Contest winner: greyniffler
VOICE: You are listening to the Wizarding Wireless, broadcasting at 42 thaums per lunar cycle.
(Sound of rustling in cupboard.)
WITCH: Oh, drat!
SECOND WITCH: What's wrong, Carmen dear?
CARMEN: Would you believe it, Branwen? I need to make a simple Complexion Concoction and I'm all out of bees' wings, four-leaf clover stems, and moonwater!
BRANWEN: There, there. That used to happen to me all the time, before I found...
VOICE: We interrupt this advert for a word from our sponsor.
REALLY DEEP VOICE: No matter where you fly on Saddler brooms, you are not alone. Old man Saddler stands behind every flight on Saddler brooms. (Evil laughter...)
PREVIOUS VOICE: And now we return to our regularly scheduled advert.
BRANWEN: There, there. That used to happen to me all the time, before I found Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs!
CARMEN: Potion Packs?
BRANWEN: Each one has all the ingredients for one batch of a standard potion. They have over one hundred recipes available, and they are adding more every week. And they come complete with full directions.
CARMEN: Do they really work?
BRANWEN: Lizzie's recipies are foolproof, dear. They're guaranteed.
CARMEN: Well, let's go buy some of Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs. I can't wait to make my Complexion Concoction.
WHISPERING VOICE: Potion Packs do not include calendar-sensitive ingredients. Read package for full instructions. (Louder) Lizzie Cauldron's Potion Packs are avail-....
(Snap)
Ethelfrigga Spankisdaughter switched off the wireless and closed its cabinet doors. She straightened her shoulders and prepared a cheerful face before turning to face the drawing room and its denizens.
"Still no word from them," she said with courageous carelessness.
"No password, you mean." This came from the rafters, where her older brother Aloysius hung upside-down. He had been doing this a lot since his unfortunate attempt to brew a Polyjuice potion. Ethelfrigga secretly believed Aloysius had performed the recipe perfectly, but that a certain disreputable friend of the family had cheated him by selling a common bat pelt labeled as boomslang skin. Of course, she wasn't going to tell Aloysius that. She was still having too much fun taking it out of him.
"Caught any juicy flies lately?" she teased. "You should be careful. For all we know, one of them might be carrying a message from Mum or Dad."
"Careful yourself," Aloysius sniffed, wriggling his batlike snout. "You don't want to make me cry in my condition. With the echo in this place, I could probably hear where your diary is hidden..."
"Ha, ha!" Ethelfrigga stuck her tongue out at him. She was strictly too old to behave like this, but she did it anyway because it amused the younger children--at least Persephone and Bob, who by this hour of the evening tended to be so worn out that they could swing instantly from giggles to sobs. It didn't help that they had been worrying about, and missing, their parents as long as they had. Nor did it help that the middle boy--Marmaduke--was in a dark, sullen mood tonight. At the sight of Ethelfrigga's wriggling tongue, his pout downgraded itself to a scowl.
"I think it's time for bed," Ethelfrigga said, just as Marmaduke opened his mouth for a speech that most likely would have ended with the little ones in tears.
"I want a story," Persephone said.
Marmaduke rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue against the little witch's wish. Ethelfrigga gathered Bob onto her hip, wrapped her hand around Persephone's hand, and headed for the stairs saying, "When you two are ready for bed, we'll see."
For a long, resentful moment Marmaduke stayed where he was, dwarfed in his father's armchair, wearing a handkerchief in Gryffindor colors knotted at the corners on his head, a T-shirt blazed with the slogan "Down Vold-Mart! Reduce Your Carbon Hoofprint," and a pair of canvas trousers recently and hastily patched at the knees. His pride was still smarting from being hauled off the ground by the scruff of his neck--or more precisely, by the straps of his knapsack--and flown home from the anti-Vold-Mart demonstration by his freak brother. Under orders from their bossy sister. When his parents hadn't sent any word about whether he could go or not, or about anything else...
The sound of Aloysius's snoring finally drove him from his pity party. Marmaduke crept upstairs, where Ethelfrigga was just now tucking a freshly-combed Persephone and a minty-fresh Bob into their beds. He refused to meet Ethelfrigga's gaze as she settled down beside Persephone and began the bedtime story. He perched at the foot of Bob's bed as if he had just stopped for a moment to catch his breath after climbing the stairs, and looked away as if he wasn't really listening to the story. Anyone would have thought he was about to get up and leave. But he didn't.
"Tonight's story," said Ethelfrigga, "is called 'The Picture of Doreen Grape.'"
Marmaduke shivered slightly. He remembered their father telling this story years ago. His hand had left black-and-blue marks on Aloysius's wrist that night.
"Once upon a time," Ethelfrigga began, "there lived a very vain young muggle lady who liked to be admired. She had a lovely face and an even lovelier figure, which she loved to dress up in fabulous gowns and show off up and down the avenues and in all the salons of her city. She dressed like a duchess to walk her dogs. She dressed like a princess to visit the theatre. She went to every fashionable levy and ball dressed like a queen. Her hair always shined and her skin always glowed. Every woman who saw her hated her, because every man who saw her could look at no one else. Her name was Mrs. Grape.
"Mrs. Grape was known for her manners and grace. She had only one fault in polite company, and it was this: She could not resist food. The more delicate the food was, the more ravenously she ate it. If a tray full of canapes came within arm's reach, it would be empty before it passed out again. Mrs. Grape was a menace to any buffet table. At banquets, she ate like a pig. It was almost embarrassing to sit by her.
"Almost, I say; because however much she ate, her beautiful shape stayed the same. She gobbled rich food that would have brought any other lady out in pimples, but her skin stayed perfect. She guzzled heady wines that should have swelled her nose into a big, red, veiny thing; yet she kept the same perfect, perky, lily-white nose. At first, her jealous lady-friends tried to ruin her figure by plying her with food and drink. But the lady went on eating and eating, and drinking and drinking, without so much as a wild hair. Meanwhile, her lady-friends either got fat trying to keep up with her, or went broke trying to feed her.
"Soon Mrs. Grape was the belle of all society. She married numerous times. Her husbands all died young, worn out from trying to keep up with her. Even after mourning so many husbands, her face never got puffy or lined with grief. And she looked as good in black as all the other colors of the rainbow.
"Mrs. Grape had a huge litter of children. They all had to be taken away for their own good because their mother would steal the food off their plates, she was such a pig. Even after bearing all these children, she still had the same girlish figure.
"Many years passed. All the ladies of Mrs. Grape's generation had passed middle-age. Many of them had grown frumpy, if not dumpy. Most of them could at least be described as full-bodied. Mrs. Grape was still wearing the same dress size as when she debuted. Now the daughters, and even the granddaughters, of the ladies who had first resented her, resented her. Men young enough to have been her children's playmates pursued her. Fashions changed, but Mrs. Grape stayed in front of them. Nobody could reckon how she did it. Artists offered to paint her, even at their own expense, but she refused them all.
"One day, a man came to Mrs. Grape with a proposal. At first he offered her money, but she already had plenty of that. Then he offered her love, but she had no trouble getting that. Finally, the man offered Mrs. Grape the one thing she couldn't refuse: a non-stop supply of the world's most exquisite food and drink, served on polished silver by herds of servants in a never-ending ball with music and dancers and lively conversation going on at all hours. All the lady had to do was reveal the secret of her indestructible figure and beauty.
"So the lady explained, between bites of her inexhaustible canapes. She explained how she came from a large family of witches and wizards, but she was a squib"--here Persephone gasped--"with no magical powers whatsoever. Even then she had been greedy and vain, but her family loved her and felt pity for her. So they had often taken her along with them to places in the magical world such as Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. It was in Hogsmeade where a wizarding painter had fallen in love with her and decided to preserve her loveliness in a magical portrait. Unfortunately, the portrait took several years to complete, though Mrs. Grape had only sat for the painter once, and briefly. Still, the artist made a faithful record of the young woman whose beauty had always haunted him.
"The day finally came when the artist presented his portrait to the girl and her family. He was shocked to find that the young lady had become plump and spotty, due to her ceaseless stuffing. Worse still, the foolish squib took offense at the painting, as a reminder of what she had fallen from. The artist took his painting away and never saw Mrs. Grape again. Only a few days letter, Mrs. Grape suddenly began to lose weight. By the time she learned that the heartbroken painter had died, she had become the same beautiful young creature he had captured in oils.
"No one knows whether Mrs. Grape ever knew what the artist had done. Moments before he died, the painter had cast his death-spell on her portrait. From then on, Mrs. Grape would always look like the girl he had painted. But as she ate and drank her way across Europe, her image in the painting grew monstrously fat. The real Mrs. Grape's stomach seemed to be a bottomless pit, but her painting developed a diseased look, covered in rashes and sores. Her painted skin turned red from broken blood vessels. Her ankles and feet swelled up. Her painted fingers looked like sausages. Her painted hair grew lank and greasy, and her eyes all but disappeared in the folds of fat around her face. Whether she knew it or not, the only portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Grape showed a vile, gross thing that could hardly move because of its own crushing weight. But for one reason or another, Mrs. Grape had always set her mind against having her portrait painted, even by a muggle. Maybe it was because of the way that first artist's painting had made her feel.
"But the day finally came when the heartbroken painter's death-spell came down on Mrs. Grape's head. It happened when she stopped to visit her sister, with whom she hadn't spoken in years. Her sister was a witch, and all her children were magical. And one of those children was quite handy with crayons. So Mrs. Grape's doom came when her little niece or nephew--no one remembers which--sketched a crude portrait of Auntie Grape. The squib lady might have torn it up if she had known what was going to happen. But for some reason, she accepted the child's crayon drawing as a gift. Maybe she used it to wipe her guzzling mouth. Maybe she didn't recognize what it was. Maybe she didn't even know that someone had stuck it to the inside of her bedroom door until the middle of the night.
"One way or the other, though, Mrs. Grape got up in the dead of night to use the loo. And what a scream she gave! For on that piece of paper tacked to her door was a wizard's portrait of Mrs. Grape, however crude. And as you know, people painted by a wizard artist can move from one portrait of themselves to another. So it was then, and only then, that the grossly fat picture of Mrs. Grape, painted all those years ago and charmed by its maker in the moment of his death, came face to face with Mrs. Grape herself. At that instant, the painter's death-spell was undone. The vile portrait of Mrs. Grape shrank back to her original, slender beauty. At the same time the real Mrs. Grape swelled to the size, appearance, and state of health the painting had reached.
"She was now too big to get through the door. Even the window was not large enough. Too big to support her own weight, Mrs. Grape had to lie down. And since her bed was no longer big enough to support her, she had to lie on the floor. She never got up from that floor, either. The diseases brought on by a lifetime of bad habits soon overtook her, and Mrs. Grape died. Her sister's husband had to knock down the outer wall to remove her from the room so she could be buried. They couldn't find a coffin big enough for her, so they buried her in the hull of a two-masted ship. Her grave was a crater caused by a meteor. They had to drop soil out of a squadron of airplanes to cover her up..."
By now Persephone and Bob had fallen asleep. Marmaduke had wriggled under the covers with Bob and was desperately trying to stifle his giggles as Ethelfrigga relentlessly embellished the end of the story.
"...They stuck Stonehenge on top of her grave to keep it from washing away in the floods. And if you fly over Sarum when the angle of the moon is just right and your broom is pointed straight into the wind, you might even see the shape of Mrs. Grape holding up the shoulders of the hill..."
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #178 +++
You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.
SURVEY: When next we see Merlin and Miss Pucey, they should: A) Catch up with Il Comte di Bestemmia at last. B) Have to use another life-saving item in Merlin's survival satchel. C) Meet a type of magical creature or being we haven't seen for a while.
CONTEST: Chapter #178 could include a light-hearted parody of what non-Harry Potter film? Provide a few brief examples of how lines or images from the film could be transformed into a magical context.
Showing posts with label young Spankisons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label young Spankisons. Show all posts
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, December 27, 2008
140. Persephone's Yak
Contest winner: Quercitron
"Dad, there's a yak under my bed."
"Very good, dear. Go back to bed."
"I said there's a yak under my bed!"
"I heard you. Since it's not on top of your bed, you should still fit. See you tomorrow."
"I can't sleep with a yak under me!"
"Persephone, yaks live at high altitudes and extreme cold. I'm sure he is no happier about this situation than you. Do I see him coming in here to complain?"
"Mum! Dad says I have to sleep with a yak!"
"Spanky, I'm sorry that I must do this, but..."
ZAP!
"Yow! What happened? Who's on fire?"
"You were, dear. I've put you out."
"Is that Persephone there? What do you want, girl?"
"I've already told you, there's a yak under my bed."
"Well, let's have a look at it, then. Let me lean on your shoulder. My whole leg is pins and needles."
(Long pause.)
"Persephone, there's a yak under your bed."
"I know, Dad."
"It's awfully big. How did it get there?"
"I don't know. I didn't do it!"
"I'm not saying you did, but...did you have a fight with that Tibetan kid at school?"
"What Tibetan kid? Stop kidding around, Dad. There's a yak in my room and I don't know why and the smell is incredible and I'm scared!"
"There, there, girl. Not to worry. I think it's dead."
"Eurgh! Daaaad!"
"Er, why don't you sleep next to Mum tonight? Dad'll have this sorted by first light."
PUFF!
"Desk of Agent Dalrymple, RMB. Oi, Caspar!"
"Agent on du-... Oh, it's you, Spankison. What gives?"
"A dead yak under my daughter's bed, that's what."
"Good! It's been a boring night till now."
"Happy to serve. I need the body transferred to forensic augury right away. Also, I could use your help tracing the spells that brought it here."
"Spellprinting in a witch's bedroom?"
"She's underage, and a good girl. There shouldn't be too many latents in the room. Oh -- and here's something that should give us a push in the right direction."
"What is it, then?"
"It's the knife sticking out of the yak's throat. It's the same design as my knife."
"But it isn't yours, I collect?"
"No, I've got mine right here in the pocket of my pajamas. It's not a common design, though. I knew the man who made them - long dead - custom-designed for fighting werewolves - "
"Ah, yes. Zichri Goode's 'Ounce of Prevention.'"
"The very same."
"It so happens I have an open case involving one of his knives. Hard to forget. Unknown male, mid-twenties, found naked with an Ounce of Prevention stuck in him. Might have been a werewolf, since the only wound on him was the deathblow. Rather the pound of cure, what?"
(Silence.)
"Well, I thought it was a good..."
"The crime scene wasn't a train?"
"No less than the Hogwarts Express. How did you know?"
"Get your team out here immediately. I have another call to make."
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! First, go to the forums, or send Robbie feedback. Then, in 250 words or less, answer the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
SURVEY: Persephone's yak is a message of some kind - but from whom? A) The person who committed the Murder on the Hogwarts Express (see Chapter 109). B) Someone who blames Spanky for the murder. C) Somebody who blames the RMB for not solving the murder. D) A werewolf or werewolves. E) ________ (write-in candidate).
CONTEST: Describe a magical use for music.
[Originally posted 7/23/08]
"Dad, there's a yak under my bed."
"Very good, dear. Go back to bed."
"I said there's a yak under my bed!"
"I heard you. Since it's not on top of your bed, you should still fit. See you tomorrow."
"I can't sleep with a yak under me!"
"Persephone, yaks live at high altitudes and extreme cold. I'm sure he is no happier about this situation than you. Do I see him coming in here to complain?"
"Mum! Dad says I have to sleep with a yak!"
"Spanky, I'm sorry that I must do this, but..."
ZAP!
"Yow! What happened? Who's on fire?"
"You were, dear. I've put you out."
"Is that Persephone there? What do you want, girl?"
"I've already told you, there's a yak under my bed."
"Well, let's have a look at it, then. Let me lean on your shoulder. My whole leg is pins and needles."
(Long pause.)
"Persephone, there's a yak under your bed."
"I know, Dad."
"It's awfully big. How did it get there?"
"I don't know. I didn't do it!"
"I'm not saying you did, but...did you have a fight with that Tibetan kid at school?"
"What Tibetan kid? Stop kidding around, Dad. There's a yak in my room and I don't know why and the smell is incredible and I'm scared!"
"There, there, girl. Not to worry. I think it's dead."
"Eurgh! Daaaad!"
"Er, why don't you sleep next to Mum tonight? Dad'll have this sorted by first light."
PUFF!
"Desk of Agent Dalrymple, RMB. Oi, Caspar!"
"Agent on du-... Oh, it's you, Spankison. What gives?"
"A dead yak under my daughter's bed, that's what."
"Good! It's been a boring night till now."
"Happy to serve. I need the body transferred to forensic augury right away. Also, I could use your help tracing the spells that brought it here."
"Spellprinting in a witch's bedroom?"
"She's underage, and a good girl. There shouldn't be too many latents in the room. Oh -- and here's something that should give us a push in the right direction."
"What is it, then?"
"It's the knife sticking out of the yak's throat. It's the same design as my knife."
"But it isn't yours, I collect?"
"No, I've got mine right here in the pocket of my pajamas. It's not a common design, though. I knew the man who made them - long dead - custom-designed for fighting werewolves - "
"Ah, yes. Zichri Goode's 'Ounce of Prevention.'"
"The very same."
"It so happens I have an open case involving one of his knives. Hard to forget. Unknown male, mid-twenties, found naked with an Ounce of Prevention stuck in him. Might have been a werewolf, since the only wound on him was the deathblow. Rather the pound of cure, what?"
(Silence.)
"Well, I thought it was a good..."
"The crime scene wasn't a train?"
"No less than the Hogwarts Express. How did you know?"
"Get your team out here immediately. I have another call to make."
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! First, go to the forums, or send Robbie feedback. Then, in 250 words or less, answer the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
SURVEY: Persephone's yak is a message of some kind - but from whom? A) The person who committed the Murder on the Hogwarts Express (see Chapter 109). B) Someone who blames Spanky for the murder. C) Somebody who blames the RMB for not solving the murder. D) A werewolf or werewolves. E) ________ (write-in candidate).
CONTEST: Describe a magical use for music.
[Originally posted 7/23/08]
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
105. What's the Rest of Me Doing There?
Contest winners: lupa and Celairiel
Miles O’Roughage scratched his head. He still could not help but wonder what Harvey’s mysterious experiment had been about. Whatever potion he had poured on the roots of that old alder tree dying in the back of his greenhouse, it had made a world of difference.
No longer was the tree dying. Still more perplexing, it was no longer an alder. Each day the tree had grown straighter, taller, thicker, stronger. Its bark now swathed it like folds of a soft, gray robe. Its foliage cast a deep shadow around the trunk and roots, a shadow that nevertheless glittered as if the leaves were covered with tiny, reflective crystals.
