Contest winner: Quercitron
Mrs. Ahmed scouted ahead (by sticking her head through the outer door of Harvey's flat) and reported: "It's a jungle in there."
"That many of them?" Joe Albuquerque growled in his disguise as General Patton. "It won't take them long to wreck the place."
"No," said Mrs. Ahmed, her vague form flickering with irritation. "I meant, everything has been taken over by vines. Grape, by the look of it."
"Oh," said Joe, suspending his mental calculations about potential casualties on both sides. "That's a hippogriff of a different color. What about people? Did you see anything going on?"
The see-through lady shrugged. "Just one bloke, it looked like, pulling down vines and rifling through the cupboards."
The word was passed, and Harvey came forward. "Well?" he said.
"I think a frontal assault will do," said the general, pitching his whisper so it could be heard all the way down the hallway - the recently constructed hallway off the back of the lobby of the high-rise apartment building known as the Drains - the hallway where each door led to a different floor, so that stairs and elevators were no longer needed. The people at the back of the line, near the street door, could hear Joe Albuquerque's rasping voice as he announced: "People! Bear in mind that your job is not to be cursed for your country, but to curse some other poor wizard for his. On my signal...CHARGE!"
The door imploded into the flat. A monocled wizard with a frowning moustache, a walking-stick topped by a silver cat's head, and a silk ascot fashionably printed with an illusion of cascading water in motion, glanced up from his business with very little concern, then resumed pulling vines off the wall above the fireplace. As Mrs. Ahmed had reported, the walls, ceiling, floors, and furniture were nearly invisible under a carpet of Vitis Leprosa, except in areas where the ascot-wearing interloper had done his work - areas that looked bare and scarred. The vines kept going into a rather small sack that hovered in front of the wizard, holding its mouth wide open as he stuffed more and more vines into it; the sack never seemed to grow full.
All this Harvey took in as the wave of his supporters swept him toward the intruder. The monocled man seemed little concerned by the approaching mob. The reason for his unconcern became clear a moment later, when Harvey, Joe, and Spanky - all at the front of the line - tried to tackle the man, and missed.
After several frustrating passes, Harvey stood back and watched what was happening. Every time someone surged toward the monocled man from one side, he suddenly came out on the other side without seeming to pass through the middle, where the stranger continued calmly stealing the fruits of Harvey's long journey through time.
Harvey tried to call everyone off, then tugged on Joe's shoulder - just before the latter dived back into the assault line - and got him to bellow, "STAND DOWN!" Then he approached what he took to be the edge of the stranger's invisible bubble of invulnerability, and said: "A word with you, sir."
Monocle gave him a slow look with one lifted eyebrow, then nodded and offered his hand to Harvey. Harvey took it, and was suddenly in another place - a gentleman's study paneled in dark wood and crammed with trophies. Not stuffed bears and mounted fish; no, a different kind of trophy - shiny, complicated machines that gyred and gimbaled and hummed; potions that bubbled and frothed inside sealed jars; a clock with two pendula swinging at right angles, passing through the same point at the bottom of their swing, yet never touching each other; an incandescent dark-bulb standing next to a prism that refracted its plain, radiant darkness into an anti-rainbow of unimaginable hues; and standing on one small table, an autographed photo showing a portly, bearded man (somewhat similar to Hagrid), whose signature read: "To one character who never let me put one over him - all the best, Robbie Fischer."
"Who are you?" Harvey asked, feeling himself on thinner ice than ever.
"I am the Reality Sorcerer," said Monocle Man. "The Magistrate of the Laws of Nature. The Judge of the Intangible, the Jury of the Illogical, the Executioner of the Impossible. I am the Counter of Contradictions, the Midwife of the Inconceivable, the Spell-Checker of the Inexpressible . I am the Censor of the Ineffable and the Squeezer of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I am the Plumber of Paradoxes - you would be surprised how often they get stopped up. I am He Who Assays the Iron Content of Irony. I am He Who Checks the Thread Count of the Fabric of the Universe. I am the Warlock of Wisdom, the Sage Mage, the Popinjay of Punctiliousness, the Lifetime Honorary Recorder of the Islington 'Are You There, Moriarty' Society, and the Number One Supporter of Pride of Portree (annually since 1982). Those are merely my official titles, however. My real name is Robertus Magnus Carolus Johannes etc. etc. etc. de Quipthorne-Westbrookfieldstonehillcrestwoodsmillburyington the Sixth times Two to the Eighth Power, K.B.E., Ph.D., Order of Merlin, First Class. You may call me Bobs."
Harvey blinked. "Is that all?" he asked.
"Well," said Bobs, "My schoolfellows once voted me 'Most Likely to Become a Mystical Hermit,' and I am listed in the Who's Who of Wizardry in the Lower Thames Valley, but I don't like to boast."
"Well, I'm Mr. H. Harvey of the Harvey & Sons' Wall Magic Harveys. I would like to know what business..."
"Have a seat," Bobs interrupted, with the casual air of one not used to listening to others. He conjured up a tray crammed with cups, pots, spoons, a sugar bowl, a milk boat, and a plate of biscuits. "Coffee or tea?"
"Coffee, if you please. I was saying, what right have you..."
"Please forgive me," said Bobs, before dropping what looked like a couple of ice cubes into Harvey's coffee. "It's my house-elf's half-day off, so the pot has gone lukewarm. Hopefully these will help." Clink, clink.
"That's quite all right," Harvey lied. "But may I ask..."
"Milk?" the other man cut in. "Sugar? Perhaps a dash of Irish whisky?"
"None of the above, thank you. But perhaps you could tell me..."
"I hope you don't mind that the biscuits have flaxseed in them," said Bobs. "I find they aid my digestion. Do try your coffee before it gets cold again!"
Harvey, perplexed, sipped his coffee and found it piping hot. "But I don't understand," he said. "If it was lukewarm before you put ice in it..."
"Hot ice," said the Reality Sorcerer with an airy smugness. "When one is charged with stopping the magical world disrupting the Laws of the Universe, one confisc-... that is to say, one comes across some truly amazing things. I don't know what I would do without cold fire during the summer, for example. And this hot ice - so handy, melting in cold liquid, giving off heat as it does so - was invented by the same wizard. Pity I had to destroy him. If more people found out how to make these things, the laws of thermodynamics would be in jeopardy - and all life on this planet with it."
Harvey swallowed discreetly, then blurted out: "What business have you in my flat, and what gives you the right to tear down my vineyard?"
"I should think that would be perfectly obvious," said Bobs. "You have already risked enough with your foolish Draught of Merlin..."
"I was about to destroy every trace of it," Harvey snapped. "I understand the danger, and I have it well in hand."
"I am not interested in your silly potion," Bobs said, almost laughing (but not quite smiling). "It is this thousand-year grape that you planted at the far end of your round trip through time. I cannot allow you to make wine with it."
"What could happen?" Harvey cried. "Could it be worse than a time paradox?"
"As falling off a cliff is worse than stubbing your toe," Bobs assured him. "But you can hardly know what you are working with; nor can you formulate the Essence of Merlin on your own. Both potions belong to the lost art of Yves the Leper. So, if you do as you planned and destroy the Essence, and, if you turn over every twig, leaf, and berry of your cultivar for secure disposal and study, I may not have to destroy you."
"You forget where I've been - and when I've been," said Harvey. "I've learned a great deal in the matter of not being destroyed."
"Don't make this hard," said Bobs, with a pained expression. "I so hate to be forced to threaten large groups of relatively innocent people. Though, to be sure, I spotted one Miles O'Roughage back there, among your little army. One of these days I may be forced to come for him as well. It would be rather like killing two augureys with..."
"I have put a substantial investment on the line," said Harvey. "You can't just go around confiscating things on which so much depends. I must have some kind of compensation."
"Compensation!" the Sage Mage's monocle fogged up. His moustache bristled. "Don't you know who I am?"
"You made that quite clear," said Harvey. "So clear that I suspect you know what has gone into this project, and what depends on it. We are discussing a major portion of the wizarding economy - several large fortunes, the assets of some important businesses - besides the trials and travails of the people who have carried it this far. Did you know some of my people spent years escaping from Gringotts to prepare for this? And knowing as much as you seem to know of things, you must perceive the broken state of health - physical, mental, and magical health - in so many of my supporters..."
"All right!" groaned Robertus Magnus. "I shall restore full value. Merlin knows I can afford it, what with my formula to turn plastic poker chips into galleons. And when we return to your flat, you will find all your friends restored to their, shall we say, 'baseline' condition, mad though they may be in that natural state. Do you have a personal goblin at Gringotts? Very well, have him write to my goblin and they will settle the financial side of the deal. Spit and shake on it?"
And so a magical contract was sealed, and within a few hours Harvey and his party had taken over the entire Hog's Head. Mrs. Ahmed, once back to her fully visible form, had beaten everybody in Spanky's therapy group in an armwrestling tournament. Mr. O'Hare had lost his orange fuzz and looked glum and sheepish until Mrs. Yenta offered to dance with him. Rigel grew up quite suddenly into a disreputable-looking man of about 30, and was now slow-dancing with Sadie while Miles O'Roughage, Anatoly, and the illustrated wizard from Minsk looked on glumly. Siobhan was singing with the band, head thrown back and mouth open wide, while her father Niall wished (to no avail) that she weren't quite so tone-deaf. Mr. Surdo sat next to him, wincing, and trying to stuff napkins into his ears, while Mr. Sphaeris slouched over his firewhisky, not feeling like doing anything in particular. This made a striking contrast to Mrs. Sedulus, who had gone behind the bar (much to the innkeeper's annoyance) and was cleaning everything from the mugs to the floor with grim determination. "This place is disgusting!" she was frequently heard to say.
Among the happiest members of the party was Ilona Spankison, who beamed at her husband, her eyes brimming with tears, as he spell-sparred with Joe Albuquerque and Merlin, deftly defending himself with a wand in each hand. But no one watched these goings-on with greater satisfaction than Harvey, who sat between Ilona and Endora at the corner table, complacent with the success of his plan. As he had hoped, Robertus Magnus had paid off every knut that the Vitis Leprosa adventure had cost him and everyone else - going all the way back to Orion Olmandson's standing debt toward Merlin, whom he had retained to look after his son before their first Gringotts caper; to say nothing of the money he had invested in Spanky's education, channeled through his cousin Lionel Niblet, whom Spanky still believed to be his benefactor. And at last, Harvey was rid of all the receipts he had collected during his 3,000-year trek up and down the mountain of time, which had been reimbursed with interest.
In short, he was the wealthiest wizard in the world, though much of his wealth was already held in trust for the people who had helped him. Some day they would find out how very, very rich they were... but not until Harvey had extracted one more favor from them. For now he could finally afford to carry out his most ambitious plan... He smiled, and seeing his look of satisfaction, Endora and Ilona widened their grins and hugged him from both sides.
"It turned out all right!" said Endora, who for once was not ashamed to show her remarkable nose in public.
"Everything is as it should be," Ilona sighed.
Harvey nodded, and added in a softer voice: "So far, so good."
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR #136 +++
Don't worry. We're not skipping #135 (as if...!). In order to get things back on track, I am going to use some "leftover" ideas from the incredible discussion on TMQ #133 to generate the magic of #135. So this "Double Challenge" isn't for the next chapter, but the one after that. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Which female character of The Magic Quill should feature in the next big plot line?
CONTEST: Come up with a brief joke such as one might find in a wizarding joke book. Anything on the order of "Knock, knock?" or "How many house-elves does it take to change a light bulb?" or even "A hag walks into a bar" is welcome, but PLEASE keep it clean - and PRETTY-PLEASE keep it short. More than one winner may be selected.
[Originally posted 4/6/08]
Showing posts with label Orion Oldmanson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orion Oldmanson. Show all posts
Saturday, December 27, 2008
127. Oldmanson and Son
Contest winner: zanaboo
The old man attracted remarkably few stares as he pedaled his bicycle around three sides of the village green, up the high street and out among the fields at the edge of town. Perhaps the reason for this apparent lack of interest was embarrassment. No one likes to be caught gaping, even at a man who chooses to ride a stationary exercise bike down the street.
Puffing only slightly (since the rear legs of the exercise machine were supported by a levitation spell), the old man turned directly into a seemingly solid hedge...and drove through it as if it wasn't there. On the other side he halted in a cobble-stoned courtyard half-filled with an assortment of hovering brooms, flying carpets, Abraxan horses, and jalopies fitted with holes in the roofs to accommodate pointy hats. The old man rolled his eyes at the sight of the sprawling building ahead. In meter-high letters of Gubraithian fire it heralded itself as VOLDMART. Beneath this, a free-swearing sign painter dangled from a rope that ended in thin air ten feet above his head. He seemed to be trying to replace the slogan "WE SPELL FOR LESLIE" with one that read: "FEWER CURSES. MORE DAMAGE." By the sound of banging paint pots, splattering liquid, and yells of dismay, the old man deduced the original sign was resisting being replaced. He sighed.
Orion Oldmanson found his son Rigel in the pet department, arguing with a hooded, cloaked sales associate who gave off an aggressively rancid odor.
"What is this all about?" he asked wearily as Rigel stamped his foot. The boy whirled to face him, causing his father to wince. His latest phase was one of the most difficult for his father to cope with: his face was painted like that of a clown, one of the Italian clown wizards, in fact. The tall purple wig made it so much worse.
"I'm not clowning around," Rigel said fiercely. "I want a refund for this cauldron scraper. This git sold it to me under false pretenses!"
The boy held up a charcoal-gray rat with oddly stiff-looking fur.
"Ah! The grimp," said the old man. "Surely, if you meant to buy a cauldron scraper, you could..."
"I meant to buy a beast that spits jewels," Rigel raged. "But this swindler got to me before the newest edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Look what it says here!"
Rigel pulled a large book out of his pocket locker and shoved it into his father's hands. Then he waved his hand and the book opened to a page with a picture of a rat nearly identical to the one in Rigel's other hand. The text below the picture said:
"I made no guarantees," the saleswizard said with a puff of rotten-smelling air.
Rigel fumed as his father marched him out of the store. "What's the big hurry?" he demanded. "Another minute and I would have had a refund."
"Why would you want to get rid of a cauldron scraper?" said Orion. "Your potions cupboard is a mess. Cauldron gets any filthier and there's no telling what you'll cook up."
"You used to say the same thing whether my cauldron was clean or not," Rigel pouted as he hopped onto the handlebars of his father's non-stationary bicycle. "And you haven't answered my question."
"You ran out this morning without reading the owl post," said the old man. "We're to have a caller in a few minutes. Someone you would hate to miss."
"My Dad, is it?" said Rigel.
Orion didn't dignify that cut with a response. Tight-lipped, breathing loudly through flared nostrils, he pedaled his one-wheeled, one-legged contraption back across the village and down the road toward the manor.
As soon as the front door closed behind them, a squad of goblins armed with barbed clubs surrounded him. They seemed to have been waiting behind every tapestry in the entry hall. Man and boy stood still, hands raised, as long-clawed fingers dug their wands out of their pockets.
"Well done, Mashsqueak!" cried the goblin with the sharpest nose, addressing Orion Oldmanson.
Rigel turned his head slowly to glare at his father. "What did he..."
The words died on his lips when the old man popped like a balloon. Exactly like a balloon, in fact, right down to the tattered pieces of elastic cloth that littered the ground. Rigel staggered backward, gaping.
"That was a close one," said the goblin who emerged from the tatters, pulling thin ribbons off his hands and face. "I thought he had made me on the ride home, when he said I wasn't his Dad. If he had tried to get away then, I wouldn't have been able to catch him without shedding blood." The goblin leered, flexing his fingers with their unusually long claws.
"What was that?" Rigel gasped, nudging one of the shreds of the burst gasbag that had convincingly impersonated his father. "And where do you get things like it?"
"Comes out of shock quickly, that one," remarked the head goblin (or rather the nose one).
"He has profit on the brain," said a squat goblin with the biggest ears Rigel had ever seen. "Clearly the one we're looking for."
Rigel inched toward a concealed door in the nearby, paneled wall. "Why were you looking for me?" he asked innocently.
"To correct a fault in our security arrangements," said the nose goblin. It was the last thing Rigel heard before someone tripped him from behind, pulled a sack over his head, and hit him on the head. The last thing he felt was a twinge of pain as the frightened grimp in his pocket tried to dig its claws into his skin. The last of his senses to let go was smell...the same rotten smell he had recently whiffed off someone's breath...but before he could remember whose, Rigel blacked out.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
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: Do the goblins take Rigel back to Gringotts?
CONTEST: Name and describe a spell that can easily backfire on the wizard or witch who casts it.
[Originally posted 12/4/07]
The old man attracted remarkably few stares as he pedaled his bicycle around three sides of the village green, up the high street and out among the fields at the edge of town. Perhaps the reason for this apparent lack of interest was embarrassment. No one likes to be caught gaping, even at a man who chooses to ride a stationary exercise bike down the street.
Puffing only slightly (since the rear legs of the exercise machine were supported by a levitation spell), the old man turned directly into a seemingly solid hedge...and drove through it as if it wasn't there. On the other side he halted in a cobble-stoned courtyard half-filled with an assortment of hovering brooms, flying carpets, Abraxan horses, and jalopies fitted with holes in the roofs to accommodate pointy hats. The old man rolled his eyes at the sight of the sprawling building ahead. In meter-high letters of Gubraithian fire it heralded itself as VOLDMART. Beneath this, a free-swearing sign painter dangled from a rope that ended in thin air ten feet above his head. He seemed to be trying to replace the slogan "WE SPELL FOR LESLIE" with one that read: "FEWER CURSES. MORE DAMAGE." By the sound of banging paint pots, splattering liquid, and yells of dismay, the old man deduced the original sign was resisting being replaced. He sighed.
Orion Oldmanson found his son Rigel in the pet department, arguing with a hooded, cloaked sales associate who gave off an aggressively rancid odor.
"What is this all about?" he asked wearily as Rigel stamped his foot. The boy whirled to face him, causing his father to wince. His latest phase was one of the most difficult for his father to cope with: his face was painted like that of a clown, one of the Italian clown wizards, in fact. The tall purple wig made it so much worse.
"I'm not clowning around," Rigel said fiercely. "I want a refund for this cauldron scraper. This git sold it to me under false pretenses!"
The boy held up a charcoal-gray rat with oddly stiff-looking fur.
"Ah! The grimp," said the old man. "Surely, if you meant to buy a cauldron scraper, you could..."
"I meant to buy a beast that spits jewels," Rigel raged. "But this swindler got to me before the newest edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Look what it says here!"
Rigel pulled a large book out of his pocket locker and shoved it into his father's hands. Then he waved his hand and the book opened to a page with a picture of a rat nearly identical to the one in Rigel's other hand. The text below the picture said:
GRIMP"Sounds like an open question to me," said the boy's father. "It might spit jewels, and again it might not."
