Magician's Mayhem

by R.S. Mollison-Read

CHAPTER 6

  They searched every possible exit from the room with no luck. Tobin’s fingers now bore the same angry red welts as Darcie’s from touching the field of magic, at every possible exit point. Growing increasingly desperate, Tobin had started pushing against the force shield with his whole hand, ignoring the searing pain, as though somehow he could break through it using sheer force of will. All this wrought him was further injury to his already raw hands, a splitting headache, and a creeping feeling of despair.

  Now he sat in front of the old stone fireplace where Darcie had started a fire using broken pieces of furniture, watching as she scrutinized the copper orb closely. The orb gleamed with the reflected light from the fire, but it was not the same glow that Tobin had initially seen. Darcie had determined definitively that the orb was no longer producing the magical signal. Instead the signal was coming from somewhere outside of the manor; trapped inside the old house they couldn’t determine anything further.

  “I still think the magic from the orb went into this shield that’s surrounding this room,” Tobin said quietly. Darcie didn’t even glance up.

  “I told you, the orb wasn’t glowing,” she sighed. “You must have imagined it.”

  “I didn’t imagine it! The orb Murphy the mole was carrying was also glowing, right up until we went through the mirror.”

  Darcie looked thoughtful. “Didn’t you say the orb was packaged up when you came through the mirror?”

  “Well, yes, but the packaging was damaged because of the explosion. I could only see a little bit of the orb, but it glowed! I’m sure of it,” replied Tobin. “Why can’t you read the signal anymore? According to your instruments, the signal is all around us.”

  Darcie turned to him, an expression of infinite patience on her face. “I think the shield is confusing the signal, and making it appear as though it’s coming from everywhere.”

  She had given the same explanation three times, but still, Tobin was not convinced. He knew he had seen the copper orb glowing – a fierce red, like an ember. There had been no other light in the room, it wasn’t reflecting any other light, so what else could it have been? He was finding it all rather frustrating that first Murphy had not believed him, and now Darcie thought he was wrong as well. In fact, the only person who had agreed with him about the glowing orb, was Maven Thomson, the bad-tempered magician at the castle, and Tobin didn’t really consider that a ringing endorsement.

  Darcie seemed unconcerned about Tobin’s irritation.She pulled a muffin from her pack and sat cross-legged, buttering it.

  “Good grief!” Tobin exclaimed. “How many muffins do you eat a day?”

  Darcie regarded him levelly as she finished chewing. “Usually just two or three.” She said after swallowing. “But this is my fifth today. Muffins make me feel good, and this place does not…”

  Tobin looked around the dark room, half hidden in shadow. Feeling a sudden draft, he moved closer to the fire. Darcie raised an eyebrow, and then rustled around in her pack, eventually producing another muffin for Tobin. He felt his cheeks redden as he took the muffin. But it did make him feel better.

  Sitting in front of the fire for hours, Darcie examined the orb, tinkering at it with her instruments. Tobin found an old kettle and a tea set in one of the drawers of an old mahogany bureau, and using water from their canteens, he made tea. In Tobin’s opinion, things never seemed quite so bad when there was tea. He smiled to himself as he thought of Darcie’s similar line of thinking regarding muffins. When the tea had steeped to his satisfaction, he poured a cup for Darcie, and for himself, and then brought it across the room to where she was seated in front of the fireplace.

  Sitting down beside her, he twirled an ornate spoon through his fingers as he watched the flames from the fire, feeling the warmth from the flames, and the comforting smell of tea leach some of the worry from his tired body.

  Darcie looked across at him as he dropped the spoon with a clatter, and suddenly her eyes focused on the spoon in Tobin’s fingers.

  “Let me see that,” she said, frowning.

  Tobin handed her the spoon. She inspected it closely for several minutes, her face a puzzle. Quite suddenly, she jumped to her feet, and began prowling around the room, opening the damaged dressers, and rifling through drawers.

  “What is it?” Tobin asked.

  “I knew there was something familiar about this house,” Darcie said, shuffling items around in a drawer, as she continued her search. “I had a feeling I couldn’t shake, and I should have trusted it.”

  “Then you have been here before?” Tobin asked, surprised.

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember, exactly. But there is something about this place, like a half-remembered dream.”

  “What does the spoon have to do with any of that?” Tobin asked, as Darcie moved coats and old clothing in an ancient bureau.

  “The spoon has a crest on it,” Darcie’s muffled voice came out of the closet. “I recognized it.”

  “Really?” Tobin exclaimed. Finally a clue that might actually help them. “Whose crest is it?”

  “My grandmother’s,” Darcie replied, emerging from the cupboard.

  Tobin’s mouth fell open. “Do you think this was your grandmother’s house?” He asked Darcie, quietly.

  She scanned the room, full of tattered hangings, and broken furniture.

  “Maybe...” she replied softly.

