He withdrew a flintlock pistol from his belt, which he loaded.
"We must make our way through a series of intertwining passageways," he said. "The river people will show us the way. From there we will gain access to Count Mongovia's mansion. There is a secret passageway. One which, even the Count is unaware of. This will allow us to infiltrate the mansion. From there, we will attempt to find the Count and charge him with treason. I have some other plans that follow that, but that's all that you need to know for now."
The small vessel reached the stone ledge, and a riverman—a small, lithe figure, leapt off the vessel and tied up the prow of the boat. Then the rest of the men, gathering the assortment of flintlock rifles, cutlasses, musketoons, and knives, disembarked with Charlie and Mr. Cleveclees.
It did not take long to find their way. One of the rivermen, a dirty-faced fellow with a tri-corn hat and a scar down the side of his face, led the way in silence, and found a rough-hewn passageway adjoining the small dock. This they crept down with flickering lanterns to illuminate their way.
What followed was a journey of some thirty minutes along winding rough-hewn, subterranean passageways, some so thin that they had to squeeze their way between the rock, until finally they found themselves squeezed into a tight space before an arching, gothic door—one that seemed not to have seen use for centuries. The rivermen seemed pleased to have reached it. There was a large degree of whispering conversation and then a lock pick was brought forward, and he began to work on the lock.
It did not take him long to master it. He fiddled in the key hole with a slender piece of twisted iron and there came a sudden click as the locks mechanism surrendered. The men stood back. Weapons were drawn. Concerned looks were exchanged. Then, upon Mr. Cleveclees' nod, the door was slowly creaked open.
Thrusting the lanterns beyond, they saw little to alarm them—merely another passageway, though this one was flagstoned, and, it must be said that the air smelt different beyond it—mustier somehow, as if the oxygen had been trapped there for sometime, and had become dank.
They set off in silence along this passageway and came at last to a large archway and a ceiling thirty feet high. About them, within the stone were carved ancient feudal frescos. Venturing through this archway they came at last onto moonlit oaken floorboards, and looked about in wonder. They stood within the entrance hall of a stately home. Before them descended a grand polished oak staircase, and upon the walls were arrayed extravegant oil paintings of nobles and cavaliers. Suits of armor stood in the corners of the hall beside crossed pole axes and halbards, and above them hung a chandelier as extravegant as any found in Imperial Russia. Four wide oak framed arches offered exit from the hall, and it was down these they glanced, curious as to the way forward.
"Which way now?" hissed one of the rivermen, glancing about anxiously, his knife glinting in the light of the moon.
Mr. Cleveclees darted a look about. It was impossible to know where the Count might be within the mansion at that time of night.
"I'm so glad that you could join us."
Suddenly all lights sprung on. The entrance hall was illuminated in blinding brilliance. For a moment, all the infiltrators could do was hide behind their hands and pray that the light would relent.
Finally it did, and a much worse fate materalized. They were surrounded. Upon all sides, stern medieval guards wearing chain armor and long nosed helms, held them at bay with halbards. Meanwhile, at the top of the stairs, behind a rotunda, stood Count Mongovia in a smoking jacket, grinning truimphantly and leaning upon what appeared to be a very powerful nineteen-thirties stage lamp. However, it was something else.
"It's called a Megalotron," said the Count, grinning broadly. "Invented by Caspar Eaglemont in the nineteen twenties—an American. I have it on the lowest setting. On the highest setting, you would all fry. No wonder it was confiscated by the Magi Council." He chuckled. "Good evening, Mr. Cleveclees. Or should I call you Julian? Yes, I know your name."
He passed regally down the stairs and came to stand upon the flagstones before them, with his nose held high.
"You're a magician. Most of your childhood was spent in Kabul or one of those places, but not all of your childhood, but we won't go there, now, shall we?"
Mr. Cleveclees looked bemused.
"Yes, I know everything about you, Julian Cleveclees. You've been putting your nose about this city for about a year, is that right? You seem to know a lot of people, particular undertypes, but a few lordly types, too, and now you've taken up with this fellow."
He regarded Charlie with his gloating eyes.
