Contest winners: Linda Carrig and dele
After supper at the Sidwells’ spotless -- and conspicuously odorless -- attic flat, Spanky settled into the sofa next to Ilona and patted his belly. “Excellent supper, Endora,” he said. “Beautifully seasoned.”
“It wasn’t too bland?” Endora said, anxiously glancing over her shoulder at the crockery and pewter as it washed and dried itself and arranged itself in the kitchen dresser. “I often err on the side of blandness. I can be a wee bit oversensitive to subtleties in flavor.”
“No, I think you compensated quite well,” Spanky assured her. Ilona seconded this with a nod of her head.
“Me, I can’t taste anything these days,” Sadie admitted before biting the tip off a cigar and spitting it with practiced precision out the open window on the other side of the room. Somewhere in the street below, a woman screamed, a dog barked, a car horn bellowed, and something made of glass shattered loudly. Unconcerned, Sadie continued moistening the end of her cigar.
Joe Albuquerque, disguised as an off-duty guard from Buckingham Palace, had flinched slightly as the spit wad of paper and tobacco sailed over his shoulder. He stroked the beaver hat on his knee, fussy and slightly offended. “Watch it,” he snapped. “I go on duty in three hours, and this all has to look just so.”
Sadie regarded him coldly, lit her cigar with a spark from her wand, then blew a smoke ring at him.
“It feels weird to be sitting here without our masks and such on,” Merlin said loudly as he squeezed into the same armchair as Endora. “Almost doesn’t seem right to be getting together anywhere but the Hog’s Head. It has the only atmosphere for the tales we tell each other.”
“I’ll tell you what atmosphere it has,” said Endora, rolling her eyes. “It stinks!”
“Too true,” said Sadie from out of a thick cloud of smoke.
Endora looked pleadingly at her husband. He sighed and waved his wand toward Sadie. The smoke began to flow toward the open window. Joe coughed meaningfully, so Merlin added another wand-twirl and the trail of smoke made a sharp turn in front of him and went up the chimney instead.
“Well, there’s always next time,” said Merlin. “After all, we do want to stop at the Hog’s Head now and then, in case Harvey tries to get in touch. But maybe, for now, we can turn down the lamps a bit, help set the mood for Spanky’s story.”
“I would rather have them on,” Ilona said, shivering. She seemed about to add: Or talk about something else.
“Very well,” said Spanky. He sipped from a smoking glass of amber liquid, set it down, and continued his tale...
“I heard the voice of the little, angel-faced man from behind me, saying: ‘Easily lured, easily caught.’ But I didn’t turn to face him. I held my hands up to show that I was unarmed, but I kept my eyes fixed on Shmedly. He seemed to shrink under my gaze. I said, ‘I ought to have realized you two were connected. You both have the same tendency to shrug off perfectly sound curses.’
“A bit of color came back into Shmedly’s face then, and he almost grinned. ‘We have your precious patron, Sir Whatsit, to thank for that.’
“I felt a cold thrust of pain at these words, as if Shmedly had run me through with an ice dagger. Just then, when I was almost sure Sir Lionel had betrayed me, may have been the lowest moment in my life – or at least, since locating Ilona. But Shmedly, seeing the look on my face, couldn’t resist twisting the dagger. As the short wizard behind me checked my robes for wands and other weapons, Shmedly gleefully added: ‘What? Didn’t he tell you about the magic-proof orchid he illegally bred in his hothouse? Hmmm? Reeks like a charnel house, but when you rub its nectar on your skin, you become invincible to any kind of magical attack. Only stops working if you break the skin...’
“‘Oh, you fool!’ angel-face sighed sorrowfully, though Shmedly flinched as if he had been screamed at. ‘You poor, dear, fool! Will you never learn when to stop?’
“I was overjoyed. I could have kissed Shmedly just then, as I turned to face my captor, hands clasped behind my head. ‘How did you get around the smell, then?’ I asked him, noting the trickle of blood that had tried on angel-face’s neck after Ilona had hit him with the teapot.
“‘I cannot answer your questions,’ angel-face said regretfully. ‘We only have time for you to answer mine. If you weren’t so secretive, if you had boasted to your colleagues here’ — he indicated the unconscious and dead RMB agents laid out around us on chaises longues — ‘I might have gotten the information without having to trouble you.’
“‘I see,’ said I. ‘This is all my fault, then.’ I darted a glance, out the corner of my eye, to see the ugly house-elves tying up Zichri Goode and the hagmaiden who had come with us. Ilona stood a few paces behind angel-face, aiming her wand at him. Its tip trembled so much that I reckoned any spell she tried might hit me just as easily as him. I stared at her over the top of angel-face’s head, trying to send confidence at her, though I still had no idea why this little wizard frightened her so much.
“‘Have a seat,’ said angel-face. With a flick of his wand he blasted me backward onto a chaise lounge. Straps attached to the seat’s frame wound themselves firmly around my legs. One of the house-elves brought forth a small, cushioned stool, and my captor sat down beside me, beaming benevolently at me, like a kindly doctor visiting a favored patient. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Minimilian Iulianescu. We have never met, though you were a guest in my home for several months.’
“I told him that I doubted it. He smiled even more sweetly and asked, ‘Do you not remember an old castle on the Prut River?’
“‘That ruin?’ I snorted. ‘It hasn’t been anyone’s home for centuries.’
“‘It was your home, albeit a borrowed one,’ Iulianescu pointed out. ‘And it belongs to me, by right of Salic primogeniture. It and everything in it.’ He said this last bit very slowly, to emphasize it.
“‘There was nothing in it except what I brought with me,’ I said. ‘And I took that away with me as well, so I don’t see why it interests you.’
“‘Don’t you?’ purred the little man. ‘I have read your record. You were, even then, one of the RMB’s cleverest and most resourceful agents.’
“‘That’s news to me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t join the RMB until after that assignment.’
“Iulianescu sighed and rolled his eyes. I stole a momentary glance at Ilona, who looked more undecided than ever. I was with her by now; I wanted to know what this wizard wanted. I could worry about escaping later. ‘So you say,’ the little man said with an air of infinite patience. ‘There’s really no need to keep up the charade, now that I’ve read the whole case file. Yes, you were in the pay of the Dragon Squad, Southeast Zone. Yes, you were on loan to the Moldovan Bureau of Worm Control. Yes, your assignment was ostensibly to patrol the Romanian border for signs of dragon-egg smuggling. But it was only a cover for your actual work for the Rogue Magic Bureau — pray, don’t act surprised!’
“The madman laughed sweetly at the look on my face, and raved on: ‘The case file wasn’t even particularly difficult to steal, and you’re mentioned on fully two-thirds of its pages. So let’s dispense with the subterfuge. The RMB has been hoping to pick up a little artifact that my great-great-great-great-grandfather secreted in the castle walls. They want it almost as much as I do. To my certain knowledge, it was still there when you began your border patrol, and it was not there when I went looking for it shortly after you left. The RMB hasn’t given up looking for it. So I can only conclude that you found it, moved it elsewhere, and prudently refrained from mentioning it in your report. I have hoped all these years that you would seek me out and strike a bargain with me...’
“‘Well, for starters,’ I snarled at him, ‘I haven’t the first clue who you are. And for finishers, I wasn’t undercover then; I didn’t work for the RMB; and I don’t know what artifact...’
“‘I’m sorry,’ Iulianescu said in a gentle voice that somehow chilled me to the marrow. ‘I should have mentioned that I don’t suffer fools. For example: Avada Kedavra!’
“He said the Killing Curse in a conversational tone, with his wand pointed casually toward Sid Shmedly, who was still holding the tip of his knife against Silver Conkling’s throat. A hideous, green bolt of light hit Shmedly in the chest before he could even scream. He crumpled, landing half on top of Silver, and pulling her chair over sideways. Silver made a horrible, wet gasping noise, twitched several times, and lay still. I was so stunned by this sudden and heartless murder, both of my oldest enemy and one of my friends, that I forgot to breathe. A minute later, the little monster gave me a gentle slap and brought me round, gasping, staring at him in horror.
