Contest winner: greyniffler
Concept contributed by ralucacoldea
Spanky’s tale continued...
“While Mulligan the house-elf kept my wand pointed at me, Ilona went behind him and untied the hagmaid and Zichri Goode. She also checked the condition of the surviving RMB agents, but everyone was unconscious, perhaps in an enchanted sleep.
“I kept the house-elf’s attention on myself by staring him in the eye. I had learned this trick during one of my earliest RMB cases, something to do with a gargoyle guarding a doorway, a gargoyle that could move and attack you, except it was frozen as long as you looked it in the eye. I held Mulligan’s eyes in an unblinking stare; he could not look away. After a minute of this he started to shake slightly, either from fury or from weakness. I have seen people faint after a minute of my basilisk stare.
“When Ilona was done, I told Mulligan I wanted a plate of grapes and cheese cubes. He took advantage of being freed from my gaze, and used my wand to conjure up an enormous spiderweb to keep me pinned to my chaise longue. Then he went away to fetch the food.
“Ilona knelt beside me and started to pick through the strands of spiderweb. She still hadn’t said anything since Minimilian had gone off to play golf. I finally broke the silence.
“’What is this artifact, then?’ I asked. ‘The one your old boyfriend keeps going on about.’
“Ilona glared at me for a moment, then snorted. ‘Boyfriend indeed,’ she said. ‘We are distant cousins. Our families have never agreed. We knew each other at school, where I learned never to turn my back on him.’
“’Sweet school-days,’ I said bitterly. ‘What memories you must share!’
“’He was Professor Lukavij’s star pupil,’ she said, ‘because of his interest in dark magic. It wasn’t an altogether scholarly interest, either. He used his knowledge to fill the school with curse-traps, poisoned pajamas, and cruel illusions. He encouraged the ghosts and poltergeists to reach for higher levels of disruptiveness, and kept letting dangerous plants, creatures, and magical objects fall in the way of unsuspecting students and even teachers. No one blamed him because he seemed so sweet and cheerful and honest, and because his family gave a lot of money to the school.’
“’I know the type,’ I growled, glancing with a pang at the corpse of Sid Shmedly.
“Ilona nodded and went on: ‘Minimilian takes pleasure in other people’s discomfort. Everything he did was meant to cause either pain or chaos. He broke up friendships. He gave people bad dreams. His pranks caused injuries that, in one or two cases, led students to withdraw from the school. The teachers complained, but Lukavij did nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Merlin’s friends from Durmstrang hadn’t become lost in Gringotts because of misleading directions Minimilian gave them – though they weren’t in school at the same time.’
“’This is all very interesting,’ I said, struggling against the cobweb but unable to move my arms. ‘But...’
“’The artifact,’ Ilona said, still picking at the web. ‘Yes. I was getting to that. His family and my family both have claims to the castle where you lived during your Moldovan Worm Control assignment. The castle used to belong to a great nobleman who served the king of Moldova, Stephen the Great and Holy, Stephen the Third. This nobleman was also a wizard, and an ancestor of both Minimilian and me. Mind you, this was in the fifteenth century, so that makes us very distant relatives...’
“’Point taken,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
“’Who are you talking to?’ squeaked a gravelly, and heavily accented, voice at my elbow. I flinched, painfully hitting the edge of a silver tray with my elbow. Grapes and cheese cubes flew up in the air and rained down on my head, becoming stuck in the spiderweb, which (fortunately) helped to conceal the progress Ilona had made in unpicking it.
“’Excellent,’ I said evasively. ‘Now, since I’m all tied up here, perhaps you would be so kind as to feed me.’
“For the next little while, the house-elf picked grapes and cheese cubes out of the cobweb and stuck them in my mouth with his dirty little fingers. I chewed silently, listening to Ilona’s story which, I knew, only I could hear.
“’This wizard nobleman, whose name was Matthias, had a signet ring that he kept hidden somewhere in his castle. It was the type of wing used to make an impression in wafer seals, the kind that nobility and royalty used to sign important documents. Matthias had ensorcelled his seal so that anyone receiving a letter from him must obey what the letter said.’
“’A ring of power,’ I said around a mouthful of cheese.
“The house-elf raised his eyebrows inquiringly. I told him I needed something to drink, and he went away to fetch it.
“Hurriedly resuming her unpicking of the spiderweb, Ilona continued: ‘A ring of royal power, yes, and it was meant for King Stephen. But Matthias kept it for himself, and used it to incite conflicts among his rivals, and to build up his own power. But in the year 1499, Matthias was thrown from his horse and died. His twin sons did not agree as to which of them should inherit. In the resulting battle the castle was burned, the ring lost, and the family divided down to this day. Minimilian thinks the ring belongs to him, and if he gets it, he could use it to turn countless people into his willing or unwilling slaves.’
“’He also thinks you have it,’ I added. ‘He thinks I helped you steal it from “his” castle.’
“Ilona’s face darkened with anger. ‘The ring has a spell on it. Only the rightful owner can touch it. It cannot be stolen, only given freely. However, the castle ruin also has a spell on it; no descendant of Count Matthias the Second can enter it uninvited. The second count’s brother, who considered himself Count Stephen, saw to that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are descended from...’
“’Count Matthias II,’ Ilona said. ‘Minimilian descends from Stephen, Matthias’s twin brother.’
“’And Matthias was the rightful owner of the ring?’
“’His father had given it to him shortly before he died. But somehow it was returned to its hiding place, which only the father knew. The story told in my family is that Matthias II tied it up in a handkerchief and gave it back to his father for safekeeping. No one knew where Matthias I hid it after that.’
“’So you,’ I said, ‘are the rightful heir.’
“Ilona nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Count Stephen was the older of the twins. The family’s castle, lands, and title rightfully belonged to him. He wanted the signet ring as well, but Matthias II did not want him to have it. Matthias was no better; he wanted the title and wealth and power for himself, as well as the ring to help him get more. But Stephen wouldn’t let him come within a mile of the castle, where the ring was hidden. They negotiated and argued and published pamphlets of propaganda, and finally they met in battle. Both brothers were killed, the castle was burned down, and the surviving forces ended up in a stalemate.
“’Finally a truce was called, the king intervened, and the family property was divided down the middle. Stephen’s children inherited all the family’s holdings on the east side of the Prut River, Matthias’s on the west. The king was probably wise to do this, though no one liked him for it at the time. In practice, it meant that nobody could use the ring to develop absolute power. Stephen’s heirs were left with a ruined castle containing a magic ring they could not touch. If Minimilian has killed enough of his cousins, he may be the last surviving heir to the castle. Meanwhile Matthias II’s heirs, including me, are entitled to the ring but can’t enter the castle to get it. I am the oldest child in my generation of the family, so...’
“I choked. By now Mulligan had returned, and was trying to drown me by pouring a jug of wine down my throat. Some of it went down the wrong pipe, so I went into a fit of coughing and turned my face away. The wine continued to pour from the jug and ran down my shirt. Mulligan laughed, shaking the last drops out of the jug. His laughter turned into a growl when, controlling my cough reflex enough to croak out one word, I said: ‘More.’ The house-elf narrowed his eyes at me, then took the jug and stomped off.
“’So you took advantage of me,’ I said hoarsely.
“’I didn’t even know you lived in the castle until you invited me there,’ Ilona said vehemently. ‘I already loved you by then. Finding myself inside the forbidden castle, finding the ring, were like a sign from heaven. It was meant to happen.’
“’And yet you kept this secret from me,’ I said, trying to speak louder but only getting hoarser in the process. I had another fit of coughing.
“In spite of my obvious anger at her, Ilona kept picking me free of the spiderweb. ‘I gave the ring to my Uncle Radu, who is the oldest living heir of Matthias II. It will probably come back to me some day. Until then, I didn’t want to concern you with it. I intend never to use it.’
“’So you couldn’t give the ring to this Minimilian fellow, even if you wanted to,’ I said, more calmly.
“’Nor is it that I would if I could,’ she agreed. ‘My aim, and that of my uncle and most other members of my family, is to keep this ring from being used by people like Minimilian. And I think anyone who uses it would, in time, become like Minimilian. So we hide it, and do not use it.’
“’Your uncle could write to this midget and tell him to let us go,’ I suggested.
“’I would never ask it of him,’ said Ilona. ‘It would be better for us both to die.’
“’And what about these people?’ I asked, gesturing toward the slumbering survivors of Silver’s party, as well as Goode and the hagmaid. ‘Are you prepared to pay with their lives, as well?’
“Ilona looked like she wanted to slap me. ‘Are you saying I should...?’
“’No,’ I said, catching her hands in mine — which, I now noticed, were at last free of the giant cobweb. ‘I am only asking if you are prepared.’
“Ilona swallowed heavily. Before she could respond, the house-elf reappeared, waddling under the weight of a wooden keg over half the length of his body. His eyes grew to the size of saucers when he saw that my hands were free. He dropped the keg and reached for my wand, which he had tucked into the string he wore as a belt. Before he could reach it, Ilona tackled him. The house-elf shrieked and went down, hitting his head on the wine cask and instantly going limp.
“Using my wand, Ilona blasted the remaining spiderwebs off me. Then I took the wand and began to revive my people, pausing sadly over the bodies of the dead. I tied up the house-elf, overcoming my fury just enough to dress the wound on his head. Then I sat down again and waited for my reviving spells to take full effect. Zichri Goode was already starting to wake up.
“Before my reinforcements were ready, however, Minimilian returned — unexpectedly soon, for someone who was supposed to be playing eighteen holes. He limped into view from behind a box hedge, his robes torn and burnt, dragging his own bag, which was missing several clubs.
“’Dashed inconvenient,’ he said, cheerfully enough. ‘The dragon under the sixth green ate my caddy. Tried to eat me, too. Seems to have lost a few teeth in the...’ He dropped the bag as the scene before him registered in his mind. ‘I say,’ he said, but he didn’t get a chance to say what he was saying before I stunned him with my wand.
“’Your tonic seems to have worn off,’ I said as Minimilian fell back into the box hedge. The branches caught him and held him upright. I resumed trying to revive my friends, who had started falling asleep again. I wondered just what this little angel-devil-man had done to them. A potion? A spell?
“As Ilona checked under Zichri Goode’s eyelids, and I pinched the leg of a first-year RMB agent who responded by kicking in his sleep, the tables turned again. I paused in the middle of a particularly vicious pinch when I felt the tip of a wand at the back of my neck.
“’No,’ said a familiar, sweet voice. ‘I am not out of my tonic. I am always careful to reapply the Mr. Shmedly’s nectar when it wears off. Drop your wand, raise your hands, and turn around.’
“I did as I was told. But when I turned to face Minimilian, he looked worried for the first time.
“’Why are you smiling?’ he demanded.
“’Look behind you,’ I said.
“’I’m not as stupid as...’ Minimilian froze in mid-sentence.
“The hagmaid had risen to her feet behind him, and was now stroking his beautiful, golden hair. With each touch of her hand, the serenity of the little man’s face turned more and more into horror.
“’Pretty little baby,’ the hagmaid cooed. ‘Scrumptious little baby! Madrigal is so hungry! Madrigal is on a low-child diet but...oh, if only...just this once...’
“I plucked the wand out of Minimilian’s trembling hands and said, ‘Go for it, Madrigal. No one here will tell.’
“Minimilian screamed and ran, tumbling over his own golf sack and rolling to his feet again. The last time I saw him, he was running flat-out toward the sixth hole of his golf course, dragon or no, with Madrigal the hagmaid pounding along behind him.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #123 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: What character, concept, or storyline from a past edition of The Magic Quill should be revived or revisited?
CONTEST: Describe a magical weather occurrence.
[Originally posted 7/1/07]
Showing posts with label Shmedly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shmedly. Show all posts
Saturday, December 27, 2008
120. The Safety Pin
Contest winner: i6uuaq
Spanky’s tale continued...
“Ilona’s stunner spell had no effect on Iulianescu, except that he shivered, and a frown passed briefly over his boyish face. ‘How interesting,’ he said, already smiling again. ‘It seems that ghost has followed us from Madam Hunsicker’s parlor. Which means it isn’t a ghost after all. I know hauntings, and long-range travel isn’t in the picture at all.’
“My wife stood by, shaking with fury and helplessness, as this miniature angel of death teased me with the tip of his wand. As if sensing her presence—though that was impossible—he turned his head to one side and spoke to the air: ‘I’m not as stupid as I look, my dear. I took the precaution of reapplying the late Mr. Shmedly’s nectar before I returned here. I knew it would be wise to have its protection against hostile spells restored, after that blow from the teapot wiped it out.
“Ilona set her jaw and began walking toward the bag of golf clubs that the house-elves had put down in order to tie up Zichri Goode and the hagmaid. But she stopped short when Minimilian added: ‘I also put on a little talisman I should have remembered to wear in the first place.’ He fondled a diamond tie-pin that I hadn’t noticed before. It was shaped like a golf ball on a silver tee. ‘I call it my Safety Pin. As long as it is fully charged with magic, you can hurl any number of teapots at me, but they will all bounce off. It’s stronger than a shield charm, and it requires no effort on my part, except an occasional round of golf to bring it back up to full strength.’
“‘I was wondering about your interest in golf,’ I said, not bothering to disguise me contempt for a wizard who cared for any sport besides Quidditch. ‘I take it the pin was made for some rich but accident-prone golfer.’
“‘It was made for me,’ Minimilian said, with a distinctness that was as close as he ever came to snarling. ‘Rich, yes; accident prone, no. Merely prudent. Any exercise activity will do, but I particularly enjoy the gentlemen’s sport. And unless you give me what I want, you may soon see the kind of golf course a rich, prudent wizard builds for his own exercise. It begins only a few steps from here. I should warn you, though: it has hazards one usually does not find on the links. Without a Safety Pin of your own, I should be very concerned for your well-being.’
“I felt paralyzed. I was out of options. The cavalry apparently wasn’t going to ride over the hill this time. And the worst part of my helplessness was that I honestly didn’t know anything about this artifact Minimilian was looking for. For a moment he studied the expressions on my face with an infuriatingly calm look on his own. Then he said something that made all the fear I had felt until then seem like a mere flutter in the stomach.
“‘I am beginning to form a new theory,’ he said, with a beaming smile of ecstatic discovery. ‘And, oh, yes! It holds together very well, so far. First I asked myself if this mysterious, movable haunting might not be connected with you. And who would haunt you except your one true love, who was banished into oblivion in front of the entire wizarding world! Second, I supposed to myself that she had found some way to communicate with you, and only you. This would explain this feeling I have had, throughout our time together, that someone I cannot see is looking at you over my shoulder. Or rather, that you are signaling her. This would also explain how, like a ghost, she might be able to bash my head in with a teapot, or tie up my servants, without being seen or felt. And how, unlike a ghost, she could travel by Portkey. How do you like my theory, Mr. Spankison?’
“‘It’s very amusing,’ I said, praying for the ability to look composed.
“‘But I haven’t reached the punchline yet,’ Minimilian grinned. ‘You see, I remember your beloved very well. In fact, I have known her longer than you have. I knew her even before she worked for the Romanian Ministry of Magic. It’s a very long story, so I will spare you the sordid details; but now it occurs to me that she may have plundered my family’s property while the two of you were patrolling the same border. She may even have used your friendship as an opportunity to enter my castle, even though it had long been sealed against unwelcome visitors of her family. I should have guessed all this before, but until just now I had never imagined Agent Ilonera was still at large.
“‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’ he said triumphantly. ‘She used you to steal my birthright. And whether or not you know anything about it, she is still using you to keep me from it.’
“He paused to enjoy whatever show my face was putting on as these very disturbing ideas sank in. I didn’t want to think any of it was true, but it did fit together. I looked pleadingly at Ilona, but she stood like a puppet hanging on its strings, her face disclosing nothing.
“Finally Minimilian chirped, ‘I have a new bargain for you, Mr. Spankison.’
“‘I would rather see that golf course of yours,’ I said bitterly.
“‘Maybe later,’ he said smoothly. ‘First, however, I propose that Agent Ilonera tell you, and you tell me, precisely what she has done with...you know what. Once I have it in my hands again, I will send you to join your foolish friend Sid in the only rest a cuckold can ever know. I imagine that will be a death sentence for Agent Ilonera, too; since you seem to be her only life-line to the world of the living. Perhaps you will take comfort in that thought as you prepare for the end.’
“‘If that’s your idea of a bargain,’ I began to say.
“‘I haven’t gotten to the important part yet,’ Minimilian added quickly. ‘If you hold up your side of the bargain, I will let your friends live—though, perhaps, with some memory modifications. If, however, you refuse my terms, I will let you watch them die before I kill you. And it won’t end quickly for any of you. Is that better?’
“Suddenly I broke through my fear into pure, searing-hot anger. It took all my strength to control the shaking of my limbs and voice as I said, ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
“‘All right,’ Minimilian said. ‘I want to play a round of golf, anyway. Divot will come with me, but I will leave you Mulligan to make sure you are comfortable and provided with any refreshment you desire. That gives you a few hours to confer with your immaterial beloved.’
