless old biddy who performed divination, midwifery, and all the duties expected of the village curmudgeon. No one had any business in these woods except the wizarding clans who lived there and, now and then, the type of visitor best left alone. And though such visitors were rare, the nature of the village meant they were always looking for something rare and powerful.

Long experience had taught Talia's patrons to assume, when they saw a hooded and cloaked stranger, that he was someone not to be crossed, someone not to be trusted, someone up to no good.

"Looking for something special?" Talia asked the stranger when he approached the bar. In her usual way, she looked him over while appearing to slump lazily against the dresser behind the bar, her eyelashes drooping sleepily. She wore a spotless linen towel draped over her left wrist, an impossibly clean apron tied around her plump waist, and a bonnet to hold her ample hair out of the ale. Nevertheless, a keen eye could not have missed the wand tucked up her sleeve, nor the hand that was casually ready to draw it.

The stranger saw all this in an instant, but he understood nothing Talia had said. She asked him another question, equally unintelligible. This was not his language. He said the only thing he knew would be understood here: "Spiro."

Talia stiffened. She sniffed. The voice was very foreign, very deep and dangerous. From the sound of it she gathered a sense of the size and strength of the figure only vaguely revealed by the stranger's cloak. Keeping her hooded eyes fixed on her visitor, Talia poured two glasses of twelve-star Metaxa, drained one in a single draught, and upended the empty glass on the clean countertop. A golden stain began to spread across the wood. The stranger threw back his drink and upended it as well. They looked at each other, he from beneath his hood, she from behind her eyelashes, with nothing to say.

After a minute of this silent, mutual study, a third character joined their tableau. He was a middle-aged wizard with a short, dry, wiry build, dressed for the forest in a short, supple jacket, sturdy boots, snug trousers, and a waistcoat with numerous pockets. Apart from his loose white shirt, open at the neck, the wizard's clothes all seemed to be woven from homespun wool and dyed in shades of brown. Most important for identification purposes was the letter clutched in his hand, a letter sealed with the crest of Count Matthias.

"Spiro, I presume," growled the huge, hooded stranger.

Spiro slapped the letter down on the bar and moved the upended Metaxa glasses onto it.

"What you ask I will do," said Spiro, and even a foreigner could hear him silently adding, "although it is madness."

"Neither of us has a choice," said the hooded stranger. "But I believe we are equal to the dangers of this forest at night." Somehow a knife found itself in the stranger's hands -- a very long, very cruel-looking silver blade, almost a dagger in fact. To Spiro's credit, his hand did not shake as he took a glass offered by Talia and raised it to his lips. When it was empty, he upended it on the counter as well.

The stranger tapped the three glasses with the tip of his knife. Coins materialized in them. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the inn, followed by his wiry new guide.

During the next several hours, the two wizards spoke aloud less than a dozen times. They moved through the forest with a silent, mutual understanding. The terrain was uneven, often sloping steeply and veined with tree roots, and until the moon rose above the treetops they had only a faint gleam of wandlight to guide their steps.

They were near their destination - perhaps half a mile - when Spiro stopped short and put his arm out to halt his companion. Not far ahead, and slightly downhill from where they stood, lay a round clearing whose grasses gleamed like silver in the light of the full moon.

The stranger observed that Spiro was scarcely breathing. He stared at the clearing ahead in rapt stillness, waiting... but for what?

A moment later, the answer became clear. Suddenly, strange figures began to march into the clearing, forming lines. At first they looked like children - boys wearing waistcoats that seemed to be woven out of bark, girls draped in little more than moss-covered vines. There was something especially strange about their legs, clad in furry trousers and moving in a manner that, for some reason the stranger could not put his finger on, struck him as unnatural. And something about the headware worn by the boys tugged at the back of his mind. Then the knut dropped.

"Satyrs?" he breathed into Spiro's ear.

"You see human feet?" Spiro whispered back, his words understood more by the shape of his mouth than by any sound the stranger could hear.

He looked again. No, there were hooves at the ends of the children's furry legs.

"Fauns," Spiro mouthed, then repeated it to make sure he was understood.

The stranger wanted to ask more questions, but there was no time. Something was about to begin. The childlike fauns, male and female, stood in a mixed formation that now tightly filled the clearing -- except for a small space in the very center. Into this space stepped three fauns, two male and one female. One of the males struck a chord on a sort of lyre strung on an enormous, curling horn. The other male began to play a sprightly tune on a bone flute - a tune that struck the stranger as absurdly familiar. And finally, the female began shaking and tapping a tambourine and singing at the same time. As the song began, so did the dance.

Under other circumstances, the stranger would have been breathless with awe to witness the midnight dance of the fauns, in this ancient forest, on the night of a full moon... But instead, he had to stuff half of his hand into his mouth to stifle his laughter.

The fauns were doing the hokey-pokey.

There was no mistaking the dance moves, nor the meaning of the instructions sung by the faun girl with the tambourine. Even with the folk-inflections of the flute skirling around the main melody, the stranger could not fail to recognize it. And with all the seriousness of a magical race celebrating its most mystical rite, the other young fauns danced the hokey-pokey for all they were worth. They put their right hoof in, they took their right hoof out, they shook it all about...

Suddenly, the stranger's urge to laugh aloud merged into a powerful feeling of joy that wiped out all consciousness.

After what seemed like only a few minutes but, by the angle of the moon, must have been several hours, the stranger realized that the dance was over, the fauns had left, and he and Spiro had remained where they were, gazing into the clearing with wonder.

"Wow," said the stranger, pulling back his hood and looking up into the sky, where the disc of the moon had already begun to dip into the treetops again, and where the stars twinkled as though enjoying a hokey-pokey dance of their own. "To think," said Spanky Spankison, his face filled with happiness and moonlight, "to think that that's what it's all about..."

"We must not cross this clearing," said Spiro, his voice trembling slightly.

"No," said Spanky.

Together, they skirted the clearing - though it meant wading across a frigid stream too wide to leap across, making a detour around a dense thicket, and climbing the cliffs on both sides of a massive rock. Finally, they came to the ravine Spanky sought. At the far end of the ravine, in a cave behind a waterfall, something huge and strong and dangerous was reputed to live, something with a loud voice that could be heard roaring and howling on many a moonlit night, a giant being with a vast hunger and even greater thirst. Local legends disagreed whether it was a giant, a troll, or an ogre that dwelt in the cave. The one point on which the locals agreed was that the dweller in the cave behind the waterfall must be avoided at any cost.

Tonight, something moved in the cave behind the waterfall. It moaned. It sobbed. It screamed a hideous scream that made the flesh on Spiro's back creep and crawl.

"I go no further," said Spiro.

"Merlin's beard," Spanky gasped, recognizing something in the sound coming out of the waterfall cave.

"You did not hire me to make the introductions," Spiro said defensively. "Only to show you where to find the ogre. You need not seem so surprised. I do not resist what your letter told me to do."

"No, no," said Spanky. "Listen! The creature is singing!"

Spiro gave him a queer look, and began backing away into the trees.

"I know this song," Spanky explained, grinning at his guide. He began lightly singing along with the tuneless caterwauling of the cave giant: "Ché se non galleggiava per me quest'epa tronfia, certo affogavo. Brutta morte. L'acqua mi gonfia...."

"I do not know this song," said Spiro, though he was intrigued enough to cease backpedaling.

"Your howling troll behind the waterfall?" Spanky gestured toward the source of the horrible noise. "He knows Italian opera! He sings it badly, to be sure... but if that's a savage monster, I'm the Man in the Moon."

"Oh, him," sniffed Spiro with a dismissive wave. "I know him well. Visits Talia's tavern once a month. But this one...! Savage brute or no, he is a dangerous customer. The floor of his ravine is littered with bones. Mauled goats and deer are often found in the country around here. People, entire families have disappeared, their farms vanished without a trace. And many barrels of mead, firewhisky, and Metaxa bound for Talia's have been snatched in these woods. Sometimes the splintered staves are found near this place..."

"Our operatic friend likes his drink, does he?" Spanky grinned even wider, and twirled his silver blade. "Let's go back to Talia's, then. We'll come back tomorrow night a cask or two."

"I will have no part in this craziness," Spiro protested. "I have fulfilled my duty."

Spanky turned toward Spiro with an anguished look on his face. He seemed to beg forgiveness with his eyes even while his mouth formed the words: "Have you?"

Something inside Spiro told him he could not refuse to join yet another night of secrecy and danger. This Englishman with his sealed letter was perhaps even more dangerous than the creature in that cave.

"No," Spiro admitted in a strangled voice. "I appear to be bound to help you."

"Good," said Spanky, the ruthlessness in his voice belied by the sorrow in his eyes. "Let's get some rest. Our next night's work will be much longer than this."

Spiro shuddered as they turned away from the ogre's cave.

"If it makes you feel better," said Spanky, pulling up his hood, "the creature in the cave is neither a giant nor a troll nor an ogre."

Spiro chewed on this as they climbed over the rock, skirted the thicket, and waded the stream. As they paused for breath near the fauns' clearing, he finally asked: "What is the beast, then?"

"Not a beast, so much," Spanky replied cryptically. "It knows opera, after all. Shakespeare, even! And once it's had a drink or two, it won't seem very threatening...."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #175 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which are you most interested in finding out? (A) What costume Joe Albuquerque wears next. (B) Which of the contents of his Survival Satchell Merlin uses next. (C) What happens when Sadie lobs the Waveform Collapser at Harvey. (D) What Allie O'Modo, Chat Noir, or Minimilian gets up to (take your pick).

CONTEST: Briefly describe a discrepancy, or possible mistake, in the Harry Potter books and a possible solution to this problem.

172. Sadie's Wine Flight

2010-03-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Linda Carrig

Sadie muttered something highly uncomplimentary about the ring of Count Matthias as she climbed another steep street in Lisbon. Her head was fuzzy from drinking too much wine, an occupational hazard of searching every wine cellar in the city for signs of a genie. People would expect a body to join them in a bottle or two, or half a dozen, when a body shows an interest in what their cellar holds, she grumbled to herself. It's all a body can do to stay upright. And now a body's lost in these bloody streets!

She had started in the obvious places: the haunts of wizards and witches. There was a stop on the Santa Justa Lift, the city's famous outdoor elevator, that only revealed itself to those who had placed a sickle on the tongue of a particular gargoyle on the eaves of a particular building (which could only be reached by broom), and on that floor was a dark, smoky room full of sad Fado music, strong wine, and slow-burning vendettas. It was the only time Sadie had ever seen a centaur dancing with a vampire. She felt lucky to have gotten out of there alive, even disregarding the fact that she had tipsily botched an accio genie charm and brought a whole rack of priceless wine bottles crashing down.

Then there was the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, where she knew of several squibs who had taken holy orders. Their private stash, at the bottom of a brackish cistern, had forced her to use up the last of the gillyweed she had nicked during her last burglary spree in Diagon Alley. It turned out all the squib brothers had hidden down there were a few dozen of butterbeer, the goody-goodies.

She had asked the Statue of João I in the Praça do Comércio whether it had heard about a genie hereabouts, reasoning that since the good king was known as "John of Happy Memory," then he should certainly remember something as happy as a drunk genie. But the king, who in life had only spoken English to his wife Philippa of Lancaster, spent their entire interview waggling his eyebrows and blowing kisses at Sadie. Any information he might have given her had, understandably, flown right out of her mind.

The ghosts in the Torre de Belém were no help; they were insane. In desperation, she had even asked a sea turtle at the Oceanário - reasoning that it must have been around long enough to hear something - but either Potter & Granger's English-Parseltongue Lexicon didn't cover testudian dialects, or Sadie needed a lot more practice. The most intelligible remark the turtle had made was: "When is turtle soup not a mockery?"

Since then, she had spent most hours of the last week, day and night, sampling the wares of wine merchants and insinuating herself into the cellars of bars, restaurants, and ordinary homes. It was a wonder that she could still walk.

So here she was, lost in the Bairro Alto, and unsure where to search next. She paused to catch her breath in a small square where a fountain stood at the parting of five steep, winding ways. She was debating whether to try a Point Me spell when she spotted half a dozen blind men making their way toward her, down one of the adjacent streets. They walked in pairs, shoulder to shoulder, nearly filling the narrow alley. Their eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, but Sadie could tell they were blind because of the sightless way they all stared ahead and slightly upward, as if craning their heads to catch the echo of their walking-sticks tapping on the cobbles before them.

Sadie leaned against the fountain. She decided that watching the blind men pass would make for a welcome distraction from her frustrating and fruitless search. As she leaned against the fountain with a headachy sigh, the blind men suddenly raised their walking sticks and rushed at her.

"Hi, wait a... what are you...?" As their sticks pummeled her, Sadie found it difficult to finish her thought. "I beg your... Will you just...?"

The men pulled black velvet sacks out of their pockets. One of them poked her in the eye before managing to tug his sack over her head. Sadie fought and struggled, but with all six men hanging on her she couldn't get a hand free to pull the hood off her head. In pitch darkness, she could do nothing to fight off the men who were now pulling cloth bags over her bunched fists.

Sadie tried to scream for help, but the bag muffled her voice completely. Completely! She yelled louder, but all she could hear was the tap of the blind men's sticks on the ground. Her world was pitch dark. She stumbled, tried to catch herself, was hauled upright by the strong arms of the blind men who were already marching her - where? She could not tell what direction they were going. Uphill... that could be any of two or three streets... Then a gentle curve to the right... Left... Uphill some more... Steps downward, more stumbling...

Sadie tried to grab the arm or shoulder or neck nearest to her, but somehow the bags on her hand prevented her from being able to feel where anyone was. Her only contact with reality outside her personal envelope of darkness was the strain in her leg muscles, the echoing sound of blind men's canes tapping on cobbled streets, and their grip on her arms below the shoulders.

Suddenly the trip eneded. Sadie felt herself being shoved backward, off-balance. She fought it, afraid to take a bruising fall, but suddenly found herself perched on a firm but comfortable chair. Some type of blanket was thrown over her legs. Then the grip on her arms loosened. She was released.

Sadie instantly tried to stand up, but her hands could not seem to find the arms of her chair. Her legs had no power to push her up. She pawed around in the darkness, trying to free her face from its mask, but she couldn't find that either.

"For all love, before she panics," snapped a harsh, gravelly, yet unmistakably feminine voice.

The hood was pulled off her head. She found herself in a small sitting room, its sunlight dimmed by the wild profusion of vines and flowers that filled the windows. An oil lamp flickered dimly on a wall sconce behind the figure sitting opposite her, leaving the details of the lady's features in shadow. Their chairs were situated at opposite ends of a long oval table set with a sugar bowl, a cream jug, and two demitasses of strong coffee. Sadie realized only now, as the scent of flowers, greens, coffee, burning oil, and upholstery flooded her nostrils, that the hood had also cut off her sense of smell. What sort of magic were these black cloth sacks?

To the right of the table was a low settee. To the left was a bar stocked with bottles that Sadie, with her increasingly aching head, wanted to know nothing about. She caught a few glimpses of striped wallpaper and a doorway leading to four steps upward and unknown realms beyond. The room was warm and humid. Sadie wondered how anyone could stand to drink coffee in it.

"Your espresso will get cold," said the shadowy woman.

"That's just how I like it," Sadie said.

"You look like you could use it, though. Trust me, I've felt the same way after many a night in the Bairro Alto. This is the best medicine for it."

"I'm more of a believer in hair-of-the-dog," Sadie said.

"Though I wouldn't recommend it," said the lady, "that too can be arranged."

"No thanks. Er - how will I drink this if I can't use my hands?"

"It's all a question of will, my dear." As Sadie watched, the demitasse at the far end of the table lifted itself into the air and glided gracefully to the lady's lips. It then tipped its contents into her mouth, a little at a time.

"Most refreshing," said the lady as her empty cup returned itself to the table. "Sugar? One or two?"

"Six, please," said Sadie.

Operating of itself, a dainty spoon shoveled six heaps of sugar into Sadie's cup, then stirred.

"Cream?"

"No, thanks. It's terribly hard on my complexion." Sadie shook her head so that the veil that always covered the lower half of her face waved back and forth.

"Drink up, then," the lady urged.

Sadie considered it. As she did so, the demitasse hovered toward her. Even as well-versed in magic as she was, Sadie was a bit shaken by this. What if it spilled? She hated being scalded...

"Don't worry," said the lady. "The spell guards against spillage."

A moment later Sadie was regretting the amount of sugar she had requested, as the thick, gluey liquid oozed down her throat. She finished the drink with a grimace of disgust.

"Good?" asked the lady.

"Never had better," said Sadie, trying not to gag.

"Would you like another?"

"No, thanks. I'm trying to cut down."

"To business, then," the lady said, her charming manner suddenly becoming brisk. "My eyes on the city tell me that you have been sampling a great many wine cellars in the last week."

"Have I?" asked Sadie. "I didn't realize. I suppose I've been too soused to tell."

"I always find it suspicious when a witch or wizard takes such an interest in the fruit of the vine," said the lady. "Most of our kind prefer potions that spark and fizzle and smoke, after all. And of course there's the Fado bar where all the magical down-and-outs end up."

"I've been there," said Sadie.

"They do let all kinds in," the lady sniffed.

"Do you always get suspicious when an overseas witch goes on a bender?"

"Only when they ask certain people certain questions," said the lady. "And you, my dear, have been asking everywhere."

"Everywhere but here," said Sadie. "But while we're on the subject..."

"Don't," the lady warned. "Please don't ask me. I can't lie to you. And I would rather not have to tell the truth."

"If you wanted to avoid being asked," said Sadie, "you should never have brought me here."

"I have an alternate offer for you to consider," said the lady.

Sadie shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't consider it. I'm only interested in..."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't," Sadie said desperately. "There's a geis on me, a magical obligation that I have to fulfill. It compels me to seek..."

"Stop a moment. I have already guessed what you're after. If you name it, I will be compelled to reveal where it is. But we both know that the person who laid this geis on you must never possess what he has sent you to obtain."

"This is true," Sadie admitted.

"But what I can give you will put a stop to his plans. He will become harmless. And you, by extension, will be freed from your geis."

Sadie sighed. "I wish it were that easy. But you see, I'm a gifted burglar. Magrically gifted, if you'll take my point. What I can't get openly, I will take by other means. Now that I know that you know what I know, and that you probably have what I need, it's only a matter of time before I take it from you."

"But that's where you're mistaken, dear," said the lady. "Bundled up as you are, you won't be breaking and entering anywhere, or pilfering anything from anyone. I have a gift for you to deliver to our mutual friend."

"I would rather bring him..."

"Please! Don't make me use the hood again. I want to be able to answer your legitimate questions, but once the hood goes on our conversation will become very one-sided. Now, our friend has a problem, a problem that - forgive me if I don't say how I came by this information - started with a bottle of wine."

Sadie nodded. "Several casks, actually."

"Long-maturing wine with special, magical properties."

"It makes a body live backward in time," Sadie clarified.

"Yes." The lady wrung a handkerchief between her gloved hands. "And so many unforeseeable problems started there."

"I'll say," said Sadie.

"Unforeseeable," the lady said, "but not incurable."

Sadie's jaw dropped.

"Yes, I've..."

"You've found a cure?"

"...found a cure. Quite."

"What is it? Some daft type of lemon that turns rum punch into..."

"No, nothing like that." The lady reached up and tugged an invisible cord. An invisible bell jingled somewhere above their heads.

Moments later, one of the blind men came in, tapping his cane with one hand, and carrying a small package in the other. He set it down on the table and left the room without a word.

Sadie leaned forward as far as her dead-weight legs allowed. The package looked similar to a hatbox covered in striped, satiny paper and tied up with a velvet ribbon. There were holes poked in it. A moment without the sound of the servant's tapping cane confirmed what Sadie thought she had heard as the package entered the room. It mewed.

"Is there a kitten in there?"

The lady shrugged. "Maybe."

"Maybe? I'm sure I just heard it mew!"

"How sure are you?"

Sadie listened, shook her head, then listened some more. "Fifty percent certain, I guess."

"That should be about right," said the lady.

Sadie felt her headache coming back. "Enough kidding around! Is there a cat in that box or not?"

"I don't know," said the lady.

"But it's your, er, gift... or cure, thingy..."

"All I can tell you about it," said the lady, "is that it's a Waveform Collapser. Have you ever heard of Humdinger's Kneazle?"

Sadie wracked her brains. After a minute she said, "No, can't say I have."

"Oswald Humdinger was a paraphysicist--"

"Coo! Like Algy Swerve?"

The lady tilted her head thoughtfully, then said, "I'm sure I wouldn't know. All I can say is that Professor Humdinger invented this little device to repair damage caused by time travel. This was before the International Convention on Chronomancy officially banned meddling with things like time-turners and such, though I'm told your country's Ministry was a bit slow to dispose of its stockpile. Essentially, the Waveform Collapser is a sort of bomb that explodes temporal paradoxes and causality loops, and otherwise heals injuries to the tissue of space-time. In theory, all you have to do is give this pretty little box to our friend. When he opens it..."

"Kaboom," Sadie said soberly.

In the awkward silence that followed, Sadie wondered if another cup of espresso would help her swallow the dry lump in her throat.

"I suppose so," said the lady. "You might want to stand back a bit."

"A bit," Sadie repeated numbly.

"Say, a couple of miles."

Suddenly Sadie's body blazed with a flush of hot anger. "I'm sure he'll be overjoyed to open it," she snarled, "after I hand it to him and dive out the window in one smooth movement."

"I can't think of anyone more qualified to make this work," said the lady. "Use your skills."

Sadie tried to beat her thighs with both fists, but her cloth-sack-covered hands missed their target. "What makes you say that? How do you know so much about him, and me, and the rest of it, when I don't know anything about you?"

The lady looked away, showing Sadie the silhouette of a striking profile. After a pensive pause she said, "Tell him the gift is from Ironica. He will understand."

Before Sadie could bark out an angry retort, darkness descended over her - the scentless, voiceless darkness of the black hood. She helplessly mouthed a curse while the firm hands of the lady's blind servants hoisted her to her feet and propelled her up a short flight of stairs...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #174 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which of the following languages must Rigel attempt to learn in his next chapter? A) Troll. B) Gobbledegook. C) Mermish. D) _________ (fill-in candidate).

CHALLENGE: Draft a short (!!!) dream sequence to go between the sentence "Rigel opened his eyes with a start" and another repeat of "Rigel opened his eyes with a start."

171. The Litter Box

2010-02-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: Evensong
With an assist from Sir Read-a-Lot

Merlin felt he had been walking for hours, but the scenery had not changed. They were some kind of vast tunnel, filled with an unchanging twilight coming from no visible source of illumination. The ceiling arched high above them, supported by damp stone walls standing several dozen meters apart. Their unvarying greyness and pattern of masonry did nothing to relieve Merlin's sensibility that he was going nowhere. Indeed, the only signs that they were making any forward progress at all were the round, grate-covered drains in the floor that they overtook at regular intervals, and the scorch-marks that Miss Pucey left beside each one with a jab of her wand. At least they could take comfort from the fact that they hadn't passed any of these marks again.

They were both getting tired. Miss Pucey's shoes made ever more frequent scraping noises on the flagged path. Merlin's shoulder ached under the weight of the survival satchel his friend Karl had gifted him in--oh, another lifetime. The weight of his companion's hand on his other arm had grown heavier as well. So when Miss Pucey paused to scorch another mark next to a floor drain, Merlin proposed a ten-minute halt. "I quite agree," was all the lady replied. They had long since exhausted all other topics of conversation that they held in common.

Merlin promptly sat down on the floor, groaning as the weight went off his feet. Miss Pucey, meanwhile, began rummaging in her handbag. This gave Merlin the idea of doing an inventory of Karl's satchel, which he hadn't opened since the affair of the hothouse many miles back. He still had one dose of Liquid Skill, whose sight gave him a pang as he thought of his wife, so far away. Then there were the clown nose Don Pagliai had given him, the tin of Turbo Gum lozenges from Signor Subito, the lumpy bundle of cloth that (after a moment's thought) he recognized as Signor Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit, and of course the satchel itself, which had many uses. Apart from these, the only special gadget that Merlin still possessed from the beginning of this mission was the Four Points Wand wrought by his friend Jaan. He wondered if there was any point using it. Was the way out as obvious as following this tunnel to its end? Perhaps there was a hidden door somewhere along the side walls... Or should they use some of Subito's gum to make this leg of their journey pass more quickly?

While he cogitated on how best to use the tools in his satchel to survive their ordeal, Merlin idly watched Miss Pucey see to her own comforts. After a brief search, she pulled out a small, satin-covered box with a snug-fitting lid, like a doll-sized hatbox. She removed the cover, then delicately extracted an even smaller box from inside the first. This she gently placed on the ground. Merlin turned his full attention to what Miss Pucey was doing when this second box began to grow.

Soon he saw that it was more than just a box. It was like a miniature carriage without wheels, supported by four stout legs like the posts of a bed. Or perhaps it was a bed - a canopied bed, only with ornately paneled walls all round, broken only by curtained windows and, on the long side facing Merlin, a door. In this, again, it was like a carriage - a bed-sized carriage - and also in the poles that stuck out at the ends, as if for the purpose of harnessing a horse. But what horse could draw a carriage without wheels? And why were the poles at each end? And surely, if a horse was intended to pull this thing, the poles should be wider spaced apart, and longer...

By now the bed-carriage thing had stopped growing. Miss Pucey pulled the door open and stepped within, not bothering to close the door behind her. She sank, sighing, into a pile of tasseled and brocaded cushions to one side of the door. Merlin stood up, staring at the luxury that, all this time, had lain concealed in Miss Pucey's handbag.

"There's room for another," Miss Pucey said, her eyes still blissfully closed. "Though I would ask that you take off your shoes before..."

Merlin flopped heedlessly onto the couch opposite her, boots and all. "This is why I love witches," he said, grinning. "I would never have thought to bring something like this along on a dangerous quest..."

"If you recall," said Miss Pucey, "I hadn't planned on a dangerous quest when I left home last evening - or last week - whenever it was. I was prepared only for a night on the town with my young wizard. I might have packed differently, had I known you were about to drag us both into this. But I must admit, being unprepared has its compensations..." From behind one of her cushions, she produced a cut-glass decanter of something golden and sparkly, and two matching long-stemmed glasses. "I had meant to use this for Rigel's tucking-in. Reading the story of the Wizard and the Hopping Pot just doesn't do the trick any more."

"They grow up so fast," Merlin drawled.

"Too right," said Miss Pucey. "Do you hear something?"

"Maybe," said Merlin, unconcerned. "A kind of purring sound? That might be me. Or perhaps you keep a cat in here?"

"Well," she admitted reluctantly, "if you consider that we're sitting in a litter, I suppose that makes the box it came in..."

"Do you have opera glasses in that handbag of yours?" In seconds Merlin had swung from idleness to anxiety. He tried to shade his eyes from some of the mysterious, ambient light as he squinted through the window in the litter's door. Miss Pucey handed him a pair of dainty, gold-leaf-trimmed opera glasses - actually an item in the Omnioculars catalogue, enchanted to provide captions (translated, if necessary) to help opera-goers understand the libretto while watching the stage action in close-up detail. Merlin flinched the moment he raised this device to his eyes. Then he looked again, and almost dropped it.

"What is it?"

"It's Rigel," said Merlin, lowering the glasses. "He's on his way here."

"He can't possibly be making all that noise," Miss Pucey protested.

"He isn't," said Merlin. "That's the sound of the eighteen-foot tidal wave he's riding."

"Riding? A tidal wave? How?"

"It looks like he's using a door as... That isn't what's important. What's important is that a wall of water is headed straight for us. At the rate it's moving, it will be here in"--he consulted the glasses again, twiddling a dial to change the captions indicating that Rigel's voice, though drowned out by the roar of rushing water, was screaming Coo-ee, into a read-out of the wave's ETA--"forty-three seconds. Any suggestions?"

Miss Pucey stared at him blankly. The growing roar of the water made it necessary for her to raise her voice when she replied: "Not one. You?"

Merlin looked out the window again. He spotted his satchel, left behind on the floor where he had sprawled earlier. "Er... I beg your pardon, Madam, but do you chew gum?"

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #173 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which character last seen in Chapter 166 will lead the first attempt to find and capture a djinn for Harvey?

CONTEST: Describe a dance that might be performed by wizards and witches, vampires, goblins, centaurs -- any magical being of your choice. Details may include, but are not limited to, rhythmic patterns, instruments used, dance steps, group formations, and the time and place of the dance.

170. The Boudoir of Doom

2010-01-31T12:28:00.000-08:00

Contest Winner: Sir Read-a-Lot

Rigel stumbled along a dark passage for what seemed like ages. Soon his arms, legs, and head were aching with sprains and bruises from unexpected overhangs, sudden turnings, and a tumble down a flight of broad, shallow steps. His language became nearly incendiary enough to light the passage for him -- but not quite.

Presently he saw light ahead. After rounding a corner, he saw a room illuminated by a ring of high, narrow windows. The walls were papered in a pattern of bright stripes and flowers. A canopy bed, a dressing-table with a wide bench before it, a washstand, a wardrobe, and a large chest filled most of the space in the room, every item of the finest quality. The room carried the scent of the witch whose appearance had lately bewitched Rigel. He noticed an old school trunk poking out from under the bed. As he walked past, he kicked it so that it turned, revealing the name painted above the lock: "Sheherazade Jenkins."

Nice name, he thought, grinning at the memory of the way she had looked at him.

On the far wall were two doors, locked and bolted from Rigel's side, with a painting on the wall between them.

As Rigel drew closer, he saw that the painting was of two children with identical, freckly faces and long yellow hair. Their bony arms and torsos, arranged at uncomfortable-looking angles, grew together out of the same pair of hips. Their frilly dress robes gave them the look of an earlier century, yet without giving away whether they were boys or girls. Their painted eyes impassively watched Rigel as he approached.

"Who are you, then?" Rigel demanded after giving the painted twins a moment to look him over.

One of the twins gave Rigel a loud raspberry, spraying his face with flakes of paint. The other rolled its eyes and pointed downward. Rigel looked below the painting, only now spotting an engraved plate fastened to the bottom of its broad, dusty frame. Of course, it was written in Italian.

Rigel poked around in his pocket, for one moment reaching in up to his elbow, then brought out a lorgnette - like a pair of spectacles on a stick, designed to be held in front of the eyes rather than worn. This elaborate piece of jewelry had come encrusted with precious stones and flakes of gold when it had first come out of Rigel's godfather clock, along with a card hoping that he would enjoy his new "opera glasses." He had sold off all the decorative elements, one by one, for purposes various and nefarious. All that remained were two thick, blurry lenses mounted on a frame of tarnished brass. Rigel breathed on the lenses, polished them on the sleeve of his robe, then held them up before his eyes. The Italian words engraved on the silver plate blurred in the opera glasses, then became clear again... in English.

"Hmmm," said Rigel. Then he read aloud: "'Behold the Geminiani twins: Remo the good and Omer the evil. At the hour of their birth, an evil witch cursed them to live together in one body all their lives. Madness took them. One can only speak truth, the other always lies. Ask them what you will, they can only answer Yes or No. But beware what you ask them. For one of these two doors leads to deadly peril, the other to freedom and safety. And only the twins know which is which...'"

"I know this one," Rigel said to himself. "Let's see..." He addressed himself to the twin on the left. "You there. Can you understand me?"

"Yes," said the twin.

"How about you?" he asked the one to the right. When it waited for more, he added: "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"No," said the other twin, with just as little expression as the other.

"You're the evil one, then?"

"Yes," said the twin on the right. Its eyes widened as it nodded, as if pleading with Rigel to understand.

He scratched his head. "You weren't supposed to say that," he said. "Assuming that you lied when you said you can't understand me, you must be the evil twin. Right?"

"Yes," the right-hand twin said urgently.

Rigel closed his eyes and massaged his temples. "Right," he said. "But then, if you always lie, then you shouldn't have said Yes just now. You were lying to me, weren't you?"

"No," said the right-hand twin.

"So you're really evil, are you?"

"Yes."

"And you understand what I'm saying?"

"No."

Rigel puffed out his cheeks, then let forced the air out with a pop. "All right, let's go back to you." He turned to the twin on the left. "Still understand me, do you?"

"Yes," said the twin, nodding emphatically.

"You're telling the truth, then?"

"Yes."

Rigel rubbed his hands together. "Now we're getting somewhere. So you're the good twin, right, and..."

"No."

"Hang on, I wasn't -- what? Are you telling me that you're the evil twin?"

"Yes."

"But if you were the one that always tells lies, you would have said no -- right?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. And if you were the good twin, and I asked you if you always tell the truth, you would have said Yes, right?"

"No."

Rigel covered his face with both hands. "Aargh! Aargh! Aaaaaaargh!" He turned in a circle, running in place. He shook himself like a wet dog. Then he opened his eyes and gave the twin on the left a hard, cold stare. "All right," he said. "Let's start over. Yes or No: Are you the evil twin?"

"Yes."

"No!" Rigel screamed, tearing at his hair. "There's no way you could possibly say that! Because if you're the evil twin, you have to lie. And if you're the good twin, you have to tell the truth. So no matter which one you are, when I ask if you're evil, you're supposed to say no. Right?"

