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.

159. Minimilian Returns

Contest winner: Linda Carrig

As Sir Lionel crept through the mysterious compound, he discovered that it was much larger than he had spotted at first. Clearly, the wizards here were caught up in more than one sinister plan.

Beyond the ring of huts he found a grove of walnut trees playing cricket with their own fallen fruit. Getting through it without being hit by a leathery, walnut-cored ball was quite tricky. Then there was the thicket of ash and yew trees that he found practicing archery, using bows and arrows made out of their own branches; Sir Lionel had to be very careful to avoid becoming a target. He edged nervously around a copse of whomping willows that he found sparring with each other, raining splinters and twigs from every collision of their powerful limbs. At the brink of a stream he encountered another variety of willows whose long, supple branches, trailing in the water, snatched up passing fish now and again. He wondered what they were called, and was trying to decide between "reaping rillows" and "wringing whompers" when he felt a wand-tip touch the back of his neck.

"Hands up slowly," said the wizard behind him. Sir Lionel obeyed, feeling the wand snatched out of his right hand as he did so.

"Turn around." Sir Lionel turned around. He ended up facing the same direction. The other man clicked his tongue with exasperation and said, "This time turn half-way around." This gave them the ability to look at each other. Sir Lionel wasn't much to look at after weeks of survival in the bush. The other man wasn't much prettier. Short, stocky, squash-nosed and lantern-jawed, he had hardly any neck and, by way of compensation, one enormous eyebrow. The eyes beneath it bulged suspiciously. "Keep it shut," he growled. "Wouldn't want to warn whoever is with you."

"No one is..."

"Who sent you?" the ugly wizard barked.

"Sent me?" Sir Lionel was on the point of telling the truth -- that he was there by pure chance, that his broom had elected to crash on the way to somewhere else -- when he realized that he needed a bargaining chip. Someone who would be coming after him if he didn't report. So he used his hesitation to look shifty and inventive when he replied, "No one sent me. My broom just crashed over that ridge..."

"Very likely," sneered the other. "Only question is, are you one of them RMB blokes, or did the competition send you? Eh?"

"I'd rather not say," was all Sir Lionel dared to improvise.

"Oh! It's like that, is it?" The stocky wizard brandished his wand threateningly. "We'll soon have the whole truth out of you, won't we? Now, turn around and march!" A moment later: "Oof! I meant turn half-way around!"

As his captor barked instructions from behind, Sir Lionel began to wonder how he could possibly get out of this tight spot. Then another voice hissed: "Stop! Hands up!"

"I already have my hands up," Sir Lionel sang over his shoulder.

"I meant the other one," the new voice said gruffly. "Now shut it, both of you, and turn slowly to face me..."

Since his former captor was looking the other way, he did not happen to see Sir Lionel's momentary look of joyful recognition. The tall figure holding them both at wand point was cloaked from head to foot, his face in shadow, his physique hidden by the loose fit of his dark cloak. He held two wands in each hand, all of them pointed at the man in the middle. He could be no one, Sir Lionel realized, but Spanky Spankison.

"Just try it," Spanky growled with all the menace of an approaching tempest. The other man left off trying to dig a throwing-knife out of an ankle sheath with his foot. The thick shoulders bunched and writhed. Sir Lionel was privately glad he didn't have to look at those enormous jaws grinding and gnashing.

"How many wands defend this place?" Spanky demanded. "Speak quickly!"

"I've got nothing to say," said the other wizard.

"Don't make me use these," said Spanky, waving the wands in his left hand threateningly.

"If you're RMB," said lantern-jaw, "there are rules. You can't torture me."

"That's a big if," said Spanky. Then he loosed a spell at his prisoner's right foot.

The man howled, more in terror than in pain, then looked down and howled again. "Yow-how-how-how dare you!"

Sir Lionel, who by now had joined Spanky and retrieved his wand, saw that their prisoner was suddenly mincing up and down in open-toed high heels, with painted toenails and all. The effect wasn't very lovely, given the man's hairy legs and the coarseness of his feet.

"Answer my questions," said Spanky, "or you'll be wearing a dress that goes with those shoes."

The prisoner stopped fidgeting and said, with a sudden coolness that chilled Sir Lionel's blood, "All right, ask away."

"Behind us," Spanky hissed out of the side of his mouth.

Sir Lionel wheeled around to look, but not fast enough to stop the disarming spell that blasted the wand out of his grip.

"Er, sorry, old boy," said Sir Lionel, addressing Spanky, though he was facing another short man he had never seen before. This one, however, was as sleek and handsome as their former prisoner was not.

"Give me their wands, Hugo," the genteel captor said in an almost beautiful voice. He shot a saintly smile at Sir Lionel, a smile that seemed to say that everyone was mistaken about who were the bad guys and who the good. "Ah! As I live and breathe, Mr. Spankison! I never dreamed of meeting you again."

"Nor I you," said Spanky, turning himself around. "Still got all your limbs, Minimilian? I was sure that hag would have eaten at least part of you. Well! It's an imperfect world!"

"We're in agreement to that extent," smiled Minimilian.

"What miserable scheme are you nursing now?" Spanky jerked his head toward the compound.

"Just business," said Minimilian, as cheerfully as ever. "Now, gentlemen, about face and march!"

For a few moments, they marched in silence through orchards of dodge-ball apple trees and groves of lemon trees that kept trying to squirt lemon juice at them. The only sound other than the rustle of leaves and the thump of hard apples against tree trunks was Minimilian's whistling. Sir Lionel recognized the tune: "Hex today goodbye, Portkey to tomorrow..."

"Business!" Spanky snorted, interrupting the tune. "Selling weaponized, magical creatures and plants? You must be hoarding the money for some big gesture, some..."

"Surely you don't expect me to confide in you?" Minimilian's laugh was like the jingling of little bells. "You seem to have me confused with an evil genius. You know the type, always explaining their dastardly plans, so that the hero can escape and put a stop to them. I'm not as clever as that. I'm just a reasonably shrewd businessman, and I'll keep my plans to myself, thank you."

"No: thank you," said another unexpected voice from behind Minimilian.

They all stopped marching.

"Hugo," said Minimilian, with a barely detectible edge of irritation in his voice, "I was hoping you might have covered our backs."

"Don't blame Hugo," said the female voice. "He's tied up, stunned, and gagged a couple orchards back."

"Is it finally my pleasure to meet the elusive Ilona Ilonera?" Minimilian turned around slowly, his hands up and disarmed. "Ah! As lovely as I had imagined!"