“He then handed my wand to the uglier of the two house-elves, muttering to it, ‘Don’t use it any more than you have to. I don’t want any mess like the last time.’ After one last look to make sure all of his prisoners, living and dead, were where they belonged, he followed the other, golf-bag-bearing house-elf out of sight.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #122 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: It feels like time for Spanky to take a break in storytelling. Whose story should we hear about next? (A) Joe Albuquerque. (B) Sadie. (C) Harvey. (D) Endora. (E) Merlin. (F) You’re wrong! Spanky should keep going!
CONTEST: What non-magical creature may be completely resistant to magic?
[Originally posted 6/25/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“Ilona’s stunner spell had no effect on Iulianescu, except that he shivered, and a frown passed briefly over his boyish face. ‘How interesting,’ he said, already smiling again. ‘It seems that ghost has followed us from Madam Hunsicker’s parlor. Which means it isn’t a ghost after all. I know hauntings, and long-range travel isn’t in the picture at all.’
“My wife stood by, shaking with fury and helplessness, as this miniature angel of death teased me with the tip of his wand. As if sensing her presence—though that was impossible—he turned his head to one side and spoke to the air: ‘I’m not as stupid as I look, my dear. I took the precaution of reapplying the late Mr. Shmedly’s nectar before I returned here. I knew it would be wise to have its protection against hostile spells restored, after that blow from the teapot wiped it out.
“Ilona set her jaw and began walking toward the bag of golf clubs that the house-elves had put down in order to tie up Zichri Goode and the hagmaid. But she stopped short when Minimilian added: ‘I also put on a little talisman I should have remembered to wear in the first place.’ He fondled a diamond tie-pin that I hadn’t noticed before. It was shaped like a golf ball on a silver tee. ‘I call it my Safety Pin. As long as it is fully charged with magic, you can hurl any number of teapots at me, but they will all bounce off. It’s stronger than a shield charm, and it requires no effort on my part, except an occasional round of golf to bring it back up to full strength.’
“‘I was wondering about your interest in golf,’ I said, not bothering to disguise me contempt for a wizard who cared for any sport besides Quidditch. ‘I take it the pin was made for some rich but accident-prone golfer.’
“‘It was made for me,’ Minimilian said, with a distinctness that was as close as he ever came to snarling. ‘Rich, yes; accident prone, no. Merely prudent. Any exercise activity will do, but I particularly enjoy the gentlemen’s sport. And unless you give me what I want, you may soon see the kind of golf course a rich, prudent wizard builds for his own exercise. It begins only a few steps from here. I should warn you, though: it has hazards one usually does not find on the links. Without a Safety Pin of your own, I should be very concerned for your well-being.’
“I felt paralyzed. I was out of options. The cavalry apparently wasn’t going to ride over the hill this time. And the worst part of my helplessness was that I honestly didn’t know anything about this artifact Minimilian was looking for. For a moment he studied the expressions on my face with an infuriatingly calm look on his own. Then he said something that made all the fear I had felt until then seem like a mere flutter in the stomach.
“‘I am beginning to form a new theory,’ he said, with a beaming smile of ecstatic discovery. ‘And, oh, yes! It holds together very well, so far. First I asked myself if this mysterious, movable haunting might not be connected with you. And who would haunt you except your one true love, who was banished into oblivion in front of the entire wizarding world! Second, I supposed to myself that she had found some way to communicate with you, and only you. This would explain this feeling I have had, throughout our time together, that someone I cannot see is looking at you over my shoulder. Or rather, that you are signaling her. This would also explain how, like a ghost, she might be able to bash my head in with a teapot, or tie up my servants, without being seen or felt. And how, unlike a ghost, she could travel by Portkey. How do you like my theory, Mr. Spankison?’
“‘It’s very amusing,’ I said, praying for the ability to look composed.
“‘But I haven’t reached the punchline yet,’ Minimilian grinned. ‘You see, I remember your beloved very well. In fact, I have known her longer than you have. I knew her even before she worked for the Romanian Ministry of Magic. It’s a very long story, so I will spare you the sordid details; but now it occurs to me that she may have plundered my family’s property while the two of you were patrolling the same border. She may even have used your friendship as an opportunity to enter my castle, even though it had long been sealed against unwelcome visitors of her family. I should have guessed all this before, but until just now I had never imagined Agent Ilonera was still at large.
“‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’ he said triumphantly. ‘She used you to steal my birthright. And whether or not you know anything about it, she is still using you to keep me from it.’
“He paused to enjoy whatever show my face was putting on as these very disturbing ideas sank in. I didn’t want to think any of it was true, but it did fit together. I looked pleadingly at Ilona, but she stood like a puppet hanging on its strings, her face disclosing nothing.
“Finally Minimilian chirped, ‘I have a new bargain for you, Mr. Spankison.’
“‘I would rather see that golf course of yours,’ I said bitterly.
“‘Maybe later,’ he said smoothly. ‘First, however, I propose that Agent Ilonera tell you, and you tell me, precisely what she has done with...you know what. Once I have it in my hands again, I will send you to join your foolish friend Sid in the only rest a cuckold can ever know. I imagine that will be a death sentence for Agent Ilonera, too; since you seem to be her only life-line to the world of the living. Perhaps you will take comfort in that thought as you prepare for the end.’
“‘If that’s your idea of a bargain,’ I began to say.
“‘I haven’t gotten to the important part yet,’ Minimilian added quickly. ‘If you hold up your side of the bargain, I will let your friends live—though, perhaps, with some memory modifications. If, however, you refuse my terms, I will let you watch them die before I kill you. And it won’t end quickly for any of you. Is that better?’
“Suddenly I broke through my fear into pure, searing-hot anger. It took all my strength to control the shaking of my limbs and voice as I said, ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
“‘All right,’ Minimilian said. ‘I want to play a round of golf, anyway. Divot will come with me, but I will leave you Mulligan to make sure you are comfortable and provided with any refreshment you desire. That gives you a few hours to confer with your immaterial beloved.’
“He then handed my wand to the uglier of the two house-elves, muttering to it, ‘Don’t use it any more than you have to. I don’t want any mess like the last time.’ After one last look to make sure all of his prisoners, living and dead, were where they belonged, he followed the other, golf-bag-bearing house-elf out of sight.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #122 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: It feels like time for Spanky to take a break in storytelling. Whose story should we hear about next? (A) Joe Albuquerque. (B) Sadie. (C) Harvey. (D) Endora. (E) Merlin. (F) You’re wrong! Spanky should keep going!
CONTEST: What non-magical creature may be completely resistant to magic?
[Originally posted 6/25/07]
119. Farewell to Shmedly
Contest winners: Linda Carrig and dele
After supper at the Sidwells’ spotless -- and conspicuously odorless -- attic flat, Spanky settled into the sofa next to Ilona and patted his belly. “Excellent supper, Endora,” he said. “Beautifully seasoned.”
“It wasn’t too bland?” Endora said, anxiously glancing over her shoulder at the crockery and pewter as it washed and dried itself and arranged itself in the kitchen dresser. “I often err on the side of blandness. I can be a wee bit oversensitive to subtleties in flavor.”
“No, I think you compensated quite well,” Spanky assured her. Ilona seconded this with a nod of her head.
“Me, I can’t taste anything these days,” Sadie admitted before biting the tip off a cigar and spitting it with practiced precision out the open window on the other side of the room. Somewhere in the street below, a woman screamed, a dog barked, a car horn bellowed, and something made of glass shattered loudly. Unconcerned, Sadie continued moistening the end of her cigar.
Joe Albuquerque, disguised as an off-duty guard from Buckingham Palace, had flinched slightly as the spit wad of paper and tobacco sailed over his shoulder. He stroked the beaver hat on his knee, fussy and slightly offended. “Watch it,” he snapped. “I go on duty in three hours, and this all has to look just so.”
Sadie regarded him coldly, lit her cigar with a spark from her wand, then blew a smoke ring at him.
“It feels weird to be sitting here without our masks and such on,” Merlin said loudly as he squeezed into the same armchair as Endora. “Almost doesn’t seem right to be getting together anywhere but the Hog’s Head. It has the only atmosphere for the tales we tell each other.”
“I’ll tell you what atmosphere it has,” said Endora, rolling her eyes. “It stinks!”
“Too true,” said Sadie from out of a thick cloud of smoke.
Endora looked pleadingly at her husband. He sighed and waved his wand toward Sadie. The smoke began to flow toward the open window. Joe coughed meaningfully, so Merlin added another wand-twirl and the trail of smoke made a sharp turn in front of him and went up the chimney instead.
“Well, there’s always next time,” said Merlin. “After all, we do want to stop at the Hog’s Head now and then, in case Harvey tries to get in touch. But maybe, for now, we can turn down the lamps a bit, help set the mood for Spanky’s story.”
“I would rather have them on,” Ilona said, shivering. She seemed about to add: Or talk about something else.
“Very well,” said Spanky. He sipped from a smoking glass of amber liquid, set it down, and continued his tale...
“I heard the voice of the little, angel-faced man from behind me, saying: ‘Easily lured, easily caught.’ But I didn’t turn to face him. I held my hands up to show that I was unarmed, but I kept my eyes fixed on Shmedly. He seemed to shrink under my gaze. I said, ‘I ought to have realized you two were connected. You both have the same tendency to shrug off perfectly sound curses.’
“A bit of color came back into Shmedly’s face then, and he almost grinned. ‘We have your precious patron, Sir Whatsit, to thank for that.’
“I felt a cold thrust of pain at these words, as if Shmedly had run me through with an ice dagger. Just then, when I was almost sure Sir Lionel had betrayed me, may have been the lowest moment in my life – or at least, since locating Ilona. But Shmedly, seeing the look on my face, couldn’t resist twisting the dagger. As the short wizard behind me checked my robes for wands and other weapons, Shmedly gleefully added: ‘What? Didn’t he tell you about the magic-proof orchid he illegally bred in his hothouse? Hmmm? Reeks like a charnel house, but when you rub its nectar on your skin, you become invincible to any kind of magical attack. Only stops working if you break the skin...’
“‘Oh, you fool!’ angel-face sighed sorrowfully, though Shmedly flinched as if he had been screamed at. ‘You poor, dear, fool! Will you never learn when to stop?’
“I was overjoyed. I could have kissed Shmedly just then, as I turned to face my captor, hands clasped behind my head. ‘How did you get around the smell, then?’ I asked him, noting the trickle of blood that had tried on angel-face’s neck after Ilona had hit him with the teapot.
“‘I cannot answer your questions,’ angel-face said regretfully. ‘We only have time for you to answer mine. If you weren’t so secretive, if you had boasted to your colleagues here’ — he indicated the unconscious and dead RMB agents laid out around us on chaises longues — ‘I might have gotten the information without having to trouble you.’
“‘I see,’ said I. ‘This is all my fault, then.’ I darted a glance, out the corner of my eye, to see the ugly house-elves tying up Zichri Goode and the hagmaiden who had come with us. Ilona stood a few paces behind angel-face, aiming her wand at him. Its tip trembled so much that I reckoned any spell she tried might hit me just as easily as him. I stared at her over the top of angel-face’s head, trying to send confidence at her, though I still had no idea why this little wizard frightened her so much.
“‘Have a seat,’ said angel-face. With a flick of his wand he blasted me backward onto a chaise lounge. Straps attached to the seat’s frame wound themselves firmly around my legs. One of the house-elves brought forth a small, cushioned stool, and my captor sat down beside me, beaming benevolently at me, like a kindly doctor visiting a favored patient. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Minimilian Iulianescu. We have never met, though you were a guest in my home for several months.’
“I told him that I doubted it. He smiled even more sweetly and asked, ‘Do you not remember an old castle on the Prut River?’
“‘That ruin?’ I snorted. ‘It hasn’t been anyone’s home for centuries.’
“‘It was your home, albeit a borrowed one,’ Iulianescu pointed out. ‘And it belongs to me, by right of Salic primogeniture. It and everything in it.’ He said this last bit very slowly, to emphasize it.
“‘There was nothing in it except what I brought with me,’ I said. ‘And I took that away with me as well, so I don’t see why it interests you.’
“‘Don’t you?’ purred the little man. ‘I have read your record. You were, even then, one of the RMB’s cleverest and most resourceful agents.’
“‘That’s news to me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t join the RMB until after that assignment.’
“Iulianescu sighed and rolled his eyes. I stole a momentary glance at Ilona, who looked more undecided than ever. I was with her by now; I wanted to know what this wizard wanted. I could worry about escaping later. ‘So you say,’ the little man said with an air of infinite patience. ‘There’s really no need to keep up the charade, now that I’ve read the whole case file. Yes, you were in the pay of the Dragon Squad, Southeast Zone. Yes, you were on loan to the Moldovan Bureau of Worm Control. Yes, your assignment was ostensibly to patrol the Romanian border for signs of dragon-egg smuggling. But it was only a cover for your actual work for the Rogue Magic Bureau — pray, don’t act surprised!’
“The madman laughed sweetly at the look on my face, and raved on: ‘The case file wasn’t even particularly difficult to steal, and you’re mentioned on fully two-thirds of its pages. So let’s dispense with the subterfuge. The RMB has been hoping to pick up a little artifact that my great-great-great-great-grandfather secreted in the castle walls. They want it almost as much as I do. To my certain knowledge, it was still there when you began your border patrol, and it was not there when I went looking for it shortly after you left. The RMB hasn’t given up looking for it. So I can only conclude that you found it, moved it elsewhere, and prudently refrained from mentioning it in your report. I have hoped all these years that you would seek me out and strike a bargain with me...’
“‘Well, for starters,’ I snarled at him, ‘I haven’t the first clue who you are. And for finishers, I wasn’t undercover then; I didn’t work for the RMB; and I don’t know what artifact...’
“‘I’m sorry,’ Iulianescu said in a gentle voice that somehow chilled me to the marrow. ‘I should have mentioned that I don’t suffer fools. For example: Avada Kedavra!’
“He said the Killing Curse in a conversational tone, with his wand pointed casually toward Sid Shmedly, who was still holding the tip of his knife against Silver Conkling’s throat. A hideous, green bolt of light hit Shmedly in the chest before he could even scream. He crumpled, landing half on top of Silver, and pulling her chair over sideways. Silver made a horrible, wet gasping noise, twitched several times, and lay still. I was so stunned by this sudden and heartless murder, both of my oldest enemy and one of my friends, that I forgot to breathe. A minute later, the little monster gave me a gentle slap and brought me round, gasping, staring at him in horror.
“He continued speaking exactly as before. ‘I might have understood your concealment before this, but now that I have revealed what I know, there is no sense in continuing to pretend. It is simply foolish. You are not a fool, are you, Agent Spankison?’
“I swallowed something that might have been either a scream or a sob, and said, ‘No.’
“‘Good,’ said Iulianescu, shining on me with a smile so bright that it should have given me sunburn, though it made me feel colder than ever. Over his shoulder I saw Ilona square her hips and aim her wand at him. Bless her, just as I was falling apart, her hand became steady.
“‘Are you ready to make a deal, then?’ Iulianescu asked, while Ilona looked at me questioningly.
“I looked into her eyes and said: ‘Yes.’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #121 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s stay at Minimilian’s castle was previously mentioned in TMQ #11. He clearly doesn’t remember working for the RMB at that time. So which of the following is true? (A) Spanky was so deep undercover that he himself didn’t know he was working for the RMB. (B) Someone tampered with the records to make it look like Spanky was working for the RMB. (C) Spanky had nothing to do with the RMB, but he was mentioned in their report because his investigation crossed paths with theirs. (D) Spanky is mentioned in the RMB reports because they were considering whether to hire him. (E) The RMB believed Spanky was their informant, but it was actually Ilona (who, you may recall, was stationed just across the river).
CONTEST: What sort of “artifact” might lie hidden in a wizard’s castle for seven generations, and what magical power might it have?
[Originally posted 5/29/07]
After supper at the Sidwells’ spotless -- and conspicuously odorless -- attic flat, Spanky settled into the sofa next to Ilona and patted his belly. “Excellent supper, Endora,” he said. “Beautifully seasoned.”
“It wasn’t too bland?” Endora said, anxiously glancing over her shoulder at the crockery and pewter as it washed and dried itself and arranged itself in the kitchen dresser. “I often err on the side of blandness. I can be a wee bit oversensitive to subtleties in flavor.”
“No, I think you compensated quite well,” Spanky assured her. Ilona seconded this with a nod of her head.
“Me, I can’t taste anything these days,” Sadie admitted before biting the tip off a cigar and spitting it with practiced precision out the open window on the other side of the room. Somewhere in the street below, a woman screamed, a dog barked, a car horn bellowed, and something made of glass shattered loudly. Unconcerned, Sadie continued moistening the end of her cigar.
Joe Albuquerque, disguised as an off-duty guard from Buckingham Palace, had flinched slightly as the spit wad of paper and tobacco sailed over his shoulder. He stroked the beaver hat on his knee, fussy and slightly offended. “Watch it,” he snapped. “I go on duty in three hours, and this all has to look just so.”
