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?
Showing posts with label Minimilian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minimilian. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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!
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!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
121. Madrigal Unchained
Contest winner: greyniffler
Concept contributed by ralucacoldea
Spanky’s tale continued...
“While Mulligan the house-elf kept my wand pointed at me, Ilona went behind him and untied the hagmaid and Zichri Goode. She also checked the condition of the surviving RMB agents, but everyone was unconscious, perhaps in an enchanted sleep.
“I kept the house-elf’s attention on myself by staring him in the eye. I had learned this trick during one of my earliest RMB cases, something to do with a gargoyle guarding a doorway, a gargoyle that could move and attack you, except it was frozen as long as you looked it in the eye. I held Mulligan’s eyes in an unblinking stare; he could not look away. After a minute of this he started to shake slightly, either from fury or from weakness. I have seen people faint after a minute of my basilisk stare.
“When Ilona was done, I told Mulligan I wanted a plate of grapes and cheese cubes. He took advantage of being freed from my gaze, and used my wand to conjure up an enormous spiderweb to keep me pinned to my chaise longue. Then he went away to fetch the food.
“Ilona knelt beside me and started to pick through the strands of spiderweb. She still hadn’t said anything since Minimilian had gone off to play golf. I finally broke the silence.
“’What is this artifact, then?’ I asked. ‘The one your old boyfriend keeps going on about.’
“Ilona glared at me for a moment, then snorted. ‘Boyfriend indeed,’ she said. ‘We are distant cousins. Our families have never agreed. We knew each other at school, where I learned never to turn my back on him.’
“’Sweet school-days,’ I said bitterly. ‘What memories you must share!’
“’He was Professor Lukavij’s star pupil,’ she said, ‘because of his interest in dark magic. It wasn’t an altogether scholarly interest, either. He used his knowledge to fill the school with curse-traps, poisoned pajamas, and cruel illusions. He encouraged the ghosts and poltergeists to reach for higher levels of disruptiveness, and kept letting dangerous plants, creatures, and magical objects fall in the way of unsuspecting students and even teachers. No one blamed him because he seemed so sweet and cheerful and honest, and because his family gave a lot of money to the school.’
“’I know the type,’ I growled, glancing with a pang at the corpse of Sid Shmedly.
“Ilona nodded and went on: ‘Minimilian takes pleasure in other people’s discomfort. Everything he did was meant to cause either pain or chaos. He broke up friendships. He gave people bad dreams. His pranks caused injuries that, in one or two cases, led students to withdraw from the school. The teachers complained, but Lukavij did nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Merlin’s friends from Durmstrang hadn’t become lost in Gringotts because of misleading directions Minimilian gave them – though they weren’t in school at the same time.’
“’This is all very interesting,’ I said, struggling against the cobweb but unable to move my arms. ‘But...’
“’The artifact,’ Ilona said, still picking at the web. ‘Yes. I was getting to that. His family and my family both have claims to the castle where you lived during your Moldovan Worm Control assignment. The castle used to belong to a great nobleman who served the king of Moldova, Stephen the Great and Holy, Stephen the Third. This nobleman was also a wizard, and an ancestor of both Minimilian and me. Mind you, this was in the fifteenth century, so that makes us very distant relatives...’
“’Point taken,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
“’Who are you talking to?’ squeaked a gravelly, and heavily accented, voice at my elbow. I flinched, painfully hitting the edge of a silver tray with my elbow. Grapes and cheese cubes flew up in the air and rained down on my head, becoming stuck in the spiderweb, which (fortunately) helped to conceal the progress Ilona had made in unpicking it.
“’Excellent,’ I said evasively. ‘Now, since I’m all tied up here, perhaps you would be so kind as to feed me.’
“For the next little while, the house-elf picked grapes and cheese cubes out of the cobweb and stuck them in my mouth with his dirty little fingers. I chewed silently, listening to Ilona’s story which, I knew, only I could hear.
“’This wizard nobleman, whose name was Matthias, had a signet ring that he kept hidden somewhere in his castle. It was the type of wing used to make an impression in wafer seals, the kind that nobility and royalty used to sign important documents. Matthias had ensorcelled his seal so that anyone receiving a letter from him must obey what the letter said.’
“’A ring of power,’ I said around a mouthful of cheese.
“The house-elf raised his eyebrows inquiringly. I told him I needed something to drink, and he went away to fetch it.
“Hurriedly resuming her unpicking of the spiderweb, Ilona continued: ‘A ring of royal power, yes, and it was meant for King Stephen. But Matthias kept it for himself, and used it to incite conflicts among his rivals, and to build up his own power. But in the year 1499, Matthias was thrown from his horse and died. His twin sons did not agree as to which of them should inherit. In the resulting battle the castle was burned, the ring lost, and the family divided down to this day. Minimilian thinks the ring belongs to him, and if he gets it, he could use it to turn countless people into his willing or unwilling slaves.’
“’He also thinks you have it,’ I added. ‘He thinks I helped you steal it from “his” castle.’
“Ilona’s face darkened with anger. ‘The ring has a spell on it. Only the rightful owner can touch it. It cannot be stolen, only given freely. However, the castle ruin also has a spell on it; no descendant of Count Matthias the Second can enter it uninvited. The second count’s brother, who considered himself Count Stephen, saw to that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are descended from...’
“’Count Matthias II,’ Ilona said. ‘Minimilian descends from Stephen, Matthias’s twin brother.’
“’And Matthias was the rightful owner of the ring?’
“’His father had given it to him shortly before he died. But somehow it was returned to its hiding place, which only the father knew. The story told in my family is that Matthias II tied it up in a handkerchief and gave it back to his father for safekeeping. No one knew where Matthias I hid it after that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are the rightful heir.’
“Ilona nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Count Stephen was the older of the twins. The family’s castle, lands, and title rightfully belonged to him. He wanted the signet ring as well, but Matthias II did not want him to have it. Matthias was no better; he wanted the title and wealth and power for himself, as well as the ring to help him get more. But Stephen wouldn’t let him come within a mile of the castle, where the ring was hidden. They negotiated and argued and published pamphlets of propaganda, and finally they met in battle. Both brothers were killed, the castle was burned down, and the surviving forces ended up in a stalemate.
“’Finally a truce was called, the king intervened, and the family property was divided down the middle. Stephen’s children inherited all the family’s holdings on the east side of the Prut River, Matthias’s on the west. The king was probably wise to do this, though no one liked him for it at the time. In practice, it meant that nobody could use the ring to develop absolute power. Stephen’s heirs were left with a ruined castle containing a magic ring they could not touch. If Minimilian has killed enough of his cousins, he may be the last surviving heir to the castle. Meanwhile Matthias II’s heirs, including me, are entitled to the ring but can’t enter the castle to get it. I am the oldest child in my generation of the family, so...’