"I would prefer," said Ilona, aiming her wand steadily at the spot between Minimilian's wide, innocent eyes, "that you would just shut up."

"As you wish," he murmured sweetly.

Spanky rolled his eyes, though under the hood of his cloak they could not be seen. "Shall we tie him up and carry him?"

"I don't know," said Ilona. "I think I saw a colony of red ants on the way here. Perhaps we could just stake him down beside it..."

Hearing this, Minimilian beamed with satisfaction. He seemed to take it as a personal success when his enemies turned as evil as himself.

"...but I reckon we'd better just portkey him to the nearest RMB field-office for booking."

"It's up to you, dear," said Spanky.

Ilona sighed, then with her free hand began to rummage in the pockets of her robes. She finally brought out a greasy bicycle chain, which she placed around Minimilian's neck.

"I say," the little cherub squeaked uncomfortably. "I'll be sending you my cleaning bill."

"Do," said Ilona, with an equally angelic simper. "And now: three... two... "

"Hold that thought," snapped another feminine voice.

Ilona threw down all the wands in her hand with a strangled roar. Spanky and Sir Lionel put their hands up again as half a dozen figures emerged from the shadows of the juggling oaks, which immediately resumed playing a noisy game of hackey-sack with hundreds of acorns. The woman leading this squad of guards approached Minimilian with an air of disgusted authority. Minimilian, looking as innocent as ever, lowered his eyes before her -- not in embarrassment, but in deference.

"You really must stop letting these people get the best of you," the woman said with a voice like the crack of a whip. Her red-black hair swayed down her back in a thick, tight braid. Her dark eyes flashed under upswept brows.

"I led them here, didn't I?" Minimilian shrugged. "I knew you would take control again."

Spanky and Ilona exchanged confused looks. Or rather, Ilona exchanged one with the shadows under Spanky's hood. Sir Lionel, reading her expression, knew they had expected Minimilian to be the man in charge.

The woman tied the three prisoners together and walked around them several times, eyeing them appraisingly. She didn't seem to need a wand, with seven -- make that eight, as Hugo emerged from the trees rubbing his head -- henchmen holding her prisoners at bay. Finally she said, "It's a pity we can't just kill them and throw their bodies to Audrey Four. But you know they'll have filed a mission plan with the RMB. Someone is sure to come looking for them. So what shall we do?"

"Hold them for ransom," suggested Hugo.

"Wipe their memories," suggested Minimilian.

The woman looked disgusted at the first suggestion, intrigued by the second. But she shook her head. "I'm leaning toward killing them anyway," she said. "Only, we can lay a false trail to the crash site in the next valley. Maybe scatter a few gnawed bones, make it look as though they died of crash-related injuries..."

"There will be a letter in the Daily Prophet about this," Sir Lionel blurted. "Take that woman's name, son."

"The name," said the woman, fixing Sir Lionel with a defiant stare, "which won't be any use to you, is O'Modo. Allie O'Modo. Now tell me, how can you write a letter when you're already dead?"

"The question you should ask," said Spanky, "is: How can you kill us so that it doesn't look like foul play?"

"How kind of you to redirect my thinking," said Allie O'Modo. "That's easy enough, though. I've been meaning to turn my pet garden-gnomes out into the next valley... for some exercise..."

Hugo laughed and clapped his hands. "At last," he said. "A live test!"

+++ SURVEY FOR TMQ #161 +++

Participation in The Magic Quill has gone down dramatically in the past several months. What do you think we should do? (A) Keep it going for at least ___ more chapters, and see if more readers contribute to the comments. (B) Tie up as many loose ends as possible within the next 4-5 chapters, and then bring it to an end. (C) Leave the loose ends hanging, and end it now because it's already too far gone.

Leave your response to this survey in the Comments. If you haven't left a comment before, please take the time and effort to do so -- especially if you would like to see TMQ continue. A little encouragement may fuel Robbie's creativity for a long time. And nothing would be more encouraging than knowing that the Magic Quill matters to more than 5 or 6 people!

158. History of Magic

Contest winner: Dragonic
Runners-up: greyniffler, Linda, Rehannah, TWZRD, & Evensong
with apologies to Pamela Dean and Roald Dahl

In a hut of mud-caulked timber, in a compound full of similar huts, in a remote valley, a door opened and closed as if by itself. As a school lesson was going on in that hut, the teacher halted her lecture on magical inventions to look round at the door, but she saw nothing to explain the event. She looked narrowly at the children before her, studying them for signs that one of them was playing a joke with, say, a wand under the desk. Seven young faces looked up at her, as surprised and alarmed as she was.

"Never mind," she shrugged. She resumed pacing up and down in front of her students. "Let's check what you've learned now. Patrick, who do you think was the greatest wizard inventor?"

The youngest of the three boys flashed a crooked smile and said, "I'm after sayin' it were Bertrand the Bibulous."

The teacher composed her face to a long-suffering expression and asked, "And how did Wizard Bertrand make our world better?"

"Why, by inventing the cure for hangover, sure."

The other children fell over each other laughing. Patrick gazed steadily into the teacher's face with a look of absolute sincerity, while the latter turned her eyes toward heaven. For a few moments, no one was looking at the teacher's desk. And so no one saw a bruised, dirty hand reach up from behind the desk and pinch the shiny apple that stood there.

"I wonder if that invention really made the world a better place," the teacher said primly, as soon as the room was quiet enough.

"It does for me da," Patrick blurted, to the great delight of his friends.

"And how brave of Bertrand, to keep experimenting on himself until he hit upon the right spell," added one of the older boys. "He must have endured a lot of rough mornings..."

The children's roar of laughter just covered the muffled munching sounds behind the teacher's desk.

"Since Edward is so eager to give us his thoughts," the teacher trilled, as the class came to order again, "the next question will go to him. Who invented Floo Powder, and how was it originally used?"

Edward stammered for a few moments. Casting around for anything to say, he caught the eye of a girl on the other side of the room, who made an odd gesture with one finger pointing upward behind her head. His eyes brightened. Before the teacher could look round to see who was helping him, Edward recited: "A Lakota medicine wizard named Red Smoke is said to have compounded the first recipe for Floo Powder. Originally it was meant to make smoke signals secure from enemy spies. You would throw the powder into the flames and say someone's name. Then, until the spell ended, your smoke signals would appear in that person's fire. The idea of sending anything but smoke didn't come until the Lakota shared their secrets with a white wizard called Gorse."

"Excellent work, Edward," said the teacher, who had been too engrossed in the young man's performance to notice the soft thump her coffee mug made when the strange hand returned it, empty, to the top of her desk. "Now, Ruth, perhaps you can tell me who wrote the first witches' cookbook, and how useful it is."