M.O.M. Classification XX
The Grimp looks remarkably like a common rat, except that instead of having fur, its skin is thickly covered in small, grayish-brown diamond crystals. These crystals form a highly protective shield for frightened grimps, which curl up in a ball like hedgehogs and armadillos when threatened. Although the diamonds that make up their coats are far from gem quality, some wizards keep grimps because they're quite useful as knife sharpeners, sandpaper, scrub brushes, etc.
The only food grimps are known to eat is coal, which they magically transform into their diamond coat. They are found wherever coal deposits naturally occur, and also wherever humans store coal for heat or electricity generation. Since grimps are nocturnal and quite dark in color, Muggles always mistake them either for lumps of coal or for common rats.
Over the past several centuries, a handful of wizards have claimed their pet grimp coughed up a large gem-quality diamond with various magical properties. None of these claims has ever been verified, and, although many have tried, no wizard has ever succeeded in charming a grimp into producing such a gem.
"I made no guarantees," the saleswizard said with a puff of rotten-smelling air.
Rigel fumed as his father marched him out of the store. "What's the big hurry?" he demanded. "Another minute and I would have had a refund."
"Why would you want to get rid of a cauldron scraper?" said Orion. "Your potions cupboard is a mess. Cauldron gets any filthier and there's no telling what you'll cook up."
"You used to say the same thing whether my cauldron was clean or not," Rigel pouted as he hopped onto the handlebars of his father's non-stationary bicycle. "And you haven't answered my question."
"You ran out this morning without reading the owl post," said the old man. "We're to have a caller in a few minutes. Someone you would hate to miss."
"My Dad, is it?" said Rigel.
Orion didn't dignify that cut with a response. Tight-lipped, breathing loudly through flared nostrils, he pedaled his one-wheeled, one-legged contraption back across the village and down the road toward the manor.
As soon as the front door closed behind them, a squad of goblins armed with barbed clubs surrounded him. They seemed to have been waiting behind every tapestry in the entry hall. Man and boy stood still, hands raised, as long-clawed fingers dug their wands out of their pockets.
"Well done, Mashsqueak!" cried the goblin with the sharpest nose, addressing Orion Oldmanson.
Rigel turned his head slowly to glare at his father. "What did he..."
The words died on his lips when the old man popped like a balloon. Exactly like a balloon, in fact, right down to the tattered pieces of elastic cloth that littered the ground. Rigel staggered backward, gaping.
"That was a close one," said the goblin who emerged from the tatters, pulling thin ribbons off his hands and face. "I thought he had made me on the ride home, when he said I wasn't his Dad. If he had tried to get away then, I wouldn't have been able to catch him without shedding blood." The goblin leered, flexing his fingers with their unusually long claws.
"What was that?" Rigel gasped, nudging one of the shreds of the burst gasbag that had convincingly impersonated his father. "And where do you get things like it?"
"Comes out of shock quickly, that one," remarked the head goblin (or rather the nose one).
"He has profit on the brain," said a squat goblin with the biggest ears Rigel had ever seen. "Clearly the one we're looking for."
Rigel inched toward a concealed door in the nearby, paneled wall. "Why were you looking for me?" he asked innocently.
"To correct a fault in our security arrangements," said the nose goblin. It was the last thing Rigel heard before someone tripped him from behind, pulled a sack over his head, and hit him on the head. The last thing he felt was a twinge of pain as the frightened grimp in his pocket tried to dig its claws into his skin. The last of his senses to let go was smell...the same rotten smell he had recently whiffed off someone's breath...but before he could remember whose, Rigel blacked out.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
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: Do the goblins take Rigel back to Gringotts?
CONTEST: Name and describe a spell that can easily backfire on the wizard or witch who casts it.
[Originally posted 12/4/07]
118. Laughing Matter
Contest winner: rory86
PARAPHYSICIST ATTENDS WEDDING IN HOGSMEADE
Part 5 in a 7-part Special Report
Bo Dwyer, our top correspondent, continues the report of his week following Professor Algernon Swerve, the Magic theorist whose recent discovery of magically generated states of matter would have won him the Nobel Prize for Paraphysics, except there isn’t one.
During breakfast on Saturday, Dr. Swerve suddenly announced that he was going to a wedding in Hogsmeade. The invitation had come by owl that very morning, and it entitled him to bring one guest: me.
I soon understood that the wedding would be a newsworthy event in its own right. There are not many couples who choose to have their nuptials performed at the Hog’s Head pub. In fact, the last one on record was the marriage of Richard Pellamonter and Elizabeth Polkenhorne in April of 1565 or 1566 (depending on which set of records you go by), a day which saw dozens of Britain’s best wizards lose control of their magic due to a bowl of contaminated punch. This is why all the buildings in Hogsmeade had polka-dotted walls until 1611, and weddings within village boundaries were banned until 1865. When I first heard that Saturday’s wedding was to be the Hog’s Head’s first since 1566, I was moved by the progress and enlightenment of our wizarding community. Then I smelled and, rather later, saw the Hog’s Head and such notions were dashed. It was clearly the only place the couple could afford; which is too bad, because the proprietor should be the one who pays the rest of us to drink his swill.
At least the punch was unpolluted. After about one o’clock Sunday afternoon, at any rate, the buildings and streets of Hogsmeade seemed to be their usual color again.
By coincidence, the bride and groom were both people I had interviewed before. Erastus “Merlin” Sidwell made an unexpectedly strong showing (12th place) in an Iwixarod broom race some years ago, and he was quoted in my report of that race. His exact words were: “I prefer bundimun grease, myself.” And his intended, Miss Doreen Pinch (known as “Endora” to her friends) had guided my tour of the Bertie Botts Flavor Lab, where she was a taste-tester at the time. I remember her as a remarkable woman who was able to tell a great deal about me by smell alone. During the day I learned that Merlin now works as a “special consultant” — I’m not sure what that means — while Endora has moved up the career ladder to Senior Potion Designer. Bride and groom wore matching carnival masks, as a nod to Hog’s Head tradition (all the guests were furnished with masks as well).
I didn’t see very much of my subject that day, but I did encounter a surprising range of people considering the caliber of the establishment. I met a married couple of highly decorated RMB agents who were also once Owlympic medalists (I had interviewed them too), an American agent who specializes in quick-change disguises (I believe he was at least five of the people I shook hands with), and a dodgy looking couple covered in animated tattoos (which posed witty remarks to passersby, in ornate handwriting). I met a wandwright from Finland, an Austrian couple who run a survival school for wizards, a Ukrainian art-wizard (who, by the way his eyes lingered on the tattooed couple, must have been responsible for their body art), several Italian clown-wizards, and a couple of Durmstrang professors. A former member of Nasal Drip gave a solo musical performance that was at least as loud and obnoxious as anything his old band could do. A wizard rich enough to keep his name out of the paper stood near me through the whole song, stoically enduring it in order to keep an eye on his teenage son, who has enough mischief in him to make the name-out-of-paper thing more expensive every year. Sir Lionel Niblet and Dr. Miles O’Roughage were also on hand, holding a soft yet animated conversation in a corner throughout the wedding.
After the ceremony came a meal which I would rather not recall in detail; the punch helped in that respect. At the climax of the banquet, toasts were made and gifts were given to the newly wedded couple.
The RMB agents gave the Sidwells a stoppered flask of some blood-red potion which, they warned, was not to be unstoppered except in the gravest emergency, and only then when Mrs. Sidwell was wearing nose-plugs. It was difficult to follow the explanation of this potion, owing perhaps to some shared background between the agents and the Sidwells, but I gathered that the potion came from a variety of orchid bred by Sir Lionel, and was brewed by Dr. O’Roughage. “It smells like rotting flesh, and it evaporates instantly when struck a violent, physical blow,” they announced. “But until then, a few drops of it shield the wearer against all magic directed against a conscious, living person.”
The next noteworthy gift, following a set of wands, some gag gifts from the clowns, a flask of “eyedropper banquet,” chits for free body art, and similar items, was a large box delivered by two house-elves. I knew the elves at once. Their master, a portable-wall magnate, has been very reclusive lately, and I was curious to know what gift he might have sent to a wedding without appearing himself to give it. It turned out that the box was empty, but it came with a cryptic message which Merlin read aloud: “If this is empty when you receive it, don’t be distressed. My calculations have a wide margin for error. Keep the box, and look inside it now and again, until you find a token of my very personal affection and esteem for both of you. Eventually, the day will come when I will have put something in this box before it was going to be delivered.”
One of the last gifts was presented by Professor Swerve. The couple smiled politely as he handed them an ingot of some dull-brown metal. And this was where I was repaid for all my difficulty in following him at this wedding. As Merlin Sidwell hefted the heavy bar of not-very-precious-looking material, the paraphysicist explained:
“For your special day, and for all your days together, I give you the gift of laughter. As you know, I have spent the last two decades studying the effects of magic on molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Last year, I finally published my discoveries, including several new states of matter that can only exist under the influence of magic. This bar may seem to contain nothing but a blend of ordinary minerals. But I have charmed it into a state that I like to call ‘laughing matter.’ Whether there is a lot of it or a little; whether it is precious or common; whether solid, liquid, or gas, laughing matter is held together by the energy of pure joy. Touch it when you are angry or frustrated, and you will see the absurdity in your situation and your frown will become a chuckle. Touch it in a time of grief or pain, and you will suddenly remember the good things you still have to be happy about. Touch it when you are terrified and hopeless, and that which you dread may reveal desirable aspects. Touch it at a joyful time, like today, and you add to its stored energy, and to the good memories that will return to you at a time of need.
“Touch it together,” Professor Swerve continued, “and it fosters trust and contentment. Break it in half” – here Merlin effortlessly snapped the ingot in two, causing a stir throughout the pub – “when you cannot be together, and when you both hold it at the same time, you will feel closer to each other. Put the pieces back together” – Merlin did this – “and it sticks in one piece, as if you had never broken it. It also makes an excellent doorstop, for few things are as friendly as an open door; and, when used as a bookend, laughing matter causes nearby books to seem more entertaining the next time you open them. Tonight, I suggest that you tuck it under the...”
“What a lovely gift,” said Merlin, loudly interrupting the professor’s speech, while his bride reddened to the tip of her rather impressive nose.
After taking the Floo network back to Professor Swerve’s study, I told him how impressed I was with what he had said and done at the Sidwell wedding. He shrugged, smiling mysteriously, and said, “You don’t think I would really give such a priceless specimen – moreover, one that neither science nor magic has yet fully explained – to a couple of risk-takers like them? It would be murder. Or, worse, it would be a methodological blunder. I had forgotten to bring a gift, but I found a pile of those bricks out behind the Hog’s Head and checked to make sure there wasn’t anything dodgy about them before choosing one. I put a breaking-and-rejoining charm on it – a little trick on which I often dined out in my salad days. The rest of it was pure codswallop.”
Seeing my shocked expression, Professor Swerve laughed kindly and added, “I also applied a bit of magic in my speech. The magic of psychology. If those youngsters took me even a wee bit seriously, that brick will be a symbol to them, a symbol whose meaning they will pull out of themselves. I mean, really! To give them, actually give them, what I described would be meddling in things where I have no business. It is better this way.”
“So,” I asked, ashamed to notice a tone of childish disappointment in my own voice, “so is there no such thing as ‘laughing matter’ at all?”
“Oh, to be sure, there is! I’ve got some of it right here,” said Professor Swerve, getting up to fetch a waxy looking lump, encased in crystal, out of a locked cupboard. “And if they knew anything about it, they would thank me for not giving it them. Real ‘laughing matter’ is terrible, chaotic stuff; absolutely insane.”
He handed the crystal to me and I turned it over in my hands. “What does it do?” I asked.
“Oh! It is the stuff that moves things around when your back is turned. It hides your keys, causes your toilet to overflow, and stops nearby timepieces just when you are waiting for a certain hour to strike. I once observed a lump of ‘laughing matter’ to re-tune a piano so that, no matter what keys you played, the only thing you could get out of it was the ‘Tristan chord.’ Whenever you feel that someone, somewhere, must be laughing at you, you might have a bit of this stuff stuck to your shoe. With a brick of real laughing matter, the Sidwell’s marriage wouldn’t have lasted a week!
“Promise you won’t print any of this?” Professor Swerve added meekly.
“On my honor as a journalist,” I said, handing the crystal-encased lump back to him.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #120 +++
SURVEY: How does the angel-faced villain from TMQ #117 combine magic with golf? (A) He uses magic to create a self-maintaining, perfect golf course. (B) He uses magical plants, beasts, and other hazards to make his links the most difficult and dangerous course in the world. (C) He plays a wizarding variant of golf involving balls that go up but do not come down (unless played in that direction); players must be able to fly and, on occasion, play underwater. (D) He uses magic to enhance his performance in order to collect huge winnings on ordinary golf tours. (E) Other...
CONTEST: Describe a magical piece of jewelry and its properties.
Special thanks are due to the Cornwall County Council for inspiration provided by their Silly Names List [EDIT: Alas, this webpage no longer exists]. ANOTHER EDIT: What a pity that Blogger has a 200-character limit for labels. The list below should also include Algernon Swerve, Harvey, Dinty, Heidi Svendanna, Tatyana, and Owlympics.
[Originally posted 5/16/07]
PARAPHYSICIST ATTENDS WEDDING IN HOGSMEADE
Part 5 in a 7-part Special Report
Bo Dwyer, our top correspondent, continues the report of his week following Professor Algernon Swerve, the Magic theorist whose recent discovery of magically generated states of matter would have won him the Nobel Prize for Paraphysics, except there isn’t one.
During breakfast on Saturday, Dr. Swerve suddenly announced that he was going to a wedding in Hogsmeade. The invitation had come by owl that very morning, and it entitled him to bring one guest: me.
I soon understood that the wedding would be a newsworthy event in its own right. There are not many couples who choose to have their nuptials performed at the Hog’s Head pub. In fact, the last one on record was the marriage of Richard Pellamonter and Elizabeth Polkenhorne in April of 1565 or 1566 (depending on which set of records you go by), a day which saw dozens of Britain’s best wizards lose control of their magic due to a bowl of contaminated punch. This is why all the buildings in Hogsmeade had polka-dotted walls until 1611, and weddings within village boundaries were banned until 1865. When I first heard that Saturday’s wedding was to be the Hog’s Head’s first since 1566, I was moved by the progress and enlightenment of our wizarding community. Then I smelled and, rather later, saw the Hog’s Head and such notions were dashed. It was clearly the only place the couple could afford; which is too bad, because the proprietor should be the one who pays the rest of us to drink his swill.
At least the punch was unpolluted. After about one o’clock Sunday afternoon, at any rate, the buildings and streets of Hogsmeade seemed to be their usual color again.
By coincidence, the bride and groom were both people I had interviewed before. Erastus “Merlin” Sidwell made an unexpectedly strong showing (12th place) in an Iwixarod broom race some years ago, and he was quoted in my report of that race. His exact words were: “I prefer bundimun grease, myself.” And his intended, Miss Doreen Pinch (known as “Endora” to her friends) had guided my tour of the Bertie Botts Flavor Lab, where she was a taste-tester at the time. I remember her as a remarkable woman who was able to tell a great deal about me by smell alone. During the day I learned that Merlin now works as a “special consultant” — I’m not sure what that means — while Endora has moved up the career ladder to Senior Potion Designer. Bride and groom wore matching carnival masks, as a nod to Hog’s Head tradition (all the guests were furnished with masks as well).
I didn’t see very much of my subject that day, but I did encounter a surprising range of people considering the caliber of the establishment. I met a married couple of highly decorated RMB agents who were also once Owlympic medalists (I had interviewed them too), an American agent who specializes in quick-change disguises (I believe he was at least five of the people I shook hands with), and a dodgy looking couple covered in animated tattoos (which posed witty remarks to passersby, in ornate handwriting). I met a wandwright from Finland, an Austrian couple who run a survival school for wizards, a Ukrainian art-wizard (who, by the way his eyes lingered on the tattooed couple, must have been responsible for their body art), several Italian clown-wizards, and a couple of Durmstrang professors. A former member of Nasal Drip gave a solo musical performance that was at least as loud and obnoxious as anything his old band could do. A wizard rich enough to keep his name out of the paper stood near me through the whole song, stoically enduring it in order to keep an eye on his teenage son, who has enough mischief in him to make the name-out-of-paper thing more expensive every year. Sir Lionel Niblet and Dr. Miles O’Roughage were also on hand, holding a soft yet animated conversation in a corner throughout the wedding.
After the ceremony came a meal which I would rather not recall in detail; the punch helped in that respect. At the climax of the banquet, toasts were made and gifts were given to the newly wedded couple.
The RMB agents gave the Sidwells a stoppered flask of some blood-red potion which, they warned, was not to be unstoppered except in the gravest emergency, and only then when Mrs. Sidwell was wearing nose-plugs. It was difficult to follow the explanation of this potion, owing perhaps to some shared background between the agents and the Sidwells, but I gathered that the potion came from a variety of orchid bred by Sir Lionel, and was brewed by Dr. O’Roughage. “It smells like rotting flesh, and it evaporates instantly when struck a violent, physical blow,” they announced. “But until then, a few drops of it shield the wearer against all magic directed against a conscious, living person.”
The next noteworthy gift, following a set of wands, some gag gifts from the clowns, a flask of “eyedropper banquet,” chits for free body art, and similar items, was a large box delivered by two house-elves. I knew the elves at once. Their master, a portable-wall magnate, has been very reclusive lately, and I was curious to know what gift he might have sent to a wedding without appearing himself to give it. It turned out that the box was empty, but it came with a cryptic message which Merlin read aloud: “If this is empty when you receive it, don’t be distressed. My calculations have a wide margin for error. Keep the box, and look inside it now and again, until you find a token of my very personal affection and esteem for both of you. Eventually, the day will come when I will have put something in this box before it was going to be delivered.”
One of the last gifts was presented by Professor Swerve. The couple smiled politely as he handed them an ingot of some dull-brown metal. And this was where I was repaid for all my difficulty in following him at this wedding. As Merlin Sidwell hefted the heavy bar of not-very-precious-looking material, the paraphysicist explained:
“For your special day, and for all your days together, I give you the gift of laughter. As you know, I have spent the last two decades studying the effects of magic on molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Last year, I finally published my discoveries, including several new states of matter that can only exist under the influence of magic. This bar may seem to contain nothing but a blend of ordinary minerals. But I have charmed it into a state that I like to call ‘laughing matter.’ Whether there is a lot of it or a little; whether it is precious or common; whether solid, liquid, or gas, laughing matter is held together by the energy of pure joy. Touch it when you are angry or frustrated, and you will see the absurdity in your situation and your frown will become a chuckle. Touch it in a time of grief or pain, and you will suddenly remember the good things you still have to be happy about. Touch it when you are terrified and hopeless, and that which you dread may reveal desirable aspects. Touch it at a joyful time, like today, and you add to its stored energy, and to the good memories that will return to you at a time of need.