Sadie regarded him coldly, lit her cigar with a spark from her wand, then blew a smoke ring at him.
“It feels weird to be sitting here without our masks and such on,” Merlin said loudly as he squeezed into the same armchair as Endora. “Almost doesn’t seem right to be getting together anywhere but the Hog’s Head. It has the only atmosphere for the tales we tell each other.”
“I’ll tell you what atmosphere it has,” said Endora, rolling her eyes. “It stinks!”
“Too true,” said Sadie from out of a thick cloud of smoke.
Endora looked pleadingly at her husband. He sighed and waved his wand toward Sadie. The smoke began to flow toward the open window. Joe coughed meaningfully, so Merlin added another wand-twirl and the trail of smoke made a sharp turn in front of him and went up the chimney instead.
“Well, there’s always next time,” said Merlin. “After all, we do want to stop at the Hog’s Head now and then, in case Harvey tries to get in touch. But maybe, for now, we can turn down the lamps a bit, help set the mood for Spanky’s story.”
“I would rather have them on,” Ilona said, shivering. She seemed about to add: Or talk about something else.
“Very well,” said Spanky. He sipped from a smoking glass of amber liquid, set it down, and continued his tale...
“I heard the voice of the little, angel-faced man from behind me, saying: ‘Easily lured, easily caught.’ But I didn’t turn to face him. I held my hands up to show that I was unarmed, but I kept my eyes fixed on Shmedly. He seemed to shrink under my gaze. I said, ‘I ought to have realized you two were connected. You both have the same tendency to shrug off perfectly sound curses.’
“A bit of color came back into Shmedly’s face then, and he almost grinned. ‘We have your precious patron, Sir Whatsit, to thank for that.’
“I felt a cold thrust of pain at these words, as if Shmedly had run me through with an ice dagger. Just then, when I was almost sure Sir Lionel had betrayed me, may have been the lowest moment in my life – or at least, since locating Ilona. But Shmedly, seeing the look on my face, couldn’t resist twisting the dagger. As the short wizard behind me checked my robes for wands and other weapons, Shmedly gleefully added: ‘What? Didn’t he tell you about the magic-proof orchid he illegally bred in his hothouse? Hmmm? Reeks like a charnel house, but when you rub its nectar on your skin, you become invincible to any kind of magical attack. Only stops working if you break the skin...’
“‘Oh, you fool!’ angel-face sighed sorrowfully, though Shmedly flinched as if he had been screamed at. ‘You poor, dear, fool! Will you never learn when to stop?’
“I was overjoyed. I could have kissed Shmedly just then, as I turned to face my captor, hands clasped behind my head. ‘How did you get around the smell, then?’ I asked him, noting the trickle of blood that had tried on angel-face’s neck after Ilona had hit him with the teapot.
“‘I cannot answer your questions,’ angel-face said regretfully. ‘We only have time for you to answer mine. If you weren’t so secretive, if you had boasted to your colleagues here’ — he indicated the unconscious and dead RMB agents laid out around us on chaises longues — ‘I might have gotten the information without having to trouble you.’
“‘I see,’ said I. ‘This is all my fault, then.’ I darted a glance, out the corner of my eye, to see the ugly house-elves tying up Zichri Goode and the hagmaiden who had come with us. Ilona stood a few paces behind angel-face, aiming her wand at him. Its tip trembled so much that I reckoned any spell she tried might hit me just as easily as him. I stared at her over the top of angel-face’s head, trying to send confidence at her, though I still had no idea why this little wizard frightened her so much.
“‘Have a seat,’ said angel-face. With a flick of his wand he blasted me backward onto a chaise lounge. Straps attached to the seat’s frame wound themselves firmly around my legs. One of the house-elves brought forth a small, cushioned stool, and my captor sat down beside me, beaming benevolently at me, like a kindly doctor visiting a favored patient. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Minimilian Iulianescu. We have never met, though you were a guest in my home for several months.’
“I told him that I doubted it. He smiled even more sweetly and asked, ‘Do you not remember an old castle on the Prut River?’
“‘That ruin?’ I snorted. ‘It hasn’t been anyone’s home for centuries.’
“‘It was your home, albeit a borrowed one,’ Iulianescu pointed out. ‘And it belongs to me, by right of Salic primogeniture. It and everything in it.’ He said this last bit very slowly, to emphasize it.
“‘There was nothing in it except what I brought with me,’ I said. ‘And I took that away with me as well, so I don’t see why it interests you.’
“‘Don’t you?’ purred the little man. ‘I have read your record. You were, even then, one of the RMB’s cleverest and most resourceful agents.’
“‘That’s news to me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t join the RMB until after that assignment.’
“Iulianescu sighed and rolled his eyes. I stole a momentary glance at Ilona, who looked more undecided than ever. I was with her by now; I wanted to know what this wizard wanted. I could worry about escaping later. ‘So you say,’ the little man said with an air of infinite patience. ‘There’s really no need to keep up the charade, now that I’ve read the whole case file. Yes, you were in the pay of the Dragon Squad, Southeast Zone. Yes, you were on loan to the Moldovan Bureau of Worm Control. Yes, your assignment was ostensibly to patrol the Romanian border for signs of dragon-egg smuggling. But it was only a cover for your actual work for the Rogue Magic Bureau — pray, don’t act surprised!’
“The madman laughed sweetly at the look on my face, and raved on: ‘The case file wasn’t even particularly difficult to steal, and you’re mentioned on fully two-thirds of its pages. So let’s dispense with the subterfuge. The RMB has been hoping to pick up a little artifact that my great-great-great-great-grandfather secreted in the castle walls. They want it almost as much as I do. To my certain knowledge, it was still there when you began your border patrol, and it was not there when I went looking for it shortly after you left. The RMB hasn’t given up looking for it. So I can only conclude that you found it, moved it elsewhere, and prudently refrained from mentioning it in your report. I have hoped all these years that you would seek me out and strike a bargain with me...’
“‘Well, for starters,’ I snarled at him, ‘I haven’t the first clue who you are. And for finishers, I wasn’t undercover then; I didn’t work for the RMB; and I don’t know what artifact...’
“‘I’m sorry,’ Iulianescu said in a gentle voice that somehow chilled me to the marrow. ‘I should have mentioned that I don’t suffer fools. For example: Avada Kedavra!’
“He said the Killing Curse in a conversational tone, with his wand pointed casually toward Sid Shmedly, who was still holding the tip of his knife against Silver Conkling’s throat. A hideous, green bolt of light hit Shmedly in the chest before he could even scream. He crumpled, landing half on top of Silver, and pulling her chair over sideways. Silver made a horrible, wet gasping noise, twitched several times, and lay still. I was so stunned by this sudden and heartless murder, both of my oldest enemy and one of my friends, that I forgot to breathe. A minute later, the little monster gave me a gentle slap and brought me round, gasping, staring at him in horror.
“He continued speaking exactly as before. ‘I might have understood your concealment before this, but now that I have revealed what I know, there is no sense in continuing to pretend. It is simply foolish. You are not a fool, are you, Agent Spankison?’
“I swallowed something that might have been either a scream or a sob, and said, ‘No.’
“‘Good,’ said Iulianescu, shining on me with a smile so bright that it should have given me sunburn, though it made me feel colder than ever. Over his shoulder I saw Ilona square her hips and aim her wand at him. Bless her, just as I was falling apart, her hand became steady.
“‘Are you ready to make a deal, then?’ Iulianescu asked, while Ilona looked at me questioningly.
“I looked into her eyes and said: ‘Yes.’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #121 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s stay at Minimilian’s castle was previously mentioned in TMQ #11. He clearly doesn’t remember working for the RMB at that time. So which of the following is true? (A) Spanky was so deep undercover that he himself didn’t know he was working for the RMB. (B) Someone tampered with the records to make it look like Spanky was working for the RMB. (C) Spanky had nothing to do with the RMB, but he was mentioned in their report because his investigation crossed paths with theirs. (D) Spanky is mentioned in the RMB reports because they were considering whether to hire him. (E) The RMB believed Spanky was their informant, but it was actually Ilona (who, you may recall, was stationed just across the river).
CONTEST: What sort of “artifact” might lie hidden in a wizard’s castle for seven generations, and what magical power might it have?
[Originally posted 5/29/07]
117. Two If By Biscuit
Contest winner: greyniffler
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I felt like I was nine years old again, half-strangled in the dress robes without which I would never be admitted to Madam Hunsicker’s parlor, trying not to fidget, inwardly shuddering at the flirtatious looks the hagservant kept fluttering at me as she led me down the passage. It was all the worse, knowing that my bride was watching all this from the vantage point of functional invisibility. I was afraid that Madam Hunsicker might still make me tremble when I saw her, as she always had done when I was a boy. I remembered her as a terrible woman with the shoulders of a rugby player, wiry eyebrows that protruded so far from her face that they cast her eyes in shadow, a jaw strong enough to crack walnuts, long sinewy fingers that could pinch a child’s ears black and blue, and a voice like the roar of a wounded rhinocerous, which I had once recognized in the midst of a cheering crowd at the Owlympics.
“The hagservant pulled aside a pocket door and announced us: ‘Young Mr. Spankison of Mangeford, and friend.’ Then she stepped aside and we entered the parlor, where Madam Hunsicker was sitting stiffly on the edge of a wing-backed armchair draped with Shetland lace. A tea table was laid out in front of her, also decorated with Shetland lace, as were the sofa, the mantel, a nearby dresser, the wall-sconces on which oil lamps glowed, and the curtains around the window. ‘Please, sit,’ Madam Hunsicker said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“I sat on the end of the sofa closest to the schoolmistress. Zichri Goode remained standing behind me, holding his hat in one hand and now mine in the other. Madam Hunsicker gave him a severe stare over the top of my head, but I could imagine him staring straight ahead, noticing nothing.
“She had changed a great deal since I had last seen her. Madam Hunsicker was thinner, hollow-cheeked, a bit stooped. Her rugby shoulders were hunched under a Shetland lace shawl, and her fingers were twisted and frozen in place by rheumatism. But she still had the same hard, black eyes that glittered at me from the shadows of her eyebrows.
“For a while she said nothing while seemingly sizing me up. Then, while still facing me, she said, ‘Madrigal, pour the dear gentleman a cup of tea.’ The hagservant hastened to comply, getting nearly as much tea in the saucer as in the cup. She seemed reluctant to let it go as I took it from her. Ilona, sitting undetectably on the sofa beside me, snickered.
“I had scarcely lifted the cup off the saucer when Madam Hunsicker ordered Madrigal to offer me a biscuit. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said politely.
“'I insist,' Madam Hunsicker replied. I did my best to nibble and sip with the best possible manners, inwardly squirming under the pressure of the old witch’s appraising stare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to discuss the reason for your visit on an empty stomach. It would be inhospitable.’ She seemed to be saying this for someone else’s benefit rather than to me — but whether that other person was Madrigal, or Zichri Goode, or someone else, I could not tell.
“When I got to the center of the biscuit, I noticed an odd feeling in my mouth. I chewed and sucked for a moment, then found a handkerchief and coughed politely into it. Madam Hunsicker looked away as I studied the tiny slip of paper that had come out of my mouth. It said: ‘Danger. Leave At Once.’
“’Did that hit the spot?’ Madam Hunsicker asked as I finished the last bit of biscuit. She was still gazing at the small side-table, where I now noticed a row of spiders busily sewing lace out of their own silk. What Madam Hunsicker really meant was: ‘Did you get my message?’
“’I wouldn’t mind another,’ I said. Meaning: ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment.’
“Madam Hunsicker closed her eyes for a second, then looked up at Madrigal. The hagservant grinned a crook-toothed smile, batted her eyes, and handed the biscuit plate again. As I put away my handkerchief, I fingered my wand and muttered something under my breath, then added aloud, ‘Won’t you join me, Madam Hunsicker?’
“’Very well,’ she said sweetly, still not looking at me. I took a biscuit, broke it, and dipped the half that didn’t have a slip of paper sticking out of it. Madam Hunsicker did the same with her biscuit, and as we nibbled on tea-dipped biscuit, I read her message (‘We can handle this ourselves’) and she read mine (‘We need each other’s help’).
“’I wonder what Vindicta puts in these,’ Madam Hunsicker exclaimed. ‘Each time I eat one, I feel more famished than ever. I must have another. Don’t be bashful, Mr. Spankison. We have an ample supply.’
“I dabbed my lips with my handkerchief, returned it to my pocket, muttered something under my breath. Then I took a third biscuit, broke it, dipped half of it in tea, and surreptiously read the tag sticking out of the other half: ‘I don’t want a good chap like you to get hurt.’ Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker seemed to choke on her tea as she read: ‘Lives at stake. Must move quickly.’
“’I’m stuffed, aren’t you?’ Madame Hunsicker blurted suddenly. ‘In fact, I can scarcely move. Madrigal, dear, why don’t you sing one of your songs, to speed our digestion?’
“The young hag assumed a stance that she must have thought poised and graceful, though she resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull about to charge. She took a deep breath and began to bellow in a voice that broke frequently between a shrill, nasal keening and a scratchy, atonal contralto: ‘Poor, purblind, wayward youths...’ The words seemed to be something by W.S. Gilbert, but I wouldn’t want to implicate any composer in the melody. The noise was so shattering that it was all I could do to maintain a serene expression, rather than shutting my eyes tightly and covering my ears.
“Meanwhile, Madam Hunsicker leaned forward and beckoned me to do likewise. When our heads were nearly touching, she hissed into my ear: ‘It is too late for your friends. You must flee. All this has been a trap, and you’re the one they want to catch. Flee!’
“A cold feeling poured down my body from head to foot. I just managed to check an instinct to do just what Madam Hunsicker urged. ’Where are they?’ I hissed back. ‘And who are they?’
“By now, Madrigal was adding some dance steps to her song. This had the soothing effect of putting her a little out of breath, so that she could not sing quite so loud; but the impact of her footfalls caused the dishes in the nearby dresser to rattle.
“’I only know that you don’t want to meet them,’ said Madam Hunsicker. ‘They came here yesterday and questioned me about you. They overturned the whole house, and I don’t doubt they left magical eyes and ears everywhere. Then they took some of my lace and left. They will be back soon, I am sure of it.’
“’What do you know about my people?’ I growled, as Madrigal bounded over the tea-table and nearly took the pot with her.
“But it was too late to learn any more from the old schoolmarm. The pocket door opened into the room — which was quite wrong. In the resulting commotion and rain of splinters, Madrigal dived on top of Zichri Goode and pinned him behind the couch. Madam Hunsicker cowered in her chair, covering her head with her arms. Spiders, lace doilies, and tea things we hurled in all directions. The lamps blew out, plunging the place into gloom. I drew both of my wands, but only just in time to be disarmed by a spell that I couldn’t quite hear over the last gust of wind that followed the door into the room.
“Entering the parlor behind the blast came a very short man, scarcely a meter-and-a-half from the tip of his pointed hat to the opalescent black scales of his dragonhide boots. I could immediately tell that he was a grown man, and not merely a boy, yet I can’t say exactly why. In spite of his dwarfish height, he had the shape of a well-proportioned man, an angelic face, and beautifully tailored, immaculate robes. His wand sizzled with energy, and it was pointed at my heart.
“Flanking this stranger were two fiercely ugly house-elves who actually stood a bit taller than he. One carried a bag of child-sized golf clubs hanging from his shoulder, and wielded a persimmon-headed driver. The other carried a coil of thin cord that, I suspected, had been plaited out of unpicked spider-silk lace.
“’Hello, Mr. Spankison,’ the tiny man said in a voice as sweet as his face. He spoke with a very slight accent whose origin I couldn’t place. ‘I’ve been with child to meet you. Would have done sooner if that Shmedly fellow had delivered as promised. But all’s well that ends well. Divot, prepare Mr. Spankison for his trip. Mulligan, stand by the lady and offer Mr. Spankison an incentive to cooperate.’
“The house-elf with the cord moved toward me and began tying up my hands. The other one set down his bag and stepped up to Madam Hunsicker’s chair, where he brandished the club at her while looking meaningfully at me. Their master had just started relighting the oil lamps with a flick of his wand, when under the hag, behind the couch, Zichri Goode groaned.
“’Who was that?’ the little man demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“’That was my hagservant, who was knocked out by a fragment of the door,’ Madam Hunsicker declared angrily. Mulligan the house-elf flinched backward half a step from the fury in her eyes.
“’Stay there,’ the little man told him. Then he barked at Divot to resume tying me up, as the latter had paused in his work at the sound of Goode’s groan. Drawing a iron from the golf bag, the little man walked very slowly, yet without hesitation, toward Ilona’s end of the couch.
“She was my ace in the hole. No one in the room knew of Ilona’s presence but me. I tried to make eye contact with her, to signal her somehow, but she was staring at the pretty little man as if the sight of him froze her with horror. I felt more perplexed and goose-fleshy than ever. Here was a woman who stood up to vampires and werewolves, but a four-foot-tall man armed with a toy golf club had her petrified!
“’What have you done to my team?’ I demanded, mostly to stall the small man, to give Goode more time to recover from his stunning encounter with Madrigal.
