The man’s broad shoulders blocked Oona’s view of what the sign said, but a moment later, when he stood back to survey his work, she was able to see it very clearly. Two palm trees had been painted on either side of the sign, and stretching between the trees hung a comfortable-looking hammock filled with gold coins; in the background stood an enormous hula hut silhouetted against the orange glow of the setting sun.
In bright red letters, it read:
FUTURE SITE OF INDULGENCE ISLAND HOTEL AND CASINO
In smaller letters below, it said:
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NIGHTSHADE CORPORATION A FRIEND TO THE COMMUNITY
Oona was aghast. She returned her attention to the letter. “How can this be? I thought only the Wizard could own Pendulum House. What will happen if the pendulum is stopped?”
Samuligan only shrugged.
Deacon answered: “I do not believe it has ever been done.”
Oona shook her head, trying to comprehend the implications. “Well, this must be stopped.” She looked absently around the room, gathering her thoughts. Finally, she said: “First thing we must do is find out if Uncle Alexander is in that tower.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Deacon asked. “According to the Encyclopedia Arcanna, the only person with any knowledge of the Black Tower’s secrets is the presiding Wizard. Only he or she knows how to get inside. But if your uncle is truly inside the tower, then there is no way to ask him.”
“Ah, but you forget,” Oona said to Deacon. “Only the Wizard and his apprentice have the knowledge. And I was my uncle’s apprentice for nearly five years.”
Deacon squawked in surprise. “You mean that you know how to get inside the tower?”
Oona twisted her mouth to one side. “Well … no. Not exactly. I mean, that was one subject we hadn’t gotten around to yet.”
“Oh, I see,” Deacon said, sounding much disappointed.
Oona pinched at her bottom lip, considering something. “But he did show me the book in which such secrets are kept.”
“Book?” asked Deacon, clearly surprised.
“Indeed,” said Oona. “It is a book with no name. A secret book handed down from one Wizard to the next. I’m sure you must have seen it before, Samuligan, in all of your years of service.”
The faerie servant nodded slowly, almost reverently. “I have never been allowed to read it. There is a magical binding on the book, much like the curse on the mind daggers, which prevents any faerie from opening its cover.”
Oona nodded. Her uncle had told her as much when he had first shown her the book.
A sudden thought occurred to Oona. What if it is true, and the reason I am a Natural Magician is because I have faerie blood in me? Would I be able to open the book?
Her uncle had shown her the book only a handful of times in her five years as apprentice … but he had never allowed her to handle it. When he was not using it, the book remained safely hidden away.
“But yes, to answer your question,” Samuligan added in a dreamy sort of voice, “I have seen the book, to be certain. And what interesting secrets it must hold.” His eyes seemed almost to shimmer beneath the shadow of his hat, as if perhaps the counterspell to the enchantment that kept him bound to a life of service were somewhere in its pages.
Oona could not know for certain that this was what Samuligan was thinking, but she did know that the counterspell to release the faerie servant was not in the book. She had once asked her uncle about that very subject, and he had told her that, so far as he knew, there was no counterspell, and that if there ever had been one, then it was lost long ago. But the Wizard had asked Oona not to give this information to Samuligan.
“But why?” she had asked as the two of them sat together in his study.
The Wizard had replied: “Because it will destroy any hope that Samuligan might have of ever being free. And neither man nor faerie can live for long without hope. To take that away would be cruel. After all, just because I do not know how to break the curse does not mean a way does not exist.”
“Would you release him if you could?” Oona had asked.
“In a heartbeat,” the Wizard had replied. “If there was a way to send him back to Faerie as well. But those are two things I cannot do.”
Afterward, Oona had sought Samuligan out and found him polishing a set of silver teapots by magic in the parlor. As her uncle had requested, she did not mention the knowledge that there was no known counterspell to his predicament. But she had asked Samuligan if he liked his job.