The tallest girl, who happened to have signaled to Edward before, gave a pained smile. "The witch was known as Cauldron Kate, and the trouble with her book is that she doesn't quite separate the magical potions from the spells to cook food. Many of her recipes have magical side effects, like when her cabbage rolls make you grow asses' ears."

The children tittered. Ruth looked embarrassed. She seemed to resent being asked questions about domestic arts, when she cared rather more about Red Smoke and his type of wizards. The teacher took no more notice of this than of the quill and inkwell disappearing off her desk.

"Ellen," the teacher said, starling a much younger girl out of a daydream, "tell us about the witch or wizard who invented Veritaserum."

"Her name was Samirah al Haqq," said Ellen, stifling a yawn. "She was the first female Court Wizard, or rather Court Witch, of the Sultan of, er..."

"The correct pronunciation is Ur," the teacher hinted.

"Exactly," Ellen said cheerfully. "She was also the court historian, treasurer, and royal torturer. The Sultan of Ur was a bit of a cheapskate, so he liked to combine different jobs like that."

"Ellen," the teacher growled warningly as the other children giggled. The mysterious hand behind the desk took advantage of this disturbance to nick a roll of parchment.

The girl rolled her eyes. "No one would talk to her because she was a woman," she added. "It didn't look like she was going to last long in her job as royal historian, so she messed around with potion ingredients until she came up with Veritaserum, and that saved her. It also..."

"That's fine," said the teacher. "Let's move on. Laura - "

A girl about Ellen's age started nervously, knocking her inkwell off her desk. The teacher, used to this sort of thing, saved it from smashing on the floor with a levitation spell and charmed it back onto the desk. Suppressing a sigh, she continued: "Laura, what became of Gertrude the Grotesque?"

In an almost inaudible voice, Laura reported that Gertrude had invented a variety of potions and glamors to keep herself looking young and beautiful long past the usual best-by date; but that, in a moment of rare clumsiness, she had accidentally turned herself so ugly that anyone who saw her went mad. The Wizengamot had sent three blind wizards who used their exceptional senses of smell, hearing, and irony to discover Gertrude's hiding place. Once captured, she was imprisoned in a hall of mirrors, where her screams, or the screams of her ghost, could be heard from that day to this.

Laura shivered at the end of this tale. For a moment, the whole school room was so still that the stranger's hand froze in place above a pot of Floo Powder on the teacher's desk. Then a weak, nervous laugh spread through the room like ripples in a puddle, and with a quick dusty snatch the hand disappeared again.

"Matilda," the teacher barked at a small girl who was concentrating on levitating a newt out of its aquarium, using neither a wand nor a spoken spell. The girl sat up straighter and gave the teacher a look of perfect innocence. "Tell us," said the teacher, "how the modern wand was invented."

"Wizards had always used forked sticks, greenwood rods, unicorn tailhairs, and so on," said Matilda. "By themselves, they didn't really do much. The first real wand, with a dragon-heartstring core, was made by Po the Polisher, a wizard in the army of the first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. His wand made him so deadly in battle that all the other army wizards soon wanted them. Po ended up making wands full-time, and his experiments led him to discover nine of the eleven fundamental charms of wandmaking."

"Excellent as usual, Matilda. And that leaves..." The teacher squinted up and down the row of children facing her, then snapped her fingers and said: "George!"

A boy with a dirty nose and stained fingers said, "What?" without looking up from the picture he was drawing on a loose piece of parchment.

Failing to stifle her sigh this time, the teacher gave up on getting George's undivided attention and simply said, "Tell us about an inventor, will you?"

"Tylenenkhamen," said George, without looking up.

"What about him?"

"Invented wizard medicine," George grunted. Meanwhile, he continued to scribble.

"And?"

"And his potion to cure headaches wasn't used for four thousand years because it was mixed up with a recipe for embalming fluid," the boy added. "Preserving the dead was a much bigger business in ancient Egypt than curing headaches. Healing magic had to be re-invented several times before it caught on, thanks to Healer Koscrates of Hippo. But my Great-Uncle Ambrosiaster, who was a curse-breaker for Gringotts, found Tylenenkhamen's recipe and tried it."

"How did it work?" said Edward.

"He died," shrugged George. "But you can't expect success on the first go, can you? His ancient Egyptian was lousy anyway. Recipe probably would have worked if he'd read it right..."

By this point the class had erupted in its loudest disturbance yet, groans of disgust mingling with screams of laughter. The teacher banged a petrified egg on her desk in a vain attempt to call them back to order. In all this commotion, no one noticed the door opening again and a crouched figure darting out into the compound.

Sir Lionel Niblet kept his head down and scurried from hut to hut, pausing only to make sure the coast was clear before crossing each open space. He finally reached what appeared to be a barrel of burning garbage. Opening a door set in the side of the barrel, he tossed in a handful of Floo Powder, whispering "Spanky Spankison," and thrust a tight roll of parchment after it. The letter vanished in a burst of green flames. Now, Sir Lionel thought as he ducked and weaved toward the treeline, he would just have to wait...

His progress was abruptly halted by an unexpected obstacle. He had run directly into the legs of a tall, heavy-shouldered wizard whose robes had, at first glance, blended into the foliage on the edge of the clearing.

"Here's a juicy surprise," said the man, grabbing Sir Lionel's throat in a steely grip.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #160 +++

Are you still there after Robbie inexplicably took a month off from writing "The Magic Quill"? If so, let him know & send him a word of encouragement. Robbie has been working a lot on "The Book Trolley" lately. You may see the results soon if you keep watching MuggleNet for updates. But "The Magic Quill" has a lot of life left in it, too. So, don't just lurk and read! You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. Also, introduce a friend to "The Magic Quill," and get him or her to drop a comment too! [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: How many inches long is Endora's nose?

CONTEST: Describe a number (real or imaginary) that has magical significance.

154. Gnome Warfare

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

Using his wand to join the edges of the monkey skins, Sir Lionel Niblet put the finishing touches on his new all-weather cloak. It was both practical and stylish, with a warm layer of fur facing inward and a suede-like suppleness facing out. He examined it approvingly, then slipped it on. The fit was perfect. He should have been a tailor. "If I ever find my way out of this horrid valley," he thought aloud, "I'll have found my true calling, at least."

