The Magician's Tower

by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

  “Take the side stairs to the fourth floor,” the architect said, indicating the outside stairs that Oona and the others had used to descend from the third floor the day before.

  “That is all,” the architect said, and promptly sat back down, returning his attention to his paper.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Sir Baltimore cried.

  Oona and Roderick took to the stairs as Adler Iree came running up the stage steps behind them. It was going to be a close race, Oona realized, taking the steps two at a time. And then she remembered that Isadora was already up there, far ahead of them all, and she began taking the steps three at a time.

  Roderick was the first to reach the fourth floor, where the steps ended at a door. Oona could feel the sway of the building in the breeze, and hear the creak of nails in wood. Roderick drove his key into the door, shoving his way inside and slamming the door shut behind him.

  “You rotter!” Oona called after him. She shoved her own key into the hole, shouldering the door open. As she turned to close it, she saw Adler pounding his way up the final few steps. Feeling quite a bit more chivalrous than Roderick Rutherford, she held the door open for Adler. He slipped quickly into the building, holding his frayed top hat to his head.

  “What the?” Adler exclaimed. He skidded to a halt. The door clicked shut and Oona spun around.

  “Oh, dear me,” she said, taking it all in. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” said Adler.

  Adler and Oona stared. Three feet in front of them, taking up nearly the entire floor, was an open pit of snakes. The serpents writhed and wriggled, their scaly black bodies slithering over one another like a dark carpet. Oona backed against the door.

  “Where is Roderick?” she asked, seeing no sign of the other boy. “And Isadora, for that matter?” she added.

  “I haven’t the slightest—” Adler began, but his words were cut short when something swooped past his head. He jumped back against the wall, just managing to avoid being hit by the thing’s tail. “What was that?” he asked, out of breath.

  Whatever it had been, it had disappeared from sight just as quickly as it had appeared. Oona craned her head back, looking toward the ceiling, only to realize that there was no ceiling. At least, not directly overhead. Only if she squinted could she make out some vague semblance of where the top of the room might end, some ten or more stories above.

  “Look,” Oona said, pointing up.

  Adler peered upward, bracing himself against the wall.

  “Is that what they call a riverboat?” he asked.

  Oona nodded. It was a riverboat indeed: a Mississippi paddle steamer, if Oona’s memory served correctly. Her mother, who had been a great lover of boats of all kinds, had owned a book with illustrations, and this had been one of Oona’s and her mother’s favorites.

  Suspended by cables from the ceiling, the magnificent white boat hung two stories above their heads, complete with round paddle wheel at the back and river barnacles clinging to the hull. How the architect had managed to fit it inside the tower eluded her at first, until she realized that this must be the spot where the tower bulged out like a snake swallowing an egg.

  Speaking of snakes, Oona thought. There’s something not quite right about these serpents.

  No sooner had the thought occurred to her than one of the snakes leapt straight into the air. As if this behavior weren’t startling enough, the snake suddenly unfurled a set of large black wings and then flew directly at her. She screamed, throwing her hands to her face, but the snake banked in the air, slapping the side of her head with its tail before soaring upward and disappearing over the top of the boat.

  “Did you see that?” Adler asked, as if Oona might have missed it.

  Before she could respond, however, she saw something else that took her by surprise. It was Roderick Rutherford peering over the edge of the boat above.

  “Now, how did you get up there?” Oona asked.

  Another snake leapt out of the pit and into the air, this one extending its wings and darting at Adler. Adler held up his hands, protecting his face. The snake opened its mouth in a wide yawn, displaying a horrifying set of shiny fangs. Its mouth clamped down, its fangs sinking into the brim of Adler’s top hat and wrenching it from his head.

  “No, you don’t!” Adler shouted.

  He grabbed the snake around the middle with both hands, but the snake did not slow in the least. Its tail wrapped tightly around Adler’s wrists and soared upward, flapping its bizarre wings like mad, taking Adler and his top hat with it. Shouting in surprise, Adler looked down as he and the snake soared around the side of the riverboat and disappeared over the top.