“I have been a warrior and a champion,” he had replied. “A general in the Queen of Faerie’s Royal Army. I have been present at great victories, and even greater loss. I fought against the most powerful of the Magicians of Old.” He paused to gaze admiringly up at the portrait of Oswald the Great. “I have dueled spells against the greatest of them all, and lived to fight another day.” Samuligan lowered his gaze to the silver teapot and looked into his own distorted reflection. “And yet in the end, it seems that I have found nothing more satisfying than being a simple servant, in spite of the fact that so many of these Wizards have been such buffoons.” He had grinned at her—that perfectly mischievous grin that seemed to be such a part of his faerie nature. “I hope you are not a buffoon, Miss Crate, when you become Wizard.”
That had been the most personal conversation Oona had ever had with Samuligan, and she thought now that it had been the most vulnerable he had ever appeared.
At present, Oona looked up from her bed at the faerie servant. The brim of his hat cast the top of his face into complete shadow.
“Could you use your faerie powers to open the tower, Samuligan?” Oona asked.
“The tower is immune to Faerie Magic. It is coated in glass, and the spells guarding it are too strong by far. It was made to hold faeries inside, remember. I cannot help you here.”
Oona nodded. “All right then, we have no choice but to use the Wizard’s book.”
“You know where it is?” Deacon asked.
A memory drifted through Oona’s head like a dream: of peering through the crack of a door … and her uncle making some motion with his hand, and a bookshelf swinging open.
Oona rose from the bed. “I need to dress,” she said. “Both of you, meet me in the study in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes later the three of them stood in the quiet of the Wizard’s study. The slumbering dragon-bone desk could be heard breathing beneath the silence. The room smelled of books and ash from the fireplace, and the loan tea saucer continued to hover above the fireside table, endlessly in search of its missing cup. Oona stood in front of the bookcase where she had seen her uncle open the compartment.
“He stood right here,” she said aloud. “And then he made a motion with his hand.”
“A magical motion?” Deacon asked from atop the desk.
Oona scratched at her head. It was possible, yes. And if that were the case, then they would surely be out of luck. She turned to Samuligan.
“If there is a magical hiding spot, then can you open it, Samuligan?”
He shook his head. “Not if it is well constructed. Though I can try. First, I will need to determine exactly where the hiding spot is.”
“It is right here,” Oona said, pointing at the row of books in front of her.
Samuligan placed his hand on the shelf and closed his eyes, concentrating. He stood frozen for nearly a minute before at last stepping away from the shelf and shaking his head. “There is no magical hiding spot there. At least, none that I can detect.”
“But I saw him open it,” Oona said.
“Perhaps the magic is too well constructed for Samuligan to detect,” Deacon suggested.
The faerie nodded that this was possible.
“Or perhaps,” Oona said, running a finger along the spines of the books, “just perhaps … the compartment is not magical at all. Perhaps it is … mechanical.”
Her finger stopped on the spine of a large book entitled: The Tale of the R
eally, Really Long Sleep and Ten Other Miserably Dull Tales for Bedtime. Edited by Milford T. Tedium.
“Well, now,” she said, amused. “Here is a book that no one is likely to attempt taking off the shelf.”
She took hold of the book along the spine and pulled.
Something clinked, followed by several clonks, and a single satisfying creak as the entire shelf swung outward to reveal the hidden compartment behind.
“Ingenious,” said Deacon.
“Bravo,” said Samuligan.
A quick little smile stole across Oona’s face, and she peered inside the compartment. The drinking glass and bottle of scotch were just inside, beside which sat a large black ball. Intrigued, Oona picked the ball up and examined it. It had been painted to resemble an oversize billiard ball. A large figure 8 was printed on it, and beneath the 8 were the words: ASK ANY QUESTION, AND TURN OVER TO DISCOVER THE ANSWER.
“What is it?” Deacon asked.
Oona showed them the large 8 ball, and what was written on it. “It appears to be some new novelty product my uncle was working on.”
“Ask it a question,” Deacon urged.
Samuligan appeared eager to see the device work as well.
