166. The Cart-o-Matic

Contest winner: greyniffler
Runners-up: Joe & TWZRD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Scenery spells," said Harvey 1 and 3.

"No doubt," agreed Harvey 2.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It has been," Harvey 2 argued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Something you want to steal," Sadie suggested.

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

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

"A magical object," suggested Minimilian.

"A weapon," Spanky speculated.

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

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

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

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

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

"I need eyes," said Harvey 1.

"Ears," said Harvey 2.

"Hands and feet," said Harvey 3.

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

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

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

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

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

"Balked," suggested Harvey 3.

"Constrained," Harvey 1 countered.

"Encumbered," said Harvey 3.

"Hampered," said Harvey 1.

"Crippled?" Harvey 2 tried.

Harveys 1 and 3 gave Harvey 2 a pitying look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why not Madam?" Endora suggested pugnaciously.

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

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

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

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

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

Ilona elbowed Endora hard in the ribs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

164. The Pocket Elephant

Contest winner: cv675

Spanky's jaw dropped. Beside him, Ilona stiffened. Behind them, Endora gasped. Sadie growled. Sir Lionel said, "Er."

Harvey faced them from the end of a blind alley in the fast-growing yew maze Sadie had planted (seeds courtesy of her friend Miles O'Roughage). Not just one Harvey, nor even both of him. Three Harveys confronted them. But that wasn't what made Spanky gape. It was partly the menacing way each Harvey's wand was pointed at them. And, partly, it was the third Harvey's outstretched hand.

"Give me the ring," he said coolly.

"Was this your racket all along?" Spanky asked.

"Don't let's have a fuss," said Harvey 1. "It's only a wee bauble. You'll come to no harm."

"What do you want with it?" Ilona demanded.

"How will I use it, you mean?" said Harvey 2. "Would you believe me if I said that I would never use it?"

"Indeed," added Harvey 3, "that I would make sure nobody ever used it again?"

Ilona looked at Spanky. Spanky turned toward Harvey again and said, "No."

"He," Sadie shouted, then corrected herself: "They must be working with Il Comte and Lee Shore. How else..."

"...would I be here when you were expecting them?" Harvey 3 shrugged. "I'm afraid I can't answer all your burning questions."

"At least," added Harvey 2, "not at present. Please to hand over the ring."

"You've really gone through time's mangle, haven't you?" Sir Lionel's voice carried an undertone of laughter. "You've messed things up properly. I wonder what you think absolute power over other people can do to sort out your, er..."

"Problem?" said Harvey 1. "I see no problem. I've seen the end of the world. I've seen its beginning. If older and wiser heads had been in charge..."

"...and, well," said Harvey 2 with an immodest air of modesty, "I'm as old and wise as they come..."

"...a lot of things might have turned out differently." Harvey 3 nodded. "Better."

"You're mad," Endora said shakily. "You can't go about history changing things. You of all people would know, if you hand't changed yourself..."

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Harvey 2. "I'm the same as ever."

"Haven't you noticed," Sadie said venomously, "you ought to be saying 'we,' not 'I'?"

Harvey looked at each other, then back at the prisoners who had been his friends. "I'm sorry?" Harvey 1 said. "Am I missing something?"

"Only that there are three of you," Sadie yelled.

Harvey looked around themself again. For a moment, he seemed bewildered. At that moment, Spanky struck.

"Petrificus totalis," he muttered with a flick of his right wand. "Incarcerous," he added quickly, waving his left wand. Ilona's voice cut across his, hissing: "Expelliarmus!"

None of these spells had any effect. Harvey looked back at them with a mildly surprised expression on his three faces. Surprised and hurt.

"I say," he said.

The five wizards at bay immediately began pelting him with jinxes. None of them found their target. Sizzling jets of light zoomed toward Harvey's chests, then dissipated as if nothing was there. They didn't seem to be hitting a shield.

"Come, Rumbo," said Harvey 2, tugging on a leash that snaked around his legs.

An elephant walked into view from behind Harvey 2's legs, where it seemed to have been hiding. It was about the size of a well-fed beagle, and it had a wand gripped in its curling trunk.

"Meet my friend Rumbo," said Harvey 1. "Once, when I had a lot of time on my hands - say, eighty years or so - I trained him to remember jinxes and their counterspells."

Harvey 3 added, "He's very good to have with one when one is surrounded by hair-trigger witches and wizards."

"Only look how he's shrunk," said Harvey 2 sadly. "Unfortunate side effect, it always happens. He was the size of a standard schnauzer a few minutes ago."

"Eventually the poor chap will grow so small, I won't be able to care for him," said Harvey 1.

"Alas," said Harvey 3, "it's the price we have to pay..."

"We?" Sadie challenged.

Harvey 3 blinked at her. "Yes, of course," he said. "Rumbo and I."

Sadie stared back. "You've lost your marbles, mate."

Harvey 2 and 3 simply smiled. Harvey 1 cheerfully said, "Right. Now, the ring. Unless any of you is harboring a pocket elephant, I would urge you to give it up promptly."

Spanky opened his mouth to ask a question, but Harvey 2 answered it first: "I've still got a few spells Rumbo hasn't seen."

When no one moved for a long beat, Harvey 3 anxiously added: "They'll hurt. A lot."

Sadie shook with fury as she stepped forward, clutching the ring in her fist.

"That's better," said Harvey 3.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #166 +++

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

SURVEY: Harvey is working (A) on his own. (B) for Bobs the Reality Wizard. (C) for il Comte. (D) for Uncle or Aunt Leslie. (E) for ______ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Describe a magical machine and what it does. The more whimsical, the better!

162. Mirror Seeds

Contest co-winners: Dragonic and greyniffler

Spanky, Ilona, and Lionel Niblet marched in single file with their hands tied behind their backs. Behind them walked Minimilian, Hugo, Allie O'Modo, and a considerable following of henchwitches and -wizards, all abristle with wands and under orders to curse the prisoners at the first sign of resistance. Behind and below them lay the wooded valley with the mercenary camp and its outlying magical orchards. Above and ahead, the trees thinned toward a bare ridge that hid the gnome proving ground on its far side.

"It was very clever of you," pontificated Allie O'Modo, "to turn the tables on us so. Too bad for you, we turned them back . And when you turned the tables on us a second time, we turned them back again. It only shows that the side with the better preparedness has a right..."

"Seeds away!" cackled a voice from above. Captors and captives alike ducked as a broom rushed close overhead. The flyover was followed by a hailstorm of hard little seeds that instantly took root, even on this rocky slope, and began to shoot up at an eye-boggling rate.

While Allie O'Modo struggled to free her feet from the roots of a rapidly-growing yew seedling, Minimilian frantically searched the skies. "Drubbins! Goonsworth! Stop the prisoners getting away! Everyone else, bring down that broom!"

His instructions were too late to stop their attacker's second, shrieking pass. More seeds rained down, pinching and biting any flesh they encountered before reaching the ground. Minimilian howled with red-faced fury, looking more than ever like a spoiled child.

"Patience, love," Allie murmured after finally wrenching her boot free of the plant's roots. Already their party was surrounded by the walls of a waist-high yew maze. Several of their co-conspirators were getting tangled in the branches as they tried to wade through to their escaping prisoners. "Grimly, go with Drubbins and Goonsworth. Track our guests through the maze. Keep a wall to your right hand at all times. Don't get split up. The rest of you" - her speech was interrupted by another low sweep by their yipping assailant - "keep your eye on that broom!"

This time the overflight was followed by a rain of broken glass. Everyone cowered under their robes to avoid getting a faceful of jagged slivers. By the time they looked up, O'Modo's people had lost visual contact with their broom-mounted attacker.

"I never," Hugo breathed, as he observed what happened to the glass shards that reached the ground. For they, too, had started to spring up like plants, at a speed only magic could induce. The rising stalks were surrounded by a spiral staircase of leaves, thin and delicate to the point of translucency, and variegated like little stained-glass windows. As the stalks grew higher they wove themselves into the mesh of yew branches that, by now, formed a continuous shoulder-high hedge within and around the maze. Tiny buds swelled on the stained-glass vines, burst open, and unfurled shiny flowers whose clear, glassy gloss was backed by a silvery sheen. Mirror blossoms! "I absolutely never," said Hugo.

"You'd better start, then," snapped Allie O'Modo. "Hasn't anyone spotted that broom yet?"

It became harder to track the trajectory of broom flyover as the yew hedge passed the height of their heads; harder still when the next two passes came, in short succession, from quite different directions, suggesting that they had at least two aerial enemies to aim at; hardest of all when each broom sprayed them with a green, glittery gas, leaving them sneezing and waving the fog out of their faces.

"We have to get out of this maze," Minimilian shouted.

"Nonsense," said Allie. "It's cover, isn't it? Out in the open, they could hit us with anything!"

"Out in the open," snarled Minimilian, "we might be able to hit them."