  “So, what are you looking for now?” Tobin asked. Darcie returned to her search of the overturned dresser by the four-poster bed.

  “Anything that will definitively tell me if this house belongs, or belonged to, my grandmother,” Darcie replied. She was now on her knees, dragging a large trunk from underneath the bed. Tobin moved to help her. Together they wrested the dusty trunk out into the open. Darcie flipped the latch, and opened the lid.

  It was full of old junk. Inside the trunk were metallic objects, mixed with old clothing, and several reams of tattered parchment. Tobin quickly dismissed the trunk, and moved to search the remaining cabinets on the other side of the bed. It was a minute before he realised Darcie hadn’t moved. She was still on her knees, staring into the chest, mesmerized.

  “What is it?” he asked, puzzled by her lack of progress.

  She ignored him as she pulled her rucksack over from among her belongings, and began transferring items from the old trunk into her rucksack. Darcie was so focused on her task that she didn’t even notice Tobin kneeling down beside her, until he physically took one of the items from her.

  “Darcie what is this?” he asked gently. Her eyes were almost fanatical as she looked at him in obvious excitement.

  “Tobin! This is such a wonderful find!”

  “Have you discovered where we are, or who this house belongs to?” he asked cautiously.

  She frowned. “No, I don’t know. But I do know my grandmother was here at some point. Some of these belonged to her!” she smiled.

  “That’s great, Darcie,” Tobin said gently. “What are they?”

  “They’re all magical artefacts!” she replied, clearly expecting him to be as thrilled as she was.

  “Okay...” Tobin responded slowly. “Could you elaborate?”

  She frowned again. “Well, they all do different things. Magical things!”

  Tobin looked in the trunk dubiously.

  “All of them? Really? That looks like a ladle...” he said, pointing to one of the objects.

  “Yes! All of them! Well, not this. This is just a boot,” she said, and threw the offending footwear over her shoulder.

  “Look, Tobin. I think there might be something in here that can help us break through the force shield, and get out of the manor,” Darcie leaned forward speaking slowly and intently.

  Tobin looked down at her excitedly. “Really?” he said, scarcely daring to hope.

  “Really!” she answered.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  It took a surprisingly long time to find something that Da
rcie thought might be able to help them escape from the force shield. With only four more items left in the ancient trunk, Darcie suddenly pulled out a small metal cube, and held it up to the firelight, turning it around and around between her fingers to examine every surface.

  “This is it,” she said quietly, palming the small cube and holding it out for Tobin to see.

  Tobin could barely contain his suspense. He was trying hard not to get his hopes up, but the idea of being stuck in this manor house for much longer made him feel extremely anxious.

  “What does it do?” he asked.

  “It’s called a Carrier Cube. It can translocate someone, or in this case two someones, a short distance,” Darcie replied. “Which in this case, is all we need.”

  “Do you think it will work?” Tobin asked, trying to keep his voice level.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Darcie replied. “I’ll have to calibrate it first. Why don’t you get your things together, and I’ll fiddle around with this?”

  Tobin found that having a task to focus on, allowed him to keep his excitement under control, while Darcie used her instruments to calibrate the Carrier Cube.

  He moved quickly around the room, gathering their items, and anything else from the room he thought they might need, including a warm wool cloak he found in the closet, still in pristine condition. He had just finished putting out the fire in the large stone fireplace, when Darcie called his name.

  “Okay,” she said, finally as he joined her, “I think this is about as good as it’s going to get. Come and stand over by me.” Tobin shifted his position so that they were standing side by side, and grabbed Darcie’s rucksack. It was hard to lift, since she had filled it with all of the magical artefacts from the trunk which she had insisted on taking with her. Darcie held out her hand, and Tobin took it, quickly slinging his own rucksack over his other shoulder.

  She pressed a button on the Carrier cube resting in her palm.

  Tobin felt the hair on his neck rise. He had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that thousands of insects were crawling all over him. There was a searing hot pain, followed by an icy flash, and then he and Darcie were standing on a path just outside the manor. After the stuffiness of the manor house room, the cool night breeze felt delicious on his face.

  The Carrier Cube lay in Darcie’s palm, smoking, and sparking, covered in soot.

  “It burned out,” Darcie said, frowning at the tiny metal cube in her hand. “That shield must have disrupted the magical core within the cube.”

  Tobin smiled at her. “Not that it matters. We just needed a short jump to get us out, and it did!”

  Darcie smiled back. “You’re right. Now, let’s see if that force shield is still in place.”

  Pulling out her compass, she consulted her Field Scope in the dim moonlight. Her eyebrows narrowed in confusion.

  “What’s wrong?” Tobin asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, carefully, “but there’s now absolutely no trace of magic emanating from anywhere near the manor house.”

  “So the signal has disappeared?” Tobin asked, disappointed.