“He continued speaking exactly as before. ‘I might have understood your concealment before this, but now that I have revealed what I know, there is no sense in continuing to pretend. It is simply foolish. You are not a fool, are you, Agent Spankison?’
“I swallowed something that might have been either a scream or a sob, and said, ‘No.’
“‘Good,’ said Iulianescu, shining on me with a smile so bright that it should have given me sunburn, though it made me feel colder than ever. Over his shoulder I saw Ilona square her hips and aim her wand at him. Bless her, just as I was falling apart, her hand became steady.
“‘Are you ready to make a deal, then?’ Iulianescu asked, while Ilona looked at me questioningly.
“I looked into her eyes and said: ‘Yes.’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #121 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s stay at Minimilian’s castle was previously mentioned in TMQ #11. He clearly doesn’t remember working for the RMB at that time. So which of the following is true? (A) Spanky was so deep undercover that he himself didn’t know he was working for the RMB. (B) Someone tampered with the records to make it look like Spanky was working for the RMB. (C) Spanky had nothing to do with the RMB, but he was mentioned in their report because his investigation crossed paths with theirs. (D) Spanky is mentioned in the RMB reports because they were considering whether to hire him. (E) The RMB believed Spanky was their informant, but it was actually Ilona (who, you may recall, was stationed just across the river).
CONTEST: What sort of “artifact” might lie hidden in a wizard’s castle for seven generations, and what magical power might it have?
[Originally posted 5/29/07]
Showing posts with label Silver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silver. Show all posts
Saturday, December 27, 2008
117. Two If By Biscuit
Contest winner: greyniffler
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
Friday, December 26, 2008
115. The Day of Five Puzzles
Contest winners: i6uuaq and greyniffler
Spanky’s tale continued...
“The day after Silver Conkling saw the Potters off, I found myself spread very thin. A trainee agent woke me with urgent news that Silver’s party had not returned, and there weren’t enough agents left to change the watch. I went up to Sir Lionel’s owlery at once and sent an owl to the RMB office in Blokebury, reporting on the situation, and another to Godric’s Hollow with a note asking if the Potters were all right.
“The return owls arrived almost at once. Blokebury promised to send reinforcements to relieve the watch and ordered me to begin investigating the disappearance of Silver’s party as soon as they arrived. While I was still reading this, the Potters’ owl arrived, assuring me that they had made it home safely and without incident, and when last seen, Silver, her team, and the elf-driven carriage were headed straight back to Mangeford. James had the foresight and kindness to send a little extra with his message: a rolled-up invisibility cloak, shrunk down to the size of a handkerchief.
“Ilona and I were the only agents who had not been on watch all night, so when the relief agents arrived I sent the night watch to bed and went off in search of answers, backed up only by my undetectible wife.
“I put on James Potter’s invisibilty cloak, and Ilona and I hopped on our brooms. We quickly retraced the route to Godric’s Hollow, where Lily forced on me a tied-up napkin full of biscuits, then slowly searched the fields and woods back in the direction of Mangeford. We were flying grid patterns over a wide, dense wood when I spotted movement below. I signaled to Ilona and swooped down for a closer look, expecting Ilona to meet me on the ground.
“I landed silently behind a tall, dark, figure that appeared to be prowling through the woods. As I drew out the knife Zophar Goode had given me, the figure seemed to be sniffing the air. I was just looking round to see where Ilona had got to when the prowler turned on me and swiftly aimed a long, silvery blade at my throat. With his other hand he whipped the invisibility cloak off me – a detail that added a whole scary dimension to the accuracy of my attacker’s aim. I swallowed slowly, my Adam’s apple nearly touching the tip of his knife, and forced myself not to blink.
“I found myself looking into an oddly familiar face – worried blue eyes, a firm unshaven jaw, lined and leathery skin, and a wild wavy tangle of salt-and-pepper hair retreating from the top of a sunburnt forhead. Though he was built entirely differently from his brother, I immediately realized that I was looking at Zichri Goode.
“’Drop the knife,’ he growled. I did as told. He didn’t even seem to look down, but his face darkened as the knife sank halfway up its blade into the ground. ‘That belonged to my brother,’ he said, in a whisper even more terrifying than his growl. ‘How did you come by it?’
“’I visited him yesterday,’ I said as Goode patted my right-hand pocket and took away my wand. ‘He gave it to me.’ I watched his face, thankful that he hadn’t thought of looking for the other wand in my left-hand pocket, and wondering if I would have a chance to draw it. He watched my face, searching for any sign that I was lying.
“’What were you doing there?’ he asked after we had studied each other for a while.
“’Rogue Magic Bureau business,’ I said. I waited until he had fished my credentials out of the inside pocket of my cloak before adding, ‘I was following up on a tip. It turned out to be nothing.’
“’Aren’t there rules against RMB agents accepting gifts from a suspect?’ Zichri Goode asked, with just a hint of wry humor added to his menacing tone. I didn’t answer. I guessed he had already worked out the way Zophar had bound me to keep Full Moon Kennel a secret.
“’What are you doing here?’ I asked, breathing a bit more freely as I pushed the point of Zichri Goode’s knife away from my neck.
“’Searching,’ Goode grunted.
“’So am I,’ I said. ‘Have you seen anyone in this area? Abraxan horses, maybe? A carriage? Or a house-elf?’
“’No,’ said Goode. ‘Have you seen a short, fat man with a lame leg?’
“’No,’ I said. ‘Why are you looking for him in here?’
“’He was expected at the Kennel yesterday. He always shows up three or four days ahead of the full moon, so he can settle his nerves before the place fills up with guests. His clotheshorse showed up this morning without him – ‘
“’Sorry?’ I asked. ‘Clothes-what?’
“’Clotheshorse,’ said Zichri Goode, impatiently. ‘Trunk with legs. Old-fashioned like, so I suppose a modern government wizard like you wouldn’t be interested, but very practical for a gimpy old werewolf like Mr. Nivol. It could only have walked out of these woods without him, if it had walked into these woods with him. He might have fallen down or...’
“’Or been attacked,’ I added grimly. ‘I think whatever happened to my people may have happened to your werewolf friend.’
“’And you suspect an attack?’ Goode said, somehow managing to look twice as intense as before. He handed my wand back to me and stooped to retrieve my knife from the ground. While he was looking down, I chanced to look up and saw a fountain of red sparks rising above the treetops from a way off.
“’There’s something going on over there,’ I said as he handed me my knife. ‘I’ll fly ahead on this broom and leave a trail of smoke; you follow it and catch up as quickly as you can.’
“Goode agreed, and I flew off, landing next to Ilona just as she was about to fire off another fountain of sparks. She looked very relieved when she saw me flying toward her.
“’What is it?’ I asked. ‘Tell me quickly, because Zophar Goode’s brother will be here in a moment and – ‘
“’Didn’t you see it?’ Ilona said, smacking the back of my head. She pointed upward, toward a tree over which I had flown only moments before. From above it had looked like a typical oak tree, shrouded in green leaves. From below I saw that the limbs seemed to have seized up in a spasm of agony. Caught in the branches was the crushed wreckage of a carriage. The carriage. Sir Lionel’s fancy, Abraxan-drawn carriage: small enough on the outside to fit in a little shed, yet large enough on the inside to carry the entire student body of Mangeford’s Private School for Young Witches and Wizards on a field trip to Hogwarts without weighing an ounce more than an empty carriage. The Dark Mark was painted on the driver’s seat with what looked like dried blood.
“Just seeing the carriage, with so many fond memories attached to it, destroyed like that was almost enough to make me cry. But now I also noticed that the tree branches were sprinkled with tufts of animal fur, horsefeathers, and blood. There were scorch marks on the bark, clusters of withered leaves, and even a long shred of wool from somebody’s robe. But no bodies, alive or dead.
“’I’m going to look inside,’ I said, shaking Ilona’s hand off my elbow. I climbed on my broom, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Zichri Goode was approaching.
“There was one body inside the carriage: the house-elf driver named Mitsy. The interior, designed to look like the drawing room in Sir Lionel’s house, was full of smashed bottles and art works, singed draperies, torn cushions, and cracked plaster. The carpet looked as if a herd of swine had stampeded through it, straight out of a mud wallow. Everything was tilted at a crazy angle, and the floor felt like it might give out under my weight.