"All right, then," Allie O'Modo relented. "You take Mugwump, Skink, and McCurdle and try to find a way out. The others will stay with me and try to shoot them down from in here. Oh, yes - and I would suggest that you all put on your safety-pins..."

"Right you are," said Hugo, pulling an ugly brooch out of his pocket (decorated with the skull of a small snake) and pinning it to his robes. The other members of Allie's squad did the same. "Now let's see those blighters try to curse us," Hugo added.

They saw the very thing Hugo wished for soon afterward, when Sir Lionel darted out of an unguarded gap in the hedge and aimed a jinx at Allie O'Modo's head. He immediately cried out and dropped his wand, or rather Drubbins's wand (but that's a long story), clutched his arm, and fell back out of range of the answering volley of curses.

"Crumple-horned snorkacks!" Sir Lionel swore, chafing his wand arm. Luckily Ilona, just behind him, had retrieved his wand with a quick summoning spell. "Spanky, old chap, don't jinx them! They've done something to make spells rebound!"

Spanky adjusted his tactics by aiming his spells at one of the mirror blossoms, in which he could see a reflection of one of Allie's henchwizards around the corner. Whatever spell he was firing at the wizard, it missed the first two times. Then he got the refraction angle just right... and the mirror shattered.

"Blimey," said Spanky.

"I think we should fall back," said Lionel.

They were all thinking the same thing. They could do nothing, at present, to resist their enemy's counterattack. Without another word they scrambled through the twisting and turning maze.

Now and then Ilona cut a blaze in the yew hedge, whose growth had stopped at a height of fourteen feet. Most of the time she did this as a reminder of where they had been in the tricky maze. Sometimes, however, she paused a beat longer - gauging the available time by the sounds of pursuit behind them - to create a booby trap. The pursuers, after all, were bound to stay on their trail, for the blazes would help them as well. Ilona smirked when, now and then, a dismayed yell indicated that a henchwizard had run into a snare, a concealed pit, or a barrier of fallen limbs and clutching vines.

Screams came, from time to time, from another direction. Spanky's party headed toward them, wondering whether they were running to rescue or more danger. He would have grinned if he had known that some of the screams resulted from a pot of very aggressive snapdragons, bred by Miles O'Roughage and borrowed for the occasion by his friend Sadie. In another case, the screams came from a witch who had failed to catch an eggshell full of Tickle Tonic thrown at her by Endora as her broom swooped low overhead.

"Their safety-pins must be running low on charge," Spanky speculated as the shouts and cries multiplied from both directions.

"We must be running out of maze," Sir Lionel added.

Instead, as they rounded the next corner, they came to a dead end.

"This can't be right," Ilona whispered.

"Oh, yes," said a tight, stiff-jawed voice behind them.

The three escaped prisoners turned as one and faced Allie O'Modo, who stood in the middle of their only way out of this bottleneck. Her chest heaved. Her face was disfigured, as much by fury as by the whiplash-marks left by one of Ilona's booby traps. She raised her wand.

Spanky's right hand was faster. "Expelliarmus!" he barked. But the spell rebounded in a flash of light, and the wand dropped out of his numb fingers.

"I've got enough safety-pins to block a few more curses," Allie laughed bitterly. Indeed, her robes sparkled with a multitude of tiny green gems, each individually hooked through the wool. She raised her wand again. "It's time for you to say your last words."

"Ow," Spanky said, massaging his elbow.

"It's not much to remember you by," said Allie O'Modo with an insane grin, "but I'll take it."

"Expelliarmus!" Spanky yelled.

Ilona couldn't believe he would try that again. Her head whipped around in time to see that he had aimed the jinx at himself, with his left wand held out at arm's length. The wand shot straight out of his hand and jabbed Allie in the eye.

"Ow!" she screamed - taking Spanky's last words, as promised.

Before she could recover from her stumbling, face-clutching agony, Ilona brought her facedown with her hands hiked up between her shoulderblades.

"Ow, ow, ow," Allie O'Modo insisted feebly.

"I believe you," said Ilona, kneeling on Allie's thighs.

Sir Lionel clapped Spanky on the back and crowed, "Well shot, my lad!" Meanwhile, two brooms darkened the sun for a moment, before their riders dropped into the maze beyond Ilona and her prisoner.

Spanky stared with joy at one witch with a veil covering half of her face, and another wearing a fake nose and glasses (complete with a curly mustache). "I can hardly imagine two faces I would be happier to see," he said.

"Well, you'll be happier to see this," said Endora. She held up her left hand, where the signet ring of Count Matthias shared a finger with her wedding ring.

Ilona gasped. "Where did you...!"

"The bad news," said Sadie, "is that Lee Shore, Il Comte, and Aunt or Uncle Leslie have all put spells on this ring. Endora can't get it off her hand. Since she used the ring to undo what Lee Shore was using it for, they know exactly where she is. I reckon we'll have some company in about..." Sadie checked a pocket watch she had nicked on her way out of the Ministry of Magic. "Right now, actually."

Another flight of brooms threw its shadow over them. Three pairs of feet touched down in the blind alley behind Sir Lionel and Spanky.

They all turned to face the latest arrivals.

"You were half right," said their old friend Harvey.

"It was only the names you got wrong," added Harvey's identical twin.

"I'll have that ring now, if you please," said their third visitor, smiling as Spanky's jaw dropped.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #164 +++

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

SURVEY: Who is the third member of Harvey 1 & Harvey 2's party? (A) Harvey 3. (B) Robertus Magnus. (C) The real Sir Lionel Niblet. (D) Joe Albuquerque. (E) Orion Oldmanson. (F) Tip, formerly of Nasal Drip. (G) _____ [write-in candidate].

CONTEST: Chose a kind of animal and describe something silly that it could be trained to do, with the aid of magic.

160. Furrier Destructions

Contest winner: Sir Read-a-Lot
Runner-up: greyniffler

Sadie charged into Endora's laboratory, shouting strings of consonants that sounded indecent without vowels to clothe them. A crystal finger stuck out of her right ear. She didn't seem able to hear or understand the protests of the receptionist, the watchman, and the laboratory assistant who ran in after her.

Endora looked up from the mortar and pestle, with which she was crunching numbers. "What's all this?" she asked, in a tone of voice that Sadie understood to mean, "Calm down!" even before she unplugged her right ear.

"Have you resleeved any massages by Floo?" Sadie demanded, her words still a bit jumbled but at least recognizable.

"Yes, we all have," said Sadie. She gestured toward a sealed roll of parchment on the edge of her workbench. "Been rather busy, though," she added. "Someone spiked a shipment of Chanel No 5 with a magical algorithm that makes it shift through a succession of surreal numbers. There's no telling what effect the scent might have on the general public..."

"Then you haven't bean enclaved to that gist with the ring?" Sadie grinned with relief. "Whatever you dough, doughnut read it. Have everybody bun -- brown -- bird -- ballots! Tell your lost to incinerate their coupés immoderately."

"You heard her," Endora said, nodding toward her three co-workers as she tossed the roll of parchment onto a gas ring and ignited it. "Spread the word."

The guard, secretary, and lab assistant reluctantly left the room. "Now what is this about?" Endora asked, as Sadie threw herself on a stool and slumped across a paper-strewn stretch of bench.

Sadie's reply was muffled by the sleeves of her robes. "Are you sugar you aren't in leek with this Lee Shorts villain?"

"Sure as my nose is two and three-quarters inches long."

Sadie raised her head and squinted appraisingly at Endora's nose. Then she buried her face again. "They've ghost Joe and Ilex, pretty muck everyone in Hawksmeade. The whole whirl will go necks. We've ghost to dough something."

Endora took a moment to translate all this, then nodded and said: "What can I do?"

"Fist, you've goat to blink-fold your-shelf," said Sadie, her grasp of language struggling more and more as she grew more excited. "That wax, Lee Spore can't beguilt you with the rotten word."

Endora nodded dubiously, but kept smiling.

"Thin," Sadie went on, "we nix a couple of booms, and your note -- your snow -- your gnus" -- she gave a little scream of frustration -- "your olfactory ogre will lead us to wherever Lex Horse is hiving, and we'll tack him down toboggan. I mean, together."

Endora kept nodding while she processed this. Then she shook her head. "How am I supposed to track this bloke? I've never seen him. More to the point, I've never sniffed him..."

"Sniffle this," Sadie said, whipping a thick wad of parchment, tied in red tape, out of her robes. "I necked this from the Mastery. It's a repot on some fainter who supposedly brick the Statue of Secrecy. Vee Sore chased me thorough it. That's wen he punched the rung off me..."

Sadie stopped talking. Endora had snatched the report from her. Tearing the ribbon off, she spread it out across her workbench and began sniffing it, from side to side, from top to bottom. She occasionally muttered a few words, which sounded to Sadie like: "Mustard, sausage drippings... tobacco, Ficus Brothers... felt, sweat, fermented Brylcream; somebody needs to have his hat blocked... Oi! I know this nutter, obliviator obviously, complete putz, couldn't charm his way out of a twist of newspaper... Hmm. Bit of oil-based paint, dab of scented lotion, ladies' brand and not very old ladies' either; our Lysippus has been a naughty boy... dust, mildew... Aha! No, wait, that's just you... There it is -- no -- yes..."