  “So that’s how it’s done, is it?” Oona said. “Seems … easy enough.”

  Sounding less than confident even to her own ears, she braced herself against the wall, attempting to steady her nerves. Seconds later she received her chance to test her theory. Another snake jumped into the air, unfurled its wings, and came straight at her … except there was something different about this particular snake. While all the rest of the serpents were black, this one appeared bone white—an Albino snake—with huge, pink batlike wings. Half a heartbeat later all the remaining snakes in the pit leapt into the air, unfurling hundreds of sets of black wings and chasing after the white one.

  It all happened so fast that Oona didn’t have time to second-guess her decision, and when the white snake swooped by within inches of her head, she reached out and grabbed hold of it. The slithering white tail wrapped itself snuggly around her wrists, and both Oona and the snake vaulted upward into the open air of the room. Only unlike Adler’s snake, the white one did not head directly for the top of the boat, but instead rose halfway to the boat’s hull before diving back to the ground.

  Oona screamed, her insides feeling as if they had been left hovering above her. More terrifying than the wild flight, however, was the swarm of flying snakes following close behind like a mini-hurricane. Oona could see their open mouths and glistening fangs only inches from her feet.

  Yet again the white snake changed directions in midair, shooting for the ceiling, and Oona’s shoes slapped briefly against the floor as they turned. Several of the pursuing snakes crashed into the pit, but most of them managed to pull out of the dive just in time.

  The white snake vaulted straight up, the swarm of black serpents like a slithering shadow at Oona’s heels. The speed was incredible, her skirts nearly flattening around her legs as they flew over the boat like a bullet, past the upper deck, and then jackknifed in the air.

  Oona’s stomach leapt into her throat, and her arms felt like rubber. For a mere second, she thought she caught a glimpse of Isadora Iree floating in the air, and then Isadora was gone from view in the blink of an eye. Oona shook her head, assuming that she had only imagined it.

  They were spiraling back down, down the side of the building, Oona’s toes scraping the wall. A quick glance at her feet revealed several snakes with their mouths clamped onto the heels of her shoes.

  “Oh, dear,” she squeaked. “Most unsatisfactory.”

  She kicked at them wildly, meanwhile using her strength to pull her knees to her stomach, getting her feet as far ahead of the pursuing dark cloud as possible. But the snakes continued to close in from above, and it suddenly occurred to Oona that she was going to be sick.

  Mercifully, the white snake leveled off, skimming over the top deck of the boat, nearly crashing into Adler Iree, who stood wide-eyed near one of the side rails.

  “Let go!” he shouted, and then ducked as Oona and the swarm of snakes whizzed inches above his head.

  “Let go?” Oona shouted back. “Are you crazy?”

  The white snake turned hard left, only just avoiding a collision with the sidewall. The front half of the pursuing swarm struck the wall hard, bouncing off and wobbling in the air before drunkenly descending back to the floor. But the second half of the swarm pulled up just in time and appea
red to be gaining speed. And so was the white snake.

  Oona’s arms began to ache as they circled the boat, around and around, gaining momentum with each revolution. The room began to lose focus. All her blood seemed to rush to her feet. Just when Oona was sure she was going to pass out, the white snake once again dove toward the top deck of the boat.

  She knew what she had to do. In spite of all of her instincts to hold on, Oona released her grip, feeling completely out of control, hoping beyond hope that Adler’s advice had been wiser than it sounded.

  The instant she let go, the snake uncoiled from her wrists and she dropped, tumbling through the air, falling, falling … and landing quite perfectly into Adler Iree’s outstretched arms.

  “I’ve got you!” Adler cried, then: “Umph!”

  Adler stumbled back, the two of them toppling to the deck, Oona coming to a halt in a heap of skirts on top of Adler—except, for the moment, it did not seem to Oona as if she had come to a halt at all. Everything was spinning.

  She tried to focus, peering at what she thought was a face … with writing on it. But that was silly, why would a face have …

  Her vision cleared, and she saw where she was: on the top deck of the riverboat, lying on top of Adler Iree, their faces less than an inch apart. She felt his breath tickle her cheek, and for an instant Oona wondered whose face might be more red, Adler’s or her own.