Round about his campsite were the trappings of his new life, since his broomstick had rammed into an invisible wall high above the island. The broom, still held together by a few splinters, had barely managed to slow his fall into this long, deep cut between two parallel mountain ridges. It had been a hard landing, but survivable - except his broom was completely shattered now. Without it, he had no way of scaling the sheer sides of the ravine. So he had turned his thoughts toward survival.

Uncounted weeks had passed. The stream that ran along the bottom of the ravine had provided him many suppers of fish, clams, and snails. The small animals that lived among the trees had supplied plentiful meat, pelts, and bones from which he had made fishhooks, needles, knives, and other tools. He hadn't needed weapons really; a well-aimed stunning spell had often served to bring down his prey, at least long enough for him to go to work with a bone knife. Apart from a few wild cats, who left him alone as long as he laid scraps out for them, Sir Lionel was the apex predator of this isolated valley.

When he could spare time from matters of survival, Sir Lionel had thought but briefly on the life he left behind. There was little point in regretting his loss. He hoped his friends would do well without him. He reproached himself for the foolishness of setting out on this flight through unfrequented skies without telling anyone where he was bound. He worried just a bit about the outcome of the business deal that had been at the end of his planned, but uncompleted, journey. How had it gone on without him?

But mostly, he had wondered about that invisible wall in the sky. Who had put it there? The how was obvious: by magic, of course. But the why still eluded him.

After a midday supper of roasted fowl washed down with fermented yam juice, Sir Lionel spent an hour going over his gear. He now had several coiled lengths of braided thong, slippers and gloves made of woven plant fibers, and a dozen magically-sharpened picks fashioned from large animal bones and small rocks. His supply of leaf-wrapped, salted meat and bladders of yam vodka filled a skin bag he had made a week ago. He was ready. He would begin his ascent of the eastern ridge the next morning. Perhaps this time he would make it to the top. Then, at least, he could look at what lay in the next valley, beyond the mysterious barrier that had halted his broom.

The night fell, cold and damp. Sir Lionel was glad of his new cloak. Before the sky grew pale above the eastern ridge, he put on all his gear and began his long hike up the forested foothills. The first stab of daylight found him crawling over a scrubby pile of scree. His camp, invisible amid the trees behind and below him, would have looked tiny from this distance. He rested for a few minutes, then scrambled onward.

The day passed quickly. The sun seemed to plunge suddenly behind the western ridge - though its light did not die so quickly at this height as it seemed to do from the bottom of the valley. Sir Lionel wedged himself into a cleft and settled down for the night, eating and drinking sparingly and with deliberate slowness in spite of his ravenous hunger and thirst. Stiff, painful muscles disturbed his rest throughout the night, and woke him early in the morning. He stretched himself thoroughly before resuming his climb.

The valley now yawned below him, dark and distant and threatening. Sir Lionel tried not to look down when he could help it. When he did catch a glimpse of what lay behind, he sensed that he was covering less distance today than on the day before. The top of the ridge seemed just as unreachably distant as ever. He needed to pause more often, sucking in great breaths that never seemed to satisfy his need for air. With great weariness and a growing sense of failure, he rested for a second night, this time on a wide ledge, and slept deeply for the first time in several days.

He was nearing the end of his supplies, and the end of his third day of climbing, when Sir Lionel suddenly found himself tumbling over the other side of the ridge. He might have fallen to his death if an invisible wall hadn't caught him with a bruising matter-of-factness. He leaned his weight against it, resting full-length against apparent nothingness over the vast, misty canyon before him.

Unlike the valley he had come from, this one appeared to be inhabited. At any rate, several columns of smoke rose from the dark mass of trees below.

After hours of sidling along the unseen barrier, looking for a way through it, Sir Lionel spotted a broad ledge covered in the rubble of a long-past rockslide. Fortunately, two of the larger rocks that leaned together to support much of the pile lay directly beneath the barrier. Throughout the next two days, he dug out pieces of rock. His food and drink nearly exhausted, his gloves and hands similarly shredded, he finally cleared an opening between the two large stones and crawled through it. Now he was inside the magical wall that apparently shielded this valley from the outside.

His descent went more quickly than the ascent. This was partly the result of gravity, partly of the somewhat gentler slope on this side of the ridge, and partly of necessity. Sir Lionel was literally starving, and parched into the bargain, when he reached the first stream. He immediately stripped off his cloak and plunged into the water. He drank deeply, then with some difficulty speared a fish and ate it raw, skin and all. He left only fins and bones behind as he drank again and dug for tubers.

His first night in the new valley was filled with strange and disturbing sounds. Different birds shrieked here. Somewhere not far enough away, a cat roared and a monkey screamed. A huge snake slithered by him in the darkness, ignoring him in its search for smaller prey.

Late morning found him gazing down at a surprising discovery. Below a long, waist-high wall of unmortared stone lay a broad, tree-shaded compound. Its thatched roofs and walls of mud-caulked timber held only a faint air of primitiveness. The place was well-organized, with a large central building surrounded by smaller huts, some of them suspended above the ground on stilts. Smoke rose from chimneys of every building except the ones on stilts. The ground around the huts had been cleared and swept, and an unmistakable cistern stood behind the main building, connected to the nearby river by a silvery pipe and a hand-operated pump.

This was no native village. Based the magical barrier around the valley, as well as the curious sparks that floated out of several of the chimneys, Sir Lionel knew that sorcery was involved.

Seeing no one moving about the compound, Sir Lionel lifted himself over the stone wall and hurried on tiptoe toward the nearest building. He flatted himself against it and edged around the nearest corner, searching for signs of activity.

He almost gasped aloud when he found himself looking through an unglazed window at three men who, fortunately, were not looking in his direction. Seen in profile, they seemed to be intent on something out of Sir Lionel's field of view. He shifted to the other side of the window to get a better look. Now he saw what the three men were watching.

It was a pen, fenced off by a single strand of wire. This didn't seem like much of a fence at first glance, but Sir Lionel soon noticed a few odd things about it. First, it glowed slightly with a blue radiance that made his head ache. Also, it gave off a curious hum that set his teeth on edge - until he looked away from it, that is. Then he saw, beyond it, group of ugly little gnomes, huddled together and shivering, though they grinned madly all the same. On the opposite side of the ring surrounded by that glowing, humming wire, stood another gnome - a curiously still, composed gnome. It did not seem at all inclined to giggle, dance, or pull faces. It simply studied its kinsmen as if committing their features to memory.