"What a nice fellow. Hello."
Charlie was tight-lipped.
"Probably just shy..." said the Count as an aside to Cleveclees. He looked the rivermen over. "Hello." He seemed to be enjoying the moment. "You're probably wondering why I didn't set my men on to you? It's because you've arrived during a special occasion; I call it—" He adopted a theatrical hands expression, "the dawn of a new republic. I do like the way that sounds. Oh yes, Mr. Cleveclees, you're quite right about the Sorcerer King, or as he is known in his present incarnation, Whitstable Augustus Febulant, a plot is afoot; a quite diabolical plot involving many of your well known friends. We're going to overthrow the old order and put a new one in its place. Wizard Heights will no longer be the egalitarian epitome that you and your sort aspire to, instead, it will be...how shall I say...a dawn of new ideas, and yes, a new tyranny."
"You'll never succeed!" declared Cleveclees. He leapt at the Count, but was restrained by several guards.
The Count uttered a ringing little laugh. "How charming," he said. "How utterly charming."
Then the smile faded and the eyes paled.
"There's nothing you can do about it, you pitiful man." He glanced toward a suited butler who had appeared in the archway. A man with a pinched-looking face. "Never mind, you're all in time for dinner," he said. "Won't you join us?"
A gong was rung and the suited butler declared, "Dinner is served!" And with that, all present proceeded into the banquet hall.
Chapter 14
The mansion's banquet hall was no less regal than its entrance. It stretched for sixty feet, was flagstoned, and the walls were adorned with coats of arms and vast antique oil paintings that had been pilfered from European museums. The halls centerpiece was a grand banquet table, which stretched the entire length of the hall. Upon it that evening, amongst candles, lay a cornucopia of dishes that including beef, pheasant, rabbit and lamb. At one end of the table sat Count Mongovia, while at the other end sat Whitstable. With a napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt, tearing into a roasted leg of lamb, his eyes shone with a demonic zeal. When he spoke, it was with the animal voice that Charlie had heard in the crypt. "I want them killed now!" he said, "Make it quick and then we can eat them too!"
Count Mongovia ate sedately. He dabbed his lips with a white napkin that was embroidered with a regal crest. "We mustn’t rush things," he said. "We must have sport with our prey first." He lowered his brows. "Then we can kill them."
The prey, to which he was referring was Mr. Cleveclees, Charlie, and the river men. Imprisoned within an iron cage that was suspended from the ceiling, they looked down upon the feast with deep foreboding. Count Mongovia briskly clapped his hands and the great doors of the banquet hall opened. Through them marched eight soldiers of Count Mongovia’s ceremonial guard. Dressed in striped, medieval uniforms of yellow and crimson, they bore halberds at their sides. Amongst them padded a white wolf—a beast with eyes that lurked. The guards brought the wolf to a halt before their master, and presented arms.
Count Mongovia regarded the beast with amusement. Turning to Whitstable, he presented it thus, "My finest wolf," he said, "one bite from its lethal jaw is enough to incapacitate a man. Two bites will most certainly finish him off. It can eat a boy in just a few gulps, and as for a meddling magician…" Glancing up at the cage which hung above them, he grinned guilefully. "It shouldn’t take much longer
." Whitstable grinned demonically, his eyes shining crimson. "Will I get the bones?" he asked, in a bestial voice that was older than time.
"Of course you will," replied Count Mongovia, "but first we must have some entertainment. After all, what would dinner be without a little cabaret?" Turning to the guards, he sternly ordered them to, "Lower the cage!"
One of the guards, a burly man with a round face, lumbered over to a winch upon the wall. This he began to turn noisily, and as he did, the cage that had hung so precariously above the banquet hall, slowly descended with a terrible squeaking. Within it, Charlie and Mr. Cleveclees looked down with horror at the fate they were about to endure.
"What'll we do now," said Charlie, casting worried eyes at Mr. Cleveclees.
Cleveclees regarded the scene below them with deep concern. "Don't give up," he told them. "Not yet. We aren't beaten yet. Remember that."
The rivermen regarded him with deeply shadowed, concerned eyes.