Endora looked up, her eyes fixed and shining, her nostrils flaring. For a moment her expression frightened Sadie. Then she grinned, looked Sadie's veil in the eye, and said: "Now I believe I can find him blindfolded."

"Is he fair away?"

"Oh, yes," said Endora, pulling a sleep mask out of her hat (where she kept it, seemingly, to be prepared for an all-nighter in the laboratory). "Why don't you go and nick those brooms for us, eh? I'll close up here, circulate the word about not opening any mail, and..."

Sadie was already gone. Twelve minutes later she appeared again with a broom over each shoulder. "You'll never belie where I founded this Cleanswipe 6," she chirped. "Some burger was swapping the stairs with it!"

"Language," Endora said absently as she pinned a hat with a motor-veil into her hair. With her the veil was not so much for disguise, as to protect her valuable scent organ. "I'm ready to go. In fact, while you were out, I had time to dig something useful out of my research on this algorithm problem."

"Wait's that?" Sadie asked as Endora led her upstairs toward the roof.

"Just an idea Ernest the Inscrutable left in his notes."

"Eh?" Sadie shook her head. "Wasn't he that gizzard who went gogo over the member 42?"

"Oh, no. He proved that 42 has magical properties. Only, he never found out what they were."

"And wasp," Sadie asked as they emerged onto the roof, "are you going to dupe with a broody number?"

"I'm going to use it to tie up Mr. Shore in red tape," said Endora, brandishing the Ministry report. "Only this time, he won't get out. Not once we use his seal -- "

"Impala's seal," Sadie corrected.

"-- Ilona's seal," Endora agreed, "over instructions not to open the report until the 42nd of May."

Sadie winced.

"What?"

"Remind me," she said, "newer to get up your knob. Er, news..."

"Olfactory organ," Endora hinted.

Sadie nodded grimly, but her gesture went unnoticed because Endora had already donned her sleep mask and leapt off the rooftop. Charming her broom to stay close to Endora's, Sadie followed her into the swift, rushing air.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGES FOR TMQ #161 & 162 +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment answering the following Surveys and Contests. The survey answers with the most votes, and the contest answers that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the next two chapters!

SURVEY FOR TMQ #161: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Some of Anatoly's defensive tattoos. (C) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (D) Subito's Turbo Gum. (E) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST FOR TMQ #161: Suggest an experiment a wizard might do, toward bending a particular law of nature.

SURVEY FOR TMQ #162: Funny thing about Ilona... In Chapter 155, she was hypnotized by Lee Shore. But then she turns up in Chapter 159, right as rain. How would you explain this? (A) Ilona-155 is an imposter. (B) Ilona-159 is an imposter. (C) The events of Chapter 159 take place some time after Endora & Sadie (presumably) save the world from Lee Shore. (D) Somehow, by magic, Ilona has managed to be in two different places at one time. (E) Other suggestions welcome.

CONTEXT FOR TMQ #162: Describe a special step or move that a well-trained wizard might use in hand-to-hand combat.

141. The Gift-Giving

Contest winner: greyniffler

Merlin rocked on his feet impatiently. As if the queue to turn in his room key hadn't been moving slowly enough, now it seemed an Elvis impersonator was having fisticuffs with somebody disguised as Einstein. The wizard-of-fortune rolled his eyes, fingering the last of the probability-magic-proof chits with which the Aladdin's Cave Consortium had paid him for his work.

It wasn't enough, he reflected, that he had lost all the money he had earned testing the casino's security system; but now that they had recouped everything they had paid him, the Consortium was threatening to cancel his exemption from the Do Not Pass binding unless he started paying for his room and board.

Merlin gritted his teeth, wondering for the eleventh time what it would have felt like simply to break out of the vault and take everything with him when he had the chance, rather than reporting to the Consortium how he had gotten through their spelltraps. It was just as well that he was on the list of people prevented, by a magical binding, from crossing the threshold of Aladdin's Cave. It would be too easy, he knew now, to get away with millions - and after the way the Consortium had treated him, he had more motives than money for doing it. He didn't need that kind of temptation. It was time to leave.

Someone nearby cleared his throat. Merlin looked over and saw three men watching him: a large, bald man in an expensive suit, leaning on a silver-capped cane, and flanked by two obvious flunkies - one tall, skeletally thin, with huge expressive eyes and a sensitive face; the other very short, scarcely taller than a goblin, but stoutly built and animated by a fidgety, restless energy. Something about the three men struck Merlin as familiar. Had they been watching him as he moved about the casino?

The fat wizard beckoned Merlin toward him with a slight twist of his head. Merlin hesitated, glancing toward the front of the line, where Elvis was now being arrested by the casino police. He turned back toward the three men and saw them walking away through the crowd. With a groan of frustration, Merlin abandoned his place in the queue and hurried after them.

Their trail led him past the Lizard Lounge, around the far end of the Roc Concert Hall, up several flights of steps, and down a hallway lit by glowing stars on the doors. The three men came to a door that had three stars stuck to it, opened it and walked through without another glance in Merlin's direction. He followed them through the door, and heard it close behind him.

The room beyond the three-star door contained three dressing tables, placed in a row beneath a single mirror. On another wall hung a large, silver horn, hung above a brightly painted carousel horse with a hinged door built into its side. The tables were covered with jars of paint, sponges, brushes, pencils, and wigs - Merlin only saw them for a moment before the thin wizard waved his hand, clearing all these things away and conjuring a plain, white cloth in their place. The short wizard vanished with a pop, then reappeared carrying a tray full of demitasses, a pitcher of steamed milk, a bowl of sugar, and the powerful aroma of espresso. The fat wizard sketched four chairs out of thin air with the tip of his cane: four papasan chairs, covered with tasseled rugs, one sized to fit each of the men in the room. No one said a word until all were seated and slurping strong coffee out of tiny cups that never fell below half-full.

Tall-and-thin mutely offered Merlin a mouthwatering, chocolate-shaving-covered canole. Shaking his head, Merlin broke the silence to ask if they might have a plain digestive instead. "No offense meant," he added. "I promised my wife. She swears she can smell my weight, and if I gain much more she'll have her own bedroom. Her nose is that sensitive."

The fat wizard tutted sympathetically, but his mouth was too full of pastry and cream to comment.

It was, finally, the short wizard who spoke in a thick accent Merlin had never heard before. For the first time, Merlin began to doubt the sense of familiarity he had felt since he had first spotted the three men. Perhaps he hadn't met them before, after all.

"We would like to engage your services," said short-and-stout. "It is a dangerous business. We understand you are one of the best for this kind of work."

"I have references, if you need to see them," said Merlin, dipping his biscuit in the coffee.

"No need," said the short wizard. "We already know your abilities. We are currently in funds, thanks to a fifty-show contract at this casino, so money is no object. We know you are between jobs. The only question that remains is whether you will accept this very difficult mission."

"Name it," said Merlin.

The fat, bald wizard spoke up with an Italian accent Merlin instantly recognized: "We wish you to teach Maledicto di Bestemmia what it is like to feel ashamed."

"Pagliai?" Merlin exclaimed, almost choking on his coffee. "Are these two - ?"

"Excuse us for appearing out of character," said the leader of the clown wizards, with a gracious smile. "We thought that, with our make-up, wigs, and squeaky shoes on, it would be harder to impress on you the serious nature of our mission."

Merlin almost laughed with relief. "I was afraid you were hiring me to rob the casino," he confessed. "Or maybe, to track down someone who had robbed it."

"But that is exactly what we are hiring you to do," cried the short wizard (who was, in fact, Signor Subito). The thin man, whom Merlin now easily recognized as Boccachiusa, nodded firmly.

"Which one?" asked Merlin. "The robbery, or - ?"

"Both," said Subito and Pagliai together.

"You must remove an item Maledicto keeps in the vault," said Subito.

"Something he keeps here because he fears what would happen if the goblins knew he possessed it," added Pagliai.

"And then you must make sure the goblins catch him in possession of it," Subito concluded.

Merlin chewed thoughtfully on a bland mouthful of digestive. He swallowed, sipped his coffee, thought a moment longer, then shook his head. "I don't see how it can be done," he said regretfully.

"But you have already proved more than a match for the Consortium's security!" Pagliai cried. "That's half of your task as good as done already!"

"Be that as it may," said Merlin, "though it may not, since I will not be able to return to the casino after I leave. If I don't clear out by sunset, the Consortium will put a lien on my Gringott's account until I settle my bill. And I won't be able to leave without setting off a Do Not Pass alert. They will search me and take away anything that doesn't belong to me."

"Yes, yes," said Pagliai. "But there is a simple solution. You don't leave; we will pay your full bill when you check out; and before you leave, you will give Il Comte's little toy to Signor Boccachiusa here. Then you can walk out of the casino" - here the clown wizard whistled - "clean as guess-what."