Oona’s heart began to pound. Perhaps this magic billiard ball of her uncle’s could actually solve the mystery for them. Oona held the ball in both hands and asked: “Is my uncle alive or dead?”
She hesitated, looking first at Deacon and then at Samuligan. They both nodded their encouragement. She turned the ball over.
A small window had been placed into the bottom of the ball, through which could be seen a cloud of liquidy mist. The words ASK AGAIN LATER appeared in the window.
“What?” Oona said, her voice ripe with irritation. She rolled the ball back over in her hands, reread the instructions, and then asked: “Is my uncle dead?”
Again she turned the ball over, and again the words ASK AGAIN LATER appeared in the misty window.
Oona shook the ball violently, nearly shouting: “Who attacked my uncle?” She peered into the window, and yet a third time the words appeared: ASK AGAIN LATER.
Oona raised a suspicious eyebrow at the ball before placing it back in the hidden compartment. “Apparently, Uncle Alexander hasn’t worked the kinks out of it yet.”
“Apparently so,” Deacon agreed.
Oona peered toward the back of the compartment and saw what they had been looking for. The book was pushed all the way to the back, and Oona was nearly forced to stick her head inside the compartment in order to reach it. The heavy leather binding felt old and coarse, and as she slid it forward, a slim stack of papers fell to the floor at her feet. Samuligan bent to retrieve them as Oona hefted the book from the shelf to the dragon-bone desk. The book seemed much heavier than it ought to have been, and she let it fall to the desktop with a heavy thud. The steady breathing of the desk faltered for a moment, as if there were a hitch in its breath, and then once again settled into its habitual pattern.
“Okay, let’s see what’s inside.” She placed a finger on the corner of the front cover but found it much too heavy simply to flip open. It took both hands and nearly all of her strength to heave its cover back, and by the time she had finished this seemingly simple task, her brow was damp with sweat.
“It must be the magical binding that Samuligan had mentioned before,” Oona said, catching her breath.
Deacon seemed quite excited by this news. “Yet even more proof that Natural Magicians have some active strain of faerie blood in them. But because you are human, the magical protection is weakened.”
“Tell that to my hands,” Oona said, flexing the soreness from her fingers. Yet it seemed that Deacon was right. She only hoped that the magical binding on the book was limited just to opening it, and did not extend to turning its pages; otherwise, this was going to take forever.
She flipped a page, and it turned as easily as any page in a normal book. Breathing a sigh of relief, Oona flipped to the back, where she hoped to find an index. Her luck held out. Listed in alphabetical order were row after row of all the topics to be found in the book. She ran her finger down the line of Bs. Binding Magic … Birch Trees … Birds … Black Magic … and there it was: Black Tower (see Goblin Tower), 413.
Deacon hopped to her shoulder as Oona found the page in a flurry of turns, and discovered … not what she was expecting. On the entire page there was only one reference to the tower’s entrance. One single line near the bottom of the page. It read: “To enter the tower, you must first find it.”
This was followed by what appeared to be a poem.
Upon my head I have no face
For your ease I come in a case
And though I’m well and upon my way
Upon my flight I’m here to stay
I slow you down, and tire you out
Yet getting you there is what I’m about.
Oona turned the page over to make sure she was not missing something. When she found nothing else, she turned back to page 413 and slammed her fist against the corner of the book.
“But this is just as helpful as that magic billiard ball,” she said. “It tells us nothing!”
“It appears to be some sort of riddle,” Deacon said.
“What it says, Deacon, is that in order to enter the tower you must first find it. But we know where the tower is. It’s in the cemetery.”
Deacon hopped from her shoulder to the desk so that he might get a better look at the book. “But perhaps the ‘it’ that the text is referring to is the entrance. And the riddle—”
Oona snapped her fingers. “Yes, of course, Deacon. Answer the riddle and we will know where to look for the secret entrance!”