“Mitsy opened her eyes, as I knelt beside her to check for life signs. ‘I knew Young Master would come back,’ she said faintly.
“I held her tiny hand and didn’t correct her. She had me mistaken for Sir Lionel’s son, a squib who had gone into the Navy the year I got into Hogwarts. Lionel Junior had only been back once, for his mother’s funeral the following year. I realized that Mitsy was too badly injured to survive much longer, so I let her believe whatever she liked.
“’Can you tell me what happened?’ I asked instead.
“Mitsy trembled, coughed a few times, and whispered, ‘Tree attacked us.’
“’How could it?’ I asked, looking out the gaping doorway at the branches of a very ordinary, though twisted, oak.
“’Ambush,’ said Mitsy. ‘Spell. Lots of shadows closed in. Shadows with wands. Flashes of light, loud noises – bangs, screams – I tried to save the horses, but the shadows got them too...’
“That was all Mitsy was able to say before she passed out again. A moment later her breathing became labored, and then it stopped altogether. She died holding my hand.
“I broke the remaining legs off a small table and levitated Mitsy onto it, strapped her down, and floated the makeshift stretcher to the ground before coming down myself.
“’I don’t know who is alive and who is dead,’ I said to a very agitated Zichri Goode, and indirectly to Ilona, when I touched down. ‘Everyone but Mitsy seems to have been taken away by whoever did this. Even the horses! They must have been Death Eaters, trying to get at the...hem.’ I caught myself in time and didn’t say ‘the Potters’ in front of Zichri Goode.
“’We know one thing,’ said Goode, pointing up at the dark mark on the driver’s seat of the carriage. ‘Somebody didn’t survive.’
“The abomination on the carriage made me seethe with anger. I remembered riding in it, with other members of the village school, to formal dances at Madame Hunsicker’s Dance Studio. Ariadne Hunsicker was a large, severe woman with long spindly arms and a habit of wearing a bustle, so that she often looked like a giant spider – a look completed by her habit of knitting lace while watching the proceedings over the rim of her pince-nez. Unfortunately, she also ran a finishing school for young hags. I still blush to think of those awkward evenings, standing in a tight, nervous group of boys around a punchbowl filled with vinegar and cod liver oil, while a group of horrid little hags preened and beckoned to us from the other side of the dance floor. Only the girls from our village had any fun, dancing the hextrot and the tarantacula all evening and taking turns leading each other. Suddenly those nightmarish, pre-Hogwarts experiences seemed like a sacred treasure that had just been desecrated. Plus, some of the best RMB agents I knew were either dead or being tortured by the Death Eaters. Four good agents, plus probably an innocent werewolf with a crooked leg and two beautiful, winged horses...
“’I need to stop at your place,’ I told Goode, when I had ground my teeth long enough to make my jaws ache, ‘so I can send an owl to Blokebury about this.’ I prepared to mount my broom again. Zichri put his hand on my arm.
“’Don’t fly angry, son,’ he said. ‘Think about this. The Death Eaters may like to inflict death and terror, but even they don’t get into a battle this big without a reason. What did they hope to get out of those people?’
“’That’s one puzzle,’ I admitted, trying unsuccessfully to shake my arm free of his grip. ‘Though I think I have a good idea about the answer.’ The Potters had just survived one attack; perhaps this one was meant for them as well.
“’You sound as if you have a few more puzzles on your mind,’ Goode said gently. His eyes bored into me, unnerving in their sharpness of perception. ‘Why don’t you tell me about them?’
“’Because I don’t have time,’ I snapped, feeling foolish as I said it.
“’But you do have time to go tearing off in the wrong direction because you haven’t thought clearly about what you’re really searching for,’ Goode said, even more gently than before. ‘If any of those people are still alive, they are depending on you to find them quickly. So think first – and I’ve found that talking things out helps you think them out.’
“I tried to pull away. Goode gripped my arm even harder. I chanced a look at Ilona, hoping I could get some time alone with her before I owled the RMB, but saw her shaking her head at me. Goode then answered another objection of mine before I even voiced it: ‘I have to trust you to keep my secrets, don’t I? Why shouldn’t you trust me?’
“’Trust me?’ I snorted. ‘Trust has nothing to do with it. Your brother put a binding on me.’
“Goode shrugged. Then, with his free hand, he held out his knife. I looked at it, shocked. He nodded his head encouragingly. So I spat on his knife blade, and he did the same. Then he loosened his hold on my arm, and I spoke. I told him everything that had happened, beginning with the walking broom tree, going right through my duel with Shmedly, the Potters’ narrow escape, and Silver’s successful mission to escort them home safely.
“’So the first puzzle,’ I said, ‘is how Shmedly got through the Fidelius charm over Sir Lionel’s safehouse. The second puzzle is how he deflected all my jinxes...’
“’Assuming this attempt to assassinate Sir Lionel is connected with the attacks on the Potters,’ Goode said pointedly.
“’But of course they’re connected!’ I cried. ‘I don’t know how, but the Romanian plot against Sir Lionel fits together somehow with the Death Eaters’ plot against Lily and James. It has to. In fact, I think the first attack on the Potters was never meant to succeed; it was to lure them into taking refuge at Sir Lionel’s safehouse, which they had also taken over...’
“I paused, suddenly struck by the nauseating thought that all this made Sir Lionel a very strong suspect.
“’But since you had already cleared them out of the safehouse,’ Goode went on, ‘they had to change their plans, hence this second attack last night...’
“’Which didn’t actually target the Potters,’ Ilona put in.
“’That’s right!’ I shouted, eagerly grasping an idea that could clear Sir Lionel of suspicion. ‘They didn’t – or couldn’t – or maybe didn’t want to – get the Potters last night. They waited until their escort was on its way back...’
“’Which gives you your third puzzle,’ said Goode, showing no sign of being confused by my outburst when he couldn’t have heard what I was agreeing to.
“’Yes,’ I said. ‘What did they want with two Abraxan horses, four RMB agents and an elderly werewolf who was just passing by? Why were they taken?’
“’They are trying to learn how to get past whatever is protecting the Potters,’ Ilona said.
“’That’s puzzle four,’ I said. Then, to help Goode follow my thinking, I hurriedly added: ‘Why don’t they just attack the Potters directly, if that’s what they’re after? What’s protecting the Potters?’
“’And the fifth puzzle,’ said Goode, ‘is: What did they mean to tell us by leaving this poor house-elf here?’
“’That’s no mystery,’ I said, glancing bitterly at Mitsy’s body. ‘To the type of wizards who would do this, house-elves don’t count as people. They probably overlooked her. In a way, she was lucky. It would have hurt her a lot more to see the Death Eaters making sport of her horses.’ I sighed.
“’Has this helped?’ Zichri asked. ‘Do you know where to start looking now?’
“As he said this, I saw something poking out of Mitsy’s tiny fist. I bent down and pulled it out. As soon as I unfolded it, I knew what it was.
“’Shetland lace,’ Zichri Goode said, looking over my shoulder. ‘My mother-in-law used to knit the stuff.’
“’Did she make it out of thread spun from cobwebs?’ I asked, testing the strength of the lacework against the edge of my knife.
“’Er, not that I’m aware of,’ said Zichri Goode.
“’Then yes,’ I said. ‘I do know where to start looking.’ I straightened up and told him, ‘Madam Hunsicker’s Finishing Academy for Young Hags.’
“While Zichri Goode looked concerned for my mental health, I thought the real fifth puzzle was: How did I just happen to think about Ariadne Hunsicker, before I saw a scrap of her lacework in a dead house-elf’s hand?”
+++DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #117+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: How many of Silver’s team will Spanky save from the Death Eaters? (A) All of them. (B) All but Silver herself. (C) One or two. (D) Only Silver. (E) None
CONTEST: Describe something spooky (but not too graphically violent) that Death Eaters would do to a couple of Abraxan horses, while interrogating their prisoners.