“Touch it together,” Professor Swerve continued, “and it fosters trust and contentment. Break it in half” – here Merlin effortlessly snapped the ingot in two, causing a stir throughout the pub – “when you cannot be together, and when you both hold it at the same time, you will feel closer to each other. Put the pieces back together” – Merlin did this – “and it sticks in one piece, as if you had never broken it. It also makes an excellent doorstop, for few things are as friendly as an open door; and, when used as a bookend, laughing matter causes nearby books to seem more entertaining the next time you open them. Tonight, I suggest that you tuck it under the...”
“What a lovely gift,” said Merlin, loudly interrupting the professor’s speech, while his bride reddened to the tip of her rather impressive nose.
After taking the Floo network back to Professor Swerve’s study, I told him how impressed I was with what he had said and done at the Sidwell wedding. He shrugged, smiling mysteriously, and said, “You don’t think I would really give such a priceless specimen – moreover, one that neither science nor magic has yet fully explained – to a couple of risk-takers like them? It would be murder. Or, worse, it would be a methodological blunder. I had forgotten to bring a gift, but I found a pile of those bricks out behind the Hog’s Head and checked to make sure there wasn’t anything dodgy about them before choosing one. I put a breaking-and-rejoining charm on it – a little trick on which I often dined out in my salad days. The rest of it was pure codswallop.”
Seeing my shocked expression, Professor Swerve laughed kindly and added, “I also applied a bit of magic in my speech. The magic of psychology. If those youngsters took me even a wee bit seriously, that brick will be a symbol to them, a symbol whose meaning they will pull out of themselves. I mean, really! To give them, actually give them, what I described would be meddling in things where I have no business. It is better this way.”
“So,” I asked, ashamed to notice a tone of childish disappointment in my own voice, “so is there no such thing as ‘laughing matter’ at all?”
“Oh, to be sure, there is! I’ve got some of it right here,” said Professor Swerve, getting up to fetch a waxy looking lump, encased in crystal, out of a locked cupboard. “And if they knew anything about it, they would thank me for not giving it them. Real ‘laughing matter’ is terrible, chaotic stuff; absolutely insane.”
He handed the crystal to me and I turned it over in my hands. “What does it do?” I asked.
“Oh! It is the stuff that moves things around when your back is turned. It hides your keys, causes your toilet to overflow, and stops nearby timepieces just when you are waiting for a certain hour to strike. I once observed a lump of ‘laughing matter’ to re-tune a piano so that, no matter what keys you played, the only thing you could get out of it was the ‘Tristan chord.’ Whenever you feel that someone, somewhere, must be laughing at you, you might have a bit of this stuff stuck to your shoe. With a brick of real laughing matter, the Sidwell’s marriage wouldn’t have lasted a week!
“Promise you won’t print any of this?” Professor Swerve added meekly.
“On my honor as a journalist,” I said, handing the crystal-encased lump back to him.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #120 +++
SURVEY: How does the angel-faced villain from TMQ #117 combine magic with golf? (A) He uses magic to create a self-maintaining, perfect golf course. (B) He uses magical plants, beasts, and other hazards to make his links the most difficult and dangerous course in the world. (C) He plays a wizarding variant of golf involving balls that go up but do not come down (unless played in that direction); players must be able to fly and, on occasion, play underwater. (D) He uses magic to enhance his performance in order to collect huge winnings on ordinary golf tours. (E) Other...
CONTEST: Describe a magical piece of jewelry and its properties.
Special thanks are due to the Cornwall County Council for inspiration provided by their Silly Names List [EDIT: Alas, this webpage no longer exists]. ANOTHER EDIT: What a pity that Blogger has a 200-character limit for labels. The list below should also include Algernon Swerve, Harvey, Dinty, Heidi Svendanna, Tatyana, and Owlympics.
[Originally posted 5/16/07]
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
94. How to Break into Gringotts
Concept contributed by: Angelbot
Contest winners: Cady, Linda Carrig, jatibbal, Xantha, Shadow Phoenix, TWZRD, Celairiel, _houdini and amylynn91403
My dear goblins, undergoblins, security trolls, curse-breakers, and other beings and creatures of Gringotts Bank:
I have no doubt that every one of you has been deeply concerned since it was discovered Gringotts was successfully broken into, and broken out of again, and treasure taken from one of our deepest vaults. I am sure your concern hasn’t been entirely due to the fact that you were all mercilessly interrogated in order to, ahem, eliminate the possibility that the break-in was an “inside job.” For this break-in has been a crushing blow to the pride and prestige of a bank that has long been deemed an absolutely secure place to hide stuff. For the first time in generations, it means that we must re-evaluate our security protocols and make serious changes where they are needed.
For a thousand years, Dark wizards and witches have been trying to break into Gringotts to steal goblin gold and other treasures. For nearly all of them, this has proved an elusive goal. Of those few who have succeeded in breaking in, only a handful have managed to break out again. But with the right planning, personnel, and materials, it can be done. It was done several years ago by a group of wizards and clowns, though it took them several years to get out and they did not actually steal anything of value. It was done again, a year or two later, by the Dark Lord or one of his servants, but again – and purely by chance – nothing was taken.
Each time, we were consoled by the fact that the property held in Gringotts' vaults remained safe – and that we had sealed the routes in and out of the bank that had been exploited by the intruders. Nevertheless, we must now face the shameful fact that a coordinated band of Dark wizards and witches has not only entered the bank, but also promptly escaped with several priceless items from the vault of Yves the Leper.
This, in itself, would almost be acceptable – after all, the client affected by this robbery is merely a trust fund, supposely set up to keep the vault paid for until the owner’s return – who, incidentally, has been dead for hundreds of years. Only, we have just lately found out that another vault was also plundered, belonging to our distinguished and very-much-alive customer, Il Comte di Bestemmia. Il Comte will be very displeased when he is restored to consciousness and human form. So it behooves us to answer three questions before that time comes:
So far we have found out this much about the gang responsible for this crime: First, one or both of the criminals who attempted to break into vault 1,066 all those years ago – they were among the group of clowns and wizards who escaped empty-handed – must have been involved in the conspiracy. Otherwise, they could not have found the vault in question.
Second, the crime was masterminded, or at least financially backed, by someone very rich. I say this because of the sheer number of people and amount of hard-to-get magical equipment needed to bring it off. A third member of the party has an expert knowledge of portable holes and magical walls – including the location and properties of certain magical walls that have served Gringotts for many years. Fourth, they needed someone who could identify rare potions held in crocks that have not been opened since the days of Undergrim. Fifth, they needed an expert burglar who could disarm the most sophisticated trip-curses, jinx-traps, alarm hexes, and locking spells known to goblin or wizard. Sixth, they used three masters of diguise – probably Metamorphmagi – to create a diversion covering their entrance; plus Shredtripe knows who or what was in that crate labeled “Rheosaurus.”
And then there was a considerable amount of muscle involved. I estimate they had at least half a dozen wizards, expert duelers to a man, whose sole task was to provide cover for the burglars’ retreat. These powerful fighters neutralized a dragon, nearly three dozen nifflers, two squads of undergoblins, a troll, a water serpent, a very courageous house-elf, and of course Il Comte himself. In spite of the number of witnesses, only three goblins are currently in any shape to describe the wizards who attacked them. From their confused and contradictory statements, we can only gather that these hit-wizards used untraceable, contraband wands with unusual cores, to cast unusual spells that are proving difficult to analyze or reverse.
We have also learned that one of the hit-wizards used two wands simultaneously. This is a significant clue that we intend to follow up on, though at present the only known double-barreled wizard in England is the RMB liaison who has done much to help us with this case.
Finally, there is a strong likelihood that there were two teams of vault-crackers, since both vaults were plundered very quickly, and vault 1,066 should have taken the whole time by itself. It is possible that Il Comte’s vault was cracked merely as a diversion, to throw us off the trail. Until Il Comte awakens and can enlighten us about the contents of his vault, we have only the manifest of his vault’s contents to go on. And right now, the only property missing from Il Comte’s vault is a bottle of wine – of good vintage, but hardly worth the risk of breaking into a Gringotts vault!
The only positive suspects are those who have broken into Gringotts before. One of them is dead, the servant of the Dark Lord who broke into vault 713 that one time. The three clown wizards have an alibi; they were performing at the birthday party of a niece of Sir Lionel Niblet, whose services to this bank put his word above question. Rigel Oldmanson’s father swears that he was at home, puttering around with his Godfather Clock, during the time of the break-in; and Old Man Oldmanson is another loyal friend of the bank. Of the four foreign wizards, two were teaching and two were keeping shop in faraway countries, according to reliable witnesses. That leaves only a wizard of fortune, whose name I forget, but who when last seen was recovering from fox pox. No one with fox pox was near Gringotts that day; the nifflers did not sniff out a single fox hair.
Let’s leave aside the difficult question of who done it, for the moment. Now, how did they do it? Much of that has already been told. Three conspirators used disguises to set up a diversion in the upper levels, then attacked and subdued an entire squad of goblins before escaping undetected – probably through the front door of the bank! The rest of the burglars, meanwhile, penetrated a magical wall in one of the deepest, least-trafficked parts of the bank. One group apparently set up a chain of portable holes to reach vault 1,066, while a second group went to Il Comte’s vault. The first group disarmed a lot of traps and alarms, then analyzed the potions of Yves the Leper before selecting one to take with them. The second group pinched a bottle of wine, then both groups met up just as a second squad of undergoblins arrived, with backup. They fought a valiant retreat, inflicting numerous casualties on us without sustaining even one on their side. Then they disappeared.
That’s the how. Now for the what: What did they steal? Our current guess – meaning mine and that of Agent Spankison of the RMB – is that Il Comte’s wine bottle contained a djinn, presumably one discovered by the previous party of burglars that spent time trapped in that vault. This could explain why nothing more valuable was taken; the djinn would then be commanded to make all the burglars filthy rich. So we need only look for a sudden spate of large deposits; those making the deposits may be involved in the crime.
As for what was taken from the vault of Yves the Leper, we are stymied at the moment. No one with the security clearance needed to enter that vault has the ability to analyze its contents. Agent Spankison has suggested we deputize a certain master confectioner, named Endora something-or-other, who is said to have an extraordinary nose for potions. The Security Committee and the Trust Fund Subcommittee are still debating the question.
However, we did notice that dust had been disturbed around the seals of several of the potions. This may indicate that the seals were magically removed and then reapplied, perhaps in order to give the burglars’ potions expert a chance to analyze the contents. It is interesting to note that all of the disturbed potions have one thing in common: each one, according to the runes carved into the crocks, is based on the concentrated essence of a non-magical creature. Apparently, in Yves the Leper’s time, many creatures that are now considered non-magical were held in such awe that their essence was supposed to have a magical effect. So perhaps the firefly essence was used to make things glow; the spider essence, to lend steely strength to the finest thread. Hummingbird essence may have been used for hovering, bat essence for navigating in the dark, cat essence for stealth, cockroach essence for invulnerability, owl essence for seeing behind you, and so on. Can’t quite imagine what the seahorse essence would be good for, but I digress.
Since the “usual suspects” all seem to have reasonable alibis, and since no one with the skills needed for this burglary has been identified, I believe it is fundamental to the solving of this crime that we cooperate with Agent Spankison and his team of RMB-approved investigators. Besides, we can also use their protection, what with two squads of undergoblins on the injured list. Therefore, I ask for a motion to extend full trust to the RMB agents assigned to this case, and to direct the Security Committee and Trust Fund Subcommittee to open the crime scene to them for thorough analysis. Thank you, Spleengraft. Is there a second? Sawtooth – excellent. Discussion? No? Are you ready for the question then? All in favor...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S TRIPLE CHALLENGE +++
This week we have not a double, but a TRIPLE challenge – 2 Surveys and a Contest!
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Surveys and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum here [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY #1: Remember, even though the goblins think Joe, Rigel, and the Spankison kids escaped, they are still in Gringotts somewhere. Are they (A) trying to find their way down to the Pit so they can escape the way the rest of the burglars came in? (B) still disguised and trying to blend in with the goblins until they get a chance to make a run for it? (C) being held hostage by someone or something previously encountered in the Magic Quill?
SURVEY #2: Spanky’s ploy to get into vault 1,066 as an RMB investigator is: (D) really just a diversion so he and his friends can rescue Joe and the kids. (E) actually part of their plan to get something out of the vault, and the “break-in” was only a trick to make the real heist possible. (F) an attempt to fix a mistake the burglars made when they broke into the vault, such as stealing the wrong item. (G) a clever way to cover any trail the burglars may have left behind.
CONTEST: Describe the potion that Harvey REALLY wants to steal from the Vault of Yves the Leper.
The Survey answers that get the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #96. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/16/06]
Contest winners: Cady, Linda Carrig, jatibbal, Xantha, Shadow Phoenix, TWZRD, Celairiel, _houdini and amylynn91403
My dear goblins, undergoblins, security trolls, curse-breakers, and other beings and creatures of Gringotts Bank:
I have no doubt that every one of you has been deeply concerned since it was discovered Gringotts was successfully broken into, and broken out of again, and treasure taken from one of our deepest vaults. I am sure your concern hasn’t been entirely due to the fact that you were all mercilessly interrogated in order to, ahem, eliminate the possibility that the break-in was an “inside job.” For this break-in has been a crushing blow to the pride and prestige of a bank that has long been deemed an absolutely secure place to hide stuff. For the first time in generations, it means that we must re-evaluate our security protocols and make serious changes where they are needed.
For a thousand years, Dark wizards and witches have been trying to break into Gringotts to steal goblin gold and other treasures. For nearly all of them, this has proved an elusive goal. Of those few who have succeeded in breaking in, only a handful have managed to break out again. But with the right planning, personnel, and materials, it can be done. It was done several years ago by a group of wizards and clowns, though it took them several years to get out and they did not actually steal anything of value. It was done again, a year or two later, by the Dark Lord or one of his servants, but again – and purely by chance – nothing was taken.
Each time, we were consoled by the fact that the property held in Gringotts' vaults remained safe – and that we had sealed the routes in and out of the bank that had been exploited by the intruders. Nevertheless, we must now face the shameful fact that a coordinated band of Dark wizards and witches has not only entered the bank, but also promptly escaped with several priceless items from the vault of Yves the Leper.
This, in itself, would almost be acceptable – after all, the client affected by this robbery is merely a trust fund, supposely set up to keep the vault paid for until the owner’s return – who, incidentally, has been dead for hundreds of years. Only, we have just lately found out that another vault was also plundered, belonging to our distinguished and very-much-alive customer, Il Comte di Bestemmia. Il Comte will be very displeased when he is restored to consciousness and human form. So it behooves us to answer three questions before that time comes:
- Who did the break-in?
- How did they do it?
- What exactly did they take from the two plundered vaults?
So far we have found out this much about the gang responsible for this crime: First, one or both of the criminals who attempted to break into vault 1,066 all those years ago – they were among the group of clowns and wizards who escaped empty-handed – must have been involved in the conspiracy. Otherwise, they could not have found the vault in question.
Second, the crime was masterminded, or at least financially backed, by someone very rich. I say this because of the sheer number of people and amount of hard-to-get magical equipment needed to bring it off. A third member of the party has an expert knowledge of portable holes and magical walls – including the location and properties of certain magical walls that have served Gringotts for many years. Fourth, they needed someone who could identify rare potions held in crocks that have not been opened since the days of Undergrim. Fifth, they needed an expert burglar who could disarm the most sophisticated trip-curses, jinx-traps, alarm hexes, and locking spells known to goblin or wizard. Sixth, they used three masters of diguise – probably Metamorphmagi – to create a diversion covering their entrance; plus Shredtripe knows who or what was in that crate labeled “Rheosaurus.”
And then there was a considerable amount of muscle involved. I estimate they had at least half a dozen wizards, expert duelers to a man, whose sole task was to provide cover for the burglars’ retreat. These powerful fighters neutralized a dragon, nearly three dozen nifflers, two squads of undergoblins, a troll, a water serpent, a very courageous house-elf, and of course Il Comte himself. In spite of the number of witnesses, only three goblins are currently in any shape to describe the wizards who attacked them. From their confused and contradictory statements, we can only gather that these hit-wizards used untraceable, contraband wands with unusual cores, to cast unusual spells that are proving difficult to analyze or reverse.
We have also learned that one of the hit-wizards used two wands simultaneously. This is a significant clue that we intend to follow up on, though at present the only known double-barreled wizard in England is the RMB liaison who has done much to help us with this case.
Finally, there is a strong likelihood that there were two teams of vault-crackers, since both vaults were plundered very quickly, and vault 1,066 should have taken the whole time by itself. It is possible that Il Comte’s vault was cracked merely as a diversion, to throw us off the trail. Until Il Comte awakens and can enlighten us about the contents of his vault, we have only the manifest of his vault’s contents to go on. And right now, the only property missing from Il Comte’s vault is a bottle of wine – of good vintage, but hardly worth the risk of breaking into a Gringotts vault!
The only positive suspects are those who have broken into Gringotts before. One of them is dead, the servant of the Dark Lord who broke into vault 713 that one time. The three clown wizards have an alibi; they were performing at the birthday party of a niece of Sir Lionel Niblet, whose services to this bank put his word above question. Rigel Oldmanson’s father swears that he was at home, puttering around with his Godfather Clock, during the time of the break-in; and Old Man Oldmanson is another loyal friend of the bank. Of the four foreign wizards, two were teaching and two were keeping shop in faraway countries, according to reliable witnesses. That leaves only a wizard of fortune, whose name I forget, but who when last seen was recovering from fox pox. No one with fox pox was near Gringotts that day; the nifflers did not sniff out a single fox hair.
Let’s leave aside the difficult question of who done it, for the moment. Now, how did they do it? Much of that has already been told. Three conspirators used disguises to set up a diversion in the upper levels, then attacked and subdued an entire squad of goblins before escaping undetected – probably through the front door of the bank! The rest of the burglars, meanwhile, penetrated a magical wall in one of the deepest, least-trafficked parts of the bank. One group apparently set up a chain of portable holes to reach vault 1,066, while a second group went to Il Comte’s vault. The first group disarmed a lot of traps and alarms, then analyzed the potions of Yves the Leper before selecting one to take with them. The second group pinched a bottle of wine, then both groups met up just as a second squad of undergoblins arrived, with backup. They fought a valiant retreat, inflicting numerous casualties on us without sustaining even one on their side. Then they disappeared.
That’s the how. Now for the what: What did they steal? Our current guess – meaning mine and that of Agent Spankison of the RMB – is that Il Comte’s wine bottle contained a djinn, presumably one discovered by the previous party of burglars that spent time trapped in that vault. This could explain why nothing more valuable was taken; the djinn would then be commanded to make all the burglars filthy rich. So we need only look for a sudden spate of large deposits; those making the deposits may be involved in the crime.
As for what was taken from the vault of Yves the Leper, we are stymied at the moment. No one with the security clearance needed to enter that vault has the ability to analyze its contents. Agent Spankison has suggested we deputize a certain master confectioner, named Endora something-or-other, who is said to have an extraordinary nose for potions. The Security Committee and the Trust Fund Subcommittee are still debating the question.