  “No, not at all,” Darcie replied, still frowning at the compass. “In fact, it’s as strong as before, but now it’s coming from the West.”

  “What does that mean? It moved?” Tobin asked, confused.

  “I have no idea,” Darcie said, “But I think we should head West, towards the new signal.”

  Since their escape from the manor, Darcie spent virtually every minute that they weren’t travelling along the marked path, examining the artefacts she had found in the old house. She had established a nightly ritual; as soon as they made camp, and finished eating, she would take out one artefact and examine it closely. She laid out all of her instruments, and would tinker for hours, and then write her findings furiously in a notebook. Some of the artefacts required hours of intense study, while others required only minutes.

  Tobin was, at first, reticent to disturb Darcie’s focused study, but she happily answered his first tentatively posed question. This led to nightly discussions about the artefacts. As there were so many of them, and of such a disparate nature, Darcie and Tobin never lacked for after-dinner conversation.

  There was the Carrier Cube, which was still slightly singed from its prior usage, when they had burned it out, escaping from the manor house. Darcie tried everything she could think of to make the tiny metal cube usable again, “After all, we might need it again,” she said, but nothing she did had any effect.

  Another artefact, which appeared to be just a roll of gossamer thread, turned out to be a ladder. It was so fine, and slight that Tobin had a hard time believing anyone could use it to climb. When Tobin looked disbelievingly at Darcie, she hooked the ladder to the nearest tree and climbed nimbly up in thirty seconds flat.

  “I don’t understand!” Tobin exclaimed when she came back down.

  “It’s made from the combined silk of glowworms, and Trulvian spiders,” she told him, as he examined the iridescent strands in the light from their evening fire. “After they’ve been woven together, there is a charm put on each ladder, enabling it to support any weight. They’re extremely useful, incredibly light to carry, and of course, invaluable.”

  Darcie was strangely reluctant to hand over an artefact that resembled a delicate perfume bottle with a spray push knob for Tobin to examine. She only gave it to him after strong admonishments not to, under any circumstances, push the bottle to spray it.

  “Why not?” he asked, holding the bottle cautiously.

  “I’m fairly certain that when that mist is sprayed it puts whoever is in its range to sleep.”

  Tobin breathed in relief.

  “I thought you were going to say that it can kill!” he said, laughing.

  “Well, I said I was fairly sure that it just puts you to sleep. It’s also possible that it could kill you. Let’s not find out,” she replied, taking the perfume bottle gingerly back from him.

  A slim metal rod, as long as Tobin’s forearm, was called a Disenchanter. Apparently it could erase most enchantments.

  “That seems useful!” Tobin exclaimed.

  “Unfortunately it doesn’t work on more complex enchantments. Only on simple ones,” Darcie told him.

  There was a strange pair of glasses that Darcie placed gently on her pert nose.

  “Kaleidascopes!” she exclaimed excitedly. As Tobin took a turn wearing the strange glasses, Darcie explained that the odd spectacles allowed the wearer to see through any magical enchantments, a very useful artefact with illusory spells. Tobin scanned the forest around them, and found the darkened world to be quite disconcerting.

  “This is so strange,” he said, taking the glasses off.

  “They don’t work on ordinary objects,” Darcie told him, placing the Kaleidascopes back into her rucksack. “We’ll have to find something enchanted to try them on.”

  There were some artefacts about which even Darcie had no knowledge. This included a set of what looked like large glossy pearls, in a velvet-lined metal box. Darcie insisted that they were not actually pearls, but she couldn’t provide an explanation for what they were.

  Surprisingly, there was also a small figurine of a bear, no larger than a handspan, which appeared to be made of glass. Again, Darcie had no plausible theory for the artefact’s function, but remained convinced of its magical properties.

  Early one evening, Darcie pulled out a fork from her rucksack to examine it further.

  “A fork?” Tobin asked incredulously. “What magical properties could a fork possibly have?”

  “It’s a fork of invisibility!” Darcie said, looking at the spoon almost dreamily.

  “Seriously? A fork of invisibility? That just doesn’t seem like something you could take very seriously,” Tobin said, scornfully, imagining himself holding up a fork to make himself invisible. It was quite a silly image.

  Darcie frowned at him over the tines of the fork. “It’s ingeni
ous, really. Most people associate jewellery, and more obvious items with big magic. Enchanting a fork is an excellent strategy. This way it will never be stolen! Anyway, what’s wrong with a fork of invisibility?” she asked.

  “It just doesn’t seem… right,” Tobin said sheepishly.

  Darcie laughed. “You have some astoundingly rigid ideas regarding magic.” She informed him reprovingly. “Where do you get them?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, embarrassed.

  Darcie laughed again. “Well someday you’ll be sorry you laughed at the fork.” She said. “I think we’ve had enough for one night. I’m going to bed.” With that, she tucked the fork of invisibility back into her rucksack, chuckling all the way to her sleeping kit.