Moss had rapidly grown round the tree, until it draped from the limbs like long, gray beards. And when the wind blew through its branches, each day during the scheduled rainy spell – a very special spell O’Roughage had spent the best part of thirty years perfecting – the tree muttered to itself, like an old man muttering in his sleep.
Miles O’Roughage shook his head, wondering why the phrase “Merlin tree” kept crossing his mind...but his musings were interrupted by an unexplained rustle of leaves and a few furtive giggles, coming from the far corner of the greenhouse, near his office. O’Roughage stalked quietly, but quickly, through the paths of his indoor garden, scarcely pausing even to slap away a mischievous bogeyvillain vine that was trying to sneak down the back of his shirt.
It was all for nothing. By the time he reached his office, the last of the green fire was dying out on his hearth. Someone had gotten in and out again, using the Floo network. Alarmed, O’Roughage prowled through the nearby flowerbeds until he found signs that cuttings had been clumsily taken. He sighed and began to dress his wounded plant friends, shaking his head again at the folly of young wizards these days.
Meanwhile, a boy wizard, far too young to attend Hogwarts, sat pouting on a bench outside the head’s office at Dr. Wrigley’s Center for Pre-thaumatic Formation.
Wrigley’s, as you may know, is a cross between a primary school and a latchkey program for the children of witches and wizards whose careers make it impossible to homeschool their offspring. So while Mum and Dad work, their little ones get the discipline and basic education they need to prepare for Hogwarts – and to keep out of trouble. The tuition at Wrigley’s costs a fortune, so it is most used by the wealthy; but the RMB subsidizes the children of its agents, so that (for example) Marmaduke Spankison might find himself pouting on a bench outside Dr. Wrigley’s study.
His brow wrinkled even more, and his lip stuck out still further, as he relived his most recent disappointment. Stung by the memory, he glared balefully at his own right hand.
As he had often done in the past, Marmaduke had tried to play a small prank, relying on his lifelong ability to turn half of his body invisible. While hiding in a cubicle in the girl’s toilet, he had willed the upper half of his body to go invisible, and had started to crawl under the side of the cubicle, where Marjory Sudbom stood in front of one of the sinks, checking her hair in the mirror.
He had only meant to put a spider on her sock, and perhaps tie her shoes together, but Marjory had shrieked. “Aargh! Is that you, Marmaduke Ethelbaldricson? I knew it was you all those other times. For shame!” And then, standing on his inexplicably visible fingers, she had screamed for Matron. And so, give or take a bruised earlobe and a scolding that made him wince even in memory, Marmaduke sat and waited for his sentence.
But the worst memory of all was the moment when Marmaduke had recognized that he was no longer the only person who could see the body parts that he had willed invisible. His thought at the time, as he gazed reproachfully at the hand that had betrayed him, was: “What’s the rest of me doing there?”
Marmaduke’s father came out of the head’s office, wearing a sad but calm expression that made the boy tremble. He trembled because he believed, as boys of his character often believe of their soft-spoken-hero fathers, that under the sad, calm surface was a fury waiting to be unleashed. But all Spanky did was beckon to the boy with a tilt of his head. Marmaduke stood up and put his hand in his father’s firm grip. A pop – a moment of crushing darkness – and the pair of them squirted out into the parlor of their house.
“If you’re as clever as you should be,” said Spanky before letting go Maramaduke’s hand, “you’ll have worked out what your mistake was, and avoid repeating it in future.” That was all he said. Then, he simply went into his study and closed the door, leaving the boy to find out for himself what to do with the balance of the day.
Spanky tossed a handful of Floo powder into the small, woodburning stove in the corner of his study. Then, when the flames turned green, he poked his head into them and said, “Ilona’s office.” A dizzy moment later, he was looking up out of the grate in a stone chamber, part of an old castle that had been taken over by the RMB. Directly opposite the grate was a desk where Spanky’s wife, newly reinstated after years of being nonexistent to everyone except her husband, was debriefing a young female operative.
“Another time,” Ilona said, beginning to wrap up the conversation when she spotted Spanky’s head in the fire, “don’t be so quick to conclude that the stage magician is using real magic in front of Muggles, even if he is a wizard. There are proper tests for that, you know. What with all the Memory Charms that we needed to put on the audience, you would have had a solid week’s worth of paperwork even if you had been right. As it is – well, I trust that these forms will teach you to be more circumspect.”
The younger witch nodded, looking chastised, and accepted a roll of parchment the size of a side drum, tied up with several lengths of twine.
As soon as the younger witch had Disapparated, Ilona went over to the fire and knelt next to her husband’s waiting head. “Well?” she said.
“He’s suspended for the rest of the week,” Spanky sighed. “The children are still learning all the implications of your being freed from that djinn curse.”
“It’s for the best,” said Ilona decisively. “And I have an idea as to how to keep Marmy occupied and out of trouble. Why don’t you take...”
Her suggestion was interrupted by a burst of smoke, ash, and even brighter green flame.
“Uh-oh,” said Ilona. “I have another incoming call.”
That was all the warning Spanky had before someone stepped on his head, crushing his chin against the warm coals. A laughing couple stumbled out of the fireplace, trailing ash onto the hearthrug. Spanky did not recognize them at first, because he was busy spitting out ash and coughing. Then he saw that it was a veiled witch and a burly wizard with tattoos writhing over his bare arms.
“Beg pardon,” said Sadie in a, for her, uncharacteristically cheerful voice. “We don’t mean to intrude – well, yes we do. We’re having a double date with another couple, and we decided to try a scavenger hunt.”
“Isn’t it a bit early to be out on a date?” Ilona asked, glancing toward the mantle clock, whose hour-hand was still several inches removed from the inscription that said “Quitting Time!”
“We had to get an early start,” said Sadie, while her not-very-talkative partner nodded and grinned. “We have to meet up and compare our findings with the other couple, before going to a show together.” In spite of the veil, one could see how Sadie wrinkled her nose at the mention of “going to a show.”
“Then what do you need from me?” Ilona asked brusquely, while Spanky tried to blink soot out of his right eye.
“We didn’t know where else to go,” gushed Sadie. “One of the things on our list is ‘a weapon that was used to vanquish an undead creature.’”
“Then take this,” said Ilona, pulling out one of several items, like wooden chopsticks, that she had twisted into her hair.
“What is it?” the tattooed wizard asked, in halting English.
“Kougai,” said Ilona.
“Yes, isn’t he?” Sadie giggled. “But what do you call this thing?”
Ilona rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I once had no choice but to stake a vampire, and I happened to be wearing it when no other wooden stake was within reach. It saved my life.”
“How do you know it was this one and not one of those others?” Sadie asked, peering nervously at the array of kougai piercing the knot of hair atop Ilona’s head.
“Does it really matter?” said Ilona. “All I know is that I haven’t been without at least one or two of them since that incident. One never knows.”
“She was cleared in the investigation that followed,” Spanky mentioned. Sadie and her companion jumped, only now noticing his head in the fire for the first time. “The Bureau agreed that she was in imminent danger of being bitten, so they determined the staking to be an act of self-defense.”
“That’s the life of an RMB agent,” Ilona agreed, beaming at Sadie. “You know, you might consider a career...”
“We shouldn’t keep you any longer,” Sadie blurted hastily. “Besides, we have to stay ahead of the other couple. Bye!” Then, tugging firmly on her friend’s bicep, which was currently flashing the name of a Polish scriptorium, she stepped carefully over Spanky’s head, shouted "St. Broccoli’s Cemetery Chapel," and disappeared with a loud pop.
“Now that we have a moment of privacy,” Spanky said, “you were saying...?”
“Ah! yes,” said Ilona. “You should take Marmaduke to...”
This time, when Spanky heard the popping noise, he ducked to the side and almost escaped injury as another couple staggered onto the hearthrug in a cloud of dust. Somebody’s boot clipped Spanky’s left ear, and he ended up having a sneezing fit, but other than that he fared better than the last time.
“Sorry,” said Endora and Merlin in unison. They were wearing matched pairs of fake eyeglasses, with attached fake noses, eyebrows, and moustaches. They were also holding hands and giggling like teenagers.
“Honey, it’s the other couple,” said Ilona.
“Oh, they beat us to it, did they?” said Merlin.
“Don’t worry, I have several others,” said Ilona, indicating the bristle of kougai in her hair.
Merlin and Endora gave her a blank look. They clearly did not know what Ilona was talking about.
“Aren’t you here to get...?”
“...your husband’s silver knife, yes,” said Endora. “The one that unzipped a werewolf all those years ago. Your son told us Spanky’s body was at home, but his head would be here, so we popped in to ask if we might borrow it.”
“The knife, that is,” Merlin explained to Spanky. “Borrow the knife, not your head.”
“Feel free to pick my pocket on your way back through my home,” said Spanky, torn between laughing and looking irritated and managing, by a heroic effort, to do neither. “You’ll find it in a sheath belted around my left thigh, just below my left wand holster.”
“The knife, not our home,” Ilona explained. “You’ll find his knife belted to his leg.”
“We understand,” Merlin assured her.
“And please,” Spanky added, “take care not to cut yourself with it.”
“It being the knife, not the leg,” Endora explained, in case anyone was still having trouble tracing pronouns to their antecedent.
“Cheers,” said Endora. “We’d best be going then. We’re to meet up with Sadie and her fellow, so we can all go to the formation flying show at McNutt’s Fairy Farm.” She rubbed her hands eagerly, looking very pleased about their plans for the evening. “We’ll bring it back tomorrow.”
“It being the knife, not the fairy farm, I take it,” said Spanky. “Yes, see that you do.”
“And have a good time!” Ilona shouted as the pair Disapparated.
Spanky looked up at his wife and let his eyes ask the question this time: “What were you saying?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Ilona, biting her lip thoughtfully. “Do you know, I think the best thing to keep Marmaduke busy would be a scavenger hunt....”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: True or False: In today’s environment-friendly society, witches and wizards should pay a tax on the use of magical power.
CONTEST: Come up with an original name for a Gringotts goblin. (Examples to follow include: Griphook, Dewclaw, Nailspike, Chokechain, Undergrim, Bilejug, Sawtooth, Spleengraft, Jugshard, Bashmace, and Ripsnarl. Of course, you need not follow any examples at all!)
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #107. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 10/17/06]
Miles O’Roughage scratched his head. He still could not help but wonder what Harvey’s mysterious experiment had been about. Whatever potion he had poured on the roots of that old alder tree dying in the back of his greenhouse, it had made a world of difference.
No longer was the tree dying. Still more perplexing, it was no longer an alder. Each day the tree had grown straighter, taller, thicker, stronger. Its bark now swathed it like folds of a soft, gray robe. Its foliage cast a deep shadow around the trunk and roots, a shadow that nevertheless glittered as if the leaves were covered with tiny, reflective crystals.
Moss had rapidly grown round the tree, until it draped from the limbs like long, gray beards. And when the wind blew through its branches, each day during the scheduled rainy spell – a very special spell O’Roughage had spent the best part of thirty years perfecting – the tree muttered to itself, like an old man muttering in his sleep.
Miles O’Roughage shook his head, wondering why the phrase “Merlin tree” kept crossing his mind...but his musings were interrupted by an unexplained rustle of leaves and a few furtive giggles, coming from the far corner of the greenhouse, near his office. O’Roughage stalked quietly, but quickly, through the paths of his indoor garden, scarcely pausing even to slap away a mischievous bogeyvillain vine that was trying to sneak down the back of his shirt.
It was all for nothing. By the time he reached his office, the last of the green fire was dying out on his hearth. Someone had gotten in and out again, using the Floo network. Alarmed, O’Roughage prowled through the nearby flowerbeds until he found signs that cuttings had been clumsily taken. He sighed and began to dress his wounded plant friends, shaking his head again at the folly of young wizards these days.
Meanwhile, a boy wizard, far too young to attend Hogwarts, sat pouting on a bench outside the head’s office at Dr. Wrigley’s Center for Pre-thaumatic Formation.
Wrigley’s, as you may know, is a cross between a primary school and a latchkey program for the children of witches and wizards whose careers make it impossible to homeschool their offspring. So while Mum and Dad work, their little ones get the discipline and basic education they need to prepare for Hogwarts – and to keep out of trouble. The tuition at Wrigley’s costs a fortune, so it is most used by the wealthy; but the RMB subsidizes the children of its agents, so that (for example) Marmaduke Spankison might find himself pouting on a bench outside Dr. Wrigley’s study.
His brow wrinkled even more, and his lip stuck out still further, as he relived his most recent disappointment. Stung by the memory, he glared balefully at his own right hand.
As he had often done in the past, Marmaduke had tried to play a small prank, relying on his lifelong ability to turn half of his body invisible. While hiding in a cubicle in the girl’s toilet, he had willed the upper half of his body to go invisible, and had started to crawl under the side of the cubicle, where Marjory Sudbom stood in front of one of the sinks, checking her hair in the mirror.
He had only meant to put a spider on her sock, and perhaps tie her shoes together, but Marjory had shrieked. “Aargh! Is that you, Marmaduke Ethelbaldricson? I knew it was you all those other times. For shame!” And then, standing on his inexplicably visible fingers, she had screamed for Matron. And so, give or take a bruised earlobe and a scolding that made him wince even in memory, Marmaduke sat and waited for his sentence.
But the worst memory of all was the moment when Marmaduke had recognized that he was no longer the only person who could see the body parts that he had willed invisible. His thought at the time, as he gazed reproachfully at the hand that had betrayed him, was: “What’s the rest of me doing there?”
Marmaduke’s father came out of the head’s office, wearing a sad but calm expression that made the boy tremble. He trembled because he believed, as boys of his character often believe of their soft-spoken-hero fathers, that under the sad, calm surface was a fury waiting to be unleashed. But all Spanky did was beckon to the boy with a tilt of his head. Marmaduke stood up and put his hand in his father’s firm grip. A pop – a moment of crushing darkness – and the pair of them squirted out into the parlor of their house.
“If you’re as clever as you should be,” said Spanky before letting go Maramaduke’s hand, “you’ll have worked out what your mistake was, and avoid repeating it in future.” That was all he said. Then, he simply went into his study and closed the door, leaving the boy to find out for himself what to do with the balance of the day.
Spanky tossed a handful of Floo powder into the small, woodburning stove in the corner of his study. Then, when the flames turned green, he poked his head into them and said, “Ilona’s office.” A dizzy moment later, he was looking up out of the grate in a stone chamber, part of an old castle that had been taken over by the RMB. Directly opposite the grate was a desk where Spanky’s wife, newly reinstated after years of being nonexistent to everyone except her husband, was debriefing a young female operative.
“Another time,” Ilona said, beginning to wrap up the conversation when she spotted Spanky’s head in the fire, “don’t be so quick to conclude that the stage magician is using real magic in front of Muggles, even if he is a wizard. There are proper tests for that, you know. What with all the Memory Charms that we needed to put on the audience, you would have had a solid week’s worth of paperwork even if you had been right. As it is – well, I trust that these forms will teach you to be more circumspect.”
The younger witch nodded, looking chastised, and accepted a roll of parchment the size of a side drum, tied up with several lengths of twine.
As soon as the younger witch had Disapparated, Ilona went over to the fire and knelt next to her husband’s waiting head. “Well?” she said.
“He’s suspended for the rest of the week,” Spanky sighed. “The children are still learning all the implications of your being freed from that djinn curse.”
“It’s for the best,” said Ilona decisively. “And I have an idea as to how to keep Marmy occupied and out of trouble. Why don’t you take...”
Her suggestion was interrupted by a burst of smoke, ash, and even brighter green flame.
“Uh-oh,” said Ilona. “I have another incoming call.”
That was all the warning Spanky had before someone stepped on his head, crushing his chin against the warm coals. A laughing couple stumbled out of the fireplace, trailing ash onto the hearthrug. Spanky did not recognize them at first, because he was busy spitting out ash and coughing. Then he saw that it was a veiled witch and a burly wizard with tattoos writhing over his bare arms.
“Beg pardon,” said Sadie in a, for her, uncharacteristically cheerful voice. “We don’t mean to intrude – well, yes we do. We’re having a double date with another couple, and we decided to try a scavenger hunt.”
“Isn’t it a bit early to be out on a date?” Ilona asked, glancing toward the mantle clock, whose hour-hand was still several inches removed from the inscription that said “Quitting Time!”
“We had to get an early start,” said Sadie, while her not-very-talkative partner nodded and grinned. “We have to meet up and compare our findings with the other couple, before going to a show together.” In spite of the veil, one could see how Sadie wrinkled her nose at the mention of “going to a show.”
“Then what do you need from me?” Ilona asked brusquely, while Spanky tried to blink soot out of his right eye.
“We didn’t know where else to go,” gushed Sadie. “One of the things on our list is ‘a weapon that was used to vanquish an undead creature.’”
“Then take this,” said Ilona, pulling out one of several items, like wooden chopsticks, that she had twisted into her hair.
“What is it?” the tattooed wizard asked, in halting English.
“Kougai,” said Ilona.
“Yes, isn’t he?” Sadie giggled. “But what do you call this thing?”
Ilona rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I once had no choice but to stake a vampire, and I happened to be wearing it when no other wooden stake was within reach. It saved my life.”
“How do you know it was this one and not one of those others?” Sadie asked, peering nervously at the array of kougai piercing the knot of hair atop Ilona’s head.
“Does it really matter?” said Ilona. “All I know is that I haven’t been without at least one or two of them since that incident. One never knows.”
“She was cleared in the investigation that followed,” Spanky mentioned. Sadie and her companion jumped, only now noticing his head in the fire for the first time. “The Bureau agreed that she was in imminent danger of being bitten, so they determined the staking to be an act of self-defense.”
“That’s the life of an RMB agent,” Ilona agreed, beaming at Sadie. “You know, you might consider a career...”
“We shouldn’t keep you any longer,” Sadie blurted hastily. “Besides, we have to stay ahead of the other couple. Bye!” Then, tugging firmly on her friend’s bicep, which was currently flashing the name of a Polish scriptorium, she stepped carefully over Spanky’s head, shouted "St. Broccoli’s Cemetery Chapel," and disappeared with a loud pop.
“Now that we have a moment of privacy,” Spanky said, “you were saying...?”
“Ah! yes,” said Ilona. “You should take Marmaduke to...”
This time, when Spanky heard the popping noise, he ducked to the side and almost escaped injury as another couple staggered onto the hearthrug in a cloud of dust. Somebody’s boot clipped Spanky’s left ear, and he ended up having a sneezing fit, but other than that he fared better than the last time.