“I choked. By now Mulligan had returned, and was trying to drown me by pouring a jug of wine down my throat. Some of it went down the wrong pipe, so I went into a fit of coughing and turned my face away. The wine continued to pour from the jug and ran down my shirt. Mulligan laughed, shaking the last drops out of the jug. His laughter turned into a growl when, controlling my cough reflex enough to croak out one word, I said: ‘More.’ The house-elf narrowed his eyes at me, then took the jug and stomped off.
“’So you took advantage of me,’ I said hoarsely.
“’I didn’t even know you lived in the castle until you invited me there,’ Ilona said vehemently. ‘I already loved you by then. Finding myself inside the forbidden castle, finding the ring, were like a sign from heaven. It was meant to happen.’
“’And yet you kept this secret from me,’ I said, trying to speak louder but only getting hoarser in the process. I had another fit of coughing.
“In spite of my obvious anger at her, Ilona kept picking me free of the spiderweb. ‘I gave the ring to my Uncle Radu, who is the oldest living heir of Matthias II. It will probably come back to me some day. Until then, I didn’t want to concern you with it. I intend never to use it.’
“’So you couldn’t give the ring to this Minimilian fellow, even if you wanted to,’ I said, more calmly.
“’Nor is it that I would if I could,’ she agreed. ‘My aim, and that of my uncle and most other members of my family, is to keep this ring from being used by people like Minimilian. And I think anyone who uses it would, in time, become like Minimilian. So we hide it, and do not use it.’
“’Your uncle could write to this midget and tell him to let us go,’ I suggested.
“’I would never ask it of him,’ said Ilona. ‘It would be better for us both to die.’
“’And what about these people?’ I asked, gesturing toward the slumbering survivors of Silver’s party, as well as Goode and the hagmaid. ‘Are you prepared to pay with their lives, as well?’
“Ilona looked like she wanted to slap me. ‘Are you saying I should...?’
“’No,’ I said, catching her hands in mine — which, I now noticed, were at last free of the giant cobweb. ‘I am only asking if you are prepared.’
“Ilona swallowed heavily. Before she could respond, the house-elf reappeared, waddling under the weight of a wooden keg over half the length of his body. His eyes grew to the size of saucers when he saw that my hands were free. He dropped the keg and reached for my wand, which he had tucked into the string he wore as a belt. Before he could reach it, Ilona tackled him. The house-elf shrieked and went down, hitting his head on the wine cask and instantly going limp.
“Using my wand, Ilona blasted the remaining spiderwebs off me. Then I took the wand and began to revive my people, pausing sadly over the bodies of the dead. I tied up the house-elf, overcoming my fury just enough to dress the wound on his head. Then I sat down again and waited for my reviving spells to take full effect. Zichri Goode was already starting to wake up.
“Before my reinforcements were ready, however, Minimilian returned — unexpectedly soon, for someone who was supposed to be playing eighteen holes. He limped into view from behind a box hedge, his robes torn and burnt, dragging his own bag, which was missing several clubs.
“’Dashed inconvenient,’ he said, cheerfully enough. ‘The dragon under the sixth green ate my caddy. Tried to eat me, too. Seems to have lost a few teeth in the...’ He dropped the bag as the scene before him registered in his mind. ‘I say,’ he said, but he didn’t get a chance to say what he was saying before I stunned him with my wand.
“’Your tonic seems to have worn off,’ I said as Minimilian fell back into the box hedge. The branches caught him and held him upright. I resumed trying to revive my friends, who had started falling asleep again. I wondered just what this little angel-devil-man had done to them. A potion? A spell?
“As Ilona checked under Zichri Goode’s eyelids, and I pinched the leg of a first-year RMB agent who responded by kicking in his sleep, the tables turned again. I paused in the middle of a particularly vicious pinch when I felt the tip of a wand at the back of my neck.
“’No,’ said a familiar, sweet voice. ‘I am not out of my tonic. I am always careful to reapply the Mr. Shmedly’s nectar when it wears off. Drop your wand, raise your hands, and turn around.’
“I did as I was told. But when I turned to face Minimilian, he looked worried for the first time.
“’Why are you smiling?’ he demanded.
“’Look behind you,’ I said.
“’I’m not as stupid as...’ Minimilian froze in mid-sentence.
“The hagmaid had risen to her feet behind him, and was now stroking his beautiful, golden hair. With each touch of her hand, the serenity of the little man’s face turned more and more into horror.
“’Pretty little baby,’ the hagmaid cooed. ‘Scrumptious little baby! Madrigal is so hungry! Madrigal is on a low-child diet but...oh, if only...just this once...’
“I plucked the wand out of Minimilian’s trembling hands and said, ‘Go for it, Madrigal. No one here will tell.’
“Minimilian screamed and ran, tumbling over his own golf sack and rolling to his feet again. The last time I saw him, he was running flat-out toward the sixth hole of his golf course, dragon or no, with Madrigal the hagmaid pounding along behind him.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #123 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: What character, concept, or storyline from a past edition of The Magic Quill should be revived or revisited?
CONTEST: Describe a magical weather occurrence.
[Originally posted 7/1/07]
Concept contributed by ralucacoldea
Spanky’s tale continued...
“While Mulligan the house-elf kept my wand pointed at me, Ilona went behind him and untied the hagmaid and Zichri Goode. She also checked the condition of the surviving RMB agents, but everyone was unconscious, perhaps in an enchanted sleep.
“I kept the house-elf’s attention on myself by staring him in the eye. I had learned this trick during one of my earliest RMB cases, something to do with a gargoyle guarding a doorway, a gargoyle that could move and attack you, except it was frozen as long as you looked it in the eye. I held Mulligan’s eyes in an unblinking stare; he could not look away. After a minute of this he started to shake slightly, either from fury or from weakness. I have seen people faint after a minute of my basilisk stare.
“When Ilona was done, I told Mulligan I wanted a plate of grapes and cheese cubes. He took advantage of being freed from my gaze, and used my wand to conjure up an enormous spiderweb to keep me pinned to my chaise longue. Then he went away to fetch the food.
“Ilona knelt beside me and started to pick through the strands of spiderweb. She still hadn’t said anything since Minimilian had gone off to play golf. I finally broke the silence.
“’What is this artifact, then?’ I asked. ‘The one your old boyfriend keeps going on about.’
“Ilona glared at me for a moment, then snorted. ‘Boyfriend indeed,’ she said. ‘We are distant cousins. Our families have never agreed. We knew each other at school, where I learned never to turn my back on him.’
“’Sweet school-days,’ I said bitterly. ‘What memories you must share!’
“’He was Professor Lukavij’s star pupil,’ she said, ‘because of his interest in dark magic. It wasn’t an altogether scholarly interest, either. He used his knowledge to fill the school with curse-traps, poisoned pajamas, and cruel illusions. He encouraged the ghosts and poltergeists to reach for higher levels of disruptiveness, and kept letting dangerous plants, creatures, and magical objects fall in the way of unsuspecting students and even teachers. No one blamed him because he seemed so sweet and cheerful and honest, and because his family gave a lot of money to the school.’