The image chilled Sir Lionel to the bone. This was distinctly un-gnomelike behavior. It stirred a memory in the back of his mind - the memory of a rare disease that sometimes afflicted these magical garden pests: Mad Gnome Disease. A gnome that acted like a sane, balanced person was clearly, dangerously insane. And that insanity could spread instantly from one gnome to another, should the infected gnome bite or scratch the normal one. The results could be a fast-spreading epidemic of intelligent, organized, and ferocious gnomes - gnomes who could easily turn against any wizards and witches who crossed their path, and attack them with deadly savagery.

Sir Lionel's suspicions were confirmed when the mad gnome - that is, the seemingly sane one - launched itself toward the three trembling ones, biting and scratching and yowling. A moment later, all four gnomes stood together, looking up at the three wizards with expressions of calm cunning.

The wizard on the left shivered. "That's all I need to see," he said. "One or two dozen of these blighters ought to be enough to bring the entire Wizengamot to its knees."

"I should think so," agreed the wizard on the right in a thick, middle-European accent. "Let's discuss terms. If you'll come with me, Willibald here will, er, secure the specimens while we talk."

Sir Lionel ducked around the back of the hut just in time. Moments later, two of the wizards came out of the door a few feet beyond the window. He listened to the sound of their retreating footsteps, his mind reeling at the thought of weaponized gnomes. It was the most monstrous trade in living creatures that he had heard of, notwithstanding the unforgettable scandal of Wizard Stafford-Fume and his wands made with a core of living bowtruckles. Suddenly Sir Lionel wished he had his young friend Spanky at his side, armed with two wands and a long habit of dueling practice.

"Aye, old son," Sir Lionel whispered, almost as if in prayer. "Where are you when I need you?"

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #156 +++

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

SURVEY: Which magical creature will we see next? (A) A wereyak. (B) A merhag. (C) A fruit troll. (D) Other _____ (write-in candidate).

CONTEST: Describe a common cliche, giving it a slight magical twist. Example: "That really takes the pumpkin pasty!" (Instead of: "That really takes the cake!")

149. The Fruit Troll

Contest Winner: Quercitron
Runner-Up: TWZRD

Spanky gasped as his broom approached the grounds of Mangeford Manor. He was so staggered that he missed his footing and landed face-first in a pile of uprooted shrubbery that had been gathered up for burning. His eyes gleamed with tears when he stood up, partly because of the pungent scent of the leaves. But only partly.

He looked around at a scene of devastation. Sir Lionel's beautiful, exotic gardens were no more. Instead there were heaps of earth and gravel, plowed up by large machines that now stood idle. One area had been paved with an interlocking pattern of bricks, and already several shiny, expensive automobiles stood on it. The wall surrounding the estate had been breached, and from the painted stakes and taut lengths of string that divided it up, it was evident the land was being subdivided.

Shaking his head, Spanky trudged round the back of the manor house, past windows whose glass had been replaced with wooden boards and "DANGER: KEEP OUT" signs. As he rounded the end of a heaping-full waste container, he spotted one wing that appeared intact. Only, where the garden shed had been, there was now a kidney-shaped swimming pool lined with shiny, pale-blue tile. Spanky gaped at it in shock and sadness.

Then a hand reached out of the water, followed by another. Two arms pulled the rest of a scrawny young man onto the edge of the pool. Spanky moved closer, watched by the stranger's slightly crossed eyes as he toweled himself dry. Neither man spoke until Spanky was within arm's reach, gazing down at the shorter man with his thin, wispy mustache, acne-scarred skin, sneering lips, lopsided nose, and mismatched eyes - brown on the left, gray on the right, each seemingly stuck staring in a different direction.

"You must be that Spankison chap," said the stranger, his face turned upward so that his eyes seemed to look at each of Spanky's ears, separately. "Father told me so much about you, I feel like I could pick your face out of a crowd."

"Father who?" Spanky growled suspiciously. After seeing the grounds, he could barely restrain his instinct to interrogate this wizard as a rogue suspect. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Philip Niblet, of course," said the pied-eyed man. "Sir Lionel was my father."

Spanky choked back a harsh laugh. "That's ridiculous," he said. "I knew Sir Lionel's sons. I grew up with them. I went to Hogwarts with them. I was here when he buried them. They were both killed by the Death Eaters."

"Those were Lady Niblet's brats," Philip snapped, pulling a plush robe onto his narrow shoulders. "Happily for her, she did not know about her husband's affair with my Mum, the village apothecary. She went away before I was born." While he said this, Philip walked over to a well-stocked poolside bar and began mixing two drinks, without bothering to ask Spanky if he wanted one.

"Madam Gisela?" Spanky said, his eyes popping with surprise. "I remember when she packed up and left so suddenly..."

"Exactly," said Philip. "Now you know the whole story."

Spanky shifted to a new tack. "But why didn't you go to Hogwarts?"

Philip's face colored as he handed Spanky a drink with a paper umbrella in it. He sipped his own, with evident relish, before answering. "My Mum felt she had more to teach me than I could learn at that stuffy old place. Besides, questions would have been asked, and the answers would have embarrassed Sir Lionel. Since we relied on his support..."

"But this is absurd," cried Spanky, wincing from the flavor of the cocktail Philip had handed him. "I've been in Sir Lionel's confidence for over twenty years. I would have... Did you say he was your father?"

Philip stretched out in a chaise longue, nursing his drink thoughtfully while Spanky stood over him, glowering.

When he could stand it no longer, Spanky demanded, "What's happened to him, then?"

"No one knows, do they?" said Philip. "Hadn't you heard that he was missing? Some confidant you are."

"Missing!" Spanky snorted. "Since when?"

"Since Halloween at least. When the local wizarding families arrived for the annual ball in his grand gallery, they found the doors wide open and no one at home. There were no signs of struggle and nothing was missing...except Dad, of course." The man's repulsive lips twisted at the corners as he said this, as if he was fighting to suppress a smile. "The village magistrate officially declared him dead at the end of the year. What a shock that no one told you..."

"And I suppose you were Sir Lionel's sole heir," Spanky muttered, setting his dry glass on the bar with a brief shudder. His insides had gone ice-cold at the thought of his friend and mentor missing, perhaps in danger...perhaps dead...

Those narrow shoulders lifted in a shrug. "You didn't expect him to leave it all to you, did you? Well, I hate to say it, but it came at a good time for me. I have debts. This place is worth a good bit. Sad as it is to break it up so, I've had no choice but to sell it to a developer. I can afford to keep just this one little wing, but it will be enough."

"Whose are all the cars, then?" Spanky gestured around the corner of the house.

Fuzzy-lip gave him a slow look, then said, "You can't expect me to sit on all this wealth and not enjoy myself a bit, eh? Can't you let a body enjoy a few comforts...?"