“Sorry,” said Endora and Merlin in unison. They were wearing matched pairs of fake eyeglasses, with attached fake noses, eyebrows, and moustaches. They were also holding hands and giggling like teenagers.
“Honey, it’s the other couple,” said Ilona.
“Oh, they beat us to it, did they?” said Merlin.
“Don’t worry, I have several others,” said Ilona, indicating the bristle of kougai in her hair.
Merlin and Endora gave her a blank look. They clearly did not know what Ilona was talking about.
“Aren’t you here to get...?”
“...your husband’s silver knife, yes,” said Endora. “The one that unzipped a werewolf all those years ago. Your son told us Spanky’s body was at home, but his head would be here, so we popped in to ask if we might borrow it.”
“The knife, that is,” Merlin explained to Spanky. “Borrow the knife, not your head.”
“Feel free to pick my pocket on your way back through my home,” said Spanky, torn between laughing and looking irritated and managing, by a heroic effort, to do neither. “You’ll find it in a sheath belted around my left thigh, just below my left wand holster.”
“The knife, not our home,” Ilona explained. “You’ll find his knife belted to his leg.”
“We understand,” Merlin assured her.
“And please,” Spanky added, “take care not to cut yourself with it.”
“It being the knife, not the leg,” Endora explained, in case anyone was still having trouble tracing pronouns to their antecedent.
“Cheers,” said Endora. “We’d best be going then. We’re to meet up with Sadie and her fellow, so we can all go to the formation flying show at McNutt’s Fairy Farm.” She rubbed her hands eagerly, looking very pleased about their plans for the evening. “We’ll bring it back tomorrow.”
“It being the knife, not the fairy farm, I take it,” said Spanky. “Yes, see that you do.”
“And have a good time!” Ilona shouted as the pair Disapparated.
Spanky looked up at his wife and let his eyes ask the question this time: “What were you saying?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Ilona, biting her lip thoughtfully. “Do you know, I think the best thing to keep Marmaduke busy would be a scavenger hunt....”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: True or False: In today’s environment-friendly society, witches and wizards should pay a tax on the use of magical power.
CONTEST: Come up with an original name for a Gringotts goblin. (Examples to follow include: Griphook, Dewclaw, Nailspike, Chokechain, Undergrim, Bilejug, Sawtooth, Spleengraft, Jugshard, Bashmace, and Ripsnarl. Of course, you need not follow any examples at all!)
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #107. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 10/17/06]
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
98. Essence of Merlin
Contest winner: Shadow Phoenix
Tip shivered. He wasn’t sure whether this was a result of the cold draft that blew through the cracks in the wall, or of the billywig withdrawal. Huddled in the dim light that came through a small, grimy window high in the wall, he looked around.
It wasn’t just that his room in the top floor of the Hog’s Head was small enough to be a broom cupboard; it actually was a broom cupboard. The landlord had fitted it out with a fireplace, to accommodate desperate wizards such as Tip. Apart from a dozen old, forgotten brooms, there was barely space to lie down on the rush-strewn floor.
It was the lowest Tip had fallen in his life, even counting the day his solo tour broke up over creative differences. Curse those billywigs! Ed and Ned had said it would happen. Why had he never listened to them?
Tip scraped together a few of the dried rushes and assorted shavings and rubbish that he found in the corners of the room. It helped that the mouseholes were all blocked with bits of shredded paper, as if even the vermin wanted to avoid the place. These formed a small mound of kindling in the center of the fireplace, which Tip lit with his wand. Then, using an Accio charm, he summoned the loose and broken twigs on and around the old brooms, gathered them up, and piled them loosely over the small flame.
When he was done he wiped his hands and sat back on his heels, watching with satisfaction as the fire grew. The edge came off the cold of the room. Tip trembled gratefully, until his stomach growled. He decided to conjure up some sausage...but his wand was nowhere to be found. He felt around on the floor, patted his robes down, then looked with horror at the fire he had made. Something went pop and a fountain of sparks leapt out of the fire.
Tip wept.
Meanwhile, several yards below Tip’s miserable cell, a group of witches and wizards were laughing and celebrating in a large parlor. Spanky and Endora had returned from Gringotts, and were overjoyed to find Rigel, Joe, and the Spankison children waiting for them along with all the others. Firewhisky flowed freely (Butterbeer for the young ones), until Spanky decided to crown the occasion with the bottle of Bouché-Leclercq he had stolen from Il Comte’s vault.
“This,” he announced to the group after spending some minutes shouting them into silence, “may not be the best vintage, but I believe it will be the most refreshing bottle that I have opened in many a year.”
He popped the cork out with his wand. But before he could pour a drop of wine, there was a loud BANG! A cloud of smoke filled the room. Harvey muttered a charm that caused the chimney to suck the smoke out of the parlor. As it did so, several people gasped. Wedged into a corner of the parlor, doubled over with his back against the ceiling, crouched an enormous gilded man who winced at the not very bright light.
“Could one of you spare a body some aspirin?” the genie asked groggily. “Magical stuff, that. Been having a massive pressure-headache these last six, seven years. Thanks. Mind if I borrow a tot of firewhisky to wash it down? Ta there. Now, who summoned me?”
Spanky wriggled out from behind the genie, whose rump had crushed him against the wall, until the swallow of firewhisky had shrunk the genie a bit. Spanky held up his hand, but could say nothing while he panted for air.
“Your wish is my command,” said the genie. “Matter of fact, I’ve got a generous feelin’ comin’ on. Take three wishes. No hurry, I’ll just have another drink while you think about them.”
Harvey thrust a scrap of parchment into Spanky’s hand. Spanky read it and shot a sharp look at Harvey, who nodded. Spanky caught Endora’s eyes and shrugged. Then he handed the parchment to the genie and continued to take deep breaths.
The genie, now only about twice the height of a tall man, peered blearily at the parchment. “It says, ‘I wish someone who could read the Runes of Yves the Leper would step up and help us identify the potions we liberated from Gringotts.”
No sooner had the genie reached the full stop than a dirty, tousled head poked through the beaded curtain. The young man smiled, though tears had recently marked trails through the grime on his face, and said, “I say, has anyone got an extra wand that I might borrow, just for an hour or two maybe, or even perhaps all night...”
Tip’s eyes widened when he noticed the genie. It would have been remarkable if he hadn’t noticed him.
“E-er,” he stammered. “Is th-that a...a...?”
“It’s not polite to stare,” the genie said. By now he was only a head taller than Spanky, but the gold-leaf skin gave him away. “I’m shockingly dehydrated,” he added as he downed the contents of the last remaining goblet. “Is there nothing more to drink?”
Facing the newcomer, Sadie said, “Oi, aren’t you that OUCH!”
Sadie gave Endora what anyone could tell was an evil look, in spite of her veil.
“Sorry,” said Endora. She shifted her foot from off Sadie’s.
“We happen to have a ridiculous surplus of wands,” said Harvey. He fished one of Jaan’s surprise specials out of his pocket. “I can’t say exactly what will happen when you use it, but I’ll let you keep this one if you’ll do us a small service.”
“If you mean singing for it,” said Tip, looking nauseated, “I’m afraid I’ve given that up.”
Someone said, “Thank God,” but when Harvey looked round everyone looked equally sheepish, so it was impossible to tell who had said it.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” said Harvey. “It’s just that we have a number of old and very obscure runes, and we wondered if you might have the knack of reading them for us.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Tip. “You wouldn’t know it, but my parents were Dr. Rosetta Snoldelev and Dr. Kylver Kensington, who deciphered the Pictish spell-runes. They had me translating ancient runes before I could even spell my name.” A bolt of sadness flashed across his face. “They haven’t spoken to me in years...”
“Well, when you do talk to them, don’t mention any of this,” said Harvey, who was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to Tip’s emotional state. “I’ve taken some rubbings of the runes in question. Will you have a look?”
Tip sighed, looked at the wand Harvey held by the tip, and nodded.
“Good lad,” said Harvey. “Come over here, out of the way.”
By this time, Spanky had recovered his breath. He turned toward the genie and said, “I’ll have that second wish, then.”
“Wish away,” giggled the genie, who was now only a little taller than Rigel, and looking distinctly buzzed. Joe had been keeping him quiet by refilling his goblet of firewhisky every few seconds. The genie was finally starting to slow down; a goblet-sized drink was a much bigger deal to him now.
“That my wife,” said Spanky, “Ilona Ilonera Ethelbaldricson, should be released from all spells, curses, illusions, and magical disabilities of any kind, is what I wish.”
“Well put,” hiccupped the slave of the bottle.
Endora gasped. Sadie stepped backward, as if by accident, into the tattooed wizard’s arms. Young Bob screamed, “Mum!” Everyone looked shocked when Ilona appeared next to Spanky, as if she had been there all along. The children mobbed her. Spanky clutched her to his chest.
“That’s two down,” the genie slurred as his head came level to that of Spanky’s boy Marmaduke. He drained the last drops out of yet another goblet of firewhisky. “Ye gods, am I thirsty!”
“Set him free,” Ilona whispered into Spanky’s ear.
“I did that the last time,” Spanky whispered back. “See where it got us?”
Everyone took turns embracing Ilona, shaking hands, and introducing themselves to her (in most cases, needlessly). Joe, Merlin, and Orion Oldmanson shook Spanky’s hand in congratulation. The children, overcome with joy, hopped and ran and squirmed through the whole press of bodies until they realized that they could not become invisible anymore; then they sat down to sulk.
“Your attention please,” said Harvey. It took some moments for the commotion to subside. Then, with his arm round Tip’s shoulders, he announced, “We have a result. Here are the names of the great witches and wizards whose essence Yves the Leper decocted: Radbert the Rotund, Frya the Ticklish, Seran the Two-Faced, Kenod the Silent, Helga the Spotty, Almon the Troublesome, Iola the Strange, Elwin the Aromatic, and...” Harvey momentarily lost his voice, swallowed, and added hoarsely: “Merlin the Hirsute.”
“You mean THE Merlin?” Endora gasped.
“I believe so,” said Harvey, once more in full control of his voice.
“But why the Hirsute?” Merlin exclaimed. For some reason, he seemed offended. “Why not Merlin the Great?”
“It’s all a matter of perspective,” said Harvey. “We know very little about the other wizards, unless Helga the Spotty was Helga Hufflepuff. But she must have been very old, to be still alive in Yves’ time. All the same, there is no way of guessing what any of these wizards’ essences will do. Not without trying them, that is. And I, for one, am not eager to be a flobberworm for trials of ancient potions based on the essences of unknown wizards.”
“Hear, hear,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“On the other hand, I have a fair idea of what effect the Essence of Merlin should have,” said Harvey. “And it calls for a toast. A round of 11th century sack, on me.”
He reached into his robes and pulled out a small wooden wine cask, gray with age. Where he had room for it in his robes, no one knew or cared. Harvey set the cask on the table, popped out the bung with his wand, and let the wine pour out into a series of elaborate crystal goblets that appeared out of nowhere.
“Are you doing that?” Sadie asked, noting that Harvey did not appear to be conjuring the goblets with his wand.
“No,” said Harvey. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? And very appropriate. I believe it confirms that the Merlin in question is, indeed, he of the crystal cave and so forth.”
The wine ran out just as the last glass was poured. Everyone had a goblet of the stuff, including the Spankison children, whose cups were little more than thimble-sized, and Rigel, who scowled at his flute that seemed to contain little more than a swallow of wine. The genie, who now stood as high as Bob, grinned over a crystal bucket of the dark, red wine. Merlin restrained him from drinking it before Harvey announced his toast.
“To living backwards in time,” Harvey proposed, and he drank.
At first, only the genie said, “Hear, hear,” and drank to Harvey’s toast. After an awkward, confused sort of pause, the others joined in. Then they mostly forgot about the strangeness of Harvey’s remark. The room filled with the sound of smacking lips, hums of pleasure, and remarks on how extraordinary the wine was, taking or leaving its advanced age.
Spanky leaned toward Endora and whispered to her, “I think your Britannin theory is back on.”
“Yes,” she said. “And after that toast, I think I know what he’s going to do with those preserved grape-pips....”
+++
Tune in next time for the “Who’s Who” of the first 99 installments of The Magic Quill. The weekly Double Challenge will resume after TMQ #100.
[Originally posted 8/13/06]
Tip shivered. He wasn’t sure whether this was a result of the cold draft that blew through the cracks in the wall, or of the billywig withdrawal. Huddled in the dim light that came through a small, grimy window high in the wall, he looked around.
It wasn’t just that his room in the top floor of the Hog’s Head was small enough to be a broom cupboard; it actually was a broom cupboard. The landlord had fitted it out with a fireplace, to accommodate desperate wizards such as Tip. Apart from a dozen old, forgotten brooms, there was barely space to lie down on the rush-strewn floor.
It was the lowest Tip had fallen in his life, even counting the day his solo tour broke up over creative differences. Curse those billywigs! Ed and Ned had said it would happen. Why had he never listened to them?
Tip scraped together a few of the dried rushes and assorted shavings and rubbish that he found in the corners of the room. It helped that the mouseholes were all blocked with bits of shredded paper, as if even the vermin wanted to avoid the place. These formed a small mound of kindling in the center of the fireplace, which Tip lit with his wand. Then, using an Accio charm, he summoned the loose and broken twigs on and around the old brooms, gathered them up, and piled them loosely over the small flame.
When he was done he wiped his hands and sat back on his heels, watching with satisfaction as the fire grew. The edge came off the cold of the room. Tip trembled gratefully, until his stomach growled. He decided to conjure up some sausage...but his wand was nowhere to be found. He felt around on the floor, patted his robes down, then looked with horror at the fire he had made. Something went pop and a fountain of sparks leapt out of the fire.
Tip wept.
Meanwhile, several yards below Tip’s miserable cell, a group of witches and wizards were laughing and celebrating in a large parlor. Spanky and Endora had returned from Gringotts, and were overjoyed to find Rigel, Joe, and the Spankison children waiting for them along with all the others. Firewhisky flowed freely (Butterbeer for the young ones), until Spanky decided to crown the occasion with the bottle of Bouché-Leclercq he had stolen from Il Comte’s vault.
“This,” he announced to the group after spending some minutes shouting them into silence, “may not be the best vintage, but I believe it will be the most refreshing bottle that I have opened in many a year.”
He popped the cork out with his wand. But before he could pour a drop of wine, there was a loud BANG! A cloud of smoke filled the room. Harvey muttered a charm that caused the chimney to suck the smoke out of the parlor. As it did so, several people gasped. Wedged into a corner of the parlor, doubled over with his back against the ceiling, crouched an enormous gilded man who winced at the not very bright light.
“Could one of you spare a body some aspirin?” the genie asked groggily. “Magical stuff, that. Been having a massive pressure-headache these last six, seven years. Thanks. Mind if I borrow a tot of firewhisky to wash it down? Ta there. Now, who summoned me?”
Spanky wriggled out from behind the genie, whose rump had crushed him against the wall, until the swallow of firewhisky had shrunk the genie a bit. Spanky held up his hand, but could say nothing while he panted for air.
“Your wish is my command,” said the genie. “Matter of fact, I’ve got a generous feelin’ comin’ on. Take three wishes. No hurry, I’ll just have another drink while you think about them.”
Harvey thrust a scrap of parchment into Spanky’s hand. Spanky read it and shot a sharp look at Harvey, who nodded. Spanky caught Endora’s eyes and shrugged. Then he handed the parchment to the genie and continued to take deep breaths.
The genie, now only about twice the height of a tall man, peered blearily at the parchment. “It says, ‘I wish someone who could read the Runes of Yves the Leper would step up and help us identify the potions we liberated from Gringotts.”
No sooner had the genie reached the full stop than a dirty, tousled head poked through the beaded curtain. The young man smiled, though tears had recently marked trails through the grime on his face, and said, “I say, has anyone got an extra wand that I might borrow, just for an hour or two maybe, or even perhaps all night...”
Tip’s eyes widened when he noticed the genie. It would have been remarkable if he hadn’t noticed him.
“E-er,” he stammered. “Is th-that a...a...?”
“It’s not polite to stare,” the genie said. By now he was only a head taller than Spanky, but the gold-leaf skin gave him away. “I’m shockingly dehydrated,” he added as he downed the contents of the last remaining goblet. “Is there nothing more to drink?”
Facing the newcomer, Sadie said, “Oi, aren’t you that OUCH!”
Sadie gave Endora what anyone could tell was an evil look, in spite of her veil.
“Sorry,” said Endora. She shifted her foot from off Sadie’s.
“We happen to have a ridiculous surplus of wands,” said Harvey. He fished one of Jaan’s surprise specials out of his pocket. “I can’t say exactly what will happen when you use it, but I’ll let you keep this one if you’ll do us a small service.”
“If you mean singing for it,” said Tip, looking nauseated, “I’m afraid I’ve given that up.”
Someone said, “Thank God,” but when Harvey looked round everyone looked equally sheepish, so it was impossible to tell who had said it.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” said Harvey. “It’s just that we have a number of old and very obscure runes, and we wondered if you might have the knack of reading them for us.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Tip. “You wouldn’t know it, but my parents were Dr. Rosetta Snoldelev and Dr. Kylver Kensington, who deciphered the Pictish spell-runes. They had me translating ancient runes before I could even spell my name.” A bolt of sadness flashed across his face. “They haven’t spoken to me in years...”
“Well, when you do talk to them, don’t mention any of this,” said Harvey, who was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to Tip’s emotional state. “I’ve taken some rubbings of the runes in question. Will you have a look?”
Tip sighed, looked at the wand Harvey held by the tip, and nodded.
“Good lad,” said Harvey. “Come over here, out of the way.”
By this time, Spanky had recovered his breath. He turned toward the genie and said, “I’ll have that second wish, then.”
“Wish away,” giggled the genie, who was now only a little taller than Rigel, and looking distinctly buzzed. Joe had been keeping him quiet by refilling his goblet of firewhisky every few seconds. The genie was finally starting to slow down; a goblet-sized drink was a much bigger deal to him now.
“That my wife,” said Spanky, “Ilona Ilonera Ethelbaldricson, should be released from all spells, curses, illusions, and magical disabilities of any kind, is what I wish.”
“Well put,” hiccupped the slave of the bottle.
Endora gasped. Sadie stepped backward, as if by accident, into the tattooed wizard’s arms. Young Bob screamed, “Mum!” Everyone looked shocked when Ilona appeared next to Spanky, as if she had been there all along. The children mobbed her. Spanky clutched her to his chest.
“That’s two down,” the genie slurred as his head came level to that of Spanky’s boy Marmaduke. He drained the last drops out of yet another goblet of firewhisky. “Ye gods, am I thirsty!”