  “Thank you,” Oona said, her breath shaken.

  Adler brushed a stray hair from her face, and though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, Oona felt her pulse quicken.

  “You all right there?” Adler asked.

  Oona nodded, for the moment lost in Adler’s blurry-looking face—the tattoos so close. She wondered briefly at their meaning, and then suddenly good manners and decency struck home. She glanced down, saw her skirt splayed around her like a disheveled bed, and pushed herself quickly to her feet, doing her best to hold her balance. She peered over the edge of the boat. The snakes, it seemed, had ceased their maddened aerial chase and had returned to the pit several stories below.

  “That was fascinating, so it was,” said Adler, though whether he’d meant the ride on the winged snakes, or his and Oona’s close encounter, Oona wasn’t sure. She did not know what to say.

  As if to break the awkward silence, Adler asked: “Where do you suppose the architect got those flying snakes from? I’ve never seen their like.”

  Oona ran a nervous hand through her hair. It was a good question, but what concerned her more was where the others had gotten to.

  “Where are Roderick and Isadora?” she asked.

  Adler slowly looked upward.

  Following his gaze, Oona tilted her head back and received a bit of a shock. Suddenly, she remembered seeing Isadora seemingly floating in the air. It hadn’t made sense at the time, but now she understood perfectly. She shook her head, wondering what they had gotten themselves into.

  Twenty feet above, she could see Roderick Rutherford, and not far above Roderick was Isadora, each of them attempting to keep their footing on what appeared to be their own slowly rising carpet. Neither of them looked very confident as the floating carpets inched their way toward the high ceiling above. Roderick wobbled unsteadily, and Isadora looked as if she might topple forward at any moment, each of them attempting to hold their balance with the aid of a pine-branch broomstick.

  “Flying carpets,” Oona said, feeling both a surge of excitement and dread at the same moment. Here was something that she knew about from her history of magic lessons with Deacon. They were quite rare objects, Oona knew—faerie-made relics left over from before the Great Faerie War—and could also be quite dangerous if handled improperly.

  “Where do we get ours?” Oona asked excitedly.

  “Let’s find out,” Adler said, and the two of them headed to the lower deck in search of their own carpet.

  They found them near the rear of the ship on the bottom deck.

  Floating along the side of the riverboat were two carpets, on top of which lay one broomstick each. Oona took in a sharp breath at the sight of the beautiful enchanted objects.

  She had never before seen one up close. They were exquisite in craftsmanship, which didn’t come as any surprise. Anything made by faerie hands would be of only the finest quality. The pattern appeared to be woven from … not thread—at least not any sort of thread that Oona had ever seen—but from strands of light. Red and gold and black and blue, the strands formed marvelous patterns that reminded Oona of pixielike faces. She guessed that the carpets had been borrowed from the Museum of Magical History.

  Hopefully, she thought, these things still work properly after hundreds of years of storage.

  Remembering her promise to not use magic during the challenge, Oona reasoned that since it was not her own magic, then the rule did not apply, and since everyone else was supposed to use the carpets, then they were all still on a level playing field.

  “I guess I’ll take this one,” Oona said, reaching over the rail and picking up the broomstick.

  Adler nodded. “Ah … yeah. Okay,” he said, before climbing over the rail and gingerly placing his foot down upon the last remaining carpet. The instant his foot touched, the carpet began slowly to rise, and Adler’s eyes rounded. He quickly picked up the broomstick and, like Roderick and Isadora, held it out in front of him to keep his balance. Slowly, he began to rise up the side of the boat toward the top deck.

  Oona climbed onto her own carpet, testing her footing, and feeling quite unbalanced. Her first instinct, like the others, was to use the broomstick as a balancing pole, like a high-wire performer in the circus, as the carpet began its slow assent toward the roof. But because of her magical knowledge, Oona resisted the urge, and instead spread her feet farther apart, bending her knees to steady herself against the wobble of the carpet.