"That leaves the really impossible part," said Merlin. "Not only do I have to lure Il Comte out of his lair with all its defenses, but then I have to..."

"Name your fee," Subito insisted.

Merlin suppressed a laugh. "All this, just to bring that old loony to justice!"

"On the contrary," said Pagliai. "We do not expect Il Comte to come to justice. Men with his means and powers are beyond the reach of law, and unfortunately he knows it and uses this knowledge shamelessly. We only want him to taste a bit of the humiliation he inflicted on us for so many years. We want him to feel regret over his own actions, just once."

Now it was Merlin's turn to whistle. "Gentlemen, I don't know how to begin - "

"Name your fee," Subito repeated; then he added, "We will double it."

Merlin shook his head. "What I need for this is not a promise of great reward. I have been a victim of Il Comte's evil myself, remember? But how can I even approach the man? He is so slippery, so resilient. He has survived things no one should survive, escaped from every binding and imprisonment man has devised, recovered from Lilly Grate faster than anyone thought possible - even the laws of magic seem to bend out of his way. He can be momentarily thwarted. You can run from him, hide from him, and eventually recover from the curses he puts on you. But he just doesn't stop. He may be a fool, and his powers may not be great, but he seems to have - if I may risk sounding silly - a charmed life!"

"That is what you must change," said Pagliai. "Il Comte seems to be surrounded by some magic-dampening shield. While it doesn't stop curses, potions, or magical objects from taking effect, it lessens their effect, going in both directions. Take that shield away and he will be more vulnerable to - let us say, justice."

"But then, he will also be more dangerous," Subito murmured, by way of full disclosure.

"And the key to doing all that," Merlin said, "is in the vault."

"A talisman Il Comte obtained from the goblins by deceit," said Subito, "many, many years ago. Its influence over him will only end if he returns it to its rightful owners."

"This sounds like the kind of thing that can only be given, not taken," Merlin observed.

"Exactly," said Subito.

"How could Il Comte steal it, then?"

"He did not. They loaned it to him, but he broke his word. He was supposed to use the talisman to do something for the goblins, and return it afterward. We are not sure what he was supposed to do, or how he explained his failure to return the talisman. All we know is that, if the goblins can ever prove that he kept it, he will regret his bad faith. We heard him speak of this long ago. When he worries about anything, it is this."

Merlin stood up and paced. After several lengths of the dressing-room, he faced the clown-wizards again. "So what you're asking," he said, "is to do the very thing against which Il Comte is most on guard; to provoke the two parties in the world that have the best reasons to hate me; and to get them to turn on each other without suspecting that I set up the whole thing."

As he finished this summary, he found himself looking at Boccachiusa. The mute clown nodded.

"I'll never survive," he concluded.

Pagliai said, "Pish," a second time, then went over to the painted, carved horse and tapped one of its eyes with his left ring-finger. The door in the horse's side sprang open. Silk handkerchiefs, arm-length gloves, and mountains of garish clothing spilled out on the floor as Pagliai rummaged.

"What do you think of our clothes-horse?" Subito asked conversationally.

"Does it clean and press your costumes, as well as store them?"

"Only if we give it food, water, and exercise. These days we don't have the time, but the concert hall has a couple of house-elves who are happy to do the washing for us, when they're not busy clearing up spilled drinks and cigarette butts."

"All right, I've found it," said Pagliai. "We thought it might come to this, so we had our old friends put together a survival kit for you - "

" - should you choose to accept this mission," Subito added.

Subito vanished the coffee things, enabling Pagliai to set his find on the table. It was a leather satchel with a shoulder strap. There seemed to be no way to open it. Pagliai explained: "The bag itself is a gift from our friend Karl, the survival wizard. It will resist fire, water, sharp objects, corrosive substances, most spells, and the vacuum of outer space. Its interior is exactly as big as the contents require. You could hide inside it, if the need arose."

"How does it open?" Merlin asked, intrigued.

"Only you can open it," said Subito.

Pagliai added: "After it was closed, Karl tuned it to respond to your body, using a lock of hair that your wife provided."

Merlin stroked the bag. A simple, flap closure became visible. He pulled it back, revealing a collection of bottles and other objects within.

Pagliai pulled out a smooth, flat, round stone with a hole in its center. Uncut by human hand, it was threaded on a thick, coarse string. "This is Slavik's gift," he explained solemnly. "While you wear it, neither claw nor fang can penetrate your skin. I believe he found it during his childhood in Transylvania."

"I can see how that would be handy against dark creatures."

"And the undead," Subito agreed.

"This," announced Pagliai, pulling out a slender, tapering stick at least thirty inches long, "is a wand our friend Jaan designed specially for you. Its core is the nose hair of a cave troll."

"A what?" Merlin dropped the wand. Boccachiusa gracefully caught it.

"Its chief virtue," said Pagliai, "is that, if you are ever confined indoors or underground, a Four-Points spell will cause it to point toward the route of quickest escape."

"Wow," said Merlin, gingerly plucking the wand out of Boccachiusa's fingers. "I could have used this years ago."

"Evidently Jaan thought so, too," said Subito.

Pagliai proffered a small, tight roll of parchment. As Merlin took it, the fat clown explained: "This is the gift of Anatoly. Write on the scroll the names of the six curses you fear the most. Draw a line through the name of one of them. Then place the written-on side of the parchment against your bare skin. Anatoly has infused the paper with a special type of ink he invented. It print seven tattoos on your skin, magical defense tattoos. Each tattoo will protect you, once only, against one of the curses you wrote down."

Merlin had already decided what he was going to write - Crucio, Sectumsempra, Petrificus totalis, Legilimens, Obliviate, and with a line through it, Imperius. The six curses he feared most, in ascending order.

"Why seven tattoos, if I only wrote down six curses?"

"You will have a double protection from the curse you strike through. Unfortunately, the Killing Curse cannot be on your list. No spell can protect you from that."

Merlin squinted into the bag. There were still several glass vials in it. Who could they be from?

Pagliai held up a single earring. "This is half of a matching pair," he said. "Your protégé Rigel designed them, and he has sworn to wear the other one until you return."

"That's touching," said Merlin, rubbing his earlobe, which had never been pierced.

"If, while wearing this, you say 'Rigel help,' he will hear you through the pin in his ear. Five seconds later, it will become a portkey, transporting him to wherever your half of the set happens to be."

"Could be useful," Merlin said grudgingly. He was beginning to feel like nothing could stand in his way now. "What's with the potions?"

"We were going to save those for last," said Pagliai, looking a bit put out. "We haven't gotten to our own gifts yet."

"I'm dying to know what's in those bottles," Merlin insisted.

The fat clown shrugged. "All right. This is your wife's gift. Endora invented it herself. There are only seven doses of it in existence, and four of them are here."

Merlin was growing impatient. "What is it, then?"

"Endora calls it Liquid Skill," said Subito.

Merlin frowned.

"It is a working title," Pagliai added hastily. "Once it is approved by the magical patent office, it will no doubt receive a much more evocative trade-name. For now, all you need to know is that each vial contains one dose, each dose lasts twenty-four hours. Think of a skill as you drink it, and that skill will be yours while the effects last. But only once per skill. If you drink it wishing to be a master carpenter, you will have twenty-four hours to build your masterpiece; after that, the skill will be gone. Then you will have to choose a different skill with each dose of the liquor."

"So I could be a circus acrobat, or an opera singer, or - "

Boccachiusa brightened up and pointed at himself.

" - or a mime," Merlin added.

"Anything you want," said Subito. "But only once, and only for a night and a day. But look here, you get to experience four different things."

"You need only be clever enough to recognize what skills you will need to complete your mission," said Pagliai.

"Or to get out of trouble," Merlin agreed.

"This little pouch thing is from Harvey. Once you open it, you'll never get it back in again. It's a rapidly-inflating, portable wall that will camouflage itself like part of the background. Its usefulness might be somewhat limited - once somebody bumps into it, they'll be onto you - but it might just buy you a moment to make good your escape. If you're the first person to touch it when the pouch opens, it will erase you from the picture, basically making you invisible to anyone standing on the other side."

"The rest of these things are from us," said Subito. "The Turbo Gum is from me."

Pagliai nodded, holding up a small tin of chewing-gum lozenges. "While you chew one of these, you'll be able to run so fast that most people will only see a blur. You'll have five minutes of super speed, while only five seconds pass for the rest of the world. Be careful, though. The effects wear off quite suddenly, and bad things can happen - "

"Like being hit by a train you were trying to outrun," Subito said sadly. "It happened to my cousin Veloce."

"Family recipe," Pagliai whispered to Merlin, aside.

"The Peekaboo Kit is from Boccachiusa," Subito explained eagerly, passing Pagliai a handkerchief folded into a perfect, but lumpy, square. "If you put on the blindfold and hold very still, no one will be able to see you, even if they are searching right in front of you."