[Originally posted 3/18/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“The day after Silver Conkling saw the Potters off, I found myself spread very thin. A trainee agent woke me with urgent news that Silver’s party had not returned, and there weren’t enough agents left to change the watch. I went up to Sir Lionel’s owlery at once and sent an owl to the RMB office in Blokebury, reporting on the situation, and another to Godric’s Hollow with a note asking if the Potters were all right.
“The return owls arrived almost at once. Blokebury promised to send reinforcements to relieve the watch and ordered me to begin investigating the disappearance of Silver’s party as soon as they arrived. While I was still reading this, the Potters’ owl arrived, assuring me that they had made it home safely and without incident, and when last seen, Silver, her team, and the elf-driven carriage were headed straight back to Mangeford. James had the foresight and kindness to send a little extra with his message: a rolled-up invisibility cloak, shrunk down to the size of a handkerchief.
“Ilona and I were the only agents who had not been on watch all night, so when the relief agents arrived I sent the night watch to bed and went off in search of answers, backed up only by my undetectible wife.
“I put on James Potter’s invisibilty cloak, and Ilona and I hopped on our brooms. We quickly retraced the route to Godric’s Hollow, where Lily forced on me a tied-up napkin full of biscuits, then slowly searched the fields and woods back in the direction of Mangeford. We were flying grid patterns over a wide, dense wood when I spotted movement below. I signaled to Ilona and swooped down for a closer look, expecting Ilona to meet me on the ground.
“I landed silently behind a tall, dark, figure that appeared to be prowling through the woods. As I drew out the knife Zophar Goode had given me, the figure seemed to be sniffing the air. I was just looking round to see where Ilona had got to when the prowler turned on me and swiftly aimed a long, silvery blade at my throat. With his other hand he whipped the invisibility cloak off me – a detail that added a whole scary dimension to the accuracy of my attacker’s aim. I swallowed slowly, my Adam’s apple nearly touching the tip of his knife, and forced myself not to blink.
“I found myself looking into an oddly familiar face – worried blue eyes, a firm unshaven jaw, lined and leathery skin, and a wild wavy tangle of salt-and-pepper hair retreating from the top of a sunburnt forhead. Though he was built entirely differently from his brother, I immediately realized that I was looking at Zichri Goode.
“’Drop the knife,’ he growled. I did as told. He didn’t even seem to look down, but his face darkened as the knife sank halfway up its blade into the ground. ‘That belonged to my brother,’ he said, in a whisper even more terrifying than his growl. ‘How did you come by it?’
“’I visited him yesterday,’ I said as Goode patted my right-hand pocket and took away my wand. ‘He gave it to me.’ I watched his face, thankful that he hadn’t thought of looking for the other wand in my left-hand pocket, and wondering if I would have a chance to draw it. He watched my face, searching for any sign that I was lying.
“’What were you doing there?’ he asked after we had studied each other for a while.
“’Rogue Magic Bureau business,’ I said. I waited until he had fished my credentials out of the inside pocket of my cloak before adding, ‘I was following up on a tip. It turned out to be nothing.’
“’Aren’t there rules against RMB agents accepting gifts from a suspect?’ Zichri Goode asked, with just a hint of wry humor added to his menacing tone. I didn’t answer. I guessed he had already worked out the way Zophar had bound me to keep Full Moon Kennel a secret.
“’What are you doing here?’ I asked, breathing a bit more freely as I pushed the point of Zichri Goode’s knife away from my neck.
“’Searching,’ Goode grunted.
“’So am I,’ I said. ‘Have you seen anyone in this area? Abraxan horses, maybe? A carriage? Or a house-elf?’
“’No,’ said Goode. ‘Have you seen a short, fat man with a lame leg?’
“’No,’ I said. ‘Why are you looking for him in here?’
“’He was expected at the Kennel yesterday. He always shows up three or four days ahead of the full moon, so he can settle his nerves before the place fills up with guests. His clotheshorse showed up this morning without him – ‘
“’Sorry?’ I asked. ‘Clothes-what?’
“’Clotheshorse,’ said Zichri Goode, impatiently. ‘Trunk with legs. Old-fashioned like, so I suppose a modern government wizard like you wouldn’t be interested, but very practical for a gimpy old werewolf like Mr. Nivol. It could only have walked out of these woods without him, if it had walked into these woods with him. He might have fallen down or...’
“’Or been attacked,’ I added grimly. ‘I think whatever happened to my people may have happened to your werewolf friend.’
“’And you suspect an attack?’ Goode said, somehow managing to look twice as intense as before. He handed my wand back to me and stooped to retrieve my knife from the ground. While he was looking down, I chanced to look up and saw a fountain of red sparks rising above the treetops from a way off.
“’There’s something going on over there,’ I said as he handed me my knife. ‘I’ll fly ahead on this broom and leave a trail of smoke; you follow it and catch up as quickly as you can.’
“Goode agreed, and I flew off, landing next to Ilona just as she was about to fire off another fountain of sparks. She looked very relieved when she saw me flying toward her.
“’What is it?’ I asked. ‘Tell me quickly, because Zophar Goode’s brother will be here in a moment and – ‘
“’Didn’t you see it?’ Ilona said, smacking the back of my head. She pointed upward, toward a tree over which I had flown only moments before. From above it had looked like a typical oak tree, shrouded in green leaves. From below I saw that the limbs seemed to have seized up in a spasm of agony. Caught in the branches was the crushed wreckage of a carriage. The carriage. Sir Lionel’s fancy, Abraxan-drawn carriage: small enough on the outside to fit in a little shed, yet large enough on the inside to carry the entire student body of Mangeford’s Private School for Young Witches and Wizards on a field trip to Hogwarts without weighing an ounce more than an empty carriage. The Dark Mark was painted on the driver’s seat with what looked like dried blood.
“Just seeing the carriage, with so many fond memories attached to it, destroyed like that was almost enough to make me cry. But now I also noticed that the tree branches were sprinkled with tufts of animal fur, horsefeathers, and blood. There were scorch marks on the bark, clusters of withered leaves, and even a long shred of wool from somebody’s robe. But no bodies, alive or dead.
“’I’m going to look inside,’ I said, shaking Ilona’s hand off my elbow. I climbed on my broom, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Zichri Goode was approaching.
“There was one body inside the carriage: the house-elf driver named Mitsy. The interior, designed to look like the drawing room in Sir Lionel’s house, was full of smashed bottles and art works, singed draperies, torn cushions, and cracked plaster. The carpet looked as if a herd of swine had stampeded through it, straight out of a mud wallow. Everything was tilted at a crazy angle, and the floor felt like it might give out under my weight.
“Mitsy opened her eyes, as I knelt beside her to check for life signs. ‘I knew Young Master would come back,’ she said faintly.
“I held her tiny hand and didn’t correct her. She had me mistaken for Sir Lionel’s son, a squib who had gone into the Navy the year I got into Hogwarts. Lionel Junior had only been back once, for his mother’s funeral the following year. I realized that Mitsy was too badly injured to survive much longer, so I let her believe whatever she liked.
“’Can you tell me what happened?’ I asked instead.
“Mitsy trembled, coughed a few times, and whispered, ‘Tree attacked us.’
“’How could it?’ I asked, looking out the gaping doorway at the branches of a very ordinary, though twisted, oak.
“’Ambush,’ said Mitsy. ‘Spell. Lots of shadows closed in. Shadows with wands. Flashes of light, loud noises – bangs, screams – I tried to save the horses, but the shadows got them too...’
“That was all Mitsy was able to say before she passed out again. A moment later her breathing became labored, and then it stopped altogether. She died holding my hand.
“I broke the remaining legs off a small table and levitated Mitsy onto it, strapped her down, and floated the makeshift stretcher to the ground before coming down myself.
“’I don’t know who is alive and who is dead,’ I said to a very agitated Zichri Goode, and indirectly to Ilona, when I touched down. ‘Everyone but Mitsy seems to have been taken away by whoever did this. Even the horses! They must have been Death Eaters, trying to get at the...hem.’ I caught myself in time and didn’t say ‘the Potters’ in front of Zichri Goode.