However, we did notice that dust had been disturbed around the seals of several of the potions. This may indicate that the seals were magically removed and then reapplied, perhaps in order to give the burglars’ potions expert a chance to analyze the contents. It is interesting to note that all of the disturbed potions have one thing in common: each one, according to the runes carved into the crocks, is based on the concentrated essence of a non-magical creature. Apparently, in Yves the Leper’s time, many creatures that are now considered non-magical were held in such awe that their essence was supposed to have a magical effect. So perhaps the firefly essence was used to make things glow; the spider essence, to lend steely strength to the finest thread. Hummingbird essence may have been used for hovering, bat essence for navigating in the dark, cat essence for stealth, cockroach essence for invulnerability, owl essence for seeing behind you, and so on. Can’t quite imagine what the seahorse essence would be good for, but I digress.
Since the “usual suspects” all seem to have reasonable alibis, and since no one with the skills needed for this burglary has been identified, I believe it is fundamental to the solving of this crime that we cooperate with Agent Spankison and his team of RMB-approved investigators. Besides, we can also use their protection, what with two squads of undergoblins on the injured list. Therefore, I ask for a motion to extend full trust to the RMB agents assigned to this case, and to direct the Security Committee and Trust Fund Subcommittee to open the crime scene to them for thorough analysis. Thank you, Spleengraft. Is there a second? Sawtooth – excellent. Discussion? No? Are you ready for the question then? All in favor...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S TRIPLE CHALLENGE +++
This week we have not a double, but a TRIPLE challenge – 2 Surveys and a Contest!
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Surveys and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum here [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY #1: Remember, even though the goblins think Joe, Rigel, and the Spankison kids escaped, they are still in Gringotts somewhere. Are they (A) trying to find their way down to the Pit so they can escape the way the rest of the burglars came in? (B) still disguised and trying to blend in with the goblins until they get a chance to make a run for it? (C) being held hostage by someone or something previously encountered in the Magic Quill?
SURVEY #2: Spanky’s ploy to get into vault 1,066 as an RMB investigator is: (D) really just a diversion so he and his friends can rescue Joe and the kids. (E) actually part of their plan to get something out of the vault, and the “break-in” was only a trick to make the real heist possible. (F) an attempt to fix a mistake the burglars made when they broke into the vault, such as stealing the wrong item. (G) a clever way to cover any trail the burglars may have left behind.
CONTEST: Describe the potion that Harvey REALLY wants to steal from the Vault of Yves the Leper.
The Survey answers that get the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #96. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/16/06]
92. The Last Recruit
Contest winners: DeatheaterJ, zanaboo, and Linda Carrig
The new headmistress sat in the back of the classroom, seemingly absorbed in the Journal of Early Wizardry Development, Vol. 937, No. 6, while the brand new Defensive Magic teacher carried on with his lecture. She sighed as she listened, reminding herself once again that no one would have expected it easy to introduce the new curriculum at Durmstrang. Old ways – like teaching the flat-out Dark Arts – were hard to put aside. It was no wonder that she was the third head of Durmstrang to be appointed since the disappearance of Igor Karkaroff. Still, there was something about this new teacher...if anyone could make it work, he could.
“...It wasn’t hard for me to hop from on top of one giant, glass eyeball to another, all the way across the dungeon – though, to be sure, if I had fallen between them, they would have rolled over me and crushed me to death. After that, it was a simple matter of sawing through two iron bars, squeezing through the window, and crawling along a low-hanging tree branch over the Inferi-infested moat. Then I had all afternoon, until the sun went down, to run for my life across miles of swampy waste. It was actually the most fun I had had all summer. Nevertheless, that was the last time my parents allowed me to spend the holidays with my vampire aunt and uncle. The End.”
The young witch nodded politely, acknowledging the other students’ applause, and returned to her seat.
“Very good, excellent work,” said the new teacher, wiping sweat off his pasty brow. “We will continue hearing your compositions about your experiences with the Dark Arts next week. Now, let’s see how many of you read the chapter that was assigned for today. Pavel, how would you define the word ‘munchkinesis’?”
“Er...munchkinesis...” One of the boys in the front row got a strained look on his face. “Is that a curse that causes you to grow a second stomach, so that you have to ruminate like a...”
“No,” said the professor. “Who knows this? Samirah?”
A girl cleared her throat nervously, then said, “Munchkinesis: a security spell, often triggered by stepping on a trick stair, that causes the victim to become about two feet tall with a squeaky voice and adorable, rosy cheeks.”
Several of the children in the classroom shuddered.
“Fair warning,” said the teacher. “The trunk that contains the answers to this year’s quizzes is protected by the munchkinesis spell. Now, Alexandra, perhaps you can tell us one advantage, and one disadvantage, of the Albinusmentis spell.”
A very quiet girl turned very red and seemed, for a moment, unable to say anything. Then a couple of students giggled and the girl shot a piercing glare in their direction. “All right,” said Alexandra. “The advantage of Albinusmentis is that it wipes your adversary’s mind blank, giving you time to decide what to do with him. The disadvantage is that it only lasts about a minute.”
“Then you obviously can’t use that as an excuse for failing a whole exam,” the professor pointed out.
Some of the students chuckled briefly. The moment of levity showed that the students were starting to warm to the new subject, but the children seemed confused – some of them ashamed, some angry – after it happened. The headmistress stifled another sigh and turned a page in her magazine.
“We just have time for one more question,” said the teacher. “What is another name for the Tonabrix Trap?”
Several hands went up. The teacher called on a student named Laszlo, who said, “Unwelcome Mat.”
“Very good. It’s an effective deterrent against unwelcome guests knocking on your door – but remember, it leaves an awful mess to clean up, and it can go off unintentionally. Read chapter two for next time!”
This last bit was shouted over the sound of the bell ringing, students gathering up their things, and a general rush for the door.
Once the last student had left the room, the teacher went and sat down next to the headmistress, who was stuffing her magazine into a pocket of her robes.
“Well, Tatyana, how do you think that went?” he said.
“I warned you that it would be difficult, Slavik,” she replied, looking directly at him for the first time all day. He was a pale, bespectacled man – fairly young – a bit on the portly side, with a good-sized bald-spot above his forehead and a wary look in his eyes that some people had mistaken for a sign of weak nerves. Actually, Tatyana knew that Slavik was a very brave wizard, and dangerous when crossed. He had saved her life once. That was why he was the first teacher she had thought to hire for this difficult, new job. Seeing a shadow of discouragement fall across his face, Tatyana added, “But if you keep on as you have begun, I think you will succeed.”
“Good,” said Slavik. “Then perhaps you are in a good enough mood to grant me one small, tiny favor.”
“Name it.”
“I need to take a leave of absence.”
Tatyana laughed aloud. Then she realized it wasn’t a joke, and scowled instead. “Slavik, this is hardly the time. We have so much to do, and we have to do it fast, before the school governors lose their nerve.”
“Only for a week, I promise. I’ve received an urgent plea for help from an old friend.”
Actually, Slavik had received nothing of the sort. Rigel had contacted him through the matched pair of magic mirrors they shared, to warn him that Il Comte was coming after them. Slavik knew that he was safer at Durmstrang than most anywhere else. But he also knew that Rigel was about to try another Gringotts heist, and he had an idea about how he could help...without getting trapped for years and years.
“All right,” said Tatyana. “I will teach your class for one week, no more.”
“Thank you. I will leave tonight.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
When he Apparated in the back parlor at the Hog’s Head several hours later, the room was empty except for a burly tattooed wizard being aggressively kissed by a veiled witch -- what little of her face Slavik could see was quite nice -- plus a thinner, haunted-looking wizard who was watching the amorous couple with a gloomy air. The loud popping sound of Slavik’s arrival startled the couple, who loudly fell under the table. The third wizard hopped to his feet, his gloom suddenly replaced by a beaming smile.
“Slavik, my old friend!” he cried, shaking the teacher’s hand vigorously in a two-handed grip.
“Is it really Anatoly?” Slavik exclaimed.
Anatoly kicked someone under the table, and the couple resurfaced, looking quite rumpled. “The meeting will begin soon. These two came with me.” He introduced them to Slavik, a bit of his sullenness returning at the sight of them.
The introductions had scarcely ended when they had to start again – and again, and again – as more of the would-be bank robbers Apparated in the small parlor. Somehow, there was always just room enough for all of them, including a chair next to Spanky that seemed to be empty whenever Slavik looked right at it, though at other times the table seemed fully occupied. Drinks were ordered all around, amid a continuous flow of friendly chatter.
Last to arrive was Harvey, who opened the official meeting with a bit of good news: “I have found a way through a magical wall that leads to the underground river, near the Pit under Gringotts.”
The conspirators cheered, then listened intently to his detailed explanation, then cheered again. “It only wants something to divert the goblins’ attention,” Harvey finished, “and our plan will be complete.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Slavik. “I have an idea – but I will need your master of disguise to help me...”
“Gladly,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“...And,” Slavik continued, “We have to do the break-in within the week.”
Suddenly, the crowded room became so silent that it seemed the breathing had stopped. Harvey’s friends, Spanky’s children, the clown wizards, Rigel and Mr. Oldmanson, the Durmstrang lads and even the tattooed wizard stared at Slavik like so many wax figures. It was one of those moments when the wary look in Slavik’s eyes proved, beyond any doubt, not to be a sign of a nervous disposition. Setting his jaw firmly, Slavik said, “Here’s what I suggest...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Will Jaan change his mind and join the party before they break into Gringotts?
CONTEST: Describe a real-life creature that has something kind of magical about it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #94. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/11/06]
The new headmistress sat in the back of the classroom, seemingly absorbed in the Journal of Early Wizardry Development, Vol. 937, No. 6, while the brand new Defensive Magic teacher carried on with his lecture. She sighed as she listened, reminding herself once again that no one would have expected it easy to introduce the new curriculum at Durmstrang. Old ways – like teaching the flat-out Dark Arts – were hard to put aside. It was no wonder that she was the third head of Durmstrang to be appointed since the disappearance of Igor Karkaroff. Still, there was something about this new teacher...if anyone could make it work, he could.
“...It wasn’t hard for me to hop from on top of one giant, glass eyeball to another, all the way across the dungeon – though, to be sure, if I had fallen between them, they would have rolled over me and crushed me to death. After that, it was a simple matter of sawing through two iron bars, squeezing through the window, and crawling along a low-hanging tree branch over the Inferi-infested moat. Then I had all afternoon, until the sun went down, to run for my life across miles of swampy waste. It was actually the most fun I had had all summer. Nevertheless, that was the last time my parents allowed me to spend the holidays with my vampire aunt and uncle. The End.”
The young witch nodded politely, acknowledging the other students’ applause, and returned to her seat.
“Very good, excellent work,” said the new teacher, wiping sweat off his pasty brow. “We will continue hearing your compositions about your experiences with the Dark Arts next week. Now, let’s see how many of you read the chapter that was assigned for today. Pavel, how would you define the word ‘munchkinesis’?”
“Er...munchkinesis...” One of the boys in the front row got a strained look on his face. “Is that a curse that causes you to grow a second stomach, so that you have to ruminate like a...”
“No,” said the professor. “Who knows this? Samirah?”
A girl cleared her throat nervously, then said, “Munchkinesis: a security spell, often triggered by stepping on a trick stair, that causes the victim to become about two feet tall with a squeaky voice and adorable, rosy cheeks.”
Several of the children in the classroom shuddered.
“Fair warning,” said the teacher. “The trunk that contains the answers to this year’s quizzes is protected by the munchkinesis spell. Now, Alexandra, perhaps you can tell us one advantage, and one disadvantage, of the Albinusmentis spell.”
A very quiet girl turned very red and seemed, for a moment, unable to say anything. Then a couple of students giggled and the girl shot a piercing glare in their direction. “All right,” said Alexandra. “The advantage of Albinusmentis is that it wipes your adversary’s mind blank, giving you time to decide what to do with him. The disadvantage is that it only lasts about a minute.”
“Then you obviously can’t use that as an excuse for failing a whole exam,” the professor pointed out.
Some of the students chuckled briefly. The moment of levity showed that the students were starting to warm to the new subject, but the children seemed confused – some of them ashamed, some angry – after it happened. The headmistress stifled another sigh and turned a page in her magazine.
“We just have time for one more question,” said the teacher. “What is another name for the Tonabrix Trap?”
Several hands went up. The teacher called on a student named Laszlo, who said, “Unwelcome Mat.”
“Very good. It’s an effective deterrent against unwelcome guests knocking on your door – but remember, it leaves an awful mess to clean up, and it can go off unintentionally. Read chapter two for next time!”
This last bit was shouted over the sound of the bell ringing, students gathering up their things, and a general rush for the door.
Once the last student had left the room, the teacher went and sat down next to the headmistress, who was stuffing her magazine into a pocket of her robes.
“Well, Tatyana, how do you think that went?” he said.
“I warned you that it would be difficult, Slavik,” she replied, looking directly at him for the first time all day. He was a pale, bespectacled man – fairly young – a bit on the portly side, with a good-sized bald-spot above his forehead and a wary look in his eyes that some people had mistaken for a sign of weak nerves. Actually, Tatyana knew that Slavik was a very brave wizard, and dangerous when crossed. He had saved her life once. That was why he was the first teacher she had thought to hire for this difficult, new job. Seeing a shadow of discouragement fall across his face, Tatyana added, “But if you keep on as you have begun, I think you will succeed.”
“Good,” said Slavik. “Then perhaps you are in a good enough mood to grant me one small, tiny favor.”
“Name it.”
“I need to take a leave of absence.”
Tatyana laughed aloud. Then she realized it wasn’t a joke, and scowled instead. “Slavik, this is hardly the time. We have so much to do, and we have to do it fast, before the school governors lose their nerve.”
“Only for a week, I promise. I’ve received an urgent plea for help from an old friend.”
Actually, Slavik had received nothing of the sort. Rigel had contacted him through the matched pair of magic mirrors they shared, to warn him that Il Comte was coming after them. Slavik knew that he was safer at Durmstrang than most anywhere else. But he also knew that Rigel was about to try another Gringotts heist, and he had an idea about how he could help...without getting trapped for years and years.
“All right,” said Tatyana. “I will teach your class for one week, no more.”
“Thank you. I will leave tonight.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
When he Apparated in the back parlor at the Hog’s Head several hours later, the room was empty except for a burly tattooed wizard being aggressively kissed by a veiled witch -- what little of her face Slavik could see was quite nice -- plus a thinner, haunted-looking wizard who was watching the amorous couple with a gloomy air. The loud popping sound of Slavik’s arrival startled the couple, who loudly fell under the table. The third wizard hopped to his feet, his gloom suddenly replaced by a beaming smile.
“Slavik, my old friend!” he cried, shaking the teacher’s hand vigorously in a two-handed grip.
“Is it really Anatoly?” Slavik exclaimed.
Anatoly kicked someone under the table, and the couple resurfaced, looking quite rumpled. “The meeting will begin soon. These two came with me.” He introduced them to Slavik, a bit of his sullenness returning at the sight of them.
The introductions had scarcely ended when they had to start again – and again, and again – as more of the would-be bank robbers Apparated in the small parlor. Somehow, there was always just room enough for all of them, including a chair next to Spanky that seemed to be empty whenever Slavik looked right at it, though at other times the table seemed fully occupied. Drinks were ordered all around, amid a continuous flow of friendly chatter.
Last to arrive was Harvey, who opened the official meeting with a bit of good news: “I have found a way through a magical wall that leads to the underground river, near the Pit under Gringotts.”
The conspirators cheered, then listened intently to his detailed explanation, then cheered again. “It only wants something to divert the goblins’ attention,” Harvey finished, “and our plan will be complete.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Slavik. “I have an idea – but I will need your master of disguise to help me...”
“Gladly,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“...And,” Slavik continued, “We have to do the break-in within the week.”
Suddenly, the crowded room became so silent that it seemed the breathing had stopped. Harvey’s friends, Spanky’s children, the clown wizards, Rigel and Mr. Oldmanson, the Durmstrang lads and even the tattooed wizard stared at Slavik like so many wax figures. It was one of those moments when the wary look in Slavik’s eyes proved, beyond any doubt, not to be a sign of a nervous disposition. Setting his jaw firmly, Slavik said, “Here’s what I suggest...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Will Jaan change his mind and join the party before they break into Gringotts?
CONTEST: Describe a real-life creature that has something kind of magical about it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #94. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/11/06]
87. The Wall That Wasn't There
Contest winner: zanaboo
There was hardly time for a round of firewhisky after they arrived at the familiar, squalid back parlor at the Hog’s Head. Joe was immediately sent to find and warn the Clown Wizards about the return of Il Comte. Spanky, Endora, and Sadie were sent to three different countries to track down Jaan, Karl, and Anatoly. Rigel and his father hurried back to their home, where the lad had a magic mirror to communicate with Slavik, the last of the erstwhile Durmstrang runaways. Only a few minutes after their arrival, there remained only two wizards in the parlor: Harvey and Merlin. Harvey conjured a drink for each of them.
“In time,” said Harvey, “I hope to hear the full story of your escape from Gringotts. But present circumstances call for a drastic abridgement. I understand that, after the genie returned you and your party to the Pit, it took you nearly three years to escape again. During that time, however, there was one other occasion when you came close to finding a way out. If I am right, that story will be the key to our plan to break into the Vault of Yves the Leper. Making a long story very short, what happened?”
Merlin was a little unnerved by the amount of information Harvey already seemed to have. But then, he reflected, he might have picked up a good deal from reading Rigel’s tell-all autobiography. Taking a deep breath, he began the story.
“We found our way down to that underground river again, which led to the dragon’s lair. Somehow, it seemed that every time we approached the water’s edge, that cracked boatman would appear. He took us back and forth between the dragon’s lair and the Pit, while we stole boatloads of gold from the dragon. Working together, we managed this with only a little trouble from the nifflers and the dragon, and some booby traps, and a couple of other things that might have ruined everything if there hadn’t been so many of us working together. We watched out for each other, you know. So...” – Merlin coughed – “...we busted our way into the Wand Tree Preserve, bribed the leprechaun with massive amounts of gold, who in turn bribed the tree spirits – "
“Bowtruckles,” Harvey corrected.
“ – Right. The next bit took a lot of time and hard work, but we cut some trees and built a skiff. The boatman, you see, could only take us back and forth between a couple of landings in that underground river. But we wanted to escape from under the bank altogether. So once the boat was finished, we carried it down to the landing – it took the lot of us several days to manage this – and with a week’s worth of food on board, we pushed off.
“We went downstream first,” Merlin continued. “Poor Don Pagliai was convinced the river went in circles, and there would be no way out. Slavik, on the other hand, had a great fear that we would get caught in an underground whirlpool or waterfall. Fortunately for us, all our fears were baseless. Yet after several days of rotating watches, fending ourselves off the walls of the tunnel, ducking under low overhangs, portaging over rapids, and passing numerous landings, side-tunnels, and tributaries, we were coming to the point of no return. We had to decide whether to turn back, and work our way upstream, while our supplies lasted – or to keep going into the unknown. But that was when we came upon the wall.”
