The Wizard of Rondo

by Emily Rodda

  ‘Oh, Moult!’ Mimi whispered.

  The Strix was silent.

  ‘Or take me.’ Tye moved forward, very upright, pulling away from Hal’s restraining hand. ‘All my kin were killed in the Dark Time. I am the last of the Terlamaines. That, surely, makes me oddity enough.’

  ‘No, Tye!’ Leo murmured, his heart wrenched by Tye’s proud stance, by Conker’s despair and Hal’s stiff, expressionless face.

  ‘No, Terlamaine!’ shrilled Skip. ‘Don’t go! If you’re the only one, you should stay!’ The crowd moved restlessly.

  Tye took another step forward. She stared into the haze. The glittering dream particles moved and separated, circled and drifted. And suddenly the mist was filled with visions of ancient trees, lush vines, huts of bark and woven grass, cool, dappled light, and Terlamaines, Terlamaines by the hundred, climbing, laughing, swinging, sleeping, embracing, playing with their children.

  The visions danced like shadows on the surface of Tye’s hard golden eyes. The eyes softened and filled with tears.

  ‘Take me, Ancient One,’ she repeated softly. ‘This world no longer has a place for me. It is time for me to leave it, and dream with my kin.’

  There was a long silence. Tye waited. Moult bowed her head. The crowd leaned forward breathlessly. A redheaded man who was surely Skip’s father was clutching his daughter’s arm, preventing her from running to Tye’s side.

  ‘Ahh,’ the Strix rumbled at last. ‘How full of passion you young beings are! I had forgotten. It is good to remember.’

  It paused. In the hush, the visions whirled. The Terlamaine phantoms shifted and blended with the images of owls, donkeys, goose girls, old women making porridge, children lost in a wood, and wolves disguised in sheepskins. They dissolved and reformed as pictures of a blundering bread-man, a striped wand, a short-haired girl in a green and gold tunic, a boy in a brown leather jacket, a pig in a flower-laden hat, a rugged man with steady eyes holding the hand of a tall, proud Terlamaine, an awestruck crowd, a basket half-filled with straw, and a small, scruffy hen with a dragging wing.

  ‘You see?’ the rumbling voice said gently. ‘I do not need to take you, gallant Sunday’s chick, or you, brave Terlamaine. Nor do I need the young Langlanders or the most unusual pig. It has been long – very long – since living creatures have been necessary to my comfort. My memories are my dreams, and this night has given me fresh dreams enough to last many of your lifetimes. May your own dreams be interesting ones.’

  And without a sound, the Ancient One and its memories melted away into the moonlight.

  Mimi and Leo took a long time to wake fully from their dreamlike state, and afterwards there were gaps in what they recalled of the time following the Strix’s farewell.

  Leo remembered Hal and Conker alternately shouting at him and joyfully banging him on the back as they hauled him to his feet. Mimi remembered crawling to the basket and furtively reclaiming the Key to Rondo before settling the exhausted Moult on the straw and slipping the handle of the basket over her arm. They both remembered what happened when Bertha got up, shaking her ears dazedly and mumbling about Sly the fox.

  ‘Bertha, we found Leo’s note, and I did try to send a warning to Jack Macdonald before we came in here,’ Hal said gently. ‘But the mice are on strike.’

  Instantly Bertha set off in a lurching gallop with Freda flying grimly after her and Leo, Mimi, Hal, Tye and Conker close behind.

  They must have chased Bertha through the Glen, and the picnic area, but neither Leo nor Mimi had any memory of it. By the time they came to themselves they were running through the Snug trees, gradually becoming aware of shouts and wails drifting from the field in the centre.

  ‘Catch it, Officer Begood!’ screamed someone who sounded like Candy Sweet. ‘Save us! Oh! Oh! Oh!’

  ‘Silence in the Snug if you please!’ Woodley’s squeaky voice pleaded.

  Bertha put on a fresh burst of speed. She thundered out of the trees and skidded to a halt, her trotters digging deep trenches in the grass. Freda fluttered to the ground behind her. Panting after them, Leo, Mimi, Hal, Tye and Conker also stopped short.

  The Snug glow-worms, it seemed, had recovered from their illness, for lanterns blazed in the trees around the central field, illuminating a scene of chaos. The field was ringed with people. In the middle of the ring the bread-man floundered, flailing his crusty arms. Whichever way he lunged, people scattered, screaming, as if they were playing a bizarre game of blind man’s buff. Dots swarmed over the grass, gobbling up crumbs.