"What does a wizard need with so many cars?"

The narrow face colored again, more deeply than before. "I'll beg you to stay out of my business. Unless, that is, you'd care to find out what's happening to my house-elves..."

"Sir Lionel's house-elves," Spanky corrected, his voice husky with controlled emotion.

"What you will," said his host, holding up his glass. Spanky pointed his wand at it and it refilled. He added firewhisky to his own glass and threw away the paper umbrella. "We're running low on servants, anyway. The little pilferers can't have run away, so I'm at a loss. What do you think?"

"Maybe a shalynx moved indoors after you started tearing up the gardens," Spanky suggested.

"A what? I haven't heard..."

"One of those Hogwarts lessons your Mum didn't think you needed," Spanky said heavily. "Picture a panther, practically invisible, always blends into the scenery around it. Handy for controlling pests like gnomes and doxies, but once driven indoors, they can develop a taste for house-elves."

"I suppose that would explain the bloody tea-towel that turned up in the pantry this morning," said Philip, rolling his eyes. "How does one go about catching a what's-it..."

"Shalynx. One doesn't. One leaves the back door open and hopes that it leaves on its own, before it finishes off one's servants."

Philip looked exasperated. "Some help you are. Feel free to walk the grounds, anyway. Perhaps you'll see a lot that you like. There are some that have a nice view overlooking the village..."

"Actually, I need you to tell me everything you know about Sir Lionel's disappearance. I should have been informed sooner. There might still be something I can do..."

"I'm entirely at your disposal," said Philip, attempting (but failing) to meet Spanky's eyes with a smile that held equal parts sincerity and irony. "But since I've already told you everything I know, perhaps you'd do better to interrogate the elves, the neighbors, the magistrate, and so forth. Besides, I reckon there's another reason behind your visit."

"Can you direct me to the Himalayan Gardens and Preserve? I believe they've been added to the grounds since my last visit."

"It has been a while, hasn't it?" Philip said, his smile reverting to its natural sneer. "Well, I'm afraid Sir Lionel's little piece of heaven has been bulldozed. Beastly mountain kept having avalanches every other day. I couldn't afford to keep clearing up the snow. If I didn't know better, I would suspect it was a wowtain..."

"Pardon?"

Philip's eyes twinkled maliciously. "Didn't you hear about that at Hogwarts? Dirty great monster, the wowtain - mythical, of course - uses natural camouflage to disguise itself as a mountain. Frightfully ticklish, though..."

A house-elf approached, burdened with a tray full of fresh fruit and warm muffins. It must have weighed as much as the elf and half over again. "How considerate," said Spanky, plucking an apple off the tray. "Would you happen to have any records of the plants and animals that were removed from the wow-... er, mountain? Or perhaps a garden ledger?"

"Well, let's see..." Philip gazed thoughtfully in two different directions, while reaching toward a bunch of bananas. As he tugged at one of the bananas, Spanky yelled: "Look out!"

The banana turned out to be the long, curved, yellow claw of a giant troll that had somehow escaped everyone's notice while trailing around behind the heavily-laden house-elf. When Philip tugged on that claw, the troll screamed and pulled its claw free of the bunch of bananas.

"Good heavens," Philip cried breathlessly, tumbling out of his chaise longue while the troll pounded its chest in fury. "What is that?"

"It's a fruit troll," said Spanky. "I should have thought of it when you mentioned camouflage... It explains what's been eating your house-elves..."

The present house-elf gazed up at the fruit troll, frozen in fear as the huge beast looked around stupidly. It had teeth the size and color of Bartlett pears, eyes like persimmons, a nose like a drawstring bag full of apples, and cauliflower ears that stuck out at the sides of its canteloupe-shaped head. Its body was shaped like a gigantic pineapple with aubergine-like arms and legs and hairy red skin, like that of a poison sumac berry. It was terrifying to behold; and yet the beast had moved so slowly and matched its gait so well to that of its prey that, somehow, no one had noticed it until now.

The elf gave a tiny squeak of fear. The troll looked down and saw it standing between its horny, hairy feet.

"Move," Spanky urged the house-elf in a sharp whisper.

The house-elf did better than that. As a massive, banana-clawed hand lunged toward it, the house-elf disapparated with a loud pop! The fruit troll roared with anger, turning toward Philip, who was crawling crabwise toward the pool.

"Stun it!" Philip begged.

"It's skin is too thick," Spanky rasped, dancing around behind the blundering monstrosity with both wands drawn. "Nothing I do will affect it. You have to aim for its eyes..."

"I can't do magic!" Philip screamed, his face turning blotchy. "That's why you never saw me at school, all right? I'm a Squib!"

The troll took a step closer to Philip, who was about to find out whether trolls could swim. The scrawny squib threw himself into the pool and began stroking toward the far end.

"This is what comes of razing your father's orchard," Spanky remarked drily as he side-stepped down the edge of the pool opposite the furious fruit troll. "I don't know if you're worth saving, after what you've done to Sir Lionel's..."

The fruit troll reached across the water and made a grab toward Philip, who dove out of the way just in time.

Spanky decided he had to act fast, not so much because he cared about Philip's wellbeing as that he needed more information to help him find Sir Lionel. "Accio broom," he said, pointing his right wand toward the side of the house where he had left his broomstick. Meanwhile, he gave his left wand a series of flicks, causing bottles from the bar to smash themselves against the fruit-troll's head and shoulders.

The massive creature found this only mildly annoying, until a spark from Spanky's wand ignited the alcohol. Then it reared back from the pool, screaming and beating at its flaming skin.

"Levicorpus," Spanky remarked as he mounted his broom. Philip rose sputtering out of the pool, left ankle first, and Spanky caught him around the waist as he zoomed over the pool, cleared the fruit-troll's flailing arms, and landed on the roof of the manor house.

"That's going to cost a fortune to clear up," Philip mourned as the troll rampaged around the pool, smashing barstools and tossing the entire bar into the water.

"What's going to cost you even more," said Spanky, "is setting Sir Lionel's property back the way it was - once I find him."

Philip darted a seething look at him. "Can't you leave well enough..."

He finished the sentence with Spanky's fist in his mouth.

"If I find out you had anything to do with this," said Spanky, shaking Philip by the front of his dripping robe, "I'll give you back to the troll."

"Pick on somebody who can do magic," Philip spat. "Think you're so entitled, don't you, you double-barreled, wand-waving..."