Harvey’s face did the seemingly impossible at this point. Somehow, his features showed a relaxation of tension, as if to say, “Now we are on familiar ground,” while at the same time he seemed to be listening with keener interest than before. Merlin, pausing to sip his drink, spent a moment pondering this apparent contradiction. Then he went on with his tale.
“A solid wall stood across the entire tunnel, completely blocking it. We tapped it, pounded on it, dug in it with sharp tools – Jaan, bless him, even dared to dive under it in that freezing water, but when he came up half-dead of cold, he said there was no opening underwater. Yet somehow, the river kept flowing right through the wall. It looked and felt solid, but it wasn’t there.”
By now Harvey’s face almost glowed with a look of eager satisfaction.
Merlin refilled his own drink, then said, “We didn’t waste much time trying to get through it. We moved back up to our landing and refilled our supplies. Then we rowed upstream, where there were fewer and fewer resting places, and where the river branched into more and more little streams. Eventually we came to the point where we could not squeeze the boat any farther upstream. We tried different tributaries, but these always led either to a spring, or to a waterfall, or to some place where the ceiling wasn’t high enough or the channel wide enough for us to go any higher.
“So we went back downstream again. We had to find a way through that wall; that was our best chance. But after trying quite a few ideas that didn’t work, and having many arguments, each worse than the last, it began to look as if our group would break up and go separate ways.
“It was Rigel who finally saved us. We had landed him on one of the side-tunnels, where he had toddled off by himself...”
“That will do,” said Harvey. “You’ve told me all that I need to know.”
Merlin was startled, relieved, and disappointed at the same time. He covered his confusion by taking a deep drink of firewhisky, while Harvey explained.
“What you encountered was a magical wall. I should know, because my family has made the better part of our fortune in the magical wall business. For example, we did very well during You-Know-Who’s first reign of terror. You know all about portable holes; it’s a similar principle, really. Instead of being able to stretch a hole across any solid wall you needed to get through, you could stretch a wall across any hole that you didn’t want someone to get through. They were designed to blend in with the appearance of whatever walls they touched.
“During the troubles with the Death Eaters, a lot of people used our portable walls to conceal things they didn’t want to fall into the hands of Death Eaters – rare books, dangerous magical objects, family heirlooms, and so on. Sometimes they were used to hide people, or even whole families, who were marked for death. In neighborhoods controlled by the Death Eaters, this could mean hiding in a space the size of a broom cupboard for months or years at a time; but in many cases, the portable wall was only meant to provide a temporary hiding place, in case unexpected visitors showed up.”
Merlin listened with wide eyes. He had run out of firewhisky and his mouth had gone dry, but he did not want to interrupt. Though Merlin had heard of wall spells, he had never heard Harvey say so much at one time, and he didn’t want to break the flow.
“A cheap model,” Harvey rhapsodized, “would only appear to be a wall as long as you didn’t touch it, or look too close. To the touch it would feel like fabric, and might even wave a bit in a strong breeze. A middle-range model could conceal a larger area, and would also feel like a wall if you touched it. The deluxe models could block spells or dangerous creatures, as well as to hiding things. And the super-deluxe model could actually function as a wall, or part of a wall, in case someone blasted a hole in your house and you wanted to patch it up in a hurry. Of course, the super-deluxe model was out of the price range of most wizarding families, but one could rent a super-deluxe wall spell until a construction-spell specialist could be hired for repairs.
“Some of these walls had special features; for example, allowing members of the family to pass right through them, while keeping undesirables out...”
“Or,” Merlin said, picking up Harvey’s point, “letting water run through it, while completely resisting our attempts to break it down.”
“Exactly,” said Harvey, looking pleased and sheepish at the same time. “I believe my family may have sold that wall spell to the goblins, many years ago. If that is the case, and if we can find our way to the other side of that wall, we may have the means to get into Gringotts uninvited...”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE for TMQ #89 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Which “Magic Quill” villain should menace our heroes as they attempt to break into Gringotts? (A) Il Comte di Bestemmia. (B) Uncle or Auntie Leslie. (C) Sid Shmedly. (D) Nailspike the goblin. (E) All of the above. (F) Other: _____.
The CONTEST: Give the recipe for any kind of food, as a modern witch or wizard might make it.
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #89. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 4/25/06]
There was hardly time for a round of firewhisky after they arrived at the familiar, squalid back parlor at the Hog’s Head. Joe was immediately sent to find and warn the Clown Wizards about the return of Il Comte. Spanky, Endora, and Sadie were sent to three different countries to track down Jaan, Karl, and Anatoly. Rigel and his father hurried back to their home, where the lad had a magic mirror to communicate with Slavik, the last of the erstwhile Durmstrang runaways. Only a few minutes after their arrival, there remained only two wizards in the parlor: Harvey and Merlin. Harvey conjured a drink for each of them.
“In time,” said Harvey, “I hope to hear the full story of your escape from Gringotts. But present circumstances call for a drastic abridgement. I understand that, after the genie returned you and your party to the Pit, it took you nearly three years to escape again. During that time, however, there was one other occasion when you came close to finding a way out. If I am right, that story will be the key to our plan to break into the Vault of Yves the Leper. Making a long story very short, what happened?”
Merlin was a little unnerved by the amount of information Harvey already seemed to have. But then, he reflected, he might have picked up a good deal from reading Rigel’s tell-all autobiography. Taking a deep breath, he began the story.
“We found our way down to that underground river again, which led to the dragon’s lair. Somehow, it seemed that every time we approached the water’s edge, that cracked boatman would appear. He took us back and forth between the dragon’s lair and the Pit, while we stole boatloads of gold from the dragon. Working together, we managed this with only a little trouble from the nifflers and the dragon, and some booby traps, and a couple of other things that might have ruined everything if there hadn’t been so many of us working together. We watched out for each other, you know. So...” – Merlin coughed – “...we busted our way into the Wand Tree Preserve, bribed the leprechaun with massive amounts of gold, who in turn bribed the tree spirits – "
“Bowtruckles,” Harvey corrected.
“ – Right. The next bit took a lot of time and hard work, but we cut some trees and built a skiff. The boatman, you see, could only take us back and forth between a couple of landings in that underground river. But we wanted to escape from under the bank altogether. So once the boat was finished, we carried it down to the landing – it took the lot of us several days to manage this – and with a week’s worth of food on board, we pushed off.
“We went downstream first,” Merlin continued. “Poor Don Pagliai was convinced the river went in circles, and there would be no way out. Slavik, on the other hand, had a great fear that we would get caught in an underground whirlpool or waterfall. Fortunately for us, all our fears were baseless. Yet after several days of rotating watches, fending ourselves off the walls of the tunnel, ducking under low overhangs, portaging over rapids, and passing numerous landings, side-tunnels, and tributaries, we were coming to the point of no return. We had to decide whether to turn back, and work our way upstream, while our supplies lasted – or to keep going into the unknown. But that was when we came upon the wall.”
Harvey’s face did the seemingly impossible at this point. Somehow, his features showed a relaxation of tension, as if to say, “Now we are on familiar ground,” while at the same time he seemed to be listening with keener interest than before. Merlin, pausing to sip his drink, spent a moment pondering this apparent contradiction. Then he went on with his tale.
“A solid wall stood across the entire tunnel, completely blocking it. We tapped it, pounded on it, dug in it with sharp tools – Jaan, bless him, even dared to dive under it in that freezing water, but when he came up half-dead of cold, he said there was no opening underwater. Yet somehow, the river kept flowing right through the wall. It looked and felt solid, but it wasn’t there.”
By now Harvey’s face almost glowed with a look of eager satisfaction.
Merlin refilled his own drink, then said, “We didn’t waste much time trying to get through it. We moved back up to our landing and refilled our supplies. Then we rowed upstream, where there were fewer and fewer resting places, and where the river branched into more and more little streams. Eventually we came to the point where we could not squeeze the boat any farther upstream. We tried different tributaries, but these always led either to a spring, or to a waterfall, or to some place where the ceiling wasn’t high enough or the channel wide enough for us to go any higher.
“So we went back downstream again. We had to find a way through that wall; that was our best chance. But after trying quite a few ideas that didn’t work, and having many arguments, each worse than the last, it began to look as if our group would break up and go separate ways.
“It was Rigel who finally saved us. We had landed him on one of the side-tunnels, where he had toddled off by himself...”
“That will do,” said Harvey. “You’ve told me all that I need to know.”
Merlin was startled, relieved, and disappointed at the same time. He covered his confusion by taking a deep drink of firewhisky, while Harvey explained.
“What you encountered was a magical wall. I should know, because my family has made the better part of our fortune in the magical wall business. For example, we did very well during You-Know-Who’s first reign of terror. You know all about portable holes; it’s a similar principle, really. Instead of being able to stretch a hole across any solid wall you needed to get through, you could stretch a wall across any hole that you didn’t want someone to get through. They were designed to blend in with the appearance of whatever walls they touched.
“During the troubles with the Death Eaters, a lot of people used our portable walls to conceal things they didn’t want to fall into the hands of Death Eaters – rare books, dangerous magical objects, family heirlooms, and so on. Sometimes they were used to hide people, or even whole families, who were marked for death. In neighborhoods controlled by the Death Eaters, this could mean hiding in a space the size of a broom cupboard for months or years at a time; but in many cases, the portable wall was only meant to provide a temporary hiding place, in case unexpected visitors showed up.”
Merlin listened with wide eyes. He had run out of firewhisky and his mouth had gone dry, but he did not want to interrupt. Though Merlin had heard of wall spells, he had never heard Harvey say so much at one time, and he didn’t want to break the flow.
“A cheap model,” Harvey rhapsodized, “would only appear to be a wall as long as you didn’t touch it, or look too close. To the touch it would feel like fabric, and might even wave a bit in a strong breeze. A middle-range model could conceal a larger area, and would also feel like a wall if you touched it. The deluxe models could block spells or dangerous creatures, as well as to hiding things. And the super-deluxe model could actually function as a wall, or part of a wall, in case someone blasted a hole in your house and you wanted to patch it up in a hurry. Of course, the super-deluxe model was out of the price range of most wizarding families, but one could rent a super-deluxe wall spell until a construction-spell specialist could be hired for repairs.
“Some of these walls had special features; for example, allowing members of the family to pass right through them, while keeping undesirables out...”
“Or,” Merlin said, picking up Harvey’s point, “letting water run through it, while completely resisting our attempts to break it down.”
“Exactly,” said Harvey, looking pleased and sheepish at the same time. “I believe my family may have sold that wall spell to the goblins, many years ago. If that is the case, and if we can find our way to the other side of that wall, we may have the means to get into Gringotts uninvited...”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE for TMQ #89 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Which “Magic Quill” villain should menace our heroes as they attempt to break into Gringotts? (A) Il Comte di Bestemmia. (B) Uncle or Auntie Leslie. (C) Sid Shmedly. (D) Nailspike the goblin. (E) All of the above. (F) Other: _____.
The CONTEST: Give the recipe for any kind of food, as a modern witch or wizard might make it.
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #89. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 4/25/06]
86. The Literalis Curse
Contest Winners: TWZRD, Linda Carrig, and HPMN_Tom
When the breathless group of friends and accomplices arrived at the Bogley Squint ward, they beheld a scene that would haunt their memory for years afterward.
“Blimey,” gasped Sadie. “That must be all the food in the entire hospital!”
“It is,” groaned the Assistant Healer. “And apart from one live chicken that’s running around here somewhere, all of it is encased in some kind of magical bubble.”
The ward was unrecognizable. Where there had been tables and chairs, beds, groups of patients, and a table-tennis set, now the only thing to be seen was food. Pots of it, platters of it, great spherical globs of it, from Salisbury steak to rice pudding, from steamed snap beans to mashed potato, and every chunk individually wrapped in a gleaming sphere of pure energy. The food-balls spilled out the door into the hallway, pouring round the ankles of the rescuers the Assistant Healer had led from the waiting room. Nevertheless, the spheres of hospital food remained piled up nearly to the ceiling, a rolling, tumbling, seething mass of culinary debris.
“It’s funny,” said Endora, sniffing the air. “But I don’t smell food at all.”
“The bubbles are air-tight,” Harvey deduced instantly. “God help anyone who may be stuck inside one.”
“I hear voices begging for help,” said Joe Albuquerque, tearing the round white collar off his black vicar’s shirt and wading into the bumpy, slippery disaster area. Meanwhile, those behind him began scooping spheres of food out into the hallway. There Spanky and his wife Ilona (invisible to all but him) vanished them before they could roll away and bury somebody else.
The first person to be rescued from the food avalanche was a fat wizard who immediately complained that he was hungry. “Food, food everywhere, and not a bite to eat,” he moaned, as the shell-shocked Assistant Healer supported him out into the corridor. “I was chewing on a tough piece of chop when it suddenly felt like a rubber ball in my mouth. I tried to chew on it, but the thing just shot out of my mouth and bounced off the wall. I tried to stick my fork into another piece of chop, but something wouldn’t let me get near my plate – I tried harder and harder to reach the food, until the plate shot off the table. Next thing I knew, I was sinking into this flood of gorgeous food, but I couldn’t hold on to anything – couldn’t stay on top of the pile – went under, thought I was a goner – I swear I’ll never look at food again...You wouldn’t happen to have a biscuit, now?”
Several more shells-and-cheese-shocked patients emerged from the rubble, looking remarkably fresh and chipper for spell-damage victims who had been nearly crushed or smothered under a mountain of inedible food. The quiet headaches, the omnipedritis cases, even the eternal stench victim seemed to have been cured. The rescuers dug faster, risking the collapse of precarious piles of food-balls; Endora had to be dug out of two separate avalanches. The patients they rescued did not seem regretful when they saw Spanky destroying whole piles of hospital food.
Finally they reached the bottom of the ward, from which by all accounts the trouble had come. At first, on seeing the empty bed, Endora cried out in alarm. But then they heard laughing voices from under the bed, and the group kept digging until they unearthed (or unfooded) Merlin and Rigel. They had taken refuge under the bed, and had passed the time until their rescue by playing marbles, using sphere-encased crumbs to shoot at a larger sphere that contained a suspicious-looking muffin. The moment daylight reached their refuge, the muffin-ball shot out from under the bed and Merlin began gathering up the marbles.
“Hey, no keepsies,” Rigel whined.
“Tough luck, kid,” said Merlin, pocketing the crumbs. He crawled out from under the bed and straightened up, beaming at his friends. “What took you so long?”
“Just as I expected,” Harvey marveled. “The fox pox is gone!”
“Is it?” said Merlin, touching his cheek. Before he had more than a split second to confirm the purity of his skin, Endora bowled herself at him and nearly knocked him down, sobbing into his arms. “There, there,” he said, patting her head while she embraced him. “You see? We’re all right.”
Her response was made indistinct by a congested nose, a constricted throat, and a mouth muffled by Merlin’s hospital robes.
Rigel came out from under the bed, looking daggers at Endora and shying away from his father’s outstretched hand.
“Well, that’s all sorted then,” said Joe Albuquerque, who had transformed himself from a vicar into a healer. “I’m sure the patient will be discharged in a few moments, and we can all get back to...”
“But why did all this happen?” Harvey demanded, and the other members of the rescue party murmured that they wanted to know this too.
Merlin, with Endora still clinging to him, managed somehow to explain how the Food Tasters’ Friend had summoned all the bad food in the hospital – how, in effect, every plate in every ward, and all the pots and pans in the kitchens, had materialized around him and Rigel – and how, if he didn’t get something into his stomach very soon, he would consider eating the live chicken that was now pecking at a nearby kernel of magically-shielded corn, fox pox or no.
“Let’s go, then,” said Joe. “By the powers vested in me as a healer, I pronounce you discharged. Shall we go by portkey or Floo powder?”
“If you’re going back to the Hog’s Head, you might want to get rid of that amulet,” Orion Oldmanson suggested.
Merlin was digging in his pockets for the stone when another Assistant Healer approached, breathless, pushing a wheeled chair that stopped just short of running Sadie down. In it was what at first looked like a scarecrow made out of woven reeds, with an assortment of flowers, fruits, and vegetables attached to it in a parody of human facial features and clothing. Endora almost screamed when the scarecrow moved. Sadie, who had somehow caught the chicken, covered the bird’s eyes. What kind of spell was this? Was it an animated scarecrow? Or had someone been hexed so that his flesh turned into vegetable matter?
“Is it too late to cure this man?” the attendant panted. “He’s just arrived at St. Mungo’s. Everyone else has been cured – can you do to him whatever you did to them?”
Merlin hesitated, holding the amulet in his hand.
“Don’t do it,” Harvey warned. “This man is at least partly made of food. The least that could happen is that he would be trapped inside an airtight bubble until he died. At worst, he could be torn to pieces!”
With an audible gulp, Merlin returned the stone to his pocket.
“But the man is desperate,” the attendant cried. “He could begin rotting any minute. Birds keep trying to peck his eyes out. What is he going to do?”
“How did this happen to him?” Harvey asked.
“It was the Literalis Curse,” said the patient himself, in a rustly, leafy voice that made several of the bystanders shudder. “I write for Broomstick and Wand, travel section. A reader from Italy wrote to me about an article I had done about that country. The letter said it was so full of uninformed clichés, that he was enclosing a Literalis Curse in the letter – it said that by the time I had read that far, it was already too late for me – that the next cliché I uttered would become my fate...”
“Let me guess,” said Spanky. “'You are what you eat.'”
“A statement that is only literally true for cannibals,” Joe pointed out, causing Sadie to try to cover the chicken’s ears. “And for Mr. Walking-Market here.”
“The name is Regianini,” said the poor man.
“What we need to know is the name of the wizard who cursed you,” said Harvey. “Then, if we find him, perhaps we can persuade him to lift the curse.”
“Oh, that’s a simple matter,” said Mr. Regianini. “The letter was written on letterhead stationery. I’ve got it right here, tucked behind my left turnip.”
Sadie returned to covering the chicken’s eyes, while a cornstalk hand held out a neatly folded piece of thick, creamy, linen paper. Harvey took it gingerly, unfolded it, and almost dropped the letter.
“It can’t be,” he said, handing it to Merlin, who immediately had to sit down.
“Signor Maledicto di Bestemmia,” Merlin read aloud in a strangled voice.
“Impossible,” said Rigel, reading over Merlin’s shoulder. “How can he be back? He should still have about ten years’ worth of Lilly Grate in his system. No one could recover that fast.”
“I don’t know how,” said Merlin, dully. “But I know what this means. He will come after us next. You, me, the Durmstrang lot, and the Clown Wizards.”
“We have to warn them,” Rigel exclaimed.
“He’ll have to go through the lot of us to reach you,” Endora said, looking fiercely round at all the companions.
Catching their urgency, Harvey said, “We need to make some plans. There isn’t a moment to be lost. Let’s meet in our customary place in one hour...”