“’We know one thing,’ said Goode, pointing up at the dark mark on the driver’s seat of the carriage. ‘Somebody didn’t survive.’
“The abomination on the carriage made me seethe with anger. I remembered riding in it, with other members of the village school, to formal dances at Madame Hunsicker’s Dance Studio. Ariadne Hunsicker was a large, severe woman with long spindly arms and a habit of wearing a bustle, so that she often looked like a giant spider – a look completed by her habit of knitting lace while watching the proceedings over the rim of her pince-nez. Unfortunately, she also ran a finishing school for young hags. I still blush to think of those awkward evenings, standing in a tight, nervous group of boys around a punchbowl filled with vinegar and cod liver oil, while a group of horrid little hags preened and beckoned to us from the other side of the dance floor. Only the girls from our village had any fun, dancing the hextrot and the tarantacula all evening and taking turns leading each other. Suddenly those nightmarish, pre-Hogwarts experiences seemed like a sacred treasure that had just been desecrated. Plus, some of the best RMB agents I knew were either dead or being tortured by the Death Eaters. Four good agents, plus probably an innocent werewolf with a crooked leg and two beautiful, winged horses...
“’I need to stop at your place,’ I told Goode, when I had ground my teeth long enough to make my jaws ache, ‘so I can send an owl to Blokebury about this.’ I prepared to mount my broom again. Zichri put his hand on my arm.
“’Don’t fly angry, son,’ he said. ‘Think about this. The Death Eaters may like to inflict death and terror, but even they don’t get into a battle this big without a reason. What did they hope to get out of those people?’
“’That’s one puzzle,’ I admitted, trying unsuccessfully to shake my arm free of his grip. ‘Though I think I have a good idea about the answer.’ The Potters had just survived one attack; perhaps this one was meant for them as well.
“’You sound as if you have a few more puzzles on your mind,’ Goode said gently. His eyes bored into me, unnerving in their sharpness of perception. ‘Why don’t you tell me about them?’
“’Because I don’t have time,’ I snapped, feeling foolish as I said it.
“’But you do have time to go tearing off in the wrong direction because you haven’t thought clearly about what you’re really searching for,’ Goode said, even more gently than before. ‘If any of those people are still alive, they are depending on you to find them quickly. So think first – and I’ve found that talking things out helps you think them out.’
“I tried to pull away. Goode gripped my arm even harder. I chanced a look at Ilona, hoping I could get some time alone with her before I owled the RMB, but saw her shaking her head at me. Goode then answered another objection of mine before I even voiced it: ‘I have to trust you to keep my secrets, don’t I? Why shouldn’t you trust me?’
“’Trust me?’ I snorted. ‘Trust has nothing to do with it. Your brother put a binding on me.’
“Goode shrugged. Then, with his free hand, he held out his knife. I looked at it, shocked. He nodded his head encouragingly. So I spat on his knife blade, and he did the same. Then he loosened his hold on my arm, and I spoke. I told him everything that had happened, beginning with the walking broom tree, going right through my duel with Shmedly, the Potters’ narrow escape, and Silver’s successful mission to escort them home safely.
“’So the first puzzle,’ I said, ‘is how Shmedly got through the Fidelius charm over Sir Lionel’s safehouse. The second puzzle is how he deflected all my jinxes...’
“’Assuming this attempt to assassinate Sir Lionel is connected with the attacks on the Potters,’ Goode said pointedly.
“’But of course they’re connected!’ I cried. ‘I don’t know how, but the Romanian plot against Sir Lionel fits together somehow with the Death Eaters’ plot against Lily and James. It has to. In fact, I think the first attack on the Potters was never meant to succeed; it was to lure them into taking refuge at Sir Lionel’s safehouse, which they had also taken over...’
“I paused, suddenly struck by the nauseating thought that all this made Sir Lionel a very strong suspect.
“’But since you had already cleared them out of the safehouse,’ Goode went on, ‘they had to change their plans, hence this second attack last night...’
“’Which didn’t actually target the Potters,’ Ilona put in.
“’That’s right!’ I shouted, eagerly grasping an idea that could clear Sir Lionel of suspicion. ‘They didn’t – or couldn’t – or maybe didn’t want to – get the Potters last night. They waited until their escort was on its way back...’
“’Which gives you your third puzzle,’ said Goode, showing no sign of being confused by my outburst when he couldn’t have heard what I was agreeing to.
“’Yes,’ I said. ‘What did they want with two Abraxan horses, four RMB agents and an elderly werewolf who was just passing by? Why were they taken?’
“’They are trying to learn how to get past whatever is protecting the Potters,’ Ilona said.
“’That’s puzzle four,’ I said. Then, to help Goode follow my thinking, I hurriedly added: ‘Why don’t they just attack the Potters directly, if that’s what they’re after? What’s protecting the Potters?’
“’And the fifth puzzle,’ said Goode, ‘is: What did they mean to tell us by leaving this poor house-elf here?’
“’That’s no mystery,’ I said, glancing bitterly at Mitsy’s body. ‘To the type of wizards who would do this, house-elves don’t count as people. They probably overlooked her. In a way, she was lucky. It would have hurt her a lot more to see the Death Eaters making sport of her horses.’ I sighed.
“’Has this helped?’ Zichri asked. ‘Do you know where to start looking now?’
“As he said this, I saw something poking out of Mitsy’s tiny fist. I bent down and pulled it out. As soon as I unfolded it, I knew what it was.
“’Shetland lace,’ Zichri Goode said, looking over my shoulder. ‘My mother-in-law used to knit the stuff.’
“’Did she make it out of thread spun from cobwebs?’ I asked, testing the strength of the lacework against the edge of my knife.
“’Er, not that I’m aware of,’ said Zichri Goode.
“’Then yes,’ I said. ‘I do know where to start looking.’ I straightened up and told him, ‘Madam Hunsicker’s Finishing Academy for Young Hags.’
“While Zichri Goode looked concerned for my mental health, I thought the real fifth puzzle was: How did I just happen to think about Ariadne Hunsicker, before I saw a scrap of her lacework in a dead house-elf’s hand?”
+++DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #117+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: How many of Silver’s team will Spanky save from the Death Eaters? (A) All of them. (B) All but Silver herself. (C) One or two. (D) Only Silver. (E) None
CONTEST: Describe something spooky (but not too graphically violent) that Death Eaters would do to a couple of Abraxan horses, while interrogating their prisoners.
[Originally posted 3/18/07]
114. The Unusual Suspects
Contest winners: Dragonic, Linda Carrig, MsJunior84, voldemort_13, Celairiel, voldymortus, i6uuaq, and woot
Spanky’s tale continued...
“During the entire visit to Zophar Goode’s farm, Ilona hadn’t said a word. Other than a few moments when I thought Goode might attack me, when knowing that she was there to cover my back made me feel safer, I wondered whether it had been a good idea for her to come along. I decided the sights, the smells, the sad story of the place had effected her deeply. She didn’t speak until we got home.
“We were met at Sir Lionel’s gatehouse by Eglantine Conkling, the RMB agent I had left in charge. She had been at the Bureau since before I was born. Should have outranked me, but got demoted after the Prewetts were killed under her protection. Everyone at the Bureau called her ‘Silver’ because, twice in her career, she had destroyed a pack of rogue werewolves that was preying on Muggle villages. After the Prewett affair, the Daily Prophet gave her a new nickname.”
“I remember,” Endora put in sadly. “Eglantine Bungling.”
“It could have happened to anybody,” said Spanky. “The Death Eaters lured her away on a fake emergency. When she came back, the house was half destroyed and there were dead bodies everywhere, the Prewetts among them. She took full responsibility, but frankly, it wouldn’t have happened if the RMB had followed James Potter’s advice about equipping agents with charmed mirrors, so they could talk directly, instantly, and securely with the office. By the time her owl got to the office asking for advice, and the return owl came saying ‘Stay where you are,’ she had already gone and left the Prewetts unprotected. The only positive thing about it is that three Death Eaters died in the attack.”
“Tough wizards, those Prewetts,” Merlin grunted. “Dangerous when cornered.”