"I know your father," said Spanky, shaking him harder. "He wouldn't just walk away from his responsibilities. He wouldn't kill himself, he wouldn't let himself be taken without a fight... and he wouldn't approve of what you're doing with this place. Now let's you and me pay a visit to that magistrate..."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR NO. 151 +++

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

SURVEY: What gift from way back in Chapter 141 should Merlin use next? (A) Karl's survival satchel. (B) Jaan's point-the-way-out wand. (C) Some of Anatoly's defensive tattoos. (D) Another dose of Endora's Liquid Skill. (E) Harvey's inflatable wall. (F) Subito's Turbo Gum. (G) Boccachiusa's Peekaboo Kit.

CONTEST: Submit a clean, family-friendly "knock, knock" joke that has something to do with magic.

144. Jude the Insecure

Contest winner: Quercitron

The Out of This World Outfitter was certainly out of the way. It lay three turns out of Diagon Alley, in a dingy cul-de-sac lined with boarded-up shops and littered with broken roof tiles. It was situated below street level, its entrance hidden behind a gruesome, never-melting ice sculpture depicting the beheading of the Gang of One, the hydra who had terrorized the neighborhood during the Lawlessness that had followed the Third Goblin Rebellion. Its entrance was marked by three signs, falsely identifying it as Ermengarde's Weevil Shop, claiming to be closed for structural repairs, and warning trespassers to beware of Acromantulas.

To get through the outer door, one had to knock three times using one's elbow, because anyone touching the dragon's head knocker risked getting a faceful of forgetfulness powder, and anyone whose knuckles touched the door would fall through a trapdoor into a ticklefish-infested pool guarded by a dwarf named Jeremy, who would only let them out if they guessed his name or paid him a sickle.

Through the first door was a small courtyard with a fountain and a second door on the other side. One had to throw one's wand and any other weapons, magical or otherwise, into the fountain before approaching the second door, which would then open automatically to a short corridor and a final door. It was here that one needed to speak the password of the day, which was only known to the proprietor and those he had personally invited.

How did one arrange to be invited to the Out of This World Outfitter? One wrote to its owner, requesting specific items and offering to purchase them on his terms. One sent the letter by owl to the Post Office in Diagon Alley, care of General Delivery. There a postal elf named Gandy would check it for curses, poisons, and anything else liable to cause loud noises or sudden movements. Gandy would also check the name of the letter's author against the Who's Who of Wizarding Britain, to make sure they were on the up-and-up. If time permitted, Gandy might even recopy the letter onto juju-proof parchment. Then he would deliver the letter through the only pneumatic tube currently operating in the wizarding world. Return letters inviting the would-be customer to visit the shop would be sent back the same way.

Only one customer could visit the shop at a time. This was to ensure that its proprietor could never be outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and overpowered.

A lone man in a dark cloak approached the first door today. His hood was raised, hiding his face in shadow. He knocked on the first door with his elbow: knock, knock - pause - knock. The door opened itself, and the dark man passed through. He took two wands, a long silver knife, a blowgun, and a slingshot from his pockets. Together with a waxed box full of darts (for the blow gun) and a string bag of return-to-me stones, he placed these weapons in a boat he had made from the front page of the Daily Prophet and set it afloat in the fountain. Magically, the boat steered clear of the jets of water and stayed dry, upright, and afloat.

The second door opened as soon as the boat floated out of the cloaked wizard's reach. He entered the small corridor, waited for the door behind him to close, and whispered one word to the door ahead: "Rincewind." He didn't know what it meant, but according to the letter he had received, that would be today's password into the Out of This World Outfitter. Sure enough, the third door opened.

Surprisingly, the shop within was brightly lit, spacious, and comfortably full of browsing customers. The cloaked wizard understood that these wizards and witches were under an enchantment, condemned to wander the Outfitter's shop eternally, as punishment for demanding an insultingly low price for something the proprietor had procured for them. Customers had friends and families. Friends and families had feelings about their magically imprisoned loved ones. And so, obviously, the wizard who now approached the dark man - the wizard with two wildly swiveling, electric-blue eyes and an ill-concealed stash of spare wands tucked up his sleeve - had enemies. It isn't paranoia, the new visitor thought, when everyone really is out to get you.

"Julian Cribble," said the proprietor, bowing politely but not offering to shake hands, as his magical eyes rolled in opposite directions to check the perimeter. "Some call me Jude the Insecure," he added. "Those who want to stay on my good side call me Mr. Cribble."

"What do your friends call you?"

"I'll let you know if we ever become friends," said Cribble,

"Dandelionel Ethelbaldricsson," said the cloaked wizard, lowering his hood. "Everyone calls me Spanky Spankison."

Cribble looked relieved to recognize his customer's face. He nodded discreetly to someone behind Spanky, who realized that the customer behind him hadn't simply been checking out a display of armor-piercing spitballs. She pulled her hand out of her pocket and moved away. Spanky mentally kicked himself for not noticing that the witch had a wand in her pocket.

"Would you like to see the item I found for you before settling?"

"That would be ideal," Spanky admitted.

"Tough luck," snapped Cribble. "By crossing that threshold, you agreed to the terms in my letter. Payment first. Then you can leave with your item. Or...you can look around the shop..."

"How can I be sure it's the right item?" Spanky snapped back.

"It's a risk we both take," said Cribble.

"Where's the risk for you?"

Cribble's right eye studied the ceiling while the left continued its slow 180-degree search pattern. "The price may be high," he said, "but so was the cost to me. Procuring this kind of item isn't easy and it isn't cheap. I can only make a living if I get plenty of repeat customers."

After a long, tense silence, Spanky said, "I'll accept that."

"Good," said Cribble. "It's getting crowded in here. Shall we step into my office for the weighing of the gold and whatnot?"

On the other side of a narrow, curtained doorway was a wedge-shaped sliver of a room with a pneumatic tube terminal on the wall. Light and heat came from a charcoal brazier on a raised stand. A wide standing desk, littered with parchment and broken quills, occupied most of the space. The only other furniture was a life-sized stone figure of a burly goblin with a broad, vicious grin. It stood with one hand extended, palm upward. As the curtain fell shut behind them, the sound of the customers' shuffling feet and occasional, tortured moans was cut off, and all that remained was the crackle of fire in the brazier and the purring of a plump cat curled up asleep in a painting above the desk. Spanky could suddenly hear his own breathing. Ashamed of the noise, he tried to breathe more slowly and calmly.

"Place your gold on the goblin's hand," Cribble said, his soft voice magnified by the strange acoustics of the room.

"I'm willing to offer you a bit more than your asking price," Spanky said, pulling two bulging bags of coins out of his pocket.