  Officer Begood was inside the ring too, struggling to keep hold of a chain attached to a plunging giant mushroom in a red-and-white striped beanie.

  ‘Police brutality!’ screamed Muffy Clogg from the edge of the crowd. ‘How could you bring poor Simon into danger like this?’

  ‘I had to bring him!’ Officer Begood bawled, crimson with frustration. ‘There’s no one to look after him except me. What if he’d suffocated in his pillow or fallen over and broken his stem while I was away? Who’d have been blamed for that, may I ask? Me, that’s who!’

  Everyone was far too interested in Officer Begood, the mushroom and the bread-man to notice the newcomers.

  ‘This is our chance!’ hissed Bertha. ‘Quick! To the rug!’

  The flying rug was still lying by Woodley’s fireplace, but it was awake, and unrolled itself eagerly as the quest team appeared. It didn’t flinch when Bertha clambered on, despite the painful-looking crease in one of its corners.

  ‘Take care of yourselves,’ Bertha said. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. It – it depends on what I find when I get to the farm.’ She bit her lip.

  ‘Tye and I will go with you, Bertha,’ Hal said quickly. He stepped onto the rug and thrust the striped wand at Leo. ‘Be careful with this,’ he said, entirely unnecessarily as far as Leo was concerned.

  Tye joined Hal silently. Her face was expressionless – almost vacant. She’s still thinking about the Strix, Leo thought suddenly. She’s still thinking about what she saw in the mist – the dreams of Terlamaines.

  ‘To Jack Macdonald’s farm!’ cried Bertha, and the flying rug shot upwards, quickly vanishing over the treetops.

  ‘Oh, I hope they get there in time,’ squawked Moult, poking her head out of the basket.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ Freda said sourly. ‘That’s their business. Our business is to find Bing, and as far as I can see we’re back where we started.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Mimi said, staring hard at Leo. ‘Now we know for sure that it was Spoiler who stole Wizard Bing’s wand. If we can change Spoiler back into himself, we can make him tell us what happened.’

  Leo knew what she meant. She was going to use the Key to Rondo. But everyone would see … Trust her, a voice whispered in his mind. He swallowed, and nodded.

  ‘It’s too risky to use that wand,’ Freda objected. ‘We don’t know how it works.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of using the wand,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m going to use the wishing well. All we have to do is get Spoiler close to it …’

  Leo shook his head in rueful admiration. Mimi Langlander, he thought, was the most devious person he’d ever met.

  No one took any notice of them as they pushed their way back into the centre of the field. As they ran towards the wishing well, however, the people who had been in Tiger’s Glen burst out of the crowd right in front of them.

  ‘There they are!’ squealed Skip. ‘But where’s the Terlamaine?’

  ‘Rug thieves!’ screeched Bodelia. ‘Allies of Terlamaines! Summoners of cloud monsters! Blue Queen attractors! Encouragers of disobedient children!’

  ‘Put a sock in it, Bodelia,’ said Stitch, and dodged as she swung her handbag at him.

  ‘Keep back!’ Conker bellowed. ‘This is vital quest business!’

  ‘Conkie!’ howled an all-too-familiar voice from the back of the crowd.

  The bread-man turned. He saw Conker, Freda, Leo and Mimi standing by the wishing well. He began lum
bering towards them, his crispy jaws snapping with fury. Dots swarmed around his bulbous feet, carrying away large flakes of crust. The crowd gasped in horror.

  ‘We’ve got to stand our ground,’ Mimi said tensely. ‘He has to be right beside the wishing well before – before I try to wish him back to normal.’

  His sunken eyes fixed on the wand in Leo’s hand, Spoiler lumbered on, making small, horrible crunching sounds with every step. He stretched out his arms, and his fingers, smooth and glossy as dinner rolls, began opening and closing in a threatening way.

  Leo backed against the well, wondering how it would feel when those plumped-up fingers closed on his throat.

  ‘It’s going to throttle them!’ shouted Stitch, pushing past Bodelia. ‘Why are they just standing there?’

  ‘Tragic events at the notorious Hobnob Snug …’ muttered Scribble, writing madly.

  Spoiler lunged at Leo, reaching for him over Conker’s head. Conker swatted ferociously at the crusty body. Freda attacked the feet and legs. Nothing they did made the smallest difference except to provide more crumbs for the dots, which swarmed around the well squealing in a feeding frenzy.