“’I know the type,’ I growled, glancing with a pang at the corpse of Sid Shmedly.
“Ilona nodded and went on: ‘Minimilian takes pleasure in other people’s discomfort. Everything he did was meant to cause either pain or chaos. He broke up friendships. He gave people bad dreams. His pranks caused injuries that, in one or two cases, led students to withdraw from the school. The teachers complained, but Lukavij did nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Merlin’s friends from Durmstrang hadn’t become lost in Gringotts because of misleading directions Minimilian gave them – though they weren’t in school at the same time.’
“’This is all very interesting,’ I said, struggling against the cobweb but unable to move my arms. ‘But...’
“’The artifact,’ Ilona said, still picking at the web. ‘Yes. I was getting to that. His family and my family both have claims to the castle where you lived during your Moldovan Worm Control assignment. The castle used to belong to a great nobleman who served the king of Moldova, Stephen the Great and Holy, Stephen the Third. This nobleman was also a wizard, and an ancestor of both Minimilian and me. Mind you, this was in the fifteenth century, so that makes us very distant relatives...’
“’Point taken,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
“’Who are you talking to?’ squeaked a gravelly, and heavily accented, voice at my elbow. I flinched, painfully hitting the edge of a silver tray with my elbow. Grapes and cheese cubes flew up in the air and rained down on my head, becoming stuck in the spiderweb, which (fortunately) helped to conceal the progress Ilona had made in unpicking it.
“’Excellent,’ I said evasively. ‘Now, since I’m all tied up here, perhaps you would be so kind as to feed me.’
“For the next little while, the house-elf picked grapes and cheese cubes out of the cobweb and stuck them in my mouth with his dirty little fingers. I chewed silently, listening to Ilona’s story which, I knew, only I could hear.
“’This wizard nobleman, whose name was Matthias, had a signet ring that he kept hidden somewhere in his castle. It was the type of wing used to make an impression in wafer seals, the kind that nobility and royalty used to sign important documents. Matthias had ensorcelled his seal so that anyone receiving a letter from him must obey what the letter said.’
“’A ring of power,’ I said around a mouthful of cheese.
“The house-elf raised his eyebrows inquiringly. I told him I needed something to drink, and he went away to fetch it.
“Hurriedly resuming her unpicking of the spiderweb, Ilona continued: ‘A ring of royal power, yes, and it was meant for King Stephen. But Matthias kept it for himself, and used it to incite conflicts among his rivals, and to build up his own power. But in the year 1499, Matthias was thrown from his horse and died. His twin sons did not agree as to which of them should inherit. In the resulting battle the castle was burned, the ring lost, and the family divided down to this day. Minimilian thinks the ring belongs to him, and if he gets it, he could use it to turn countless people into his willing or unwilling slaves.’
“’He also thinks you have it,’ I added. ‘He thinks I helped you steal it from “his” castle.’
“Ilona’s face darkened with anger. ‘The ring has a spell on it. Only the rightful owner can touch it. It cannot be stolen, only given freely. However, the castle ruin also has a spell on it; no descendant of Count Matthias the Second can enter it uninvited. The second count’s brother, who considered himself Count Stephen, saw to that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are descended from...’
“’Count Matthias II,’ Ilona said. ‘Minimilian descends from Stephen, Matthias’s twin brother.’
“’And Matthias was the rightful owner of the ring?’
“’His father had given it to him shortly before he died. But somehow it was returned to its hiding place, which only the father knew. The story told in my family is that Matthias II tied it up in a handkerchief and gave it back to his father for safekeeping. No one knew where Matthias I hid it after that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are the rightful heir.’
“Ilona nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Count Stephen was the older of the twins. The family’s castle, lands, and title rightfully belonged to him. He wanted the signet ring as well, but Matthias II did not want him to have it. Matthias was no better; he wanted the title and wealth and power for himself, as well as the ring to help him get more. But Stephen wouldn’t let him come within a mile of the castle, where the ring was hidden. They negotiated and argued and published pamphlets of propaganda, and finally they met in battle. Both brothers were killed, the castle was burned down, and the surviving forces ended up in a stalemate.
“’Finally a truce was called, the king intervened, and the family property was divided down the middle. Stephen’s children inherited all the family’s holdings on the east side of the Prut River, Matthias’s on the west. The king was probably wise to do this, though no one liked him for it at the time. In practice, it meant that nobody could use the ring to develop absolute power. Stephen’s heirs were left with a ruined castle containing a magic ring they could not touch. If Minimilian has killed enough of his cousins, he may be the last surviving heir to the castle. Meanwhile Matthias II’s heirs, including me, are entitled to the ring but can’t enter the castle to get it. I am the oldest child in my generation of the family, so...’
“I choked. By now Mulligan had returned, and was trying to drown me by pouring a jug of wine down my throat. Some of it went down the wrong pipe, so I went into a fit of coughing and turned my face away. The wine continued to pour from the jug and ran down my shirt. Mulligan laughed, shaking the last drops out of the jug. His laughter turned into a growl when, controlling my cough reflex enough to croak out one word, I said: ‘More.’ The house-elf narrowed his eyes at me, then took the jug and stomped off.
“’So you took advantage of me,’ I said hoarsely.
“’I didn’t even know you lived in the castle until you invited me there,’ Ilona said vehemently. ‘I already loved you by then. Finding myself inside the forbidden castle, finding the ring, were like a sign from heaven. It was meant to happen.’
“’And yet you kept this secret from me,’ I said, trying to speak louder but only getting hoarser in the process. I had another fit of coughing.
“In spite of my obvious anger at her, Ilona kept picking me free of the spiderweb. ‘I gave the ring to my Uncle Radu, who is the oldest living heir of Matthias II. It will probably come back to me some day. Until then, I didn’t want to concern you with it. I intend never to use it.’
“’So you couldn’t give the ring to this Minimilian fellow, even if you wanted to,’ I said, more calmly.
“’Nor is it that I would if I could,’ she agreed. ‘My aim, and that of my uncle and most other members of my family, is to keep this ring from being used by people like Minimilian. And I think anyone who uses it would, in time, become like Minimilian. So we hide it, and do not use it.’
“’Your uncle could write to this midget and tell him to let us go,’ I suggested.
“’I would never ask it of him,’ said Ilona. ‘It would be better for us both to die.’
“’And what about these people?’ I asked, gesturing toward the slumbering survivors of Silver’s party, as well as Goode and the hagmaid. ‘Are you prepared to pay with their lives, as well?’
“Ilona looked like she wanted to slap me. ‘Are you saying I should...?’
“’No,’ I said, catching her hands in mine — which, I now noticed, were at last free of the giant cobweb. ‘I am only asking if you are prepared.’