“The short gentleman did pause in his stroll toward the couch. He looked at me with a smile so affectionate that, under other circumstances, it must have warmed my heart. ‘My dear, dear Spankison,’ he said warmly. ‘You really are a simple man, after all. Easily lured; easily caught. Provided, of course, that you can be disarmed before you are ready to duel. It amazes me that the RMB puts such a high value on you. Alas, I think your stock will fall steadily from now on.’
“A wand poked the back of my leg, from under the sofa. I shifted my legs out of the way, and in so doing I kicked Divot and sent him flying right into Mulligan’s chest. As the two house-elves toppled and tangled on the carpet, Ilona came to life. She fired a stunning spell at the little man while, at virtually the same time, Zichri Goode shouted ‘Petrificus totalis!’ from under the sofa. The little man shook himself, said, ‘That tickles,’ and aimed a spell at the sofa that blasted it into a million singed splinters of wood and strands of horsehair. Luckily, Ilona had time to dive out of the way first. The reduction of the sofa exposed Zichri Goode, who was still half-pinned under an unconscious hag ballerina. Before he could fire off a second curse, the small man disarmed him as well.
“’What a shame,’ said the small man, turning back toward Madam Hunsicker. ‘You backed the wrong side, didn’t you? I’m afraid I shall have to put your academy to the torch, my dear. An example must be made.’
“’You monster!’ the old woman sobbed.
“He tsked at her. ‘Don’t fret, dear lady. I’ll let your precious hags out of the cellar before I blast the place. Now, if you’re quite recovered from your fall, Divot, please to continue tying up Mr. Spankison. Mulligan, I think you had better guard this one.’ He gestured toward Goode, who was even now trying to squirm out from under the fallen hag.
“Soon I was completely bound. Ilona, meanwhile, had tried several spells on the small man, but he merely shrugged them off with a small shudder. ‘What an interesting vibration this room has,’ he remarked at one point. ‘I dare say it’s haunted.’
“’Do it,’ I barked at Ilona, as she hesitated about whether to pick up the teapot and do some kind of mischief with it. She had learned, during her time as a virtual ghost, to be strongly disinclined to move objects around in front of observers.
“’Do what?’ the little man asked. ‘Whom are you addressing?’
“The thought of telling him the truth entered my mind. I now knew that doing this would probably destroy Madam Hunsicker’s Academy, just as it had destroyed Sir Lionel’s safehouse. While I was deciding whether this was a worthwhile risk, the little man said, ‘Never mind,’ and stooped down to stuff a club-cozy into my mouth. That’s when Ilona hit him with the teapot. Madam Hunsicker screamed. Zichri Goode invoked a number of saints, and the young hag awoke and clung to him, whimpering.
“For a moment the small man seemed not to react to the heavy blow to the back of his head. Lukewarm tea ran down his collar, and the dented teapot rolled off his shoulders and hit the floor with a dull clang, while he remained stooped over me as if completely unaffected. Then his eyes crossed and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against mine. I saw stars and then blacked out.
“When I came to a moment later, Zichri Goode was untying my hands and explaining to a tearful hag that he was already married, terribly sorry, couldn’t be helped. The house-elves quivered in terror as Ilona finished binding their wrists and ankles behind their backs. Madam Hunsicker merely looked on with a dazed expression, muttering, ‘It’s really true. The place is haunted...’
“’What about him?’ I asked Goode, nodding toward the already-bound figure of the angel-faced man. ‘Is he alive?’
“’Amazingly, yes,’ said Goode, nervously glancing at the struggling house-elves. ‘But he’s in no condition to tell us where he came from, or where he has your people. And the house-elves have already trotted out “We keep our master’s secrets and our silence,” so that angle’s no use.’
“Ilona, meanwhile, was searching the little man’s pockets. She found something, dug it out, then dropped it on the floor with a cry of disgust. It landed only a few inches from my knee. I picked it up for a closer look, but I already knew what it was.
“’That’s a snake’s skull,’ Goode said nervously.
“’That’s not all it is,’ I said, recognizing the peculiar, slippery buzz of magic that clung to the thing. ‘It’s also a portkey. Take hold of my robe, both of you.’
“Goode and the swollen-eyed hag looked at each other quizzically, thinking I meant both of them, then they grabbed my right sleeve. Ilona grabbed the hem of my robe as I said, ‘Three...two...one...Portetis!”
“A deafening, crushing, suffocating moment later we found ourselves in the middle of a vast pleasure garden, surrounded by fountains, lawns, sculpted hedges, and flowerbeds. Of to one side, in the middle of a paved square, a carnival carousel turned slowly. Two of the golden horses on it had been replaced by live Abraxan horses, hooves clamped in place, flapping their wings in indignation and whinnying piteously. The others let go of my robes and staggered for a moment, while I turned round and saw something even more horrible.
“On the edge of a pallette-shaped pool, my missing agents were laid out on a row of chaises longues, their sumptuous upholstery ruined by dried blood. Several of them were covered with sheets, head and all. Two of the younger agents writhed feverishly, their burns and wounds undressed. And sitting wide awake—bruised, scraped, favoring one arm as if it were broken—Silver Conkling regarded me with calm eyes, in spite of the knife at her throat.
“’Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said the figure cowering behind Silver’s seat. I recognized Sid Shmedly’s voice at once. He pressed the knife blade against Silver’s throat, to make sure I took the point.
“’It’s all over, Shmedly,’ I said. ‘You had might as well let her go.’
“’Or wait until His Lordship returns,’ said Shmedly. ‘It won’t take him too long to get out of whatever restraint you put on him.’
“’How do you know he’s not dead?’ I spat.
“’Because I know you,’ he sneered. And then, for the second time that night, my blood ran cold because, for the second time, I heard the sweet voice of a sweet-faced monster — this time from behind me — saying: ‘Easily lured...easily caught....’”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #119 +++
SURVEY: Spanky’s new enemy wants to get him because of: (a) his connection with the Potters; (b) his connection with Sir Lionel; (c) his involvement in a particular RMB case; (d) other reasons [feel free to suggest].
CONTEST: Give the small, evil, angel-faced man a name. Hint: he might be from somewhere around Ilona’s part of Europe.
[Originally posted 4/29/07]
Friday, December 26, 2008
114. The Unusual Suspects
Contest winners: Dragonic, Linda Carrig, MsJunior84, voldemort_13, Celairiel, voldymortus, i6uuaq, and woot
Spanky’s tale continued...
“During the entire visit to Zophar Goode’s farm, Ilona hadn’t said a word. Other than a few moments when I thought Goode might attack me, when knowing that she was there to cover my back made me feel safer, I wondered whether it had been a good idea for her to come along. I decided the sights, the smells, the sad story of the place had effected her deeply. She didn’t speak until we got home.
“We were met at Sir Lionel’s gatehouse by Eglantine Conkling, the RMB agent I had left in charge. She had been at the Bureau since before I was born. Should have outranked me, but got demoted after the Prewetts were killed under her protection. Everyone at the Bureau called her ‘Silver’ because, twice in her career, she had destroyed a pack of rogue werewolves that was preying on Muggle villages. After the Prewett affair, the Daily Prophet gave her a new nickname.”
“I remember,” Endora put in sadly. “Eglantine Bungling.”
“It could have happened to anybody,” said Spanky. “The Death Eaters lured her away on a fake emergency. When she came back, the house was half destroyed and there were dead bodies everywhere, the Prewetts among them. She took full responsibility, but frankly, it wouldn’t have happened if the RMB had followed James Potter’s advice about equipping agents with charmed mirrors, so they could talk directly, instantly, and securely with the office. By the time her owl got to the office asking for advice, and the return owl came saying ‘Stay where you are,’ she had already gone and left the Prewetts unprotected. The only positive thing about it is that three Death Eaters died in the attack.”
“Tough wizards, those Prewetts,” Merlin grunted. “Dangerous when cornered.”
“Yes,” said Spanky. “But Silver was pretty dangerous too. If she had been there, they might have lived. She spent the rest of her career looking for a chance to make up for her mistake. And against anyone’s expectations, this little garden-security assignment turned out to be her chance.
“When I reached the gatehouse, Silver gave me a roll of parchment, which I had been awaiting impatiently, and also a slip of parchment, which I had not been expecting at all. She had read the latter, so I really didn’t need to see it. ‘Sir Lionel’s compliments,’ Silver recited, ‘and he requests your company in the upstairs parlor. He has guests, very private guests, who must need your services.’
“'What kind of guests?' I asked, noting the impatience with which Ilona was staring at the scroll in my hand.
“'Three people,' said Silver. ‘Man, woman, and very small child. Can’t tell you more; they wore their hoods up and, I suspect, some kind of anonymity charm.’
“'Thank you,' I said, giving Silver’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll relieve you as soon as I see what Sir Lionel needs.’
“As soon as we were out of Silver’s line of sight, I handed the scroll over to Ilona. She murmured something about seeing me at the summerhouse and went off across the garden. I went in the back door of Niblet House, up the servants’ stairs – which was a bit tricky, because they were built for house-elves – and knocked on the darkwood, sliding-panel door of the parlor. I waited until Sir Lionel said, ‘Come,’ and opened the door.
“James and Lily Potter were seated near the fire, their cloaks draped over the back of the sofa. Lily was feeding little Harry, who had grown a lot since I had seen him last. In the back of my mind – and this shows the extent of my divination talent – I thought, ‘There’s a boy who’s going to be big and tall when he grows up!’ James jumped up and wrung my hand in both of his, while Lily remained seated but greeted me with her usual frank but friendly smile.
“‘Please excuse my exposure,’ she said, though she had a respectable blind-spot charm protecting her modesty. ‘For some reason, I just can’t bear to say no when Harry wants to eat. It’s almost as if he’s fattening himself up in preparation for something...’
“’Perhaps an Arctic ordeal,’ James suggested teasingly. ‘He’ll need the blubber to stay warm.’
“Lily rolled her eyes. Laughing eyes.
“’My mother always said children are born with the sight,’ Sir Lionel said chattily. ‘If they seem to know something you don’t, they probably do.’
“’We’ll want to start buying warm clothes for him, then,’ James kidded, tugging playfully on the baby’s foot.
“’First, you’ll need a warm place to stay,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘And after your narrow escape this evening, it had better not be anywhere as public as this house. I keep a safehouse not very far from here. It’s my little secret, protected by a Fidelius Charm. It has only been used twice before, and only by people in whom I place complete confidence. So I trust you will be safe there. Mr. Spankison will go ahead of you to make sure it is safe, to light the fires, and so forth. Here are the directions.’
“Sir Lionel handed me a slip of parchment containing directions to the house in the woods that I had only been able to see from the inside. Now, suddenly, it appeared to my mind’s eye – where it stood, what it looked like, and its present condition.
“’Er,’ I said, clearing my throat nervously. ‘Sir Lionel, I’m afraid this won’t do.’
“’You astonish me,’ said Sir Lionel, looking at me with suspicion for the first time in my life. It hurt me deeply to see such a look on the face of my kindest benefactor – indeed, my godfather.
“’I’ve been in this house,’ I said, watching Sir Lionel’s face darken with wrath. ‘I can’t explain how I got into it, because I couldn’t see it until I was inside, but...well, I’m afraid both the secret and the house are busted.’
“’Impossible,’ said Sir Lionel, bluffly.
“’That’s where I dueled with Sid Shmedly,’ I added. ‘It was in my report...only, I couldn’t give the location of the house, because I never had a clear impression of how I got there.’
“’You never mentioned that the house was protected by a Fidelius charm,’ Sir Lionel accused.
“’I wasn’t certain of that,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t know what was going on.’
“Sir Lionel stood up and paced. My stomach tied itself in knots; I hated having him displeased with me.
“’All we need is safe passage back to Godric’s Hollow,’ James said. ‘We’ll be fine once we’re under our own roof. Nothing short of the raising of Atlantis could break those wards.’
“’I myself am powerless to help you,’ said Sir Lionel, still pacing. ‘But my friend here has some influence with the Rogue Magic Bureau. He may even have the authority to send a detachment of agents to guard you on your way. I shouldn’t wonder that, whether he has the authority or no, he can manage it somehow.’
“Stung by Sir Lionel’s remark, I politely asked to be excused so I could ask for volunteers. ‘I will lead them myself,’ I added.
“’No, you have important work here this evening,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘Have your people meet the Potters at the gatehouse in forty-five minutes. I will instruct the house-elves to hitch the Abraxans to the carriage. The Potters will ride inside; your people will ride on top. They do not need to know whom they are guarding.’
“’Understood,’ I said, and left.
“The house-elves were already leading a pair of winged horses down the drive, hitched to a closed carriage, by the time I had my team assembled at the gatehouse. Silver insisted on leading the team. The other three agents were youngsters just out of training; I had only known them for a few weeks. I finished giving them some pointers while half a dozen house-elves formed a pyramid so that the driver, an elderly she-elf named Mitsy, could climb up to her seat. I shivered to think of Mitsy having to fly that carriage through the chill night air, wearing nothing but a tea towel belted around her waist with a frayed piece of string.
“I finished giving the younger agents some last-minute dueling tips, then ordered them up onto the carriage while another house-elf guided two cloaked figures down the drive. The sleeping baby looked like no more than a bundle of clothes in the shorter figure’s arms, as the stooping house-elves formed steps up to the carriage with their backs. Instead of stepping on them, James lifted Lily into the carriage, then hopped in after her and closed the door. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn, and as a final touch I placed a Disillusionment Charm over the whole kit. The horses pulled the carriage out of the drive, flapped their wings, and ascended into the sky in an indistinct blur, which I could only follow with my eyes because I knew where to look. Then they were gone.
“Back inside the house, Sir Lionel showed me his copy of the roll of parchment that had come for me earlier. ‘Old Slughorn has finally responded to your questions about your duel with Shmedly,’ he said. ‘A tale I find even more fascinating, now that its setting has been more clearly explained. We are left with still more questions...’
“’Such as, How did Shmedly get into a house whose location only you could reveal?’
“’If you are suggesting,’ Sir Lionel started, then bit his tongue and started again: ‘He isn’t the only one whose...’ He faltered again.
“’I’ve never heard you trip over your tongue before now,’ I said.
“’I’ve never wondered whether I could trust you before now,’ he replied.
“I must not have done a very good job of hiding the pain this answer gave me. He had the look of a man who was trying to work himself up to an apology, but having little luck breaking the habits of a lifetime. While he struggled, I quietly suggested that I should read my own copy of Slughorn’s letter and discuss it with him in the morning. He agreed, and I went down to the summerhouse.
“Ilona was seething when I got there. ‘The name-dropping old gasbag finally deigns to answer your letter,’ she muttered, pacing the very narrow strip of floor between the bed and the old iron stove, ‘though of course he addresses Sir Lionel instead of you, and every time he mentions you in the letter it’s “the RMB agent.” He seems to have forgotten the autographed photo he begged off you when you went to the Owlympics. Or the dinner party he threw in your honor when you were promoted after the Penguarts affair. Or the crate of licorice wands you sent to him after you signed that endorsement deal.’
“’He was the one who set up that deal,’ I said, wistfully remembering my moment of fame and popularity, when wizarding children all over the country had been admonished to ‘Be a Double-Barreled Wizard with Licorice Wands!’ I added, ‘His connections, you know, with past alumni of the Slug Club. And you mustn’t forget that, since a certain genie’s curse drove me insane with the compulsion to search for you, I haven’t been quite the blue-eyed boy I was then. Forced leave of absence, forfeited medals, and so on. I’ve been persona non grata.’
“’I’d like to take a cheese grater to his fat, oily nose,’ Ilona fumed. ‘Non grata wouldn’t seem so bad. Good people don’t forget their friends.’
“’All right,’ I said soothingly, patting a spot on the corner of the bed, next to where I was sitting. ‘All right, so Slughorn isn’t good people. But he isn’t bad people, so let’s see what he says, eh?’
“Ilona threw herself backward on the bed, covering her eyes with one arm and extending the other toward me. I took the scroll from her and read it aloud. It said:
“’That wasn’t worth the wait,’ I said cheerfully. ‘The man doesn’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. None of those potions could have been what Shmedly used.’
“’He did make one good point,’ Ilona allowed. ‘That potion wasn’t necessarily connected with Shmedly’s spellproofness. It may have been meant for Sir Lionel.’
“’Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And maybe Shmedly’s old romance -- remember Jonquil? -- is still hanging around him. Maybe she’s hidden by a genie’s curse, and helping him fight his duels.’
“Ilona finally broke out of her sulk enough to laugh. ‘That’s just crazy enough to be true,’ she hooted.
“’It would be poetic justice,’ I chortled.
“I forget what we said next,” Spanky lied. “The next thing you’ll want to know about, happened the next morning....”
+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Shmedly have any werewolf blood in his ancestry?
CONTEST: Describe an article of clothing with unusual, magical properties.
[Originally posted 3/8/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“During the entire visit to Zophar Goode’s farm, Ilona hadn’t said a word. Other than a few moments when I thought Goode might attack me, when knowing that she was there to cover my back made me feel safer, I wondered whether it had been a good idea for her to come along. I decided the sights, the smells, the sad story of the place had effected her deeply. She didn’t speak until we got home.