Oona grabbed a pen and paper, and quickly copied the riddle. “Samuligan!” she said excitedly. “Bring round the carriage, please. I want to get to the cemetery as quickly as possible.”
But at first the faerie servant did not seem to have heard. He was reading one of the pieces of paper that had fallen on the floor.
“Samuligan, did you hear me?” Oona asked. “Please bring the carriage around front. And you really shouldn’t be snooping about in Uncle Alexander’s private letters.”
Samuligan tipped his hat back on his head and gave her a calculated look, as if to say that she was hardly the person to be giving lectures on snooping around.
“You will want to read this,” he said. “I believe you will find its contents quite enlightening.”
The journey to the cemetery, which was located at the very south end of the street, took nearly forty-five minutes by carriage. Oona did not notice the time pass. It was early yet, the sun just having topped many of the buildings, and most of the street’s varied inhabitants still slept. A few early risers and shady-looking characters wandered the mist-covered sidewalks, along with several sleepy-eyed police constables.
But Oona observed none of this, nor did she so much as glance out the carriage window as they rolled the six-mile stretch of empty street, with the exception of once, when the carriage bumped over some missing cobblestones and she looked up to see the stone steps of the museum and the enormous carved stone top hat. She caught a glimpse of the girl-size dress in the window of Madame Iree’s Boutique for Fine Ladies. The enchanted glinting cloth caught Oona’s attention for the length of time it took the carriage to roll past, and then she was once again lost in thought.
It was solely the two sheets of paper in her hands that divided her attention. In her right hand she held the riddle that she had copied out of the Wizard’s book. But it was the paper in her left hand that currently held her gaze: a document printed on crisp red paper and written in quite specific and legal terms. At the top of the document were the words CERTIFICATE OF DEBT, beneath which was a scramble of musical notes. Luckily for Oona, learning to read the musical language of magical law had been part of her training as an apprentice.
She sighed. “From what I can make out—and I am not a lawyer, so I am not certain—but it appears that Uncle
Alexander borrowed some money. According to this document, he has been borrowing money for quite some time … a period of two years. But not from a bank. It would seem he has been borrowing from a company called Dupington Moneylenders.”
“Dupington?” said Deacon. “Never heard of them.”
“Neither have I, Deacon. But this certificate of debt and the eviction notice we received this morning are both printed on the same thick red paper. It’s my guess that if we look into it, Dupington and the Nightshade Corporation will be one and the same. That is why Red Martin has evicted us.”
“But what does that mean?” Deacon asked from the seat opposite Oona. His voice shook against the rattle of the carriage.
“If my suspicions are correct, then it means that, more than likely, Red Martin had a dirty red hand in the attack on Uncle Alexander,” Oona said. “That’s what I think.”
“But he was not in the room at the time of the attack,” Deacon pointed out.
Oona nodded. “No doubt he put someone else up to it. It is too much of a coincidence that Red Martin should benefit so much from all of this. Clearly, he and one of the applicants are in cahoots. But which one?”
“Are you sure the document is authentic?” Deacon asked. “Do we know for sure that the two companies are the same, and that Red Martin has the right to take ownership of the house?”
Oona frowned at the certificate, glancing over the musical notations. “It appears so. But I do not know all that much about legal documents. We will need to consult a lawyer.”
“Ravensmith does not open until after nine o’clock,” Deacon informed her.
Oona nodded. “Until then, we have a riddle to solve.”
The carriage creaked to a halt, and a moment later Samuligan opened the door for her. Dressed in an auburn-colored dress, and with her long black hair worn down about her shoulders, Oona stepped to the sidewalk, leaving the Certificate of Debt behind in the carriage. She placed the paper with the riddle on it in her dress pocket. The arched stone gateway stood ominously before her, above which soared the mammoth Goblin Tower. The solid black structure rose up from the center of the cemetery to meet the sky—ending at a daunting, if not to say unnatural, height. She craned her neck all the way back to see the very top of the tower as it scraped against the bottom of a drifting cloud.
The Wizard of Dark Street Page 12