“Ilona swallowed heavily. Before she could respond, the house-elf reappeared, waddling under the weight of a wooden keg over half the length of his body. His eyes grew to the size of saucers when he saw that my hands were free. He dropped the keg and reached for my wand, which he had tucked into the string he wore as a belt. Before he could reach it, Ilona tackled him. The house-elf shrieked and went down, hitting his head on the wine cask and instantly going limp.
“Using my wand, Ilona blasted the remaining spiderwebs off me. Then I took the wand and began to revive my people, pausing sadly over the bodies of the dead. I tied up the house-elf, overcoming my fury just enough to dress the wound on his head. Then I sat down again and waited for my reviving spells to take full effect. Zichri Goode was already starting to wake up.
“Before my reinforcements were ready, however, Minimilian returned — unexpectedly soon, for someone who was supposed to be playing eighteen holes. He limped into view from behind a box hedge, his robes torn and burnt, dragging his own bag, which was missing several clubs.
“’Dashed inconvenient,’ he said, cheerfully enough. ‘The dragon under the sixth green ate my caddy. Tried to eat me, too. Seems to have lost a few teeth in the...’ He dropped the bag as the scene before him registered in his mind. ‘I say,’ he said, but he didn’t get a chance to say what he was saying before I stunned him with my wand.
“’Your tonic seems to have worn off,’ I said as Minimilian fell back into the box hedge. The branches caught him and held him upright. I resumed trying to revive my friends, who had started falling asleep again. I wondered just what this little angel-devil-man had done to them. A potion? A spell?
“As Ilona checked under Zichri Goode’s eyelids, and I pinched the leg of a first-year RMB agent who responded by kicking in his sleep, the tables turned again. I paused in the middle of a particularly vicious pinch when I felt the tip of a wand at the back of my neck.
“’No,’ said a familiar, sweet voice. ‘I am not out of my tonic. I am always careful to reapply the Mr. Shmedly’s nectar when it wears off. Drop your wand, raise your hands, and turn around.’
“I did as I was told. But when I turned to face Minimilian, he looked worried for the first time.
“’Why are you smiling?’ he demanded.
“’Look behind you,’ I said.
“’I’m not as stupid as...’ Minimilian froze in mid-sentence.
“The hagmaid had risen to her feet behind him, and was now stroking his beautiful, golden hair. With each touch of her hand, the serenity of the little man’s face turned more and more into horror.
“’Pretty little baby,’ the hagmaid cooed. ‘Scrumptious little baby! Madrigal is so hungry! Madrigal is on a low-child diet but...oh, if only...just this once...’
“I plucked the wand out of Minimilian’s trembling hands and said, ‘Go for it, Madrigal. No one here will tell.’
“Minimilian screamed and ran, tumbling over his own golf sack and rolling to his feet again. The last time I saw him, he was running flat-out toward the sixth hole of his golf course, dragon or no, with Madrigal the hagmaid pounding along behind him.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #123 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: What character, concept, or storyline from a past edition of The Magic Quill should be revived or revisited?
CONTEST: Describe a magical weather occurrence.
[Originally posted 7/1/07]
120. The Safety Pin
Contest winner: i6uuaq
Spanky’s tale continued...
“Ilona’s stunner spell had no effect on Iulianescu, except that he shivered, and a frown passed briefly over his boyish face. ‘How interesting,’ he said, already smiling again. ‘It seems that ghost has followed us from Madam Hunsicker’s parlor. Which means it isn’t a ghost after all. I know hauntings, and long-range travel isn’t in the picture at all.’
“My wife stood by, shaking with fury and helplessness, as this miniature angel of death teased me with the tip of his wand. As if sensing her presence—though that was impossible—he turned his head to one side and spoke to the air: ‘I’m not as stupid as I look, my dear. I took the precaution of reapplying the late Mr. Shmedly’s nectar before I returned here. I knew it would be wise to have its protection against hostile spells restored, after that blow from the teapot wiped it out.
“Ilona set her jaw and began walking toward the bag of golf clubs that the house-elves had put down in order to tie up Zichri Goode and the hagmaid. But she stopped short when Minimilian added: ‘I also put on a little talisman I should have remembered to wear in the first place.’ He fondled a diamond tie-pin that I hadn’t noticed before. It was shaped like a golf ball on a silver tee. ‘I call it my Safety Pin. As long as it is fully charged with magic, you can hurl any number of teapots at me, but they will all bounce off. It’s stronger than a shield charm, and it requires no effort on my part, except an occasional round of golf to bring it back up to full strength.’
“‘I was wondering about your interest in golf,’ I said, not bothering to disguise me contempt for a wizard who cared for any sport besides Quidditch. ‘I take it the pin was made for some rich but accident-prone golfer.’
“‘It was made for me,’ Minimilian said, with a distinctness that was as close as he ever came to snarling. ‘Rich, yes; accident prone, no. Merely prudent. Any exercise activity will do, but I particularly enjoy the gentlemen’s sport. And unless you give me what I want, you may soon see the kind of golf course a rich, prudent wizard builds for his own exercise. It begins only a few steps from here. I should warn you, though: it has hazards one usually does not find on the links. Without a Safety Pin of your own, I should be very concerned for your well-being.’
“I felt paralyzed. I was out of options. The cavalry apparently wasn’t going to ride over the hill this time. And the worst part of my helplessness was that I honestly didn’t know anything about this artifact Minimilian was looking for. For a moment he studied the expressions on my face with an infuriatingly calm look on his own. Then he said something that made all the fear I had felt until then seem like a mere flutter in the stomach.
“‘I am beginning to form a new theory,’ he said, with a beaming smile of ecstatic discovery. ‘And, oh, yes! It holds together very well, so far. First I asked myself if this mysterious, movable haunting might not be connected with you. And who would haunt you except your one true love, who was banished into oblivion in front of the entire wizarding world! Second, I supposed to myself that she had found some way to communicate with you, and only you. This would explain this feeling I have had, throughout our time together, that someone I cannot see is looking at you over my shoulder. Or rather, that you are signaling her. This would also explain how, like a ghost, she might be able to bash my head in with a teapot, or tie up my servants, without being seen or felt. And how, unlike a ghost, she could travel by Portkey. How do you like my theory, Mr. Spankison?’
“‘It’s very amusing,’ I said, praying for the ability to look composed.
“‘But I haven’t reached the punchline yet,’ Minimilian grinned. ‘You see, I remember your beloved very well. In fact, I have known her longer than you have. I knew her even before she worked for the Romanian Ministry of Magic. It’s a very long story, so I will spare you the sordid details; but now it occurs to me that she may have plundered my family’s property while the two of you were patrolling the same border. She may even have used your friendship as an opportunity to enter my castle, even though it had long been sealed against unwelcome visitors of her family. I should have guessed all this before, but until just now I had never imagined Agent Ilonera was still at large.
“‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’ he said triumphantly. ‘She used you to steal my birthright. And whether or not you know anything about it, she is still using you to keep me from it.’
“He paused to enjoy whatever show my face was putting on as these very disturbing ideas sank in. I didn’t want to think any of it was true, but it did fit together. I looked pleadingly at Ilona, but she stood like a puppet hanging on its strings, her face disclosing nothing.
“Finally Minimilian chirped, ‘I have a new bargain for you, Mr. Spankison.’
“‘I would rather see that golf course of yours,’ I said bitterly.
“‘Maybe later,’ he said smoothly. ‘First, however, I propose that Agent Ilonera tell you, and you tell me, precisely what she has done with...you know what. Once I have it in my hands again, I will send you to join your foolish friend Sid in the only rest a cuckold can ever know. I imagine that will be a death sentence for Agent Ilonera, too; since you seem to be her only life-line to the world of the living. Perhaps you will take comfort in that thought as you prepare for the end.’
“‘If that’s your idea of a bargain,’ I began to say.
“‘I haven’t gotten to the important part yet,’ Minimilian added quickly. ‘If you hold up your side of the bargain, I will let your friends live—though, perhaps, with some memory modifications. If, however, you refuse my terms, I will let you watch them die before I kill you. And it won’t end quickly for any of you. Is that better?’
“Suddenly I broke through my fear into pure, searing-hot anger. It took all my strength to control the shaking of my limbs and voice as I said, ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
“‘All right,’ Minimilian said. ‘I want to play a round of golf, anyway. Divot will come with me, but I will leave you Mulligan to make sure you are comfortable and provided with any refreshment you desire. That gives you a few hours to confer with your immaterial beloved.’
“He then handed my wand to the uglier of the two house-elves, muttering to it, ‘Don’t use it any more than you have to. I don’t want any mess like the last time.’ After one last look to make sure all of his prisoners, living and dead, were where they belonged, he followed the other, golf-bag-bearing house-elf out of sight.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #122 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: It feels like time for Spanky to take a break in storytelling. Whose story should we hear about next? (A) Joe Albuquerque. (B) Sadie. (C) Harvey. (D) Endora. (E) Merlin. (F) You’re wrong! Spanky should keep going!
CONTEST: What non-magical creature may be completely resistant to magic?
[Originally posted 6/25/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“Ilona’s stunner spell had no effect on Iulianescu, except that he shivered, and a frown passed briefly over his boyish face. ‘How interesting,’ he said, already smiling again. ‘It seems that ghost has followed us from Madam Hunsicker’s parlor. Which means it isn’t a ghost after all. I know hauntings, and long-range travel isn’t in the picture at all.’
“My wife stood by, shaking with fury and helplessness, as this miniature angel of death teased me with the tip of his wand. As if sensing her presence—though that was impossible—he turned his head to one side and spoke to the air: ‘I’m not as stupid as I look, my dear. I took the precaution of reapplying the late Mr. Shmedly’s nectar before I returned here. I knew it would be wise to have its protection against hostile spells restored, after that blow from the teapot wiped it out.
“Ilona set her jaw and began walking toward the bag of golf clubs that the house-elves had put down in order to tie up Zichri Goode and the hagmaid. But she stopped short when Minimilian added: ‘I also put on a little talisman I should have remembered to wear in the first place.’ He fondled a diamond tie-pin that I hadn’t noticed before. It was shaped like a golf ball on a silver tee. ‘I call it my Safety Pin. As long as it is fully charged with magic, you can hurl any number of teapots at me, but they will all bounce off. It’s stronger than a shield charm, and it requires no effort on my part, except an occasional round of golf to bring it back up to full strength.’
“‘I was wondering about your interest in golf,’ I said, not bothering to disguise me contempt for a wizard who cared for any sport besides Quidditch. ‘I take it the pin was made for some rich but accident-prone golfer.’
“‘It was made for me,’ Minimilian said, with a distinctness that was as close as he ever came to snarling. ‘Rich, yes; accident prone, no. Merely prudent. Any exercise activity will do, but I particularly enjoy the gentlemen’s sport. And unless you give me what I want, you may soon see the kind of golf course a rich, prudent wizard builds for his own exercise. It begins only a few steps from here. I should warn you, though: it has hazards one usually does not find on the links. Without a Safety Pin of your own, I should be very concerned for your well-being.’
“I felt paralyzed. I was out of options. The cavalry apparently wasn’t going to ride over the hill this time. And the worst part of my helplessness was that I honestly didn’t know anything about this artifact Minimilian was looking for. For a moment he studied the expressions on my face with an infuriatingly calm look on his own. Then he said something that made all the fear I had felt until then seem like a mere flutter in the stomach.
“‘I am beginning to form a new theory,’ he said, with a beaming smile of ecstatic discovery. ‘And, oh, yes! It holds together very well, so far. First I asked myself if this mysterious, movable haunting might not be connected with you. And who would haunt you except your one true love, who was banished into oblivion in front of the entire wizarding world! Second, I supposed to myself that she had found some way to communicate with you, and only you. This would explain this feeling I have had, throughout our time together, that someone I cannot see is looking at you over my shoulder. Or rather, that you are signaling her. This would also explain how, like a ghost, she might be able to bash my head in with a teapot, or tie up my servants, without being seen or felt. And how, unlike a ghost, she could travel by Portkey. How do you like my theory, Mr. Spankison?’
“‘It’s very amusing,’ I said, praying for the ability to look composed.
“‘But I haven’t reached the punchline yet,’ Minimilian grinned. ‘You see, I remember your beloved very well. In fact, I have known her longer than you have. I knew her even before she worked for the Romanian Ministry of Magic. It’s a very long story, so I will spare you the sordid details; but now it occurs to me that she may have plundered my family’s property while the two of you were patrolling the same border. She may even have used your friendship as an opportunity to enter my castle, even though it had long been sealed against unwelcome visitors of her family. I should have guessed all this before, but until just now I had never imagined Agent Ilonera was still at large.
“‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’ he said triumphantly. ‘She used you to steal my birthright. And whether or not you know anything about it, she is still using you to keep me from it.’
“He paused to enjoy whatever show my face was putting on as these very disturbing ideas sank in. I didn’t want to think any of it was true, but it did fit together. I looked pleadingly at Ilona, but she stood like a puppet hanging on its strings, her face disclosing nothing.
“Finally Minimilian chirped, ‘I have a new bargain for you, Mr. Spankison.’
“‘I would rather see that golf course of yours,’ I said bitterly.
“‘Maybe later,’ he said smoothly. ‘First, however, I propose that Agent Ilonera tell you, and you tell me, precisely what she has done with...you know what. Once I have it in my hands again, I will send you to join your foolish friend Sid in the only rest a cuckold can ever know. I imagine that will be a death sentence for Agent Ilonera, too; since you seem to be her only life-line to the world of the living. Perhaps you will take comfort in that thought as you prepare for the end.’