“We were met at Sir Lionel’s gatehouse by Eglantine Conkling, the RMB agent I had left in charge. She had been at the Bureau since before I was born. Should have outranked me, but got demoted after the Prewetts were killed under her protection. Everyone at the Bureau called her ‘Silver’ because, twice in her career, she had destroyed a pack of rogue werewolves that was preying on Muggle villages. After the Prewett affair, the Daily Prophet gave her a new nickname.”
“I remember,” Endora put in sadly. “Eglantine Bungling.”
“It could have happened to anybody,” said Spanky. “The Death Eaters lured her away on a fake emergency. When she came back, the house was half destroyed and there were dead bodies everywhere, the Prewetts among them. She took full responsibility, but frankly, it wouldn’t have happened if the RMB had followed James Potter’s advice about equipping agents with charmed mirrors, so they could talk directly, instantly, and securely with the office. By the time her owl got to the office asking for advice, and the return owl came saying ‘Stay where you are,’ she had already gone and left the Prewetts unprotected. The only positive thing about it is that three Death Eaters died in the attack.”
“Tough wizards, those Prewetts,” Merlin grunted. “Dangerous when cornered.”
“Yes,” said Spanky. “But Silver was pretty dangerous too. If she had been there, they might have lived. She spent the rest of her career looking for a chance to make up for her mistake. And against anyone’s expectations, this little garden-security assignment turned out to be her chance.
“When I reached the gatehouse, Silver gave me a roll of parchment, which I had been awaiting impatiently, and also a slip of parchment, which I had not been expecting at all. She had read the latter, so I really didn’t need to see it. ‘Sir Lionel’s compliments,’ Silver recited, ‘and he requests your company in the upstairs parlor. He has guests, very private guests, who must need your services.’
“'What kind of guests?' I asked, noting the impatience with which Ilona was staring at the scroll in my hand.
“'Three people,' said Silver. ‘Man, woman, and very small child. Can’t tell you more; they wore their hoods up and, I suspect, some kind of anonymity charm.’
“'Thank you,' I said, giving Silver’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll relieve you as soon as I see what Sir Lionel needs.’
“As soon as we were out of Silver’s line of sight, I handed the scroll over to Ilona. She murmured something about seeing me at the summerhouse and went off across the garden. I went in the back door of Niblet House, up the servants’ stairs – which was a bit tricky, because they were built for house-elves – and knocked on the darkwood, sliding-panel door of the parlor. I waited until Sir Lionel said, ‘Come,’ and opened the door.
“James and Lily Potter were seated near the fire, their cloaks draped over the back of the sofa. Lily was feeding little Harry, who had grown a lot since I had seen him last. In the back of my mind – and this shows the extent of my divination talent – I thought, ‘There’s a boy who’s going to be big and tall when he grows up!’ James jumped up and wrung my hand in both of his, while Lily remained seated but greeted me with her usual frank but friendly smile.
“‘Please excuse my exposure,’ she said, though she had a respectable blind-spot charm protecting her modesty. ‘For some reason, I just can’t bear to say no when Harry wants to eat. It’s almost as if he’s fattening himself up in preparation for something...’
“’Perhaps an Arctic ordeal,’ James suggested teasingly. ‘He’ll need the blubber to stay warm.’
“Lily rolled her eyes. Laughing eyes.
“’My mother always said children are born with the sight,’ Sir Lionel said chattily. ‘If they seem to know something you don’t, they probably do.’
“’We’ll want to start buying warm clothes for him, then,’ James kidded, tugging playfully on the baby’s foot.
“’First, you’ll need a warm place to stay,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘And after your narrow escape this evening, it had better not be anywhere as public as this house. I keep a safehouse not very far from here. It’s my little secret, protected by a Fidelius Charm. It has only been used twice before, and only by people in whom I place complete confidence. So I trust you will be safe there. Mr. Spankison will go ahead of you to make sure it is safe, to light the fires, and so forth. Here are the directions.’
“Sir Lionel handed me a slip of parchment containing directions to the house in the woods that I had only been able to see from the inside. Now, suddenly, it appeared to my mind’s eye – where it stood, what it looked like, and its present condition.
“’Er,’ I said, clearing my throat nervously. ‘Sir Lionel, I’m afraid this won’t do.’
“’You astonish me,’ said Sir Lionel, looking at me with suspicion for the first time in my life. It hurt me deeply to see such a look on the face of my kindest benefactor – indeed, my godfather.
“’I’ve been in this house,’ I said, watching Sir Lionel’s face darken with wrath. ‘I can’t explain how I got into it, because I couldn’t see it until I was inside, but...well, I’m afraid both the secret and the house are busted.’
“’Impossible,’ said Sir Lionel, bluffly.
“’That’s where I dueled with Sid Shmedly,’ I added. ‘It was in my report...only, I couldn’t give the location of the house, because I never had a clear impression of how I got there.’
“’You never mentioned that the house was protected by a Fidelius charm,’ Sir Lionel accused.
“’I wasn’t certain of that,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t know what was going on.’
“Sir Lionel stood up and paced. My stomach tied itself in knots; I hated having him displeased with me.
“’All we need is safe passage back to Godric’s Hollow,’ James said. ‘We’ll be fine once we’re under our own roof. Nothing short of the raising of Atlantis could break those wards.’
“’I myself am powerless to help you,’ said Sir Lionel, still pacing. ‘But my friend here has some influence with the Rogue Magic Bureau. He may even have the authority to send a detachment of agents to guard you on your way. I shouldn’t wonder that, whether he has the authority or no, he can manage it somehow.’
“Stung by Sir Lionel’s remark, I politely asked to be excused so I could ask for volunteers. ‘I will lead them myself,’ I added.
“’No, you have important work here this evening,’ said Sir Lionel. ‘Have your people meet the Potters at the gatehouse in forty-five minutes. I will instruct the house-elves to hitch the Abraxans to the carriage. The Potters will ride inside; your people will ride on top. They do not need to know whom they are guarding.’
“’Understood,’ I said, and left.
“The house-elves were already leading a pair of winged horses down the drive, hitched to a closed carriage, by the time I had my team assembled at the gatehouse. Silver insisted on leading the team. The other three agents were youngsters just out of training; I had only known them for a few weeks. I finished giving them some pointers while half a dozen house-elves formed a pyramid so that the driver, an elderly she-elf named Mitsy, could climb up to her seat. I shivered to think of Mitsy having to fly that carriage through the chill night air, wearing nothing but a tea towel belted around her waist with a frayed piece of string.
“I finished giving the younger agents some last-minute dueling tips, then ordered them up onto the carriage while another house-elf guided two cloaked figures down the drive. The sleeping baby looked like no more than a bundle of clothes in the shorter figure’s arms, as the stooping house-elves formed steps up to the carriage with their backs. Instead of stepping on them, James lifted Lily into the carriage, then hopped in after her and closed the door. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn, and as a final touch I placed a Disillusionment Charm over the whole kit. The horses pulled the carriage out of the drive, flapped their wings, and ascended into the sky in an indistinct blur, which I could only follow with my eyes because I knew where to look. Then they were gone.
“Back inside the house, Sir Lionel showed me his copy of the roll of parchment that had come for me earlier. ‘Old Slughorn has finally responded to your questions about your duel with Shmedly,’ he said. ‘A tale I find even more fascinating, now that its setting has been more clearly explained. We are left with still more questions...’
“’Such as, How did Shmedly get into a house whose location only you could reveal?’
“’If you are suggesting,’ Sir Lionel started, then bit his tongue and started again: ‘He isn’t the only one whose...’ He faltered again.
“’I’ve never heard you trip over your tongue before now,’ I said.
“’I’ve never wondered whether I could trust you before now,’ he replied.
“I must not have done a very good job of hiding the pain this answer gave me. He had the look of a man who was trying to work himself up to an apology, but having little luck breaking the habits of a lifetime. While he struggled, I quietly suggested that I should read my own copy of Slughorn’s letter and discuss it with him in the morning. He agreed, and I went down to the summerhouse.
“Ilona was seething when I got there. ‘The name-dropping old gasbag finally deigns to answer your letter,’ she muttered, pacing the very narrow strip of floor between the bed and the old iron stove, ‘though of course he addresses Sir Lionel instead of you, and every time he mentions you in the letter it’s “the RMB agent.” He seems to have forgotten the autographed photo he begged off you when you went to the Owlympics. Or the dinner party he threw in your honor when you were promoted after the Penguarts affair. Or the crate of licorice wands you sent to him after you signed that endorsement deal.’
“’He was the one who set up that deal,’ I said, wistfully remembering my moment of fame and popularity, when wizarding children all over the country had been admonished to ‘Be a Double-Barreled Wizard with Licorice Wands!’ I added, ‘His connections, you know, with past alumni of the Slug Club. And you mustn’t forget that, since a certain genie’s curse drove me insane with the compulsion to search for you, I haven’t been quite the blue-eyed boy I was then. Forced leave of absence, forfeited medals, and so on. I’ve been persona non grata.’
“’I’d like to take a cheese grater to his fat, oily nose,’ Ilona fumed. ‘Non grata wouldn’t seem so bad. Good people don’t forget their friends.’
“’All right,’ I said soothingly, patting a spot on the corner of the bed, next to where I was sitting. ‘All right, so Slughorn isn’t good people. But he isn’t bad people, so let’s see what he says, eh?’
“Ilona threw herself backward on the bed, covering her eyes with one arm and extending the other toward me. I took the scroll from her and read it aloud. It said:
Your Honor,"'That isn’t it,’ I grumbled. ‘When that table hit him in the windstorm, you could see that it hurt.’ Ilona waved me onward. I went back to the letter."
I have researched the types of potions that might meet the description that the RMB agent gave, and that might have the effect of making Mr. Shmedly immune to the agent’s allegedly accurate spellcasting. Before I get to my findings, though, I feel compelled to express my shock and regret at the choices Mr. Shmedly has made. At one point I was convinced that he had a promising career ahead of him. I assure you that I have no ties with Mr. Shmedly or his family at present.
And now more bad news. There are actually several different potions that could potentially be involved here; or perhaps a combination of potions, a tricky and dangerous art in itself.
First, there is the Achilles Unguent, generally a reddish-brown, oily mixture that, when rubbed into the skin, makes the body impenetrable for several hours. The Achilles Unguent has been known to guard against spears, rocks, swords, arrows, and such things, but I have never heard of it being tested against spells.
Another possibility is that the potion wasn’t actually protecting Mr. Shmedly, so much as impeding the RMB agent. For example, some vampires prepare a blood-red, fizzy concoction that I like to call Draculessence. Poured into, say, a town well, it causes conflict and disorder, which I am told the vampires find entertaining. I’m not sure I can support the rumors that they use this potion to “separate weak animals from the herd,” as it were. But sadly, there has been very little impartial scholarship on the subject of undead potionlore. Could not the agent have been, perhaps, confused and weakened by the potion that seemingly spilled on him?“’You weren’t,’ Ilona assured me as I continued reading."
Perhaps the RMB agent’s recollections were inaccurate. If so, and if the potion was actually dark brown instead of red, it might have been Liquid Armor. This was allegedly invented by Merlin the Hirsute as a metal-polish, to provide added hardness to the armor of certain knights he favored. The recipe was preserved in the 13th-century manuscript of Reverential Sneed, and I seem to recall Mr. Shmedly quoting from Sneed in one of his N.E.W.T.-level papers. According to Sneed, Liquid Armor can be applied to any material, including cloth, to make it as hard as steel. The advantage of adding this to steel armor was to make thinner, lighter armor just as strong as the heavy stuff.“I stopped reading at that point and stuffed the parchment into the stove. I enjoyed watching it burn.
Similar to Liquid Armor in its effect, but bright blue in color, is the concentrate of Shieldberry Juice. However, it definitely doesn’t provide protection against spells; it only protects the drinker from physical trauma. However, when mixed with an iron-rich vitamin supplement, it turns a dark, reddish-purple and causes an unusual side effect, discovered by the unfortunate Milo the Magnetic. If Mr. Shmedly has been taking this mixture, he may be more mineral than man by now. The only things that can hurt him, in that event, are powerful magnets and blast furnaces. So Mr. Shmedly’s claim that “vitamins” were responsible for his invulnerabilty may have been truthful.
One must also consider the gruesome possibility that the phial contained giant blood. It is difficult to say what would happen to a wizard who received infusions of giant blood. If he survived, it might make him impervious to spells. However, it might also destroy his ability to do magic. It might also account for the sickly, if not dead and rotting, odor that surrounded Mr. Shmedly. This could seriously compromise his health. Or, perhaps worse, it could make him smell like a giant.
None of these concoctions are known to scream when spilled. However, the scream may have come from the flask itself. Some of my potion-making equipment has been ensorcelled to tell me when a potion is ready, or when an ingredient has turned bad. There are days when my pantry is so full of mutterings that I can’t concentrate.
Please also consider the likelihood that the potion was not, in fact, connected with Mr. Shmedly’s alleged invulnerability. The building, or the room, may have been shielded by a defensive spell that would dampen the effects of any magic directed against the caster. The RMB agent may have been battling a very clever illusion.
There are even stories of certain wizards “slaving” their magic to another user, a type sorcerer who feeds off the magical power of others to become more powerful. If Mr. Shmedly has done this, I should be very concerned for him. He will have only a very limited amount of magic at his disposal, and using too much of it may result in loss of all powers or even shorten his life. However, one does hear occasionally of a witch or wizard who donated his or her powers to another, of their own free will, usually motivated by a fanatical belief in a “cause” represented by the receiving wizard, but occasionally given in exchange for certain gifts...such as invulnerability.
Lastly, far be it from me to question the reliability of the RMB agent involved, but when you consider certain gaps in his story, combined with spots on the agent’s record...
“’That wasn’t worth the wait,’ I said cheerfully. ‘The man doesn’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. None of those potions could have been what Shmedly used.’
“’He did make one good point,’ Ilona allowed. ‘That potion wasn’t necessarily connected with Shmedly’s spellproofness. It may have been meant for Sir Lionel.’
“’Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And maybe Shmedly’s old romance -- remember Jonquil? -- is still hanging around him. Maybe she’s hidden by a genie’s curse, and helping him fight his duels.’
“Ilona finally broke out of her sulk enough to laugh. ‘That’s just crazy enough to be true,’ she hooted.
“’It would be poetic justice,’ I chortled.
“I forget what we said next,” Spanky lied. “The next thing you’ll want to know about, happened the next morning....”
+++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Shmedly have any werewolf blood in his ancestry?
CONTEST: Describe an article of clothing with unusual, magical properties.
[Originally posted 3/8/07]
113. Full Moon Kennel
Contest winners: TWZRD and i6uuaq
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I kept a close guard on the Niblet estate after my little tiff with Shmedly. I still had no idea why someone with Romanian connections would want to do Sir Lionel in, or what they would want from his property. The RMB sent a few junior agents to reinforce my watch. Everything seemed quiet and in order, but I sensed the danger had not passed.
“After a couple weeks with little to do, apart from perfecting the role of a hardbitten veteran to keep the younger agents in awe of me, I received an owl from the Blokebury office, reporting an anonymous tip about suspicious activity in a nearby county. I was desperate for something to do, so I decided to follow up myself. I took Ilona along as backup, leaving the other agents in charge at Mangeford.
“The directions on the note from Blokebury led me to a farm on the edge of a great, dark forest. I smelled it before I saw it, a sharp astringent odor combining the best parts of animal waste, rotting meat, disinfectant soap, and certain marginally legal potions. As I came over the last low hill, already taking care to breathe through my mouth, I saw a small farm was surrounded by tall, dense hedges full of thorns and creepers. The road led straight up to the hedge, while a solid sheet-iron gate stood over to one side, surrounded by ill-disguised deadfall traps made, I guessed, with portable holes and the cheapest type of magical wall -- the kind that only appears to be solid ground but has no substance at all. In short, it wasn’t a welcoming place.
“I marched up to where the road met the hedge, magnified my voice, and asked for admittance in the name of the law. After only two repeats, each one louder than the last, the hedge stood up on its roots and walked widdershins until the gate stood before me. Then the gate creaked open, and I followed the road into the farm, holding both wands in one hand and my RMB badge in the other. I was very glad to have Ilona, armed and invisible to all but me, covering my back.
“The farm contained three buildings and a fenced-off herb garden. One of the buildings was a long, stone stable with arrow-slit windows just under the eaves, and another heavy iron door fitted with two thick, iron bars and an enormous chain secured by an equally enormous lock. The curious thing was that all these security devices were on the outside. The second building was a two-story, wood-frame house that looked ready to collapse at any moment. By the blank, grimy windows and the overgrown path up to the door, I could tell that no one lived there.
“Between these two was a third building -- a round, one-room hut with smoke coming out of a hole in its thatched roof -- and in its doorway stood a gristly, scarred, twisted little man holding a large crossbow. An armed crossbow. Pointed at my chest.