Pagliai caressed the kit fondly. "It comes with ear plugs. While they're in, you can sneeze, cough, or even burst into tears, and no one will hear you."

"Is that everything?" Merlin asked. Somehow, all these helpful gimmicks had convinced him that he had a job to do, a job he could do, and he had better start soon.

"Just one more gift," said Pagliai, drawing a final item out of the depths of the bag.

It was a round, red clown nose.

"Wear this," he said reverently, "and His Pestilency will be unable to look at you without going into fits of laughter. It's almost as good as a paralyzing spell. Without it, I wouldn't have survived my years of service to him. I used it sparingly, but even so, it will only fool him once. After that, he won't be able to aim accurately, not daring to look straight at you, so you may be able to dodge his spells. So it's not much; but as I said, once he loses the talisman he will become a very dangerous customer. Even a slight advantage may be a matter of life and death."

In Merlin's hands the clown nose felt like some kind of leather. He didn't know whether it was magical or, simply, something Il Comte found irresistably funny. With a fitting display of respect, he passed it back to Pagliai.

"Thank you," he said. "I accept the mission."

"Well done," said a voice with a lilting, Italian accent. It wasn't one of the clown wizards. Merlin looked up and saw, looming over him, the huge, handsome face of a middle-aged man. He trembled, thinking: What have I done?

"Well done," Il Comte said again. "I knew you would make a fine addition to my mews." He cut the heart out of the lark Merlin had brought him and held it toward Merlin's beak. The wizard-of-fortune darted forward and devoured the heart while the count laughed.

"What a fine merlin you are," the evil count gloated, stroking Merlin's feet, or rather claws, as they gripped the padded gauntlet on Il Comte's arm. "That rascally falconer was a fool even to try keeping you from me. Come, my feathered friend. Let's introduce you to your housemates, or rather rivals."

As Il Comte strode back toward his manor, Merlin gripped his outstretched arm, fighting hard to concentrate on who he was and how he had gotten there. Liquid Skill, he thought. I've become an animagus. For some reason he felt concerned about how long he had been in this form. He couldn't remember why it mattered, though...his mind was increasingly clouded by the exhiliration of flying, which he had just experienced, and the hunger for flesh which that morsel of lark had stirred up.

"Ah, here we are, Master Merlin," Maledicto purred, and suddenly he was engulfed by darkness, the smell of feathers, and the sound of strange birds shuffling nervously around. A door slammed, a lock clicked... Merlin was trapped.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++

You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! First, go to the forums, or send Robbie feedback. Then, in 250 words or less, answer the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: greyniffler suggested (in the discussion thread for TMQ #139) a grudge match between Il Comte and Uncle or Aunt Leslie. What do you think? A) Yes, that would be a great fight to witness! B) No, they're both evil, so they should work together. C) No, let's keep their storylines separate.

CONTEST: Describe a historical person or incident that would be even more interesting if we only knew the "untold story" (involving witches or wizards from Harry Potter's world).

[Originally posted 8/17/08]

134. Hot Ice

Contest winner: Quercitron

Mrs. Ahmed scouted ahead (by sticking her head through the outer door of Harvey's flat) and reported: "It's a jungle in there."

"That many of them?" Joe Albuquerque growled in his disguise as General Patton. "It won't take them long to wreck the place."

"No," said Mrs. Ahmed, her vague form flickering with irritation. "I meant, everything has been taken over by vines. Grape, by the look of it."

"Oh," said Joe, suspending his mental calculations about potential casualties on both sides. "That's a hippogriff of a different color. What about people? Did you see anything going on?"

The see-through lady shrugged. "Just one bloke, it looked like, pulling down vines and rifling through the cupboards."

The word was passed, and Harvey came forward. "Well?" he said.

"I think a frontal assault will do," said the general, pitching his whisper so it could be heard all the way down the hallway - the recently constructed hallway off the back of the lobby of the high-rise apartment building known as the Drains - the hallway where each door led to a different floor, so that stairs and elevators were no longer needed. The people at the back of the line, near the street door, could hear Joe Albuquerque's rasping voice as he announced: "People! Bear in mind that your job is not to be cursed for your country, but to curse some other poor wizard for his. On my signal...CHARGE!"

The door imploded into the flat. A monocled wizard with a frowning moustache, a walking-stick topped by a silver cat's head, and a silk ascot fashionably printed with an illusion of cascading water in motion, glanced up from his business with very little concern, then resumed pulling vines off the wall above the fireplace. As Mrs. Ahmed had reported, the walls, ceiling, floors, and furniture were nearly invisible under a carpet of Vitis Leprosa, except in areas where the ascot-wearing interloper had done his work - areas that looked bare and scarred. The vines kept going into a rather small sack that hovered in front of the wizard, holding its mouth wide open as he stuffed more and more vines into it; the sack never seemed to grow full.

All this Harvey took in as the wave of his supporters swept him toward the intruder. The monocled man seemed little concerned by the approaching mob. The reason for his unconcern became clear a moment later, when Harvey, Joe, and Spanky - all at the front of the line - tried to tackle the man, and missed.

After several frustrating passes, Harvey stood back and watched what was happening. Every time someone surged toward the monocled man from one side, he suddenly came out on the other side without seeming to pass through the middle, where the stranger continued calmly stealing the fruits of Harvey's long journey through time.

Harvey tried to call everyone off, then tugged on Joe's shoulder - just before the latter dived back into the assault line - and got him to bellow, "STAND DOWN!" Then he approached what he took to be the edge of the stranger's invisible bubble of invulnerability, and said: "A word with you, sir."

Monocle gave him a slow look with one lifted eyebrow, then nodded and offered his hand to Harvey. Harvey took it, and was suddenly in another place - a gentleman's study paneled in dark wood and crammed with trophies. Not stuffed bears and mounted fish; no, a different kind of trophy - shiny, complicated machines that gyred and gimbaled and hummed; potions that bubbled and frothed inside sealed jars; a clock with two pendula swinging at right angles, passing through the same point at the bottom of their swing, yet never touching each other; an incandescent dark-bulb standing next to a prism that refracted its plain, radiant darkness into an anti-rainbow of unimaginable hues; and standing on one small table, an autographed photo showing a portly, bearded man (somewhat similar to Hagrid), whose signature read: "To one character who never let me put one over him - all the best, Robbie Fischer."

"Who are you?" Harvey asked, feeling himself on thinner ice than ever.

"I am the Reality Sorcerer," said Monocle Man. "The Magistrate of the Laws of Nature. The Judge of the Intangible, the Jury of the Illogical, the Executioner of the Impossible. I am the Counter of Contradictions, the Midwife of the Inconceivable, the Spell-Checker of the Inexpressible . I am the Censor of the Ineffable and the Squeezer of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I am the Plumber of Paradoxes - you would be surprised how often they get stopped up. I am He Who Assays the Iron Content of Irony. I am He Who Checks the Thread Count of the Fabric of the Universe. I am the Warlock of Wisdom, the Sage Mage, the Popinjay of Punctiliousness, the Lifetime Honorary Recorder of the Islington 'Are You There, Moriarty' Society, and the Number One Supporter of Pride of Portree (annually since 1982). Those are merely my official titles, however. My real name is Robertus Magnus Carolus Johannes etc. etc. etc. de Quipthorne-Westbrookfieldstonehillcrestwoodsmillburyington the Sixth times Two to the Eighth Power, K.B.E., Ph.D., Order of Merlin, First Class. You may call me Bobs."

Harvey blinked. "Is that all?" he asked.

"Well," said Bobs, "My schoolfellows once voted me 'Most Likely to Become a Mystical Hermit,' and I am listed in the Who's Who of Wizardry in the Lower Thames Valley, but I don't like to boast."

"Well, I'm Mr. H. Harvey of the Harvey & Sons' Wall Magic Harveys. I would like to know what business..."

"Have a seat," Bobs interrupted, with the casual air of one not used to listening to others. He conjured up a tray crammed with cups, pots, spoons, a sugar bowl, a milk boat, and a plate of biscuits. "Coffee or tea?"

"Coffee, if you please. I was saying, what right have you..."

"Please forgive me," said Bobs, before dropping what looked like a couple of ice cubes into Harvey's coffee. "It's my house-elf's half-day off, so the pot has gone lukewarm. Hopefully these will help." Clink, clink.

"That's quite all right," Harvey lied. "But may I ask..."

"Milk?" the other man cut in. "Sugar? Perhaps a dash of Irish whisky?"

"None of the above, thank you. But perhaps you could tell me..."

"I hope you don't mind that the biscuits have flaxseed in them," said Bobs. "I find they aid my digestion. Do try your coffee before it gets cold again!"

Harvey, perplexed, sipped his coffee and found it piping hot. "But I don't understand," he said. "If it was lukewarm before you put ice in it..."