“But what about me?” rustled Mr. Regianini as the group began to hasten toward the exit. “How am I going to get turned back into flesh and blood?”
Harvey replied with a bit of parting advice: “I’d ask the healers about food preservatives, if I were you.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #88 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Which Magic Quill character’s mysterious or interesting past do you want to hear more about?
The CONTEST: Invent a brief “nursery rhyme” that would be taught to wizarding children.
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #88. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 4/2/06]
When the breathless group of friends and accomplices arrived at the Bogley Squint ward, they beheld a scene that would haunt their memory for years afterward.
“Blimey,” gasped Sadie. “That must be all the food in the entire hospital!”
“It is,” groaned the Assistant Healer. “And apart from one live chicken that’s running around here somewhere, all of it is encased in some kind of magical bubble.”
The ward was unrecognizable. Where there had been tables and chairs, beds, groups of patients, and a table-tennis set, now the only thing to be seen was food. Pots of it, platters of it, great spherical globs of it, from Salisbury steak to rice pudding, from steamed snap beans to mashed potato, and every chunk individually wrapped in a gleaming sphere of pure energy. The food-balls spilled out the door into the hallway, pouring round the ankles of the rescuers the Assistant Healer had led from the waiting room. Nevertheless, the spheres of hospital food remained piled up nearly to the ceiling, a rolling, tumbling, seething mass of culinary debris.
“It’s funny,” said Endora, sniffing the air. “But I don’t smell food at all.”
“The bubbles are air-tight,” Harvey deduced instantly. “God help anyone who may be stuck inside one.”
“I hear voices begging for help,” said Joe Albuquerque, tearing the round white collar off his black vicar’s shirt and wading into the bumpy, slippery disaster area. Meanwhile, those behind him began scooping spheres of food out into the hallway. There Spanky and his wife Ilona (invisible to all but him) vanished them before they could roll away and bury somebody else.
The first person to be rescued from the food avalanche was a fat wizard who immediately complained that he was hungry. “Food, food everywhere, and not a bite to eat,” he moaned, as the shell-shocked Assistant Healer supported him out into the corridor. “I was chewing on a tough piece of chop when it suddenly felt like a rubber ball in my mouth. I tried to chew on it, but the thing just shot out of my mouth and bounced off the wall. I tried to stick my fork into another piece of chop, but something wouldn’t let me get near my plate – I tried harder and harder to reach the food, until the plate shot off the table. Next thing I knew, I was sinking into this flood of gorgeous food, but I couldn’t hold on to anything – couldn’t stay on top of the pile – went under, thought I was a goner – I swear I’ll never look at food again...You wouldn’t happen to have a biscuit, now?”
Several more shells-and-cheese-shocked patients emerged from the rubble, looking remarkably fresh and chipper for spell-damage victims who had been nearly crushed or smothered under a mountain of inedible food. The quiet headaches, the omnipedritis cases, even the eternal stench victim seemed to have been cured. The rescuers dug faster, risking the collapse of precarious piles of food-balls; Endora had to be dug out of two separate avalanches. The patients they rescued did not seem regretful when they saw Spanky destroying whole piles of hospital food.
Finally they reached the bottom of the ward, from which by all accounts the trouble had come. At first, on seeing the empty bed, Endora cried out in alarm. But then they heard laughing voices from under the bed, and the group kept digging until they unearthed (or unfooded) Merlin and Rigel. They had taken refuge under the bed, and had passed the time until their rescue by playing marbles, using sphere-encased crumbs to shoot at a larger sphere that contained a suspicious-looking muffin. The moment daylight reached their refuge, the muffin-ball shot out from under the bed and Merlin began gathering up the marbles.
“Hey, no keepsies,” Rigel whined.
“Tough luck, kid,” said Merlin, pocketing the crumbs. He crawled out from under the bed and straightened up, beaming at his friends. “What took you so long?”
“Just as I expected,” Harvey marveled. “The fox pox is gone!”
“Is it?” said Merlin, touching his cheek. Before he had more than a split second to confirm the purity of his skin, Endora bowled herself at him and nearly knocked him down, sobbing into his arms. “There, there,” he said, patting her head while she embraced him. “You see? We’re all right.”
Her response was made indistinct by a congested nose, a constricted throat, and a mouth muffled by Merlin’s hospital robes.
Rigel came out from under the bed, looking daggers at Endora and shying away from his father’s outstretched hand.
“Well, that’s all sorted then,” said Joe Albuquerque, who had transformed himself from a vicar into a healer. “I’m sure the patient will be discharged in a few moments, and we can all get back to...”
“But why did all this happen?” Harvey demanded, and the other members of the rescue party murmured that they wanted to know this too.
Merlin, with Endora still clinging to him, managed somehow to explain how the Food Tasters’ Friend had summoned all the bad food in the hospital – how, in effect, every plate in every ward, and all the pots and pans in the kitchens, had materialized around him and Rigel – and how, if he didn’t get something into his stomach very soon, he would consider eating the live chicken that was now pecking at a nearby kernel of magically-shielded corn, fox pox or no.
“Let’s go, then,” said Joe. “By the powers vested in me as a healer, I pronounce you discharged. Shall we go by portkey or Floo powder?”
“If you’re going back to the Hog’s Head, you might want to get rid of that amulet,” Orion Oldmanson suggested.
Merlin was digging in his pockets for the stone when another Assistant Healer approached, breathless, pushing a wheeled chair that stopped just short of running Sadie down. In it was what at first looked like a scarecrow made out of woven reeds, with an assortment of flowers, fruits, and vegetables attached to it in a parody of human facial features and clothing. Endora almost screamed when the scarecrow moved. Sadie, who had somehow caught the chicken, covered the bird’s eyes. What kind of spell was this? Was it an animated scarecrow? Or had someone been hexed so that his flesh turned into vegetable matter?
“Is it too late to cure this man?” the attendant panted. “He’s just arrived at St. Mungo’s. Everyone else has been cured – can you do to him whatever you did to them?”
Merlin hesitated, holding the amulet in his hand.
“Don’t do it,” Harvey warned. “This man is at least partly made of food. The least that could happen is that he would be trapped inside an airtight bubble until he died. At worst, he could be torn to pieces!”
With an audible gulp, Merlin returned the stone to his pocket.
“But the man is desperate,” the attendant cried. “He could begin rotting any minute. Birds keep trying to peck his eyes out. What is he going to do?”
“How did this happen to him?” Harvey asked.
“It was the Literalis Curse,” said the patient himself, in a rustly, leafy voice that made several of the bystanders shudder. “I write for Broomstick and Wand, travel section. A reader from Italy wrote to me about an article I had done about that country. The letter said it was so full of uninformed clichés, that he was enclosing a Literalis Curse in the letter – it said that by the time I had read that far, it was already too late for me – that the next cliché I uttered would become my fate...”
“Let me guess,” said Spanky. “'You are what you eat.'”
“A statement that is only literally true for cannibals,” Joe pointed out, causing Sadie to try to cover the chicken’s ears. “And for Mr. Walking-Market here.”
“The name is Regianini,” said the poor man.
“What we need to know is the name of the wizard who cursed you,” said Harvey. “Then, if we find him, perhaps we can persuade him to lift the curse.”
“Oh, that’s a simple matter,” said Mr. Regianini. “The letter was written on letterhead stationery. I’ve got it right here, tucked behind my left turnip.”
Sadie returned to covering the chicken’s eyes, while a cornstalk hand held out a neatly folded piece of thick, creamy, linen paper. Harvey took it gingerly, unfolded it, and almost dropped the letter.
“It can’t be,” he said, handing it to Merlin, who immediately had to sit down.
“Signor Maledicto di Bestemmia,” Merlin read aloud in a strangled voice.
“Impossible,” said Rigel, reading over Merlin’s shoulder. “How can he be back? He should still have about ten years’ worth of Lilly Grate in his system. No one could recover that fast.”
“I don’t know how,” said Merlin, dully. “But I know what this means. He will come after us next. You, me, the Durmstrang lot, and the Clown Wizards.”
“We have to warn them,” Rigel exclaimed.
“He’ll have to go through the lot of us to reach you,” Endora said, looking fiercely round at all the companions.
Catching their urgency, Harvey said, “We need to make some plans. There isn’t a moment to be lost. Let’s meet in our customary place in one hour...”
“But what about me?” rustled Mr. Regianini as the group began to hasten toward the exit. “How am I going to get turned back into flesh and blood?”
Harvey replied with a bit of parting advice: “I’d ask the healers about food preservatives, if I were you.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #88 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Which Magic Quill character’s mysterious or interesting past do you want to hear more about?
The CONTEST: Invent a brief “nursery rhyme” that would be taught to wizarding children.
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #88. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 4/2/06]
85. Head Quidditch
Contest Winner: voldymortus
The waiting room at St. Mungo’s allowed coffee, and a bottle concealed in the vicar’s cassock made the coffee Irish, and so a convivial atmosphere prevailed while Spanky and Harvey delivered the somber news about Merlin’s condition. When the speakers reached the point in their tale where Rigel arrived at the patient’s bedside, they faltered with a nervous look toward Orion Oldmanson, who was the first to finish his coffee.
Vicar Joe Albuquerque poured him another and said, in the benignly knowing way suited to his appearance, “I would guess that raising Rigel for the second time must be easier than the first time. To be sure, he knows all your tricks; but so do you know his.”
Orion chuckled affectionately, yet not altogether happily. “The day that I know all of that lad’s tricks will be the day muggles learn to do magic. And it isn’t as if he has to learn them all over again. He has better than thirty-five years of experience at making mischief and avoiding the consequences, all packed into that eleven-year-old brain. He could be more dangerous now than ever before, because no one would suspect a child his age of having the skills and ideas he has.”
“I’ve only looked at him that once,” Sadie shuddered, “and I wouldn’t put anything beyond him.”
“The only help, this time around, is the fact that all his old cronies got captured or killed while he was in Gringotts, and they wouldn’t care for him if they knew he was alive and free. Which, until the lad’s book came out, they didn’t know. None of them could have suspected that the young man who had vanished from their midst, all those years ago, is now a little boy.”
“So the book puts Rigel in danger,” Harvey observed, with a shrewd look.
“It advertises his presence,” old man Oldmanson agreed. “Which could endanger his life, yes. Or it could endanger him in another way.”
“It could get him back in with those Vold-Mart people,” Endora whispered. “He could join the Dark side again.”
“My guess is that he never left the Dark side,” Spanky said grimly.
“You must undertand,” said Oldmanson. “Rigel isn’t really wicked. But he craves adventure, and danger, and thrills. He likes loud noises and fast brooms, and he enjoys shocking people. But above all, he likes to possess things – precious things, powerful things, important things. Even to hold them for a moment, even merely to scheme to get them, is enough to make him happy...”
Joe topped off Oldmanson’s mug once again, with an understanding look.
Endora sighed and shook her head. “But certainly,” she said, “you must have had some good times with your son.”
“No doubt,” said Oldmanson, between steaming sips. “But the best fun we had together was when he didn’t realize that I was there. Perhaps I should begin by saying that, every year that I was married to Rigel’s mother, the quality of my Disillusionment Charm grew. Then she...er...left us, when Rigel was very little; but every year with him improved my Disillusionment skills even more. So by the time, say, when Rigel invented Head Quidditch –"
“Hang on!” Sadie cried. “He never invented that! Only, I’ve had a flutter on every World Cup game for the last...”
“Twenty years,” Oldmanson agreed. “They don’t go back farther than that. And though you probably lost money on some of those games, Rigel earns a fortune at every one – royalties. And I’m not just talking about ghost money; some of those ghosts still have vaults at Gringotts, and they have very little trouble persuading their heirs or trustees to transfer a few galleons into Rigel’s vault whenever they play Head Quidditch. The boy doesn’t know it, but he’s worth more than I am.”
Joe blinked, amazed. “And to think he gets all that for saying, ‘Wait, I have an idea. Why don’t ghosts play Quidditch?’”
Orion grinned sheepishly. “But, you see, ghosts have never been particularly good at sports. All right, there is the Headless Hunt, but many ghosts aren’t headless. More importantly, very little athletic equipment crosses over into the spirit world. It makes you wonder why a sporting wizard or witch would bother becoming a ghost, when they have so little to do except glide around and ooze ectoplasm. In fact, the first haunting I ever witnessed was when a dead cricketer moved into the scullery and drove all the servants to desperation, moaning about not being able to hold a bat.
“The cricketer was still there when Rigel came along, and he started scheming up a sport that ghosts could play. Naturally, the sport he considered most suitable was Quidditch. So at age ten, Rigel began collecting ghost twigs and sticks – mainly from wand trees that had been killed by lightning or floods. In a year’s time he had found enough bits of ghost wood to assemble fourteen ghost brooms. Then, when he was eleven years old – the first time, I mean – he started hunting for some Ghost Snidges, to take the place of a Golden Snitch. The birds were very rare to begin with, and it was very hard for him to find a single one that had become a ghost. I think he was planning to assassinate one of the mating pair that lives in the Really Unplottable Bird Sanctuary, but on his twelfth birthday a pair of ghost snidges flew out of his Godfather Clock, so that was all right.
“During the next year, Rigel combed the countryside for ghost owls. He found quite a few of them, and managed to train several to act as ghost bludgers. I didn’t know what he was about at the time, but now I see what a clever idea that was; for nothing but a formerly living thing could possibly effect a ghost Quidditch player the way a bludger effects a live player. The quaffle remained a problem for him, until he decided to allow a headless ghost to furnish the quaffle – essentially creating a fifteenth player who would only be involved from the neck up.
“After that, it was only a matter of deciding on the rules, and testing them out. I enjoyed watching this part, from under my really quite admirable Disillusionment Charm. Rigel was very determined, and creative, and such a natural leader. At different stages in the process, the quaffle was supposed to be a neutral combatant who merely suffered his or her head to be chucked to and fro, and carried about under some other ghost’s elbow. Later, it grew evident that the quaffle had either to be an independent force that could act equally against both sides, or a supporter of one side contributing to what the muggles call a ‘home field advantage.’ Finally, Rigel decided to let the quaffle serve in a perpetually defensive character, trying to wriggle out of the grasp of whoever held it, and biting them when necessary.
“Being dead, of course, the players were able to put up with a great deal more brutality than regular Quidditch players could, so the number of possible fouls was reduced to only seventeen – and twelve of those had to do with name-calling. Any authority in ghost athletics will tell you – and really, there weren’t any authorities in ghost athletics until twenty years ago, so they owe Rigel too – will tell you that when sticks and stones can no longer break your bones, words can REALLY hurt you. So, although the players can fly right through each other, and commit any atrocity on each other’s ectoplasm they see fit, they are required to restrict their vocalizations to, ‘Well played,’ ‘I’m wide open over here,’ and, ‘I say, old fellow, that’s my spleen you’ve got there.’”
“I could swear I heard references to a pancreas at the last World Cup,” Sadie mused.
“Or words to that effect,” Orion corrected himself. “So at age fourteen, Rigel began recruiting teams, starting at the Tower of London near our home, and also searching abroad during our holiday trips together in France, Uganda, Austria, Serbia, and other such places where there were high ghost populations. Most of the really good quaffles come from France. After teaching each group the basic rules, and having some demonstration games, Rigel registered a patent on the game and began organizing the first world cup...”
“What did they do for beaters’ bats?” Endora asked, risking a scornful glance from those around her who now knew she had never seen a game of Head Quidditch.
“Carved out of more pieces of undeadwood,” Sadie said, adding, “Hush.”
“The rest is history,” said Orion. “It was a revolution in ghostly entertainment. Now headless ghosts aren’t the only ones who can have fun; though, of course, the number of teams that can play at any time is limited by the number of trained owl ghosts, Ghost Snidges, and properly constructed undeadwood brooms and bats. Spectators, living and dead, have flocked to the games in ever larger numbers, and ghosts have become an increasingly significant group of consumers in today’s wizarding economy. Plus, others have followed similar procedures to invent ghost versions of their sports – severed football, severed handball, basketcaseball, and ouija hockey being only a few of the more popular examples – and every one of them has to pay a small share of their royalties to Rigel, who pioneered the process. It really will be interesting to see what he does with all that...”
Orion trailed off as the assistant healer ran into the waiting room, wild-eyed and red in the face. “Merlin and the boy,” he panted, before having to bend over to catch his breath.
Endora surged to her feet, clutching the collar of her robes. “What’s happened?” she demanded.
+++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: How rapidly should we wrap up the storyline about the Gringotts break-in that Harvey is planning? (A) Before episode 100. (B) As soon as possible after episode 100. (C) Eventually, but there’s no big hurry. (D) Who cares?
The CONTEST: Describe a powerful or important illusion, deception, glamor, or disguise.
The survey answer that gets the most votes, and the contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #87. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 3/26/06]
The waiting room at St. Mungo’s allowed coffee, and a bottle concealed in the vicar’s cassock made the coffee Irish, and so a convivial atmosphere prevailed while Spanky and Harvey delivered the somber news about Merlin’s condition. When the speakers reached the point in their tale where Rigel arrived at the patient’s bedside, they faltered with a nervous look toward Orion Oldmanson, who was the first to finish his coffee.
Vicar Joe Albuquerque poured him another and said, in the benignly knowing way suited to his appearance, “I would guess that raising Rigel for the second time must be easier than the first time. To be sure, he knows all your tricks; but so do you know his.”
Orion chuckled affectionately, yet not altogether happily. “The day that I know all of that lad’s tricks will be the day muggles learn to do magic. And it isn’t as if he has to learn them all over again. He has better than thirty-five years of experience at making mischief and avoiding the consequences, all packed into that eleven-year-old brain. He could be more dangerous now than ever before, because no one would suspect a child his age of having the skills and ideas he has.”
“I’ve only looked at him that once,” Sadie shuddered, “and I wouldn’t put anything beyond him.”
“The only help, this time around, is the fact that all his old cronies got captured or killed while he was in Gringotts, and they wouldn’t care for him if they knew he was alive and free. Which, until the lad’s book came out, they didn’t know. None of them could have suspected that the young man who had vanished from their midst, all those years ago, is now a little boy.”
“So the book puts Rigel in danger,” Harvey observed, with a shrewd look.
“It advertises his presence,” old man Oldmanson agreed. “Which could endanger his life, yes. Or it could endanger him in another way.”
“It could get him back in with those Vold-Mart people,” Endora whispered. “He could join the Dark side again.”
“My guess is that he never left the Dark side,” Spanky said grimly.
“You must undertand,” said Oldmanson. “Rigel isn’t really wicked. But he craves adventure, and danger, and thrills. He likes loud noises and fast brooms, and he enjoys shocking people. But above all, he likes to possess things – precious things, powerful things, important things. Even to hold them for a moment, even merely to scheme to get them, is enough to make him happy...”
Joe topped off Oldmanson’s mug once again, with an understanding look.
Endora sighed and shook her head. “But certainly,” she said, “you must have had some good times with your son.”