“Yes,” said Spanky. “But Silver was pretty dangerous too. If she had been there, they might have lived. She spent the rest of her career looking for a chance to make up for her mistake. And against anyone’s expectations, this little garden-security assignment turned out to be her chance.
“When I reached the gatehouse, Silver gave me a roll of parchment, which I had been awaiting impatiently, and also a slip of parchment, which I had not been expecting at all. She had read the latter, so I really didn’t need to see it. ‘Sir Lionel’s compliments,’ Silver recited, ‘and he requests your company in the upstairs parlor. He has guests, very private guests, who must need your services.’
“'What kind of guests?' I asked, noting the impatience with which Ilona was staring at the scroll in my hand.
“'Three people,' said Silver. ‘Man, woman, and very small child. Can’t tell you more; they wore their hoods up and, I suspect, some kind of anonymity charm.’
“'Thank you,' I said, giving Silver’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll relieve you as soon as I see what Sir Lionel needs.’
“As soon as we were out of Silver’s line of sight, I handed the scroll over to Ilona. She murmured something about seeing me at the summerhouse and went off across the garden. I went in the back door of Niblet House, up the servants’ stairs – which was a bit tricky, because they were built for house-elves – and knocked on the darkwood, sliding-panel door of the parlor. I waited until Sir Lionel said, ‘Come,’ and opened the door.
“James and Lily Potter were seated near the fire, their cloaks draped over the back of the sofa. Lily was feeding little Harry, who had grown a lot since I had seen him last. In the back of my mind – and this shows the extent of my divination talent – I thought, ‘There’s a boy who’s going to be big and tall when he grows up!’ James jumped up and wrung my hand in both of his, while Lily remained seated but greeted me with her usual frank but friendly smile.
“‘Please excuse my exposure,’ she said, though she had a respectable blind-spot charm protecting her modesty. ‘For some reason, I just can’t bear to say no when Harry wants to eat. It’s almost as if he’s fattening himself up in preparation for something...’
“’Perhaps an Arctic ordeal,’ James suggested teasingly. ‘He’ll need the blubber to stay warm.’
“Lily rolled her eyes. Laughing eyes.
“’My mother always said children are born with the sight,’ Sir Lionel said chattily. ‘If they seem to know something you don’t, they probably do.’
“’We’ll want to start buying warm clothes for him, then,’ James kidded, tugging playfully on the baby’s foot.
“’First, you’ll need a warm place to stay,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘And after your narrow escape this evening, it had better not be anywhere as public as this house. I keep a safehouse not very far from here. It’s my little secret, protected by a Fidelius Charm. It has only been used twice before, and only by people in whom I place complete confidence. So I trust you will be safe there. Mr. Spankison will go ahead of you to make sure it is safe, to light the fires, and so forth. Here are the directions.’
“Sir Lionel handed me a slip of parchment containing directions to the house in the woods that I had only been able to see from the inside. Now, suddenly, it appeared to my mind’s eye – where it stood, what it looked like, and its present condition.
“’Er,’ I said, clearing my throat nervously. ‘Sir Lionel, I’m afraid this won’t do.’
“’You astonish me,’ said Sir Lionel, looking at me with suspicion for the first time in my life. It hurt me deeply to see such a look on the face of my kindest benefactor – indeed, my godfather.
“’I’ve been in this house,’ I said, watching Sir Lionel’s face darken with wrath. ‘I can’t explain how I got into it, because I couldn’t see it until I was inside, but...well, I’m afraid both the secret and the house are busted.’
“’Impossible,’ said Sir Lionel, bluffly.
“’That’s where I dueled with Sid Shmedly,’ I added. ‘It was in my report...only, I couldn’t give the location of the house, because I never had a clear impression of how I got there.’
“’You never mentioned that the house was protected by a Fidelius charm,’ Sir Lionel accused.
“’I wasn’t certain of that,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t know what was going on.’
“Sir Lionel stood up and paced. My stomach tied itself in knots; I hated having him displeased with me.
“’All we need is safe passage back to Godric’s Hollow,’ James said. ‘We’ll be fine once we’re under our own roof. Nothing short of the raising of Atlantis could break those wards.’
“’I myself am powerless to help you,’ said Sir Lionel, still pacing. ‘But my friend here has some influence with the Rogue Magic Bureau. He may even have the authority to send a detachment of agents to guard you on your way. I shouldn’t wonder that, whether he has the authority or no, he can manage it somehow.’
“Stung by Sir Lionel’s remark, I politely asked to be excused so I could ask for volunteers. ‘I will lead them myself,’ I added.
“’No, you have important work here this evening,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘Have your people meet the Potters at the gatehouse in forty-five minutes. I will instruct the house-elves to hitch the Abraxans to the carriage. The Potters will ride inside; your people will ride on top. They do not need to know whom they are guarding.’
“’Understood,’ I said, and left.
“The house-elves were already leading a pair of winged horses down the drive, hitched to a closed carriage, by the time I had my team assembled at the gatehouse. Silver insisted on leading the team. The other three agents were youngsters just out of training; I had only known them for a few weeks. I finished giving them some pointers while half a dozen house-elves formed a pyramid so that the driver, an elderly she-elf named Mitsy, could climb up to her seat. I shivered to think of Mitsy having to fly that carriage through the chill night air, wearing nothing but a tea towel belted around her waist with a frayed piece of string.
“I finished giving the younger agents some last-minute dueling tips, then ordered them up onto the carriage while another house-elf guided two cloaked figures down the drive. The sleeping baby looked like no more than a bundle of clothes in the shorter figure’s arms, as the stooping house-elves formed steps up to the carriage with their backs. Instead of stepping on them, James lifted Lily into the carriage, then hopped in after her and closed the door. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn, and as a final touch I placed a Disillusionment Charm over the whole kit. The horses pulled the carriage out of the drive, flapped their wings, and ascended into the sky in an indistinct blur, which I could only follow with my eyes because I knew where to look. Then they were gone.
“Back inside the house, Sir Lionel showed me his copy of the roll of parchment that had come for me earlier. ‘Old Slughorn has finally responded to your questions about your duel with Shmedly,’ he said. ‘A tale I find even more fascinating, now that its setting has been more clearly explained. We are left with still more questions...’
“’Such as, How did Shmedly get into a house whose location only you could reveal?’
“’If you are suggesting,’ Sir Lionel started, then bit his tongue and started again: ‘He isn’t the only one whose...’ He faltered again.
“’I’ve never heard you trip over your tongue before now,’ I said.
“’I’ve never wondered whether I could trust you before now,’ he replied.
“I must not have done a very good job of hiding the pain this answer gave me. He had the look of a man who was trying to work himself up to an apology, but having little luck breaking the habits of a lifetime. While he struggled, I quietly suggested that I should read my own copy of Slughorn’s letter and discuss it with him in the morning. He agreed, and I went down to the summerhouse.
“Ilona was seething when I got there. ‘The name-dropping old gasbag finally deigns to answer your letter,’ she muttered, pacing the very narrow strip of floor between the bed and the old iron stove, ‘though of course he addresses Sir Lionel instead of you, and every time he mentions you in the letter it’s “the RMB agent.” He seems to have forgotten the autographed photo he begged off you when you went to the Owlympics. Or the dinner party he threw in your honor when you were promoted after the Penguarts affair. Or the crate of licorice wands you sent to him after you signed that endorsement deal.’
“’He was the one who set up that deal,’ I said, wistfully remembering my moment of fame and popularity, when wizarding children all over the country had been admonished to ‘Be a Double-Barreled Wizard with Licorice Wands!’ I added, ‘His connections, you know, with past alumni of the Slug Club. And you mustn’t forget that, since a certain genie’s curse drove me insane with the compulsion to search for you, I haven’t been quite the blue-eyed boy I was then. Forced leave of absence, forfeited medals, and so on. I’ve been persona non grata.’
“’I’d like to take a cheese grater to his fat, oily nose,’ Ilona fumed. ‘Non grata wouldn’t seem so bad. Good people don’t forget their friends.’
“’All right,’ I said soothingly, patting a spot on the corner of the bed, next to where I was sitting. ‘All right, so Slughorn isn’t good people. But he isn’t bad people, so let’s see what he says, eh?’