"No," said the twin on the left.

Rigel gnashed his teeth. "What about you? How would you answer that same question?"

"No," said the other twin.

"AARGH! We're getting nowhere! Forget it -- let's talk about the doors. You on the right: does one of these doors lead to certain death?"

"No."

"Aha! That's a lie! It says so right here on the plaque that one of the doors leads to deadly peril. The plaque does tell the truth, doesn't it?"

"No."

"And so you're the liar, right?"

"No."

"Now we're getting somewhere. But didn't you deny being the liar a minute ago?"

"Yes."

Rigel scowled. "Now look here. You're supposed to stick with one or the other, lying or telling the truth. This isn't going to work if I can't trust you absolutely. Or distrust you, as the case may be. So let's lay it on the line. Are you, or aren't you, Omer the evil?"

"Yes."

"But if you were Omer the evil, wouldn't you have to lie about that?"

"Yes."

Rigel clenched his fists and just restrained himself from punching the painting. "No, no, no, no, no! Can't you see -- No, hang on, don't answer that."

He did some deep breathing for a minute or two. Then he approached it afresh. To the twin on the right he asked, "Do you always tell lies?"

"No."

"Were you lying just now?"

"No."

"Would it be safe for me to go through the door on the right?"

"Yes."

"Would your brother want me to go through the door on the right?"

"No."

"But he would be lying to me, right?"

"Yes."

"Because he's the evil brother?"

"No."

Rigel roared with frustration. "Just when I thought I was getting somewhere with you!" He turned toward the twin on the left. "If I asked your brother which door I should go through, would he tell me to go through the door on the right?"

"Yes."

Rigel pondered this answer for a moment, then shook his head. "That doesn't help. He did say Yes, but I don't know any more now than I did then. Oh! I've got it!" To the twin on the left he asked: "If your brother could tell the truth, would he tell me to go through the door on the right?"

"No."

"Do you think I should go through the door on the right?"

"Yes."

"Is that because it's the safest door?"

"No."

"Drat, fiddlesticks, and riddle-me-purple! You want me to go through the door on the right because it isn't safe?"

"Yes."

"Does your brother think I should go through the door on the right?"

"No."

"Does he want me to come to harm?"

"No."

"But he told me to go through it!" Rigel held his hands out toward both twins pleadingly. "You've got to give me some help here! Am I supposed to believe that the evil twin is the one who always tells the truth?"

"Yes," said the freckly face on the left.

"No," said his twin on the right.

"This one's for both of you. Are you lying to me?"

"No," they said in unison.

"But one of you is lying to me, right?"

"Yes," said the twin on the left; "No," said the one on the right.

"Are you the liar?"

"No," said the twin on the left; "No," said the one on the right.

"Do you want me to come to harm?"

"Yes," said the twin on the left; "Yes," said the one on the right.

"Does your brother want me to come to harm?"

The answers, from left to right, were "No" and "No."

"Do you want me to go through the door your brother says I should go through?"

They both answered "Yes."

Rigel shivered. "This doesn't make sense. You both want me to go through the same door?"

This time the answers, from left to right, were "No" and "Yes."

"So if you don't want me to go through the same door, but you would both tell me to go through the same door, then one of you wants me to go through it because it's dangerous, and the other can't help it because he's got to lie. And so the good brother always has to lie, and the bad brother always has to tell the truth. Isn't that so?"

Both brothers answered glumly, "Yes" on the left and "No" on the right.

"Blimey," Rigel said, shivering again. "That's one hell of a curse. I don't know how you could live with each other. You didn't... you know.... kill each other, did you?"

Oddly, both brothers said No. But there was something in the look the brother on the left gave the one on the right that made Rigel's flesh crawl.

"All right," said Rigel. "Freedom and safety through the door on the left. Right?"

"Yes," said the brother on the left, rather bitterly, Rigel thought. "No," said his brother, though his heart didn't seem to be in it anymore.

"Right-o," said Rigel. "I believe I've got it know. I'll just be going on with my adventure, then, and you chaps can have a nice day."

And forgetting that the faces in the painting defined "left" and "right" differently than Rigel did, he unbolted the door on his left and marched confidently through it. It closed by itself (naturally) -- even the bolt (magically) moved back into its place. A moment later, the door only partially muffled Rigel's voice as he screamed, "Oh, bollocks! AAAaaaaargh..." His bloodcurdling scream faded rapidly into the distance.

The boy on the left side of the painting smirked. His twin sighed, rolled his eyes, pulled out a deck of cards, and began to deal a game of patience.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #172 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which "Magic Quill" character or group of characters are you most impatient to hear from again?

CONTEST: What city on modern-day Earth should make a brief appearance in Chapter 172? Indicate a few points of interest that should be included.

169. Bernie Landstein

2009-12-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: Dragonic
Runner-up: TWZRD

The rehearsal of the Blastburn Philharmonic was not going well even before the guest conductor called a 30-minute break and stormed offstage, muttering and clutching his head. The musicians dispersed, some to take a nap in the green room, some to have a smoke outside the stage door, a few to throw back a quick drink at the pub around the corner. Two or three viola players (it was never easy to tell for sure) stayed onstage, trying to get their instruments in tune. The stage manager loitered near the snack machine, unable to decide between a vacuum-packed sandwich and a bag of crisps. The horn players played a quick hand of rummy. The backup conductor, whose primary income came from a secondary school teaching job, put his feet up in the sound booth and began correcting a stack of algebra papers.

So no one observed the purple light that flashed from under the door of the guest conductor's dressing room. No one heard the muffled "whuff" sound caused by a stunning spell; nor, if they had, would they have been able to identify it as such. No one even noticed the thud of Bernie Landstein's body collapsing on the floor. Even the fact that the maestro kept the orchestra waiting ten minutes past the end of the break did not raise much concern. The violas were still trying to get tuned. The piccolo player was having a case of hiccoughs. One of the horn players, who had a habit of cheating at cards, was still applying direct pressure to a nosebleed when Landstein reascended the podium.

The musicians' chatter and practice riffs gradually died. This, in itself, would prove to be the first sign that something unusual had happened to their conductor - when the players had leisure to think back on it. Bernie Landstein was usually such a commanding presence. For a few moments, however, he seemed reluctant to assert control of the situation. He seemed, in fact, to fade gradually into visibility - though he had walked quite openly out of the wings.

Just before silence fell, one of the oboists muttered: "My, Bernard, but what a big baton you have!"

"All the better," Landstein purred, "to beat... er, time with."

"Black and blue," a horn player mouthed behind the bell of his horn.

"Let's pick it up," the conductor said, scanning the score with what momentarily looked like a glance of desperation, "at Rehearsal Number 61. A-one, a-two, a-one two three..."

The musicians gamely plunged into an extremely brisk march, which caught them off guard because the passage in question was usually played as a graceful lament.

"Keep it together, trombones," the conductor said, much to the confusion of the clarinettists he was looking at. "Look alive, there, timpani," he added in the direction of the xylophone player. "No, no, no! That's an A-flat!" The cellists looked at each other, wondering what clef the conductor was reading. "All right, stop! Yes, Mister... er..."

"Frogbourne," the concertmaster piped up. "Just a question, sir. Do you want us to hold the crotchet in bar 211 for its full value?"

"Absolutely not," Mr. Landstein exclaimed, looking deeply affronted. "Any other questions?"

Another musician put her hand up and said, "Would you like the bassoons to double the basses in bars 198 to 206?"

"What does the score say, Miss..."

"Boing," said the bassoonist.

The maestro rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Boing? Where does it say Boing?"

"The name is Boing," said Miss Boing. "The score says como sardini, avido, senza ginocchia..."

"And that means...?"

"Er... like sardines, greedily, without knees?"

"Exactly!" the maestro cried triumphantly. "Therefore, the answer to your question is...?"

Miss Boing hung her head. "No, I guess."

"At last, we are communicating. Mr. Cheesedanish?"

"Hasenpfeffer, Herr Direktor."

"Yes, yes, what is it?"

"Your score is on fire, sir."

"Oh, dear! How did that..."

"A spark from your baton, sir..."

"But that's..." Bernie Landstein looked at the stick in his hand and suddenly giggled: a sound no one had ever heard him make before. "Well, how silly of me. Agua."

The baton squirted water at the singed sheet music, dousing the flames with a hiss of steam.

"Whoops-a-daisy," said Mr. Landstein. "I seem to have picked up somebody's joke w-... that is, baton. Carry on, then, from Molto moderato assai ma non troppo, with feeling now!"

The next portion of the rehearsal was, if at all possible, even more chaotic. While Bernie Landstein, eyes closed with rapture, waved his baton in a broad, swinging 6/8 time, the orchestra struggled to reconcile his gesture with a rigorous passage in 2/2. "That's the ticket," he said, oblivious to the fact that one of the bassists - a dumpy, pock-marked creature with curlers in her hair - was struggling to drag her instrument through the middle of the orchestra and colliding with two out of three musicians in her way.

"I say, there, Madrigal dear," Bernie Landstein said, opening his eyes and looking straight at her.

The ugly bassist froze in her tracks. The music, like the baton, went on.

"Your solo isn't until the next movement," said the jovial, dissolute face under its swirl of prematurely gray hair. His eyes, however, locked on hers with a steely force that, for once, reminded the band of the conductor they knew and hated.

"I'm just going to fetch some rosin," the bassist said in a demure yet gravelly voice.

"I'm sure the... er, cello section here would be delighted to lend you some," said the maestro, sweeping his baton in the direction of - rather surprisingly - the cello section. The tip of the baton emitted a puff of smoke, at which the principal cellist faltered.

"What did he call her?" one flautist asked another, audibly, during a rest in their part.

"Madrigal," said the second flautist.

"That's funny," said the oboist, regardless of a solo he was supposed to be playing. "I thought her name was Erwinia Mizenboom."

"She and the maestro must have a special relationship," hissed the harpist, from two rows away.

"Enough chatter," Bernie chided. "Madrigal, love, do resume your seat."

The ugly bassist dithered, looking longingly toward the exit.

"Don't make me point my baton at you," the maestro added meaningfully. Grape pips began to fall out of the wand as he said this, forming a heap around the podium. He didn't bother stopping this unusual manifestation until one of the pips ricocheted over the viola section and struck Miss Boing above the eye. "I beg your pardon," he said in an unapologetic tone. "Keep up, people! Where are the cymbals? I wanted a cymbal crash there!"

"But maestro," someone hissed, "this passage is marked pianissimo!"

"Don't correct me!" Bernie Landstein exploded, his arms waving more furiously than ever.

"It really is him," the concertmaster whispered to his assistant principal. "I was starting to wonder if we had an impostor."

"Terrible! terrible!" the maestro screamed, waving the whole band to a stop. "That's enough existential horror for one day. Come back tomorrow, if you can remember how to play by then!"

"But maestro," the bassoonist bravely urged, "our concert is tonight!"

"Get out of my sight!" Landstein screamed. "You - Madrigal, there - stay put. We shall have a private rehearsal, just the two of us."

The bass player gulped, her eyes darting toward all the exits.

Some time later, the bass player walked very stiffly out the stage door, her hand on the guest conductor's arm. She appeared to be trying to resist his lead, but she could not let go of him. He heaved her toward his car - a black AC Frua with mirror-tinted windows.

"My instrument will never fit," the gravelly voice said in a tone of desperation.

"Nonsense," said the maestro. "It'll go in the boot." He waved his baton at the car, and the rear door popped up. Some cars have glove compartments larger than the Frua's trunk, but with a bit of coaxing from Bernie Landstein's baton (or rather, wand), the huge bass violin sank right into it.

Madrigal began to tremble as Landstein opened the left-hand door and pushed her down into the car. The door snapped shut behind her. He walked round and got in on the right-hand side, put the key in the starter, fastened his safety-belt... and suddenly threw himself face-forward against the steering column. And again. And a third time. Unconscious, Bernie Landstein sagged against the restraining belt.

The arms that had reached out of the sides of the driver's seat relaxed their grip on the conductor. One of them patted the shoulder of the frightened hag in the left-hand seat. The neck-rest turned toward her and smiled. "It's all right now," the car seat said reassuringly. "I've taken custody of Mr. Shore here. Or rather, Mr. Noir. Are you all right?"

Madrigal made a strangled noise.

"The name's Albuquerque," said the driver's seat, offering to shake her hand. "Joe Albuquerque, RMB. You must be Madrigal. I've been tracking this one, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't hoped to talk with you, too. Don't worry -- " He added this, seaing the hag was about to bolt from the car. "I won't stop you if you want to run. It's just that I know somebody who, in my opinion, is overdue for a nightmare. You wouldn't know anyone who could supply one?"

Madrigal left off trying to batter the door open. "Maybe," she admitted.

"Excellent," said Joe Albuquerque, pulling a card out of a pocket in his upholstery. "Here's the name and address. Scream for me if you need any assistance. I'll be within earshot from half midnight until dawn. Can you read that all right?"

"H. H. Harvey, Esquire," the hag read with painstakingly precise diction. "The Drains, Suite Number..."

"Fine, fine," said the seat. "You may go now. Don't forget your instrument."

+++ Double Challenge for TMQ #171 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (C) Subito's Turbo Gum. (D) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST: Propose an entertaining alternate definition of a word or phrase, preferably with a touch of magic in the meaning.

168. The Revolting Ones

2009-11-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

Contest co-winners: Linda Carrig, Joe, and _houdini
Runner-up: greyniffler

Rigel had survived being chased by merhags, wereyaks, and enemies on the rooftops. After running through zigzagging alleys and across several bridges without hearing pursuit behind him, he began to think he could survive anything. Then he saw light ahead - an open square! No one would think of attacking him there...

He put on a surge of speed, in spite of his weariness. The lure of open space called to him. It was almost close enough to touch, if he stretched out his arm...

...and then the ground disappeared beneath his feet.

He landed in a shoulder-roll, his fall cushioned by what seemed to be sacks of dried beans piled in an underground storeroom. Looking up from where he came to rest, he saw the hole he had fallen through as a rectangle of starlight in an otherwise pitch-black sky. Was this some sort of Venetian sewer with the manhole cover left off? It didn't smell like one. In fact, it didn't even smell damp - which, for an underground passage in Venice, could only mean one thing. Magic.

Rigel sat up and tried to look around. No good; there wasn't enough light to see anything. He pulled out his wand and began to say, "Lumos!" But he had scarcely opened his mouth when the wand was wrenched out of his hand.

"I say," he protested to the darkness. "Give it back while I'm asking nicely."

"Why should we give it back?" barked a cold voice from so close to his left ear that Rigel flinched away from it. He collided with a pair of robed legs standing to his right.

"Be still," growled the owner of the legs.

"You'll give it back because it's mine," said Rigel, bracing himself against the sacks of beans.

"Yours?" replied the first voice - which, Rigel soon learned, always seemed to be barking, snarling, or snapping. "By what right?"

"By right of the fact that I spent good money on it," Rigel snapped back. "Give it here."

"Possession," the second speaker observed. His inflections ranged from a growl to a hiss, with hints that at any moment he might begin to roar. "Property. Ownership. We find these concepts to be meaningless."

"Today is the dawn of a new order," Barker added, moving behind Rigel in a manner that made him nervous. "We are shaking off the shackles that muggles have placed on our minds. Wizards will rise, and..."

"...bump their heads against the rafters," Rigel put in, "because they haven't got the sense to raise a wandlight in the darkness."

"All right, comrade," said Growler. "Let's look at you, then. Lumos!"

A wand-tip blazed with light, inches from Rigel's nose. He winced. He could see nothing except dazzling, searing brightness.

"Not bad," growled Growler. "Looks young, rough, rebellious. Ready to fight, ready to die, ready to kill for our cause."

"I disagree," barked Barker. "He looks like the idle rich to me. Too fattened by privilege to care for change, yet ungrateful to his betters -- probably no threat to our cause, but we should kill him just to be on the safe side."

"I know who you lot are," said Rigel. "You're the Black Elbow!"

"See?" huffed Barker. "He can identify us. Kill him now."

Rigel grinned. "This is the greatest moment of my life!"

The lighted wand shook in his face for an uncertain moment. Its holder seemed nonplussed by Rigel's reaction to his death sentence.

"The greatest moment?" Growler rumbled. "Which it is the latest moment. Don't make this any harder that it needs to be!"

"But, I mean, this is so amazing!" Rigel beamed with ecstatic fervor. "I've been searching for you blokes since I was knee-high to a garden gnome. I want to join your - er..."

"Revolting organization?" suggested Growler.

Rigel almost laughed with joy. "Exactly! And I can be of service in so many ways. I have connections. Rich wizards. Dark wizards. Undead wizards. Witches whose words can reach millions. Dark creatures who could wreak terror..."

"Stop a minute," Barker said harshly. He must have pulled down Growler's wand arm, for as the light moved away from Rigel's face, he could see more of their forms - especially the black ribbons tied around their wand arns, just above the elbow. Their faces were indistinct, but Rigel had an impression of sharp angles and beady eyes. Barker resumed: "This might be interesting... if you can be trusted, that is."

"Maybe we should bring him before Madam Defaaaargh," Growler rasped.

"Who? That witch who is always doing needlepoint? I don't see what she can do. By now she could have finished a sampler the size of Siena, but she never seems to get past the second row of stitches..."

"No, you fool! That's Signora Imbroglio, the club-footed contessa. I'm talking about the Madam Defaaaargh, the lady who does... you know, things... with knitting needles..."

"Ah! Yes! She will know how to poke the truth out of this one!"

"But surely," said Rigel, with an openness to his face that would have astonished anyone who knew him, "you yourselves can think of a way to test my sincerity! Would any fat, privileged, rich wizard know the names of the months on the calendar that all people will observe when the revolution succeeds?"

"Er," said Growler, who wasn't sure he knew the names of the months himself.

"Go on," Barker belled.

"Bezoar," began Rigel, quivering with enthusiasm as he rattled off the list, "Boomslang, Snargaluff, Juxtipiary, Gigantril, Cornicus, Satyricus, Phoenicus, Grifonis, Centauris, Chalcember, Argentober, and Chrysember. That's all thirteen, right?"

"That's right," said Barker.

"Hang on," said Growler. "Wasn't there something in there about a Dandelion?"

"No," said Barker and Rigel in unison.

"I'm sure there was."

"I'm sure there wasn't," Barker insisted.

"But surely you remember Wizard Fianchetto's speech about the glorious Fifth of Dandelionuary?"

"Surely you remember that Wizard Fianchetto was turned into a toad for crimes against the revolution," Barker returned.

"A miscarriage of justice!" Growler wheezed. "And even if it were not so, how would that change the calendar of the wizard revolution?"

"It didn't," said Barker. "Wizard Fianchetto's memory has been condemned. He never existed. His speech was never delivered. There is no such month as Dandelionuary. Do you dare contradict me?"

"I dare it!" said Growler.

"See?" Rigel whispered at Barker. "He's the impostor! He's the enemy of our revolution!"

"I'm beginning to see that," Barker confessed.

"Nonsense!" Growler retorted in a voice that Rigel felt through the sack of beans beneath him. "I was among the first to wear the sign of the Black Elbow. I forget nothing, least of all our first ideals! Down with transfiguration, charms, astronomy, and all those bourgeois forms of magic! Children in wizarding schools should be taught practical skills instead, such as how to turn a bowl of thistles and acorns into a five course meal for a family of six, how to fix scrapes and cuts, how to knit a warm winter shawl out of navel lint and eyebrow trimmings..."

"Banned heresies!" shouted Barker, drawing his wand. "Renounce them, or I'll turn you into a toad here and now!"

Growler trembled. "Renounce them?"

"Aye! And beg for reeducation by the Party Obliviators!"

"Shall I forget, then, the teachings of Madam Adriana degli Melanzani? Shall I forget the great goal of our revolt against the Statute of Secrecy - which is to bring the benefits of magic to bear on the needs of all mankind?"

"Aye, and a thousand times aye!" Barker thrust his wand into Growler's face. "Purge that cursed name from your memory! And spare no more pity for the muggles. Wizards are made to rule them. And we of the Black Elbow are made to rule all wizards!"

"That's going too far," Rigel whispered to Growler. "Don't you think so?"

"I ought to turn you into a toad," Growler growled at Barker.

"Try it," Barker barked at Growler. "You'll be lucky if I don't turn you into a caterpillar first."

"You would, you disgusting power-monger," Growler hissed.

"And I'd step on you too," Barker added.

"Do him before he does you," Rigel murmured to Growler.

"What's that you're saying?" Barker demanded.

Rigel leaned toward him and whispered, "I'm doing all I can to hold him back. If I were you, I would move quickly at the first sign..."

Growler shook his wand hand threateningly at Barker. "I've half a mind..."

"Oh, no you don't!" Barker howled, flourishing his wand. "Mangi zanzare!"

As he began this spell, however, Growler pointed his wand and blurted: "Coltivi verruche!"

Rigel caught his lit wand as it dropped out of Growler's fingers. Then he drew his feet up onto the sacks of beans, avoiding the angry hopping and ribbiting on the floor below. "Idealists," he muttered, shaking his head. "They're so easy..."

He looked at the rectangle of starlight above him. "Now," he asked himself aloud, "how do I get back up there?"

"Tsk," said a voice behind him.

Rigel threw himself down and rolled to the side. He came up with his wand pointed directly at...

...the most beautiful witch he had ever seen.

"An opportunity to explore a place like this only comes once in a lifetime," said this vision of perfection. Surrounded by furs and silks, cascading tresses and tasseled cushions, she reclined on a hovering carpet at eye level, just within the glow of his wand-tip. Everything about her seemed to laugh at everything about him - his predicament, his mischievous dealings with Barker and Growler, the expression on his face.

"Who are you?" Rigel breathed.

"When you can asnwer that question yourself," said the lady, "I will speak to you again. For now, why don't you see what lies beyond the door to your left?"

"I have to help my friends," Rigel said, though he glanced in that direction, unable to restrain his curiosity.

When the witch said nothing in reply, he turned toward her again -- but she was gone.

Rigel's heart sank. "Thanks a lot," he muttered. "You could have given me a lift out of here on that carpet of yours."

His reproach fell on no ears whatsoever. Grumbling to himself, he stepped gingerly over the two squabbling amphibians on the flagged floor of what seemed to be a storeroom, sidled through a narrow gap between two shelves full of tins and glass jars, and approached the door. Closer-to, in the light of his wand, he saw that it bore a sign: NO AUTHORIZED PERSONS BEYOND THIS POINT. TRESPASSERS WELCOME!

"Looks like I have no choice anyway," said Rigel. At his touch the door swung open, and he walked through. Before he could turn back, it closed itself.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #170 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which type of gatekeeper should Merlin and Miss Pucey meet in their next adventure? A) A pair of talking paintings, of which one can only tell the truth and the other only lie. B) An animated suit of armor that attacks anyone who approaches on foot (as opposed to walking on their hands, etc.). C) A statue that tells riddles. D) A mirror that shows your worst fear. E) Write-in candidate ______________.

CONTEST: Come up with the name for the witch Rigel encountered in this chapter.

167. Muggle Magic

2009-11-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: Rehannah
Runners-up: Dragonic and TWZRD

ABINGDON WIZARD UNLOCKS SECRET POWERS OF MUGGLES!

Bo Dwyer reports for Fascinating Fizzog!--the journal for enquiring mages, holding the Mirror of Pissog up to the magical world since 1777...

While the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries grapple with the first principles of what makes Muggle gadgetry work, one wizard, toiling in a damp, draughty clocktower in the ancient Thames town of Abingdon, claims to have cracked the case.

"It's a simple matter, really," says G. Fiddlewood Snordahl, of No. 8, Old Abbey Close, Abingdon, Berks. "One simply has to study a few thousand of the Muggles' arcane texts, discreetly observe their behavior eleven hours a day for 30 years or so, and devote every other waking moment to tinkering with their expired gadgets until it all comes together."

Snordahl, the son of Europe's leading bearded operatic soprano, the late Lynnie Jend of l'Opera du Freak fame, and her mentalist husband, Professor Hypnocrates Snordahl, was left a lame orphan on the doorstep of the Sisters of Intermittent Hostility at the age of six. He is still haunted by the memory of his parents' death, buried in an avalanche triggered by Madam Jend's high F in the aria O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn--a tragically pure note that also rang the death-knell of the Finsteraarhorn Outdoor Music Festival.

Traumatized by the act of singing, young Fiddlewood hid himself in the noisy clocktower whenever the Sisters began to chant their devotions. He became increasingly reclusive, developing his mesmeric powers (inherited from his father) to charm mice, pigeons, and cats into bringing him stolen bits of food and small objects left lying about the neighborhood. By the time his Hogwarts letter came, young Fiddlewood had begun his lifelong study of Muggle gewgaws.

"How did you get along at Hogwarts?" I asked him, as he showed me around his workshop one cold November day.

"Ack!" Snordahl croaked, stuffing his thumbs into his ears. "Ask it again, but with less singsong in your voice."

"How-did-you-do-at-Hogwarts?" I asked, all on one tone.

"Aargh!" Snordahl pulled his hair. "That's what they sound like when they're chanting Evensong!"

Finding this hard to believe, I nevertheless repeated my question in a harsh rasp that, after I continued using it for the rest of our interview, left me with a sore throat for a week.

"Ah, better!" Snordahl hissed. "Don't you remember me, then? We were in the same year."

"Really?" I grated. "It's been a long time, though. I reckon you can't remember everyone--"

"We were in the same house," Snordahl insisted gutturally.

"And so were plenty of other--"

"We slept in the same dormitory," added Snordahl. "There were only six of us. Don't you remember?"

Abashed, I began to make some noncomittal noises about how one loses touch with one's old--

"You don't remember when old Gungy turned all the furniture on his side of the room into sculpted butter, and we had to sleep two to a bed for the rest of the term? I was your bunkmate."

"Well, I'm quite sure that never--"

"To be sure, I mostly slept under the bed."

The penny dropped. "Oi!" I crowed. "That was you!"

"Easy with the tonality," Snordahl winced.

This is the part of the essay where I tell you what Snordahl was wearing. However, I seem to have burned that part of my notes by accident. Mentally as well as physically. Visit him sometime, and you will most likely do the same.

Meanwhile, the floodgates of memory had opened. How could I forget little Woody Snordahl? Well, to be honest, forgetting him was easy. I don't recall hearing him say five words in all the years we studied together. He always seemed to be comfortably, gratefully outside my angle of view. I find, on exploring the matter further, that he spent several weeks living in a closet on the Third Floor, eating scraps left for him by the house-elves and tinkering with broken things the creatures hoarded, things the teachers and students had thrown away.

"The elves are very literal-minded," Snordahl revealed over a tea of sandwiches that savored of wet cardboard and biscuits that felt, in the mouth, like baked socks. "If you didn't tell them, directly and firmly, to get rid of something, they kept it in any of hundreds of secret stashes all over the castle. Most of it was never good for anything again, but the elves stripped off anything they could use and saved the rest forever. If you knew where they got the cloth bags for boiling suet pudding, you would never eat another Christmas dinner."

"What did you live on, then?" I asked, desperate to change the subject before he went into more detail.

"Sweets, mostly," said Snordahl. "The house-elves were mad keen on sweet wrappers, but--many people are surprised by this--they didn't care for the sweets themselves. Especially around Hogsmeade weekends, when students often left sweets lying openly around their beds, the housekeeping elves often came away with loads of shiny, colorful wrappers. They let me eat the sweets. Chocolate frogs and fizzing whizzbees especially. Those tended to upset a house-elf's stomach. Ever seen an elf yack?"

"Elf yak, you say?" I replied evasively. "I've heard of dwarf oxen, bred by the goblins to--"

At this point in our interview, the tower struck the hour--according to my magic quill--of four o'clock. In my memory, however, it seemed like at least eight, perhaps twelve. The next thing I clearly heard Snordahl say was, "Why don't you get up off the floor? It's filthy down there." It was, too.

"Why don't you show me your lovely experiments," I said, "and quickly, so I can leave you in peace before the next time the clock chimes?"

"That's the best question you've asked so far," growled Snordahl.

The first contraption he showed me looked like a cross between a walking stick and a set of bagpipes. It wheeled around on a heavy base, trailing a long thin tail with a metal fork at the end.

"Is this some type of medieval weapon?" I guessed. "Or perhaps a musical instrument? And who is this Hoover it belongs to?"

"It does stir up a right racket," Snordahl agreed, shivering. "I've observed through my telescope. I don't know yet why they do it, but Muggles like to run them up and down their floors. As far as I can tell, all they do is spread dirt around the room. But after many years of patient study, I have come to understand exactly how it works."

"Do tell."

"Muggles have many, many devices with the same type of forked tail. My researches have convinced me that these tails are a diabolical device for summoning, and harnessing, the power of lightning. This power, in turn, is used to summon and trap and tiny whirlwind."

Snordahl brightened at my gasp of shock. "Yes, old son, it's quite true. Those Muggles aren't as innocent as we thought. It started with an American fellow named, er, Benjamin Francis. Went out in a storm and invoked the powers of the air. Somehow he confined some of them in a talisman, like a brass key, and the Muggles have built every one of their inventions since then on the same dark magic!"

I asked if I could see proof of this, but Snordahl claimed that the machine would not work in the presence of wizardry. So, dear reader, you will have to make up your own mind!

"What is this?" I asked, as Snordahl led me to a boxy device that had several leathery tails curling out of it.

"Would you believe me," Snordahl purred mysteriously, "if I told you this little box holds an entire printing press inside?"

"No," I said without hesitation.

"One day soon," said Snordahl, with a twitch of irritation, "one day soon I will be ready to prove it to you. For now, all I can suggest is that you use my telescope to spy on that window across the square. The people over there use one just like it, every day. Somehow they feed their thoughts into it--"

"Like into a Pensieve?"

"Exactly! The energy goes through one of these tubes and into this necromancer's box, which instantly - and I mean instantly! - spits out sheets of paper that would have taken the Daily Prophet's typesetting spells at least five minutes to set up. Of course, the pictures don't move..."

We share a shudder at this latest example of the proverbial Muggle weirdness.

"Soon," Snordahl claimed, with an air of grandiosity, "soon I will have perfected a device enabling me to connect a wand to one of these tubes. Then I will be able to transfer my thoughts into the, as it were, printer's devil. You'll see."

I smiled indulgently and assured him that I would, indeed, see.

"But if you want to see ironclad proof that the Muggles are performing evil magic to conceal the source of their powers"--Snordahl handed me his telescope. "Go to that window. She's always in the square at about this time. Look for the woman facing north--the other north--and fiddling with a makeup mirror. See her?"

I saw her.

"Now push in on the mirror..."

I almost dropped the telescope out the window.

"Easy, there..."

"Where are those letters and words coming from?"

"Some of them, she puts there by the mystical movements of her fingers," Snordahl explained knowingly. "Some of them just appear by themselves...as if someone, or something, is answering her..."

"Oh, protect us!" I moaned.

"She isn't the only adept at such arts. I have seen dozens of people, in this square alone, dabbling in the smae powers."

"What are they playing at?" I squeak. "I mean, surely, Muggles don't have enough experience to control such... such..."

"But wait," said Snordahl. "You haven't heard the worst. Do you know what they call the little messages that come to them on their magic mirrors?"

I trembled, waiting for Snordahl to tell me. And when he did, I kept trembling.

"Tweets," he said, cruelly relishing my horror.

"Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes!" Snordahl pointed accusingly at the pleasantly-dressed, nice-seeming young woman in the square below. "Can you imagine what they must have done to the poor owls?"

While it wouldn't be responsible to speculate on that question, there is little else we can do. Nothing else that happened in our interview could be worth reporting after this, this utterly astounding discovery. We must await confirmation, or (one hopes) clarification, from the Ministry of Magic. Until then, this is Bo Dwyer urging every witch and wizard in Britain to be on alert against the rising threat of Muggles dabbling in dark powers. Owl your district RMB supervisor, your local member of the Wizengamot, or any aurors you may know, and urge them to look into this promptly!

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #169 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which long-lost character would be most fun to bring back? (A) Madrigal, the finishing-school hag. (B) Madam Solfeggia, the lady who uses music to hold back her werewolf transformation. (C) Otis, Spanky's old school chum. (D) The "illustrated wizard" with all the moving tattoos. (E) ____ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Propose a feat of sheer magic for a master of disguise like Joe Albuquerque.

166. The Cart-o-Matic

2009-10-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: greyniffler
Runners-up: Joe & TWZRD

Inside one of the crude huts in the island compound was a large, comfortably decorated room. It had wainscoted walls, a flagstoned hearth, and windows filled with diamond-shaped panes that seemed to admit more light than the conditions warranted. Still more light was provided by flames in hurricane lamps mounted on the walls, lamps that gave off a warm glow even though their crystal oil reservoirs were empty. Bookcases, chairs, a rolltop desk, and a teatable were all cluttered with rolls of parchment and dirty cups.

Harvey sighed when he saw it. He shook his three heads, and one of them said: "This place needs a house-elf's touch."