“'Identify yerself,' snarled the little man.
“I identified myself very clearly while Ilona held a shield charm over us.
“'State yer business,' barked the little man.
“'I’m here to find out about your business,' I replied. 'There have been complaints...harboring dangerous creatures, cruelty, Dark magic...'”
“'The ones that complained is them as does dark magic,' the little man growled.
“'Then you’ll have no objection if I take a look around,' I said as cheerfully as possible without getting shot.
“'Got trade secrets to protect,' the little man rumbled. ‘Why should I trust yer not to sell em?’
“I assured him that I would only report details of actual, rogue magic. So he finally lowered the crossbow.
“’What’s your name?’ I asked.
“’Goode,’ he said. ‘Zophar Goode.’
“’And what, Mr. Goode, is that?’ I asked, gesturing at the long, stone building with the high-security door.
“’Kennel,’ snapped my host. While no longer forbidding, he wasn’t exactly welcoming either.
“’May I see what’s in it?’ I asked.
“’Nothing’s in it,’ said Goode, who nevertheless charmed the lock, chain, and bars off the iron door with a wave of his wand. ‘Only occupied a few days each month, round the full moon.’
“If the smell outside was strong enough to knock a man down, the inside of Goode’s kennel had a pong that could pick him up, shake him, rip him open and eat his liver. Even breathing through my mouth did no good; I could actually taste it -- the choking, close, unventilated smell of werewolf. I found myself holding the collar of my cloak against my face and sucking air through it, as I inspected a row of empty stalls. Empty, except for battered and chipped bowls, scattered straw, tufts of fur and even streaks of blood stuck amid the stones of the outside wall, and deep, savage claw marks on the wooden partitions that separated one werewolf’s quarters from another.
“’I treat ‘em perfectly humane,’ Goode went on, while I was unable to speak for fear of gagging. ‘They come here voluntary. I let ‘em in from forest side, so they don’t have to go by the village downroad. Soon as the full moon rises, I lock the pen and move the gate round to the traps. No danger to anyone outside the farm, and very little danger to me.’
“’How many, er, clients do you have?’ I asked through clenched teeth.
“’Seven or eight, regular,’ said Goode, leading me back outside where I began sucking in lungfuls of relatively fresh air. ‘Sometimes up to a dozen. Some of ‘em live around here, some only come when they’re in the neighborhood when that time comes. I try to keep the place warded so outsiders can’t hear the howling an’ yowling. Tend to sound like they’re murderin’ themselves sometimes. And look like it, too, afterward.’
“’I had no idea such a place existed,’ I admitted. ‘Have you placed ads?’
“’No need,’ said Goode proudly, leading me toward the round shack. ‘Place been in me family for generations. Them as knows of it, spreads the word to them as needs it. Them as don’t need it, or want it, don’t know about it. That’s the way of it. Otherwise there’d be no end of trouble for the pour souls.’
"'Poor you,' I said, looking at the many scratchmarks and bites on Mr. Goode's arms. 'You've taken a bit of punishment yourself, haven't you? Makes you wonder...'
"'Why I still do this?' Mr. Goode asked, pausing on the path and looking at me almost pityingly.
"I laughed. 'I was going to say, why you aren't a werewolf yourself.'
"He shrugged. 'Same answer either way. Some of me ancestors were werewolves. So a certain feeling for the hairy wretches runs in the family, like. Plus, we're born carriers. We have it in our blood, so we're fairly resistant. Been bitten dozens of times, and will never be more of a werewolf than what I was born. It's just that I only turn if I get scratched right on the full moon. Even then I keep my right mind, saving a strong urge to bury things under the hedge.
“Goode led me through the door of his little shack. Inside, to my slight surprise, there was a clean, well-appointed house with rooms opening out of a main hallway and a broad spiraling staircase at the end.
“’Don’t have guests in here, mostly,’ said Goode. ‘All this is thanks to their contributions, which they pay of their free will, but it doesn’t do for them to know how much more comfortable we have it than them.’
“He led me to the stairs and then downward to a flagstoned passage with more iron doors in it. He touched one and it opened. ‘This is me lab,’ he announced proudly, though I could already see that it was a lab. It had jars of potion ingredients lining the walls, cauldrons bubbling over plates of magefire, and a long, scarred bench heaped with ingredients in various stages of being chopped and shredded. From the ceiling hung a variety of shiny instruments for testing the products of each experiment. Books and loose pages of notes were piled on and around a standing desk under a floating candelabra.
“’The other rooms are only storerooms,’ Goode explained, ‘for what I make in here.’
“’And what do you make?’ I asked, unconsciously keeping myself between him and the door.
“’Were-kibble,’ said Goode, his twisted face beaming with pride. ‘Been trying to come up with a substitute for people-meat, to stop the guests going mad and trying to eat themselves. Tried tofu people first, but that didn’t have the right nutrition. Guests were still weak and sickly after their spell passed, and after a while their instincts told them to stop eating the stuff. At least it helped us test the artificial people-flavoring. Never thought we’d perfect that, not knowing how people taste, ourselves. Kept the flavor, binned the tofu, started over to create a crunch, tartar-control Werewolf Chow with all the nutrients needed by a mad creature of the night. Each guest gets a bowl of kibble before lockdown. Sadly, there’s no way to refill the bowls without risking a bite or worse.’
“I told Goode he should be packaging the stuff and selling it, to help werewolves everywhere.
“’I used to think that, too,’ he said, his face darkening. ‘Found out about two facts of life that changed me mind. First, lots of werewolves don’t want the help. Second, lots of wizards don’t want to let the werewolves be helped. Last year a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley agreed to sell a few sacks of Werewolf Chow. He sent them back couple days later, along with a bill for two broken windows and a coat of paint to cover what somebody wrote on his wall. The only item we can sell is this.’
“Goode unsheathed a long, deadly looking, silver knife that had lots of edges, to make sure any attacking lycanthrope gets the point. ‘I call it my Ounce of Prevention,’ said Goode. ‘I’ve never had to use it. Just the smell of it on me has stopped more than one unruly guest in his tracks. Of course, some who own these knives think differently about how to use ‘em. Lost some dear friends because of one of these, whose owner made it his mission to save the world from werewolves.’ The old fellow looked grim and angry as he said this, rather than sad. ‘But it can’t be helped. The gift of a knife like this is sometimes the price of our clients’ safety and privacy. Me brother Zichri makes ‘em. Here, take this one. Oh, no, I insist.’
“Against my will, Goode forced the handle of the knife into my hand. It was beautiful, perfectly balanced, and definitely weighed more than an ounce. In fact, it felt more like a sword than a knife -- a sword that responded to my grip as if it belonged there, as if it wanted me to own it, as if it had plans for how I would use it in the future. While I stared at its beautiful, terrifying blade, Goode unstrapped its sheath and handed that over as well.
“Then he did an odd thing. He spat on the blade I held in my hand. I stared at him, shocked as much by the feeling that went through my knife hand when his saliva hit it as by the man’s behavior. ‘Do the same,’ Goode grunted. He stared back at me until I did as he said.
“’This binds you never to return to this place, never to reveal where it is or what is done here, and never to use this blade except in extreme need—’”
Merlin snorted, breaking the flow of Spanky’s narrative. Everyone turned a hostile glare on him.
“What?” he said, defensively. “I mean, think about it. If that binding had any power, we wouldn’t be hearing this.”
Everyone turned back toward Spanky, who now (they suddenly noticed) was making a spiral cut into a ripe lemon with the very knife he had been describing.
“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, after waiting long enough to be sure of their undivided attention. With a deft twist of the knife he separated the lemon into five twists which flew up in the air and came down on the rim of each goblet of firewhisky on the table. Merlin blinked furiously as a bit of lemon juice hit him in the eye.
“The binding,” said Spanky, “was only in effect until I did use the knife in a case of extreme need. Possibly old Goode didn’t mean it to work that way, but it doesn’t matter now. He and his brother are dead. They have no heirs, and the Full Moon Kennel was destroyed by Death Eaters at the height of the last war -- which, after all, was only a few months later. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted all werewolves who didn’t join his side to be destroyed. With people like Fenrir Greyback working for him, it was only a matter of time before some fool of a werewolf led the forces of evil to Goode.”
“Huh,” said Endora. “I never knew there were many werewolves who didn’t join You-Know-Who.”
“If there were, they would be the type who would spend their time-of-the-month in a place like Full Moon Kennel,” Joe Albuquerque observed.
Merlin said, “And if those places were destroyed—”
“—there won’t be many good werewolves left in Britain,” Endora concluded. She laughed nervously, half wondering if anyone was going to point out her unintentional pun on the name “Goode,” and half thinking it odd to hear herself speaking of “good werewolves” at all. The others, however, took her quite seriously.
They all turned and looked at Spanky with big, questioning eyes. He slid his knife back into its sheath and softly said, “Not many.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #115 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Spanky ever meet Zichri Goode before the climax Vold-War I?
CONTEST: Name and describe some dances that young witches and wizards might enjoy.
[Originally posted 2/25/07]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“I kept a close guard on the Niblet estate after my little tiff with Shmedly. I still had no idea why someone with Romanian connections would want to do Sir Lionel in, or what they would want from his property. The RMB sent a few junior agents to reinforce my watch. Everything seemed quiet and in order, but I sensed the danger had not passed.
“After a couple weeks with little to do, apart from perfecting the role of a hardbitten veteran to keep the younger agents in awe of me, I received an owl from the Blokebury office, reporting an anonymous tip about suspicious activity in a nearby county. I was desperate for something to do, so I decided to follow up myself. I took Ilona along as backup, leaving the other agents in charge at Mangeford.
“The directions on the note from Blokebury led me to a farm on the edge of a great, dark forest. I smelled it before I saw it, a sharp astringent odor combining the best parts of animal waste, rotting meat, disinfectant soap, and certain marginally legal potions. As I came over the last low hill, already taking care to breathe through my mouth, I saw a small farm was surrounded by tall, dense hedges full of thorns and creepers. The road led straight up to the hedge, while a solid sheet-iron gate stood over to one side, surrounded by ill-disguised deadfall traps made, I guessed, with portable holes and the cheapest type of magical wall -- the kind that only appears to be solid ground but has no substance at all. In short, it wasn’t a welcoming place.
“I marched up to where the road met the hedge, magnified my voice, and asked for admittance in the name of the law. After only two repeats, each one louder than the last, the hedge stood up on its roots and walked widdershins until the gate stood before me. Then the gate creaked open, and I followed the road into the farm, holding both wands in one hand and my RMB badge in the other. I was very glad to have Ilona, armed and invisible to all but me, covering my back.
“The farm contained three buildings and a fenced-off herb garden. One of the buildings was a long, stone stable with arrow-slit windows just under the eaves, and another heavy iron door fitted with two thick, iron bars and an enormous chain secured by an equally enormous lock. The curious thing was that all these security devices were on the outside. The second building was a two-story, wood-frame house that looked ready to collapse at any moment. By the blank, grimy windows and the overgrown path up to the door, I could tell that no one lived there.
“Between these two was a third building -- a round, one-room hut with smoke coming out of a hole in its thatched roof -- and in its doorway stood a gristly, scarred, twisted little man holding a large crossbow. An armed crossbow. Pointed at my chest.
“'Identify yerself,' snarled the little man.
“I identified myself very clearly while Ilona held a shield charm over us.
“'State yer business,' barked the little man.
“'I’m here to find out about your business,' I replied. 'There have been complaints...harboring dangerous creatures, cruelty, Dark magic...'”
“'The ones that complained is them as does dark magic,' the little man growled.
“'Then you’ll have no objection if I take a look around,' I said as cheerfully as possible without getting shot.
“'Got trade secrets to protect,' the little man rumbled. ‘Why should I trust yer not to sell em?’
“I assured him that I would only report details of actual, rogue magic. So he finally lowered the crossbow.
“’What’s your name?’ I asked.
“’Goode,’ he said. ‘Zophar Goode.’
“’And what, Mr. Goode, is that?’ I asked, gesturing at the long, stone building with the high-security door.
“’Kennel,’ snapped my host. While no longer forbidding, he wasn’t exactly welcoming either.
“’May I see what’s in it?’ I asked.
“’Nothing’s in it,’ said Goode, who nevertheless charmed the lock, chain, and bars off the iron door with a wave of his wand. ‘Only occupied a few days each month, round the full moon.’
“If the smell outside was strong enough to knock a man down, the inside of Goode’s kennel had a pong that could pick him up, shake him, rip him open and eat his liver. Even breathing through my mouth did no good; I could actually taste it -- the choking, close, unventilated smell of werewolf. I found myself holding the collar of my cloak against my face and sucking air through it, as I inspected a row of empty stalls. Empty, except for battered and chipped bowls, scattered straw, tufts of fur and even streaks of blood stuck amid the stones of the outside wall, and deep, savage claw marks on the wooden partitions that separated one werewolf’s quarters from another.
“’I treat ‘em perfectly humane,’ Goode went on, while I was unable to speak for fear of gagging. ‘They come here voluntary. I let ‘em in from forest side, so they don’t have to go by the village downroad. Soon as the full moon rises, I lock the pen and move the gate round to the traps. No danger to anyone outside the farm, and very little danger to me.’
“’How many, er, clients do you have?’ I asked through clenched teeth.
“’Seven or eight, regular,’ said Goode, leading me back outside where I began sucking in lungfuls of relatively fresh air. ‘Sometimes up to a dozen. Some of ‘em live around here, some only come when they’re in the neighborhood when that time comes. I try to keep the place warded so outsiders can’t hear the howling an’ yowling. Tend to sound like they’re murderin’ themselves sometimes. And look like it, too, afterward.’
“’I had no idea such a place existed,’ I admitted. ‘Have you placed ads?’
“’No need,’ said Goode proudly, leading me toward the round shack. ‘Place been in me family for generations. Them as knows of it, spreads the word to them as needs it. Them as don’t need it, or want it, don’t know about it. That’s the way of it. Otherwise there’d be no end of trouble for the pour souls.’
"'Poor you,' I said, looking at the many scratchmarks and bites on Mr. Goode's arms. 'You've taken a bit of punishment yourself, haven't you? Makes you wonder...'
"'Why I still do this?' Mr. Goode asked, pausing on the path and looking at me almost pityingly.
"I laughed. 'I was going to say, why you aren't a werewolf yourself.'
"He shrugged. 'Same answer either way. Some of me ancestors were werewolves. So a certain feeling for the hairy wretches runs in the family, like. Plus, we're born carriers. We have it in our blood, so we're fairly resistant. Been bitten dozens of times, and will never be more of a werewolf than what I was born. It's just that I only turn if I get scratched right on the full moon. Even then I keep my right mind, saving a strong urge to bury things under the hedge.
“Goode led me through the door of his little shack. Inside, to my slight surprise, there was a clean, well-appointed house with rooms opening out of a main hallway and a broad spiraling staircase at the end.
“’Don’t have guests in here, mostly,’ said Goode. ‘All this is thanks to their contributions, which they pay of their free will, but it doesn’t do for them to know how much more comfortable we have it than them.’
“He led me to the stairs and then downward to a flagstoned passage with more iron doors in it. He touched one and it opened. ‘This is me lab,’ he announced proudly, though I could already see that it was a lab. It had jars of potion ingredients lining the walls, cauldrons bubbling over plates of magefire, and a long, scarred bench heaped with ingredients in various stages of being chopped and shredded. From the ceiling hung a variety of shiny instruments for testing the products of each experiment. Books and loose pages of notes were piled on and around a standing desk under a floating candelabra.
“’The other rooms are only storerooms,’ Goode explained, ‘for what I make in here.’
“’And what do you make?’ I asked, unconsciously keeping myself between him and the door.
“’Were-kibble,’ said Goode, his twisted face beaming with pride. ‘Been trying to come up with a substitute for people-meat, to stop the guests going mad and trying to eat themselves. Tried tofu people first, but that didn’t have the right nutrition. Guests were still weak and sickly after their spell passed, and after a while their instincts told them to stop eating the stuff. At least it helped us test the artificial people-flavoring. Never thought we’d perfect that, not knowing how people taste, ourselves. Kept the flavor, binned the tofu, started over to create a crunch, tartar-control Werewolf Chow with all the nutrients needed by a mad creature of the night. Each guest gets a bowl of kibble before lockdown. Sadly, there’s no way to refill the bowls without risking a bite or worse.’
“I told Goode he should be packaging the stuff and selling it, to help werewolves everywhere.
“’I used to think that, too,’ he said, his face darkening. ‘Found out about two facts of life that changed me mind. First, lots of werewolves don’t want the help. Second, lots of wizards don’t want to let the werewolves be helped. Last year a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley agreed to sell a few sacks of Werewolf Chow. He sent them back couple days later, along with a bill for two broken windows and a coat of paint to cover what somebody wrote on his wall. The only item we can sell is this.’