“‘If that’s your idea of a bargain,’ I began to say.
“‘I haven’t gotten to the important part yet,’ Minimilian added quickly. ‘If you hold up your side of the bargain, I will let your friends live—though, perhaps, with some memory modifications. If, however, you refuse my terms, I will let you watch them die before I kill you. And it won’t end quickly for any of you. Is that better?’
“Suddenly I broke through my fear into pure, searing-hot anger. It took all my strength to control the shaking of my limbs and voice as I said, ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
“‘All right,’ Minimilian said. ‘I want to play a round of golf, anyway. Divot will come with me, but I will leave you Mulligan to make sure you are comfortable and provided with any refreshment you desire. That gives you a few hours to confer with your immaterial beloved.’
“He then handed my wand to the uglier of the two house-elves, muttering to it, ‘Don’t use it any more than you have to. I don’t want any mess like the last time.’ After one last look to make sure all of his prisoners, living and dead, were where they belonged, he followed the other, golf-bag-bearing house-elf out of sight.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #122 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: It feels like time for Spanky to take a break in storytelling. Whose story should we hear about next? (A) Joe Albuquerque. (B) Sadie. (C) Harvey. (D) Endora. (E) Merlin. (F) You’re wrong! Spanky should keep going!
CONTEST: What non-magical creature may be completely resistant to magic?
[Originally posted 6/25/07]
119. Farewell to Shmedly
Contest winners: Linda Carrig and dele
After supper at the Sidwells’ spotless -- and conspicuously odorless -- attic flat, Spanky settled into the sofa next to Ilona and patted his belly. “Excellent supper, Endora,” he said. “Beautifully seasoned.”
“It wasn’t too bland?” Endora said, anxiously glancing over her shoulder at the crockery and pewter as it washed and dried itself and arranged itself in the kitchen dresser. “I often err on the side of blandness. I can be a wee bit oversensitive to subtleties in flavor.”
“No, I think you compensated quite well,” Spanky assured her. Ilona seconded this with a nod of her head.
“Me, I can’t taste anything these days,” Sadie admitted before biting the tip off a cigar and spitting it with practiced precision out the open window on the other side of the room. Somewhere in the street below, a woman screamed, a dog barked, a car horn bellowed, and something made of glass shattered loudly. Unconcerned, Sadie continued moistening the end of her cigar.
Joe Albuquerque, disguised as an off-duty guard from Buckingham Palace, had flinched slightly as the spit wad of paper and tobacco sailed over his shoulder. He stroked the beaver hat on his knee, fussy and slightly offended. “Watch it,” he snapped. “I go on duty in three hours, and this all has to look just so.”
Sadie regarded him coldly, lit her cigar with a spark from her wand, then blew a smoke ring at him.
“It feels weird to be sitting here without our masks and such on,” Merlin said loudly as he squeezed into the same armchair as Endora. “Almost doesn’t seem right to be getting together anywhere but the Hog’s Head. It has the only atmosphere for the tales we tell each other.”
“I’ll tell you what atmosphere it has,” said Endora, rolling her eyes. “It stinks!”
“Too true,” said Sadie from out of a thick cloud of smoke.
Endora looked pleadingly at her husband. He sighed and waved his wand toward Sadie. The smoke began to flow toward the open window. Joe coughed meaningfully, so Merlin added another wand-twirl and the trail of smoke made a sharp turn in front of him and went up the chimney instead.
“Well, there’s always next time,” said Merlin. “After all, we do want to stop at the Hog’s Head now and then, in case Harvey tries to get in touch. But maybe, for now, we can turn down the lamps a bit, help set the mood for Spanky’s story.”
“I would rather have them on,” Ilona said, shivering. She seemed about to add: Or talk about something else.
“Very well,” said Spanky. He sipped from a smoking glass of amber liquid, set it down, and continued his tale...
“I heard the voice of the little, angel-faced man from behind me, saying: ‘Easily lured, easily caught.’ But I didn’t turn to face him. I held my hands up to show that I was unarmed, but I kept my eyes fixed on Shmedly. He seemed to shrink under my gaze. I said, ‘I ought to have realized you two were connected. You both have the same tendency to shrug off perfectly sound curses.’
“A bit of color came back into Shmedly’s face then, and he almost grinned. ‘We have your precious patron, Sir Whatsit, to thank for that.’
“I felt a cold thrust of pain at these words, as if Shmedly had run me through with an ice dagger. Just then, when I was almost sure Sir Lionel had betrayed me, may have been the lowest moment in my life – or at least, since locating Ilona. But Shmedly, seeing the look on my face, couldn’t resist twisting the dagger. As the short wizard behind me checked my robes for wands and other weapons, Shmedly gleefully added: ‘What? Didn’t he tell you about the magic-proof orchid he illegally bred in his hothouse? Hmmm? Reeks like a charnel house, but when you rub its nectar on your skin, you become invincible to any kind of magical attack. Only stops working if you break the skin...’
“‘Oh, you fool!’ angel-face sighed sorrowfully, though Shmedly flinched as if he had been screamed at. ‘You poor, dear, fool! Will you never learn when to stop?’
“I was overjoyed. I could have kissed Shmedly just then, as I turned to face my captor, hands clasped behind my head. ‘How did you get around the smell, then?’ I asked him, noting the trickle of blood that had tried on angel-face’s neck after Ilona had hit him with the teapot.
“‘I cannot answer your questions,’ angel-face said regretfully. ‘We only have time for you to answer mine. If you weren’t so secretive, if you had boasted to your colleagues here’ — he indicated the unconscious and dead RMB agents laid out around us on chaises longues — ‘I might have gotten the information without having to trouble you.’
“‘I see,’ said I. ‘This is all my fault, then.’ I darted a glance, out the corner of my eye, to see the ugly house-elves tying up Zichri Goode and the hagmaiden who had come with us. Ilona stood a few paces behind angel-face, aiming her wand at him. Its tip trembled so much that I reckoned any spell she tried might hit me just as easily as him. I stared at her over the top of angel-face’s head, trying to send confidence at her, though I still had no idea why this little wizard frightened her so much.
“‘Have a seat,’ said angel-face. With a flick of his wand he blasted me backward onto a chaise lounge. Straps attached to the seat’s frame wound themselves firmly around my legs. One of the house-elves brought forth a small, cushioned stool, and my captor sat down beside me, beaming benevolently at me, like a kindly doctor visiting a favored patient. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Minimilian Iulianescu. We have never met, though you were a guest in my home for several months.’
“I told him that I doubted it. He smiled even more sweetly and asked, ‘Do you not remember an old castle on the Prut River?’
“‘That ruin?’ I snorted. ‘It hasn’t been anyone’s home for centuries.’