A noise like a pistol-shot rang off the walls and windows. Several of Harvey's prisoners flinched. But it was, after all, only Dinty the house-elf, appearing with a blue-and-white striped handkerchief tied somewhat in the manner of a sumo wrestler's mawashi. He made three bows, one to each of his master.

"What's this you're wearing?" Harvey 2 demanded. "You're not thrashing that elf from flat 3-E again?"

"Only keeping in condition, sir," piped the elf. "Shall I tidy up, sir?"

"Yes, please, Dinty." Harvey strolled to three of the windows and looked out of them pensively. All three of him raised the same eyebrow in an identical manner. "Interesting," he said in unison. Then he looked around at each other and asked, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Hippogriff foals frolicking in the grassy downs," Harvey 1 volunteered.

"A family of faeries checking out a nest box in the woods," said Harvey 3.

"This window overlooks a scrubby rock in the middle of the sea," Harvey 2 contended.

"Scenery spells," said Harvey 1 and 3.

"No doubt," agreed Harvey 2.

During this exchange, Dinty had turned into a veritable whirlwind of grabbing hands, wiping rags, and swishing feather-dusters. Minimilian winced at the sound of breaking crockery. By the time Harvey agreed among himself that the window spells were well done, all that remained of the room's clutter was a sudden, blazing fire on the hearth.

"I say," Minimilian complained. "Those papers were extremely..."

"Yes, yes," said Harvey 3. "I'm sure they were. But look! Chairs for everybody! Do have a seat, won't you? Dinty will have tea up in a jiffy."

Meanwhile, Harvey 2 spread a piece of parchment over the desk, weighting its corners with an inkwell, the iron head of a golf club, a a dragon's fang, and a bottle clearly labeled "Preparation W," the sight of which made Minimilian turn red and look as though he wanted to sink into the ground. Then Harvey 1 reached under his cloak and pulled out a small contraption, somewhat like a saucepan on wheels, covered with a glass lid. As Harvey's guests, or prisoners, settled in chairs around the desk, he placed it on the parchment. They all leaned toward it, gazing through the transparent top at the brass frame, silvery cogs and wheels, and delicate springs and coils that worked inside it. At the center was an egg-shaped, crystal reservoir full of liquid that changed constantly from one bright color to another.

"Coo," said Sadie. "I had one of those when I was a chicken."

"You?" Harvey 3 asked, distracted from his purpose for the first moment so far.

"You know," Sadie insisted. "A cub? A pup? A kid?"

Harvey 3 shook his head. "I mean, I find it hard to believe you..."

"Well, it didn't work," said Sadie. "Not like the advertising jingle. Mum had to take it back to the toy shop."

All three of Harvey stared at her. "Toy shop?" Breathed Harvey 2, gobsmacked.

"Well, you see," said Sadie, like one talking to an idiot, "it was supposed to zip when it moved, pop when it stopped, and whirr when it was standing still. But our one popped when it moved, whirred when it stopped, and zipped when it stood still. So the ditty was complete b-"

"Look here," said Harvey 1. "This isn't a toy. There have been no commercial ditties about it. While it should be celebrated in song and legend..."

"It has been," Harvey 2 argued.

"No," said Harvey 3, "but it will be."

"Don't let's start this again," cried Harvey 1, waving both hands above his head. "The important thing is..."

"It's a Cart-o-Matic," said Sir Lionel Niblet.

Harvey 1 glared at Sir Lionel in irritation. "That's hardly the way one should talk about a device some say was invented by Prester John, others by Daedalus himself..."

"It was patented in 1936," Sir Lionel went on ruthlessly, "by a wizard named Mark Grey from Piscataway, New Jersey..."

"You'll find," said Harvey 2, "that Grey only registered the self-refilling ink reservoir..."

"...based on an earlier device invented by Alvin Snook-Peebles of Drizzling Duffham, Beds, for creating engravings for the wizarding press."

All three of Harvey looked beaten, deflated. "Have it your way, then," said Harvey 3. "But it most certanly does not pop when it stops."

"What does it do?" Ilona asked, directing her question at the room in general.

All six of Harvey's eyes rested coldly on Sir Lionel, so he answered: "It draws very beautiful and detailed maps, with copperplate writing, decorative borders, and watercolor shading. The longer you let it run, the finer the detail - though it tends to overlook things that it considers insignificant, such as expressways and rail depots, and embellishes the landscape with such features as 'Here there be Crumple-Horned Snorkacks' and 'Wreck of the Pirate Ship Irving.'"

"Does it really?" Sadie said eagerly. "Could you get it to draw that one?"

"I didn't bring this device for your amusement," Harvey 1 said sourly. "I am only showing it to you so that you understand why I need the ring of Count Matthias. I think it may solve a little problem. You see, there are some places that cannot be plotted on a map. Even such a magical device as the Cart-o-Matic cannot break through their enchantment. But if one were to instruct the Cart-o-Matic, under the seal of Count Matthias..."

"I see," said Spanky. "There's some place you want to find, someone or something whose location is only known to a few..."

"Or perhaps no one," Sir Lionel offered. "No one still living, that is."

"Like a secret protected by a Fidelius Charm," Endora added.

"Something you want to steal," Sadie suggested.

"Someone you want to kill," said Allie O'Modo.

"Perhaps it is a lost art or buried knowledge that he seeks," said Sir Lionel, always willing to see people in a better light than most.

"A magical object," suggested Minimilian.

"A weapon," Spanky speculated.

"A document of some kind," said Sir Lionel.

"This had better not be about some bric-a-brac to decorate your flat," Ilona muttered.

Harvey waited for the chatter to stop, all three of him looking down at his hands folded in his lap. Into the pause that followed Ilona's remark, Dinty squeaked, "Tea!"

No one objected to taking refreshments, even under such strained circumstances. The fact that even such savage enemies could share a quiet fellowship over the munching of cakes and the sipping of tea, lent a reassuring sense of civilization and civility. Spanky felt himself beginning to relax - which, owing to the habits of a lifetime, immediately put him on edge.

"Well, you have the ring," he said, setting his cup down. "What do you want with us, then?"

"I need eyes," said Harvey 1.

"Ears," said Harvey 2.

"Hands and feet," said Harvey 3.

"In plain language," Harvey 1 said, "I need someone to follow where this map will lead."

"Someone who isn't - how shall I put this? - enmeshed in a temporal paradox," Harvey 3 added.

"Mmm," said Harvey 2. "Enmeshed. I like it."

"I would have said embarrassed," said Harvey 1.

"That would have been good too," said Harvey 2.

"Balked," suggested Harvey 3.

"Constrained," Harvey 1 countered.

"Encumbered," said Harvey 3.

"Hampered," said Harvey 1.

"Crippled?" Harvey 2 tried.

Harveys 1 and 3 gave Harvey 2 a pitying look.

"I applaud your wide-ranging vocabulary," Minimilian said testily, "but could you please come to the point?"

"If I go where I'm hoping this map will lead us," said Harvey 1, "there is no telling what might happen. I might cause the (cough) prize to move backward in time..."

"...and so become the cause of its being lost, rather than being found," Harvey 3 clarified.

"Or I might uncreate it," said Harvey 1.

"Or cause it to multiply," suggested Sir Lionel. "Which, for all we know, could be as great a disaster..."

He fell silent as he noticed the blank look the Harveys were giving him.

"You know," said Sir Lionel, grinning. "Like yourselves."

Harvey 1, 2, and 3, each shook his head, perplexed.

"You're getting nowhere with that one," Endora told Sir Lionel out of the corner of her mouth.

Harvey put down his teacups in perfect, threefold synchronicity, stretched his arms, clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and said (in Harvey 3's voice), "Now then, let's give this a try. Quill and ink, Dinty. Dear Mr. Cart-o-Matic... Or should that be Monsieur?"

"Why not Madam?" Endora suggested pugnaciously.

"How about To whom it may concern?" Allie O'Modo said over a stifled yawn.

"Never mind," said Harvey 3, crossing out the Mr. "Dear Cart-o-Matic. Feel free to disregard any and all magical barriers in drawing a map showing the location and route to the..."

Whatever he said next was drowned out by a deafening stroke of thunder. The entire hut shook with it, and a sudden heavy fall of rain roared upon the corrugated steel roof.

"Dash it all," Harvey 1 swore. "This is going to be harder than I thought."

Endora perked up. "That's just like what happened when..."

Ilona elbowed Endora hard in the ribs.

"...wh-when it wouldn't stop raining in the great hall at Hogwarts," Endora covered feebly.

"It's not necessary to dissemble," said Harvey 2. "I was there when Spanky told that story, wasn't I? When that djinn arranged for him, and only him, to know where Ilona was, and every time he mentioned her, there was a deafening noise."

"And look," said Harvey 1. "The ink blotted all over the paragraph."

"Even if we use a roundabout way of describing the prize," said Harvey 2, "the map will most likely come out blotted just as badly as that letter."

"It's no use," Harvey 3 said, throwing down his quill. "We're going to have to find a djinn before we can do anything else."

"We nothing," said Allie O'Modo. "If you have no further use for us, at this time, may we please have our wands back? We were just about to slaughter each other, and I would like to get on with it."

"That's not quite true," Endora said hotly. "You'd already been knocked into a cocked hat. We were just about to..."

"The point," Allie interrupted, "is that he can't keep us all locked up until he finds a djinn to lift the taboo on whatever he is trying to find."

"He doesn't have to," said Ilona, talking through clenched jaws. "With that ring, he holds the free will of every one of us in his hand. He can bring us back here, or whever he wants us to go, simply by dashing off a note and sending it under seal."

"I reckon I'll be moving houses, then," retorted Allie O'Modo. "And leaving no forwarding address."

"Oh, no," said Harvey 1, suddenly brightening. "You'll be fetching me a djinn. And with my little friend here" - he patted the Cart-o-Matic - "we will soon have some ideas of where to start looking."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #168 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: What area of magic do you think was most neglected in Harry Potter's education?

CONTEST: If there was ever a wizard's revolution, and the months of the year were renamed along magical lines, what would they be called?

165. Verity Pilgrim

2009-09-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Dragonic

When they reached the top of the long, dark, spiral staircase, Merlin and Miss Pucey found themselves in a drab hallway floored in scuffed tile. Flickering jars of fluorescent fireflies hung from the ceiling, casting a sickly light over the framed prints that lined the yellowish walls on either hand. One of the prints was a moving, wizardly copy of Munch's The Scream, complete with a deafening bellow of anguish triggered by their arrival.

A little gray man looked up from behind the counter that barred their way forward. The room beyond the counter was featureless except for a small dumbwaiter, a pneumatic tube, and a pair of doors at the far end. One of the doors appeared solidly built and secured by numerous tough magical locks and bolts. The other looked like a battered screendoor held shut by a dainty hook.

Merlin took in all this in the time it took the little gray man to clear his throat twice and say, in an unsurprisingly reedy voice, "May I help you?"

"Yes," said Merlin. "We're here to break into il Comte's private vault. Is it the door on the left?"

"Hmmm," said the man, pressing a fingertip to his chin. "That would be form N.I.L.P.R.I.M., I believe."

"Your pardon?" said Merlin.

"Notice of Intent to Loot, Pillage, Redistribute, Invade, or Mooch." The little gray man conjured six rolls of parchment out of thin air and laid them, one by one, on the counter. "To be completed by each of you. In triplicate."

Merlin studied Miss Pucey's face for almost a minute, wondering how she controlled the urge to roll her eyes. Strangely, this exercise helped him avoid the same faux pas. Then he said, "May we take these forms with us? I promise to fill them out and post them back to you."

The little gray man appeared to consider this. "Hmmm. Will you be looting or pillaging today?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand the distinction."

"Then no. You must fill out the forms in my presence."

"Wait, I've got it: pillaging."

"Are you sure?"

Merlin's fingers twitched. He really wanted to wrap them around his wand.

"Sorry," said the little gray man. "If you're not sure, you'll just have to..."

"I'm sure," said Merlin.

"I think not," said the little gray man. "Here are the ink and quills."

"What if I forced my way past you, regardless?"

"Hmmm. I believe that would require form R.A.S.H.B.U.M.P., a Request for Authorization to Subdue, Humiliate, Beat Up, or otherwise Molest my Person. I must warn you, however, that the criteria for approval are very strict, and the review process may take up to 10 business days."

"Who reviews these things?" Merlin asked, barely maintaining his indoor voice.

"I do, actually," said the little gray man, straightening his bow tie modestly. "But I do make an effort to consider every application with all the objectivity..."

"All right!" Merlin snapped. He dragged an inkwell, quill, and roll of parchment toward him. Miss Pucey, looking prim in her tight-lipped silence, began to fill out her forms.

A minute later, the parchment Merlin was writing on exploded. He glared at the little gray man through a coating of soot and the singed remains of his eyebrows.

"Tsk," said the little gray man, pronouncing the word as spelled. Then he handed Merlin a new roll of parchment to replace the one that had self-destructed. "I shouldn't have to warn you that it is useless to write false or misleading information on these forms."

"How can you expect a body to give his correct name and address," Merlin whinged, "when he's about to loot and pillage..."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," said the little gray man, "but my coffee break is coming up in fifteen minutes. If you haven't completed these forms by then, you will have to step outside and start over when I return."

Merlin almost exploded. "I've never heard anything so..."

Miss Pucey nudged him in the ribs. Her elbow was amazingly sharp. Muttering under his breath, Merlin subsided into a frenzy of scratching and scribbling.

"Five minutes," said the little gray man, when Merlin was only about halfway through his paperwork. The latter bit his tongue and scratched harder.

A minute later the little gray man began to review Miss Pucey's completed forms. "Pucey, eh?" He darted an appraising look at her evening dress. "Of the Bedfordshire Puceys, I take it? Such a fine wizarding..."

"Entirely unrelated," Miss Pucey said shortly.

The little gray man's eyebrows climbed toward his scalp. "Really? Most coincidental..."

"My ancestors have been in Suffolk since the Magna Carta," said Miss Pucey. "Muggles as far back as I can trace them. Except for my mother, of course."

The little gray eyebrows dropped. Through narrow, pinched eyes the man behind the counter considered her again, then said: "I wonder which is worse - to suppose that a scion of a great wizardly bloodline would come to this, or..."

"I beg your pardon," Miss Pucey sniffed. Drawing herself up, she assumed a classic pose and began to recite:

That wizard over there says that witches need to be helped off of broomsticks, and not apparate alone, and get the best seat in the Knightbus. Nobody ever helps me off broomsticks, when I apparate, or or gives me a good spot anywhere! And ain't I a witch? Look at me! Look at my wand! I have cast spells, and stirred potions, and wizard could head me! And ain't I a witch? I can produce as many charms and enchant as many objects - when I'm given the chance - as any wizard - and endure all your prejudices as well! And ain't I a witch! I have borne sven children, and seen 'em all labelled as second-class for being born to a mudblood, and when I cried out the injustice, not even the Seers heard me! And ain't I a witch!

Merlin stared at her.

"What?" she snapped, noticing him.

"For bearing seven children, your figure has held up quite well."

Now she did roll her eyes. "Your education has been sadly neglected."

"Verity Pilgrim," said the gray little man, daubing sweat off his forehead with a sickly yellow handkerchief. "A most gifted orator, and a tireless advocate for Muggleborn rights." He refrained from adding that he hadn't heard such a blistering recitation since his own and his sisters' years under the forceful hand of their governess. He wondered whether there was a special place where such witches were trained...

Hands shaking, the little gray man vanished a corner of the counter and gestured to Merlin and Miss Pucey to walk through. "I'm afraid your paperwork was lost in a pneumatic mishap," he said. "How inconvenient! Ah, well. It's the screen door there, on the right. Yes, I'm sure. The strong door leads to a pit filled with sharpened erumpent horns, most disagreeable. Good luck now."

As the screen door banged behind them, Merlin realized that he was not as close to the end of the adventure as he had hoped.

He and Miss Pucey now stood at one end of a long glasshouse. At first the hot, moisture-heavy air was hard to breathe. Then, when his nostrils registered the odors of the plants before them, breathing became even harder. Sickeningly sweet perfumes mingled with the scents of rotting carrion. Rank, minerally, muddy tangs mixed with the pong of wet animal fur, unpalatable blends of spices, musty and moldy smells, and a faint whiff of poison.

There were no paths ahead of them. Only beds of flowers in every bright color, every strange shape, every threatening posture of stem and vine. Some of the plants seemed to breathe. Others turned to look at the witch and wizard who had just entered their growing space.

"Earned a N.E.W.T. in herbology, did you?" Merlin asked Miss Pucey.

She shook her head. "I'm allergic to dirt. That's why I became a governess."

Merlin paused to think about this, then gave up. "I got kicked out of herbology in my third year, after I tried to organize a bouncing bulb fight club. Some folks have no sense of humor about that sort of thing."

Judging by her harrumph, Miss Pucey was one of those folks.

"Any road," Merlin went on nervously, "these don't look like the kind of plants we had in the O.W.L. greenhouses. They seem more... advanced. Dangerous, maybe."

As if to underscore his point, one of the flowers ahead of them shot a barrage of razor-sharp seeds at a neighboring plant, whose creeping vines suddenly withdrew their grip from the first plant's roots. The stricken creepers writhed in agony while the leaves on their main stalk opened and closed, as if silently screaming. The ordeal ended when a third plant leaned over, wrapped its huge leaves around the gasping stalk, and snapped it off above the ground with a horrible wrench.

Miss Pucey shuddered. "Not maybe," she said. "Definitely dangerous."

Merlin looked round. Behind them, where the screen door had been, there was now a solid sheet of glass. There was nothing to see on the other side of the glass except brilliant light, diffused across the moisture that coated the inside of the glass. He turned back to view the plant with the prehensile leaves, which were now bashing pieces of its vegetable victim against the ground.

"All right, then. There's nothing for it." He rummaged in his survival satchel, then brought out a small bottle corked with a glass ball. "Second of four doses," he said gravely, imagining his wife's concerned eyes as he regarded her specially-formulated potion.

"What is it?" asked Miss Pucey.

"Liquid Skill," said Merlin. "I reckon I could use one day with a green thumb, like Miles O'Roughage. Otherwise, we won't know where to step, what these plants could do to us."

Miss Pucey nodded, adding: "Or how to get across this hothouse alive and well."

Merlin hesitated before breaking the cap off the bottle. He couldn't help but remember what had happened after the first dose, when he had become an animagus and almost didn't change back into his human form in time. There didn't seem to be any such danger in this situation. But then again, none of the dangers he had faced so far had been expected.

"Here's to herbology," he toasted. Then he drained the vial.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #167 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: What is your favorite variety of Honeydukes sweets?

CONTEST: Describe something you can do with modern (muggle) technology, and how a wizard or witch might interpret it. Remember to make it brief and entertaining.

164. The Pocket Elephant

2009-09-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: cv675

Spanky's jaw dropped. Beside him, Ilona stiffened. Behind them, Endora gasped. Sadie growled. Sir Lionel said, "Er."

Harvey faced them from the end of a blind alley in the fast-growing yew maze Sadie had planted (seeds courtesy of her friend Miles O'Roughage). Not just one Harvey, nor even both of him. Three Harveys confronted them. But that wasn't what made Spanky gape. It was partly the menacing way each Harvey's wand was pointed at them. And, partly, it was the third Harvey's outstretched hand.

"Give me the ring," he said coolly.

"Was this your racket all along?" Spanky asked.

"Don't let's have a fuss," said Harvey 1. "It's only a wee bauble. You'll come to no harm."

"What do you want with it?" Ilona demanded.

"How will I use it, you mean?" said Harvey 2. "Would you believe me if I said that I would never use it?"

"Indeed," added Harvey 3, "that I would make sure nobody ever used it again?"

Ilona looked at Spanky. Spanky turned toward Harvey again and said, "No."

"He," Sadie shouted, then corrected herself: "They must be working with Il Comte and Lee Shore. How else..."

"...would I be here when you were expecting them?" Harvey 3 shrugged. "I'm afraid I can't answer all your burning questions."

"At least," added Harvey 2, "not at present. Please to hand over the ring."

"You've really gone through time's mangle, haven't you?" Sir Lionel's voice carried an undertone of laughter. "You've messed things up properly. I wonder what you think absolute power over other people can do to sort out your, er..."

"Problem?" said Harvey 1. "I see no problem. I've seen the end of the world. I've seen its beginning. If older and wiser heads had been in charge..."

"...and, well," said Harvey 2 with an immodest air of modesty, "I'm as old and wise as they come..."

"...a lot of things might have turned out differently." Harvey 3 nodded. "Better."

"You're mad," Endora said shakily. "You can't go about history changing things. You of all people would know, if you hand't changed yourself..."

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Harvey 2. "I'm the same as ever."

"Haven't you noticed," Sadie said venomously, "you ought to be saying 'we,' not 'I'?"

Harvey looked at each other, then back at the prisoners who had been his friends. "I'm sorry?" Harvey 1 said. "Am I missing something?"

"Only that there are three of you," Sadie yelled.

Harvey looked around themself again. For a moment, he seemed bewildered. At that moment, Spanky struck.

"Petrificus totalis," he muttered with a flick of his right wand. "Incarcerous," he added quickly, waving his left wand. Ilona's voice cut across his, hissing: "Expelliarmus!"

None of these spells had any effect. Harvey looked back at them with a mildly surprised expression on his three faces. Surprised and hurt.

"I say," he said.

The five wizards at bay immediately began pelting him with jinxes. None of them found their target. Sizzling jets of light zoomed toward Harvey's chests, then dissipated as if nothing was there. They didn't seem to be hitting a shield.

"Come, Rumbo," said Harvey 2, tugging on a leash that snaked around his legs.

An elephant walked into view from behind Harvey 2's legs, where it seemed to have been hiding. It was about the size of a well-fed beagle, and it had a wand gripped in its curling trunk.

"Meet my friend Rumbo," said Harvey 1. "Once, when I had a lot of time on my hands - say, eighty years or so - I trained him to remember jinxes and their counterspells."

Harvey 3 added, "He's very good to have with one when one is surrounded by hair-trigger witches and wizards."

"Only look how he's shrunk," said Harvey 2 sadly. "Unfortunate side effect, it always happens. He was the size of a standard schnauzer a few minutes ago."

"Eventually the poor chap will grow so small, I won't be able to care for him," said Harvey 1.

"Alas," said Harvey 3, "it's the price we have to pay..."

"We?" Sadie challenged.

Harvey 3 blinked at her. "Yes, of course," he said. "Rumbo and I."

Sadie stared back. "You've lost your marbles, mate."

Harvey 2 and 3 simply smiled. Harvey 1 cheerfully said, "Right. Now, the ring. Unless any of you is harboring a pocket elephant, I would urge you to give it up promptly."

Spanky opened his mouth to ask a question, but Harvey 2 answered it first: "I've still got a few spells Rumbo hasn't seen."

When no one moved for a long beat, Harvey 3 anxiously added: "They'll hurt. A lot."

Sadie shook with fury as she stepped forward, clutching the ring in her fist.

"That's better," said Harvey 3.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #166 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Harvey is working (A) on his own. (B) for Bobs the Reality Wizard. (C) for il Comte. (D) for Uncle or Aunt Leslie. (E) for ______ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Describe a magical machine and what it does. The more whimsical, the better!

163. The Golden Cap

2009-09-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Sir Read-a-Lot

All the ghosts in Venice were rioting. Head Quidditch hooligans, every one of them. Il Comte di Bestemmia winced at the sound of massed wailing, moaning, and rattling of chains. The walls of his compound dripped ectoplasm as ghostly apparitions of severed body parts were hurled at them like pieces of rotting fruit. It was giving him a splitting headache.

"Ombra," the wizard called weakly, shuddering as an army of ghosts marched below his window playing musical saws. "Fetch my manual of exorcism, if you please."

A simpering house-elf ran out of the room. While il Comte waited for his return, something went crash in the garden. He hurried, muttering, to a window on another side of the room. The beastly ghosts were getting into his greenhouse now! Il Comte wrung his hands, thinking about some extremely rare plants that might not recover from the cold, clammy touch of these unquiet spirits. "What is taking that elf so long?" he wondered aloud.

All his attention was focused on the lagoon side of his private island, from which more ghosts were still rising from the sickly fog over the water. So il Comte did not notice a separate disturbance developing on the canal side. In a small square just opposite il Comte's jetty, Rigel was encircled by five burly figures cloaked in heavy furs. He turned round and round in a defensive posture while rummaging in his parallel-universe pocket locker. His assailants seemed content, for the moment, to wait and see what interesting weapon he would come up with.

Rigel's fingers closed around something. He pulled it out with a triumphant "Ha!" The defiant gleam in his eyes changed to dull grimness when he saw what he held. It was a rubber chicken.

Before he could recover from this disappointment, the first of his opponents charged. Rigel flourished the chicken in its face before stepping aside. The wind of the giant's passage caused the young wizard's robes and hair to flutter. A flapping hem of the attacker's fur cloak slapped against Rigel's calf.

For a moment the five cloaked men stamped and pawed. Then the one most directly behind Rigel charged. He felt rather than heard its approach, felt it in the ground vibrating underfoot. He turned and smacked it in the face with the broad side of the chicken. When a third opponent came at him, Rigel stuck out his foot and tripped him. The fellow went stumbling out of the circle.

"It's a lucky thing the bad guys always attack one by one," Rigel mused aloud. Then he added, "Whoops," as four massive figures closed on him at once. He crouched down and rolled through their legs, laughing at the sound of their bodies colliding and the brief bout of shoving and cuffing that followed it.

Now Rigel was outside the circle. He turned to face a line of five gigantic men. No, not men... yaks.

"Yikes," Rigel squeaked. He started backing away, digging once more in his pocket.

The next thing he pulled out was a golden cap. The Golden Cap, rather. Rigel allowed himself a half-second's distraction as he recalled purchasing it at Jude the Insecure's "From Out of This World" outfitter. He racked his brains, trying to remember whether he had used it twice or three times...

The yaks took a step toward him. Rigel was not keen on turning his back on them. Did yaks have an instinct to chase anything that ran from them, he wondered? He walked backwards, faster, risking a glance over his shoulder as he turned the cap round and round in his hands.

"Well, there's nothing for it," he told himself when his back bumped wall. He tugged the cap onto his head. The yaks were a dozen meters away now. Standing on his left foot, Rigel chanted: "Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" Seven meters and closing. Shifting to his right foot, he intoned: "Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!" Three meters! On both feet now, Rigel screamed: "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!"

The nearest wereyak was so close by now that Rigel could smell its breath. It reeked of rancid butter, fermented tea, damp fur, and a sweet, gassy, grassy scent. Slobber dangled from the creature's lips. Its nose was damp with yak bogies.

"I'm only going to say this once," said Rigel warningly. The wereyaks stopped. Swallowing with an audible gulp, he added: "Surrender now, and it will go easier for you."

The yak in front of him snorted. Foul-smelling snot splattered the front of Rigel's robes.

"All right then," Rigel said in a shaky but grim voice. "Give these dirty beasts a bath, boys!"

The air was suddenly filled with the flapping of wings, screeches and howling laughter. The already shadowy corner of the square darkened even more as the space overhead filled with a squadron of diving, grasping creatures.

Winged monkeys.

The yaks turned and bellowed. Rigel edged toward a nearby alley, barely wide enough for his thin shoulders, and darted away from the ensuing melee.

Moments later, he found himself on the edge of the canal. Il Comte's private jetty stood but a stone's throw away. It might as well have been miles, with the waters in between infested with merpeople who served that cruel master. In the distance, he could see flashes of light as the ghosts, at his instigation, continued their riot. It seemed they were trying to burn down il Comte's gatehouse, using ghostly torches that burned only on their own, insubstantial plane. He sighed and shook his head, then began digging around in his pocket again. There had to be something to get him across the water...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #165 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Which Hogwarts subject includes a lesson that will soon save the lives of Merlin and Miss Pucey?

CONTEST: Rewrite a portion of a famous speech, from either history or literature, to make it apply to the magical world of Harry Potter. (Examples: Hamlet's soliloquy, Patrick Henry's "liberty or death" speech, the Gettysburg Address, Mary Schmich's "Wear Sunscreen" speech, etc.) Use your imagination! Entries will be judged on the basis of entertainment value.

162. Mirror Seeds

2009-08-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Contest co-winners: Dragonic and greyniffler

Spanky, Ilona, and Lionel Niblet marched in single file with their hands tied behind their backs. Behind them walked Minimilian, Hugo, Allie O'Modo, and a considerable following of henchwitches and -wizards, all abristle with wands and under orders to curse the prisoners at the first sign of resistance. Behind and below them lay the wooded valley with the mercenary camp and its outlying magical orchards. Above and ahead, the trees thinned toward a bare ridge that hid the gnome proving ground on its far side.

"It was very clever of you," pontificated Allie O'Modo, "to turn the tables on us so. Too bad for you, we turned them back . And when you turned the tables on us a second time, we turned them back again. It only shows that the side with the better preparedness has a right..."

"Seeds away!" cackled a voice from above. Captors and captives alike ducked as a broom rushed close overhead. The flyover was followed by a hailstorm of hard little seeds that instantly took root, even on this rocky slope, and began to shoot up at an eye-boggling rate.

While Allie O'Modo struggled to free her feet from the roots of a rapidly-growing yew seedling, Minimilian frantically searched the skies. "Drubbins! Goonsworth! Stop the prisoners getting away! Everyone else, bring down that broom!"

His instructions were too late to stop their attacker's second, shrieking pass. More seeds rained down, pinching and biting any flesh they encountered before reaching the ground. Minimilian howled with red-faced fury, looking more than ever like a spoiled child.

"Patience, love," Allie murmured after finally wrenching her boot free of the plant's roots. Already their party was surrounded by the walls of a waist-high yew maze. Several of their co-conspirators were getting tangled in the branches as they tried to wade through to their escaping prisoners. "Grimly, go with Drubbins and Goonsworth. Track our guests through the maze. Keep a wall to your right hand at all times. Don't get split up. The rest of you" - her speech was interrupted by another low sweep by their yipping assailant - "keep your eye on that broom!"

This time the overflight was followed by a rain of broken glass. Everyone cowered under their robes to avoid getting a faceful of jagged slivers. By the time they looked up, O'Modo's people had lost visual contact with their broom-mounted attacker.

"I never," Hugo breathed, as he observed what happened to the glass shards that reached the ground. For they, too, had started to spring up like plants, at a speed only magic could induce. The rising stalks were surrounded by a spiral staircase of leaves, thin and delicate to the point of translucency, and variegated like little stained-glass windows. As the stalks grew higher they wove themselves into the mesh of yew branches that, by now, formed a continuous shoulder-high hedge within and around the maze. Tiny buds swelled on the stained-glass vines, burst open, and unfurled shiny flowers whose clear, glassy gloss was backed by a silvery sheen. Mirror blossoms! "I absolutely never," said Hugo.

"You'd better start, then," snapped Allie O'Modo. "Hasn't anyone spotted that broom yet?"

It became harder to track the trajectory of broom flyover as the yew hedge passed the height of their heads; harder still when the next two passes came, in short succession, from quite different directions, suggesting that they had at least two aerial enemies to aim at; hardest of all when each broom sprayed them with a green, glittery gas, leaving them sneezing and waving the fog out of their faces.

"We have to get out of this maze," Minimilian shouted.

"Nonsense," said Allie. "It's cover, isn't it? Out in the open, they could hit us with anything!"

"Out in the open," snarled Minimilian, "we might be able to hit them."

"All right, then," Allie O'Modo relented. "You take Mugwump, Skink, and McCurdle and try to find a way out. The others will stay with me and try to shoot them down from in here. Oh, yes - and I would suggest that you all put on your safety-pins..."

"Right you are," said Hugo, pulling an ugly brooch out of his pocket (decorated with the skull of a small snake) and pinning it to his robes. The other members of Allie's squad did the same. "Now let's see those blighters try to curse us," Hugo added.

They saw the very thing Hugo wished for soon afterward, when Sir Lionel darted out of an unguarded gap in the hedge and aimed a jinx at Allie O'Modo's head. He immediately cried out and dropped his wand, or rather Drubbins's wand (but that's a long story), clutched his arm, and fell back out of range of the answering volley of curses.

"Crumple-horned snorkacks!" Sir Lionel swore, chafing his wand arm. Luckily Ilona, just behind him, had retrieved his wand with a quick summoning spell. "Spanky, old chap, don't jinx them! They've done something to make spells rebound!"

Spanky adjusted his tactics by aiming his spells at one of the mirror blossoms, in which he could see a reflection of one of Allie's henchwizards around the corner. Whatever spell he was firing at the wizard, it missed the first two times. Then he got the refraction angle just right... and the mirror shattered.

"Blimey," said Spanky.

"I think we should fall back," said Lionel.

They were all thinking the same thing. They could do nothing, at present, to resist their enemy's counterattack. Without another word they scrambled through the twisting and turning maze.

Now and then Ilona cut a blaze in the yew hedge, whose growth had stopped at a height of fourteen feet. Most of the time she did this as a reminder of where they had been in the tricky maze. Sometimes, however, she paused a beat longer - gauging the available time by the sounds of pursuit behind them - to create a booby trap. The pursuers, after all, were bound to stay on their trail, for the blazes would help them as well. Ilona smirked when, now and then, a dismayed yell indicated that a henchwizard had run into a snare, a concealed pit, or a barrier of fallen limbs and clutching vines.