  ‘Conkie!’ Out of the crowd hurtled the cooking pot, trailing a piece of frayed rope. Screaming Conker’s name, it shot between the bulging legs of the bread-man and threw itself at Conker, knocking him sideways. The bread-man rocked on his swollen feet, flailing his arms like windmills, then toppled forward, rigid as a falling tree.

  Leo leaped away and fell sprawling onto the grass just in time to avoid being crushed as the bread-man’s chest thudded against the well.

  ‘Perfect!’ Mimi breathed. And suddenly the bread-man was no more, and it was Spoiler who was draped over the well’s rim. Finding himself suddenly able to move freely again, he stood up and looked around blearily.

  ‘Why, it’s Count Éclair!’ shouted Bodelia in astonishment.

  ‘Count?’ roared Bun the baker. ‘If he’s a count, I’m a Princess Pretty tart! He’s that scoundrel who passed counterfeit coins in the bakery!’

  Spoiler’s bloodshot eyes bulged. Pushing Mimi roughly out of his way, he ran.

  ‘Stop that man!’ screamed Bodelia. ‘He owes me for a very valuable antique trinket box!’

  But so desperate and ferocious did Spoiler look that the people in his path jumped aside. He shot into the Snug trees and vanished from sight. Conker, Freda, Stitch and a few other brave souls went after him, but Leo doubted they had any chance of catching him in the dark.

  Dazed by the utter failure of their plan, Leo and Mimi crawled painfully to their feet. The Snug was now noisier than ever, and the departure of the bread-man hadn’t calmed the giant mushroom in the least. In fact, the mushroom seemed to have become more enraged than ever.

  ‘Simon is usually such a sweet-natured boy,’ wailed Muffy Clogg, clutching her husband’s arm for support. ‘I can’t understand what’s got into him!’

  ‘I think he’s trying to get to the wishing well,’ said Clogg. ‘Take him over there, Begood. He saw what it did for the bread-man, and he wants to try it too.’

  ‘Well, he should have thought of that before he misbehaved,’ Officer Begood said huffily. ‘He has to learn that tantrums won’t get him what he wants.’

  At that point, the mushroom seemed to snap. It reared back then sprang straight at Officer Begood, butting him so hard that its beanie fell off. Begood yelled, flew backwards and sat down with a thump. The chain slipped from his hand.

  With a mighty bound, the mushroom was free. The crowd cheered it on as it bounced desperately towards the wishing well, its chain jingling behind it. Leo and Mimi jumped out of its way as it reached them. It crashed against the side of the well. There was a puff of smoke …

  And when the smoke cleared, there beside the well stood a tall, thin man with a long, hooked nose and a trailing white beard, wearing a shabby purple robe and an expression of absolute fury.

  ‘Wizard Bing!’ shrieked Muffy Clogg, and collapsed in her husband’s arms.

  Chapter

  38

  Revelations

  What’s all this?’ said Officer Begood, striding up to Wizard Bing with Scribble at his heels and the entire crowd following, giggling at the red-and-white striped beanie stuck to the seat of the policeman’s trousers. ‘Impersonation of another person is a very serious offence, you know, and you are clearly not Simon Humble!’

  ‘I never said I was!’ snapped Wizard Bing. ‘Nevertheless,’ said Begood, taking out his notebook and licking his pencil in an official sort of way.

  ‘It was just a case of mistaken identity, Officer Begood,’ called Stitch, clearly trying hard not to laugh. ‘The beanie gave everyone the wrong idea.’

  ‘Muffy made that beanie for Simon with her own hands!’ said Clogg, fanning his unconscious wife. ‘This is an outrage!’

  Wizard Bing scowled as Conker, Freda and the rest of the search party trailed empty-handed back to the well, staring at him in astonishment. ‘That thieving scoundrel who just made his escape under all your noses stuck Simon’s beanie on me with a piece of toffee after he’d turned me into a mushroom,’ he said angrily. ‘Thought it was funny, I suppose! Then he shut me in the house and ran off with my wand. By the way, I’ll have it back, if you don’t mind.’ Imperiously he held out his hand for the wand and Leo gave it to him with some misgivings.

  Bing’s temper improved visibly once the wand was safely in his possession. He brandished it enthusiastically, and everyone took a hasty step backwards. ‘The secret’s out now, so I might as well announce that this wand is my greatest invention yet,’ he said. ‘It changes useless things into other, more useful, things, depending on where you move the lever. It’s clearly marked, you see?’