“Set him free,” Ilona whispered into Spanky’s ear.
“I did that the last time,” Spanky whispered back. “See where it got us?”
Everyone took turns embracing Ilona, shaking hands, and introducing themselves to her (in most cases, needlessly). Joe, Merlin, and Orion Oldmanson shook Spanky’s hand in congratulation. The children, overcome with joy, hopped and ran and squirmed through the whole press of bodies until they realized that they could not become invisible anymore; then they sat down to sulk.
“Your attention please,” said Harvey. It took some moments for the commotion to subside. Then, with his arm round Tip’s shoulders, he announced, “We have a result. Here are the names of the great witches and wizards whose essence Yves the Leper decocted: Radbert the Rotund, Frya the Ticklish, Seran the Two-Faced, Kenod the Silent, Helga the Spotty, Almon the Troublesome, Iola the Strange, Elwin the Aromatic, and...” Harvey momentarily lost his voice, swallowed, and added hoarsely: “Merlin the Hirsute.”
“You mean THE Merlin?” Endora gasped.
“I believe so,” said Harvey, once more in full control of his voice.
“But why the Hirsute?” Merlin exclaimed. For some reason, he seemed offended. “Why not Merlin the Great?”
“It’s all a matter of perspective,” said Harvey. “We know very little about the other wizards, unless Helga the Spotty was Helga Hufflepuff. But she must have been very old, to be still alive in Yves’ time. All the same, there is no way of guessing what any of these wizards’ essences will do. Not without trying them, that is. And I, for one, am not eager to be a flobberworm for trials of ancient potions based on the essences of unknown wizards.”
“Hear, hear,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“On the other hand, I have a fair idea of what effect the Essence of Merlin should have,” said Harvey. “And it calls for a toast. A round of 11th century sack, on me.”
He reached into his robes and pulled out a small wooden wine cask, gray with age. Where he had room for it in his robes, no one knew or cared. Harvey set the cask on the table, popped out the bung with his wand, and let the wine pour out into a series of elaborate crystal goblets that appeared out of nowhere.
“Are you doing that?” Sadie asked, noting that Harvey did not appear to be conjuring the goblets with his wand.
“No,” said Harvey. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? And very appropriate. I believe it confirms that the Merlin in question is, indeed, he of the crystal cave and so forth.”
The wine ran out just as the last glass was poured. Everyone had a goblet of the stuff, including the Spankison children, whose cups were little more than thimble-sized, and Rigel, who scowled at his flute that seemed to contain little more than a swallow of wine. The genie, who now stood as high as Bob, grinned over a crystal bucket of the dark, red wine. Merlin restrained him from drinking it before Harvey announced his toast.
“To living backwards in time,” Harvey proposed, and he drank.
At first, only the genie said, “Hear, hear,” and drank to Harvey’s toast. After an awkward, confused sort of pause, the others joined in. Then they mostly forgot about the strangeness of Harvey’s remark. The room filled with the sound of smacking lips, hums of pleasure, and remarks on how extraordinary the wine was, taking or leaving its advanced age.
Spanky leaned toward Endora and whispered to her, “I think your Britannin theory is back on.”
“Yes,” she said. “And after that toast, I think I know what he’s going to do with those preserved grape-pips....”
+++
Tune in next time for the “Who’s Who” of the first 99 installments of The Magic Quill. The weekly Double Challenge will resume after TMQ #100.
[Originally posted 8/13/06]
97. Bashmace and Ripsnarl
Inspired by contest winners: voldymortus, jatibbal and Cady
When Rigel came out of the tunnel into the main lobby of Gringotts, his heart lifted...right into his throat. So many times in the past, he had been close – but not this close – to escaping from Gringotts, only to find himself back where he started again. As his heart hammered, and as he saw dozens of surly and suspicious goblins all around him, he knew the last few steps toward the great golden doors would be the longest walk of his life. The thought of being captured now was so bitterly cruel that he tasted it in his mouth, and winced.
“Oi,” barked a nearby goblin, who clutched a battered clipboard in his claws. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Rigel’s heart plummeted. He felt like his blood had turned into icewater. He opened his mouth to answer the goblin, but only a squeak came out.
Luckily, Joe Albuquerque was at his side. Joe growled, “Didn’t they tell you? We’re to be transferred from the armory squad to record-keeping....”
“What are your names?” the bouncer-goblin demanded.
“I’m Bashmace and this is Ripsnarl,” Joe said instantly, with a meaningful sideways look at Rigel.
Rigel’s eyes widened, and he nodded. In a pocket of his goblin disguise, he fingered his wand and whispered something under his breath.
Meanwhile, the bouncer-goblin peered at them suspiciously. “Why haven’t I heard of you?” he said. “I was starting to think I knew every goblin who lives here.”
“We keep our heads down,” said Joe, or Bashmace. “They’re a tough lot, the armory squad.”
This explanation seemed to satisfy the bouncer-goblin, who shrugged. Then he looked through the scraps of parchment on his clipboard, and found the names Bashmace and Ripsnarl on the list after all. He was sure they hadn’t been there the last seventeen times he had looked at the list. “Right,” he said. “You’re to report to the document-shredding room, fourth door on the right.” He pointed a claw toward the wall behind the row of desks where teller-goblins were waiting on witches and wizards.
“Lovely,” Joe hissed in Rigel’s pointed, goblin ear as they threaded their way between the teller-goblins and the wall. “Now we have a job. It could take hours to get out of this.”
A muffled giggle floated down out of the air above them. Joe rolled his eyes, remembering the Spankison children, invisible on their flying carpet.
“And you lot,” he hissed over his shoulder, “stay near the door. When it opens for any reason, get out. Go straight to The Leaky Cauldron, and take the Floo home. Understood?”
No one answered.
Joe gnashed his pointy teeth. “We should never have done this,” he said in a strangled voice, fighting not to let the nearby teller-goblins overhear him.
They edged through the fourth door on the right. Joe pushed the door shut quickly, to make sure the children did not follow them in.
Before them stretched a room so enormous that the aisle directly ahead of them vanished in the distance. Torches in shelf sconces illuminated not only the floor level, but six or seven higher levels accessed by a system of rail-mounted ladders. More rows of shelves ran parallel to this one. All of the doors on the right side of the bank would have led to this warehouse of records. However, only this door led to a large, round table with a hole in the center.
Several sullen-looking goblins sat at the table, using their sharp claws to shred sheafs of parchment and then sweeping the fragments into the dark hole. There were also a couple of humans chained to the table, covered in long matted hair and moth-eaten clothing that hung loosely on their shrunken bodies. They were both writing lines into enormous tomes, each of which must have weighed as much as a grown man. The frailer and older of the two seemed to be nearing the end of his tome. Rigel glanced at what he was writing. Over and over, it said: My ancestors should have known better than to mistake the goblins of Virginia for natives, and to try to give them wampum as a down-payment on Roanoke.
Rigel scratched his fake, goblin scalp with a fake, goblin claw, and squinted at what the other man was writing; he was only about a fifth of the way through his book, though he had already covered a thick pile of pages with his scrawl. It read: It was silly of me to try to organize the undergoblins, and to expect them to help me regain control of the Teamsters. I will never do this again. Noticing Rigel’s scrutiny, the second man looked up miserably and said, “Haven’t I learned my lesson by now?”
“Silence,” spat one of the shredder-goblins, who then turned on Joe and Rigel and said, “What are you two doing here?”
“Reporting for duty,” said Joe. “Bashmace and Ripsnarl, late of the armory squad.”
Rigel was amazed that Joe could even remember those names, but even more amazed that the goblins were buying them. “Sit down and get to work, then,” said the leader of the shredding squad.
Rigel sat down next to the Teamster man, who whimpered half to himself, “I should have been satisfied with Nixon’s pardon. I would have been back in the Union ages ago. What’s a little ten-year ban from union activity, compared to this?”
Rigel had no idea what the man was talking about. Barking mad, probably. He began to shred paper and hoped the time would pass quickly.
“Where does this hole lead?” Joe asked one of the other goblins, conversationally.
“Only the baling room,” said his neighbor. “All the crushed tins and shredded paper are carted away and sold to a recycling shop on Charing Cross Road.”
“Oh!” Rigel exclaimed. “Do you – I mean, do we make a lot of money in recycling?”
“Enough to keep the larders stocked, without dipping into the treasure,” said the lead shredder-goblin, with a knut-pinching gleam in his eye.
“Talking of larders,” said Joe, touching his belly with a grimace of pain. “I think something in my tea disagreed with me. Is there a little-goblin’s-room nearby?”
“All the way to the end, by the last door into the lobby,” said the lead shredder.
“Ow!” Joe groaned. “I say, Ripsnarl, old thing, would you come with me? I may need – ouch! – an arm to lean on....”
“If it’s all right,” Rigel said, giving the lead goblin a pleading look.
“All right,” said the lead goblin. “But I expect each of you to shred his daily quota, even if it takes you all night.”
Joe limped away, supported by Rigel.
“What now?” whispered Rigel as they approached the evil-smelling toilet.
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Joe. “Last door on the left before the toilet. Then, we climb over the desk if we need to, and get out the front door before anyone stops us. If challenged, yell that there’s a dragon loose in the records section. Ready? On the count of three...”
[Originally posted 8/7/06]
When Rigel came out of the tunnel into the main lobby of Gringotts, his heart lifted...right into his throat. So many times in the past, he had been close – but not this close – to escaping from Gringotts, only to find himself back where he started again. As his heart hammered, and as he saw dozens of surly and suspicious goblins all around him, he knew the last few steps toward the great golden doors would be the longest walk of his life. The thought of being captured now was so bitterly cruel that he tasted it in his mouth, and winced.
“Oi,” barked a nearby goblin, who clutched a battered clipboard in his claws. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Rigel’s heart plummeted. He felt like his blood had turned into icewater. He opened his mouth to answer the goblin, but only a squeak came out.
Luckily, Joe Albuquerque was at his side. Joe growled, “Didn’t they tell you? We’re to be transferred from the armory squad to record-keeping....”
“What are your names?” the bouncer-goblin demanded.
“I’m Bashmace and this is Ripsnarl,” Joe said instantly, with a meaningful sideways look at Rigel.
Rigel’s eyes widened, and he nodded. In a pocket of his goblin disguise, he fingered his wand and whispered something under his breath.
Meanwhile, the bouncer-goblin peered at them suspiciously. “Why haven’t I heard of you?” he said. “I was starting to think I knew every goblin who lives here.”
“We keep our heads down,” said Joe, or Bashmace. “They’re a tough lot, the armory squad.”
This explanation seemed to satisfy the bouncer-goblin, who shrugged. Then he looked through the scraps of parchment on his clipboard, and found the names Bashmace and Ripsnarl on the list after all. He was sure they hadn’t been there the last seventeen times he had looked at the list. “Right,” he said. “You’re to report to the document-shredding room, fourth door on the right.” He pointed a claw toward the wall behind the row of desks where teller-goblins were waiting on witches and wizards.
“Lovely,” Joe hissed in Rigel’s pointed, goblin ear as they threaded their way between the teller-goblins and the wall. “Now we have a job. It could take hours to get out of this.”
A muffled giggle floated down out of the air above them. Joe rolled his eyes, remembering the Spankison children, invisible on their flying carpet.
“And you lot,” he hissed over his shoulder, “stay near the door. When it opens for any reason, get out. Go straight to The Leaky Cauldron, and take the Floo home. Understood?”
No one answered.
Joe gnashed his pointy teeth. “We should never have done this,” he said in a strangled voice, fighting not to let the nearby teller-goblins overhear him.
They edged through the fourth door on the right. Joe pushed the door shut quickly, to make sure the children did not follow them in.
Before them stretched a room so enormous that the aisle directly ahead of them vanished in the distance. Torches in shelf sconces illuminated not only the floor level, but six or seven higher levels accessed by a system of rail-mounted ladders. More rows of shelves ran parallel to this one. All of the doors on the right side of the bank would have led to this warehouse of records. However, only this door led to a large, round table with a hole in the center.
Several sullen-looking goblins sat at the table, using their sharp claws to shred sheafs of parchment and then sweeping the fragments into the dark hole. There were also a couple of humans chained to the table, covered in long matted hair and moth-eaten clothing that hung loosely on their shrunken bodies. They were both writing lines into enormous tomes, each of which must have weighed as much as a grown man. The frailer and older of the two seemed to be nearing the end of his tome. Rigel glanced at what he was writing. Over and over, it said: My ancestors should have known better than to mistake the goblins of Virginia for natives, and to try to give them wampum as a down-payment on Roanoke.
Rigel scratched his fake, goblin scalp with a fake, goblin claw, and squinted at what the other man was writing; he was only about a fifth of the way through his book, though he had already covered a thick pile of pages with his scrawl. It read: It was silly of me to try to organize the undergoblins, and to expect them to help me regain control of the Teamsters. I will never do this again. Noticing Rigel’s scrutiny, the second man looked up miserably and said, “Haven’t I learned my lesson by now?”
“Silence,” spat one of the shredder-goblins, who then turned on Joe and Rigel and said, “What are you two doing here?”
“Reporting for duty,” said Joe. “Bashmace and Ripsnarl, late of the armory squad.”
Rigel was amazed that Joe could even remember those names, but even more amazed that the goblins were buying them. “Sit down and get to work, then,” said the leader of the shredding squad.
Rigel sat down next to the Teamster man, who whimpered half to himself, “I should have been satisfied with Nixon’s pardon. I would have been back in the Union ages ago. What’s a little ten-year ban from union activity, compared to this?”
Rigel had no idea what the man was talking about. Barking mad, probably. He began to shred paper and hoped the time would pass quickly.
“Where does this hole lead?” Joe asked one of the other goblins, conversationally.
“Only the baling room,” said his neighbor. “All the crushed tins and shredded paper are carted away and sold to a recycling shop on Charing Cross Road.”
“Oh!” Rigel exclaimed. “Do you – I mean, do we make a lot of money in recycling?”
“Enough to keep the larders stocked, without dipping into the treasure,” said the lead shredder-goblin, with a knut-pinching gleam in his eye.
“Talking of larders,” said Joe, touching his belly with a grimace of pain. “I think something in my tea disagreed with me. Is there a little-goblin’s-room nearby?”
“All the way to the end, by the last door into the lobby,” said the lead shredder.
“Ow!” Joe groaned. “I say, Ripsnarl, old thing, would you come with me? I may need – ouch! – an arm to lean on....”
“If it’s all right,” Rigel said, giving the lead goblin a pleading look.
“All right,” said the lead goblin. “But I expect each of you to shred his daily quota, even if it takes you all night.”
Joe limped away, supported by Rigel.
“What now?” whispered Rigel as they approached the evil-smelling toilet.
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Joe. “Last door on the left before the toilet. Then, we climb over the desk if we need to, and get out the front door before anyone stops us. If challenged, yell that there’s a dragon loose in the records section. Ready? On the count of three...”
[Originally posted 8/7/06]
95. Spoof and the Carpet
Concept contributed by: ihearthermione
Contest winners: lupa & TWZRD
A shout from nearby – a screech of cart wheels – then a party of goblins arrived at the point where Joe and Rigel stood. “What happened to the others?” barked a particularly gnarly goblin.
“I don’t know,” said Joe. He grabbed Rigel’s arm and pushed him toward the shocked and bewildered goblins, adding, “I’ve captured this impostor, though.”
The goblins piled out of the cart and began to arrest Rigel. What goblins call “beginning to arrest someone” is what most people call “roughing them up.” A few more minutes of this, and there wouldn’t be much left of Rigel to arrest.
A goblin at the edge of the group quietly toppled over, covered with a thin, strong, stretchy silk.
Another goblin fell, similarly cocooned.
Only when the third goblin went down did the rest take notice of what was happening. They left Rigel alone, nursing a nosebleed, a black eye, and some nasty scratches about his arms, and tried to form a defensive circle. Only, Joe was one of them, and while the silk cocoons descended out of nowhere to trap one goblin, Joe was using his wand to stun another. This added a level of chaos to the goblin formation, as the squad began to squabble among themselves, making them easier targets than ever.
When only two goblins were left standing – and one of them was Joe Albuquerque in disguise – the other goblin hissed, “You won’t get away with this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said, spreading his claws innocently. And the other goblin disappeared under a silent stream of silk.
Joe applauded, and the invisible children laughed.
“What kind of wand was that?” Rigel asked, before snuffling a swallow of blood.
“Acromantula silk core,” came Ethelfrigga’s voice out of nowhere.
“Very well,” said Joe. “Now let’s hide all this evidence before another squad of goblins comes along. There’s a vault over there. Rigel, help me carry this stunned goblin...woof...all right, take his claw and scratch the door with it thus...”
The vault opened. There was nothing in it but a large rug, rolled up and cinched with a dragonhide belt.
“Ooooh,” said Rigel. “This is a good break. I’ve been trying to get one of those for years, but the Out of This World Surplus Outfitters stopped carrying them. Some fuss about a ministry decree...”
“Are you going to talk all day,” goblin-Joe spat, “or are you going to help me with the rest of these goblins?”
“Well, let’s unroll the magic carpet, then we can use it to get the other goblins in here without any trouble.”
Joe’s horrible, goblin eyebrows rose. “All right,” he growled. And that’s what they did.
They kept the carpet with them after all the goblins were in the vault. Rigel aimed a kick at the door as it slammed shut, but Joe pulled him away. “Don’t be a thestramule,” Joe warned. “That’s one of those sucking doors. You could end up trapped in the vault with those goblins for ten years.”
The carpet hovered nearby. Rigel and Joe climbed aboard.
“All right,” said Joe, “show yourselves so we can count heads.”
Five invisible children became visible. Four of them looked tough and defiant, which meant they were scared. Their diversion had not worked exactly as planned. The youngest, Bob, sucked his thumb and clutched a toy dragon, complete with smoke coming out of its nostrils.
“All accounted for,” said Rigel.
“What’s that?” Joe asked, pointing a long claw at the toy dragon, a rather realistic replica of a Chinese Fireball.
“That,” the dragon answered for itself, “is none of your concern.”
“Well, where did he come from?” Joe demanded. He wasn’t used to kids.
One of the older children, a boy called Marmaduke, explained that the toy dragon was named Spoof, that he could shrink down to the size of a galleon, and that Bob must have brought him along in his pocket for good luck.
Joe hid his face in his claws, moaning, “O the wizardry! We should not have done this!”
“You’re right,” said Rigel. “It was stupid and reckless...”
“Don’t tell me about stupid and reckless,” Joe snarled, then he pointed his wand and muttered, “Accio disguise.”