Screams came, from time to time, from another direction. Spanky's party headed toward them, wondering whether they were running to rescue or more danger. He would have grinned if he had known that some of the screams resulted from a pot of very aggressive snapdragons, bred by Miles O'Roughage and borrowed for the occasion by his friend Sadie. In another case, the screams came from a witch who had failed to catch an eggshell full of Tickle Tonic thrown at her by Endora as her broom swooped low overhead.

"Their safety-pins must be running low on charge," Spanky speculated as the shouts and cries multiplied from both directions.

"We must be running out of maze," Sir Lionel added.

Instead, as they rounded the next corner, they came to a dead end.

"This can't be right," Ilona whispered.

"Oh, yes," said a tight, stiff-jawed voice behind them.

The three escaped prisoners turned as one and faced Allie O'Modo, who stood in the middle of their only way out of this bottleneck. Her chest heaved. Her face was disfigured, as much by fury as by the whiplash-marks left by one of Ilona's booby traps. She raised her wand.

Spanky's right hand was faster. "Expelliarmus!" he barked. But the spell rebounded in a flash of light, and the wand dropped out of his numb fingers.

"I've got enough safety-pins to block a few more curses," Allie laughed bitterly. Indeed, her robes sparkled with a multitude of tiny green gems, each individually hooked through the wool. She raised her wand again. "It's time for you to say your last words."

"Ow," Spanky said, massaging his elbow.

"It's not much to remember you by," said Allie O'Modo with an insane grin, "but I'll take it."

"Expelliarmus!" Spanky yelled.

Ilona couldn't believe he would try that again. Her head whipped around in time to see that he had aimed the jinx at himself, with his left wand held out at arm's length. The wand shot straight out of his hand and jabbed Allie in the eye.

"Ow!" she screamed - taking Spanky's last words, as promised.

Before she could recover from her stumbling, face-clutching agony, Ilona brought her facedown with her hands hiked up between her shoulderblades.

"Ow, ow, ow," Allie O'Modo insisted feebly.

"I believe you," said Ilona, kneeling on Allie's thighs.

Sir Lionel clapped Spanky on the back and crowed, "Well shot, my lad!" Meanwhile, two brooms darkened the sun for a moment, before their riders dropped into the maze beyond Ilona and her prisoner.

Spanky stared with joy at one witch with a veil covering half of her face, and another wearing a fake nose and glasses (complete with a curly mustache). "I can hardly imagine two faces I would be happier to see," he said.

"Well, you'll be happier to see this," said Endora. She held up her left hand, where the signet ring of Count Matthias shared a finger with her wedding ring.

Ilona gasped. "Where did you...!"

"The bad news," said Sadie, "is that Lee Shore, Il Comte, and Aunt or Uncle Leslie have all put spells on this ring. Endora can't get it off her hand. Since she used the ring to undo what Lee Shore was using it for, they know exactly where she is. I reckon we'll have some company in about..." Sadie checked a pocket watch she had nicked on her way out of the Ministry of Magic. "Right now, actually."

Another flight of brooms threw its shadow over them. Three pairs of feet touched down in the blind alley behind Sir Lionel and Spanky.

They all turned to face the latest arrivals.

"You were half right," said their old friend Harvey.

"It was only the names you got wrong," added Harvey's identical twin.

"I'll have that ring now, if you please," said their third visitor, smiling as Spanky's jaw dropped.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #164 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: Who is the third member of Harvey 1 & Harvey 2's party? (A) Harvey 3. (B) Robertus Magnus. (C) The real Sir Lionel Niblet. (D) Joe Albuquerque. (E) Orion Oldmanson. (F) Tip, formerly of Nasal Drip. (G) _____ [write-in candidate].

CONTEST: Chose a kind of animal and describe something silly that it could be trained to do, with the aid of magic.

161. Defensive Tattoos

2009-07-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Joe

After successfully picking the locks to seven doors in a row, Merlin felt himself struggling with the eighth and knew that another dose of liquid skill had worn off. He shrugged, looked meaningfully at Miss Pucey, and knocked instead.

The door opened by itself. Cautiously, the wizard and witch squeezed through the narrow gap. Then the door slammed so suddenly that Miss Pucey scarcely had time to jerk the hem of her robes out of the way.

Merlin was surprised to find a working laboratory in this deep dungeon. Retorts bubbled. Cauldrons stirred themselves. Liquids, glowing in the oddest colors, chased each other through coils of glass tubing. Candles smoked and flickered as they drifted through the air.

"They seem to be from home," Miss Pucey sniffed, inspecting her dusty finger after stroking the handle of a blue ceramic teapot. "No one has had tea here for at least a week."

"Maybe they prefer firewhisky," Merlin suggested. He made a sweeping gesture that gathered in all the simmering potions and distilling fumes. "These would have boiled dry by now if - "

His reasoning was interrupted when a disembodied voice shrieked, "Petrificus totalis!"

Merlin turned his head toward the voice. He saw no one in the direction from which the spell came. He flinched as it hit him. Then he completely failed to fall over paralyzed.

"That old gimmick won't work on us," Merlin sneered into the tangle of tubes and beakers from which the curse had emerged. He knew, though his assailant didn't, that his immunity to the body-bind curse owed itself to the one-time-only effect of a defensive tattoo. Since he wasn't naked, he couldn't see how the tattoo had actually leaped off his skin and absorbed the curse before it touched him. But he didn't need to know how it worked. He was just glad that it did. Under his breath he said a word of thanks to his old friend Anatoly.

Two more jets of light leaped at him through gaps in the forest of glassware, pewter and brass. Merlin wondered not what curses were flying at him, but how his enemy had managed to aim them through so many distracting and distorting surfaces. Both curses passed through his robes. Neither quite touched his skin.

"Nor those either," said Merlin, sidling toward the source of the spells. With a glance and a jerk of his head he told Miss Pucey to keep behind him. "You don't know who you're dealing with," he added menacingly.

"You have no call to come here," squeaked a shrill, desperate voice.

"Ah! How can we resist such a warm welcome?" Merlin taunted. "I don't know. Since you're so keen on chasing us off, I have to think you're doing something wrong. And then maybe we do have a call..."

"Imperio," muttered a voice unexpectedly close to Merlin's left shoulder. He instinctively dodged backward, bumping into Miss Pucey and upsetting a mortar full of glittering purple dust.

For a moment, even Merlin was surprised that the curse had no effect on him. Yes, that accounted for another of Anatoly's tattoos. Which ones were left, he wondered anxiously. Meanwhile he turned a thin smile toward his attacker.

At first it seemed no one was there. Then he spotted the thick, wiry eyebrows that almost grew together; the round, blue-tinted eyeglasses; the bruised, gnawed fingernails floating in space around a quivering wand; and the scuffed left boot standing by itself where the invisible wizard's foot should be.

Merlin shook his head sadly. "You're not all there, are you?"

"Shut up," said the nearly-invisible stranger. "There must be spells you aren't immune to. With my methods, it won't take me long to find them. So tell me sharpish: Who sent you?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," said Merlin.

"Legilimens!" screamed the voice under the eyebrows.

"Nope," said Merlin.

The eyebrows twitched. "Obliviate!"

"Uh-uh."

"Imperio!"

"Now we're beginning to repeat ourselves," said Merlin, mentally congratulating himself for having correctly guessed which curses he needed defense against.

Fortunately, the fight went out of Doctor Eyebrows right then. The wand lowered. "What are you?" whispered the see-through wizard.

"You're being naughty again, aren't you?" Miss Pucey improvised. She stepped around Merlin, in spite of his attempt to make a stile of his arm, and plucked the wand out from between the hovering fingernails. The latter fidgeted amongst themselves.

"If Robertus Magnus finds out," said the sad, slightly visible wizard, "he'll take all this away. And then I'll have nothing but stone walls to look at, and I'll run mad. Please..."

"You have nothing to fear from us," said Miss Pucey, "as long as..."

"All right!" screamed the one-booted miscreant. "It's a fair cop! Yes, all right, I was working on a way to make it rain up. But only for a good cause, you know? Only to move a bit of rain from a really wet area, to water the desert. I mean, all right, there was an interested party who would have paid me rather well..."

"Aha!" Merlin barked. Eyebrows clinked backwards into a tray of stoppered tubes. "A financial interest! And how do you know your client won't use your upside-down rain as a weapon? Who knows how much damage..."

While Merlin continued his withering tirade, Miss Pucey slipped unnoticed through the racks of beakers, whirring apparatus, and porcelain pots. She gave a low whistle when she found the door at the opposite end of the dungeon.

"...ever again!" Merlin finished, punctuating his words with a well-rehearsed jab that would leave Eyebrows unconscious for a few minutes. Provided, that is, Merlin had correctly guessed what he was aiming at.

He and Miss Pucey closed the door behind them and found themselves at the bottom of a set of worn stone steps. The staircase twisted out of sight, smelling faintly damp and smoky.

"I think this is it," said Merlin, shaking a bit more light out of his wand tip. He turned toward Miss Pucey and waited until she nodded. Then he began to climb.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #163 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.

SURVEY: What has Rigel been up to since Chapter 156? (A) Infiltrating Il Comte's compound in disguise. (B) Organizing a ghost riot as a diversion. (C) Battling wereyaks. (D) All of the above.

CONTEST: Suggest a product that Jude the Insecure might sell at his "From Out of This World Outfitters" shop.

160. Furrier Destructions

2009-07-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Sir Read-a-Lot
Runner-up: greyniffler

Sadie charged into Endora's laboratory, shouting strings of consonants that sounded indecent without vowels to clothe them. A crystal finger stuck out of her right ear. She didn't seem able to hear or understand the protests of the receptionist, the watchman, and the laboratory assistant who ran in after her.

Endora looked up from the mortar and pestle, with which she was crunching numbers. "What's all this?" she asked, in a tone of voice that Sadie understood to mean, "Calm down!" even before she unplugged her right ear.

"Have you resleeved any massages by Floo?" Sadie demanded, her words still a bit jumbled but at least recognizable.

"Yes, we all have," said Sadie. She gestured toward a sealed roll of parchment on the edge of her workbench. "Been rather busy, though," she added. "Someone spiked a shipment of Chanel No 5 with a magical algorithm that makes it shift through a succession of surreal numbers. There's no telling what effect the scent might have on the general public..."

"Then you haven't bean enclaved to that gist with the ring?" Sadie grinned with relief. "Whatever you dough, doughnut read it. Have everybody bun -- brown -- bird -- ballots! Tell your lost to incinerate their coupés immoderately."

"You heard her," Endora said, nodding toward her three co-workers as she tossed the roll of parchment onto a gas ring and ignited it. "Spread the word."

The guard, secretary, and lab assistant reluctantly left the room. "Now what is this about?" Endora asked, as Sadie threw herself on a stool and slumped across a paper-strewn stretch of bench.

Sadie's reply was muffled by the sleeves of her robes. "Are you sugar you aren't in leek with this Lee Shorts villain?"

"Sure as my nose is two and three-quarters inches long."

Sadie raised her head and squinted appraisingly at Endora's nose. Then she buried her face again. "They've ghost Joe and Ilex, pretty muck everyone in Hawksmeade. The whole whirl will go necks. We've ghost to dough something."

Endora took a moment to translate all this, then nodded and said: "What can I do?"

"Fist, you've goat to blink-fold your-shelf," said Sadie, her grasp of language struggling more and more as she grew more excited. "That wax, Lee Spore can't beguilt you with the rotten word."

Endora nodded dubiously, but kept smiling.

"Thin," Sadie went on, "we nix a couple of booms, and your note -- your snow -- your gnus" -- she gave a little scream of frustration -- "your olfactory ogre will lead us to wherever Lex Horse is hiving, and we'll tack him down toboggan. I mean, together."

Endora kept nodding while she processed this. Then she shook her head. "How am I supposed to track this bloke? I've never seen him. More to the point, I've never sniffed him..."

"Sniffle this," Sadie said, whipping a thick wad of parchment, tied in red tape, out of her robes. "I necked this from the Mastery. It's a repot on some fainter who supposedly brick the Statue of Secrecy. Vee Sore chased me thorough it. That's wen he punched the rung off me..."

Sadie stopped talking. Endora had snatched the report from her. Tearing the ribbon off, she spread it out across her workbench and began sniffing it, from side to side, from top to bottom. She occasionally muttered a few words, which sounded to Sadie like: "Mustard, sausage drippings... tobacco, Ficus Brothers... felt, sweat, fermented Brylcream; somebody needs to have his hat blocked... Oi! I know this nutter, obliviator obviously, complete putz, couldn't charm his way out of a twist of newspaper... Hmm. Bit of oil-based paint, dab of scented lotion, ladies' brand and not very old ladies' either; our Lysippus has been a naughty boy... dust, mildew... Aha! No, wait, that's just you... There it is -- no -- yes..."

Endora looked up, her eyes fixed and shining, her nostrils flaring. For a moment her expression frightened Sadie. Then she grinned, looked Sadie's veil in the eye, and said: "Now I believe I can find him blindfolded."

"Is he fair away?"

"Oh, yes," said Endora, pulling a sleep mask out of her hat (where she kept it, seemingly, to be prepared for an all-nighter in the laboratory). "Why don't you go and nick those brooms for us, eh? I'll close up here, circulate the word about not opening any mail, and..."

Sadie was already gone. Twelve minutes later she appeared again with a broom over each shoulder. "You'll never belie where I founded this Cleanswipe 6," she chirped. "Some burger was swapping the stairs with it!"

"Language," Endora said absently as she pinned a hat with a motor-veil into her hair. With her the veil was not so much for disguise, as to protect her valuable scent organ. "I'm ready to go. In fact, while you were out, I had time to dig something useful out of my research on this algorithm problem."

"Wait's that?" Sadie asked as Endora led her upstairs toward the roof.

"Just an idea Ernest the Inscrutable left in his notes."

"Eh?" Sadie shook her head. "Wasn't he that gizzard who went gogo over the member 42?"

"Oh, no. He proved that 42 has magical properties. Only, he never found out what they were."

"And wasp," Sadie asked as they emerged onto the roof, "are you going to dupe with a broody number?"

"I'm going to use it to tie up Mr. Shore in red tape," said Endora, brandishing the Ministry report. "Only this time, he won't get out. Not once we use his seal -- "

"Impala's seal," Sadie corrected.

"-- Ilona's seal," Endora agreed, "over instructions not to open the report until the 42nd of May."

Sadie winced.

"What?"

"Remind me," she said, "newer to get up your knob. Er, news..."

"Olfactory organ," Endora hinted.

Sadie nodded grimly, but her gesture went unnoticed because Endora had already donned her sleep mask and leapt off the rooftop. Charming her broom to stay close to Endora's, Sadie followed her into the swift, rushing air.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGES FOR TMQ #161 & 162 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment answering the following Surveys and Contests. The survey answers with the most votes, and the contest answers that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the next two chapters!

SURVEY FOR TMQ #161: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Some of Anatoly's defensive tattoos. (C) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (D) Subito's Turbo Gum. (E) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST FOR TMQ #161: Suggest an experiment a wizard might do, toward bending a particular law of nature.

SURVEY FOR TMQ #162: Funny thing about Ilona... In Chapter 155, she was hypnotized by Lee Shore. But then she turns up in Chapter 159, right as rain. How would you explain this? (A) Ilona-155 is an imposter. (B) Ilona-159 is an imposter. (C) The events of Chapter 159 take place some time after Endora & Sadie (presumably) save the world from Lee Shore. (D) Somehow, by magic, Ilona has managed to be in two different places at one time. (E) Other suggestions welcome.

CONTEXT FOR TMQ #162: Describe a special step or move that a well-trained wizard might use in hand-to-hand combat.

159. Minimilian Returns

2009-06-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Linda Carrig

As Sir Lionel crept through the mysterious compound, he discovered that it was much larger than he had spotted at first. Clearly, the wizards here were caught up in more than one sinister plan.

Beyond the ring of huts he found a grove of walnut trees playing cricket with their own fallen fruit. Getting through it without being hit by a leathery, walnut-cored ball was quite tricky. Then there was the thicket of ash and yew trees that he found practicing archery, using bows and arrows made out of their own branches; Sir Lionel had to be very careful to avoid becoming a target. He edged nervously around a copse of whomping willows that he found sparring with each other, raining splinters and twigs from every collision of their powerful limbs. At the brink of a stream he encountered another variety of willows whose long, supple branches, trailing in the water, snatched up passing fish now and again. He wondered what they were called, and was trying to decide between "reaping rillows" and "wringing whompers" when he felt a wand-tip touch the back of his neck.

"Hands up slowly," said the wizard behind him. Sir Lionel obeyed, feeling the wand snatched out of his right hand as he did so.

"Turn around." Sir Lionel turned around. He ended up facing the same direction. The other man clicked his tongue with exasperation and said, "This time turn half-way around." This gave them the ability to look at each other. Sir Lionel wasn't much to look at after weeks of survival in the bush. The other man wasn't much prettier. Short, stocky, squash-nosed and lantern-jawed, he had hardly any neck and, by way of compensation, one enormous eyebrow. The eyes beneath it bulged suspiciously. "Keep it shut," he growled. "Wouldn't want to warn whoever is with you."

"No one is..."

"Who sent you?" the ugly wizard barked.

"Sent me?" Sir Lionel was on the point of telling the truth -- that he was there by pure chance, that his broom had elected to crash on the way to somewhere else -- when he realized that he needed a bargaining chip. Someone who would be coming after him if he didn't report. So he used his hesitation to look shifty and inventive when he replied, "No one sent me. My broom just crashed over that ridge..."

"Very likely," sneered the other. "Only question is, are you one of them RMB blokes, or did the competition send you? Eh?"

"I'd rather not say," was all Sir Lionel dared to improvise.

"Oh! It's like that, is it?" The stocky wizard brandished his wand threateningly. "We'll soon have the whole truth out of you, won't we? Now, turn around and march!" A moment later: "Oof! I meant turn half-way around!"

As his captor barked instructions from behind, Sir Lionel began to wonder how he could possibly get out of this tight spot. Then another voice hissed: "Stop! Hands up!"

"I already have my hands up," Sir Lionel sang over his shoulder.

"I meant the other one," the new voice said gruffly. "Now shut it, both of you, and turn slowly to face me..."

Since his former captor was looking the other way, he did not happen to see Sir Lionel's momentary look of joyful recognition. The tall figure holding them both at wand point was cloaked from head to foot, his face in shadow, his physique hidden by the loose fit of his dark cloak. He held two wands in each hand, all of them pointed at the man in the middle. He could be no one, Sir Lionel realized, but Spanky Spankison.

"Just try it," Spanky growled with all the menace of an approaching tempest. The other man left off trying to dig a throwing-knife out of an ankle sheath with his foot. The thick shoulders bunched and writhed. Sir Lionel was privately glad he didn't have to look at those enormous jaws grinding and gnashing.

"How many wands defend this place?" Spanky demanded. "Speak quickly!"

"I've got nothing to say," said the other wizard.

"Don't make me use these," said Spanky, waving the wands in his left hand threateningly.

"If you're RMB," said lantern-jaw, "there are rules. You can't torture me."

"That's a big if," said Spanky. Then he loosed a spell at his prisoner's right foot.

The man howled, more in terror than in pain, then looked down and howled again. "Yow-how-how-how dare you!"

Sir Lionel, who by now had joined Spanky and retrieved his wand, saw that their prisoner was suddenly mincing up and down in open-toed high heels, with painted toenails and all. The effect wasn't very lovely, given the man's hairy legs and the coarseness of his feet.

"Answer my questions," said Spanky, "or you'll be wearing a dress that goes with those shoes."

The prisoner stopped fidgeting and said, with a sudden coolness that chilled Sir Lionel's blood, "All right, ask away."

"Behind us," Spanky hissed out of the side of his mouth.

Sir Lionel wheeled around to look, but not fast enough to stop the disarming spell that blasted the wand out of his grip.

"Er, sorry, old boy," said Sir Lionel, addressing Spanky, though he was facing another short man he had never seen before. This one, however, was as sleek and handsome as their former prisoner was not.

"Give me their wands, Hugo," the genteel captor said in an almost beautiful voice. He shot a saintly smile at Sir Lionel, a smile that seemed to say that everyone was mistaken about who were the bad guys and who the good. "Ah! As I live and breathe, Mr. Spankison! I never dreamed of meeting you again."

"Nor I you," said Spanky, turning himself around. "Still got all your limbs, Minimilian? I was sure that hag would have eaten at least part of you. Well! It's an imperfect world!"

"We're in agreement to that extent," smiled Minimilian.

"What miserable scheme are you nursing now?" Spanky jerked his head toward the compound.

"Just business," said Minimilian, as cheerfully as ever. "Now, gentlemen, about face and march!"

For a few moments, they marched in silence through orchards of dodge-ball apple trees and groves of lemon trees that kept trying to squirt lemon juice at them. The only sound other than the rustle of leaves and the thump of hard apples against tree trunks was Minimilian's whistling. Sir Lionel recognized the tune: "Hex today goodbye, Portkey to tomorrow..."

"Business!" Spanky snorted, interrupting the tune. "Selling weaponized, magical creatures and plants? You must be hoarding the money for some big gesture, some..."

"Surely you don't expect me to confide in you?" Minimilian's laugh was like the jingling of little bells. "You seem to have me confused with an evil genius. You know the type, always explaining their dastardly plans, so that the hero can escape and put a stop to them. I'm not as clever as that. I'm just a reasonably shrewd businessman, and I'll keep my plans to myself, thank you."

"No: thank you," said another unexpected voice from behind Minimilian.

They all stopped marching.

"Hugo," said Minimilian, with a barely detectible edge of irritation in his voice, "I was hoping you might have covered our backs."

"Don't blame Hugo," said the female voice. "He's tied up, stunned, and gagged a couple orchards back."

"Is it finally my pleasure to meet the elusive Ilona Ilonera?" Minimilian turned around slowly, his hands up and disarmed. "Ah! As lovely as I had imagined!"

"I would prefer," said Ilona, aiming her wand steadily at the spot between Minimilian's wide, innocent eyes, "that you would just shut up."

"As you wish," he murmured sweetly.

Spanky rolled his eyes, though under the hood of his cloak they could not be seen. "Shall we tie him up and carry him?"

"I don't know," said Ilona. "I think I saw a colony of red ants on the way here. Perhaps we could just stake him down beside it..."

Hearing this, Minimilian beamed with satisfaction. He seemed to take it as a personal success when his enemies turned as evil as himself.

"...but I reckon we'd better just portkey him to the nearest RMB field-office for booking."

"It's up to you, dear," said Spanky.

Ilona sighed, then with her free hand began to rummage in the pockets of her robes. She finally brought out a greasy bicycle chain, which she placed around Minimilian's neck.

"I say," the little cherub squeaked uncomfortably. "I'll be sending you my cleaning bill."

"Do," said Ilona, with an equally angelic simper. "And now: three... two... "

"Hold that thought," snapped another feminine voice.

Ilona threw down all the wands in her hand with a strangled roar. Spanky and Sir Lionel put their hands up again as half a dozen figures emerged from the shadows of the juggling oaks, which immediately resumed playing a noisy game of hackey-sack with hundreds of acorns. The woman leading this squad of guards approached Minimilian with an air of disgusted authority. Minimilian, looking as innocent as ever, lowered his eyes before her -- not in embarrassment, but in deference.

"You really must stop letting these people get the best of you," the woman said with a voice like the crack of a whip. Her red-black hair swayed down her back in a thick, tight braid. Her dark eyes flashed under upswept brows.

"I led them here, didn't I?" Minimilian shrugged. "I knew you would take control again."

Spanky and Ilona exchanged confused looks. Or rather, Ilona exchanged one with the shadows under Spanky's hood. Sir Lionel, reading her expression, knew they had expected Minimilian to be the man in charge.

The woman tied the three prisoners together and walked around them several times, eyeing them appraisingly. She didn't seem to need a wand, with seven -- make that eight, as Hugo emerged from the trees rubbing his head -- henchmen holding her prisoners at bay. Finally she said, "It's a pity we can't just kill them and throw their bodies to Audrey Four. But you know they'll have filed a mission plan with the RMB. Someone is sure to come looking for them. So what shall we do?"

"Hold them for ransom," suggested Hugo.

"Wipe their memories," suggested Minimilian.

The woman looked disgusted at the first suggestion, intrigued by the second. But she shook her head. "I'm leaning toward killing them anyway," she said. "Only, we can lay a false trail to the crash site in the next valley. Maybe scatter a few gnawed bones, make it look as though they died of crash-related injuries..."

"There will be a letter in the Daily Prophet about this," Sir Lionel blurted. "Take that woman's name, son."

"The name," said the woman, fixing Sir Lionel with a defiant stare, "which won't be any use to you, is O'Modo. Allie O'Modo. Now tell me, how can you write a letter when you're already dead?"

"The question you should ask," said Spanky, "is: How can you kill us so that it doesn't look like foul play?"

"How kind of you to redirect my thinking," said Allie O'Modo. "That's easy enough, though. I've been meaning to turn my pet garden-gnomes out into the next valley... for some exercise..."

Hugo laughed and clapped his hands. "At last," he said. "A live test!"

+++ SURVEY FOR TMQ #161 +++

Participation in The Magic Quill has gone down dramatically in the past several months. What do you think we should do? (A) Keep it going for at least ___ more chapters, and see if more readers contribute to the comments. (B) Tie up as many loose ends as possible within the next 4-5 chapters, and then bring it to an end. (C) Leave the loose ends hanging, and end it now because it's already too far gone.

Leave your response to this survey in the Comments. If you haven't left a comment before, please take the time and effort to do so -- especially if you would like to see TMQ continue. A little encouragement may fuel Robbie's creativity for a long time. And nothing would be more encouraging than knowing that the Magic Quill matters to more than 5 or 6 people!

158. History of Magic

2009-06-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Dragonic
Runners-up: greyniffler, Linda, Rehannah, TWZRD, & Evensong
with apologies to Pamela Dean and Roald Dahl

In a hut of mud-caulked timber, in a compound full of similar huts, in a remote valley, a door opened and closed as if by itself. As a school lesson was going on in that hut, the teacher halted her lecture on magical inventions to look round at the door, but she saw nothing to explain the event. She looked narrowly at the children before her, studying them for signs that one of them was playing a joke with, say, a wand under the desk. Seven young faces looked up at her, as surprised and alarmed as she was.

"Never mind," she shrugged. She resumed pacing up and down in front of her students. "Let's check what you've learned now. Patrick, who do you think was the greatest wizard inventor?"

The youngest of the three boys flashed a crooked smile and said, "I'm after sayin' it were Bertrand the Bibulous."

The teacher composed her face to a long-suffering expression and asked, "And how did Wizard Bertrand make our world better?"

"Why, by inventing the cure for hangover, sure."

The other children fell over each other laughing. Patrick gazed steadily into the teacher's face with a look of absolute sincerity, while the latter turned her eyes toward heaven. For a few moments, no one was looking at the teacher's desk. And so no one saw a bruised, dirty hand reach up from behind the desk and pinch the shiny apple that stood there.

"I wonder if that invention really made the world a better place," the teacher said primly, as soon as the room was quiet enough.

"It does for me da," Patrick blurted, to the great delight of his friends.

"And how brave of Bertrand, to keep experimenting on himself until he hit upon the right spell," added one of the older boys. "He must have endured a lot of rough mornings..."

The children's roar of laughter just covered the muffled munching sounds behind the teacher's desk.

"Since Edward is so eager to give us his thoughts," the teacher trilled, as the class came to order again, "the next question will go to him. Who invented Floo Powder, and how was it originally used?"

Edward stammered for a few moments. Casting around for anything to say, he caught the eye of a girl on the other side of the room, who made an odd gesture with one finger pointing upward behind her head. His eyes brightened. Before the teacher could look round to see who was helping him, Edward recited: "A Lakota medicine wizard named Red Smoke is said to have compounded the first recipe for Floo Powder. Originally it was meant to make smoke signals secure from enemy spies. You would throw the powder into the flames and say someone's name. Then, until the spell ended, your smoke signals would appear in that person's fire. The idea of sending anything but smoke didn't come until the Lakota shared their secrets with a white wizard called Gorse."

"Excellent work, Edward," said the teacher, who had been too engrossed in the young man's performance to notice the soft thump her coffee mug made when the strange hand returned it, empty, to the top of her desk. "Now, Ruth, perhaps you can tell me who wrote the first witches' cookbook, and how useful it is."

The tallest girl, who happened to have signaled to Edward before, gave a pained smile. "The witch was known as Cauldron Kate, and the trouble with her book is that she doesn't quite separate the magical potions from the spells to cook food. Many of her recipes have magical side effects, like when her cabbage rolls make you grow asses' ears."

The children tittered. Ruth looked embarrassed. She seemed to resent being asked questions about domestic arts, when she cared rather more about Red Smoke and his type of wizards. The teacher took no more notice of this than of the quill and inkwell disappearing off her desk.

"Ellen," the teacher said, starling a much younger girl out of a daydream, "tell us about the witch or wizard who invented Veritaserum."

"Her name was Samirah al Haqq," said Ellen, stifling a yawn. "She was the first female Court Wizard, or rather Court Witch, of the Sultan of, er..."

"The correct pronunciation is Ur," the teacher hinted.

"Exactly," Ellen said cheerfully. "She was also the court historian, treasurer, and royal torturer. The Sultan of Ur was a bit of a cheapskate, so he liked to combine different jobs like that."

"Ellen," the teacher growled warningly as the other children giggled. The mysterious hand behind the desk took advantage of this disturbance to nick a roll of parchment.

The girl rolled her eyes. "No one would talk to her because she was a woman," she added. "It didn't look like she was going to last long in her job as royal historian, so she messed around with potion ingredients until she came up with Veritaserum, and that saved her. It also..."

"That's fine," said the teacher. "Let's move on. Laura - "

A girl about Ellen's age started nervously, knocking her inkwell off her desk. The teacher, used to this sort of thing, saved it from smashing on the floor with a levitation spell and charmed it back onto the desk. Suppressing a sigh, she continued: "Laura, what became of Gertrude the Grotesque?"

In an almost inaudible voice, Laura reported that Gertrude had invented a variety of potions and glamors to keep herself looking young and beautiful long past the usual best-by date; but that, in a moment of rare clumsiness, she had accidentally turned herself so ugly that anyone who saw her went mad. The Wizengamot had sent three blind wizards who used their exceptional senses of smell, hearing, and irony to discover Gertrude's hiding place. Once captured, she was imprisoned in a hall of mirrors, where her screams, or the screams of her ghost, could be heard from that day to this.

Laura shivered at the end of this tale. For a moment, the whole school room was so still that the stranger's hand froze in place above a pot of Floo Powder on the teacher's desk. Then a weak, nervous laugh spread through the room like ripples in a puddle, and with a quick dusty snatch the hand disappeared again.

"Matilda," the teacher barked at a small girl who was concentrating on levitating a newt out of its aquarium, using neither a wand nor a spoken spell. The girl sat up straighter and gave the teacher a look of perfect innocence. "Tell us," said the teacher, "how the modern wand was invented."

"Wizards had always used forked sticks, greenwood rods, unicorn tailhairs, and so on," said Matilda. "By themselves, they didn't really do much. The first real wand, with a dragon-heartstring core, was made by Po the Polisher, a wizard in the army of the first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. His wand made him so deadly in battle that all the other army wizards soon wanted them. Po ended up making wands full-time, and his experiments led him to discover nine of the eleven fundamental charms of wandmaking."

"Excellent as usual, Matilda. And that leaves..." The teacher squinted up and down the row of children facing her, then snapped her fingers and said: "George!"

A boy with a dirty nose and stained fingers said, "What?" without looking up from the picture he was drawing on a loose piece of parchment.

Failing to stifle her sigh this time, the teacher gave up on getting George's undivided attention and simply said, "Tell us about an inventor, will you?"

"Tylenenkhamen," said George, without looking up.

"What about him?"

"Invented wizard medicine," George grunted. Meanwhile, he continued to scribble.

"And?"

"And his potion to cure headaches wasn't used for four thousand years because it was mixed up with a recipe for embalming fluid," the boy added. "Preserving the dead was a much bigger business in ancient Egypt than curing headaches. Healing magic had to be re-invented several times before it caught on, thanks to Healer Koscrates of Hippo. But my Great-Uncle Ambrosiaster, who was a curse-breaker for Gringotts, found Tylenenkhamen's recipe and tried it."

"How did it work?" said Edward.

"He died," shrugged George. "But you can't expect success on the first go, can you? His ancient Egyptian was lousy anyway. Recipe probably would have worked if he'd read it right..."

By this point the class had erupted in its loudest disturbance yet, groans of disgust mingling with screams of laughter. The teacher banged a petrified egg on her desk in a vain attempt to call them back to order. In all this commotion, no one noticed the door opening again and a crouched figure darting out into the compound.