With a deep clang, the cage reached the flagstones. One of the guards unlocked the door, creaked it open, and ordered the prisoners out. Then, turning towards his master, he gruffly asked, "Which one gets eaten first? The magician or the boy?"
For a moment, Count Mongovia seemed undecided about which victim’s demise would provide the better entertainment. Finally he said, "Oh, give him the boy. That shall not take long and there shall be some nice white bones left over." He licked his thumb and wittered to himself.
Mr. Cleveclees was incensed. "You can’t do this!" he cried. "Not to a child! Take me instead!"
Count Mongovia would hear none of it. "Silence the magician!" he sternly ordered the guards, and with that, Mr. Cleveclees was bustled away, all the while shouting protestations. This left Charlie alone with the wolf whose eyes narrowed at its prey. Count Mongovia regarded Charlie with wry amusement. "Scared?" he asked him.
Charlie was so petrified that he couldn’t speak. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to take his eyes off the wolf
Count Mongovia passed across the flagstones to Charlie. "I suppose you thought that you were very clever," he said. "Embarking on this quest to bring me to justice?"
Taking Charlie's chin in his gloved hand, Count Mongovia forced Charlie to look at him. His mouth was a thin, flat line. "You must understand," he said, "there can have no interference in our plans. Least of all from outsiders."
"I wasn’t meddling," said Charlie weakly. However, his words fell upon deaf ears. Count Mongovia was unsheathing a long-knife from its medieval scabbard—a weapon which gleamed beneath the light of the chandeliers.
"Oh," he said, feigning surprise. "Did you think I was going to let the wolf kill you and ruin all of our fun?" Madness gleamed in his eyes. "I always slice up dinner for my pets before they eat. To do anything else would be uncivilized."
"But—" said Charlie, cringing before the blade.
With a ghastly expression, Count Mongovia raised the knife. He was about to strike, and surely he would have, had a rather fortunate event not transpired.
The wolf had been watching events with keen interest—an interest that might almost have been described as human. It appeared to be waiting for something, and just as the long knife plunged and Charlie screamed, it transmogrified. That is to say, it rapidly changed its shape. First from a wolf, then to the blur of a leaping man and finally to a large, snow-white falcon, which hovered before their astonished eyes. It descended upon Count Mongovia in a fury of beating wings, flashing talons, and a savagely pecking beak. Charlie watched in fear and wonder as Count Mongovia staggered backwards, a frenzy of hands and a ghastly expression beneath its shrieking, unceasing attack. As he did, his long-knife fell from his hands and skittered across the flagstones. The burly sergeant of the guard ordered the other guards to, "Kill the falcon!" and "Catch the boy!"
There was little time for the guards to respond—from the hall beyond the doors, there came a ground-shaking boom that tinkled the crystal chandeliers. Everyone looked about in confusion. Then the banquet hall doors flew open, and in strode a phalanx of robed enchanters. One was Miss Lovelocket, and others were magicians that Charlie did not recognize. They bore staffs and held in their outstretched palms glowing orbs of light—they were spells that they threw with deadly precision. One threw a Fire-Blazing Light Blast that sent a guard writhing to the flagstones amidst a tormenting fury of tiny, red, gold, and silver, sparkling stars. Another cast several Incapacitating Stuns that knocked two guards clear off their feet and sent a third flying back into a suit of armor, which toppled down on top of him. A third used The Mighty Hand of Reckoning which sent two more guards spinning through the air in opposite directions. By the time their brief assault was over, most of the guards were incapacitated or fleeing through the halls.
As for Charlie, he sat shocked and dazed upon the flagstones, quite unable to believe what had just happened. Around him lay unconscious guards and scattered halberds, helms, and shields. Fortunately, he was in good hands. The snow-white falcon had transmogrified into the form of an old man, who now stood calmly before him in shimmering robes of emerald and scarlet. It was Mr. Bulgaris—the Animagician that Charlie had first seen at the Getting to Know You evening. "I say," he said, in an upper-class, English accent, "are you quite alright?" He helped the boy to standing.