“Ilona threw herself backward on the bed, covering her eyes with one arm and extending the other toward me. I took the scroll from her and read it aloud. It said:
“’That wasn’t worth the wait,’ I said cheerfully. ‘The man doesn’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. None of those potions could have been what Shmedly used.’
“’He did make one good point,’ Ilona allowed. ‘That potion wasn’t necessarily connected with Shmedly’s spellproofness. It may have been meant for Sir Lionel.’
“’Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And maybe Shmedly’s old romance -- remember Jonquil? -- is still hanging around him. Maybe she’s hidden by a genie’s curse, and helping him fight his duels.’
“Ilona finally broke out of her sulk enough to laugh. ‘That’s just crazy enough to be true,’ she hooted.
“’It would be poetic justice,’ I chortled.
“I forget what we said next,” Spanky lied. “The next thing you’ll want to know about, happened the next morning....”
+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Shmedly have any werewolf blood in his ancestry?
CONTEST: Describe an article of clothing with unusual, magical properties.
[Originally posted 3/8/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“During the entire visit to Zophar Goode’s farm, Ilona hadn’t said a word. Other than a few moments when I thought Goode might attack me, when knowing that she was there to cover my back made me feel safer, I wondered whether it had been a good idea for her to come along. I decided the sights, the smells, the sad story of the place had effected her deeply. She didn’t speak until we got home.
“We were met at Sir Lionel’s gatehouse by Eglantine Conkling, the RMB agent I had left in charge. She had been at the Bureau since before I was born. Should have outranked me, but got demoted after the Prewetts were killed under her protection. Everyone at the Bureau called her ‘Silver’ because, twice in her career, she had destroyed a pack of rogue werewolves that was preying on Muggle villages. After the Prewett affair, the Daily Prophet gave her a new nickname.”
“I remember,” Endora put in sadly. “Eglantine Bungling.”
“It could have happened to anybody,” said Spanky. “The Death Eaters lured her away on a fake emergency. When she came back, the house was half destroyed and there were dead bodies everywhere, the Prewetts among them. She took full responsibility, but frankly, it wouldn’t have happened if the RMB had followed James Potter’s advice about equipping agents with charmed mirrors, so they could talk directly, instantly, and securely with the office. By the time her owl got to the office asking for advice, and the return owl came saying ‘Stay where you are,’ she had already gone and left the Prewetts unprotected. The only positive thing about it is that three Death Eaters died in the attack.”
“Tough wizards, those Prewetts,” Merlin grunted. “Dangerous when cornered.”
“Yes,” said Spanky. “But Silver was pretty dangerous too. If she had been there, they might have lived. She spent the rest of her career looking for a chance to make up for her mistake. And against anyone’s expectations, this little garden-security assignment turned out to be her chance.
“When I reached the gatehouse, Silver gave me a roll of parchment, which I had been awaiting impatiently, and also a slip of parchment, which I had not been expecting at all. She had read the latter, so I really didn’t need to see it. ‘Sir Lionel’s compliments,’ Silver recited, ‘and he requests your company in the upstairs parlor. He has guests, very private guests, who must need your services.’
“'What kind of guests?' I asked, noting the impatience with which Ilona was staring at the scroll in my hand.
“'Three people,' said Silver. ‘Man, woman, and very small child. Can’t tell you more; they wore their hoods up and, I suspect, some kind of anonymity charm.’
“'Thank you,' I said, giving Silver’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll relieve you as soon as I see what Sir Lionel needs.’
“As soon as we were out of Silver’s line of sight, I handed the scroll over to Ilona. She murmured something about seeing me at the summerhouse and went off across the garden. I went in the back door of Niblet House, up the servants’ stairs – which was a bit tricky, because they were built for house-elves – and knocked on the darkwood, sliding-panel door of the parlor. I waited until Sir Lionel said, ‘Come,’ and opened the door.
“James and Lily Potter were seated near the fire, their cloaks draped over the back of the sofa. Lily was feeding little Harry, who had grown a lot since I had seen him last. In the back of my mind – and this shows the extent of my divination talent – I thought, ‘There’s a boy who’s going to be big and tall when he grows up!’ James jumped up and wrung my hand in both of his, while Lily remained seated but greeted me with her usual frank but friendly smile.
“‘Please excuse my exposure,’ she said, though she had a respectable blind-spot charm protecting her modesty. ‘For some reason, I just can’t bear to say no when Harry wants to eat. It’s almost as if he’s fattening himself up in preparation for something...’
“’Perhaps an Arctic ordeal,’ James suggested teasingly. ‘He’ll need the blubber to stay warm.’
“Lily rolled her eyes. Laughing eyes.
“’My mother always said children are born with the sight,’ Sir Lionel said chattily. ‘If they seem to know something you don’t, they probably do.’
“’We’ll want to start buying warm clothes for him, then,’ James kidded, tugging playfully on the baby’s foot.
“’First, you’ll need a warm place to stay,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘And after your narrow escape this evening, it had better not be anywhere as public as this house. I keep a safehouse not very far from here. It’s my little secret, protected by a Fidelius Charm. It has only been used twice before, and only by people in whom I place complete confidence. So I trust you will be safe there. Mr. Spankison will go ahead of you to make sure it is safe, to light the fires, and so forth. Here are the directions.’
“Sir Lionel handed me a slip of parchment containing directions to the house in the woods that I had only been able to see from the inside. Now, suddenly, it appeared to my mind’s eye – where it stood, what it looked like, and its present condition.
“’Er,’ I said, clearing my throat nervously. ‘Sir Lionel, I’m afraid this won’t do.’
“’You astonish me,’ said Sir Lionel, looking at me with suspicion for the first time in my life. It hurt me deeply to see such a look on the face of my kindest benefactor – indeed, my godfather.
“’I’ve been in this house,’ I said, watching Sir Lionel’s face darken with wrath. ‘I can’t explain how I got into it, because I couldn’t see it until I was inside, but...well, I’m afraid both the secret and the house are busted.’
“’Impossible,’ said Sir Lionel, bluffly.
“’That’s where I dueled with Sid Shmedly,’ I added. ‘It was in my report...only, I couldn’t give the location of the house, because I never had a clear impression of how I got there.’
“’You never mentioned that the house was protected by a Fidelius charm,’ Sir Lionel accused.
“’I wasn’t certain of that,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t know what was going on.’
“Sir Lionel stood up and paced. My stomach tied itself in knots; I hated having him displeased with me.
“’All we need is safe passage back to Godric’s Hollow,’ James said. ‘We’ll be fine once we’re under our own roof. Nothing short of the raising of Atlantis could break those wards.’
“’I myself am powerless to help you,’ said Sir Lionel, still pacing. ‘But my friend here has some influence with the Rogue Magic Bureau. He may even have the authority to send a detachment of agents to guard you on your way. I shouldn’t wonder that, whether he has the authority or no, he can manage it somehow.’
“Stung by Sir Lionel’s remark, I politely asked to be excused so I could ask for volunteers. ‘I will lead them myself,’ I added.
“’No, you have important work here this evening,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘Have your people meet the Potters at the gatehouse in forty-five minutes. I will instruct the house-elves to hitch the Abraxans to the carriage. The Potters will ride inside; your people will ride on top. They do not need to know whom they are guarding.’
“’Understood,’ I said, and left.
“The house-elves were already leading a pair of winged horses down the drive, hitched to a closed carriage, by the time I had my team assembled at the gatehouse. Silver insisted on leading the team. The other three agents were youngsters just out of training; I had only known them for a few weeks. I finished giving them some pointers while half a dozen house-elves formed a pyramid so that the driver, an elderly she-elf named Mitsy, could climb up to her seat. I shivered to think of Mitsy having to fly that carriage through the chill night air, wearing nothing but a tea towel belted around her waist with a frayed piece of string.