Sir Lionel Niblet kept his head down and scurried from hut to hut, pausing only to make sure the coast was clear before crossing each open space. He finally reached what appeared to be a barrel of burning garbage. Opening a door set in the side of the barrel, he tossed in a handful of Floo Powder, whispering "Spanky Spankison," and thrust a tight roll of parchment after it. The letter vanished in a burst of green flames. Now, Sir Lionel thought as he ducked and weaved toward the treeline, he would just have to wait...

His progress was abruptly halted by an unexpected obstacle. He had run directly into the legs of a tall, heavy-shouldered wizard whose robes had, at first glance, blended into the foliage on the edge of the clearing.

"Here's a juicy surprise," said the man, grabbing Sir Lionel's throat in a steely grip.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #160 +++

Are you still there after Robbie inexplicably took a month off from writing "The Magic Quill"? If so, let him know & send him a word of encouragement. Robbie has been working a lot on "The Book Trolley" lately. You may see the results soon if you keep watching MuggleNet for updates. But "The Magic Quill" has a lot of life left in it, too. So, don't just lurk and read! You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. Also, introduce a friend to "The Magic Quill," and get him or her to drop a comment too! [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: How many inches long is Endora's nose?

CONTEST: Describe a number (real or imaginary) that has magical significance.

157. Dungeon Brownies

2009-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Rehannah
Runner-up: TWZRD

The light at the tips of their wands revealed a grim sight to Merlin and Miss Pucey. Ahead of them, a flagstoned passage receded into darkness. Along each side ran an endless series of heavy doors with barred windows in them at eye level. When they looked through the windows, they saw heaps of bones, some more or less held together by remnants of sinew and tattered clothes. The bones of humans mingled with those of the rats who had starved with them - or, at least, shortly after them.

Miss Pucey shuddered. Merlin growled at the back of his throat, sounding fiercer than he felt.

The dungeon continued straight ahead, damp and cold and still and heavy with despair and death. It seemed they had been walking through it for hours, yet the cell doors marched onward in unbroken formation. Now and again Merlin checked to see if a cell had been occupied, and each time he came away from the window with the same bitter growl.

Then, for the first time since passing the Joke Knocker, they saw something different. It appeared so suddenly, in fact, that the duo only noticed it when Merlin tripped over it. They stopped to look around, Miss Pucey hiking her skirts up over her ankles.

"It's a shoe," said Merlin, pointing his wandlight at it.

"A shoe in remarkably good condition, compared to what's left of the inmates' footwear," said Miss Pucey, measuring it roughly against her own shoe. "Men's size ten, give or take."

Merlin didn't say it aloud, but the thought came to him unbidden: "That's my size." But it wasn't his shoe. His shoes weren't in top condition like this one. They had, for example, gotten soaked in the waters of the Venetian lagoon and dried out in the dank air of the merhags' larder. He could do with a new pair, and this one looked pretty good.

"How did it get here?" he wondered aloud. "There was nothing ahead of us. We would have seen it. And then I just tripped over it."

Miss Pucey sucked her breath through clenched teeth when Merlin picked up the shoe. He turned it over in his hand, suffering no ill effects. It didn't seem to be poisoned or cursed. Not yet, at least.

"I wouldn't wear that if I were you," said Miss Pucey. "Haven't you heard what happens to witches or wizards who put on shoes when they don't know where they came from? You could end up dancing yourself to death."

"I'm not putting it on, am I?" Merlin stuffed the shoe into a pocket in his robes. "We might need it to get out of here."

After following the dungeon walk another length of a football field, the pair found another shoe, the mate of the first. Merlin pocketed it as well. Shortly after that a sturdy, sensible calfskin shoe, seemingly tailored to Miss Pucey's right foot, appeared. Then another for the left.

"This is starting to feel ominous," Miss Pucey noted as Merlin pocketed the second woman's shoe. "I mean, what comes next? Kid gloves? Stockings with garters?"

What came next was a commotion in the darkness ahead. Merlin rummaged in his satchel and brought out the portable wall Harvey had given him. He tugged a cord at one end of it, and in moments it grew to fill the passage ahead of them. From their side of it, it looked like a layer of thin gauze stretched over a rickety frame. Through it they could see the length of corridor ahead of them, still lit by their wandlights, but Merlin knew that from the other side it would appear to be a section of dungeon wall advancing down the corridor.

"It's funny," whispered Miss Pucey, as they began walking toward the noise ahead, "but I don't feel very well-protected."

Merlin silenced her with the look on his face.

As they approached one of the cells, seemingly identical to all the others, they heard whispering voices from within. Someone seemed to be saying: "What's that light?" Another: "They're coming." Other words and voices were stifled by a general shushing sound.

Peering through the portable wall, Merlin saw the inside of the cell by wandlight. No one seemed to be there except the last occupant of the cell, now no more than a pile of desiccated bones. "Hello?" Merlin called gently. Other than a feeling of frozen fear and waiting, no one seemed to be home.

Merlin looked more closely at the bones on the dungeon floor. There seemed to be more than bones there. A tattered piece of cloth or skin lay spread on the floor with several items arranged on it. Tools. Merlin peered harder, wishing he had a free hand to scratch his head. Then it came to him. The spade-like lasts arranged according to size; the pointy awls, sharp leather-cutting tools, heavy needles, fine instruments for pinching and gripping and hammering... These were the tools of a cobbler. But what could a cobbler have done to provoke the wrath of one of the counts of Bestemmia?

Merlin jumped at a loud noise farther along the corridor. Something had landed against the flagstones with a metallic clang.

"Oh, this place!" Miss Pucey moaned, her hands fluttering about her.

"This way," said Merlin, pushing the inflatable wall ahead of them.

"Are you sure?" she murmured.

"There's no other way out but forward," he said.

"Are you sure?" she repeated.

He rolled his eyes. "Aren't you curious about what's going on here?"

"Curiosity killed the cat," said Miss Pucey. "You wouldn't have a cat in that bag of yours? You know, to scout ahead?"

"Sorry," Merlin grinned, "we'll just have to risk it."

They risked it, and soon enough they found out what had made the clanging noise. It was a horseshoe.

Miss Pucey darted a look behind them, holding her wand above her head.

"What?" cried Merlin.

She sighed. "Nothing. I just had to check to see whether a horse was following us. Or maybe a thestral. Could you see a thestral if one was there?"

"There's no thestral behind us," Merlin said confidently. "Whoever has been dropping footwear ahead of us has apparently noticed that we've run out of feet."

Another clang up ahead made both of them jump again.

"Maybe there will be horses to go with these shoes," Miss Pucey suggested, "when we get to wherever this corridor leads."

They collected a total of eight horseshoes before the corridor led anywhere but past more dungeon cells full of grisly remains. Once more they followed a sound of whispering to a cell door where, as soon as Merlin looked through the window, the whispering stopped. This time the victim's corpse was surrounded by other tools - anvil, forge, hammers, tongs - suggesting that a farrier had met a fate similar to that of the cobbler.

"This Maledicto person," Miss Pucey said, pronouncing the name as if it brought the taste of bile to her lips, "seems to have it in for honest tradesmen."

"I think," said Merlin, "he's just greedy. He wants the best of everything, and then he destroys the artist who made it so that no one else can enjoy the same quality. Or perhaps he kills them so that he needn't pay for their services."

"How very like a spoilt child," Miss Pucey sneered. "People ought to have their children brought up better."

Torn between making a pointed observation on how she had phrased her last assertion and asking how much credit she took for the way Rigel had turned out, Merlin bit his tongue.

They continued forward for only another quarter-mile or so. Then, quite suddenly, the dungeon ended. The flagstoned floor plunged into space as a deep chasm opened before them, so deep that their wandlight could not reach bottom. The opposite side was only a stone's throw away. Directly across from them stood another heavy wooden door. There was just enough flagstoned floor before the door for one or two people to stand upon, and a thick metal rod jutted out of the stone wall beside the door, angled upwards.

Merlin groaned. There seemed to be no way across this canyon. There was no path around the edge. There was no bridge over it. It was too far to jump. "All right," he said. "Let me try something."

Miss Pucey stood back a few paces while Merlin attempted to levitate the portable wall across the gap. As it hovered in midair about halfway across, an updraft caught it and smashed it against the vaulted stone ceiling. The wall crumpled and disintegrated before their eyes, raining fragments into the dark depths.

"This isn't good," Merlin noted.

"Look!" Miss Pucey gasped and pointed.

Merlin squinted in the direction she was pointing, but ultimately had to ask: "Look at what?"

"There's a kind of path running straight up the face of the cliff!"

It was true. Similar to the flagstoned floor they stood on, a smooth path ascended the opposite side of the ravine, as if designed for a human fly to walk upon. Looking over the edge before him, Merlin confirmed that a length of even flagstones descended the near side as well, terminating well above the edge of their circle of light.

Miss Pucey spoke through her fingers, which she had pressed to her lips as if to hold her excitement within: "Do you suppose the shoes we found will allow us to walk down the wall and up again?"

"Maybe," said Merlin. "The trouble is, we can only find out by trying. And if they don't work that way, we won't get a chance to try a different theory."

"All right," she suggested in a sensible tone, "how about that lever over there? Perhaps if we pull it down, the path will rise up off the sides of the cliff and form a bridge."

"That's also possible," Merlin admitted. "But how can we pull the lever from over here?"

Something went clang directly behind them. In their surprise, they nearly jumped off the cliff. When Merlin looked down, he spotted a ninth horseshoe lying on the stone floor just behind his heel. He also caught a glimpse of something moving close to the wall, but when he looked in that direction, nothing was there.

"I've seen some weird things," said Miss Pucey. "I mean, my young man is Life Commissioner of the League of Head Quidditch, Ghost Rugby Union, and Spectral Sports. I've been formally introduced to everything that goes bump in the night. But this is starting to give me the creeps."

"I fully understand," said Merlin. But he looked awfully calm about it.

"Do you?" said Miss Pucey. "I've had the screaming heebie-jeebies over for ice cream. I coached the winning team in a djinn sand volleyball tournament. I've played pachesi against three 15th-century Persian moguls on a board the size of Leicester Square, with the ghosts of sixteen fat eunuchs acting as gamepieces. I once spent an entire cruise on the Flying Dutchman listening to Marie Antoinette giving beauty tips to Lucrezia Borgia. I can deal with that. But right now, right here, I am this close to having a full-on panic attack. Can you understand that?"

Merlin shook his head. "I meant, I understand what's going on now. You remember that poor cobbler? And the farrier too?"

"Of course I remember them! I'll remember them until the day I die, which won't be long now unless we get across this hole in the ground..."

"Can you think of something cobblers and farriers always have around them?"

Miss Pucey shook her head. "Tools? But we saw their tools..."

"No," said Merlin. "Not tools. Creatures."

The lightbulb went on in Miss Pucey's face. "Ah! Not..."

"Yes," said Merlin. "Brownies. They've spent who knows how long preparing the best possible shoes, using whatever materials were on hand, just for us."

"And horseshoes," Miss Pucey pointed out, looking around but still seeing no horses nearby.

"And horse-..." Merlin's eyes went blank. He turned around and looked at the lever on the far wall of the chasm. "Oh," he added. "I see it now. We're to play horseshoes..."

The first two horseshoes missed the far wall entirely, falling silent into the void below. The third horseshoe struck sparks from the stone above and to the right of the lever. It wasn't until the sixth throw that Merlin made a ringer. The shoe hung its weight on the uptilted lever, but nothing changed.

He threw the seventh horseshoe. By now his aim was spot-on. By the eighth throw, he had three horseshoes hanging on the lever. Only one remained in his hand.

"Make this one count," he told himself.

Miss Pucey covered her face with both hands.

Merlin's heart almost stopped when the shoe struck the wall above the lever. But then, miraculously, it dropped straight down onto the lever. Before clattering off into nothingness, the last iron shoe lent its weight to the three that already hung there, and suddenly the lever tilted downward. All the shoes rattled off and sailed into the darkness. But already something was happening, and it evidently couldn't be stopped by anything as mundane as three horseshoes falling off an iron rod.

The lengths of path running down both sides of the chasm rose up and joined in the middle, forming a narrow bridge. Quickly, Merlin and Miss Pucey crossed it in single file, he reaching back to hold her hand. The bridge stayed where it was behind them while they stood considering the door on the opposite side.

"Locked," Merlin observed.

"Shall we knock?" Miss Pucey suggested.

"No," said Merlin, thinking back to the Joke Knocker with an inward shiver. "I have a better idea...."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #159 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Whatever happened to Minimilian? (A) Madrigal the hag caught and ate him. (B) He escaped and reformed his ways. (C) He escaped and began planning his revenge against Spanky and Ilona. (D) He was rescued by another villain, who means to use him for his/her own evil plan.

CONTEST: Write a magical parody of the lyrics of a popular song. One stanza and a chorus will do.

156. In for a Sickle...

2009-04-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Linda Carrig
Runner-up: Dragonic

A canal in Venice. A moonlit night. The sound of a guitar playing behind some open window. A dog pauses while chasing a rat across a bridge, looks down and sees a head emerging from the water, then resumes pursuit.

Wisely, Rigel doesn't dismiss the Bubble-Head charm until he is well on dry land. He heaves himself wearily up a short flight of stone steps and collapses on the stone quay. Looking down, he sees a clutch of hideous women looking up at him from just below the water's surface. They favor him with rude gestures; he returns the favor. They linger, as if hoping he will come back down into the water, until he catches his breath enough to walk away.

Rigel's legs feel like pieces of cooked spaghetti as he trudges, dripping, through a narrow alley. He looks around carefully, trying to get his bearings and hoping he can get to his hotel without having to cross water. He absent-mindedly rubs the stoneskin ring that hangs around his neck on a leather thong. He owes his survival to its protection from the merhags' piercing fangs. On the other hand, the ring hasn't prevented the merhags from developing a taste for his skin. He shudders to remember the feeling of his arms, chest, and back being licked by dozens of slimy, black tongues.

A strange sound rouses him from his reverie. He peers ahead through the gloom. The sound comes again: a deep snuffling noise, like a very large creature stifling a sneeze. It seems to come from an angle in the passage ahead. The moonlight isn't much help in this narrow alley. Rigel edges forward cautiously, preparing to flee back to the canal. Then his breath catches in his throat as a dark shape moves out into the alley ahead. A huge, dark shape. How, he wonders, could he not have noticed that smell?

As he thinks this thought, Rigel turns on his heel... and stops. Another figure is coming up behind him. A human figure. "Go back," Rigel hisses in a stage-whisper. He says it again in Italian, but the figure keeps walking toward him at the same pace. He glances over his shoulder. The great beast behind him is just standing there, filling the alley. He looks ahead again, just in time to see the shadowy man transform into another hulking animal shape. Another hulking, stinky, menacing, animal shape.

"Cripes," Rigel squeaks. But the wonderful thing about Rigel is that he never freezes under pressure. Even while all this is happening - from the moment he has spotted the first wereyak, in fact - his fingers have been picking at the stitches tacking a slender strip of silk piping to the seams of his damp trousers.

The creatures have begun to close in, but slowly - cautiously. Rigel curses himself silently for leaving his wand tied to his arm by a shoelace. He must choose between escaping and defending himself; and since his first instinct was to pick his silken ladder free, escape is now his only option. If only he could use his wand for defense, he might be able to buy himself a bit more time to escape. As it is, the only spell he can count on (with his wand where it is) is Lumos.

He tries it. Light flares out of the tip of his wand, showing him every humped, shaggy, slobbery detail of the figure in front of him. The creature stops moving forward, wincing into the brightness. But the snuffling, shuffling noises from behind continue to draw nearer.

I don't know who these people are, Rigel tells himself, or why they all turn into yaks, but I have a feeling I should avoid them like Dragonpox...

"Nox," he says, putting out the wandlight. Then he throws the silken ladder upward with an expert snap of the arm. A moment later, a long thread hangs above his head, reaching vertically into the pale darkness above the cobbled alley. Rigel jumps for the end of the thread and shins up it. When he reaches the top, hanging in space, he looks down and sees two yaks directly below him, looking up.

A moment later, two dark human shapes have taken their place, one of them crouching to spring toward the bottom of the silken ladder. Quickly, Rigel swings the lower end of the thread around so that it hangs above him, and continues his climb. The next time he looks down, the alley is deserted.

When he finally reaches the roof of one of the nearby buildings, Rigel collapses against the stone tiles with a grunt of exhaustion. Bracing his legs against a lead gutter, he spools up the silken ladder and stuffs it into a trouser pocket. Then he rubs his cramped hands, wriggling for a more comfortable position as the roof tiles seem determined to dig into the sore muscles of his shoulders.

A passing breeze makes him shiver. Or maybe it wasn't the breeze. Rigel wrenches his neck painfully, looking around to see who or what might be on the roof with him. No one is there. He sighs, flops on his back, and almost chokes when a hand reaches up from the alley and grips the edge of the gutter, just between his feet.

This time Rigel has nowhere to escape to. His only choice is to fight. Clawing at the waterlogged shoelace tying his wand to his forearm, he racks his brains for a spell he can use in this situation. The first thing that comes to him is the disillusionment charm, which he casts on himself with a soundless movement of the lips, as soon as his wand comes free. He does it just in time, too. The owner of the hands pulls himself over the gutter a second later, seeing nothing but a loose shoelace dangling over the gutter.

Rigel balances dangerously on the gutter itself, scarcely out of the reach of the man's arms. He owes his silent tread to his shoes having been left behind in the merhag larder.

The other man picks up the shoelace, sniffs it, then raises his nose to the moonlit sky and sniffs again. He turns his head slowly, eyes closed, then stops and opens them. He is looking directly at Rigel.

Rigel looks down at himself: still disillusioned! Can he see me? he wonders. Who are these people?

The wereyak's intent gaze is suddenly distracted by a clatter of stone on stone. His head whips around to look at a small avalanche of pepples on the adjacent rooftop. It appears that someone invisible is attempting to run away in that direction. Glancing back in Rigel's direction with a snort of disappointment, the man follows in a stooped scramble, keeping his hands close to the sloping stone tiles beneath him.

Rigel waits until his pursuer is out of sight before padding as quietly as possible in the opposite direction. He clambers over the peak of one roof and up the slope of another, easily hurdling a narrow alley, little caring that he has lost his way in one of the world's most confusing cities. After covering some distance without seeing any sign of pursuit, he climbs down a drainpipe and staggers wearily toward the nearest canal.

He spots a vaparetto tied to a stanchion and instantly, though with a twinge of remorse, decides to steal it. It takes but one flick of the wand to part the rope securing it to the pavement, and a brief twirl to get the propeller turning without the noise, smell, and bother of starting the engine. Within moments, he has rounded a point and found his bearings in a familiar canal.

By now dawn is not far away, its light already paling the eastern horizon. Rigel has never wanted anything as badly as the hot bath and soft robes that would await him at the Gritti Palace... but he does not steer in that direction. Biting his lip, he sets a course for the island of Il Comte di Bestemmia. He can think of no one else with the motives or resources to send two wereyaks after him. Il Comte must know he is working with Merlin to despoil him -- or, at least, to expose his treachery. And if Il Comte knows that much, he will know where Rigel lodges. His hotel will not be safe. Nowhere in this city will be safe, indeed, until they bring Il Comte down.

Although Rigel hasn't intended to get involved, he sighs and mutters to himself: "In for a sickle, in for a galleon..."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #158 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Whose storyline will be featured in Chapter 158? (A) Spanky. (B) Sadie. (C) Sir Lionel Niblet. (D) Harvey. (E) Endora.

CONTEST: Invent a whimsical name for a witch or wizard of historical importance. Also briefly describe what he/she did to become famous.

155. The Hystereo Effect

2009-03-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

Joint contest winners: Rehannah & TZWRD

The whistle didn't sound as Sadie expected. When Mr. Graves, or rather Joe Albuquerque, put it to his lips and blew, she had braced herself for a shrill blast. Instead, it gave a loud "Baaa!"

Duckham fell forward out of his chair. He had been resting his forearms on the table, until it vanished. Suddenly the Ministry inquisitor sprawled face-down on the floor. As he pushed himself up onto hands and knees, he heard another "Baaa!" behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he had only enough time to see a furry blur charging toward him, head down. He rolled out of the way. The charging goat narrowly missed, its hooves clattering and sliding on the floor tiles, the smell of its fur filling the interrogation room.

Weedom screamed when the table turned into the goat. He tried to get to the door, but the goat charged that next - with splintery results. The door stood up to two more blows from the goat's bony head before it gave way, landing on a surprised Millbray who had come running to see what was the matter. The three men picked themselves up, panting, cursing, whimpering, and checking each other for serious injuries, as the sound of the goat's scampering hooves faded around a distant bend in the corridor. It was only when Duckham realized that he had lost the suspect's wand that they noticed the suspect had gone as well.

Sadie started laughing the moment they apparated outside the Hog's Head pub. She kept laughing, supporting herself on Joe's arm, all the way to the shabby back parlor that had been held in readiness for them. On the way there, Joe paused to hand the whistle over to the proprietor, along with a fair tip and a word of thanks.

"That was the least thing I would have expectorated," Sadie gasped as she regained control of herself. She used the hem of her veil to wipe her eyes. "Leaf it to old what's-his-neume..."

"Yes," Joe agreed, while rummaging through a bulging carpetbag for his next disguise. "He can be a clever fellow, when goats are involved. Do you know, that whistle is made out of a goat's ankle bone? Instead of a pea inside, it's got a tiny bezoar..."

"Spanking of cleverness," said Sadie, "that Graves disgust worked awfully whelk, considering how fiddle time you had to perspire it."

"Oh! well," Joe admitted, bashfully, "it wasn't really that hard. Graves and I have crossed paths before. It's easy to pick up details about people who really annoy you."

Sadie's eyes widened. "I my have pricked up a derail about him myself."

Joe looked up at her from a selection of monogrammed jumpsuits - he had been trying to decide whether to become a pool cleaner or an exterminator - and by his look he managed to say, "Yes?"

"Did you ewer get a goad look at the chap who nickled this?" Sadie opened her fist and showed Joe the dull, heavy, silver ring she had taken from Uncle or Aunt Leslie's house. Where it might otherwise have held a jewel setting, the ring flared out into a flat, circular stamp with a raised insignia decorated with a complex design.

After staring at the ring for a moment, Joe finally took notice of Sadie's question. "The skinny youngster?" He shook his head. "Too busy hiding from him in that bank vault. Why?"

"He and your fiend Grades could be relegated to each other," said Sadie.

"You saw a family resemblance, did you?"

She nodded. Joe stroked his chin thoughtfully. When he put his hand down, he was suddenly wearing a Fu Manchu beard. "I guess I'm relieved," he said, rummaging more deeply in his carpetbag. He came up a moment later with a dog catcher's uniform.

"Released?" Sadie repeated, inaccurately. "Whiz?"

"Why?" Joe translated. Sadie nodded.

"Because," he went on, "I was starting to wonder if he was Bette Noir's boy - seeing that he inherited her bank vault and all. And given his apparent age, she would have had him around the time Bette and I were trapped in that Egyptian pyramid."

Sadie's eyes and mouth all said, in unison, "Oh."

"I thought he might have been my son," Joe added, by way of unnecessary explanation. After saying it, he fell silent, the better to concentrate on his new disguise. He also sat a bit lower in his seat. Sadie could not tell whether this showed his relief or his disappointment. She could understand another reason Joe might have been thinking along those lines: their young nemesis shared Joe's gift for disguise.

Sadie had almost put together a little speech of encouragement, which she knew wasn't going to come out right thanks to the lingering effects of the misspell on her, when a hand pulled aside the curtain at the entrance of the parlor and a familiar face looked in.

"Iguana!" Sadie exclaimed, beaming behind her veil.

Joe turned toward the doorway with a delighted grin. "You made good time," he said. But his grin faded when he saw the grim, tired look on Ilona's face.

"You have it?" she said, sitting down heavily across the table from Joe.

Sadie opened her hand again. Ilona snatched the ring out of it and held it close to her eye. She seemed to study it for a very long time, neither moving nor speaking, while Sadie fidgeted and Joe changed his disguise. At one point Ilona looked as if she might smile, but soon afterward a frown creased the center of her brow. Finally, she let the ring drop onto the table with a surprisingly loud thud.

"That's almost the best fake I've ever seen," she said.

Sadie's high spirits plummeted. "I bet your parson?"

Ilona turned her scrutiny toward Sadie, reading her features through the sheer fabric of her veil. Then she shook her head and said, "You've been had. Either Uncle or Aunt Leslie planted that fake, or he never got the real one in the first place..."

"Or I made the swatch," Sadie said, completing the thought for her. Her voice trembled with outrage. "Word you like to church me? Or maybe you shed frisky Joe here..."

"We have to eliminate the possibilities until we are left with the truth," said Ilona, refusing to retreat from Sadie's hurt feelings. "We know this Lee Shore person, whoever he is, took the real ring from my uncle. We know he used it to compel a worker at the Ministry to deposit a barrel of suiCider in Bette Noir's bank vault. We know he works with Uncle or Aunt Leslie, who has plans for the suiCider, and that he has been in contact with Il Comte di Bestemmia. What we don't know is whether Leslie planted the fake ring to fool Il Comte, or whether Lee Shore gave Leslie the fake and kept the real ring. We also don't know what happened between the three of them after you got away. So, really, any of them could have it."

"Il Comet was trying to stale this ring form Leslie," Sadie growled, "unlit I stole it fist."

"He clearly has plans to use the ring to force people to his will," said Ilona. "He was supposed to speak at a political rally in Venice, but he had to call it off. I'm sure if he had the ring, the rally would have gone forward..."

"...and Il Comte would be on his way toward world domination," Joe guessed.

Ilona nodded. "Since he didn't show up to speak, we can probably rule out Il Comte. That means either Uncle or Aunt Leslie fooled him..."

"Food us broth," Sadie muttered.

"...or Lee Shore fooled Leslie."

"In either case," said Joe, "they will start using the ring soon enough. With that vault under constant watch, they won't be able to go forward with Operation Death by Aromatherapy. But if it's true that no one can resist commands sealed with that ring, it won't be long before they move on an even nastier plan."

"The question is," said Ilona, "How will we know what their plan is before it's too late?"

The cheerful fire in the hearth behind Sadie suddenly flared green. With a loud puff of warm air, a roll of parchment sailed out of the fire, over Sadie's head, and onto the table in front of her.

"It's from Harry," said Sadie, untying the ribbon from around the parchment.

"Who?" said Joe, taking the parchment from her. "Oh! It's from Harvey!"

"That's wart I sad," Sadie sighed.

As Joe scanned the letter, his grin faded and his face became blank. With dead, hollow eyes he handed it over to Ilona. The same thing happened to her as she read it in turn.

"Er," said Sadie. "Is ever-think all ripe?"

Joe, meanwhile, had pulled several blank pieces of parchment out of his bag and begun writing at a furious pace. As soon as Ilona handed the letter back to Sadie, she began digging through her handbag for a quill and ink bottle.

Sadie squinted at the letter. Something was not quite right about it. The words swam before her eyes, their spelling changing fluidly. Any word she focused on would be spelled differently the next time she looked at it. She decided it had to do with the misspell. Muttering a dire curse under her breath, she began at the beginning and tried reading it again. The effort was so great that she had to move her lips. Before long she was reading aloud, with great difficulty and many oral spelling mistakes:

"To Wham It May Concert: This is a text of our new regiment. At your eeriest convent, please cupid this better to fire people of your acquittal and sand it to them by the fattest means at your deposition. Remonstrate to tile the better with a robin and steal it with an extract relic of the steal on this better. We recompense the following spill..."

Before Sadie could read further, she was interrupted by the voices of Joe and Ilona. They had finished copying the letter, word for word by memory, and tying them with a ribbon. Now each of them gave five wand flicks and, with each flick, repeated the word Xerosigilus. Wax seals appeared out of nowhere, securing all the ribbons on the letters with an insignia nearly identical to the one on the fake ring Sadie had stolen. The letters shot, one by one, into the fire, disappearing in explosions of green sparks and flame.

"...Xenophilius," continued Sadie, slightly shaken. "Then tun out your pickets and picket-books..."

Joe and Ilona turned out their pockets.

"...and through ever-think but the monkey into the neatest five..."

Except for their coins (which remained heaped on the table), Joe and Ilona threw all their belongings into the fire. This included the contents of Ilona's handbag and the disguises remaining in Joe's carpetbag. They watched the flames with blank expressions.

"...Then stamp by for furrier destructions," Sadie added, reaching the end of the letter. "Your obstinate servant, Lee Snore, esq."

In spite of her growing concern at her friends' behavior, Sadie could not seem to stop reading the letter before this. Now she sat and fidgeted, torn between an overwhelming urge to do as the letter commanded, and a terrifying need to do something about the wrongness unfolding all around her. The former was about to win the point, as her hands crept closer to her own handbag. But then the fire gave off a loud popping noise, and something thumped loudly on the stone floor under the grate. It rolled out into the room, sounding like a large marble. This distraction was enough to give Sadie a moment to think.

The sound of stone rolling across stone came to a halt beneath the table, close to Sadie's end. She looked down. About half a meter from her foot lay the object that had fallen out of the fire. Sadie had never seen anything quite like it...

A crystal finger.

She knelt down beside her chair and placed her hand close to the perfectly shaped, life-sized artifact. It seemed to beckon to her somehow. And it didn't give off any heat, either. Sadie picked it up and found that it felt quite cool in her hand. Then, moved by what impulse she did not know, she stuck it into her right ear...

And the memory of the chain letter, that had lingered in the back of her mind, suddenly fuzzed into a tangle of nonsense. She looked down at the parchment again and realized that she couldn't make out a word. She tried to say, "That's odd," but what came out of her mouth sounded - to her unstoppered left ear - more like, "Znrf'g bvv." She was so shocked that she immediately plucked the finger out of her ear...and the urge to comply with the letter's commands returned.

Finger in: freedom. Finger out: compulsion. Finger in: a total loss of spoken and written language. Finger out: back to the comparatively mild, magically-induced dyslexia that had been troubling her all day. Finger in left ear, for a change: the dyslexia suddenly disappeared. Sadie forgot herself for a while, then happened to look down when something touched her foot. It was that crystal finger again. How did it get down there? She picked it up, considered throwing back into the fire, then shrugged and popped it into her right ear.

Whoa. Sadie looked around the room. Ilona and Joe were both seated, looking blankly across the table at each other, waiting for further instructions. By the heft of her handbag, Sadie had emptied all her portable belongings into the fire. This hinted that she had sent five copies of the chain letter, too. But for this crystal finger in her right ear, she would be in the same zone of blank mental readiness as her two friends.

She snapped her fingers in front of their faces, but they didn't blink. She touched their arms, spoke their names: no response.

Sadie huddled back into her chair and shivered. "I'm on my own," she tried to say, but what she actually said was, "F'w kmubh zprav shlug." She decided not to think her thoughts out loud any more. So, silently, she told herself three things. First: She must never put the finger in her left ear again. Second: She would risk taking it out of her right ear only when she really needed to communicate with someone. Third: It was probably up to her to save the world. So she'd better find out what it needed saving from...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #157 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Some of Anatoly's defensive tattoos. (C) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (D) Harvey's inflatable wall. (E) Subito's Turbo Gum. (F) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST: Butcher, baker, candlestick maker, tinker, tailor, cobbler, sailor... choose any "old world" craft or trade, and describe something strange and different that could be made by combining their wares with a bit of magic.

154. Gnome Warfare

2009-03-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Contest winner: Dragonic
Runner-up: Sir Read-a-Lot

Using his wand to join the edges of the monkey skins, Sir Lionel Niblet put the finishing touches on his new all-weather cloak. It was both practical and stylish, with a warm layer of fur facing inward and a suede-like suppleness facing out. He examined it approvingly, then slipped it on. The fit was perfect. He should have been a tailor. "If I ever find my way out of this horrid valley," he thought aloud, "I'll have found my true calling, at least."

Round about his campsite were the trappings of his new life, since his broomstick had rammed into an invisible wall high above the island. The broom, still held together by a few splinters, had barely managed to slow his fall into this long, deep cut between two parallel mountain ridges. It had been a hard landing, but survivable - except his broom was completely shattered now. Without it, he had no way of scaling the sheer sides of the ravine. So he had turned his thoughts toward survival.

Uncounted weeks had passed. The stream that ran along the bottom of the ravine had provided him many suppers of fish, clams, and snails. The small animals that lived among the trees had supplied plentiful meat, pelts, and bones from which he had made fishhooks, needles, knives, and other tools. He hadn't needed weapons really; a well-aimed stunning spell had often served to bring down his prey, at least long enough for him to go to work with a bone knife. Apart from a few wild cats, who left him alone as long as he laid scraps out for them, Sir Lionel was the apex predator of this isolated valley.

When he could spare time from matters of survival, Sir Lionel had thought but briefly on the life he left behind. There was little point in regretting his loss. He hoped his friends would do well without him. He reproached himself for the foolishness of setting out on this flight through unfrequented skies without telling anyone where he was bound. He worried just a bit about the outcome of the business deal that had been at the end of his planned, but uncompleted, journey. How had it gone on without him?

But mostly, he had wondered about that invisible wall in the sky. Who had put it there? The how was obvious: by magic, of course. But the why still eluded him.