A goblin mask and a pair of goblin-claw gloves flew out of the darkness and smacked against the side of Rigel’s face.
“Your reckless stupidity might have doomed these children...” Joe faltered as Persephone began to snuffle, and Spoof the dragon grew to the size of a large dog.
“Well done,” Spoof purred, as the littlest boy buried his face in the toy dragon’s wings.
Rigel sheepishly put his disguise back on as Joe added, lamely, “Only it seems we were lucky this time. The children behaved very well, and they saved us all. Now let’s get off this thing. You and I will take that cart back up to the bank, and the children will follow – invisible, mind – on the carpet. Perhaps we can slip out the staff entrance before anyone notices that we aren’t real goblins....”
+++ SOME ANNOUNCEMENTS, AND THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
First, I have a confession to make. I knew that this week’s storyline was going to focus on Rigel, Joe, and the Spankison kids, yet my poor planning left their fate to Survey #1 for next week’s tale (see discussion thread for TMQ #94). So I waited a bit to let some people respond to Survey #1, then stole the results. It was a close vote; at this writing the survey stands at 3 votes for A, 4 votes for B, and 2 votes for C. So please pardon me for grabbing the survey for next week’s story and using it this week – and if your vote wasn’t counted, please understand!
Second, I want to shout out a special word of thanks to all the folks who took part in the Contest in TMQ #93. You contributed some of the most exciting ideas I have seen since The Magic Quill started, and lots of them. Before the discussion thread for that chapter goes away, let’s hear it for Noodles (who suggested a dirt-eating dwarf a la Mulch Diggums) – Celairiel (a psammead) – Linda Carrig (card tricks) – _houdini (wizard turtles a la the Young Wizards series, and fairy godparents) – Cady (math-e-magic) – Sorwyn (super mushrooms, and Chemical X) – yeahimsirius (a death-defying stunt magician like David Blaine) – jatibbal (flesh eating acid) – Daedalus Diggle (human-sized wings) and Asteria (a giant spider with a human head). This is all besides our winning entries by lupa (magic carpet) and TWZRD (talking stuffed animal, PLUS a transmogrifier/duplicator a la Calvin and Hobbes).
It was tough deciding on just 2 winning ideas out of all these awesome suggestions! Ultimately I chose the magic carpet and the stuffed toy, not because they were necessarily the most exciting ideas, but because they fit best with the storyline that was percolating in my mind. But I’ll keep your ideas for a rainy day and, hopefully, remember to give you credit when I use them. Thanks for participating in the Double Challenge, and please keep it up!
And now, for the next-to-last “Double Challenge” before The Magic Quill turns 100...
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: The tattoo guy who is romancing Sadie – is he just a human billboard, or is he a secret agent with his own agenda?
CONTEST: Name a historical person who might have ended up lost in Gringotts.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #97. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/23/06]
Contest winners: lupa & TWZRD
A shout from nearby – a screech of cart wheels – then a party of goblins arrived at the point where Joe and Rigel stood. “What happened to the others?” barked a particularly gnarly goblin.
“I don’t know,” said Joe. He grabbed Rigel’s arm and pushed him toward the shocked and bewildered goblins, adding, “I’ve captured this impostor, though.”
The goblins piled out of the cart and began to arrest Rigel. What goblins call “beginning to arrest someone” is what most people call “roughing them up.” A few more minutes of this, and there wouldn’t be much left of Rigel to arrest.
A goblin at the edge of the group quietly toppled over, covered with a thin, strong, stretchy silk.
Another goblin fell, similarly cocooned.
Only when the third goblin went down did the rest take notice of what was happening. They left Rigel alone, nursing a nosebleed, a black eye, and some nasty scratches about his arms, and tried to form a defensive circle. Only, Joe was one of them, and while the silk cocoons descended out of nowhere to trap one goblin, Joe was using his wand to stun another. This added a level of chaos to the goblin formation, as the squad began to squabble among themselves, making them easier targets than ever.
When only two goblins were left standing – and one of them was Joe Albuquerque in disguise – the other goblin hissed, “You won’t get away with this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said, spreading his claws innocently. And the other goblin disappeared under a silent stream of silk.
Joe applauded, and the invisible children laughed.
“What kind of wand was that?” Rigel asked, before snuffling a swallow of blood.
“Acromantula silk core,” came Ethelfrigga’s voice out of nowhere.
“Very well,” said Joe. “Now let’s hide all this evidence before another squad of goblins comes along. There’s a vault over there. Rigel, help me carry this stunned goblin...woof...all right, take his claw and scratch the door with it thus...”
The vault opened. There was nothing in it but a large rug, rolled up and cinched with a dragonhide belt.
“Ooooh,” said Rigel. “This is a good break. I’ve been trying to get one of those for years, but the Out of This World Surplus Outfitters stopped carrying them. Some fuss about a ministry decree...”
“Are you going to talk all day,” goblin-Joe spat, “or are you going to help me with the rest of these goblins?”
“Well, let’s unroll the magic carpet, then we can use it to get the other goblins in here without any trouble.”
Joe’s horrible, goblin eyebrows rose. “All right,” he growled. And that’s what they did.
They kept the carpet with them after all the goblins were in the vault. Rigel aimed a kick at the door as it slammed shut, but Joe pulled him away. “Don’t be a thestramule,” Joe warned. “That’s one of those sucking doors. You could end up trapped in the vault with those goblins for ten years.”
The carpet hovered nearby. Rigel and Joe climbed aboard.
“All right,” said Joe, “show yourselves so we can count heads.”
Five invisible children became visible. Four of them looked tough and defiant, which meant they were scared. Their diversion had not worked exactly as planned. The youngest, Bob, sucked his thumb and clutched a toy dragon, complete with smoke coming out of its nostrils.
“All accounted for,” said Rigel.
“What’s that?” Joe asked, pointing a long claw at the toy dragon, a rather realistic replica of a Chinese Fireball.
“That,” the dragon answered for itself, “is none of your concern.”
“Well, where did he come from?” Joe demanded. He wasn’t used to kids.
One of the older children, a boy called Marmaduke, explained that the toy dragon was named Spoof, that he could shrink down to the size of a galleon, and that Bob must have brought him along in his pocket for good luck.
Joe hid his face in his claws, moaning, “O the wizardry! We should not have done this!”
“You’re right,” said Rigel. “It was stupid and reckless...”
“Don’t tell me about stupid and reckless,” Joe snarled, then he pointed his wand and muttered, “Accio disguise.”
A goblin mask and a pair of goblin-claw gloves flew out of the darkness and smacked against the side of Rigel’s face.
“Your reckless stupidity might have doomed these children...” Joe faltered as Persephone began to snuffle, and Spoof the dragon grew to the size of a large dog.
“Well done,” Spoof purred, as the littlest boy buried his face in the toy dragon’s wings.
Rigel sheepishly put his disguise back on as Joe added, lamely, “Only it seems we were lucky this time. The children behaved very well, and they saved us all. Now let’s get off this thing. You and I will take that cart back up to the bank, and the children will follow – invisible, mind – on the carpet. Perhaps we can slip out the staff entrance before anyone notices that we aren’t real goblins....”
+++ SOME ANNOUNCEMENTS, AND THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
First, I have a confession to make. I knew that this week’s storyline was going to focus on Rigel, Joe, and the Spankison kids, yet my poor planning left their fate to Survey #1 for next week’s tale (see discussion thread for TMQ #94). So I waited a bit to let some people respond to Survey #1, then stole the results. It was a close vote; at this writing the survey stands at 3 votes for A, 4 votes for B, and 2 votes for C. So please pardon me for grabbing the survey for next week’s story and using it this week – and if your vote wasn’t counted, please understand!
Second, I want to shout out a special word of thanks to all the folks who took part in the Contest in TMQ #93. You contributed some of the most exciting ideas I have seen since The Magic Quill started, and lots of them. Before the discussion thread for that chapter goes away, let’s hear it for Noodles (who suggested a dirt-eating dwarf a la Mulch Diggums) – Celairiel (a psammead) – Linda Carrig (card tricks) – _houdini (wizard turtles a la the Young Wizards series, and fairy godparents) – Cady (math-e-magic) – Sorwyn (super mushrooms, and Chemical X) – yeahimsirius (a death-defying stunt magician like David Blaine) – jatibbal (flesh eating acid) – Daedalus Diggle (human-sized wings) and Asteria (a giant spider with a human head). This is all besides our winning entries by lupa (magic carpet) and TWZRD (talking stuffed animal, PLUS a transmogrifier/duplicator a la Calvin and Hobbes).
It was tough deciding on just 2 winning ideas out of all these awesome suggestions! Ultimately I chose the magic carpet and the stuffed toy, not because they were necessarily the most exciting ideas, but because they fit best with the storyline that was percolating in my mind. But I’ll keep your ideas for a rainy day and, hopefully, remember to give you credit when I use them. Thanks for participating in the Double Challenge, and please keep it up!
And now, for the next-to-last “Double Challenge” before The Magic Quill turns 100...
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: The tattoo guy who is romancing Sadie – is he just a human billboard, or is he a secret agent with his own agenda?
CONTEST: Name a historical person who might have ended up lost in Gringotts.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #97. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/23/06]
94. How to Break into Gringotts
Concept contributed by: Angelbot
Contest winners: Cady, Linda Carrig, jatibbal, Xantha, Shadow Phoenix, TWZRD, Celairiel, _houdini and amylynn91403
My dear goblins, undergoblins, security trolls, curse-breakers, and other beings and creatures of Gringotts Bank:
I have no doubt that every one of you has been deeply concerned since it was discovered Gringotts was successfully broken into, and broken out of again, and treasure taken from one of our deepest vaults. I am sure your concern hasn’t been entirely due to the fact that you were all mercilessly interrogated in order to, ahem, eliminate the possibility that the break-in was an “inside job.” For this break-in has been a crushing blow to the pride and prestige of a bank that has long been deemed an absolutely secure place to hide stuff. For the first time in generations, it means that we must re-evaluate our security protocols and make serious changes where they are needed.
For a thousand years, Dark wizards and witches have been trying to break into Gringotts to steal goblin gold and other treasures. For nearly all of them, this has proved an elusive goal. Of those few who have succeeded in breaking in, only a handful have managed to break out again. But with the right planning, personnel, and materials, it can be done. It was done several years ago by a group of wizards and clowns, though it took them several years to get out and they did not actually steal anything of value. It was done again, a year or two later, by the Dark Lord or one of his servants, but again – and purely by chance – nothing was taken.
Each time, we were consoled by the fact that the property held in Gringotts' vaults remained safe – and that we had sealed the routes in and out of the bank that had been exploited by the intruders. Nevertheless, we must now face the shameful fact that a coordinated band of Dark wizards and witches has not only entered the bank, but also promptly escaped with several priceless items from the vault of Yves the Leper.
This, in itself, would almost be acceptable – after all, the client affected by this robbery is merely a trust fund, supposely set up to keep the vault paid for until the owner’s return – who, incidentally, has been dead for hundreds of years. Only, we have just lately found out that another vault was also plundered, belonging to our distinguished and very-much-alive customer, Il Comte di Bestemmia. Il Comte will be very displeased when he is restored to consciousness and human form. So it behooves us to answer three questions before that time comes:
So far we have found out this much about the gang responsible for this crime: First, one or both of the criminals who attempted to break into vault 1,066 all those years ago – they were among the group of clowns and wizards who escaped empty-handed – must have been involved in the conspiracy. Otherwise, they could not have found the vault in question.
Second, the crime was masterminded, or at least financially backed, by someone very rich. I say this because of the sheer number of people and amount of hard-to-get magical equipment needed to bring it off. A third member of the party has an expert knowledge of portable holes and magical walls – including the location and properties of certain magical walls that have served Gringotts for many years. Fourth, they needed someone who could identify rare potions held in crocks that have not been opened since the days of Undergrim. Fifth, they needed an expert burglar who could disarm the most sophisticated trip-curses, jinx-traps, alarm hexes, and locking spells known to goblin or wizard. Sixth, they used three masters of diguise – probably Metamorphmagi – to create a diversion covering their entrance; plus Shredtripe knows who or what was in that crate labeled “Rheosaurus.”
And then there was a considerable amount of muscle involved. I estimate they had at least half a dozen wizards, expert duelers to a man, whose sole task was to provide cover for the burglars’ retreat. These powerful fighters neutralized a dragon, nearly three dozen nifflers, two squads of undergoblins, a troll, a water serpent, a very courageous house-elf, and of course Il Comte himself. In spite of the number of witnesses, only three goblins are currently in any shape to describe the wizards who attacked them. From their confused and contradictory statements, we can only gather that these hit-wizards used untraceable, contraband wands with unusual cores, to cast unusual spells that are proving difficult to analyze or reverse.
We have also learned that one of the hit-wizards used two wands simultaneously. This is a significant clue that we intend to follow up on, though at present the only known double-barreled wizard in England is the RMB liaison who has done much to help us with this case.
Finally, there is a strong likelihood that there were two teams of vault-crackers, since both vaults were plundered very quickly, and vault 1,066 should have taken the whole time by itself. It is possible that Il Comte’s vault was cracked merely as a diversion, to throw us off the trail. Until Il Comte awakens and can enlighten us about the contents of his vault, we have only the manifest of his vault’s contents to go on. And right now, the only property missing from Il Comte’s vault is a bottle of wine – of good vintage, but hardly worth the risk of breaking into a Gringotts vault!
The only positive suspects are those who have broken into Gringotts before. One of them is dead, the servant of the Dark Lord who broke into vault 713 that one time. The three clown wizards have an alibi; they were performing at the birthday party of a niece of Sir Lionel Niblet, whose services to this bank put his word above question. Rigel Oldmanson’s father swears that he was at home, puttering around with his Godfather Clock, during the time of the break-in; and Old Man Oldmanson is another loyal friend of the bank. Of the four foreign wizards, two were teaching and two were keeping shop in faraway countries, according to reliable witnesses. That leaves only a wizard of fortune, whose name I forget, but who when last seen was recovering from fox pox. No one with fox pox was near Gringotts that day; the nifflers did not sniff out a single fox hair.
Let’s leave aside the difficult question of who done it, for the moment. Now, how did they do it? Much of that has already been told. Three conspirators used disguises to set up a diversion in the upper levels, then attacked and subdued an entire squad of goblins before escaping undetected – probably through the front door of the bank! The rest of the burglars, meanwhile, penetrated a magical wall in one of the deepest, least-trafficked parts of the bank. One group apparently set up a chain of portable holes to reach vault 1,066, while a second group went to Il Comte’s vault. The first group disarmed a lot of traps and alarms, then analyzed the potions of Yves the Leper before selecting one to take with them. The second group pinched a bottle of wine, then both groups met up just as a second squad of undergoblins arrived, with backup. They fought a valiant retreat, inflicting numerous casualties on us without sustaining even one on their side. Then they disappeared.
That’s the how. Now for the what: What did they steal? Our current guess – meaning mine and that of Agent Spankison of the RMB – is that Il Comte’s wine bottle contained a djinn, presumably one discovered by the previous party of burglars that spent time trapped in that vault. This could explain why nothing more valuable was taken; the djinn would then be commanded to make all the burglars filthy rich. So we need only look for a sudden spate of large deposits; those making the deposits may be involved in the crime.
As for what was taken from the vault of Yves the Leper, we are stymied at the moment. No one with the security clearance needed to enter that vault has the ability to analyze its contents. Agent Spankison has suggested we deputize a certain master confectioner, named Endora something-or-other, who is said to have an extraordinary nose for potions. The Security Committee and the Trust Fund Subcommittee are still debating the question.
However, we did notice that dust had been disturbed around the seals of several of the potions. This may indicate that the seals were magically removed and then reapplied, perhaps in order to give the burglars’ potions expert a chance to analyze the contents. It is interesting to note that all of the disturbed potions have one thing in common: each one, according to the runes carved into the crocks, is based on the concentrated essence of a non-magical creature. Apparently, in Yves the Leper’s time, many creatures that are now considered non-magical were held in such awe that their essence was supposed to have a magical effect. So perhaps the firefly essence was used to make things glow; the spider essence, to lend steely strength to the finest thread. Hummingbird essence may have been used for hovering, bat essence for navigating in the dark, cat essence for stealth, cockroach essence for invulnerability, owl essence for seeing behind you, and so on. Can’t quite imagine what the seahorse essence would be good for, but I digress.
Since the “usual suspects” all seem to have reasonable alibis, and since no one with the skills needed for this burglary has been identified, I believe it is fundamental to the solving of this crime that we cooperate with Agent Spankison and his team of RMB-approved investigators. Besides, we can also use their protection, what with two squads of undergoblins on the injured list. Therefore, I ask for a motion to extend full trust to the RMB agents assigned to this case, and to direct the Security Committee and Trust Fund Subcommittee to open the crime scene to them for thorough analysis. Thank you, Spleengraft. Is there a second? Sawtooth – excellent. Discussion? No? Are you ready for the question then? All in favor...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S TRIPLE CHALLENGE +++
This week we have not a double, but a TRIPLE challenge – 2 Surveys and a Contest!
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Surveys and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum here [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY #1: Remember, even though the goblins think Joe, Rigel, and the Spankison kids escaped, they are still in Gringotts somewhere. Are they (A) trying to find their way down to the Pit so they can escape the way the rest of the burglars came in? (B) still disguised and trying to blend in with the goblins until they get a chance to make a run for it? (C) being held hostage by someone or something previously encountered in the Magic Quill?
SURVEY #2: Spanky’s ploy to get into vault 1,066 as an RMB investigator is: (D) really just a diversion so he and his friends can rescue Joe and the kids. (E) actually part of their plan to get something out of the vault, and the “break-in” was only a trick to make the real heist possible. (F) an attempt to fix a mistake the burglars made when they broke into the vault, such as stealing the wrong item. (G) a clever way to cover any trail the burglars may have left behind.
CONTEST: Describe the potion that Harvey REALLY wants to steal from the Vault of Yves the Leper.
The Survey answers that get the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #96. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/16/06]
Contest winners: Cady, Linda Carrig, jatibbal, Xantha, Shadow Phoenix, TWZRD, Celairiel, _houdini and amylynn91403
My dear goblins, undergoblins, security trolls, curse-breakers, and other beings and creatures of Gringotts Bank:
I have no doubt that every one of you has been deeply concerned since it was discovered Gringotts was successfully broken into, and broken out of again, and treasure taken from one of our deepest vaults. I am sure your concern hasn’t been entirely due to the fact that you were all mercilessly interrogated in order to, ahem, eliminate the possibility that the break-in was an “inside job.” For this break-in has been a crushing blow to the pride and prestige of a bank that has long been deemed an absolutely secure place to hide stuff. For the first time in generations, it means that we must re-evaluate our security protocols and make serious changes where they are needed.