“‘It was your home, albeit a borrowed one,’ Iulianescu pointed out. ‘And it belongs to me, by right of Salic primogeniture. It and everything in it.’ He said this last bit very slowly, to emphasize it.
“‘There was nothing in it except what I brought with me,’ I said. ‘And I took that away with me as well, so I don’t see why it interests you.’
“‘Don’t you?’ purred the little man. ‘I have read your record. You were, even then, one of the RMB’s cleverest and most resourceful agents.’
“‘That’s news to me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t join the RMB until after that assignment.’
“Iulianescu sighed and rolled his eyes. I stole a momentary glance at Ilona, who looked more undecided than ever. I was with her by now; I wanted to know what this wizard wanted. I could worry about escaping later. ‘So you say,’ the little man said with an air of infinite patience. ‘There’s really no need to keep up the charade, now that I’ve read the whole case file. Yes, you were in the pay of the Dragon Squad, Southeast Zone. Yes, you were on loan to the Moldovan Bureau of Worm Control. Yes, your assignment was ostensibly to patrol the Romanian border for signs of dragon-egg smuggling. But it was only a cover for your actual work for the Rogue Magic Bureau — pray, don’t act surprised!’
“The madman laughed sweetly at the look on my face, and raved on: ‘The case file wasn’t even particularly difficult to steal, and you’re mentioned on fully two-thirds of its pages. So let’s dispense with the subterfuge. The RMB has been hoping to pick up a little artifact that my great-great-great-great-grandfather secreted in the castle walls. They want it almost as much as I do. To my certain knowledge, it was still there when you began your border patrol, and it was not there when I went looking for it shortly after you left. The RMB hasn’t given up looking for it. So I can only conclude that you found it, moved it elsewhere, and prudently refrained from mentioning it in your report. I have hoped all these years that you would seek me out and strike a bargain with me...’
“‘Well, for starters,’ I snarled at him, ‘I haven’t the first clue who you are. And for finishers, I wasn’t undercover then; I didn’t work for the RMB; and I don’t know what artifact...’
“‘I’m sorry,’ Iulianescu said in a gentle voice that somehow chilled me to the marrow. ‘I should have mentioned that I don’t suffer fools. For example: Avada Kedavra!’
“He said the Killing Curse in a conversational tone, with his wand pointed casually toward Sid Shmedly, who was still holding the tip of his knife against Silver Conkling’s throat. A hideous, green bolt of light hit Shmedly in the chest before he could even scream. He crumpled, landing half on top of Silver, and pulling her chair over sideways. Silver made a horrible, wet gasping noise, twitched several times, and lay still. I was so stunned by this sudden and heartless murder, both of my oldest enemy and one of my friends, that I forgot to breathe. A minute later, the little monster gave me a gentle slap and brought me round, gasping, staring at him in horror.
“He continued speaking exactly as before. ‘I might have understood your concealment before this, but now that I have revealed what I know, there is no sense in continuing to pretend. It is simply foolish. You are not a fool, are you, Agent Spankison?’
“I swallowed something that might have been either a scream or a sob, and said, ‘No.’
“‘Good,’ said Iulianescu, shining on me with a smile so bright that it should have given me sunburn, though it made me feel colder than ever. Over his shoulder I saw Ilona square her hips and aim her wand at him. Bless her, just as I was falling apart, her hand became steady.
“‘Are you ready to make a deal, then?’ Iulianescu asked, while Ilona looked at me questioningly.
“I looked into her eyes and said: ‘Yes.’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #121 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s stay at Minimilian’s castle was previously mentioned in TMQ #11. He clearly doesn’t remember working for the RMB at that time. So which of the following is true? (A) Spanky was so deep undercover that he himself didn’t know he was working for the RMB. (B) Someone tampered with the records to make it look like Spanky was working for the RMB. (C) Spanky had nothing to do with the RMB, but he was mentioned in their report because his investigation crossed paths with theirs. (D) Spanky is mentioned in the RMB reports because they were considering whether to hire him. (E) The RMB believed Spanky was their informant, but it was actually Ilona (who, you may recall, was stationed just across the river).
CONTEST: What sort of “artifact” might lie hidden in a wizard’s castle for seven generations, and what magical power might it have?
[Originally posted 5/29/07]
After supper at the Sidwells’ spotless -- and conspicuously odorless -- attic flat, Spanky settled into the sofa next to Ilona and patted his belly. “Excellent supper, Endora,” he said. “Beautifully seasoned.”
“It wasn’t too bland?” Endora said, anxiously glancing over her shoulder at the crockery and pewter as it washed and dried itself and arranged itself in the kitchen dresser. “I often err on the side of blandness. I can be a wee bit oversensitive to subtleties in flavor.”
“No, I think you compensated quite well,” Spanky assured her. Ilona seconded this with a nod of her head.
“Me, I can’t taste anything these days,” Sadie admitted before biting the tip off a cigar and spitting it with practiced precision out the open window on the other side of the room. Somewhere in the street below, a woman screamed, a dog barked, a car horn bellowed, and something made of glass shattered loudly. Unconcerned, Sadie continued moistening the end of her cigar.
Joe Albuquerque, disguised as an off-duty guard from Buckingham Palace, had flinched slightly as the spit wad of paper and tobacco sailed over his shoulder. He stroked the beaver hat on his knee, fussy and slightly offended. “Watch it,” he snapped. “I go on duty in three hours, and this all has to look just so.”
Sadie regarded him coldly, lit her cigar with a spark from her wand, then blew a smoke ring at him.
“It feels weird to be sitting here without our masks and such on,” Merlin said loudly as he squeezed into the same armchair as Endora. “Almost doesn’t seem right to be getting together anywhere but the Hog’s Head. It has the only atmosphere for the tales we tell each other.”
“I’ll tell you what atmosphere it has,” said Endora, rolling her eyes. “It stinks!”
“Too true,” said Sadie from out of a thick cloud of smoke.
Endora looked pleadingly at her husband. He sighed and waved his wand toward Sadie. The smoke began to flow toward the open window. Joe coughed meaningfully, so Merlin added another wand-twirl and the trail of smoke made a sharp turn in front of him and went up the chimney instead.
“Well, there’s always next time,” said Merlin. “After all, we do want to stop at the Hog’s Head now and then, in case Harvey tries to get in touch. But maybe, for now, we can turn down the lamps a bit, help set the mood for Spanky’s story.”
“I would rather have them on,” Ilona said, shivering. She seemed about to add: Or talk about something else.
“Very well,” said Spanky. He sipped from a smoking glass of amber liquid, set it down, and continued his tale...
“I heard the voice of the little, angel-faced man from behind me, saying: ‘Easily lured, easily caught.’ But I didn’t turn to face him. I held my hands up to show that I was unarmed, but I kept my eyes fixed on Shmedly. He seemed to shrink under my gaze. I said, ‘I ought to have realized you two were connected. You both have the same tendency to shrug off perfectly sound curses.’