After a midday supper of roasted fowl washed down with fermented yam juice, Sir Lionel spent an hour going over his gear. He now had several coiled lengths of braided thong, slippers and gloves made of woven plant fibers, and a dozen magically-sharpened picks fashioned from large animal bones and small rocks. His supply of leaf-wrapped, salted meat and bladders of yam vodka filled a skin bag he had made a week ago. He was ready. He would begin his ascent of the eastern ridge the next morning. Perhaps this time he would make it to the top. Then, at least, he could look at what lay in the next valley, beyond the mysterious barrier that had halted his broom.

The night fell, cold and damp. Sir Lionel was glad of his new cloak. Before the sky grew pale above the eastern ridge, he put on all his gear and began his long hike up the forested foothills. The first stab of daylight found him crawling over a scrubby pile of scree. His camp, invisible amid the trees behind and below him, would have looked tiny from this distance. He rested for a few minutes, then scrambled onward.

The day passed quickly. The sun seemed to plunge suddenly behind the western ridge - though its light did not die so quickly at this height as it seemed to do from the bottom of the valley. Sir Lionel wedged himself into a cleft and settled down for the night, eating and drinking sparingly and with deliberate slowness in spite of his ravenous hunger and thirst. Stiff, painful muscles disturbed his rest throughout the night, and woke him early in the morning. He stretched himself thoroughly before resuming his climb.

The valley now yawned below him, dark and distant and threatening. Sir Lionel tried not to look down when he could help it. When he did catch a glimpse of what lay behind, he sensed that he was covering less distance today than on the day before. The top of the ridge seemed just as unreachably distant as ever. He needed to pause more often, sucking in great breaths that never seemed to satisfy his need for air. With great weariness and a growing sense of failure, he rested for a second night, this time on a wide ledge, and slept deeply for the first time in several days.

He was nearing the end of his supplies, and the end of his third day of climbing, when Sir Lionel suddenly found himself tumbling over the other side of the ridge. He might have fallen to his death if an invisible wall hadn't caught him with a bruising matter-of-factness. He leaned his weight against it, resting full-length against apparent nothingness over the vast, misty canyon before him.

Unlike the valley he had come from, this one appeared to be inhabited. At any rate, several columns of smoke rose from the dark mass of trees below.

After hours of sidling along the unseen barrier, looking for a way through it, Sir Lionel spotted a broad ledge covered in the rubble of a long-past rockslide. Fortunately, two of the larger rocks that leaned together to support much of the pile lay directly beneath the barrier. Throughout the next two days, he dug out pieces of rock. His food and drink nearly exhausted, his gloves and hands similarly shredded, he finally cleared an opening between the two large stones and crawled through it. Now he was inside the magical wall that apparently shielded this valley from the outside.

His descent went more quickly than the ascent. This was partly the result of gravity, partly of the somewhat gentler slope on this side of the ridge, and partly of necessity. Sir Lionel was literally starving, and parched into the bargain, when he reached the first stream. He immediately stripped off his cloak and plunged into the water. He drank deeply, then with some difficulty speared a fish and ate it raw, skin and all. He left only fins and bones behind as he drank again and dug for tubers.

His first night in the new valley was filled with strange and disturbing sounds. Different birds shrieked here. Somewhere not far enough away, a cat roared and a monkey screamed. A huge snake slithered by him in the darkness, ignoring him in its search for smaller prey.

Late morning found him gazing down at a surprising discovery. Below a long, waist-high wall of unmortared stone lay a broad, tree-shaded compound. Its thatched roofs and walls of mud-caulked timber held only a faint air of primitiveness. The place was well-organized, with a large central building surrounded by smaller huts, some of them suspended above the ground on stilts. Smoke rose from chimneys of every building except the ones on stilts. The ground around the huts had been cleared and swept, and an unmistakable cistern stood behind the main building, connected to the nearby river by a silvery pipe and a hand-operated pump.

This was no native village. Based the magical barrier around the valley, as well as the curious sparks that floated out of several of the chimneys, Sir Lionel knew that sorcery was involved.

Seeing no one moving about the compound, Sir Lionel lifted himself over the stone wall and hurried on tiptoe toward the nearest building. He flatted himself against it and edged around the nearest corner, searching for signs of activity.

He almost gasped aloud when he found himself looking through an unglazed window at three men who, fortunately, were not looking in his direction. Seen in profile, they seemed to be intent on something out of Sir Lionel's field of view. He shifted to the other side of the window to get a better look. Now he saw what the three men were watching.

It was a pen, fenced off by a single strand of wire. This didn't seem like much of a fence at first glance, but Sir Lionel soon noticed a few odd things about it. First, it glowed slightly with a blue radiance that made his head ache. Also, it gave off a curious hum that set his teeth on edge - until he looked away from it, that is. Then he saw, beyond it, group of ugly little gnomes, huddled together and shivering, though they grinned madly all the same. On the opposite side of the ring surrounded by that glowing, humming wire, stood another gnome - a curiously still, composed gnome. It did not seem at all inclined to giggle, dance, or pull faces. It simply studied its kinsmen as if committing their features to memory.

The image chilled Sir Lionel to the bone. This was distinctly un-gnomelike behavior. It stirred a memory in the back of his mind - the memory of a rare disease that sometimes afflicted these magical garden pests: Mad Gnome Disease. A gnome that acted like a sane, balanced person was clearly, dangerously insane. And that insanity could spread instantly from one gnome to another, should the infected gnome bite or scratch the normal one. The results could be a fast-spreading epidemic of intelligent, organized, and ferocious gnomes - gnomes who could easily turn against any wizards and witches who crossed their path, and attack them with deadly savagery.

Sir Lionel's suspicions were confirmed when the mad gnome - that is, the seemingly sane one - launched itself toward the three trembling ones, biting and scratching and yowling. A moment later, all four gnomes stood together, looking up at the three wizards with expressions of calm cunning.

The wizard on the left shivered. "That's all I need to see," he said. "One or two dozen of these blighters ought to be enough to bring the entire Wizengamot to its knees."

"I should think so," agreed the wizard on the right in a thick, middle-European accent. "Let's discuss terms. If you'll come with me, Willibald here will, er, secure the specimens while we talk."

Sir Lionel ducked around the back of the hut just in time. Moments later, two of the wizards came out of the door a few feet beyond the window. He listened to the sound of their retreating footsteps, his mind reeling at the thought of weaponized gnomes. It was the most monstrous trade in living creatures that he had heard of, notwithstanding the unforgettable scandal of Wizard Stafford-Fume and his wands made with a core of living bowtruckles. Suddenly Sir Lionel wished he had his young friend Spanky at his side, armed with two wands and a long habit of dueling practice.

"Aye, old son," Sir Lionel whispered, almost as if in prayer. "Where are you when I need you?"

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #156 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Which magical creature will we see next? (A) A wereyak. (B) A merhag. (C) A fruit troll. (D) Other _____ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Describe a common cliche, giving it a slight magical twist. Example: "That really takes the pumpkin pasty!" (Instead of: "That really takes the cake!")

153. Margarine Headache

2009-03-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: greyniffler
Runner-up: Benjamin Ng

The hard-faced men in one of the more brutish, back offices of the Ministry of Magic had ways of making people talk. Or, given a suspect like Sadie, who had vast resources of shtumness to draw upon, they had ways of keeping people waiting.

Sadie began to sweat during her sixth hour in a row of holding her fists clenched. The ring of Count Matthias was in one hand. In her other fist was the bone whistle Joe Albuquerque had given her. Nothing could compel her to show either item to her interrogators. But they were equally determined to know what she knew.

She still hadn't had a moment of privacy in which to blow the whistle. She wondered whether she would, anyway. She wasn't exactly sure what would happen if she did.

For the eighteenth time since they rescued her from the footnotes of a self-updating report on the number of breeding pairs of augureys in Hertfordshire, the crack interrogators of the Office of Magical Documentation and Records swapped position - most likely a strategy to wrong-foot her. It hadn't worked six hours ago; far less would it work now that Sadie had gotten to know them so well. This time it was Duckham who walked out of the room, while Millbray stood up to pace and Weedom stepped in and took the seat Millbray had just vacated. If they kept this up, Sadie thought, she might pass out from dizziness.

"Are you ready to make a statement?" Weedom asked with a clipped voice and a tight-lipped, joyless smile. He regarded her with shooting-glass eyes and patted a roll of parchment spread open before her, its corners weighted down and a quill and inkwell standing nearby.

"I would like a drink of waiter," Sadie said quietly.

"I don't take your meaning," said Weedom, with the tiniest hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

"My meaning," said Sadie, "is as plan as the noise on your face."

Drat, she thought as she heard herself speak. Will that misspell never wear off?

"Are you feeling quite well?" Weedom asked with a fair semblance of concern.

"No," she said, digging her knuckles into her temples. "I feel a margarine headache coming on."

Weedom coughed, then replied in a strangled voice, "You might feel butter after a full confession." Behind him, Millbray sneezed loudly and retreated from the room. The door did not close quite fast enough to cover his explosive laughter.

"Have you always had this way with words?" Weedom asked sweetly.

"Only sincere I - oh, dart! - only since my little occident in your filling system." Sadie hoped he would conclude that she had fallen afoul of a poorly cast check-spell. She wasn't about to explain that she had been hexed by her pursuers, who seemed to have gotten away. The less these sad little men knew, the better for all concerned.

"And will you, at last, explain what you were doing there?"

"Just having a larch," she said, taking little care to rein in her sarcasm. "Nothing quilt like a stole down memory lance - particle when it belongs to the buoyed politic. We three-silkers are drowned to it like months to a flame."

Weedom held her with a level gaze for some moments, then shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't buy it." The truth is: he didn't understand a word of it.

"I wand my want back," Sadie blurted, unwittingly saying all the words she meant but not in the right order. "I have a sight to rend one Patronus - "

"Sister," said Weedom, "you won't want to risk casting advanced spells in your condition. The laws you've already violated are nothing compared to Spellman's 67th Essential Inference, and I quote: 'Chaotic cadences conjoined in casting contrapoise crossbinding cataplexes on sequentially staged spells...'"

"To say nothing of Tybalt's Second Law of Transfiguration," said Duckham, sidling into the room. A sound like whimpering laughter came in with him, cut off by the closing of the door. Weedom jumped up and dutifully began to pace while Duckham sat down.

"Wish is?" Sadie prompted.

Duckham raised his eyebrows with the self-righteous hauteur of one who has done his homework, and knows who hasn't. "When attempting to transfigure an object into something else whose name rhymes with the original object, the strength and permanence of the transfiguration are increased sevenfold. Corollary: If a spell goes off because of incorrect rhyme or fumbled delivery, the magical consequences are seven times as serious."

"Ridiculous," said Sadie, surprising herself with her perfect pronunciation. "Magic is beyond languish. (Oh, carp!) How does it master whether the spell rhythms or not?"

"It matters," said Duckham, as smugly as ever, "because the spell-caster thinks it matters. What is significant to the magic user is significant to the result."

"None of this is revenant," said Sadie, "to casting a Pantalones charm."

"No?" said Duckham, raising only one eyebrow this time.

"Try it," Weedom barked, as he turned at the end of the room, "and see if we don't charge you for reckless spell-casting and endangering the" - he coughed - "buoyed politic."

"Change me?" Sadie snorted. "You? Who do you thick you are? This is a burial gown for expired froms and mementos, and you're nothing but grape diggers..."

"Since you bring that up," Duckham cut in, looking at Weedom, who nodded his assent. "There seems to be nothing for it but to turn you over to Mr. Graves."

For some reason, Sadie felt like making a gulping sound. Due to her misspelling problem, she said "Golf!" instead.

Weedom opened the door a crack and said to the wheezy giggling outside, "Send for Mr. Graves." The giggling stopped, this time before the door shut.

"I take it you know of Mr. Graves," said Duckham, who had continued to study Sadie's face throughout this exchange.

"I'm not sugar," said Sadie. "What deportment does he work for?"

Duckham shook his head as if in regret. "It were better to say: What department works for him?"

Already there came a soft knock at the door. Weedom opened it, admitting a man both strange and familiar to Sadie's eyes. Very tall, very thin, a bit gray at the temples, with small, even features and a looseness of gait that suggested very limber joints, he looked - Sadie realized with a stab of panic - like a middle-aged Chat Noir.

"Mr. Douglas Graves at your service," he said, offering his hand toward her.

Mesmerized, Sadie did not think what she was doing until he gave her hand back without the whistle that had been in it.

For a moment, Sadie felt horror and despair. Then the mysterious Mr. Graves winked at her, and she knew him at once to be the man she had last seen only hours ago, disguised as a Swiss Guard. She didn't have time to wonder whether this latest disguise revealed the true face of Joe Albuquerque or merely a man Joe had chosen to impersonate. She had only enough time to realize that whoever owned this face was probably Chat Noir's father, before Joe Albuquerque raised the whistle to his lips and blew.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #155 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Who is Chat Noir's biological father? (A) Joe Albuquerque, who under all his disguises looks a lot like Mr. Graves. (B) The real Mr. Graves, who is Joe Albuquerque's secret nemesis. (C) A completely different person, related to Uncle or Aunt Leslie.

CONTEST: What happens when Joe blows the bone whistle?

152. The Whispering Cloak

2009-02-17T07:27:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: greyniffler
Runner-up: Rehannah

"Don't touch it! Everyone, back away carefully..."

In the infirmary at Isola Indietro, a clutch of teachers stopped squabbling and warily widened the gap between their feet and the crushed remnants of the falcon figurine. Two students remained on hospital beds, one of them staring fearfully over the edge of his sick-berth, the other lying still under a sheet. A portly, middle-aged man peeked around the edge of a nearby screen, giving free rein to his Quick Quotes Quill while, behind him, a younger man with a large, smoking camera jostled for a view. Only Ilona remained close to the fragments.

She pointed her wand at a small, gleaming object among the shards of hard-baked clay. As the wand tip lifted, so did the little bright thing, rising up off the floor until it hovered in front of Ilona's face, an arm's reach away.

Into the hush came a quick, stifled gasp. No one looked round to see who had done it. Everyone in the room felt the same way. For hundreds of years, the falcon figurine had been reckoned indestructible. But now it had shattered into hundreds of pieces. Who would have guessed that among them would be something like this?

It was made of smooth, clear crystal. It seemed to glow with a faint, inner light; or perhaps that was the effect of torchlight reflecting off countless tiny, glittering specks suspended within it. If it had any color at all, one might have called it golden; but again, that may have come from the torches. A weight of silence seemed to press down upon all who looked at it. If it was part of a statue, the whole must have been a marvel to behold. Though this small bit, by itself, might have looked ridiculous when made of any other material, no one grinned as the faculty, student, and guests realized what the object was shaped like. In sparkly crystal they beheld a perfectly formed, life-sized, human index finger.

"If that's a piece of a statue," whispered the Tummetot headmaster, "the whole must have been priceless beyond imagination."

"Don't be thick, Sandstad," his opposite number from Iphinassa barked. "We would know if there had ever been such a statue. No, this finger is what it is."

"But what is it?" breathed Isola Indietro's Quidditch instructor.

"It was one of a matched pair," Ilona replied.

"How do you know that?" Professor Sandstad snorted.

"Look there," said Ilona, gesturing with her free hand while holding the levitating finger at wandpoint. The others looked down and spotted tiny, gleaming fragments of crystal among the remains of the stone falcon.

"That could be anything," scoffed the Iphinassa head. "All the king's horses and all the king's men..."

"Bit small for all that, don't you think?" the lurking journalist blurted. Everyone but Ilona jerked around at the sound of his voice. Flushed with embarrassment, Bo Dwyer stepped out of his hiding place with his hands above his head. A moment later he reached back and yanked his photographer into view. "Sorry," he said. "Couldn't help but overhear..." He was careful to position his and his assistant's bodies so that the others did not see his Quick Quotes Quill scribbling on a roll of parchment.

Ilona threw him a tight smile and chirped, "Mr. Dwyer, how kind of you to join us!"

"There's a ring down there," said the less dead of the two students, who had continued to scrutinize the debris on the floor while the others argued. It was impossible to mistake what he said, because of his richly rolling r. Nevertheless, the Tummetot headmaster said, "A what?"

Ilona rolled her eyes, as if to say, Not another ring!

"Well spotted, Aris," said the Iphinassa head as he lunged forward to pick up the ring.

"Don't!" was all Ilona had time to say, but it made no difference. The Greek wizard came up holding the ring between his fingers, showing no signs of harm.

"That," Professor Sandstad said scathingly, "was brilliant even for you, Chiron."

"Thank you. Here's a surprise for you," the Iphinassa head said, squinting at the object in his hand. "The ring seems to be made of some type of hide, folded in on itself..."

"Like parchment?" Bo Dwyer suggested.

The Greek professor nodded. "Exactly." He began delicately prising the layers of parchment apart.

Ilona wanted to cover her eyes, sure that the man in front of her was about to be struck by a curse. Instead, she kept studying the fragments on the floor until she spotted what looked like a sliver of crystal fingernail. This confirmed her guess that there had originally been two fingers inside the figurine.

"Can you read it?" asked the teacher from Isola Indietro.

Chiron squinted at the unrolled slip of parchment, first with one eye, then with the other. Then he shook his head. "It is - how do you say? - all Greek to me."

Sandstad snatched the parchment from him, gave a disgusted noise, and handed it to the Italian witch, who also shook her head.

Ilona allowed herself a peek at the parchment, and was so surprised to see words written in her native Romanian that she forgot to keep the crystal finger levitating. Typically, Chiron lunged and caught it in time to stop it shattering on the floor.

"One of these days, you're going to regret that habit," Sandstad sneered.

Chiron gaped at him. "What did you say?"

"It wasn't a threat," the Tummetot head replied, exasperated. "I only meant that you shouldn't rush to touch things that may be..."

"I can't hear a word," Chiron interrupted. "Great Hecate! I can't hear my own voice! Help! I've been cursed!" His voice rising to a wail, he let the finger fall out of his hand. This time Ilona caught it with a ready levitation spell.

"Oh, that was close," said Bo Dwyer.

"Say again?" said the Greek wizard, his expression changing.

"You're a right twit, aren't you?" the journalist added.

"I heard that!" said Chiron. "I'm not deaf, you know! Wait... I'm not deaf! Hee hee!"

"Not cursed, then," mused the Italian Quidditch teacher.

"No," said Ilona. "The parchment explains that the fingers are given as ear-stoppers against a time when it becomes perilous to hear the words of men."

"Apparently," Sandstad observed, "One is enough."

"That is odd, though," said Ilona. "The instructions say you need one for each ear. Clearly, you needn't actually stick them in your ears..."

"Oh, but I've been deaf on the left side since I was a boy," Chiron said cheerfully. "Had a bit of an accident with my father's wand when I was too little to have my own."

"I see how well it taught you not to handle things you don't understand," Sandstad muttered.

"Just think," marveled the boy in the hospital bed, "how many centuries the Maltese have revered this stone bird, and all along it was just waiting for the right time to break open..."

"And reveal ear-stopping fingers," said Professor Sandstad, looking disgusted. "What a waste of time!"

Ilona, meanwhile, had plucked the finger out of the air. She looked at the others and said, "I can still hear you, but only out of my right ear."

"Hold it in your wand hand," the Italian witch suggested.

Ilona switched the finger to her right hand and said, "Somebody say something."

"I have a poster of your Magymnastics team in my dormitory," the injured student told her. "Would you sign it for me?"

"Wasn't that a bit before your time?" said Ilona, blushing slightly. "Oh! Now I'm deaf on the right side!"

"You see?" cried Chiron, as if this proved something he had asserted. "With only one finger intact, it is only useful to someone who has been deafened in one ear."

"If you're suggesting that this object rightfully belongs to you," said Professor Sandstad, "then let me remind you that a great deal of study remains..."

"I suppose you think, somehow, that you're best qualified to be the first to study it," Chiron blustered back.

"If by 'best qualified' you mean cleverer than yourself, then yes," Sandstad retorted. "Besides, it was my student who took the falcon, and sacrificed his life for it. Therefore, it comes to Tummetot."

"Are you deaf in one ear?" Chiron challenged.

Sandstad shrugged. "I'll study it while wearing my whispering cloak. Every headmaster at Tummetot has worn it since the 18th century. I use it to remind me of appointments and to give me directions for the shortest route from one classroom to another. Unfortunately it also has a way of criticizing one's spellwork and potion ingredients, which can be very..."

"I have no interest in capes that whisper in people's ears," the Greek wizard spat. "The fact that I own an air-cooled T-shirt does not make me best qualified to judge an ice sculpting contest. Your fashionable wardrobe is not the question. The question is whether this artifact had better be examined by someone who has made a career in wizard archaeology - which is to say, me - or by someone who cannot even find his way around his own school without..."

"The finger is in my custody," Ilona said in a soft but firm tone that instantly quelled the two headmasters' loud argument. They glared at her rebelliously, but said nothing. The RMB had jurisdiction in this incident, after all.

Ilona collected the other fragments in a leather pouch, tucking it into one pocket of her robes and the finger into another. "Other agents will come round to interview all of you in the morning. I'll be flying to Malta tonight. But first, may I have a private room and a few moments with Mr. Dwyer and his associate?"

The journalist looked nonplussed. The headmasters turned away grumbling. The young man in the bed furrowed his brow, wondering if he was going to get that autograph after all. "This way," said the Italian witch, leading Ilona out of the infirmary with Bo Dwyer and his photographer in tow.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #154 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: What became of Sir Lionel Niblet? (A) He was kidnapped. (B) He survived a broom crash but was stranded in a remote, hard-to-reach part of the world. (C) He went into hiding. (D) He woke up in a strange place with no memory of who he was.

CONTEST: Describe a villainous way to use a specific magical creature.

151. The Knock-Knock Joke of Doom

2009-02-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: TWZRD
Runner-up: greyniffler

Merlin and Miss Pucey watched the water on the steps after Rigel swam away. When it had grown quite calm, Merlin smiled thinly and said, "Well, Miss Pucey, we'll want to make the best of our lad's diversion and move on before the merhags come back."

"That sounds very well," said the pretty young witch, "but I don't see a door."

"It will be well concealed," Merlin admitted. He laid his lit wand on the palm of his hand and said, "Point me." The wand spun of its own accord. It came to rest pointing back over Merlin's left shoulder. As he turned to face that direction, the wand continued to point toward the same featureless wall. "I reckon it's this way," he said, trying to sound confident about it.

"North?" said the witch. "What makes you think the door is on the north side of the vault?"

"I don't," said Merlin. "This is a special wand, made by a friend of mine. The troll nose-hair core makes it point the way out of any place underground."

"Hmmm," said Miss Pucey. "I suppose it's as my mother always says."

"What is?"

"You can pick your friends. Your friends can pick trolls' noses. But you may not want to share a basket of popcorn with them."

"Your mother must have prepared you for anything," Merlin murmured as the they approached the bit of wall indicated by the wand. As he moved to and fro along the wall, the wand shifted on his palm. He raised it, lowered it, watched what the wand-tip did, and soon made a "Hmmm" sound of his own.

"Did you think of something your mother said?" Miss Pucey asked demurely.

"No," said Merlin, "but our exit seems to be more of a window than a door." He set his bag down and pressed his free hand against the wall and slid it toward the area indicated by the wand. He almost fell forward when the solid wall gave way to blank space.

"What is it?" Miss Pucey whispered. "A magic wall? An illusion?"

"Something like that," said Merlin. He felt around the edges of the unseen window, then started to climb through.

Miss Pucey gripped his elbow, holding him back. "Are you sure about this?"

"It's that or a long swim through a merhag colony," said Merlin.

She released his elbow. Merlin shoved his bag through the window, then climbed in after it. The wall remained seemingly solid, so that he seemed to be disappearing through solid stone. At last only his wrist and empty hand remained on Miss Pucey's side of the window. It beckoned to her. She gripped it and plunged through the wall head-first.

Merlin pulled her into a narrow chamber and helped her regain her feet. Once again, they seemed to be surrounded by unbroken stone. The wand now pointed toward the far end of the chamber, only a dozen strides away. At the top of a short staircase was a door, only vaguely disguised as a stone wall. It had a definite door shape, and a kind of knocker at Merlin's waist level, but no knob. Clearly it had not been designed by or for humans.

Merlin reached toward the knocker, then hesitated before his fingers touched it. It had the appearance of an ugly face, scowling malevolently at them. The hinged part hung below its nose, curving downward at the ends like a pair of thick, frowning lips.

"Not very welcoming," said Miss Pucey, staring at the knocker over Merlin's shoulder. She pointed her wand under his arm and added, "Fovea Revelio."

Nothing happened.

"Nothing happened," Merlin observed.

"It isn't a trap, then," said Miss Pucey. "Give it a knock."

"I hope you're right," said Merlin. He grasped the scowling face's lips and tried to prise them loose, but they wouldn't budge.

"Bit rusty?" Miss Pucey asked.

"I'd say it's all one piece," said Merlin.

For a moment, Miss Pucey's frown mirrored that on the supposed knocker. Then she pointed her wand again and muttered, "Techna Revelio."

The next moment, the face on the knocker came to life. The lips parted, and in a voice like the shriek of a rusty hinge they said: "Turn a frown upside-down." Then it clammed up.

The wizard looked at the witch. The witch looked at the wizard.

"Maybe it's a doorknob after all," Miss Pucey suggested. "Shall we try turning it?"

Merlin tried turning the knocker with no success. "Any other suggestions?"

"Unless you feel like standing on your head," she said, "I'm out of ideas."

The knocker snorted.

Miss Pucey gave Merlin a wounded look. "This is no time for levity, sir."

"I know," said Merlin, privately wondering how Rigel had managed to turn out the way he had with such a battle-axe dangling over him. "It wasn't me. It was the gargoyle."

For a long while they stood on the steps, quietly considering what to do next. Then Merlin squeezed past Miss Pucey and knelt down to rummage through the satchel he had brought with him. He was sure there must be something in his sack of tricks, something that could get them through this - until a rusty snicker brought him up short.

He shot a glare over his shoulder. The knocker scowled as evilly as ever.

"It has a sense of humor," Miss Pucey observed.

Merlin's rummaging hands became still. "Turn a frown upside down," he mused.

"Eh?"

He marched up to the door again, satchel in one hand and wand in the other. "Knock, knock," he said in a false, singsong voice.

The iron lips parted just enough to retort, "Who's there?"

"Caldron."

"Caldron who?" grated the horrible knocker.

"Caldron this time yesterday," Merlin replied archly, "but you weren't in."

The knocker seemed to contemplate this remark for a split second. Then it stuck its tongue out and made a rude noise.

"It didn't seem to like that one," said Miss Pucey.

Merlin rolled his eyes. He scratched his scalp with the nub of his wand. Then he squared his shoulders and said, once more: "Knock, knock."

The knocker managed to pout even more as it scraped out the words, "Who's there?"

"Yer wand."

"Yer wand who?"

"Yer wand better manners, yer lout."

A corner of the knocker's grotesque lips twitched for half an instant. Then it resumed its studied frown.

"We'll starve to death in here at this rate," Miss Pucey fretted.

Merlin raised his eyebrows at her. "Can you do better?"

"Knock, knock," she said at once, looking him in the eyes.

"Who's there?" snapped the face on the door.

"House-elf."

"House-elf who?"

"House-elfish of you to keep us standing out here all this time!"

The knocker's frown suddenly became a grin. It even gave a raspy chuckle.

"Quickly!" Miss Pucey hissed.

Merlin hooked the bottom of the iron smile with two fingers and pulled. The center of the smile parted from the face. He gave two knocks with it that seemed to be swallowed up by solid stone. It seemed impossible that anyone could have heard it from even a few feet away.

The scowl returned to the knocker's face.

"Now what?" Miss Pucey asked.

"I'm open to suggestions," Merlin replied.

"Do that point-me thing again," Miss Pucey prompted.

Before he could position his wand on the palm of his hand, however, the stone wall at the top of the steps began to slide away from them with a terrible grinding noise that filled their small chamber. They covered their ears and looked at each other with watering eyes. It only lasted for a moment before the movement stopped, and the noise with it.

Merlin looked up. The front wall of the chamber had receded just enough to allow them to sidle around it. There seemed to be open space on both sides of it.

"After you," he said.

Holding their lit wands ahead of them, Miss Pucey ducked to the left of the wall, Merlin to the right. Scarcely had he tugged his satchel out of the way before the wall slammed back into place, leaving the chamber in total darkness.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #153 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: After being trapped in Lysippus Bean's departmental memo, Sadie finds herself held at the Ministry of Magic under arrest. What happens next? (A) She withstands interrogation while planning her own escape. (B) Joe Albuquerque swoops in (disguised, of course) and springs her from custody. (C) Chat Noir swoops in (pretending to be Joe) and captures her.

CONTEST: Propose a law or basic principle of magic, complete with a whimsical name, such as Tybalt's Second Law of Transfiguration, or the Principle of the Conservation of Ectoplasm, etc. Briefly explain what it says. Creative nonsense will be accepted!

150. Warp and Weft

2009-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

ROBBIE'S NOTE

At last, the "third season" of the Magic Quill has come to a much-delayed close. The time is ripe for another 50-chapter digest. If you've tuned in late, it may also help to read these capsule summaries of the first and second seasons, as well as this handy guide to the characters in the first 100 chapters. The real pleasure is in the details, though. It pays to read all the chapters in full!

A lot has changed for the Magic Quill. When this column started in May 2004, readers were invited to send me their story ideas through the MuggleNet feedback system. This proved to be too open-ended, even with a 150-word limit. As of Chapter 73, this changed to submitting answers to specific survey and contest questions, via the Chamber of Secrets forums. As recently as Chapter 145, things changed again with the arrival of the Magic Quill blog, where survey and contest answers can be submitted as comments.

I would like to hear from you about which method of participating in The Magic Quill works best for you. For now, either leave a comment or send me feedback through MuggleNet, indicating whether you would prefer to work through the blog, CoS, or MuggleNet feedback. Perhaps having all these options available will prove to be best, but for now it's nice to be able to find all the readers' responses in one place.

Above all, I appeal to everyone reading this to do their part to help The Magic Quill make it to Chapter 200. Simply share your brief ideas in response to each week's Double Challenge, by whatever method works best for you. And now, without any more mucking about, let's review what happened in Season Three...

CHAPTERS 101-104. In "Eulogy for a Dark Wizard," we learn of the death of Vold-Mart's founding villain, the ravenous Uncle or Aunt Leslie, plus some colorful details of his or her background. Totally obsessed fans may remember that Leslie's last name, revealed in this chapter, changed shortly after it was first published. The reason? The name I originally came up with proved to be religiously offensive. We at the Magic Quill are all about pushing the boundaries! "The Drains" showed us where our friend Harvey lives, as his friends from the back parlor of the Hog's Head help him move several barrels of dragon bogeys into his flat. You might notice that this chapter takes place during the Scrimgeour ministry. Harvey continues his preparations to drink the Essence of Merlin in "From the Weasley-Wheeze Press," a chapter filled with adverts for joke items. In "Vitis Leprosa" Harvey tests his potion for living backward in time on one of Miles O'Roughage's trees.

CHAPTERS 105-109. "What's the Rest of Me Doing There?" reveals the trouble Spanky's son has adjusting to no longer being able to turn parts of his body invisible. It also introduces the idea of a magical scavenger hunt which, for some reason, never came up again. In the next chapter, Harvey has "Tea with Il Comte," in what starts out as a very civilized wizard's duel and ends with the discovery that his travels through time have (will?) split Harvey into two people. Merlin resumes his account of his and Rigel's escape from Gringotts in "The Ossuaries," in which a goblin graveyard raises the hopes of Merlin's party. They get as far as "The Final Causeway" in the next chapter - which is their last stop before rushing through the ground floor of the bank in "Murder on the Hogwarts Express."

CHAPTERS 110-114. In "Refilling the Ink Pot," readers responded to the question of how much longer the Magic Quill should continue. It is now only a few weeks since we fulfilled our commitment to write at least 36 more chapters together. Everything from here on is gravy! "An Elopement Postponed" continues the story of how Spanky and Ilona started their family, which involved overcoming her little problem of being invisible to everyone but him. Their first assignment as a couple is to guard Sir Lionel's gardens, which are threatened by a magical saboteur. The clues lead Spanky to a duel with "The Savage Noble," otherwise known as Sid Shmedly. The question becomes: How did Shmedly become immune to jinxes? Next, an anonymous tip leads Spanky to visit "Full Moon Kennel," sort of a Club Med for werewolves, and our introduction to the silver-dagger-making Goode Brothers. The Potters turn up at Sir Lionel's in "The Unusual Suspects," which also includes a letter from Horace Slughorn on the question of what makes Shmedly spell-proof.