“Goode unsheathed a long, deadly looking, silver knife that had lots of edges, to make sure any attacking lycanthrope gets the point. ‘I call it my Ounce of Prevention,’ said Goode. ‘I’ve never had to use it. Just the smell of it on me has stopped more than one unruly guest in his tracks. Of course, some who own these knives think differently about how to use ‘em. Lost some dear friends because of one of these, whose owner made it his mission to save the world from werewolves.’ The old fellow looked grim and angry as he said this, rather than sad. ‘But it can’t be helped. The gift of a knife like this is sometimes the price of our clients’ safety and privacy. Me brother Zichri makes ‘em. Here, take this one. Oh, no, I insist.’
“Against my will, Goode forced the handle of the knife into my hand. It was beautiful, perfectly balanced, and definitely weighed more than an ounce. In fact, it felt more like a sword than a knife -- a sword that responded to my grip as if it belonged there, as if it wanted me to own it, as if it had plans for how I would use it in the future. While I stared at its beautiful, terrifying blade, Goode unstrapped its sheath and handed that over as well.
“Then he did an odd thing. He spat on the blade I held in my hand. I stared at him, shocked as much by the feeling that went through my knife hand when his saliva hit it as by the man’s behavior. ‘Do the same,’ Goode grunted. He stared back at me until I did as he said.
“’This binds you never to return to this place, never to reveal where it is or what is done here, and never to use this blade except in extreme need—’”
Merlin snorted, breaking the flow of Spanky’s narrative. Everyone turned a hostile glare on him.
“What?” he said, defensively. “I mean, think about it. If that binding had any power, we wouldn’t be hearing this.”
Everyone turned back toward Spanky, who now (they suddenly noticed) was making a spiral cut into a ripe lemon with the very knife he had been describing.
“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, after waiting long enough to be sure of their undivided attention. With a deft twist of the knife he separated the lemon into five twists which flew up in the air and came down on the rim of each goblet of firewhisky on the table. Merlin blinked furiously as a bit of lemon juice hit him in the eye.
“The binding,” said Spanky, “was only in effect until I did use the knife in a case of extreme need. Possibly old Goode didn’t mean it to work that way, but it doesn’t matter now. He and his brother are dead. They have no heirs, and the Full Moon Kennel was destroyed by Death Eaters at the height of the last war -- which, after all, was only a few months later. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted all werewolves who didn’t join his side to be destroyed. With people like Fenrir Greyback working for him, it was only a matter of time before some fool of a werewolf led the forces of evil to Goode.”
“Huh,” said Endora. “I never knew there were many werewolves who didn’t join You-Know-Who.”
“If there were, they would be the type who would spend their time-of-the-month in a place like Full Moon Kennel,” Joe Albuquerque observed.
Merlin said, “And if those places were destroyed—”
“—there won’t be many good werewolves left in Britain,” Endora concluded. She laughed nervously, half wondering if anyone was going to point out her unintentional pun on the name “Goode,” and half thinking it odd to hear herself speaking of “good werewolves” at all. The others, however, took her quite seriously.
They all turned and looked at Spanky with big, questioning eyes. He slid his knife back into its sheath and softly said, “Not many.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #115 +++
To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]
SURVEY: Does Spanky ever meet Zichri Goode before the climax Vold-War I?
CONTEST: Name and describe some dances that young witches and wizards might enjoy.
[Originally posted 2/25/07]
112. The Savage Noble
Contest winners: i6uuaq, TWZRD, stwonks, pdhorner, Xantha, and dele
“I spent most of the morning replanting the broom tree,” Spanky continued while, except for the sound of Sadie scraping out the bowl of her pipe, his friends listened in silence. “It didn’t half fight me. The branches scraped, whipped, poked, pulled hair. The flowers blew pollen in my eyes. The roots tried to trip me. I had to stun the plant several times, then I had to drive stakes into the ground and tie it down to keep it from escaping again. I had just gone into the summerhouse for some tea and a bit of a wash when the self-fertilizing rosebushes started chucking mooncalf manure at each other.
“There was nothing we could do about the rosebushes, except to spray them with a stain-repelling potion so that, at least, the manure didn’t stick to their leaves and flowers. Meanwhile, the hammock vines had taken over an entire grove of ball-gown walnut trees, turning it into an open-air dormitory without a single open path to walk through. I had to cut them back, a job made harder by the sleepy scent of the hammock flowers. The moon was high in the night sky before I had finished.
“Meanwhile, Ilona was trying to find out who was behind all this. Since no one but I could see her, it wasn’t hard for her to snoop around or follow people undetected. But she didn’t see anyone near Sir Lionel’s property who didn’t have a good reason to be there.
“For a couple of days, I was busy keeping the broom tree tied down, until I found out that it would keep still as long as it had something to read. After that, I made sure there was a canvas sack of books from Sir Lionel’s library within branch’s reach of the old broom. There again, the hammock vines and the rosebushes were a continual problem. The aspidistras became upset when manure fell on them, and it looked as if they would be trying to weed out the roses, until a clever boy from the village offered me his old, patched quaffle. This the rosebushes tossed back and forth, while I moved some of the aspidistras over by the walnut trees. They took control of the hammock vines in no time.
“On day eight of the job, a new difficulty arose. I caught a shoot of the Valenvine trying to throttle the truffle bush, while at the same time, the Dentistree was dropping thousands of sharp toothpicks on the Valenvine. Sir Lionel solved this by grafting cuttings from the three plants together, creating an After Dinner Mint Tree and a Truffle Bon-Bon Bush, which served as an effective buffer between the feuding plants.
“By the time Sir Lionel was doing this, I had other problems. Some children from the village were trapped in a tree, under siege by a party of irate pirate frogs. It was starting to look as if the frogs might set a fire to flush the children out. It seems the children had been playing ouija-hockey on the everlasting ice pond when the freshwater oysters from the next pond had started shooting tiny, transparent pearls at them. This had enraged the frogs, who thought the children were plundering their treasure. I was only able to settle the situation by summoning all the loose pearls on the ice pond, exchanging them for galleons at the money tree, and tossing the gold into the frogs’ pond as a ransom for the kids.
“To this day, I don’t know what caused a whole pondful of oysters to projectile-vomit at the same time, and in the same direction. But I had a growing suspicion that an enemy of Sir Lionel was behind all these strange events. And I also suspected that whoever was doing these things was after more than the All-Europe Garden Goblet. Something about all this smelled, to me, of Dark magic.
“Ilona was the only one who had spare time to trace these suspicions. She noticed that the medusa nettle hedges had bloomed in flowers that, apparently, mimicked the scent of the fairy-feeder flowers. Whenever the wind blew from that end of the garden, scores of fairies got lured into the nettles, where they either got trapped in the thorny tangle or poisoned by the false flowers. Sir Lionel was furious when he learned of it. He nearly lost one of his most prized fairy colonies, from whose hive his family had been harvesting their best candle wax for nearly a century.
“Ilona also found out, just in time, that the fence fungus had been tampered with, and would have sprayed garrotting gas on the next person who tried to climb the garden wall. You see, something about the medusa nettle incident had piqued her memory, and she had sent an owl (in my name) to her old tutor in Romania, who by then was in charge of the library at Durmstrang. Old Mihai immediately replied with a copy of a story out of an obscure text on the History of Romanian Magic. It turned out that, back in the 14th century, some ruffians had overthrown the Grand Warlock of Dobruja, a very wise old man named Mircea the Merciful, using a similar pattern of attack.
“First, the assassins had turned Mircea’s garden plants against each other. This destroyed a whole crop of healing herbs and took away the warlock’s potion-based defenses. Then the unknown enemies had goaded the pasture plants into attacking Mircea’s livestock, driving away valuable creatures that may have aided in his defense. Finally they had charmed the moss on the walls of Mircea’s castle to fill the place with a deadly vapor for a night and a day. When the vapor dissipated, the old warlock and his servants were found dead. His successor was a very powerful and cruel wizard named Bogdan the Deviant, a man with a legendary gift for herbology.”
“Ooh,” Sadie interrupted. “I’ll bet that Bogdan blighter had a thing or two to do with...”
“We’re all ahead of you,” Endora snapped.
“Because Mihai was so quick with his return owl, Ilona was able to deduce that someone was trying to assassinate Sir Lionel, someone with an interest in the History of Romanian Magic, a dark wizard with some talent in herbology. Ilona was also able to predict the next form of attack – the poisonous fence fungus – and neutralize it before anyone was hurt. But now we were in a tight spot. The poison-gas moss had been Bogdan’s last gambit. We didn’t know what this latter-day villain would try next. And we wouldn’t have found him, either, if we had tried to look for him.
“How we found him, then, was like this. I had an off-duty day every fortnight. On day fourteen of my assignment, Ilona and I put on muggle clothes and went for a walk in the countryside. There was nothing else for us to do, really. None of my people were still living in the area, and we were too far from London or Hogsmeade to bother, and we had everything we needed right where we were, so we really had nothing planned except a long walk in the sunshine and fresh air.
“Our road was one I had walked many times as a boy. So I was surprised and embarrassed to realize that I was lost. We had gone down into a sunken forest which, from outside, seemed to be only a small wood, and my memory agreed. Yet now we found we could not get out of it. Without taking any turnings, we seemed to be going in circles. We passed the same rock, the same tree, the same hissing stream several times. Plus, something was bothering Ilona.”
Merlin suggested, “Being lost, maybe?”
“No, something else,” said Spanky, without even a hint of levity. “She kept waving her hand in front of her face, as if trying to push cobwebs out of her way, or as if swatting at a persistent gnat. But I was just beside her, and I saw and felt nothing of the kind. Finally, as I became certain that we had wandered into some kind of magical trap, I closed my eyes for a few seconds, feeling too ashamed to face my wife and tell her what I knew. But just then, Ilona cried out, ‘There!’ I opened my eyes and looked around. She had been pointing at something, but now she let her hand drop, looking bemused.
“'What was it?' I asked.
“'Nothing,' she said. 'My eyes must be playing tricks on me.’"
“'There’s nothing wrong with your eyes,’ I said. Then, in order to summon up the inner strength to confess that I had foolishly led her into danger, I closed my eyes again. And again, she gasped, ‘There, look! Do you see it?’
“I looked. I saw nothing. And from the moment I opened my eyes, it was evident that whatever she saw had disappeared again.
“’Hang on,’ I said. ‘Let me try something.’ I took her hand, closed my eyes, and said, ‘Can you see it now?’
“’Yes, it must have been there the whole time,’ said Ilona. ‘I don’t understand why I keep losing sight of it.’
“’Still there?’ I asked, eyes tightly shut.
“’Yes, still there,’ she said.
“’That’s all right then,’ I said. ‘If you can see it and I can't, even when my eyes are open, then it’s a trick—someone has bespelled you. But if you can only see it when I have my eyes closed, then it’s really there.’
“’I don’t follow you,’ she said.
“’Precisely,’ I said. ‘You lead me. By the hand.’
“For a minute or two, Ilona just stood with her hand in mine. I could feel her fingers twitching. I knew she had a lot of questions, but for the moment she held onto them—and me. Then with a small, quiet laugh, she began to walk, tugging me forward.
“I stumbled a few times. She started muttering directions to me: ‘Exposed root at one o’clock...rabbit hole two steps ahead,’ and so on. Then it was: ‘Four steps up...we’ll have to edge sideways here, there’s only one plank left intact...stop!’
“I heard the squeak and click of a doorhandle, and felt a soft sigh of air around me as a door opened ahead of us. Then I could tell we were inside a corridor, by the way the sound of our footsteps closed in around us, and the heavy smell of the air, and the coolness of the shadows. As we went down the corridor, Ilona stopped a few times to try a doorknob. Some of the doors opened into rooms that she pronounced empty; others were locked. I advised against knocking.
“I first heard the snoring as we climbed a steep flight of stairs. It grew louder as we re-crossed the length of the house, until it became so loud that I wondered how we hadn’t heard it from below. Ilona led me into the room where the snorer lay. She gasped—I opened my eyes—in my surprise I stumbled against a small table and knocked over a glass retort of some reddish liquid. The retort fell to the floor and shattered, and the red liquid exploded into nothingness with a sound like a brief, high-pitched scream. And on the filthy pile of rags and straw in the corner, a filthy, ragged man with white hair and hollow, unshaven cheeks stopped snoring and sat bolt upright.
“He recognized me first. It wasn’t until he said, ‘You! I should have known,’ that I put the voice and the face together.
“’You look like death, Sid,’ I said, quickly recovering my poise – while discreetly preparing to draw both of my wands. ‘And you smell like a wild animal.’”
“Actually, it was the other way around. Sid Shmedly looked like a wild animal, cornered and about to spring. And he smelled like something that had died several days ago. But it was less scary to think about it the way I said it.
“’You meddling halfblood insect,’ Shmedly said, his eyes unblinking in their icy fury. ‘How very like you, to be in the middle of this. I’m afraid you’ll find, this time, that if you stand in my way, I’ll squash you. Or haven’t I already destroyed you thoroughly enough?’
“Until that last remark, I was all but paralyzed by rage and that dreadful, nervous feeling I always get before a duel. But when I realized what he meant, I almost smiled. A feeling of warlike bravado came over me, such as I hadn’t felt since Shmedly had made Ilona disappear. It was me realizing that Sid didn’t know what I knew—he couldn’t see the woman standing beside me. For all he knew, she was still missing and I was still destroyed.
“But I didn’t smile. My secret was my advantage. Other than quirking an eyebrow in Ilona’s direction, I made no sign to her. But we both drew our wands. And so did Shmedly.
“’Hildebrand rules?’ Shmedly asked.
“I was about to say, ‘Blow the rules,’ but Shmedly was already doing so. His first jinx turned my right wand into an eel, which I threw at him, blocking the aim on his follow-up curse. With my left wand I fired a stunning charm that hit his right shoulder, but its only effect was to knock him slightly off balance. In my surprise I failed to shield myself from his third curse. I didn’t hear what he said, but when I saw a bolt of green light coming at me I thought it was the end.
“At that moment, a flight of doves came out of Ilona’s wand. Several of them dropped dead as they deflected the green light from Shmedly’s curse. He stumbled again, momentarily confused as to where the birds had come from. ‘Should have closed the bloody window,’ he grumbled while effortlessly deflecting my body-bind curse.
“Whatever he tried next, it was no spell I had ever seen before; it flew at me like an arrow made of purple smoke. Fortunately, Ilona had me covered with a shield spell, while I retaliated with a tinnitis curse. Like my first spell, it hit him in the chest—yet he shook it off. I couldn’t touch him with anything. Shmedly was getting as frustrated as I was. ‘How are you doing that?’ he screamed as Ilona blocked yet another spell from hitting me.
“Ilona yelled, ’Cover yourself, dear,’ and while I did so she aimed her wand at a badly scratched broomstick leaning next to the door. A moment later, Shmedly was ducking under a series of blows from the broom handle, while I pumped a jellylegs jinx, a disarming spell, and three different types of transfiguration spells into him. Nothing had any effect.
“’Was that red brew some kind of anti-jinx lotion?’ I panted while dancing out of the way of his next few curses. ‘Or have you made another pact with a genie? What’s your secret, Shmedly? You should be dead by now!’
“’Vitamins,’ was all the explanation Shmedly would give for his seeming invulnerability. Even with Ilona giving me an invisible line of defense, Shmedly had me at a disadvantage and we all knew it. He didn’t need to defend himself; I did. I couldn’t keep dodging his spells forever. I was already starting to get tired. I was out of practice, and I had been on a long walk before this, and I was already down to one wand. Without a stroke of luck, I wouldn’t last much longer.
“’Spanky,’ Ilona panted, casting shield charms as fast and hard as ever she could.
“’What?’ I snapped at her, too busy keeping my eye on Shmedly’s wand to pay much attention to her.
“’What what?’ Shmedly drawled, while shooting dozens of poison-tipped needles out of his wand.
“’I wasn’t talking to you,’ I grunted, dropping to the floor and rolling out of danger just in time.
“’Then who were you talking to?’ Shmedly asked, smirking.
“’I was answering Ilona,’ I said, ‘who is standing right next to you.’
“Shmedly staggered again, wincing with pain as a loud noise—rather like a hayrake sliding down the incline of the slate roof overhead—drowned out my words. This gave me the idea that saved my life. ‘Look to your left, you dirty great git!’ I shouted with all my strength. ‘Ilona, my wife, is right there. Remember her? Can’t you see her?’”
“Shmedly screamed with pain, covering both of his ears. I had never heard such loud thunder before, but it was nothing to the hideous sound of timbers parting and walls buckling as a sudden whirlwind tore the roof off the house. The sound went straight through me, shaking my very bones, but I continued screaming to Shmedly about exactly where to find Ilona. The noise got louder and louder as a nearby train added its whistle and the sound of shrieking brakes to the crashing thunder, wailing wind, and disintegrating house. Ilona clung to me, casting a bubble charm around us, while pieces of furniture and debris flew about. The small table flew straight at Shmedly and dashed itself to pieces against his side. For the first time that day I saw fear and pain in his eyes.
“Then something happened that was probably lucky for all of us, though I didn’t like it at the time: Shmedly got away.