“A bit of color came back into Shmedly’s face then, and he almost grinned. ‘We have your precious patron, Sir Whatsit, to thank for that.’
“I felt a cold thrust of pain at these words, as if Shmedly had run me through with an ice dagger. Just then, when I was almost sure Sir Lionel had betrayed me, may have been the lowest moment in my life – or at least, since locating Ilona. But Shmedly, seeing the look on my face, couldn’t resist twisting the dagger. As the short wizard behind me checked my robes for wands and other weapons, Shmedly gleefully added: ‘What? Didn’t he tell you about the magic-proof orchid he illegally bred in his hothouse? Hmmm? Reeks like a charnel house, but when you rub its nectar on your skin, you become invincible to any kind of magical attack. Only stops working if you break the skin...’
“‘Oh, you fool!’ angel-face sighed sorrowfully, though Shmedly flinched as if he had been screamed at. ‘You poor, dear, fool! Will you never learn when to stop?’
“I was overjoyed. I could have kissed Shmedly just then, as I turned to face my captor, hands clasped behind my head. ‘How did you get around the smell, then?’ I asked him, noting the trickle of blood that had tried on angel-face’s neck after Ilona had hit him with the teapot.
“‘I cannot answer your questions,’ angel-face said regretfully. ‘We only have time for you to answer mine. If you weren’t so secretive, if you had boasted to your colleagues here’ — he indicated the unconscious and dead RMB agents laid out around us on chaises longues — ‘I might have gotten the information without having to trouble you.’
“‘I see,’ said I. ‘This is all my fault, then.’ I darted a glance, out the corner of my eye, to see the ugly house-elves tying up Zichri Goode and the hagmaiden who had come with us. Ilona stood a few paces behind angel-face, aiming her wand at him. Its tip trembled so much that I reckoned any spell she tried might hit me just as easily as him. I stared at her over the top of angel-face’s head, trying to send confidence at her, though I still had no idea why this little wizard frightened her so much.
“‘Have a seat,’ said angel-face. With a flick of his wand he blasted me backward onto a chaise lounge. Straps attached to the seat’s frame wound themselves firmly around my legs. One of the house-elves brought forth a small, cushioned stool, and my captor sat down beside me, beaming benevolently at me, like a kindly doctor visiting a favored patient. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Minimilian Iulianescu. We have never met, though you were a guest in my home for several months.’
“I told him that I doubted it. He smiled even more sweetly and asked, ‘Do you not remember an old castle on the Prut River?’
“‘That ruin?’ I snorted. ‘It hasn’t been anyone’s home for centuries.’
“‘It was your home, albeit a borrowed one,’ Iulianescu pointed out. ‘And it belongs to me, by right of Salic primogeniture. It and everything in it.’ He said this last bit very slowly, to emphasize it.
“‘There was nothing in it except what I brought with me,’ I said. ‘And I took that away with me as well, so I don’t see why it interests you.’
“‘Don’t you?’ purred the little man. ‘I have read your record. You were, even then, one of the RMB’s cleverest and most resourceful agents.’
“‘That’s news to me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t join the RMB until after that assignment.’
“Iulianescu sighed and rolled his eyes. I stole a momentary glance at Ilona, who looked more undecided than ever. I was with her by now; I wanted to know what this wizard wanted. I could worry about escaping later. ‘So you say,’ the little man said with an air of infinite patience. ‘There’s really no need to keep up the charade, now that I’ve read the whole case file. Yes, you were in the pay of the Dragon Squad, Southeast Zone. Yes, you were on loan to the Moldovan Bureau of Worm Control. Yes, your assignment was ostensibly to patrol the Romanian border for signs of dragon-egg smuggling. But it was only a cover for your actual work for the Rogue Magic Bureau — pray, don’t act surprised!’
“The madman laughed sweetly at the look on my face, and raved on: ‘The case file wasn’t even particularly difficult to steal, and you’re mentioned on fully two-thirds of its pages. So let’s dispense with the subterfuge. The RMB has been hoping to pick up a little artifact that my great-great-great-great-grandfather secreted in the castle walls. They want it almost as much as I do. To my certain knowledge, it was still there when you began your border patrol, and it was not there when I went looking for it shortly after you left. The RMB hasn’t given up looking for it. So I can only conclude that you found it, moved it elsewhere, and prudently refrained from mentioning it in your report. I have hoped all these years that you would seek me out and strike a bargain with me...’
“‘Well, for starters,’ I snarled at him, ‘I haven’t the first clue who you are. And for finishers, I wasn’t undercover then; I didn’t work for the RMB; and I don’t know what artifact...’
“‘I’m sorry,’ Iulianescu said in a gentle voice that somehow chilled me to the marrow. ‘I should have mentioned that I don’t suffer fools. For example: Avada Kedavra!’
“He said the Killing Curse in a conversational tone, with his wand pointed casually toward Sid Shmedly, who was still holding the tip of his knife against Silver Conkling’s throat. A hideous, green bolt of light hit Shmedly in the chest before he could even scream. He crumpled, landing half on top of Silver, and pulling her chair over sideways. Silver made a horrible, wet gasping noise, twitched several times, and lay still. I was so stunned by this sudden and heartless murder, both of my oldest enemy and one of my friends, that I forgot to breathe. A minute later, the little monster gave me a gentle slap and brought me round, gasping, staring at him in horror.
“He continued speaking exactly as before. ‘I might have understood your concealment before this, but now that I have revealed what I know, there is no sense in continuing to pretend. It is simply foolish. You are not a fool, are you, Agent Spankison?’
“I swallowed something that might have been either a scream or a sob, and said, ‘No.’
“‘Good,’ said Iulianescu, shining on me with a smile so bright that it should have given me sunburn, though it made me feel colder than ever. Over his shoulder I saw Ilona square her hips and aim her wand at him. Bless her, just as I was falling apart, her hand became steady.
“‘Are you ready to make a deal, then?’ Iulianescu asked, while Ilona looked at me questioningly.
“I looked into her eyes and said: ‘Yes.’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #121 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s stay at Minimilian’s castle was previously mentioned in TMQ #11. He clearly doesn’t remember working for the RMB at that time. So which of the following is true? (A) Spanky was so deep undercover that he himself didn’t know he was working for the RMB. (B) Someone tampered with the records to make it look like Spanky was working for the RMB. (C) Spanky had nothing to do with the RMB, but he was mentioned in their report because his investigation crossed paths with theirs. (D) Spanky is mentioned in the RMB reports because they were considering whether to hire him. (E) The RMB believed Spanky was their informant, but it was actually Ilona (who, you may recall, was stationed just across the river).
CONTEST: What sort of “artifact” might lie hidden in a wizard’s castle for seven generations, and what magical power might it have?
[Originally posted 5/29/07]
117. Two If By Biscuit
Contest winner: greyniffler
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
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