"Hot ice," said the Reality Sorcerer with an airy smugness. "When one is charged with stopping the magical world disrupting the Laws of the Universe, one confisc-... that is to say, one comes across some truly amazing things. I don't know what I would do without cold fire during the summer, for example. And this hot ice - so handy, melting in cold liquid, giving off heat as it does so - was invented by the same wizard. Pity I had to destroy him. If more people found out how to make these things, the laws of thermodynamics would be in jeopardy - and all life on this planet with it."

Harvey swallowed discreetly, then blurted out: "What business have you in my flat, and what gives you the right to tear down my vineyard?"

"I should think that would be perfectly obvious," said Bobs. "You have already risked enough with your foolish Draught of Merlin..."

"I was about to destroy every trace of it," Harvey snapped. "I understand the danger, and I have it well in hand."

"I am not interested in your silly potion," Bobs said, almost laughing (but not quite smiling). "It is this thousand-year grape that you planted at the far end of your round trip through time. I cannot allow you to make wine with it."

"What could happen?" Harvey cried. "Could it be worse than a time paradox?"

"As falling off a cliff is worse than stubbing your toe," Bobs assured him. "But you can hardly know what you are working with; nor can you formulate the Essence of Merlin on your own. Both potions belong to the lost art of Yves the Leper. So, if you do as you planned and destroy the Essence, and, if you turn over every twig, leaf, and berry of your cultivar for secure disposal and study, I may not have to destroy you."

"You forget where I've been - and when I've been," said Harvey. "I've learned a great deal in the matter of not being destroyed."

"Don't make this hard," said Bobs, with a pained expression. "I so hate to be forced to threaten large groups of relatively innocent people. Though, to be sure, I spotted one Miles O'Roughage back there, among your little army. One of these days I may be forced to come for him as well. It would be rather like killing two augureys with..."

"I have put a substantial investment on the line," said Harvey. "You can't just go around confiscating things on which so much depends. I must have some kind of compensation."

"Compensation!" the Sage Mage's monocle fogged up. His moustache bristled. "Don't you know who I am?"

"You made that quite clear," said Harvey. "So clear that I suspect you know what has gone into this project, and what depends on it. We are discussing a major portion of the wizarding economy - several large fortunes, the assets of some important businesses - besides the trials and travails of the people who have carried it this far. Did you know some of my people spent years escaping from Gringotts to prepare for this? And knowing as much as you seem to know of things, you must perceive the broken state of health - physical, mental, and magical health - in so many of my supporters..."

"All right!" groaned Robertus Magnus. "I shall restore full value. Merlin knows I can afford it, what with my formula to turn plastic poker chips into galleons. And when we return to your flat, you will find all your friends restored to their, shall we say, 'baseline' condition, mad though they may be in that natural state. Do you have a personal goblin at Gringotts? Very well, have him write to my goblin and they will settle the financial side of the deal. Spit and shake on it?"

And so a magical contract was sealed, and within a few hours Harvey and his party had taken over the entire Hog's Head. Mrs. Ahmed, once back to her fully visible form, had beaten everybody in Spanky's therapy group in an armwrestling tournament. Mr. O'Hare had lost his orange fuzz and looked glum and sheepish until Mrs. Yenta offered to dance with him. Rigel grew up quite suddenly into a disreputable-looking man of about 30, and was now slow-dancing with Sadie while Miles O'Roughage, Anatoly, and the illustrated wizard from Minsk looked on glumly. Siobhan was singing with the band, head thrown back and mouth open wide, while her father Niall wished (to no avail) that she weren't quite so tone-deaf. Mr. Surdo sat next to him, wincing, and trying to stuff napkins into his ears, while Mr. Sphaeris slouched over his firewhisky, not feeling like doing anything in particular. This made a striking contrast to Mrs. Sedulus, who had gone behind the bar (much to the innkeeper's annoyance) and was cleaning everything from the mugs to the floor with grim determination. "This place is disgusting!" she was frequently heard to say.

Among the happiest members of the party was Ilona Spankison, who beamed at her husband, her eyes brimming with tears, as he spell-sparred with Joe Albuquerque and Merlin, deftly defending himself with a wand in each hand. But no one watched these goings-on with greater satisfaction than Harvey, who sat between Ilona and Endora at the corner table, complacent with the success of his plan. As he had hoped, Robertus Magnus had paid off every knut that the Vitis Leprosa adventure had cost him and everyone else - going all the way back to Orion Olmandson's standing debt toward Merlin, whom he had retained to look after his son before their first Gringotts caper; to say nothing of the money he had invested in Spanky's education, channeled through his cousin Lionel Niblet, whom Spanky still believed to be his benefactor. And at last, Harvey was rid of all the receipts he had collected during his 3,000-year trek up and down the mountain of time, which had been reimbursed with interest.

In short, he was the wealthiest wizard in the world, though much of his wealth was already held in trust for the people who had helped him. Some day they would find out how very, very rich they were... but not until Harvey had extracted one more favor from them. For now he could finally afford to carry out his most ambitious plan... He smiled, and seeing his look of satisfaction, Endora and Ilona widened their grins and hugged him from both sides.

"It turned out all right!" said Endora, who for once was not ashamed to show her remarkable nose in public.

"Everything is as it should be," Ilona sighed.

Harvey nodded, and added in a softer voice: "So far, so good."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR #136 +++

Don't worry. We're not skipping #135 (as if...!). In order to get things back on track, I am going to use some "leftover" ideas from the incredible discussion on TMQ #133 to generate the magic of #135. So this "Double Challenge" isn't for the next chapter, but the one after that. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Which female character of The Magic Quill should feature in the next big plot line?

CONTEST: Come up with a brief joke such as one might find in a wizarding joke book. Anything on the order of "Knock, knock?" or "How many house-elves does it take to change a light bulb?" or even "A hag walks into a bar" is welcome, but PLEASE keep it clean - and PRETTY-PLEASE keep it short. More than one winner may be selected.

[Originally posted 4/6/08]

119. Farewell to Shmedly

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]

118. Laughing Matter

Contest winner: rory86

PARAPHYSICIST ATTENDS WEDDING IN HOGSMEADE
Part 5 in a 7-part Special Report

Bo Dwyer, our top correspondent, continues the report of his week following Professor Algernon Swerve, the Magic theorist whose recent discovery of magically generated states of matter would have won him the Nobel Prize for Paraphysics, except there isn’t one.

During breakfast on Saturday, Dr. Swerve suddenly announced that he was going to a wedding in Hogsmeade. The invitation had come by owl that very morning, and it entitled him to bring one guest: me.

I soon understood that the wedding would be a newsworthy event in its own right. There are not many couples who choose to have their nuptials performed at the Hog’s Head pub. In fact, the last one on record was the marriage of Richard Pellamonter and Elizabeth Polkenhorne in April of 1565 or 1566 (depending on which set of records you go by), a day which saw dozens of Britain’s best wizards lose control of their magic due to a bowl of contaminated punch. This is why all the buildings in Hogsmeade had polka-dotted walls until 1611, and weddings within village boundaries were banned until 1865. When I first heard that Saturday’s wedding was to be the Hog’s Head’s first since 1566, I was moved by the progress and enlightenment of our wizarding community. Then I smelled and, rather later, saw the Hog’s Head and such notions were dashed. It was clearly the only place the couple could afford; which is too bad, because the proprietor should be the one who pays the rest of us to drink his swill.

At least the punch was unpolluted. After about one o’clock Sunday afternoon, at any rate, the buildings and streets of Hogsmeade seemed to be their usual color again.

By coincidence, the bride and groom were both people I had interviewed before. Erastus “Merlin” Sidwell made an unexpectedly strong showing (12th place) in an Iwixarod broom race some years ago, and he was quoted in my report of that race. His exact words were: “I prefer bundimun grease, myself.” And his intended, Miss Doreen Pinch (known as “Endora” to her friends) had guided my tour of the Bertie Botts Flavor Lab, where she was a taste-tester at the time. I remember her as a remarkable woman who was able to tell a great deal about me by smell alone. During the day I learned that Merlin now works as a “special consultant” — I’m not sure what that means — while Endora has moved up the career ladder to Senior Potion Designer. Bride and groom wore matching carnival masks, as a nod to Hog’s Head tradition (all the guests were furnished with masks as well).

I didn’t see very much of my subject that day, but I did encounter a surprising range of people considering the caliber of the establishment. I met a married couple of highly decorated RMB agents who were also once Owlympic medalists (I had interviewed them too), an American agent who specializes in quick-change disguises (I believe he was at least five of the people I shook hands with), and a dodgy looking couple covered in animated tattoos (which posed witty remarks to passersby, in ornate handwriting). I met a wandwright from Finland, an Austrian couple who run a survival school for wizards, a Ukrainian art-wizard (who, by the way his eyes lingered on the tattooed couple, must have been responsible for their body art), several Italian clown-wizards, and a couple of Durmstrang professors. A former member of Nasal Drip gave a solo musical performance that was at least as loud and obnoxious as anything his old band could do. A wizard rich enough to keep his name out of the paper stood near me through the whole song, stoically enduring it in order to keep an eye on his teenage son, who has enough mischief in him to make the name-out-of-paper thing more expensive every year. Sir Lionel Niblet and Dr. Miles O’Roughage were also on hand, holding a soft yet animated conversation in a corner throughout the wedding.