“No doubt,” said Oldmanson, between steaming sips. “But the best fun we had together was when he didn’t realize that I was there. Perhaps I should begin by saying that, every year that I was married to Rigel’s mother, the quality of my Disillusionment Charm grew. Then she...er...left us, when Rigel was very little; but every year with him improved my Disillusionment skills even more. So by the time, say, when Rigel invented Head Quidditch –"
“Hang on!” Sadie cried. “He never invented that! Only, I’ve had a flutter on every World Cup game for the last...”
“Twenty years,” Oldmanson agreed. “They don’t go back farther than that. And though you probably lost money on some of those games, Rigel earns a fortune at every one – royalties. And I’m not just talking about ghost money; some of those ghosts still have vaults at Gringotts, and they have very little trouble persuading their heirs or trustees to transfer a few galleons into Rigel’s vault whenever they play Head Quidditch. The boy doesn’t know it, but he’s worth more than I am.”
Joe blinked, amazed. “And to think he gets all that for saying, ‘Wait, I have an idea. Why don’t ghosts play Quidditch?’”
Orion grinned sheepishly. “But, you see, ghosts have never been particularly good at sports. All right, there is the Headless Hunt, but many ghosts aren’t headless. More importantly, very little athletic equipment crosses over into the spirit world. It makes you wonder why a sporting wizard or witch would bother becoming a ghost, when they have so little to do except glide around and ooze ectoplasm. In fact, the first haunting I ever witnessed was when a dead cricketer moved into the scullery and drove all the servants to desperation, moaning about not being able to hold a bat.
“The cricketer was still there when Rigel came along, and he started scheming up a sport that ghosts could play. Naturally, the sport he considered most suitable was Quidditch. So at age ten, Rigel began collecting ghost twigs and sticks – mainly from wand trees that had been killed by lightning or floods. In a year’s time he had found enough bits of ghost wood to assemble fourteen ghost brooms. Then, when he was eleven years old – the first time, I mean – he started hunting for some Ghost Snidges, to take the place of a Golden Snitch. The birds were very rare to begin with, and it was very hard for him to find a single one that had become a ghost. I think he was planning to assassinate one of the mating pair that lives in the Really Unplottable Bird Sanctuary, but on his twelfth birthday a pair of ghost snidges flew out of his Godfather Clock, so that was all right.
“During the next year, Rigel combed the countryside for ghost owls. He found quite a few of them, and managed to train several to act as ghost bludgers. I didn’t know what he was about at the time, but now I see what a clever idea that was; for nothing but a formerly living thing could possibly effect a ghost Quidditch player the way a bludger effects a live player. The quaffle remained a problem for him, until he decided to allow a headless ghost to furnish the quaffle – essentially creating a fifteenth player who would only be involved from the neck up.
“After that, it was only a matter of deciding on the rules, and testing them out. I enjoyed watching this part, from under my really quite admirable Disillusionment Charm. Rigel was very determined, and creative, and such a natural leader. At different stages in the process, the quaffle was supposed to be a neutral combatant who merely suffered his or her head to be chucked to and fro, and carried about under some other ghost’s elbow. Later, it grew evident that the quaffle had either to be an independent force that could act equally against both sides, or a supporter of one side contributing to what the muggles call a ‘home field advantage.’ Finally, Rigel decided to let the quaffle serve in a perpetually defensive character, trying to wriggle out of the grasp of whoever held it, and biting them when necessary.
“Being dead, of course, the players were able to put up with a great deal more brutality than regular Quidditch players could, so the number of possible fouls was reduced to only seventeen – and twelve of those had to do with name-calling. Any authority in ghost athletics will tell you – and really, there weren’t any authorities in ghost athletics until twenty years ago, so they owe Rigel too – will tell you that when sticks and stones can no longer break your bones, words can REALLY hurt you. So, although the players can fly right through each other, and commit any atrocity on each other’s ectoplasm they see fit, they are required to restrict their vocalizations to, ‘Well played,’ ‘I’m wide open over here,’ and, ‘I say, old fellow, that’s my spleen you’ve got there.’”
“I could swear I heard references to a pancreas at the last World Cup,” Sadie mused.
“Or words to that effect,” Orion corrected himself. “So at age fourteen, Rigel began recruiting teams, starting at the Tower of London near our home, and also searching abroad during our holiday trips together in France, Uganda, Austria, Serbia, and other such places where there were high ghost populations. Most of the really good quaffles come from France. After teaching each group the basic rules, and having some demonstration games, Rigel registered a patent on the game and began organizing the first world cup...”
“What did they do for beaters’ bats?” Endora asked, risking a scornful glance from those around her who now knew she had never seen a game of Head Quidditch.
“Carved out of more pieces of undeadwood,” Sadie said, adding, “Hush.”
“The rest is history,” said Orion. “It was a revolution in ghostly entertainment. Now headless ghosts aren’t the only ones who can have fun; though, of course, the number of teams that can play at any time is limited by the number of trained owl ghosts, Ghost Snidges, and properly constructed undeadwood brooms and bats. Spectators, living and dead, have flocked to the games in ever larger numbers, and ghosts have become an increasingly significant group of consumers in today’s wizarding economy. Plus, others have followed similar procedures to invent ghost versions of their sports – severed football, severed handball, basketcaseball, and ouija hockey being only a few of the more popular examples – and every one of them has to pay a small share of their royalties to Rigel, who pioneered the process. It really will be interesting to see what he does with all that...”
Orion trailed off as the assistant healer ran into the waiting room, wild-eyed and red in the face. “Merlin and the boy,” he panted, before having to bend over to catch his breath.
Endora surged to her feet, clutching the collar of her robes. “What’s happened?” she demanded.
+++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: How rapidly should we wrap up the storyline about the Gringotts break-in that Harvey is planning? (A) Before episode 100. (B) As soon as possible after episode 100. (C) Eventually, but there’s no big hurry. (D) Who cares?
The CONTEST: Describe a powerful or important illusion, deception, glamor, or disguise.
The survey answer that gets the most votes, and the contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #87. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 3/26/06]
84. The Godfather Clock
Contest Winner: _houdini
“Where did you get this?” Merlin asked, turning the amulet over in his hands. It was hard, smooth, and heavy like a lump of crystal, but its surface swam and swirled with colors, like quicksilver. It was large as Rigel’s ten-year-old fist, shaped like an egg, but flattened on one side.
“My Godfather Clock gave it to me,” said the boy, with no consciousness of the oddness of his words.
“Your what?”
“My Godfather Clock. You see, my godfather was Tim Cogwith.”
“Oh, yes? The one who used to own that amazing timepiece shop in Diagon Alley?”
“The very. He was an old school chum of Orion’s—”
“Dad, you mean?”
Rigel favored Merlin with a dry look, then continued: “Cogwith grew very rich, sold some of the most amazing clocks and watches. Some even said he had a secret contract with the Ministry, though no one could say what for. When I was born, he was made my godfather. But he never made it to my first birthday. Vanished into thin air. It was a great mystery; you must remember it.”
“Of course I do,” said Merlin. “Read about it in the Daily Prophet, didn’t I? I was very interested, because some of the people who taught me my line were involved in the search.”
“The old fool,” said Rigel, referring again to his father, “spent a good deal of my legacy on that search. Pointless. The only clue they ever turned up was the fact that, the day Cogwith vanished, a six-foot floor clock was found in his shop that none of his shop assistants had seen before. They never found any record of it on the shop’s books, and those were the self-auditing, uncookable kind of books.
“The clock was exactly Cogwith’s height and weight, and the wood – pear wood, wouldn’t you know – was the very color of his mustache. The full moon on the moon dial looked a bit like him, and the chimes sounded like his voice, so they said. There was a finial on top that Orion says reminds him of the hairpiece Cogwith always wore – it was made of ash, so it has never looked quite right.
“The search went on for several months before the Ministry finally declared old Cogwith dead. Orion and I inherited everything. The old fool didn’t fancy owning a clock shop, so he auctioned off all the contents and sold the premises to some crackpot who wanted to sell seven-league boots.”
Merlin winced. As one who had once owned a pair of seven-league boots, he knew from dreadful experience how uncomfortable they were, and how difficult to keep shined.
“Poor fellow went bankrupt in six weeks,” Rigel added, with malicious pleasure. “Shoplifters walked off with all his merchandise, and they were devilish hard to catch. But I’ve strayed off my point. The one clock the old fool kept – Orion, I mean – was the pear one with the hairpiece finial, because it reminded him of his old friend. Sentimental sap. Odd thing was, no matter how they wound it, oiled it, spell-stripped it, and restored all the spells, the house-elves could never get that clock to chime the hour but for one day every year: my birthday.”
Merlin grunted contemplatively.
Rigel went on, “Also, every year at the stroke of whatever hour was my number of years-old, the clock would stop. When the house-elves would open it to wind it up, they would find a gift inside. Until I was twenty-four, that is....and interestingly, the gifts started coming again when I went back to being a baby. Well, today is my second eleventh birthday.”
“Is it?” said Merlin, his foxy nose twitching. “How lovely. I didn’t know you were so old before your accident.”
“I had found that evil was good for the complexion,” Rigel said, though to judge by his ghastly pallor and the dark circles under his eyes, he must have become considerably more virtuous than he seemed. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that this amulet thing came out of my Godfather Clock today.”
“Have the presents your Godfather Clock gave you usually been needed or helpful at the time?”
“I don’t know,” said Rigel. “There was a door-knob cozy once that screamed when I tried to sneak out at night. And another time it was a piece of tooth-pulling gum that came when I had a toothache, but it nearly broke my jaw and I bled for six hours. I can’t remember the other things.”
“Hmmm,” said Merlin, a little doubtfully. “And was there a card with this?”
Rigel fumbled in the pockets of his mugglish clothing and dragged out a crumpled slip of paper. “‘Food Tasters’ Friend,’ it says. ‘Also good against snake venom, insect bites, plant poisons, and nundu breath. Not guaranteed to protect against werewolf bite or McKnickers’ Firewhisky. For a full disclosure of permitted and prohibited uses, send an owl to the First Wizard of Fiananarantsoa.’”
“It doesn’t say what to do with this,” Merlin observed ruefully, “and anyway, I wasn’t poisoned or infected by a bite. This is spell damage,” he added with a general wave to indicate his face, bristling with fox pox. “I appreciate your concern, though.” Contemplating the look of anger that suddenly crossed Rigel’s face, Merlin thought (not for the first time) that he had very little likelihood of influencing Rigel as he grew up for the second time, while he gave the flat side of the amulet a gentle rub –
-- and the whole end of the ward was filled with a blinding flash of light –
+++ Double Challenge for TMQ #86+++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment.] To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
The SURVEY: Will Endora and Merlin ever get together? (A) They already have. (B) Any day now. (C) Eventually, but not very soon. (D) Not going to happen.
The CONTEST: What happens to Merlin and/or Rigel as a result of this "blinding flash of light"?
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #86. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 3/17/06]
“Where did you get this?” Merlin asked, turning the amulet over in his hands. It was hard, smooth, and heavy like a lump of crystal, but its surface swam and swirled with colors, like quicksilver. It was large as Rigel’s ten-year-old fist, shaped like an egg, but flattened on one side.
“My Godfather Clock gave it to me,” said the boy, with no consciousness of the oddness of his words.
“Your what?”
“My Godfather Clock. You see, my godfather was Tim Cogwith.”
“Oh, yes? The one who used to own that amazing timepiece shop in Diagon Alley?”
“The very. He was an old school chum of Orion’s—”
“Dad, you mean?”
Rigel favored Merlin with a dry look, then continued: “Cogwith grew very rich, sold some of the most amazing clocks and watches. Some even said he had a secret contract with the Ministry, though no one could say what for. When I was born, he was made my godfather. But he never made it to my first birthday. Vanished into thin air. It was a great mystery; you must remember it.”
“Of course I do,” said Merlin. “Read about it in the Daily Prophet, didn’t I? I was very interested, because some of the people who taught me my line were involved in the search.”
“The old fool,” said Rigel, referring again to his father, “spent a good deal of my legacy on that search. Pointless. The only clue they ever turned up was the fact that, the day Cogwith vanished, a six-foot floor clock was found in his shop that none of his shop assistants had seen before. They never found any record of it on the shop’s books, and those were the self-auditing, uncookable kind of books.
“The clock was exactly Cogwith’s height and weight, and the wood – pear wood, wouldn’t you know – was the very color of his mustache. The full moon on the moon dial looked a bit like him, and the chimes sounded like his voice, so they said. There was a finial on top that Orion says reminds him of the hairpiece Cogwith always wore – it was made of ash, so it has never looked quite right.
“The search went on for several months before the Ministry finally declared old Cogwith dead. Orion and I inherited everything. The old fool didn’t fancy owning a clock shop, so he auctioned off all the contents and sold the premises to some crackpot who wanted to sell seven-league boots.”
Merlin winced. As one who had once owned a pair of seven-league boots, he knew from dreadful experience how uncomfortable they were, and how difficult to keep shined.
“Poor fellow went bankrupt in six weeks,” Rigel added, with malicious pleasure. “Shoplifters walked off with all his merchandise, and they were devilish hard to catch. But I’ve strayed off my point. The one clock the old fool kept – Orion, I mean – was the pear one with the hairpiece finial, because it reminded him of his old friend. Sentimental sap. Odd thing was, no matter how they wound it, oiled it, spell-stripped it, and restored all the spells, the house-elves could never get that clock to chime the hour but for one day every year: my birthday.”
Merlin grunted contemplatively.
Rigel went on, “Also, every year at the stroke of whatever hour was my number of years-old, the clock would stop. When the house-elves would open it to wind it up, they would find a gift inside. Until I was twenty-four, that is....and interestingly, the gifts started coming again when I went back to being a baby. Well, today is my second eleventh birthday.”
“Is it?” said Merlin, his foxy nose twitching. “How lovely. I didn’t know you were so old before your accident.”
“I had found that evil was good for the complexion,” Rigel said, though to judge by his ghastly pallor and the dark circles under his eyes, he must have become considerably more virtuous than he seemed. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that this amulet thing came out of my Godfather Clock today.”
“Have the presents your Godfather Clock gave you usually been needed or helpful at the time?”
“I don’t know,” said Rigel. “There was a door-knob cozy once that screamed when I tried to sneak out at night. And another time it was a piece of tooth-pulling gum that came when I had a toothache, but it nearly broke my jaw and I bled for six hours. I can’t remember the other things.”
“Hmmm,” said Merlin, a little doubtfully. “And was there a card with this?”
Rigel fumbled in the pockets of his mugglish clothing and dragged out a crumpled slip of paper. “‘Food Tasters’ Friend,’ it says. ‘Also good against snake venom, insect bites, plant poisons, and nundu breath. Not guaranteed to protect against werewolf bite or McKnickers’ Firewhisky. For a full disclosure of permitted and prohibited uses, send an owl to the First Wizard of Fiananarantsoa.’”
“It doesn’t say what to do with this,” Merlin observed ruefully, “and anyway, I wasn’t poisoned or infected by a bite. This is spell damage,” he added with a general wave to indicate his face, bristling with fox pox. “I appreciate your concern, though.” Contemplating the look of anger that suddenly crossed Rigel’s face, Merlin thought (not for the first time) that he had very little likelihood of influencing Rigel as he grew up for the second time, while he gave the flat side of the amulet a gentle rub –
-- and the whole end of the ward was filled with a blinding flash of light –
+++ Double Challenge for TMQ #86+++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment.] To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
The SURVEY: Will Endora and Merlin ever get together? (A) They already have. (B) Any day now. (C) Eventually, but not very soon. (D) Not going to happen.
The CONTEST: What happens to Merlin and/or Rigel as a result of this "blinding flash of light"?
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #86. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 3/17/06]
82. The Catfish Burglar, Part 2
Contest Winners: TWZRD, _houdini, eagleanimagus, Shadow Phoenix, and zanaboo
“After I fought off all the grindylows,” Sadie went on with her tale, “I swam further upstream with my powerful, tireless stroke. I had to squeeze through a tight gap in a network of curses strung across the fjord. Then, wearing dragon-hide gloves to protect my skin from the hallucinogenic algae, I pushed myself along...”
Actually, what happened was this:
Haakon Tran was having tea with a security consultant named (as luck would have it) Merlin.
“I see you’ve worked for Seymour Entwistle,” Tran said, browsing through the references Merlin had brought with him. “You know, if this works out, I should recommend you to a dear friend of mine, name of Oldmanson. Orion Oldmanson. Sad story. Endless trouble with that brat of his. Well, you’ve had a chance to look around; you’ve seen the dungeon where I brew my Subterfuge Solvent; you’ve been over the room where the thieves tried to sneak in last time, and they would have robbed me blind, too, if it hadn’t been for the sick dragon my niece was nursing. It’s too bad that not enough was left of them to identify, but we must assume that more thieves will follow them, and take steps – especially now that the dragon has gone – to deter them in a gentler, but equally decisive, way. So, what do you propose?”
Merlin smiled gravely. “The first line of defense could be planted all around the house.” He conjured a seed-packet out of the air and handed it over to Tran.
“Dandelions?” Tran said, incredulously.
“Wizard’s Dandelion,” Merlin corrected. “Read the packet. I found out about this in Miles O’Roughage’s Compendium of Botanical Contraband. Miles is a friend of a friend, so he was happy to furnish me with this sample. Read what it says on the envelope.”
Tran read: “Wizard's Dandelion (Taraxacum illegalis). Muggle Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is well known for its laxative and diuretic properties. The non-approved illegale variety of the plant has been found in the gardens of some wizarding homes. In it, the aforementioned effects are enhanced so that unauthorized guests foolish enough to step on the lawn get a face-full of seed fluff that will send them racing for the nearest restroom or dense hedge. The plant is believed to have been bred as a deterrent to solicitors, and carries the advantage that, if it should act on an acquaintance, they are likely to request admission to the residence to seek relief, and so are not repelled from the property. Few prosecutions for possession have been successful, as the home owner can always claim the seeds blew in on the wind.”
“How will my family and staff move around the compound when this stuff is getting all over them?” Tran asked sharply.
Merlin smiled and held up a small phial. “The antidote,” he said. “Take it with your morning pumpkin juice, and all will be well.” His smile became a bit wan as, through the window behind Haakon Tran, he saw a strange sight. The water near the shore of the loch below Tran’s window was disturbed, though nothing visible seemed to be causing the disturbance.
“What else do you have?” Tran asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“We could also plant a hedge of Guardbush all round the garden,” said Merlin, trying not to watch as water poured off the head and shoulders of an otherwise invisible person, rising from beneath the surface of the loch. “When looked at from a distance it seems to be a normal hedge. But when anyone approaches, it grows quickly and blocks the path to the house. If they get too close, it whacks them with its branches until they either run away or are captured.”
“Again, how can trusted people get around this Guard-shrub?”
Merlin focused directly on Tran’s face, to avoid the sight of a familiar, veiled head emerging from the hood of a weird, ripply, semi- invisible wetsuit.