“I finished giving the younger agents some last-minute dueling tips, then ordered them up onto the carriage while another house-elf guided two cloaked figures down the drive. The sleeping baby looked like no more than a bundle of clothes in the shorter figure’s arms, as the stooping house-elves formed steps up to the carriage with their backs. Instead of stepping on them, James lifted Lily into the carriage, then hopped in after her and closed the door. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn, and as a final touch I placed a Disillusionment Charm over the whole kit. The horses pulled the carriage out of the drive, flapped their wings, and ascended into the sky in an indistinct blur, which I could only follow with my eyes because I knew where to look. Then they were gone.
“Back inside the house, Sir Lionel showed me his copy of the roll of parchment that had come for me earlier. ‘Old Slughorn has finally responded to your questions about your duel with Shmedly,’ he said. ‘A tale I find even more fascinating, now that its setting has been more clearly explained. We are left with still more questions...’
“’Such as, How did Shmedly get into a house whose location only you could reveal?’
“’If you are suggesting,’ Sir Lionel started, then bit his tongue and started again: ‘He isn’t the only one whose...’ He faltered again.
“’I’ve never heard you trip over your tongue before now,’ I said.
“’I’ve never wondered whether I could trust you before now,’ he replied.
“I must not have done a very good job of hiding the pain this answer gave me. He had the look of a man who was trying to work himself up to an apology, but having little luck breaking the habits of a lifetime. While he struggled, I quietly suggested that I should read my own copy of Slughorn’s letter and discuss it with him in the morning. He agreed, and I went down to the summerhouse.
“Ilona was seething when I got there. ‘The name-dropping old gasbag finally deigns to answer your letter,’ she muttered, pacing the very narrow strip of floor between the bed and the old iron stove, ‘though of course he addresses Sir Lionel instead of you, and every time he mentions you in the letter it’s “the RMB agent.” He seems to have forgotten the autographed photo he begged off you when you went to the Owlympics. Or the dinner party he threw in your honor when you were promoted after the Penguarts affair. Or the crate of licorice wands you sent to him after you signed that endorsement deal.’
“’He was the one who set up that deal,’ I said, wistfully remembering my moment of fame and popularity, when wizarding children all over the country had been admonished to ‘Be a Double-Barreled Wizard with Licorice Wands!’ I added, ‘His connections, you know, with past alumni of the Slug Club. And you mustn’t forget that, since a certain genie’s curse drove me insane with the compulsion to search for you, I haven’t been quite the blue-eyed boy I was then. Forced leave of absence, forfeited medals, and so on. I’ve been persona non grata.’
“’I’d like to take a cheese grater to his fat, oily nose,’ Ilona fumed. ‘Non grata wouldn’t seem so bad. Good people don’t forget their friends.’
“’All right,’ I said soothingly, patting a spot on the corner of the bed, next to where I was sitting. ‘All right, so Slughorn isn’t good people. But he isn’t bad people, so let’s see what he says, eh?’
“Ilona threw herself backward on the bed, covering her eyes with one arm and extending the other toward me. I took the scroll from her and read it aloud. It said:
Your Honor,"'That isn’t it,’ I grumbled. ‘When that table hit him in the windstorm, you could see that it hurt.’ Ilona waved me onward. I went back to the letter."
I have researched the types of potions that might meet the description that the RMB agent gave, and that might have the effect of making Mr. Shmedly immune to the agent’s allegedly accurate spellcasting. Before I get to my findings, though, I feel compelled to express my shock and regret at the choices Mr. Shmedly has made. At one point I was convinced that he had a promising career ahead of him. I assure you that I have no ties with Mr. Shmedly or his family at present.
And now more bad news. There are actually several different potions that could potentially be involved here; or perhaps a combination of potions, a tricky and dangerous art in itself.
First, there is the Achilles Unguent, generally a reddish-brown, oily mixture that, when rubbed into the skin, makes the body impenetrable for several hours. The Achilles Unguent has been known to guard against spears, rocks, swords, arrows, and such things, but I have never heard of it being tested against spells.
Another possibility is that the potion wasn’t actually protecting Mr. Shmedly, so much as impeding the RMB agent. For example, some vampires prepare a blood-red, fizzy concoction that I like to call Draculessence. Poured into, say, a town well, it causes conflict and disorder, which I am told the vampires find entertaining. I’m not sure I can support the rumors that they use this potion to “separate weak animals from the herd,” as it were. But sadly, there has been very little impartial scholarship on the subject of undead potionlore. Could not the agent have been, perhaps, confused and weakened by the potion that seemingly spilled on him?“’You weren’t,’ Ilona assured me as I continued reading."
Perhaps the RMB agent’s recollections were inaccurate. If so, and if the potion was actually dark brown instead of red, it might have been Liquid Armor. This was allegedly invented by Merlin the Hirsute as a metal-polish, to provide added hardness to the armor of certain knights he favored. The recipe was preserved in the 13th-century manuscript of Reverential Sneed, and I seem to recall Mr. Shmedly quoting from Sneed in one of his N.E.W.T.-level papers. According to Sneed, Liquid Armor can be applied to any material, including cloth, to make it as hard as steel. The advantage of adding this to steel armor was to make thinner, lighter armor just as strong as the heavy stuff.“I stopped reading at that point and stuffed the parchment into the stove. I enjoyed watching it burn.
Similar to Liquid Armor in its effect, but bright blue in color, is the concentrate of Shieldberry Juice. However, it definitely doesn’t provide protection against spells; it only protects the drinker from physical trauma. However, when mixed with an iron-rich vitamin supplement, it turns a dark, reddish-purple and causes an unusual side effect, discovered by the unfortunate Milo the Magnetic. If Mr. Shmedly has been taking this mixture, he may be more mineral than man by now. The only things that can hurt him, in that event, are powerful magnets and blast furnaces. So Mr. Shmedly’s claim that “vitamins” were responsible for his invulnerabilty may have been truthful.
One must also consider the gruesome possibility that the phial contained giant blood. It is difficult to say what would happen to a wizard who received infusions of giant blood. If he survived, it might make him impervious to spells. However, it might also destroy his ability to do magic. It might also account for the sickly, if not dead and rotting, odor that surrounded Mr. Shmedly. This could seriously compromise his health. Or, perhaps worse, it could make him smell like a giant.
None of these concoctions are known to scream when spilled. However, the scream may have come from the flask itself. Some of my potion-making equipment has been ensorcelled to tell me when a potion is ready, or when an ingredient has turned bad. There are days when my pantry is so full of mutterings that I can’t concentrate.
Please also consider the likelihood that the potion was not, in fact, connected with Mr. Shmedly’s alleged invulnerability. The building, or the room, may have been shielded by a defensive spell that would dampen the effects of any magic directed against the caster. The RMB agent may have been battling a very clever illusion.
There are even stories of certain wizards “slaving” their magic to another user, a type sorcerer who feeds off the magical power of others to become more powerful. If Mr. Shmedly has done this, I should be very concerned for him. He will have only a very limited amount of magic at his disposal, and using too much of it may result in loss of all powers or even shorten his life. However, one does hear occasionally of a witch or wizard who donated his or her powers to another, of their own free will, usually motivated by a fanatical belief in a “cause” represented by the receiving wizard, but occasionally given in exchange for certain gifts...such as invulnerability.
Lastly, far be it from me to question the reliability of the RMB agent involved, but when you consider certain gaps in his story, combined with spots on the agent’s record...
“’That wasn’t worth the wait,’ I said cheerfully. ‘The man doesn’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. None of those potions could have been what Shmedly used.’
“’He did make one good point,’ Ilona allowed. ‘That potion wasn’t necessarily connected with Shmedly’s spellproofness. It may have been meant for Sir Lionel.’
“’Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And maybe Shmedly’s old romance -- remember Jonquil? -- is still hanging around him. Maybe she’s hidden by a genie’s curse, and helping him fight his duels.’
“Ilona finally broke out of her sulk enough to laugh. ‘That’s just crazy enough to be true,’ she hooted.
“’It would be poetic justice,’ I chortled.
“I forget what we said next,” Spanky lied. “The next thing you’ll want to know about, happened the next morning....”
+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Shmedly have any werewolf blood in his ancestry?
CONTEST: Describe an article of clothing with unusual, magical properties.
[Originally posted 3/8/07]
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