“The broomstick sailed out of the sky and jammed itself between his legs. It couldn’t have been an accident, though Shmedly didn’t like having to uncover his ears in order to grip the broom. As he flew out of range of my voice, the storm died down, and Ilona and I looked at what was left of the house around us. It wasn’t much—just enough to keep us from plunging directly into the cellar.
“’It makes sense,’ said Ilona, as we climbed back down to the ground. ‘Shmedly has Romanian connections. People who would know about Mircea and Bogdan must be backing him. And they want Sir Lionel out of the way. But why?’
“’Maybe this is too obvious,’ I said, ‘but the Niblets and the Shmedlys are pureblood families, which means they are probably related. Maybe closely related. And if something happens to Sir Lionel, Sid might be the next in line to control Sir Lionel’s estate. What’s in it for Sid? He gets the Niblet family fortune. What’s in it for the people backing Sid? They get control of whatever Sir Lionel has that they need...’
“I put my arm around Ilona. She was shivering badly.
“’This is unlike you,’ I said teasingly.
“’It’s not because of the battle,’ she said huskily. ‘I was just thinking, what if something should happen to Sir Lionel? I can’t help imagining that disgusting animal taking possession of such a beautiful place...’ At that point, Ilona fell apart crying in my arms.”
“Eurgh,” Sadie said, squirming, between puffs on her pipe. “Skip the wobbly bits, won’t you?”
“There aren’t many ‘wobbly bits’ after this,” Spanky warned.
Sadie looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “In that case, carry on.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #114 +++
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: True or False? Sir Lionel Niblet briefly played a role in hiding the Potters from Lord Voldemort.
CONTEST: What gave Shmedly the ability to withstand Spanky’s spells?
[Originally posted 2/19/07]
“I spent most of the morning replanting the broom tree,” Spanky continued while, except for the sound of Sadie scraping out the bowl of her pipe, his friends listened in silence. “It didn’t half fight me. The branches scraped, whipped, poked, pulled hair. The flowers blew pollen in my eyes. The roots tried to trip me. I had to stun the plant several times, then I had to drive stakes into the ground and tie it down to keep it from escaping again. I had just gone into the summerhouse for some tea and a bit of a wash when the self-fertilizing rosebushes started chucking mooncalf manure at each other.
“There was nothing we could do about the rosebushes, except to spray them with a stain-repelling potion so that, at least, the manure didn’t stick to their leaves and flowers. Meanwhile, the hammock vines had taken over an entire grove of ball-gown walnut trees, turning it into an open-air dormitory without a single open path to walk through. I had to cut them back, a job made harder by the sleepy scent of the hammock flowers. The moon was high in the night sky before I had finished.
“Meanwhile, Ilona was trying to find out who was behind all this. Since no one but I could see her, it wasn’t hard for her to snoop around or follow people undetected. But she didn’t see anyone near Sir Lionel’s property who didn’t have a good reason to be there.
“For a couple of days, I was busy keeping the broom tree tied down, until I found out that it would keep still as long as it had something to read. After that, I made sure there was a canvas sack of books from Sir Lionel’s library within branch’s reach of the old broom. There again, the hammock vines and the rosebushes were a continual problem. The aspidistras became upset when manure fell on them, and it looked as if they would be trying to weed out the roses, until a clever boy from the village offered me his old, patched quaffle. This the rosebushes tossed back and forth, while I moved some of the aspidistras over by the walnut trees. They took control of the hammock vines in no time.
“On day eight of the job, a new difficulty arose. I caught a shoot of the Valenvine trying to throttle the truffle bush, while at the same time, the Dentistree was dropping thousands of sharp toothpicks on the Valenvine. Sir Lionel solved this by grafting cuttings from the three plants together, creating an After Dinner Mint Tree and a Truffle Bon-Bon Bush, which served as an effective buffer between the feuding plants.
“By the time Sir Lionel was doing this, I had other problems. Some children from the village were trapped in a tree, under siege by a party of irate pirate frogs. It was starting to look as if the frogs might set a fire to flush the children out. It seems the children had been playing ouija-hockey on the everlasting ice pond when the freshwater oysters from the next pond had started shooting tiny, transparent pearls at them. This had enraged the frogs, who thought the children were plundering their treasure. I was only able to settle the situation by summoning all the loose pearls on the ice pond, exchanging them for galleons at the money tree, and tossing the gold into the frogs’ pond as a ransom for the kids.
“To this day, I don’t know what caused a whole pondful of oysters to projectile-vomit at the same time, and in the same direction. But I had a growing suspicion that an enemy of Sir Lionel was behind all these strange events. And I also suspected that whoever was doing these things was after more than the All-Europe Garden Goblet. Something about all this smelled, to me, of Dark magic.
“Ilona was the only one who had spare time to trace these suspicions. She noticed that the medusa nettle hedges had bloomed in flowers that, apparently, mimicked the scent of the fairy-feeder flowers. Whenever the wind blew from that end of the garden, scores of fairies got lured into the nettles, where they either got trapped in the thorny tangle or poisoned by the false flowers. Sir Lionel was furious when he learned of it. He nearly lost one of his most prized fairy colonies, from whose hive his family had been harvesting their best candle wax for nearly a century.
“Ilona also found out, just in time, that the fence fungus had been tampered with, and would have sprayed garrotting gas on the next person who tried to climb the garden wall. You see, something about the medusa nettle incident had piqued her memory, and she had sent an owl (in my name) to her old tutor in Romania, who by then was in charge of the library at Durmstrang. Old Mihai immediately replied with a copy of a story out of an obscure text on the History of Romanian Magic. It turned out that, back in the 14th century, some ruffians had overthrown the Grand Warlock of Dobruja, a very wise old man named Mircea the Merciful, using a similar pattern of attack.
“First, the assassins had turned Mircea’s garden plants against each other. This destroyed a whole crop of healing herbs and took away the warlock’s potion-based defenses. Then the unknown enemies had goaded the pasture plants into attacking Mircea’s livestock, driving away valuable creatures that may have aided in his defense. Finally they had charmed the moss on the walls of Mircea’s castle to fill the place with a deadly vapor for a night and a day. When the vapor dissipated, the old warlock and his servants were found dead. His successor was a very powerful and cruel wizard named Bogdan the Deviant, a man with a legendary gift for herbology.”
“Ooh,” Sadie interrupted. “I’ll bet that Bogdan blighter had a thing or two to do with...”
“We’re all ahead of you,” Endora snapped.
“Because Mihai was so quick with his return owl, Ilona was able to deduce that someone was trying to assassinate Sir Lionel, someone with an interest in the History of Romanian Magic, a dark wizard with some talent in herbology. Ilona was also able to predict the next form of attack – the poisonous fence fungus – and neutralize it before anyone was hurt. But now we were in a tight spot. The poison-gas moss had been Bogdan’s last gambit. We didn’t know what this latter-day villain would try next. And we wouldn’t have found him, either, if we had tried to look for him.
“How we found him, then, was like this. I had an off-duty day every fortnight. On day fourteen of my assignment, Ilona and I put on muggle clothes and went for a walk in the countryside. There was nothing else for us to do, really. None of my people were still living in the area, and we were too far from London or Hogsmeade to bother, and we had everything we needed right where we were, so we really had nothing planned except a long walk in the sunshine and fresh air.
“Our road was one I had walked many times as a boy. So I was surprised and embarrassed to realize that I was lost. We had gone down into a sunken forest which, from outside, seemed to be only a small wood, and my memory agreed. Yet now we found we could not get out of it. Without taking any turnings, we seemed to be going in circles. We passed the same rock, the same tree, the same hissing stream several times. Plus, something was bothering Ilona.”
Merlin suggested, “Being lost, maybe?”
“No, something else,” said Spanky, without even a hint of levity. “She kept waving her hand in front of her face, as if trying to push cobwebs out of her way, or as if swatting at a persistent gnat. But I was just beside her, and I saw and felt nothing of the kind. Finally, as I became certain that we had wandered into some kind of magical trap, I closed my eyes for a few seconds, feeling too ashamed to face my wife and tell her what I knew. But just then, Ilona cried out, ‘There!’ I opened my eyes and looked around. She had been pointing at something, but now she let her hand drop, looking bemused.
“'What was it?' I asked.
“'Nothing,' she said. 'My eyes must be playing tricks on me.’"
“'There’s nothing wrong with your eyes,’ I said. Then, in order to summon up the inner strength to confess that I had foolishly led her into danger, I closed my eyes again. And again, she gasped, ‘There, look! Do you see it?’
“I looked. I saw nothing. And from the moment I opened my eyes, it was evident that whatever she saw had disappeared again.
“’Hang on,’ I said. ‘Let me try something.’ I took her hand, closed my eyes, and said, ‘Can you see it now?’
“’Yes, it must have been there the whole time,’ said Ilona. ‘I don’t understand why I keep losing sight of it.’
“’Still there?’ I asked, eyes tightly shut.
“’Yes, still there,’ she said.
“’That’s all right then,’ I said. ‘If you can see it and I can't, even when my eyes are open, then it’s a trick—someone has bespelled you. But if you can only see it when I have my eyes closed, then it’s really there.’
“’I don’t follow you,’ she said.
“’Precisely,’ I said. ‘You lead me. By the hand.’
“For a minute or two, Ilona just stood with her hand in mine. I could feel her fingers twitching. I knew she had a lot of questions, but for the moment she held onto them—and me. Then with a small, quiet laugh, she began to walk, tugging me forward.
“I stumbled a few times. She started muttering directions to me: ‘Exposed root at one o’clock...rabbit hole two steps ahead,’ and so on. Then it was: ‘Four steps up...we’ll have to edge sideways here, there’s only one plank left intact...stop!’
“I heard the squeak and click of a doorhandle, and felt a soft sigh of air around me as a door opened ahead of us. Then I could tell we were inside a corridor, by the way the sound of our footsteps closed in around us, and the heavy smell of the air, and the coolness of the shadows. As we went down the corridor, Ilona stopped a few times to try a doorknob. Some of the doors opened into rooms that she pronounced empty; others were locked. I advised against knocking.
“I first heard the snoring as we climbed a steep flight of stairs. It grew louder as we re-crossed the length of the house, until it became so loud that I wondered how we hadn’t heard it from below. Ilona led me into the room where the snorer lay. She gasped—I opened my eyes—in my surprise I stumbled against a small table and knocked over a glass retort of some reddish liquid. The retort fell to the floor and shattered, and the red liquid exploded into nothingness with a sound like a brief, high-pitched scream. And on the filthy pile of rags and straw in the corner, a filthy, ragged man with white hair and hollow, unshaven cheeks stopped snoring and sat bolt upright.
“He recognized me first. It wasn’t until he said, ‘You! I should have known,’ that I put the voice and the face together.
“’You look like death, Sid,’ I said, quickly recovering my poise – while discreetly preparing to draw both of my wands. ‘And you smell like a wild animal.’”
“Actually, it was the other way around. Sid Shmedly looked like a wild animal, cornered and about to spring. And he smelled like something that had died several days ago. But it was less scary to think about it the way I said it.
“’You meddling halfblood insect,’ Shmedly said, his eyes unblinking in their icy fury. ‘How very like you, to be in the middle of this. I’m afraid you’ll find, this time, that if you stand in my way, I’ll squash you. Or haven’t I already destroyed you thoroughly enough?’
“Until that last remark, I was all but paralyzed by rage and that dreadful, nervous feeling I always get before a duel. But when I realized what he meant, I almost smiled. A feeling of warlike bravado came over me, such as I hadn’t felt since Shmedly had made Ilona disappear. It was me realizing that Sid didn’t know what I knew—he couldn’t see the woman standing beside me. For all he knew, she was still missing and I was still destroyed.
“But I didn’t smile. My secret was my advantage. Other than quirking an eyebrow in Ilona’s direction, I made no sign to her. But we both drew our wands. And so did Shmedly.
“’Hildebrand rules?’ Shmedly asked.
“I was about to say, ‘Blow the rules,’ but Shmedly was already doing so. His first jinx turned my right wand into an eel, which I threw at him, blocking the aim on his follow-up curse. With my left wand I fired a stunning charm that hit his right shoulder, but its only effect was to knock him slightly off balance. In my surprise I failed to shield myself from his third curse. I didn’t hear what he said, but when I saw a bolt of green light coming at me I thought it was the end.
“At that moment, a flight of doves came out of Ilona’s wand. Several of them dropped dead as they deflected the green light from Shmedly’s curse. He stumbled again, momentarily confused as to where the birds had come from. ‘Should have closed the bloody window,’ he grumbled while effortlessly deflecting my body-bind curse.
“Whatever he tried next, it was no spell I had ever seen before; it flew at me like an arrow made of purple smoke. Fortunately, Ilona had me covered with a shield spell, while I retaliated with a tinnitis curse. Like my first spell, it hit him in the chest—yet he shook it off. I couldn’t touch him with anything. Shmedly was getting as frustrated as I was. ‘How are you doing that?’ he screamed as Ilona blocked yet another spell from hitting me.
“Ilona yelled, ’Cover yourself, dear,’ and while I did so she aimed her wand at a badly scratched broomstick leaning next to the door. A moment later, Shmedly was ducking under a series of blows from the broom handle, while I pumped a jellylegs jinx, a disarming spell, and three different types of transfiguration spells into him. Nothing had any effect.
“’Was that red brew some kind of anti-jinx lotion?’ I panted while dancing out of the way of his next few curses. ‘Or have you made another pact with a genie? What’s your secret, Shmedly? You should be dead by now!’
“’Vitamins,’ was all the explanation Shmedly would give for his seeming invulnerability. Even with Ilona giving me an invisible line of defense, Shmedly had me at a disadvantage and we all knew it. He didn’t need to defend himself; I did. I couldn’t keep dodging his spells forever. I was already starting to get tired. I was out of practice, and I had been on a long walk before this, and I was already down to one wand. Without a stroke of luck, I wouldn’t last much longer.
“’Spanky,’ Ilona panted, casting shield charms as fast and hard as ever she could.
“’What?’ I snapped at her, too busy keeping my eye on Shmedly’s wand to pay much attention to her.
“’What what?’ Shmedly drawled, while shooting dozens of poison-tipped needles out of his wand.
“’I wasn’t talking to you,’ I grunted, dropping to the floor and rolling out of danger just in time.
“’Then who were you talking to?’ Shmedly asked, smirking.
“’I was answering Ilona,’ I said, ‘who is standing right next to you.’
“Shmedly staggered again, wincing with pain as a loud noise—rather like a hayrake sliding down the incline of the slate roof overhead—drowned out my words. This gave me the idea that saved my life. ‘Look to your left, you dirty great git!’ I shouted with all my strength. ‘Ilona, my wife, is right there. Remember her? Can’t you see her?’”
“Shmedly screamed with pain, covering both of his ears. I had never heard such loud thunder before, but it was nothing to the hideous sound of timbers parting and walls buckling as a sudden whirlwind tore the roof off the house. The sound went straight through me, shaking my very bones, but I continued screaming to Shmedly about exactly where to find Ilona. The noise got louder and louder as a nearby train added its whistle and the sound of shrieking brakes to the crashing thunder, wailing wind, and disintegrating house. Ilona clung to me, casting a bubble charm around us, while pieces of furniture and debris flew about. The small table flew straight at Shmedly and dashed itself to pieces against his side. For the first time that day I saw fear and pain in his eyes.
“Then something happened that was probably lucky for all of us, though I didn’t like it at the time: Shmedly got away.
“The broomstick sailed out of the sky and jammed itself between his legs. It couldn’t have been an accident, though Shmedly didn’t like having to uncover his ears in order to grip the broom. As he flew out of range of my voice, the storm died down, and Ilona and I looked at what was left of the house around us. It wasn’t much—just enough to keep us from plunging directly into the cellar.
“’It makes sense,’ said Ilona, as we climbed back down to the ground. ‘Shmedly has Romanian connections. People who would know about Mircea and Bogdan must be backing him. And they want Sir Lionel out of the way. But why?’
“’Maybe this is too obvious,’ I said, ‘but the Niblets and the Shmedlys are pureblood families, which means they are probably related. Maybe closely related. And if something happens to Sir Lionel, Sid might be the next in line to control Sir Lionel’s estate. What’s in it for Sid? He gets the Niblet family fortune. What’s in it for the people backing Sid? They get control of whatever Sir Lionel has that they need...’
“I put my arm around Ilona. She was shivering badly.
“’This is unlike you,’ I said teasingly.
“’It’s not because of the battle,’ she said huskily. ‘I was just thinking, what if something should happen to Sir Lionel? I can’t help imagining that disgusting animal taking possession of such a beautiful place...’ At that point, Ilona fell apart crying in my arms.”
“Eurgh,” Sadie said, squirming, between puffs on her pipe. “Skip the wobbly bits, won’t you?”
“There aren’t many ‘wobbly bits’ after this,” Spanky warned.
Sadie looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “In that case, carry on.”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #114 +++
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: True or False? Sir Lionel Niblet briefly played a role in hiding the Potters from Lord Voldemort.
CONTEST: What gave Shmedly the ability to withstand Spanky’s spells?
[Originally posted 2/19/07]
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