  Leo peered at the slot on the front of the wand. Now that he looked at it closely he could read the letters written in white inside the slot. ‘B,’ he read. ‘C, VOD, G.’ He glanced ruefully at Mimi, Conker and Freda.

  ‘The list!’ Mimi exclaimed.

  ‘Violet Orpington-Dunk indeed!’ growled Conker.

  ‘Bread, Chocolate, Vegetable of the Day, and Gold,’ said Wizard Bing, tapping the letters proudly. ‘I considered other things – marmalade, sausages, tea, wine, fruit of the day, and so on, but I found I could only fit four items on, so I chose the most important.’

  He sighed. ‘Mind you, the wand’s still not perfect by any means. The main snag is that it’s not everlasting. The gold section, for example, is more or less exhausted. The golden egg took most of it.’

  Moult, sitting wide-eyed in her basket, gave a little jump. He nodded at her absent-mindedly. ‘I couldn’t resist playing a little trick on the flock,’ he said. ‘I was in such a good mood that morning.’

  ‘You caused Moult a lot of trouble,’ Mimi burst out angrily.

  But Wizard Bing had already turned his attention back to the wand. He weighed it in his hand then waved it about experimentally, missing Conker’s nose by a whisker.

  ‘Oh, my heart and liver, you be careful with that!’ Conker exploded.

  ‘It’s quite safe,’ said Wizard Bing regretfully. ‘It’s tuned to bread at present – that villain must have changed the setting after he stole it, wanting something to eat – and the bread section’s completely drained.’

  ‘I suppose it would be,’ said Freda, ‘given what happened to him.’

  Everyone shuddered at the thought of the bread-man.

  ‘I never intended the wand to be used on living creatures,’ Wizard Bing said crossly. ‘It was only supposed to be used on things – sticks and stones and rusty horseshoes and so on. Perhaps it would be a good idea to put some sort of safety switch into it.’

  ‘A very good idea,’ Leo agreed. ‘I suppose the Vegetable of the Day was mushroom, the day you were – um – changed?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bing said, still admiring his wand. ‘I do like mushrooms for breakfast. And we had mushroom omelettes for dinner – Tom cooked them very nicely, I must say.’

&
nbsp; ‘Tom?’ squawked Moult. ‘Who’s Tom?’

  ‘That rascal who just ran away from here,’ said Bing. ‘At least, he said his name was Tom.’

  ‘His real name is Count Éclair!’ snapped Bodelia, pushing forward. ‘He’s a disgrace to his noble title. It is an outrage that he was allowed to escape. I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms!’

  ‘Your complaint is noted, madam,’ said Officer Begood sadly.

  ‘His name isn’t Count Éclair!’ Conker roared. ‘Oh, my lungs and liver, Begood, didn’t you recognise him? The bread-man was Spoiler! Spoiler!’

  Horrified exclamations rose from the crowd. Bodelia snorted in disbelief.

  ‘Do you want to hear my story or not?’ Wizard Bing snapped. ‘I’m the one who’s been a mushroom for days.’

  ‘Everything in good time,’ said Officer Begood sternly, but he flipped over to a fresh page in his notebook and raised his pencil expectantly.

  ‘Well, I’d hired Tom, or whatever his name is, to be my new apprentice, you see,’ said Wizard Bing. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time. And it seemed a great stroke of luck that he turned up the very night Simon left for good.’

  At the mention of Simon’s name, Muffy Clogg stirred and her eyelashes began to flutter.

  ‘Left for good?’ clucked Moult. ‘You mean, Simon went away after that argument you had on Thirstyday night and didn’t come back? But Simon always comes back!’

  ‘He didn’t this time,’ said Bing, shrugging. ‘I can’t understand it. I’ve sacked him dozens of times and it’s never worried him before. Anyway, later that night this fellow calling himself Tom arrived. He said he’d seen Simon leaving town, so he’d come straight away to offer himself as Simon’s replacement.’

  ‘That sounds bad,’ croaked Master Sadd.

  ‘Tragedy in Hobnob,’ Scribble muttered, writing frantically in his notebook, ‘A vicious bread-man, believed to be the confidence trickster Count Éclair, is suspected of foully murdering brilliant young wizard’s apprentice Simon Humble in order to take his place and steal –’