“The Guardbush obeys verbal commands. If you train it up from a seedling, it will trust you and allow you to train it. Then, anyone who says the password you've given it will be allowed to pass unmolested.”
Behind Tran, Sadie had pulled out her pipe and a map, and was trying to smoke and figure out where the Hidden Fjord might be at the same time. Merlin rolled his eyes (fortunately, when Tran was looking at his watch).
“What else do you have?” Tran asked, a bit impatiently.
“The Doromat is a wonderful product,” said Merlin. He stood up and went over to the fireplace, where he vanished the hearth-rug and, over Tran’s stifled exclamations, conjured a bristly doormat with an Irish insult worked into it: MAY THE ROAD RISE UP BEFORE YOU...WITHOUT DELAY. “Watch this,” he said, and then he stepped on the doormat. At once it began to scream in a shrill, hysterical voice: “Help! Murder! Intruders at large! Hide the babies! Arm yourselves! Call the Ministry!”
Tran winced and covered his ears. Fortunately his back was now to the side window, so that he could neither see Sadie, nor hear her swearing loudly as she stumbled over a loose stone in the path and was obliged to stamp out a small fire started by an ember that had escaped from her pipe.
“As you can see,” shouted Merlin, tugging uselessly with the leg that was standing on the mat, “I am stuck to the Doromat, and the Doromat is stuck to the hearthstone. The only way for me to escape is to get out of my shoe and run away without it. By that time, half the household should be down about my ears.”
“I’ll say,” yelled Tran. “Can you make it stop?”
“Heel,” said Merlin, and the screaming stopped. The mat released his shoe with a slightly flatulent sound.
“That was very good,” said Tran, with an approving nod. “But what if the intruder has the sense to step over the mat, rather than onto it?”
“In that event, you may want to spritz a bit of this fluid on the outside doorknob,” said Merlin, as a small spray bottle appeared in his hand. He unscrewed the top of the bottle, pulled out the straw attached to the nozzle, and blew through a plastic ring at the end of the straw. Several beautiful, shiny soap bubbles appeared.
“Bubble juice?” Tran said, incredulously.
“Extra-strength bubble juice,” said Merlin, wincing as Sadie tumbled down a well-concealed slope into what must have been the cliffs overlooking the Hidden Fjord. Fortunately, Tran was distracted from the commotion when one of the soap bubbles collided with a crystal bowl on the side table, and the bowl shattered – but the bubble remained intact.
“Very impressive,” said Tran. “But what good does it do?”
“Spritz this on the doorknob, I say, and if anyone touches the doorknob within say, twelve hours, they find themselves trapped inside a bubble until the next morning. A bubble that, as you have seen, is harder than crystal, though air passes through it, and it will dissolve in water. The thief is helpless until you come down in the morning to hose him down and take him into custody; yet he can come to no harm, either. Which is a comfort in case of accidental entrapment.”
“What do you have that can protect my product specifically?” asked Haakon Tran, with a warmer interest than at first.
Merlin almost lost his train of thought as Sadie staggered back up the slope from the Hidden Fjord, covered in dust and scratches, carrying a huge bundle of reeds on her back. Merlin coughed, cleared his throat, and conjured up a cloth nappy and a couple of safety-pins.
“You must be joking,” Tran said with evident disgust.
“Not at all,” said Merlin, who had in fact planned to conjure something else. Inventing furiously, he said, “This nappy has been magically modified to protect whatever little treasure you may think of as your ‘baby'. Simply wrap it up in this cloth, then pin the edges together with these little fellows, and there it is! A soft, absorbent safe which can only be safely unlocked when the appropriate password-spell has been spoken. Otherwise, when you undo the pins, they start poking you all over, and the nappie tries to stuff itself up your nose. Most unpleasant, and if you change your password-spells regularly, very difficult to penetrate. I would demonstrate it, but...”
“No need,” said Tran. “I’ll take the lot.”
Shouldn’t you just, thought Merlin, as Tran counted out a pile of galleons and sickles and as (through the window behind him) Sadie could be seen diving back into the loch with the bundle of reeds still on her back. Merlin wondered if she would drown, considering how much the reeds impeded her movement. But since he had no prior knowledge of Sadie’s plan to steal sannheten from Haakon Tran, and since (until the last galleon was counted out) Merlin was not officially on Tran’s payroll, he felt no guilt about passing over Sadie’s breach of security in silence.
“It’s all there,” said Merlin, banishing the money to his Gringotts vault with a wave of his wand. “I will begin installing your new security system immediately. Send me an owl if ever there are any problems, or if you want to make changes.”
“Very well,” said Haakon Tran. “Thank goodness that’s settled. I would hate to let my formula fall into the wrong hands...”
“...Then I turned my toenails into propellers and left Tran’s pursuing henchmen floundering in my wake,” Sadie boasted to a deeply impressed Endora. “Once I was past the null-apparition zone, I popped back to the Thames and swam to that underground quay below the Leaky Cauldron. Bloke who worked for Madam Hardbiscuit was waiting in me room by the time I got there, still drippin’ wet. He took the bundle of reeds from me, paid me enough galleons to buy the whole Leaky Cauldron right off, and vanished into the fireplace in a flash of green flames. That’s how I made my first fortune.”
“Wow,” said Endora. “And how did you lose it, then?”
“A week later, I bet the lot on a hippogriff named Sannheten at the Hogsmeade Stakes,” said Sadie, unrepentantly. “Easy come, easy go.”
Joe Albuquerque piped up from across the aisle: “Did you ever find out how that Hardbiscuit woman used Haakon Tran’s secret potion?”
Sadie brightened. “Ah! That’s the story of how I made my second fortune,” she said.
Just then, a very old man and a boy of about eleven years turned up in the hospital waiting room. Sadie, Endora, and Joe forgot about their conversation and turned to stare at the pair. “Blimey,” Sadie whispered. “It's himself and...”
The boy, whose head was shaved bald on one side and covered with tall, sharp, lacquered spikes of unnaturally black hair on the other, also wore white powder on his face, heavy black eyeliner, black lipstick, and genuine fairy skulls dangling from both ears. His clothing was ripped and soiled, but it was just possible to make out a Weird Sisters slogan on his shirt. Grimy chains were stitched into the seams of his faded, black jeans. His trainers were artfully ripped, showing a bit of black-painted toenail here, and a demon-shaped tattoo there.
“Rigel, are you sure...” said the old man, glancing nervously at the scruffy, untrustworthy lot seated in the waiting room, who in turn were looking warily at them.
“Shut up, father,” said the youngster. “I’ve got to see me Dad.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” said the old man, miserably.
“No doubt,” said the boy without a trace of concern. “Oi! Orderly! Where have you lot put the wizard that calls himself Merlin?”
An assistant healer looked scandalized at this rude address. The old man clapped his hand over his eyes.
“You’re never Rigel?” said the asssitant healer, suspiciously.
“The very same,” said Rigel, grinning (it seemed) for the express purpose of displaying his sharp, gleaming teeth.
The assistant healer, who had been contemplating a display of passive-aggressive obstructionism, changed his mind and said, “Right this way,” very meekly.
“Stay put, you old fool,” the child barked at the old man, when the latter moved to follow him with the assistant healer. Discouraged and humiliated, the old man sank sadly into a seat near Joe Albuquerque, who at least (in his disguise as a vicar) looked a bit more reliable than the two characters across the asile.
“I expect it’s harder the second time you raise them,” said Joe sympathetically.
The old man sighed, and nodded. “He knows all the tricks already. I can’t get anything past that one.”
“Maybe, if he calls Merlin his Dad,” Sadie said distastefully, “you should let Merlin bring him up.”
“Oh, we’ve tried that off and on,” said the old man, shamedfacedly. “The simple fact is, Rigel likes having money of all things...”
+++ Double Challenge for The Magic Quill #84 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Will Merlin be (A) mostly a good influence, (B) mostly a bad influence, or (C) unable to influence young Rigel as he grows up again?
The CONTEST: Give the name and description of an amulet (a magical object worn for some kind of protection).
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #84. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 2/24/06]
“After I fought off all the grindylows,” Sadie went on with her tale, “I swam further upstream with my powerful, tireless stroke. I had to squeeze through a tight gap in a network of curses strung across the fjord. Then, wearing dragon-hide gloves to protect my skin from the hallucinogenic algae, I pushed myself along...”
Actually, what happened was this:
Haakon Tran was having tea with a security consultant named (as luck would have it) Merlin.
“I see you’ve worked for Seymour Entwistle,” Tran said, browsing through the references Merlin had brought with him. “You know, if this works out, I should recommend you to a dear friend of mine, name of Oldmanson. Orion Oldmanson. Sad story. Endless trouble with that brat of his. Well, you’ve had a chance to look around; you’ve seen the dungeon where I brew my Subterfuge Solvent; you’ve been over the room where the thieves tried to sneak in last time, and they would have robbed me blind, too, if it hadn’t been for the sick dragon my niece was nursing. It’s too bad that not enough was left of them to identify, but we must assume that more thieves will follow them, and take steps – especially now that the dragon has gone – to deter them in a gentler, but equally decisive, way. So, what do you propose?”
Merlin smiled gravely. “The first line of defense could be planted all around the house.” He conjured a seed-packet out of the air and handed it over to Tran.
“Dandelions?” Tran said, incredulously.
“Wizard’s Dandelion,” Merlin corrected. “Read the packet. I found out about this in Miles O’Roughage’s Compendium of Botanical Contraband. Miles is a friend of a friend, so he was happy to furnish me with this sample. Read what it says on the envelope.”
Tran read: “Wizard's Dandelion (Taraxacum illegalis). Muggle Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is well known for its laxative and diuretic properties. The non-approved illegale variety of the plant has been found in the gardens of some wizarding homes. In it, the aforementioned effects are enhanced so that unauthorized guests foolish enough to step on the lawn get a face-full of seed fluff that will send them racing for the nearest restroom or dense hedge. The plant is believed to have been bred as a deterrent to solicitors, and carries the advantage that, if it should act on an acquaintance, they are likely to request admission to the residence to seek relief, and so are not repelled from the property. Few prosecutions for possession have been successful, as the home owner can always claim the seeds blew in on the wind.”
“How will my family and staff move around the compound when this stuff is getting all over them?” Tran asked sharply.
Merlin smiled and held up a small phial. “The antidote,” he said. “Take it with your morning pumpkin juice, and all will be well.” His smile became a bit wan as, through the window behind Haakon Tran, he saw a strange sight. The water near the shore of the loch below Tran’s window was disturbed, though nothing visible seemed to be causing the disturbance.
“What else do you have?” Tran asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“We could also plant a hedge of Guardbush all round the garden,” said Merlin, trying not to watch as water poured off the head and shoulders of an otherwise invisible person, rising from beneath the surface of the loch. “When looked at from a distance it seems to be a normal hedge. But when anyone approaches, it grows quickly and blocks the path to the house. If they get too close, it whacks them with its branches until they either run away or are captured.”
“Again, how can trusted people get around this Guard-shrub?”
Merlin focused directly on Tran’s face, to avoid the sight of a familiar, veiled head emerging from the hood of a weird, ripply, semi- invisible wetsuit.
“The Guardbush obeys verbal commands. If you train it up from a seedling, it will trust you and allow you to train it. Then, anyone who says the password you've given it will be allowed to pass unmolested.”
Behind Tran, Sadie had pulled out her pipe and a map, and was trying to smoke and figure out where the Hidden Fjord might be at the same time. Merlin rolled his eyes (fortunately, when Tran was looking at his watch).
“What else do you have?” Tran asked, a bit impatiently.
“The Doromat is a wonderful product,” said Merlin. He stood up and went over to the fireplace, where he vanished the hearth-rug and, over Tran’s stifled exclamations, conjured a bristly doormat with an Irish insult worked into it: MAY THE ROAD RISE UP BEFORE YOU...WITHOUT DELAY. “Watch this,” he said, and then he stepped on the doormat. At once it began to scream in a shrill, hysterical voice: “Help! Murder! Intruders at large! Hide the babies! Arm yourselves! Call the Ministry!”
Tran winced and covered his ears. Fortunately his back was now to the side window, so that he could neither see Sadie, nor hear her swearing loudly as she stumbled over a loose stone in the path and was obliged to stamp out a small fire started by an ember that had escaped from her pipe.
“As you can see,” shouted Merlin, tugging uselessly with the leg that was standing on the mat, “I am stuck to the Doromat, and the Doromat is stuck to the hearthstone. The only way for me to escape is to get out of my shoe and run away without it. By that time, half the household should be down about my ears.”
“I’ll say,” yelled Tran. “Can you make it stop?”
“Heel,” said Merlin, and the screaming stopped. The mat released his shoe with a slightly flatulent sound.
“That was very good,” said Tran, with an approving nod. “But what if the intruder has the sense to step over the mat, rather than onto it?”
“In that event, you may want to spritz a bit of this fluid on the outside doorknob,” said Merlin, as a small spray bottle appeared in his hand. He unscrewed the top of the bottle, pulled out the straw attached to the nozzle, and blew through a plastic ring at the end of the straw. Several beautiful, shiny soap bubbles appeared.
“Bubble juice?” Tran said, incredulously.
“Extra-strength bubble juice,” said Merlin, wincing as Sadie tumbled down a well-concealed slope into what must have been the cliffs overlooking the Hidden Fjord. Fortunately, Tran was distracted from the commotion when one of the soap bubbles collided with a crystal bowl on the side table, and the bowl shattered – but the bubble remained intact.
“Very impressive,” said Tran. “But what good does it do?”
“Spritz this on the doorknob, I say, and if anyone touches the doorknob within say, twelve hours, they find themselves trapped inside a bubble until the next morning. A bubble that, as you have seen, is harder than crystal, though air passes through it, and it will dissolve in water. The thief is helpless until you come down in the morning to hose him down and take him into custody; yet he can come to no harm, either. Which is a comfort in case of accidental entrapment.”
“What do you have that can protect my product specifically?” asked Haakon Tran, with a warmer interest than at first.
Merlin almost lost his train of thought as Sadie staggered back up the slope from the Hidden Fjord, covered in dust and scratches, carrying a huge bundle of reeds on her back. Merlin coughed, cleared his throat, and conjured up a cloth nappy and a couple of safety-pins.
“You must be joking,” Tran said with evident disgust.
“Not at all,” said Merlin, who had in fact planned to conjure something else. Inventing furiously, he said, “This nappy has been magically modified to protect whatever little treasure you may think of as your ‘baby'. Simply wrap it up in this cloth, then pin the edges together with these little fellows, and there it is! A soft, absorbent safe which can only be safely unlocked when the appropriate password-spell has been spoken. Otherwise, when you undo the pins, they start poking you all over, and the nappie tries to stuff itself up your nose. Most unpleasant, and if you change your password-spells regularly, very difficult to penetrate. I would demonstrate it, but...”
“No need,” said Tran. “I’ll take the lot.”
Shouldn’t you just, thought Merlin, as Tran counted out a pile of galleons and sickles and as (through the window behind him) Sadie could be seen diving back into the loch with the bundle of reeds still on her back. Merlin wondered if she would drown, considering how much the reeds impeded her movement. But since he had no prior knowledge of Sadie’s plan to steal sannheten from Haakon Tran, and since (until the last galleon was counted out) Merlin was not officially on Tran’s payroll, he felt no guilt about passing over Sadie’s breach of security in silence.
“It’s all there,” said Merlin, banishing the money to his Gringotts vault with a wave of his wand. “I will begin installing your new security system immediately. Send me an owl if ever there are any problems, or if you want to make changes.”
“Very well,” said Haakon Tran. “Thank goodness that’s settled. I would hate to let my formula fall into the wrong hands...”
“...Then I turned my toenails into propellers and left Tran’s pursuing henchmen floundering in my wake,” Sadie boasted to a deeply impressed Endora. “Once I was past the null-apparition zone, I popped back to the Thames and swam to that underground quay below the Leaky Cauldron. Bloke who worked for Madam Hardbiscuit was waiting in me room by the time I got there, still drippin’ wet. He took the bundle of reeds from me, paid me enough galleons to buy the whole Leaky Cauldron right off, and vanished into the fireplace in a flash of green flames. That’s how I made my first fortune.”
“Wow,” said Endora. “And how did you lose it, then?”
“A week later, I bet the lot on a hippogriff named Sannheten at the Hogsmeade Stakes,” said Sadie, unrepentantly. “Easy come, easy go.”
Joe Albuquerque piped up from across the aisle: “Did you ever find out how that Hardbiscuit woman used Haakon Tran’s secret potion?”
Sadie brightened. “Ah! That’s the story of how I made my second fortune,” she said.
Just then, a very old man and a boy of about eleven years turned up in the hospital waiting room. Sadie, Endora, and Joe forgot about their conversation and turned to stare at the pair. “Blimey,” Sadie whispered. “It's himself and...”
The boy, whose head was shaved bald on one side and covered with tall, sharp, lacquered spikes of unnaturally black hair on the other, also wore white powder on his face, heavy black eyeliner, black lipstick, and genuine fairy skulls dangling from both ears. His clothing was ripped and soiled, but it was just possible to make out a Weird Sisters slogan on his shirt. Grimy chains were stitched into the seams of his faded, black jeans. His trainers were artfully ripped, showing a bit of black-painted toenail here, and a demon-shaped tattoo there.
“Rigel, are you sure...” said the old man, glancing nervously at the scruffy, untrustworthy lot seated in the waiting room, who in turn were looking warily at them.
“Shut up, father,” said the youngster. “I’ve got to see me Dad.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” said the old man, miserably.
“No doubt,” said the boy without a trace of concern. “Oi! Orderly! Where have you lot put the wizard that calls himself Merlin?”
An assistant healer looked scandalized at this rude address. The old man clapped his hand over his eyes.
“You’re never Rigel?” said the asssitant healer, suspiciously.
“The very same,” said Rigel, grinning (it seemed) for the express purpose of displaying his sharp, gleaming teeth.
The assistant healer, who had been contemplating a display of passive-aggressive obstructionism, changed his mind and said, “Right this way,” very meekly.
“Stay put, you old fool,” the child barked at the old man, when the latter moved to follow him with the assistant healer. Discouraged and humiliated, the old man sank sadly into a seat near Joe Albuquerque, who at least (in his disguise as a vicar) looked a bit more reliable than the two characters across the asile.
“I expect it’s harder the second time you raise them,” said Joe sympathetically.
The old man sighed, and nodded. “He knows all the tricks already. I can’t get anything past that one.”
“Maybe, if he calls Merlin his Dad,” Sadie said distastefully, “you should let Merlin bring him up.”
“Oh, we’ve tried that off and on,” said the old man, shamedfacedly. “The simple fact is, Rigel likes having money of all things...”
+++ Double Challenge for The Magic Quill #84 +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
The SURVEY: Will Merlin be (A) mostly a good influence, (B) mostly a bad influence, or (C) unable to influence young Rigel as he grows up again?
The CONTEST: Give the name and description of an amulet (a magical object worn for some kind of protection).
The Survey Answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #84. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 2/24/06]
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