For a thousand years, Dark wizards and witches have been trying to break into Gringotts to steal goblin gold and other treasures. For nearly all of them, this has proved an elusive goal. Of those few who have succeeded in breaking in, only a handful have managed to break out again. But with the right planning, personnel, and materials, it can be done. It was done several years ago by a group of wizards and clowns, though it took them several years to get out and they did not actually steal anything of value. It was done again, a year or two later, by the Dark Lord or one of his servants, but again – and purely by chance – nothing was taken.
Each time, we were consoled by the fact that the property held in Gringotts' vaults remained safe – and that we had sealed the routes in and out of the bank that had been exploited by the intruders. Nevertheless, we must now face the shameful fact that a coordinated band of Dark wizards and witches has not only entered the bank, but also promptly escaped with several priceless items from the vault of Yves the Leper.
This, in itself, would almost be acceptable – after all, the client affected by this robbery is merely a trust fund, supposely set up to keep the vault paid for until the owner’s return – who, incidentally, has been dead for hundreds of years. Only, we have just lately found out that another vault was also plundered, belonging to our distinguished and very-much-alive customer, Il Comte di Bestemmia. Il Comte will be very displeased when he is restored to consciousness and human form. So it behooves us to answer three questions before that time comes:
- Who did the break-in?
- How did they do it?
- What exactly did they take from the two plundered vaults?
So far we have found out this much about the gang responsible for this crime: First, one or both of the criminals who attempted to break into vault 1,066 all those years ago – they were among the group of clowns and wizards who escaped empty-handed – must have been involved in the conspiracy. Otherwise, they could not have found the vault in question.
Second, the crime was masterminded, or at least financially backed, by someone very rich. I say this because of the sheer number of people and amount of hard-to-get magical equipment needed to bring it off. A third member of the party has an expert knowledge of portable holes and magical walls – including the location and properties of certain magical walls that have served Gringotts for many years. Fourth, they needed someone who could identify rare potions held in crocks that have not been opened since the days of Undergrim. Fifth, they needed an expert burglar who could disarm the most sophisticated trip-curses, jinx-traps, alarm hexes, and locking spells known to goblin or wizard. Sixth, they used three masters of diguise – probably Metamorphmagi – to create a diversion covering their entrance; plus Shredtripe knows who or what was in that crate labeled “Rheosaurus.”
And then there was a considerable amount of muscle involved. I estimate they had at least half a dozen wizards, expert duelers to a man, whose sole task was to provide cover for the burglars’ retreat. These powerful fighters neutralized a dragon, nearly three dozen nifflers, two squads of undergoblins, a troll, a water serpent, a very courageous house-elf, and of course Il Comte himself. In spite of the number of witnesses, only three goblins are currently in any shape to describe the wizards who attacked them. From their confused and contradictory statements, we can only gather that these hit-wizards used untraceable, contraband wands with unusual cores, to cast unusual spells that are proving difficult to analyze or reverse.
We have also learned that one of the hit-wizards used two wands simultaneously. This is a significant clue that we intend to follow up on, though at present the only known double-barreled wizard in England is the RMB liaison who has done much to help us with this case.
Finally, there is a strong likelihood that there were two teams of vault-crackers, since both vaults were plundered very quickly, and vault 1,066 should have taken the whole time by itself. It is possible that Il Comte’s vault was cracked merely as a diversion, to throw us off the trail. Until Il Comte awakens and can enlighten us about the contents of his vault, we have only the manifest of his vault’s contents to go on. And right now, the only property missing from Il Comte’s vault is a bottle of wine – of good vintage, but hardly worth the risk of breaking into a Gringotts vault!
The only positive suspects are those who have broken into Gringotts before. One of them is dead, the servant of the Dark Lord who broke into vault 713 that one time. The three clown wizards have an alibi; they were performing at the birthday party of a niece of Sir Lionel Niblet, whose services to this bank put his word above question. Rigel Oldmanson’s father swears that he was at home, puttering around with his Godfather Clock, during the time of the break-in; and Old Man Oldmanson is another loyal friend of the bank. Of the four foreign wizards, two were teaching and two were keeping shop in faraway countries, according to reliable witnesses. That leaves only a wizard of fortune, whose name I forget, but who when last seen was recovering from fox pox. No one with fox pox was near Gringotts that day; the nifflers did not sniff out a single fox hair.
Let’s leave aside the difficult question of who done it, for the moment. Now, how did they do it? Much of that has already been told. Three conspirators used disguises to set up a diversion in the upper levels, then attacked and subdued an entire squad of goblins before escaping undetected – probably through the front door of the bank! The rest of the burglars, meanwhile, penetrated a magical wall in one of the deepest, least-trafficked parts of the bank. One group apparently set up a chain of portable holes to reach vault 1,066, while a second group went to Il Comte’s vault. The first group disarmed a lot of traps and alarms, then analyzed the potions of Yves the Leper before selecting one to take with them. The second group pinched a bottle of wine, then both groups met up just as a second squad of undergoblins arrived, with backup. They fought a valiant retreat, inflicting numerous casualties on us without sustaining even one on their side. Then they disappeared.
That’s the how. Now for the what: What did they steal? Our current guess – meaning mine and that of Agent Spankison of the RMB – is that Il Comte’s wine bottle contained a djinn, presumably one discovered by the previous party of burglars that spent time trapped in that vault. This could explain why nothing more valuable was taken; the djinn would then be commanded to make all the burglars filthy rich. So we need only look for a sudden spate of large deposits; those making the deposits may be involved in the crime.
As for what was taken from the vault of Yves the Leper, we are stymied at the moment. No one with the security clearance needed to enter that vault has the ability to analyze its contents. Agent Spankison has suggested we deputize a certain master confectioner, named Endora something-or-other, who is said to have an extraordinary nose for potions. The Security Committee and the Trust Fund Subcommittee are still debating the question.
However, we did notice that dust had been disturbed around the seals of several of the potions. This may indicate that the seals were magically removed and then reapplied, perhaps in order to give the burglars’ potions expert a chance to analyze the contents. It is interesting to note that all of the disturbed potions have one thing in common: each one, according to the runes carved into the crocks, is based on the concentrated essence of a non-magical creature. Apparently, in Yves the Leper’s time, many creatures that are now considered non-magical were held in such awe that their essence was supposed to have a magical effect. So perhaps the firefly essence was used to make things glow; the spider essence, to lend steely strength to the finest thread. Hummingbird essence may have been used for hovering, bat essence for navigating in the dark, cat essence for stealth, cockroach essence for invulnerability, owl essence for seeing behind you, and so on. Can’t quite imagine what the seahorse essence would be good for, but I digress.
Since the “usual suspects” all seem to have reasonable alibis, and since no one with the skills needed for this burglary has been identified, I believe it is fundamental to the solving of this crime that we cooperate with Agent Spankison and his team of RMB-approved investigators. Besides, we can also use their protection, what with two squads of undergoblins on the injured list. Therefore, I ask for a motion to extend full trust to the RMB agents assigned to this case, and to direct the Security Committee and Trust Fund Subcommittee to open the crime scene to them for thorough analysis. Thank you, Spleengraft. Is there a second? Sawtooth – excellent. Discussion? No? Are you ready for the question then? All in favor...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S TRIPLE CHALLENGE +++
This week we have not a double, but a TRIPLE challenge – 2 Surveys and a Contest!
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Surveys and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum here [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY #1: Remember, even though the goblins think Joe, Rigel, and the Spankison kids escaped, they are still in Gringotts somewhere. Are they (A) trying to find their way down to the Pit so they can escape the way the rest of the burglars came in? (B) still disguised and trying to blend in with the goblins until they get a chance to make a run for it? (C) being held hostage by someone or something previously encountered in the Magic Quill?
SURVEY #2: Spanky’s ploy to get into vault 1,066 as an RMB investigator is: (D) really just a diversion so he and his friends can rescue Joe and the kids. (E) actually part of their plan to get something out of the vault, and the “break-in” was only a trick to make the real heist possible. (F) an attempt to fix a mistake the burglars made when they broke into the vault, such as stealing the wrong item. (G) a clever way to cover any trail the burglars may have left behind.
CONTEST: Describe the potion that Harvey REALLY wants to steal from the Vault of Yves the Leper.
The Survey answers that get the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #96. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/16/06]
93. The Rheosaurus Diversion
Concept contributed by: Angelbot
Contest winner: jatibbal
“What was that name again?” asked the goblin behind the teller’s window.
“Dr. Duane Mossy,” said Slavik, in a nearly perfect approximation of an American accent. He twitched his fake mustache and adjusted his fake eyeglasses. “You’ve heard of me, perhaps? I’ve been all over the papers. They call me Mundane Duane, and sometimes the Vanilla Gorilla. I just finished five years of living as a Muggle, among Muggles, studying them. That’s why I’ve come here, to take over the Muggle Studies section at your Ministry.”
“Our ministry?” the goblin asked pointedly.
“I beg your pardon. I only meant your country’s ministry. It’s important work, I’ll tell you. Though it’s not true, what they say about me going native. I never forgot that I was a wizard – folks must be thinking of John Badsome, who really did renounce wizardry after his seminal study of...”
“All I know is, we don’t have a vault in that name,” the goblin insisted stubbornly.
“That’s why I’ve come,” Slavik grinned. “To set one up, you see? Just some of my larger specimens, and only until the ministry knocks down a couple of walls so I can...”
“All right, then,” the goblin snarled, pulling out a large sheaf of parchment. “Fill this out while my undergoblins collect the crates. Where are they, now?”
“On the roof of the Leaky Cauldron. Couldn’t find anywhere else to fit them, you know.” Slavik got busy scribbling false information on the goblin’s parchment. He was still scribbling when a party of goblins, sweating with effort, floated a series of enormous crates through the front doors of the bank. One of the crates had holes drilled in it on all sides, and out of the holes shone a light that rose and fell in intensity from blindingly bright to nearly dark. Something inside the crate seemed to be alive, scrabbling around on heavy claws.
“What in the name of Undergrim is in that?” asked the goblin across the desk from Slavik.
Slavik beamed. “That’s one of my greatest discoveries – the Rheosaurus. My paper on it is due to be published any day now. You see, the Muggles have domesticated some breeds of dragon that have lost their magic, and they have also invented devices that can cause eclectic lights to grow brighter and dimmer by degrees. My tests on the komodo dragon’s vestigial fire glands and on the rheostat were on adjacent laboratory benches, until an unanticipated interaction re-activated a dormant...”
“Feeding and poo removal will be added to your monthly fees,” the goblin snapped, as the other goblins used their magic to test the crate for the presence of concealed wizards or witches.
“That larger, heavier crate contains a heretofore nondescript advancement in Muggle technology. It will revolutionize the medical world, when it becomes more widely known and used. The Muggles call it a re-frig-er-a-tor, which I believe is derived from the Sanskrit words for ‘potion-free fever reducer.’ Once the healers at St. Mungo’s hear about this, they’ll insist on having eckeltricity installed...”
“Please initial next to the paragraph that says Gringotts will not be held responsible for equipment that is lost, damaged, eaten, banished to Saturn, or dropped in a lake of molten sulfur,” said the goblin.
“And that third crate,” Slavik continued, “is packed with beakers of Dehydrated Water. A very trustworthy specimen traded them to me for a proportionally tiny pile of Muggle currency – though I’m not sure I recall correctly what number was on the bills...”
The goblin sniffed. “Also initial by where it says Gringotts is not responsible for water-related damage.”
“And that last, smaller box contains a Muggle torture device known as the Karaoke Machine,” said Slavik, wincing at the memory. “I believe it is the duty of the wizarding world to put a stop to such practices, as soon as we have mastered the...”
“Finger,” said the goblin.
Slavik looked startled, then extended his right index finger toward the goblin, who slashed at it with one of his sharp claws.
“Ow!” yelled Slavik.
“Sign quickly before the bleeding stops,” the goblin advised. “Here is your key. You may follow your boxes down to the vault, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Slavik, conjuring a copy of the signed contract and stuffing it into his robes. “I really must get back to the Ministry before that fellow with the plug collection makes off with my lucky extension cord.” He cast one last glance at his four crates and the goblins floating them along, before they passed through a door leading to a torch-lit passage roughly hewn out of stone. Then he hurried out of the bank and caught the first Floo from the Leaky Cauldron to Durmstrang.
Soon the goblins had loaded the crates onto a line of ore carts and were hurtling through the caverns and tunnels beneath Gringotts. The goblins in the first cart began to notice problems only a few moments after the carts began to roll. The flashes of light coming from the Rheosaurus’ ventilated crate were becoming brighter, frequenter, and more erratic. The scratching noise, now accompanied by disgruntled hissing sounds, grew louder and more agitated. The goblins looked at each other in alarm as the crate started rocking to and fro.
“We need to slow down,” one of the goblins screamed.
“You know bloody well these carts have only one speed,” shouted another.
“There’s a switch up ahead,” shrieked a third goblin. “We can go up a side track and stop, while the other carts go on ahead.”
“Good idea,” said the second goblin. He pointed a long claw toward the approaching switch. “Wait for it...wait...now!”
The switch slammed back and forth. The front cart went off on a side track while the following carts stayed on course.
“Stop!” screamed the first goblin.
The cart slowed to a halt, but the rattling and rocking of the Rheosaurus’ crate continued.
“How are we ever going to get this thing to the vault?” moaned the second goblin.
“Only one thing I can think of to do,” said the third goblin.
“What’s that?”
The third goblin pulled out a wand and stunned the second goblin with it.
“Thank God!” gasped the first goblin, ripping off the goblin mask and revealing Rigel’s face underneath. “I thought I was going to asphyxiate.”
“Don’t – you fool!” muttered the other goblin as the mask went flying into the darkness. No longer disguising his voice, he sounded like Joe Albuquerque. “We might need that mask for our escape!”
“Never mind,” said Rigel, tugging the goblin-hand gloves off his fingers. “I’ll look for it in a minute. Shall we let the Rheosaurus out now?”
“Yes, they must be very tired of staying in there. Quiet down, you lot! We’re opening the box!”
A moment later an end flew off the crate, and five half-visible children spilled out onto the pavement beside the track. Each child said Nox to a Cheshire-cat-whisker-core wand, which they had taken from Jaan’s shop. This ended the Lumos spell that, from each wand, had flared and faded continually from inside the crate. The older children helped tie up the stunned goblin and stuff him into the crate.
“It’s a good job Spanky was right about you kids eluding detection by goblins,” Rigel remarked as they sent the cart roaring back up the tracks toward the surface level of the bank.
Joe stood guard, waiting for a sign that the goblins had reacted to the message they had sent upstairs – a wizarding message that meant, “Marlinpike and the others sleep with the Rheosauruses.” He didn’t mind not having to look at the Spankison children as they played hopscotch on the pavement behind him. There was something not quite right, to his mind, about the sight of five pairs of disembodied legs hopping and skipping along, with nothing visible above the tops of their socks. He hoped they would all become completely invisible when the time came....
“Here they come,” said Joe. An outcry from above grew louder by the minute. “Dozens of carts of them, from the sound of it. They’ll be searching every tunnel that splits off from below this point. Aloysius! Elfrigga, and the rest of you – stealth mode is go!”
The children obligingly went invisible, but one problem remained: Rigel still had not found the goblin mask he had thrown aside.
“What are we going to do?” Rigel groaned.
A shout from nearby – a screech of cart wheels – then a party of goblins arrived at the point where Joe and Rigel stood.
“What happened to the others?” barked a particularly gnarly goblin.
“I don’t know,” said Joe. He grabbed Rigel’s arm and pushed him toward the shocked and bewildered goblins, adding, “I’ve captured this impostor, though.”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: On or before Episode 100, I would most like to see: (A) a quick-reference guide to the numerous characters in The Magic Quill. (B) A Magic Quill trivia quiz. (C) A capsule summary of the main storylines seen so far on the Magic Quill. (D) Another article by Broom and Wand correspondent Bo Dwyer.
CONTEST: What creature, spell, or tool from a different (non-Harry Potter) “magic world” would be fun to see in The Magic Quill?
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #95. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/7/06]
Contest winner: jatibbal
“What was that name again?” asked the goblin behind the teller’s window.
“Dr. Duane Mossy,” said Slavik, in a nearly perfect approximation of an American accent. He twitched his fake mustache and adjusted his fake eyeglasses. “You’ve heard of me, perhaps? I’ve been all over the papers. They call me Mundane Duane, and sometimes the Vanilla Gorilla. I just finished five years of living as a Muggle, among Muggles, studying them. That’s why I’ve come here, to take over the Muggle Studies section at your Ministry.”
“Our ministry?” the goblin asked pointedly.
“I beg your pardon. I only meant your country’s ministry. It’s important work, I’ll tell you. Though it’s not true, what they say about me going native. I never forgot that I was a wizard – folks must be thinking of John Badsome, who really did renounce wizardry after his seminal study of...”
“All I know is, we don’t have a vault in that name,” the goblin insisted stubbornly.
“That’s why I’ve come,” Slavik grinned. “To set one up, you see? Just some of my larger specimens, and only until the ministry knocks down a couple of walls so I can...”
“All right, then,” the goblin snarled, pulling out a large sheaf of parchment. “Fill this out while my undergoblins collect the crates. Where are they, now?”
“On the roof of the Leaky Cauldron. Couldn’t find anywhere else to fit them, you know.” Slavik got busy scribbling false information on the goblin’s parchment. He was still scribbling when a party of goblins, sweating with effort, floated a series of enormous crates through the front doors of the bank. One of the crates had holes drilled in it on all sides, and out of the holes shone a light that rose and fell in intensity from blindingly bright to nearly dark. Something inside the crate seemed to be alive, scrabbling around on heavy claws.
“What in the name of Undergrim is in that?” asked the goblin across the desk from Slavik.
Slavik beamed. “That’s one of my greatest discoveries – the Rheosaurus. My paper on it is due to be published any day now. You see, the Muggles have domesticated some breeds of dragon that have lost their magic, and they have also invented devices that can cause eclectic lights to grow brighter and dimmer by degrees. My tests on the komodo dragon’s vestigial fire glands and on the rheostat were on adjacent laboratory benches, until an unanticipated interaction re-activated a dormant...”
“Feeding and poo removal will be added to your monthly fees,” the goblin snapped, as the other goblins used their magic to test the crate for the presence of concealed wizards or witches.