After the ceremony came a meal which I would rather not recall in detail; the punch helped in that respect. At the climax of the banquet, toasts were made and gifts were given to the newly wedded couple.

The RMB agents gave the Sidwells a stoppered flask of some blood-red potion which, they warned, was not to be unstoppered except in the gravest emergency, and only then when Mrs. Sidwell was wearing nose-plugs. It was difficult to follow the explanation of this potion, owing perhaps to some shared background between the agents and the Sidwells, but I gathered that the potion came from a variety of orchid bred by Sir Lionel, and was brewed by Dr. O’Roughage. “It smells like rotting flesh, and it evaporates instantly when struck a violent, physical blow,” they announced. “But until then, a few drops of it shield the wearer against all magic directed against a conscious, living person.”

The next noteworthy gift, following a set of wands, some gag gifts from the clowns, a flask of “eyedropper banquet,” chits for free body art, and similar items, was a large box delivered by two house-elves. I knew the elves at once. Their master, a portable-wall magnate, has been very reclusive lately, and I was curious to know what gift he might have sent to a wedding without appearing himself to give it. It turned out that the box was empty, but it came with a cryptic message which Merlin read aloud: “If this is empty when you receive it, don’t be distressed. My calculations have a wide margin for error. Keep the box, and look inside it now and again, until you find a token of my very personal affection and esteem for both of you. Eventually, the day will come when I will have put something in this box before it was going to be delivered.”

One of the last gifts was presented by Professor Swerve. The couple smiled politely as he handed them an ingot of some dull-brown metal. And this was where I was repaid for all my difficulty in following him at this wedding. As Merlin Sidwell hefted the heavy bar of not-very-precious-looking material, the paraphysicist explained:

“For your special day, and for all your days together, I give you the gift of laughter. As you know, I have spent the last two decades studying the effects of magic on molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Last year, I finally published my discoveries, including several new states of matter that can only exist under the influence of magic. This bar may seem to contain nothing but a blend of ordinary minerals. But I have charmed it into a state that I like to call ‘laughing matter.’ Whether there is a lot of it or a little; whether it is precious or common; whether solid, liquid, or gas, laughing matter is held together by the energy of pure joy. Touch it when you are angry or frustrated, and you will see the absurdity in your situation and your frown will become a chuckle. Touch it in a time of grief or pain, and you will suddenly remember the good things you still have to be happy about. Touch it when you are terrified and hopeless, and that which you dread may reveal desirable aspects. Touch it at a joyful time, like today, and you add to its stored energy, and to the good memories that will return to you at a time of need.

“Touch it together,” Professor Swerve continued, “and it fosters trust and contentment. Break it in half” – here Merlin effortlessly snapped the ingot in two, causing a stir throughout the pub – “when you cannot be together, and when you both hold it at the same time, you will feel closer to each other. Put the pieces back together” – Merlin did this – “and it sticks in one piece, as if you had never broken it. It also makes an excellent doorstop, for few things are as friendly as an open door; and, when used as a bookend, laughing matter causes nearby books to seem more entertaining the next time you open them. Tonight, I suggest that you tuck it under the...”

“What a lovely gift,” said Merlin, loudly interrupting the professor’s speech, while his bride reddened to the tip of her rather impressive nose.

After taking the Floo network back to Professor Swerve’s study, I told him how impressed I was with what he had said and done at the Sidwell wedding. He shrugged, smiling mysteriously, and said, “You don’t think I would really give such a priceless specimen – moreover, one that neither science nor magic has yet fully explained – to a couple of risk-takers like them? It would be murder. Or, worse, it would be a methodological blunder. I had forgotten to bring a gift, but I found a pile of those bricks out behind the Hog’s Head and checked to make sure there wasn’t anything dodgy about them before choosing one. I put a breaking-and-rejoining charm on it – a little trick on which I often dined out in my salad days. The rest of it was pure codswallop.”

Seeing my shocked expression, Professor Swerve laughed kindly and added, “I also applied a bit of magic in my speech. The magic of psychology. If those youngsters took me even a wee bit seriously, that brick will be a symbol to them, a symbol whose meaning they will pull out of themselves. I mean, really! To give them, actually give them, what I described would be meddling in things where I have no business. It is better this way.”

“So,” I asked, ashamed to notice a tone of childish disappointment in my own voice, “so is there no such thing as ‘laughing matter’ at all?”

“Oh, to be sure, there is! I’ve got some of it right here,” said Professor Swerve, getting up to fetch a waxy looking lump, encased in crystal, out of a locked cupboard. “And if they knew anything about it, they would thank me for not giving it them. Real ‘laughing matter’ is terrible, chaotic stuff; absolutely insane.”

He handed the crystal to me and I turned it over in my hands. “What does it do?” I asked.

“Oh! It is the stuff that moves things around when your back is turned. It hides your keys, causes your toilet to overflow, and stops nearby timepieces just when you are waiting for a certain hour to strike. I once observed a lump of ‘laughing matter’ to re-tune a piano so that, no matter what keys you played, the only thing you could get out of it was the ‘Tristan chord.’ Whenever you feel that someone, somewhere, must be laughing at you, you might have a bit of this stuff stuck to your shoe. With a brick of real laughing matter, the Sidwell’s marriage wouldn’t have lasted a week!

“Promise you won’t print any of this?” Professor Swerve added meekly.

“On my honor as a journalist,” I said, handing the crystal-encased lump back to him.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #120 +++

SURVEY: How does the angel-faced villain from TMQ #117 combine magic with golf? (A) He uses magic to create a self-maintaining, perfect golf course. (B) He uses magical plants, beasts, and other hazards to make his links the most difficult and dangerous course in the world. (C) He plays a wizarding variant of golf involving balls that go up but do not come down (unless played in that direction); players must be able to fly and, on occasion, play underwater. (D) He uses magic to enhance his performance in order to collect huge winnings on ordinary golf tours. (E) Other...

CONTEST: Describe a magical piece of jewelry and its properties.

Special thanks are due to the Cornwall County Council for inspiration provided by their Silly Names List [EDIT: Alas, this webpage no longer exists]. ANOTHER EDIT: What a pity that Blogger has a 200-character limit for labels. The list below should also include Algernon Swerve, Harvey, Dinty, Heidi Svendanna, Tatyana, and Owlympics.

[Originally posted 5/16/07]

113. Full Moon Kennel

Contest winners: TWZRD and i6uuaq

Spanky’s tale continued...

“I kept a close guard on the Niblet estate after my little tiff with Shmedly. I still had no idea why someone with Romanian connections would want to do Sir Lionel in, or what they would want from his property. The RMB sent a few junior agents to reinforce my watch. Everything seemed quiet and in order, but I sensed the danger had not passed.

“After a couple weeks with little to do, apart from perfecting the role of a hardbitten veteran to keep the younger agents in awe of me, I received an owl from the Blokebury office, reporting an anonymous tip about suspicious activity in a nearby county. I was desperate for something to do, so I decided to follow up myself. I took Ilona along as backup, leaving the other agents in charge at Mangeford.

“The directions on the note from Blokebury led me to a farm on the edge of a great, dark forest. I smelled it before I saw it, a sharp astringent odor combining the best parts of animal waste, rotting meat, disinfectant soap, and certain marginally legal potions. As I came over the last low hill, already taking care to breathe through my mouth, I saw a small farm was surrounded by tall, dense hedges full of thorns and creepers. The road led straight up to the hedge, while a solid sheet-iron gate stood over to one side, surrounded by ill-disguised deadfall traps made, I guessed, with portable holes and the cheapest type of magical wall -- the kind that only appears to be solid ground but has no substance at all. In short, it wasn’t a welcoming place.

“I marched up to where the road met the hedge, magnified my voice, and asked for admittance in the name of the law. After only two repeats, each one louder than the last, the hedge stood up on its roots and walked widdershins until the gate stood before me. Then the gate creaked open, and I followed the road into the farm, holding both wands in one hand and my RMB badge in the other. I was very glad to have Ilona, armed and invisible to all but me, covering my back.

“The farm contained three buildings and a fenced-off herb garden. One of the buildings was a long, stone stable with arrow-slit windows just under the eaves, and another heavy iron door fitted with two thick, iron bars and an enormous chain secured by an equally enormous lock. The curious thing was that all these security devices were on the outside. The second building was a two-story, wood-frame house that looked ready to collapse at any moment. By the blank, grimy windows and the overgrown path up to the door, I could tell that no one lived there.

“Between these two was a third building -- a round, one-room hut with smoke coming out of a hole in its thatched roof -- and in its doorway stood a gristly, scarred, twisted little man holding a large crossbow. An armed crossbow. Pointed at my chest.

“'Identify yerself,' snarled the little man.

“I identified myself very clearly while Ilona held a shield charm over us.