CHAPTERS 115-119. Spanky wears Harry Potter's invisibility cloak in "The Day of Five Puzzles," in which an entire team of RMB agents goes missing, a house-elf gets a poignant death scene (mind you, this was before Deathly Hallows!), and a trail of clues points toward a finishing school for hags. We get a look at the perspectus for Madam Hunsicker's Academy in "Home Wiccanomics," where the school motto means "The spiders are watching you." Spanky questions Madam Hunsicker herself in "Two If By Biscuit," until a cherubic villain named Minimilian appears. This story is interrupted by "Laughing Matter," Bo Dwyer's report of the wedding of Erastus Sidwell and Doreen Pinch - better known to us as Merlin and Endora. This chapter reunited so many members of TMQ's cast that there wasn't room to include blog labels for all of them, so if you sense a gap in the history of your favorite character, it may be here. Spanky's boyhood nemesis comes to a sticky end in "Farewell to Shmedly," where Minimilian claims Spanky has something that belongs to him.

CHAPTERS 120-124. In "The Safety Pin" Minimilian proves to be as stupid as villains usually are when he goes off to play golf while Spanky considers his offer. This gives Ilona a chance, in "Madrigal Unchained," to explain the history of the ring of Count Matthias. Minimilian is last seen running-flat out with a hungry hag at his heels. Between this chapter and "Mr. Exion's Daughters," Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. That book changed a lot of things for the Magic Quill, starting as Spanky wakes up from the Battle of Hogwarts and finds himself serving as the guinea pig in a diabolical experiment. The fallout from Book 7 continues in "The Care and Feeding of MIADs," as an indoor rainstorm in Hogwarts' Great Hall leads Joe Albuquerque to realize that one of his friends is in grave danger. We meet RMB Agent Caspar Dalrymple in "The Eyes Have It," when an interrogation of a magical swindler holds the key to saving Spanky from a terrible fate.

CHAPTERS 125-129. While Sadie enjoys a magical advice column called "Ask Fran Sanders," her cellmate comes closer to recovering a missing object of unguessed-at power. The cavalry comes for Spanky just in time to save him from "The Platypus Test," but not soon enough to prevent the Exion Sisters leaving an unseen mark on him. "Oldmanson and Son" meet at Vold-Mart ("FEWER CURSES. MORE DAMAGE"), but one of them isn't what he seems. When "Vivis Exion" meets Spanky, by chance, in the potion abuse ward at St. Mungo's, she tries to avenge her nieces on him, only to be avenged for what they did to Spanky. Rigel's captors immure him in "The Crystal Cave," where he meets a strange-talking figure in the darkness.

CHAPTERS 130-134. Harvey and Spanky undergo group therapy together in "Wish Wash," where we learn a lot about the dangers of potion abuse. Meanwhile, Rigel and the other Harvey start trying to round up help for a raid on the Drains in "Scratching Post." In "Harvey Face to Face," the two Harveys meet again in another group therapy session. Miles O'Roughage gets recruited to join the raid while dealing with one of the Ministry's pettiest bureaucrats, "Titus Fistley." Harvey's plan, in the making since Chapter 7, finally comes off when he extorts the largest fortune in magical history from the man who knows how to make "Hot Ice." But even that is only the first step in his Grand Plan...about which we still know nothing.

CHAPTERS 135-139. Sadie puts her catfish-burglar skills to good use in "The Spy Who Jinxed Me," but a young master of disguise named Chat Noir gets to the ring of Count Matthias first. Noir then uses the ring to obtain a deadly potion from "Fistley Confunded." Working with Joe Albuquerque, Sadie follows Noir to the secret lair of Uncle or Aunt Leslie, who is not only surprisingly alive but planning to unleash "Death by Aromatherapy." Next, we flash back to a Las Vegas casino, where a meeting of two masters of disguise leads to the duel of wits known as "Elvis vs. Einstein." More disguises, booby-traps, and a house on chicken's feet complicate the plot in "Don't Kid a Kidder" so much that it doesn't really make sense if you think about it. Oops!

CHAPTERS 140-144. "Persephone's Yak" launches Spanky on a new trail of clues, beginning when his daughter finds a dead beast under her bed. This somehow connects with an unsolved murder and the Goode Brothers' silver daggers, which just goes to show my way of treating loose threads from earlier chapters. Why tie them up neatly? Why not follow them and see where they lead? Meanwhile, our Merlin begins a new quest with "The Gift-Giving," when the clown wizards hire him to prove that Il Comte has something that belongs to the goblins. (Let's call this "Thread A" for now.) Spanky's investigation ("Thread B") leads him to the sitting room of "Madam Solfeggia," who proves that music really does soothe the savage beast, or breast, or whatever. Sadie ("Thread C") watches "Enormity in Action" - which is to say, a duel between Il Comte and Uncle or Aunt Leslie. And Spanky goes to remarkable lengths to question the magical world's most secretive merchant, Julian Cribble - a.k.a. "Jude the Insecure."

CHAPTERS 145-149. Bo Dwyer reports on "The Hexischoleiad," giving us our first hint about Thread A since Il Comte stuck Merlin into a cage. Merlin summons Rigel to a vault deep under the canals of Venice, mainly to help him distract "The Merhags." "The Hexischoleiad, Part 2" hints that Il Comte plans to use the ring of Count Matthias to go into politics. Eventually we find Ilona investigating a new mystery ("Thread D"?), or perhaps the point where all the other threads come together. Sadie, meanwhile, grabs the ring of Count Matthias from under the noses of Il Comte, Chat Noir, and Uncle or Aunt Leslie and runs for it, only to find herself trapped "Between the Lines" of a piece of paperwork. Finally, in "The Fruit Troll" Spanky sniffs his way to his old hometown, where Sir Lionel Niblet's disappearance compounds the mystery that started with a dead yak in a child's bedroom.

Got all that? Great! Now you're ready to take part in our...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #152+++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: The shiny object found inside the falcon figurine at the end of Chapter 147 means: A) The figurine is a fake, since the real one is unbreakable. B) Il Comte is planning something even worse than what Uncle or Aunt Leslie would have done with the ring. C) The makers of the falcon planned for it to open at a time when the object inside would be needed. D) The makers of the figurine designed it to open only at the touch of a certain future person.

CONTEST: Describe a piece of clothing with helpful magical properties.

149. The Fruit Troll

2009-01-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

Contest Winner: Quercitron
Runner-Up: TWZRD

Spanky gasped as his broom approached the grounds of Mangeford Manor. He was so staggered that he missed his footing and landed face-first in a pile of uprooted shrubbery that had been gathered up for burning. His eyes gleamed with tears when he stood up, partly because of the pungent scent of the leaves. But only partly.

He looked around at a scene of devastation. Sir Lionel's beautiful, exotic gardens were no more. Instead there were heaps of earth and gravel, plowed up by large machines that now stood idle. One area had been paved with an interlocking pattern of bricks, and already several shiny, expensive automobiles stood on it. The wall surrounding the estate had been breached, and from the painted stakes and taut lengths of string that divided it up, it was evident the land was being subdivided.

Shaking his head, Spanky trudged round the back of the manor house, past windows whose glass had been replaced with wooden boards and "DANGER: KEEP OUT" signs. As he rounded the end of a heaping-full waste container, he spotted one wing that appeared intact. Only, where the garden shed had been, there was now a kidney-shaped swimming pool lined with shiny, pale-blue tile. Spanky gaped at it in shock and sadness.

Then a hand reached out of the water, followed by another. Two arms pulled the rest of a scrawny young man onto the edge of the pool. Spanky moved closer, watched by the stranger's slightly crossed eyes as he toweled himself dry. Neither man spoke until Spanky was within arm's reach, gazing down at the shorter man with his thin, wispy mustache, acne-scarred skin, sneering lips, lopsided nose, and mismatched eyes - brown on the left, gray on the right, each seemingly stuck staring in a different direction.

"You must be that Spankison chap," said the stranger, his face turned upward so that his eyes seemed to look at each of Spanky's ears, separately. "Father told me so much about you, I feel like I could pick your face out of a crowd."

"Father who?" Spanky growled suspiciously. After seeing the grounds, he could barely restrain his instinct to interrogate this wizard as a rogue suspect. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Philip Niblet, of course," said the pied-eyed man. "Sir Lionel was my father."

Spanky choked back a harsh laugh. "That's ridiculous," he said. "I knew Sir Lionel's sons. I grew up with them. I went to Hogwarts with them. I was here when he buried them. They were both killed by the Death Eaters."

"Those were Lady Niblet's brats," Philip snapped, pulling a plush robe onto his narrow shoulders. "Happily for her, she did not know about her husband's affair with my Mum, the village apothecary. She went away before I was born." While he said this, Philip walked over to a well-stocked poolside bar and began mixing two drinks, without bothering to ask Spanky if he wanted one.

"Madam Gisela?" Spanky said, his eyes popping with surprise. "I remember when she packed up and left so suddenly..."

"Exactly," said Philip. "Now you know the whole story."

Spanky shifted to a new tack. "But why didn't you go to Hogwarts?"

Philip's face colored as he handed Spanky a drink with a paper umbrella in it. He sipped his own, with evident relish, before answering. "My Mum felt she had more to teach me than I could learn at that stuffy old place. Besides, questions would have been asked, and the answers would have embarrassed Sir Lionel. Since we relied on his support..."

"But this is absurd," cried Spanky, wincing from the flavor of the cocktail Philip had handed him. "I've been in Sir Lionel's confidence for over twenty years. I would have... Did you say he was your father?"

Philip stretched out in a chaise longue, nursing his drink thoughtfully while Spanky stood over him, glowering.

When he could stand it no longer, Spanky demanded, "What's happened to him, then?"

"No one knows, do they?" said Philip. "Hadn't you heard that he was missing? Some confidant you are."

"Missing!" Spanky snorted. "Since when?"

"Since Halloween at least. When the local wizarding families arrived for the annual ball in his grand gallery, they found the doors wide open and no one at home. There were no signs of struggle and nothing was missing...except Dad, of course." The man's repulsive lips twisted at the corners as he said this, as if he was fighting to suppress a smile. "The village magistrate officially declared him dead at the end of the year. What a shock that no one told you..."

"And I suppose you were Sir Lionel's sole heir," Spanky muttered, setting his dry glass on the bar with a brief shudder. His insides had gone ice-cold at the thought of his friend and mentor missing, perhaps in danger...perhaps dead...

Those narrow shoulders lifted in a shrug. "You didn't expect him to leave it all to you, did you? Well, I hate to say it, but it came at a good time for me. I have debts. This place is worth a good bit. Sad as it is to break it up so, I've had no choice but to sell it to a developer. I can afford to keep just this one little wing, but it will be enough."

"Whose are all the cars, then?" Spanky gestured around the corner of the house.

Fuzzy-lip gave him a slow look, then said, "You can't expect me to sit on all this wealth and not enjoy myself a bit, eh? Can't you let a body enjoy a few comforts...?"

"What does a wizard need with so many cars?"

The narrow face colored again, more deeply than before. "I'll beg you to stay out of my business. Unless, that is, you'd care to find out what's happening to my house-elves..."

"Sir Lionel's house-elves," Spanky corrected, his voice husky with controlled emotion.

"What you will," said his host, holding up his glass. Spanky pointed his wand at it and it refilled. He added firewhisky to his own glass and threw away the paper umbrella. "We're running low on servants, anyway. The little pilferers can't have run away, so I'm at a loss. What do you think?"

"Maybe a shalynx moved indoors after you started tearing up the gardens," Spanky suggested.

"A what? I haven't heard..."

"One of those Hogwarts lessons your Mum didn't think you needed," Spanky said heavily. "Picture a panther, practically invisible, always blends into the scenery around it. Handy for controlling pests like gnomes and doxies, but once driven indoors, they can develop a taste for house-elves."

"I suppose that would explain the bloody tea-towel that turned up in the pantry this morning," said Philip, rolling his eyes. "How does one go about catching a what's-it..."

"Shalynx. One doesn't. One leaves the back door open and hopes that it leaves on its own, before it finishes off one's servants."

Philip looked exasperated. "Some help you are. Feel free to walk the grounds, anyway. Perhaps you'll see a lot that you like. There are some that have a nice view overlooking the village..."

"Actually, I need you to tell me everything you know about Sir Lionel's disappearance. I should have been informed sooner. There might still be something I can do..."

"I'm entirely at your disposal," said Philip, attempting (but failing) to meet Spanky's eyes with a smile that held equal parts sincerity and irony. "But since I've already told you everything I know, perhaps you'd do better to interrogate the elves, the neighbors, the magistrate, and so forth. Besides, I reckon there's another reason behind your visit."

"Can you direct me to the Himalayan Gardens and Preserve? I believe they've been added to the grounds since my last visit."

"It has been a while, hasn't it?" Philip said, his smile reverting to its natural sneer. "Well, I'm afraid Sir Lionel's little piece of heaven has been bulldozed. Beastly mountain kept having avalanches every other day. I couldn't afford to keep clearing up the snow. If I didn't know better, I would suspect it was a wowtain..."

"Pardon?"

Philip's eyes twinkled maliciously. "Didn't you hear about that at Hogwarts? Dirty great monster, the wowtain - mythical, of course - uses natural camouflage to disguise itself as a mountain. Frightfully ticklish, though..."

A house-elf approached, burdened with a tray full of fresh fruit and warm muffins. It must have weighed as much as the elf and half over again. "How considerate," said Spanky, plucking an apple off the tray. "Would you happen to have any records of the plants and animals that were removed from the wow-... er, mountain? Or perhaps a garden ledger?"

"Well, let's see..." Philip gazed thoughtfully in two different directions, while reaching toward a bunch of bananas. As he tugged at one of the bananas, Spanky yelled: "Look out!"

The banana turned out to be the long, curved, yellow claw of a giant troll that had somehow escaped everyone's notice while trailing around behind the heavily-laden house-elf. When Philip tugged on that claw, the troll screamed and pulled its claw free of the bunch of bananas.

"Good heavens," Philip cried breathlessly, tumbling out of his chaise longue while the troll pounded its chest in fury. "What is that?"

"It's a fruit troll," said Spanky. "I should have thought of it when you mentioned camouflage... It explains what's been eating your house-elves..."

The present house-elf gazed up at the fruit troll, frozen in fear as the huge beast looked around stupidly. It had teeth the size and color of Bartlett pears, eyes like persimmons, a nose like a drawstring bag full of apples, and cauliflower ears that stuck out at the sides of its canteloupe-shaped head. Its body was shaped like a gigantic pineapple with aubergine-like arms and legs and hairy red skin, like that of a poison sumac berry. It was terrifying to behold; and yet the beast had moved so slowly and matched its gait so well to that of its prey that, somehow, no one had noticed it until now.

The elf gave a tiny squeak of fear. The troll looked down and saw it standing between its horny, hairy feet.

"Move," Spanky urged the house-elf in a sharp whisper.

The house-elf did better than that. As a massive, banana-clawed hand lunged toward it, the house-elf disapparated with a loud pop! The fruit troll roared with anger, turning toward Philip, who was crawling crabwise toward the pool.

"Stun it!" Philip begged.

"It's skin is too thick," Spanky rasped, dancing around behind the blundering monstrosity with both wands drawn. "Nothing I do will affect it. You have to aim for its eyes..."

"I can't do magic!" Philip screamed, his face turning blotchy. "That's why you never saw me at school, all right? I'm a Squib!"

The troll took a step closer to Philip, who was about to find out whether trolls could swim. The scrawny squib threw himself into the pool and began stroking toward the far end.

"This is what comes of razing your father's orchard," Spanky remarked drily as he side-stepped down the edge of the pool opposite the furious fruit troll. "I don't know if you're worth saving, after what you've done to Sir Lionel's..."

The fruit troll reached across the water and made a grab toward Philip, who dove out of the way just in time.

Spanky decided he had to act fast, not so much because he cared about Philip's wellbeing as that he needed more information to help him find Sir Lionel. "Accio broom," he said, pointing his right wand toward the side of the house where he had left his broomstick. Meanwhile, he gave his left wand a series of flicks, causing bottles from the bar to smash themselves against the fruit-troll's head and shoulders.

The massive creature found this only mildly annoying, until a spark from Spanky's wand ignited the alcohol. Then it reared back from the pool, screaming and beating at its flaming skin.

"Levicorpus," Spanky remarked as he mounted his broom. Philip rose sputtering out of the pool, left ankle first, and Spanky caught him around the waist as he zoomed over the pool, cleared the fruit-troll's flailing arms, and landed on the roof of the manor house.

"That's going to cost a fortune to clear up," Philip mourned as the troll rampaged around the pool, smashing barstools and tossing the entire bar into the water.

"What's going to cost you even more," said Spanky, "is setting Sir Lionel's property back the way it was - once I find him."

Philip darted a seething look at him. "Can't you leave well enough..."

He finished the sentence with Spanky's fist in his mouth.

"If I find out you had anything to do with this," said Spanky, shaking Philip by the front of his dripping robe, "I'll give you back to the troll."

"Pick on somebody who can do magic," Philip spat. "Think you're so entitled, don't you, you double-barreled, wand-waving..."

"I know your father," said Spanky, shaking him harder. "He wouldn't just walk away from his responsibilities. He wouldn't kill himself, he wouldn't let himself be taken without a fight... and he wouldn't approve of what you're doing with this place. Now let's you and me pay a visit to that magistrate..."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR NO. 151 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Jaan's point-the-way-out wand. (C) Some of Anatoly's defensive tattoos. (D) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (E) Harvey's inflatable wall. (F) Subito's Turbo Gum. (G) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST: Submit a clean, family-friendly "knock, knock" joke that has something to do with magic.

148. Between the Lines

2009-01-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: greyniffler
Runner-up: Linda Carrig

MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
Improper Use of Magic Office

Form IUM-21: Report of Belatedly Discovered Violation

REPORT BY: Lysippus Bean, junior apprentice obliviator

REPORT ON: Possible violation of Statute of Secrecy

DATE: Agnes Onslow (we're just friends)

LOCATION: Miss Onslow's art studio (she makes talking portraits).

SECURITY LEVEL: MoM Eyes-Only confidentiality, secured by spells to repel unauthorized Oi. You there. I need help readers.

DESCRIPTION OF VIOLATION (Attach additional rolls of parchment as needed): While waiting for my Aunt Eunice as she sat for a portrait, I started to browse through some books on Muggle painters and their weird, non-moving Hello? Is anyone there? I could use a bit of help getting out of here pictures. I was struck by some of the images, and after talking with Agnes and analyzing them a bit further, I have become convinced Look, if you could contact someone at the RMB, Blokebury on Rye office, have them tell Agent Spankison or Agent Dalrymple that I'm stuck in here. The name is Sadie that painters from our world have been mingling with Muggle painters, resulting in a horrifying breach of magical secrecy.

I found the strongest evidence of this in Degas' paintings of ballerinas - who, when viewed through spectrespecs, are revealed to be hags having a dance lesson. Though ordinarly Muggles would Well? Am I going to be rescued? be unable to penetrate the concealment charm on these canvases, the fact that Degas was allowed to witness such a spectacle must at least raise a concern. To be sure, this violation happened so long ago that nothing can be done about it. Yet I fear it may only be the tip of the iceberg.

My greatest worries focus on the artist René Magritte, who for some time shared his studio with one of our world's most All right, I suppose you're not doing anything to help me because you don't understand how I broke into this highly classified report. I confess! I'm a burglar! But I promise you, I was using my skills for good prolific painters, Vladimir Smazaniy. According to our archives, Smazaniy was permitted to study under Magritte on the condition that he did not reveal the existence of magic to his master. From Magritte's paintings, however, it is If you really must know (and apparently you must), I got in here through a door in Uncle or Aunt Leslie's house on chicken legs. Didn't know he or she was still alive? Now you do. HELP! evident that Smazaniy went back on his word. Magritte's paintings clearly show - from a muddled, Muggle perspective - that he was even familiar with the Ministry, owing to his frequent depiction of men wearing the style of suits and bowler hats then favored by our agents.

Perhaps Magritte was simply influenced by unintentional slips that he glimpsed from time to time, such as the You see, Il Comte had the big creep (or creepess) under some kind of extra-juice Imperius curse. I followed them to the oval room with all the well-dressed dummies in it, and slipped into a ball gown while they weren't looking. They thought I was one of the mannequins portrait behind the artist in the non-moving photo charm-linked above. I believe the painting in that photo to depict Smazaniy himself, or at least a flash-impression Magritte may have gotten when he momentarily caught Smazaniy using the vanishing cream he was known to use, particularly when painting unauthorized portraits.

I am spell-linking several other examples of Magritte's work, which I feel should I was waiting to see what would happen when Il Comte stepped on the trick floorboard and got jinxed right out of the house, but before I could do anything, Uncle or Auntie's nephew charged into the room and suddenly, spells were blasting everywhere be studied and possibly removed from Muggle collections - though I realize the cost of eradicating them from all Muggle memory would be prohibitive at this point.

First, consider the painting Elective Infinities, which I believe is based on Magritte's garbled memory of a dragon Smazaniy was known to have kept as a pet. Agnes says baby dragon tears I grabbed the ring of Count Matthias right out of Il Comte's hand and ran for it. Suddenly all the blasting wands were pointed at me. I tried one door after another as I ran down the corridor are essential to the pigments used in moving paintings. If Magritte saw this, it is likely that he also witnessed Smazaniy painting wizard portraits. Further evidence of There was a door that led to some icy rock in outerspace. I could see Jupiter at close-range from there. I decided against going in this is in Magritte's painting The Difficult Crossing - note the painting of the ship in the background, virtually identical to a seascape Smazaniy sold to the Maritime Museum of Idaho in 1966.

Then there is Golconda, which (except for the Then there was a door that led to a desert, then a mountain peak, then a boat in the middle of the ocean. I was running out of time to find a place to hide fact that it appears frozen in time) could be mistaken for a wizartist's conception of the 1953 epidemic of spontaneous random apparition, one of the worst public-health disasters in the wizarding world's history. How did Magritte escape being obliviated after this incident, long enough to paint this picture? Again, we must assume Smazaniy had a hand in it.

The Happy Donor can easily be interpreted as Magritte's depiction of Smazaniy disapparating in front of him. The poor fellow Just as they were about to catch me up, I threw myself through the very next door without looking where it led to, and here I am must have thought himself mad. The Human Condition could appear as a cry for help by a Muggle painting master struggling to capture the magical techniques of his student; note how Magritte Well, that's over-simplifying. I feel like I've been through every book in Flourish and Blotts, and since I couldn't break into any RMB documents, this is the closest I could get. So will you send for Spanky now? seems to struggle with the distinction between a picture of a thing and the thing itself.

The Listening Room suggests that Smazaniy allowed Magritte to catch him engorging pieces of fruit, no doubt in his pursuit of ever higher Spanky? Is that you? degrees of detail in his series of still-lifes. Not to be Reproduced appears to show Smazaniy caught in the act of painting his self-portrait, using the special mirror he Oh, bother. They've followed me in here. Just pretend I'm not here borrowed from Hogsmeade hairdresser Flavia Snippens in 1937. On the Threshold of Liberty suggests some of Magritte's confusion, as he interpreted the moving pictures on the walls of Smazaniy's flat as a series of impossible windows leading to different places.

In The Son of Man, we see evidence that Magritte witnessed Smazaniy doing a hovering What the... Look out! They're shooting spells at me. In here! I reckon they're trying to erase me charm. No one who knew Smazaniy can fail to recognize his left eye, which is just visible behind the apple, or his left elbow, which accidentally got I could really stand to be rescued right now fixed on backward after he splinched himself in 1963. Time Transfixed clearly shows an apparition of the ghost train that inhabited Smazaniy's flat in Owch! I thimk ivy bean hett! Brussels, which happened to be built on the site of the Shrinking Train Disaster of 1911 - the reason none of the magical schools on the continent have anything like the Hogwarts Express today. And finally, in The Treachery of Images, we see the full extent of Eye geuss thay wur shutinge mispels at me the harm all these violations of wizarding secrecy wreaked on Magritte's mind. As early as 1928 - the year he took Smazaniy in as his pupil - he Aye wunder wut thyss iz gonig two due tu mi aftre igh git owt uv heer was already losing his conviction that what he saw was real.

It is too late to save Magritte from the mental damage resulting from Smazaniy's numerous indiscretions. However, I recommend Pleez sumbuddy dew summit suen that we take immediate steps to prevent any further harm from coming through these pictures. I urge that the Ministry consider using concealment charms, or at least negotiate with the respective ministries of the countries where each painting Thare cumin kant holed owt mutsh longur is held to have them removed from public view.

Yours respectfully,

L. Bean

+++ A LITTLE ANNOUNCEMENT +++

Since Chapter 150 will be a look back on the "third season" of The Magic Quill, there will not be a new "Double Challenge" this time. Instead, please enjoy another week to answer the Survey and Contest at the end of Chapter 147. Thanks for coming along for the ride! And please, let your friends know about TMQ's new lease on life. We can always use more reader input!

147. The Hexischoleiad, Part 2

2009-01-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

Contest winners: Everyone!

DISCLAIMER: Due to a three-way tie in Chapter 145's Survey, the solution to our "whodunit" may seem quite preposterous. You can help future chapters work more smoothly. Simply take part in the Double Challenge at the end of this post!

Continuing his coverage of the Hexischoleiad Final, Bo Dwyer reports for Broomstick and Wand...

My interview with Bruno Fenoglio, disqualified from the final round of the late Hexischoleiad Tournament, was abruptly cut short by a screech from the catlike marsupial that rode everywhere on my photographer's shoulder. "Skreep!" it yowled. "You've got mail!"

"Did that thing just talk?" Fenoglio squeaked, looking pale as death.

"No worries, mate," said my photographer, whose name I forget. "This is only my PDQ."

Fenoglio squinted at the odd creature. "What is a PDQ?"

"Parchment Delivery Quoll," said What's-His-Name, drawing a tiny scroll out of the animal's pouch. "And this is an IMP."

The boy shuddered under his towel, showering me with drops of water from his still-wet hair, and stammered, "Th-they come in all sh-shapes, I reckon."

"No, not that kind of imp, ye muggle's squib! I-M-P, as in Irruptive Memorandum Parchment. It's going to replace owls, you'll see; just as soon as these little blighters come back from the brink of extinction..."

"Rodney," I groaned, "would you please shut up and pass me the IMP?"

"My name is..."

"Whatever."

As soon as I unrolled the slip of parchment, the words "Thundering thestrals!" burst out of my mouth.

"What is it?" Fenoglio gasped, stretching his neck to read over my shoulder.

"That's just a random-exclamation spell," Wossname explained knowledgeably. "They put them on all IMPs, to draw attention and maybe prompt bystanders to..."

"Hopping hippogriffs!" Fenoglio blurted.

"You see?" said the photographer. "It's a sales gimmick. Right clever, if you..."

"Cheezit, Felix," I muttered. "Pack up your gear. We have to get to the Palazzo di San Nazario. Something's happening. Look."

The photographer took the parchment, muttering something about slaving for fourteen years and still not being called by one's right -- then he interrupted himself with a shout of "Salem's nooses! This is big!"

I tousled Fenoglio's head, said, "Tough luck, kid," and grabbing my photographer's elbow grunted, "Let's go, Ralph." He disapparated immediately, and pulled me after him.

We came out in a crowded square surrounded on all sides by high, blind walls. On one side of the square, a group of younger witches and wizards stood with lit wands raised above their heads, chanting loudly and levitating bedsheets with slogans painted on them in color-changing, marquee-sized letters. Closer to where we apparated was a somewhat less cramped collection of journalists and bystanders, many of them wearing armbands in a variety of national colors.

"Well done, Roger," I muttered acidly, picking my dripping feet out of the ankle-deep water of the fountain in the center of the square.

"It was the only place open enough to apparate into," Wossname muttered back.

Everyone was facing a dais at one end of the square, where a plump, sweaty, nervous wizard was even now clearing his magically-amplified throat toward the tip of his wand. The chanting and clamor gradually subsided. I climbed up onto the wall of the fountain and found that I could easily see over everyone's heads that way. My photographer set up his tripod beside me.

I grinned at him. "As I said, Gustav, well done!"

"Thank you for your continued patience," the perspiring wizard announced, his quavering voice echoing off the blank wall opposite. "Be assured, we are expecting Il Comte to arrive at any moment. We apologize for the delay. While we wait, p-perhaps I could take a few questions from the front five or six rows..."

Dozens of hands clawed at the air above the press corps' heads.

"You, there," said the plump wizard. "The witch with the duck on her head."

"Is it true," screeched the witch in question, "that Don Maledicto intends to announce his candidacy to be the next Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards?"

"I'm afraid I can't speak to that," said the gentleman at the rostrum, tugging on his collar. "Next -- let's say, the bloke with the bone in his nose."

"I represent Shamans For Justice. As you know, it is very difficult to make a living in our specialty without revealing the existence of magic to the muggles. We would like..."

"Excuse me," the emcee cut in, "but, my goodness, are you a real witch doctor?"

"I do hold a doctorate from the University of Timbuktu, though I prefer the term 'wizard practitioner.' Anyroad, we want to ask Il Comte to pledge that, if elected Supreme Mugwump, he would work toward the repeal of the Statue of Secrecy, so that..."

"I'm sure he will take that into consideration," said the announcer. "If, that is... and I can neither confirm or deny..."

"Excuse me," piped a piercing voice, coming from the front rank of the young protesters. Whoever it was, he must have been far enough along in his magical studies to know his way around a Sonorus charm. "I know we're too young to vote in this election, but you must hear us. After all, we are going to inherit the magical world you leave behind."

"Oh, dear." The plump wizard mopped his brow with a limp handkerchief. "All right, son, we'll hear you. But make it..."

"Everyone knows Don Maledicto is the darkest wizard this side of the Adriatic," piped the same boyish voice. "What do you think he's going to do - turn over a new leaf the day after he's elected? You don't need a long white beard to know which way Il Comte will steer the world. He'll dial everything back to before Dumbledore came into office."

At the mention of Dumbledore's name, many of the youngsters began to chant again. This took a few moments to die down before the youthful speaker continued: "We're concerned about our environment. Magical creatures are dying out. Dragons are going the way of the dinosaurs. Giants, unicorns, and four-leaf clovers are racing each other to be the next magical species to go extinct. Every year there is less room for us to be ourselves, to do magic without being seen. Something has to be done before it's too late, before our world shrinks to the vanishing point!"

"I don't hear you making any suggestions," the announcer gloated.

"Not electing Don Maledicto would be a start!" the youth bellowed. His supporters cheered. "Did you know that studies show the magical world's shrinkage accelerates when dark wizards are at large? Did you know that every pay-per-spell and ready-brew potion sold at Vold-Mart kills more fairies than all the kneazles in Europe combined? Did you seriously think mooncalf flatulence was causing the hole in the earth's thaumatic field? We have to reduce the cloven hoofprint of the wizarding world, before..."

"Now, that's enough," shouted the sweaty wizard. He looked highly flustered. "Let's all settle down now. Il Comte will be here presently."

At that moment, however, someone else appeared on the dais. Below me, many people in the crowd craned their heads to see the tiny headmaster of Isola Indietro, who prevailed on the speaker to give him a leg up onto the podium. Standing on what appeared to be the manuscript of Il Comte's planned speech, the short wizard pointed his wand at his own throat and said, in a surprisingly deep baritone voice that resonated throughout the palazzo: "I regret to inform you that Signore Maledicto will not be available this evening. There has been a tragedy. The final task of the Hexischoleiad Tournament has ended without a winner. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of Gunnar Almkvist..."

"Irving, you idiot," I spat at my photographer. "You brought us to the wrong story."

"For the umpty-eleventh time," he spat back, "my name is..."

"I know what it is, you grass-eating, walnut-sniffing... never mind, Clint. If we move quickly, we may still make it to the infirmary at Isola Indietro before the witnesses stop making unguarded comments. Hurry, now!"

Once again, I side-along apparated with Herbert(?), this time appearing on respectable, dry ground, in a familiar old corner of the school's sick berth, from which we had eavesdropped on many a quidditch game post-mortem while some player or other recovered from a bludger to the head. This time, we overheard this...

MALE VOICE 1 (in singsong, Nordic tones): There is no such thing as a wereyak.

MALE VOICE 2 (younger, in a heavily trilled, rolling accent): I'm telling you what I saw. I wish it had been a dream. But it was real.

FEMALE VOICE 1 (a local witch whose hoarse voice I recognized as that of the Isola Indietro magical sport teacher): The boy's story is consistent with the marks on the victim's body.

MALE VOICE 1: But this is absurd! Have you drunk too many of your own potions? No one has ever described such a thing. How does this Palamas boy even know what a yak looks like?

MALE VOICE 3 (older, but in the same accent as Male 2): I assure you, Aris is one of the most widely traveled wizards his age. And he has a special understanding where beasts are concerned...

MALE VOICE 1: To be sure, he seems to have a special aptitude for everything!

MALE VOICE 3: Now, Sandstad, you must calm down. It is understandable that you feel frustrated. Your student would have won this tournament, had he survived this task.

MALE VOICE 1: And instead, your well-traveled little favorite walks away with the laurel, by default. And he just happens to witness - if his ludicrous account is to be credited...

MALE VOICE 2 (shouting): How dare you! Look at my leg, my face! Would I do these things to myself? Would I do such a thing to my friend? You know nothing about me!

MALE VOICE 3 (some foreign mumbo-jumbo in a soothing tone of voice).