  “Magic carpets require stimulation,” she whispered to herself.

  Faeries, she remembered, had used carpets instead of horses in their war maneuvers during their battles against the Magicians of Old and the fighting men who followed them. In a book titled The War, Oona had seen an illustration of a thousand faerie soldiers soaring down a hillside, each of them mounted on their own magic carpet, each holding in their hands a single pine-branch broomstick.

  “Why are they all holding brooms?” Oona had inquired of Samuligan one day, nearly three years ago. She had taken the book to the faerie servant, knowing that, of all beings, Samuligan would know the answer to her question, for Samuligan had once been a powerful general in the Queen of Faerie’s army.

  Samuligan had smiled his mischievous grin and replied: “We used them to sweep our carpets. The carpets require stimulation, you see, and the faster and steadier you sweep an enchanted carpet, the faster and steadier it will travel.”

  Presently, standing on her very own flying carpet, Oona grinned as she glanced upward to see that none of the other contestants possessed the knowledge that she did. And so Oona began to sweep, slowly at first, as her balance was quite unsteady, but the more times she swept the surface of the carpet, the higher and faster she began to climb, and so, too, did her balance improve. Indeed, the more momentum she gained, the easier it was to keep her equilibrium.

  In no time at all she had passed up Adler, who was presently facing the opposite direction, fighting for balance, and did not see Oona rise up past him.

  This is going quite well, she thought, and found that it was not only a nice boost to her hopes of gaining a lead over the others, but that it was also quite fun.

  From just above her, however, she heard Roderick shout: “I see what you’re doing!”

  Oona looked up to find Roderick peering down at her, fighting for balance as he turned his head up and shouted: “Isadora, my lady! Use the broom to sweep the carpet! That’s the missing clue!”

  “The missing clue?” Oona said, wondering what Roderick had meant.

  When Roderick made no reply, she realized there was no time to ponder and bega
n to sweep more rapidly in an attempt to pass Roderick before he could get his carpet moving any faster. But in her sudden panic to gain speed, her sweeping became more erratic than smooth and steady, causing her to lose her balance.

  She flailed her arms as the carpet listed to the left like a raft struck by a wave. In her attempt to catch her balance, she nearly dropped the broomstick. She felt it slide from her grip before she was able to catch it again at the very tip of the handle. In the meantime she had lost some of her momentum, allowing both Isadora and Roderick to multiply their speed above her.

  Thanking her good fortune that she had managed to keep hold of the broom, Oona once again began to sweep the carpet, this time steadily increasing her pace. It was working. Her carpet was gaining on Roderick’s, only now that Roderick had figured out the secret of sweeping his carpet with his broom, he was rising nearly as fast as Oona.

  And now Oona could hear a third broom sweeping, and she knew precisely where it was coming from. She could see Isadora above them all, rising steadily toward the ceiling.

  Oona began to sweep faster, careful not to break her rhythm. She was advancing on Roderick, her hands slipping into a powerful rhythm, which reminded her of her assent to the top of the Goblin Tower three months past, beating on a hand drum during her assent to the top of the tower: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And now, here she was once again, traveling through the inside of a tower, only this time she was not in the company of four lazy goblins but in a race against the likes of Roderick Rutherford, whom she was presently neck and neck with, and Isadora Iree, whom they were both gaining on.

  Oona’s glowing carpet had begun to pulse like a beating heart, nearly surpassing Roderick’s, when a fourth broom joined the rhythmic swish of the others. Adler had figured out the sweeping secret and was now working steadily away, but unless one of them made an unrecoverable mistake, Oona knew that he was too far behind to catch up.

  It was now a three-way race between Oona, Roderick, and Isadora, whose lead was about to be overtaken. Oona’s and Roderick’s carpets rose side by side as they came up even with Isadora, the fine young lady’s normally perfectly composed face now flushed red with the exertion of sweeping. Oona wondered earnestly if Isadora had ever partaken in such a domestic activity in her life, but the thought passed as quickly as a sweep of a broom.