"It all happened so quickly," said Charlie in dazed wonder. "First there was the wolf. Then there were magicians. Then there was light…"
Mr. Bulgaris regarded him with kindly eyes. "You are correct," he said sympathetically. "It is all a bit much for a young mind to take. Fortunately they arrived at an opportune moment. There is nothing to worry about now. All is taken care of."
Charlie looked about in amazement. He would have thanked the beneficent magician, were there time, but there wasn’t, for the banquet hall doors burst open again. A distinct voice from the hall announced the arrival of "Grand-Wizard Grisholm!"
All of the remaining magicians in the banquet hall stood aside as a short, white-haired, aged fellow in velvet robes, (a man Charlie recognized as the wizard that Whitstable had wounded upon the banks of the lake during theGetting to Know You evening) entered the hall. He surveyed the groaning guards and scattered halberds with concern.
Miss Lovelocket hastened to his side. They had a brief conversation in a language that Charlie did not recognize, and there was a good deal of furtive looking back and forth at Charlie, then at the guards upon the flagstones, and at Count Mongovia—who was being held in the corner by two magicians. Finally, when the conversation was complete, Grand-Wizard Grisholm stooped and regarded Charlie with his piercing, blue eyes.
"You have done us a great service, young man," he said, gruffly. "What is your name?"
"Charlie," replied Charlie nervously.
Grand-Wizard Grisholm considered Charlie a moment. Then, after giving Count Mongovia a stern look, he offered his hand to Charlie. Charlie shook it.
"You may not realize it," he said, "but you have revealed a diabolical plot which threatened to overthrow the Council of the Magi. You are to be commended."
Then a robed servant hurried to the Grand-Wizard’s side and whispered hurriedly in his ear. Grisholm's eyes narrowed with concern. He turned to Charlie. "There are more guards on their way," he said, "and worse besides. This is no place for a child. My assistant will escort you to safety."
With that, the robed servant quickly reunited Charlie with Mr. Cleveclees, and then led all three of them through a side door to safety.
Chapter 15
Mr. Cleveclees escorted Charlie home. There to rest and recuperate, as Mr. Cleveclees put it, for even boys of Charlie’s age needed that. Then Mr. Cleveclees said that he’d be in touch—he had to go back to Wizard Heights and fill out a formal statement of all that had happened in the last few days, with the magi-authorities.
It wasn’t until several days later that Charlie saw Mr. Cleveclees again. It was a Sunday morning and the sun was shining between puffy, white clouds over the Pleasant Valley Esta
tes. Charlie sat on his front lawn, plucking at the grass. Around him, in the flowerbeds, flowers grew, and there was not a piece of trash in sight.
It seemed that the Sorcerer Kings curse had worn off, because now Pleasant Valley had returned to normal. Not immediately—it had taken several days, but gradually things had begun to change. To begin with, the city had resumed a regular trash collection. The streets began to look cleaner. Then people stopped arguing. They came out of their houses and looked at the graffiti. They wondered how it had ever got there in the first place. Then they began to clean it off with mops and brushes, and others mowed their lawns.
And then one day, Mr. Goodfellow, who had lain in bed, depressed, for days on end, got up with a new smile on his face. He told Charlie that he had received a phone call from the microchip company—seems that they were re-hiring old employees and that he had gotten his old job back again. Then, bemused, he asked Charlie, "Where’s your mother?"
Charlie was confused at this. He wondered how his father could not know what had happened. Then he figured that the Sorcerer King's curse was still wearing off, making his father a bit slow in the head. Still, he didn’t have the heart to tell his father the truth, so he just lowered his eyes and said that he didn’t know. "Maybe she went to the grocery store?" he said.
At that moment the doorbell rang. Mr. Goodfellow went to the door and found his wife standing there with Emily in her arms, and a foggy look upon her face. "I had the strangest dream," she said, holding her head confusedly, and then they had embraced, and it was one of those moments when hearts entwine and roses grow around the hero and heroine at the end of the movie—when the screen fades and the closing credits begin to creep up it.
Wizard Heights - Book 1 - The Legend of the Sorcerer King Page 11