FEMALE VOICE 1: Well, at any rate, whatever attacked these boys will have the carabinieri on its trail - the wizarding ones especially. And if it is true that this wereyak is one of Il Comte's henchmen, they will have fled together. For the moment, it seems, our city is well rid of them.

FEMALE VOICE 2 (another voice I immediately recognized from our interview together, when she was on the Romanian Owlympic team): Rest assured, the Rogue Magic Bureau takes Mr. Palamas's account very seriously. My people will search for Il Comte, and when we find him we will hold him accountable for this.

MALE VOICE 1: But what could he possibly want with this crude, cracked, worn-out old eagle?

MALE VOICE 3: Cracked? What are you talking about? The falcon figurine is made out of solid thingummium, that stuff you can't even cut with a diamond. It can't be melted, sanded, or forged - nobody knows how it was made - isn't that why the Maltese are so wild about it?

MALE VOICE 1: Well, look at it. There's a crack right here.

MALE VOICE 3: Give it here.

MALE VOICE 1: I beg your - look out -

[Loud crash]

FEMALE VOICE 1: Well, there's a surprise.

MALE VOICE 3: What is that among the fragments? See how it catches...?

FEMALE VOICE 2 (abruptly): Don't touch it! Everyone, back away carefully...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #149 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: When we last heard from Spanky, he was having doubts about his old friend Lionel Niblet. When he goes back to Mangeford, Spanky finds that Sir Lionel has been: (A) put under an Imperius Curse; (B) replaced by a polyjuice-swilling imposter; (C) quietly missing for some time, and his estate is now controlled by an icky heir; (D) living a life of crime on the sly.

CONTEST: Describe an extremely rare (i.e., totally invented) creature that uses camouflage to disguise itself as something else. The more absurd the disguise, the better!

146. The Merhags

2009-01-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: TWZRD

Scarcely had Rigel handed both brooms to the parking valet and offered his arm to his date when a Wizarding Wireless presenter shoved a wand in his face. He squinted as a hovering lens focused the light of a blazing candelabra on his face. Evidently he was expected to speak into the wand-tip. "Er," he hemmed. "Say again?" he hawed.

"I said," the presenter said with quite as much grin but half the sincerity, "Isn't this your first public appearance since suddenly arriving at adulthood?"

"I suppose so," Rigel said sourly. "I mean, I've been an adult before, so..."

"And who is your lovely date?"

"Er," Rigel stammered, glancing at the woman beside him. "Th-this is Lucretia Pucey. She's actually my..."

"Miss Pucey, now that you're dating one of wizarding London's most eligible bachelors, how does it feel to know that he's already been through his second childhood?"

The woman on Rigel's arm blushed and covered her mouth. "I really can't say," she mumbled.

"We're not dating," Rigel said forcefully. "Miss Pucey is my governess."

The presenter tittered naughtily. "Well, be that as it may, you're all grown up now, aren't you? With a gown like that, you can tell she doesn't let a little thing like unemployment get her down."

Rigel gestured toward the shabby theatre, whose entrance the presenter was effectively blocking. "If you don't mind..."

"Actually, our listeners would love to hear your thoughts on tonight's show."

"I haven't seen it yet," Rigel said pointedly.

"But surely, you have some idea what you're about to see. It isn't everyday a society bad-boy turns up, after being presumed dead for a dozen years, sporting an attractive young witch on his arm..."

"Look," Rigel snapped. "I've been friends with the choreographer since I was a kid. The first time, that is. He played in some of the first games of Head Quidditch."

"Ah, so it's your personal connection to Bob Fossil that draws you to this opening-night."

"A good stick, old Bob is," Rigel agreed gruffly.

"Would you say he is growing creatively?"

"I suppose so. This is what, his third musical? No one thought dancing skeletons doing a jazz revue would amount to anything, but when they saw Deadhead..."

"That's exactly who saw it," the presenter said archly. "No one."

"Yes, but that's not taking ghosts into account. Deadhead did quite well in the unquiet-dead community. Which is really, you know, Bob's target audience."

"Don't I know it," the presenter said through clenched teeth, glancing up and down the quiet street in search of any other warm bodies to interview. "I've never seen such a quiet premiere. It's like a graveyard."

"Actually, it is a graveyard," Miss Pucey pointed out. "The Kidney Street Theatre hasn't had a live audience since it was hit by a German shell in 1940, during a sold-out performance of Sickle Serenade."

"It has the largest ectoplasmic acting company in Britain," Rigel added. "There isn't another troupe in the world that could mount a production of How to Succeed in the Afterlife Without Really Dying."

"You should know, shouldn't you?" purred the presenter, cupping her hand over her ear. "Isn't it true, Rigel, that you were the executive producer of that show?"

"I would really like to go inside," said Rigel.

"Are you also backing tonight's production of The Shroud Game?"

Rigel bristled. "I'll have you know that ghosts are perfectly capable of..." He winced, put his hand to the silver-backed diamond stud attached to his earlobe. Then he pulled his hand away as if burned. "Excuse me a moment."

"Sure," cooed the presenter. "May I ask Miss Pucey where she picked up that sensational...?"

"Oh, the blazing billywigs," Rigel cried out in a strangled voice, desperate to control his urge to swear on live wireless. "Not now!"

The young woman at his side looked concerned, saying, "Master O, is something wrong?" Then, just as she reached out to touch his arm, he disappeared with a sickening pop -- and dragged her after him.

They landed on a damp, gritty, stone floor. Rigel might have kept his footing if Miss Pucey hadn't barreled into him, sending them both rolling through a shallow puddle that ruined their evening clothes.

"I've seen better landings," said a gruff voice.

Rigel sat up and glared at Merlin. "And I've seen better places to land."

Merlin helped the governess to her feet. She seemed surprisingly unruffled, considering her confusing journey and her uncomfortable new surroundings. "This is unexpected," she said, gazing directly at Merlin with an uplifted chin.

"I beg your pardon for interrupting what seems to have been a big night," said Merlin, while Rigel looked around at the damp slabs of stone that surrounded them on all sides. They were in a chilly room, slightly larger than the public room at the Hog's Head, with a ceiling so high that the light from Merlin's wand-tip barely reached it. In the center of the floor was a staircase leading down to a pool of black, still water, eight or ten steps below floor level.

"Crikes, the smell," said Rigel, covering his mouth and nose with one hand, while favoring his singed earlobe with the other. "Like a fishy sewer. It has to be Venice."

"Venice is actually some distance above us," Merlin said casually.

"And that's the only way out of here?" Rigel tilted his head toward the steps, the pool.

"I'm afraid so."

"What about these walls? The ceiling? Surely Il Comte must have a secret way into his -- I don't know -- boat slip? Besides, that helm the goblins gave him isn't fond of water."

"This isn't part of Il Comte's estate," Merlin murmured, quietly filing away the information Rigel had unwittingly provided.

"Then why the devil did you come here? What did you think you would find? And why can't you just leave the way you came in?"

"Because," said Merlin, "the ones who brought me here are waiting outside."

Rigel looked down into the dark water. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw something move below the surface. "Merfolk?" he guessed. Merlin nodded. "What is this place, then? A prison? What did you do? Did you violate their territory? Did you poach in their waters?"

"Oh, nothing like that," said Merlin. "And anyway, this isn't a prison."

Rigel stared at him. He and Miss Pucey stared at each other. They both looked at Merlin again with eyes full of dread and curiosity.

Merlin pointed his wand at the corner behind him, where several barrels were stacked in front of a shelf full of filthy cans and jars. Hanging from the ceiling were the gutted carcasses of two drowned dogs, a stiff fox, a partially eaten goat, and several large fish.

"It's a larder," Miss Pucey whispered.

"But merpeople wouldn't eat us," Rigel protested furiously. "We're people. They're practically people too. It would almost be cannibalism!"

"Most merpeople wouldn't eat us," Merlin agreed. "But I've discovered an interesting fact that I don't remember reading in Newt Scamander's bestiary. Wherever there are people, you see -- people of any kind -- there is also a small percentage of magical people."

Rigel's brow wrinkled as he tried to follow Merlin's line of thought. "You mean... there are merwitches?"

"Exactly. And wherever one finds witches, one also finds a number -- a much smaller number, to be sure -- of hags."

Rigel looked like he wanted to be sick. "So it's merhags, then."

"Once we've ripened a bit," Merlin went on ruthlessly, "we'll be the most popular main course on their menu."

"We've got to get out of here," Rigel said as if he meant, You've got to get me out.

"That's why I needed you," said Merlin. He bowed to Miss Pucey and added, "Your presence is a nice bonus."

"What do you need me for?" Rigel shouted. "Go on. Escape. Swim past the bloody merhags, then. I would only hold you back."

"It isn't the merhags that scare me," said Merlin. "I already have a defense against their teeth and claws. Only, I've found out something else about this place. Another way out, maybe. Or maybe better: a way in to someplace I never expected to find. It's just that, I won't have time to check it out if the merhags come back for me.

"So what I need is a diversion. I need you to try to escape. The merhags will chase you, thinking you're me. They've never been good at telling one air-breather from another. While you lead them away from here, I'll have time..."

"You must be mad," Rigel screamed.

"Barking," Merlin agreed, holding out a smooth stone that dangled on a leather thong.

Miss Pucey looked from one wizard to the other, hiding her thoughts behind her composed face, as if calmly waiting to see what happened next. At last, with an inarticulate snarl, Rigel snatched the ironskin stone out of Merlin's grasp.

Miss Pucey smirked with her back turned to him as her former escort peeled off his dress robes and prepared to enter the dark water. He paused on the third step to tie his wand to his forearm with one shoelace. His skin looked green, possibly due to light from Merlin's wand reflected off the water. "You'll be all right, the two of you?"

"I'll see to it," said Merlin.

Miss Pucey drew her own wand and said, with the primness proper to a highly effective governess to any hell-raising young wizard, "We both will see to it." And her tone of voice made certain no one would dream of contradicting her.

"I'll keep the merhags busy as long as I can," said Rigel. "After that, I'll be at the Gritti Palace, waiting for you or a sign from you. Don't keep me waiting long."

Merlin looked appraisingly at Miss Pucey, who had begun to throw items out of her handbag -- two brass candlesticks, a crowbar, and a coil of strong rope already lay at her feet, and just now she was plucking out a pair of greasy work-boots. He nodded. "We won't."

+++ A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS +++

From the "Credit Where Due" Dept.: Let's give a big hand to my Dad, Cuda, for designing the new headline for this blog. Doesn't it look great?

Another round of applause goes to Andrew Sims for offering to continue publishing TMQ on MuggleNet. Andrew becomes the fourth editor to grapple with this heroic task.

I am so glad to continue this column's affiliation with MuggleNet. Nevertheless, Andrew and I have agreed that The Magic Quill blog will also continue. This means that, even though TMQ will continue to appear on MuggleNet, there will no longer be a Chamber of Secrets forum thread for each new chapter. Instead, the blog comments will be the place to answer your weekly Double Challenge. Hopefully the bugs in the comment system have been worked out.

We (the quill and I) still need your creative contributions! Please visit soon and often, and help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill. The more readers who participate in each week's Survey and Contest, the more exciting the results will be. You might also consider signing up to follow this blog!

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #148 +++

Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: When we last left Sadie, she was witnessing a horrible duel between Il Comte and Uncle or Aunt Leslie. What happens when Chat Noir gets involved? (A) He tries to defend Leslie and wins. (B) He dries to defend Leslie and is defeated. (C) He switches sides and joins Il Comte. (D) He goes in for himself and runs off with the ring of Count Matthias. (E) We don't find out what he does, because in the commotion Sadie gets away with the ring.

CONTEST: Describe a famous painting or photograph which, with a few alterations, might reveal an "untold story" relating to the magical world.

145. The Hexischoleiad

2008-12-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

Contest winners: Dragonic and Linda Carrig

SEVENTH HEXISCHOLEIAD ENDS IN SUCCESS...AND TRAGEDY
Only Two School Champions Killed -- A Record Low

Bo Dwyer reports exclusively for Broom & Wand...

Until this year, few British sport fans have followed the Hexischoleia Tournament, held every sixth year since 1972. This is not extraordinary, seeing that none of the six schools competing in the Hexischoleiad are in the U.K. What is extraordinary is the level of enthusiasm this year's tournament generated among British witches and wizards. Six schools, six champions, six challenges, six countries - and at every stage, a contingent of loyal supporters from our fair isle.

Our own Algernon Nutwicke, Interim Minister for Magical Games and Sports, offered me his explanation during the tense buildup to the Fifth Task: "Since the downfall of You-Know-Who, our lot have felt a weight lifted off them. There is a greater sense of freedom to travel, and a growing openness to foreign folk. Plus, after that Diggory chap bought it in the last Triwizard Tournament, there hasn't been much joy in the international sport line, if you follow me."

When I asked Mr. Nutwicke to place that last remark in the context of this year's spectacular Quidditch World Cup Final, he simply added: "Well, it was between Suriname and Burkina Faso, wasn't it?" If this sentiment is shared by many of his constituents, it makes the large number of British camp followers at this year's Hexischoleiad all the more extraordinary.

It is ironic that the Triwizard Tournament has only been held once since the 1960s, and is unlikely to come again for at least a few years. Why Ironic? This Nutwicke explained later, during the memorial service for Santa Ardilla's champion Pilar Lopez, whose mishap over the Gorge of Interminable Loneliness ended the Hexischoleiad's record streak of six consecutive tasks with no fatalities (counting the last two tasks of the 2002 Hexischoleiad). In an address to the mourners, Nutwicke explained how it was the Triwizard Tournament that inspired the six largest European schools of wizardry after Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons to combine in their own interscholastic competition.

"Until the middle of the last century," stated Minister Nutwicke, "the heads of the Santa Ardilla, Isola Indietro, and Iphinassa schools of magic frequently petitioned the Triwizard Schools to be included in Europe's oldest interscholastic magical games. They argued that their schools deserved to participate because of their size and high reputation. But unfortunately, the enchantment on the Triwizard Cup was unalterable, having been established at a period when Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons were the only large, coeducational, and residential schools of magic in Europe. Simply put, it was considered impossible at that time for any other schools to compete for the Triwizard Cup. Furthermore, after all three school champions perished two tournaments in a row, there were doubts that the Triwizard tradition would be continued at all. And so, in 1972, the first Hexischoleiad was held.

"The aforenamed Spanish, Italian, and Greek schools," Nutwicke continued, "were joined by representatives from Tummetot Academy, the Finsteraarhorn Fliegenschule, and Horzeltuin Hall. Together, the sixth schools have put forward some of the most exciting champions in the history of magical sport, achieving a glory made up of equal parts cunning and courage, glorious victory and noble sacrifice. And now, how touching - even, perhaps, ironic - to find graduates of the three Triwizard Schools gathered among us to honor the latest fallen hero of the Hexischoleia Tournament."

Pilar Lopez was not the last hero to fall, however. Considering the perils involved in all six tasks, it is remarkable that only two champions were lost this year.

The first task, hosted by Tummetot, required the six champions to defeat a troll in single combat. Iphinassa's Aris Palamas took an early lead using a maneuver he learned from Xenophilius Lovegood's unauthorized biography of Harry Potter (levitate club, drop on troll's head).

In the second task, Finsteraarhorn challenged the youngsters to rescue hostages from a mountain pass haunted by snow demons. Palamas tied with Horzeltuin's Saskia Troost by working together, using an avalanche as a diversion and sneaking up the pass while the yetis were rebuilding their tunnels.

Isola Indietro's champion Bruno Fenoglio narrowly survived an obstacle course designed by Horzeltuin's charms master, who seems to have a fondness for booby traps and sharp-edged projectiles. The best score in that round went to to Lopez, with Palamas taking second and maintaining his overall lead.

There was another close call in the fourth task, this time for Finsteraarhorn's Constant Malheur, whose string of bad luck took on gruesome dimensions when Santa Ardilla challenged the champions to find their way out of a maze of mirrors armed with transfiguration traps. Lopez achieved the best time, but her score was docked because she came out of the maze with asses' ears; first place then went to Tummetot's Gunnar Almkvist, who amazingly navigated the maze blindfolded.

By this time, a new 36-year safety record had been set. Yet, surprisingly, supporters continued to pour in from all parts of Europe, including one party of elderly sport hoodlums who had been banned from the Triwizard Tournament since the 1950s; several of them were deported after Lopez's fall into the Gorge, though it is unlikely that either their burning of Iphinassa's administration building (which was, after all, only a replica of Taureian temple of Artemis) or the stampede that followed it could have caused the second-place champion to miss her footing. It was the champions with their daring, dash, and dazzle that brought more attention to each successive task; but now that blood was spilled, the attendance at the sixth and final task was beyond all expectations.

"At the last moment we had to double the number of tiers in our Quidditch pitch," commented Isola Indietro's headmaster, the diminutive Professor Presto. "There still weren't enough seats to go around."

"They had more spectators than the World Cup Final," Minister Nutwicke agreed.

Going into the final task, the scores stood thus: In first place Palamas of Iphinassa with 312 points; runner-up Lopez of Santa Ardilla with 298 but no longer with us; Almkvist of Tummetot at third with 244; Troost of Horzeltuin in fourth with 228; Fenoglio of Isola Indietro in fifth with 225 points and a home-field advantage; and in last place, but effectively out of the running, Finsteraarhorn's Malheur with 176 points. Anyone but Malheur or, of course, Lopez had a chance to win, given that a full 100 points would be given to the winner of the task.

The rules of the task were simple. The winner would retrieve a life-sized falcon figurine hidden somewhere in the city -- yes, outside the gates of the school -- and bring it back, undamaged, without doing any magic in front of muggles. The figurine (on loan from Malta) had undisclosed magical properties and could be hidden indoors, outdoors, or even underwater. It would be, as Professor Presto called it, "the ultimate scavenger hunt." Anyone breaking one of the rules would be instantly disqualified. And the champions had 24 hours to finish the task.

I spoke with Fenoglio six hours into the task, after he was disqualified for levitating himself out of a canal. While members of the Italian Ministry for Magic modified the memories of a passing gondolier and his passengers, a soaked and shivering Fenoglio explained how he had tried to use his knowledge of local magic to his advantage. "I knew about a wizard who owns an entire, unplottable island in the city. I had heard that he kept falcons, so I reasoned that the figurine might be with Il Comte's birds. I had always heard bad things happened to kids who tried to sneak onto Il Comte's estate, but I assumed that was part of the challenge."

Fenoglio continued, "I've been studying to become an animagus, so I reckoned that would be the safest way to get across the grounds. I haven't passed the license test yet, so no one else in the tournament knew about it. It was kind of a secret weapon. Now the time finally came to use it."

Here I asked Fenoglio what animal he turns into. "A boa constrictor," he said. "Just like my mother's cousin, who gave me the idea. He got so good at it that he forgot how to turn back into a human. Last I heard of him he had escaped from a zoo somewhere."

"He must have been very convincing as a snake," I put in.

"My mother always said he was," said Fenoglio. "Don't tell her about this, all right? I don't think she would like it."

I promised to take the secret to my grave. Then, dear reader, young Fenoglio went on with his stunning tale. "It had gotten dark by the time I reached Il Comte's weathering yard. That's where they exercise the birds, you know. I went scaly and crept out of the woods, tasting the air to make sure nobody was around. All I sensed was bird, so I slithered toward the shed where they keep the mews. Getting in under the wall took a bit of work, but I finally did it and turned back into me. I conjured up a bit of cold fire and started searching the mews for a bird figurine. That's when it got interesting.

"One of the falcons wasn't hooded. When I looked in on it, it seemed to be trying to tell me something. I thought this was pretty unusual, so maybe it was the figurine with those mysterious powers old Presto mentioned. I had to pick a lock to let it out. Then it got really scary.

"The bird flew right at me, like it was going to chew my face off. I fell on the floor and shielded myself, but the sound of flapping wings stopped. Suddenly this man was standing there. He must have been an animagus too. He grabbed me and made me run away with him -- dragged me, almost -- all the way to the canal, where we got into trouble. Il Comte must have detected us somehow, because his golems were waiting for us -- yes, that's what I said, men made out of clay. I never thought I could run like that. If we hadn't found that boat we would have had to swim for it."

The Hexischoleiad champion and the strange man were pursued, now by wizards who had no qualms against shooting curses at them in front of muggles. They got separated when one well-aimed curse blasted their boat to splinters. What became of the other wizard, or who he was, is still unknown. The local authorities claim to have spoken with Il Comte and his staff, but no information has been forthcoming. But, understandably, other concerns have taken higher priority.

For even while I was interviewing one champion who had narrowly escaped with his life, another champion was killed while holding the falcon figurine.

...TO BE CONTINUED...

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #147 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Who killed the Hexischoleiad champion? A) Il Comte di Bestemmia or his minions. B) Another school's champion. C) A magical creature linked to the falcon figurine. D) Somebody connected to the mystery of Penelope's Yak.

CONTEST: Invent an original and colorful "wizard swear" or magical insult that can be published on a family-oriented website.

144. Jude the Insecure

2008-12-27T08:47:00.000-08:00

Contest winner: Quercitron

The Out of This World Outfitter was certainly out of the way. It lay three turns out of Diagon Alley, in a dingy cul-de-sac lined with boarded-up shops and littered with broken roof tiles. It was situated below street level, its entrance hidden behind a gruesome, never-melting ice sculpture depicting the beheading of the Gang of One, the hydra who had terrorized the neighborhood during the Lawlessness that had followed the Third Goblin Rebellion. Its entrance was marked by three signs, falsely identifying it as Ermengarde's Weevil Shop, claiming to be closed for structural repairs, and warning trespassers to beware of Acromantulas.

To get through the outer door, one had to knock three times using one's elbow, because anyone touching the dragon's head knocker risked getting a faceful of forgetfulness powder, and anyone whose knuckles touched the door would fall through a trapdoor into a ticklefish-infested pool guarded by a dwarf named Jeremy, who would only let them out if they guessed his name or paid him a sickle.

Through the first door was a small courtyard with a fountain and a second door on the other side. One had to throw one's wand and any other weapons, magical or otherwise, into the fountain before approaching the second door, which would then open automatically to a short corridor and a final door. It was here that one needed to speak the password of the day, which was only known to the proprietor and those he had personally invited.

How did one arrange to be invited to the Out of This World Outfitter? One wrote to its owner, requesting specific items and offering to purchase them on his terms. One sent the letter by owl to the Post Office in Diagon Alley, care of General Delivery. There a postal elf named Gandy would check it for curses, poisons, and anything else liable to cause loud noises or sudden movements. Gandy would also check the name of the letter's author against the Who's Who of Wizarding Britain, to make sure they were on the up-and-up. If time permitted, Gandy might even recopy the letter onto juju-proof parchment. Then he would deliver the letter through the only pneumatic tube currently operating in the wizarding world. Return letters inviting the would-be customer to visit the shop would be sent back the same way.

Only one customer could visit the shop at a time. This was to ensure that its proprietor could never be outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and overpowered.

A lone man in a dark cloak approached the first door today. His hood was raised, hiding his face in shadow. He knocked on the first door with his elbow: knock, knock - pause - knock. The door opened itself, and the dark man passed through. He took two wands, a long silver knife, a blowgun, and a slingshot from his pockets. Together with a waxed box full of darts (for the blow gun) and a string bag of return-to-me stones, he placed these weapons in a boat he had made from the front page of the Daily Prophet and set it afloat in the fountain. Magically, the boat steered clear of the jets of water and stayed dry, upright, and afloat.

The second door opened as soon as the boat floated out of the cloaked wizard's reach. He entered the small corridor, waited for the door behind him to close, and whispered one word to the door ahead: "Rincewind." He didn't know what it meant, but according to the letter he had received, that would be today's password into the Out of This World Outfitter. Sure enough, the third door opened.

Surprisingly, the shop within was brightly lit, spacious, and comfortably full of browsing customers. The cloaked wizard understood that these wizards and witches were under an enchantment, condemned to wander the Outfitter's shop eternally, as punishment for demanding an insultingly low price for something the proprietor had procured for them. Customers had friends and families. Friends and families had feelings about their magically imprisoned loved ones. And so, obviously, the wizard who now approached the dark man - the wizard with two wildly swiveling, electric-blue eyes and an ill-concealed stash of spare wands tucked up his sleeve - had enemies. It isn't paranoia, the new visitor thought, when everyone really is out to get you.

"Julian Cribble," said the proprietor, bowing politely but not offering to shake hands, as his magical eyes rolled in opposite directions to check the perimeter. "Some call me Jude the Insecure," he added. "Those who want to stay on my good side call me Mr. Cribble."

"What do your friends call you?"

"I'll let you know if we ever become friends," said Cribble,

"Dandelionel Ethelbaldricsson," said the cloaked wizard, lowering his hood. "Everyone calls me Spanky Spankison."

Cribble looked relieved to recognize his customer's face. He nodded discreetly to someone behind Spanky, who realized that the customer behind him hadn't simply been checking out a display of armor-piercing spitballs. She pulled her hand out of her pocket and moved away. Spanky mentally kicked himself for not noticing that the witch had a wand in her pocket.

"Would you like to see the item I found for you before settling?"

"That would be ideal," Spanky admitted.

"Tough luck," snapped Cribble. "By crossing that threshold, you agreed to the terms in my letter. Payment first. Then you can leave with your item. Or...you can look around the shop..."

"How can I be sure it's the right item?" Spanky snapped back.

"It's a risk we both take," said Cribble.

"Where's the risk for you?"

Cribble's right eye studied the ceiling while the left continued its slow 180-degree search pattern. "The price may be high," he said, "but so was the cost to me. Procuring this kind of item isn't easy and it isn't cheap. I can only make a living if I get plenty of repeat customers."

After a long, tense silence, Spanky said, "I'll accept that."

"Good," said Cribble. "It's getting crowded in here. Shall we step into my office for the weighing of the gold and whatnot?"

On the other side of a narrow, curtained doorway was a wedge-shaped sliver of a room with a pneumatic tube terminal on the wall. Light and heat came from a charcoal brazier on a raised stand. A wide standing desk, littered with parchment and broken quills, occupied most of the space. The only other furniture was a life-sized stone figure of a burly goblin with a broad, vicious grin. It stood with one hand extended, palm upward. As the curtain fell shut behind them, the sound of the customers' shuffling feet and occasional, tortured moans was cut off, and all that remained was the crackle of fire in the brazier and the purring of a plump cat curled up asleep in a painting above the desk. Spanky could suddenly hear his own breathing. Ashamed of the noise, he tried to breathe more slowly and calmly.

"Place your gold on the goblin's hand," Cribble said, his soft voice magnified by the strange acoustics of the room.

"I'm willing to offer you a bit more than your asking price," Spanky said, pulling two bulging bags of coins out of his pocket.

Cribble's eyes suddenly focused front and center - which had an oddly unsettling effect. "What for?" he asked suspiciously.

"Information about an item you sold to one Madam Solfeggia d'Arezzo."

"Which..." Cribble bit his tongue. "I mean, I do not discuss my dealings with other customers."

"So..."

"Nor can I confirm or deny that Madam Solfeggia has ever been my customer," the shopkeeper added hastily.

Spanky flashed a smile that, during his career in the Rogue Magic Bureau, had made several suspects suddenly decide to confess. "You've just confirmed it. Otherwise, how would you know that she prefers to be addressed by her first name?"

"If there is a law against what I do," Cribble said furiously, "show it to me. Otherwise pay up, take your item, and go. Exact coin only."

"You were about to ask which item I want to know about," said Spanky. "That tells me you have sold more than one item to Madam Solfeggia. I'll be interested in that, too, but for right now the one I'm curious about was a live creature."

"You don't want me to decide that this is bargaining," Cribble warned. "I prefer to do my bargaining at a safe distance."

"I'm offering you more money," said Spanky. "How is this bargaining? What I'm asking for will cost you nothing.

"This isn't what we agreed upon," said Cribble, his eyes rotating out of control. "People who go back on agreements make me feel unsafe. Bad things happen to people when I feel unsafe."

"You're quite safe with me," said Spanky, opening the front of his cloak to show the badge on the front of his shirt. "I work for the R.M.B. I am sworn to protect..."

"It was just a ruddy nightingale," Cribble shouted, hurting Spanky's ears. He quickly turned to face the painting of the cat, though Spanky felt sure his eyes were still aimed at him through the back of Cribble's head.

"You may have meant to send her a nightingale," Spanky said gently, "but something else was delivered."

"Mistakes do happen now and again," Cribble growled.

"This was a rather big one," said Spanky. "I'm interested to know how you managed to confuse a yak with a nightingale. Did you even look inside the box? Wouldn't you have wondered why it came in such a big..."

"Don't be foolish," Cribble snorted. "I saw the bird myself. Its gilded cage might have stood on this desk. No yak could..."

"Did anyone else handle the cage between here and the Post Office?"

"My sister Branwen handles all my owl-order business. She would have personally seen the cage to the owlery, like every other item she handles."

"Was she the one out there?"

Cribble nodded. "You won't want to interrogate her, though. Fellow named Rabastan Lestrange gave her a rough time when she was a girl. Since then, she refuses to speak to men. Hates the lot of us, she does. Only says 'Yes' and 'No' to me, and I'm her twin brother."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is it possible the direction for the nightingale was accidentally switched with that of another package?"

"Not once the owls are in the air, it isn't," said Cribble defiantly. "I'm telling you, nobody but my sister touched the cage between this shop and the owlery."

"Do you know this by asking her a specific, yes-or-no question?"

"I know my sister, Mr. Spankison. She keeps clean books. Besides, we haven't sold a yak in years."

"You have sold one, then? To whom? Could he have intercepted an owl?"

"Slow down," Cribble said, wincing as Spanky's voice hurt his hears. "I'll look it up in the register." He swept some rolls of parchment off the desktop, then pulled the cat painting away from the wall. Behind it was a shelf crammed with heavy, leather bound books. The wizard tugged one of them out onto the desk and began paging through it. Once opened, it covered the whole surface of the desk.

"Here it is," said Cribble after some minutes' search. "One Tibetan yak, sold to the Himalayan Gardens and Preserve of Mangeford."

Spanky laughed. "Excuse me? Where was that again?"

"Mangeford," said Cribble. "To the attention of Sir Lionel..."

"Niblet!" Spanky suddenly had to bend over and put his head between his knees.

"Always the usual suspects, isn't it?" Cribble drawled, enjoying Spanky's reaction with a wobbly-eyed sneer.

Spanky shook his head, upside-down, and grunted, "On the contrary."

"Well, now you know, you can fly off and question him. But first, settle up."

"Wait," said Spanky, pulling himself upright. "What about the other items you have sent to Madam Solfeggia? Was there ever a custom-made knife?"

"Certainly," said Jude the Insecure. "Only we didn't send it to her. The lady came here and picked it up in person."

Spanky had thought he was past being astonished, but now his jaw dropped. "Alone?"

"How else?"

"Was there any music playing around her, somehow?"

"Not as I recall."

"And she was in human form?"

Cribble frowned thoughtfully. "Most of my customers are."

Spanky shook his head again. "That wasn't Madam Solfeggia."

"Maybe the lady sent a lady friend in her place?"

"I'll warrant that she never bought - would never have bought - such a knife."

"Well, my letter could only have been opened by her. And only by reading that letter could she have learned the password to come here. If she didn't want the knife, she must at least know someone was angling to get it, and with her name engraved on it too."

"One way or another, someone must have intercepted your letter. Can you describe the woman who presented herself to you as Madam Solfeggia?"

Cribble's magical eyes turned figures of eight while he thought. After a minute he gave a brief description that exactly matched Madam Solfeggia's piano-playing parlor maid, Fifi.

"All right, that's enough to go on with," said Spanky. He had received as much disturbing news as he could digest in one day. He dropped one sack of coins in the stone goblin's outstretched hand. The statue came to life and popped the sack into its mouth. A moment later, coins could be heard rolling and sliding down a sloping surface, a sound that went on for a long time and only gradually faded away.

"These are for your extra kindness," Spanky added, handing the goblin the other sack of coins. "Now, if it isn't any trouble, I'll take my luggage and my leave."

"It's waiting for you in the courtyard," said Jude the Insecure, patting the goblin's head while it spat out two empty purses. "If I know the world it came from, it will have collected all your personal items from the fountain, and you needn't worry about carrying it, because it will follow you on its own feet."

"Wonderful stuff, that sapient pearwood," Spanky said wistfully.

"If you still think so after you've had it for a while," said Cribble as he held the curtain open and the sound of the clientele's mournful shuffling returned, "perhaps we can do business again."

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Cribble," said Spanky, but he did not look pleased. Nor, as he patted the top of the wooden trunk that stood by the fountain - stood, mind you, on a hundred tiny feet of its own - did he feel especially pleased. Once again, his faith in one of his oldest friends was shaken.

What story would Sir Lionel tell him this time? Would he believe it?

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #146 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! First, go to the forums, or send Robbie feedback [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. Then, in 250 words or less, answer the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Which of the gifts Merlin received in TMQ #141 should he use next?

CONTEST: Describe the talisman Signor Maledicto stole from the goblins? (See TMQ #141 for more info.)

[Originally posted 10/27/08]