“That larger, heavier crate contains a heretofore nondescript advancement in Muggle technology. It will revolutionize the medical world, when it becomes more widely known and used. The Muggles call it a re-frig-er-a-tor, which I believe is derived from the Sanskrit words for ‘potion-free fever reducer.’ Once the healers at St. Mungo’s hear about this, they’ll insist on having eckeltricity installed...”
“Please initial next to the paragraph that says Gringotts will not be held responsible for equipment that is lost, damaged, eaten, banished to Saturn, or dropped in a lake of molten sulfur,” said the goblin.
“And that third crate,” Slavik continued, “is packed with beakers of Dehydrated Water. A very trustworthy specimen traded them to me for a proportionally tiny pile of Muggle currency – though I’m not sure I recall correctly what number was on the bills...”
The goblin sniffed. “Also initial by where it says Gringotts is not responsible for water-related damage.”
“And that last, smaller box contains a Muggle torture device known as the Karaoke Machine,” said Slavik, wincing at the memory. “I believe it is the duty of the wizarding world to put a stop to such practices, as soon as we have mastered the...”
“Finger,” said the goblin.
Slavik looked startled, then extended his right index finger toward the goblin, who slashed at it with one of his sharp claws.
“Ow!” yelled Slavik.
“Sign quickly before the bleeding stops,” the goblin advised. “Here is your key. You may follow your boxes down to the vault, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Slavik, conjuring a copy of the signed contract and stuffing it into his robes. “I really must get back to the Ministry before that fellow with the plug collection makes off with my lucky extension cord.” He cast one last glance at his four crates and the goblins floating them along, before they passed through a door leading to a torch-lit passage roughly hewn out of stone. Then he hurried out of the bank and caught the first Floo from the Leaky Cauldron to Durmstrang.
Soon the goblins had loaded the crates onto a line of ore carts and were hurtling through the caverns and tunnels beneath Gringotts. The goblins in the first cart began to notice problems only a few moments after the carts began to roll. The flashes of light coming from the Rheosaurus’ ventilated crate were becoming brighter, frequenter, and more erratic. The scratching noise, now accompanied by disgruntled hissing sounds, grew louder and more agitated. The goblins looked at each other in alarm as the crate started rocking to and fro.
“We need to slow down,” one of the goblins screamed.
“You know bloody well these carts have only one speed,” shouted another.
“There’s a switch up ahead,” shrieked a third goblin. “We can go up a side track and stop, while the other carts go on ahead.”
“Good idea,” said the second goblin. He pointed a long claw toward the approaching switch. “Wait for it...wait...now!”
The switch slammed back and forth. The front cart went off on a side track while the following carts stayed on course.
“Stop!” screamed the first goblin.
The cart slowed to a halt, but the rattling and rocking of the Rheosaurus’ crate continued.
“How are we ever going to get this thing to the vault?” moaned the second goblin.
“Only one thing I can think of to do,” said the third goblin.
“What’s that?”
The third goblin pulled out a wand and stunned the second goblin with it.
“Thank God!” gasped the first goblin, ripping off the goblin mask and revealing Rigel’s face underneath. “I thought I was going to asphyxiate.”
“Don’t – you fool!” muttered the other goblin as the mask went flying into the darkness. No longer disguising his voice, he sounded like Joe Albuquerque. “We might need that mask for our escape!”
“Never mind,” said Rigel, tugging the goblin-hand gloves off his fingers. “I’ll look for it in a minute. Shall we let the Rheosaurus out now?”
“Yes, they must be very tired of staying in there. Quiet down, you lot! We’re opening the box!”
A moment later an end flew off the crate, and five half-visible children spilled out onto the pavement beside the track. Each child said Nox to a Cheshire-cat-whisker-core wand, which they had taken from Jaan’s shop. This ended the Lumos spell that, from each wand, had flared and faded continually from inside the crate. The older children helped tie up the stunned goblin and stuff him into the crate.
“It’s a good job Spanky was right about you kids eluding detection by goblins,” Rigel remarked as they sent the cart roaring back up the tracks toward the surface level of the bank.
Joe stood guard, waiting for a sign that the goblins had reacted to the message they had sent upstairs – a wizarding message that meant, “Marlinpike and the others sleep with the Rheosauruses.” He didn’t mind not having to look at the Spankison children as they played hopscotch on the pavement behind him. There was something not quite right, to his mind, about the sight of five pairs of disembodied legs hopping and skipping along, with nothing visible above the tops of their socks. He hoped they would all become completely invisible when the time came....
“Here they come,” said Joe. An outcry from above grew louder by the minute. “Dozens of carts of them, from the sound of it. They’ll be searching every tunnel that splits off from below this point. Aloysius! Elfrigga, and the rest of you – stealth mode is go!”
The children obligingly went invisible, but one problem remained: Rigel still had not found the goblin mask he had thrown aside.
“What are we going to do?” Rigel groaned.
A shout from nearby – a screech of cart wheels – then a party of goblins arrived at the point where Joe and Rigel stood.
“What happened to the others?” barked a particularly gnarly goblin.
“I don’t know,” said Joe. He grabbed Rigel’s arm and pushed him toward the shocked and bewildered goblins, adding, “I’ve captured this impostor, though.”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: On or before Episode 100, I would most like to see: (A) a quick-reference guide to the numerous characters in The Magic Quill. (B) A Magic Quill trivia quiz. (C) A capsule summary of the main storylines seen so far on the Magic Quill. (D) Another article by Broom and Wand correspondent Bo Dwyer.
CONTEST: What creature, spell, or tool from a different (non-Harry Potter) “magic world” would be fun to see in The Magic Quill?
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #95. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 7/7/06]
92. The Last Recruit
Contest winners: DeatheaterJ, zanaboo, and Linda Carrig
The new headmistress sat in the back of the classroom, seemingly absorbed in the Journal of Early Wizardry Development, Vol. 937, No. 6, while the brand new Defensive Magic teacher carried on with his lecture. She sighed as she listened, reminding herself once again that no one would have expected it easy to introduce the new curriculum at Durmstrang. Old ways – like teaching the flat-out Dark Arts – were hard to put aside. It was no wonder that she was the third head of Durmstrang to be appointed since the disappearance of Igor Karkaroff. Still, there was something about this new teacher...if anyone could make it work, he could.
“...It wasn’t hard for me to hop from on top of one giant, glass eyeball to another, all the way across the dungeon – though, to be sure, if I had fallen between them, they would have rolled over me and crushed me to death. After that, it was a simple matter of sawing through two iron bars, squeezing through the window, and crawling along a low-hanging tree branch over the Inferi-infested moat. Then I had all afternoon, until the sun went down, to run for my life across miles of swampy waste. It was actually the most fun I had had all summer. Nevertheless, that was the last time my parents allowed me to spend the holidays with my vampire aunt and uncle. The End.”
The young witch nodded politely, acknowledging the other students’ applause, and returned to her seat.
“Very good, excellent work,” said the new teacher, wiping sweat off his pasty brow. “We will continue hearing your compositions about your experiences with the Dark Arts next week. Now, let’s see how many of you read the chapter that was assigned for today. Pavel, how would you define the word ‘munchkinesis’?”
“Er...munchkinesis...” One of the boys in the front row got a strained look on his face. “Is that a curse that causes you to grow a second stomach, so that you have to ruminate like a...”
“No,” said the professor. “Who knows this? Samirah?”
A girl cleared her throat nervously, then said, “Munchkinesis: a security spell, often triggered by stepping on a trick stair, that causes the victim to become about two feet tall with a squeaky voice and adorable, rosy cheeks.”
Several of the children in the classroom shuddered.
“Fair warning,” said the teacher. “The trunk that contains the answers to this year’s quizzes is protected by the munchkinesis spell. Now, Alexandra, perhaps you can tell us one advantage, and one disadvantage, of the Albinusmentis spell.”
A very quiet girl turned very red and seemed, for a moment, unable to say anything. Then a couple of students giggled and the girl shot a piercing glare in their direction. “All right,” said Alexandra. “The advantage of Albinusmentis is that it wipes your adversary’s mind blank, giving you time to decide what to do with him. The disadvantage is that it only lasts about a minute.”
“Then you obviously can’t use that as an excuse for failing a whole exam,” the professor pointed out.
Some of the students chuckled briefly. The moment of levity showed that the students were starting to warm to the new subject, but the children seemed confused – some of them ashamed, some angry – after it happened. The headmistress stifled another sigh and turned a page in her magazine.
“We just have time for one more question,” said the teacher. “What is another name for the Tonabrix Trap?”
Several hands went up. The teacher called on a student named Laszlo, who said, “Unwelcome Mat.”
“Very good. It’s an effective deterrent against unwelcome guests knocking on your door – but remember, it leaves an awful mess to clean up, and it can go off unintentionally. Read chapter two for next time!”
This last bit was shouted over the sound of the bell ringing, students gathering up their things, and a general rush for the door.
Once the last student had left the room, the teacher went and sat down next to the headmistress, who was stuffing her magazine into a pocket of her robes.
“Well, Tatyana, how do you think that went?” he said.
“I warned you that it would be difficult, Slavik,” she replied, looking directly at him for the first time all day. He was a pale, bespectacled man – fairly young – a bit on the portly side, with a good-sized bald-spot above his forehead and a wary look in his eyes that some people had mistaken for a sign of weak nerves. Actually, Tatyana knew that Slavik was a very brave wizard, and dangerous when crossed. He had saved her life once. That was why he was the first teacher she had thought to hire for this difficult, new job. Seeing a shadow of discouragement fall across his face, Tatyana added, “But if you keep on as you have begun, I think you will succeed.”
“Good,” said Slavik. “Then perhaps you are in a good enough mood to grant me one small, tiny favor.”
“Name it.”
“I need to take a leave of absence.”
Tatyana laughed aloud. Then she realized it wasn’t a joke, and scowled instead. “Slavik, this is hardly the time. We have so much to do, and we have to do it fast, before the school governors lose their nerve.”
“Only for a week, I promise. I’ve received an urgent plea for help from an old friend.”
Actually, Slavik had received nothing of the sort. Rigel had contacted him through the matched pair of magic mirrors they shared, to warn him that Il Comte was coming after them. Slavik knew that he was safer at Durmstrang than most anywhere else. But he also knew that Rigel was about to try another Gringotts heist, and he had an idea about how he could help...without getting trapped for years and years.
“All right,” said Tatyana. “I will teach your class for one week, no more.”
“Thank you. I will leave tonight.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
When he Apparated in the back parlor at the Hog’s Head several hours later, the room was empty except for a burly tattooed wizard being aggressively kissed by a veiled witch -- what little of her face Slavik could see was quite nice -- plus a thinner, haunted-looking wizard who was watching the amorous couple with a gloomy air. The loud popping sound of Slavik’s arrival startled the couple, who loudly fell under the table. The third wizard hopped to his feet, his gloom suddenly replaced by a beaming smile.
“Slavik, my old friend!” he cried, shaking the teacher’s hand vigorously in a two-handed grip.
“Is it really Anatoly?” Slavik exclaimed.
Anatoly kicked someone under the table, and the couple resurfaced, looking quite rumpled. “The meeting will begin soon. These two came with me.” He introduced them to Slavik, a bit of his sullenness returning at the sight of them.
The introductions had scarcely ended when they had to start again – and again, and again – as more of the would-be bank robbers Apparated in the small parlor. Somehow, there was always just room enough for all of them, including a chair next to Spanky that seemed to be empty whenever Slavik looked right at it, though at other times the table seemed fully occupied. Drinks were ordered all around, amid a continuous flow of friendly chatter.
Last to arrive was Harvey, who opened the official meeting with a bit of good news: “I have found a way through a magical wall that leads to the underground river, near the Pit under Gringotts.”
The conspirators cheered, then listened intently to his detailed explanation, then cheered again. “It only wants something to divert the goblins’ attention,” Harvey finished, “and our plan will be complete.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Slavik. “I have an idea – but I will need your master of disguise to help me...”
“Gladly,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“...And,” Slavik continued, “We have to do the break-in within the week.”
Suddenly, the crowded room became so silent that it seemed the breathing had stopped. Harvey’s friends, Spanky’s children, the clown wizards, Rigel and Mr. Oldmanson, the Durmstrang lads and even the tattooed wizard stared at Slavik like so many wax figures. It was one of those moments when the wary look in Slavik’s eyes proved, beyond any doubt, not to be a sign of a nervous disposition. Setting his jaw firmly, Slavik said, “Here’s what I suggest...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Will Jaan change his mind and join the party before they break into Gringotts?
CONTEST: Describe a real-life creature that has something kind of magical about it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #94. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/11/06]
The new headmistress sat in the back of the classroom, seemingly absorbed in the Journal of Early Wizardry Development, Vol. 937, No. 6, while the brand new Defensive Magic teacher carried on with his lecture. She sighed as she listened, reminding herself once again that no one would have expected it easy to introduce the new curriculum at Durmstrang. Old ways – like teaching the flat-out Dark Arts – were hard to put aside. It was no wonder that she was the third head of Durmstrang to be appointed since the disappearance of Igor Karkaroff. Still, there was something about this new teacher...if anyone could make it work, he could.
“...It wasn’t hard for me to hop from on top of one giant, glass eyeball to another, all the way across the dungeon – though, to be sure, if I had fallen between them, they would have rolled over me and crushed me to death. After that, it was a simple matter of sawing through two iron bars, squeezing through the window, and crawling along a low-hanging tree branch over the Inferi-infested moat. Then I had all afternoon, until the sun went down, to run for my life across miles of swampy waste. It was actually the most fun I had had all summer. Nevertheless, that was the last time my parents allowed me to spend the holidays with my vampire aunt and uncle. The End.”
The young witch nodded politely, acknowledging the other students’ applause, and returned to her seat.
“Very good, excellent work,” said the new teacher, wiping sweat off his pasty brow. “We will continue hearing your compositions about your experiences with the Dark Arts next week. Now, let’s see how many of you read the chapter that was assigned for today. Pavel, how would you define the word ‘munchkinesis’?”
“Er...munchkinesis...” One of the boys in the front row got a strained look on his face. “Is that a curse that causes you to grow a second stomach, so that you have to ruminate like a...”
“No,” said the professor. “Who knows this? Samirah?”
A girl cleared her throat nervously, then said, “Munchkinesis: a security spell, often triggered by stepping on a trick stair, that causes the victim to become about two feet tall with a squeaky voice and adorable, rosy cheeks.”
Several of the children in the classroom shuddered.
“Fair warning,” said the teacher. “The trunk that contains the answers to this year’s quizzes is protected by the munchkinesis spell. Now, Alexandra, perhaps you can tell us one advantage, and one disadvantage, of the Albinusmentis spell.”
A very quiet girl turned very red and seemed, for a moment, unable to say anything. Then a couple of students giggled and the girl shot a piercing glare in their direction. “All right,” said Alexandra. “The advantage of Albinusmentis is that it wipes your adversary’s mind blank, giving you time to decide what to do with him. The disadvantage is that it only lasts about a minute.”
“Then you obviously can’t use that as an excuse for failing a whole exam,” the professor pointed out.
Some of the students chuckled briefly. The moment of levity showed that the students were starting to warm to the new subject, but the children seemed confused – some of them ashamed, some angry – after it happened. The headmistress stifled another sigh and turned a page in her magazine.
“We just have time for one more question,” said the teacher. “What is another name for the Tonabrix Trap?”
Several hands went up. The teacher called on a student named Laszlo, who said, “Unwelcome Mat.”
“Very good. It’s an effective deterrent against unwelcome guests knocking on your door – but remember, it leaves an awful mess to clean up, and it can go off unintentionally. Read chapter two for next time!”
This last bit was shouted over the sound of the bell ringing, students gathering up their things, and a general rush for the door.
Once the last student had left the room, the teacher went and sat down next to the headmistress, who was stuffing her magazine into a pocket of her robes.
“Well, Tatyana, how do you think that went?” he said.
“I warned you that it would be difficult, Slavik,” she replied, looking directly at him for the first time all day. He was a pale, bespectacled man – fairly young – a bit on the portly side, with a good-sized bald-spot above his forehead and a wary look in his eyes that some people had mistaken for a sign of weak nerves. Actually, Tatyana knew that Slavik was a very brave wizard, and dangerous when crossed. He had saved her life once. That was why he was the first teacher she had thought to hire for this difficult, new job. Seeing a shadow of discouragement fall across his face, Tatyana added, “But if you keep on as you have begun, I think you will succeed.”
“Good,” said Slavik. “Then perhaps you are in a good enough mood to grant me one small, tiny favor.”
“Name it.”
“I need to take a leave of absence.”
Tatyana laughed aloud. Then she realized it wasn’t a joke, and scowled instead. “Slavik, this is hardly the time. We have so much to do, and we have to do it fast, before the school governors lose their nerve.”
“Only for a week, I promise. I’ve received an urgent plea for help from an old friend.”
Actually, Slavik had received nothing of the sort. Rigel had contacted him through the matched pair of magic mirrors they shared, to warn him that Il Comte was coming after them. Slavik knew that he was safer at Durmstrang than most anywhere else. But he also knew that Rigel was about to try another Gringotts heist, and he had an idea about how he could help...without getting trapped for years and years.
“All right,” said Tatyana. “I will teach your class for one week, no more.”
“Thank you. I will leave tonight.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
When he Apparated in the back parlor at the Hog’s Head several hours later, the room was empty except for a burly tattooed wizard being aggressively kissed by a veiled witch -- what little of her face Slavik could see was quite nice -- plus a thinner, haunted-looking wizard who was watching the amorous couple with a gloomy air. The loud popping sound of Slavik’s arrival startled the couple, who loudly fell under the table. The third wizard hopped to his feet, his gloom suddenly replaced by a beaming smile.
“Slavik, my old friend!” he cried, shaking the teacher’s hand vigorously in a two-handed grip.
“Is it really Anatoly?” Slavik exclaimed.
Anatoly kicked someone under the table, and the couple resurfaced, looking quite rumpled. “The meeting will begin soon. These two came with me.” He introduced them to Slavik, a bit of his sullenness returning at the sight of them.
The introductions had scarcely ended when they had to start again – and again, and again – as more of the would-be bank robbers Apparated in the small parlor. Somehow, there was always just room enough for all of them, including a chair next to Spanky that seemed to be empty whenever Slavik looked right at it, though at other times the table seemed fully occupied. Drinks were ordered all around, amid a continuous flow of friendly chatter.
Last to arrive was Harvey, who opened the official meeting with a bit of good news: “I have found a way through a magical wall that leads to the underground river, near the Pit under Gringotts.”