Cribble's eyes suddenly focused front and center - which had an oddly unsettling effect. "What for?" he asked suspiciously.

"Information about an item you sold to one Madam Solfeggia d'Arezzo."

"Which..." Cribble bit his tongue. "I mean, I do not discuss my dealings with other customers."

"So..."

"Nor can I confirm or deny that Madam Solfeggia has ever been my customer," the shopkeeper added hastily.

Spanky flashed a smile that, during his career in the Rogue Magic Bureau, had made several suspects suddenly decide to confess. "You've just confirmed it. Otherwise, how would you know that she prefers to be addressed by her first name?"

"If there is a law against what I do," Cribble said furiously, "show it to me. Otherwise pay up, take your item, and go. Exact coin only."

"You were about to ask which item I want to know about," said Spanky. "That tells me you have sold more than one item to Madam Solfeggia. I'll be interested in that, too, but for right now the one I'm curious about was a live creature."

"You don't want me to decide that this is bargaining," Cribble warned. "I prefer to do my bargaining at a safe distance."

"I'm offering you more money," said Spanky. "How is this bargaining? What I'm asking for will cost you nothing.

"This isn't what we agreed upon," said Cribble, his eyes rotating out of control. "People who go back on agreements make me feel unsafe. Bad things happen to people when I feel unsafe."

"You're quite safe with me," said Spanky, opening the front of his cloak to show the badge on the front of his shirt. "I work for the R.M.B. I am sworn to protect..."

"It was just a ruddy nightingale," Cribble shouted, hurting Spanky's ears. He quickly turned to face the painting of the cat, though Spanky felt sure his eyes were still aimed at him through the back of Cribble's head.

"You may have meant to send her a nightingale," Spanky said gently, "but something else was delivered."

"Mistakes do happen now and again," Cribble growled.

"This was a rather big one," said Spanky. "I'm interested to know how you managed to confuse a yak with a nightingale. Did you even look inside the box? Wouldn't you have wondered why it came in such a big..."

"Don't be foolish," Cribble snorted. "I saw the bird myself. Its gilded cage might have stood on this desk. No yak could..."

"Did anyone else handle the cage between here and the Post Office?"

"My sister Branwen handles all my owl-order business. She would have personally seen the cage to the owlery, like every other item she handles."

"Was she the one out there?"

Cribble nodded. "You won't want to interrogate her, though. Fellow named Rabastan Lestrange gave her a rough time when she was a girl. Since then, she refuses to speak to men. Hates the lot of us, she does. Only says 'Yes' and 'No' to me, and I'm her twin brother."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is it possible the direction for the nightingale was accidentally switched with that of another package?"

"Not once the owls are in the air, it isn't," said Cribble defiantly. "I'm telling you, nobody but my sister touched the cage between this shop and the owlery."

"Do you know this by asking her a specific, yes-or-no question?"

"I know my sister, Mr. Spankison. She keeps clean books. Besides, we haven't sold a yak in years."

"You have sold one, then? To whom? Could he have intercepted an owl?"

"Slow down," Cribble said, wincing as Spanky's voice hurt his hears. "I'll look it up in the register." He swept some rolls of parchment off the desktop, then pulled the cat painting away from the wall. Behind it was a shelf crammed with heavy, leather bound books. The wizard tugged one of them out onto the desk and began paging through it. Once opened, it covered the whole surface of the desk.

"Here it is," said Cribble after some minutes' search. "One Tibetan yak, sold to the Himalayan Gardens and Preserve of Mangeford."

Spanky laughed. "Excuse me? Where was that again?"

"Mangeford," said Cribble. "To the attention of Sir Lionel..."

"Niblet!" Spanky suddenly had to bend over and put his head between his knees.

"Always the usual suspects, isn't it?" Cribble drawled, enjoying Spanky's reaction with a wobbly-eyed sneer.

Spanky shook his head, upside-down, and grunted, "On the contrary."

"Well, now you know, you can fly off and question him. But first, settle up."

"Wait," said Spanky, pulling himself upright. "What about the other items you have sent to Madam Solfeggia? Was there ever a custom-made knife?"

"Certainly," said Jude the Insecure. "Only we didn't send it to her. The lady came here and picked it up in person."

Spanky had thought he was past being astonished, but now his jaw dropped. "Alone?"

"How else?"

"Was there any music playing around her, somehow?"

"Not as I recall."

"And she was in human form?"

Cribble frowned thoughtfully. "Most of my customers are."

Spanky shook his head again. "That wasn't Madam Solfeggia."

"Maybe the lady sent a lady friend in her place?"

"I'll warrant that she never bought - would never have bought - such a knife."

"Well, my letter could only have been opened by her. And only by reading that letter could she have learned the password to come here. If she didn't want the knife, she must at least know someone was angling to get it, and with her name engraved on it too."

"One way or another, someone must have intercepted your letter. Can you describe the woman who presented herself to you as Madam Solfeggia?"

Cribble's magical eyes turned figures of eight while he thought. After a minute he gave a brief description that exactly matched Madam Solfeggia's piano-playing parlor maid, Fifi.

"All right, that's enough to go on with," said Spanky. He had received as much disturbing news as he could digest in one day. He dropped one sack of coins in the stone goblin's outstretched hand. The statue came to life and popped the sack into its mouth. A moment later, coins could be heard rolling and sliding down a sloping surface, a sound that went on for a long time and only gradually faded away.

"These are for your extra kindness," Spanky added, handing the goblin the other sack of coins. "Now, if it isn't any trouble, I'll take my luggage and my leave."

"It's waiting for you in the courtyard," said Jude the Insecure, patting the goblin's head while it spat out two empty purses. "If I know the world it came from, it will have collected all your personal items from the fountain, and you needn't worry about carrying it, because it will follow you on its own feet."

"Wonderful stuff, that sapient pearwood," Spanky said wistfully.

"If you still think so after you've had it for a while," said Cribble as he held the curtain open and the sound of the clientele's mournful shuffling returned, "perhaps we can do business again."

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Cribble," said Spanky, but he did not look pleased. Nor, as he patted the top of the wooden trunk that stood by the fountain - stood, mind you, on a hundred tiny feet of its own - did he feel especially pleased. Once again, his faith in one of his oldest friends was shaken.

What story would Sir Lionel tell him this time? Would he believe it?

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #146 +++

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

SURVEY: Which of the gifts Merlin received in TMQ #141 should he use next?

CONTEST: Describe the talisman Signor Maledicto stole from the goblins? (See TMQ #141 for more info.)

[Originally posted 10/27/08]

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]