“'State yer business,' barked the little man.

“'I’m here to find out about your business,' I replied. 'There have been complaints...harboring dangerous creatures, cruelty, Dark magic...'”

“'The ones that complained is them as does dark magic,' the little man growled.

“'Then you’ll have no objection if I take a look around,' I said as cheerfully as possible without getting shot.

“'Got trade secrets to protect,' the little man rumbled. ‘Why should I trust yer not to sell em?’

“I assured him that I would only report details of actual, rogue magic. So he finally lowered the crossbow.

“’What’s your name?’ I asked.

“’Goode,’ he said. ‘Zophar Goode.’

“’And what, Mr. Goode, is that?’ I asked, gesturing at the long, stone building with the high-security door.

“’Kennel,’ snapped my host. While no longer forbidding, he wasn’t exactly welcoming either.

“’May I see what’s in it?’ I asked.

“’Nothing’s in it,’ said Goode, who nevertheless charmed the lock, chain, and bars off the iron door with a wave of his wand. ‘Only occupied a few days each month, round the full moon.’

“If the smell outside was strong enough to knock a man down, the inside of Goode’s kennel had a pong that could pick him up, shake him, rip him open and eat his liver. Even breathing through my mouth did no good; I could actually taste it -- the choking, close, unventilated smell of werewolf. I found myself holding the collar of my cloak against my face and sucking air through it, as I inspected a row of empty stalls. Empty, except for battered and chipped bowls, scattered straw, tufts of fur and even streaks of blood stuck amid the stones of the outside wall, and deep, savage claw marks on the wooden partitions that separated one werewolf’s quarters from another.

“’I treat ‘em perfectly humane,’ Goode went on, while I was unable to speak for fear of gagging. ‘They come here voluntary. I let ‘em in from forest side, so they don’t have to go by the village downroad. Soon as the full moon rises, I lock the pen and move the gate round to the traps. No danger to anyone outside the farm, and very little danger to me.’

“’How many, er, clients do you have?’ I asked through clenched teeth.

“’Seven or eight, regular,’ said Goode, leading me back outside where I began sucking in lungfuls of relatively fresh air. ‘Sometimes up to a dozen. Some of ‘em live around here, some only come when they’re in the neighborhood when that time comes. I try to keep the place warded so outsiders can’t hear the howling an’ yowling. Tend to sound like they’re murderin’ themselves sometimes. And look like it, too, afterward.’

“’I had no idea such a place existed,’ I admitted. ‘Have you placed ads?’

“’No need,’ said Goode proudly, leading me toward the round shack. ‘Place been in me family for generations. Them as knows of it, spreads the word to them as needs it. Them as don’t need it, or want it, don’t know about it. That’s the way of it. Otherwise there’d be no end of trouble for the pour souls.’

"'Poor you,' I said, looking at the many scratchmarks and bites on Mr. Goode's arms. 'You've taken a bit of punishment yourself, haven't you? Makes you wonder...'

"'Why I still do this?' Mr. Goode asked, pausing on the path and looking at me almost pityingly.

"I laughed. 'I was going to say, why you aren't a werewolf yourself.'

"He shrugged. 'Same answer either way. Some of me ancestors were werewolves. So a certain feeling for the hairy wretches runs in the family, like. Plus, we're born carriers. We have it in our blood, so we're fairly resistant. Been bitten dozens of times, and will never be more of a werewolf than what I was born. It's just that I only turn if I get scratched right on the full moon. Even then I keep my right mind, saving a strong urge to bury things under the hedge.

“Goode led me through the door of his little shack. Inside, to my slight surprise, there was a clean, well-appointed house with rooms opening out of a main hallway and a broad spiraling staircase at the end.

“’Don’t have guests in here, mostly,’ said Goode. ‘All this is thanks to their contributions, which they pay of their free will, but it doesn’t do for them to know how much more comfortable we have it than them.’

“He led me to the stairs and then downward to a flagstoned passage with more iron doors in it. He touched one and it opened. ‘This is me lab,’ he announced proudly, though I could already see that it was a lab. It had jars of potion ingredients lining the walls, cauldrons bubbling over plates of magefire, and a long, scarred bench heaped with ingredients in various stages of being chopped and shredded. From the ceiling hung a variety of shiny instruments for testing the products of each experiment. Books and loose pages of notes were piled on and around a standing desk under a floating candelabra.

“’The other rooms are only storerooms,’ Goode explained, ‘for what I make in here.’

“’And what do you make?’ I asked, unconsciously keeping myself between him and the door.

“’Were-kibble,’ said Goode, his twisted face beaming with pride. ‘Been trying to come up with a substitute for people-meat, to stop the guests going mad and trying to eat themselves. Tried tofu people first, but that didn’t have the right nutrition. Guests were still weak and sickly after their spell passed, and after a while their instincts told them to stop eating the stuff. At least it helped us test the artificial people-flavoring. Never thought we’d perfect that, not knowing how people taste, ourselves. Kept the flavor, binned the tofu, started over to create a crunch, tartar-control Werewolf Chow with all the nutrients needed by a mad creature of the night. Each guest gets a bowl of kibble before lockdown. Sadly, there’s no way to refill the bowls without risking a bite or worse.’

“I told Goode he should be packaging the stuff and selling it, to help werewolves everywhere.

“’I used to think that, too,’ he said, his face darkening. ‘Found out about two facts of life that changed me mind. First, lots of werewolves don’t want the help. Second, lots of wizards don’t want to let the werewolves be helped. Last year a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley agreed to sell a few sacks of Werewolf Chow. He sent them back couple days later, along with a bill for two broken windows and a coat of paint to cover what somebody wrote on his wall. The only item we can sell is this.’

“Goode unsheathed a long, deadly looking, silver knife that had lots of edges, to make sure any attacking lycanthrope gets the point. ‘I call it my Ounce of Prevention,’ said Goode. ‘I’ve never had to use it. Just the smell of it on me has stopped more than one unruly guest in his tracks. Of course, some who own these knives think differently about how to use ‘em. Lost some dear friends because of one of these, whose owner made it his mission to save the world from werewolves.’ The old fellow looked grim and angry as he said this, rather than sad. ‘But it can’t be helped. The gift of a knife like this is sometimes the price of our clients’ safety and privacy. Me brother Zichri makes ‘em. Here, take this one. Oh, no, I insist.’

“Against my will, Goode forced the handle of the knife into my hand. It was beautiful, perfectly balanced, and definitely weighed more than an ounce. In fact, it felt more like a sword than a knife -- a sword that responded to my grip as if it belonged there, as if it wanted me to own it, as if it had plans for how I would use it in the future. While I stared at its beautiful, terrifying blade, Goode unstrapped its sheath and handed that over as well.

“Then he did an odd thing. He spat on the blade I held in my hand. I stared at him, shocked as much by the feeling that went through my knife hand when his saliva hit it as by the man’s behavior. ‘Do the same,’ Goode grunted. He stared back at me until I did as he said.

“’This binds you never to return to this place, never to reveal where it is or what is done here, and never to use this blade except in extreme need—’”

Merlin snorted, breaking the flow of Spanky’s narrative. Everyone turned a hostile glare on him.

“What?” he said, defensively. “I mean, think about it. If that binding had any power, we wouldn’t be hearing this.”

Everyone turned back toward Spanky, who now (they suddenly noticed) was making a spiral cut into a ripe lemon with the very knife he had been describing.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, after waiting long enough to be sure of their undivided attention. With a deft twist of the knife he separated the lemon into five twists which flew up in the air and came down on the rim of each goblet of firewhisky on the table. Merlin blinked furiously as a bit of lemon juice hit him in the eye.

“The binding,” said Spanky, “was only in effect until I did use the knife in a case of extreme need. Possibly old Goode didn’t mean it to work that way, but it doesn’t matter now. He and his brother are dead. They have no heirs, and the Full Moon Kennel was destroyed by Death Eaters at the height of the last war -- which, after all, was only a few months later. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted all werewolves who didn’t join his side to be destroyed. With people like Fenrir Greyback working for him, it was only a matter of time before some fool of a werewolf led the forces of evil to Goode.”

“Huh,” said Endora. “I never knew there were many werewolves who didn’t join You-Know-Who.”

“If there were, they would be the type who would spend their time-of-the-month in a place like Full Moon Kennel,” Joe Albuquerque observed.

Merlin said, “And if those places were destroyed—”

“—there won’t be many good werewolves left in Britain,” Endora concluded. She laughed nervously, half wondering if anyone was going to point out her unintentional pun on the name “Goode,” and half thinking it odd to hear herself speaking of “good werewolves” at all. The others, however, took her quite seriously.

They all turned and looked at Spanky with big, questioning eyes. He slid his knife back into its sheath and softly said, “Not many.”

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #115 +++

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 Spanky ever meet Zichri Goode before the climax Vold-War I?

CONTEST: Name and describe some dances that young witches and wizards might enjoy.

[Originally posted 2/25/07]