The conspirators cheered, then listened intently to his detailed explanation, then cheered again. “It only wants something to divert the goblins’ attention,” Harvey finished, “and our plan will be complete.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Slavik. “I have an idea – but I will need your master of disguise to help me...”
“Gladly,” said Joe Albuquerque.
“...And,” Slavik continued, “We have to do the break-in within the week.”
Suddenly, the crowded room became so silent that it seemed the breathing had stopped. Harvey’s friends, Spanky’s children, the clown wizards, Rigel and Mr. Oldmanson, the Durmstrang lads and even the tattooed wizard stared at Slavik like so many wax figures. It was one of those moments when the wary look in Slavik’s eyes proved, beyond any doubt, not to be a sign of a nervous disposition. Setting his jaw firmly, Slavik said, “Here’s what I suggest...”
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Will Jaan change his mind and join the party before they break into Gringotts?
CONTEST: Describe a real-life creature that has something kind of magical about it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #94. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/11/06]
91. The Wandwright
Contest winner: lupa
The trees stood like vast pillars, and the rustling of their leafy canopy made for a special kind of silence – unearthly, churchlike, peaceful. The wandwright finished scattering his offering of woodlice to the bowtruckles, shouldered a bundle of straight green boughs, and began his trek towards the one-room home and workshop he had hewn out of a great hollow trunk within sight of the Wizards’ Highway.
Now and then, he paused and listened. Once he shook his head, wondering at himself. It was not until he had laid his bundle outside the door of his hut, and had gone inside to put the cauldron on to boil, that he became sure he was hearing a real sound rather than a memory. He wiped his hands and went outside to look around. There it was again – like the laughter of a child. Several children, really.
Then he froze in his tracks. It was too bad he had his back to the solid side of his tree hut. He would never be able to get round to the door and barricade himself inside. The tall figure in the dark, hooded cloak was too close – and what was more, it had the look of a powerful, active man with swift reflexes.
The wandwright wondered if he could reach his wand before the visitor noticed. But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the figure held up both arms. The sleeves fell back and revealed two – TWO – wands pointed directly at him. He shivered, not daring even to look toward the group of small children he saw approaching at the corner of his eye.
Then one of the arms bent and poked its wand under the dark hood, its point seemingly touching its owner’s throat. “Don’t do anything hasty,” came a deadly serious, but otherwise rather pleasant voice from under the hood. It spoke in the wandwright’s native language, but clearly as a result of a spell. “I have not come to harm you. On the contrary. We are here to warn you that Il Comte, or his minions, are on their way and they mean to harm you.”
“How do I know you aren’t Il Comte or one of his minions?” the wandwright demanded. “And if you’re a friend, why do you...?”
“I hold you at wand-point,” said the hooded wizard, “because I know not but that YOU may be Il Comte or one of his minions. But only the real you would know where we have met before.”
“Of course I remembered you, Spanky,” said the wandwright; yet he remained wary, tense. “How could I forget the double-barreled wizard, whose endorsement turned my little cottage industry into a dueling wizards’ mecca? You were the first customer who ever bought more than a hundred wands from me. Thanks to you, my business was starting to catch fire. Then your little fiasco at the Owlympics doused it like a bucket of ice-cold water.” He sighed. “All for the best. One can have too much success. I like peace and quiet better.”
“Then why haven’t you relaxed your wand arm?” the cloaked wizard asked drily. “Have you really forgiven me for sending your industry back to the cottage?”
“No, it’s just that the real Dandelionel Ethelbaldricson was the only Englishman who could ever pronounce my full name.”
The cloaked figure laughed. “It was hard, but I had to learn to say any name that was longer than my own.”
“Repeat it once,” said the wandwright, “and then we shall disarm ourselves.”
“Jaan Järjestelmällistämättömyydelläänsäkäänköhän,” said Spanky. He pocketed both his wands, pulled his hood back, and joined his old friend in a painful, back-slapping embrace. Then he held an arm out toward the row of small children who, until now, had appeared as a blur in Jaan’s peripheral vision. “Meet my family.”
Jaan turned toward them, grinning, then gave an involuntary yell and flinched backwards. The children laughed.
“Don’t mind them, the naughty blighters,” said Spanky cheerfully. “They’re not actually missing body parts. It’s only the djinni sort of Fidelius Charm they inherited from their Mum, to whom, I’m afraid, there would be no point in introducing you. The one with the empty eye sockets is Aloysius. Shake hands with the man, there’s a good boy. This is my elder daughter, Ethelfrigga. Isn’t she sweet? I hope the missing arms don’t disturb you, but if you close your eyes she’ll shake hands with you anyway. The floating torso is Marmaduke, and the disembodied hands are Persephone. And somewhere around here – oh, the devil, there he is! Stop that this instant, Bob! I’m so sorry. Ever since he found out that the girls disliked the sight of brains, he’s been making his left side invisible. We had to bring them along, you see. Our nurse just quit and there’s nobody for miles around who will put up – er, that is to say, who is available to look after them during a trip we are planning, a very necessary trip of indefinite duration. We think you should tag along with us. That way, if Il Comte comes after you...”
“I would rather face Il Comte than leave this place,” said Jaan, wiping his hands on his trousers after five of the gooiest, giggliest, stomach-turningest handshakes he had ever experienced. He was now trying, but unsuccessfully, to keep his eyes averted from the bizarre, partially invisible children – especially the anatomical Bob. “I have had the smell of these woods in my nostrils every day of the last seven years. I swore that I would die here after I came back from a long journey. Whether I do so tomorrow or a hundred years hence, I do not care. You don’t know what I went through.”
“The trouble is, Jaan, I do.” Spanky nudged a bundle of wandwood with the toe of his boot. “You see, Merlin told me all about your escapades in Gringotts. He’s going back in there with us. We could always use another experienced escapee, particularly one with your knack for making unconventional wands. You still carry that novelty line, don’t you?”
On a certain level of his mind, Jaan admired Spanky’s ability to handle him so well. Just when he was about to begin ranting and raging about the idiocy of trying to break into Gringotts – and of asking him, of all people, to go along – Jaan found himself completely disarmed by the question about his trade. Before he knew what he was doing, he had invited Spanky and his disturbing children into the shop. Naturally, it was much bigger on the inside than the circumference of the tree trunk. Several large rooms were full of nothing but wands, hanging on the walls, dangling from the ceiling, held up by hook charms and threads of spider silk treated with anti-shoplifting charms. Behind a wall that moved aside at the sound of a password – something that had far too many vowels in it for an Englishman’s comfort – Jaan introduced Spanky to his line of experimental wands. He talked about them with enthusiasm, as he seldom had a chance to do.
After an hour or so, as Jaan paused to catch his breath, Spanky gave his arm a squeeze and said, “So you’ll come with us, then?”
“No, I’m sorry. But you may stuff your pockets with as many of these as you like; and, if you ever get out of that place alive, come and tell me how they behaved. I ask no other payment, except to be left here to face whatever may come.”
Spanky stared at his old friend’s face for a long time, then shook his head with regret. “I must respect your wishes,” he concluded.
“Yes, you must,” said Jaan. “Especially since I know many of these wands so well, that I could hex you with them while they hang on the wall there. Fill the childrens’ pockets, too. Since you are breaking every law that you have sworn to uphold, you might as well break that one too.”
Spanky’s face turned red. “But I...” he began.
Jaan held up his hand as a sign of peace. Pulling Spanky aside, out of the hearing of the children (who were having uproarious fun with a wand that conjured rabbits every time it was waved), he whispered “I don’t need to hear it. I know the difference between a wicked man who knows no law, and a good man who is the law unto himself.”
“And which am I?” Spanky whispered.
“Neither,” said Jaan, eyeing Spanky with cool frankness. “You’re a man who knows right from wrong, but who does what he has to do regardless. Unlike He Who Must Not Be Named, you don’t have the luxury of living without a conscience. And nor do you bask in the glowing conviction that whatever you do is right, unlike that Italian fop of whom I now stand warned. You know where the line is and what it means to cross it. I hope you will be able to live with what you’re about to do.”
Spanky almost shivered. Then he pulled his hood up and said, in the same grim voice with which he had first spoken, “I’ll have to, won’t I?”
Their pockets stuffed with wands, Spanky and the children joined hands in a circle – an incomplete circle. Jaan blinked and rubbed his eyes. There seemed to be room for one more person in their circle, and yet everyone seemed to be holding someone’s hand. Spanky and the youngest boy, Bob, held between them a dog-chewed tennis ball that glowed and hummed with greater intensity as Spanky counted down from three. Then, with a pop, they all vanished.
Jaan sighed. Then he heard a bell tinkle out in the front room. He came out of the private room to see who had come into his shop.
It was a tall, richly dressed wizard with shiny hair. He held out his hand and a house-elf put a wand in it. Both his eyes and his lips smiled brightly at Jaan. He poked his own throat with the tip of his wand and said, in the wandwright’s language, “You’re Jaan What’s-His-Name, are you?”
“Oh yes,” said Jaan, darting his eyes this way and that. The floating, undulating wands along the walls and ceiling moved very gently, and, quite casually, shifted so as to point at the new visitor. Il Comte seemed not to notice that the room was bristling with wands that seemed to have a mind of their own, but the house-elf cringed. “Yes, that’s me all right.”
“Good,” said Il Comte. “Then I have a surprise for you.”
“Nothing like the surprise I have for you,” Jaan muttered under his breath.
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Since some of the characters are going to escape from Gringotts, and some are going to be left behind... how are they going to be divided? (A) All the “couples” get split up. (B) The original members of Harvey’s “club” get stranded. (C) Only people who were trapped in Gringotts before get trapped. (D) Rigel and Spanky’s kids will be marooned. (E) The most apt to get on each other’s nerves will be stuck together.
CONTEST: Describe a Muggle artifact as a witch or wizard would (completely mis-) understand it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #93. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/4/06]
The trees stood like vast pillars, and the rustling of their leafy canopy made for a special kind of silence – unearthly, churchlike, peaceful. The wandwright finished scattering his offering of woodlice to the bowtruckles, shouldered a bundle of straight green boughs, and began his trek towards the one-room home and workshop he had hewn out of a great hollow trunk within sight of the Wizards’ Highway.
Now and then, he paused and listened. Once he shook his head, wondering at himself. It was not until he had laid his bundle outside the door of his hut, and had gone inside to put the cauldron on to boil, that he became sure he was hearing a real sound rather than a memory. He wiped his hands and went outside to look around. There it was again – like the laughter of a child. Several children, really.
Then he froze in his tracks. It was too bad he had his back to the solid side of his tree hut. He would never be able to get round to the door and barricade himself inside. The tall figure in the dark, hooded cloak was too close – and what was more, it had the look of a powerful, active man with swift reflexes.
The wandwright wondered if he could reach his wand before the visitor noticed. But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the figure held up both arms. The sleeves fell back and revealed two – TWO – wands pointed directly at him. He shivered, not daring even to look toward the group of small children he saw approaching at the corner of his eye.
Then one of the arms bent and poked its wand under the dark hood, its point seemingly touching its owner’s throat. “Don’t do anything hasty,” came a deadly serious, but otherwise rather pleasant voice from under the hood. It spoke in the wandwright’s native language, but clearly as a result of a spell. “I have not come to harm you. On the contrary. We are here to warn you that Il Comte, or his minions, are on their way and they mean to harm you.”
“How do I know you aren’t Il Comte or one of his minions?” the wandwright demanded. “And if you’re a friend, why do you...?”
“I hold you at wand-point,” said the hooded wizard, “because I know not but that YOU may be Il Comte or one of his minions. But only the real you would know where we have met before.”
“Of course I remembered you, Spanky,” said the wandwright; yet he remained wary, tense. “How could I forget the double-barreled wizard, whose endorsement turned my little cottage industry into a dueling wizards’ mecca? You were the first customer who ever bought more than a hundred wands from me. Thanks to you, my business was starting to catch fire. Then your little fiasco at the Owlympics doused it like a bucket of ice-cold water.” He sighed. “All for the best. One can have too much success. I like peace and quiet better.”
“Then why haven’t you relaxed your wand arm?” the cloaked wizard asked drily. “Have you really forgiven me for sending your industry back to the cottage?”
“No, it’s just that the real Dandelionel Ethelbaldricson was the only Englishman who could ever pronounce my full name.”
The cloaked figure laughed. “It was hard, but I had to learn to say any name that was longer than my own.”
“Repeat it once,” said the wandwright, “and then we shall disarm ourselves.”
“Jaan Järjestelmällistämättömyydelläänsäkäänköhän,” said Spanky. He pocketed both his wands, pulled his hood back, and joined his old friend in a painful, back-slapping embrace. Then he held an arm out toward the row of small children who, until now, had appeared as a blur in Jaan’s peripheral vision. “Meet my family.”
Jaan turned toward them, grinning, then gave an involuntary yell and flinched backwards. The children laughed.
“Don’t mind them, the naughty blighters,” said Spanky cheerfully. “They’re not actually missing body parts. It’s only the djinni sort of Fidelius Charm they inherited from their Mum, to whom, I’m afraid, there would be no point in introducing you. The one with the empty eye sockets is Aloysius. Shake hands with the man, there’s a good boy. This is my elder daughter, Ethelfrigga. Isn’t she sweet? I hope the missing arms don’t disturb you, but if you close your eyes she’ll shake hands with you anyway. The floating torso is Marmaduke, and the disembodied hands are Persephone. And somewhere around here – oh, the devil, there he is! Stop that this instant, Bob! I’m so sorry. Ever since he found out that the girls disliked the sight of brains, he’s been making his left side invisible. We had to bring them along, you see. Our nurse just quit and there’s nobody for miles around who will put up – er, that is to say, who is available to look after them during a trip we are planning, a very necessary trip of indefinite duration. We think you should tag along with us. That way, if Il Comte comes after you...”
“I would rather face Il Comte than leave this place,” said Jaan, wiping his hands on his trousers after five of the gooiest, giggliest, stomach-turningest handshakes he had ever experienced. He was now trying, but unsuccessfully, to keep his eyes averted from the bizarre, partially invisible children – especially the anatomical Bob. “I have had the smell of these woods in my nostrils every day of the last seven years. I swore that I would die here after I came back from a long journey. Whether I do so tomorrow or a hundred years hence, I do not care. You don’t know what I went through.”
“The trouble is, Jaan, I do.” Spanky nudged a bundle of wandwood with the toe of his boot. “You see, Merlin told me all about your escapades in Gringotts. He’s going back in there with us. We could always use another experienced escapee, particularly one with your knack for making unconventional wands. You still carry that novelty line, don’t you?”
On a certain level of his mind, Jaan admired Spanky’s ability to handle him so well. Just when he was about to begin ranting and raging about the idiocy of trying to break into Gringotts – and of asking him, of all people, to go along – Jaan found himself completely disarmed by the question about his trade. Before he knew what he was doing, he had invited Spanky and his disturbing children into the shop. Naturally, it was much bigger on the inside than the circumference of the tree trunk. Several large rooms were full of nothing but wands, hanging on the walls, dangling from the ceiling, held up by hook charms and threads of spider silk treated with anti-shoplifting charms. Behind a wall that moved aside at the sound of a password – something that had far too many vowels in it for an Englishman’s comfort – Jaan introduced Spanky to his line of experimental wands. He talked about them with enthusiasm, as he seldom had a chance to do.
After an hour or so, as Jaan paused to catch his breath, Spanky gave his arm a squeeze and said, “So you’ll come with us, then?”
“No, I’m sorry. But you may stuff your pockets with as many of these as you like; and, if you ever get out of that place alive, come and tell me how they behaved. I ask no other payment, except to be left here to face whatever may come.”
Spanky stared at his old friend’s face for a long time, then shook his head with regret. “I must respect your wishes,” he concluded.
“Yes, you must,” said Jaan. “Especially since I know many of these wands so well, that I could hex you with them while they hang on the wall there. Fill the childrens’ pockets, too. Since you are breaking every law that you have sworn to uphold, you might as well break that one too.”
Spanky’s face turned red. “But I...” he began.
Jaan held up his hand as a sign of peace. Pulling Spanky aside, out of the hearing of the children (who were having uproarious fun with a wand that conjured rabbits every time it was waved), he whispered “I don’t need to hear it. I know the difference between a wicked man who knows no law, and a good man who is the law unto himself.”
“And which am I?” Spanky whispered.
“Neither,” said Jaan, eyeing Spanky with cool frankness. “You’re a man who knows right from wrong, but who does what he has to do regardless. Unlike He Who Must Not Be Named, you don’t have the luxury of living without a conscience. And nor do you bask in the glowing conviction that whatever you do is right, unlike that Italian fop of whom I now stand warned. You know where the line is and what it means to cross it. I hope you will be able to live with what you’re about to do.”
Spanky almost shivered. Then he pulled his hood up and said, in the same grim voice with which he had first spoken, “I’ll have to, won’t I?”
Their pockets stuffed with wands, Spanky and the children joined hands in a circle – an incomplete circle. Jaan blinked and rubbed his eyes. There seemed to be room for one more person in their circle, and yet everyone seemed to be holding someone’s hand. Spanky and the youngest boy, Bob, held between them a dog-chewed tennis ball that glowed and hummed with greater intensity as Spanky counted down from three. Then, with a pop, they all vanished.
Jaan sighed. Then he heard a bell tinkle out in the front room. He came out of the private room to see who had come into his shop.
It was a tall, richly dressed wizard with shiny hair. He held out his hand and a house-elf put a wand in it. Both his eyes and his lips smiled brightly at Jaan. He poked his own throat with the tip of his wand and said, in the wandwright’s language, “You’re Jaan What’s-His-Name, are you?”
“Oh yes,” said Jaan, darting his eyes this way and that. The floating, undulating wands along the walls and ceiling moved very gently, and, quite casually, shifted so as to point at the new visitor. Il Comte seemed not to notice that the room was bristling with wands that seemed to have a mind of their own, but the house-elf cringed. “Yes, that’s me all right.”
“Good,” said Il Comte. “Then I have a surprise for you.”
“Nothing like the surprise I have for you,” Jaan muttered under his breath.
+++ THIS WEEK’S DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Since some of the characters are going to escape from Gringotts, and some are going to be left behind... how are they going to be divided? (A) All the “couples” get split up. (B) The original members of Harvey’s “club” get stranded. (C) Only people who were trapped in Gringotts before get trapped. (D) Rigel and Spanky’s kids will be marooned. (E) The most apt to get on each other’s nerves will be stuck together.
CONTEST: Describe a Muggle artifact as a witch or wizard would (completely mis-) understand it.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #93. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 6/4/06]
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